The Dodgers Aren’t Going To Make Any Moves, Are They?

No news or inside info or analysis here, just a thought: The Dodgers aren’t going to do anything before the Aug. 31 playoff eligibility deadline, are they?

It’s not because of lack of effort on Ned Colletti’s part, I’m sure. Depending on the day-to-day standings, the Dodgers have been something like 29th in line for AL players and 14th in line on NL players, and with the second wild card making fewer teams sellers, and making more of those teams wanting to block competitors, there’s just very little out there. At some point, you have to realize that there’s only a few guys who have even made it to the Dodgers worth bothering with.

When you look at the list of players who have cleared waivers — at least publicly, which means it’s not a complete listing — it’s a weird mash-up of players nobody would want to assume salaries on (Shin-Soo Choo, Curtis Granderson, Elvis Andrus, half the Dodger outfield), players who just aren’t getting moved (Yu Darvish, Adrian Beltre, Brett Gardner, Ian Desmond) and players who wouldn’t really fit the Dodger needs (Alex Rios). Yes, Bartolo Colon and Jon Niese are available, and we’ve talked about each of them here. Both are better than Kevin Correia and Roberto Hernandez; neither would come for free, and there’s at least a case to be made that the difference either of the Mets duo would provide in what would likely be one playoff start — this assumes Zack Greinke and Hyun-jin Ryu are both healthy in October, which is not guaranteed — isn’t worth the cost.

Really, if you look at that list, what you don’t see is a reliever, which is what we all want more than anything else. The exception there is Jonathan Papelbon, and while there are valid reasons to want him, the difficulty of dealing with Ruben Amaro plus Papelbon’s no-trade clause that may hinge on a guarantee to be inserted into the ninth inning — to say nothing of clubhouse issues — make that a tough fit. Otherwise, there’s just nothing out there, and I don’t fall into the camp of making a move for the sake of making a move. None of us may love the idea of Brandon League or Brian Wilson in a big spot in the playoffs; I’m also not sure what the alternatives are.

We’ll see Joc Pederson, Alex Guerrero and some others next week, and that will be fun. But it seems more likely than not that nothing from outside the organization will happen. Also, I’m out of town this weekend. These two things are not unrelated, if you’ve been following this site or its predecessor for any length of time.