The Dodgers ended the season in the same way they began the season…with a convincing win. Sandwiched in between were 41 more victories, for a season record of 43-17. That calculates to a 116 win season in a 162 game season. That is a pretty good year. The Dodgers were 6.0 games better than San Diego, the team with the 2nd best record in the NL. The Dodgers were 3.0 games ahead of Tampa Bay, the team with the 2nd best record in MLB. As it turns out, San Diego has the third best record in MLB.
Things looked precarious on September 14 when the Padres beat the Dodgers to move within 1.5 games. The Dodgers then went on a 10-2 run and that was that.
- The Dodgers lost only one series in 2020 (Colorado), but won every season series. They just have to win the next four.
- The Dodgers won every month.
- The Dodgers road record was 22-8, while their home record was 21-9.
- The Dodgers played on DH in 2020, and won both games (against SF – two shutouts, 7-0 and 2-0)
- The Dodgers were 5-1 in extra inning games.
- The Dodgers were 7-5 in one run games.
- The Dodgers were 27-13 in NL West games.
- The Dodgers were 16-4 in AL West games.
- The Dodgers as a team hit .256/.338/.483/.821
- The Dodgers led MLB in run differential (+136) – Padres #2 at +84
- The Dodgers led MLB in runs scored (349) (Average 5.8/game) – Braves #2 with 348
- The Dodgers led MLB in HRs (118) – Braves #2 with 103
- The Dodgers led MLB in SLG (.483) – Braves #2 also at .483
- The Dodgers #2 in MLB in OPS (.821) – Braves #1 at .832
- The Dodgers led MLB in ERA (3.02) – Cleveland #2 at 3.29
- The Dodgers led MLB in WHIP (1.06) – Cleveland #2 at 1.11
- The Dodgers led MLB in BA Against (.213) – Cincinnati #2 at .215
- The Dodgers starters were #2 in MLB in ERA (3.30) – Cleveland #1 at 3.17
- The Dodgers starters led MLB in WHIP (1.07) – Cleveland #2 at 1.08
- The Dodgers starters were #2 in in MLB BAA (.219) – Cincinnati #1 at .216
- The Dodgers relievers were #2 MLB ERA (2.83) – Oakland #1 at 2.76
- The Dodgers relievers led MLB in WHIP (1.06) – Oakland #2 at 1.15
- The Dodgers relievers led MLB in BAA (.210) – Oakland #2 also at .210
I called my agent friend who advised me that the Cardinals were going to need to play the DH tomorrow in Detroit because it could have an impact on their seeding. He told me that is what he was advised. He also indicated that there may be some hard feelings because now the Braves draw the Reds because St. Louis did not play their full 60 game schedule. Chances are that St. Louis would have won at least one of the games, and by the tie breaker the Cardinals would have been the 2nd place finisher in the NL Central. MLB apparently decided that they did not want St. Louis to have to play a DH two days before the Wild Card series begins on Wednesday. It has no impact on the Dodgers, so it matters little to me.
Brackets
- National League
- #1 Dodgers (Buehler) vs. #8 Brewers
- #2 Atlanta (Fried) vs. #7 Reds (Bauer)
- #3 Cubs vs. #6 Marlins
- #4 Padres vs. #5 Cardinals
- American League
- #1 Tampa Bay (Snell) vs. #8 Toronto
- #2 Oakland vs. #7 ChiSox
- #3 Minnesota (Maeda) vs. #6 Houston
- #4 Cleveland (Bieber) vs. #5 NYY
AL starts on Tuesday. NL starts on Wednesday.
I know there are some who are disappointed that San Francisco did not beat the Padres to get to the #8 seed, but I am very happy. I wanted no chance for the Giants to beat the Dodgers in the 3 game series. That would have been absolutely unlivable up here in Northern California.
I will comment on the series with the Brewers as we get closer to Wednesday. Doc did say that he was going with 12 or 13 pitchers in the first round. I cannot see Doc accepting 12, so I would assume that the number will be 13. With 15 position players, Joc will be on the roster for the first series. After that, we just do not know. With 15 position players and 13 pitchers as the parameter, this is what I see.
- 1B – Muncy
- 2B – CT3
- 3B – JT
- SS – Seager
- LF – AJ
- CF – Belli
- RF – Mookie
- C – Smith
- DH – Rios
- Bench:
- Designated CK catcher – Barnes
- C – Keibert Ruiz
- Util – Kike’
- 2B – Lux
- 1B/3B/OF – Beaty
- OF – Joc
- RHSP – Buehler
- LHSP – Kershaw
- RHP – Gonsolin
- RHP – May
- LHP – Urias
- RHP – Floro
- RHP – Treinen
- RHP – Graterol
- RHP – Baez
- LHP – Gonzalez
- LHP – McGee
- LHP – Kolarek
- Closer – Jansen
Wednesday is the start of the march to 13 victories and the long awaited WS Championship.
Discussion (67)
Disagree, not disagreeable
“The circumstances make a mockery of the last two months. The Dodgers tallied the best winning percentage (.717) by a Major League Baseball team in 66 years. By winning percentage, the Brewers (.483) are the worst team to make the playoffs in the sport’s history. A second 28-man roster formed out of the Dodgers organization might be as equitable a matchup for the Brewers as the Brewers will be against the actual Dodgers.“
Pedro Moura, The Athletic
It’s a mismatch. We win both games by the mercy rule.
These are my predictions for the World Series and you can all bust a gut laughing if you want.
I have the Dodgers in it against 4 possibles……Oakland, Houston, Tampa and Cleveland.
Decisions, decisions. Let us see, The Dodgers against………..
1. Oakland, a repeat of the 1988 series?
2. Houston, to avenge the 1917 series we were cheated from?
3. Cleveland or Tampa where family (daughters and husband’s family) is from?
I picked Tampa, And the Dodgers to win it all.
Sad to read that the all-time great prankster, Jay Johnstone died this afternoon.
MLB Power Rankings: Where All 30 Teams Stand After 2020 Regular Season
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2910842-mlb-power-rankings-where-all-30-teams-stand-after-2020-regular-season
Awards in the American League put two former dodgers in the vote for the Cy Young
Well, I don’t have much to say at this point in time. We are where we wanted to be all along. We have survived the short season virus free and, with the sad exception of Fergie, injury free. We are in a very good spot and things are set up nicely. Now it’s about Dave pulling the right strings and more importantly, THE PLAYERS GETTING THIS DONE. It’s their time to shine.
After this scarey 3 game round, I love our rotation and bullpen depth in a 5 game series with no days off. I think this favors our depth. But I have a warning. Don’t panic if we lose a game. We’re going to. And don’t panic if it’s CK. Or Buehler. They can afford a loss. But I’ll take Urias, May, Gonsolin over almost anybody’s 3 – 4- 5 guys AND our bullpen. We don’t have to be perfect. We just need to play to our potential. I love our chances!
As Dodgerrick accurately points out, the Dodgers have about a 75% chance of beating the Brewers in the WC. Without a doubt, we are a much better team than they are. If we played them 100 times in a 3 game playoff, we would beat them approximately 75 times. However, they would beat us approximately 25 times. We don’t like to think about things this way, but baseball, like life, serves up a lot of randomness. Think what if CK doesn’t give up those 2 HRs in game 5 in the series against the Nationals? What then? The Dodgers were leading by 3 runs at that point. What caused those 2 HRs? A misplaced pitch. A batter who got a good barrel. They say baseball is a game of inches. A couple of little mistakes and we don’t advance. A bit of luck – batter fouls the pitch, or pops it up, or hits a double play ball – and we do. The shorter the series, the greater the role of randomness, because over the long run, luck evens out, and talent becomes a greater factor in winning and losing. We very likely have the most talent of any team this year. We’re in the luxurios position to be able to debate which of our many talented players should be left off the squad for the playoffs. Heck, we’re the team that had so much young talent that it could let Ryu walk and trade Maeda, who are now the #1 pitchers on their new teams. And we still won 43 games without them. We’re darn good, but no one can cheat luck. I would certainly take our odds over the Brewers, but you never know which little things might make a difference this time. I wish we had more control over it, but beyond a certain point, we don’t.
Doc Rivers was just fired by the Clippers….question, if the Dodgers get knocked off before making it to the series, does the same thing happen to Roberts? Lot of expectations for the Clippers, and they lost after leading 3-1. Just wondering how y’all feel about that and I believe it is a legitimate question.
There’s no weight in any negativity towards Kershaw for this coming post season. The opposition won’t be able to avoid all of his off speed pitches. There’s too big of a microscope for the cheating punks to get away with anything. He knows who he is and so do I. I don’t get those who state things with anything negative. The workhorse of the staff has his complete arsenal in tacked. No worries, CHEERS!!!
The cards should have had to play the full schedule. I believe they will beat the padres and will be the Dodgers second round opponent. The cards will be very difficult to beat.
Joe Kelly has turned out to be a terrible signing although I can understand why he was signed. He has turned out to be a dodger killer. He broke the ribs of Ramirez, he blew us away in the World Series, he folded on our team in the World Series. Just leave him off the roster. I doubt they will because the Dodgers are thinking he can be the guy that killed us in the World Series. If he can get hot he has the tools but he is probably more likely to implode.
Well at least if the Dodgers lose it won’t be to the Giants but for me living in the Midwest getting beat by the cards is just as bad. So, go Dodgers who are certainly good enough. How about the Dodgers winning it all with kershaw and Jansen co mvps barely beating out turner.
CK won’t have “the long season carrying the team wore him out for the playoffs” excuse this year, if he goes teets up again. My big concern is the bats, Dodgers have shown time and again that when they face decent pitching that they don’t score runs, hell they don’t even get many hits. Dodgers have gotten fat on very low quality pitchers, I really don’t remember them taking it to some quality number 1s or 2s, I’m sure Badger will dig up some statistics or will interpret some stats to show that I am missing the mark but I think many in here know where I am coming from. BTW, I have noticed that Badger really has a deep animosity (okay hatred is a better word) towards Mark Timmons. Badger, you act as if Mark Timmons molested one of your daughters or something .
This is not the playoffs.
This is a tournament, where anything can happen. This makes 2020 the most difficult championship to win.
However, I think Milwaukee is the #8 seed for a reason: They ain’t good… especially without Burnes. Woodruff is a nice pitcher, but even if he shuts out the Dodgers with Williams and Hader in game 1, it’s highly unlikely they will win.
I predict that the Dodgers will play and beat the A’s in the World Series, just like the last time they won!
Mr Kershaw I no longer want to see you in the dugout with your face of defeat from all October, no longer please, that is in the past, change your story, I still believe in you.
Jeff:
I totally agree with you. I have no qualms facing the Brewers. The one team I’m concerned about is Atlanta if they get that far.
My concerns about the Brewers are that Counsell is a good manager, and that he will use his bullpen in a way even more drastic than what he did in the playoff series we played against them a few years ago, which went a grueling seven games. I really haven’t followed the other teams this year, and i assume that the Brewers are not nearly as good as then, but they still have Yelich and Hader. Milwaukee has a very small chance to win the title, but they would love to win this one series, even if they have to burn out their bullpen by using everyone in each game. We don’t want this to be a battle of bullpens, we want to get out in front early. We have the better starters, but in this kind of series, with Counsell likely to give his pitchers no more than an inning or two unless they are very effective, this edge is minimized. Of course we should win the series, but this is not the ideal 8th seed to play.
According to 538, the Dodgers have a 33% chance of winning the World Series. The next greatest probability is Tampa at 10%.
The thing is that the odds are cumulative. 538 puts the chance that the Dodgers win the Wild Card round at 78%, the NLDS at 58%, the NLCS at 45%.
ESPN.com looks at it another way – it weighs the Dodgers’ odds against each team that it might face. It has the Blue beating the Brewers at 75.4% in the WC round. In the NLDS, they could play the Cards or the Pads – their odds of winning are 75.6% against StL and 63.3% against SD.
In the NLCS, they could play the Marlins, Reds, Cubs or Braves. Their odds of winning in that 7 game series are 88.5%, 82.7%, 77.8% and 73.3% respectively.
In the World Series, their odd run from a high of 83.7% against Toronto and 69.3% against Minnesota.
They have to win 13 games in 4 rounds. Their depth gives them a higher probability in the later rounds due to the fact that they play a 7 game series.
Well Betts has had his playoff struggles as well!
No excuses this year. We’re clearly the best team in the NL and I think in all of baseball. No other super team and we’re coming in on a roll. The question is who will step up offensively against playoff pitching. Besides Turner a lot of guys have a lot to prove!
Wednesday 6pm: Lakers Heat. 7pm: Dodgers Brewers.
My blood pressure will be in overdrive!
Hope Tony Rendon enjoyed his first season in Orange County.
Still have no idea why Trout signed that huge extension to stay an Angel when he could’ve got paid anywhere?
Maybe he doesn’t like working in October.
Congratulations everyone – now the real season begins.
Wild Prediction:
The Angels will trade Mike Trout to begin their re-build. This could be a blockbuster 3 or 4 team deal and the Dodgers will not be involved! He will go back to the East Coast and the Angels will tank and get tons of prospects.
Nice summary Jeff!! I have no qualms with your roster. Wood and Kelly should not be on it for the first series.
Brewers will be a tough series.
Game 1 is Wednesday at 7pm on ESPN
Cardinals only played 58 games. Had they played and lost both games the Reds would have been in 2nd place and match-ups would have been different. Was it decided that the season ends Sept. 27th, no matter what?
I like your roster. I think it’s complete BS the Cardinals don’t have to make those games up.
The Angels have made just horrible free agent signings over the years and Arte has HIS fingerprints all over those decisions. No one to blame but himself!
I cannot see Kelly not on the roster.
Thank for that breakdown AC. Boy, are you ever right about the Giants winning a wild card slot. That would have made me very disappointed and apprehensive. I live in enemy territory in NorCal and am surrounded by few Dodger friends. That is why I really appreciate people on this site. A toast to the Blue. The best is yet to come.