Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports
At this point watching the Los Angeles Dodgers it becomes very difficult to remember back when they were not winning anything. They were at the bottom of the National League West and nearly ten games behind first place. Nothing was going right and everything they did turned to a loss. All that has changed over the last couple of months and they have gone from nearly ten games down to at least four games up on the next closest contender. This turnaround included the good moves they made around the trade deadline that helped and did not hurt their team.
They brought in Ricky Nolasco to assist with a pitching staff that had more injuries over the first two months than most teams do all season long. It was a good move to bring in a solid starter that was good and young enough but wouldn’t cost their top two prospects either. They made two moves to help give their bullpen a chance to get more solid. One was the gamble they took with Carlos Marmol where they cannot really lose since they also gained an international slot in that move. The other was signing the returning all-star closer from the San Francisco Giants a few years ago; Brian Wilson.
Those moves by themselves show you how well they organized what they planned to do and they did it perfectly. The best thing about the trade season was the things they didn’t have to do. An extremely hot Hanley Ramirez and of course the blistering debut of Yasiel Puig took what was an almost lackadaisical offense and turned into a very productive one as everyone fed off of these two.
They fixed their main problems from the inside out and only patched a few needs with the trade deadline moves. That is the right way to do it and they are showing right now the proof that they were a good team long before the trade season even started. They’re just that much better now.
David Miller is a Senior Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @davidmillerrant, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google Plus.
