If you are one of those convinced the Dodgers effectively slaughtered their chances of ending their 31-year championship drought when they didn’t acquire a dominant reliever to strengthen their weakness before Wednesday’s trade deadline, Andrew Friedman is here for a history lesson.

“I think narratives are always an interesting thing, and the narrative going into the 2017 playoffs was that the Astros didn’t have a bullpen strong enough to win the World Series,” said Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations. “Going into the 2018 playoffs, the narrative was the Red Sox didn’t have a bullpen strong enough to win a World Series.”