Monthly Archives: August 2011

In Which We Try To Convince Cubs Fans That Ned Colletti Is A Good Idea

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Jim Hendry, as you’ve no doubt heard, was fired by the Cubs today after just over eight years as GM.  Some of the highlights of his tenure as GM: he took a blue-clad team with a long and proud history to the playoffs three times, including two seasons in a row; he hired a big-name manager more famous for his successes elsewhere; he gave up too much for Juan Pierre; he signed Ted Lilly to a long-term deal; he had a fascination with short, white, scrappy infielders (remember, Mike Fontenot, Ryan Theriot, and Aaron Miles were all Cubs); he dealt with a messy ownership situation; and he watched as an expensive roster laden with poor choices sunk into mediocrity. Though his club certainly had their moments under his watch, ultimately it wasn’t enough to save his job.

If that all sounds familiar… well, congratulations, you’ve punctured my thinly-veiled premise of “Jim Hendry as Ned Colletti”. That alone isn’t why we’re talking about this, of course. If Colletti were to get fired in Los Angeles, you can guarantee we’d be bouncing off the walls with our favorite young prospective candidates. There’d be a Kim Ng or Logan White here, a Ben Cherington or Tony LaCava there. It’d be great. We’d have a ball, and that’s what I assume many happy Cub fans are doing right now.

Except… there’s a name that keeps popping up where you wouldn’t expect it to, a name that when I first saw it appear on Twitter, all I could do was laugh. See if you can spot who:

Jon Heyman, Sports Illustrated:

In addition to Bush, possible candidates to replace Hendy could include Pat Gillick (though he’s said he he’d prefer a team president job) plus Brian Cashman, Andrew Friedman, Ned Colletti, Rick Hahn and Josh Byrnes.

Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune (from June):

Some potential candidates long have been working behind the scenes to try to grab Hendry’s office. The Cubs easily could wind up with one of them or another happy-to-be-there GM with Kenney involved in the process. But could they get around his negative image to raid the Red Sox’s talent pool for Allard Baird or Ben Cherington or find a way to finesse Ned Colletti away from the Dodgers.

Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune (today):

Ricketts could wait a couple of months to see if guys like Cashman, Friedman or the Dodgers’ Ned Colletti become available.

Danny Knobler, CBS Sports:

Other names that are sure to come up are White Sox assistant Rick Hahn, who interviewed last year for the Mets job; Dodgers GM Ned Colletti, who grew up in the Chicago area and got his start in baseball many years ago with the Cubs; Yankees GM Brian Cashman, whose contract runs out at the end of the year (but is considered unlikely to leave); possibly Rays general manager Andrew Friedman, who has been more prominently mentioned in Houston; former Astros GM Gerry Hunsicker, working as an advisor with the Rays (and could also be a possibility in Houston); Rangers assistant Thad Levine; Blue Jays assistant Tony LaCava; and A’s assistant David Forst.

Gordon Wittenmeyer, Chicago Sun-Times (from July):

And don’t bet the house that the next GM will be an improvement, especially considering the cast of baseball newbies and wannabes who figure to be making that hire. Considering some baseball insiders believe Josh Byrnes and Ned Colletti would be near the top of the Cubs’ list, head-hunting fans might want to be careful what they wish for.

Colletti, of course, has well-known ties to Chicago; in addition to having grown up there, he got his start in baseball with the Cubs and his brother Doug has been a long-time member of the Bears radio team. (Sidenote: try to come up with a more Chicago name for two brothers than “Ned” and “Doug”. You can’t.)

It’s hard to tell if this is just “oh, the Dodgers are a mess and Colletti will either be swept out or look to jump ship, and oh, hey, he’s from Chicago right?” lazy reporting, or if there’s actual fire to this smoke. My guess is probably the former, and with so many qualified candidates out there, it’s hard to think that Cubs ownership would really want to go in this direction. (Besides, even if Colletti were to be gone in time to get the Cubs job, that would still be before the Dodger situation is sorted out, greatly limiting the external candidates who would even be interested in replacing him here.)

Still, the 0.0003% chance there’s actually a prayer of this happening is more fun to think about than the 99.9% chance that the team we’re watching right now is going to finish 74-88. So have at it, friends.

Kershaw, Barajas, Brewer Defense Help Dodgers Avoid Sweep

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Considering that the Dodgers had scored all of two runs in the first three games of this four-game set, breaking out for five in this afternoon’s finale to avoid being swept practically qualifies as a miracle. Sure, there was a hefty amount of that renowned Wisconsin generosity involved – one run scored on a Brewer error, another probably wouldn’t have if Jerry Hairston had made an accurate throw from center, and two more might have been avoided if shortstop Josh Wilson had even the slightest bit of range to get to a likely double-play ball – but we’ll let that slide, since Rod Barajas‘ second inning blast was more than enough for Clayton Kershaw.

Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts looked at Kershaw’s Cy Young candiacy this morning, and while I’m not convinced that he’ll really beat out Roy Halladay for the award, it’s getting impossible to find the right words to describe the dominance we’re seeing from the young lefty on a nearly every-start basis. With six more strikeouts, he extended his NL lead to 15 over Cliff Lee, though his 199 is still just behind Justin Verlander‘s 204 for the overall lead.

But the number that’s most interesting today is “zero”, because that’s the amount of Brewers Kershaw walked. For years, we’ve said that the only thing that would stop Kershaw from going from “above-average young pitcher” to “superduperstar” was his occasional wildness, and the progress made in that arena has been remarkable. Not only has his BB/9 dropped from 4.8 to 3.6 to 2.3 over the last three seasons, today marked the 7th time in his career he’d thrown at least seven innings without walking anyone – and all have come since June 27, 2010.

Kershaw threw 104 innings pitches through eight scoreless, and while there’s certainly an argument to be made for letting him stay out to try for his third shutout of the season, it’s also tough to argue that you need to rack up more pitches on his arm in a 5-0 game. I had to laugh, though; whereas it was Mike MacDougal who was called upon in an 1-1 tie in the 9th inning on Tuesday, today it was Javy Guerra who came in to finish out the 9th inning. Hey, whenever you can make sure that your better pitchers are going in lower leverage situations, that’s an opportunity you have to take.

Dodgers Fail to Perfect “Win Without Offense” Strategy

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With the game tied at one in the bottom of the ninth, Hong-Chih Kuo started the frame off by walking Prince Fielder on six pitches. Kuo didn’t look good doing it, and with righties Casey McGehee and Yuniesky Betancourt following, Don Mattingly strode to the mound and called to the bullpen for his righty, which was absolutely the correct move.

Unfortunately, coming in wasn’t Javy Guerra, who hadn’t pitched since Friday and has allowed just one earned run in the last two months. It was Mike MacDougal, who threw 2/3 of an inning last night and is, you know, Mike MacDougal. I’ve defended Mattingly a lot this season, but much of this loss lies on him, as he fell victim to the same mistake that managers have been making for decades, which is saving their closer for a lead in a tie game on the road.

Or as I put it on Twitter at the time,

Whenever you can bring Mike MacDougal in to a tied game with a man on in the bottom of the 9th, you have to do it.

Let’s be fair for a second, because Guerra is hardly a top-tier closer, and this isn’t as egregious as Clint Hurdle refusing to use Joel Hanrahan through 19 innings simply because he didn’t get the lead. But it’s still pretty bad. If you have a guy you’ve identified as “the closer”, and you use him to “save games”, well, sometimes there are other ways to save the game than to get the final outs with a lead. I’d think that making sure the home team doesn’t walk off with a win before you get a chance to hit again would count as saving the game, but there’s always the alternative of “letting one of your worst relievers lose the game while your better ones watch” is always an option too.

MacDougal immediately allowed a hard-hit single to McGehee, moving Fielder to second. Here’s the best part, though. The Brewers tried to help the Dodgers by giving them an out, as Betancourt attempted to sacrifice bunt. MacDougal refused the gift, walking him on four pitches. Now with the bases loaded, one of the few hitters in baseball more impotent than Betancourt came up, Mark Kotsay. One pitch later, Kotsay had lined the game-winning hit to center field, and the Brewers celebrated around Fielder at the plate. Few things in baseball are more reliable than Mike MacDougal blowing a game in the late innings, except perhaps the continued refusal of managers to deploy their bullpen assets at the right time. (Kuo came down with the loss, though, because this sport still keeps records the same way they did in 1891.)

Of course, this isn’t all on Mattingly and MacDougal, since the offense managed just one run on four singles against Milwaukee starter Yovani Gallardo and old friend Takashi Saito. That’s one run over the two games of this series, in case you haven’t been keeping track, and when that’s the kind of offense you’re putting up, it probably doesn’t matter if you’re throwing out Mike MacDougal or 1990-era Dennis Eckersley in the late innings.

But it’s cool, because the Brewers are only tossing out Zack Greinke tomorrow, so, good luck with that, Nathan Eovaldi.

All that being said, let’s not ignore the performance from Chad Billingsley, who got off to a rough start by allowing five baserunners in the first two innings (one, granted, on a Juan Rivera error), generally throwing a lot of pitches, and looking for all the world like he wouldn’t last beyond 3.2 innings. He then turned it around to retire nine in a row in the third, fourth, and fifth innings, ending up allowing just one run over seven innings. Coming off last week’s “99 pitches, no strikeouts, and unable to hold a 6-0 lead in 4.1 innings” disaster against the Phillies, being able to come back from an uneven start to keep the club in the game against a tough opponent was a pretty nice accomplishment.

On a side note, Trent Oeltjen pinch-hit for Billingsley in the top of the 8th, and not only did he draw a walk, he made me think, “hey! Trent Oeltjen is still on this team. Who knew?” Apparently, no one: Oeltjen hasn’t started since July 5, 35 Dodger games ago. Only twice in that time has he even managed to get in the field, and while I’m certainly not about to start any sort of “free Trent Oeltjen” campaign, you can imagine that a guy might get a little rusty sitting around like that.

******

So here’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a while: Christopher Jackson of the Albuquerque Baseball Examiner, who’s really becoming our go-to guy on the high minors, has a look at the Rule 5 eligible players the Dodgers will need to make decisions on this offseason. Most interesting there is the news that Tim Federowicz and Stephen Fife, both acquired in the Trayvon Robinson deal, will not need to be placed on the 40-man roster. That’s contrary to what we heard at the time, but since Jackson spoke with both DeJon Watson and MLB itself, I think we can trust his reporting.

According to Jackson, the Dodgers have eight players who will need to either be added to the 40-man roster or exposed to the draft:

Most of the notable Rule 5-eligibles are at Double-A Chattanooga. They include left-hander Michael Antonini, third baseman Pedro Baez, catcher Gorman “Griff” Erickson, infielder Elian Herrera, right-hander Will Savage, outfielder Alfredo Silverio, first baseman-outfielder Scott Van Slyke and catcher Matt Wallach.

Much can change between now and the December draft, though I think it’s safe to say that Erickson, Silverio, Van Slyke, and Wallach are likely to be added. Antonini, Herrera, and Savage are roster filler, and can we please finally turn Baez into a pitcher already? This is a topic we’ll delve into with more detail after the season ends, but there’s clearly no shortage of 40-man roster spots to add any youngsters they need: with Dee Gordon and Juan Uribe each on the DL, 11 of the 13 offensive players currently on the active roster are something less than locks to be on next year’s roster.

Would You Trade Juan Uribe for Carlos Zambrano?

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So here’s a thought exercise for the day before the Dodgers send Chad Billingsley out against Yovani Gallardo this evening: would you trade Juan Uribe for Carlos Zambrano, the undeniably-talented-but-maybe-Milton Bradley-level-crazy Cub starter who is currently fighting a suspension handed down when he cleaned out his locker following an ejection over the weekend? (Let’s be clear: what follows is entirely speculation. This is not a rumor or anything close to one, just something interesting to spend an afternoon on.)

Tim Dierkes, Cubs fan and mastermind of MlbTradeRumors, runs through the list of “my problem for your problem” deals the Cubs could make to be rid of Zambrano - suggestions include Barry Zito, Aaron Rowand, Chone Figgins, and Adam Dunn – and the Dodgers, along with everyone’s favorite overweight infielder, make an appearance: (link h/t Jon Weisman)

Zambrano and $2MM to the Dodgers for Juan Uribe.  If the Dodgers are having buyer’s remorse on Uribe, this could be a way to wash their hands of the deal after 2012 instead of ’13.  But since Uribe still has some positive value, the Cubs would have to add a player or additional money.

First, the money: after making $5m this year, Uribe still has $16m coming to him over the next two seasons. Zambrano gets $17.875m this year, and $18m in 2012, along with a 2013 vesting option that has almost no chance of activating. Since this season is largely done, that’s where Dierkes’ suggestion of $2m comes in – to bridge the gap between Uribe’s $16m and Zambrano’s $18m.

So if the money is a wash, which player is preferable? Uribe, 33 next March, has had something like two decent seasons in the last five, and has been a complete disaster as a Dodger, though he still flashes a good glove, and both teams are looking to go with a good young shortstop prospect next year while having no answers at 2B and 3B. Zambrano, 30 as of this June 1, is probably not as good as the reputation he gained while putting up shiny win-loss records for good Chicago clubs in the early and middle part of the decade, but generally has a FIP in the 3.50-4.50 range, and don’t forget that this is a world where Ted Lilly picked up $33m guaranteed. If you’re talking about talent vs talent, the younger pitcher with the better track record beats the older infielder with a mediocre history nearly every time.

The catch, of course, is that Zambrano is a lunatic, while Uribe has no such baggage. The list of his trangressions are long and varied, and the possibility that the Cubs may be done with him depreciates his trade value, and there’s more than a few teams who wouldn’t think about touching him. I’m not sure I’d place the Dodgers in that category, however; for all the things that we’ve seen go wrong this year, clubhouse harmony has not been one of them. This is, by all accounts, a solid group of characters and Don Mattingly has done a good job of keeping the team on track through a trying season. In addition, this a team that in recent years survived Manny Ramirez and successfully took on another troubled pitcher, Vicente Padilla.

The question then would be, is the money better spent on a pitcher or an infielder, and there’s the tough part. Hiroki Kuroda may or may not return in 2012 – doing this deal would all but ensure that he wouldn’t – and Rubby De La Rosa is out following Tommy John surgery, so adding another arm would be nice to prevent rushing guys like Nathan Eovaldi and Allen Webster. On the other hand, this is a Dodger infield that has zero guaranteed starters for 2012; James Loney, Casey Blake, Jamey Carroll, and Aaron Miles could all be gone, and Dee Gordon has yet to prove that he has either the health or the ability to be the shortstop for a full season. Trading Uribe would further weaken the already tenuous infield depth, and so maybe it’s better to try to keep Uribe and hang on to Kuroda, rather than turn Uribe into Zambrano and say so long to Hiroki.

Two sides to this proposal, clearly: which way do you lean?

Old, Lefty Dodger Starter Outdueled by Previous Old, Lefty Dodger Starter

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Ted Lilly has taken a lot of criticism this year, and for good reason: he gives up homers every five seconds, he can’t hold runners on, he’s now 7-13 on the year, and, oh yeah, he’s still owed about $28m through 2013, when he’ll be 37. He’s given up fourteen dingers over his last ten starts - fourteen! – and only once in that time has he made it through a game longball-free.

Still, after allowing just one run over seven innings tonight (yes, on a blast to Ryan Braun), it’s worth noting that Lilly’s actually been very good lately, since this is the fourth start in a row in which he’s allowed two runs or less. That’s a total of just six earned runs over 26 innings, which is excellent. The catch, of course, is that Lilly has come down with the loss in each of his last three games, since the Dodgers have scored – wait for it – one run in that span. One!

Tonight’s tragedy was perpetrated by former Dodger starter Randy Wolf, who allowed eleven runners over eight innings (five walks will do that for you), yet somehow not only kept the Dodgers off the board, but only allowed one runner to even get to third. Having the Dodgers hit into double plays (or worse, more on that in a second) in four of the first five innings tends to be a pretty effective way to keep the zeroes coming. Most prominent among the missed opportunities would be the third inning, in which Dioner Navarro led off with a double ahead of a Justin Sellers single. Rather than having two on with no outs, Navarro was thrown out at the plate, because any time you can try to have a slow-footed backup catcher advance an extra base, you have to take that opportunity. (Just kidding, mostly, since Lilly was up next. But still.)

Fittingly, the game ended on a Juan Rivera double play, though by that time both Scott Elbert and Mike MacDougal had allowed solo homers to push the lead to 3-0. The lesson, as always: no matter how well Lilly pitches, he will always give up at least one dinger, and the Dodger offense just isn’t good enough to overcome consistently hitting into double plays.

Oh, and James Loney hit into a triple play, which: bahahaha.