The Dodgers Look Beyond Terrible Right Now
Last Tuesday, I felt obligated to write about the Dodgers’ slide. At that point, they’d lost nine of their last 10 games and were just playing some outright terrible baseball. So, I headlined the piece “The Dodgers Look Terrible Right Now.”
They haven’t won a game since that post was published. They’ve turned a four-game losing streak into a 10-game losing streak, and they’ve now dropped 15 of their last 16. During their current losing streak, they’ve scored just 24 runs, putting up no more than five in any single game. On the other hand, they’ve given up at least six runs in seven of the 10 contests and have now conceded 64 runs in total during that stretch.
Getting outscored by 42 runs in 10 games is not particularly easy. And this doesn’t even include the prior five-game losing streak that they broke when Kershaw shut down the Padres on September 1st. Dating back to August 26th, when this slide began, the Dodgers have been on their own level of awfulness. Especially on offense.
Yep, that’s a 56 wRC+, almost 20 points worse than the 29th-ranked Marlins. And it’s a wholesale offensive collapse.
Since August 26th, the Dodgers are 22nd in BB%, 28th in K%, 28th in ISO, and 29th in BABIP. Curtis Granderson has a wRC+ of -1 during the skid. Yasmani Grandal just flips the sign, coming in at 1. Logan Forsythe (41) and Chris Taylor (64) look like Babe Ruth next to those two, but aren’t exactly helping. Cody Bellinger has been a below-average hitter (90 wRC+) after helping carry the offense for the last three months. Corey Seager has been hurt, and his replacements — Kike Hernandez, mostly — have been awful. Justin Turner has been fine, and Yasiel Puig has been okay, but other than those two, the lineup has been a total dumpster fire.
Last week, I noted that the pitching was less to blame, with a lot of guys who weren’t going to get the ball in October accounting for most of the trouble. But that was last week.
This week, Clayton Kershaw got pulled in the fourth inning of his start, having already given up four runs. Yu Darvish pitched into the fifth inning — by getting one out in the fifth inning, that is — while allowing five runs to erase a rare early-game lead the offense had provided. Alex Wood started twice and conceded nine runs in 11 innings pitched. Rich Hill was the only presumed October starter to throw well this week, and the bullpen was again incapable of holding leads or keeping games close.
At this point, comforting posts about how every good team has bad streaks aren’t particularly relevant. No one else has had a streak like this in 2017. You have to really dig through the history books to find other examples of contenders who have lost 15 of 16. The Dodgers were something like we’ve never seen over the first four months of the season; for the last few weeks, they’ve been like something else entirely that we’ve also never seen.
This is one of the strangest seasons in baseball history. We don’t really have data points that can tell us what a struggle like this might mean for the team going forward. The fact that they were nearly unbeatable until they were nearly incapable of winning should tell us something about how fickle trends can be, but even if we don’t know what losing 15 of 16 means on a grander scale, this skid has created some very legitimate concerns as the Dodgers head towards October.
Obviously, the offense has been a big problem, and the team can’t feel good about their recent production. A lot of the team’s early success was built on most everyone in the lineup dramatically outperforming their projections, and no longer can the team just assume that they’re going to get production from every spot in the order. But right now, the more worrying performances are probably coming on the mound.
For instance, I don’t know that Dave Roberts can really trust Alex Wood in the postseason, barring some significant late-season turnaround. Saturday night’s clunker was just the latest in his own six-week funk. Over his last eight starts, dating back to July 21st, Wood has struck out just 17% of the hitters he’s faced, and he’s running a 123 ERA-/131 FIP-/102 xFIP-. He’s allowed a .346 xwOBA during that stretch, putting him in the same tier as James Shields and Ubaldo Jimenez.
And it’s not really that hard to see what has changed.
Early in the year, Alex Wood was throwing harder than ever and getting better results than ever. But he hasn’t been throwing in the mid-90s for a while now, and he’s not missing bats anymore, either. Those things are related. Unless Wood somehow finds 94 again, the guy who was one of the best pitchers in the NL in the first half of the season probably shouldn’t be a starter in the playoffs.
By ERA, Darvish has actually been worse than Wood lately, running a 129 ERA- since arriving in LA. But, if there’s one part of this slump that looks mostly just like bad luck, it’s probably Darvish’s results. He has the largest split between his actual wOBA allowed (.376) and expected wOBA (.272) of any pitcher in baseball since August 1st, and that .272 xwOBA is 17th best among pitchers since he was traded to LA. A high BABIP can just be lousy location and throwing hittable pitches, but in this case, it looks like Darvish is just getting a bunch of bad breaks, with balls that are usually outs landing for hits. That won’t last forever, and he’ll likely start getting outs in the not too distant future.
If Kershaw’s back holds up, Rich Hill’s arm stays attached, and Darvish pitches like Yu Darvish, the Dodgers are still a formidable opponent in the postseason. This slump could end as quickly as it started. Even the worst two weeks imaginable aren’t a fatalistic sign that this team is now suddenly garbage.
But there are also real problems here. The offense is once again a question mark. The team’s second-most reliable reliever is Brandon Morrow, who is the personified antithesis of dependability. Alex Wood is an issue.
The Dodgers aren’t going to lose out. This funk will end. But the reasons for the team’s sudden slide look more significant now than they did even a week ago. The Dodgers don’t just need to start winning; they need to fix some holes that have popped up at the least opportune time.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I questioned last week when the Dodgers should start worrying about this recent spell of awful play. I also remember Dave Cameron saying this will have ZERO correlation with how the playoffs go. So are we all now worried that this could have a real impact on their playoff performance?
Depends on what you mean by impact, but obviously the longer of a stretch a team performs poorly, the more that should affect our prognosis for how they’ll do in the future.
If you mean psychologically, that’s hard to say. At least Josh Beckett isn’t with the team anymore so there’s no danger of fried chicken & beer incidents.
It depends on what is the reason for the slump. A random slump doesn’t mean much but if it is due to injuries to key players or regression of overperformers it could mean something going forward.
One of the worst things about our society is how people get shit on for changing their minds. Clearly we are in a different situation than last week but at least you got to say “I told you so.”
How is it “clearly” a different situation? They were at 6 losses in a row (and 11 of 12) and now are at 11 (and 16 of 17), why do these next 5 losses matter so much?
Do you understand probability at all hanging out on this extremely statistical website?
I heard Charles Manson “changed his mind”….AHHh our crappy society!!!
Regarding the first chart, I’m more impressed with the baby A’s offense keeping up with the juggernaut Indians.
They did unspeakable things to the Houston bullpen this weekend, speaking of really good teams who suddenly have some serious issues to clear up before the post season.
I’m impressed that the Mets have scored the second most runs in the NL since trading off their expiring contracts and becoming the unofficial Las Vegas 51s East. Speaks to good things for next season.
Perhaps we should investigate if they have actually been playing in the Las Vegas 51s ballpark?
After so long of having to suffer through overpaid sub standard vets, watching the baby A’s play is fun even when they lose they are not losing because of the lack of offense but more a bit of a iffy rotation and gas can bullpen blowing it up.
It is easier though to get pitching in than it is to get a productive player in so if the Baby A’s are giving a glmpse of things to come then I am thrilled. We just need to focus on getting those 2013 type Bartolo and McCarthy type guys that just hold the rotation together and eat up innings then hope Manaea et al turn into the Jarrod Parker or AJ Griffin surprise type guy.
How many more games are left to go here? 20? So how much longer does this streak have legs? Indefinitely? I don’t have any answers, since streaks aren’t exactly predictable, but how long would we expect this to be regular old variation?
The problem is how weird the timing is after being hotter than magma for the entire season. This is the worst slide by a 90+ win team in history, as far as I’m aware. It begs the question of whether this is regression or not. Do I think it’s likely to continue like this? Heck no. But it’s possible that this is the start of a general downturn.
When I see this, I think of the great Keynes quote: “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” I wonder how long the Dodgers could possibly play this far below their true talent level (because this is definitely lower than that). But there’s not much time left.
Their true talent level, offensively, was probably overestimated by that hot streak. They’ve evened out to be just above the Nationals in wRC, and assuming the latter can get Harper back for the playoffs I think they actually have the superior lineup.
It’s fair to say that they were overestimated on the hot streak, but it’s also very unlikely for them to regress this hard. It’s unlikely for this kind of streak to happen to the last place in wRC+ Giants.
There’s a lot of bad luck in the mix.
Washington, Arizona, & the Cubs have a better line-up…
So they have the 4th best lineup in the NL? Talk about praising with faint criticism.
I was only listing the playoff teams silly…you know the teams who will sweep the Dodgers in the first round of the playoffs…
“play this far below their true talent level”
if this were the Padres we would say they are playing on par with their current talent level…but I already know it not the same for the sweetheart Dodgers LOL.
Which “Talents” are under performing besides Kershaw?
In this stretch, they have 56+ wRC+. I would hope that anyone who actually read the article would think that this is far away from the true talent level of the 2nd-best offense in the majors (up to this point).
But hey, this is the internet. You can say whatever you want.
“hey its the internet…” where you spend everyday of your life???
Every day? Yeah, at least a little. I spend a lot of time waiting for models to converge.
Keynes was talking about bubbles. I don’t think that’s relevant to sports, unless you include sports betting.
But the broader (frequentist) statistical sense, Keynes means that there’s an underlying “true” level (here designated as market rationality) that we’ll eventually regress back to. But what Keynes was observing was that we can deviate from the “true” level for a long time.
(this, btw, is controversial with a number of assumptions. markets are constructed, have epehemeral qualities, and assuming there is a “true” price of a good is a series of turtles all the way down. but to the extent that we buy those things, the same should be true here)
Um, no. I’m an economist and I can write out a pretty good asset valuation that is based on profit and interest rates, no probelm. The turtles stop right away.
There isn’t a commonly agreed upon definition of a bubble, but I’ll say it’s when the value is divorced from that notion–the value comes from future profit. So, people buying a stock not because of the future profit expectation of the company but because of the expectation that others will pay more for it when they want to sell it.
In the long run, these prices are the same. Over the short run, not so much.
Baseball players performances are not mean reverting in the sense that if you start the season going 20 for 20 you’re expected to have the same end of season BA as if you started 0 for 20. They are in the sense that they you’re future BA projection isn’t moved much by the first 20 at bats.
Its a really bad skid no question about it. But would you rather face the NL central winner or the wild card in the nlds? I would say central winner at this point. They need to get their act together reguardless in these last 19 games
WC winner, in a 5 game series where they can only use their top pitcher once, or twice on really short rest.
Normally yes, but this year that could mean playing in Denver in October. It’s going to be cold and the air will still be thin.
No playoff series will ever be comfortable because of the sample size, but the Rockies and the Brewers are definitely the two NL playoff contenders that LAD would prefer to play. The Rockies have an incredibly top heavy lineup and inexperienced pitching staff, and the Brewers just lost their best starter for the season.
The Cubs have massively underperformed expectations, but they’re still a dangerous team (especially if Contreras comes back strong). The Cardinals are more of a question mark, but with Luke Weaver and Tommy Pham, I think they’re better than the Rockies or Brewers.
There’s still the possibility that an NL Central team beats out the Rockies for a Wild Card spot and then beats the D-Backs in the Wild Card Game. In that scenario, the Dodgers would obviously prefer to play the NL Central playoff team with the weaker record who just burned through their best starter to win the Wild Card Game.
Th 29th-ranked team is clearly the Pirates.
Darvish? No problem, just replace him with Ryu.
ERA (2nd half – 2017 – Career – Postseason)
Ryu (2.60 – 3.59 – 3.36 – 2.81)
Darvish (6.10 – 4.25 – 3.49 – 5.40)
Yeah, but how do you replace Calhoun & Co.?
What are the Dodgers gonna do without a DH!?
hahahha did you really believe that crap narrative?? you’re a sheep, we’ll see if he is DH-ing
I would absolutely LOVE to see Calhoun play the outfield. God knows I could use a laugh.
If Jay Bruce can do it on a team that has been 41-11 in their past 52 games…I go out on a limb and say an athlete like Calhoun will manage.
The Dodgers have been a lock to win the division since the All Star Break (99.3% on July 9th, 100% a couple weeks later). They are still at 100% with a 9 game lead. How many more games would it take to get them off 100%? And while 100% obviously just means greater than 99.95, you have to think the Dodgers, at their best (just before this 16-game stretch), were something like 99.9999% to win the division.
Too lazy to look it up, but the Yankees of ’01 absolutely collapsed in September, while having too big a lead to lose. They then came within 1 Mariano Rivera to Tony Womack pitch of winning it all.
They really didn’t. They went 7-8 their last 15 games, but that’s the worst you can get from cherry picking. They were 16-9 in September.
He meant the 2000 Yankees
Also the 98 Yankees started 92-30, then went 15-18, then collected themselves to win their last 7, before going 11-2 in the postseason and sweeping the Padres. That would be the model for the Dodgers to follow this year… although 1-15 is much worse than 15-18, and much more of an indicator of real troubles, as outlined in the original article.
Yeah, they went a remarkable 3-15 (still better than the recent Dodger run!) over their last 18 games, including losing their last seven in a row. Then beat the Giambi/Damon A’s in the ALDS, the Mariners in the ALCS, and the Mets in the WS.
And who played for that 2000 Yankees team???
None other than Clay Bellinger, Cody’s father.
Coincidence? I think not…
I wonder how much of this is schedule-related. The 1-15 run included two series with Arizona, a series each with Colorado and Milwaukee, and one with San Diego. Between the All-Star break and the start of this slide, LA had two series each with the White Sox, Tigers, and Braves mixed in with single series against the Padres, Giants, Marlins, Twins, Pirates, and Mets.
More evidence (if any was needed) supporting the fact that the Dodgers true talent level lies between these two extremes.
Between July 2nd and August 8th, the Braves were the only team to beat LA, doing so three times (out of seven games).
even if it’s all schedule related, if they can’t beat the better teams of the league, they have no business being in the postseason anyways.
I think literally every team in MLB history’s true talent level has been somewhere between 43-7 and 1-15
Alternate title: The 2001 Mariners Were F*cking Incredible
Future article: “The 2001 Mariners/2017 Dodgers…”
solve two problems by sending Wood to the pen. Wonder how much of this is lack of motivation, having locked up the play off spot roughly in April
They are about to lose the best record in the NL, I sure hope they are motivated…
I think the bigger issue is the pitching. The offense was bound to regress some of course as taylor is not that talented and turner while very good isn’t a 150 wRC+ hitter but don’t forget that seager and bellinger both were hurt and those two and turner are the heart of the offense and should be back.
I’m not sure Bellinger is a 150 wRC+ hitter either but at the very least he should be a 120 wRC+ hitter at full strength, he probably is still a bit rusty and should bounce back.grandal also at least should be around an average hitter.
But the rotation while very deep could look bad if wood and darvish don’t turn the corner. Hill can be unhittable but also struggle or get hurt quickly so the rotation behind Kershaw could be a problem in the playoffs.
It is important that at least one of wood or darvish turns the corner.
At this point, I am very skeptical if Wood is being honest about his health. He keeps saying it is just a mechanical issue, but the data Dave showed inform differently. It would be OK. They have replacements for Wood. However, Darvish? Don’t know why he became like that, and it gives dilemma to Dodgers. Darvish allows 2 HRs per 9 innings in Dodgers.
Even Kershaw could be a problem in the playoffs if they wind up facing the Cardinals again.
Their World Series hopes were dashed when Seager hurt his elbow in Detroit. He is by far their most valuable player and replacing him with Grandy in the 2 spot just exacerbated their eventual free fall. If I were the front office I would ask Roberts to play Verdugo the rest of the season to get him valuable experience and also help clarify what the outfield will look like next year.
I assume the FO didn’t trade Verdugo because they felt his on-field performance would outweigh his clubhouse issues. Otherwise, it’s really hard to justify playing Grandy (w/ his noodle arm) instead of Verdugo (and his cannon) in addition to the obvious offensive upgrade.
At this point, I just hope Seager has successful off-season surgery to cleanup his elbow and will look forward to them ending their World Series drought next year.
From the start of the season, Dodgers had been the team with lots of question marks. Look at the innings starters pitched and fielders played at one position. A few key players were rookies or non-experienced full time players. Dodgers was winning but gradually fatigue and injury issues come out. At the trade deadline, they made a decision to supplement this weakness but it looks like…
1 thing to remember is now they are only 4 games ahead of the Nationals for the #1 seed in the NL. And if the Nationals beat them in at least 1 of the 3 games this weekend, the Nationals will have the tiebreaker. If the Dodgers finish behind the Nationals and have to see the Cubs in the LDS, that’s a HUGE difference.
Honestly, at this moment that might be a blessing for the Dodgers, given that the two teams most likely to come out of the WC game, the Diamondbacks and Rockies, have kinda had the Dodgers’ number. (I believe the Dodgers are now below .500 on the season against the NL West, which is weird considering that two of the four non-Dodgers teams in the division are hot garbage.)
Dodgers vs. Cubs: 4-2
Dodgers vs. Diamondbacks: 8-11
Dodgers vs. Rockies: 7-9 (with 3 games in Denver remaining)
Not to mention the Diamondbacks and Rockies both have better records than the Cubs and both just swept the Dodgers.
I think sometimes we forget that this year’s Cubs are not last year’s Cubs. I think I’d rather face the Cubs than the Rockies, but it would be close. But the D-Backs look like a cut above either.
TJB, super small samples. I wouldn’t make anything from numbers that thin.
The Dodgers played the Cubs 6 times between April and May, that’s when the Dodgers were hottest and the Cubs were playing mediocre baseball. While the Dbacks did Ok against the Dodgers thru most of the season, one part of the Dodgers really hot stretch they swept the Dbacks. When the Dodgers got cold and the Dbacks got hot, the Dbacks won all 6. The Rockies have similarly been beneficiaries of the Dodgers’ latest slide to possibly be in position to take the season series. In other words, if these teams played each other at different times of the year than they did, these results may have looked a lot different.
Minor correction: the Dodgers were not at their HOTTEST in Apr and May, but they were still playing really well, and the Cubs weren’t, which is basically my point.
Who says the Cubs are winning the NL Central? If you haven’t noticed, there’s a tight 3-way race over there.
Remember when they were on a historic run and everyone was losing their marbles about the Dodgers winning 120 games?…Lets go back and look at some of my comments…
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-dodgers-did-not-steal-yu-darvish/
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-dodgers-have-a-hidden-strength/
Also, just all the incredibly stupid things the Dodgers fans said, makes me wonder if they even watch baseball. I mean people were worshipping KeKe Hernandez LOL
Do you remember when you were in a historic race, and everyone lost the marble to Dodgers to win 120 games? We’ll be back and see some of my comments …
http: // vvv.Fangraphs.Darvish com / blog / The-Dodgers-bi-no-steal-Iu /
http: // vvv.Fangraphs.com / blog / the-dodgers-have-a-hidden /
In addition, he said he was stupid for all fans of Dodgers, but he wondered if they were looking for baseball or not. I think people count Keke Hernandez LOLOL
Yep, everyone else went crazy and you were the one person to stay level-headed. How superior you are to the rest of us.
Oh thanks but I already knew that…go back and look at how many of my down-voted opinions turned out to be true. It happens so often even I forget how many times I have been proven correct.
Even broken clocks are right twice a day.
…but this is not one of those times.
I would go back, but I immediately became depressed at the proposition of spending any more time looking at the dump you take on seemingly every comment section here.
that’s what I would say to if I was always wrong!
Dave’s article actually makes me feel better as a Dodger fan. Curtis Granderson’s -1 wRC+ made me laugh out loud. It’d be difficult for a rookie ball player to run a -1 wRC+ in that amount of ABs. For a guy with a career 117 wRC+ to run a -1 wRC+ over 2 weeks, there must be some serious bad luck involved.
Just as Dave does in this article, the Dodgers’ F.O. is likely using this data to suss out potential issues heading into October. In the end, the Dodgers are 92-51 with a 9 game division lead on September 11, and every player, coach, and executive would have taken that at the start of the season.
Granderson’s .091 BABIP in 86 PA is a pretty crazy stretch.
Way back in the first half, on another Dodgers post, I said something like, pardon me if I don’t take their measure when they’re red hot. They proceeded to make me look foolish for a very long time, threatening all sorts of records …
This is hardly a “told you so,” not with LA still on pace to match the ’84 Tigers with 104 wins. It’s just a reminder that super-teams are exceedingly rare, and 162 games is a very long season. It’s hard to keep grinding when you’re 21 games ahead with 35 left.
Well it doesn’t matter because everyone knows they will be playing small ball in October… lol
The two teams needing additions that didn’t make substantial editions have been on auto pilot since then. The Astros and Dodgers have been bad and to close to the post season for comfort.
Huh? Darvish and Verlander (at the last possible moment no less) aren’t substantial additions?
They seem more last minute panic buys than anything else. Darvish was about okay with Texas and Verlander has not been that old Verlander in years so it seemed more in the “Quintana and Gray have moved what is plan B” type move, the problem is the Astros paid a lot for Verlander, almost as much as they would have for Gray or Quintana and the Dodgers got a rental for a nominal cost but as before Yu has not been Yu for a while.
I don’t recall the Cardinals being on auto-pilot lately.
The Giants had the best record in baseball in the first half and the worst record in the second half last year. Like any good rivals, the Dodgers saw that and said “anything you can do…”
Just be glad y’all still have a couple weeks before the play-offs, but I sense a first round sweep at the hands of the D-backs, good season but y’all will end up in the same position as the Padres this winter.
So…..The Padres will be coming off a 100-win season and a postseason appearance and headed into 2018 with one of the 3 most talented rosters in baseball?! Got it.
when that wins you a pennant LMK! Dodgers roster wont be that talented until they 150 mil this winter dumbass…
“until they 150 mil this winter” then you call someone else a dumbass. You. Are. Priceless.
too busy working to pay attention to silly things like that
Maybe the Dodgers just ran into better teams? Most of the Dodgers losing streak has been against Arizona and Colorado. We they went on that amazing run in June and July, the last time they lost a series was at home to the Nats. Simply looking at opponents winning percentage doesn’t always tell the story because some times you get to face Edwin Jackson and sometimes you get Scherzer and the gap between those two is huge. Maybe, just maybe, this is more about the Dodgers beating up on the Giants, Padres etc. and catching good teams at the right time, but being unable to run with the other contenders when they’re hot.
With the playoffs locked up, Dave Roberts is just lowering expectations to spring traps on potential playoff foes. He’s playing 4D chess while all y’all playing checkers.
Kershaws back is no small issue.
Agree – 16 games is quite a long stretch – 10% of a season. For whatever reason – the Dodgers look like a tale of 2 teams – one that over-performed expectations; and now one that under-performed. Obviously being in the drivers seat and a lock to make the playoffs gives them leeway though. I grew up in Detroit, and the 1984 Tigers got a big lead and coasted to the playoffs. Yet this isn’t coasting – this is playing awful.
And yes, my real name IS Dave Cameron
Of the top 300 teams in 1st-half W% since 1913, the Dodgers are just the 4th to lose at least 10 in a row at any point. The others are pretty well known:
1925 A’s — 12-game skid from 74-41 (1.0 GB) to 74-53 (9.0 GB), never got back in the race.
1982 Braves — 11-game skid from 62-41 (+7.0) to 62-52 (-2.5), but rallied to win the division.
1964 Phillies — 10-game skid started with 12 games left, from 90-60 (+6.5) to 90-70 (-2.5).