Los Angeles Dodgers: Is it time to worry?
By Jason Evans
The Los Angeles Dodgers have struggled this year. Is it time to hit the panic button at Chavez Ravine?
As we hit Memorial Day weekend, this is the time of the baseball season where you begin to figure out exactly what your team is. Are you in or out? What needs to be done, one way or another, to get your squad where it needs to go.
For the Los Angeles Dodgers, they are certainly in it. They are 4.5 games behind the rival San Francisco Giants, which is nothing at this point in the season. They are right there in the Wild Card race. When you watch them, you see the issues. The offense. The bullpen. The starters not named Clayton Kershaw. Guess what though? It isn’t time to worry.
The Dodgers have lost the most man games to the DL of any team in the game.
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Offensively, they haven’t had Scott Van Slyke and his .857 OPS career OPS against lefties. Andre Ethier hasn’t played a game for them either this season. Adrian Gonzalez hasn’t quite got it going yet. Maybe he just needs more help around him? His groundball rate is a career high 56.8% per Fangraphs. For someone who’s rate is around 20 points less usually, an adjustment needs to be made.
The pitching staff has been ravaged by injury. They haven’t had Brett Anderson all year. Mike Bolsinger just came back. Hyun-jin Ryu is currently on a rehab assignment. They will give the Dodgers depth down the stretch to help guys like Kenta Maeda, and Ross Stripling, who have never gone through this long a season before.
Down on the farm, Frankie Montas is currently rehabbing. They have uber prospect Julio Urias, but they have to be careful with his innings since he is just 19 years old. If they really want to get creative down the stretch, or even finding a way to maximize each pitcher’s value, they could tandem them in games, tournament baseball style. Jose de Leon just came back from injury and former number one pick Zach Lee could help either start or relieve.
The Los Angeles Dodgers also have one of the deepest farm systems in the game. If they need to get a piece down the stretch, they have the ability to do that if Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi choose to do so.
When you have a payroll of around $250 million and your team is treading water, there is some concern there. To me, I don’t think it’s time to worry about the Dodgers quite yet. They have holes that need to be plugged up and players who need to step up, but when you have the best pitcher on the planet, players coming back from injury and minor league assets to use in either trades or on your club, it isn’t time to worry about the Los Angeles Dodgers quite yet. They are in the thick of it now and will be for the rest of the season.