If there was any doubt about the mindset of the people in charge, let there be no more. The Dodgers aren’t going for broke. But they are doing everything they can to help keep this great thing going. 

With only 44 games to play in the regular season, the Dodgers, who are on-pace for a historic number of wins, improved their outfield depth, acquiring Curtis Granderson. 

Dodger fans, @cgrand3 has a message for you. #LetsGoDodgers pic.twitter.com/Td87uPqoqN

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) August 19, 2017

Fangraphs still has the Dodgers’ World Series odds at 19 percent. That’s better than any other team, but still only a little better than a literal roll of a dice. Which is why a move like this, for an already-dominant team, is seen as necessary. Even for a team 52 games over .500 in August, Andrew Friedman and co. still thought they needed to make some marginal improvements. 

Granderson is known as a great clubhouse presence and a great guy in baseball circles. He’s been a Roberto Clemente Award winner and is in the lineup for the Dodgers today (Saturday). 

For Dodgers fans — if you didn’t know I am one — this is more confirmation that the Friedman/Zaidi front office is smarter than everyone. Nobody had Granderson on their radar. Nobody I saw was even talking about the need for another outfielder. People were “worried” about Joc Pederson, but nobody had any ideas on what to do about it. 

But the Dodgers did. And they acted. It was swift, decisive, and measured. As has been the case basically since Friedman and Zaidi have been in place, the Dodgers’ front office is the best in baseball. They proved why again on Friday. 

Alex Rodriguez was benched by manager Joe Girardi in the ALCS. It was the wrong move. By Keith Allison (originally posted to Flickr as AAAA7185) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Yankees should have played their guys. Theirstars. Manager Joe Girardi should not have tinkered with his lineup in the playoffs. When there is a guy who has been your starting third-baseman all year, you should not sit him when games become more magnified and when he’s slumping. With 647 career home runs, this guy has seen slumps. He’s been around enough to handle it. He surely has to be a better option than Eric Chavez or Jayson Nix, right?

Curtis Granderson hit 43 home runs this season and might be the best Yankee performer over the past two years (he hit 41 homers last year). Can Girardi really make an argument that Brett Gardner is a more viable option with everything on the line. I guess my point, to put it in cliche terms, is that you have to ride the horses who got you into the race.

Benching Granderson and A-Rod was a panic move. Desperate, panicked teams lose in the playoffs. Desperation happens to teams for a reason. They operate under the accepted premise that they have to play beyond their ability to win.

Teams that win in baseball’s playoffs, though, are usually not desperate. They are calculated and trusting. Last year’s St. Louis Cardinals, led by the most calculated and trusting manager in baseball, was never going to panic. Players’ roles were the same in the post-season as they had been in the regular season. During crunch-time, players were comfortable. It showed.

In a sport that puts so much stock in consistency and the long-term, benching two of the Yankees best players when they needed them most was not the right move. There had to be a better option that included Granderson and Rodriguez in the lineup.

One more note about this — not playing these guys hurt the team in the long term too. Granderson and Rodriguez might have come through despite the odds. Or, they might not have. A-Rod going 0-20 in a series could have spurred necessary change, no matter how painful. Granderson striking out 15 times in the ALCS might have cemented a move that needed to be made. Any judgment of those players’ crunch-time ability from the past year are turned into “would-have’s” and “could-have’s” rather than “dids” and “didn’ts” Instead of having that data now and making those changes immediately, the Yankees could potentially be doomed to another season of trying to “make it work.”

And maybe they will. This year, though, the consistent teams who trust their stars look like they’ll be in the World Series. And that isn’t by accident.