Seven Reasons for Optimism in 2012
February 23, 2012 at 6:27 am | Posted in Andre Ethier, Clayton Kershaw, Dee Gordon, Matt Kemp, Vin Scully | Leave a commentNearly five months after the disappointing 2011 season ended when a Kenley Jansen-induced flyball off the bat of Arizona’s John McDonald landed in Tony Gwynn‘s glove, pitchers and catchers are finally getting back to work in Camelback Ranch. Hitters will join them later this week, though many, like Dee Gordon and Matt Kemp, are already there. No matter what your outlook is on the 2012 season, this is the time of year where everyone has hope. (Well, everyone who isn’t an Orioles fan, I suppose, because that situation is beyond repair.)
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that much like last year, I haven’t exactly been thrilled with the offseason. The good will engendered by signing Kemp to an eight-year extension (which looks better by the day) hasn’t completely overcome the disappointment of spending millions on backloaded two-year contracts handed out to aging veterans, or that the previously-added expensive veterans like Matt Guerrier, Ted Lilly, & Juan Uribe are unlikely to improve enough to earn their contracts, or the fact that the big bat which was so desperately needed never arrived – despite the late push for Prince Fielder. Just like last year, this team looks like it’s built to win around 83-86 games, with some small chance of pushing 90, though with a likely equal change of falling below .500. When you have two of the best players in the game and some interesting young players, that’s not exactly what you hope your expectations would be entering the spring.
Still, it’s not all doom & gloom around here, so with a nod to last year’s attempt at finding some hope ahead of what looks like it could be an uninspiring season… here’s seven reasons why 2012 is going to be great – and no, the return of Brent Leach is not among them.
1. The welcome end of the Frank & Jamie McCourt era. I just cannot overemphasize this enough, because there’s almost nothing that can happen on the field that is going to make us remember 2012 as anything but the year that we finally rid ourselves of these two vultures.
The first mention of their separation on this site came on October 15, 2009, just hours before Game 1 of the NLCS. (Which I’ll never forgive them for. Jackasses.) In the nearly two-and-a-half-years since then, through dozens of sins and probably hundreds of posts on this site, they have bankrupted the team off the field, hindered it on the field, and dragged one of the crown jewels in American sport through untold mires of mud and embarrassment. (And let’s not forget, it’s hardly as though we all loved them right up until the news of their separation came out.)
We don’t know who the next owner will be, or how they’ll run the team. We all pray they’ll be the owner we all hope they will be, but we know that there’s no guarantees; the next owner could be just as bad as the current one. For the moment, it doesn’t matter, because come April 30, it won’t be Frank McCourt. That’s a sentence I’ve been dying to write for years. Soon, friends. Soon.
2. The pure joy of having Kemp & Clayton Kershaw. There’s a lot of fluff on this team. Old, backloaded, underwhelming, underperforming, overpaid fluff that at best will help you tread water, but isn’t going to really help you move forward. Yet in the midst of all that mediocrity, we’re lucky enough to have the best hitter and best pitcher in the National League, two elite talents who are either close to or in their primes, coming off seasons where they reached the potential we all knew they had.
The best part is, short of injury, there’s little reason to think that they won’t as productive in 2012 and going forward, because 2011 was hardly an out-of-nowhere fluke from either player. Kershaw was a top-ten pick who was successful basically from the day he arrived in the bigs and continued to improve through his breakout 2011; Kemp has been a productive player in each of his four full seasons, despite a (somewhat overblown) disappointing 2010. We should be careful not to get ahead of ourselves here, particularly with Kershaw not yet signed to a long-term deal, but it’s pretty hard not to think that we’re watching the early stages of two of the greatest careers in Dodger history. For that alone, we should be thankful.
3. A big rebound season from Andre Ethier. We keep going back and forth on Ethier. On one hand, I’ve been pretty clear that I don’t like the idea of investing big money in a moody, overrated player who isn’t a great defender, absolutely cannot hit lefties, and has dealt with nagging injuries as he moves into his age-30 season. (When you put it like that, he basically sounds like a platoon DH.)
Yet for all his shortcomings, everything is perfectly primed for Ethier to have a really, really big year. He’s finally healthy heading into 2012, and if you don’t think that matters, just check his pre- and post-injury stats from the last two years. He’s also in his final year before free agency, and he’s made his displeasure at not having been signed to an extension clear. Whether it’s to impress new ownership or potential suitors on the market, Ethier has a chip on his shoulder and plenty to prove in 2012. A healthy, motivated Andre Ethier is exactly the kind of Ethier that could put up a huge season… before convincing someone to wildly overpay him.
4. The breathtaking speed of Dee Gordon. I don’t know if Gordon has enough plate discipline to allow his zero-power game to work on the major league level. I don’t know if he can hone his defensive chops enough to stop making the errors on easy plays that occasionally hurt more than his flashy, outstanding plays help. And I especially don’t know if his slight frame can hold up to the rigors of a full season. But I do know this: in just 56 games last season, Gordon and his speed made more jaw-dropping plays on both offense and defense than I think we’ve seen over the last ten years.
Gordon’s done all the right things this winter to improve his game, from working out with Hall of Fame shortstop Barry Larkin to being one of the first to arrive at camp. It remains to be seen what kind of player he’s actually going to be, but no matter how much he progresses (or not) this year, his entertainment value alone is worth the price of admission. Considering the rest of the infielders that’ll be around him, that’s a stat which might even be more important than his on-base percentage.
5. More young pitching on the way. Last year, we were excited to see the next wave of Dodger hitters, since Gordon, Jerry Sands, and Trayvon Robinson were all starting together at Triple-A. All three saw big league time – though not exactly in the way we expected – and Gordon & Sands are poised to be big parts of the Dodger core going forward.
This year, it’s the youthful pitching that demands our attention. Other than Nathan Eovaldi, I’m not even really talking about what we saw in the bigs last year, because Scott Elbert & Josh Lindblom finally proved themselves as big leaguers after having been close for years, and Javy Guerra really came out of nowhere to take over the closer’s job – at least until Kenley Jansen takes it. If you look at all of the various top prospect lists that came out over this offseason, you’ll find an Alfredo Silverio here and a Joc Pederson there, but what you’ll mostly see is a Dodger list that is full of quality pitching, most of which is ready to make their Los Angeles debuts in 2012 and 2013. This year alone, you could see Eovaldi, or Allen Webster, or Shawn Tolleson, or Chris Withrow, or Steve Ames or others, plus the return of Rubby De La Rosa; after them, it might be Zach Lee, Chris Reed, Garrett Gould, Ethan Martin, Angel Sanchez and more.
ESPN’s Keith Law summed up the feeling well in a recent chat:
Mike (CT)
After really digging into this did any farm systems surprise you in a good or bad way??Klaw
Rockies came out better than I expected. Dodgers too. I love that collection of arms, and now it’s close enough to potentially impact the ML club this year.
We all know the failure rate of pitching prospects, and you can guarantee that some of the names on that list will either never make the bigs or do so unsuccessfully. But there’s so much talent there that we’re almost certain to see a few of them make big contributions to the Dodgers over the next few years (whether in blue or via trade), and they’re close enough that it’s worth keeping a close eye on them as they try to advance another level in 2012.
6. Improved infield defense. You can make a good argument that the Dodger infield might be the worst offensive group in baseball. (A really good argument, especially with the durability issues around Gordon, Mark Ellis, and Juan Uribe, and the complete unknown that is James Loney. But hey, at least Adam Kennedy is in reserve!) Who knows what you’ll get out of Uribe – though the fates aren’t on his side – and Ellis is coming off an age-34 season with a .288 OBP.
But what you should get out of this group is some fancy glovework, superior to what we saw last year. For all of his failures, Uribe was a plus defender at third base when he played, and Ellis has long been one of the better defensive second basemen in the game. Assuming health, they’re replacing 970 innings of Aaron Miles (who was merely passable at second and atrocious at third) and about 1050 innings of Jamey Carroll, who was rated as slightly below-average at each of the middle infield spots. As mentioned above, you hope that Gordon can get to enough balls with his incredible range to make up for the easy ones he’ll boot, and it’s easy to see how this group of infielders could potentially be a big step forward over last year. Even when they go down, the glovework may not suffer; for all of my problems with the Kennedy signing (and there are many), he’s still a decent second baseman, though one who should never play elsewhere, and Jerry Hairston offers a decent glove at a few spots. Beyond them, playing solid defense might be the only thing Justin Sellers can do.
Is this group going to hit, at all? Well, uh, this is the optimism post, so we’ll stick to what works. At the least, they’ll pick it, and that can only help the questionable starting staff beyond Kershaw.
7. Vin Scully. No matter what happens off the field, no matter how many games are lost on the field, as long as there’s Vin, there’s reason to watch. Well, home games, at least. No year with Vin can be a bad year, and it’s comforting to know that he’ll outlast Frank McCourt at Dodger Stadium.
How Much Does Andre Ethier Have Riding On This Season?
February 15, 2012 at 6:53 pm | Posted in Andre Ethier, Jason Bay | 41 Comments
At the LA Times Dodger blog today, Steve Dilbeck argues that the Dodgers need to lock up Andre Ethier to a long-term contract, suggesting that his value is at its lowest and that an offense which is hardly imposing can’t afford to be without him after 2012. There’s logic to the premise, of course, and I’m on record as saying that I think all of the pieces are in place for Ethier to have a big season. But you already know my response to that idea, which is that signing Clayton Kershaw is a much higher priority and that a moody platoon player who is a good-yet-not-elite hitter isn’t necessarily someone I would want to invest big money into as he enters his 30s. (That’s if Ethier would even want to stay, and there’s more than a few hints that suggest he may not, or if he’d even be willing to sign now when he knows his leverage is low.)
That’s not what I want to talk about, though, because you how I feel and I know that many of you feel similarly. What interests me more right now is trying to figure out just how much a big 2012 could enhance Ethier’s value on the market, because there’s a big difference between a deal for, say, 3/$36m (which I’d certainly love to do) and something more like 5/$85m (which I’d run away screaming from).
Over the last four offseasons, only eight outfielders have signed with a new team for at least three years, and they’re not all great comparables for Ethier for a variety of reasons. Somehow I doubt he’s matching the 7/$142m Carl Crawford got from the Red Sox or the $126m that Jayson Werth picked up from the Nationals; at the other end of the spectrum, the paltry (by comparison) $21m that Josh Willingham took from the Twins this winter and the $15m over three years that Marlon Byrd received from the Cubs aren’t even worth discussing. It’s also hard to include the 3/$31.5m that Raul Ibanez received when he went to the Phillies, because it was covering his age 37-39 seasons. And because Ruben Amaro hands out money like Ned Colletti hands out backloaded two-year contracts to veteran infielders.
Now we’re left with just three somewhat similar yet still imperfect comparisons. I’m tossing out Michael Cuddyer‘s 3/$31.5m from Colorado, because he’s already 33, and let’s face it, Ethier’s not signing for that unless 2012 is a disaster. We’re also not looking at Milton Bradley‘s 3/$30m, because his market was so skewed by his personal and injury histories, and again, Ethier’s not signing for that.
That leaves us with one last comparable, and this one’s actually worth investigating: the 4/$66m contract Jason Bay signed with the Mets before the 2010 season. Bay entered free agency for the first time having just completed his age-30 season, just as Ethier will, and he did so with a bang, hitting .267/.384/.537 and 36 homers for a playoff Boston team. Like Ethier, Bay graded as mediocre or worse in most defensive metrics, and he took a 131 career OPS+ into free agency, which is almost exactly what Ethier put up between 2008-2010. While Ethier can look forward to having only Josh Hamilton as power-hitting outfielder competition in next winter’s free agent group, Bay scored his deal in a similar environment, with Holliday being the only other outfielder to top Byrd’s $15m deal.
The big difference is that Bay was coming off one of his best years, setting career highs in homers & RBI and finishing seventh in the AL MVP voting, and had put together a string of good years around a disappointing 2007. Let’s say Ethier, no longer bothered by the knee injury that sabotaged his 2011, can put up a year that is the average of his 2008-10 campaigns. That’d be a season that looks like .289/.366/.504, with 25 homers and 88 RBI, and if he can do that or more, he’d have a pretty good chance to match Bay’s contract. Let’s be honest, though; we saw how ridiculous this winter was as far as free agency costs, even without four of the traditional big market teams (Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, and Mets) in the game. Considering the lack of power available next year, and figuring that neither the Red Sox or Yankees have long-term solutions in right field, Ethier – if he has the 2012 I think he might – could potentially talk his way into more of a 5/$80m type of contract.
That’s where things get tough, because we don’t yet know who will be the owner of the Dodgers at that point or how Ethier’s relationship with the club might be if he hasn’t signed. (I’m assuming there’s less than a 1% chance he signs before the season, because of the current financial state and because we’ve heard little about any talks; these type of deals rarely happen in-season.) That’s an awful lot of money to commit to a guy who can’t hit lefties, isn’t a great defender, and is heading into his 30s; on the other hand, he’s one of the more popular Dodgers and if he leaves, you have to replace that offense somewhere.
To be honest, the cleanest solution might be for him to have a great season but for Ned Colletti’s patchwork collection of misfit veterans to fall apart, leaving Ethier as a very valuable trade chip at the July deadline. If he can be used to get a nearly-ready top third base prospect plus some other parts, that’d be hard to pass up.
Of course, this all depends on Ethier having a bounceback season. If he doesn’t, then maybe his price drops to where it’s palatable to keep him – but if he’s coming off two disappointing years in a row, how much do you want him? I’m not sure it’s an overstatement to say that Ethier could have something like $40m or more riding on 2012. It’s a big season for the Dodgers. It could be an even bigger one for Andre Ethier.
We Survived January
February 1, 2012 at 10:51 am | Posted in Andre Ethier, Chris Pettit, Mike MacDougal | 42 CommentsJanuary is traditionally the slowest month of the baseball calendar, and this year was no exception. We still have to survive a few more slow weeks, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel: pitchers and catchers report in less than three weeks.
* This morning, I was walking home from an appointment when an older man stopped me to ask about my Brooklyn Dodgers cap, saying he doesn’t often see younger folks wearing the B and that he’d grown up going to games at Ebbets Field. It’s not the first time that’s happened, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop getting a kick out of that.
* As we’ve been pointing out for a while, the Left Field Pavilion charity softball game is next Saturday, February 11. Team MSTI is just about full – still room for another one or two more, I believe – and the estimable Dave Pomerantz will be captaining the squad. Team member Jason asked me to put up a post where you guys can connect and figure out positions, so please feel free to use the comment section here for that.
* ESPN’s Jim Bowden has been on something of an Andre Ethier kick lately. In ESPN Magazine this week, he puts the chances of Ethier leaving following 2012 at 45%, and claims he’d offer Ethier a 4/$48m contract if he were running a team next year. While Bowden recieves a lot of ridicule online and that’s more than most of us would like to give Ethier, Bill at The Platoon Advantage pointed out earlier this week that Bowden was actually very successful at predicting the contracts that this year’s free agent class would get.
Ethier also came up in Bowden’s ESPN.com piece about five trades that could boost contenders, saying that the Yankees should trade pitching prospect Dellin Betances and catcher Austin Romine to the Dodgers for Ethier:
Ethier is eligible for free agency after this season and this deal would have to be contingent on the Yankees signing him to a long-term deal. That said, as a left-handed pull hitter with power, he is a perfect fit for Yankee Stadium, and he and Nick Swisher could share right-field/DH duties, with Alex Rodriguez also getting some reps at first base.
From the Dodgers’ perspective they get a future middle-of-the-rotation starter in Betances and solve their long-term catching situation with Romine. Dodgers GM Ned Colletti has had a busy offseason satisfying the game’s senior citizens with deals and signings that include: Mark Ellis, Matt Treanor, Adam Kennedy, Jerry Hairston Jr., Chris Capuano and Aaron Harang. For Colletti to secure his job with the new incoming Dodgers ownership, he needs to make some deals that improve the long-term outlook of the club.
I do think Ethier will have a big 20112 and casual Dodger fans would hate that move, but yeah, I’d do it. For the record, Yankee fans I know on Twitter hated the idea, so that’s a good sign that it’s positive for the Dodgers. (For the record, in case anyone is too dense to get it, this is NOT a real trade rumor, it’s just Bowden spouting ideas out of nowhere.)
* I plan on doing on doing an entire post about this sort of thing in the next few weeks, but it’s worth pointing out that the Indians look like they may have gotten a bargain by signing reliever Dan Wheeler to a mere minor-league pact. In 47 innings for Boston last year, the 33-year-old righty had a 4.88 K/BB and a 3.78 FIP; by comparison, 34-year-old Mike MacDougal had a 1.41 K/BB and a 3.96 FIP in 57 innings for the Dodgers. Yet MacDougal gets the guaranteed deal, while Wheeler essentially gets a tryout. Why? Too much reliance on shiny but essentially useless ERA, I’m guessing.
* Chris Jackson of the Albuquerque Baseball Examiner kicks off a position-by-position series looking at the 2012 Isotopes, starting with the catchers.
* Another minor-league signing, per ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. The Dodgers have added former Angels farmhand Chris Pettit, an outfielder who released by Anaheim earlier this month. I’ll be honest and say this is a name I’m not familliar with, partially because his MLB experience consists of 10 plate appearances in 2009 and 2011, and partially because after missing all of 2010 with a shoulder injury, he hit just .182/.279/.308 in 124 games for Anaheim’s AA and AAA clubs in 2011. As far as I know, he didn’t even get an invite to big-league camp, so this is a depth signing at the absolute most.
Dodgers Avoid Arbitration With Andre Ethier
January 17, 2012 at 6:59 am | Posted in Andre Ethier | 37 CommentsWe can strike one potentially contentious arbitration hearing from the schedule, at least according to Andre Ethier’s agents:
#Dodgers arbitration-eligible All-Star OF Andre Ethier agrees to 1-year contract for $10.95M + PBs.
I’m pleasantly surprised by that, actually. Ethier made $9.25m last year on the back end of a two-year, $15.25m contract signed before 2010, and despite most of us knowing he had a relatively disappointing and injury-prone season, a 30-game hitting streak, All-Star appearance, and Gold Glove usually go a long way in contract negotiations. I had pegged $12m as Ethier’s likely salary through arbitration, and Eric Stephen had guessed $13m was probable, so coming in at just under $11m (plus likely incentives, which we’re not aware of yet) seems like a pretty good deal on the club’s part.
With Ethier settled, the Dodgers now have $72.60m committed to 15 players under contract for 2012. That doesn’t include the approximately $5m or so that will be spent on minimum salary pre-arbitration types, the approximately $23m spent on deferrals and buyouts, or the club’s two remaining arbitration cases, Clayton Kershaw and James Loney, who will likely add $15-18m between them.
Non-Tender Monday
December 12, 2011 at 6:36 am | Posted in Andre Ethier, James Loney, Hong-Chih Kuo, Clayton Kershaw, Tony Gwynn | 44 CommentsTonight at 12am ET / 9pm PT represents the deadline for the Dodgers to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players, and while there’s not quite the “will they or won’t they?” drama that accompanied the Russell Martin decision last year, there’s still some choices to be made. Entering the off-season, the Dodgers had seven eligible players to decide upon…
- First time: Clayton Kershaw,
Dana Eveland - Second time: Tony Gwynn
- Third time:
Matt Kemp, James Loney, Hong-Chih Kuo - Fourth time: Andre Ethier
… but obviously, Kemp’s new mega-deal and Eveland’s trade to Baltimore takes them out of the mix. Let’s look at the other five.
Kershaw. Uh, yeah. Pretty sure the reigning NL Cy Young is going to get tendered, and assuming he doesn’t sign a long-term deal, he’s in line for something like $7-$8m in his first year of arbitration. Yes, of course.
Gwynn. Though this is his second year of eligibility, Gwynn hasn’t actually gone through the arbitration process, since San Diego non-tendered him last December. After signing with the Dodgers for $675,000, he provided the expected mixture of mediocre offense and outstanding defense, in addition to being a useful piece on the bases. Though I think you could probably do a little better with the roster spot, he’s an acceptable backup outfielder, and so the question of whether he gets an offer comes down to numbers, both in terms of money and personnel. Gwynn could get over $1m in arbitration, perhaps more than the Dodgers want to spend, and the addition of Jerry Hairston means that they now have someone who can in theory spell Matt Kemp now and then in center field. In addition, if the Dodgers do plan on adding that additional bat we keep hearing about, there just might not be room for Gwynn on the roster, particularly if the addition is left-handed. Still, the outfield defense is subpar and Hairston isn’t really ideal in center, so Gwynn is valuable enough for his glove alone; I think it’s slightly more likely than not that he is tendered, though this is clearly the toughest call of any today. Probably.
Loney. It’s amazing to think that this is even a consideration after how certain we were for much of 2011 that he was absolutely going to get non-tendered, but Loney’s stellar finish seems to have earned him another chance, at least based on Ned Colletti’s comments of late. Loney’s recent (and increasingly bizarre) run-in with the law on a Los Angeles freeway last month aren’t helping his case, though it doesn’t appear to have hurt his standing with the club, and assuming the Dodgers have no prayer at landing Prince Fielder, there’s few other first base alternatives left anyway. Yes.
Kuo. The inverse of Loney, where a year ago it was difficult to imagine that a non-tender was even a possibility. If an awful 2011 was the only issue, you could perhaps see the club taking a chance, but yet another arm surgery torpedoed any shot that they’d risk the ~$3m he’d get in arbitration. That doesn’t mean we’ve definitely seen the last of him, however, because it’s unlikely any other club gives him a serious offer, and if he returns to baseball, he might not feel comfortable trusting his fragile health to a training staff who doesn’t know him nearly as well as the Dodgers do. No.
Ethier. Despite worrying before the season that he’d be non-tendered if he didn’t perform well and then going out and having an injury-plagued, sub-par season, Ethier’s a lock to receive a tender. He’ll likely receive about $12m in his final season of arbitration, and while that’s a bit pricey for me, I’m relatively optimistic he’ll have a productive season – and if the Dodgers are out of it in July, they can trade him and save about $4m of that. Yes.
MSTI’s 2011 in Review: Right Field
October 21, 2011 at 11:20 am | Posted in Andre Ethier, Juan Rivera, Trent Oeltjen | 20 CommentsAndre Ethier (C-)
.292/.368/.421 .789 11hr 1.3 WAR
Andre Ethier started out his season with some completely unnecessary public comments, complaining about his contract status the day before the season started and wondering if he might actually get non-tendered. (Spoiler alert: no.) He ended his season with another round of public controversy, claiming that the Dodgers were forcing him to play on an injured knee before quickly backpedaling, and then undergoing knee surgery anyway. In between making a fool of himself in the papers, he came within one game of setting a franchise record with a 30-game hitting streak, yet ultimately ended up with a less-than-satisfying season as his power deserted him.
Really, most of the season was a disappointment after his outstanding April, wasn’t it? I say that in something of a positive way; other than his lousy August and September, this is a generally good season from an average outfielder. But we expect so much more from Ethier that just being “generally good” isn’t really good enough.
| Split | PA | H | 2B | HR | BB | SO | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April/March | 121 | 41 | 10 | 3 | 13 | 21 | .380 | .446 | .556 | 1.002 | .452 |
| May | 102 | 23 | 2 | 2 | 14 | 17 | .261 | .363 | .352 | .715 | .304 |
| June | 110 | 30 | 8 | 2 | 7 | 24 | .300 | .345 | .440 | .785 | .368 |
| July | 100 | 23 | 5 | 3 | 9 | 20 | .261 | .340 | .420 | .760 | .303 |
| August | 99 | 22 | 4 | 1 | 12 | 17 | .253 | .343 | .333 | .677 | .304 |
| Sept/Oct | 19 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | .188 | .316 | .250 | .566 | .250 |
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
The hope here is that much of this can be explained by injury, and I’m not just talking about the knee problem that ended his season early. In early May, Ethier missed a game with soreness in his throwing elbow, an issue that appeared to be altering his throwing mechanics even a week later. Two weeks after that, he crashed into the right field wall in Chicago, suffering what was termed at the time “a right elbow contusion, lower right back contusion and sprained left big toe”, costing him much of the next week. But it didn’t completely ruin his game, because going through the archives I can see that even in to June and July I would be continuously pointing out things like “Kemp & Ethier went 6-9, everyone else went 3-32″, performance (along, likely, with the well-publicized hitting streak) that got him added to the All-Star team as a injury replacement for Shane Victorino.
Even still, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of his first half:
Andre Ethier (B+) (.311/.383/.463 9hr 1.9 WAR)
Ethier, without question, represented one of the more difficult grades to give out. 30 game hitting streak? Yes, please. .383 OBP? Delicious. While his OPS is nearly 40 points off his 2008 career high, the lower offensive environment this year means that it’s good for a career-best 141 OPS+, so hooray for that. No, he’s not hitting lefties (.242/.282/.368), but he never hits lefties, so that’s not much of a surprise. All in all, it’s been a very solid year from one of the two main offensive threats this club has.Yet… it feels like something is missing. Prior to his two-homer day yesterday, he’d hit just seven dingers, and his SLG is down for the third year in a row. It’s certainly not enough of a problem to criticize him, hence the good grade, and perhaps yesterday’s outburst was the start of something new. I just can’t help shaking the feeling that is very unpopular among the casual fans who love him so much: Ethier is a very good player, but not a superstar. We’ll need to keep that in mind when his contract is up. I don’t want to get too down on him, though: right now, he’s the second best player on this team, and that in itself is quite valuable.
Yet as the knee began to bother him more, his performance on the field suffered, hitting just .252/.339/.333 after the break, before squawking about it to T.J. Simers and finally going under the knife. To be honest, this all makes me think he’s going to have a big year in 2012, since he’ll (presumably) be healthy after two years of troublesome-but-not-debilitating injuries and headed into a contract year, he’s likely to have a large chip on his shoulder. You know, larger, than the usual one. But can we please, please get him a righty handcuff? I’ve been beating this drum for years, and it never seems to happen; once again, Ethier’s numbers against righties in 2011 (.321/.410/.468) were far ahead of his stats against lefties (.220/.258/.305), just like they are every year. Ethier won’t like being benched against lefties, but to be honest, I don’t care: playing him against LHP is simply giving away outs.
Juan Rivera (A)
.274/.333/.406 .739 5hr 0.7 WAR
This, I admit, may not be the most flattering photo I’ve used in this series. But Rivera is crushing a dinger in this shot, and I wanted to use at least one guy wearing a Brooklyn throwback.
These days, there’s not a whole lot of moves that come as a complete and total surprise with no rumors preceding it, but the acquisition of Rivera from Toronto certainly falls under that category. At the time, expectations were small, since he wasn’t doing a ton with Toronto before being DFA’d; he was merely expected to be slightly better than Marcus Thames and be a righty partner for James Loney at first base:
First off, let’s not worry too much about the player to be named – Rivera was DFA’d himself on July 3 and would have cleared waivers in another day or so, so it’s not like the Jays had a whole lot of leverage there. On the field, this seems like a tiny upgrade; Rivera wasn’t doing a whole lot for Toronto at .243/.305/.360, but it’s still better than Thames for the Dodgers at .197/.243/.333 – when Thames was even healthy enough to play. Against LHP, Rivera was doing what Thames was supposed to do, hitting .327/.400/.509 in 65 PA. And while Thames is an atrocious fielder, Rivera has been a plus defender at times in the past, even playing 40 games in center field throughout his career (though he hasn’t started there since 2006). That’s probably no longer the case at 33, but at least there’s some positive history there. He’s also got some experience at first base, which is more valuable than you think, because with Casey Blake on the shelf, the Dodgers don’t have a viable righty option to pair with James Loney. Rivera should be expected to now play 1B against most lefties.
In the short term, this deal probably makes the team better than they were this morning. Not by much, perhaps, but that’s good enough.
Well, that was one of the bigger understatements of the year, because Rivera was outstanding after coming to the Dodgers, in large part helping to fuel the second-half turnaround. Well, let’s clarify that: a 105 OPS+ is nice but not stellar, yet his .274/.333/.406 line is outstanding compared to the garbage he was replacing, and coming at essentially zero cost he provided a good deal of value. So good on Ned Colletti for upgrading from Thames, and good on Rivera for showing he still has some life in him.
What’s next, though? I find that people forget that Toronto completely gave up on him halfway through the year, and it’s not like Toronto is run by people who can’t identify value; he also hit just .221/.297/.308 after August 25 and offered little value in the field. Yet the narrative reads that he’s an “RBI machine” and a “savior” of the season, so don’t be at all surprised if he’s back in 2012, even though the track record of return engagements from midseason veteran acquisitions is mixed at best in the Colletti era. For the right price, that could be fine; he’s still effective against lefties, with a large platoon split, and with Ethier and James Loney around being completely unable to hit southpaws there’s definitely a need in Los Angeles for that kind of role. He’ll just need to take quite a paycut from his 2011 salary of $5.25m (I wouldn’t go above $2m at most), accept a one-year deal, and not be looked at as an every day player.
Trent Oeltjen (inc.)
.197/.322/.324 .646 2hr 0.4 WAR
It dawns on me that for the second year in a row, Oeltjen gets a glamour shot rather than an action one. This is not simply because I’m enraptured by his Aussie charm, but because “sitting around rather than playing” is basically the best way to sum up Oeltjen’s 2011, where he was on the team continuously from June 9 through the end of the season but made just about no lasting impact.
Of course, that’s what happenens when you’re given just three starts over the final 69 games of the season, isn’t it? The difference was clear; in 12 starts (not the greatest sample size, I will admit), he hit .256/.380/.462, while in 49 games as a pinch-hitter and defensive replacement, he hit .125/.243/.156. That’s a problem he needs to sort out if he plans on having much of a career, since it’s certainly not like any team is going to just hand him a starting job, though it’s possible there’s a little more there than we’ve seen. Oeltjen still has options remaining and I imagine his 2012 will look much like his 2011, with time spent both at AAA and the bigs, filling out some team’s roster.
******
Next! Clayton Kershaw is a god! Jon Garland‘s durability only goes so far! And Nathan Eovaldi arrives ahead of schedule! It’s starting pitchers, part 1!
Andre Ethier Done For Season With Knee Injury
September 8, 2011 at 8:47 am | Posted in Andre Ethier | 17 Comments
Andre Ethier has finally decided the pain in his knee is too much, and he’s made the decision we all called for nearly two weeks ago:
Ethier will seek a second opinion on his right knee. The team and Andre have decided that since the knee has not improved, he should discontinue playing and seek all opinions to determine the next course of action.
That’s via the official Dodger twitter, and Ethier is of course not in the lineup for the first game of today’s doubleheader, with Jerry Sands and Juan Rivera flanking Matt Kemp in the outfield corners. Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times confirms that Ethier is done for the season. The funny thing is, since this whole knee business broke on August 28, Ethier’s been red-hot, hitting .400/.464/.600 in 28 plate appearances over eight games (six starts). On Tuesday, he had two hits and drove in four, narrowly being deprived of a fifth when Tony Gwynn was thrown out at the plate.
Despite that, while this will certainly disappoint a lot of fans who have tickets for the final homestand of the year, this is essentially good news. It’s good news for Ethier because if the knee is really that troublesome – and based on his performance this year, the last week aside, it has been – then it’s for the best that he stop pounding it and go see what’s wrong. It’s good news for the Dodgers because it gives them absolutely no excuse to not play Sands every single day, which is basically the most important thing we’re going to get out of September, other than cheering for Kemp and Clayton Kershaw to win their awards. And, while it’s too soon to really say this for sure, it might just be good for the club in the negotiating room, if a lousy season and injury concerns help keep Ethier’s cost down in arbitration.
That’s a conversation for another time, however. Right now, the most important thing is finding out what’s wrong with him and getting him back to the player he once was in order to help the offense in 2012. If a side benefit of that is giving Sands all the time he needs to prove himself, all the better.
(By the way, the weather forecast for Washington, DC, is once again hilariously bad today. If you think we got our fill of weather-related shenanigans yesterday, think again.)
Late Dodger Comeback Falls Short as Andre Ethier Story Dominates the Day
August 28, 2011 at 5:27 pm | Posted in Andre Ethier, John Lindsey, Nathan Eovaldi | 32 Comments
Last week, I praised the solid performance of rookie Nathan Eovaldi, while in the same breath pointing out that his low strikeout rate and unsustainably low BABIP meant that regression was likely coming. We didn’t have to wait long to see it: payback from the BABIP gods came in the first inning today, as the balls that had previously found their way into gloves for Eovaldi instead found open grass amid some questionable outfield defense, allowing Colorado to put up five before the Dodgers even came to bat.
To Eovaldi’s credit, he did manage to retire nine of the next eleven before being lifted after four, but the damage was done; despite the Dodgers scoring single runs in the first and third on hits by Justin Sellers and James Loney – yes, him again – the margin returned to five as the Rockies plated two more against Blake Hawksworth in the fifth inning, even as Los Angeles chased noted Dodger-killer Jhoulys Chacin with eleven baserunners in five innings. The Dodgers scored two in the seventh despite not having a hit (Chacin walked the bases loaded, followed by Eugenio Velez hitting into a fielder’s choice – that’s an RBI, not a hit – and Tony Gwynn adding a sacrifice fly. Two more scored in the eighth on hits by Aaron Miles and Trent Oeltjen, setting the stage for a nearly identical situation as Saturday: Colorado closer Rafael Betancourt looking to protect a one-run lead against Miles, Loney, and Kemp. (The batting order was slightly different, but each game had the same three hitters).
Unfortunately for the Dodgers, neither Kemp nor Loney could recreate their Saturday heroics – and as much fun as it might have been to see Loney tie the game on another homer, I’m not sure I could have lived in the world that would have ensued, where black is white, north is east, and up is west – and Miles flew out to left to end the game, ending the Dodger five game winning streak.
The big story, of course, is the fallout from T.J. Simers’ story about Andre Ethier‘s knee. Ethier was not in the lineup today, having met with team doctors for a further examination, and Don Mattingly had some choice quotes for Tony Jackson of ESPNLA:
“I got kind of blindsided by that (column),” Mattingly said. “To me, the way I read it was that Dre has been telling us he couldn’t play and we said play anyway. That definitely isn’t the case. For me, that is taking a shot at my integrity. Not just mine, but the organization, the training staff and Ned.
“His knee has been banged up, there is no denying that. But with that, we check with him. ‘Are you OK today?’ There have been times when I will get him in the weight room after a game and say, ‘I’m giving you the day off tomorrow,’ and then he’ll come into my office and say he wants to (play).”
Ned Colletti didn’t take the story well, either:
“I talked to Andre three weeks ago, one on one,” Colletti said. “We talked about the season, talked about the future and talked about the team. (The knee) wasn’t a topic.”
Colletti said he then received a call from Ethier’s agent, Nez Balelo, while the Dodgers were in Milwaukee two weeks ago informing him that Ethier was experiencing knee problems, that he might need a minor surgical procedure at some point to correct them and that they were affecting his offensive performance, which has been disappointing this season, especially since the All-Star break. “I said, ‘Can he play?”’ Colletti said. “(The answer was) yeah. I had a conversation with Nez again before the game (Saturday). We talked about a lot of different topics related to Andre and related to the knee. My impression was that it was something that would have to be looked at, but it wasn’t something that had to be taken care of right now.”
As we’d thought, the Dodgers were not simply shaking off the truth and forcing Ethier to play; in addition to the firestorm that’d bring from the player’s union, it also makes no sense at all. What’s most interesting, as noted by Vin Scully during the game and printed by Steve Dilbeck of the LA Times, is that Ethier never claimed that Simers misquoted him, (which may be a first for Simers), just that the story didn’t come out the way he’d wanted it to. It’s also worth noting that his knee is apparently such a problem that he considered surgery last winter, has felt “cracking and crunching” in the knee just when walking, and required three injections of synthetic fluid in the knee a few weeks ago. All of which seems to suggest that not only is the knee largely responsible for his lousy season, it’s something that isn’t going to get better unless he goes under the knife – and if that’s the case, I’m wondering what the point is in delaying it until after the season while trying to continue to play and potentially making it worse.
******
Remember John Lindsey, last year’s heartwarming story? 2011 hasn’t gone quite as well, as he’s missed nearly two months with a variety of leg injuries and is all but certainly not going to receive a call-up next week. At 35 in January and with that big-league callup under his belt, you might think he’d be ready to move on, but Christopher Jackson of the Albuquerque Baseball Examiner shares with us that Lindsey has other ideas:
Lindsey has been limited to serving as a designated hitter, moving slowly and carefully out of the batting box any time he does connect with the baseball. Sometimes fans who are clearly unaware of his physical condition have given him an earful from the stands.
“It’s funny, I hear it but I don’t,” Lindsey said. “My teammates come in and tell me, ‘Hey, have they been to a game this year? Don’t they know you’re hanging on there by a thread?’ (But) it doesn’t affect me.”
Lindsey said he will return to his home in Hattiesburg, Miss., to rest and rehab his leg with the hope of being healthy enough to play in a winter league in Latin America later in the offseason.
“I’m just trying to stay positive, going into this offseason, working with the trainer and hoping I can erase father time a little bit,” Lindsey said. “It’s kind of strange how this hit me all of a sudden this year. But I feel if I can get myself in good shape, go to winter ball and show teams that I can play, then hopefully next season I can get another job and do what I can do.”
Is Andre Ethier Being Treated Unfairly?
August 28, 2011 at 7:33 am | Posted in Andre Ethier | 66 Comments
Of the many things that have gone wrong for the Dodgers this season, among the most troubling is the total power outage from Andre Ethier, counted upon to be a lynchpin of the offense alongside Matt Kemp. Ethier’s 30-game hitting streak ended on May 7; since then, he’s hit just .255/.336/.373 with seven homers in 375 plate appearances. He hasn’t homered since July 25 (against you guessed it – Colorado) and August is shaping up to be an especially brutal month, with just three extra base hits and a .189 batting average in 89 plate appearances.
So what’s wrong with the longest-tenured Dodger hitter? T.J. Simers of the LA Times points to two issues, the first being his supposedly injured right knee:
Ask Ethier if he should still be playing on a right knee that will require off-season surgery, and he says, “If you’re expecting me to do what I’ve done in the past, no, there’s no possible way I can do that right now. You can say tough it out and give it your best shot, but it’s not going to happen.
There’s a lot more to get to in this piece, but let’s start with the knee. We’ve known that Ethier’s been dealing with a sore knee for a while, but this is the first time that I’m aware of that we’ve seen Ethier “will” require surgery on it. (It’s here where we note that Simers is generally a clownshoe who prefers to make fun of how to pronounce Marcus Thames‘ name than to actually break news, so consider the source, though it’s not his style to falsify a fact like that.)
I couldn’t remember a specific incident where Ethier had hurt his knee, and it hasn’t kept him out of the lineup for more than a game or two this season. A Google search turned up this Ken Gurnick story from July 19:
Andre Ethier was out of the Dodgers starting lineup Tuesday night, in part because he’s struggled against left-handed pitchers and in part because of a right knee that could require offseason cleanup arthroscopy.
“It’s just a day off,” said manager Don Mattingly. “Dre’s been battling lefties [.228] and I’m hearing a little more about his knee. It’s a good day to give him.”
Ethier hyperextended his right knee in Spring Training 2010 and ices it after every game. On an at-bat in Arizona over the weekend, he stumbled out of the batter’s box on a swing. Nonetheless, he’s played all but two games this year.
I couldn’t find any reference to Ethier hurting his knee in articles published in February or March of 2010, and it doesn’t appear in the Baseball Prospectus injury database. He was crushing the ball to start that season before injuring his finger in May; his struggles in the second half of the season were largely blamed on that injury. Still, I’m willing to believe that his underwhelming performance over the last year has to have a root cause, and as Gurnick notes Ethier has looked bad on several swings this year, so the idea that the knee was a small problem that’s progressively gotten worse passes the small test.
If that’s the case, that leads us to a larger concern, which is Ethier’s apparently deteriorating relationship with the team. (Assuming, again, that Simers is still pretending he’s a journalist and hasn’t completely inflated these quotes.) If Simers is to be believed, these quotes from Ethier sound as though player and team are at odds about the severity of the injury:
“It’s only going to get worse from this point. I’ve dealt with it all season long, but as the season goes on my body wears down. That’s just the way it is — I keep getting put in the lineup, so what am I supposed to do?”
The Dodgers played all season without a left fielder, so why not make a change in right, shut down Ethier and wheel him into the operating room?
“A million-dollar question,” Ethier says before catching himself. “But I think there is a value in finishing anything you start.”
and:
“Other than going into the training room every day and saying my knee hurts,” Ethier says, “and having six-inch needles stuck into it to make it feel better, I’ve told them my mechanics are messed up because of my knee. They know.
“But they’ve told me, ‘Grin and bear it.’”
That does seem to infer that the club doesn’t agree about how much pain he’s in, and the article also includes some less-than-supportive quotes from Ned Colletti on the situation. If the team really thought he was hurt, Don Mattingly probably wouldn’t be saying things like bumping him down to the 5th spot in the lineup was done to relieve some pressure on Ethier. That said, it’s hard to know who to believe here; Colletti may be the guy who foolishly called out Matt Kemp last year, told Xavier Paul that he needed to learn how to be a big leaguer, and announced on the radio that Jonathan Broxton was out as closer weeks before that was actually the case, but Ethier’s also well-known for his emotional outbursts, including dropping the thought that he might be non-tendered just 48 hours before the start of the season.
The point is, it’s impossible to determine the truth from these quotes, other than the seemingly unavoidable conclusion that Ethier and the organization may be at odds. If Ethier is hurt, then it does neither him nor the team any good to keep throwing him out there to worsen the knee and torpedo the offense. With Jerry Sands‘ return imminent, it’s not the worst thing in the world to throw Sands and Juan Rivera out there around Kemp every day, with Tony Gwynn, Trent Oeltjen, and Jamie Hoffmann around as depth. If Ethier’s not hurt, then that might even be worse – why, then, has his performance suffered so much?
Either way, I’ve long taken the opinion (unpopular among casual fans) that Ethier is not someone I want to see the team invest tens of millions of dollars into, since he’s nearly 30, less than a star-level hitter who can’t hit lefties, doesn’t play outstanding defense, and is a bit too vocal with his criticisms – particularly since Kemp and Clayton Kershaw both need to be taken care of, despite the uncertain ownership situation. Unfortunately, none of this is doing much to help his trade value.
Let’s Get to Know Nathan Eovaldi
August 2, 2011 at 7:24 pm | Posted in Andre Ethier, Nathan Eovaldi | 16 Comments
I’m halfway through writing a “reasons to watch the rest of the season” post, and included in it is a look at what prospects we might see recalled when rosters expand on September 1. There’s the usual assortment of A.J. Ellises and Jamie Hoffmanns, but I also mentioned the slight possibility that some of the outstanding arms currently residing at AA Chattanooga could get a quick look.
Well, that “slight possibility” may have just gotten a little larger, based on this tweet from ESPNLA’s Tony Jackson, who generally knows what he’s talking about:
Educated guess on my part, but I’m predicting Nate Eovaldi will start next Tuesday night against Phillies.
Maybe Jackson’s right about Tuesday, and maybe he’s not, but it’s as good an excuse as any to take a closer look at Eovaldi, who is enjoying something of a breakout season in AA and is expected to challenge for a spot on the 2012 Dodgers.
First, Eovaldi’s superficial line:
| Year | Age | Tm | Lev | G | GS | IP | H | R | HR | BB | SO | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 18 | 2 Teams | Rk | 0.84 | 7 | 0 | 10.2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 11 | 0.938 | 5.9 | 2.5 | 9.3 |
| 2009 | 19 | Great Lakes | A | 3.27 | 26 | 16 | 96.1 | 95 | 48 | 2 | 41 | 71 | 1.412 | 8.9 | 3.8 | 6.6 |
| 2010 | 20 | 3 Teams | A+-Rk | 4.30 | 20 | 18 | 98.1 | 108 | 52 | 3 | 37 | 72 | 1.475 | 9.9 | 3.4 | 6.6 |
| 2011 | 21 | Chattanooga | AA | 2.62 | 20 | 19 | 103.0 | 76 | 41 | 3 | 46 | 99 | 1.184 | 6.6 | 4.0 | 8.7 |
| 4 Seasons | 3.30 | 73 | 53 | 308.1 | 286 | 142 | 8 | 127 | 253 | 1.339 | 8.3 | 3.7 | 7.4 | |||
| Rk (2 seasons) | Rk | 2.25 | 11 | 4 | 24.0 | 16 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 25 | 0.958 | 6.0 | 2.6 | 9.4 | ||
| A (1 season) | A | 3.27 | 26 | 16 | 96.1 | 95 | 48 | 2 | 41 | 71 | 1.412 | 8.9 | 3.8 | 6.6 | ||
| AA (1 season) | AA | 2.62 | 20 | 19 | 103.0 | 76 | 41 | 3 | 46 | 99 | 1.184 | 6.6 | 4.0 | 8.7 | ||
| A+ (1 season) | A+ | 4.45 | 16 | 14 | 85.0 | 99 | 46 | 3 | 33 | 58 | 1.553 | 10.5 | 3.5 | 6.1 | ||
If there’s one thing that stands out there to me, it’s his apparently impressive ability to keep the ball in the park, having allowed just 8 homers in over 300 innings. That doesn’t necessarily mean it translates to the bigs – I don’t have to remind you the varying level of competition he faces in the lower leagues – but impressive nonetheless.
Eovaldi didn’t make Kevin Goldstein’s Top 20 Dodger list at Baseball Prospectus – in the comments, he referred to him as a “middle reliever” – though when I asked him if his 2011 had changed his opinion at all, Goldstein replied, “absolutely“. Eovaldi’s step forward this season has really turned heads, as Mike Newman of Scouting the Sally has been gushing about him all year. In June, he posted this scouting report from an April start:
- Excellent size; Eovaldi looked closer to 210 lbs. than his listed weight of 195
- Well-proportioned frame; Size through the quads and shoulders; Athletic pitcher’s frame
- Fluid delivery with good pacing; Generates easy velocity
- High 3/4 arm slot; Limits movement on his fastball
- 94-96 MPH 4-seam fastball
- 4-seamer lacked movement; Worked pitch in-and-out effectively
- Maintained velocity throughout the start; Still touching 95 MPH in the 5th
- 91-92 MPH 2-seam fastball; Some arm side run
- 84 MPH slider; Best breaking ball; Used as out pitch
- Pitch featured late cut; Depth improved throughout the course of the game
- 78 MPH curveball; Threw sparingly; One CB was thrown behind RHH to backstop; Below average offering
- 83-84 MPH Changeup; Threw sparingly; Slowed arm action
From a velocity standpoint, Eovaldi nearly matched Rubby De La Rosa pitch-for-pitch. As impressive as that statement is, Eovaldi’s fastball lacked the movement to make the offering elite. Add to this a plethora of breaking pitches in need of further refinement, and Eovaldi is on his way, but not ready for Los Angeles yet. As one of the youngest pitchers in the Southern League, he has plenty of time to improve and become more than a fastball/slider pitcher.
He followed that up with this report on July 19 at RotoHardball:
Since the pick, Eovaldi has admittedly had a couple of shaky starts, but I attended one of those starts in which he was clearly working on his secondary pitches which lag behind his potent four seam fastball. After a first inning which saw Eovaldi work 94-96 MPH, touching 97, he spent the rest of the game throwing 2-seam fastballs, sliders, and changeups, often throwing four or more of the same pitch consecutively. And although I prefer watching prospects work on mixing pitches effectively throughout a game as they would in the big leagues, I can also see the value in forcing a pitcher like Eovaldi to attack hitters with secondary pitches he may not have complete confidence in. Strike out a hitter like Diamondbacks Paul Goldschmidt (Eovaldi’s opponent in the outing) using a “baptism by fire” approach can do wonders for a pitcher’s confidence.
At minorleagueball, John Sickels ran an “Alternate Universe” draft in May, trying to see where high schoolers drafted in 2008 may have fit in the 2011 draft if they’d went to college:
Nate Eovaldi, RHP: 11th round pick in 2008 by the Dodgers, bought away from Texas A&M for $250,000. Erratic track record but has a live arm, power sinker, and is pitching well in Double-A this year. I’d mark him as a third-round candidate in the 2011 class.
When neither Goldstein or Sickels included Eovaldi in their top 20 prospects before the season, it’s hard to think that Eovaldi has “star” written on him, though he may profile as a solid mid-rotation starter if his 2011 progression is for real. Sounds like we may see for ourselves sooner than later.
******
The lineup for tonight’s game in San Diego, which just started a few minutes ago, may pique your interest:
Gordon SS, Blake 3B, Miles 2B, Kemp CF, Rivera RF, Loney 1B, Navarro C, Gwynn LF, Kuroda P
That’s right; Andre Ethier is out, and Aaron Miles is hitting third. Joe Block reports that there’s nothing wrong with Ethier, saying:
Mattingly said Ethier getting routine day off, since he seemed frustrated last night and his poor numbers vs Latos
Ethier has three hits in 16 PA against Latos, which doesn’t seem like a large enough sample size to matter. While I don’t mind Ethier getting a breather now and then, it does seem very odd to do so against a righty, when Ethier’s struggles against lefties are so well chronicled.
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