Well. How did we get here?

Too many of the talented players on this 2007 Dodger team got hurt, and too many slumped - whether by means unlucky or deserved. (Follow that link - it will blow your mind.) In the end, that meant there weren't enough talented players to avoid falling to the bottom of the wild card race.

Now what?

Catcher: For all the complaining about Russell Martin playing too much, even in July he posted an .858 OPS. Like almost every other Dodger, he is struggling in August (.635), but as much as people have a hard time believing it, there's nothing to indicate that the Dodgers would have more victories in 2007 if Martin had rested more in the first four months. Even conceding he might be a bit stronger now (though we don't know that it's true), the extra value he'd have would be negated by the extra playing time given to Mike Lieberthal, who has one extra-base hit in 62 plate appearances this season.

Ultimately, the lesson may just be that if a catcher is your team's MVP, your team needs help.

Remainder of 2007: When rosters expand in September, the Dodgers will carry three catchers (Chad Moeller appears to have been acquired from the Cincinnati organization for that purpose) and have more flexibility to use Lieberthal as a pinch-hitter. If the Dodgers fall out of contention, Martin will get some days off.

2008: Martin will finally reach the ripe old age of 25. The future is bright. Hopefully, he'll have a stronger supporting cast.

First base: The Dodgers made a strong statement of faith in James Loney by not trading for Mark Texeira of the Rangers. Loney has up and down stretches, but the aggregate product (125 career OPS+) is all that Dodger fans could have hoped for in 2007. Little's elevation of Loney to the No. 3 slot in the batting order, when Loney's most recent statistics might have argued against it, reflects the confidence the organization has in him.

Remainder of 2007: Pennant-race panic might put Loney on the bench from time to time, and there's always the possibility he'll have a disappearing September like Andre Ethier had last year. But for the most part, the Dodgers appear to have decided that the future at first base has arrived.

2008: Again, Ethier provides a cautionary tale with how his sophomore season began, but expect Loney to be entrenched as the starter.

Second base: While Jeff Kent has never been an ideal cleanup hitter for this team, and while his range at second base is about the size of an Easy Bake Oven, Kent's continued offensive strength at the position is hardly something the team should spit at.

Remainder of 2007: Kent needs 134 more plate appearances for his $9 million 2008 option to automatically vest. Barring a serious injury, that will happen.

2008: Assuming Kent doesn't retire this year, 2008 will be his last season. What would be lovely would be for the Dodgers to reduce their reliance on Kent by being able to drop him to the No. 6 spot in the batting order and being able to rest him on a weekly basis. They have a perfect opportunity to break in a new infielder without pressuring him, the way they have broken in players like Ethier and Loney. (Why, by the way, are people so confident that Tony Abreu is faking an injury? Why can't he just be hurt? Why couldn't he have been faking being healthy (like others have done) before he was optioned? Are the Dodgers so reliable in knowing exactly what's going on with their players' bodies?)

Shortstop: We'll never know what might have been had Rafael Furcal not collided with Jason Repko in Spring Training. What has happened, so far anyway, is arguably the worst full season offensively of Furcal's major-league career - an 85 OPS+ - though he still mixes in outstanding defensive plays with his errors.

Remainder of 2007: Chin-Lung Hu, the highly touted defensiveman who has come on to have an .893 OPS in AA and AAA combined this season, should get to be Furcal's caddy in September.

2008: Furcal will be 30 in the final year of his Dodger contract and looking to come back strong. Hu should begin the season further honing his skills in Las Vegas.

Third base: The thing I can't quite figure out is how Nomar Garciaparra is still batting .281. Forget the fact that his on-base and slugging percentages aren't much higher - he just rarely seems to do more than a 1 for 4.

I have to think that Ned Colletti felt victimized that Andy LaRoche got hurt just when he looked ready to be promoted for good. Colletti had to be counting on LaRoche after trading Wilson Betemit. I don't believe there's any way Colletti wanted Ramon Martinez to be starting as many games as he has the past two weeks.

Remainder of 2007: Just waiting for LaRoche to get well. Otherwise, it's praying for Garciaparra to have something left. Garciaparra has a .844 OPS the past 28 days, including .422 over the past seven.

2008: LaRoche should be ready to assume this position, but a) he has been injured three times in the past two seasons and b) by federal decree, Dodger rookies don't get to start in April. No one will have high expectations for Garciaparra, but short of an Alex Rodriguez pursuit by the Dodgers, the incumbent will probably get the Opening Day call, with LaRoche poised to take over after May Day.

Left field: Luis Gonzalez, who turns 40 on September 3, has killed the Dodgers since the All-Star Break (.501 OPS).

Remainder of 2007: The Dodgers will hope for some September veteran miracles from Gonzalez, but also will mix younger players like Delwyn Young into the lineup (along with Ethier, when Matt Kemp is in right).

2008: As much as Gonzalez hurt the Dodgers this summer, he has done them a huge favor as far as the future. It was one thing for Colletti to ignore the younger Garciaparra's second-half struggles in 2006; it will be impossible to ignore Gonzalez's. If Gonzalez wants to have a role in baseball greater than Mark Sweeney's, it will probably be as a designated hitter. Now that he has proven himself, Ethier should be the full-timer, with Young backing him up.

Center field: Juan Pierre's 30th birthday is Tuesday. He's looking like an old 30 to me. While Pierre has hardly been the worst player on the Dodgers during their recent struggles, this season reinforced the fact that he is not good, and will not be good.

Remainder of 2007: The fact that Kemp and Gonzalez have tailed off means that no matter how dissatisfied Little has become with Pierre, Little lacks that final impetus to bench Pierre and end his consectutive game streak. Only extreme performances by all three of those mentioned will change that.

2008: Yes, the Dodgers could form a starting outfield without Pierre, but it won't happen.

Right field: At age 25, Ethier has a 113 OPS+. Kemp, though again struggling with strike zone judgment (though several Dodger Thoughts commenters argue that no player gets rougher treatment from the umpires), is at 117. Kemp turns 23 on September 23.

Remainder of 2007: Ethier will get the majority of the playing time.

2008: The Dodgers need to commit to Kemp as an everyday player, through thick and thin, because of the ongoing potential of the thick. Having hung onto him through two trading summers, Colletti and Little will do this, I suspect.

April 2008 lineup:

Furcal, SS
Martin, C
Loney, 1B
Kent, 2B
Ethier, LF
Garciaparra, 3B
Kemp, RF
Pierre, CF

July 2008 lineup:

Furcal, SS
Martin, C
Loney, 1B
Kemp, RF
Ethier, LF
Kent, 2B
Pierre, CF
LaRoche, 3B

In my opinion, there's a lot to like there.

Starting pitching: Brad Penny is having a career year. Chad Billingsley's bad starts are getting better, and his good starts are getting great. Derek Lowe is learning to pitch hurt. Mark Hendrickson's ERA swelled to 5.20, and Brett Tomko (5.49 ERA, 80 ERA+) is about to be caught by ex-Dodger Edwin Jackson (5.84 ERA, 78 ERA+), who has a 2.97 ERA since the All-Star break. (Jackson might not have a better career than Tomko, but at least he's on the upswing.)

Remainder of 2007: Unless the Dodgers attempt to pull a 2003 Jackson by promoting red-hot James McDonald (3.15 ERA, 143 strikeouts in 114 2/3 innings) from AA Jacksonville, the Dodgers will muddle through with their existing five, plus some spot starts from the likes of D.J. Houlton, Eric Stults, and maybe even Randy Wolf or Hong-Chih Kuo if they're able to get some work in.

2008: Looking at the projected batting orders for 2008, there are few question marks. With LaRoche as a stand-in for Garciaparra and Pierre the immovable object, you can already fill out that batting order. Such is not the case for the starting rotation.

As much as it didn't end up working out this year, the Dodgers will have little choice in such an injury-plagued position but to attack with numbers. Penny, Lowe, Billingsley and Jason Schmidt will be the front four, but only Billingsley doesn't have injury questions. You'll be able to knock me over with a feather if Colletti doesn't non-tender Hendrickson and buy out Tomko's 2008 option for $1 million, but that still leaves a spot in the rotation to fill - not to mention backups to have in place.

Help is coming from the minors - the Dodgers could perhaps try to sneak Houlton through the No. 5 spot until McDonald is ready for promotion. (Too bad Scott Elbert lost 2007 to injury, and Greg Miller lost 2007 to the wilds.) Colletti can also buy out Wolf's $9 million 2008 option for $500,000 and then see if he will come to Spring Training on a lower-priced deal. And Hong-Chih Kuo will give it another go. But that's not going to be enough depth to satisfy the GM. As much as the offense has struggled this month, I expect starting pitching to be priority one for the Dodgers this offseason.

Bullpen: When it's not overworked, the Dodgers simply have one of the best.

Remainder of 2007: Um, try not to overwork the bullpen.

One thing is that with September fewer than three weeks away, we're finally about to see Jonathan Meloan (2.08 ERA, 81 strikeouts, 54 baserunners in 57 minor-league innings).

2008: Four possibilities for Takashi Saito: 1) he defies the odds for a third season in a row, 2) he moves into a setup role, 3) age finally captures up with him, 4) he retires feeling good about himself. I'm going to guess he doesn't walk away from the game before the game walks away from him.

Jonathan Broxton, Joe Beimel and Scott Proctor will be back, no doubt joined by Meloan. Rudy Seanez will probably retire. Yhency Brazoban and Chin-Hui Tsao will try to come back from injuries. The bullpen will be in flux a bit, but it's not something to worry about now.

Prognosis

Remainder of 2007: In a two-week stretch, the NL West became Arizona's to lose. And that's still possible. The Diamondbacks are not the '27 Yankees, and they blew a 5-1 eighth-inning lead today against Washington. Meanwhile, the wild-card race is a jumble.

More than anything, perhaps, it was Derek Lowe's bad-hip start on Saturday that has made me lose faith that the Dodgers have it in them to come back in 2007. I'm not giving up - I'm already disappointed, so there's no disappointment to avert - but this ship has taken on a lot of water. The offense is simply going to have to pull a 180, at a minimum not letting any good pitching performances the Dodgers do get go to waste.

2008: We know Arizona is going to be a rival for a division title. We know Colorado is on the rise. We know the Padres will be tough if Jake Peavy and Chris Young carry on to next season, though the Padres don't appear to have the younger reinforcements the other three teams have. And for all we know, replacing Barry Bonds in the San Francisco lineup next season will be Alex Rodriguez. The NL West is ascending. The Dodgers are keeping up as well as any team, but because so much is dependent on the vagaries of pitching health, essentially there is going to be no predicting who will win.

2009: Just fooling around ...

Young, LF
Martin, C
Loney, 1B
Kemp, CF
Ethier, RF
LaRoche, 3B
Abreu, 2B
Hu, SS
Santana/Penny/Billingsley/McDonald/Kershaw, P

Same as it ever was? Maybe not ...