Los Angeles Dodgers: Team preview and prediction for 2020 season
By Sean Basile
Los Angeles Dodgers: 2020 Preview, Prediction
Where will the Los Angeles Dodgers fall in 2020? I think they win the NL West and get to the World Series. Before the Coronavirus took over, I had them finishing with a record of 104-58. Now, who knows how many games will be played, but I still contend that this is one of, if not the best team in all of baseball (certainly the National League) and they’re once again going to have a huge year.
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As I look around the National League, who is really going to stop them with the roster and the story they have? Other teams around the NL definitely have better pitching staffs (Mets, Cardinals, etc.), but nobody stacks up to what the Dodgers have on the offensive side that’s tailor-made for a postseason run, and nobody has the culture set in place that the Dodgers have right now.
Cultures and organizations are major factors in baseball, and on a consistent yearly basis, no matter what the makeup of the team may look like, the Dodgers find ways to win their division and try their hand at a World Series. It’s happened like clockwork for the past near-decade and I don’t see it stopping now.
Another major part of their culture is the fact that they consistently revitalize players’ careers. Look at Max Muncy and the success he’s had since he got dropped by the A’s. Look at Justin Turner and his dramatic turnaround after the Mets dumped him. Or even Chris Taylor coming over from Seattle a few years ago. These were players struggling to stay in the league until the Dodgers got a hold of them and now (in the case of Muncy and Turner) they’re stars.
What about the development we’ve seen out of Cody Bellinger and Joc Pederson? Bellinger had that dreadful 2017 World series performance striking out like crazy. Now he’s the reigning NL MVP and he cut down his strikeouts by around 40. Pederson had a similar problem with strikeouts as he punched out 300 times between 2015 and 2016. Since then, he’s struck out 264 times over three seasons.
Next. Cardinals: Daniel Ponce de Leon was staking claim. dark
The Dodgers fix and develop players better than any other team in baseball. They’re going to get theirs one of these days, and a shortened 2020 MLB season may very well be their ticket to a long-awaited championship.