It is an unrealized objective of Andrew Friedmanit’s been years. This summer, however, it could finally come to fruition.
As it does at the start of each winter, the DodgersThe president of baseball operations has set high ambitions for his activity this offseason. He wanted to bolster a talented team, just months away from winning the franchise’s first World Series title in three and a half decades, with even more star power. He wanted to bolster roster depth across the board, especially a pitching staff ravaged by injuries.
He especially wanted to avoid a situation in which the club would have to make big additions again at the mid-summer trade deadline.
“This has been my goal for the last several years – and I have failed miserably – but my goal is to avoid ‘Buy July,’” Friedman said at last month’s Winter Meetings. “I don’t want to buy in July. I feel like the more I say it out loud, the more likely it is that it’s actually a thing.
Fast forward a few weeks, and he might just be able to make it a reality. The Dodgers upgraded their starting rotation with the signings of two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and 23-year-old Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki – even with three other starters in Shohei Ohtani, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May ready to return from his injuries to take the mound again.
They completed a star-studded lineup by retaining a key contributor Teoscar Hernández and the addition of veteran outfielder Michael Conforto and Korean utilityman Hyeseong Kim – two notable additions who went unnoticed amid the blockbuster moves.
Even in the bullpen, where the Dodgers re-signed Blake Treinen last month, they weren’t afraid to continue spending. On Thursday, they finalized their four-year, $72 million contract with top free agent reliever Tanner Scott, a stuck-up lefty who general manager Brandon Gomes said “will have a ton of opportunities to close out the matches”. They have also been in serious talks to sign another veteran reliever, Kirby Yates, although they would have to clear a 40-man roster spot before finalizing that potential signing.
Learn more: How close were the Padres to landing Roki Sasaki? What to remember from his press conference
Put it all together, and the Dodgers took one of the best teams in baseball and fattened it up. They absorbed the hard lessons they learned in recent years — when their playoff successes and failures were often defined by the quality of their transactions at the trade deadline — and charted a more aggressive course of action in preparation for their World Series defense.
“For us, going into this offseason, it was, ‘Let’s do everything we can early on. Let’s be as aggressive as possible and be in a position where we don’t have to enter the market in July,” Friedman said Thursday during an introductory news conference for Scott, the fourth such ceremony that the team is organizing this winter.
“Obviously things can happen, you never know,” Friedman added. “But that’s our game plan. To have a truly talented team as we head into spring training, give them a chance to gel and bond together, and not need to go on the market in July when prices are twice as high as at other times.
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To see how seriously the Dodgers have taken this plan, just look at how it contrasts with last winter — when their breathtaking billion-dollar spending spree, including the record $700 million signing of Ohtani’s dollars, still left predictable holes in their top team.
At the time, the club improved its rotation with the acquisition of Tyler Glasnow And Yoshinobu Yamamoto. But he also bypassed other players who could impact the trade market, then came up empty in a late free agent bid for Snell.
Instead of strengthening the pitching staff at all costs, they reached the halfway point of the season struggling to get healthy bodies back. And even if a last second exchange for Jack Flaherty at the deadline finally stabilized the staff, it came at the expense of two highly regarded prospects.
A similar situation occurred at shortstop. Rather than filling the position – an area where there had been a need since the departure of Trea Turner the previous year – with a star free agent or trade target, the Dodgers began spring training with Gavin Lux listed as post, then quickly pivoted to Bets on Mookie shortly before the season.
Learn more: Hernández: Why did Roki Sasaki sign with the Dodgers? Health, not wealth, motivated his decision
When that didn’t work, with Betts struggling defensively at his new position even before missing two months with a broken hand, the Dodgers had to find an alternative. He arrived in the form of Tommy Edman, acquired along with reliever Michael Kopech – yet another needed addition to a bullpen that had unexpectedly been depleted by injury problems and an increasing workload – in the part of a three-team deal. But that decision cost them three additional prospects.
Looking back, these were all issues that could have been foreseen before the season. All problems the Dodgers failed to effectively address until the stress of the borderline season. The good news: Unlike their more modest mid-season moves in 2022 and 2023, last year’s additions were a universal success, with all three deadline arrivals playing key roles in their march to victory at the World Series.
“Every year the goal is to not go out and add (at the trade deadline),” Gomes said Thursday. “I think this year the ownership support has allowed us to do that in a way, to continue to see how the free agent market is going and be opportunistic to add some really talented players.”
The scale of these additions – which, along with Yates, would include six players ranked among MLB Trade Rumors’ top 50 free agents this offseason and more than $450 million in total spending – has caused consternation around baseball, raising questions as to whether the Dodgers are becoming far too superior to the rest of the sport.
Learn more: Plaschke: Invincible? After a historic offseason, the Dodgers really look it
However, at the Chavez Ravine office, team officials see the moves not so much as a way to outdo the competition, but rather as much-needed insurance for a team trying to avoid a repeat of its hectic negotiations over the time limit.
“We feel like our duty is to build a team that puts us in the best possible position to bring another championship to Los Angeles,” Gomes said.
And to do that means strengthening the roster to a point where even the bad luck of injuries, unexpected struggles and unknowable variables of a 162-game season seem unlikely to knock the Dodgers off course.
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This story was originally published in Los Angeles Times.
