Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes didn’t dodge the hard questions after Los Angeles was swept out of the NLCS. Speaking on October 21, he addressed the elephant in the room head-on: Kyle Tucker ($240 million) and Edwin Díaz ($69 million) both had rough regular seasons — and yet Gomes doesn’t believe the franchise bet wrong on either one.
A Regular Season Nobody Wanted to See
The numbers were tough to spin. Tucker finished the regular season hitting .233/.330/.385 with a .715 OPS — below the league average and a long way from the All-Star-caliber player Houston fans knew. He accumulated just 0.7 bWAR, a painful return on a contract worth $60 million per season.
Díaz had it even rougher. In his first 16 appearances he posted an ERA of 11.85, landed on the IL in April following elbow surgery, returned in August, and then hit the injured list again with neck inflammation. He finished the regular season with just 7 saves in 11 opportunities — the kind of line that, under any other circumstances, would spark a worst-contract-of-the-year debate.
October Told a Different Story
The postseason contrast is exactly the kind of thing that makes baseball so hard to judge in small samples. Tucker — the same guy who batted .233 all summer — closed out the postseason hitting .333/.419/.519 with an OPS of .938, adding two doubles, a home run and two stolen bases in the NLDS against Atlanta. His mechanics didn’t change. The talent the Dodgers paid for just finally showed up when the calendar mattered most.
Díaz earned two saves in the NLDS and threw three innings in Game 4 of the NLCS against Milwaukee. He looked nothing like the closer who seemed broken in April — and a lot like the Dominican reliever who set the record for average annual value for a closer when he signed in December 2025.
Gomes put it plainly in his exit interview with Dodgers Nation:
- «So much of that was betting on the true talent of those guys and while the regular season did not go the way anyone expected, their contributions in the postseason were massive.»
- «If that is where we’re looking at, where we end up winning the division with a bye, and those guys are performing at their peak in the postseason, that’s a pretty good outcome for us.»
What It Means for 2027
The Dodgers finished 100-62, won the NL West, earned a first-round bye and advanced to the NLCS — where Milwaukee swept them 4-0 to reach the World Series for the first time since 1982. The championship three-peat didn’t happen. But this isn’t the story of two contracts thrown in the trash.
Gomes closed his reflection with three words that set the tone for next year: «Really looking forward to next year for those guys.»
With Tucker posting a .938 OPS in October and Díaz delivering clean saves, that doesn’t sound like a GM obligated to defend a bad investment. It sounds like a GM who knows exactly what he has — and believes one injury-riddled adjustment season doesn’t change the read on either player.
The question heading into the offseason isn’t whether Tucker and Díaz are good. October answered that. The question is whether the Dodgers can build enough around them to go further than the NLCS.
