Excerpt: "Teams #1-10"

"8. Los Angeles Dodgers (86-76; second in NL West, wild-card team; 623 RS, 597 RA). The largest payroll in baseball history didn't buy a center fielder or a second baseman. It did buy a 32-year-old leadoff man with a .308 OBP from ages 29-31, a $10-million setup man coming off two seasons with a total of 15 2/3 innings pitched, and $27.5 million worth of old and slow on the infield corners. What bugs me about this projection isn't that it's out of sync with everyone else's; what bugs me is that I don't think the Dodgers are even this good. The laser focus on the lack of maturity displayed by a 23-year-old -- as if that's a unique story in baseball, sports or world history -- has distracted from just how flawed this roster is. It is entirely possible that it comes together, that I'm wrong about the patchwork center-field situation, too down on Wilson, and that Alexander Guerrero emerges at second base. What I see, though, is a team that's one serious Clayton Kershaw injury from collapse."