Remember This Day in December
August 31, 2010 at 8:28 pm | Posted in Hiroki Kuroda, Ted Lilly | 27 Comments
Hiroki Kuroda, perhaps at the peak of his value after last night’s gem, was claimed on waivers by the Padres, who could badly use a veteran starter.
Ted Lilly, who’s been brilliant since coming to the Dodgers except for his last start, was claimed on waivers by the Yankees, who have serious depth issues in the rotation.
Yet the Dodgers, in their infinite wisdom, decided to trade neither one, meaning they’re doing exactly what I begged them not to last week: they’re doing this half-assed. They have a 4.1% chance of making the playoffs, and they just dumped their best hitter on the White Sox, yet they’re acting like they’re primed for a playoff push.
This isn’t a Manny situation, where getting a decent prospect was unlikely for a variety of reasons. Kuroda & Lilly each have true real-world value, and while they wouldn’t return A++ prospects, they would have more than likely brought back players worth developing for the future.
Now, some will say that the Dodgers kept them with the intention of retaining them for next year. Oh yeah? Kuroda makes $13m this year, Lilly $12m. They’re each pitching well. You really think that they’re getting massive paycuts if offered arbitration? Of course they’re not – by rule, they can’t take more than a 20% cut - and that means that there’s no prayer that the Dodgers will even bother to offer.
Not that I think they can afford to sign either to a long-term contract either, but if that’s their plan, they would still have the opportunity to have done so even if they had traded one of them today.
So what we have now is a mediocre team playing out the stretch, unable to see the truth, deluded that they’re contenders, who just gave up a chance to improve the future for the small glory of finishing five games out rather than eight. And I’m just talking about Kuroda and Lilly for the moment; Octavio Dotel, George Sherrill, and Scott Podsednik should have gone as well.
Remember this on December 1, as the arbitration deadline passes with Kuroda and Lilly not having received offers. Remember how mad we were about Randy Wolf and Orlando Hudson last year? This is going to be worse.
******
Hey, I have a new article at Baseball Prospectus up. It’s a quick look at prospects who will be called up in September who might have a fantasy impact. No Dodgers, sadly, unless you really think A.J. Ellis‘ time is now.
27 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.
Well does the average fan, who doesn’t read these blogs, approve of this fight it out to the last breath attitude? Anyway this way they keep filling the seats for a couple of more weeks and short term don’t have to answer any questions until the the off season. (which for us is early October-sigh)
Comment by David S— August 31, 2010 #
Pretty sure the average fan isn’t caring either way right now.
http://dingersblog.com/2010/08/31/dodgers-attendance-in-2010-will-be-worst-in-five-years/
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— August 31, 2010 #
Even if the average fan quits coming to the games because the season is over, we’d still save money buy getting rid of 5+ million owed to Kuroda, Lilly, Pods, and Dotel.
The average fan will come to the games when we start winning again.
But since we are not using out resources appropriately, not taking advantage of our opportunities, and not playing (or coaching) particularly well, the average fan wont see any reason to pay the ever increasing ticket prices along with increasing parking fees.
Comment by dusto— August 31, 2010 #
I’ve been waiting for this post.
It was inevitable that Manny would be dealt, but that the powers the be would still consider the team “contenders”. Even with Manny gone, one would try to make the argument that the defense is better.
However, the defense has been historically bad even without Manny.
Next year we really should be looking at getting someone that can play right field and move Ethier to left where he probably isn’t as bad a player. Hopefully, Wallach sees this and makes the change for Colletti.
If we had any money (or brains) I’d trade Loney, for anything really, sign Dunn, and trade for Chin Shoo Choo! I just like his name, but really he is a complete player and it is unlikely that Cleveland just lets him go for the “nothing” of prospects that we have.
Comment by dusto— August 31, 2010 #
Totally agree on moving Ethier to LF. However, I don’t think it’s SO vital that you have to go into the offseason ONLY looking at RFs… if the best fit is a LF (say, Crawford) then I could still live with Andre in right.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— August 31, 2010 #
Ethier to left? Not a bad idea however he doesn’t exactly hustle to balls down the line. He has played many doubles into triples this year. LF would make sense. Crawford is my number one Dodger pick up in the off season which basically means it won’t happen. I am not convinced the Dodgers want to spend any money on players and yet they don’t get prospects for free agents? Time for new ownership.
Comment by Adonis— September 1, 2010 #
I was formerly down with acquiring Crawford, but it puts Trayvon in a bad position and the team can really use cheap position players right now. Much rather see that money going to SPs for the next two or three years.
Comment by dingers— September 1, 2010 #
Dodger Stadium being perfectly symmetrical, I don’t see how moving Ethier to RF would make him less terrible.
I agree that defense should be a huge thing for us to look for next year, especially because it’s so cheap. Our current starters have negative UZR at every position except Furcal at SS and Loney at 1B, with some horrible apples like Ethier and Kemp floating at about -15.0.
I say at the very least get a solid CF and put Ethier and Kemp at the corners. Crawford would be a dream, but it’s unlikely. I hear BJ Upton may be out of Tampa next year, he would be a very nice defensive and possibly cheap choice to patrol CF.
Comment by Jason— September 1, 2010 #
By “moving Ethier to RF” I mean LF, of course.
Comment by Jason— September 1, 2010 #
It makes a difference because left field is a lot closer to third base than RF
Comment by @fostermatt— September 1, 2010 #
I read that Manny gave his first news conference for Chicago in Spanish only with a translator. And said that he will only be speaking Spanish. The writer said it must have been a really bad flight to Cleveland because it made Manny forget how to speak English
Comment by David S— August 31, 2010 #
Dusto,
I like your post and penciling in Wallach as the manager. I don’t know much about his ability, but I don’t want Joes protege-Mattingly
Comment by David S— August 31, 2010 #
sigh* The dodgers keep sending me mixed signals. Can’t they just hold me and tell me everything will be alright???
Comment by Gerson— August 31, 2010 #
Does the 20% rule apply to both Lilly and Kuroda? Does Kuroda still have service time with the Dodgers?
Comment by Gary— August 31, 2010 #
20% rule applies to all players offered arbitration, no matter who.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— August 31, 2010 #
Thanks for clarifying the money issue with Kuroda (I’d been wondering why you’d been advocating trading him, now I see why). Doesn’t it seem like Dodger management has become slow and stupid?
Comment by Penguin's Pornstache— August 31, 2010 #
Management has “become” slow and stupid? It has been that way for quite some time.
I would like nothing more than to see both McDorks head out of town and have Colletti do the same. There is no direction and no sense to this.
Comment by Elysian— August 31, 2010 #
Just because the Dodgers might be out of the playoff race (which I haven’t conceded yet so call me “delusional”), I still want a competitive team on the field that I can root for the rest of the season. If the Dodgers decide to trade Lily and Kuroda, that starting pitching staff is going to be painful to watch. Right now, I can go to Chavez Ravine and have a good chance I’ll enjoy myself watching Bills, Kershaw, Lilly or Kuroda pitch.
Comment by bill— September 1, 2010 #
You may regret that mentality in the future though when we still have a starved minor league system that could have been bolstered by trading these guys.
Personally I would be much more excited about Dodger baseball seeing a makeshift team on the field for the rest of the year if I knew we had ripe, exciting talent brewing in the minor leagues.
Comment by Jason— September 1, 2010 #
But we don’t have ripe, exciting talent in the minors so I’d rather see the guys we have finish out the year. I’m not mad that we didn’t get mediocre prospects to add to our already mediocre system. In a perfect world, I wish we could sell off every vet with a pulse but the Dodgers still have to sell tickets, and unfortunately the bottom line matters in the end. At this point in the game, we wouldn’t even get close to fair value if we even attempted to trade guys, so I don’t understand why people think we could even get talent that’s above mediocre. Just my two cents.
Comment by Juan Pierre— September 1, 2010 #
… I think that those of you who are clamoring 24/7 for the Dodgers to throw in the towel and tank the rest of the season are deluding yourselves if you think that the Dodgers are going to receive any young talent of significance for guys like Kuroda or Lilly.
Certainly the Dodgers won’t be able to bring back BOTH guys next season, but to say they won’t bring back one of them??? If that’s the case, then what’s the use worrying about the future? If they just slash the payroll in half or whatever, they’re not going to win anything in the future anyway.
At least let me enjoy that there’s a small possibility for something to happen this season before I have to go through 3 or 4 years of NO possibilities, would you please? Those of you who want losses so much, you will have them in spades, I’m sure — and you can enjoy them all you like! Have fun.
Comment by JT_Dutch— September 1, 2010 #
what he said
Comment by Juan Pierre— September 1, 2010 #
I don’t really get it, the team is horrible now why would you want to witness 1 month with these guys? Instead of trying to get whatever you can for the future, yes with the divorce still underway i think it’s possible we don’t sign any one of those $12Mil+ pitchers. If we had Manny, maybe i can see where you’re coming from, but this team is horrid, even if we score runs the bullpen will implode, meaningless games, throw in the towel. Too late now…..slashing payroll can mean winning, there are plenty of example out there, how did they do it? Developing prospects…
Comment by DodgersKings323— September 1, 2010 #
[...] do some research today to find out. But if it is true, then there’s still time to rectify the mistakes of yesterday. Make it [...]
Pingback by Could the Yankees Still Trade For Ted Lilly? « Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— September 1, 2010 #
I was taking a look at the Monte Carlo simulation showing each teams chances of making the playoff berth and I am curious how you got to 4.1% chance? My interpretation is that the Dodgers win the division in less than a 1% of the simulations and win the WC in less than 1.5% of the simulations.
This can be summarized that the Dodgers have a 2.4% chance of making the playoffs. Am I missing something?
Comment by PDXBlue— September 1, 2010 #
I got it off of the Baseball Prospectus playoff odds report:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/ps_odds.php
Right now, it does say 2.4% as you say. I’m guessing the discrepancy is that I wrote this post before the Dodgers lost to the Phillies last night, an especially damaging loss as the Phillies are ahead of them in the WC.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— September 1, 2010 #
[...] did get claimed, and the next day I begged Colletti to swallow his pride and start selling in August for what he could get: Hiroki Kuroda, perhaps at the peak of his value after last [...]
Pingback by MSTI’s 2010 in Review: Management « Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— November 26, 2010 #