I Think The Rotation Is Ready For the Season (Updated)
March 6, 2011 at 2:47 pm | Posted in Dioner Navarro, James Loney, Jamey Carroll, Ramon Troncoso, Scott Elbert | 18 CommentsNice weekend for the starting staff, right?
Chad Billingsley, today: 3.2 innings, 3 hits, 2 runs (1 earned), 2 K, after last week’s 3 scoreless inning debut.
Clayton Kershaw, yesterday: 4 scoreless innings, facing the minimum 12 batters, giving him 7 scoreless innings this spring in which he’s allowed just 3 hits.
Jon Garland, on Friday: 3 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit.
Any comments about the offense, or lack thereof, should be held back on a day that has a lineup missing Matt Kemp, Rafael Furcal, Andre Ethier, Casey Blake, and Juan Uribe, and features Dioner Navarro hitting cleanup. On the other hand, Marcus Thames, on his 34th birthday, doubled off the left-center wall to tie the game at 3 in the 8th.
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25th man update: Justin Sellers replaced Juan Castro in the starting lineup at shortstop, walked once in two tries and made two errors on the same play in the first inning, destroying a WGN banner in the process. Castro struck out pinch-hitting in the 5th (against Carlos Marmol, to be fair) and later doubled. Aaron Miles, playing third, tripled and scored the first Dodger run, while Ivan DeJesus went 0-2. The arrow is still pointing strongly in Castro’s direction.
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Ramon Troncoso got four outs on seven pitches, prompting new DodgerTalk co-host Joe Block to claim that he’s made the team; Troncoso has now thrown 3.1 scoreless innings without allowing a walk. I think that may be a bit premature, but with the turmoil at the back end of the bullpen, there’s certainly opportunity. You’d think that his history, and time away from the overuse of Joe Torre, would get him some consideration, though.
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Hey, Navarro’s going to get a hit sometime, right? I know, it’s spring, it’s early, I get it. Just saying, guys who have hit .212 over the last two seasons and have an arguably superior player behind them need to show something a little more than not getting on base once over their first eleven plate appearances. He at least plated Gabe Kapler on a sac fly today, though of course if Kapler hadn’t been on third, it’d have just been another flyout. Meanwhile, A.J. Ellis drew a walk and threw out a runner trying to steal.
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At the Los Angeles Times blog, Steve Dilbeck wonders what might happen if James Loney‘s knee troubles end up being worse than they appear. Despite Russ Mitchell getting the most playing time in Loney’s absence right now (where’s John Lindsey?), Dilbeck thinks that Casey Blake would get the bulk of the time during the season, with Juan Uribe sliding to third and Jamey Carroll entering at second, because it’s just not realistic to think that Jerry Sands breaks camp with the team.
I think Dilbeck’s assumption is probably correct, but it got me thinking – would that alignment actually make the team better? There’s a few reasons to think that it might:
- Carroll would add badly need OBP. His mark has been .355 or higher in each of the last three seasons, four of the last six, and five of the last seven. Carroll doesn’t hit for power, but then again neither does Loney; overall, Carroll had a higher OPS+ last year.
- It’d help optimize the lineup, since Carroll could be a good #2 hitter, pushing Blake down to 6 where he belongs.
- It’d shift Uribe to 3B, which is his stronger defensive position.
- It’d improve platooning possibilities. If Blake were the 1B, then he’s a much more dangerous hitter against lefty pitching than Loney is (though I hope that’s going to happen regardless). You could also spot in Gibbons against tough righty pitching, which likely wouldn’t happen if Loney was in.
It’s not all roses, of course, because you couldn’t expect the 37-year-old Carroll to play every day, and you’d weaken an already questionable bench by removing him from it. The ideal solution is that Loney is healthy and productive, so by no means am I rooting for him to be out. But just the fact that this is a conversation worth having shows the extent of the questions that he’s going to have to answer this year.
Update #1: Well, looks like Carroll has injury concerns of his own:
Jamey Carroll was unable to throw comfortably Sunday after taking a pitch off his right index finger Saturday, but X-rays were negative.
Carroll was able to hit despite the swelling in the finger and will probably need a few more days before he can return to game action.
Update #2: I’d meant to note that Scott Elbert, who was originally supposed to pitch today, did not. Here’s why:
Scott Elbert, the lefty reliever struggling with his control in games, was held back from a scheduled Sunday appearance and instead will throw batting practice Monday while working on a mechanical adjustment.
There May Be More Bullpen Intrigue Than We Thought
March 4, 2011 at 9:02 pm | Posted in Dana Eveland, Kenley Jansen, Travis Schlichting | 20 CommentsRemember the heady days of, oh, three weeks ago, when the top six spots in the bullpen were all spoken for and the only question was if Scott Elbert or Ron Mahay would be able to unseat Blake Hawksworth for the last spot?
Uh, yeah. About that, because beyond the obvious absences of Vicente Padilla and Ronald Belisario, a lot has happened in just the last 24 hours. Let’s do this in “it’s Friday night” bullet point format.
* Both Mahay and Matt Guerrier allowed homers tonight in the loss to the Giants, though it’s hard to completely kill Mahay for giving one up to Buster Posey, who’s, you know, sorta good. Otherwise, Mahay struck out two in his inning, without walking anyone. Travis Schlichting followed with a second rough outing, allowing two runs. He’d given up three hits and a walk, leading to three runs, his first time out. Great. Jonathan Broxton, at least, threw his second scoreless inning of the spring.
* Kenley Jansen made all our hearts skip a beat with his near-injury in fielding drills today:
Jansen, 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, was doing a pitcher’s fielding practice drill requiring him to field a slow roller between the mound and first base. Jansen tried to glove the ball and flip it in one motion when his left leg went out from under him and he landed on his right jaw.
“I feel weak and dizzy,” Jansen said after returning to the clubhouse. “I don’t know what happened. My right hand was in the air and my glove was going toward the base and I hit my jaw and scraped my left knee.”
That’s only mildly terrifying, right? I’m less concerned about his jaw than his knee, since he was carted off the field, though he’s reportedly uninjured.
* Hong-Chih Kuo hasn’t even thrown live BP yet, but is scheduled to do so for the first time on Saturday. Meanwhile, Scott Elbert hasn’t seen game action since his last walktastrophe.
* Thanks to all the uncertainty, Tony Jackson thinks Mike MacDougal has a real chance to make the squad:
Instead, their hope is MacDougal will be a serious candidate to make the club and be a reliable middle reliever. Presently, he is one of a half-dozen or so pitchers who have a legitimate shot at what are probably three open spots in the bullpen, and at the risk of jumping to a hasty conclusion so early in spring training, he appears at the moment to be a clear favorite to land one of those spots.
* Unimportant lefty leaving: Dana Eveland, who was optioned to minor league camp today, having never appeared in a game after injuring himself on the first day.
* Unimportant lefty arriving: Randy Keisler, who hasn’t pitched in the bigs since 2007, was signed to a minor league deal out of an open tryout camp.
So what does this all mean? Barring injury, the top four of Broxton, Kuo, Guerrier, and Jansen seem solid. Hawksworth was likely to make the team anyway due to his out-of-options status; that now seems assured. With Elbert and Schlichting each unimpressive, that might open the door for both Mahay and MacDougal, with Ramon Troncoso probably still having a say. That probably doesn’t sound great in theory, but don’t forget how often the bottom of any bullpen churns. As soon as Padilla returns, whomever’s on the bottom likely starts to look for a new address anyway. Besides, completely selfishly, it’s good to have some action in camp, right?
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Back to the battle for the last bench spot, Justin Sellers made a great defensive play while Russ Mitchell made an error and Juan Castro couldn’t hang on to a ball that may have ended the 6th inning. Sellers, however, also struck out twice. Castro struck out with the bases loaded, but he also had an RBI single, so his odds of making the team are now 98%. In addition, Charley Steiner very clearly said that the battle was between Castro, Sellers, and Ivan DeJesus, pointedly leaving out Aaron Miles. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s a step in the right direction, so I’ll take it.
Oddsmaking For the 25th Spot
March 3, 2011 at 7:01 am | Posted in Aaron Miles, Ivan DeJesus, Juan Castro, Justin Sellers, Xavier Paul | 33 CommentsBuried within the fifth paragraph of a story about Juan Castro‘s improbable homer yesterday, Tony Jackson may have inadvertently broken some news that could impact how the roster comes together (emphasis mine):
Castro is one of four candidates this spring, along with veteran Aaron Miles and prospects Ivan DeJesus and Justin Sellers, for the second utility-infield spot. Although the Dodgers are up to their chins in outfielders, some of whom can also play on the infield, general manager Ned Colletti now says there will be a second utility infielder on the Opening Day roster.
Though we’d long expected that would be the case rather than carrying a sixth outfielder, this is the first time I’ve seen it laid out so explicitly, and that qualifies as news. It would also seem to doom Xavier Paul to the waiver wire or the trade bin, though more on him in a second. If Jackson is right, that means that one of these four guys are almost certain to make the squad when it heads north. Who will it be? Let’s lay some early-March odds on this quartet.
Juan Castro: 65%. I’ve been over Castro what feels like dozens of times in the nearly four years this blog has been around, since he seemingly comes back more often than Brett Favre. I don’t think much of him as a ballplayer, but the man cannot be killed, and that gets him some credit, I guess. Seriously, though, I think I said all I needed to say about Castro when he signed his minor-league deal back in December:
I’m hardly breaking any major news by saying that he can’t hit, because everyone knows he can’t hit. He’s never come within sniffing distance of even a league-average OPS+ of 100, and he’s never actually even hit 90, and that’s what happens when you’ve never had a season where your OPS has topped .678. So Juan Castro is not a major-league quality hitter. We all knew that.
But what I was very surprised to find out is that Castro is one of the worst hitters in the entire history of baseball.
No, really.
Castro has somehow accumulated 2,834 plate appearances over his 16 big league seasons. 1,664 other players since 1901 can say they’ve had as many or more, lead of course by Babe Ruth’s superlative 206 OPS+. Castro, on the other hand, checks in with the 4th-lowest OPS+ of all time. Of all time!
Rk Player OPS+ PA From To Age G H BA OBP SLG OPS 1 Bill Bergen 21 3228 1901 1911 23-33 947 516 .170 .194 .201 .395 2 Hal Lanier 49 3940 1964 1973 21-30 1196 843 .228 .255 .275 .529 3 Tommy Thevenow 51 4484 1924 1938 20-34 1229 1030 .247 .285 .294 .579 4 Juan Castro 55 2834 1995 2010 23-38 1096 597 .228 .268 .327 .595 5 Bobby Wine 55 3467 1960 1972 21-33 1164 682 .215 .264 .286 .550 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/12/2010.
I went on to explain that while his bat is atrocious, he got on for years by virtue of a plus glove… which is no longer plus. Look, you don’t need fancy stats or in-depth analysis to know that Castro was never very good, and at 38, is no longer a major league quality player. You know that.
So why the 65%? Because he’s a known quantity. Ned Colletti has already added him to the club twice during his tenure, and Castro’s .277 average in 2009 is probably seen as useful, even though it was completely empty (he had just five extra-base hits and drew six walks). Despite the declining defensive metrics, I’m guessing his reputation outweighs the facts, and as I joked on Twitter yesterday, the homer off Jeff Francis almost certainly carries more weight than it ought to. If anything, putting him at 65% might be too low.
Aaron Miles, 20%. With the exception of the Dodger history, you can – and I have – say a lot of the same things about Miles as you can about Castro:
No, really; among players who have had as many plate appearances as Miles had since he debuted in 2003, only three players in baseball have been less valuable. It’s a special kind of “not valuable”, though. If you’re simply awful, you don’t get to stick around for that long. Miles has really hit the sweet spot of being bad enough to hurt his teams for years, yet not so bad that he gets outright drummed out of the game. It must be his A+ levels of “grit” and “scrap”.
Rk Player WAR/pos PA G AB H 2B HR RBI BA OBP SLG OPS 1 Geoff Blum -1.0 2839 902 2592 635 131 59 303 .245 .298 .369 .667 2 Mark Teahen -0.7 2994 753 2713 727 159 63 318 .268 .330 .415 .746 3 Juan Encarnacion -0.3 2653 663 2431 656 136 79 358 .270 .320 .437 .757 4 Aaron Miles 0.6 2574 796 2373 668 93 16 184 .282 .321 .354 .675 5 Shea Hillenbrand 0.7 2647 648 2468 705 139 78 358 .286 .324 .444 .768 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/7/2011But what’s really important here is the last sentence of the dodgers.com story above. Miles is likely competing with Juan Castro and Ivan DeJesus for a second backup infield slot behind Jamey Carroll. Since I don’t believe that DeJesus would get stashed on the big league bench over playing every day in AAA, that means you’re rooting for either the 4th worst player of the last seven years in Miles, or the 4th worst batter in major league history in Castro.
Um, yay. I don’t really see him beating out Castro without a scorching spring, though he does have that creamy veteran pennant-winning goodness Colletti seems to love so much, so…
Ivan DeJesus, 10%. We’ve talked about DeJesus a few times this winter, notably pointing out that he’s fallen completely off most Dodger top prospect lists, nor was he invited to the club’s winter development camp after not getting a September callup last year. Back in October, before Juan Uribe was signed, I looked at whether DeJesus should get a shot at the 2B job and decided that while I wouldn’t totally be against it, it seemed better off to have him in AAA or as utility man.
I’m no longer convinced that DeJesus has what it takes to be an everyday player in the bigs, though it should be noted that he impressed Don Mattingly in the AFL and has put time into learning how to play 3B as well. Still, he’s got an option left, and you know how much the club likes to hold on to as many players as they can. I think there’s also some feeling that after missing all of 2009, it’d be better to have him play every day in the minors rather than riding the big league bench. I’d still prefer him to Castro or Miles, but I can’t argue with that either.
Justin Sellers, 5%. Sellers is someone who I’ve never talked about much around here, and I’ve been meaning to for a while. Despite looking like he’s about 14, his 2010 AAA stats were impressive: .285/.371/.497, with 14 homers. Don’t put too much stock into that, however; while I can’t say for sure because the great minorleaguesplits.com is no longer around, the power displayed is almost certainly a result of the Albuquerque environment, since he had just 17 homers in five previous seasons.
Still, there’s reason to like him. Most of the reports I’ve been able to dig up claim he’s an above-average glove, possibly making him the best defensive choice of these four, and he’s shown improvement in mastering the strike zone. In two seasons as a Dodger minor leaguer, he’s put up OBP of .371 and .360, thanks to a very good K/BB ratio of 115/99. In January, Baseball America gave him the title of “Best Strike Zone Discipline” in the Dodger system, and you don’t need me to remind you how starved this team is for that right now. Though it’s early, he’s off to a good start in the spring, having walked three times without a whiff. Unlike DeJesus, he did attend the winter development camp.
If there’s a knock against him, it’s that he’s been exclusively a middle infielder, though with Jamey Carroll and Juan Uribe both able to handle third base, that wouldn’t seem to be an issue. He’s not a highly touted prospect, clearly, so at 25 and on his third pro organization, I wouldn’t be all that worried about having him riding the major league bench as opposed to playing every day in AAA.
The more I read about Sellers, the more I think he’s my choice, but I still don’t think he’s got any sort of a real shot here. Like DeJesus, he can be sent back to the minors, and with Chin-lung Hu in Queens and Dee Gordon unlikely to start the season at AAA, there’s playing time to be had. Unfortunately, I think we’re stuck with Castro. On the bright side, this roster spot is constantly churning, so hopefully it won’t be for too long.
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As for Paul, this would seem to sign his death warrant as a Dodger. His only prayer is that he plays out of his head and Jay Gibbons totally chokes his job away, but that seems very unlikely. I can’t imagine that a guy with a .302/.380/.502 AAA line slips through waivers, so I expect him to be shipped off in the second half of March for a Delwyn Young-esque return. It’s too bad, because while he hasn’t been able to establish himself in limited MLB chances, he’s done nothing but produce. Is Gibbons really going to be better? Tony Gwynn? I’m not sure that’s so clear.
Scott Elbert Should Be in AAA, And That’s Okay
March 2, 2011 at 4:27 pm | Posted in Clayton Kershaw, Scott Elbert | 14 Comments
You’ll probably hear people say that Scott Elbert punched his ticket back to the minors this afternoon in Arizona, as he walked four of the six batters he faced and managed to get just six of his 21 pitches across for strikes. That comes after a spring debut in which he walked two in one inning, meaning that he’s walked six of the ten spring batters he’s seen.
Now maybe his slow start to the spring is what’s going to get him knocked down to AAA, and maybe it’s not, but my feeling has always been that it shouldn’t matter. Unless he was able to come to camp and dominate, that always should have been the plan. And why not? He’s always had control issues, walking 5.0/9 in the minors, and last year that went up to an untenable 7.1/9. That’s of course before his well-publicized but little-understood leave of absence that meant he didn’t pitch after June.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers have a wealth of other options, even in the absence of Ronald Belisario and Vicente Padilla, including Ron Mahay, who I’ve been high on. Elbert’s undeniably talented, yet there’s no reason to force him onto the roster before he shows he can harness his control issues and when he hasn’t pitched in a real game in about eight months. He has a minor league option remaining, and there’s no harm in using it. That’s not a reflection on today’s performance; it’s simply what the plan should always have been with him. I still have high hopes for a long and successful major league career from Elbert, it’s just that the events of the last year mean that starting the season back in the minors is hardly an insult.
On the other hand, it’s possible that today’s trouble was all the result of some global conspiracy, coming as it did in the same game as Tim Redding tossing three shutout innings and Juan Castro (!) bashing a homer, which probably assures him of a roster spot. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K…
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Clayton Kershaw today received a $500k salary for 2011, his last before arbitration. While I’ve made my preference for a long-term contract for him clear, it’s hard to argue having a guy like Kershaw on the books for a lousy half-million. For the production we expect to get from him this year, is there a better value in the bigs? I think not.
What We’ve Learned So Far
March 1, 2011 at 6:33 pm | Posted in Casey Blake | 22 CommentsWell, nothing, really, given that it’s only the first of March and just five spring games have been played. But it’s worth noting that all winter we expected excellent pitching, worried about subpar offense, and weren’t quite sure what to make of the defense. So how’s that played out in the early going?
Through the first five games, the Dodgers are hitting .227/.282/.312. They’ve allowed 17 earned runs in 42 innings, allowing a .331 OBA and a .296 SLG, and they’ve committed seven errors. That… all sounds about right. Let’s be clear that you can put just about zero stock into stats compiled by 40 hitters and 29 pitchers over five games, including more than a few even I’ve never heard of, but nothing we’ve seen so far is making us think that this team is going to have a different profile than we’d expected. Prepare for a lot of 2-1 games, I’d think.
Also not helping? Don Mattingly, who’s decided on hitting Casey Blake 2nd, saying that one of the reasons is that he can bunt. I said last week that while I wasn’t thrilled with hitting Blake 2nd, I also didn’t have any obviously better solutions, but I can already see plenty of instances where we’ll be throwing things at the TV when Blake bunts people over.
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For all of the talk this winter about how Blake was cooked and that he needed to be replaced, is it possible he’s actually the best third baseman in the division? Geoff Young comes to that conclusion, though not with great vigor, over at Baseball Prospectus. (And he ought to know, having blogged about the Padres at Ducksnorts since Mike Piazza was still wearing blue.)
In Los Angeles, Casey Blake returns. Unlike most everything else involving the Dodgers right now, this comes without controversy. Blake is as exciting as a stack of newspapers in the garage, but he’s also the division’s most reliable third baseman.
Yes. I know.
Can that really be? Let’s look at the 2010 performance of the five 3B most likely to see the bulk of 2011 playing time in the division.
| Rk | Player | PA | R | H | HR | RBI | BB | SO | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Casey Blake | 99 | 571 | 56 | 126 | 17 | 64 | 48 | 138 | .248 | .320 | .407 | .727 |
| 19 | Melvin Mora | 98 | 354 | 39 | 90 | 7 | 45 | 31 | 53 | .285 | .358 | .421 | .779 |
| 20 | Ian Stewart | 97 | 441 | 54 | 99 | 18 | 61 | 45 | 110 | .256 | .338 | .443 | .781 |
| 21 | Chase Headley | 97 | 674 | 77 | 161 | 11 | 58 | 56 | 139 | .264 | .327 | .375 | .702 |
| 22 | Pablo Sandoval | 95 | 616 | 61 | 151 | 13 | 63 | 47 | 81 | .268 | .323 | .409 | .732 |
Well, that’s… a sorry group, but believe it or not it’s true. OPS+ is park-adjusted, which explains why Blake comes out ahead of Mora and Stewart, who each had the benefit of hitting at Coors Field. (Mora has since moved on to Arizona to replace Mark Reynolds, who was dealt to Baltimore.) In addition, Blake has been a solidly above-average fielder since coming to Los Angeles, which only serves to help his case. I’m on record as not expecting a whole lot out of him this year, but he sure looks a lot better compared to this crew.
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Jay Gibbons is following up a winter where he missed time due to vision problems with a slow start because of the flu (he “missed four days and lost five pounds,” per dodgers.com). Tony Gwynn wants to be an everyday player and claims that his 2010 struggles were due to a hand injury and finding out his father had cancer (the elder Tony, by the way, is reportedly doing much better). Is it possible that the outfield situation, with Xavier Paul out of options and Jamie Hoffmann coming off a good year in AAA and being a badly-needed plus-glove righty, may not be as concrete as we’d thought?
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Finally, what happened to Matt Paul? For a few days last week, the former Dodger minor leaguer and current scout (and yes, older brother of Xavier) was something of a Twitter sensation, posting fun snippets of daily camp life, responding to fans, and promising more to come.
Then he posted a piece of honesty which I found awesome…
The fact that a Dodger scout just tweeted ‘Castro should retire’ is probably my favorite thing ever.
…and now his account is gone, wiped from Twitter. Did he get Twitter-whacked by the team? I can’t argue if that’s the case – I mean, he’s a team employee who did say that a player we all hate should retire – but it’s disappointing to see him gone.
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