The Los Angeles Dodgers were down to just three starting pitchers in the postseason last year, but they were perfectly happy to say goodbye to two of them in the offseason.
Jack Flaherty started two games for LA in the World Series, while Walker Buehler won Game 3 and closed Game 5. But because they signed Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, while anticipating the returns of Shohei Ohtani, Clayton Kershaw, and Tyler Glasnow, the Dodgers didn't bring either playoff hero back.
It's too early to say definitively whether the Dodgers should regret that decision. But Snell, Sasaki, and Glasnow have all landed on the injured list with new injuries, while Ohtani still has no definitive timetable to make his National League pitching debut.
Could the Dodgers get a do-over? That's what one baseball insider is proposing.
On Tuesday, ESPN's Jeff Passan named Buehler, who signed a one-year, $21 million contract with the Boston Red Sox in December, as the "best fit" for the Dodgers at the Jul. 31 trade deadline.
"The notion that the Dodgers were going to win 120 games was always fanciful. They don't build their team for regular-season wins. They want to put together the most devastating 26-man squad for the postseason," Passan wrote.
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"And they saw last year what Buehler turns into in October. The four shutout innings against the Mets. Five more against the Yankees. And then the final three outs to lock down the World Series title. Any sort of reunion would necessitate a Red Sox collapse, and as bad as they look right now, that's premature."
Buehler, 30, has a 4.44 ERA in 46 2/3 innings so far with the Red Sox, striking out 42 batters. He's had a couple of blow-up starts, and a couple of really good ones, too. But as Passan alludes to, the postseason is where he's been known to do his best work, with a 3.04 lifetime ERA.
At 29-33, the Red Sox could still turn their year around. But they've long been one of the most frustrating clubs in the sport, so the Dodgers could be rooting for the bottom to finally fall out.
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