Dodgers News: SI Ranks Team in Top-5 Entering Season
Yesterday was ripe with rankings and predictions and guarantees, and today is no different as Sports Illustrated released their rankings of all 30 teams entering Spring Training. While the Los Angeles Dodgers checked in just outside the top five yesterday for a few sites, they’re inside it today.
The people over at Sports Illustrated rated the Dodgers as the fourth best team in baseball going into camp. The only three teams listed as being better than them are the Houston Astros, New York Mets, and Chicago Cubs. So, the Dodgers were the highest rated National League West team.
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From Jonah Keri at Sports Illustrated dot com:
Getting another big arm for the bullpen wouldn’t hurt, but there’s enough here to get the Dodgers to the trade deadline in playoff contention, at which point Friedman could flex a little of that financial might and talent depth to make a deal.
The big arm for the bullpen could come via organizational depth, which Keri later alludes to in the snippet above as being something the Dodgers could trade from in order to get a fix there. Either way, the team does appear set to win a fourth straight division title.
The San Francisco Giants were listed sixth, the Arizona Diamondbacks were 19th, the Colorado Rockies were 26th, and the San Diego Padres were 27th. As has been the case all offseason on these sorts of lists, the Padres and Rockies were near the bottom of the barrel in baseball.
It definitely is shaping up to be a Dodgers-Giants race to the top of the National League West, with the Diamondbacks mixed in there possibly. But be sure to give Keri’s wonderful article a read. As usual, he’s one of the best baseball writers out there right now.
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Not surprisingly, there are many Giants fans crying about the Dodgers ranking ahead of them. Quite frankly, it is as surprising to anyone as this Dodgers fan how the Giants have been able to rack up those WS wins given how mediocre their farm system has been. Hopefully our extremely deep system can help us start churning out a dynasty of our own! Giants did improve their rotation, but is it enough to overtake the Dodgers? I don’t think so. I think many players overplayed their potential last year on their roster. Their bullpen is older and lost two key pieces without making any meaningful replacements, and they have ZERO minor league prospects ready to contribute at the major league level for them this season if they need reinforcements. They have very little depth on their bench to properly weather any time lost to the DL by any players (i.e. Pence, Belt, Pagan, etc). Sure signing Span helps, but his signing kind of reminds me of the Angel Pagan signing. Just that same profile type player with similar age/injury concerns. I just don’t see enough in the Giants big three signings for them to be able to make an 8 game swing in the standings.
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