Dodger blues will make this a long, interesting offseason

The Los Angeles Dodgers have not made a World Series since 1988. With their loss this week, they won’t have a spot in the fall classic in 2014. A team with the highest payroll in baseball in one of the best baseball cities in America shouldn’t be eliminated from the playoffs as early as the division series. The Dodgers squad is made up of different types of talent that honestly don’t really work together to create a complete team. This season, their raw talent led them to the division title, and fans and experts alike looked past their obvious shortcomings.

After their new rich ownership took the reigns, the Dodgers went out and acquired shortstop Hanley Ramirez from the Marlins and Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett from the Red Sox, with the goal of  finally bringing a title to Los Angeles and end their championship drought.

It has been two seasons since both trades went down and what do the Dodgers have to show for it? Two division titles and two playoff beat-downs at the hands of the St Louis Cardinals, who have are arguably become the San Antonio Spurs of Major League Baseball.

While the regular season winning is nice, when you spend that much money on a team it is championship or bust. So the question remains who is to blame for the Dodgers disappointments and what do they do about it?

Clayton Kershaw had a historic season. The Dodgers’ ace went 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA, but his postseason demons struck again against a familiar opponent. He is now 3-7 with a 4.83 ERA against the St. Louis Cardinals and 70-22 with a 1.99 ERA against everyone else. Kershaw cruised through six innings in game one, only having allowed two runs before squandering a four run lead and giving up eight runs in the 7^th inning. While Kershaw deserves some of the blame, Mattingly also deserves some for not pulling out his star pitcher once the Cardinals had closed to 6-4. I don’t care who the pitcher is or how much you trust them, once they start giving up runs and putting the game in jeopardy you take them out especially in the 7^th inning of a home playoff game. Mattingly in his Dodger career has made a lot of blunder-headed mistakes but none like this playoff series.

His first mistake was with Kershaw in Game One. Then, in game three he took Hyun Jin Ryu out after the 6^th inning when he was pitching a masterful game on the road. After the game, Ryu came out and said that he felt fine to pitch the 7^th inning. Instead of bringing in a relief pitcher that has carried the team all season like Brandon League, he brings in Scott Elbert who promptly gives up a two run home run that sealed the Dodgers game-three fate.

In Game Four, with Kershaw pitching on three days rest, the Dodgers jumped out to a 2-0 lead and Mattingly left Kershaw in for the 7^th against the heart of the Cardinals order, which lead to a three-run home run and the end of the Dodgers’ season.

All signs point to Don Mattingly and all-star pitcher Clayton Kershaw taking the majority of the blame. While they both made mistakes, they shouldn’t get all of fans’ ire. Mattingly made some dumb decisions, but in the end he isn’t the one who goes out onto the field and plays. The big hitters the Dodgers have didn’t produce and the bullpen, which was the weakest link of the Dodgers team all season, struck again.

The person who deserves the most blame for the Dodgers’ disappointments has to be general manager Ned Colletti. There have been rumors swirling that there might be changes in the Dodgers front office and I hope they are true. At the trade deadline, Colletti had opportunities to pursue bullpen help that might have saved the Dodgers season. Instead, Colletti went out and got back-end pitchers Roberto Hernandez and Kevin Correia neither of whom made the postseason roster.

While Colletti has built teams that made the postseason, he continues to disregard the team’s biggest needs and it ends up costing them late in the season. The Dodgers could use a new General Manager in their system and maybe then they will finally reach the World Series. The Padres and Diamondbacks have already changed their GMs so the Dodgers should continue the trend in the NL West.

Leave no doubt, this team needs some fixing. In order for this team to be fixed it is going to take major work. Much of the team is locked in for years to come in their respective deals. One solution would be to upgrade on a few positions including third base and catcher. Juan Uribe and AJ Ellis have been good clubhouse guys but their production on the field has been less than expected and more consistent production is needed from those positions. For me, the most important factor of the 2015 offseason will be getting bullpen help. Kenley Jansen is the only bullpen guy the Dodgers could rely on this season and even he has some issues.

Adrian Gonzalez, Matt Kemp, Yasiel Puig, Carl Crawford, Dee Gordon, Clayton Kershaw, Zach Greinke, Hyun Jin Ryu and Kenley Jansen should be the main players returning to the team next season due to their success. Trading Andre Ethier and re- signing Justin Turner should be priorities going into the offseason. This coming offseason is going to be a tough one on both the Dodgers front office and the players but this team will be back again next season and should again be favorites to win a championship. In the mean time, the front office needs to make some changes in both player personnel and front office personnel, because the Dodgers have the core talent to win a title but proving it out on the field is a whole different story.