One morning last week, two days after Anthony Rendon was introduced as an Angel and the day before Gerrit Cole was introduced as a Yankee, baseball analyst Dan Szymborski published on FanGraphs his ZiPS projections for the 2020 Dodgers.



The data displayed the depth and breadth of talent on the team’s roster. The lineup features above-average production at every single position. Even after Hyun-Jin Ryu signed a four-year, $80 million deal with Toronto, the rotation remains headlined by Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw. And the team’s weakest area, the bullpen, is “solid, but unspectacular,” Szymborski wrote.



If you consider your glass half full, ZiPS revealed how little the Dodgers need Cole or Rendon to compete this coming season. If you look at that glass and wonder about the empty half, the projections showed why the team’s inaction so far this winter is so frustrating: The Dodgers have missed chances to add a superstar to their...