The Dodgers, who spent all of last season and a good portion of this one underachieving, found out how good they were in September, getting hot just in time to storm their way to the National League West title and their first playoff series victory in 20 years.
What they also found out in dropping four of five to Philadelphia in the NL Championship Series was that Chad Billingsley, who had spent most of the regular season and the NL Division Series doing an uncanny impersonation of a staff ace, still needs a little seasoning. And that until he gets it, the Dodgers still need a veteran starter or two to put in front of him in the rotation. That is where this winter figures to get a little dicey.
The Dodgers are expected to lose Derek Lowe to free agency. They are not expected to exercise the $9.25 million contract option on Brad Penny. So a club that relies heavily on solid starting pitching will have to put a premium on getting more of it.
Offensively, the Dodgers went from mediocre to good with the trading-deadline acquisitions of Casey Blake and Manny Ramirez. But with both of those players free agents and neither of them a lock to be re-signed, will the Dodgers go right back to being mediocre?
On the plus side, the core of young players got not only another year of experience, but an incredible year of it. Russell Martin, James Loney, Blake DeWitt, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier learned that they were capable of getting deep into October, presumably creating a hunger to get even deeper next fall.
Kemp and Ethier also gave themselves a reason to be even cockier than they already are. They played so well early in the season that they forced veteran Juan Pierre and eventually veteran Andruw Jones to the bench.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Broxton took the closer role from veteran Takashi Saito by default. While Saito spent much of the second half nursing an elbow injury, Broxton, formerly the eighth-inning setup guy, became an effective if not-always-reliable closer. By the NLCS, when Saito didn't even make the roster, the job all but belonged to Broxton.
