Plaschke: Andrew Friedman whiffs on the Dodgers' urgent need for a closer
An Andrew Friedman midsummer failure.
The Dodgers and their renowned baseball boss came to bat at baseball's trade deadline Thursday poised to knock another fat midseason pitch out of the park en route to a second consecutive World Series championship.
They never took the bat off their shoulder.
Strike out, staring.
The Dodgers needed a proven closer. Six teams picked up proven closers. The Dodgers weren't one of them.
Read more: Dodgers pass MLB trade deadline quietly, add Brock Stewart and Alex Call
Mason Miller went to the San Diego Padres, Camilo Doval to the New York Yankees, Griffin Jax to the Tampa Bay Rays, Ryan Helsley to the New York Mets, Jhoan Duran to the Philadelphia Phillies and David Bednar to the New York Yankees.
Some other reliever went to the Dodgers. I think his name was Brock Stewart or something.
How does this make sense? Are they watching what we're watching?
So you're telling me they must forge ahead through the rest of the season hoping that Tanner Scott gets healthy or Kirby Yates gets consistent or Blake Treinen gets younger or, heck, maybe the Boston Red Sox cut Walker Buehler and he comes back for one more ninth inning! That's crazy, but this entire situation is crazy, a $400-million roster with nobody to pitch the last out.
The Dodger also entered Thursday needing a defensive-minded outfielder. Four teams found one. The Dodgers did not.
Harrison Bader went to the Phillies, Mike Yastrzemski and Randal Grichuk to the Kansas City Royals, Austin Slater to the Yankees and Cedric Mullins to the Mets.
The Dodgers picked up an outfielder named Alex…is it Call?
So now Dodger fans are haunted with the fear that Michael Conforto will lose a fly ball down the left-field line on Halloween with the season on the line.
This is all so weird. This is all so, well, arrogant.
Granted, the Dodgers have baseball's best team on paper, but they've had its best team for several years and that hasn't stopped Friedman from dominating the last week in July.
One could argue that Friedman actually won last year's championship by brilliantly acquiring Jack Flaherty and Tommy Edman and Michael Kopech at the deadline.
This has always been Friedman's strength, humbly adding talent to a group already possessing riches of talent.
Remember, this is the time of year he also once traded for Rich Hill, Yu Darvish, Manny Machado, Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and Evan Phillips, all of whom led them deep into the playoffs.
The only two years during which Friedman has fumbled the deadline? He failed to acquire pitching in 2022 and they were beaten by the Padres. He brought in only Lance Lynn in 2023 and they were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
This suddenly feels like one of those years.
'We felt like this is an incredibly talented group that, as we get healthy and these guys hit their stride, we feel like we're in a great position for another deep run into October,' general manager Brandon Gomes said on a conference call with reporters.
In other words, they think they're good enough that they don't need to trade any top prospects for win-now talent.
But are they? And even if they are, why take a chance?
If there's anything the first 109 games of this season has taught us is that the Dodgers' greatness, like all greatness in a sport that hasn't had consecutive champions in a quarter of a decade, can be fleeting.
The window suddenly seems to be slowly closing on the Hall of Fame careers of Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Shohei Ohtani has been so physically stressed that he's leaving games with cramps.
Teoscar Hernández doesn't look like last year's revelation. Max Muncy can't stay on the field. And Edman is batting aches that may last all season.
The rotation is also shaky, with fragile Tyler Glasnow and aging Clayton Kershaw and underwhelming Roki Sasaki and injured Blake Snell and, really, just one sure-fire starter is Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
'Obviously there was a lot of action today throughout the game, and a lot of teams improved, but we feel really good about this group,' Gomes said. 'Coming into the year, felt like this was as talented of a roster as we've ever had. We're in a position where we're in first place, and I don't even think we've played our best baseball yet. So as we continue to get some of our starters back, and then adding these pieces, and our guys just kind of playing up to their potential, we feel like it's still a really, really strong team, and we don't feel any differently about our aspirations than we did at the beginning of the year.'
Read more: Shohei Ohtani leaves pitching start because of cramping, Dodgers go on to lose to Reds
Through their stunning inaction Thursday, the Dodger clearly made the statement that they're good enough to a championship without any more help.
All those teams that greatly improved don't agree.
The baseball world is sensing a Dodger vulnerability, as if there's blue blood in the water.
Given a chance to dissuade everyone of that notion the Dodgers sighed, shrugged and passed.
A strikeout of a day, a turning point of a season?
Read more: Dodgers Dugout
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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