Don’t give up on Dodgers yet
Column: Team has resources to overcome injury
Come on, you really think the Dodgers are going to quit now?
You actually believe they’re going to walk into the clubhouse, look at threetime Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw in the eyes and tell him they’re giving up on the season?
Sure, it stings that All-Star shortstop Corey Seager is done for the year, He’ll have Tommy John surgery Friday, which even jeopardizes his start for next season.
Seager is their best all-around player, a two-time All-Star who was the National League Rookie of the Year in 2016, and has led all shortstops with a 13.3 Wins Above Replacement since he broke into the big leagues, according to FanGraphs.
Now, he is gone.
But the Dodgers refuse to go down with him.
They stink right now, sitting next to last in the NL West with a 12-16 record, much closer to the NL East’s tanking Marlins (10-18) than the runaway Diamondbacks (20-8), who now have an eight-game cushion over the Dodgers.
The five-time defending division champs are in disarray, faced with their largest deficit after 28 games since 1967.
Their ace, Kershaw, is 1-4 after walking six batters in his last start against the Marlins.
Their All-Star closer, Kenley Jansen, already has blown more saves in April than all last season, anchoring a bullpen that has a 4.69 ERA.
Their 37-home run slugger and NL Rookie of the Year, Cody Bellinger, was just benched by affable manager Dave Roberts for a perceived lack of hustle.
And this is a lineup — missing All-Star third baseman Justin Turner, second baseman Logan Forsythe and right fielder Yasiel Puig — that has more potholes than a Chicago expressway in the dead of winter.
There isn’t a single Dodger with more than four home runs this season. Diamondbacks outfielder A.J. Pollock has five homers alone against the Dodgers. It has been that ugly.
Still, these are the rich and powerful Dodgers, winners of the last five NL West titles, averaging 95 victories a year.
The team that was one game away from wining last year’s World Series.
The team that opened this season with a $181 million payroll, including $21 million being paid to players no
The Dodgers will do anything, and everything possible to adequately replace Seager, luxury tax be damned.
longer in uniform.
And the team that isn’t about to surrender on May 1 with five months left in the season.
The Dodgers will do anything, and everything possible to adequately replace Seager, luxury tax be damned.
They plan to move center fielder Chris Taylor to shortstop for now and fill the void in center with Enrique Hernandez and Alex Verdugo. If Taylor can’t handle shortstop on an everyday basis, they’ll go get a shortstop. Yet you better believe they’re going to come up with someone.
“We’re going to have a pretty high bar,” Dodgers GM Farhan Zaidi told reporters, “if we go outside the organization. We still feel good about the lineup we can field on an everyday basis.
“We’re not as talented without Corey in there, but we’re going to have to adopt an approach of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. That’s what made us so good last year.”
The Dodgers have no choice but to go for it, no matter how steep the odds might be for recovery. They have more money than any other franchise in baseball.
They have more prospects than virtually every other contender. And they annually draw 3.7 million fans.
Oh yeah, and then there’s the X factor.
Clayton Edward Kershaw. Kershaw, who’s being paid $30.4 million, has an opt-out clause in his contract after this season.
He has the right to become a free agent again, which he’s expected to exercise, and either return for more money or walk away.
If the Dodgers quit on him, why wouldn’t he quit on them?
Sure, the Dodgers probably would be insane to trade top pitching prospect Walker Buehler or Verdugo, but then again, if you got a chance to grab Manny Machado, who’s hitting a major leagueleading .361 with nine homers for the Orioles, and get exclusive negotiating rights on him through October, they might be willing to listen to just about anything else.
There are so many teams tanking these days, with six teams on pace for 100 defeats, the Dodgers will have a surplus of options by the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline.
They just need to stay alive until they get help.
“When it’s all said and done, the Dodgers will be at the top of the division,” Roberts told reporters over the weekend. “I believe that. We believe that. That’s why we play 162 games. I don’t even look at the standings anymore.”
And if they need motivation, all they have to do is look across the field.
The Diamondbacks lost slugger J.D. Martinez to free agency, haven’t had right fielder Steven Souza all season, have had third baseman Jake Lamb for just four games and have two-fifths of their starting rotation, Taijuan Walker and Robbie Ray on the DL, with Walker out for the season.
“That’s what a baseball season is for me,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo says. “It’s a series of tests that when you stick together, you group up as one, support your family, get through these tests.”
The Dodgers, who have now lost a franchise-record seven consecutive games at Chase Field, now have no choice.
They have 3.7 million fans and a future Hall of Fame pitcher to answer to, standing by and now awaiting the front office’s response.