Projecting Dodgers’ Opening Day lineup with Freddie Freeman

Projected Dodgers bench to open 2022 season

OK, went out on a limb here, but it’s looking like a four-man weave to begin the campaign:

2B/SS/CF(?) Gavin Lux

3B/OF Edwin Rios

C Austin Barnes

OF Kevin Pillar, in an upset

Pillar’s just a classic gamer, and represents the type of minor-league signing you have very little intention of stashing at Triple-A. Things could shift quickly, players could go down, and Rios could theoretically open camp looking worse for wear after suffering a brutal shoulder injury in 2022.

We’re just calling it like we see it, though. Pillar does the Dodgers more good on the Opening Day roster than he does at Triple-A or chasing another opportunity, and Matt Beaty and Zach McKinstry might need to lease a duplex in Oklahoma City.

At this point, Los Angeles is leaking experience out of every corner of their reserve unit, though, and did we mention their nine-man batting order is nearly unrivaled in this game’s great history? We don’t want to get hyperbolic, but the preseason Bill Plaschke columns that everyone called ridiculous in 2021 essentially came true. The Dodgers won 106 games, added Max Scherzer midseason, and weathered bullpen meltdown after bullpen meltdown in the early going to basically climb right up to where they were projected to be.

If they can run out a variation of this lineup at least, say, 120 times, 100 wins should be the floor, which is quite impressive for a team that was somewhat unsettled when the lockout struck.

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