Alex Guerrero has been really good for the Dodgers in limited time so far this season. By Owen Main

Dodgers starter Brandon McCarthy battled through seven innings, despite giving up four home runs. Alex Guerrero and Joc Pederson each had two RBI’s. Andre Ethier doubled in his only at-bat of the game, scoring the winning run on Guerrero’s 10th-inning single, and the Dodgers won a game they probably shouldn’t have, 6-5 over the Mariners.

If the team had old management in place for the better part of the last year, none of those players might have even been in the lineup.

Andrew Friedman went out and spent good money on McCarthy, a guy with some injury history, to bolster the rotation. Despite the four homers he surrendered, McCarthy had really good sixth and seventh innings, giving the team a chance to get back in the game.

Trading Matt Kemp opened a spot for Joc Pederson, who has been generally as-advertised. Pederson will surely go through a rookie slump at some point, but for now he’s a solid contributor to wins. His .877 OPS in his first seven games this season is a nice thing to see after the struggles he had in 18 regular season games last year. Yeah, sample sizes are still small, but I’m encouraged.

Moving on, Alex Guerrero is a player who people made noise about this offseason. He hadn’t developed defensively. People wondered, was he even going to make the big league club?

Andre Ethier’s ability to be effective and willing as a fourth or fifth outfielder will be crucial to the Dodgers’ success this year. By Owen Main

Guerrero has shown that his bat plays in the majors. Whether he ends up at second or third-base in the long term, he’s showing himself as a more-than-adequate replacement for Juan Uribe at third base. He’s not as good defensively, but I wonder what some consistent playing time does for a player like Guerrero.

Guerrero’s ability to play third base gives the Dodgers the option to have other utility guys get maximum value. Justin Turner and Darwin Barney can do what they do — filling in up the middle. Scott Van Slyke can be a fifth outfielder and back-up first baseman. Man, this team is just really nicely balanced.

Lastly, Ethier’s role is probably the most interesting this season. He’s sure to get his share of at-bats. Mattingly has said he doesn’t expect Ethier to be happy in his backup role, and Ethier shouldn’t be. Ethier’s loss in playing time is the Dodgers’ gain in being able to send him up for high-leverage at-bats whenever they want. When he’s dialed-in, Ethier is a dangerous hitter, and the Dodgers can deploy him however they want.

I see a guy like Ethier getting some significant playing time come September and October. Baseball teams always have attrition and having a guy like Ethier to fill a backup role is pretty awesome.

All in all, this was the most encouraging win of the season for me. Last year, with Miguel Rojas or whoever playing third base in Uribe’s absence, I don’t know that the Dodgers could have dug themselves out of the hole a starting pitcher created. It’s great for a team to get wins like this early in the year. After last night’s win, the Dodgers sit at 4-3 on the season, but the combination of confidence and momentum a team gets from a game like last night’s can be a heck of a thing.

Angel Pagan’s ability to return from back surgery could be a key to the Giants building their lineup as flexibly as they want this season. By Ray Ambler, RA Photos

The baseball season’s coming up and Mike Krukow thinks Yasiel Puig is dumb for not pegging the Giants as their biggest rival. In San Luis Obispo, I’d say they are, though the two teams have not met in the playoffs since the Wild Card round started.

I thought it would be fun to, over the next few weeks, go position by position and compare what personnel the two teams have in preparation for the 2015 season. Let’s finish up the defense up the middle with the center fielder.

Position by Position: Catcher

Position by Position: First Base

Position by Position: Second Base

Position by Position: Third Base

Position by Position: Shortstop

Position by Position: Left Field

Joc Pederson

Joc Pederson has spent the last few years building acclaim in the minor leagues. He had a cup of coffee in 2014 with limited success, hitting just .143 in 38 plate appearances. Pederson’s minor league numbers are much better though. In the launching pad that is the Pacific Coast League, Pederson hit 33 home runs in 121 games last year.

His first of the spring came over the head of right-fielder Will Ferrell.

Ferrell doesn’t have much range anyway, but this one looked like it was going to go to the moon. It’s the kind of thing Dodger fans hope happens a lot this season.

At 22 years of age, Pederson looks like he’ll be given the starting center field job to lose. The Palo Alto, California product should be able to upgrade the Dodgers’ defense in center field after the departure of Matt Kemp and the uncertainty surrounding Andre Ethier.

Pederson seems like he’ll have a productive first year. He’s on the top of everyone’s prospect list. He was Baseball America’s number 8 prospect before this season.

Dodger fans will at-worst get not much less than they got last season from the center field position with a distinct upgrade defensively. At-best, Pederson could be a revelation — center fielders who hit 25-30 homers don’t grow on trees, after all.

Of non-pitchers, ZiPS projects Pederson to be the third most valuable Dodger behind Yasiel Puig and Howie Kendrick. A lot of this comes from the position he will play and how he’ll play it.

Angel Pagan

Angel Pagan has hit .283 over a 9-year major-league career through 2014. In three seasons in San Francisco, Pagan’s Giants have won two World Series titles with Pagan as their main center fielder. His steady play and timely hitting have provided some spark in their lineup and Bruce Bochy will be counting on him again in 2015.

Last season, Pagan has back issues, which isn’t a great sign for a center fielder in his decline phase. At age 33, Pagan probably cannot be expected to man the vast center field reaches of AT&T Park at the same levels he has. I’m a few months older than him and I can attest to the fact that bodies start breaking down at a certain point.

That said, Pagan has a decent history and the Giants are counting on him to have a bounce-back season. If he doesn’t, the Giants have two versitile outfield defenders in Gregor Blanco and Nori Aoki ready to fill-in. Coming off back surgery, I would expect the Giants not to rush Pagan back to playing 6 days per week.

Since they have I would expect them to shuffle the lineup a little to start the season. I actually think they would have liked to mix and match Aoke, Pagan, and Blanco in left and center field more, but with Hunter Pence’s recent injury, players like Travis Ishikawa also might see some serious playing time, though not in center field.

The verdict

I know I made the argument in my shortstop comparison that Jimmy Rollins, at age 36, could hold his own enough to not drop-off significantly this season. I don’t think I can make the same argument for Pagan.

The Giants are an “every other year” good team, so this is the year a lot of things could go wrong for them. One of these things might be the level they are depending on Pagan’s bat.

I’m bullish on Pederson. Yes, he will strike out a lot. But he’ll also be a plus fielder (a huge improvement for the Dodgers) and he should provide consistent play and energy that you can expect from a young whipper snapper.

If both play, the downside for Pederson is lower than Pagan’s, but Pederson’s upside is so much higher that it’s hard to go any other way. No risk, no reward.

Center Field Advantage: Dodgers

I better type fast. Before I’m done, the Dodgers might make another trade.

Here’s what we know — For almost two months leading the Dodgers’ front office, Andrew Freidman and company made very few public moves. Then, yesterday, the dam broke. Perhaps it just started to break.

At any rate, the Dodgers went from a shortstop-less team with a few big holes to what looks now like a team that is a lot more efficient.

Is this the New York Stock Exchange or the Dodgers’ front office over the past 24 hours. By Ryan Lawler (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Instead of a question mark at catcher, it looks like they’ll roll with Yasmani Grandal. (Perhaps Grandal is a question mark unto himself. But he will be a question mark with a high upside).

Instead of four outfielders and a bloated payroll, the Dodgers have made room for a young player

They’ve also made themselves better defensively up the middle. Replacing Matt Kemp, Hanley Ramirez, and Dee Gordon with Joc Pederson, Jimmy Rollins, and Howie Kendrick will result in a completely re-tooled and unquestionably better middle of the field defense. Giving Andre Ethier and Carl Crawford defined roles could do wonders, especially for Ethier who Scott Van Slyke starts to fit-in as a potential platoon player with. Without Kemp, the combinations start to fit better together — though trading Ethier or Crawford could still be in the cards. Joc Pederson is almost surely going to get a chance to play every day in center field and Yasiel Puig will man right field. That leaves one position for Etheir, Crawford, and Scott Van Slyke to somehow split. OK, there is still some inefficiency with outfielders, but not like before… .

For an organization who looked to the “nerds” to take the next step, Andrew Friedman and his geek squad might be bringing balance to the force.

Of all the players who they’ve acquired, I’m most excited about replacing Gordon with Kendrick. Quietly, the 31 year-old Kendrick has been a force for the Angels in recent years. Remember, the Angels team he was on last season had the best record in baseball. Gordon was a fan favorite — a young, fast, energetic player who I always loved to see on the base paths.

But Gordon’s peripheral numbers aren’t great and Friedman must have seen him as having had something like a career year last season. So he sold high and got a lot in return from Miami.

Kemp seems to have also been sold high. The Dodgers didn’t get as much back for him, though Yasmani Grandal might be due for a breakout year. Getting rid of Kemp is a possible roll of the dice, but they also get rid of about $70 of the money he is owed over the next few years, which brings us to the really fun part of this equation — the Dodgers, despite their bloated payroll — are starting to make themselves a lot more financially flexible without completely ruining the major-league product on the field. In fact, along with being cheaper, they might be even better already.

The final chip probably has yet to fall. A trade for Cole Hamels is heating up the rumor mill. So are free agents James Shields and Max Scherzer. If the reported trades all go through, the Dodgers have positioned themselves with prospects and freed-up cash to make a run at any of these three.

I haven’t even mentioned Brandon McCarthy, whose deal helps with depth at the back end of the rotation. That was an issue last season for the team.

Assuming Kemp, Rollins, McCarthy deals become official, #Dodgers will have made 6 transactions involving 19 players in less than 24 hours

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) December 11, 2014

Lots of Dodgers fans are excited. Many are nervous about losing fan-favorites Kemp and Gordon.

Here are links to a few articles (below) that have put me at ease recently. Remember Dodger fans — don’t get too worked up quite yet. There are probably other moves to be made and, by the time you finish reading this, it will be incomplete at-best and possibly inaccurate. Because this Dodgers front office is making moves.

Marlins Pay Steep Price to not get Better – From Fangraphs

The older and better Dodgers Middle Infield – From Fangraphs

Dodgers, McCarthy reportedly near 4-year deal – From Dodgers.com

What are the Dodgers even doing? – From Deadspin