Dear Fellow Dodgers Fans:
With the victory of our hated rivals in yet another World Series, it’s time for us to admit that they are just better than us.
Yes, I know that we won 94 games in the regular season to their 88 and that we beat them in September to win another division crown. But the Giants put it all together again in October while we fizzled for the second straight year against an eminently beatable team (one that the Giants then dispatched with relative ease). Sure, on paper we looked like the better team. I mean Kershaw and Greinke, Kemp and Puig, Gonzales and Ramirez, not to mention super saver Kenley Jansen to close out games. How could that team not look great against just about any team it faced?
But we didn’t. And when all is said and done, the Giants, despite having fewer superstars and less glitz and pizzazz, won it all yet again.
And now we’re the team that hasn’t won a World Series, or even a pennant, in over a quarter of a century. That span qualifies all of us for a title we used to throw at the San Francisco crowd: long-suffering fans. And that sad record (now 26 years and counting) continues to grow despite the change in ownership three years ago that brought an influx of dollars that were lavishly doled out to a bunch of our current stars.
So, what has gone wrong? Why aren’t we dominating all of baseball with a succession of pennants sprinkled with a few World Championships every few years? Why aren’t we like the Cardinals? Or, yes, the Giants?
Well, for one thing, we’ve had lousy management. I don’t even want to talk about the prior owners, the McCourts, who followed on the Fox News crowd (the gang that bought the team from the O’Malleys back in 1997) by running the franchise into the ground. I think a good case can be made that the team hasn’t been the same since the trades of Pedro Martinez and Mike Piazzi, two guys who are destined for the Hall of Fame.
And for the last nine years, partly because the McCourts got real tight with spending (even to the point of filing for bankruptcy protection) and largely because of the ineptitude of their hand-picked General Manager, Ned Colletti, the Dodgers have made a succession of poor decisions on player contracts, the latest of which have now produced a badly bloated payroll with an aging roster of nearing-the-end-of-their-prime underachieving players. Add to that a farm system that used to be the best in the game (five rookies of the year in a row from 1992-1996; none since) and is now still not producing major league talent, and you have a franchise that looks a lot like, well, the current Yankees, to be completely honest about it.
But, hell, even the Yankees have won it all recently (2009). We’re still playing lap dog to those guys to the north. So, what do they have that we don’t?
For openers they have great management that has provided them with stability. Think about it: Since Peter McGowen purchased the team in 1993, the Giants have had three managers: Dusty Baker, Felipe Alou, and Bruce Bochy. Bochy has been in charge since 2007. And they’ve had the same General Manager (Brian Sabean) since 1997. In the same period, we’ve had eight managers and seven general managers (with an eighth about to be appointed, now that Colletti has been canned). In the twenty preceding years, during which we won five pennants and two World Series, we had one GM and two managers. Stability used to be our trademark; not anymore.
Our current field boss, Don Mattingly, is a mere trainee compared to Bochy. Watching Bochy manage a game is like watching a master chess player move pieces on a board. Bochy also has a great coaching staff, most of whom have been with him for all eight years that he’s run the team. In fact, Mattingly’s coaching staff has undergone more changes in his three years than Bochy’s has in his eight.
On the field, the Giants got to the end of the season without their starting center fielder and leadoff hitter (Angel Pagan), with their left fielder (Michael Morse) having missed most of the last month with an injury, with their first baseman, Brandon Belt, finally recovered from a serious concussion, and with their highest paid pitcher, Matt Cain, out for the season. But Bochy used all of his other regulars and reserves to fill the gaps and rode the left arm of pitcher Madison Bumgarner (who succeeded where the Dodgers’ ace, Clayton Kershaw, couldn’t) to guide his team over the Pirates in the wild card play-in game, over the Nationals (owners of the best record in the league) in the division series, and over the Cardinals in the league championship series, before they beat the Royals in a thrilling seventh game of the World Series.
Looking ahead, we Dodger fans are still facing a tough climb to baseball supremacy. With too many highly paid outfielders, not enough fire balling arms in the bullpen, and a minor league system that has, at most, only one major-league ready player (AAA player of the year Joc Pederson, who is yet another outfielder), the Dodgers have holes to fill and, apparently, less willingness to spend the money it will take to fill them.
What we do have is a new front office guy. Andrew Friedman, all of 37 years old, is credited with getting the Tampa Bay Rays to the World Series in 2008. He’s supposed to be smart, which is good, but his first move, announcing he wants to keep Mattingly as our manager, may not prove that fact, especially when the Rays’ manager, Joe Madden (widely recognized as one of the best), quickly became available after Friedman left the team. (Madden just signed to manage the Cubs.)
Put it all together, and it figures to be a while yet before our Dodgers return to glory. Meanwhile, the Giants are soaring. Ugh! Baseball!
Painfully yours,
Ed