The Los Angeles Dodgers are in the midst of eight consecutive National League West titles, three trips to the World Series in the past four years, and fresh off capturing their first championship since 1988. Yet the spotlight has been taken by the San Diego Padres.
Prior to this year, the Padres had not posted a winning season since 2010. Their postseason appearance was a first in 14 years. And coming off a season in which the Padres sported the second-best record in the NL, general manager A.J. Preller added more talent to the roster.
With their trades for Blake Snell and Yu Darvish, many have the Padres as primed to unset the Dodgers in the NL West next season. However, when Preller was asked if the Padres can be considered as the superior team to the Dodgers, he only offered a general response, via Tim Brown of Yahoo!:
So, he was asked flat out, given the Padres have clearly gotten better, whether they are better than the Dodgers. And he grinned.
“Uh, that’s, that’s pretty better right there,” he said. “They’re obviously, they’re the class of the league right now and they’ve been the class of the division for pretty much the decade. We’ll see how it plays out. … The goal here is to win a championship. That’s the idea.”
While it would be premature to assume Preller is done tinkering with the Padres’ roster, the heavy lifting likely has been completed. Meanwhile, the Dodgers thus far in the offseason have largely worked on the margins of theirs.
L.A. did trade for Corey Knebel, who should be an important bullpen piece, and in a smaller move, acquired Garrett Cleavinger in a three-team deal with the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays. Coincidentally, the Rays needed to make a trade in order to clear a spot on their 40-man roster prior to completing the Snell deal.
Dodgers reportedly in talks with DJ LeMahieu
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman identified the bullpen and adding a right-handed bat to the lineup as focal points this offseason. L.A. has been linked to Nolan Arenado — though the Colorado Rockies reportedly remain against a trade — and they also are said to still be in talks with DJ LeMahieu.
The New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays are among the teams with interest in LeMahieu as well.
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