Dodgers Who Need to Start Fresh with the New Year

2018 is just around the corner, and with that, many people will be making New Year’s resolutions which they will give up on after a month. Regarding the Dodgers, there are a few players that will want to refresh with the turn of the calendar.

Even with such a great team that was fielded in 2017, there were still disappointments on the Dodgers, whether it be due to production or injuries. Whatever the case, some players did not live up to the hype or expectations for one reason or another.

2018 will afford them the chance to reboot and bounce back in a big way if they can produce. That’s the beauty of sports, every season is a new one, and anything can happen. The last year does not matter or count towards the current season.

Disappointment is in the past, and you can make it up by coming up big for your team in the now. Here are the players that did not make the expected contributions last year and could use 2018 as a refresher.

Andrew Toles, Yimi Garcia, Julio Urias

These are three names you probably forgot about in 2017, but they are vital pieces in the Dodgers’ future. Julio Urias is the young pitching phenom the Dodgers are expecting to be the organizations’ next ace for the next decade-plus. After an impressive rookie season in 2016, where, as a 19-year-old, had a 3.39 ERA and 84 strikeouts in 77 innings (18 games, 15 of them starts).

No matter who you are, if you put up those numbers as a teenager in the show and also start an NLCS game, expectations will be sky-high. But 2017 saw him disappoint, both with production and injury. In his 23.1 innings of work, he had a 5.40 ERA and 1.586 WHIP, in large part due to his horrendous control. He had 14 walks (5.4 BB/9) compared to 11 strikeouts.

Then to add insult to injury, he actually got injured in June and will be missing possibly the entire 2018 season depending on how the team handles him. If he somehow gets onto the field, he’ll have a chance to redeem his young career. And the fact that he only pitched 23.1 innings makes him less of a bust because he was limited in time.

Speaking of Urias, it was his no-hitter which Andrew Toles was trying to save that led to his torn ACL. Toles had started off slow but started to catch fire with the bat and remind us of his 2016 form, before his season came to too early of a stop. He doesn’t have to redeem himself, but 2018 will give him the chance to start off fresh, put the injury in the rearview mirror, and pick up where he left off in 2017.

And Yimi Garcia is a name most fans have forgotten. The 27-year-old missed all of 2017 due to Tommy John surgery. But from 2014-2016, he had a 3.12 ERA and 0.95 WHIP while striking out 81 in 75 innings. Like Toles, he has nothing to be disappointed about other than unfortunate injuries. He can come back from this in a big way if he can help stabilize the bullpen and become a late-inning, high-leverage guy. He definitely has the stuff.

Joc Pederson, Trayce Thompson

Now we come to the guys who truly disappointed in 2017 and need the calendar to change to 2018. Say what you want about Joc’s impressive World Series performance, but there is no denying that he was bad in 2017. He missed time due to injury but was disappointing when on the field. He hit .212/.331/.407 with 11 home runs in 323 plate appearances. He even accumulated a -0.4 WAR in his 102 games, according to Baseball Reference.

It got so bad that he was demoted to Triple-A in August (where he got even worse) and left off the NLDS roster. After being such a promising prospect for Los Angeles, and taking a step forward in 2016, he took three steps backward and has a lot of making up to do.

If you thought Joc was terrible, then you’d think he was an All-Star when you put him next to Trayce Thompson. Thompson battled injuries, but that wasn’t the main reason he only had 55 plate appearances for the big league club. The Dodgers’ depth doesn’t help, and neither does his .483 OPS. Yes, you read that correctly.

He accumulated a -0.3 WAR in his limited time and like Joc, struggled terribly in his minor league stints which spawned across 95 games (369 plate appearances). The Dodgers have such a glut of outfielders that another season like 2017 may officially signal the end of his career in blue. He probably wants to forget about 2017 the most from anyone on the team and take advantage of the fresh start.