The Boys of Summer 2.0
The Los Angeles Dodgers have reached new heights in the 2017 season, winning an unprecedented 61 games before the All-Star break — only the fourth time it’s been done since 1994. They’re on pace to reach a ridiculous 109 wins, which would be most by a National League team since the 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates, and would be the first time a Dodger team has eclipsed the 95-win mark since 1977.

Fast-forward to as I’m writing this piece, the Dodgers have hit an absolutely unprecedented run in recent years — in the past 51 games, they have gone 44–7. The last time for a team to win more than 43 games in a 50+ game span was the 1912 then-New York Giants. Before that it was the 1905 Cubs going 45–5. This is quite literally, the best team in a 50+ game stretch since 1912. Wrap your minds around that, my friends — I still have trouble.
For those of you who don’t know me too well: I’m a die-hard Dodger fan. In an area such as southern California — dominated by the success of the Lakers and USC football — baseball was always my first love, and the Dodgers my first team to root tirelessly for. While I’m going to try and remain objective during this article…know that I probably won’t. The late 1990's/early 2000’s Dodgers were disappointing to put it lightly. My earliest memories of watching them were filled with the likes of Gary Sheffield, Raul Mondesi, Eric Karros, Chan Ho Park, and of course Vin Scully. The mid-2000’s teams weren’t much better until someone by the name of Clayton Kershaw came along. There was an ultimate low when Frank McCourt — former owner of the team — declared bankruptcy after evidence was released that he was embezzling money from the team’s trust fund into his own wallet. And then new ownership came in, flush with cash and a shiny exclusive broadcasting rights deal that turned the Dodgers into Yankees West. But now we’ve been in the middle of the most successful run since the 1980’s, with four NL West division titles and a fifth one seemingly on the way. While the past four-plus years have brought much joy to myself and the rest of the Dodger faithful, clearly we have been disappointed and heartbroken. While much better than mediocrity, after a certain point, we fans have found ourselves asking each other: “Is THIS finally THE year???”. While seasons past have definitely infused a newfound hope and buzz into the basketball-minded city of Los Angeles with Dodger blue instead of the usual purple-and-gold, how is this particular season any different? Should the Dodger faithful continue their high hopes? Is it finally time to believe the hype? I still remain cautiously optimistic, because there were definitely years in the past (2008, 2013, 2016…) when I felt like “THIS IS OUR YEAR!” only to get my heart broken (I still hate you, Matt Stairs).
I — along with many of the Dodger faithful — thought that 2016 was “our year”. Even with a rookie manager, despite starting slow and getting hit with a slew of crucial injuries (the most in the modern-era), the Dodgers were somehow winning games! Clayton Kershaw went on the disabled list for the first time in his career with a back injury (cruelly poetic if nothing else), and the team somehow got better. Come the postseason, the Dodgers and Washington Nationals engaged in a thrilling five-game NLDS, which ended in dramatic fashion. Joc Pederson went yard against Nats’ ace Max Scherzer, and Kershaw of all people came in out of the bullpen to clinch the series.
Then the Chicago Cubs happened, and nothing was getting in the way of their 108-year curse-breaking ways.
What makes this year so special, then? Outside of the aforementioned historic 50-game run the team has been going on, really the success can be attributed to a number of factors — some are dumb luck, some calculated moves from the front office to shore up weaknesses.
Problems from 2016
Hitting against left-handed pitching
Probably one of the most notable weaknesses in the 2016 Dodgers was their strange inability to hit lefties.
2016 MLB slash line against LHP: .256/.323/.414
2016 Dodgers slash line against LHP: .214/.291/.333
Yeah. That’s…pretty bad. Taking a look at the Dodgers starting lineup used most often down the stretch, 5 out of the 8 position players batted lefty (Gonzalez, Utley, Seager, Toles, Pederson), with another one being a switch hitter, but a much better hitter on the left side (Grandal). So effectively, 6/8 hitters had bad matchups against left-handed pitching. Throw that along with the fact that Justin Turner, who was downright terrible against southpaws, put up a ghastly .209/.303/.337 when facing them, the Dodgers in actuality had 7/8 position players who were poor against left-handed pitching. Utilityman Kiké Hernandez, a supposed killer of left-handed pitching, had an entire season that was disappointing, and was actually left off the playoff roster because of his poor play.

Even if they faced a right-handed starter, if a team had multiple strong left-handers out of the bullpen (Cubs with Aroldis Chapman and Mike Montgomery come to mind…), the Dodgers would be all but shut out in the later innings.
Starting Rotation: Kershaw, _________, __________, ___________ ??
With Zack Greinke leaving for greener pastures (Arizona isn’t green, but money certainly is), the Dodgers were left without the “2” in their 1–2 punch they had gotten known for the past couple of years. The signing of Kenta Maeda certainly helped, along with the mid-season acquisition of Rich Hill, but the rotation was still hobbled with injuries throughout the year. Hyun-Jin Ryu was out for the second season in a row with his throwing shoulder problems, Alex Wood also missed a large part of the year, and of course Kershaw went on the DL for a period of time. All this while failing to mention the likes of Scott Kazmir, Brandon McCarthy, and Brett Anderson — all pitchers who were injured more times than not. Despite both Maeda and Hill putting up good numbers during the regular season, the fact of the matter was: 1) Maeda was not used to MLB competition and ultimately not 100% reliable in the postseason and 2) Hill was battling with a blister on his throwing hand all season and only recently saw a resurgence in his career. The Dodgers cycled through 15 total starting pitchers in 2016, and all it did was blur the overall picture for Dave Roberts and his coaching staff when it came down to who to rely on in October. A lack of continuity in the starting rotation also meant that the bullpen had to be given a heavier workload, which leads to the next weakness..
Bullpen…do I need to say more?
Similar to the starting rotation, the bullpen only had one truly reliable, shutdown arm in closer Kenley Jansen. Despite having an MLB-best 3.35 ERA, the Dodgers’ bullpen struggled mightily in October, putting up a 4.78 ERA, while giving up a total of 19 home runs in 11 games.

Joe Blanton was a pleasant surprise of the regular season, as he had re-imagined himself as a reliable (LOL) set-up man centered around his slider and cutter. Rookie Grant Dayton had become a revelation out of the pen as well, showing potential as the shutout lefty arm out of the ‘pen. But when October came around, both Blanton and Dayton proved to be ineffective to say the least, as Dayton gave up a crucial game-tying home run in Game 5 of the NLDS, and Blanton surrendered a go-ahead grand slam to Miguel Montero in Game 1 of the NLCS.
Injuries
As I mentioned earlier, the Boys in Blue were quite blue with injuries throughout the entire season. One might think I’m over-exaggerating, but in 2016, the Dodgers sent 28 different players to the disabled list, breaking the record that was set by the 2012 Boston Red Sox, who finished the season dead-last with 93 losses. By some miracle, the Dodgers finished first in the NL West for the fourth-straight season — despite the slew of injuries that seemed to come from all directions.

I mentioned the injuries to the starting rotation earlier, but there were of course a number of crucial injuries to the position players, namely the outfielders. The Dodgers’ inability to have a replacement-level left fielder was a glaring problem throughout the season, as players such as Trayce Thomson and Scott Van Slyke could not seem to stay healthy. The Dodgers had to really dig deep into their farm system, bringing up unheralded players such as Brock Stewart and Andrew Toles, the latter of whom turned out to be a serious diamond-in-the-rough for the team, hitting above .300 while getting on base with great baserunning.
Problems Solved
Now resuming in present-day, Los Doyers sport the best record in the MLB, a ridiculous 79–32 mark — a 114-win pace. Each of the weaknesses I highlighted above are all but non-existent with this iteration of the team. A quick rundown:
Hitting against left-handed pitching
2017 MLB slash line against LHP: .254/.325/.419
2017 Dodgers slash line against LHP: .259/.346/.471
So clearly we can see that as a whole, the Dodgers are firmly above-average the rest of the league, and are indeed ranked 11th in terms of batting average. However, they also lead the league in home runs against LHP, with a whopping 56 in 92 games, 10 more than second-ranked Houston. A further look into the stats will reveal that several individual Dodger players have had a huge amount of success against southpaws:
Justin Turner: .398/.489/.759, 10 HR (WTF?!?!?!?)
Chris Taylor: .330/.387/.557
Logan Forsythe: .325/.462/.494
Corey Seager: .341/.411/.597, 8 HR
Kiké Hernandez: .252/.355/.607, 9 HR

Turns out, numbers like these against lefty pitching is quite good. Obviously the things to point out are:
a) Justin Turner’s downright disgusting batting line. Seriously? He is absolutely destroying lefties right now, en route to building a very real MVP candidacy.
b) The rise of Chris Taylor has been nothing short of amazing, as he, Forsythe, and Hernandez have been a huge reason to the Dodger’s newfound flexibility. Taylor, originally traded from Seattle to the Dodgers late last year, was originally slated to be Seager’s backup at shortstop and actually started the year in Triple-A. But injuries to Toles forced a call-up for Bellinger, and injuries to Forsythe and Gonzalez forced Bellinger to move from left field to his natural first base spot, and Taylor was called up to play whatever spot between left and second base that was vacant for the day.

The three aforementioned players all play at least three positions each, which has given Dave Roberts a ton of mixing and matching to play around with on a day-to-day basis, allowing himself to keep his players fresh.
Starting Rotation: Wood, Hill, Ryu, Maeda, and now Darvish
A recurring theme to the Dodgers has been “next man up”. It seems that whenever a player has either gone down to injury or just wasn’t performing, another player would step up. Much like the resurgence/ascent of players like Taylor and Hernandez, Alex Wood has put together his best season in his career. Wood became the first pitcher to start the season 11–0, as his vast improvement is due to a heavier does of his changeup and wipeout slider. Coming off a year pestered by a serious blister, Rich Hill has also come back strong, as he was recently named the National League Pitcher of the Month for July, going 4–0 in five starts with a 1.45 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 31 innings. Maeda and Ryu have also put together solid seasons so far, with Ryu coming fresh off a one-hit, seven-inning gem on national television against the Mets this past Sunday.

And they traded for Yu Darvish? The playoff rotation will be an interesting dilemma for Roberts and pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, as a projected rotation of Kershaw/Darvish/Wood in a best-of-five would be an extremely daunting task, as well as the thought of both Kershaw and Darvish pitching twice in a best-of-seven. (Can you sense my excitement?)
Bullpen
The question regarding the bullpen was always “Which pitchers not named ‘Kenley Jansen’ can be relied on?”. Having recently re-signing the Curacao-native to a massive five-year, $80 million contract, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Farhan Zaidi were faced with the daunting task of protecting Jansen with arms that could be trusted with the game on the line in the later innings.
Brandon Morrow, former first-round draft pick, has been one of many godsends as the perfect set-up man for Jansen. Morrow, who came up with Seattle Mariners as a highly-touted prospect with electric pitches, hit his peak with the Toronto Blue Jays back in 2012. Since then, he tumbled out of the league due to a number of injuries and has re-imagined himself as power set-up arm. Pedro Baez has seen a resurgence in his effectiveness, putting up a stingy 1.74 ERA in 47 appearances. Josh Fields, who was traded for before the 2016 trade deadline, has also seen a mini-revival of sorts, putting up a 2.75 ERA in 39 appearances. The front office headed into the trade deadline looking to add left-handed options out of the bullpen, as Grant Dayton has been struggling with injures, and entered the month of August with Tony Watson, former closer of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Tony Cingrani of the Cincinnati Reds. While there is obviously no guarantee that regular season success equates to October success, the team has definitely made strides in shoring up their late-inning options out of the ‘pen, and looks to flex their muscles from the seventh inning onward.
I’ve gone this far and I haven’t even mentioned the latest and greatest of the Dodgers’ super rookies to hit The Show in Cody Bellinger. Man, he’s been something else. During the trade deadline last year, the Dodgers probably could have traded for a Chris Sale or Chris Archer, but stood pat on any deals involving star pitchers. Why? Well the asking price consisted of Bellinger, which the Dodgers promptly turned down. Now we see why, as Bellinger has already become one of the best rookies in history, and continues to provide unreal power while supplying the team with Gold Glove-caliber defense. And to think that the Dodgers have another young stud waiting in the wings in Alex Verdugo in Triple-A and Walker Buehler in Double-A (whom we will probably see come September when the rosters expand).

I don’t know what else to say when I watch this team. They’re tied in the league with the Oakland A’s in come-from-behind victories so even if they’re trailing, there’s always a very real possibility that they’ll make a comeback. The pitching in both the rotation and bullpen has been nothing short of stellar. The batters across the board have been great. When you have Yasiel Puig — who has 21 home runs — batting eighth…that’s when you know a lineup has no weaknesses.
It’s safe to say that this Dodger team is the best I’ve ever seen, and the first one to make me expect of a World Series ring out of them. There have been years where I was hopeful or was really optimistic of the outlook heading into the postseason, but even around 60 games out, I’m ready to go for the postseason. You can bet I’ll be at Dodger Stadium in person for a number of postseason games, but until then I’ll just enjoy the ride like everyone else.