The Los Angeles Dodgers saw their playoff run came to an abrupt end at the hands of the San Diego Padres in the National League Division Series, but some key results reinforced president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman believing there wasn’t a glaring need for starting pitching at the 2022 MLB trade deadline.
Friedman prioritized starting pitching in the offseason leading up to the 2022 campaign, re-signing Clayton Kershaw, bringing in Tyler Anderson, and taking a flyer on Andrew Heaney. Those three, grouped with Cy Young production from both Tony Gonsolin and Julio Urías, gave the Dodgers enough depth to feel comfortable with where their pitching staff was when the initial bids for trade pieces began to emerge.
After leading Major League Baseball in the first half in combined starting pitcher ERA at 2.77, Friedman looked at the trade deadline with clear eyes that an overpay wasn’t on his mind.
“We spent a lot of time during the deadline; some things that happened and a lot of things that didn’t happen. That’s the same every trade deadline,” Friedman said.
“We are tasked with doing everything we can to win in that current year but also to maintain our future outlook. If a deal would’ve made sense, we would’ve said yes to it on a number of different fronts. So no, I don’t regret not doing a bad deal for us. I don’t regret that.
“And I don’t feel like it was our starting pitching, or our pitching in general, that is the reason we’re sitting here. Like Brandon just said, our one through 13, I feel like this was the deepest we’ve had and the most talented with different looks and options to navigate to different lineups. We felt really good about the talent that we had.”
Friedman’s confidence in the pitching staff paid off in the sense that it wasn’t the area of the Dodgers that brought them down. In fact, the starting rotation improved in the second half, lowering their ERA to 2.73, trailing only the Houston Astros.
While the offense began to quietly slump over the final month of the regular season, the pitching staff as a whole carried the team to the finish line and ultimately, a franchise record 111-win season.
The Dodgers’ playoff collapse didn’t have the same look as the 2021 NL Championship Series when they seemingly ran out of pitching. It was the bats that let them down and struggled to hold up their end.
“I think as we came into this postseason, we felt like we had — and obviously were bias — the most talented team,” Friedman said.
“So we would’ve traded a lot for a guy if you had told me, ‘Hey, he’s going to get a hit every time with a runner in scoring position.’ We would’ve traded a lot for that player. I felt like it wasn’t from a lack of talent in October.”
What sunk the Dodgers in NLDS?
The Dodgers season was a failure, by Friedman’s account, manager Dave Roberts and the fans. They won more games than any team n baseball and lost to Padres team they had taken 14 of 19 from during the regular season.
The offense poured it on teams all year, and their 42 wins by five or more runs proved that when they were on, they wouldn’t relent. But it appeared as if the Dodgers lineup would have lapses of focus and their stars, aside from Freddie Freeman, began to tail off, and that one extra hit never came.
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