I’m Starting to Lose Confidence in Ronald Belisario
March 10, 2010 at 7:10 pm | Posted in Ronald Belisario | 7 CommentsOne of the running subplots of spring training has been the continued absence of reliever Ronald Belisario, held up in his native Venezuela due to visa problems for the second year in a row. This happens to a few players every year, so while disappointing, it’s not all that surprising.
Just a week ago, Tony Jackson reported that part of the reason for Belisario’s issue was the DUI he picked up last summer:
Because of the DUI charge, the visa application was sent back from Washington to Venezuela for some additional clarification, and then sent back to Washington for final approval. Once that approval is granted — that, apparently, is what Belisario is presently waiting for — Belisario would be permitted to enter the U.S. within a couple of days.
“I think it’s tied up in Washington,” Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. “I’m not sure he can do anything about it at this point. I’m not saying that was always the case, but that is where it is now.”
I think we can all identify with government bureaucracy and red tape, though of course Belisario isn’t blameless since he stupidly got behind the wheel after a few too many. However, Roberto of the great Vin Scully is my Homeboy puts his translation skills to use and finds that the reason for the holdup may be due to more than just last year’s arrest:
According to El Universal, a newspaper from Venezuela, Los Angeles Dodgers Pitcher Ronald Belisario has missed three dates with the U.S. embassy in Caracas.
I present this with the standard “Central & South American newspapers aren’t always the most reliable” grain of salt disclaimer. Still, if it’s true and he can’t be bothered to even show up for a meeting, one has to wonder how seriously he’s taking his career. Clearly, Ned Colletti is already bothered by it (from the Jackson article):
“While he is sitting in Venezuela, other people are here trying to make the club,” Colletti said. “Maybe one of them will take food off his table.”
As others have noted, despite the fact that he’s out of options, the Dodgers won’t simply lose him if he reports too late to be on the Opening Day roster; they can place him on the suspended list. Who stands to benefit if an extra roster spot opens up in the bullpen, at least in the early going? Perhaps Charlie Haeger, also out of options, who isn’t doing himself any favors by getting hit hard in his first outings and then being taken off the Taiwin trip due to hip discomfort. Or Josh Lindblom, of whom Joe Torre recently said, “his ball explodes at the end with something on it.” Or Rule 5 pick Carlos Monasterios, who got off to a nice start by allowing just one hit in two scoreless innings of work, or even undead Russ Ramon Ortiz, showing some life with five scoreless innings in his first two outings.
I’m not one to put much stock in spring statistics from this early, so don’t take that as me saying Russ Ramon Ortiz is “back”. The point is, there’s no shortage of qualified pitchers dying to take Belisario’s roster spot if he can’t manage to get in the country and prove he hasn’t fallen too far behind.
Three Games, Four Injuries
March 8, 2010 at 6:56 pm | Posted in Casey Blake, Cory Wade, George Sherrill, Russell Martin | 7 CommentsRussell Martin’s groin is still the talk of camp, but he’s hardly the only one dealing with injuries. Casey Blake left today’s game after 2 innings due to a strained muscle in his right side, and Cory Wade received a cortisone shot in his right shoulder, which will shut him down for two weeks.
Wade had almost no shot of making the club anyway, and by all accounts Blake’s injury is the sort of incredibly minor thing that wouldn’t stop him in July, but isn’t worth pushing through in March. That’s fine. Yet it seems that Wade isn’t the only reliever who’s sore, either, according to a line buried deep in the game recap from today’s tilt against the Giants:
[George] Sherrill opened the spring with sore knees and was further slowed by taking a line drive off his right ankle last week.
First I’ve heard of any of that. Clearly, it’s not something the team is all that concerned about since no one’s talking about it and Sherrill’s scheduled to pitch against Colorado tomorrow, but certainly worth keeping an eye on. With Ronald Belisario still MIA, the last thing this club needs is another important reliever unable to contribute.
A.J. Ellis’ Big Opportunity
March 7, 2010 at 11:31 am | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Brad Ausmus, Russell Martin | 15 CommentsObviously, today’s big news is that Russell Martin is going to miss 4-6 weeks with his hip/abdomen/groin/thorax/torso/whatever problem. That number’s likely to change; we don’t know if that means he’s going to require surgery or just rehab, and Joe Torre himself says that he doesn’t know if that timeline is for Martin to be ready to start rehab or to be ready to return to action.
In theory, this sounds disastrous. But is it?
4-6 weeks sounds like a long time. Yet remember, today’s only the 3rd game of the spring. Opening Day on April 5th is just under a month away. If there’s no further complications or timeline changes (and remember, we just don’t know right now) then Martin might only need to miss a week or two of games.
Besides, how upset should we really be to not have him in the lineup? I’m not saying I’m happy about this news - far from it, because I was interested to see if his new bulk would help him bounce back. It’s just that it’s not really as though he was contributing a lot to the team in 2009; I’m not really bemoaning the loss of a .680 OPS as much as you’d think.
So what happens in the interim? I think it’s unlikely that the Dodgers look elsewhere for a catcher unless Martin’s injury proves far more serious. It’s really not worth the trouble if Martin’s only going to miss a small amount of time, and regardless there’s almost no one worth going after anyway. Since Brad Ausmus isn’t going to step in and catch every day, A.J. Ellis would almost certainly get the bulk of the work until Martin returns.
I know there’s a lot of people excited to see Ellis, thanks to his gaudy OBP numbers in the minors (.398 career, .436 and .438 the last two seasons). Over the winter, Ken Gurnick actually went so far as to suggest that Ellis might challenge Martin for playing time this year. Yet despite this, I just don’t have very high hopes for Ellis’ big-league potential.
First, despite the fact that he’s got just 13 MLB plate appearances, let’s not confuse him with a prospect. Ellis turns 29 on April 9, which makes him two years older than Martin. He’s been in the Dodger system for 7 seasons, having had to repeat High-A ball, AA, and AAA. Yet even though he’s been on the farm for so long, he’s played in just 464 games, because he’s only once made it into more than 90 games in a season. That’s actually 106 fewer games than Martin has played in the majors alone. He’s so highly thought-of that he didn’t even warrant an entry in Memories of Kevin Malone‘s great Prospect Profiles series.
Now, I like a guy who can take a walk, and for his career Ellis has shown that ability, walking 273 times against just 248 strikeouts. Here’s the problem he’s going to run into in the bigs, though: he has no power. Zero. Juan Pierre levels. Ellis has just 17 homers to his name over 7 years, which would be bad enough, except that he played the last two seasons in the hitter’s havens of Las Vegas and Albuquerque. ABQ turned Hector Luna into a .610 slugger last year, when he’d never been over .417 before, and it allowed Dee Brown to hit 19 HR, a number he hadn’t approached in nearly ten years. Ellis somehow didn’t hit a single homer down there last year, which seems absolutely impossible from a man who got 360 total plate appearances.
You might be saying, “well, he’s an emergency fill-in, we’re not looking for him to hit cleanup.” I’d agree with that. It’s just that it’s all well and good that Ellis can lay off the pitches of AAA retreads who are terrified of serving up a fat pitch at high altitude to rack up those OBP numbers. But what’s going to happen in the bigs? If he can’t hit a ball out of Albuquerque, pitchers at the big-league level are going to have nothing to fear from him. That means he’s going to be seeing a lot of strikes, and he’s shown no reason to think that he can do a lot of damage to those pitches in the zone. Without all those walks, that OBP is going to drop, and quickly.
Questions about his offense aside, Ellis does have a reputation as a very good backstop and handler of pitchers, and maybe that’s all you’ll need as a short-term fill-in. Since there’s no good external option, Ausmus isn’t capable of playing every day, and Lucas May probably isn’t ready to jump from AA to the bigs, it’s not that I have a problem with playing Ellis. Giving the options available, he’s the right (only) choice, even if that choice isn’t a great one.
That said, Casey Blake needs to get off to a very quick start, because that’s the only way this team is going to be drowning out the Carlos Santana cries that are sure to happen.
Update: Dylan Hernandez is reporting that Martin insists he’ll be ready for Opening Day. We’ll see; players aren’t usually the most accurate source of information about their own health. The last thing we need is for him to try to rush back, though, and risk exacerbating the injury.
Russell Martin to Miss 4-6 Weeks
March 7, 2010 at 10:38 am | Posted in Russell Martin | Leave a commentHow’s this for a hilarious timeline? (all courtesy of Dylan Hernandez’ Twitter). First, Dylan posts a tweet to a Steve Dilbeck story in the LA Times, leading with this:
Dodgers catcher Russell Martin says groin strain is ‘not anything major’
Not 25 minutes later, Dylan tweets this:
Torre: Martin out 4-6 wks. Will probably miss opening day.
And then adds…
Martin will be replaced on the big-league roster by AJ Ellis.
FANTASTIC. Clearly, this story is moving quickly. More, and repercussions, certainly coming later today.
More Reason For Optimism in 2010
March 6, 2010 at 3:04 pm | Posted in Joe Torre, Matt Kemp, Russell Martin | 10 Comments
You may remember that for much of last year, one of our biggest complaints with Joe Torre was the ridiculous decision to have Matt Kemp – who was only, you know, the best center fielder in baseball - spending so much of the year hitting 7th or 8th. Kemp got 282 plate appearances (a little less than half his season) hitting that low in the lineup. It doesn’t take a sabremetrician to know that you want your best hitters at the plate more than lesser hitters, so to watch an emerging stud like Kemp getting fewer chances to hit than the struggling Russell Martin & Rafael Furcal (not to mention the five weeks Juan Pierre spent leading off) was frustrating to say the least.
But if early signs are any indication, Torre may be ready to remedy that mistake this season…
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Matt Kemp had a team-leading 139 strikeouts in 2009 but that won’t deter manager Joe Torre from using his budding star in the second spot in the Dodgers’ lineup this season.
In the first game of the spring Friday, Kemp was batting second behind leadoff man Rafael Furcal and ahead of sluggers Andre Ethier and Manny Ramirez.
Not the prototypical No. 2 hitter that can work counts and is adept at situational hitting, Torre thinks Kemp could thrive in the role, anyway.
“We don’t want Matt Kemp to give himself up,” Torre said. “But I think that second spot has changed its personality a lot. Years ago when you had Pee Wee Reese hitting second, his job was to move the runner and stuff. Now you want to move the runner all the way around to score.”
“(Don) Mattingley hit two, Alex Rodriguez hit two,” Torre said. “Matt, I think a big part of it in my thinking is the fact that he’s going to be hitting in front of some thunder, so he’ll get some pitches to hit. He can do some damage with pitches to hit. He’s been much more disciplined than I thought he would be last year than he was the year before. He’s only going to get better.”
“Batting second, I know (Furcal) is going to get on and cause havoc on the bases,” Kemp said. “He’s going to run and my job is to drive him in or get on base and let (Ethier and Ramirez) drive me in.”
I don’t like to get too caught up in spring training stories, especially this early. Yet it’s hard to ignore what the top half of the Dodger lineup could look like. Leading off, you’ve got the LA Times writing articles about how good Furcal’s back feels this year. Then you have Kemp hitting 2nd, with Ethier 3rd and Manny (four hits in the first two spring training games) 4th? Now that’s a lineup. How many good pitches do you think Kemp could see hitting #2, with pitchers knowing that both Ethier and Manny await?
What’s even better about this is remembering what a mess the #2 spot was for much of last season. Sure, it was fine for the first two months when Orlando Hudson was going great. But it went downhill as soon as Manny got suspended and Pierre took over the leadoff spot. Bumped to #2, Furcal hit a putrid .201/.272/.276 (.548) in 32 games in the role. Martin got a shot, and was even worse – putting up just a .508 OPS in 12 games. By the time September rolled around, it was basically pulling names out of a hat, as Hudson, Ethier, Pierre, Kemp, Martin, & Ronnie Belliard all got multiple starts at #2.
If Kemp really is going to be the man in the second slot, it’s a good sign as far as the decision-making tree goes, and an even better sign for lineup productivity.
******
Speaking of Martin, he missed today’s game thanks to an MRI taken of his “hip or groin area”, reports Ken Gurnick. After all the stories we’ve heard about how much Martin bulked up this offseason, one area of caution is absolutely the loss of flexibility; the two often go hand-in-hand. No word on the severity or cause of this issue yet, though.
Garret Anderson Chooses an Appropriate Number
March 5, 2010 at 9:26 am | Posted in Brian Giles, Doug Mientkiewicz, Garret Anderson, Xavier Paul | 13 CommentsDespite the fact that Andre Ethier apparently offered to give up his #16 jersey, Garret Anderson decided to go with number that suits him best: #00. The double-zero is appropriate because that’s exactly the amount of contribution I expect the Dodgers to receive from him.
That said, we’ve learned a bit about the competition for the last spot off the bench in the day or so since Anderson signed. Brian Giles’ knee is apparently responding so poorly that the expectation is that he’ll call it quits in the next week or so, according to Tony Jackson. Jackson also reveals this interesting note about Doug Mientkiewicz:
After dislocating his shoulder last season, Mientkiewicz said he no longer can make the throw across the diamond from third base, meaning he will be limited to playing first from now on.
That, at least to me, is new information. I hadn’t heard anything that suggested Eyechart’s injury was still affecting him that severely. Since this bench spot is apparently ticketed for someone who only fits the qualifications of “old and left-handed”, whether or not Eyechart can play anywhere other than 1B might not be a big deal. Still, one of the few reasons I liked him was because he did bring some nice versatility, and that appears to be gone.
So on that level, the signing of Anderson makes a little bit more sense, since Mientkiewicz isn’t what we thought and Giles may not even be in the competition. Yet what this also does is shine a light on the fact that the way the bench competition was structured this offseason was done so oddly that the team is now in a situation where Anderson may actually be the best option, just because they’re desperate for a lefty bench bat.
Simply put, it didn’t have to be this way. You could have been looking for the best bench option, rather than the best lefty bench option, and quite easily. They could have signed a lefty 4th outfielder (like the names I suggested, such as Randy Winn or Gabe Gross) rather than righty Reed Johnson, and it’s not even that I have a problem with Johnson, it’s just that it was an odd choice from the beginning to add another righty bat since it’s not like Johnson was a “must-have” addition. Or (and yes, I promised I’d stop harping on this) they could have added a lefty-hitting infielder like Felipe Lopez rather than Jamey Carroll. If either of those things happen, the Dodgers aren’t so desperate for a lefty bat that they’re going to choose between the old (Anderson), the old & infirm (Giles), and the old, infirm, & hard-to-spell (Mientkiewicz).
Of course, the correct option is right under our noses. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a lefty bat who’s likely to be as productive as any of these three, and not only won’t kill you in the outfield but has a strong arm and would be a great defensive caddy for Manny? Sounds like Xavier Paul to me, and as Jon astutely notes, the Dodgers have not had a good history with 35+ reserves. Let’s hope we don’t have to add another name to that list.
Dodgers Inexplicably Sign Garret Anderson, For Some Reason
March 3, 2010 at 7:58 pm | Posted in Garret Anderson | 16 CommentsDylan Hernandez tweets the suprising news (and just as this blogger was really reaching for something to write about!) that the Dodgers have signed OF Garret Anderson to a minor-league contract.
This makes sense because… well… I have no idea, actually. Maybe they’ll take spare parts from him to pair with Brian Giles and form some sort of zombie robot outfielder? As I don’t need to tell you, the top foursome in the Dodger outfield is set. You’ll need a lefty bat off the bench, granted, but if that’s not Giles or Xavier Paul you’d think for sure it’s Doug Mientkiewicz, who Joe Torre seems to love and who can at least play a few positions pretty well.
What can Garret Anderson do well? Well, this isn’t the first time his name has come up, and this is what I said about him in January…
Yes, I don’t like him because he’s old (38 in June). Yes, I don’t like him because he’s coming off the worst year of his career despite having just moved to the easier league (.705 OPS, the third year in a row that decreased). Yes, I don’t like him because he is by all accounts a horrible fielder (-16.5 UZR/150 last year). Hey, a senior citizen who can’t hit or field? Sign me up?!
Since then, the Dodgers have imported Reed Johnson to be the 4th outfielder, plus Giles and others to battle for the last bench spot. What Garret Anderson adds to that mix is… well, not “quality” exactly… I don’t know. Formaldehyde?
James Loney Is Going to Have a Huge Year
March 2, 2010 at 8:27 pm | Posted in James Loney | 17 CommentsIt’s been a recurring question for the last two seasons. It’s the most recent story on the Rotoworld Dodgers feed. It was the subject of a story in the Los Angeles Times just a few days ago, and it’s time to look at it in more depth.
When will James Loney hit for power?
Oh, sure, Loney’s saying all the right things. “I feel this is the year,” he said to Dylan Hernandez in the Times article. “I feel stronger,” he added. “It’s the strongest I’ve ever felt.” Which is all well and good, except spring training is littered with the corpses of guys who said they were in the best shape of their lives. Remember how confident Russell Martin was last year? Yeah, how did that work out?
But in Loney’s case, he’s got a lot more going for him than his boastful words. Without completely repeating the article I wrote on this exact topic in the 2010 Maple Street Press Dodgers Annual (on sale now! Featuring Dodger Thoughts, True Blue LA, Dodger Divorce, Memories of Kevin Malone, Josh Suchon, BP‘s Jay Jaffe, and so much more!) I’m putting it out there right now: James Loney is going to take an enormous leap forward in 2010.
Really, the problem thus far has been that Loney’s been a little underrated. No, I’m not going to defend the .399 SLG from a year ago, which is completely unacceptable from just about any position but especially so from first base. It’s just that I think people forget how incredibly young Loney still is, mostly because this is a guy who’s been in the minds of Dodger fans for quite a while. He’s about to start his fifth season in the bigs, and it’s been nearly 8 years since he was a first round pick. To many casual fans, that’s long enough that he should stop being a “prospect” and start “shaping up or shipping out”.
Well, it’s fortunate for the rest of us that casual fans don’t run the team, because it’s easy to forget that despite his career in the organization, Loney is still just 25 years old. He made his debut at only 21 (yes, just months older than Clayton Kershaw was for his debut) and tantalized us all with some big displays of power in parts of 2006 and 2007 before settling into a nearly identical 2008 and 2009 seasons which many saw as a disappointment. Yet if he didn’t have the immediate splash guys like Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols did, those years were far from disappointing. In fact, they’ve set him up to make a huge leap this year, and here’s why.
He’s still just 25 – and has established himself as a viable major league hitter. Two seasons of 13 homers and OPS+ scores that are just slightly above-average (103 and 104) aren’t really sexy, to be sure. At shortstop, that might make you a star, but in a National League with first basemen like Pujols, Howard, Fielder, and the rest, that puts you in the back of the pack. Yet if you look at his baseball-reference page, something jumps out at you immediately: in each of his four seasons (two partial), his OPS+ is in triple digits. He’s been at least league-average or better every year. Considering he was ages 22-25 in those seasons and still learning his way around the bigs, that’s impressive. If Loney were to keep pumping out seasons like the last two, it’s still good enough that he’d have a big-league career for years to come. Yet very few players peak before their 26th birthday. 2008-09 may not have been eye-catching, but considering the ages he was during them, it gives him a nice base to work from. In fact, what he’s done at his young age is pretty notable considering…
His comparables are impressive. At baseball-reference, they have what they call “Similarity Scores”, which compare a player to every other player in history at his position, through each year of age. Check out some of Loney’s 1B comparables through age 25…
1) Jeff Bagwell
2) Ted Kluszewski
6) Rafael Palmeiro
7) High Pockets Kelly*
8) Steve Garvey
9) Joe Adcock
10) Adrian Gonzalez
*You don’t know who this is. Honestly, neither did I. But I included him because A) he’s a Hall of Famer and B) HIS NAME IS “HIGH POCKETS”.
That’s one Hall of Famer (Kelly), one lock once he’s eligible (Bagwell), one who would be on numbers alone if not for the PED issue (Palmeiro), one of the legendarily feared sluggers of his time (Kluszewski), one of the biggest stars of today (Gonzalez), and two long-time stars (Adcock and Garvey).
That’s some impressive company. Yet that only takes into account what Loney has done up until this point in his career, in seasons some have found underwhelming. We’ve already seen signs that he might advance past that, especially since…
His pitch recognition is improving. As many have noted, Loney’s 2008 and 2009 stat lines are eerily similar – I mean, it’s one thing to put up 13 homers and 90 RBI two years in a row, but to get 651 plate appearances on the nose twice in a row? That’s just freaky. But what it does do is help us see exactly what changed in the same amount of appearances from the first year to the next. In 2008, Loney struck out 40 more times than he walked (85-45). Yet in 2009, that number changed by 42, to the point that he actually walked twice more than he K’s (68-70).
That’s a pretty stunning turnaround in the space of just one year, and it really shows a young player who’s gaining control of the strike zone – he swung at 4% fewer pitches outside the strike zone in 2009 than the year before. At his age, the turnaround in K/BB is a fantastic sign. While some might say, “well that’s great, but then why didn’t he hit with any more authority?”, the fact is that as the year went on…
He ended last year on a great hot streak. This may or may not, as I wrote in the Annual, have anything to do with bench coach Bob Schaefer telling him to lose his mouthguard. Yet from August 25th on, Loney crushed the ball, hitting .296/.382/.464 (.846 OPS) with 6 homers. In the playoffs, he was even better, putting up an .892 OPS with 2 more homers. Whether it was the mouthpiece, seeing better pitches because he was laying off the junk, just maturing the point where everything ”clicked”, or some combination of the three, Loney took off in late August and never stopped.
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because I wrote a very similar post last September, in the middle of his hot streak. All he did after that was keep it up – improve, even – and all signs point to 2010 being the Year of the Loney. You heard it here. (For the record, while I’m high on Loney, I feel the opposite about Martin. Therefore, expect Martin to be an All-Star while Loney is demoted by June.)
This Is Never Going to Feel Okay
March 1, 2010 at 5:36 pm | Posted in Brian Giles | 8 CommentsYou know how it feels really odd to see those late-career images of guys like Joe Namath as a Ram, or Willie Mays as a Met? That’s how I felt when perusing the spring training wire today to find this image of Brian Giles in a Dodger uni. The same guy who led those pesky 2006-08 Padres teams that always seemed to beat the Dodgers (you know, when he wasn’t busy beating up his girlfriend) is now wearing the glorious Dodger blue.
I don’t think he’s got much of a shot to make the Opening Day roster, so in all likelihood his official line will never show that he played for the Dodgers, and it’ll be all but forgotten. Yet, this picture will always be out there, haunting us, proving that it almost happened.
Brian Giles. A Dodger. Just can’t wrap my head around it.
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