--SS Angel Berroa's $5.5 million contract option was declined by the Dodgers, who paid him his $500,000 buyout instead. Berroa, 30, was acquired from Kansas City on June 6 and hit .230 in 84 games.
--RHP Chad Billingsley led the team with 16 regular-season victories. However, his inability to get out of the third inning in either of his two NLCS starts, coupled with his inability (or unwillingness) to retaliate when two Dodgers hitters were brushed back in Game 1, mean he has a lot to prove to his teammates next season. Billingsley is not yet eligible for arbitration. --INF Blake DeWitt might have been the Dodgers' feel-good story of the year. A rookie who initially wasn't even invited to major league spring training, he wound up starting 109 games, including all eight in the playoffs. DeWitt hit .264 and figures to begin next season as the Dodgers' everyday second baseman.
--C Russell Martin made his second consecutive NL All-Star team. But there were whispers within the organization that Martin had gotten lazier behind the plate, and that was borne out in the fact that he often reached across his body for wild pitches rather than trying to block them. Martin's average dropped 34 points after the All-Star break, and opposing baserunners were successful stealing against him 80.5 percent of the time, as opposed to 70 percent in 2007.
--LF Manny Ramirez batted .426 (12-for-26) in the postseason, with four home runs and 10 RBIs in eight games. Ramirez's acquisition on July 31, after which he batted .396 for the remainder of the regular season, effectively turned around the Dodgers' fortunes. The club was 54-54 when Ramirez arrived and went 30-24 the rest of the way.
--RF Andre Ethier had a monstrous second half. His .335 average after the break including a .462 showing in September, and he hit seven home runs and drove in 13 runs in August. But Ethier hit just .188 (6-for-32) in the postseason without a single RBI.
BY THE NUMBERS: 7 -- Double plays grounded into by the Dodgers in the NLCS, tying a record for a five-game NLCS that also had been held by the Dodgers in their five-game victory over Montreal in 1981, when the series was still best-of-five. Rookie Blake DeWitt grounded into two of them in the finale, each with runners on first and second. DeWitt also hit into an inning-ending double play in Game 4, also with runners on first and second.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "I think we brought winning back to this organization. I think we turned a corner, and I think there will be more and more years that this organization will be playing this kind of important baseball in the month of October. It has been a great year." -- Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, speaking in the team's clubhouse minutes after a Game 5 loss that ended the Dodgers' first trip to the NLCS since 1988.
