The bad news the Dodgers got in 1999 was that their season had become a major disappointment, with reporting at the time calling them the National League’s biggest letdown and criticizing the team’s poor play. One article from July 1999 said the Dodgers, despite a league-high payroll, were “the No. 1 disappointment” of the first half of the season.

What that meant

  • The team was underperforming badly relative to expectations and spending.
  • Local coverage also described the club as struggling enough that Tommy Lasorda publicly blasted the players for lacking desire.
  • So the “bad news” was not one single injury or transaction, but the broader collapse of the team’s 1999 performance.

Context

By mid-1999, the Dodgers were being discussed as an expensive team that was not delivering results, which made the criticism especially sharp. That is the clearest reading of the 1999 “bad news” in the sources available here.

TL;DR: In 1999, the Dodgers’ bad news was mainly that they were floundering badly and becoming one of baseball’s most disappointing teams.