Hello,
All season long I followed the Dodgers through all their ups and downs, I wrote a Dodgers Daily for nearly every Dodgers game this season. It has been a great season to follow the Dodgers, but ultimately following one team and blogging about them was just too much work, especially when the Dodgers played 28 days in a row at one point. I won't be writing a Dodgers Daily next season, although I'll still blog about the Dodgers occasionally.
On a cold Friday night in St. Louis, the Dodgers great season came to an end. LA ended their season by falling into the bad habits that plagued them throughout the season. The Dodgers couldn't score many runs as has been their trend when the amazing Clayton Kershaw pitches for them.
Kershaw is proving to be a great regular season pitcher, but so far has struggled in the postseason. I hope he and the Dodgers get that figured out. That's because Dodgers ownership seems like they are almost desperate to win a title. They also seem to have nearly unlimited resources and should be able to surround Kershaw with many outstanding pieces in the upcoming seasons. LA will probably be in the playoffs many times in the next several years.
On Friday Kershaw really struggled. He only made it through 4 innings and gave up 10 hits and 7 runs. All the runs were earned and he also allowed 2 walks. Kershaw finishes the NLCS with an 0-2 record and 6.30 ERA.
But as off he was on this night he was a bit better than the offense that was supposed to be scoring runs for him. LA only had two meaningless hits and helped make Mike Wacha look like the second coming of Cy Young himself. On Friday Wacha pitched 7 innings, allowed 2 hits, 1 walk and no runs. Wacha finished the NLCS with a 2-0 record and a 0.00 ERA.
The Dodgers two meaningless hits were A.J. Ellis's double and Carl Crawford's single. Yes, that was the entirety of the Dodgers offense in a must win game.
Although it doesn't seem like Don Mattingly is the best manager the Dodgers can get, that's not enough of a reason to get rid of him. Sources are already saying he'll be back next year. I'm sure he'll be evaluated very soon and be given some things to work on in the offseason. I expect that he'll be a better manager next season. I do certainly have to question his decision to pick Carlos "Blown Save" Marmol over Paco Rodriguez for the NLCS.
Of course having Matt Kemp at full health for a whole season will make anyone look like a much better manager. I wonder what kind of impact a fully healthy Kemp would have had on the NLCS. I hope LA gives Kemp all the resources and time that he needs to fully recover this offseason. If he has to miss the early part of the season that's fine. I'd rather him miss the early part of the season than the much more crucial end of the season.
Hopefully the Dodgers will have a fully healthy Kemp and Chad Billingsley at some point next season.
Thankfully the Dodgers will no longer have to pay Ted Lilly another cent. Lilly was paid over $13 million and returned virtually nothing in 2013.
Sadly though the Dodgers owe Josh Beckett $17 million for next season. He missed most of this season and was ineffective when he played- 0-5 and an astronomically high ERA. But that will be his last year with the Dodgers, his departure will be a nice chunk of change coming back to the Dodgers. Of course the surly Beckett is the poison pill of the Dodgers-Red Sox 2012 trade.
I'm more worried about the job that Dodgers GM Ned Colleti is doing than Mattingly. Contracts like Lilly and Brandon League scare me quite a bit. The Dodgers wildly overpaid for League and still have to pay him for two more years. Another bad contract is Andre Ethier, I wish the Dodgers could dump him off on another team. They might do that this offseason, but they're probably still going to have to pay part of his salary. But the Ethier signing is probably Coletti's worst signing.
Again I want to beg the Dodgers not to sign the 30 year old Robinson Cano to a long-term contract, unless they can reduce the years of a contract and pay him much less than he wants. I wouldn't offer Cano more than a 5 year-$125 million contract. (That's the same kind of contract that Josh Hamilton signed with the Angels, although he was clearly on the downside of his career when he signed that contract.)
Of course Coletti has made good decisions on some contracts. I'm sure fairly soon we'll be hearing about the Dodgers signing Kershaw to about a 8 year-$200 million contract. I'm not a big fan of long term contracts, it always seems like the player benefits. (See Josh Hamilton, Ryan Howard, Ted Lilly, Josh Beckett etc.) But with Kershaw still in his mid 20's, LA signing the very tough and high quality Kershaw to a long term contract is something that needs to be done.
Of course both Yasiel Puig and Hyun-Jin Ryu seem to be very team friendly contracts, at least after one season. Although LA took a bit of a chance on Hanley Ramirez he seems to be fitting well in with the Dodgers. Not only that but he was the Dodgers most explosive bat this season.
With LA being eliminated I'll be cheering on the Red Sox throughout the rest of their season. Once they finish off the pesky Tigers Saturday night, I look forward to the World Series starting at Fenway Park on Wednesday.
themusicaddict
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