How Will Dodgers Approach Playoffs

When it comes to recent Augusts, the Dodgers have had huge leads on their NL West competition, save 2021 and San Francisco.  The Dodgers ended up in 2^nd place in the NL West that year and had to beat St. Louis in a wild card playoff series.  As it turns out, that was the last year the Dodgers actually got past the NLDS, but succumbed to Atlanta in the NLCS, who went on to win the WS.

For the past two past season playoffs, we have heard many and varied reasons for the LAD failures, and yes, they were failures.

• It is the hottest team that wins, not necessarily the best team.

• The winning team needs good luck.

• Too much time for the teams with a bye to sit and wait.

• Poor manager and coaches’ decisions.

• The players.

There is a microcosm of reasons for the players.  Why did the players go so cold at the same time, especially with RISP?  Why did the starting pitching run out (2021 and 2023); relief pitching (2022)?  Where was the clutch player, post Corey Seager?  Did they have the right players for the playoffs?

Of course it is the players who failed.  On paper, no team was built better than LAD.  But the games are not played on paper.  Every time I watch the games, I hear how either Mookie Betts or Freddie Freeman are the two guys wanted at the plate in clutch situations.  Not just in LAD, but in MLB.  Dodger broadcast hyperbole?  Perhaps, but I heard it on national broadcasts as well.

This past Winter AF/BG addressed SP with the additions of Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.  They expected that Bobby Miller, Emmet Sheehan, and Gavin Stone would be in the rotation to start the year.  Soon to follow, Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw.  I do not believe that the Dodgers believed they were going to need to rely on Nick Frasso, Landon Knack, Justin Wrobleski, River Ryan, Kyle Hurt (still thought of as a SP).

Instead, Glasnow, Yamamoto, Frasso, Sheehan, Miller, Buehler, Ryan, Hurt were all sidelined with arm injuries.  Frasso, Sheehan, Ryan, and Hurt were lost for the season, while Miller and Buehler are still trying to work things out.  Kershaw is still inconsistent.  And the hopes of the LAD season may rest in what happens with Glasnow and Yamamoto over the next 5 weeks.

They got two big bats in Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernández, and neither have disappointed.  But the injuries were not relegated only to pitching, as both Mookie and Max Muncy were sidelined long term with injuries. Freddie is currently dealing with a fractured finger, the serious illness of his young son, Maximus, and now the loss from the team of his best friend, Jason Heyward.   Of course, Freddie is a professional, and players are traded/released all the time.  In and by itself, the DFA of J-Hey should not be an issue, but tied with the other concerns, it is just as hard to understand why Freddie may be having issues.

Freddie returned to the lineup August 5 after Maximus’ scary ordeal.  Since then he has hit .264/.303/.375/.678.  Since he returned from his fractured finger, Freddie has hit .130/.200/.217/.417.  Jason has been gone for three games.  Over those three games, Freddie has hit .077/.077/.077/.154.  And yet over those time frames, the Dodgers are 12-6, 5-1, and 2-1 respectively.  Sign of a good team.

While Will Smith has not had the offensive year most were hoping for, the emergence of Gavin Lux and Miguel Rojas offensively have made up for Smith.

Now the Dodgers find themselves in a dogfight for the NL West, and possibly a first-round bye.  While the Dodgers are playing winning baseball, it pales in comparison to both Arizona and San Diego.  With 31 games to play, it is difficult to believe that the Dodgers will lose 10 games in the standings to NYM and fall out of the playoffs altogether.

What will be different this year in the playoffs? It still looks like the Dodgers rely heavily on the HR.  They just scored 18 runs in the series with Tampa Bay, and 15 were the result of the HR.

After watching the Olympics, I came away with a few observations.

I am not a Basketball fan, and have not been one since Magic retired, except for the 2001-2002 season where I was trash talking with obnoxious Sacramento Kings fans.  I got the last laugh.  During the Olympics, I watched a loaded USA team that was pushed to the limit in the final two games only to be lifted by Steph Curry.  Talk about a clutch player.  Who will be the LAD Steph Curry?

Team USA has consistently put together a favorite for the Men’s 4X100 track relay team.  And yet the team has not medaled since 2004 (silver) or won since 2000.    This year was going to be different.  Noah Lyles was supposed to anchor the team but had to withdraw because of Covid.  He still believed the team had enough to win Gold.

Before the races, sprinter legend Carl Lewis said:

If @TeamUSA wins all relays tomorrow, you talk to the athletes. If something happens and they do not sweep. ONLY talk to the coaches. Yes, I said it!!!

— Carl Lewis (@Carl_Lewis) August 8, 2024

After the DQ, Carl said this:

It is time to blow up the system. This continues to be completely unacceptable. It is clear that EVERYONE at @usatf is more concerned with relationships than winning. No athlete should step on the track and run another relay until this program is changed from top to bottom. https://t.co/Re6THj8QTm

— Carl Lewis (@Carl_Lewis) August 9, 2024

Lewis Johnson, long-time and extremely respected NBC track and field analyst said:

“Carl is furious and he’s angry about multiple things,” reported Johnson. “First of all, he’s angry about a system that he says is not set up to help the athletes from the United States move forward and do well. He said if Noah Lyles was out sick with Covid, they should have just replaced the anchor leg and nothing else. But the fact they reordered the entire relay had him worried, and in the end had him upset.”

 One other Olympics observation was the US Women’s national soccer team.  Since the 90’s, USWNT has one of the best in the world.  They have won 4 World Cups since 1990, came in 2^nd once, and third twice, in 9 tournaments.  They have also won 5 of the 8 gold medals for women’s soccer.  They also have won a silver and bronze.  That is very dominant for a US team in a sport that is far more followed and played in the rest of the world.

That all seemed to change after the round of 16 loss in the 2023 World Cup.  The team was in disarray.  The coach had no control.  Most of the previous front-line stars left.

In the interim, Team USA selected a new coach, Emma Hayes.  Hayes has long been considered one of the best coaches in the world. She has backed that up with 16 trophies in 12 years at Chelsea FC, the English club she led from relative obscurity to a global leader in the women’s game during that span.

Hayes was named coach of the US National team in May 2024, and had to put a team together to compete against the world’s best in the 2024 Paris Olympics.  Alex Morgan was the last remaining superstar at the National level, but in a surprise move, she was left off the squad.

In just 81 days, Emma Hayes took the USWNT back to glory to win the Gold.

There was no single method for success this summer, which is very much in line with Hayes’ whole vibe. Rather than coaching from a strict structure that forces opponents to adjust to her team’s tried-and-true approach like many modern coaches, Hayes studies an opponent to modify her approach.  Nice concept.

She used in-game adjustments to best Brazil. She saw they were a 1 v 1 team.  The strength of the US team was defense anchored by the exceptional keeper, Alyssa Naeher, and they believed they could beat a team with perhaps better skilled players, but without a team concept.  She just needed one of her newbies to score.  And, as any great team must in a major tournament, they found ways to win ugly: first against Australia, then in the semifinal against a more composed version of Germany.

The U.S. allowed just two goals all tournament, tied for the fewest by any team in the field, while also recording a tournament-high four clean sheets (shutouts). The USA ended the tournament with three consecutive clean sheets, becoming the first team in Olympic history to not concede a goal in the quarterfinal, semifinal and final.

Yes, it was the players, but it was the vision of Emma Hayes of putting the team in the best position to win, including leaving off a USWNT icon, Alex Morgan, from the team.

What does any of that mean?  For me it tells me that while the best may not always win, there has to be repercussions if you continue to lose, and Carl Lewis is calling for that in US Track and Field.

While it is the players that win, the USWNT was not supposed to win the Gold, and yet they did, and in large part due to the leadership of coach Emma Hayes.  So maybe a coach can make a difference.

And who will be the Dodgers’ Steph Curry?

The Dodgers have 31 games to find that team.  I do like how they are playing right now.  It reminds me of the 2020 team that was relentless.  The next 7 games will do a lot to decide where the Dodgers are in comparison with two of the better teams in MLB.  And finally, will performance truly decide who makes the playoff rosters?