Dodgers Team News

Dodgers News: Olney Has Team Missing Playoffs

Count ESPN’s own Buster Olney among those who feel as if the Los Angeles Dodgers do not have enough firepower in their lineup and/or rotation to make the 2016 playoffs. Today, on Twitter, Olney released the teams that he’s picking to make the playoffs, and Los Angeles was not on the list.

The notable teams on the list, at least as far as the National League is concerned, are the San Francisco Giants, who Olney is picking to win the NL West, Chicago Cubs, Washington Nationals, St. Louis Cardinals, and Pittsburgh Pirates. He has three NL Central teams in the playoffs for the second straight season.




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From Buster Olney’s official Twitter account a little bit ago:

https://twitter.com/Buster_ESPN/status/705544905087688704

So, there you have it. Those are the teams that he has making the playoffs, and his World Series prediction is the Cubs over the Royals. First off, that’d be a massive thing to see the Royals in three straight World Series no matter if they win a second one or lose a second one. It’d be crazy.

But, secondly, and more importantly, Olney does not have the Dodgers on his list. And that’s fine. It’s his list. The only thing that I, personally, would disagree with is having the Cardinals taking one of the Wild Card spots over Los Angeles, but that could be because he feels the NL Central’s two worst teams are going to prop the Cardinals up. Hard to say.

Either way, he has the Boys In Blue missing the playoffs for the first time since 2012, when they went 88-76 and missed the second Wild Card spot by two games to, you guessed it, the St. Louis Cardinals. Still, with the players the team has and the rotation they have, it does seem improbable for them to miss the playoffs. However, crazier has happened.

It’ll be interesting to watch everything unfold during the regular season, but if Olney is proven correct then fans will surely grow upset with the organization in a way that they haven’t felt in a while. Hopefully the team does make the postseason.

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4 Comments

  1. It does not seem out of line to consider the Giants to be favored over the Dodgers to win the NL West, and if not two Wild Card teams from the Central, I do think that a second Wild Card team will come out of the East rather than the West because Reds/Brewers/Braves/Phillies are just not good. In order for LAD to win the NL West they are going to need some players having unexpected exceptional years. Even Kershaw has mentioned that as a potential roadblock.  But the Mets and Royals got unexpected years from players to get to the WS.  Syndergaard/Conforto/Duca/Murphy/Familia all had unexpected years for the Mets.  Moustakas/Morales/Rios/Hochevar/Madson/Herrera/Chris Young all probably exceeded expectations.  So why can’t Scott Kazmir/Alex Wood/Pederson/Puig/Kendrick/Utley/Blanton/Hatcher all exceed expectations?

    The Dodgers are built for a 162 game schedule.  Probably more than any team in MLB.  The playoffs are where that 3rd horse in the Starting Rotation and a little luck take hold.  A lot of fans blame Brett Anderson and Alex Wood and the loss of NLDS game 3 as the reasons why they did not advance.  I disagree.  I think Daniel Murphy had a lot more to do with Mets advancing to WS than the failure of Anderson/Wood and the Cubs collapse.  If the Dodgers had advanced, Justin Turner would have been the hero, not Kershaw or Greinke, and who knows who might have emerged in NLCS against Cubs.

    Maybe this is the year that FAZ goes after that legit #2 at trade deadline.  Maybe Jake Odorizzi becomes available.  Or maybe Nats fail again, and Strasburg becomes that rental.  Maybe the Rox are willing to trade within Division and LAD can get Jake McGee.  The Dodgers are in a good position to take advantage this year at trade deadline to get that legit horse for the playoffs.  But they will need Wood and Kazmir to exceed expectations and Maeda to resemble the pitcher from Japan to be in a position to go for it a trade deadline, or they will become the sellers.

  2. We are still criminally underrated over and over again.  I mean, to me that’s fine I guess since we will have a commanding lead by the All-Star break and have way better depth.  I actually think losing Brett Anderson to injury will end up benefiting this team in the long run, as I believed and do still believe that Alex Wood stands a better chance of putting up better numbers than Anderson would have.  Ryu’s return is unobstructed, and it also allows us to test some of the rookies this year if we so desire to.  This is all if we choose to hedge our bets around our prospects and not trade for a more established starter that becomes available at the deadline.  Either way, I don’t think the Giants added enough to their team, nor did the Dodgers lose enough to make up that 8 game difference in the standings at the end of last season.

    People are constantly talking about how the Giants suffered enormously because of injuries, but quite honestly, the only truly integral player they lost to injury (that could have made a huge difference in the standings) was Hunter Pence.  Matt Cain has been below average to terrible in the last three years, Tim Hudson below average, and other pitchers would have made a marginal difference, at best, for them.  Losing Joe Panik hurt them to be sure, but at the same time, his injury wasn’t as devastating as Pence’s was.  Now, with all that said, let’s look at the Dodgers injuries last year.  Firstly, hi, my name is Hyun Jin Ryu, worth 7.5 WAR from 2013-2014 (Greinke was 7.7 WAR) according to Fan Graphs.  The Dodgers lost me before the season began for the entire season when I was slated to be their #3 pitcher, with a quality that would have made me a passable #2 on many other teams (including the Giants).  Hi, our names are Howie Kendrick (missed almost as much time as Panik), Grandal (who had a bum shoulder that devastated his production in the second half), and Justin Turner.  We all were key parts of the infield and missed decent chunks of time last year.  And lastly, Puig!  Our stud, lightening rod right fielder played only in 79 games.  So the fact that we lost that much time from those key players and still managed to finish 8 games ahead of the Giants last year speaks not only to the excellent depth we had (which is better this year) but also to how much better of a team we were and are top to bottom.

    It’s ok, I’ll take the underdog role, and then watch as we decimate early in the season and have everyone apologizing and saying they were wrong about us!

  3. I cannot seriously take anything that someone named “Buster” says as reliable. Watch the 2 new SF pitchers roll out a couple of 10-10 seasons…..Besides, all the others at ESPN think the Dodgers win the West!!!  Time will tell.

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