Monthly Archives: March 2011

So It Turns Out That Clayton Kershaw Is Pretty Good

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Earlier today, I noted that I had picked Clayton Kershaw to finish 1st in the NL Cy Young Award voting over at Baseball Prospectus. I’m now concerned that I didn’t pick him quite high enough, because Kershaw was absolutely sublime in tonight’s season opener, to the point where San Francisco starter Tim Lincecum allowed just one unearned run over seven innings himself, yet there was still no question about who was the most dominant starter on the mound tonight.

Kershaw scattered just four hits over seven scoreless innings, but even that doesn’t tell the true tale. One of those hits should have been an error on a botched toss from James Loney to Kershaw, and one was a bloop that fell just out of Loney’s reach. But while Kershaw was outstanding all around, it’s not just the few hits he allowed that impressed me most, and it’s not the nine strikeouts he put up. It’s not even how bad he made a handful of Giants look, particularly when he offered his curve. It’s the fact that he walked just one and made it through seven innings with fewer than 100 pitches. In years past, it might have taken him 120 pitches to get that far; in starts that aren’t his first of the season, you’d expect to see him continue into the 8th and 9th.

Need more proof of Kershaw’s progression? This was the 11th time in his career that he pitched at least seven innings without allowing more than one walk. Though he’s been in the bigs since mid-2008, seven of the previous ten came after June 27, 2010 – i.e., in the last half a season. We’ve long known that Kershaw had all the talent in the world, but there’s now a clear pattern of him harnessing the wildness and becoming one of the most dominant pitchers in the bigs. Mark my words, this is the year he gets the respect from the general public he deserves. Oh, and he turned 23 two weeks ago.

Kershaw’s game score of 77 is good for the 8th best in Los Angeles Dodger Opening Day history, though it’s sort of hard to compare to the 1960 club allowing Don Drysdale to throw 11 innings and 164 pitches in his first outing. It also tied for the 7th most effective start in his young career. No matter what else happens in 2011, watching Kershaw blossom is going to be a treat.

Coming in a close second to Kershaw on the list of heroes is Matt Kemp, who walked three times (getting on base four times overall), scored the first run, and stole 2nd in the 8th inning, putting himself in position to score on Loney’s double. Basically, the only thing he didn’t do was extend the five-game home run streak he’d carried over from the end of last season, and in terms of realizing the expectations we’ve placed on him, it was a great start.

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And then there was Jonathan Broxton, who jogged in to close out a two-run lead in the 9th with a world’s worth of weight on his back. (Seriously, if you could have only seen my Twitter feed at the time…) Getting the first out on a grounder to Loney was a good start, but when Burrell took him deep to left field, you thought for sure the wheels were going to fall off. He managed to get the second out on a tapper in front of the plate, and after a hard-fought battle with rookie Brandon Belt, making his big league debut, ended the game on a soft liner to third.

I’m sure the story tomorrow will be more about the homer than the save, and I won’t begin to pretend that my heart didn’t start to sink when I saw the Burrell ball go out. But there’s positives to be taken from this. The velocity was there, he was aggressive around the plate, he mixed in sliders rather than foolishly pounding in fastball after fastball, and most importantly, he got the job done.

Still, though I like the approach, until the results are consistently there, we’re going to keep hearing the questions.

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How about this game for a microcosm of the season we expect? We saw outstanding Dodger pitching, allowing just one run on five hits. We saw mediocre offense, with only one of the two runs being earned and only one extra base hit. And we saw several errors, both mental and physical. Rafael Furcal threw high on a groundball in the first inning, leading to an error, Loney threw high to Kershaw on Belt’s hit, and then we saw Juan Uribe sliding past second base and getting tagged out.

Of course, say what you will about the Dodgers, at least they’re not starting the corpse of Miguel Tejada at shortstop with Burrell and Aubrey Huff in the corner outfield spots. That’s without mentioning whatever the hell it was that caused Buster Posey to try to pick off Kemp at 3rd, leading to the first Dodger run.

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All in all? Couldn’t have asked for a better opener. Kershaw vs. Lincecum surpassed the hype, and we come away with a win. 1 down, 161 to go.

Opening Day

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At Baseball Prospectus this morning, my weekly fantasy article about relief pitchers went live, and I noted the beginning of the season thusly:

It’s Opening Day! Or, as I like to think of it, “the equivalent of Christmas plus your birthday multiplied by ten Super Bowls”–not to overstate it, of course. It really ought to be a national holiday, no?

That’s the toned-down version, because in reality, it’s more like “Christmas plus your birthday multiplied by ten Super Bowls but if the Super Bowl teams were comprised of puppies that paid out rare coins and had the answers to all of history’s greatest mysteries.” Not enough? Throw in some zombie strippers wielding chainsaws then, too. Whatever fantastic situation you can come up with, that’s how great Opening Day is to baseball fans. After a long winter that started with wondering who would fill 3/5 of the rotation but quickly turned into hand-wringing over the offense and left field in particular, we finally get to see the results on the field. It’s the day we’ve been waiting for for months.

Here’s the lineup you’re likely to see today:

1. Rafael Furcal SS
2. Tony Gwynn, Jr. LF
3. Andre Ethier RF
4. Matt Kemp CF
5. James Loney 1B
6. Juan Uribe 3B
7. Rod Barajas C
8. Jamey Carroll 2B
9. Clayton Kershaw P

In addition, the final roster has now been set, and as I’d hoped, A.J. Ellis did make the squad, sparing us the worry of having Hector Gimenez being the only backup catcher to Barajas. Non-roster players Aaron Miles, Mike MacDougal, and Lance Cormier all made the club, requiring two 40-man moves. John Lindsey was DFA’d, which we’d widely expected, but so was Jon Link, which came as something of a surprise. Lindsey’s almost certain to pass through waivers and report to Albuquerque, but I’m not as sure that Link makes it through – particularly because I’m not all that convinced that either Cormier or MacDougal are better than he is.

Finally, also at BP, I took part in pre-season predictions. While I did pick the Dodgers third in the NL West, I was also one of the few who took Kershaw as the NL Cy Young winner. We didn’t go into wins, but I believe I’ve said before that this is a club that’s built for 85 wins, and one you could just easily see winning 80 or less as you could 90 for more.

Is that a championship team? Probably not. But that is a team that looks to be in contention all year, and that alone makes for a fun season. Can’t wait – let’s get to it.

No, Andre Ethier Isn’t Getting Non-tendered

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I was hoping to avoid this story, because it’s too dumb for words, but over the last 24 hours it’s quickly becoming clear that I’m not going to be so fortunate. After reiterating that Andre Ethier claims he’s not sure if he’ll be with the Dodgers past 2011, Tony Jackson has more on the story I’m praying won’t linger all season:

However, teams can choose to non-tender their arbitration-eligible players, making them free agents.

The Dodgers went that route with former All-Star catcher Russell Martin over the winter, and Ethier hinted that a similar fate could be in store for him.

“My salary is increasing each year,” Ethier said. “I would say the likeliness of me being here beyond this year, it’s not just my decision. … I have been kind of lucky to be in one spot in baseball for as long as I have been, for six years now. That is a long time to be in one city playing for one team. There is no inclination now other than to go out and play this year and see what we’ve got.

“If I don’t play well, we have seen them non-tender guys here. If you do play well, sometimes they don’t offer those guys arbitration because their salaries are too high.”

Far be it from me to stop anyone from decrying the cheapness of the McCourt regime, but this is just beyond ludicrous. Martin was not only on a two-year decline, he was coming off both a serious hip injury and a knee injury that required surgery. There were some arguments to be made for keeping him, but the risks were such that non-tendering was far from an indefensible decision – as you may remember, I supported it. Ethier, on the other hand, owns the 10th-highest OPS+ in LA Dodger history (min. 1500 PA), and there’s almost no scenario you can think of short of felony charges where his 2011 goes so poorly that he gets non-tendered.

Of course, Ethier’s a player, not a writer or an executive, and he’d be far from the first player to prove himself woefully out of touch when it comes to rational player evaluation. Ballplayers don’t read blogs, many don’t even read the papers, and you can be damned sure they don’t understand the dollar value of a win or how the 40-man roster works. For most players, their understanding of what makes a player valuable goes no deeper than wins, RBI, or “toughness”. Proof of that is simply in the fact that Ethier is griping about possibly (in his mind) being non-tendered, when in fact that would release him from a final year of team control and instead skyrocket his earning power as a free agent 29-year-old power bat.

Personally, it doesn’t really bother me if that’s how he feels. Maybe Ethier was tight with Martin and respected the latter’s willingness to play every day. Maybe it wasn’t even Martin at all that bothered him, but instead Randy Wolf or Orlando Hudson, each of whom left after 2009 without arbitration offers. It doesn’t mean he’s right, of course, but if he’s seeing departures of friends or teammates he thinks can help him win, you can possibly see where he’s coming from.

No, the problem here isn’t that Ethier seemingly doesn’t understand how the system works. The problem is that the season starts in less than 48 hours and he’s decided now is the time to go public with his complaints. Clearly, he’s mad about something, and it’s hard to think that the timing of this – coming as it does at almost exactly the same time as news of Chad Billingsley‘s contract extension broke – is a coincidence. If Ethier’s upset that he didn’t get an extension, now’s a hell of a time to be complaining about it. For what it’s worth, Ned Colletti said he had brief discussions with Ethier’s agent about an extension this offseason, though Ethier claims he didn’t know about that.

Really, Ethier’s damned-if-you-do (“If you do play well, sometimes they don’t offer those guys arbitration because their salaries are too high”), damned-if-you-don’t (“If I don’t play well, we have seen them non-tender guys here”) act simply doesn’t fly here, because there’s basically a 0.0% chance that he doesn’t get either an arbitration offer or a long-term deal after the season ends. And you know what? If he plays so poorly that they do decide he’s too expensive and they cut him loose? Then I have a hard time drumming up any sympathy about it.

If Ethier’s thinking about being elsewhere in 2012, then the only way that’s going to happen is via trade. I’ll admit here that part of me has long hoped that would happen, since as much as I like him, the Dodgers already control him through age 30, and I’m hesitant to commit big dollars to the age 31-35 seasons of a guy who already can’t hit lefties or play solid defense. That’s a conversation for another day, though; for now, let’s hope that this isn’t a distraction through the 2011 season, and that it’s not something I have to continually discuss, because this was not a post I enjoyed writing.

On Chad Billingsley’s New Contract (And Notes)

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Fun fact: over two years ago, on January 26, 2009, I wrote about Zack Greinke‘s extension with the Royals and wondered how this might impact Chad Billingsley. (This was before Greinke’s ridiculous Cy Young 2009 and Billingsley’s second half collapse that year, remember.) At the time, this is what I proposed Billingsley could end up with:

I mean, there’s no longer any remaining question about whether we want him around, right? So why not buy out his three arbitration years and the first year of free agency with a 4 year, $36 million deal?

And what did Billingsley end up with yesterday?

Source: Billingsley’s three-year deal with the #Dodgers worth $35-36 million, including buyout of option for fourth year.

Okay, that was pretty close; if you include the $6.275m he’s making this year, it’s essentially a four year deal worth approximately $42m. I say “pretty close”, because at the time, it would be buying out all arb years with just one free agent year, while this deal is of course buying out more higher-priced free agent years. (I’ll ask you to kindly ignore that I also said at the time that Billingsley was definitely superior to Greinke, and allow me to pretend that I’m some sort of soothsayer over here.)

In all seriousness, however, I’m very satisfied with this deal, and I think it’s fair for both sides. Billingley’s always been somewhat underrated in my book; of the 87 pitchers who have thrown at least 400 innings since 2008, his FIP of 3.42 is tied for 14th with Ubaldo Jimenez. That’s better than names like Johan Santana, Jered Weaver, Roy Oswalt, Francisco Liriano, and Matt Cain. Is that an ace? I’ll save that discussion for another day, but if you wanted to say that more than half the teams in baseball don’t have a pitcher as good as he is, you could certainly make the argument. (Kershaw, of course, is 12th on that list, with the best still expected from him.) This also provides the team with some cost certainty, thus avoiding not only the question of what kind of arbitration deal he might be in line for next year, but what might happen when he hit the open market the year after.

Eric Stephen at TrueBlueLA and Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts are both also happy with the deal, comparing it to deals for Ricky Nolasco and Justin Verlander, respectively, and even better, Dave Cameron at FanGraphs thinks the Dodgers made out very well. It’s a long read, so I won’t paste it all, but here’s the fun takeaway:

Perhaps most interesting, however, is the extension that Wandy Rodriguez signed with the Astros just a few months ago. Rodriguez was in his final year of arbitration, so he was at the point where Billingsley would have been at the end of the 2011 season – when his new deal actually kicks in. Rodriguez signed a 3 year, $34 million extension with the Astros covering the same years that Billingsley just gave up to get some security. His career numbers – 985 innings, 62 wins, and a 4.18 ERA.

If, this year, Billingsley threw 160 innings, posted a 7.43 ERA, and won just three games, he would end the year with those same career numbers. If Wandy Rodriguez’s deal set the market for what the final year of arbitration and first two years of free agency are worth, Billingsley essentially locked in a price that would be fair (based on career numbers) if he was the worst pitcher in baseball this year.

Perhaps he really wanted to stay in Los Angeles, and he had motivations beyond simply squeezing the Dodgers for every last penny he could get. Whatever the reasoning, though, it seems pretty clear that Billingsley left a lot of money on the table with this deal.

Barring trades, you can now expect to see Billingsley alongside Clayton Kershaw for at least the next four seasons. That’s a beautiful thing, and for the more optimistic among us, it means it’s no longer totally unreasonable to think that we can dream about a front three of Kershaw, Billingsley, and Zach Lee one day. I’m very pleased with this deal from the team’s perspective, and even if Billingsley did leave some money on the table, well, he also just made about $35 million, so fair deal for both sides. Good job, Ned.

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One update to my prospective 25-man roster: Jay Gibbons is likely to start the season on the disabled list due to his continuing vision problems. From a pure baseball perspective, this doesn’t bother me all that much; after all, I did argue just last week that he wasn’t worth a roster spot, and this does almost guarantee that Xavier Paul makes the club. Still, after all Gibbons has been through (some of it self-inflicted, to be sure), it’s tough to see his triumphant comeback story derailed by something as unexpected as this. This is actually a better scenario than an outright DFA, though, because not only does his $650k salary become guaranteed, he’ll be eligible for a rehab stint in the minors when he’s able, and assuming that takes a few weeks, we should have a lot more clarity on the roster situation at that point.

We don’t yet know who will get the extra spot, and you could argue that any of 4-5 names are in the mix. My strong preference has to be towards A.J. Ellis, however, because all indications are that Hector Gimenez is an emergency catcher at best.

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Over at Baseball Prospectus, Ben Lindbergh has put together a list of positions where contending teams have decided to go with decidedly unpalatable options – guys like Jeff Mathis and Yuniesky Betancourt. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the Dodger left field mess made the list.  

LF: Tony Gwynn Jr., Dodgers (.233 TAv, -0.6 WARP)

The Dodgers’ stillborn left-field timeshare really deserves a group mention here, but while Los Angeles may have chosen to stick a fork in the position, at least its other two tines—Jay Gibbons and Marcus Thames—project to earn positive value. Gwynn can’t hit, so he has to be truly extraordinary in the field to merit a roster spot, which FRAA doesn’t think he succeeded in doing last season. With Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier holding down center and right, respectively, Gwynn doesn’t figure to play much at the outfield’s more demanding positions, but he’ll likely be the starting left fielder for as long as Jay Gibbons can’t see. Since even a sighted Jay Gibbons doesn’t present much of an obstacle, Gwynn stands to see significant time. Unless he rediscovers the competent stroke he exhibited in 2009 or turns in another defensive performance FRAA can be proud of, that’s not good news for the Dodgers, who might soon find themselves missing the “Mannywood” sign.

While I attempted to look at the positives for Gwynn recently, I did so with a fair bit of wishcasting and plenty of “if’s”. If he can overcome a horrendous 2010. If he can hit at even a mildly acceptable a level. With Gibbons out, Gwynn will get the bulk of LF duties to prove himself, and I hope for everyone’s sake that he can do it, but it’s not hard to see where the doubt comes from.

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Yes, Jonathan Broxton “blew a save” last night, and while I can’t believe we’re even discussing a blown save in an exhibition game, I’ll point out that Ivan DeJesus botched what would have been a game-ending double play, remind you that the winning run scored on a sacrifice fly, and let Jon Weisman’s words describe exactly how I feel:

I’m seriously considering complete abstention from debating the merits of Jonathan Broxton for the time being. The season hasn’t even started, and already the fur is flying about his value. No, he didn’t do his job. Neither did De Jesus, Jansen or Lilly, but no one will question their manhood. I’m willing to admit I’m concerned about whether Broxton’s all the way back from his late 2010 troubles, but I just don’t know if I can spend yet another year arguing about the man’s courage, spine or gumption. It’s completely subjective, and people are just going to believe what they want to believe.

I agree 100% with Jon on this; for whatever reason, the opinion of many towards Broxton is so skewed that if he struck out 99 of 100, they’d be asking what happened with the last guy. Still, I’m not sure I have the strength to do what Jon’s contemplating, and that’s avoiding the topic entirely once the season starts. I’ve been one of Broxton’s staunchest defenders, and even I’ve admitted that his rope is short if he doesn’t get off to a good start. All I ask is that we be fair about it, and realize that minor league second basemen booting ground balls have a pretty big impact on getting outs as well.

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Selected thoughts from scouts on the Dodgers, courtesy of Tom Krasovic of the San Diego Union-Tribune:

“I think they’re going to be offensively challenged, and defensively challenged. The other day, (shortstop Rafael) Furcal was 4.9 running down the line, third baseman bobbles the ball and he’s still out in plenty of time. Saw (Matt) Kemp misplay two balls in the same game recently. He looks terrible in center field. Kenley Jansen is pretty damn impressive.”

“I like Xavier Paul more than the Dodgers do and would keep him over (Jay) Gibbons or (Tony) Gwynn Jr. Paul needs a change of scenery. His bat is OK. He has a good swing and can run the ball down. Hector Gimenez is a just a good-looking hitter. I’d take him as a backup. Ivan DeJesus, he’s stayed inside the ball well. Sands, I like his bat. He has a really nice swing. He looks OK in left field.”

“I think Rubby De La Rosa can pitch there right now and he’d be fine. He was up to 97 and good angle to plate, good feel for changeup, and I think the breaking ball will come. I think this guy’s a starter, and I don’t think he’s far away.”

“I think they’re going to be battling it out for third place with the Padres, and the Padres know how to play better.”

“They could be a disaster with all of the ifs.”

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New ESPN SweetSpot blogger David Schoenfield has been putting together preseason All-Star teams for each division, and today he touches on the NL West. Of the eleven spots, four are Giants, and three each are from the Rockies and Diamondbacks. The Padres don’t merit a mention, and only Kershaw (as lefty starter) makes the list from the Dodgers.

Report: Chad Billingsley Signs Three Year Extension

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Thanks to Roberto Baly of the great Vin Scully is my Homeboy, we have unconfirmed reports that Joe McDonnell of Fox Sports is claiming (via his Facebook wall, no less) that the Dodgers and Chad Billingsley have come to terms on a three-year, $30+m contract extension. Billingsley signed a $6.275m deal to avoid arbitration for 2011 in January, and is on track to be a free agent after the 2012 season. McDonnell followed up with a tweet:

Dodgers, Billingsly reach 3 yr..30+ mil dollar extension. Some details 2 worked out before deal is official.

I want to analyze this, but there’s two pretty big details we need to know before we can reasonably do that. First, what exactly will 30+ mean? $31m isn’t the same as $38m, of course. Perhaps more importantly, does this tear up the 2011 deal or does it start in 2012? My initial feeling, when we heard just 3/$30m, was that it would start immediately, because while that seems about right for two arb years and one free agent year, it would seem a little light for buying out two free agent years. That said, the higher into the 30s this goes, the more believable that is, because then you could put the 1/$6m on top of it and think of it as a four-year deal in the mid-to-high 30s. Anyway, it’s pointless to really evaluate it until we know the details, but my initial impression is happiness, because I’ve been wanting to see some of the younger core players locked up for a while now.

As a sidenote, Billingsley is represented by Dave Stewart, which is notable mostly for the fact that it seems Stewart can still keep a working relationship with the club he got into such a public spat with last summer over Matt Kemp. For those hoping for a Kemp extension, this is a good sign.

More on this as we hear it.

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Going back to my earlier post about the 25-man roster, if Aaron Miles, Mike MacDougal, and Lance Cormier do all make the club, the team will need to come up with two 40-man roster spots, which currently stands at 39. John Lindsey being DFA’d would seem like a no-brainer. Who else, though? Javy Guerra? Jamie Hoffmann? Luis Vazquez?