Editorials

Who won the offseason: Arizona Diamondbacks or the Los Angeles Dodgers

If you were to compare the Arizona Diamondbacks to the Los Angeles Dodgers, what would you find? Looking back to the offseason preparations, these two teams obviously had two different strategies. Yet, it is obvious which team is currently blazing the trail in the NL West.

Preseason trades were important to the Dodgers because they wanted to build a winning team. Their eyes were on Zack Greinke as he was creating a record-breaking season. But, in the end, money talks and the D-backs swooped him up for the jaw-dropping price of $206.5 million over six years.



Patrick Breen/azcentralsports
Patrick Breen/azcentralsports

The D-backs showed the baseball world they were willing to spend as much as it took to make their starting lineup first in the division. Tyler Clippard was no exception coming in with $12.25 million over two years, but, he didn’t stay in Arizona long. The team traded him to the Yankees after being with the team for only five months. In total, the D-backs spent about $218.75 million. Thats right, I said $218.75 million! That money was spent on only a couple players, so has this “big money big payoff” mentality worked out for them?

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Well considering the Dodgers hit five homers off Greinke in one game, four of those in one inning, it doesn’t look like the product was worth the price.

https://twitter.com/mikearmenta1/status/772999650055815169

On the other end of the spectrum, we have our frugal Dodgers. The most money they spent was on Howie Kendrick for $20 million over two years. Chase Utley received the least, coming in at $7 million for one year. The Dodgers chose to spread their money instead of banking on a few players. The total amount spent added up to about $193.55 million. Thats much less in comparison to our Arizonan competitors.

So who prepared for this season in the most effective way? I’ll leave that up to you. But don’t forget who is first and who is fourth in the division.

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2 Comments

  1. The biggest thing was the Dodgers’ front office had the entire 40 man roster in mind while building this season’s team.  We’ve used more players than we have in a long, long time.  Yet we are sitting 4 games up of the Giants right now, who, for about half the season, looked like they were living up to the even-year curse (for us).  That is thanks to our enormous 40 man roster/minor league depth.  The D-Backs on the other hand have promoted a lot of their higher level prospect talent in the last couple years, and then traded away a good bit of it as well.  That and they were hoping a splashy free agent signing could make them relevant, but alas, tying that much money up into one player has hamstrung their ability to bring in more.  Combine that with a minor league system bereft of upper level talent ready to contribute in the near future, and you have a recipe for disaster.  Shelby Miller has been an unmitigated disaster, Greinke has been woefully sub-par, and surely the injuries to Pollack and Peralta didn’t help.  But they have had solid seasons from Goldy again as well as a surprise season from Jake Lamb.  Their biggest problem still remains their starting rotation.  They hoped having Greinke slot in as an ace, and Miller as his #2 would pan out but unfortunately that has blown up in their face.  I think everyone with half a brain predicted they wouldn’t be as good as some were advertising, but I don’t think anyone expected their 1 and 2 pitchers to be this bad.

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