Thirty years ago, the Dodgers were in the midst of a streak of Rookie of the Year winners that paved the path for their farm system to become a superpower going forward. A fairweather baseball fan can name two of them: Mike Piazza and Hideo Nomo. A true baseball fan, like myself, can name all five. Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo, Todd Hollandsworth. From 1992 to 1997, the Dodgers' youth movement is spitting out gems. Four organizational giants, plus one extremely savvy international signing. And in the years to follow, this same farm system would produce people like Adrian Beltre, Eric Gagne, Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw.
The 2010s alone, the Dodgers were responsible for producing Yasiel Puig, Joc Pederson, Cody Bellinger, Walker Buehler and Will Smith. With the latter three, they won a World Series. After years of excellent development, they were able to build their way to the top. Yes, it...probably should have happened more than once, but for the entirety of the 2010s, the Dodgers acted as also-rans to other baseball stories, much like the Yankees.
However...since 2020...not only have the Dodgers been responsible for less consistent homegrown stars, but the ones they had have been leaving. Pederson, Seager and Bellinger are all having very nice seasons...just not for the Dodgers. Bellinger's having his second excellent year in Chicago, he's hitting .258 with 29 RBIs. Seager's still undeniably one of the best players in baseball and is farming some excellent seasons in Texas. And Joc Pederson is hitting .288 with an .899 OPS, and is one of the highlights of a weaker Diamondbacks team.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers have already needed to send James Outman, Miguel Vargas, Landon Knack and Gavin Lux down for minor league stints over the past few years. Outman was having a solid rookie year in 2023, but now he's hitting .147, and thus he's back in Oklahoma City. Vargas was starting last year and now he's very much an extra piece. Similarly, any excess organizational nuggets, including Alex Verdugo, Keibert Ruiz, Josiah Gray, Andre Jackson, Michael Busch, Jonny DeLuca and Ryan Pepiot, don't last very long on the Dodgers, as they're constantly buying. So we're left with a very diluted Dodgers youth movement, which, if there wasn't a ton of great contracted players there, would be more worrying.
Now, there are two Dodgers rookies who are making waves so far. One of them is Andy Pages, longtime prospect, who's finally up in the majors and hitting well. Pages has 18 RBIs and 6 homers in 43 games. The other is Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who's 6-2 in his first 12 MLB games. Now Yamamoto technically isn't a Dodgers farm product, but...neither was Hideo Nomo. But those two are better than nothing. Not as noteworthy as before, but not zero.
Ultimately a lot of this has to do with the evolution of baseball, with more money to free agents and more emphasis on roster packing. And right now the Dodgers are trying to do this, and it's working. Eventually they'll need to rely on the farm system more, and hopefully it's still high quality. But for now I guess Betts, Ohtani and Freeman will get the job done.
Coming Tomorrow- The upside of stocking your team with injury-prone 30 year olds is that eventually they leave spaces for younger people to get playing time.
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