Desperately Looking For That Silver Lining
December 9, 2009 at 10:13 am | Posted in Charlie Haeger, James McDonald, Josh Lindblom, Ramon Troncoso, Scott Elbert | 6 CommentsIt’s been very negative around here lately, no? “The McCourts are a joke.” “The Dodgers are poor.” “While other teams go after John Lackey and Chone Figgins, the only Dodger rumors are for broken-down replacement players like Kameron Loe, Nick Green, and Alfredo Amezaga.”
Clearly, these are not the best of times for Dodger fans, and there’s the strong possibility that it only gets worse from here. But if you squint hard enough and put your hands in your ears, there’s a possibility that there may be one good thing coming out of this, and it’s not just watching the Diamondbacks make silly trades that give them a more expensive, less talented team. It’s thanks to comments that Ned Colletti made to various reporters (helpfully collected at Dodger Thoughts):
From a personnel standpoint, I’d say the main Dodgers news of the day was Ned Colletti telling reporters that he thinks one of the two vacancies in the starting rotation can be filled by one of the in-house candidates, including James McDonald, Scott Elbert, Josh Lindblom, Charlie Haeger and Ramon Troncoso. (Yes, a long reliever could potentially be converted into a starting pitcher.) Details can be found with Dylan Hernandez of The Times and Ken Gurnick of MLB.com.
Bear with me here, because this isn’t exactly the same kind of excitement that goes with acquiring Curtis Granderson or trying to trade for Roy Halladay, and it’s also very possible – if not extremely likely – that Colletti is just indulging in some gamesmanship by trying to position himself as not desperately needing several starters.
Still, for how many years have we been dying to see young players rather than veterans? You might say that a large part of the Dodger core last season was homegrown prospects, and you’d be right. Remember, though, those guys for the most part either were successful immediately upon reaching the bigs (Billingsley, Martin) or had to wait until less-talented older players got out of their way (Ethier, Loney).
So think about the possibilities here. We’ve been supporting giving Charlie Haeger a role constantly. We were dying for James McDonald to get the #5 job out of spring training last year. There’s a dozen teams that would fall all over themselves to give an arm like Scott Elbert a shot. Josh Lindblom was the surprise of the spring last year, and Ramon Troncoso was a stalwart of the big league bullpen. It’s not as though there’s not talent here.
Depending on who else is signed/acquired and which of this group really does get a chance, you could be seeing a Dodger rotation that is 80% under-30, with the potential for 100% when Hiroki Kuroda gets hurt again. It might not be the recipe for a championship in 2010, but it sure is better than watching Josh Fogg, Kris Benson, or Noah Lowry.
6 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a Reply
How Many McCourt Sins?
MSTI on the web
MSTI Library
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
Yeah, I’d much rather see Elbert/McD/Lindblom than Noah Lowry … ugh. If we actually guarantee someone like Lowry money and a roster spot, we’ve totally lost it. If you can get Sheets or Bedard, sure … guarantee them a spot if they’re healthy, otherwise rodder foster should only get an OPPORTUNITY to pitch, just as these kids should.
I sure was rooting for James last year, but that didn’t work out super well. He’s still young and talented and deserving of more opportunities.
Comment by Nick— December 9, 2009 #
wow … sorry, school is killing my brain – ROSTER FODDER, not rodder foster … you farging iceholes.
Comment by Nick— December 9, 2009 #
Just remember, you can’t commit suicide every time the Dodgers sign a Loe, and you can’t judge a team simply by where they’re at during the winter meetings. Colletti fared well last year by waiting the market out and getting bargain one-year deals on Hudson and Wolf, and while he undid some of that by not offering arb (likely a quid pro quo with their agents), there’s reason to believe bargains will be there in Jan/Feb this winter as well.
Comment by Jay Jaffe— December 9, 2009 #
I hear you. I like the low-risk shot-in-the-dark signings, actually. It’s just depressing when it’s all you hear, rather than going after anyone GOOD, is all.
But I can at least be unhappy about meetings with Jacque Jones, right? No upside or viable reasoning there.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— December 9, 2009 #
“So think about the possibilities here. We’ve been supporting giving Charlie Haeger a role constantly. We were dying for James McDonald to get the #5 job out of spring training last year. There’s a dozen teams that would fall all over themselves to give an arm like Scott Elbert a shot. Josh Lindblom was the surprise of the spring last year, and Ramon Troncoso was a stalwart of the big league bullpen. It’s not as though there’s not talent here.”
it wouldn’t hurt my feelings to see these guys battle it out for the 4th and 5th spot. At least there’s hope with this group. Not so with some of the castoffs whose names i’ve heard mentioned as possibilities of Ned’s
Comment by bluetrain— December 9, 2009 #
Well if you’re looking for some possibly-good news, the Tigers are allegedly interested in Juan Pierre. According to the rumor, the Tigers are trying to get a third team to send some pitching our way.
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/12/twitter-rumors-.html
Comment by gklarsen— December 9, 2009 #