Daily Archives: August 22, 2010

Rod Barajas Is Actually Somehow an Upgrade

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…and that should tell you a lot, because Rod Barajas is horrendous. He’ll be 35 in two weeks, and his laughably bad .263 OBP this year is actually not that far off his amazingly poor .284 career mark. He just missed a month with an oblique strain, and he’s hitting .163/.223/.221 since the end of May.

He’s also your new Dodger starting catcher, since they claimed him off waivers from the Mets today. That should tell you something as well; even though he’s got less than half of his paltry $500k salary coming to him, the Mets didn’t even work out a deal with the Dodgers. They just said, “fine. Take him.”

There’s definitely an air of “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” to this move, but the sad truth is… A.J. Ellis and Brad Ausmus are so unbelievably bad, that getting Barajas for free is actually a small step up. Does Barajas’ OBP suck? Sure, it does. But it’s not like Ellis (.237) or Ausmus (.275) are doing any better, and Barajas at least offers one thing that neither Ausmus or Ellis can even dream about: power. Ausmus has one homer in the last two years, while Ellis hasn’t hit one since 2008 despite spending time in high-altitude Albuquerque in each of the last few years. Barajas hit 19 last year, and 12 in just 267 plate appearances this year.

So the trade, in itself, is not a problem. For about $150k, they acquired a pretty bad catcher to replace their amazingly bad catchers, so fine. The problem here may be a larger issue, though; as I’ve mentioned about a billion times lately, the team needs to sell. They need to sell Ted Lilly. They need to sell Manny Ramirez. They need to sell anyone who’s not signed for next year, but once again, they’re buying.

If this deal is just a free way to make an embarrassing position slightly less embarrassing, then fine. If they still fancy themselves contenders… that’s just a complete organizational failure which will have repercussions into the future.

For Once, the Offense Leads the Way

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In a game mostly notable for the returns of Manny Ramirez (to the team) and Jonathan Broxton (to the 9th inning), it was the return of a long dormant offense which was the biggest surprise of all. Home runs by Ryan Theriot (!), Andre Ethier, Jay Gibbons, and Matt Kemp powered Chad Billingsley to his 10th victory, despite the late efforts of Billingsley and Travis Schlichting to give it back. It should be noted that Gibbons now has as many homers (two) in 19 at-bats as his predecessor, Garret Anderson, had in 155.

As for the two big stories of the night, Manny – activated today, with Juan Castro DFA’d, just as I’d hoped – went 0-3 with two strikeouts. That’s disappointing, but not all that unexpected; he’s barely played in two months, after all. That’s a big part of the reason that I wanted him activated as soon as possible, because if he’s going to build up any trade value, he’ll need as many games as he can to get his timing down.

Broxton was slightly wild in the 9th, going to a 3-2 count on the first batter, but still set down the Reds in order to get his first save since August 3. I’m not sure if this means he’s “back” – his velocity was still down, by the way – but it had to be a huge boost to his confidence. Since Hong-Chih Kuo pitched 1.2 innings today and Octavio Dotel hasn’t gained any trust, I’d imagine Broxton would be the man should the Dodgers have a lead in the 9th tomorrow, as well.

******

Of course, the real big news is that there’s an announcement coming tomorrow on Vin Scully’s future, says T.J. Simers:

“I know what I am going to do and I would imagine the Dodgers will arrange things so an announcement can be made before [Sunday's] game,” said Scully, who will be 83 before the start of next season. “I’d like to do that so everyone hears it at the same time. It’s the proper way to do it.”

My guess, just from comments he’s made over the last few months, is that he won’t retire yet, but he’ll cut back further on his schedule. I’d imagine that means that he’ll do only home games and no longer make the NL West trips, with the possible exception of the short journeys to Anaheim and San Diego.

Of course, it’s very possible that’s just my own selfishness speaking, praying that he’ll stick with us on even a reduced schedule, rather than heading off into the retirement he obviously so richly deserves.

Gulp.