2011 April « Mike Scioscia's tragic illness

The Process Was Good, Even If the Results Weren’t

April 14, 2011 at 7:39 am | Posted in Casey Blake, Don Mattingly | 38 Comments

The Dodgers, as you probably noticed, did not win last night, dropping them down to .500. That’s not all that unexpected based on what we thought coming into the season, because this team just isn’t built to withstand a poor performance by the starter (and Ted Lilly and his declining velocity is about one more lousy start from getting his own post on whether I should have been harder on his contract than I already was) and an oh-fer by Matt Kemp. Without Rafael Furcal, and with Juan Uribe and James Loney sucking in a fashion not generally seen outside of the darkest corners of the internet, it’s going to take more than the occasional Rod Barajas homer and a few lucky hits by Aaron Miles to help this team score runs.

That’s not the point of today’s post, however. I have always been of the mindset that the process is more important than the results, because if you make wise decisions in your process, the results will come. For example, if Ned Colletti traded Jerry Sands for Jose Lopez tomorrow, and Sands immediately suffered a career-ending injury while Lopez hit a few dingers for the rest of the year, the end result may be that the Dodgers got more value, but the process would have been so horribly flawed that there’s no defending it.

It’s with that in mind that Don Mattingly should be commended for his lineup choices last night, even though they didn’t, you know, work. For months – years, maybe – I’ve been dying to both take Loney out of the lineup against lefties and have Casey Blake play first base in his stead. Blake, I’ve long argued, should not be an everyday third baseman, and would be much better served as a utility player who steps in against lefty pitching. Not only did Mattingly do that, he also then shifted Blake to left field in 8th inning as part of a double switch, showing that he’s willing to move Blake around if needed. Blake may have only went 1-4, but the process in terms of getting him in over Loney against a lefty was sound.

Also serving as a positive for Mattingly was that he placed Jamey Carroll atop the lineup with Miles hitting 8th, exactly the way it should be. (Well, the way it should be is that Miles would be unemployed, but still.) Again, the results weren’t there, but that’s more because Mattingly is saddled with a largely underperforming roster than anything. For once, the thought process was sound, and it’s part of the reason I already like Mattingly about 10000x more than Joe Torre.

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Christopher Jackson of the Albuquerque Examiner has been a wealth of information lately, both in comments here and on the newspaper’s site. I’ll be doing an interview with him near the end of the month on life following the Isotopes. Check out his recap of the mess that happened in last night’s game:

Second baseman Justin Sellers was hit by a pitch on his right hand in the fourth inning, forcing him to leave the game.

Three batters later, Juan Castro fouled off the first pitch from Austin Bibens-Dirkx, only to suddenly double over in pain, clutching his left side. He had to leave the game as well.

In the seventh inning, J.D. Closser, who had moved from catcher to third base to replace Castro, stumbled while trying to field a grounder. The ball bounced up and struck Closser under his left eye, leaving him with a visible bruise and forcing him out.

At that point, Jerry Sands had to move from right field to third, and with no position players available on the bench, pitcher Tim Redding trotted out to right field.

“The big question is with J.D., if he’s available or not (to catch),” Bundy said. “I guess Jerry Sands would be my backup catcher.”

First things first: is “Austin Bibens-Dirkx” a great name, or the greatest name? Sellers and Closser sound like they’ll be fine in a few days. Castro, well, I will never celebrate someone getting hurt. Let’s just say, we won’t have to worry about seeing him in the big leagues any time soon. And before you ask: no, Sands is not going to be a third baseman in the bigs. Besides, he didn’t even homer last night. What a bust! (Trent Oeltjen had two.)

Speaking of the Isotopes, you probably noticed that Ramon Troncoso was never called up yesterday despite my claim that he would be. Jackson notes that it was announced in ABQ that he’d be going up, and Troncoso was told to get moving, but then the move was canceled with no explanation. Bizarre.

Today’s ABQ Call-up Isn’t Jerry Sands, But It Will Be Soon

April 13, 2011 at 7:27 am | Posted in Jerry Sands, Ramon Troncoso | 26 Comments

Per Chris Jackson of the Albuquerque Examiner, Ramon Troncoso is on his way back from Albuquerque to join the big club. In 4.2 innings for ABQ so far, Troncoso has allowed three hits and a walk, striking out two. As Eric Stephen of TrueBlueLA has become fond of noting, that’s four days in a row that the Dodgers have recalled a player from AAA, following John Ely, Jamie Hoffmann, and Ivan DeJesus.

The difference here is that while the first three recalls were more or less expected, the move to get Troncoso wasn’t, especially with another move needing to be made on Friday when Jon Garland is activated. Beyond that, we don’t yet know who is being sent down to make room for Troncoso. When I noted the move on Twitter, several people guessed Blake Hawksworth, in light of how he took the loss last night, but he’s out of options so that seems unlikely. With Hector Gimenez and Dioner Navarro still on the DL, our usual best guess of A.J. Ellis is safe, so unless there’s another new injury we don’t know about, my best guess is that this is going to be Hoffmann, headed back to ABQ a few days ahead of schedule.

Hoffmann’s received just one at-bat since his recall, and the Dodgers have no shortage of outfielders; it was always assumed that he’d be the one sent back down when Garland was ready. Recalling Troncoso would bump the roster back up to twelve pitchers, where the Dodgers tend to prefer it, though I will admit that it does seem odd that they wouldn’t have just called up a pitcher over Hoffmann in the first place. I suppose we’ll learn more today.

Speaking of Albquerque and guys who aren’t long for it, Jerry Sands has started off his AAA season by homering in each of his four games, and none of them have been cheap. In his first 16 PA, he has 7 hits (including the 4 homers) and not a single strikeout. Watch his homer from last night below (h/t to Twitter follower “OdinsBeard“), and try to keep strong with me in waiting until at least the end of April before we launch a full-fledged “Free Jerry Sands!” campaign. You’ll notice the center field fence there says “428″, making this shot at least 440 feet.

Rafael Furcal Is An Endless Source of Blog Content (Updated)

April 12, 2011 at 7:07 am | Posted in Ivan DeJesus, Jamey Carroll, Juan Castro, Juan Uribe, Rafael Furcal | 41 Comments

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Rafael Furcal is hurt. I know! Who’d have thought? This time it’s his left thumb, which he broke on a slide into third base in the fifth inning. Remember, kids: never slide head first.

Though the immediate postgame stories were about Furcal’s mention that he might retire, that seems almost certainly a statement made out of immediate frustration, and it’s hardly like rehabbing a broken thumb is as arduous as coming back from a blown-out knee or any of the various back troubles he’s had over the years. He’ll be out for four to six weeks, maybe a bit more with a rehab stint, and we’ll see him again sometime before Memorial Day. If there’s a slim silver lining to this, it’s that he almost certainly won’t reach the 600 plate appearances it would take to get his 2012 option to vest. I don’t say that because I don’t like Furcal or am dying to see him gone, but because whenever you can get out of paying an aging, injury-prone player a guaranteed $12m, you do it.

That’s a worry for the offseason, though, because of course far more urgent is how the Dodgers are going to handle this absence, and let me stop you right there: it’s not going to be Dee Gordon. Sure, it’d be fun, it’d be exciting – and it’d also be a terrible idea. Gordon is absolutely not ready right now, and I’m of the opinion that I’m not sure he’s even going to be ready for next year. It’s not good for him, and it’s not good for the team. It shouldn’t happen, and it won’t.

Without Furcal, the Dodgers are really left with four questions: how to replace him at shortstop, who gets his roster spot, how does that impact the bench, and what will this do to the batting order? Let’s tackle them one at a time, and hope this doesn’t get as ugly as the 2008 hellscape of the punchless Chin-lung Hu, the decrepit Angel Berroa, and the corpse of Nomar Garciaparra filling in for Furcal.

Who plays shortstop? Most reports indicate that Jamey Carroll will get the bulk of the time at shortstop in Furcal’s absence, a task he handled admirably last season. That’s okay, I suppose, though I do wonder if Juan Uribe might not be the better choice there. Uribe unquestionably has the stronger arm, and has a 3.4 UZR/150 in over 900 games at the position, while Carroll is at -0.4 in 163 games. Conversely, Carroll has nearly twice as much second base experience as Uribe.

Who fills the roster spot? Assuming Gordon isn’t happening, the obvious 40-man roster choice would be Ivan DeJesus, Jr., though I’m not so sure that’ll happen. It’s not because of DeJesus’ unimpressive stint to start the season, because that was just a few games by a guy seeing his first big league action. It’s because if Carroll is indeed the shortstop, he’s still a 37-year-old career utility guy who can’t be expected to play every day. DeJesus is no longer seen as a shortstop; he may be able to fill in at third base in a pinch, but is basically limited to second base. If the Dodgers don’t want to push Uribe off of second to short a few times a week, the new infielder will need to be able to handle shortstop, particularly because Aaron Miles shouldn’t be playing there either. Besides, if they want DeJesus to play every day, that opportunity still wouldn’t be there for him in LA even with Furcal gone.

That leaves you with two non-roster options: Justin Sellers & Juan Castro. Sellers was someone I liked in the spring due to reports that he has a plus glove and good on-base skills, though he didn’t totally impress in camp. He’s not seen as an everyday major leaguer, so having him be a utilty man wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Castro, well, you know all about him already. He’s completely and totally useless. Of course it’ll be Castro. (Update: we have our answer, it is DeJesus. See below.)

What does this do to the bench? Here’s where the impact could really be felt. Having Carroll play more is a bit of an injury risk, but it’s overall a good thing to get him in the lineup more. But without him on the bench? That’s a killer, because now you’re looking at a likely backup infield situation of Aaron Miles and Juan Castro (or one of the younger guys). That makes it harder to get Casey Blake the rest he needs without thowing away the day’s game, and since Blake is already banged-up just a week into the season, that kind of rest is vital. I can’t wait for the first day where we see Miles & Castro starting together, right?

How does this change the batting order? Without Furcal at the top, my best guess is that you see a lot more of Tony Gwynn, Jr., leading off. It is, to say the least, an imperfect solution, though I will admit that Don Mattingly doesn’t have a lot of better options. My hope is that he at least keeps Carroll at #2, perhaps even leading off when Gwynn is out, and doesn’t continually bury him at #8, giving more at-bats to the useless Miles & Castro. We’ll have to see how that plays out, though. Tony Jackson suggests that Matt Kemp should lead off, which would be interesting and a way to get him more at-bats, though I wouldn’t do it because I don’t want to see Kemp coming up with the bases empty 90% of the time because Rod Barajas and the pitcher didn’t get on in front of him. Jackson noted later in the story that Mattingly wouldn’t entertain the idea, which is good.

We’ll find out the answer to at least the second question later today, when Furcal is placed on the disabled list and a corresponding move is made. (If it’s not DeJesus, remember, someone will need to be DFA’d. With Jamie Hoffmann up and Jay Gibbons almost ready to return, Xavier Paul should be on notice. So it could be not only that we have to suffer through Castro again, but that we have to lose Paul or someone else to do it.)

As for the rest? We’ll have to see. It’ll be one of Don Mattingly’s first big tests.

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Update: Tim Brown of Yahoo reports that it will indeed be DeJesus coming up to fill the spot. Not Castro, hooray! He also passes on this horrifying news…

Ivan DeJesus Jr will be in uni for Dodgers tonight, in place of Furcal. LA checked on Eckstein in spring, told it would cost $2 mil. Passed.

Not sure what’s more disturbing – that the Dodgers actually had interest in David Eckstein, or that he chose to not sign with anyone rather than play for less than $2m?

Update 2: MLBtraderumors is reporting that the Dodgers are considering using DeJesus at 2B, which would then push Uribe to 3B. I like the idea if DeJesus can handle it. Uribe’s strong arm would be an asset at 3B, and that would then supplement the bench by pushing Casey Blake to the LHP masher role he really ought to be. Could he be part of the solution to the fact that neither James Loney or Andre Ethier can hit lefties?

Let’s All Thank the Giants

April 11, 2011 at 9:39 pm | Posted in Clayton Kershaw, Jamie Hoffmann, Rafael Furcal | 21 Comments

It’s 6-0 now in the top of the 8th, and that’s probably where I’ll leave you tonight. But with apologies to yet another incredible Clayton Kershaw performance (that’s now 23 2/3 scoreless innings against the Giants), a Rod Barajas homer, and eleven Dodger hits so far (six coming in the 5th inning alone), let’s focus on what’s becoming a weekly tradition: the Giants trying their best to play defense with both hands wrapped around their necks.

James Loney singling off Freddy Sanchez‘ glove, preventing Matt Kemp from being doubled up immediately after Miguel Tejada dropped the ball when Madison Bumgarner had Kemp picked off.

Pat Burrell playing a Kemp drive as though it were a hand grenade, scoring Jamey Carroll.

Aaron Miles gets a hit in the books, but only because Tejada is playing shortstop.

In case it weren’t obvious, massive thanks to Chad Moriyama for showing me how to make the GIFs.

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Prior to the game, John Ely was sent down, with Jamie Hoffmann being recalled. I’d joked before the game that I wanted the righty Hoffmann to start over Andre Ethier against the lefty, though I of course never seriously thought it’d happen. Still, the Dodgers do face two more lefties this week before Hoffmann inevitably gets shipped out for Jon Garland, so I really would like to see him get one of those.

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The injuries keep piling up: Rafael Furcal was already dealing with a sore wrist, and now Dylan Hernandez reports that he injured his thumb sliding into third in the fifth inning. That explains why Miles hit for him to lead off the 7th. Shockingly, he hurt it sliding headfirst, and shouldn’t we know better than that by now? Casey Blake also sat out with a sore leg, the aftereffect of being run down by Chase Headley over the weekend. With the left side of the infield hurt, and the right side of Uribe and Loney atrocious, well… at least Carroll’s looking great, right?

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Jerry Sands hit his third homer of the season for ABQ today. That’s good, in theory. But it came off of Ramon Ortiz – yes, that Ramon Ortiz – so I’m afraid I can’t give him much credit for it.

You’ve Seen This Game Before

April 10, 2011 at 4:10 pm | Posted in Hector Gimenez, John Ely, Jon Garland | 24 Comments

If you didn’t watch today’s game, then you didn’t miss anything you haven’t already seen, unless you’ve somehow managed to miss the awful San Diego camouflage uniforms before. Seriously, let’s run though the list of what happened this afternoon, and tell me that I couldn’t be describing 90% of the other games we’ll see this year, wins or losses:

Part of the Dodger scoring came from friendly opposition defense. Just as we saw in the opening San Francisco series, some of the Dodger scoring came directly as a result of poor defense. After Matt Kemp singled and stole second, James Loney grounded weakly back to pitcher Aaron Harang, who attempted to get Kemp at third but threw wildly to the fence, allowing Kemp to score. The first run wasn’t exactly a fireworks display either; Tony Gwynn singled, stole second, was sacrificed to third, and came home on a fielder’s choice.

The outfield provided all of the offense. Kemp, Andre Ethier (on his 29th birthday) and Gwynn had the only four Dodger hits and both runs, with Ethier getting the only RBI and Kemp & Gwynn each notching steals. Kemp and Ethier are off to good starts, but Gwynn’s been a pleasant early-season surprise too, even collecting his first walk today. This kind of production from the outfielders is great, but it’s only going to get you so far when…

Juan Uribe, James Loney, Rod Barajas & Aaron Miles provided absolutely nothing. Nothing. The foursome combined to go 0-for-12, with Loney ending the game by grounding into a double play, and with Barajas the only one who isn’t showing at least 2/3 of his triple-slash line in the .100s. (Jamey Carroll went 0-3 as well, but I’m exempting him here because he’s at least shown some life this season.) I’m still confident that Uribe and Barajas will at least start to add some power to their generally lousy production otherwise, so we can be a bit patient there. Loney, well, we know all about – completely unrelated, Jerry Sands hit his second homer of the season for ABQ today – and Miles has no place on a big-league roster whatsoever.

Don Mattingly’s batting orders will always confound me. I don’t particularly like the idea of putting Gwynn leadoff, but I suppose on a day where Rafael Furcal is sitting I can see the case for it. But Aaron Miles hitting second, really? The guy who is, by one measure, the fourth-worst player in baseball over the last eight seasons? I get, of course, the idea that batting orders generally don’t mean as much as we like to think they do, but Miles shouldn’t even be on the team. Letting him generate outs in front of Ethier and Kemp, particularly while Carroll is buried at 8th, makes no sense.

Pitchers who don’t belong on major league rosters aren’t going to produce. Actually, that’s a bit harsh on John Ely, because his line of four earned runs in 5.2 innings leaves him with an ugly 6.35 ERA, with no expectation to have a chance to change that any time soon, but it obscures what was mostly a decent spot start. Ely’s basically the club’s 7th starter, but managed to work into the sixth inning having allowed just two runs before running into trouble. There’s plenty of teams who can’t get that out of their third starter, and Ely wasn’t going to win today anyway due to the offense, so overall I’m satisfied with that out of a fill-in guy. Really, I’m referring more to Lance Cormier here, who gave up two hits and a walk in allowing two runs in his one mop-inning.

Now tell me none of that sounds familiar? Of course it does, and it’s partly why the Dodgers have the second-worst run differential in the National League, ahead of only Houston. (That is, of course, also largely due to the 10-0 loss to the Giants, and that’s something that won’t last throughout the season.)

For all of that, of course, the Dodgers did win two out of three in this series, and head to San Francisco tomorrow with Clayton Kershaw on the mound against Madison Bumgarner.

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Before the game, Hector Gimenez was placed on the disabled list with an all-too-convenient knee injury, opening up a spot for Ely. I joke about the timing because the spot was needed and we hadn’t heard anything about this until now, but Tony Jackson reports that A.J. Ellis was already packing his bags for Albuquerque before being told to stop, so apparently it’s real. Ellis is more valuable than Gimenez anyway, so I consider that a win.

Ely will almost certainly be returned to AAA in time for tomorrow’s game, with an extra arm (Ramon Troncoso, Scott Elbert, Travis Schlichting) or additional bat (Jamie Hoffmann, Russ Mitchell) coming up to round out the roster for the week. Whomever does come up would do well to travel light, since they’d be heading back down for Jon Garland on Friday. Garland allowed six hits and three runs in 4.2 innings for Rancho Cucamonga in a rehab start today.

One Day, Twelve Innings, Two Wins

April 9, 2011 at 10:36 pm | Posted in Andre Ethier, Hiroki Kuroda, Jonathan Broxton, Matt Kemp, Tony Gwynn | 19 Comments

…and one bizarre ending, as Chase Headley ran down Casey Blake in the nightcap, getting called out for interference. Can’t say I’ve seen that before. The Dodgers, improbably, are just a half game out of first, despite being the only club in the NL West with a negative run differential (-5) – not that either standings or run totals matter all that much just a week into the season.

Still, tonight was a night full of positives, so let’s focus on the heroes. Guys like…

Matt Kemp. Three hits in the first game, three hits in the second game, four steals on the day. Four! You know as well as I do that we’re not going to get too giddy about stats this early in the season, but he’s 4th in MLB in OPS among guys with at least 25 PA. While we obviously remember that he got off to a good start in 2010 and wasn’t able to sustain it, his getting off to a good start was more important than anyone else, possibly excluding Broxton. Almost as importantly, he hasn’t been thrown out once, and the extra work he’s put in looks to have paid off in every facet of his game. Love it.

Hiroki Kuroda. Is there a more underrated pitcher in baseball than Kuroda? I’m serious, because when he’s been healthy, he’s been nothing short of outstanding in his Dodger career, and he never seems to get the credit he deserves. In some circles, he’s referred to as the Dodgers #4 starter, and while that speaks somewhat to the depth of the rotation, that just never seems to adequately credit what Kuroda’s brought to this team. He left one out shy of what would have been his third career shutout, but the fact that he got 26 outs rather than 27 doesn’t take anything away from his performance. (For the record, I’d have let him stay in to finish the job, with a four-run lead, though he was up to 117 pitches.) By Game Score, this tied for the 8th best start of his career.

Tony Gwynn. Two hits, two stolen bases, and two runs scored in the nightcap, after two hits and the game-winning RBI in the first game. Today alone shot his batting average up over 150 points, so keep that in mind. Somewhat troubling? His .353 BA exactly matches his .353 OBP.

Andre Ethier. Ethier’s been a bit overshadowed by Kemp, understandably, though he did hit his first homer of the season and is off to a very nice start of his own. That said – and I saw this on Twitter and can’t remember who said it, so apologies for stealing this – he’s 8-for-16 with 3 walks against righties, and 0-for-9 with a walk against lefties. I’m fully aware of the small sample sizes there, but I’ve been saying that he’s unplayable against southpaws for basically two years now. When are they going to get him a platoon partner and stop giving away outs?

Jonathan Broxton. No, it hasn’t always been smooth. Yes, the fact that he gets a “save” for getting one out with a four-run lead seems silly. He’s also successfully converted all five of his save opportunities this year, which I think we’d all have taken 11 times out of 11 if we were offered that over the winter. I do, however, plan on looking into whether the results or the way they’ve come about are more important, sometime this week.

Jamey Carroll. Stepping in for the continually injured Rafael Furcal (who’s now dealing with a wrist issue), Carroll continues to make me eat my words about his signing, pitching in with three hits today and more than one big double play at shortstop.

Let’s not, however, talk about James Loney, who’s now hitting .147/.179/.265, and as Jon Weisman noted at Dodger Thoughts, was actually asked to bunt against a righty with a man on 2nd in an 11th inning tie game. (To be fair, Loney made several excellent defensive plays at first base.) Let’s also not talk about Juan Uribe, who’s hitting .388. Unfortunately, as I noted on Twitter, that’s not his batting average.. that’s what you get if you combine his BA, OBP, and SLG. Though it may seem odd to be more concerned about the offensive production of a middle infielder than a first baseman, Uribe’s struggles are infinitely more troubling; while I had zero expectations for Loney, the hope was that Uribe could at least add some power, and he’s signed for three seasons.

The Dodgers go for the series sweep tomorrow before heading to San Francisco for what should be a barrel of laughs.

Let’s Play Two

April 9, 2011 at 12:09 pm | Posted in Don Mattingly | 14 Comments

I’m used to some late nights following the Dodgers, but this was something else: I came home from a night out to see that past midnight, the 2nd inning was just resuming after a rain delay. I briefly considered sticking it out, but thought better of it; that turned out to be the right call, because it was nearly 5am here in the east when the game was finally suspended in the 9th.

So today we get the pleasure of two different games, and if you don’t think the second game is guaranteed to go extra innings, you must be new to baseball. With Hong-Chih Kuo unlikely to continue pitching in the top of the 9th due to his injury history, and Ted Lilly, Mike MacDougal, Kenley Jansen, and Matt Guerrier already used, the Dodgers have three pitchers remaining to finish off a game that is currently tied at two: Jonathan Broxton, Blake Hawksworth, and Lance Cormier.

So far, I haven’t offered you anything you don’t know already, but there is a reason for this post; two, in fact. First of all, we’re going to learn a lot about Don Mattingly’s managerial style if the Dodgers don’t take the lead when the suspended game resumes (Matt Kemp will be on first base with no one out, and Juan Uribe, James Loney, and Xavier Paul coming up). If the game goes to the bottom of the 9th tied, will he go with the “by the book” strategy of saving Broxton for a lead, or will he go with the more efficient choice of using his best available reliever? After all, it does no good to save your closer for the bottom of the 10th if one of your two lesser arms has lost the game in the 9th.

Secondly, why couldn’t the Dodgers call up another reliever for the regularly scheduled game tonight? They’re allowed to make roster moves between the two games, and Mattingly noted the thought in Ken Gurnick’s story on dodgers.com:

Mattingly said he spoke with general manager Ned Colletti about calling up a pitcher, “but we don’t have a lot of flexibility” because the Dodgers are already planning on calling up a fifth starter (probably John Ely) for Sunday in place of the disabled Jon Garland.

But the supposed lack of flexibility doesn’t really seem to make sense. Let’s say that A.J. Ellis is the player sent down to make room for Ely tomorrow, as we assume he will be. You could just send Ellis down after the first game today for an extra arm to help in the second game, be it Ramon Troncoso, Travis Schlichting, Scott Elbert, or someone else. Then send that pitcher down before tomorrow’s game for Ely. The end result is the same, in that Ellis was sent down for Ely, except that you turned a third catcher into an extra arm for tonight’s second game.

Just Manny Being Retired

April 8, 2011 at 1:26 pm | Posted in Manny Ramirez | 20 Comments

Very surprising news coming out of Tampa; after just five games and seventeen at-bats in a Tampa uniform, Manny Ramirez has decided to call it a career. He’d missed the last few games dealing with what was being called a “personal issue”; multiple sources are claiming that he was notified of a failed drug test and decided to retire rather than deal with the process.

Much, much, more on this to come, no doubt, including more self-important puff pieces from journalists condemning him than you can shake a stick at, if “shaking a stick” at something is a thing people still do. For my part, if he did get busted again, then he’ll get no defense from me, though I do think we should wait until the details emerge. Either way, he could be hopped up on a mix of barbiturates, steroids, and a stew made of newborn babies and it still wouldn’t change how I felt about watching him hit in Dodger blue.

Hold On, Ely’s Coming

April 7, 2011 at 1:15 pm | Posted in John Ely | 25 Comments

(Update: Completely unexpectedly, I’ve been invited to be on Sirius/XM Fantasy Baseball tonight at 8:35p ET / 5:35p PT, so tune in. XM 147 / Sirius 211.)

It’s an off-day, so at least the Dodgers can’t get shut out, right? Hey, it could be worse: the Red Sox are 0-6 and the population of Boston is about to plummet by 40% as half the inhabitants line up to leap off the Tobin Bridge. I joke, but so far we’re seeing exactly what we expected: relatively good starting pitching, a hit-or-miss bullpen, and just about no offense. Can’t say you’re surprised, right?

All indications are that John Ely will be recalled to make the Saturday start in San Diego, and I couldn’t agree with the decision more. If Ely’s going to succeed, there’s no better place than in Petco Park. Besides, as I laid out the other day, it makes no sense to DFA someone to recall Tim Redding, then risk losing him on his own DFA after one start. Since Jon Garland is all but certain to be ready the next time the spot comes up, it’s far, far easier to just call up Ely for one start and then send him back down immediately after. The question then becomes, of course, who loses their job on the 25-man roster; that would almost certainly be A.J. Ellis, simply because he has options left and the Dodgers are carrying three catchers. Ellis couldn’t be recalled for 10 days following his demotion (unless Hector Gimenez was injured), so you might see one of the rest of the usual grab-bag of roster fodder called up to sit on the bench before Garland is activated – Scott Elbert, Travis Schlichting, Russ Mitchell, or Jamie Hoffmann.

Speaking of the Isotopes, Chris Jackson of the Albuquerque Examiner kindly stopped by my comments section to lay out the early-season rotation. Dana Eveland starts the opener tonight, followed by Carlos Monasterios tomorrow, Randy Keisler (!) on Saturday, Alberto Bastardo in place of Ely on Sunday, and Redding on Monday.

On to other notes of the day…

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If you’ve been reading this blog for even a second, you know how little I think of saves, a statistic that tells you nothing about performance yet has completely changed the way the game is managed. Come on, the guy who comes into a bases-empty situation against the 6-7-8 hitters in the 9th is more valuable than the guy who gets out of a two-on, one-out jam against the meat of the lineup in the 8th just because of what inning it is? Please. In the same vein, blown saves are even worse offenders.

It’s with that in mind that I heartily recommend this look at “Shutdowns” and “Meltdowns” from FanGraphs, which even the article admits are nearly a year old but which I hadn’t known about until now. A quick definition:

Using Win Probability Added (WPA), it’s very easy to tell exactly how much a specific player contributed to their team on a game-by-game basis. If a player increased his team’s win probability by 6% (0.06 WPA), then they get a Shutdown. If a player made his team 6% more likely to lose (-0.06), they get a Meltdown. These cutoff points put Shutdowns and Meltdowns on a similar scale as Saves and Holds, meaning that 40 shutdowns is roughly as impressive as 40 saves. While the WPA aspect can take a bit to explain to saber newbies, having Shutdowns and Meltdowns on the same scale as Saves makes it much easier for new people to accept and understand.

This eliminates the difference between “closers” and “everyone else” and makes the 9th inning less important. As the article goes on to state, all-timers like Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman still rank at the top (no one would buy the stat if they didn’t), but quality non-closing arms like Arthur Rhodes get their due as well. I recommend the full read; for the record, Jonathan Broxton‘s 2010 doesn’t appear on the noted leaders of either side, though Hong-Chih Kuo ranks 2nd in terms of highest ratio of Shutdowns to Meltdowns.

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As usual, I think T.J. Simers’ take on the ballpark violence issue is a bit over the top, because his schtick is well-known and his “data” consists of people emailing him to complain, as though anyone nutty enough to take Simers seriously was really going to write in to say “no, everything’s cool!” On the other hand, he’s taking the opportunity to turn this into yet another example of how the ownership of Frank McCourt has ruined the Dodgers – apparently Frank’s now even responsible for driving families away from games – so if Simers wants to take the approach of driving public opinion even further against Frank McCourt, that’s fine by me.

What happened to Bryan Stow (who is reportedly stabilizing) is no joke, of course, and we all hope not only for the best for him but also that his assailants are found and prosecuted. I suppose I’m just having a difficult time with the perception that this is some kind of Dodger Stadium-specific crisis, as though idiots don’t do awful things at football games in Philadelphia or basketball games in Miami. Yes, there should be more security, but you could have guards every 20 feet and you still couldn’t stop someone from randomly punching someone else. I’m all about personal responsibility, and the blame ought to be directed at the two animals who attacked an innocent fan.

Then again, when you’ve fired your head of security and neglected to replace him – as McCourt did last year – it’s hard to drum up a whole lot of sympathy for him, especially with his flaccid public statements on the matter. Just another black mark on the McCourt era, I suppose, and hardly the last. Yes, he hired former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton this week, which is nice, but that’s a move that can’t be seen as more than reactionary to this crisis.

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Speaking of McCourt, there’s a whole lot of talk lately that he’s close to making another deal with FOX about television rights, and if Bud Selig blocks the deal, McCourt would sue; the idea being that while his first proposed deal was denied based on FOX getting a below-market rate on rights, this deal would be more fair. I’ve even seen some people saying that Selig has no standing whatsoever to block the deal, since he’s approved similar deals in the past.

I prefer Buster Olney’s take, though:

Baseball’s biggest concern with the deal that Frank McCourt’s representatives are proposing is that it really doesn’t benefit the Dodgers franchise. The money that McCourt would receive wouldn’t be thrown into the baseball operations; it would be used to deal with McCourt’s debts.

Exactly. To put it in terms we’re all familar with, the Dodger television rights are a f’n valuable thing, man. Why should we want to let McCourt use them to bail out his own personal mess? This is the kind of thing that could hamstring the franchise for years to come.

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Lastings Milledge got DFA’d by the White Sox. The Dodgers won’t go after him, of course, and they’re overloaded with outfielders as it is. I’d prefer him to Jay Gibbons, though.

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Finally, and I’m a few days late on this, congratulations to Howard Cole of Baseball Savvy for his new gig blogging Dodgers over at the Orange County Register. He’s also selected the top ten Dodger blogs, and I’d say he’s chosen wisely.

Get Used to This: Dodgers Shut Out

April 5, 2011 at 8:24 pm | Posted in Clayton Kershaw | 24 Comments

Clayton Kershaw came down with the loss on this one, and I suppose it’s hard to feel too badly for him, since he allowed two homers and three runs in his six innings. Watching him, however, didn’t feel like that; it’s hardly a shame to give up a dinger to Troy Tulowitzki in Coors Field, and Kershaw’s command was once again impressive, whiffing eight while allowing just one walk. He’s now up to 17 K and 1 BB on the season, which is, uh, pretty goddamn good.

No, this was another of those games where the box score should really read “W – J.Chacin, L – Dodgers”, because this was a team effort as far as offensive ineptitude. I don’t want to totally take away from Jhoulys Chacin, who is very underrated and was very extremely impressive tonight, but with the exception of Andre Ethier, who got on base three times, this was an offense that couldn’t have been less threatening. Rafael Furcal grounded out four times. Juan Uribe went o-for-4, though at least two of them were loud outs. And James Loney is off to a 3-for-18 start, exactly what he needed in what is truly a make-or-break year for him. Tony Gwynn, at least, managed to double and make a fantastic defensive play, barehanding a wallball to cut down Todd Helton at second, but it’s generally not a good sign when Gwynn is putting up the only extra base hits, right?

Fun fact: there are, at the time of this writing, 102 players on other teams who have as many, or more, homers than the entire Dodgers club. It’s only five games, of course, so there’s no need to panic just yet, but so far, Dennis Green is looking prescient: they are who we thought they were.

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Right after the game, Ivan DeJesus was sent back to AAA, meaning that Casey Blake will be activated for tomorrow’s day game.