The Dodgers’ limp surrender to the Chicago Cubs tonight, allowing the Cubbies to reach the World Series for the first time since 1945, seems to call for a reassessment of the Los Angeles team’s priorities.
What matters most to the people who run this club?
Is it a championship? Or is it selling tickets and generating revenue?
They certainly are better at the latter than they are at the former.
No World Series appearances in 28 seasons … but 18 seasons in the past 20 of selling more than 3 million tickets, a number most of baseball rarely reaches.
The Dodgers keep fielding teams that are competitive. They do not, however, assemble teams with enough talent to win a title.
They never rebuild; they only repair.
And perhaps that is no accident.
In the past 20 seasons, the Dodgers have played losing baseball only three times.
A losing record is what seems to galvanize the club into action. Two of those seasons of less-than-3-million in attendance came in years (2000, 2011) immediately after they lost more games than they won.
Fewer fans mean less ticket revenue, reduced sales of food and drink and paraphernalia at Chavez Ravine, and certainly can’t help with TV ratings.
So, the Dodgers’ solution seems to be to have a team good enough to have a decent chance at the playoffs — they play in probably the weakest division in baseball, with San Diego, Arizona and Colorado generally providing soft opposition — but probably not good enough to win more than the first round.
Take the 2016 team, for instance. It was a team weak in pitching from Opening Day. Clayton Kershaw, sure. Kenley Jensen, you bet. After that? They assembled a gang of children and injury-prone mediocrities and hoped it would work out.
They also had a team heavily skewed towards left-handed hitters. It was that way on the first day of spring training and it was that way as they lost 5-0 tonight.
Even as they continue to lead Major League Baseball in payroll, and have pretty much since the new ownership group spent the $2.1 billion to take over the club, the Dodgers never have enough talent to look like an elite team.
The Cubs were better than the Dodgers. And it is hard to win a best-of-seven series when the other guys have more talent. That is why this one lasted only six games.
This is a club that should consider the want to concept of a “building” year.
No half measures. No 88-74 sort of team.
Jettison the older guys, the marginal guys, bring in young players right now, thinking more of 2018 and 2019 than 2017. Accept the short-term pain for longer-term success.
Who does that?
Well, the Cubs just did.
As recently as 2012 — significantly, Theo Epstein’s first year running the ballclub — they were 61-101. Anthony Rizzo was on that team. In 2013 they were 66-96; Jake Arrieta was on that team. In 2014, 73-89; Javier Baez, Jorge Soler and Kyle Hendricks were on that team.
It was progress, but it was slow.
But then things took off. Last season, they vaulted to 97-65; Kris Bryant and Addison Russell joined that team.
This year, they were 103-58 and are in the World Series.
Their team is populated by young players they nurtured. They should be contenders for years.
Consider the Boston Red Sox.
After winning their second World Series in four seasons, in 2007, they went through a stretch of being good but not good enough. They won 95 in 2008 (and missed the World Series by a game), they won 95 in 2009 (and went out in the division series), they won 89 in 2010 and missed the playoffs, they won 90 in 2011 and missed the playoffs, despite signing Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford to enormous contracts ahead of the latter season.
When they fell to pieces in 2012, they didn’t bother with half measures. On August 26 of that year, they traded Gonzalez and Crawford and Josh Beckett to the Dodgers — who took on more than $250 million in salary.
The Red Sox finished 69-93 that year. But their rebuilding had begun on midseason, at the Dodgers’ expense. Ahead of the 2013 season, they added Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino, Koji Uehara.
They won the 2014 World Series.
To win a World Series, or play in one, the Dodgers may have to consider what to them seems unacceptable — a season of not contending. Maybe two. It certainly is time to discuss this.
The Dodgers have some more mundane decisions to make in this offseason. Their best hitter, Justin Turner, is a free agent, as is relief ace Jansen and the surprise set-up man, Joe Blanton. Will the Dodgers spend to keep them? Or will they let them go, as they did a year ago with Zack Greinke?
If we want to be skeptics about this, we would think that the Dodgers will run the numbers and come up with a solution that allows them to win 84 games or more — which they have done 15 times in the past 20 turnstile-spinning years.
They likely will have another team good enough to inspire hope and perhaps even make the playoffs … but not one good enough to win a National League pennant, let alone a World Series. They are on a good-but-not-good-enough treadmill to nowhere special.
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