See You In Hell, 2011
December 30, 2011 at 7:44 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 29 Comments
Initially, I had written up a piece about how maybe 2011 wasn’t that bad, not with a winning record, Matt Kemp & Clayton Kershaw‘s individual achievements (and Kemp’s contract extension), and Frank McCourt finally agreeing to sell the team. But you know what? You all know what happened this year, from the ongoing court battles, dwindling attendance, MLB takeover attempts, bi-weekly games of “will McCourt make payroll?”, taking the team into bankruptcy, embarrassing first-half play on the field, the Bryan Stow tragedy, the entire Steve Soboroff era, and finally Ned Colletti’s attempts to put together the best team of 2006. All in all, 2011′s going to go down as one of the most painful and embarrassing seasons in team history, and though it provided plenty of fun blogging topics, good riddance.
Here’s to 2012. New owner, hopefully a new general manager, and new hope. Cheers.
29 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a Reply
How Many McCourt Sins?
MSTI on the web
MSTI Library
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
Given all those negatives, it’s remarkable that the team played so well in the second half and that, to me, is cause for optimism in 2012.
Comment by WBB— December 31, 2011 #
Cheers Mike, Happy New Year. The change in ownership and management, and the development of Dodgers minor league pitching will bring joy to the Dodgers fans for years to come. Go Blue!
Comment by dodgerccp— December 31, 2011 #
here here Mike, Happy new year, and here is to a good 2012. Go Blue in 2012.
(Hoists Beer or champaigne up in air)
Comment by format— December 31, 2011 #
Word. Thanks for all the good reporting this year MSTI. As an expat Dodger fan living in the land of the (ugh!) Giants, your blog has become one of my favorite stops on the interwebs.
Best to ya in 2012.
Comment by StratCat— December 31, 2011 #
Except for the annoying Gnats and their even more annoying fans, it’s a good place to live.
Comment by WBB— December 31, 2011 #
Yeah, got that right.
I still have friends and family in SoCal but I like it up here, I am in Sacramento and I go to the Rivercats games a lot–good AAA team with a nice park right by the river. I have really come to like the AAA ball, these guys are trying to make an impression so they really play hard. The ‘Cats have a nice thing going here, Sac’to has really embraced the team and the park is really jumpin’ on homestands. Good times.
Nothing like Saturday night at the Ravine, but not too shabby.
Comment by thestratcat— December 31, 2011 #
Like to get your take on my premise the A’s should move to Sacto and, if they did, whether you think they would draw much better than they do now in Oakland and potentially better than they might in San Jose. Do the sports passions burn in Sac as they did when the Kings were new to the area, or is the bloom off the rose and interest in sports overall gotten a little stale??
Is the River Cats stadium expandable to at least the requirements of a major league park? Has there ever been any attempt by the Kevin Johnsons in the town to attract the A’s?
Comment by Native Angeleno— December 31, 2011 #
If I lived in NorCal I think I’d go to a lot of A’s games. For starters, I like them, but being able to go there and see Pujols, Weaver, Wilson, Darvish, and that powerful Texas lineup about 18 times certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Comment by Bip— December 31, 2011 #
Padres acquired Carlos Quentin for a couple pitching prospects. Too bad be couldn’t have gotten in on that. He’s got a fairly big bat and could have been a difference maker and fill a hole in left instead of sucking it up with Juan Rivera and hoping for clutch singles.
Comment by Kyle MacGregor (@Cadtalfryn)— December 31, 2011 #
That actually sounds like a Colletti trade he would have gave too much for. Quentin is a decent bat but he’ll suffer in the NL West and especially at Petco. I’m not saying Rivera is better, but it’s probably for the best we didn’t get in on that.
Comment by bobblehead addict— December 31, 2011 #
Yup that picture pretty much sums up the season right there.
Comment by IEBlue— December 31, 2011 #
Sadly on the field I would expect more of the same for 2012-13.
Comment by Table— December 31, 2011 #
Happy New Year, Mike! Love this blog!
Comment by The Dude Abides— December 31, 2011 #
Ditto to all the New Year’s wishes. This is the finest of all the Dodger blogs and brings me more valuable information than I know what to do with. Thanks and best wishes to everyone here.
Comment by Bill Grabarkewitz— December 31, 2011 #
Good riddance to 2011, McCourt & Colletti.I just wish the latter 2 had to be out by midnight tonight as well. Then I’d really have cause for celebration. Ah well, just have to wait a while longer I guess.
Comment by Wil— December 31, 2011 #
Since the latest attempt by McCourt to sell the tv rights is being scotched by the appeals court, glory halleluyah, which means Ned’s days are numbered so palpably we can almost begin a countdown to his exit, we’re about to re-enter the baseball world of the living and contend again for real without relying on doing it the way the Giants did, with a lot of ho-hum players luckily catching fire at the right time, as opposed to dominating like the Dodgers did the first 9 years in LA, minus a couple lackluster seasons among them, and how we (and the Reds) did in the ’70s, from ’73 to ’81, which is what we deserve to return to, up there at or almost at the top, perennially, in the league and in the game.
To that point, i have zero faith in Mattingly as the Walter Alston of the 20-teens, or in his ever approaching the lesser achievements of Tommy Lasorda. His having been the choice of the current regime is a strike against him as one who can compete to win divisions, let alone pennants. Seems to me his drawbacks are legion, but because of the earthquake-sized faults of his owner, are never examined as whether he is holding the Dodgers back.
It was Kirk Gibson who took a lesser roster from worst to first, and it was Donald Baseball who futzed around the lineup playing too many of Ned’s gaggle of dime-store basement rejects, taking the Dodgers from 4th to 3rd with a far better assemblage imo than Gibson had, and still has. Are we going to suffer another so-so year, maybe move up to 2nd but not 1st, with no guarantee we might slip back in ’13 under Mattingly’s leadership of quixotic lineups and substitutions?
I think he stinks. Mike?? Isn’t it time to deeply examine his faults vs strengths during his first of what i hope is, max, 2 years? Assuming you haven’t, or are planning to anyway.
Comment by Native Angeleno— December 31, 2011 #
I thought Donny was much better than Joe. He handled both the bullpen and the rotation very well, and I’m guessing that he was the one who pressured clueless Ned to get rid of Navarro. My only two beefs with him concerned playing Miles at 3B some of the time (instead of Sellers), his damaging penchant for bunting, and his inexplicable decision to have Castro pinch hit with the bases loaded instead of Sands that one time…three beefs!
Comment by The Dude Abides— January 1, 2012 #
Happy new year, mike!
Comment by kyle— December 31, 2011 #
CRAZY thought here but the Dodgers could just maybe get Prince.backloaded deal no doubt. Mlb players get paid every two weeks right? McCourt would only be on the hook for two weeks of his salary since the Dodgers get sold in late April practically May. He wouldn’t be on the hook for a whole season. What if the Dodgers offered 8yrs/200mil? and have his first year salary be worth only 10-12 just like Pujols. That would undoubtedly raise attendance, TV rights and sales price which all means $. Which we all know McCourt is after. After all, they were about to make offer to Kubel who gets paid about 7mil a year. 3-5mil more can’t be THAT much. Plus, if you need money you could get some relief by trading Loney,Billingsley,Ethier, Lilly, Uribe or Guerrier although none have much value, if any right now. Just food for thoght, Mike.
Comment by Juan— December 31, 2011 #
Ned already snorted that money on washed-up, expensive thirty-somethings Capuano, Harang, Rivera, Ellis, Treanor, Hairston, and Kennedy.
Comment by The Dude Abides— January 1, 2012 #
Happy New Years btw, Mike.
Comment by Juan— December 31, 2011 #
You know, this year may have been painful and disheartening, but for me, my favorite pitcher winning the Cy Young and my favorite position player basically leading the MLB in WAR made it well worth it. That’s actually the third best result of a season I could imagine, better even than making the NLCS in ’08 and ’09. I wouldn’t be a baseball fan if not for the players, so seeing homegrown players on my favorite team achieve the highest reaches possible for individual players gives me enormous satisfaction. I was always concerned that regardless of whether LA had a good team, we never seemed to have any true stars. Well, now that’s changed, and it feels great.
Comment by Bip— December 31, 2011 #
Thanks for all your hard work Mike! Great effort this year acting as Pliny the Younger (faithful scribe) for this Dodgers-catastrophe.
Hope(lessness) for a new season is right around the corner. The thing I am torn about is that if the team is successful in 2012, even accidentally like the Cardinals of 2011 and Giants of 2010, well, then Ned Colletti is not going anywhere. Hopefully the resolution will be that a new ownership group cleans up and promotes the truly worthy people in the front office.
The only redeeming thing for the Dodgers is that 2011, on a whole, worldwide, was a universally crummy year worthy of being forgotten in its entirety. From the Japan tsumani/nuclear accident, the near-debt default, the numerous violent overthrows of governments, the Occupy Wall Street movement, the European debt crisis, the job crisis, the scelrotic politics. Sheesh – good bye 2011, may we never discuss this forgettable year again.
The Dodgers great hope is…Liverpool or Newcastle football. Both were proud and rich English football traditions that fell into complete disrepair and, under new ownership, are back at the top. A new dawn is ever possible!
So let’s move on to 2012 – the year of the Mayan Apocalypse! It’s got to be better…right?
Comment by RS— January 1, 2012 #
Imagine this scenario for 2012: Capuano falls victim to injury shortly into the season and is replaced by Eovaldi, who does a shaky but acceptable job. Harang’s ineffectiveness is an ongoing dilemma, but luckily, Rubby’s recovery goes better than expected and he’s able to jump into the rotation and make some effective but short starts beginning in August. Uribe is once again terrible, though not as bad as in 2011, but the real story is Gordon’s hot season and the almost immediate replacement of corpse-like Juan Rivera with a platoon of Sands and Gwynn. Ethier has a year we expect from a player going into free agency with a newly healthy knee, and Loney shows flashes of brilliance, though only flashes. Ellis astoundingly maintains his good OBP, while Ellis plays well enough but falls victim to nagging injuries; Hairston is a palatable replacement, while Kennedy is not. Kemp gets off to a slow start, and his average remains under .300, but he shows power on par with 2011, and most of his reduced performance is explained by a BABIP regression. Kershaw also falls victim to BABIP and HR/FB% regression, though he’s now walking under 2 men per nine, and striking out nearly ten per nine. Foolish broadcasters claim he’s not pitching as well as he did last year, and propose explanations hinging on “youth” and “immaturity.” We laugh. Bills has a good year — it seems that his performance is cyclical — while Lilly looks more like the second half of 2011 than the first. All in all, the Dodgers sneak into the playoffs on the back of a terrible division, much needed performance by stand-ins and newcomers, and a lot of luck in close games. I won’t speculate about what happens in the postseason, but Ned appeals to the new owner citing the Dodgers’ playoff berth as evidence of his effectiveness. The new owner promptly commends Logan White on his excellent draft picks and gives Ned the boot.
Comment by Bip— January 1, 2012 #
Ha, entertaining (but occasionally harrowing read). Sounds like the dream that Ned rocks himself to sleep at night with now that he’s stuck with his rash early hot stove moves. But I would take this season. The only things I’d want to add to it is: 1) A briefing from Magic Johnson’s new ownership group about the “way forward.” 2) The end of GBA/Don’t Stop Believing 7th Inning song-fests 3) The introduction of Kim Ng as GM and 4) The immediate repeal of the Dodger “Slanket” promotion – an often overlooked lowpoint. I’d even just take 1 and 4 and be happy with that.
Comment by RS— January 1, 2012 #
I think 3 is much more pressing.
Comment by Paul— January 1, 2012 #
I don’t really get why everyone wants Ng to be the GM. It’s same as why I don’t get why everyone wants Logan White to be GM. From what I can tell, both of them are very good at what they do, which in both cases isn’t being a GM. They may be very good at the job, but I’d really be happy with anyone with a sharp business mind and a progressive attitude towards player evaluation.
Comment by Bip— January 1, 2012 #
I think Ng would be a good pick for competence and previous ties to the organization. But the search should be open-minded with a focus on the points you raise.
Comment by RS— January 1, 2012 #
A Padre blog picked up on the idea of how wasting AB’s on below replacement level players caused that team to do so poorly. This was covered so well in this blog several months ago.
http://chickenfriars.com/2011/12/27/replacing-replacement-level-how-the-padres-could-have-won-x-more-games/
Let’s see which team does the best job of eliminating the negative and poor WAR players
Comment by Kirk Davenport— January 1, 2012 #