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After trading for all-star center fielder Mookie Betts in the offseason the Dodgers are now at risk of not playing at all in 2020.
Just a few weeks ago teams around the league in Flordia and Arizona were gearing up for the 2020 regular season. However, the recent pandemic of Covid-19 has derailed the entire sports industry. To add more to the panic, fear, and hysteria there is a growing chance that the 2020 MLB season will not be played, and with the reported agreement between the MLB and MLB PA if there is no season played at all their service time will continue as normal. This leads to the harsh increasing reality that star offseason acquisition Mookie Betts may never play a game as a Dodger after all.
Although the service time issue affects all MLB teams the Dodgers have the worst of it. Currently, if the season were to be canceled the Dodgers would have a few big-name free agents hitting the open market. Those names include Mookie Betts, Justin Turner, Joc Pederson, Kiké Hernandez just to name a few.
Firstly, the Mookie Betts situation is a wild one. After an ugly situation revolving around the “three-team” trade with the Dodgers, Red Sox, and Twins fell through the deal still ended up going through with a little shake-up to the original agreed upon offer. However, the Dodgers ended up giving up more than they planned on but made the exception because it was Mookie Betts, arguably the second-best player in baseball. After all was said and done Betts and the fans were excited to get started and play baseball. Unfourtantley, there is an increased reality where Mookie will not play for the Dodgers at all. If any reports were true in Boston that Mookie Betts wants to test our free agency and get a contract well over 10 years 300 million will the Dodgers open the wallets and pay him to stay? If the answer is no then the “trade of the offseason” seems to have been a cruel joke to Dodgers fans.
Secondly, the fan favorites such as Turner, Pederson, and Hernandez may have just played their last season in Dodger blue. For Pederson, it seems as the Dodgers front office has been trying to move on for a while. Pederson has had his name thrown in trade rumors since the 2017 season and most recently was “traded” to the Angels until their owner called the deal off. Turner, on the other hand, has been one of the faces of the franchise since mid-summer of 2015 where he took over as the full-time third basemen, however, age escapes from no one. Turner was in the last year of his contract and unless the NL adopts the DH in 2021 his chances of returning to the infield are slim. This could have been the year the Dodgers finally put it all together and player’s legacies such as Turner’s and Kershaw’s could have been changed. In what might be Turner’s last season as a Dodger the season may be canceled.
After all this, the 2020 Dodgers were seen to be league favorites for the fall classic, however, this roster just felt different. The season has already been shortened leaving the competition up in the air. If only around 100 games are played or less the playoff scenarios are limitless and if no season is played we will always think of this season as “what if”. What if the Dodgers played 162 games? What if the Dodgers made the playoffs with this roster? Hopefully, in the coming weeks, this crisis will start to die down as the warm spring/summer months on the horizon leading to a memorable 2020 season being played.