Biggest Offseason Acquisition: Zack Greinke
Potential Fatal Flaw: Getting a lot of different pieces clicking together
Ceiling: World Series Champion
Floor: Just missing the playoffs
Overall: Money doesn’t buy happiness. You’ve heard it before. I’ve heard it before. Now, I feel pretty confident that I’d be a pretty happy guy if I all of a sudden stumbled upon a few million dollars. I’d do the things I love doing. I would drive around the United States and Canada, eating great food and meeting interesting people. Maybe you like art. You could buy lots of fancy paintings and sculptures. Perhaps you’re a “quality time” person. You could become your town’s Jay Gatsby and hobnob and bandy about.
The point is that in regular life, money can buy a lot of things that can make you happy. That’s not the case in baseball life. Money buys you players. Players only make you happy if they win a World Series. That’s it.
When you spend a lot of money, you demand World Series trophies. You demand happiness. The Los Angeles Dodgers, over the past 9 months have spent a lot of money in search of happiness. It started last year when the Dodgers acquired the Boston Red Sox. They depleted much of their farm system in the process, dealing away high-level pitching prospects Allen Webster and Rubby de la Rosa (as well as Ivan deJesus and Jerry Sands). I don’t think we had ever seen a trade like this, where a team takes on every bad contract from another team. The Dodgers acquired Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez, Nick Punto, and Carl Crawford from the Sox. A few days earlier, they acquired Hanley Ramirez from the Marlins for well-regarded pitching prospect Nathan Eovaldi. Combined, those players the Dodgers acquired will earn about $76 million this season. That’s more than the entire payrolls of the Astros, Marlins, Rays, Pirates, Athletics, Padres, Rockies, and Twins.
Then, the Dodgers signed Zack Greinke this offseason. Greinke will earn $21 million this season and begin the year as the Dodgers #4 starter. All told, there are 10 players on the Dodgers payroll who will earn $10 million or more this season.
But will they be successful?
Offensively, the Dodgers will begin the year weakened by the World Baseball Classic injury to Hanley Ramirez. He’s replaced in the order by Luis Cruz. Cruz’s double play partner is Mark Ellis. Neither player has a career OPS higher than .725. Ramirez’s career OPS is .866.
Elsewhere, it’s harder to argue against the Dodgers. Adrian Gonzalez is 30 years old. He had the only subpar season of his career last year, splitting time between Boston and LA. I’m wont to believe that he’ll bounce back this year, returning to the National League West, a division he is familiar with after playing in San Diego for five very productive years.
In the outfield, injuries are the concern. If Matt Kemp, Carl Crawford, and Andre Ethier are healthy, they’ll give the Dodgers the NL West’s best outfield, hands down. Kemp is a potential 40/40 player, and personally, a guy who I’ve come around on after disliking him earlier in his career. Crawford was so awful during his one and a half seasons in Boston that you forget how skilled he is and how productive he was in Tampa. And while Ethier is terrible against left-handed pitching, his overall numbers and value are still good enough, when healthy, to make him a slightly above-average everyday starter. Certainly not a bad guy to have as a third outfielder.
Pitching is where the Dodgers could really excel, starting with the excellent Clayton Kershaw. After Kershaw are the question marks of Hyun-Jin Ryu and Josh Beckett. Ryu is a question mark because he’s never pitched in the U.S. Beckett is a question mark because he’s Josh Beckett. Greinke and some combination of Chad Billingsley, Aaron Harang, Chris Capuano, and Ted Lilly will round out the rotation. There’s certainly enough talent there, even if Greinke doesn’t pitch like Cy Young winner Zack Greinke, to be the division’s best staff. Especially with some useful bullpen pieces behind them, led by Kenley Jansen.
The question, to me, isn’t whether the Dodgers will win the division (I think they will), it’s whether they can compete with Atlanta, Washington, Cincinnati and tomorrow’s team in the National League. If everyone is healthy and everyone plays to their actualized ability, I think they can. But I’ve talked about this before. It’s really hard to keep everyone healthy over the course of 162 games. And it’s really hard to expect no one to have a “down year.” The Dodgers are not a team built on depth. It’s hard to be built on depth when you’re paying 10 players over $10 million a year.
This is a playoff team. But the playoffs aren’t the goal in Chavez Ravine. I don’t know that money is going to buy real happiness, at least not in 2013. They might have been better off getting an R/V and driving to the Badlands.
Predicted Finish: 90-72
Mid-Atlantic Bias 