LOS ANGELES — Been there, done that. More than once.
For the fourth consecutive year, the Dodgers had the highest average age among their position player group in MLB (30.9 years this year). And, as third baseman Max Muncy pointed out on a recent “Foul Territory” podcast appearance, there is “a lot of mileage on this team right now” – literal mileage – as the Dodgers set out to become only the third franchise (first in the National League) to ‘three-peat.’
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“The point I was trying to get across was it wasn’t so much the age but we’ve had two of the longest seasons in the history of baseball,” Muncy said, referring to the Dodgers starting the 2024 and 2025 seasons in mid-March (in South Korea and Japan) then playing until the last game of those seasons.
“I don’t care how old you are, that’s going to take a toll on you, not only physically but mentally and emotionally. That was the point I was trying to get across. Everyone’s talking about the age and that’s fine. But to me it’s not only about the age. It’s just that this team has played a lot of baseball.”
Indeed they have. And a lot of it has come in October.
Thirty-three-year-old Mookie Betts has played 91 postseason games in his career, 70 of them in the past six Octobers with the Dodgers. Thirty-seven-year old Freddie Freeman has played 79 postseason games, 37 in the past four years with the Dodgers. Muncy, himself 36, has played 79 postseason games, 40 of them in the past four Octobers. “October Kiké” is a busy man – 35-year-old Kiké Hernandez has played 103 postseason games, a franchise-record 92 with the Dodgers.
The starting lineup the Dodgers are likely to send out for Game 1 of this year’s NL Division Series against the Atlanta Braves on Saturday afternoon will have a combined total of 534 postseason games under their collective belt with Shohei Ohtani (33, all the past two years) and Andy Pages (24) the least playoff-tested. Only two players in that lineup – 25-year-old Pages and 29-year-old Kyle Tucker – will be younger than 31 years old.
Getting through the long regular season with that age – and mileage – can be a challenge. When the calendar flips to October, though, it becomes an asset.
“Yeah. I think age can be challenging in the grueling 162-game marathon that is our regular season,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said.
“I think the experience, I think how smart these guys are on the field, I think those things help win moments and win battles on the edges in October. It’s not as easy to navigate through a 162-game season with an older roster. But I do think that experience in those moments will definitely help and we’ll see it shine through at different points in October.”
It doesn’t always shine April through September. Being at the top of your game for 162 games spread over six months is not realistic. Older players learn to pace themselves and flip the switch when the games start to matter most.
“I mean I would say so, but it’s not on purpose,” Betts said. “We would like to play good all the time. We would like to get that level of focus all the time. But it’s really kind of impossible to do for 162 games.”
The regular season can become something to be endured – especially with a team like the Dodgers for whom a postseason berth has become an annual given.
“We’re not a very emotional team,” Muncy said. “It’s hard to play 162 with emotion. It just is. It’s hard to ride that roller coaster. But because we don’t do that when we get to October we’ve always been able to find that little switch in there. Knowing what that takes and also knowing how to keep your composure has always given us that edge, I think.”
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The phrase – flipping a switch – has negative connotations, implying that players don’t always give their best effort. But even Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has to admit it happens.
“I hate the idea of flipping a switch, but I do think that turning the dial up and ramping up the focus is something that I’ve seen with our guys in the past,” he said.
“Once you get to October, athletes have a magical way of feeling better. And so it happens every single year, where there’s that extra adrenaline that athletes get when you get to the postseason.”
A year ago, Friedman had to answer questions about whether his team exaggerates injuries to its pitchers as a convenient excuse to build in midseason breaks, keeping them fresher for the postseason. It wasn’t part of the annual plan, Friedman maintained (somewhat defensively at times), just something that seemed to happen frequently and so had to be anticipated.
Now, he isn’t ready to say his team turns it on when the games become more important – including a .653 winning percentage in the runup final month of the past six regular seasons.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, obviously we perform well in September and generally perform pretty well in October. We also get guys back from injury to get them ready for October so we’re more at full strength.
“Just walking through our clubhouse on a random June Saturday game, the level of preparation and work is not different than it is in September. So maybe there’s just a little bit extra mental sharpness as it gets to this point. But I don’t think it’s conscious and it’s definitely not work ethic-based.”
Kiké Hernandez said, “There’s no such thing as an on and off button for a team – certain individuals can have that, but as a team, as a whole, it’s kind of hard to do that.”
It’s also kind of hard to ignore the value of experience.
“I think we kind of know what to expect,” he said. “We’ve been ahead in series. We’ve cruised through series, and then we’ve also not. We’ve also had our backs against the wall for a few of those. And every playoff game, every playoff series, every playoff year gives you different situations and moments that doesn’t only help you, but it helps everybody as a team to kind of get seasoned in certain situations where you kind of slow things down and remember – this is what we need to do.”
With age does come wisdom, Freeman agreed.
“We know what’s going to be happening in the playoffs. We know what’s going to be thrown at us. The atmospheres,” he said. “So I think experience is huge in this. And we’ve played a lot of baseball. We’ve been together a long time. We know what it takes. So I think that’s definitely on our side.
“But I don’t think anybody’s thinking about ages as we go into Saturday, so it’s pretty easy to just throw that out and just go out there and try and play the game of baseball. But I think experience is definitely on our side going into this.”
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