Diamondbacks GM Doesn’t Believe They Closed the Gap on Paper With the Dodgers
The Arizona Diamondbacks shocked the Los Angeles Dodgers last October when they pulled off a stunning 3-0 sweep in the National League Division Series. The Dodgers finished the regular season 16 games better than Diamondbacks, winning the NL West 100-62 compared to the Diamondbacks.
Come playoff time, none of that mattered. The Diamondbacks simply took care of business and advanced to the World Series, where they lost to the Texas Rangers. The Dodgers were left licking their wounds.
Even so, Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen isn’t downplaying the talent difference between the two teams. The Dodgers, of course, made several offseason acquisitions — most notably signing Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto — to boost their roster and avoid another such upset. Hazen isn’t shy when talking about how good the Dodgers are on paper.
In a recent interview with the New York Post, Hazen was brutally honest on the talent disparity between the two teams.
“That attention [on the Dodgers] is deserved,” Hazen said. “Baseball is built on 162 games and the fact is over 162 games, they were about 20 games better than us (actually 16 in winning the NL West). We can’t unwrite that. Yes, we got hot in the playoffs and played our best baseball of the season for an incredibly large stretch of October, which is exactly what you want to have happen. But when we sat there with 84 wins to get into the playoffs, the discrepancy and the disparity between the two clubs was fairly stark. And nothing’s changed with that. I think we’re both better than we were at the start of last season. I’m not sure we closed the gap on paper.”
via Joel Sherman of the New York Post
While likely no one would argue that the Dodgers are better on paper, it’s still surprising to see Hazen admit this — especially after they managed to get past the Dodgers in October when it mattered most. He didn’t throw water on the theory that the World Series rewards baseball’s hottest team rather than its best.
This might be reassuring for Dodgers fans to hear, but ultimately, all the talent and stars the Dodgers have brought in will only matter if they win in October.
Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
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Refreshing to see a GM not be all sunshine and rainbows and actually tell it how it is. He knows they weren’t better than the Dodgers last year but they got hot and were able to knock them out. Major props to the Dbacks for whooping our ass and then not resting on their laurels. I love seeing teams actually try to win instead of pocketing revenue sharing and hoping for good fortune on the field. The problem with baseball isn’t the teams spending money, it’s the ones that aren’t yet somehow so many fans do not get this. Anyways, they’ll be good this year and for a couple years to come. Looking forward to the Dodgers getting some payback this year though!