State of the Dodgers

We'll start our review of the state of other organizations with the NL West and the current top dogs of the division, the bad guys!  The hated ones!  The Dodgers.  We'll break it down into the same components we used for the Giants:  Ownership, Management, Current Roster and Farm System.  Here we go!

Ownership:  Hard to pick any bones with this outfit.  The Dodgers ownership group has everything you need at the top of an organization:  Deep pockets(Guggenheim, etc), baseball savvy(Stan Kasten), and PR(Magic Johnson).  Ownership seems to have the right balance between involvement and left the baseball people make decisions.  They have a mega TV contract.  Dodger Stadium is getting long in the tooth, but is still owned by the team and long since paid for.  The land around it is considered sacred but is a potential gold mine, much like the area around Oracle Park, which can be tapped into at any time.

Grade A.

Management:  The Dodgers have layers upon layers of management so it's a bit hard to tell who is really calling the shots, but Andrew Friedman is the name at the top and his credentials of applying sabermetrics to roster building and organizational quality are impeccable.  I am also not sure how much influence he has on the draft, but his draft history going back to his time with the Rays is mixed at best.  A lot of the Dodgers current success is based on players acquired before he took over but he deserves credit for getting the most out of those players and adding to them.

Dave Roberts is a solid clubhouse leader but his game decisions are are not Bochyesque.

Grade B

Current Roster:  The positional roster is likely the strongest in baseball and by a significant margin, especially after acquiring Mookie Betts.  The biggest challenge here is finding enough playing time to make everyone happy which may explain the curious trade that didn't happen where it seemed like they were going to give away Joc Pederson and Ross Stripling to the Angels.  If there are cracks in the armor, they are found on the pitching side where Clayton Kershaw may be starting on the downside of his career and David Price seems well into it.  You have to wonder about a SP depth chart with Alex Wood in it, but plenty of replacements seem to be ready in Stripling, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin.

The Bullpen seems to be the shakiest part of the roster with Kenley Jansen also possibly starting the downward slide and the rest of the pen seems average at best.

The Dodgers have a ton of players into their arbitration years and only have Mookie Betts for one season before he hits free agency so they will have to keep spending money or keep the farm system pipeline flowing.

Grade A-

Farm System:  Gavin Lux sits at the top of their list and he looks like a MLB ready star in the making.  Beyond that, I am just not that impressed with the depth in the system.  I mean, Dustin May had a solid MLB debut but the #2 prospect in the system?  Likewise, Josiah Gray is an interesting pitching prospect, but #3 in the system per MLB Pipeline?  The Dodgers have a solid record of developing MLB players out of lower ranked prospects but I'm just not shaking in my shoes over the Dodgers current Top 30.

Grade C+(falling?).