Andrew Friedman Has Surprising Response to Dodgers' Postseason Closer Decision

The Los Angeles Dodgers marched through the last two postseasons without a clearly-defined closer.

The 2024 regular season featured Evan Phillips closing out most of the regular season games, but Blake Treinen got a majority of the opportunities in the postseason.

After looking to address this by signing Tanner Scott ahead of the 2025 season, his erratic performances in high-leverage moments, a postseason injury and the emergence of Roki Sasaki as a relief pitcher all pointed to a closer-by-committee for a second-straight October.

With LA hoping that All-Star closer Edwin Diaz and a three-year, $69 million deal this past offseason would fix their persistent issue, history started to look like it was repeating itself after he started the year with a 10.50 ERA in his first seven outings.

Scott returned from a horrific 2025 to put up a 2.69 ERA this past regular season; Diaz (after two IL stints) has started to finally look more familiar with just one hit allowed and nine strikeouts through his final five appearances of the year; and Sasaki — also in a move reminiscent of 2025 — returned from the IL with three scoreless appearances out of the bullpen.

For a third straight season, it is now unclear who the Dodgers' closer will be for the most important stretch of the year.

President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, someone who would likely have an answer to who the closer of the playoffs will be, unfortunately had none.

“I do not know,” Friedman said to the Los Angeles Times.

“I feel very confident that we’re going to be going into October with arguably the deepest and best pitching staff that we’ve had,” he added. “Exactly what their roles will be and how things will be ordered, I don’t know right now.”

Having too many options is almost always better than not having enough, but when your season can be extended or ended on one pitch, in some instances, having effectiveness on the mound is better than a consistent arm.

“We’ve got a number of guys that we really trust,” Friedman said. “Depending on who we’re playing, how deep our starter goes, there are a lot of factors that would go into it. But, more than who will be that pitcher on the mound, is the fact that we have so many candidates we feel really good about.”

Treinen, who had three saves on the road to the 2024 title and a crucial save during the first game of the 2025 NLCS when Sasaki almost cost his team the game, injured his shoulder while warming up on Saturday and will be out for the postseason.

It can be assumed that the closer role will be up to Sasaki, Scott and Diaz this October, but according to Friedman, it appears nothing is off the table.

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