‘Clearly, the moment does not bother him’: NLCS MVP Tommy Edman has been everything the Dodgers wanted — and more
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers had spent three years coveting Tommy Edman, which, when you think about it, makes a lot of sense. Perhaps no franchise places a greater emphasis on versatility, and perhaps no player encapsulates it better. Edman plays superior defense at two premium positions, hits from both sides of the plate, possesses the ability to move runners over and drive them in. When the Dodgers finally landed Edman over the summer, they were hazy on a role but envisioned someone who would help them in a multitude of ways.
What they didn’t foresee was what ultimately transpired — that Edman would accumulate 11 RBIs in a single postseason round, serve as the cleanup hitter in a pennant-clinching game and become MVP of the National League Championship Series.
“It’s a crazy trajectory,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after Sunday’s 10-5 victory over the New York Mets in Game 6. “I can’t say enough about the front office being able to acquire him at the deadline. What he can do for us on the field, in the clubhouse — it’s just amazing.”
Edman’s season didn’t begin until Aug. 19, 21 days after the Dodgers acquired him in a three-team trade with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago White Sox that also landed them hard-throwing reliever Michael Kopech.
His right wrist was slow to heal from offseason surgery, pushing his return back by a couple of months. He was finally ready to venture out on a rehab assignment by late June, but then he sprained an ankle during a workout. When the Dodgers engaged St. Louis on Edman in late July, they evaluated his 2024 season on the basis of one medical report and the small handful of scouts who descended upon Springfield, Massachusetts, to watch him play in four rehab games.
It was enough to finalize a trade. Their vision for him crystallized three months later.
“You see how he fits all over the diamond, the compliment to our team with the speed, you can tell the baseball instincts,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “And clearly, the moment does not bother him.”
Edman, 29, batted .407 in the NLCS, becoming the third player ever with 11-plus hits and 11-plus RBIs in a single postseason series, alongside Bobby Richardson in the 1960 World Series and David Ortiz in the 2004 American League Championship Series. When Miguel Rojas’ adductor tear prevented him from cracking the NLCS roster, Edman moved from center field to shortstop, creating a pathway for Enrique Hernández, notoriously good in October, to continue getting at-bats. And when Freddie Freeman‘s sprained right ankle prevented him from starting Game 6, Edman provided all the early production the Dodgers needed, poking a two-run double down the left-field line in the bottom of the first and launching a two-run homer to left-center field in the bottom of the third.
The only other Dodger to amass 11 RBIs in a single postseason series is Corey Seager in 2020.
“It’s pretty crazy, especially with the history of the organization, to have tied that record,” Edman said. “A huge part of that is a testament to the guys on the team. We had really good at-bats throughout the series. Our whole lineup was really good. Any number of guys could have won MVP.”
One of those candidates disagreed.
“Tommy, I think, clearly is the MVP,” Shohei Ohtani, speaking through an interpreter, said after an NLCS that saw him reach base safely 17 times. “He does things, not just this postseason but during the regular season, contributing in places where it doesn’t really reflect on the stat line. But I think the common theme for this season has been a lot of people, different guys, have been stepping up.”
The Cardinals established themselves as one of the sport’s pre-eminent franchises through a player-development system that continually turned lesser-regarded prospects into legitimate major league contributors. Edman, a sixth-round pick out of Stanford in 2016, was among the latest. He became a regular in 2020, won a Gold Glove at second base in 2021 and accumulated 5.3 FanGraphs wins above replacement in 2022, during which he provided a .725 OPS, accumulated 48 extra-base hits, stole 32 bases and excelled at three up-the-middle positions — second base, shortstop and center field.
For as much as the Dodgers asked, the Cardinals were hardly ever open to dealing Edman. A trade never got close. That finally changed midway through 2024, when a glut of position players and a desire for starting pitching made him a trade candidate. An early permutation had the Cardinals sending Edman to the White Sox for right-hander Erick Fedde. Then the Dodgers jumped in. The White Sox, in rebuild mode while navigating through a historically bad season, had no use for Edman, who was only a year and a half away from free agency. Instead, the Dodgers sent them a package of infield prospects headlined by Miguel Vargas. The Cardinals got Fedde and veteran outfielder Tommy Pham. The Dodgers received Edman and Kopech, who solidified the ninth inning down the stretch and opened Game 6 of the NLCS.
Said Gomes: “I don’t know where we’d be without those guys.
Edman, though, was an investment. It wasn’t until the third week of August that he was healthy enough to play in major league games. And it wasn’t until the second week of September, during a home series in which Edman homered four times against the Chicago Cubs, that his swing actually felt right for the first time. Edman’s numbers slid thereafter, his slash line sitting at just .153/.261/.305 over his past 69 regular-season plate appearances — but then he started to put his imprint all over October.
He did it by moving runners over with bunts and getting them in with homers. By mashing against lefties but also holding his own against righties. By locking down center field but also taking on shortstop.
Now, heading into a highly anticipated World Series matchup against the New York Yankees, he might be peaking at the right time.
“For me, relative to everybody else, I’m pretty much in June right now,” Edman said. “I’ve played like three months of baseball. Everybody else has played like seven months. I don’t want to say it’s an advantage, but I think having that time off, I feel a little bit more fresh.”
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Buster Olney, ESPN Senior Writer
The hiring of Skip Schumaker as a senior advisor may mean that the Texas Rangers have their future manager under contract.
But if current manager Bruce Bochy, who is likely to be inducted into the Hall of Fame once his career is over, wants to continue beyond 2025, the Rangers will enthusiastically welcome that.
According to one source, Bochy will have the latitude to continue if that’s what he wants.
“If [Bochy] wants to manage beyond 2025, [the Rangers] are good with that,” a highly ranked source told ESPN.
Bochy, who turns 70 in April, just completed his 27th season managing in the big leagues — for the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants before he became the Rangers’ skipper in 2023 — and ranks eighth all time in managerial wins with 2,171, the most for any current manager.
Next season, he will likely pass Dusty Baker and Sparky Anderson on the list. Bochy’s teams have won four championships — the Giants in 2010, 2012 and 2014, and the Rangers in 2023.
Schumaker, 44, is viewed as a rising star in the managerial ranks after his first two seasons, with the Miami Marlins.
Miami made the playoffs in 2023 and Schumaker was named National League Manager of the Year. But when the Marlins’ ownership effectively pushed out Kim Ng, the GM who hired Schumaker, he asked the team to void a 2025 option year on his contract, and he left the Marlins after the 2024 season.
One year into his tenure with the Padres, Mike Shildt has been rewarded with a two-year contract extension that ties the manager to San Diego through 2027.
The Padres announced the agreement Wednesday with the 56-year-old manager after they went 93-69, finishing five games behind the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West and claiming the top NL wild card.
“I am honored to continue leading this team toward Peter Seidler’s vision of bringing a World Series championship to San Diego,” Shildt said in a statement. “In collaboration with our players and coaching staff, we are committed to building on our success, serving our community and the City of San Diego, and delivering a winning team to our incredible and deserving fan base.”
San Diego swept a two-game wild-card series against the Atlanta Braves then took a 2-1 lead on the Dodgers in the best-of-five NL Division Series. Los Angeles bounced back to win the final two games 8-0 and 2-0.
The Padres tied for first in the majors with a .263 batting average and ranked sixth with a .745 OPS. Their 3.86 team ERA rated 12th, and their pitching staff’s 1,453 strikeouts came in sixth.
Shildt previously managed the Cardinals from 2018 to 2021, logging a 252-199 regular-season record and guiding St. Louis into the postseason in three of his four seasons. He was voted the NL Manager of the Year in 2019.
“As Mike demonstrated this year, he has an unwavering commitment to winning and a unique set of skills that got our group to perform at a high level,” Padres president of baseball operations and general manager A.J. Preller said in a statement. “He possesses a true love for this team and the game of baseball, and I am thrilled to continue to work together with Mike to bring a championship to the City of San Diego.”
Field Level Media contributed to this report.
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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
Inspirational thought of the week:
Do you love me?
Do you wanna be my friend?
And if you do
Well then don’t be afraid to take me by the hand
If you want to
I think this is how love goes
Check yes or no
— “Check Yes or No,” George Strait
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located among the giant concrete reinforcement pillars installed under the Indiana football offices to support Curt Cignetti’s self-confidence, we are still trying to process the ceaseless series of sea change/Earth change/mindset change/sleep-cycle change events that were thrust upon us over the course of only a few days’ time.
We had Halloween, turning the clocks back an hour, the release of a new Liam Neeson/Ron Perlman mob movie and a Week 10 slate that saw a gaggle of ranked teams pushed and/or upset by unranked teams, not to mention Pur-don’t and Northworstern going into OT.
And oh yeah, dummy me. I forgot the biggest event of them all. The one that was unfurling just as we were compiling these rankings Tuesday evening, Nov. 5, 2024. I am, of course, speaking of the #MACtion doubleheader of Boiling Green at Centralized Michigan and My Hammy of Ohio at Baller State. Oh, and the eve of “The Golden Bachelorette: The Men Tell All.”
With apologies to Joan Vassos, Jesse Palmer, Matt James, Tyler Cameron, Cleisthenes and Steve Harvey, here’s the post-Week 10 Bottom 10 rankings.
The good news is that the Golden (plated) Flashes, aka America’s last winless FBS team, did not lose their 18th straight game. The bad news is that it’s only because they didn’t play. Now they kick off Week 11 early with the first of four straight midweek games to end the season. It starts with a visit from fellow Ohioans Ohio, followed by a trip to fellow Ohioans My Hammy of Ohio, a visit from fellow Ohioans Akronmonious and then a trip to Buffalo, which isn’t in Ohio, but I’m pretty sure Ohio eats more Buffalo wings than any other state, so it feels like it is.
Brett Favre Funding U also managed to escape its open date without a loss ahead of hosting Marshall this weekend. The Olden Eagles are already eyeing their potential Pillow Fight of the Year of the Century in their season finale to Bottom 10 Waiting Lister Troy Bolton State. Actually, they’re already eyeing the weekend after that, when the season is finally over.
Speaking of the Waiting List, that’s where the Minors were just two weeks ago, but after back-to-back Pillow Fight losses to Fa-la-la-la-la La-la-la-Tech and Meh-dle Tennessee, they have jumped up off the bench outside and burst into the front door like me when the buffet hostess finally says, “McGee, party of one!” Now they will play in unprecedented Pillow Fight Three-peat against … yeah, like that hostess, we’re going to make you wait a minute.
Our old friends the Minuetmen also spent part of this fall on the Waiting List, but they answered the call of duty by following up their non-FBS win over Jack Wagner by getting housed by another Waiting List member, a fellow 2-7 squad out of the S-E-C, Miss Sus Hippie State. Now the Mess plays last week’s Coveted Fifth Spot winner Liberty. It’s always a weird headspace for a group of Revolutionary War soldiers to try to defeat Liberty.
The Tigers tumble down The Hill from the fancy-schmancy Coaches Poll top 10 into the Coveted Fifth Spot after losing to #goacc mid-packer Louisville. We were on the fence about whether to put Death Valley or Happy Valley into this slot, but our minds were made up after downing a bottle of refreshing water that had been winged at our heads from the Clemson student section.
Clemson fans threw debris onto the field after they were unhappy with a call.
Louisville scored on the very next play. pic.twitter.com/AI6SBYmRrM
— ESPN (@espn) November 3, 2024
I can hear the lobby conversation now. “Hey, Clemson, did y’all really just lose to Louisville and land in the Coveted Fifth Spot?” “Hey, FSU, did y’all really just lose by 24 points to North Carolina and is the only team you’ve beaten really Cal?” Then they both grab up their briefcases and head into the courtroom to explain why they are too good for the ACC.
The Buttermakers lost the B1G Bottom 10 Bowl presented by Rust-eze, falling to Northworstern in overtime. Now they finish the year with three of four games against top 10 teams in Ohio State, Penn State and Indiana. In related news, sources tell Bottom 10 JortsCenter that Purdue’s legendary engineering department is trying to invent one of those Tony Stark time machine thingies so they can fast forward to winter.
The New Owls have flown back into these standings after following up their first-ever win as an FBS program with their seventh-ever loss as an FBS program. Now they hit the road for their first-ever Pillow Fight of the Week, a matchup with border rival UTEPid. Told you we’d get to it.
If the Bottom 10 were a series “Game of Thrones” memes, this is where we’d see a photo of Boromir talking and giant white letters that read “ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY GET SMOKED 59-21 BY ONE-WIN UAB AND NOT END UP IN THE BOTTOM 10.” OK, sure, let’s go on and do it …
Working on this week’s #Bottom10 and, heads up northeastern Oklahoma… pic.twitter.com/7VUfH88njv
— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) November 5, 2024
My OG Bottom 10 champs are back! The Panthers keep racking up moral victories. Their only actual victories came back-to-back in September over Chattanooga and Vanderbilt. So, if you’re scoring at home, and we are, Georgia State beat Vandy, who beat Bama, who has been ranked No. 1 and who beat Georgia, who has been ranked No. 1 and who beat Texas, who has been ranked No. 1. I almost printed this paragraph out on Georgia State stationery and nailed it to the door of the College Football Playoff selection committee meeting room at the Gaylord Texan, like Martin Luther at the Castle Church.
Waiting List: FA (not I) U, Akronmonious, Meh-dle Tennessee, WhyOMGing?, You A Bee?, Whew Mexico State, Temple of Doom, Utaw State, Charlotte 3-and-6ers, assistant coaches impersonating volcanos.
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