Cody Snavely
We’re finally here, Dodgers fans, the 2024 postseason, that moment we’ve all been waiting for since the team regrouped in spring training in February.
After eight months, the Los Angeles Dodgers 2024 regular season is offically over. The team that spent over one billion dollars this past winter did not disappoint, winning the National League West for the eleventh time in twelve years. Despite having over twenty-five total players on the injured list, they clinched the number one seed in the National League and the best record in all of baseball with ninety-eight wins, their lowest win total since the 2018 season (92).
However, while the Dodgers are heading into October winners of five straight games, including sixteen of their twenty-six games in the final month of the season, having the likely National League Most Valuable Player on their team in Shohei Ohtani, who had a historic 50/50 season, and a potent offense and bullpen, there are still fears heading into the postseason.
After countless years of postseason disappointment, including back-to-back first-round exits in the National League Division Series to divisional opponents in the Padres and Diamondbacks, what makes this Dodgers team different?
Strengths
Bullpen
While the Dodgers’ starting rotation was a massive question mark for most of the season, the bullpen held it down for the 2024 regular season as one of the best units in baseball. In the second half of the season, the bullpen posted a collective 3.51 ERA, which ranked seventh in the National League.
On the season, the Dodgers bullpen pitched the fourth-most innings in the National League with 648.0, but in that massive sample size, they posted the third-lowest ERA at 3.53, seventh-highest WAR (4.5), and middle in the pack in K/9% (8.69), BB/9 (3.24), HR/9 (1.08), and ranked first in BABIP (.264).
Down the stretch, the bullpen has been even more valuable to the team. The starting rotation took a massive hit with the loss of Glasnow, Stone, and Kershaw in September, and the bullpen had to eat the bulk of innings in the homestretch of the regular season.
The Dodgers’ bullpen’s backend features the three-headed monster of Michael Kopech, Alex Vesia, and Blake Treinen, who have all been nearly unhittable this season.
Vesia has been the Dodgers’ go-to arm out of the bullpen to face lefties and has one of the lowest ERAs in baseball at 1.76 in sixty-even appearances this season, along with a 1.74 ERA in September.
Veteran right-handed pitcher Blake Treinen has been one of the best high-leverage arms, posting a 1.93 ERA and tossing an unhittable slider and sinker combo, and has been a nice bridge in late innings to new “closer” Michael Kopech.
Speaking of Kopech, he has been one of the best trade acquisitions this season. Since joining the Dodgers, the righty has a 1.01 ERA, thirty-two strikeouts, a .118 batting average, 32.7 K%, and a 0.79 WHIP.
Like the regular season, the Dodgers bullpen will be counted on early, perhaps even the 5th inning, in each game as the only starter to give any bit of length recently has been Flaherty.
Offense
It has become the norm for the Dodgers to be one of the top offenses in the league, which is expected when any franchise makes the postseason in twelve straight seasons and when you add the two-time American League Most Valuable Player in Shohei Ohtani.
Over the entire season, the Dodgers have proven their offensive dominance, ranking number one in wRC+ in the National League at 118. In the National League, they were second in runs scored (842), sixth in stolen bases (136), second in BB% (9.6%), first in home runs (233), had the fourth lowest K% (21.4%), and boasted a collective .258/.335/.446 slash line with a .781 OPS, leading the league in these categories.
Unlike years past, the Dodgers have actually hit better against left-handed pitching than righties with a .269/.337/.458 and 121 wRC+ versus southpaws compared to a .253/.334/.442 against right-handers.
Contrary to what’s been said about the Dodgers’ offense, they’ve excelled with runners in scoring position, hitting .266/.357/.433 with a 118 wRC+ in those situations this season. This is one of the best stat lines in the National League, a testament to their clutch performance.
With the offense led by Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman, it is hard to bet against that trio. The bottom of the order has hit significantly better, and with the second-half resurgence of Gavin Lux and the activation of Tommy Edman and Max Muncy, the Dodgers are in a great spot.
Ohtani
If you want to talk about an x-factor, it is no doubt Shohei Ohtani, whom the Dodgers signed for a massive ten-year $700 million contract for these games in October.
It is no secret that Ohtani had one of the greatest offensive seasons in Major League Baseball history; in just his first season in Dodger Blue, Ohtani hit .310/.390/.646 with a 1.036 OPS, 181 wRC+, hit fifty-four home runs, stole fifty-nine bases which created the 50/50 club, drove in one-hundred-thirty runners and is on track not only to be the first designated hitter in Major League Baseball to win league Most Valuable Player but will be only the second player ever to win the award in both leagues joining Frank Robinson.
However, down the stretch, Ohtani has been one of the most clutch hitters in the league, ending the season with a .393/.458/.766 slash line in September and a 1.225 OPS.
From September 1st until September 26th, Ohtani hit .545 with runners in scoring position, drove in twenty runners, and posted an absurd 1.888 OPS.
For the whole season, Ohtani hit a respectable .283 with runners in scoring position after some early-season struggles but did post a well above-average 167 wRC+ in high-leverage situations, one of the best in baseball.
It will be the first time in Ohtani’s seven-year career that the two-way superstar will play in October after missing the postseason in his first six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels. Over the past two weeks, Ohtani has shown more emotion being in a division race, which highlights his desire to win, which is the main reason he came to the Dodgers this past winter.
If the Dodgers are able to go on a deep run, it will be because of Ohtani. As many have speculated, he could potentially pitch a few meaningful innings in the bullpen in the National League Championship Series or World Series which could increase the Dodgers odds of another title.
Weaknesses
Starting rotation
Look, the most straightforward answer as to why the Los Angeles Dodgers will not win the 2024 World Series is the status of the starting rotation.
Entering the 2023/2024 offseason, the Dodgers had a clear goal in mind after another early exit in the postseason in large part of their starting rotation of Clayton Kershaw, Bobby Miller, and Lance Lynn having an ERA over sixty in three games and that was to revamp and upgrade the starting rotation.
Dodgers President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Brandon Gomes would do just that, landing two big fish in right-handed pitcher Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto while also getting a breakout year from rookie Gavin Stone, who had a much better stint in 2024 than his debut year in 2023.
However, fast-forward to now, and the Dodgers rotation is a shell of itself. Despite trading for the best arm on the trade market in righty Jack Flaherty, the Dodgers have lost two of their most dependable starters for the rest of the season in Glasnow (elbow sprain) and Stone (shoulder inflammation) along with Yamamoto only making a handful of starts since being activated off the 60-day injured list due to a strained rotator cuff.
Entering October, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts already stated that the rotation would consist of Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Walker Buehler, and Landon Knack.
Compared to other National League contenders, it is one of the weakest three, but the job can still be done, and they showed that down the stretch by winning clutch games and staying healthy.
Injuries
The Los Angeles Dodgers have been decimated by injuries this season, especially at the tail end, when they lost significant players to season-ending injuries.
The Dodgers have placed twenty-six players on the injured list this season, and they’ve lost more than two thousand days and over fifty-three million in that span of players lost. In the starting rotation, it might have been the worst.
Throughout the season, the Dodgers lost River Ryan, Emmet Sheehan, Dustin May, Clayton Kershaw, Tony Gonsolin, Gavin Stone, and Tyler Glasnow. Still, entering the postseason, that number has grown on the position player side.
In the three-game series against the San Diego Padres, the Dodgers lost two position players to injury: first baseman Freddie Freeman, who twisted his ankle trying to beat out an infield single, and veteran shortstop Miguel Rojas, who pulled his adductor muscle.
Defensive guru Kevin Kiermaier is also considered day-to-day after dislocating his middle finger while trying to turn a single into a double in the second-to-last game of the regular season. His status for the National League Division Series is up in the air.
Kershaw is the lone starter who could potentially return this season, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts says it’s still weeks away.
Andrew Friedman and Brandon Gomes put together a team in the winter and attempted to improve it at the trade deadline. However, the team has slowly been reduced to a foundation, drastically changing its outlook.
Despite all the injuries, the Dodgers finished the regular season with the best record in Major League Baseball and closed out the season by winning sixteen of their twenty-six games in September.
Situational hitting
One of the Dodgers’ biggest challenges this October is not their depleted starting rotation but rather their boom-or-bust offense. This playing style, which has been a key factor for them for multiple seasons, is now posing a challenge.
A massive issue with the Dodgers come October and the postseason is their stats with runners in scoring position and their stars folding under the pressure.
While the starting rotation was a factor in the team’s failure last postseason, it was not the only reason. The offense hit a combined .177/.248/.250 with a 40 wRC+, and their two biggest stars, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, went a combined 1-for-21, with the lone hit being a Freeman infield single.
That has been a common theme every October for the Dodgers since they started this run back in 2013.
The Dodgers have relied heavily on the home run ball, as Blake Harris of Thinking Blue points out as the Dodgers this season are:
- 16-33 with zero home runs
- 23-21 with one home run
- 59-10 with two or more home runs
While statistics have shown that the teams that outhomer their opponents usually come out on top (duh), it cannot be the end-all-be-all for the Dodgers to succeed in the postseason. Bunts and sacrifice at-bats, along with just a base knock, can be the difference in a game, and the Dodgers showed that mental approach in the last month of the season when they took two of three against the Padres to win the National League West Division.
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