How the Dodgers can cement themselves as Fall Classic favorites this December
LA can’t let the what-if scenarios haunt them
Game 7 of the World Series was tough, and yes, Yu Darvish gave up the 5 runs that led Houston to a championship title. I was thinking about this recently, about how trades and signings affect teams in the long run.
The Dodgers traded for Darvish in July to help them win the World Series and, in the end, Darvish did not pitch like an ace when the Dodgers needed him the most.
We can’t dwell on that, though, because we can’t forget that without Darvish, the Dodgers probably wouldn’t have made it to the World Series in the first place.
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After Game 7, there seemed to be a lot of people who thought that the outcome would have been different had LA traded for Verlander. For a moment, I was one of those people. But the Dodgers traded for Darvish, and he pitched pretty well up until the World Series.
There’s no guarantee that the Dodgers would have won had Verlander become a Dodger instead of an Astro.
Baseball is a game filled with unknowns and uncertainties, and we can’t dwell on what could have been, we can only look forward and hope to do better next time.
The Dodgers are, yet again, are in a very interesting place this off-season. Last year, the biggest off-season signings they needed to complete were for players on their own team. Justin Turner, Rich Hill, and Kenley Jansen were the three key players for the Dodgers going into 2017, and there they stood in Dodger Blue on Opening Day.
This year is similar.
LA needs to re-sign Brandon Morrow and Tony Watson. If they do, the need to add to the bullpen becomes less of a priority. If they don’t, trades will be inevitable.
Though signing Jake Arrieta might be a bold move for the Dodgers, it’s one they could do and it’s one that would make sense. The possibility of the Opening Day rotation looking like Clayton Kershaw, Arrieta, Hill, Alex Wood and Hyun-Jin Ryu gives me chills.
The Dodgers could sign Arrieta, I’m not convinced that they will, but the possibility will always be there.