Dodgers: 'World Series or Bust' Doesn't Ring True to LA President Andrew Friedman

The Dodgers lost in the NLDS after a historic regular season, and while some say that makes the 111 wins meaningless, L.A. president Andrew Friedman disagrees.

"World Series or bust." "It don't mean a thing if you don't get that ring." There are countless ways to say it, and Los Angeles fans are saying them all after the 111-win Dodgers flamed out spectacularly in the National League Division Series, dropping the series 3-1 and ending their season much sooner than anticipated.

L.A. president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman is disappointed, but he doesn't see the entire season as a meaningless failure, as Bill Plunkett reports in the Orange County Register.

“I can’t live life, I can’t do what I do on a daily basis with there being one success each year and 29 failures. I just can’t live that way,” he said. “It doesn’t change the burning desire to win a World Series every year. But I think it’s important for those of us who pour ourselves into it to be able to compartmentalize, appreciate certain successes, learn from certain failures and figure out how to get back and put us in the best position to win a World Series the next year.”

In the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis, A's executive Billy Bean famously said, “My sh** doesn’t work in the playoffs. My job is to get us to the playoffs. What happens after that is f***ing luck.” Friedman's take is a much more refined version of that approach, but a lot of fans probably won't like it.

Friedman probably wouldn't say it's entirely luck in the postseason, but the fact that the Dodgers were the best team in baseball and never had higher than about a 24% chance of winning the World Series tells you all you need to know about the crapshoot nature of the playoffs.

Still, Friedman will look at "certain failures" and try to figure out how to get better. It's all you can ask from a front office executive, even if it would feel better in the moment for him to rant and scream.