Cody Snavely
Back in March, before the 2024 Major League Baseball regular season had begun, our friends over at Baseball Isn’t Boring Podcast had a new series hosted by Reece Green called The Case For…, in which they chose one fan from each MLB team to state why said team should win it all in 2024.
Representing the Los Angeles Dodgers case was me, Cody Snavely, and in that episode, my three main reasons why I believed that the Dodgers would win the 2024 World Series were due to the improved starting pitching, the three-headed monster of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman, and the weight of high expectations.
Fast-forward to today, and the Dodgers have less than three weeks of regular-season games remaining until the 2024 postseason. That is where the second half of Reece Green’s series picks up.
In the latest segment of the Baseball Isn’t Boring Podcast, I relinked with Green and the crew to discuss what happened to the Los Angeles Dodgers this season, whether they met my high expectations at the beginning of the year, and what I am watching as we enter the final stretch of the 2024 season.
As the 2024 Major League Baseball regular season is down to less than twenty games, the Dodgers are where I expected them to be at the beginning of the year.
As of September 10th, 2024, the Dodgers are alone in first place in the National League West, five and a half games ahead of the San Diego Padres and six games ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team that eliminated them in last year’s National League Division Series.
Despite a solid first-half performance by the Philadelphia Phillies, who retained the best record in the National League, a sluggish second-half of play has allowed the Dodgers to swoop in, going back and forth with the Phillies for the best record in Major League Baseball with the two squads currently tied for the number one seed.
Both teams are projected to finish with a record of 97-65, but with the Phillies having the regular season tiebreaker after winning the regular season series, they would claim the top seed.
The Dodgers are also still one of the top World Series favorites according to many sports betting outlets and, entering the final three-week stretch, are in a prime position to go on another deep October run. However, there have been some hiccups and remaining concerns before that can begin.
One issue the Los Angeles Dodgers have struggled with this entire season has been injuries. While it is cliché to say injuries impact any team’s performance, this is warranted in the Dodgers’ case.
Entering the final stretch of the regular season, the Dodgers have placed twenty-four players on the injured list, which is tied for third in Major League Baseball.
Financially, the Dodgers have lost $49.1 million on the injured list this season (sixth most in MLB), with the players missing a combined 1950 days, the most in baseball this season.
Of those twenty-four injuries, most were pitching, as the Dodgers have placed multiple starters on the injured list, such as veteran left-handed pitcher Clayton Kershaw, who missed most of the first half of the season due to offseason shoulder surgery, right-handed pitchers Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto with arm and shoulder issues and righty flame throwers Walker Buehler and Bobby Miller who have been trying to rediscover themselves the entire season after dealing with their own injuries.
Despite the injuries, the Dodgers’ depth in back-to-back seasons has saved the team from sudden doom, with rookie right-handed pitcher Gavin Stone holding it together in his breakout year. However, even he has fallen ill with the injury bug, getting placed on the 15-day injured list this past week.
In addition to Stone becoming the backbone of the Dodgers’ starting staff this season, the team also got much-needed help from other rookie pitchers, such as Landon Knack, River Ryan, and left-handed pitcher Justin Wrobleski.
When healthy in the first half of the 2024 regular season, the Dodgers’ rotation was among the league’s best, with Glasnow and Yamamoto leading the way.
Glasnow, despite setbacks, set a new career high in innings pitched and was leading the National League in strikeouts for most of the season, along with a 3.49 ERA in 134 innings this season.
Yamamoto, who struggled in his first Major League start against the San Diego Padres in Korea to open the season, has been solid the rest of the way. Before the righty was removed from his start against the Kansas City Royals, he threw seven scoreless innings against the mighty New York Yankees.
That said, the Dodgers have used a National League-high seventeen starters this season, showing just how much movement has been made since March.
With all the injuries to the starting rotation, the Dodgers’ offense needed to step up. They’ve done a terrific job throughout the season, ranking sixth in batting average, third in OPS, runs home runs, and thirteenth in stolen bases. However, they’ve also had their battle with the injury bug.
The most massive loss this season was all-star Mookie Betts, who was sidelined from June 17th until August 12th due to a fractured hand on a hit by pitch.
Betts, who started out as the Dodger’s primary shortstop to start the regular season, would ultimately revert back to right field upon his return and also drop down from the leadoff spot in the batting order in favor of Ohtani, who took over the position after Betts went down.
The Dodgers also lost third baseman Max Muncy for most of the summer after the veteran lefty bat was hit with an oblique injury that would linger from May until July.
It wasn’t until Muncy sought out a third-party chiropractor that he realized it was more than just an oblique; he also suffered a dislocated rib, which was nagging at his side.
While the big names were out, one player stepped up massively, a player who, in the first half, was statistically one of the worst hitters in Major League Baseball: Gavin Lux.
Lux has been the Dodgers’ most productive hitter in the regular season’s second half with a 161 wRC+, which beats out Shohei Ohtani since the all-star break.
Speaking of Ohtani, the Dodgers, who signed the two-way international star over the offseason to a massive 10-year $700 million contract, have reaped all the awards. He has been better than anticipated in a limited role as the team’s full-time designated hitter.
So far, Ohtani is the clear favorite to win the National League Most Valuable Player Award, with Fox Sports Bet listing the star at a -5882 to win the award over New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor.
Ohtani is on pace to become Major League Baseball’s first member of the 50/50 club after already becoming the seventh member of the 40/40 club this past month. With an elite .291/.374/.618 slash line, a .992 OPS, and a 169 wRC+, the Dodgers couldn’t have asked for much else in his first season.
Joining Ohtani as a hero of the Dodgers offense is also Teoscar Hernández, who the Dodgers inked on a one-year prove-it deal over the winter and have reaped all the rewards.
So far, Hernández has hit twenty-eight home runs, driven in eighty-seven runs, a .264/.451/.649 slash line, became an all-star and won the 2024 T-Mobile Home Run Debry, the first Dodgers player to do so.
At the trade deadline, the Dodgers acquired some much-needed pitching depth in right-handed pitchers Jack Flaherty and Michael Kopech.
In his short time with the Dodgers so far, Flaherty has brought balance to the Dodgers rotation in the second half of the regular season, which has seen many players go on the injured list.
In seven starts, Flaherty has a 2.61 ERA and forty-seven strikeouts in 41.1 innings pitched and is slotted to be the Dodgers game one or two starter come October.
Kopech has been arguably the steal of the trade deadline after being acquired in a three-team trade between the Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Since arriving, the righty has adapted well to his new role, whether in high-leverage situations, the eighth inning, or becoming the closer for a night.
Overall, when asked if the Dodgers had met the expectations that I set for the beginning of the year, I would say that they have. The team is currently in first place with one of the best records in Major League Baseball. It is set to reach the postseason for a twelfth consecutive season dating back to 2013, and barring health issues, they’re as primed as any team to win the World Series.
However, the ultimate goal being the Los Angeles Dodgers, a historic franchise that is judged not by regular-season success but by whether that team brings a championship back to the city. Until that happens, no team will ever fully reach any fan’s expectations.
As we enter the final stretch of the regular season, the Dodgers’ main goal is to get healthy, especially in the starting rotation. If Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto can be the pitchers we saw in the first half of the season, added with Jack Flaherty and the league-best offense, this Dodgers team should have no problem going deep into October. Their biggest obstacle is themselves and the burden of greatness.
Have you subscribed to the Bleed Los Podcast YouTube channel? Be sure to ring the notification bell to watch player interviews, participate in shows & promotions, and stay up to date on all Dodgers news and rumors!
