This post is more to foster discussion more than anything. For years, the Dodgers relied on its farm system to provide the players and the stars of the team from either calling up young players(Garvey, Sax, Mike Piazza), or shrewd trades such as for Pedro Guerrero.

Yet, somewhere along the way the Dodgers stopped focusing on the farm system for a long while, to the point where Joey Thurston was considered a top prospect for the Dodgers farm system.

Even today, after the rapid promotion of the Jacksonville 5, and other elite prospects such as Clayton Kershaw, the expectation is that the Dodgers is only going to get better through free agency, and that it should gut its farm to trade for players like Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, A-Gon, etc.

So, when did the focus shifted? When the Dodgers traded Pedro for Delino DeShields? The Gary Sheffield trade? Signing Kevin Brown?