After NLCS exit, Dodgers face big questions about their aging lineup and future

Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement TRENDINGLendeborg shades LukaCanes' murky ACC futureReese, Dream win Game 3Ant spoils Giannis' Heat debutWorld Series preview Story by Story byAfter NLCS exit, Dodgers face big questions about their aging lineup and future The Dodgers dugout looks on during the ninth inning of Game 4 of the NLCS against the Brewers last week. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)Maddie LeeWed, October 21, 2026 at 11:36 PM UTC·7 min read AdvertisementAdvertisement About Our AdsAdvertisementAdvertisement Advertisement AdvertisementAdvertisement Dodger Stadium was eerily quiet on Wednesday, as a light rain fell over the already yellowing grass.

A crow perched on an empty seat. Scattered lights flickered in mostly dark hallways.Before the World Series begins, the stadium was closed for the season, hosting just one last event before officially wrapping up the 2026 slate.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement In the interview room, tucked away at the entrance to the clubhouse, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Brandon Gomes took their seats at the podium for their end-of-season press conference.There was the usual end-of-season question checklist: Are you expecting any changes to the coaching staff or front office?

"I expect status quo," Friedman said. Is Shohei Ohtani going to undergo offseason surgery? "That's not on the table," Friedman said.Read more: Plaschke: Enough is enough. The Dodgers must stop letting Shohei Ohtani pitchBut from that emerged a persistent through line.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement The Dodgers had fallen short of their goal of a three-peat.

But considering the age of the position-player core, the scrutiny owner Mark Walter is under, and MLB owners' insistence on a salary cap in their early collective bargaining agreement proposals, was the Dodgers' dynasty over?"I welcome it," Friedman said of such claims. "For us, and we've talked about this a lot, even after successes and we winning a World Series and then winning back to back, everything we do is for our fans. And there's a lot of noise around us in general.

We don't really pay much attention to it. It's a partnership we feel with our fans, and so people saying that we're done and we're on the downside of this run — it's just more noise to us because everything for us is about the motivation we have to have a parade in the streets of Los Angeles next November."Friedman also didn't seem to anticipate any trickle down from Walter's outside ventures — Walter's insurance companies are under federal investigation and face several lawsuits — affecting the Dodgers' offseason budget."It's been business as usual for us," Friedman said.

"We talked to Mark after we lost, and he was obviously really disappointed. But so much of his focus was on, 'OK, what can we do? What are our plans? What are our thoughts for the offseason?' And our brains weren't quite there yet, but so much of his focus was, how do we put ourselves in the best position to win in '27?"AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement How will the Dodgers go about picking themselves up from their NLCS exit?The Dodgers' 2026 season wasn't exactly a failure.

They won 100 games in the regular season and lost in the playoffs to the only team that won more than that — the Brewers. But the Dodgers, with their star power and payroll, aren't in the business of accepting moral victories.Though plenty went wrong in the postseason, from Ohtani's struggles following his injured list stint, to stalwart Yoshinobu Yamamoto's surprisingly short start in Game 2 of the NLCS, the overarching theme in the Dodgers' four straight losses to the Brewers was a lack of offensive execution, especially with runners in scoring position."Obviously throughout the latter part of the year, it was stuff we were talking about and trying to put our finger on," Friedman said of the offense.

"And in a lot of ways, it's a little bit of a game of whack-a-mole, where it can be one thing for some period of time, and then it's something else, and then it's something else. Sometimes it's noise, and sometimes it's real. And what's important for us is to be able to sift out the noise and isolate what's real and what things we can improve upon. We'll spend a lot of time really focusing on that in the offseason."AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement Read more: Why impending free agent Tarik Skubal doesn't believe it's the end of an era for the DodgersAsked if the age of the lineup could be a contributing factor, Friedman pointed to the strong finishes of some of the more veteran players on the roster."I don't think it's as easy as to paint it with that broad of a stroke," he said.Friedman, in an effort to continue to extend the Dodgers' run of success, has kept in mind the cliff that successful veteran teams can fall off of, if the roster isn't properly backfilled."This isn't something that we just woke up and were like, 'Oh wow, the age of our position player group,'" Friedman said.

"We knew what things were going to look like in '26, '27, but also how talented these guys are, the way they prepare. And so much of our long-term contract bats are betting on the human — betting on the person, betting on the work ethic, betting on them doing everything they can to keep themselves in the best position to have success. But when you couple the core talent that we have at the major league level with the position-player strengths that we have in our farm system, that's what makes us excited, is the art of how to onboard some of these young, talented minor league players."AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement The Dodgers had the No.

1 ranked farm system as of mid-August, according to MLB Pipeline. But many of those prospects, including the three outfielders who were the Dodgers' top three (Josue De Paula, Eduardo Quintero and Mike Sirota), are blocked by veteran players."For us, it's just about having as many talented players as we can, and things tend to sort themselves out," Friedman said.This offseason, the Dodgers will also have to figure out what to do about their soon-to-be free agents, a group headlined by left-hander Tarik Skubal.

The two-time Cy Young winner was not only the best pitcher available on the trade market when the Dodgers acquired him from the Tigers at the trade deadline, but he's in line to be the best pitcher available this offseason as well."It's not easy for a guy to get traded in the middle of a season to come to a new city, new clubhouse," Friedman said. "You have set routines, and you have to make those adjustments. It's not easy. The way he was able to seamlessly transition, not just in terms of on the field, but in the clubhouse, I can't say enough good things about the impact that he made in such a short period of time.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement Read more: Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing to undergo elbow surgery for partial UCL tear"We have a tremendous amount of respect for him on and off the field.

… He's put himself in this position to go out and be a free agent. And for us, it's, continue to talk to [Scott Boras, Skubal's agent]. But he and his family have to make a choice over where they want to spend the next X number of years, and obviously we wish him nothing but the best."When asked about negotiations, however, Friedman spoke generally, saying the Dodgers were still "wrapping [their] arms around" their offseason strategy.The impending lockout, which is expected to go into effect on Dec.

1 as soon as the current CBA expires, and uncertainty over changes in the next CBA, will certainly affect the free-agent and trade markets this offseason. And though MLB navigated a lockout just five years ago, the owners' push for a salary cap has many around the industry bracing for a longer work stoppage and murkier landscape on the other side.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement "I never have any feel for how a market's going to play out," Friedman said. "We've kidded ourselves in the past that, like, 'Hey, we think this is going to happen,' and it just takes on its own life form.

So for us, it's just about being as prepared as we possibly can be, and pouncing on opportunities."Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Source: Yahoo Entertainment