4 front office mistakes that have crushed Dodgers playoff hopes last two seasons

Ditching Cody Bellinger and Justin Turner in heartless fashion

Thought getting rid of Hernández and Pederson was a blow the Dodgers would have a lot of trouble recovering from? What about Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger this past offseason?

Turner might've been aging and Bellinger might've been too expensive to risk another letdown season, but you probably have to keep one of these guys to sustain some continuity in the locker room. Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman are no doubt commendable leaders, but the Dodgers swiftly chopped the head off the old guard that oversaw most of the franchise's modern day success.

You also might argue Bellinger and Turner were present for the 2022 meltdown against the Padres -- and you'd be right. But Bellinger dominated a year prior in the playoffs and Turner historically has been a force in October. And what were the upgrades? James Outman, a rookie? JD Martinez, another aging veteran who had just 30 postseason games under his belt and played in only nine total since 2018?

It's incredibly difficult to built a reputable and stable clubhouse, something the Dodgers had for the better part of a decade. In a matter of two offseasons, it was stripped bare.

Awful 2023 trade deadline (in retrospect)

Either Friedman tried to get too fancy or he didn't really believe in the 2023 roster's World Series chances. That's all we can deduce from the Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly, Amed Rosario and Kiké Hernández acquisitions before this year's deadline, especially when guys like Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Jordan Montgomery, Michael Lorenzen, Tommy Pham, Jake Burger, Mark Canha, Paul Sewald, Jordan Hicks and others were available.

There's just no possible way you can convince us the Dodgers were either out-bid on every better player or refused to meet the asking price on everybody. Friedman's deadline deals have historically been calculated, especially to minimize risk, but the 2023 roster was overachieving and proved it deserved proper supplementation. His moves were the equivalent of using scotch tape to support a wobbly shelf.

How did this work out for them? Lance Lynn ended their postseason by surrendering an MLB-record four home runs in a single inning against the Diamondbacks. Rosario was left off the NLDS roster. Hernandez went 3-for-8 and shouldn't have been a featured source of offense. Kelly logged 1.2 scoreless innings in losing efforts.

Whoops! We forgot about Ryan Yarbrough, too, who stumbled a bit in the second half and then was left off the NLDS roster.

Swap out two of these guys for real, impact deadline moves and we're probably looking at a different October result.

Letting Corey Seager (and Trea Turner go)

Want to let Corey Seager go? Fine. Something told the Dodgers he probably wasn't going to return, so they went out and got insurance in the form of Trea Turner. Great! There's your successor.

Except ... that didn't happen either. Turner, in fact, said the Dodgers didn't even reach out to him in free agency. But perhaps it should've never reached that point. Seager was the Dodgers' guy ever since he made his way up through the farm system. He was the 2020 hero that won them the World Series.

Seager's postseason track record certainly isn't flawless. He got injured during the 2017 NLCS and then stunk in the World Series. He disappeared in 2019. He went 4-for-24 in the NLCS against the Braves in 2021 when the team needed him most. Injuries affected him almost annually in LA.

But he was someone who could've lasted his career in LA on a long-term contract because his bat will always play. He's a lefty slugger that hits for average and power. If he had to move to third base eventually, so be it. If he had to become a full-time DH in six years, who cares. He helped get you to three World Series and was hitting free agency as a 27-year-old, something that rarely happens.

The cherry on top was the Dodgers silently letting Trea Turner walk to another contender -- the Phillies, who are on track for their second straight World Series berth. Seager has the Rangers up 2-0 in the ALCS against the Astros. Even the most shrewd front offices know that you cannot let two elite shortstops come and go like that.

This is obviously magnified because of Gavin Lux's injury, but even then, nothing about Lux's play proved he was going to come close to the production of either of these players. Seager was the star and culture fit while Turner was the fancy backup plan.

The Dodgers blew it with both of them. Unacceptable.