CLIMATE CHANGE
Things might look different in 2019, with Kershaw and Scioscia on the brink
The last time major league baseball was seen in Southern California, it was climbing out a back window and racing into winter, its arms full of stolen hopes, its cruelty snuffing a historic roar into stony silence.
It fled Dodger Stadium in the final hours of the final game of the World Series, trampling baseball’s best record on its way out, requiring only two innings to extend a 29-year Dodgers championship drought.
It fled Angel Stadium about a month earlier, dragging its residents from playoff contention in the final week of the regular season, extending the Angels’ streak without a playoff victory to eight long years.
As a November mist rolled in from Chavez Ravine to Anaheim, numb fans from both teams were left wondering when and how these two eras would end.
This season, they should get their answer. A couple of combustible contracts could create a perfect storm that will blow both teams into a new chapter.
For the Dodgers, this could be the final season of the Clayton Kershaw era. Their future Hall of Fame pitcher can opt out of his contract this winter and finish his career elsewhere. If he leaves, it would drastically alter not only the pitching rotation, but the clubhouse foundation, and nothing about this division-winning dynasty would feel quite the same.
For the Angels, this could be the final season of the Mike Scioscia era. The longest tenured manager in baseball has reached the last year of a contract that has carried him through 18 seasons. If he leaves, the entire Angels culture will change quicker than Mike Trout legging out a double.
Playing amid the uncertain futures of their leaders, these are teams on the brink of either redemption or remodeling, teams that will spend this summer trying to find themselves one last time before becoming something else entirely. Call it the Last Stand Season. Start with the Dodgers, who finished one game short of winning a World Series championship and seem primed to return to that October stage.
It is a last stand fortified with greatness. It is also a last stand thin enough to spring a leak.
Kershaw, the best pitcher in baseball, is back. Kenley Jansen, the best closer in baseball, is back. Cody Bellinger, last year’s unanimous National League rookie of the year, is back.
Justin Turner, the team’s best hitter and clubhouse leader is … wait. This is where it gets tricky. Turner suffered a broken wrist during a spring training game and will probably miss the first month of the season.
Standing alongside Turner is shortstop Corey Seager, the 2017 NL rookie of the year who has been plagued by a sore elbow since last season.
The Dodgers’ hopes for a sixth consecutive division title and home-field advantage in the postseason can probably survive one of these two players missing time. They can’t survive any prolonged loss of both.
You want more worries? Check out the bullpen, which lost reliable right-hander Brandon Morrow to the Chicago Cubs and then lost his replacement, Tom Koehler, to a shoulder injury. Are you ready for a summer rerun of Pedro Baez, setup man? Are baseball’s new pace-of-play rules ready?
The starting rotation is also thinner than in the recent past. In an attempt to stay under the luxury tax threshold and satisfy Major League Baseball’s debt service rule, the Dodgers didn’t load up on veteran arms, so they’ll be walking a tightrope with five guys who all spent time on the disabled list last year — Kershaw, Alex Wood, Rich Hill, Kenta Maeda and Hyun-Jin Ryu.
Well, at least none of them will complain of being overworked.
You know the Dodgers could be in a precarious position when their hottest new star is … Matt Kemp? Yeah, that Matt Kemp, the former Dodgers slugger who was shipped out for clubhouse reasons in 2014 and returned this winter so the Dodgers could get rid of Adrian Gonzalez.
Kemp wasn’t supposed to stick around this long. He was supposed to get dumped on someone else. He’s 33, he’s a question mark on defense in left field, but guess what? He’s hit a ton in spring training and Turner is hurt and he stuck.
Imagine that, Kemp and Kershaw together again, two guys who shared a Dodgers locker room for seven years, two guys who might be sharing it again for all of seven minutes.
That brings this last stand back to Kershaw. If his nagging back doesn’t annoy too much, if he has a Kershaw-type season, he will basically be faced with two choices this winter.
Does he want to stay here and let the Dodgers build him a statue, or does he want to make a life decision to leave Los Angeles and end his career somewhere else, most likely with his hometown Texas Rangers?
Any decision won’t be made until after the season. The Dodgers ace is giving no indication either way. Unlike a certain former teammate, Kershaw doesn’t tip his pitches.
The last-stand Angels aren’t tipping their pitches either, so nobody really knows what is going to happen with Scioscia as he enters his 19th season, which is a longer tenure than every major sports boss except the San Antonio Spurs’ Gregg Popovich.
One thing is for sure. This summer Scioscia will pass his former mentor, Tommy Lasorda, for wins as a manager, which will be one of the most amazing stats of the summer.
But once his contract expires, who knows? Scioscia could retire. He could manage elsewhere. Or he could get re-upped by owner and big Scioscia fan Arte Moreno.
A big part of the decision will be based on what happens this season, which could be Scioscia’s most challenging, as he must manage two things that have never been seen in modern-era baseball.
This is a last stand built on a six-man rotation and Shohei Ohtani.
The expanded rotation is necessitated by Ohtani, so the real dilemma is him, and the answer would appear to be easy.
What do they do with the celebrated two-way player who thus far hasn’t shown he can hit or pitch at a major league level? Send him down, of course. Ohtani should be treated like any other struggling 23-year-old rookie, and should start the season at triple-A Salt Lake.
But as the massive media contingent that follows his every move illustrates, he is not just any other rookie. The eyes of the international baseball world are on the Angels, who will be judged by future acquisitions on the patience they show Ohtani, so they will be filled with patience.
They will keep him on the major league team because they trust their scouting reports, they trust his potential and they want to be perceived as giving him a fair chance. They worked hard to get this kid; they don’t want to mentally lose him before the season even starts.
All of this falls into the lap of Scioscia, who must navigate the maze that has been built around Ohtani’s time on the mound and as a designated hitter. Even when working perfectly, it’s a challenge, but what if he continues to get shelled? Does he go to the bullpen and still hit twice a week? Or what if he struggles at the plate; does he become just a starting pitcher?
And, gasp, what if the Angels decide he should be a one-way player? Who tells him, and how does he take the news?
It’s not as though their young bullpen and injury-prone rotation can take many big hits. With a veteran lineup poised for a playoff push, the Angels have to be careful not to allow Ohtani to hijack the season.
That lineup is good, playoffgood, bolstered by the smart winter signings of Justin Upton, Ian Kinsler and Zack Cozart. It may even be good enough to give Trout one of the few things his resume lacks.
He’s never experienced a playoff series victory. Heck, he hasn’t even won a playoff game. He’s never been involved in any sort of October team success, depriving him of the greatest moments in the sport.
And if the Angels keep missing, one can imagine Trout’s eyes wandering. He needs to get under that big October spotlight for more than five minutes before his contract expires after the 2020 season and he has a chance to sign elsewhere.
In keeping baseball’s best player eternally happy, this Last Stand Season could be a good start.