On the Dodgers’ NL West Dominance
The Los Angeles Dodgers have captured their seventh straight National League West title.
Most prognosticators had the Dodgers going to the playoffs as the NL West champions once more before the year began. In this respect, that Dave Roberts’s crew clinched over two weeks in advance of the regular season’s end is not particularly surprising. Then again, it’s one thing to predict it and another thing to go out and do it.
Either way, too, it’s a bit jarring to see just how far LA has set itself apart from the rest of the division. As of September 12, the Dodgers had a 19.5-game lead on the Arizona Diamondbacks, who were struggling to stay in the wild card race and above .500. Their 43 – 24 record against the rest of the West was rivaled in the National League only by the Atlanta Braves’ ownership of the NL East. At +235, their run differential was a hair below the Houston Astros’ mark (+239) for the league’s best. Clearly, the LA Dodgers are the class of the NL West and have been for more than half a decade.
For their string of division titles, however, the Dodgers have nothing to show for it in terms of World Series championships. In fact, from 2013 to 2018, the San Francisco Giants have won more World Series than their division rivals, though the Dodgers have appeared in two World Series to the Giants’ one— including the two most recent Series—and this season’s story has yet to be written.
How do we assess these Dodgers’ then? Do we judge them as of the one great teams in the modern era considering what they’ve accomplished in the regular season of late? Or do we fault them for failing to seal the deal during that span?
If you ask ESPN’s David Schoenfield, we celebrate their streak of seven NL West championships. To Schoenfield, the Dodgers’ continued success is not only a testament to their high payroll, but their shrewd management. Justin Turner, Max Muncy, and Chris Taylor were all reclamation projects from teams that did not utilize these players to the best of their abilities (as a Mets fan, Turner’s renaissance as a Dodger still galls me). Cody Bellinger was a fourth-round pick. Walker Buehler was a first-round pick despite concerns about arm fatigue stemming from his days at Vanderbilt and the Tommy John surgery decided upon soon thereafter. Kenta Maeda is, um, from Japan? I guess Schoenfield is crediting the Dodgers’ scouts on this one and not merely ownership’s purse strings, but to its credit, the club has managed him decently well between the starting rotation and the bullpen.
Schoenfield also cites the Dodgers’ player development program and its recent draft success (esp. the 2016 draft class) as a positive factors in their run and goes on to highlight the historic nature of their achievement. Only twice before has a team won its division at least seven seasons in a row; the others were the NY Yankees from 1998 to 2006 and the Braves from 1995 to 2005 (assuming you count the 1994 strike season results as an end to their previous streak). For these reasons and more, Schoenfield, like Russell Crowe’s titular gladiator, suggests we should be entertained.
Of course, this is easier to say as an objective onlooker. If you’re a Los Angeles-area fan, you are likely thinking World Series (win) or bust. Much of the baseball punditry world would also tend to consider 2019 a failure with anything but a championship earned. As it would have it, the Dodgers are a mortal lock to represent the National League in the Series. They have the talent. They have the experience. Even with the likes of the Astros and the Yankees lurking, this is their time to get over the hump. Finally.
At heart, one’s outlook on the regular season vs. the postseason makes the above question about the Dodgers’ legacy during their run of NL West titles so compelling. Is it merely about results, the destination? Or is there a reward in witnessing the team’s maturation over the course of the season, the journey?
Obviously, for someone like David Schoenfield, it’s the latter. As he writes in closing, “If you’re a Dodgers fan and didn’t enjoy the celebration in Baltimore because only the October tournament matters, then I don’t know what to tell you. The journey is the joy.” The real championship is the friendships we made along the way, and so on and so forth.
Then again, you could regard these sentiments as, well, loser talk. Much in the way Jim Carrey’s character in Liar Liar regards the notion that true beauty is on the inside as “something ugly people say,” some might conceive of this celebration of the “joy” of a season-long march to the playoffs as cover for the cold reality of a championship drought. The Dodgers haven’t won a World Series in over 30 years, not since the Tommy Lasorda era. For a team with so much history between Brooklyn and Los Angeles and for a team that is so talked about (and lucrative), it’s hard to believe. Well, that is, perhaps unless you bleed Dodger blue and have been following the team since that last championship.
At 162 games, I feel the MLB regular season seldom gets its due. Simply put, it’s a slog, even for 20- and 30-year-olds, and I feel it could be at least 8 – 10 games shorter. That the Dodgers have been able to win the NL West year after year and with a managerial change no less merits praise. I also tend to agree with Schoenfield that it’s not all about the money. Like the Yankees in the American League, the Dodgers have supplemented their payroll by developing players, utilizing advanced analytics and player conditioning plans, and learning how to value existing talent. Now so more than ever, running a baseball team is a science as well as an art, and LA seems to get this as well as any other team in the league.
As stated, though, it’s largely a matter of philosophy. Would you rather have a team that is consistently good like the Dodgers or a team like the post-Curse Boston Red Sox which has its ups and downs but wins the occasional World Series? I, a Mets fan, would appreciate some sustained excellence. If you’re a Dodgers fan (or ahem, player), you may feel different. There’s no wrong or right way to feel. The Los Angeles Dodgers have captured their seventh straight National League West title. Just how much you value this achievement says a lot about how you approach Major League Baseball and, quite possibly, much more than that.
