The Futile Dodger Offense: An Explanation

The Dodger offense has been futile for around six weeks now. Several inherent flaws have been exposed. I am sure you have heard them before. The lineup is one-dimensional, and too reliant on home runs. The offense has no speed, and is a station to station base running club. All of those are true of course, but those aren’t the primary reason the Dodgers aren’t scoring runs.

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Let’s just be clear on this for a minute. The Dodgers ARE NOT SCORING RUNS. This is a club that went 41 innings without scoring a run, and over a week without scoring a run on the road. As a matter of fact, the club has scored two runs or less in 19 games since May 1. 19! I don’t need to tell you how horrendous that is. However for visual learners, let’s paste in the scores and dates of all of those games. Yes I do realize that they’ve won some of those games thanks to good pitching and defense, but you can’t expect the pithcing staff to allow two runs or less every time out. It doesn’t matter because, you can’t win if you’re not scoring runs. The Dodgers are simply not scoring enough runs to win games.

Games since May 1 the Dodgers have scored two runs or less

May 1 vs. Arizona 1-0 W

May 8 @ Colorado 2-1 W

May 16 vs. Colorado 7-1 L

May 17 vs. Colorado 1-0 W

May 19 @ San Francisco 2-0 L

May 20 @ San Francisco 4-0 L

May 21 @ San Francisco 4-0 L

May 22 vs. San Diego 2-1 W

May 23 vs. San Diego 2-0 W

May 27 vs. Atlanta 3-2 L

May 29 @ St.Louis 3-0 L

May 31 @ St. Louis 3-1 L

June 4 vs. St. Louis 7-1 L

June 5 vs. St. Louis 2-1 L

June 6 vs. St. Louis 2-0 W

June 7 vs. St. Louis 4-2 L

June 13 @ San Diego 2-1 L

June 15 @ Texas 4-1 L

June 16 @ Texas 3-2 L

There you have it. Now if you included the six games from April where the club scored two runs or less, you get 25 games in total. That means in 25 of the Dodger’s 65 games this year they have scored two runs or less. That’s nearly 50% of the club’s games.

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So what’s the real reason for the offensive ineptitude? The club has a bunch of terrible hitters on the roster. Those awful hitters have gotten way too many plate appearances. We all should know by now, (especially Andrew Friedman and Don Mattingly), that you can’t have automatic outs in your lineup, or on your roster. None of these guys are exceptional enough with the glove to justify keeping on the roster. With A.J. Ellis being the lone exception.

These are the terrible hitters, and here are their numbers in 2015. You tell me what you think.

Jimmy Rollins – .198/.261/.332 254 PA

Chris Heisey – .154/.353/.192 34 PA

Alberto Callaspo .278/.366/.361 41 PA (Hitting .206 overall)

Enrique Hernandez .257/.300/.405 80 PA

A.J. Ellis .175/.278/.222 74 PA

Remember you only get about 4 or 5 plate appearances per game. These guys have totaled over 483 plate appearances. That’s like almost a whole season of outs. Those guys above are awful, and they have gotten a lot of playing time. Please note, I added A.J. in there only to be thorough. He is awful with the bat now, but I understand why he’s still here. The rest of the guys, I just don’t get why they haven’t been cut from the roster. Remember, Carl Crawford is the only position player out right now. Before you start roasting Donnie, consider that Andrew Friedman put all of them on the club. World Series caliber teams do not give Kike Hernandez 80 plate appearances, or bat Chris Heisey second in the order.

The solution could be simple. Stop employing terrible hitters!