The Dodgers go out with a whimper. A 6-1 loss to the Padres in Sand Diego sealed their fate. With all that great pitching, they just couldn't generate enough offense to win some game. Shawn Green and Fred McGriff should have been enough to propel them to the playoffs, but poor or injury filled years by both left Los Angeles short of that goal. It will be interesting to see how the Dodgers address this next year. One logical move would be to replace Cesar Izturis with Miguel Tejada. While Izzy is a tremendous defensive player, he's an offensive black hole. Although Cesar puts up a couple of more defensive winshares than Tejada, over all Tejada had 16 more total win shares. That's five games in the standings.

My hesitation would be age. Izzy is only 23, four years younger than Tejada. Ozzie Smith and Omar Vizquel were poor offensive players when they were young, but each developed a good batting eye which led to good on-base percentages. And Izzy is going to be cheaper for the next few years. It's going to be an interesting call for the Dodgers.

Update: There lots of good stuff on the Dodgers over at Dodger Thoughts. Just start at the top and keep scrolling.