Dodgers Face Uncertain Offseason After World Series Dream Falls Apart

Forfeiting their seat on the MLB mountaintop kickstarts a rapidly changing landscape for the Dodgers.

As Milwaukee celebrated with suds and toasted a return to the World Series for the first time in decades, it was fair to wonder in the home locker room what things would look like at Dodger Stadium next season.

Shohei Ohtani might need offseason surgery. Tarik Skubal is a free agent. Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy are entering the final year of their contracts.

"I haven't been able to come to grips with what I learned overall this season," Ohtani said Thursday night. "I will go back to the drawing board in terms of treatment, a training program and see what I can come up with for next season."

Ohtani, 32, and Freeman, 37, are not expected to be going anywhere. And the Dodgers still have an embarrassment of riches to add as they see fit. But the Brewers showed the rest of baseball that the overspending in LA comes with no guarantees of success.

"There’s going to come a time where we’ll worry about next year, but it’s just right not now," Muncy said.

Maybe not. With an offseason lockout all but certain, payrolls and plans can hit pause until MLB develops a solution for leveling the playing field.

A salary-cap could be introduced as part of negotiations toward a fresh Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Contrarians can point to the Brewers -- or Guardians, or Rays — as examples of middle-class payroll franchises finding a path to success without paying premiums for every position on the roster.

Skubal will need to consider what's next before most of his teammates.

At 29, he returned from April elbow surgery after less than two months and went from Detroit to the Dodgers via trade in August with visions of a World Series.

"I'm not going to comment on my future really at all. Today sucks, you know, and that's kind of where my head's at."