Editor’s Note: This story is from the pages of Dodger Insider journal, 2024 Volume 12. Magazines can be found at entry at parking stands at Dodger Stadium.
by Cary Osborne
The reply was definitive. So definitive that supervisor Dave Roberts responded earlier than the query was even completed: “Do you recall a season that’s had this much individual adversity?”
“No, not at all,” Roberts stated. “This is the top of the list.”
The Dodgers have been imagined to be right here.
Not that it’s their proper.
They needed to earn a twelfth straight postseason berth. But they have been imagined to be right here as a result of from the first day of Spring Training, they'd considered one of baseball’s deepest, most gifted rosters. So deep and so gifted, that they may cowl slumps, calamities and the sudden.
All these occurred.
But who would’ve predicted that every one 5 members of their season-opening beginning rotation would spend time on the injured record, that two of them would undergo season-ending accidents (Tyler Glasnow and Gavin Stone), one would finish his season in the Minor Leagues (Bobby Miller), and one other can be on one other group (James Paxton).
That left Yoshinobu Yamamoto standing alone at common season’s finish. The most embellished Japanese League pitcher of the final half-decade and a historic free-agent signing in the offseason himself missed three months of the season with a rotator cuff harm. The harm created some doubt about Yamamoto’s potential to impression the Dodgers in October. Doubt from others. Not from the pitcher.
“Absolutely zero,” Yamamoto stated of the doubt he had about returning.
The Dodgers withstood Mookie Betts and Max Muncy lacking months of the season on account of harm. They remained a successful membership, regardless of prolonged slumps from others — in the lineup, in the rotation and in the bullpen.
“It’s quite the achievement,” Roberts says. “We’ve never run from it or made excuses. It’s been a challenging year. I do believe that after it’s all said and done, it’s going to make it that much sweeter. But to get the invitation to the postseason, it’s not a rite of passage. I really believe that, as much as some people think that if you wear this uniform it is. It takes a lot of work, and we overcame a lot this year.”
Each group, since Roberts took over as Dodger supervisor in 2016, has confronted some kind of adversity — extreme accidents, participant departures, COVID — you identify it.
The first Roberts group — the 2016 squad — misplaced veteran star Andre Ethier for practically the complete season with a damaged leg, and Clayton Kershaw, who was having a Cy Young Award-type season, for two 1/2 months with a herniated disk in his again.
The most up-to-date Roberts group earlier than 2024 — final yr’s unit — wasn’t at its strongest en path to the 2023 postseason on the beginning pitching aspect. Options have been right down to an injured Clayton Kershaw, rookie Bobby Miller and commerce deadline pickup Lance Lynn.
Yet every Roberts group in his 9 seasons has been a part of October baseball.
The 2024 season’s distinction is that so few gamers have had a straight-line season from Opening Day in Korea on March 20 to Game 162 in Colorado on Sept. 29.
Even gamers who had excellent seasons, like Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández, skilled some kind of adversity.
Freeman, considered one of baseball’s few iron males, missed eight video games whereas his son Maximus was hospitalized with an sickness. He missed the closing three video games of the season with a sprained ankle.
Hernández had a scare when he was hit by a pitch in the ankle on Sept. 6. Fortunately, he missed simply 4 video games. Hernández ended the season as considered one of the high offensive outfielders in the Majors, posting a profession excessive 33 dwelling runs.
Freeman ended up being considered one of the National League’s most efficient hitters, ending fourth in on-base proportion and sixth in OPS.
Other gamers overcame tough stretches to change into integral members of the group. Gavin Lux, for instance, had three dwelling runs, a .213 batting common and considered one of the lowest OPSes in the Majors at .562 at the All-Star break.
By season’s finish, he established profession highs in dwelling runs (10) and extra-base hits (36) and was considered one of the Dodgers’ high offensive gamers in the second half.
The Dodger used 40 completely different pitchers this season — a membership file.
But the difficulties meant that the 2024 Dodgers weren't the runaway practice that received the division by double-digit video games. They have been the group that needed to battle into the final week of the season with the Padres for the NL West crown.
That, many really feel, bodes nicely for a group that has had current disappointing endings in the postseason.
“I think we’ve been tested more this season, and our hope is that it pays off for us in the long run as we get healthy and look more and more like the team we planned for out of spring,” says reliever Evan Phillips. “We still have to perform. That test will still come on the field. But I think through the past few months, where we’ve been missing a guy here, missing a guy there, underperforming here, waiting on performance here, little things like that where it just hasn’t seemed like we’ve been able to click all together at once, our hope is that we continue to round into the form we expected.”
Much of that hope in the spring was constructed on the arrival of Shohei Ohtani.
Ohtani did have a straight line in 2024 — and it was vertical.
The Dodger designated hitter was an on a regular basis presence in the lineup and had considered one of the biggest offensive seasons in Dodger historical past. He broke single-season franchise information for dwelling runs (passing Shawn Green’s 49 in 2001) and extra-base hits (surpassing Babe Herman’s 94 in 1930), whereas turning into the first 50/50 participant (50 homers and 50 stolen bases) in Major League historical past.
Ohtani additionally led the Major Leagues in the statistic win likelihood added.
“I’m just glad we have Shohei on our team,” says Mookie Betts. “It seems like every big spot he comes through.”
Ohtani is an apparent participant to level to for main the Dodgers to the postseason. Miguel Rojas, the Dodgers’ 2024 Roy Campanella Award winner (the prize given to the most inspirational Dodger), mentions Ohtani’s identify amongst the gamers who've saved the ship regular. But he provides Lux, Kiké Hernández and Teoscar Hernández as those that have elevated the group throughout the difficulties due to their availability all season.
“They are kind of the main actors in this whole movie because they’ve been there every single day,” Rojas says.
Rojas even went by it this season. He missed 14 video games with proper forearm tightness. Then he missed the closing 4 of the season with an adductor muscle tear. Yet his contributions — arguably the greatest offensive season of his profession, one other stellar defensive season, together with the immeasurable of his management — have been very important.
This common season was completely different for the Dodgers. And due to this, the hope is the 2024 postseason shall be completely different than the final three.
“Every year is different. Every journey is different,” Rojas says. “Even though you still have the same core of guys — you added one extra amazing player who has been with us this year who is on a historical season — we went through a lot of injuries this year, a lot of personal stuff outside the field for really important players. It’s a little bit of a different mindset that we have this year.
“I can talk to the experience of last year. Everything came to us kind of easy during the regular season. But this year, everything that’s happening in September, and knowing how hard we have to fight for every win kind of prepares us for what’s next. I don’t know what the outcome is going to be, but I’m pretty sure the fight is going to be there.”
