Category Archives: A.J. Ellis

Ted Lilly Regresses Spectacularly In the Desert

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Well, we didn’t call it the “house money” lineup without a good reason. Actually, this one was less on the Albuquerque-fueled lineup failing to do much against Joe Saunders – other than Elian Herrera, that is – than it was about the regression I feared was coming for Ted Lilly rearing its ugly head. The eight earned runs Lilly allowed in just 3.1 innings were the second most of his career, behind only a nine-spot he allowed in one of his final starts as a Cub before being traded in 2010.

But let’s not focus on that. So Lilly got lit up; it was bound to happen – predictable, almost – and a Triple-A lineup can be counted on to bail you out so many times. Let’s focus on the positive, and that’s A.J. Ellis taking Saunders deep for his fourth homer of the year. Sounds like an All-Star to me, no?

A.J. Ellis Walks Off In Most A.J. Ellis Way Possible

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…is it really only May 18? Because, I am honestly not sure how many of these games I can take this season.

Where do you even start with this one? Adam Kennedy – Adam Kennedy! – had a four-hit night. James Loney had three. Of the 16 times the starting lineup made it on base tonight, a full 13 came from the 5-8 group of Kennedy, Loney, A.J. Ellis, & Tony Gwynn. On the mound, Ted Lilly isn’t charged with a single earned run despite allowing a mammoth Matt Holliday blast which still probably hasn’t landed. (That’s a story unto itself, but suffice to say, remember this, fans of ERA).

Oh, but there’s more. Josh Lindblom & Kenley Jansen combined to get the final six outs via strikeout – with Lindblom especially impressing by striking out Rafael Furcal, Holliday, and David Freese around a single and a walk – except that in the process, Jansen allowed pinch-hitter Lance Berkman to tie the game with a solo home run, which is almost certainly going to re-ignite the closer argument none of us want to have. (Jansen got the win though. Wins are great.)

And then there’s A.J. Ellis. Good lord, there’s always A.J Ellis. In the ninth against Fernando Salas, the Dodgers put men on the corners after an Elian Herrera walk and Kennedy’s fourth (!) hit of the night. Andre Ethier struck out, and the Cardinals chose to put Loney on intentionally to face Ellis, who had already driven in Loney with a single earlier in the game. They chose… let’s say, poorly. Not against Ellis, not this year, not when he’s on his way to Kansas City. Ellis watched ball four go by, and the Dodgers, improbably, incredibly, unbelievably, take the first game of a big series against St. Louis.

The Dodgers may not have escaped with merely a victory, however. In the top of the seventh, Shane Robinson bounced into a fielder’s choice at short, which Dee Gordon flipped to Mark Ellis in hopes of turning a double play. Tyler Greene, running from first, took out Ellis with a hard (but clean) slide, flipping Ellis and looking for all the world like his left knee had buckled. Ellis shook it off and stayed in to finish the inning and line to first in the bottom of the frame, but was replaced by Justin Sellers in the field for the eighth. Any speculation on Ellis’ status is premature, but it should be noted that with all of the other injuries, the only healthy infielder on the 40-man roster is Ivan De Jesus, who the club seems determined not to play.

Clayton Kershaw takes the hill tomorrow against Jake Westbrook, and at this point absolutely nothing would surprise me. Well, other than Gordon showing signs of life, that is, now that his 0-5 put him down exactly to the Mendoza line. A conversation for another time, though, because tonight belongs to Adam Kennedy and A.J. Ellis. I’ll take “things I never, ever, ever expected to write ever” for $600, Alex.

A.J. Ellis Is Going To Need Your Help To Make the All-Star Team

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I’m going to be honest right off the bat here: it’s going to be incredibly difficult for A.J. Ellis to get on the National League All-Star team this year. “Merit” is usually no higher than fourth on the list of requirements, with “name value”, “positional competition”, and “number of other All-Stars on the player’s team” usually taking higher precedence – and that’s without my continued yearly assertion that the All-Star selection process is horribly flawed to the point where I usually try to ignore it entirely, much like the Gold Gloves.

All that being said, our continued love affair with what Ellis has done so far this season demands that we do whatever we can to get the previously-unloved minor-league lifer onto the National League roster that will take the field in Kansas City in July, providing a nice segment in the inevitable TV movie on his life.

The stats are impressive, even at this early stage of the season. His .454 OBP is good for fourth in all of baseball, behind only David Wright, Joey Votto & Josh Hamilton – and it was above even the ridiculous Hamilton until last night. That takes on even more importance when you remember that’s coming from a catcher, traditionally a difficult area to find offense from. Just looking at his position, his 1.7 fWAR and .407 wOBA are each among the two best from all catchers in baseball, so there’s little doubt he’s deserving. Jon Weisman, writing at ESPN/LA yesterday as though he’d looked in my drafts folder, argues that Ellis has indeed been the best catcher in the NL through the first quarter or so of 2012. Even if there’s inevitable regression coming – and believe me, there will be at some point – not bad for a 31-year-old with 244 career plate appearances entering the season, right?

But the competition at catcher in the National League is quite tough. Brian McCann & Buster Posey are unquestionably bigger names. Carlos Ruiz & Miguel Montero have been solid players for several seasons, and Jonathan Lucroy has been excellent this year as well. In St. Louis, Yadier Molina has not only the benefit of Cardinal fans who always come out for the vote, but an NL team run by his former manager, Tony LaRussa. Whether or not Ellis is more deserving isn’t even relevant; it’s whether he can overcome the relatively limited name recognition outside – and, arguably, even inside – Dodger fandom to get himself onto the team. And he’s almost certainly going to have to get voted in as a starter, because I just can’t see LaRussa looking past Molina and the other names to select the little-known Ellis as one of his two backups, especially when the Dodgers are already going to have Matt Kemp and possibly Clayton Kershaw & Andre Ethier representing them as well, in a world where each of the 16 NL clubs must have at least one player.

If Ellis is going to make it, he’s going to need votes. Today, you can help. Through June 28, you can head on over to the MLB All-Star balloting page and vote for Ellis (and any other Dodger you like) up to 25 times per email address… and who among us has just one email address? Besides, as I’ve been reminded by the wonderful commenters of this site, there’s ways around that; reportedly, you can use the same email address many times from different devices, and if you have a gmail account, well, it’s a fun fact that gmail completely ignores periods even if other sites don’t. That is, the voting process will read ladodgers@gmail.com differently from la.dodgers@gmail.com and lado.dgers@gmail.com… even if it’s all the same account.

Vote early, vote often, as they say. And don’t stop there. Spread the word as much as you can, to friends, family, whomever. Use the Twitter hashtag #AJ2KC as often as you can (hat tip to Sons of Steve Garvey for that one). Download the campaign button you see above in this post and always on the right sidebar – helpfully provided by the wonderful Stephen Caver, who designed this site – and put it on your blog, on Facebook, make it your Twitter icon, put it anywhere you can. If you’re a blogger, feel free to steal it and use it on your own site. Just make sure to link it back either to this post or to the MLB.com voting page directly.

Do it for OBP. Do it because it’s always, always funny to mess with the All-Star voting. But most of all, do it for A.J. Vote now. Now!

Don Mattingly Wants to Know Who To Hit Leadoff

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Note: I wrote this on Sunday night, planning to publish it this morning. Since then, Chad Moriyama had to go and completely steal my thunder, publishing what is essentially the exact same post. While we wait for news on Matt Kemp’s MRI, I’ll go ahead and post this anyway, but do be sure to check out Chad’s take as well.

I realize this is veering dangerously close to “beating on a dead horse” territory, because I made my feelings known in an April post and repeatedly in comments and on Twitter since; I also realize that the Dodgers are in first place and that the batting order does not have as much statistical importance as we like to think it does.

But with all those caveats out of the way, if Don Mattingly is going to ask the kind of question that he put to MLB.com’s A.J. Cassevell yesterday, namely…

“Dropping Dee in the order sounds really easy,” said Mattingly, who rested Gordon for Sunday’s series finale against Colorado. “But then who do you want me to hit there?”

… then I feel like I just have to go ahead and help him find an answer. Actually, Mattingly helpfully ran down the list for us:

Mattingly went through a list of other possible options for the leadoff spot but noted each had a drawback that leaves Gordon as the obvious choice.

Newly acquired outfielder Bobby Abreu could lead off, Mattingly said, but that would take a potent bat out of the middle of the order.

Well, “potent” seems a bit much, considering that Abreu is 38 and is barely more than a week off of being DFA’d by the Angels. Actually, I had never really considered Abreu in that spot, but now that I think about it, I don’t mind it, since he’s always had on-base skills and can still run a little. Hardly ideal, but not a terrible stopgap. I can see preferring him later on though, so who else?

Second baseman Mark Ellis could bat first, but Mattingly likes him in the two-hole, hitting ahead of Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, and doesn’t want Ellis’ role changing on a day-to-day basis.

Certainly. I mean, who else is going to grittily ground out to the right side to advance the runner? I jest, of course, because Ellis has been surprisingly effective this year, though if you could make any statistical inferences from early season splits – which, ah, you can’t – you might be swayed by the ridiculous difference between Ellis hitting with men on base (.392 OPS) and the bases empty (.932). I could live with him moving up, though I’m generally fine with him at #2. Moving on..

Left fielder Tony Gwynn Jr. got the start on Sunday afternoon in the leadoff spot, but as a platoon player, Gwynn won’t be in the lineup with Gordon very often. When Gwynn does play on the same day as Gordon, Mattingly said he’d be fully comfortable moving Gordon down because of the speed and on-base ability Gwynn brings to the table.

Gwynn is a fantastic defender, but that’s really the only value he brings. As for moving Gordon down on days Gwynn starts, I’ll believe it when I see it; Gwynn’s start yesterday was his ninth of the year. Six of those coincided with a Gordon day off, and Gwynn did not lead off in any of the other three. Besides, this doesn’t even make sense – Gwynn may have some speed, but the “on-base ability” Mattingly refers to is all but nonexistent, and that, terrifyingly enough, means that Mattingly is only worried about speed on the top of the order, and absolutely nothing else.

And then we come to the fan favorite…

Another option is moving A.J. Ellis higher in the batting order. Ellis, a catcher, has been one of the Dodgers’ best on-base percentage guys at a .455 clip this season, but he isn’t close to a threat on the basepaths.

Mattingly dismissed that notion, saying he is content with leaving Ellis lower in the lineup, where he can drive in runs and turn the order over.

Here’s the fundamental problem with that statement, and I’m not even talking about the fact that you prefer to have one of the worst hitters in the bigs leading off your lineup rather than use one of the most effective on-base artists we’ve seen so far this year. Let’s say we’re not even going pie-in-the-sky by trying to get Ellis to lead off; let’s just say we’re merely trying to get him out of the 8th spot so that he can at least see some extra plate appearances. Let’s say we’d be happy with getting him up to 6th, so he’s behind Kemp, Ethier, & Abreu, a compromise I think we’d all take. If that statement is accurate – if Mattingly really views Ellis as a run producer who “can drive in runs”, rather than the table-setter I see him as – wouldn’t it make so much more sense to have him hitting behind three guys who can actually get on base, rather than the dreadful combo of Juan Uribe & James Loney? It seems that having Ellis 8th is the worst of all worlds, because his OBP skills are wasted ahead of the pitcher and Gordon, and his “run production skills” are under-utilized behind the lousy second half of the lineup. It just makes no sense, at all – and you’d hope that seeing Ellis’ success batting #6 on Sunday would help to illustrate that.

I agree with Mattingly when he says there’s no perfect option to lead off, but I also know that the lack of a perfect alternative is not an excuse to continue on with one of the worst possible options. The Dodgers have managed to make it this far with a leadoff hitter who can’t get on base, but that’s only going to last so long – especially if the lineup is weakened if Kemp is absent for any length of time due to his hamstring injury. I still have a lot of hope for Dee Gordon, and I think he can help this team. Just not in the leadoff spot, and not right now. The time is overdue to make a move.

Superstar A.J. Ellis Helps Dodgers Win Without Role Players Kemp and Ethier

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For the first ten minutes or so of a gorgeous Sunday afternoon at Dodger Stadium, the story of the day seemed like it would be about the inevitable regression back to reality from Ted Lilly, who allowed singles to each of the first four Colorado hitters plus a double steal and left the first inning down 3-0.

Three wild hours later, I’d be surprised if anyone even remembers that Lilly pitched in this game at all.

The fun started in the bottom of the third when Matt Kemp, who had already driven in the first Dodger run on a groundout in the first, bounced out to Troy Tulowitzki but was noticeably limping while trying to beat the throw. He was removed from the game, throwing his glove at the dugout wall out of frustration, clearly still bothered by the sore left hamstring which he first injured last weekend in Chicago. Honestly, I wish he’d have received a day off before this.

On most days, losing Kemp alone would be a death knell for this offense, but amazingly, it nearly ended up being a net positive in just the fifth inning alone. Kemp was replaced in center field by Tony Gwynn, moving over from left, and in the top of the fifth Gwynn turned in a highlight-reel catch off the bat of Carlos Gonzalez – a ball that a hobbled Kemp almost certainly wouldn’t have come close to. In the bottom of the inning, Colorado starter Alex White completely fell apart, loading the bases on a Justin Sellers single and walks to Gwynn & Mark Ellis. Bobby Abreu, batting in Kemp’s spot, stroked a double to the left-center field gap, scoring three and putting the Dodgers up 5-4.

But if losing Kemp wasn’t quite enough, Andre Ethier quickly followed him, getting ejected (along with Don Mattingly) for arguing balls and strikes after getting called out looking immediately after Abreu’s hit. Though Ethier had a case – the strike zone this entire series has been all over the place – generally you’d like your second-best hitter to realize that the team’s main threat just left the game not ten minutes earlier, because then you end up with a lineup that looked, at the time, like this:

Gwynn CF/MEllis 2B/Abreu LF/Van Slyke RF/Loney 1B/AJEllis C/Kennedy 3B/Sellers SS

There might be something that stands out to you about that lineup, and it’s not that it looks Giants-level bad on the surface without the two big guns, or even that we finally got to see Scott Van Slyke actually get into a game (and he was more than impressive with a two-RBI double, a walk, a steal, and a laser of a throw from right field to third base). It’s that A.J. Ellis, conqueror of worlds, god among men, follower of me on Twitter, batted higher in the lineup than his usual eighth spot, and was still productive. I know! I couldn’t believe it either.

It’s greatly shortchanging to merely say Ellis “was productive”, of course. Down 3-1 in the second, he singled to right, scoring James Loney with the second run. In the fourth, he grounded out, but only because Colorado third baseman Chris Nelson made a fantastic play on an Ellis rocket. And in the fifth, the inning that saw the Dodgers score six to go from down 4-2 to up 8-4, Ellis came up to the plate against Colorado reliever Matt Reynolds with two men on. Ellis blasted his third home run of the season to left field, driving in three and setting a career high with four runs batted in. (He would also, of course, walk later in the game, as is custom.)

So that’s where we are, apparently, right now on May 13. The Dodgers have the best record in baseball. A.J. Ellis is hitting .317/.462/.512 on his way to certain enshrinement in Cooperstown. And I’m hoping that Kemp actually takes a few days off to rest his hamstring, because suddenly, the Dodgers have more outfield depth than they know what to do with, as Van Slyke and the castoff Abreu demand playing time.

Just where we thought we’d be in April, right?