Dodgers Territory - What is the Dodgers Master Plan with the Draft and Deadline Coming Up?

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Alanna Rizzo, Katie Woo, and Clint Pasillas recap the Los Angeles Dodgers' series with the Rockies and the club's sluggish looking offense. Is the All-Star break coming at a perfect time for LA? We discuss! (12:18) The trade deadline is a little over 3 weeks away. What is the plan for the front office? And thoughts on why the upcoming deadline and this weekend's MLB draft hold the key to the near future for the organization. (38:17) Plus, some appreciation for Mookie Betts. 🌶️ Shop now at Fabletics.com/Foul and get 70 to 80% off everything when you sign up as a new VIP. Subscribe to the podcast!https://www.youtube.com/@DodgersTerritory  Follow our social media channels for more content!https://x.com/LADTerritory https://www.instagram.com/ladterritory/ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61578546105253  Check out DT merch at https://dodgersterritoryshop.com Support Guidry's Guardian at https://guidrysguardian.org   Find Clint on YouTube at https://youtube.com/@alldodgers Follow Katie's work at The Athletic https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/author/katie-woo/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Thursday, July 9th, Clint Paseas, Katie Wu, Alana Rizzo with you for the next at least half an hour. Get your thoughts in in the chat. We love to hear from you guys. We appreciate it. A lot to get to to today as we get ready to have a day off and then start the final series of the regular season. Let's get to the big ticket. Clinton, I had a little bit of a discussion about this last night on the postgame show. Katie did as well in her article on the athletic, but talking about taking two of three from the Rockies wasn't easy, Katie Wu, but they did get it done. What do you think is, well, I can't talk.

What's your opinion on the series with the Rock Show? I think everyone's just kind of glad it's over. That series felt tough. I think the Rockies played the Dodgers pretty competitively, and the Dodgers kind of got in their own way at times. But look, we're here on July 9th with a 14 game lead in the NL West. Guys are tired. We're tired.

Everyone's tired. They have built this comfy lead in the division so that they can have a series like this. They ended up winning the series overall. You can't sweep every team. Was it pretty? It was not. Did they get the job done at the end of the day? They did.

and we were due for an extra innings game. Our good fortune could only last for so long. For me, that was the biggest blow, was extra innings on Monday. But like the Dodgers, we prevail. The first time all season, extra innings. How about that for the Los Angeles Dodgers? And then Dalton rushing with the walkoff win on the first extra innings game of the season. We'll take that every time.

Clint, you're watching every game as well. You mentioned it too. It was interesting. The forced innings, forced extra innings on Monday, Tuesday of the loss late. Wednesday just enough to beat it. You've said this before. Good time for the All-Star break to happen to this team. Yeah, the offense.

Dodgers as a whole, looking a little bit sluggish. We're seeing some uncharacteristic errors in there. You know, a bit of, I don't know, I'll say brain farts, but kind of some brain farts for Miguel Rojas in there. Understandably, it's a long season. And, you know, he's got a lot on his plate right now, a lot, you know, weighing on his mind. But not to say there's excuses you make for this team,

yeah, right now the guys are tired, the airs are piling up, and this break is needed. The offense down in the month of July. 700 OPS as a team right now that's 21st in baseball. Not good. The slug is down, only six homers in July, and we know that if you want the dub, you've got a slug. They're not slugging. That's third fewest in baseball tied for third fewest. 368 slug is also the seventh worst.

And yeah, this is a team that's just plainly in need of a break. of a mental reset. CERN reset. Not everybody. Surely not everybody's getting a break. We know the Dodgers are well represented in the All-Star game. Hopefully in the next day or two, we hear Justin Rebleski added to that roster. But this is a team that has been grinding.

They have been grinding really since 2024. You look at, we got back-to-back World Series runs. You got opening the season in Korea, opening the season in Japan. You're mixing the WBC in there. These boys need a break, and these four days are coming out of great. great time. One more series though. Yeah, one more series. And Katie, what's your opinion of the offense? I mean, it is a difficult time. And we can talk about this more too. I'm interested in your opinion. The two-hole. We had the conversation last night with Tommy Edmund in the two-hole

and kind of just not a ton of production or second base rather. No, two-hole. We're talking about two-hole. I'm all over the place. This is my third show of the day. I apologize. So what are you seeing with the offense up and down the lineup? Is it just a need for a break? Or Is it something more nefarious than that? Yeah, I'm with Clint. It just per usual, I'm team relaxed. Let's calm down. But again, we're here in early July, wrapping up the first half.

This team has essentially cruised all so far this season. And guys are tired. Guys need a break. I think it is more peculiar than anything that with all of these accomplished hitters, the Dodgers have had trouble finding production, no matter who they put in the two hole. I like what we saw from Tommy Edmund there because, you know, he's mostly hit left. He's better, though he has a switch hitter.

He's been more neutral since coming off the IL. I don't know how long that's going to last. Certainly, I hope it does last a while. But is Tommy Edmund your certified, like, profile two-hole hitter? I don't think so. But until Kyle Tucker figures it out, I don't think you can take Mooki out of the cleanup spot. And Andy Paa has does fine there. I'm still under the belief that Andy Paa is best suited later down in the lineup,

you know, fifth or lower. But given the options the Dodgers have right now, he's the best option for the two-hole. Hopefully the second half brings better results for Kyle Tucker because that could really fortify the lineup. But hey, they've been doing just fine the way that they are. It's, if anything, again, not a huge issue because their overall production throughout the season has been some of the top of the league. It's just something to monitor going into the second half. We're going to nitpick this team because they're so good. We have nothing else to talk about. So let's dissect the two-hole. Can they get better in the second half production in that spot. And you got a massive lead, you know, in this division. Like you could, you could take the, you know,

foot off the gas a little bit, Alana. Now I've also, not complained, but I've been cautious about, you know, flipping that switch or when do you apply the pressure again to the paddle? I don't know, I'm mixing up my analogies here. But I love this from Mr. Classic in the chat. It's fans, players, coaches, media, everybody needs a little bit of a break. Of course, not you guys. You've I got Alana doing every show in the world or at least every show on the Fowl Network today. Both of you guys are going to be at the All-Star game working your asses off. But do something fun. Take time off.

Even the media too. That's not what we're here for. We're here for the grind, baby. But yeah, this team, go fishing. I don't think I'm not going to worry about flipping a switch on July 9th. I need you to flip a switch, you know, come October, whatever it is when you host the first round of the DS. You know, hopefully it's not too much time off. It's always the rest or rest conversation.

We have that every single year. Do you want to just go into it? Do you want to have a couple of days off? I'm not worried about this team at all right now. Every single one of those players needs a break. Because by the end of the season, everybody is playing hurt. There's a difference between being injured and being hurt. By the end of it, everybody will have some ailments.

Make no mistake about it. So anytime you can get some rest, good on them. Yeah. One thing. So I had my complaints about Alex Call last night, and I'm calling it Challenge Gate. Katie, what was the pulse there? The pulse in the press box there,

and the Vin-Skully press box, press booth. How was media? Because Dave kind of passed over it when he was finally asked about it in the post-game scrum or availability. I think you've got to take the keys away from Alex Call a little bit when it comes to challenging. Yeah, you know, he's been one of the Dodgers' best

when he's playing in that. I don't, I don't love the, I'm not going to go full EK on this, but I don't love the challenge in the first inning. I certainly don't love back-to-back pitches because that ended up being a tight ball game. You're already up three-nothing in the first, but it was a three-three game real quick after that, and you lose all of your challenges remaining. That changes the ball game.

And I think in a perfect role, the Dodgers were hoping for it not to be that close of a ball game. But for me, I was a little bit surprised. maybe Dave was just happy to take the series and get the heck out of there by kind of the nonchalant reaction to his credit, though. Again, Alex Call is one of the better challengers in the Dodgers dugout. But the press box upstairs, I had to double take. I was like, what's taking so long for the first challenge? I was like, did I miss a pitch?

And Bobby was like, oh, no, this is the second challenge. And I was like, no, he did not. No, no, he did not. Also, that ends well, though. it was your not your patented Alex Collin bat but we can move past it just maybe not again. Yeah. Some people just need to take, uh, sometimes you have to take the keys away, okay? I think it's a good point to bring up.

He's not, he's in timeout. A little bit of time out. Yeah, we said that yesterday. We said that yesterday. Put him in the corner. Challenge corner timeout situation for a couple games. You are no longer allowed to challenge until the second Tuesday after the all-star break. We'll just make that.

But it is a good point. to note that he has not, you know, he's not playing a lot right now. So it's harder to get that as much as he's seen. Yeah, but listen. Listen, listen. Listen, Linda. Linda. I'm not, I'm not saying it's okay.

We went our entire lives without having challenges. Oh, look, it's VEP. We went our entire lives without having challenges in baseball. So, like, I don't want, I don't want that excuse that. Oh, he doesn't get to play a lot, yada, yada, yada. I don't care. Not in the first inning. If anything.

Not back to back. Pitches. Backback pitches is crazy. I'm sorry, Alex Paul. If anything, I'm not going that bold and doubling up on the challenges. Yeah, that's a friend of the show. Lovely dude. But yeah, holster it. Holster it for just a hair there, bud. Hey, guys, we got plenty more DT coming up. Great conversation coming up after the break. But first, the boys over at Fowel Territory. I want to tell you about this. Look, it's summertime. It's cool in the morning. Hot during the day. cool again at night. Rarely am I sitting there going, oh, I'm just going to do one thing at a time. I'm bouncing from work. I'm bouncing in the yard. I'm running to a game. Fabletics has got me

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It's up there. It must be a Dodgers Territory episode because I'm leaning on a mound visit once again. Before we get into that, we also want to remind you guys, subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already yet. More than half the people who watch this show aren't subscribed, and we appreciate you watching us either way. But if you can help us get to 20,000 subscribers, Alana won't have to work as hard each and every day.

And you guys also see Katie Wu representing the show with the DT shirt. You guys can get that same shirt, not the one off her back, he creeps, but you can get that same shirt over at Dodgers Territory Shop.com, scan the QR code. I've been informed we do not give away the baby, but they're in onesies. We do not. They're golf towels. There's a whole bunch of cool stuff over at the DT shop.

So appreciate it. Look at that. It's a good shirt. Represent. I found it in my closet. Clean your house. You never know. I think it's a there's those shirts are wicked soft. I have one. They're great. They are. They're really soft. The mass just came out in you. He said wicked. The what?

The Massachusetts, the Boston little bit of wicked stuff. That's crazy. A couple things guys are fit in. I saw a Noma jersey the other day and it literally said N-O-Space M-A-H. The number five. I saw that at Fenway. Guys, a couple of things for fans to watch this weekend, besides the final three games of the first half, the MLB draft. That starts on Saturday.

The futures game is on Sunday. The futures game is the minor league all-star game. The Dodgers have two representatives, top prospects, Jose de Paula, and Mike Soroda. A couple of guys whose names were going to start hearing a lot more after the All-Star break as trade deadline rumors really start to ramp up. And Clint, I will defer to you on this because you're much more well-versed, and Katie is as well, but much more well-versed in the whole.

whole farm system, the pipeline, if you will. Do you think we see those guys sooner rather than later? You're going to see, again, like I said, you're going to see the names a whole lot. Mike Sarota is, I mean, they're both pretty close. Mike Sarota is somebody who, in my opinion, feels closer than DePaula right now. DePaula is still pretty young, but the bat is playing right now. He is, all of the prospects, it's crazy. They are on tears right now. I think mostly at AA Tulsa, so it's the perfect time for them to all get hot. I am a DePaula fan, but I'm kind of a Mike Sorota truth. A guy is a guy that Dodgers acquired for Gavin Lux a year ago. Great under the radar trade. The type of trades, this Dodgers team, this front office loves to make, trading

away guys that maybe don't have a path to playing time anymore, Gavin Lux, Matt Beatty, or playing time at all, Michael Bush, and getting some sort of talent down in the minor league levels. So definitely everybody's going to want to watch the Light Tower power that Hoseweta Pala brings in that futures games. But Mike Sarota, that kid looks like he can be a complete

ball player. And I know people are going to be kind of like, where's James Tibbs in this futures game? Mike Sorota, I think the up arrow is a little bit higher right now for the long term. Tibbs got some holes in the swing there. But it's fun. You know, I'm not a massive futures game fan, but I want to

see these dudes. Yeah, I'll be flying. So I don't think I'm going to be able to watch it at that point. But it is, it is fun to see these guys. And really more the opportunity just for them. It's kind of, it's, you know, a reward for them for the season that they have had so far. And it is important for people to see what might be coming up the pipeline or to be honest, like what might serve as a trade piece too. Yeah, you know, yeah, they might be traded to you. It's a huge showcase, obviously, not only for what these guys do to try to make their way to the big leagues, but it's also a showcase for other teams to see what they can, what they can bring to the table if, in fact, they're looking for those types of, you know, players in their organization.

And it is, it is a time. So Katie and I were talking earlier. We also talked about this a good amount last week. You know, this is, this is a critical point for this organization, a critical next probably three weeks to a month for the front office. And really the next, what, three to five years for this organization. You have the draft on Saturday. And the draft, it's never exciting. And it's even less exciting when you're the Dodgers because their first pick isn't until number 40 overall.

You signed a bunch of high-quality, qualifying offer dudes, Kyle Tucker and Edwin-Diaz. You don't get a lot of high picks. Still, they make the most out of their picks. I don't know. Should I just kind of run through some of the notes here? Or Katie, you want to kind of inform people of where the Dodgers are at heading into this draft.

I think it makes sense for you. Yeah. Yeah, let's bring it down. So allegedly, it's an off day. I have zero brain cells today. So the draft is important for the Dodgers for two reasons. One, it's a chance to bulk up your farm system, of course. And two, because when you look around the league,

most execs don't start focusing on the trade deadline until after the draft. Since they moved it from June to the All-Star Week, it's kind of made the trade deadline conversation from the second half, like right out of the All-Star break to the deadline is really when we start to see this. Dodgers right now are operating, okay, we have a really small number of picks for the draft. Let's get through that and go to the deadline. So what can we expect on Saturday? They, again, like Clint said, first pick is not until number 40. They don't have a first round pick this year thanks to ruining baseball. All right. So they actually received a 10,

that 10 pick penalty on their first picks for exceeding the second threshold of the competitive balance tax. And as Clint mentioned, they forfeited their second, third, fifth, and six round selections when they assigned Kyle Tucker and Edwin Diaz, both free agents who had received qualifying offers. So over the first 10 rounds, the Dodgers have 1, 2, 3, 456 picks, 40, 137, 226, 256, 286, and 316. I promise you I will only know the 40th pick in terms of just the draft in general. It's a lot of names. It's a lot going on. But the Dodgers really need to capitalize on the draft because we talk a lot. with Andrew Friedman, and he says this very often, about needing to make sure that the Dodgers

dynastic run isn't just this period, that it extends to the future core. And how do you do that? You sign players and you develop them within your system. You cannot, you can go out and buy players. We've seen the Dodgers do this, obviously, but the reason that they are able to stay so consistently dominant is because of their homegrown talent drafting and developing. Andrew Friedman comes from the Tampa Bay raise. They are great at this. So how do you do that? you draft well and you develop well. For the Dodgers, if you're already getting limited amounts of opportunity to draft, that means you really need to capitalize on your player development system.

You see where they are right now with their prospects. We talked about this earlier in the show earlier. I wonder, is it possible for the Dodgers to maybe allocate some resources after the draft and bulk up their farm system via some trades? Yeah, and this leads back to what we were talking about. Anyways, before we get that far, Alana, this feels like, you need, I think we, do we need to nail this, do we need to nail this draft, if you will? I feel like sometimes, you know, we get so caught up in the fact that this team is so damn good every single year. And we take for granted how good our farm system is and how deep this farm system is, you know, but in order for it to be that way, they have to do really well in the draft.

And it's not necessarily as exposed because the daughters are good every single year. but sometimes a draft will make or break a team for many years to come. So in your opinion, Clint, is this one of those years that is more important perhaps than recent years? Yeah, I mean, when you consider the last couple of years, the fact that you lost first round picks, signing Shohei, signing Kyle Tucker for this year, signing Edwin Diaz, you know, like Katie said. They don't pick until the 40th. And you only have, what is it, six picks in the first? 10 rounds. Now they have been very good at it in the past.

Last year, they signed Zach Root and Charles Davalon. Both of these guys are in the top 30 already in the organization the year before that. Kellen, Lindsay, Chase Harlan, guys that are a couple of infield dudes that they're still very young. They're still far away, but they are in the top 30 in most of the prospects, like top 30 organizational prospects list, whether you're looking at baseball America, whether you're looking at MLB pipeline. These are guys that could help the club on the field, could help the club in trades in some way, shape, or form.

But, you know, this felt to me like a good opportunity, though, to revisit what we talked about last week. Because there have been some doubters about whether or not the Dodgers will actually be interested in what Katie reported a week ago or a week and change ago, about 10 days ago that the Dodgers' primary focus is going to be improving the depth at the farm level. Yeah, this is at the trade deadline, by the way.

Yeah, is it sexy to look to add, you know, minor leaguers instead of Terek's scuba? Absolutely not, because you want to maximize your ability to compete and win this year. Dodgers trading some minor league dudes to replenish different areas of the minor league system, of the farm system does not necessarily preclude them from going out and pursuing Terrick Scouble. They are not one or the other. They have so much talent to be able to do this. But Katie, I

want to make sure people we might have glossed over this a little bit the last time we were talking about this. The primary focus isn't on the Major League roster according to people you have talked to with the organization. Of course, granted the condition of anonymity.

They are ready to trade some of these top guys that we know. Maybe not your root in Davalon's you know, Lindsay's and Harlins and maybe not your DePaulas, but maybe Mike Sarota, this futures game is a spotlight for him to get some love to be. Yeah, maybe he's, is he auditioning, Katie? Yeah, exactly. I don't want to speculate over certain guys, but I think it's definitely fair to look at the Dodgers

system and look at this group of outfielders that we've talked about all season long, about where the heck are they going to play. Well, this is an opportunity to go out, and again, it's not sexy, but take from an area of abundance and address an area of need. The Dodgers have one of the best farm systems in baseball because of their outfield prospects. If you take away some of those, they're pretty thin in catching depth. They're relatively thin in the infield. And you can always use more starting pitching, especially in the upper tiers of their minor league system. There aren't a lot of guys healthy right now. So can the Dodgers move one of their top outfield prospects? Again, they're not

going to do that to DePaul. They really like him. They kind of compare him to the best hit tool since the guy named Corey Seeger. Perhaps you've heard of him. So high praise there. But can you move some of these guys in the lower first tier or upper second tier to replenish your farm system? You absolutely can. Again, is it going to be like the sexiest move or breaking, you know, blockbuster trade?

No, but these trades are important. You look at the Hunter fiducius trade last year. Got that catching depth that you needed from, from Ben Roswell in the playoffs. You needed that. Dalton rushing maybe wasn't ready for that. So those trades matter just as much when you're looking to build a contending team and take it to the next level. This doesn't preclude them from doing other things. Right.

I don't see them as all in for Terik Scoobel right now. But God forbid any of those four starters, whether it's stellar Glassnow in rehab or Yamamoto or Otani, anyone goes down. That's going to switch their thinking immediately. This is what cracks me up about the deadline. And I know I contribute to it as a media member. It's July 9th. The deadline is August 3rd. You look across the board at every team, essentially not the Dodgers, the entire American League.

Everyone's kind of right in the middle. So we don't even know who the buyers and sellers are. We don't even know if the tigers are going to trade Scoobel. They're a week away from getting hot and being right back in that very average AL Central. So we can speculate this about who the scubal contenders are, who the sellers, who the buyers are. We don't really know for sure and we probably won't know until that last week before the August 3 deadline. the Dodgers are smart for looking at their minor league system and the abundance of outfield prospects that they have and saying, hey, we can actually drive the market on this one. Let's see what could be out there.

Again, it doesn't mean it's the only thing they're going to do and it doesn't preclude them from doing anything else. And it's crazy. Obviously, we have it on the screen there. Just looking at the muddy AL wild card picture, that's definitely going to be a driving force in what either makes or breaks a Terrick Scoobble deal. But scoble aside, again, I think the Dodgers will be involved in the way that Dodgers are involved in anybody and everybody. We talked about it last week. Obviously, it comes down to the health of the guys they have on whether or not they're going to heavily pursue him. But right now, going back to what I started with this, about this being such an important month, kind of a moving month for the organization.

It's not just this year. It is three years from now. It is five years from now because the only reason they have built the success, 13, going to be winning 13 division crowns over the last 14 years. I think the numbers are they have a lot of success because they have built from within. Andrew Friedman and company were handed a pretty stocked organization with the aforementioned Corey Seeger, Cody Bellinger in there. One of their first draft picks was Walker Bueller, still had Kershaw around and you're

able to build from within while supplementing with money around and all that kind of stuff. and you built a quality ball club that could contend for World Series titles. The last couple of years, they have built quality ball clubs using a lot of money to win World Series titles. And like Alana always tells you, you don't necessarily guarantee yourself winning by spending a lot of money. But when the Dodgers spent a lot of money, they 100% so far. They are two for two in winning. But the Dodgers are good now. They need to be good for five years from now.

We know the roster is aging. Max Muncie only has a. couple more years at most of being the everyday third baseman. You don't know what the future is going to look like for Freddie Freeman and all that kind of stuff. And the CBA situation, you know, like that's going to affect how the Dodgers can operate moving forward. So right now you try to stock this organization. You try to have as much talent using the talent you have that you don't necessarily need at the big league level immediately. You use that talent to fill out where you are thin, catcher in the infield.

pitching is thinner than it has been in a long time for this organization. So it's not sexy at all, but it is what they have done over the last 15 years of running this team. They have always found a way to do the little things, to build the organization where we don't see them become, I don't know, the Yankees had some lean years. The angels have had the lean 20 years. You know, it's like the Dodgers will never do that because of how much they are always thinking ahead.

And this is a think ahead deadline and month. Katie. Yeah. And I think a good way to wrap this up, Quinn, and all fantastic points is when you are the Dodgers and you want to make sure this dynasty does not flame out because that is Andrew Freeman and Brandon Gohm's biggest, biggest concern when they're looking at building their roster for the future is making sure that they can continue to bring winning baseball to Dodger Stadium. It's replenishing your farm system. And we talked about, you know, they forfeited a lot of picks in the draft. They also have, you know, plenty of penalties on the international bonus pool. They've taken multiple hits for their tax-ledded penalties.

They sacrificed most of their 2024 class when they signed Roki Sasaki. So if you are looking to augment your farm system and bulk up areas that you're thin at, really the most efficient and kind of only way they can do that right now, I wouldn't say only, but the most likely way they can do this right now is through the trade market. So that's why you're hearing them kind of, again, it's not like this is the only thing they're going to do. But this is a big focus and a big priority for them because they know and they are so good at this that you have to replenish your farm system. You have to have homegrown, developed players. They're not going to be able to reboot their entire catching system.

They're going to have to go trade for it. They have an abundance of outfielders, all very talented, all with different ceiling levels that are all very high. You can't play nine outfielders in three spots. You take a risk, right? You take a risk in dealing one of these guys away like you did with Michael Bush, like you did with Gavin Luck. so he wasn't a prospect at the time to address an area of need. The Dodgers are suited well to do this and they could take advantage of the market. I would not be surprised at all if this is the direction that they go,

even depending on what their major league roster looks like come August 3rd. One of the few things. Go ahead. I was going to say an important factor, because Riz, I want to hear from you on this, because you were there at the start of this run of success, even before Andrew Friedman and company took over. And you saw how good the team, or the state the team was in, then Friedman takes over, his front office starts doing what they do, which is very good. And you got to live up to including getting a ring in 20.

You got to live through them spending money, but also building this farm system to make a sustainable model that other organizations are still trying to emulate. And they can't. They can't look at the fucking Mets. They can't. That's the thing too. I mean, that's the one thing that I've noticed when I started covering this team in 2014. The same conversation was happening over and over and over again when you talk to executives from other organizations or when you talk to the media that covered different organizations, the Dodgers have a rare ability to be able to churn out an unbelievably productive and competitive ball club every single season, but it doesn't deplete their farm system. And there are very few teams in our league that can win while, consistently developing. And I think the Dodgers are so good at that. I mean, Andrew Freeman is one of the best in my opinion about getting the big piece that you need at the trade deadline or getting the supplemental complementary pieces at the deadline or in the off

season. And he doesn't give away the Dodgers logo. I mean, I remember when in a different sport entirely, but I remember when Josh McDaniel was in Denver as the head coach. And he basically traded everything, including the Denver Broncos logo for Tim Tebow. And we're like, what are we doing? But I feel like the Dodgers are one of those teams that can compete every single year at the highest level with still not depleting a farm system that is going to be their future. And there's not a lot of teams that can do that. A lot of teams try to emulate it. Some of it is a capital issue. Some of it is just not the brain power.

I mean, you're saying Andrew Friedman, he's going to do Andrew Friedman things. And he took a small market mentality for a Tampa Bay race team that for, for one, whatever reason is competitive every single year. They're first in the division in the AL East. And that is a division that had, you know, some big named and big market money teams. And they win every single year. Now the knock on them is that they don't get deep into the postseason.

They did obviously in 2020. And thank God for Kevin Cash checking Blake Snell out of the game. Because I don't know that the Dodgers would have won that series. But the point is the Dodgers are really good at doing both things well. And it's an enviable position to be in. And I have seen that success. I've never covered a bad Dodgers team. that I feel very grateful for that. I've never covered. I started in 2014,

Ned Coletti was still the, you know, the general manager at the time. Obviously, Stan Kasten was there. And then in 2016, this whole new regime came in. And Ned stayed on for a couple of years and then obviously went to the broadcast side, but he's a great baseball mind. And a lot of this is the Ned Coletti architecture. And a lot of this, obviously, is the Andrew Friedman architecture. And it's just a really fortunate position to be in that the Dodgers can do both. at such a high level. Absolutely.

And it's important to note and kind of my final thoughts on this, the last two years that we have had as Dodgers fans, that's never the norm. That's never was the plan to be the norm, spending all of this money. What we saw before was the plan. You build around your farm system. You supplement a few guys in there when they traded for Mookie.

That was kind of supposed to be the plan. But then it became painting. unfeely apparent, oh shit, we don't have enough starting pitching. So they went and signed everybody up in the world. And, well, not really everybody, but getting Yamamoto, trading for Glass now, it opened up, ushered in this new era of spending money, but that is never the goal. And Andrew Friedman has been telling us this for at least the last five years that, you know, we can't, you don't react. You work within your means. You don't really chase the market.

Well, he's not an emotional guy. He doesn't make decisions based on emotion. And I think there's some owners, there's some front and office people that do it based on emotion. We just have this conversation on foul territory about whether or not Don Mattingly is going to have the interim tag removed and become the Philadelphia Phillies manager next season. And Dave Dombrowski's that way, he's not an emotional guy. So if he sees that Alex Corr or somebody else is going to be better, it's not going to matter how far Don Mattingly takes this Phillies team. And I think that's how you have to be. I think you need to be really steady, Eddie.

You can't follow the trends because then you're going to get yourself into trouble. It's like whatever the hot new shiny toy is, that can't be what you're going after all the time. I would be bad at it. I think it would be bad at it. Same. Very overreaction. Same. A decision not rooted on emotion.

Who are we? You expect us to be not normal? By the way. So you'll be rational about something? No way. Hell no. But hopefully you guys enjoyed the conversation. I think this is useful for people who may be.

don't kind of understand where this organization is at right now. And, you know, even last year trading away, Dustin May, people who scratched their head from that, it brought them a couple of very important, you know, draft pieces or prospect pieces that they could move or, you know, and not for nothing. It was good for Dustin May, too. I mean, he was in a free agent year, you know what I mean? And he didn't do well when he was traded over to the Boston Red Sox, but now he's kind of found a way and found a new, a new, a new, gear, if you will, with the St. Louis Cardinals.

So we do have a $4.99 super check, Clint. I want to bring that up before I went to last look. Skier loves baseball, $499, flipping Lauer for prospects at the deadline. It's Pete Friedman in a white bathrobe. That's a whole other conversation. What's River Ryan's injury status, Katie, needs to pitch down the stretch? First of all, great call on Lauer. I was going to bring this up to wrap up the segment.

This seems like exactly like the kind of trade they could do. Actually, Ken Rosenthal wrote about this in the athletic. A couple of days. days ago, where he's saying, you know, the Dodgers flip dust in May, starting pitching is always the most coveted thing at the deadline because it is so rare. And the Dodgers, once again, have, it's thinner than years prior, but they have enough starting pitching where they can go out and trade Lauer, who will be a free agent at the end of the year. Teams love to take a two-month flyer on a durable starter, especially those fringe contenders. And there are plenty of fringe contenders this year

based on the standings. So I could totally see Andrew Friedman doing that again with Eric Lauer, and he's been very underrated for this Dodgers squad in the first half. We've talked about this. They don't have a six-man rotation that they desperately need without him. And he's been serviceable. I feel like it's a quality start every single time. Maybe his fourth straight earlier in the week. So you flip Eric Lauer, a guy that's done his job, but probably doesn't have a role in the postseason.

I don't see him fitting into that bullpen. Get some prospects back. Everybody's happy. River Ryan haven't heard much, which is disappointing since he went down with that hamstring. He is still able to throw. I think he's still in air. Arizona, but I'm not sure about that exactly. So he's not shut down completely. He was just isn't throwing, he's on flat ground. So there is going to be some sort of a ramp up. But this is

someone that the Dodgers really, I think he was getting close to being into that major league rotation, then giving him a spot start and someone that the Dodgers for an office looks as a real legitimate weapon in the bullpen come October if he can stay healthy. And that's been the unfortunate deal with River Ryan is there's just been a difficulty to stay healthy. This is already his second hamstring problem of this season as he comes back. from Tommy John. So that's certainly someone that they're going to be watching, but they can't count on just yet until he heals. Imagine though, a postseason bullpen that has Roki Sasaki, the good Roki, Emmett Sheehan, Justin Robleski and River Ryan, and you get Edwin Diaz back. He'll

start a rehab assignment soon. You're feeling really good about it. It's another reason why Eric Lauer seems to be a possible trade candidate. It's going to be a real busy deadline internally for the Dodgers. People love to say it. And also with River Ryan. Can somebody get that boy some water? Maybe like a banana. Banana. Yeah, like banana. No cramp. Yeah, no cramp with banana. Good conversation here, guys. Alana's going to tell you about Fandual and then we'll be back with the dog and we got to give some love to Marcus Lynn Betts. Dodgers legend. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Fandual. Baseball fans, the MLB season is in full swing and

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Scotty really, really needs a new foster. He's currently with a foster in Huntington Beach, California, but they're an elderly couple, and he's just a lot of pup. I mean, they can't really walk him just because he's so strong. He's not a bad dog. He's just strong, and they're not able to do it physically. So we're desperately looking for a foster in the Southern California area, and better yet an adopter. He's a good dog. He's healthy.

He's good with other dogs. He's just active. That is all. If you're interested in learning more about just being a foster, there is no cost to you as a foster at all. You just need to give him a space-loving, a safe. safe, loving space. So reach out. We'd appreciate it very much. All right. Baseball thought for the road. This is a great stat. I didn't even know this until I looked at our rundown. Thanks, Clint. Mookie's next game played will be his 795 in a Dodger uniform one more than he played with the Red Sox. What is his legacy up to this point? Katie, he has six years left on this contract. Wow, that's amazing to think. There was a moment in which we didn't know that Mookie bets we were ever going to see him in a Dodgers uniform because he came over and then COVID hit. And then they extended him. And here we are. He's a Dodger.

He's a Dodger. And I think I grew up in college and like Mooky Betts was the face of Boston, but he's one of the faces of Los Angeles. And when you come out here and you win as many World Series as Mookie Betts has and you perform the way that he has, I don't, we have the same conversation with Freddie. I couldn't have imagined Freddie Freeman being anything but at the Atlanta Brave. And now I can't imagine being anything but a Dodger. Same with Otani, an angel?

No, he's a Dodger. So I think that's what happens when you win, right? When you win with a team, that's the team you represent. Mookie Betts has done so much for the Dodgers organization. They just toasted a very belated to his 300th career Homer, him and Shohei yesterday. I think that happened. All my days are the same guys. But yeah, Mookie Betts, he's the Dodger.

He's a good one. End of story. And to me, this is, and a lot of the, we don't need to spend too much time on this, but really the Mookie trade is. the like serious transition point to, oh, okay, we mean business. Yes, they made the World Series in 2017 with a mostly built from within, you know, squad. 2018 had no business being there, but they, you know, power of will brought them there. But in 2020, it was a very good baseball team.

Yeah, we didn't get to see a lot of it over the course of 60 regular season games. But the mokey trade kind of, I don't know, it's like, you've seen that, that meme where somebody, like the graphic is somebody sitting in a chair playing a game and then they leaned forward. That was the Dodgers leaning forward. We mean business now. We just traded for Moogie Betts. Boston icon.

And the dude he has become the man, the father, the leader, the three-time World Series champion with the Dodgers. Yeah, this is, he is a Dodger. I mean, I'll look at it from the other perspective, too. It was a name that you're like, wow, we got Moogie Betts. But from the other side of the equation, the Red Sox have not. not been the same since. The Red Sox have absolutely been horrific by and large since they traded away Mookie bets. And I live here now in this area. And of course, always talking about the Dodgers here, but they bring it up constantly. And you still see all kinds of Mookie jerseys at the games.

And people are really, really upset that they would do that. I don't want to be the guy that traded away Mookie bets. I'll tell you that. And that was such a wild thing that the Red Sox did. and they have not recovered. And they're reeling right now. So Mookiee Betts is very much a Dodger. And he did say he liked playing here, but I think he just feels so much more at home in L.A. He's so involved in all kinds of things there.

I mean, he's very multi-talented, and multifaceted doing a podcast, doing all kinds of things. You see him super involved in a lot of different business ventures and in the community. He's a four-time World Series champion, perhaps six more years on this deal, perhaps the Hall of Famer. We can talk about that conversation at another date. but mooky's L.A.

L.A. is Mookiee. And good for him. What a great stat. Love the fact that he's going to obviously play the majority of his games as a Dodger. Yeah. Heim Bloom. Oof. That's Katie's friend.

Heim Bloom. Oof to a good start in St. Louis. Yeah. All right? Let's see where it goes. Let's see how that deadline goes. Until they trade away like Nolan Gorman and what's the kid, Wynn's name, Mason Wynn and all that. trade away.

No way. Yeah, I know that. I mean, if what if he's going to, just don't trade away Fred Bird, you'll be fine. They can trade away Fred Bird. Way cuter mascots out there. And plus he doesn't wear pants. It kind of freaks me out.

Listen, what's wrong with that? You got a Winnie poo. I'm not wearing pants, no. Whoa. We need to poo that shit. Guys, we appreciate you hanging out with us. Music is on. Don't worry.

We're getting the hell out of here. Appreciate you guys hanging out with us on this Thursday edition of the show. We'll be back on Monday. It'll be a little bit different because those two will be at the All-Star game. But lots of Dodgers content to be coming up, coming your way, subscribe to the channel. If you wouldn't mind, we'd appreciate it. Help us get the 20,000 subscribers.

And that's about it. We'll see you on the next one. Bye. What's up, fam? It's sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the hosts of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from together.

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