The 2012 season marked the 50th playing at Dodger Stadium for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the 123rd overall in franchise history.
Despite high expectations, the Dodgers finished 86-76, missing the postseason. They were eight games behind the San Francisco Giants in the National League West standings, good for second place.
While the 2012 season was a disappointment on the field, it was a big one off it as the completion of the sale of the team from Frank McCourt to Guggenheim Baseball Management was finalized on May 1. The sale was first agreed upon on March 27, 2012, for a record $2 billion.
The sale price shattered the $1.47 billion Malcolm Glazer paid for English soccer team, Manchester United, in 2005. While a deal was in place, it required final confirmation in a court hearing on April 13 of that year.
The Guggenheim group was headed by principle owner Mark Walter and included team president and CEO Stan Kasten, and part-owners Todd Boehly, Peter Guber, Magic Johnson and Bobby Patton.
Regular season
Heading into the 2012 season, the Dodgers lost a number of key players such as Casey Blake, Jonathan Broxton, Hiroki Kuroda, Jon Garland, Hong-Chih Kuo, Vicente Padilla and Rod Barajas.
They didn’t make any splashy moves to replace them in the offseason, only bringing in role players such as Mark Ellis, Jerry Hairston Jr., Adam Kennedy, Matt Treanor, Chris Capuano and Aaron Harang.
The Guggenheim Partners did make a few splashes around the trade deadline, however, as they were willing to spend money that McCourt was not.
The first move was acquiring shortstop Hanley Ramirez from the Miami Marlins on July 25. That was followed by the acquisition of outfielder Shane Victorino from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 31.
The Dodgers’ big trade was actually a waiver deal in August though, acquiring Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto from the Boston Red Sox for Allen Webster, Iván DeJesús Jr., James Loney and two players to be named later.
The trade was the largest in franchise history with the Dodgers taking on more than a quarter of a billion dollars in salary.
Gonzalez was the headliner of the deal and immediately made his presence felt in L.A. when he hit a three-run home run in his first at-bat with the team on Aug. 25 against the Miami Marlins at Dodger Stadium.
One other acquisition that the Dodgers made in 2012 was through the draft as they selected shortstop Corey Seager in the first round out of Northwest Cabarrus High School in North Carolina. Seager, of course, went on to become the 2016 NL Rookie of the Year.
While there wasn’t much to celebrate on the field for the Dodgers in 2012, they did have two All-Stars represent them in Kansas City in Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw.
Kemp was coming off an outstanding season in 2011 in which he finished second in the NL MVP voting behind Ryan Braun. He followed that up with a stellar first half in 2012, being named a start in the Midsummer Classic and the NL captain in the Home Run Derby.
He suffered a hamstring injury in May though, ending a Major League-leading streak of 399 consecutive games played. He also ran into a wall in Colorado in August, suffering both knee and shoulder injuries and causing him to undergo surgery for a torn labrum the following offseason.
Overall in 106 games in 2012, Kemp hit .303/.367/.538 with 23 home runs and 69 RBI.
On the mound, Kershaw finished second in the NL Cy Young voting behind R.A. Dickey of the New York Mets. In 33 starts, Kershaw went 14-9 with a 2.53 ERA, 2.89 FIP and 1.02 WHIP with 229 strikeouts and 63 walks in 227.2 innings.
