The Los Angeles Dodgers: A Lucky Start or a Sleeping Giant?

They were rated twentieth in the preseason power rankings. I myself predicted them to go 6-11. Yes, the Los Angeles Dodgers were an odd team to expect good things from, given their poor 8-10 performance in 2017-18. 

Or were they?

Two sessions later, they were seventh in the power rankings. In their ongoing game against the Chicago Cubs, they are commanding an 11-0 lead.

What happened? Well first, we need to address what was wrong.

In the 2017 MLR Expansion Draft, the Dodgers didn't select a pitcher until the fourth round. It made sense. In that year's draft, pitching was a crap shoot, with many of the big-name players being position players. With their first pick, they chose Aych Imtiyaz, who was a decent pick at the time. Imtiyaz was in first-overall consideration early in draft discussions, having been rumored to be speaking with the St. Louis Cardinals. Their second pick was Scotty Smalls, another high-value prospect. 

So who did they pick as their first pitcher? This was Cameron Brate. Not much was known about Brate, as college baseball and other such programs were not a part of the MLR opportunity realm. Brate was picked because he had a Discord account, most likely, which is as good as it can get when you're picking a pitcher in the first round. By that point, the Con Coppers and Superbone Threefingers had already been chosen, and it's more about luck than anything else. 

Brate became relatively active in the Discord, which helped out the Dodgers GM, who at the time was a man named Geno Scaramucci. Scaramucci followed up his pick of Cameron Brate by signing undrafted free agent Marcel Hoffer, to make a 1-2 punch of rotations.

Rotations can be the life or death of a ballclub in the MLR. The Arizona Diamondbacks have been a team historically held back by inopportune pitching. Cameron Brate took the ball in Session 1 against the Houston Astros, and got absolutely shredded. He was chased out of the game after 4.2 innings. He gave up 8 earned runs.

But something incredible happened, something that defines the Dodgers' short history. They almost won the damn thing. After a five-run fifth inning, the boys in blue would suffer a defeat of 8-7. The entire fake baseball world watched a rising comeback, something that would have defined the Dodgers as a powerhouse.

It didn't, and this became a theme of Brate's. Despite a great performance in Session 3 against the Padres, he would struggle to give his team's high-powered offense a chance to shine. Especially when Hoffer left and he began to bear the weight of the team alone, it was painful. The Dodgers saw three all-stars from their team, but they were all position players. One of Scaramucci's last moves as GM was to bring in Artie Ziff for Brate, a horribly lopsided trade in favor of the Dodgers that helped stabilize Los Angeles' pitching core. 

We really should have expected this team to be good. Looking through the final scores and player statistics for 2017-18, they have always had the pop. The team would win 3 of their last 4, holding their opponents to 2 or less runs in all of these victories. 

What was the icing on the cake? It was the gamble that new GM Rickey Tucker took on bolstering the pitching staff even more. Former GM Geno Scaramucci was added to the pitching rotation along with veteran hitter-turned-pitcher Ronald Eagle. There wasn't a lot of hope in these two, but they, along with Artie Ziff, have done enough in the beginning of the season. All the Dodgers needed was a couple of serviceable arms-- just serviceable --to let the offense run rampant. And run rampant they have. Only the Brewers thus far have come close to scoring as many runs as this team has up until this point. 

Artie Ziff deserves a shout out especially. He has improved drastically from his Seattle days, his infamous Donked McToad game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He ranks second in strikeouts as of the beginning of Session 2, commanding a WHIP under 1. Ziff could have matured into something great on this Los Angeles team, but only time will tell.

Pitching is the key for the Dodgers. A staff that can keep opponents at bay could bring the Dodgers on top for Paper Cup favorites. It's hard to think of any other team better than them at this point in the season, and apart from a miracle or two, we should see them close to the top of the power rankings for Session 4.