The Dodgers’ season ended in a flash on Thursday night, and with it came a brutal reminder that even the biggest machine in baseball can get knocked flat. Milwaukee finished off a sweep of the reigning two-time defending champions in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, sending Los Angeles into an offseason that arrived a lot earlier than anyone around the club expected.
This wasn’t a series that drifted away from the Dodgers. The Brewers took control from the opening game and never let go, holding that star-studded Los Angeles lineup to 11 runs across the four games.
The Dodgers’ pitching was steady enough, but Milwaukee’s staff was the story, especially the bullpen that kept the bats quiet when it mattered most. Over the series, the Dodgers managed just 4-for-27 with runners in scoring position.
After Game 3, veteran third baseman Max Muncy put the frustration into plain language: “It’s a pretty simple answer,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy said after Game 3. “We’re playing like s-, and they’re playing great.”
Now comes the part the Dodgers haven’t had to face in a while: a long, complicated winter with real uncertainty hanging over the roster. This is the first offseason they’ve entered this early since 2023, and the timing makes everything more delicate.
The team is older, banged up and built around stars who are deep into their careers. On top of that, there’s almost certain to be a lockout that could stretch well into the 2027 calendar.
Freddie Freeman is 36. Max Muncy is 35.
Mookie Betts is 33. Shohei Ohtani is 31.
Will Smith is 31. That core brought the Dodgers two straight World Series titles, but when October arrived this time, the lineup went quiet.
The Dodgers know they need to get younger in 2027. The problem is simple: that’s not easy to do without touching the heart of the roster.
Freeman, Betts, Muncy and Smith aren’t going anywhere, and there’s no real reason they should. Tommy Edman, 31, has struggled badly over the last two years, but he still has three years and nearly $40 million left on his deal.
Kyle Tucker, 29, has three years and $180 million left on his deal. Andy Pages is 25 and projected as the center fielder of the future.
That leaves Teoscar Hernandez as the most obvious place to create some room. He’s 31 and heading into the final year of his contract.
Left field looks like the one spot where the Dodgers could get younger, which would likely mean handing the everyday job to Josue De Paula and then exploring a Hernandez trade. The catch is that the Dodgers don’t trust De Paula’s defense right now, and the lockout means they won’t get the full offseason they’d normally want to sort that out.
Then there’s Ohtani, who remained the most fascinating issue of all. He’s the best player in baseball, but the final months of the season made it clear he wasn’t operating at that level while dealing with injuries.
A full two-way workload - which, in practice, only lasted half a season - took a visible toll on his 31-year-old body. The Dodgers found out the hard way what happens when he’s limited as a hitter.
They cannot afford for that to happen in October again.
That leaves the Dodgers with a major decision to make: end Ohtani’s two-way role for good, reduce how much he pitches, or try again in 2027 and ask him to be more upfront about injuries. There’s no obvious answer yet, only a problem that needs one.
The rotation brings its own set of questions. On paper, it looks outrageous: Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow.
In reality, those five were never healthy at the same time. Ohtani last pitched in early July.
Skubal didn’t join the team until August. Snell made just nine starts in the regular season.
Glasnow made 13.
The Dodgers have gotten only 20 regular-season starts, totaling 104 innings, from Snell since signing him to a five-year, $182 million deal before 2025. Glasnow, meanwhile, has provided 164.1 regular-season innings in that same span. Yamamoto, by comparison, threw 185 regular-season innings this year alone.
That kind of uncertainty is exactly why this winter matters so much. The Dodgers can’t keep banking on arms that don’t stay on the mound.
Snell’s contract is locked in. Glasnow, who is entering the final year of his deal, is a different conversation.
The Skubal trade is the other massive swing that now hangs over everything. When the Dodgers dealt three top prospects for him on Aug. 1, they were betting he’d be a central piece in a run toward a third straight World Series title. Instead, Skubal is now headed toward free agency, where he’s expected to land more than $400 million.
The Dodgers can afford that kind of number in theory, though nobody knows what payroll rules will look like after the lockout, or whether Skubal will even reach the market before then. The bigger question is whether it makes sense to pour $400 million or more into a pitcher who is about to turn 30 and has already had three elbow surgeries.
And even that only gets halfway to the real issue. Does Skubal want to come back?
As a free agent, he’ll control the process. The Dodgers are said to have enjoyed his time in Los Angeles, and he also clearly valued his time in Detroit. Whether Detroit can make a competitive offer is another matter entirely.
The Dodgers need Skubal. Plenty of other teams do too. For now, that’s the shape of their offseason: a roster full of expensive stars, fragile pitching, uncertain defense and one of the biggest free-agent decisions in the game waiting just over the horizon.
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