Camila Sosa
The 2022 Major League Baseball season hasn’t started yet and the Los Angeles Dodgers are the heavy favorites to take the World Series. While some figures left the team after finishing the previous harvest, other important names such as Freddie Freeman arrived at a clubhouse full of prominence and talent. However, being a favorite does not exempt them from generating great doubts in some aspects of the game and here are three questions that the Dodgers will have to answer if they want to win a championship ring again.
3.- Collective Performance in the Postseason
In the last five seasons the Dodgers have reached three World Series, a fairly important quota if we take into account the competitiveness of the league. However, that effort has not been entirely productive as they have been champions on just one occasion, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays in 2020.
Despite qualifying as leaders of the National League West Division in eight of the last nine seasons, the performance of several important pieces of the Dodgers has been left to duty at the key moment, for example, the inconsistency on the hill of Clayton Kershaw. Another example of great doubt, without going too far, was the poor offensive production of Mookie Betts and Corey Seager during the 2021 National League Championship Series.
Based on projections that put the Dodgers back in the playoffs, it is important for the organization’s aspirations that these performances of important parts undergo substantial improvement.
2.- The Presence of Trevor Bauer in the Rotation
While the Dodgers’ starting rotation looks as solid as last season, the asterisk in Trevor Bauer’s name is one of the biggest doubts of the season.
Although on February 8 the pitcher was acquitted of sexual assault charges, on April 16 he was again placed on administrative leave while MLB reflects on whether to grant another suspension. The controversial pitcher hasn’t seen action since June 28, when he was suspended amidst allegations over the charge, and he will miss at least the first week of the current season.
For that reason the Dodgers and manager Dave Roberts are already preparing the season thinking that they will not have him for a long time, since a much longer suspension is still possible and, in case it wasn’t, we would have to see how he is received by his teammates and the fans if he returns to uniform with Los Angeles.
1.- Will Cody Bellinger Wake up?
The last two seasons of Cody Bellinger have been forgotten. After winning the Rookie of the Year award and a National League MVP in his first three major league campaigns, Bellinger is one of the Dodgers’ biggest doubts as he left a .195/.278/.364 offensive line with 22 home runs, 66 RBIs and 136 strikeouts in 151 games played between 2020 and 2021.
These are really worrying numbers if one takes into account the fact that in the 450 games in which he saw action in his first three seasons he hit .278/.369/.559 with 111 home runs and 288 RBIs. These are records that placed him as one of the best hitters in the entire circuit and that made project great things for the player who is only 26 years old.
The Dodgers still have full confidence that their injuries from the past two seasons are over and he can pick up that devastating pace again, though first impressions of spring training haven’t been positive at all.
