Dodgers News: Andrew Friedman Believes LA Offense ‘More Than Talented Enough’ to Win
The Dodgers offense has been boom or bust to start the season. Through 24 games, the Dodgers lead the National League with 44 home runs and 129 runs, and lead the entire MLB with 111 walks. Their .784 OPS ranks fifth in all of baseball. However, on the flip side, they’re 24th in all of baseball with a .230 batting average, are in the top 10 in terms of most strikeouts with 227.
They’ve had nine games in which they’ve scored seven or more runs, and seven games in which they’ve scored two or fewer runs.
To be fair, the Dodgers have dealt with their fair share of injuries (and paternity leaves). Will Smith, who was red-hot to start the year, has missed two weeks due to a concussion. Mookie Betts missed a few games while out on paternity leave, while Max Muncy is now on the paternity list, too. Miguel Rojas has also missed a good amount of time on the IL, but it’s not like he was contributing much on offense anyway.
Still, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has had to work around a lot of different situations, and hasn’t been able to put a consistent lineup all year long. That’s one of the reasons that Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman still feels good about the Dodgers lineup. That’s what he told Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register earlier this week.
“I think we have a really talented offensive team. Some nights it has shown more than others,” Friedman said. “I think some of that is the game of baseball. And some of it are things that we can help to improve on that. We’ve had some guys really emerge. We’ve also played a large percentage of this year without Will (Smith).”
Bill Plunkett, Orange County Register
Overall, though, Friedman thinks this offense is good enough to win games, both in the regular season and the postseason.
“This offense is more than talented enough to help us win a lot of games and help us win postseason series,” Friedman said.
Bill Plunkett, Orange County Register
As Dodger fans know very well, the postseason is very different from the regular season. Last year, the Dodgers had a historically great offense, and still mustered just 12 runs in their four-game defeat to the Padres in the NLDS.
This year’s offense is significantly worse than last year’s, so it’s a little interesting to see Friedman say something like this. However, he feels that this team has the pieces to win, which I do agree with. And in baseball, it’s usually just about getting hot at the right time.
The Dodgers haven’t been hot to start the year, but we have a long season ahead of us. The rest of the team should catch up to the likes of Max Muncy and James Outman at some point, and hopefully everyone is clicking come October — but we have a long way to go before we start thinking about that.
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He’s wrong.
Andrew thought the same thing last yer andd they failed miserablyhe and Roberts have to go.. they both have pipe dreams.. and now this year it will finally show
Amen! Enough of Wish Upon a Star of Friedman!!!
If the master plan for this season is to save up to get Ohtani, why would he pick the Dodgers this year? We don’t have a SS, we don’t have a third baseman, we don’t have any outfielders when Mookie is at short or second, the bullpen is no where near what they were in past years, we have only 3 legitimate starters, there is no closer, Outman is good when he plays, everybody is getting hurt/older or off having babies and Roberts just has to make do with what he has. If this was last year or the two or three years before, I believe Shohei wants to be a Dodger. This year…
Can’t win with 4 or 5 hits and 10 or more strikeouts each game. Think it is time for all coaches and manager change. Bullpen also terrible. Hate to see Dodgers look like this.
Andrew Friedman should cover how much we need a starting pitcher. He’s way out in left field when he depends on Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin so that leave the Dodgers with one and a half legit starters because June is coming and Clayton’s back will start to hurt. Bottom line the Dodgers have a meager bullpen at this point but thank goodness Gonzalez looks so good.