While the Philadelphia Phillies and the Arizona Diamondbacks compete for the National League championship, The president of the Dodgers spoke to the media about the performance of the Los Angeles team in the 2023 season and summed it up with the term “organizational failure.” Los Angeles was swept in three games in the playoffs.
In addition to explaining what in his opinion failed the Dodgers, Andrew Friedman confirmed that Dave Roberts will continue as manager. The president of the club did not mention the case of Mexican pitcher Julio Uríaswho no longer returned after the incident of alleged domestic violence that occurred on September 3, although he made some references to “unexpected things” that the team faced heading into the playoffs.
“I think it’s fair to say it’s an organizational failure. It doesn’t mean there weren’t successes and we didn’t accomplish things,” Friedman said Tuesday when meeting with reporters in Los Angeles. “That said, our goal is to win 11 games in October (to win the title) and we didn’t win a single one.”
The surprise for the Dodgers president was absent batting in the playoffs
Friedman, who since joining the Dodgers before the 2015 season has always had the team in the postseason, He commented that it was very surprising for them to see the offense disappear in the Division Series against Arizona.
“We scored over 900 runs for the first time in the history of the Los Angeles Dodgers, it is the best offensive team we have had in this streak [de temporadas]so that was surprising to us,” said Friedman, who admitted not knowing what happened to the team’s bats.
“If you had told me that our pitchers were going to allow four runs in games 2 and 3 of the series, I would have bet a lot of money that we would have won at least one of those games with our offense,” he noted.
Andrew Friedman: There were a lot of unexpected things in the pitching
But perhaps the biggest concern expressed by the Dodgers president has to do with the starting pitching rotation.. In the series against the Diamondbacks, the Dodgers’ three starters allowed 13 earned runs in just 4 2/3 innings.
“There were a lot of unexpected things in the pitching,” Friedman said. Those unexpected things that he didn’t go into detail about included multiple absences due to injuries and of course the arrest and subsequent administrative leave of Julio Urías, who before that was shaping up to be the No. 1 starter heading into the postseason despite the fact that I wasn’t having as good a year as the previous two.
Friedman explained that his office’s focus will be on strengthening the starting pitching because the bullpen is strong and that, in his opinion, the lineup is in a good situation overall. The Dodgers, winners of 100 games this season, hope to have Walker Buehler back by 2024 and they will also evaluate the free agent market, in addition to waiting for the development of some young pitchers.
Will the Dodgers sign free agent Shohei Ohtani?
Friedman assured that the failure was not due to a lack of effort or focus on the part of the players, and commented that the team lacked more luck against Arizonabut he stated that there are no excuses: “For us, being such a talented team, playing 27 innings and never having the lead in that division series is something that goes beyond and is something that we have to figure in.”
Finally, when the Dodgers president was asked if they will try to get Shohei Ohtani as a free agent, he responded that they are obviously not allowed to comment on players who are or will be free agents, but he said:
“From my point of view and with the great fortune that our owners have provided us to be aggressive and put together the best possible team, We are extremely disappointed by the previous two postseasons and will do everything we can to put ourselves in a position to prevent that from happening again.“.
Friedman, who took responsibility for the Dodgers’ failure this year, finished with a promise of sorts.
“I feel very confident that we are going to have a team that will have very, very legitimate championship aspirations.”
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