Dodgers News: Andrew Friedman Addresses Starting Pitching Plan for Next Season

The biggest weakness for the Dodgers as they enter the offseason is the lack of depth within their starting rotation. It was a problem this past year and saw them get into trouble come playoff time.

President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman understands that the team needs pitching badly, but he also wants to make sure to do what makes sense. He broke down his thinking in an exclusive interview with DodgersNation.com.

“To me, I think it’s just being opportunistic, meaning that if something lines up where we get two really good starters who we feel really confident can start a playoff game, that’s great. They’re hard to get. The supply / demand of starting pitching this winter is not necessarily in our favorite. It never is because there’s a scarcity of good starting pitching and so it makes it harder just based on how much demand there is. But we’re not going to shut off the chance of trying to line up on on multiple things. But at the end of the day when we show up in February at [Camelback Ranch], it’s feeling confident that our starting rotation will be a real strength for us.”

Per Andrew Friedman via The DodgersNation YouTube Channel

LA won’t be the only team in search of starting pitching this offseason, so they will need to get creative in how they approach everything. They can look at both the free agent market and via trades, something that they are well-positioned to do.

This past season was an outlier when it came to how the rotation was, since normally starting pitching has been a strength for this Dodgers organization. But Freidman is hopeful that the 2024 team can get back to having it be a core production area for them.

”You look back over the last five, six, seven, eight years, starting pitching has been a strength of ours and we went into the playoffs in ’21 with Scherzer, Buehler, Julio… this year just played out differently than what we expected in March and that’s on us. And it’s about doing everything we can to put ourselves in a position to not have that happen again. Probably need a little bit of luck — or not bad luck — but we’re going to do everything we can to when we hopefully put ourselves in a position to qualify for October. And then feel really good about our chances because of the strengths of our roster.”

Per Andrew Friedman via The DodgersNation YouTube Channel

It remains to be seen who the Dodgers will bring in, but they are being linked to all sorts of talented players. They should be looking to add at least two starting pitchers this offseason, with one being a front-line guy.

They don’t want to have the same issues that they saw last season, and this is the way to at least try and negate that from happening. It’s a critical offseason for this LA team and one that could see them flex their financial muscle a bit.

Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

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