Opening day is just a little over a week away, and roster decisions are certainly looming for the Dodgers. Other than some lingering injuries, it’s been a relatively boring spring. There have been a few camp battles, and Logan Forsythe has been pretty solid. Corey Seager is on the mend, and Clayton Kershaw and Justin Turner already look in midseason form. Andre Ethier‘s back injury opens the door for several outfielders, and Hyun-jin Ryu has looked great.
Once the 25-man rosters are set is it anyone’s guess as to what’s going to happen? With the Dodgers we can probably make an educated guess on what could happen during the 2017 season. Or maybe just I can. Anyways, here are 10 predictions that are likely to happen during the season for the Dodgers.
- Everyone will get hurt
If you haven’t been paying attention by now you should know that the Dodgers get hurt. They get hurt a lot. They have good players, but those good players are injury prone. They are constantly hurt, or nursing minor injuries, or sometimes healing from a major injury. Either way they will be spending time on the disabled list.
- 80% of the roster will spend time on the disabled list at some point during the 2017 season
Piggybacking off of number 1, most of the Dodger roster will spend time on the disabled list. Just expect this and try not to be too surprised. Fortunately for the Dodgers the disabled list is now only 10 days this year for the first time in MLB history. Strange, but that should allow the Dodgers to shuffle players on and off the disabled list like a deck of cards.
There will be oblique injuries, and there will be sore backs. There will be rusty necks, and sore arms, and inflammation and injections. Expect a ton of strained hamstrings, and rusty knees. Someone will probably strain their calf, and I am sure at least several players will have hip injuries.
- The Dodgers will play like crap in April
Normally because of injuries and lack of consistent time on the field the Dodgers will get off to a slow start. They’ll probably lose a lot of games in the first month or two of the season.
- The Dodgers will play great at the end of the season or summer months.
Everyone should get healthy and make returns around July, that’s when the Dodgers will make their move in the NL West. Several players will come off the DL around that time and the Dodgers will start winning, probably sometime around July. They’ll be scorching hot in August, when the weather is also scorching hot. They should be in first place by September.
- Roster spot wasters will make the roster, and the Dodgers will refuse to cut them.
Terrible players theoretically should not be placed on the active roster. Unfortunately the Dodgers are in love with roster spot wasters like Brandon McCarthy, Chris Hatcher, and Enrique Hernandez. Those guys will make the roster and contribute little to no value of any kind. Nice guys, but awful players.
- The front office will make a fruitless complicated three-team trade at the trade deadline for several below average platoon players, or injury riddled pitchers.
Every trade the front office has made at the trade deadline has not worked out. Most of those players acquired have been bad. Maybe one or two of those players that have worked out, (Rich Hill), but most of them have been forgettable. Guys like Jim Johnson, Josh Reddick, and Mat Latos are just a few of the bums that have been traded to the Dodgers in midseason. The front office does not do their best work in midseason.
- If healthy Clayton Kershaw will win another Cy Young award.
Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball and he’s ready to slay dragons this year.
- I’ll get frustrated in June when the Dodgers are middling around .500 and throw a tantrum on twitter declaring the season over. Then the Dodgers will make their annual summer charge into first place.
My tolerance for bad baseball expires around June. I’ll probably head to twitter and declare the season over once or twice before the Dodgers start winning games in July. I like to think that my yearly twitter fit contributes to the Dodger’s success. Don’t question the process because it works.
- We’ll see Cody Bellinger in September
The Dodgers will call up to prospect Cody Bellinger in September when rosters expand and he’ll make everyone drool. The youngster will play like Jackie Robinson and several thousand fake Cody Bellinger accounts will pop up on twitter.
- The Dodgers will win 90 games and their fifth consecutive NL West division crown
I know there isn’t much competition in the NL West, but the Dodgers should win it again. Despite the injuries, roster spot wasters, and fruitless midseason trades the Dodgers are still a good team with a talented core group of players. They’ll make the postseason again. But will the Dodgers finally break the nasty World Series drought that has marred the franchise for the past 29 years? Only time will tell.
Enjoyed that read Scott. Funny. Well done.
You may be right about April. 4 at home against the Pads should be favorable, but then 6 on the road against the Rockies and Cubs. Then Dbacks, Rockies, Dbacks, giants, Phillies. I figure we should be over .500 by the time May rolls around. Only 2 days off in April. That might test the shallowness of our depth.
Badger
How will Hill’s curve be in Denver?
At least we know that Maeda pitches pretty well, in Denver Surprisingly.
I hate that we play the Cubs in that first national broadcast, in that first game of the series.
We don’t seem to do as well, when we play in those national broadcasts, and if we do play well, the newscasters, put there own take on the game.
Ok enough bitching, and just blame it on Scott! Ha,Ha!
Good question MJ. He does have a nasty curve, but it seems everyone has trouble getting break up there. I think it’s possible he will have difficulty spotting it.
I saw a prediction of 97 wins today Bobby. Most in all of baseball. That would be cool.
I saw SI pick us to win it all.
Either way, I look forward to an up and down (mostly up) year, only to be followed with a gut wrenching October (again)
Bobby
Darn Dodgers, they never do anything easy!
Badger
Hill never had to pitch in Denver, so I just thought about the problem he might have, pitching there.
But Maeda for some reason, pitched in Denver pretty Well, in the times he pitched there, so you never know.
The Rockies are lucky they have mostly young pitchers, because it is so stressful for pitchers to pitch there.
Everyone talks about how weak the National league West is, but the Rockies and the Dbacks can beat almost any team, on any night.
That is partly because that is baseball, but those two teams, seem to have decent offenses, all the time.
That Robbie Ray that the Dbacks have, does stymie our line up.
I don’t know if it is only because he is a leftie, or something else.
But he would be a decent three or four.
I wonder who they traded for him.
Ray? The dbacks traded Gregorious in a three way for Ray.
The Rockies will do what they do, and that is win some lose some. I think Arizona is the same kind of club. Both may compete, and you can bet they will do everything they can to beat the Dodgers. I think the real competition will come from SF.
I’ll bet we win more than 90
Badger
Wasn’t Robbie Ray either with the Tigers, or the Rays?
Doesn’t Robbie Ray seem like the same pitcher Moore is, but Ray may have a better fastball?
I’ve been reading up on the SF Giants and there are more than a few bloggers have them contending (and surprising) in the post season. Samardija and Moore are questions marks but the SF park generally favors them. It’s a low scoring, contact-oriented team based on infield defense and pitching. Those types of teams are hard to put away if they are healthy.
You’ve got it right about the infield and the rotation. Their strengths. But the outfield is one of the weakest in MLB. The bullpen has Melancon to plug the gaping leak, but there may be some other plumbing problems in the pen with Smith out and some concern for the setup men.
Nobody has a “perfect” roster in the NL, well, maybe save for the Cubs.
Here are my 8 predictions. It’s getting late and I’ve had a bad day.
1. Dodgers will not win the NL West title but they will go in as a wildcard and excel in the postseason. Take it as you will. I just think the NL West is not a cakewalk.
2. Chris Taylor will make the opening roster but Kike may have the larger impact overall. Chris Taylor is playing great and deserves a spot. But the pitchers will catch up to him, and he will be replaced by a hungry and more well-rounded Kike by mid-to-late May.
3. All 3 of our regular outfields will get all star votes. By this I mean Toles, Pederson and Puig. I think all 3 will play very well in the first half of the season.
5. Rich Hill will have a bad year. Sabermetrics notwithstanding, he doesn’t look right to me at this point, no matter how many excuses the national and local writers give him. I think Matt Moore will have a better season than Rich Hill. This is part of the reason for my first prediction.
6. Our infield will be injury prone throughout the year, but it’s ok and it will become a strength in the post season. I think Corey Seager is not close to 100% (or 70%), and both AGon and Turner will have a down year during the regular season. But I think we will see good years and solid contributions from the likes of Segedin, Kike, Taylor, Utley and Culberson, which will hold things together until the playoffs, when AGone and Turner will shine.
7. Our relief corps will be excellent. I think Morrow will take the last 40 man spot, and he as well as several others will be shuffled back and forth between AAA and MLB. Roberts will prove to be even better at handling the bullpen and match-ups in his second year.
8. The Dodgers will either play the WS or go down in flames and lose the Wild Card playoff game. I think we will have several players with down seasons but we will get a jolt August and September, with our young players. I am hoping Seager and Bellinger both kill it in September, and Calhoun a part of that too.
Predictions not my strong point. But I believe that this team has holes. Beyond Kershaw, I do not trust the starting rotation much. But if Ryu comes back as he seems to be doing, it will be better than if he is not in there. There are a lot of rotating parts, FAZ likes it that way. I am a fan of much more stable lineups, but you have to go with what you have. These are the guys FAZ has given us. I think A-Gone is close to what he was last year. 18 to 25 homers and 90 RBI’s. He is a pro and he plays that way every day. I see probably a slight fall off for Corey as the pitchers will adjust some, and he will have to make in season adjustments. Turner is a grinder. He will be fine. I like what I have seen of Forsythe, and I think he makes a difference against lefty’s. The outfield could be outstanding, and it could also fall flat on it’s face. Our best defensive OF would be Puig, Pederson and Toles. Then you have SVS and Gutierrez backing those kids up. At the out set I would play those 3 everyday. Let’s see if all 3 can be effective against all kinds of pitching. This is Puig’s and Pederson’s show us what you really are year. They need to be mature and be the players their talent says they are. Until I see the opening day 25 I can’t say much about the bullpen.
Michael
I think playing most of the young players on a everyday basis, you are going to get more of the best of them.
And I am not sure platoons make that big of an over all difference, unless one of the kids, are not hitting righties well enough, to make up for those games, when they face a tough leftie.
And I think if you let them face lefties, they will be better prepared, to face lefties in the post season, if we make it.
I rather the regular line up, play in the post season.
A line up with only a couple players filling in, in a platoon way, would be ok, but not almost a whole team.
But generally like Scott says, I think you need to go with your best line up, and that is the line up, that got you into the post season, not a platoon team, of part time players, or AAAA players, like last year.
And this year if these platoon teams don’t produce, they shouldn’t keep running them out there, all season long, like last year.
That platoon team was last in all of baseball in offense, and they continued to put them out there.
And I thought that was not smart.
I think one of the regular players is generally going to do better, then a part time player, that is an AAAA player, just by getting more consistent at bats.
Predictions already. Guess it is almost that time.
My first prediction for 2017 is that the LA Dodgers will lead the league in DL transactions.
When analyzing the NL teams, it is safe to say that probably 6 teams are vying for 5 playoff spots. Those would include the Dodgers, Giants, Cubs, Cardinals, Mets & Nationals. That would mean that winning 90 games would all but guarantee a playoff spot.
Win 90 and you are in ‘the crapshoot’ as LA Dodgers CEO Stan Kasten likes to call it. Ignore preparation, opportunity and success. It’s all luck. Yeah!!!
IMO the Cubs and Nats are the cream of the crop. In fact I’ll predict that the Nats (98 wins) will have the best record in the NL. Cubs (95 wins) second. The Giants have weaknesses but they also have a stout starting rotation. I firmly believe that the Giants (91 wins) will win the NL West this year. Between the Mets, Cardinals and Dodgers for the 2 wild card slots and I can see the Dodgers (88 wins) getting one of those. Both the Mets (88 wins) and Cardinals (86 wins) have pitching concerns. If the Cardinals’ stud prospect Alex Reyes was healthy I would pick them. He’s not so I’ll go with the Mets.
Dodgers/Mets in the wild card game. Whoever is the home team wins the game. The Nats will represent the NL in the WS against the Red Sox. That is my ‘unbiased predictions.’
Chili
They have won one game less every year, what happened with that?
Looks like it might be a few more than just 1 win less this year, but hey, they might reverse the trend and win one more than last year. As they say, that’s why they play the games!
Bold predictions Chili. I still think the Cubs are the best team, but they may not be as hungry. The Nats and Mets will slug it out, but I agree Washington is the better team there. I think the West will go down to the last week of the season, with the Dodgers prevailing. Mets gints in WC, with St Louis pushing them. I think Boston wins the AL. I don’t believe any team will have 98 wins. They are all playing the same algorithm game now, and squeaking out wins will keep fan bases interested in the smaller markets.
As a side note I predict Miller, Greinke and that Arizona rotation are going to surprise many.
Memo to file: File these Predictions next to the 2024 “Trump Farewell Extravaganza” tickets. Stay tuned cause this blog is going to be a lot of fun in 6 months. Unfortunately most all of the bloggers will have changed their names by then but oh well.
Good One there Box. Those were made just for you to file. The last time I made a prediction, I was spot on…..we won’t say what that was but it happened back in November.
Now let’s hear yours.
Chili
Where the Nats are weak, is in the bullpen, and they don’t have a top closer.
You are correct MJ. That is their primary weakness and it could be their demise but other than that they are set, other than a good backup catcher which hurt them last year also. They do have Joe Blanton. 🙂 But I am assuming that they will pick up some needed bullpen pieces and if necessary will trade some prospects for a good closer at the trade deadline. They have a lot of reasons to go all in and I think that will happen as the season progresses.
Chili
I guess that depends on Strasberg, too.