2024 ZiPS Projections: Los Angeles Dodgers

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Batters

Even after committing something in the neighborhood of a billion dollars to bring in Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, inspiring the chattering classes to bemoan the super team that’s buying a World Series — as if that would be possible in a sport as volatile in baseball — if you look at the Dodgers depth chart, you see an awesome team, but a rather ordinary awesome team. The Dodgers are solid everywhere, but when looking at the Braves, the natural comparison, they’re short in the projections in terms of their best player (Ronald Acuña Jr. practically laps the field in ZiPS), and the computer likes Austin Riley a lot better than the combination of Max Muncy and Miguel Vargas.

The weakest spot is likely left field, even with the addition of Teoscar Hernández, but it’s better than it looks. In the original version of this depth chart, left field was listed at 1.4 WAR rather than the current 1.8, but the total gain, once you calculate the domino effect of how the other positions change, combines for nearly a full win. Chris Taylor was an adequate stopgap, but the offensive workload of a corner outfielder is quite heavy and his .239/.326/.412 line over the last three years is not really what you want to see out there. In any case, one of the best things about Taylor is his versatility, and just sticking him in an outfield corner and calling it a day would be a bit like buying a Swiss army knife just to use the nail file. Signing Hernández makes it easier to make use of Taylor’s versatility and frees up Margot for more time in right field, with Mookie Betts available more often at second base. Hernández’s $20.4 million AAV is a bit steep in terms of rough $/WAR, but it’s hard to really overpay anyone on a one-year deal. Plus, the Dodgers need certainty more than dice rolls, and only $15 million of the deal is in 2024 salary, with the rest deferred.

You might be a bit disappointed with Ohtani’s projection as a DH, but it’s important to remember that his 180 wRC+ in 2023 can’t be assumed to be a baseline quite yet. As magical as he is, all players, from metahuman to Bill Bergen, are subject to the whims of the Roman god Mediorus, the deity of scales and balance and regression toward the mean, who I may have also just made up this minute.

Elsewhere, there are no real surprises. Betts projects well as a second baseman because, well, he’d project well doing anything in life, and Freddie Freeman and Will Smith receive the expected top-notch forecasts. ZiPS is a little cool on Gavin Lux in light of his lost 2023, but I can hardly quibble with that.

Pitchers

There has been quite a bit of upheaval here, more than just the additions of Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow, and the eventual one of Ohtani. None of the pitchers in the rotation graphic last year return to the Dodgers in 2024 (remember, Tony Gonsolin is out with Tommy John surgery). It’s especially sad to see Clayton Kershaw no longer listed here, as he’s unsigned and likely to miss a huge chunk of the season after surgery, and there’s still a chance he decides to hang it up. Whether or not The Claw’s ever again in Dodger Blue — Game 1 of the NLDS is a bad place to leave it — he’s got my Hall of Fame vote.

Yamamoto’s projection may not seem particularly aggressive, but that’s in large part because projection systems know the attrition rate of pitchers. ZiPS has only given out three four-WAR projections for pitchers, and it doesn’t yet know that one of those hurlers (Sandy Alcantara) is already out for the season. Yamamoto does show up on the depth chart graphic past this threshold, but ZiPS tends to be more suspicious of general pitcher health than our depth charts. If Yamamoto isn’t a good bet to be a top starter, than very few pitchers are, whether they play in the US or Japan. Ohtani obviously won’t meet the pitching projection listed in the table below this season; it’s just there for the curiosity value.

There’s certainly some risk with the Dodgers. They have a lot of talented arms, but they have very little certainty in terms of who will be available, when, and for how long. If they manage to get five of Yamamoto, Glasnow, Bobby Miller, Walker Buehler, Gavin Stone, and Emmet Sheehan all in the rotation at the same time, this is a very dangerous unit. The Dodgers have been happy to assemble rotations on the fly, but while that has worked out in recent years, it’s no guarantee going forward.

ZiPS isn’t as high on the ‘pen as Steamer is. Joe Kelly’s projection is one of the biggest sources of disagreement between the two projection systems when it comes to pitchers. ZiPS sees a few warning signs, such as the occasional spikes in his walk rate and the fact that he’s entering his late 30s. It’ll be interesting to see which system is right, but I’m personally closer to Steamer than ZiPS on this one.

ZiPS does like the quartet of Evan Phillips, Brusdar Graterol, Caleb Ferguson, and Alex Vesia, who will get most of the rest of the high-leverage innings. The computer isn’t in on Yency Almonte, but then again, Steamer’s not particularly enthralled either.

Right now, ZiPS sees the Dodgers as the second-best team in baseball, behind the Braves. But they’re not in different tiers; it’s not a 90/10 probability, but something more along the lines of 60/40. Many writers and teams have made the mistake of underestimating them in spots where they don’t look deep in the past. The Dodgers aren’t just a dangerous team, but a creative dangerous team, one with a shockingly good record of turning straw into gold, making them a deadly foe.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time.

Here are how the ZiPS percentiles worked out in 2023 for pitchers and hitters in in 2023.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2024 due to injury, and players who were released in 2023. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Belgian Death Metal Skiffle Band that only plays songs by Franz Schubert, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.33.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.