Are the Dodgers two playoff teams in one? We split them in half to find out
-
Bradford Doolittle
Welcome folks, it’s a resplendent fall day in Flatbush, and six months ago, who could have imagined this? The visiting Los Angeles Dodgers are ready to take the field in Brooklyn at the new Ebbets Field with the 2025 National League pennant on the line.
Standing in the way of the L.A. nine are their literal offspring, the Brooklyn Trolleys, the most unusual expansion team in baseball history. Champions of the NL West, the Trolleys’ 98 wins earned them today’s homefield edge over the 87-win wild-card Dodgers.
The grandstand at Ebbets is already full on this clear autumn day, the patrons shuffling through the fabulous rotunda down below. The scoreboard is gleaming and the reconstituted Schaefer Beer sign above it is ready to call the hits and errors.
Roki Sasaki is making his final warmup throws now for Brooklyn. Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani watches from the on-deck circle, ready to lead off the game for Los Angeles. Game 7 of the NLCS is about to get underway.
It’s time for Trolleys baseball!
Wait … what is happening here?
The Los Angeles Dodgers — the real ones — are working on a streak of 12 straight playoff appearances. Eleven of those seasons have ended with an NL West title. Four have added to the franchise’s pennant count. After last fall’s World Series win over the New York Yankees, two of those seasons have resulted in championships.
After this winter’s stunning run of high-level acquisitions, people are asking with real concern about whether the Dodgers might have finally broken baseball. It’s not hard to understand why.
The expectations for the Dodgers have never been higher, and that’s saying something. ESPN Bet currently has the Dodgers’ over/under for wins at 103.5, 10 more than any other team. Cot’s Contracts estimates L.A.’s CBT payroll number at $374.1 million. If you split that in half — $187.05 million — the CBT payroll would still rank 15th in the majors.
Hmmm, split the Dodgers in half? Is that a solution? Well, obviously it is not. But let’s imagine that it was, that some trust-busting commissioner took over, or some bizarre schism took place in the Guggenheim Baseball Management group.
This is fantastical, but stick with me. Here’s the sequence of events that have led to our dream game at a brand new version of Ebbets Field.
• The Dodgers’ dominance and hoarding of superstar talent becomes viewed as an existential threat to baseball. Fans are screaming. Owners are wringing their hands.
• Partially in response to this situation, Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort announces that his franchise is withdrawing from MLB and will join the Banana Ball Championship League. The Rockies struggle in their new circuit, but their fans keep turning out anyway.
• Fights break out in the Guggenheim group. Who knows why. Lawsuits are filed. Desperate to resolve the situation and to fill the one-team void in the NL West, commissioner Rob Manfred takes up a Brooklyn developer’s offer to construct an exact replica of Ebbets Field on the same block where the sacred old green cathedral stood for decades. The residents who are currently there are respectfully relocated. The new park springs up with alarming alacrity.
• At the winter meetings, Manfred’s solution is announced. The Dodgers will be split in half. Everything. Their organizational talent — on the field and off — is divided evenly. The offshoot of the Dodgers will play at the reconstituted Ebbets Field and will be called the Trolleys, keeping with tradition. The new club will be managed by Gabe Kapler and its front office run by Farhan Zaidi.
It’s a lot, I know. It’s impossible. But let’s suspend disbelief for just a moment so we can get at a real question: Have the Dodgers accumulated so much talent that, at this point, they could field two contending rosters?
Before Game 7 gets underway, let’s run through the lineup Dodgers manager Dave Roberts will pit against Brooklyn ace Sasaki.
Designated hitter Ohtani will lead off. Batting second is shortstop Tommy Edman. Catcher Will Smith is in the three-hole. Batting cleanup is right fielder Teoscar Hernandez. Out in left and batting fifth is Michael Conforto. Batting sixth is center fielder Andy Pages.
Youngster Dalton Rushing will play first and hit seventh, followed by third baseman Chris Taylor in the eight-hole. Finally, batting ninth and playing the keystone is second baseman Andy Freeland.
Let’s get started.
To divide the Dodgers’ current organizational roster, I took a straightforward approach. I started by flipping a coin for Ohtani. Los Angeles got him. Since Ohtani pitches and hits, I then gave Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman to Brooklyn.
From there, I just ranked each positional group by projected WAR and assigned every other player to one team or the other. Some jostling was done to make sure the spread of positions was equitable and that the bottom-line WAR projection was as close as possible. Each team was assigned 35 players.
Kirby Yates, whose reported agreement with the Dodgers has not yet gone official, was included. So was Clayton Kershaw, still a free agent, but let’s face it — we all think he’s going back to L.A.
We had to dip pretty deep into prospect lists to fill things out, accelerating the MLB arrival of some young players in a way that would never happen. The Dodgers’ list of non-roster invites for spring training was light on veterans with any kind of track record, so other than Yates and Kershaw, we had to stick with who is already on hand.
Here are Opening Day rosters of the split-in-two Dodgers, which are also the rosters in effect for our imaginary game.
There’s nothing going for the Dodgers against Roki Sasaki in the first despite Ohtani’s drive to the screen in the deepest reaches of right-center. Nice play by Outman on that one.
Mookie Betts striding to the plate, getting ready for the first offering by Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Let’s run through Gabe Kapler’s lineup for the Trolleys.
Betts, playing right, will get things going. He’ll be followed by second baseman Kim and first baseman Freeman in the three-hole. Hitting cleanup is third-sacker Max Muncy, followed by young left fielder Josue De Paula.
Shortstop Miguel Rojas is hitting sixth, followed by center fielder Outman, catcher Barnes and, batting ninth, rookie Austin Gauthier.
Yamamoto is set. Betts digs in. Yamamoto winds. Someone in the grandstand is ringing a cowbell. Here’s the pitch …
The position player groups on our split rosters are thin. That’s the first thing that jumps out. That’s why there are so many prospects in the mix who are not ready for prime time. If these teams were real, Zaidi and Andrew Friedman would have been much more proactive about filling out the benches with veteran options.
Still, both rosters can field nearly full lineups of bona fide big league regulars, including a smattering of stars for both sides. Neither would be close to the worst lineup in the majors.
Now about that Rockies thing … I needed to pull a team out of the league to accommodate the new club. To do that, I changed all of the Rockies players into free agents and then flagged my future Trolleys as members of the Rockies. This allowed me to easily fold the new team into my projection machinery.
My projection system includes some organizational factors that are blended to the team forecast to account for depth (or lack thereof), which some teams are better at producing consistently than others. I beefed that factor a little here to account for the youth on the teams.
That helped, but neither squad projects as elite on offense. In the park-neutral run projections, the Dodgers came in at 672 (24th) and the Trolleys at 655 (26th). That might not read as impressive but it actually is because — remember — we are literally measuring two half-teams.
Still, the split Dodgers aren’t contention-worthy from an offensive standpoint. They’ll need some elite pitching to enter the playoff picture.
We’re in the top of the second. Two down, no one on base. Sasaki has set down the first five Dodgers in order. Andy Pages is stepping up to the dish for L.A.
From here, I can see a group of confused-looking people wandering around on the sidewalk on the other side of Bedford Avenue. They’re probably looking for that coffee shop that was there a few weeks ago. Things have changed fast around here.
Pages sends a bouncer toward short. Rojas races over, but it’s going to get through into left field. Pages rounds the bag at first, but he’ll hold on there for the Dodgers’ first hit of the game. Dalton Rushing is next.
… After two misses from Sasaki, Rushing is up in the count 2-0. Sasaki checks the runner at first but Pages has a short lead. Sasaki from the stretch … Rushing crushes a fastball to right-center! Outman is giving chase. He’s back, to the warning track — and it’s gone!
Dalton Rushing crushes a two-run homer off of Roki Sasaki, clearing the green canvas batting eye in center field. The Dodgers have grabbed the early 2-0 lead.
What really stands out on our split rosters is the pitching, both in terms of the quality and the depth. That’s true for both rotations and both bullpens. This gives you a sense of just how much pitching the Dodgers have accumulated for their coming title defense.
Both teams have a star-studded rotation of big threes: Yamamoto, Glasnow and Ohtani for the Dodgers; Snell, Sasaki and Kershaw for the Trolleys.
Both have three legit closer-level back-end relievers: Scott, Treinen and Yates for the Dodgers; Phillips, Vesia and Kopech for the Trolleys.
I didn’t overinflate inning projections. In most cases, they are within bounds of what I’ve forecasted for the real Dodgers, who have so many injury returnees and young arms that they will monitor.
That means prospect depth is tapped more deeply than it would be in real life, just as with the position players. This is a drag on the split teams’ forecasts, but the outlook for both remains promising. As with position players, an organizational depth factor was blended into the projections.
The Trolleys have the edge with a projection of 680 park-neutral runs allowed (11th) while the Dodgers come in at 703 (15th). A pitching staff split in two. Both average or better.
That is pretty stunning.
One down, bottom of the sixth. We’re still knotted at 2. Yamamoto will stay in after walking Freeman, with Max Muncy striding to the plate. Muncy’s solo homer in the bottom of the second accounted for Brooklyn’s first run. Josue De Paula’s fourth inning single plated Freeman with the other tally, after Kim was thrown out at the plate by Teoscar Hernandez on Freeman’s double off the screen in right.
I’m a little surprised Roberts is sticking with Yamamoto here. The lefty Scott has been getting hot in the bullpen and Muncy represents the go-ahead run for Brooklyn if he goes yard again.
… Here’s the 2-2 pitch. Muncy lines one into right for a base hit. Freeman rounds the bag at second and retreats. The Trolleys have something cooking. And here comes Roberts. That’ll do it for Yamamoto, who has been excellent.
… So Tanner Scott whiffs De Paula and it’ll be up to Rojas. … Scott checks the runners. Here’s his 2-2 pitch. Popped up! Moving over toward the line is Taylor. He’s there and puts the squeeze on it. The side is retired.
The Trolleys threaten but Scott works out of Yamamoto’s jam. We’re through six and the Dodgers and Trolleys are tied at 2.
Our baseline projections have both versions of the Dodgers being outscored, but not by much. The Trolleys fare a little better with a baseline win projection of 78.2, while the Dodgers are at 77.7.
Thus, rounding off, both squads project as 78-84 teams. The balance between them was intentional, of course. So was the decision to keep the Rockies-turned-Trolleys in the same division — the NL West — which in real life wouldn’t make sense. But sense isn’t what we’re after today.
Both teams would be forecast to finish behind, in order, the Diamondbacks, Padres and Giants in the NL West, but both are also close to the 80-win Giants. All of those teams would certainly be very happy about the Dodgers being broken up.
While a 78-win projection isn’t super exciting, in the current landscape of MLB, it’s good enough that a team can enter a season with realistic playoff hopes. How realistic? To answer that, we of course turn to simulations.
Freeland flailed at that 1-2 offering from Kopech and there’s two down in the Dodgers’ half of the eighth. Kapler emerges from the Brooklyn dugout. He wants the lefty Vesia to face Ohtani, who represents the go-ahead run.
… Ohtani jumps in front 1-0 after Vesia misses with the fastball. It’s been a tough day for Ohtani, who flew out to the fence twice in the early innings and whiffed against Sasaki in the sixth.
Vesia, an absolutely vicious southpaw, stares at Barnes behind the plate and nods his head. Here’s the pitch.
Ohtani swings and there’s a fly ball into right center. This one’s got a chance. Hernandez and Pages are fading. They look up and it’s gone! Ohtani has clubbed one over the Schaefer sign and out onto Bedford Ave.
The Dodgers have broken the logjam, nabbing a 3-2 lead in the eighth. Dave Roberts has already used Tanner Scott and, in the bottom of the inning, Blake Treinen will enter his second inning of work. He still has Ryan Brasier and Kirby Yates in reserve.
Our 78-win split Dodgers rosters were fed into my simulation machinery and 10,000 runs of the 2025 schedule were logged.
Both teams made the playoffs about 19% of the time, mostly as wild-card entrants. They landed at less than 1% odds to win it all, but, of course, that means it did happen on occasion for both the Dodgers and the Trolleys. The Braves emerged as the new overall favorite to win the World Series.
I scanned the simulation logs and found four instances out of 10,000 when the Dodgers and Trolleys squared off in the NLCS. In one of them — simulation #3,368 — the series went seven games. That’s the one in which the Trolleys won the NL West with 98 wins, while the 87-win Dodgers nabbed the six-seed.
Those are the squads I decided to breathe virtual life into by recreating those rosters in the sim Action! PC Baseball, produced by Dave Koch Sports. The play-by-play you’re reading in these alternating sections comes from that game, in which I managed both teams. Yes, it’s actually my fault, not Roberts, that the Dodgers nearly waited one batter too long to get Yamamoto out of the game in the sixth.
And, yes, I even went so far as to use the Los Angeles and Brooklyn logos and to play the game in a rendering of Ebbets Field. Hey, it’s January, and we’ve been without baseball for too long now.
The Trolleys are down to their last two outs. The usually raucous crowd at Ebbets Field is quiet and a nervous energy pervades this little block of Brooklyn. The walk Gauthier drew against Yates to start the inning had the gathering stirred up again, but the strikeout of Betts has silenced them for now.
Those two insurance runs the Dodgers tacked on against Vesia are looming large now, even after Evan Phillips limited the damage in the ninth. Hyeseong Kim steps to the plate. He’s reached base three times on a single and a pair of walks. The Trolleys need him to reach for a fourth time to get Freeman to the plate representing the tying run.
Man, this place is tense.
Yates checks Gauthier at first. He’s got a huge lead but the Dodgers, with that three-run bulge, don’t care what he does. Not sure why Gauthier doesn’t just break for second. Here’s the pitch.
Kim reaches and taps a little bouncer toward Freeland, he scoops and flips to Edman for one, the relay to first is … in time! It’s a game-ending double play! The Dodgers are the National League champions!
Can you believe it? After all of that drama and tumult of last winter, one during which the entire industry rose to break up the Dodgers’ dynasty, they’ve done it anyway. L.A. is headed to the World Series.
Again.
Cherry picking one simulation out of 10,000 doesn’t prove anything, but hopefully it does illustrate the point: The Dodgers are unbelievably stacked.
Going through the actual exercise of pitting two teams, comprised only of right-now Dodgers players, really draws that out. While the game unfolded, it never felt like I was working with two strange, thin teams, but two bona fide, well-constructed big league rosters full of outstanding and interesting players.
I went with the Yamamoto-Sasaki matchup, but it would have been just as exhilarating had I gone with any combination of those two, Ohtani, Glasnow, Snell or Kershaw.
Because the sim game was close, I had to think situationally in the late innings, but at no point was I confronted with a bad bullpen option. The closest I came to it was when I had to use Brasier to get two outs in the eighth after Treinen tired. I had already burned Scott and wanted to keep Yates for the ninth.
This is the kind of thing the Dodgers’ opponents are going to have to overcome next October. If the Dodgers can get that staff to the postseason healthy — obviously far from a sure thing — there will be no room for opposing offenses to breathe.
And those lineup holes that pop up when you split the Dodgers’ position group in two? Those won’t be there.
The 12-team playoff format, so inclusive and so random, means no team can be a sure thing in any projection of the next champion. I have referred to that as the illusion of competitiveness, and the Dodgers are the perfect example. They have built a powerhouse roster and set themselves apart from every other team in baseball. Yet they still have less than a one-in-three shot at repeating as champs.
Make no mistake though: These Dodgers are an absolute on-paper powerhouse. It’s a team that has a chance to do truly historic things. If they do, the other 29 teams still can’t collude to break them up as if they were an 1890s railroad monopoly.
But some of those teams might well look into joining the Rockies in the Banana Ball Championship League.
