Ravine Ramblings: With Flaherty Trade, Friedman Completes One Job...But Still Has One More
The Dodgers front office won the MLB trade deadline...but, more than ever, they must win the World Series to make it worthwhile.
Hello, and welcome to the first installment of my Dodgers commentary series, Ravine Ramblings! Ever since I opened shop here at Marshall Arts last year, I have been itching to dive into writing about my favorite baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Having been born into a Dodgers family (I’m the second generation), the team plays a vital role in my daily life.
Even more importantly, they are a bedrock of my writing career. Especially since my first ever paid writing gig was for Dodgers Nation, pounding the keys to vent, celebrate, and reflect on “Dem Bums” (as they were known back in Brooklyn) is special to me. Few franchises in sports elicit extensive commentary, both historically and presently, like the Dodgers. Thus, expect to see more installments beyond this inaugural post!
Since 2013, being a Los Angeles Dodgers fan has been an exercise in luxury, in more ways than one. The most immediate luxury of this era of Dodger baseball is, of course, money. It’s hardly news that the Dodgers, ever since their historic acquisition by the Guggenheim ownership group in 2012, have spent more sums of lucre than any other franchise in MLB history. I’m not even going to bother posting any sort of total. You can look it up.
Yet for me, an even bigger luxury is the comfort of being able to root for a winning team every year. Ever since the summer of 2013, when I went all-in on my Dodger fandom while staying in Southern California for a pair of internships, my life has undergone an odyssey of transformations too numerous to list here. But one thing remains constant: the Dodgers always win. They make going to the playoffs every year look easy when it really isn’t. Through my highs and lows, the Dodgers are a historically unceasing high that’s always satisfying.
While I’ve religiously followed every Dodgers game for the most part during this time, there has been a stretch or two where I’ve drifted away a bit due to more pressing matters in life. Yet any fluctuations in keeping in the loop ultimately don’t matter. No matter what’s transpiring, I can always rely on the Boys in Blue to be a steady source of fulfillment whenever I seek that vicarious thrill. A cozy bed nestled in Chavez Ravine I can sink into any day, soothed by the sight of an arching Clayton Kershaw curveball or a Mookie Betts home run sending a packed Dodger Stadium into delirium.
Yet the reliability of the team’s clockwork regular season dominance has, unfortunately, been coupled with another annual ritual: postseason failure. Despite their historic financial resources, probing analytics, and being anchored by perhaps the best pitcher I’ll ever see in my lifetime, the Dodgers’ 11 consecutive postseason trips have yielded just one World Series title. Aside from that solitary ring (procured in 2020, a pandemic-shortened 60-game season far smaller than any other), the aureate summers in Elysian Park have crumbled into vituperative autumns.
I will not lie: that underachievement on the biggest stage eats away at me. Constantly. The Dodgers of this era have had a talent level comparable to MLB’s greatest dynasties, like the ‘70s Big Red Machine or any of the Yankee juggernauts. I’d proclaim that even if I HATED them. Yet almost every year, often due to questionable in-game management and dubious player philosophies, they fail to translate that title into a Commissioner’s Trophy. The 2022 NLDS meltdown against San Diego in particular was historically embarrassing, a four-game demise that made the 111-win Dodgers the first team in MLB history to win 110+ games in the regular season and fail to win even one postseason series.
More bitterly, that loss turned me into a fiery critic of field manager Dave Roberts and President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman. I realized, more than ever, that my favorite team could have been a dynasty, and instead were a stepping stone. It was so devastating, it prompted me to fall back on being emotionally invested in the Dodgers in 2023. Given the season ended with an even more embarrassing NLDS loss to another division rival, that decision turned out to be wise.
The cumulative toll of a decade of underachievement was felt not only by me. After the Dodgers were blasted into next year by the eventual NL champion Diamondbacks, frustration among the L.A. faithful was rampant. After a quiet midseason trade deadline, Andrew Friedman went to work to reload for 2024. Tyler Glasnow was acquired by trade with Tampa Bay for a new ace. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Japan’s next pitching phenom, was inked for a mammoth sum. Underrated Seattle slugger Teoscar Hernandez was locked in for a one-year deal, giving the notoriously lefty-heavy Dodger lineup a right-handed power bat.
Oh yeah, and they ponied up almost a billion dollars to sign the most nonpareil superstar since Babe Ruth himself. You probably heard about it.
With such a historic offseason, I was roped back in. Yet the 2024 season has been a strangely acerbic one, a trying reminder of just how perilous the 162-game march from April to October can be. For every winning stretch lifted by Ohtani’s clockwork transcendence and game-deciding Teoscar bombs, there have been grueling slumps with bullpen meltdowns, not to mention starting lineups that almost make the 2003 Dodgers look like the 1984 Tigers. Devastating (although thankfully not season-ending) injuries to Yamamoto and Mookie Betts revealed the team’s lack of depth.
As the Dodgers stumbled into the All-Star break, the exhaustion from fans and players alike was palpable. The team wasn’t dead...anyone with a sizable division lead, and six All-Star representatives heading to Arlington, couldn’t be labeled as such. Yet, it was clear they were an incomplete product. Teoscar Hernandez becoming the first Dodger to win a Home Run Derby was a nice distraction, but a fleeting one.
Even after a winning streak to start the second half, the roster’s shortcomings became all the more gaping. In a pair of dismal losses to the hated Houston Astros, the distended lineups were paired by a couple of baffling decisions by Dave Roberts to remove young starting pitchers early. The overtaxed bullpen inevitably blundered both games away. It was clear: even with Yamamoto and Betts eventually back, the Dodgers needed at least one more elite starting pitcher to balance things out.
In the past, Andrew Friedman won adoration for pulling off brilliant trades when the crucible was turned up. I can still recall the ecstasy of pulling off for a stop in Kettleman City in 2017 to see the news on my phone about the Yu Darvish trade. The following year, with shortstop Corey Seager out for the entire season due to injury and the team’s offense sputtering, Friedman landed Manny Machado from Baltimore, thus locking up another pennant. 2021 saw his biggest haul yet, bringing in both Max Scherzer and Trea Turner from Washington to bolster the team’s exhausting division race with the Giants.
In 2024, the need for a similar splash was arguably bigger than ever before. The first few trades were simple depth moves, including acquiring the likes of Tommy Edman, Amed Rosario, and Michael Kopech. Even with smart depth moves and roster shuffling, the need for a starting pitcher was still glaring. The increasingly unreasonable demands of White Sox ace Garrett Crochet, as well as the uncertainty of whether or not the Tigers would move Tarik Skubal, only complicated matters.
Given the prior trade successes listed above, as well as the behemoth offseason he just pulled off, it would seem absurd to doubt Friedman’s ability to get the job done. Nevertheless, anxiety raged across swaths of Dodgers Twitter. If no major move was made, the Dodgers would have gone a third straight deadline without an impact move. Any subsequent championship hopes would assuredly fade.
Then, just before the 3 PM Pacific Time deadline, Andrew Friedman dug deep and finished the job. Tigers ace Jack Flaherty, a Burbank native who grew up a Dodgers fan, was on his way to Los Angeles. With both Crochet and Skubal staying put, Los Angeles officially secured the best pitcher on the trade market. Similar to the Mookie Betts trade in 2020, Friedman pulled off an absolute heist, dealing two prospects that were easy to part with for a game-changing star.
In his first start in Dodger Blue, Flaherty immediately provided the jolt of life this beleaguered team needed. After a dreary loss to the moribund Athletics the night before, Flaherty righted the ship, striking out seven Oakland batters across six shutout innings to facilitate a 10-0 Dodger victory.
Needless to say, Andrew Friemdan won the trade deadline, as he has many times before. Paired with the blockbuster offseason, of which the Shohei Ohtani deal was technically just one move, Los Angeles is a superstar juggernaut that seems perfectly set.
However, the Flaherty acquisition, while galvanic, only serves to highlight the fact that Andrew Friemdan’s latest triumph won’t mean anything without another:
Winning the 2024 World Series.
Let this be said in no uncertain terms: the only way the 2024 Dodgers’ season will be remembered as successful is if they win it all. Period. The stakes of winning a championship are higher than ever not only because of the acquisition of so much elite talent over the past few months. In the bigger picture, a championship will rectify this past decade where regular season greatness has been overshadowed by playoff follies.
Now, this lament comes with two caveats. The first is one you might be rubbing your hands together in anticipation of bringing up in the comments: What about 2017? After all, the Astros “fucking stole” (in the parlance of their then-coach Alex Cora) the championship from one of the most beloved Dodger teams ever. Yes, it’s true Houston’s sleazy real-time cheating scheme stole the 2017 World Series title. The damage that did to the integrity of baseball should never be forgotten.
That said, it’s high time more emphasis was put on what I honestly feel is the bigger crime: the Dodgers *should have won it anyway*. Were it not for a symphony of horrendous bullpen moves by Dave Roberts in Game 2, they would have prevented Houston’s theft with ease. But of all “rants for another day,” that is one I truly must save for a truly extended occasion.
The other caveat is that the Dodgers have won a championship during this era. After all, the record books show they defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in 2020 for their first title since 1988. However, that title comes with a mighty qualifier. It came after a woefully insufficient 60-game season, which is not only equivalent to 37% of a full season, but by far the shortest year Major League Baseball has ever engrafted into its record books.
I’ll be honest with you: I felt downright numb and unsatisfied when it happened. Despite haughty defenses of the title’s legitimacy at the time, I struggled with it thereafter, and ultimately decided to evaluate it on a deeper level. I recently undertook a side project where I looked at every single World Series champion from 1903 to present to see if they would miss the playoffs had their season ended after the first 60 games. I ultimately discovered nearly a quarter of all champions wouldn’t have even made the playoffs, including many of the most venerated squads of all-time. (1977 Yankees! 1969 Mets! 1993 Blue Jays! 1957 Braves!) Heading into the 2021 season, pitcher Walker Buehler admitted to Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times that 2020 felt “like we kind of half won the thing.”
Before any of my fellow fans rage…I’m not going to tell anyone to feel differently about 2020. I’m glad it happened, and I still have all the merchandise for it I got back then. Still, it’s clear that many other Dodgers fans, baseball fans in general, and the Dodgers brass themselves feel the same way in admitting it’s not the same thing. After all, Friedman and company made their pitch to Ohtani by saying they felt one title in 11 playoff trips amounted to failure. That the only ring came in such an outlier season no doubt is part of that dissatisfaction.
Now, with Jack Flaherty pitching for his childhood team, that frustration can finally be alleviated. Yes, this isn’t the first time Friedman has swung a trade that elicits a triumphant chorus of “the Dodgers are complete, here comes the championship.” But with the impetus of winning a (full season) title with the biggest superstar since Babe Ruth (that, you know, costs $700 million), the tenor feels somewhat different. There is no more tolerance for falling short. No vague wiggle room of “a deep playoff run” or “a World Series appearance” as a consolation prize.
No. A World Series title, and a World Series title alone, is the only form of success right now. A full-blooded championship won after surviving the grind of a 162-game season, and then the perils of the postseason. A mob of Dodger Blue dogpiling at Dodger Stadium as Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” snarks with greater vigor than ever. And most of all, a parade down Figueroa Street that will draw crowds on par with the one that serenaded the 2016 Cubs.
The pieces are all in place. If the Dodgers don’t surge to their usual spot as the best team in baseball in the second half, they will, at the very least, have a unit capable of finding their way to the top in the fall. Given, of course, that they hold on to win the NL West, the certainty of which has been put in peril by their recent struggles and the red-hot Padres and Diamondbacks on their trail. (I saw what happened to the 2007 Mets and 2011 Red Sox. I will gladly pass on experiencing that with my own team, thank you very much.)
I’m not telling you right now the Dodgers will win the World Series. I am far, far too traumatized by the past decade of playoff letdowns to be that cocksure. I still believe that Dave Roberts and Andrew Friedman’s player philosophies and in-game strategy single handedly preempted a dynasty, and I’m not confident they’ll figure it out this year (given the Dodgers make the playoffs, of course).
What I CAN tell you is that despite all that, I’m all in. Even with all my apprehension built up from so much playoff pain, I want to fast forward to October right now. As fate would have it, I will actually be in Los Angeles the same weekend the NLDS starts for a concert. Whether or not I can snag a ticket to a game if there’s one in Chavez Ravine, remains to be seen. But I want that opportunity BADLY. No fears of heartbreak…I just want to be in the left field pavilion screaming at the top of my lungs.
And isn’t that what being a fan is all about? Yes, I like to pride myself on measured takes and not getting carried away But it’s fun to give in to your most atavistic, illogical urges. Being a sports fan, especially staking your well-being to a sport as weirdly capricious as baseball, is inherently illogical. You wed your hopes and dreams to a bunch of guys you don’t even know, in circumstances you have literally no control over.
Yet all of that heartbreak and ridiculousness can result in the catharsis of a world title. It’s the reward every true fan of a team deserves. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, tops winning the World Series. It is the greatest honor in sports. Better than the Super Bowl, NBA Finals, Stanley Cup, Olympic gold medals, undisputed boxing or UFC champion…anything. The World Series is the ultimate honor. And it’s time for the Dodgers to earn it in a real season once again.
For over a decade, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been, without a doubt, the best regular season team. Now, they must take the sum total of this historic run and translate it into results that matter when the lights are the brightest. The first full season championship since 1988 is at stake. May Jack Flaherty prove to be the last piece to that puzzle.
Until next time, and go Dodgers,
Marshall