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The Los Angeles Dodgers won 104 games in 2017, and were one game away from winning their first World Series title in 30 years. With essentially the same team returning in 2018, one might assume that Los Angeles is again the heavy favorite to win the NL West, and have another shot at securing that elusive seventh championship.
Not so fast, according to longtime Giants beat writer Henry Schulman, who told Gary & Larry on Wednesday afternoon that he sees a potentially fatal flaw in the Dodgers’ approach of leaning heavily on their bullpen.
“Here’s the problem I have with the Dodgers,” Schulman said. “They’ve come up with a system for pitching, where they take these starters who are medicore — let’s call it what they are, once you go past (Clayton) Kershaw you have a mediocre rotation, not a great rotation — and they’re relying on their bullpen to pick all that up. It’s sort of the new way. I think Samardzija put it best when we were talking to him about this. He said, ‘they did it last year, but how many years can you do this with the same relievers? How many years can you force all these innings on these guys, when that’s not what they’re accustomed to?’”
“I think at some point the lack of depth in the Dodgers’ rotation is going to catch up with them.”
Here’s what Samardzija said on the topic when he joined Murph & Mac last month.
“I just think that was a special case scenario with those teams,” Samardzija said. “I don’t think it’s sustainable as a staff over time. Maybe for a year, but I think if you look at the numbers when bullpen guys throw 50-plus outings, 70-plus innings or whatever it may be, their following years are very much a fall off.”
As for the NL West, Schulman believes it’s a wide open race.
“You know what? Every team is subject to injury, and I think that there are other teams in the National League West — Giants aside — you know the Rockies are going to be better, I think the Padres are certainly going to be a lot better, and the Diamondbacks — it’s going to be rough without J.D. Martinez — but they still have a lot of good players. If the Giants have any sort of uptick from last year, I think it’s a five team race.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Schulman on the Dodgers, skip to 14:40.