My biggest criticism of our culture – both in and outside of sports – is our tendency to overcompensate for something we didn’t like in a previous administration. We, as a society, swing on a pendulum from one side of an issue to the other when, in reality, the solution tends to sit somewhere in the middle.

For many in the Los Angeles Dodgers fan base, this might be the largest criticism of the Andrew Friedman administration.

ICYMI: Greinke, Kendrick Opt for Free Agency

No one would argue Ned Coletti did a good job as general manager. The huge contracts the Dodgers have to shed so as to create financial flexibility can all be traced back to his tenure. Interestingly enough, though, I’d be much more comfortable predicting Zack Greinke would be back with the previous administration.

Mark Saxon of ESPN seems to agree.

The Dodgers are looking to get younger, and another mega-contract makes that more difficult. Also, team president Stan Kasten has a blanket policy against extending pitchers beyond a certain number of major-league pitches and Greinke, who has been durable throughout his career, has thrown more than 33,000. Also, most people assume Greinke wants to come back, but his distaste for a culture that let Yasiel Puig ignore team rules for several seasons is believed to be a factor in his thinking. It will be painful to break up one of the greatest one-two pitching combinations in recent baseball history, butClayton Kershaw probably won’t have Greinke as a teammate next season.

Having a “blanket policy” on almost anything seems borderline ridiculous. Allowing that blanket policy to get in the way of bringing back one of the best pitchers the Dodgers history is actually ridiculous.

Running this team like a small market team would be a mistake seeing as, you know, Los Angeles is the second largest (and might pass up New York when it’s all said and done) market in the country. If the Dodgers have more resources than everyone else as we keep hearing, this would be one of those times to use them.

To be fair, though, I don’t want to overreact to one report as the vast majority of the others still has Greinke returning in 2016. If this is how the Dodgers do feel, though, as Saxon reports earlier in the article, the stance would be disappointing to say the least.

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