Recent offseasons have seen the Los Angeles Dodgers make a series of high-profile moves that have helped them win two World Series in the last five seasons: Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, and Blake Snell, among many others, have joined in the last five years.
All those players have something in common: they have all joined the Dodgers in the offseason rather than the trade deadline. This is, as we all learned on Wednesday, not a coincidence.
Dodgers prefer to avoid trade acquisitions
“My goal is to not buy in July. I’m putting it out there right now. My goal is to do everything that we can right now to not buy in July. It is a terrible time to acquire talent.” -Andrew Friedman on filling the Dodgers’ needs in free agency to avoid trades at the deadline,” Dodgers reporter Doug McKain posted on X.
So, there you have it Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, is not really a fan of going to the market in July, when sellers have all the leverage in the world and take advantage of the fact that there are many buyers bidding against themselves.
The Dodgers do the bulk of their job in the offseason
That’s why the Dodgers are considerably more active in the winter than in the summer. We have our explanation now. The last two offseasons have been particularly fruitful for Friedman. He landed Ohtani, Yamamoto, Glasnow, and Teoscar Hernandez last year and so far has signed Snell and extended Tommy Edman in the current one. They are also in play for Roki Sasaki and, shockingly, Juan Soto.
He prefers to make all the expenditures in the fall and winter, shore up quality and depth, and not have to go to the deadline badly needing a player in a specific position or role.
Every executive in MLB has his/her modus operandi. Some of them won’t hesitate to go to the trade market in July to fix their rosters. That’s not Friedman or the Dodgers’ case, though.