Jerry Sands « Mike Scioscia's tragic illness

Differing Opinions On Jerry Sands in 2012

October 25, 2011 at 1:08 pm | Posted in Jerry Sands | 27 Comments

There’s been a lot of Jerry Sands talk around the internet in the last week, and while Sands hasn’t done anything particularly noteworthy, I suppose that’s an expected side effect of there being absolutely zero on-field Dodger news for at least another week. (Off-field, on the other hand…)

Last week, when I looked at Sands’ 2011 in review, I noted that he was a changed player in his return stint as a Dodger, which is hardly out of the ordinary. Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw each went back to the farm after making their initial debuts, and like Sands, Dee Gordon looked much more comfortable his second time around this year. (I also pointed out how terrifying his AAA home/road splits were and prayed that he could avoid the dreaded ABQ effect.)

ESPN’s Keith Law then fielded a question about Sands in his weekly chat last Thursday:

Robbie (Silver Spring, MD)
What’s a reasonable expectation from Jerry Sands next year? .260/.330/.430 sound about right?

Klaw
Maybe lower OBP, more SLG, with below-average defense. That’s not an everyday player.

Law’s outlook seems pessimistic, though I will admit that Law is someone I respect greatly and one of the rare ESPN analysts who manages to have a rational, informed viewpoint on the game and prospects in particular. Law seems to be ballparking .260/.320/.440 (ish) for Sands, and I’d like to think that he can do better – at least in the OBP department.

Today, Chad Moriyama digs deeper into the changes Sands made while back in ABQ, comparing swing mechanics from his two stints with the Dodgers, and concluding that Sands made noticable improvements in holding his hands higher, opening up his stance, and distributing his weight. It’s well worth a click to read the entire piece and see the swing comparisons, but here’s Chad’s takeaway:

I’m not at all familiar with whoever reconstructed the swing of Jerry Sands, but in my opinion, whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing and should take credit for it.

While I listed the advantages of the adjustments above, the changes themselves are not what impressed me, but rather it was what they fixed that was important.

I think what’s most important when making adjustments to the swing of a professional player is not trying to fit everybody’s swing into an ideal, but rather sculpting what they already have and making it efficient.

From what I’ve seen, that’s exactly what these changes do, as they ask Sands to learn to layoff fastballs up and then both allow him to expand on a strength (down) and create a solution for weaknesses (in, breaking balls).

To say I’m impressed by the changes that have taken place is an understatement.

That’s high praise. So what should we expect from Sands next year? I’ve never thought he’d be a star, but I do tend to agree with Chad, because the Sands we saw in September was noticably different than the one we saw in May. That said, we should know better to put too much stock into three weeks of play against expanded roster opponents, and I don’t love that Law doesn’t like him. (Roberto at Vin Scully is My Homeboy gets in on the Sands-mania with video of him playing winter ball in the Dominican, so you can get an even more recent look at his swing.)

Unfortunately for the Dodgers, Sands really has to be ready. This is a team that’s probably going to be counting on James Loney again and doesn’t really have a left field solution, unless you’re really excited about bringing back Juan Rivera and Tony Gwynn. He doesn’t need to hit 30 homers – and he won’t – but is it unreasonable to ask for a .340 OBP, 15 homers, plenty of doubles, and average defense in left field? I’d like to think that it isn’t too much to ask, and for the Dodgers’ sake, it better not be.

MSTI’s 2011 in Review: Left Field

October 18, 2011 at 7:31 am | Posted in Jamie Hoffmann, Jay Gibbons, Jerry Sands, Marcus Thames, Tony Gwynn, Xavier Paul | 37 Comments

Ah, left field: where hope goes to die. No, really; over the last ten seasons (2002-2011), the Dodgers have had 47 different players make an appearance in left field, and it’s not like they were all token appearances – 34 of the 47 were out there at least ten times. Who can forget the 48 games and .661 OPS from Jason Grabowski in 2004-05? The continuing stream of busted veterans like Luis Gonzalez, Ricky Ledee, and Jose Cruz conspiring to keep superior young players out of the lineup in 2006-07? And dear lord, Garret Anderson and Scott Podsednik on the same roster (though, thankfully, not at the same time) last year? With the obvious exception of Manny Ramirez‘ monster performance in 2008 and parts of 2009, the only Dodger left fielder with any meaningful playing time to put up an OPS of even .800 (which isn’t exactly a top mark from a power position) over the last decade was Andre Ethier, who just barely topped the minimum at .803 while playing there for much of the first three years of his career.

With Manny finally gone after 2010, left field was an obvious problem spot all winter, one that never quite got filled. Jay Gibbons and Tony Gwynn arrived early, later joined by Marcus Thames to form the immortal “JaMarcus Gwybbons, Jr.” trio that was absolutely never going to work – and, you know, didn’t – but much of the winter was marked by the Dodgers trying and failing to bring in others. Bill Hall was considered, but he went to Houston to play second base. (Fortunately for the Dodgers, as it turned out). Matt Diaz was sought, though he went to Pittsburgh. Brothers Scott Hairston and Jerry Hairston both appeared in rumors; neither arrived. With no upgrades available, the club eventually resigned themselves to wishing for the best from the Gwybbons Jr. trio, as we entertained ourselves by wondering if the team would break the record for most left fielders in a season while waiting for the day Trayvon Robinson would come save us. This, of course, would not do, as Dodger left fielders finished 23rd in MLB in OPS at .680, and Robinson, as you might have heard, was dealt to Seattle.

But remember, it could have been worse: in November, Ned Colletti actually picked up the team half of Podsednik’s mutual option, an offer that Podsednik foolishly (and disastrously) turned down in hopes of a bigger payday elsewhere. Podsednik ended up being injured for much of the year in AAA for Toronto and Philadelphia, and didn’t play a single MLB game. He was nearly the starting left fielder for the Dodgers. Good lord. Let’s get on with this hot mess.

(If you’re looking for Juan Rivera, he’ll appear in right field, even though he started more games as a left fielder, just to keep the left field pit of hell a little more manageable.)

Tony Gwynn (C)
.256/.308/.353 .660 2hr 22sb 1.1 WAR

Tony Gwynn might just be the blandest player to think about on the Dodgers. When Junior signed, we expected great fielding, some contribution on the basepaths, and just about nothing at the plate. And… well, that’s exactly what happened. Feel the excitement!

I wasn’t really sold on his signing – I wasn’t sure he was even better than Xavier Paul, though mostly I really had wanted a righty outfield bat – but after a solid spring, we were doing our best to talk ourselves into him:

It says a lot about the construction of this team that I just wrote about 900 words on why Tony Gwynn may be the best choice they’ve got, but it just might be true. The way things are currently configured, nothing could work out better for this team than for Gwynn to keep up his hot spring and grab the job.

He didn’t quite take over in the early going, sharing time with Marcus Thames and others, and hit a Gwynn-esque .264/.291/.377 through April, though he did pitch in with a game-saving catch. Then April turned into May, and… oh, that’s gonna leave a mark.

Split	G	GS	PA	H	RBI	SB	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
May	26	4	32	2	1	1	2	7	.067	.125	.100	.225

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Gwynn’s May was so bad that by the end of of the month, when we were wondering who might get DFA’d to make room for a returning Thames, the only reason it seemed worthwhile to keep Gwynn around was the lack of another option to help Matt Kemp out in center field. Gwynn survived the purge, and managed to pick up two hits in his first game of June despite not entering the game until the 8th inning. That was the start of a resurgence, because over June and July Gwynn picked up 40 hits, for a combined line of .305/.377/.389. That still shows absolutely no power whatsoever, but it doesn’t matter, because a player who can get on base at that rate along with good baserunning and excellent defense is quite valuable.

Of course, Gwynn followed up his nice stretch with a .245/.278/.367 run over August and September, which sounds about right from him. Overall, his .308 OBP is basically the same as his .304 mark with the Padres in 2010, but very troubling is the fact that his walk rate dropped from 10.6% and 12.1% the previous two years to just 6.8% with the Dodgers.

So what next? His plate performance is lousy, though his defense is rated excellent by most metrics and that absolutely passes the sniff test. Considering his utility on the bases, he’s a useful enough piece, and he wants to return. If I was running the team, I’d probably look to upgrade, but assuming he doesn’t get much more than ~$1m or so if he makes it to arbitration, that seems fair enough.

Jerry Sands (B-)
.253/.338/.389 .727 4hr 0.0 WAR

When camp started, we were all intrigued by the 2010 performance of Jerry Sands in the minors, and we hoped that if all went well, we might be lucky enough to see him in the bigs by September. By March 7, Sands was so impressive that I was creating polls to see how long people thought the Dodgers could really keep him down, especially considering the lack of production at his two primary positions, first base and left field. Even then, the majority of people figured “July or later”, so it was no surprise when he was sent back to minor league camp on St. Patrick’s Day.

Sands started off his AAA season by homering in each of his first four games, and as the Dodger offense struggled with injury and ineffectiveness, they shocked us all by recalled him on April 17, far sooner than anyone expected. The initial returns were promising, with fans giving standing ovations for his debut, and he repaid them with doubles in each of his first two games and in five of his first nine, as the Dodgers – to their credit – committed to the experiment, playing him nearly every day.

But despite the doubles, the excitement, and the promised plate discipline, something was missing. Sands wasn’t quite the savior we’d been looking for. There were some nice moments, of course, including his first homer on May 21 and a grand slam on May 24 in Rubby De La Rosa‘s debut, but they were few and far between. By the end of May, I was open to the idea that it should be Sands who went back down when Marcus Thames returned. Sands survived, with Jay Gibbons surprisingly getting the axe on the day that Dee Gordon arrived, but just over a week later it was Sands’ turn:

Numbers aren’t everything, of course. When Sands arrived, we heard a great deal about his maturity, ability to make adjustments, and command of the strike zone. From this vantage point, all of what we’ve heard has been true and then some. Before his recent slump, he’d shown an increased ability to pull the ball, rather than always going the other way, and even when the power wasn’t there he was seeing a lot of pitches and getting on base.

By sending him back down now, you hope that he goes down knowing he can play on this level, with a few adjustments. This is where the maturity comes into play; some rookies can’t handle a demotion well, but Sands sounds like the type who can. Ideally, he goes back down to ABQ, mashes Triple-A pitching for a while to get his confidence back up (also important, as you don’t want a string of oh-fers in the bigs to get him down), and then we’ll see back up later in the summer. I’d say “when rosters expand on Sept. 1″, but I think we all know that injuries will necessitate a recall sooner.

Sands is a big part of this team’s future, and it’s in his best interest to go back down and get his confidence back up. He’s not helping the team right now, and he’s not helping himself. He’ll be back, and he’ll be better for the experience.

That’s exactly what happened, because much like Gordon, the Sands we saw the second time around was far different from our initial look. When Sands was sent down, he was hitting .200/.294/.328 in 144 plate appearances; after his return on September 8 (with the arrival of Rivera and the resurgence of James Loney, he stayed down longer than I would have guessed), he hit .342/.415/.493, playing mostly right field with Andre Ethier injured, including a 14-game hitting streak and hits in 16 of 18 games. He ended up finishing fifth on the club in doubles, despite having just 227 plate appearances; the hot streak all but guaranteed himself a spot on next year’s club, though it remains to be seen what position he’ll play.

If there is one big red flag about Sands, it’s that his home/road splits with the Isotopes were beyond atrocious. Courtesy of Andrew Grant’s Minor League Central, we can see that he hit .347/.406/.709 with 18 homers at home, and just .186/.258/.401 with 9 homers on the road. I’m always driving the “ABQ stats mean little without checking the splits” train, so I can’t in good conscience tell you to completely ignore that here. However, when we talk about ABQ-inflated stats, we’re usually talking about a player who is either a semi-prospect with little to point to before reaching ABQ (think Justin Sellers), or an older Quad-A fringe type who could never stick in the bigs but who was lucky enough to land in the perfect place to pad his stats (like Trent Oeltjen recently, or Dee Brown or Hector Luna in previous years.) As a young player who comes with quality scouting reports, a solid track record in the minors before landing in New Mexico, and an excellent finish to his season in the bigs, Sands has a lot more going for him than the other names mentioned, so his splits aren’t cause to write him off – just something to note.

Marcus Thames (F)
.197/.243/.333 .576 2hr -0.7 WAR

Despite the fact that it didn’t even come close to working out, giving Marcus Thames a shot as a LF/1B bench bat wasn’t the worst idea in the world at the time:

So if you’ve come here looking to see if I hate the idea of Thames, then no, I don’t. I hate that this is the best the Dodgers are going to be able to do; I hate that with every passing day the idea that much is riding on Tony Gwynn hitting enough to win the CF job. I think there’s good arguments to be made for preferring Hairston or Milledge, yet I can’t complain too much about getting a guy who has an .820 OPS and 94 homers over the last five years (assuming the money is small).

Really, this is going to be determined by Thames’ usage. If he’s a lefty-killing specialist who is 80% off the bench and 20% in left field, that’s useful enough. If he’s penciled in to a strict platoon role where he gets a goodly amount of playing time in the field, that’s an enormous problem. Thames is one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball, and as tenuous as the idea of a Jay Gibbons / Matt Kemp / Andre Ethier outfield might be, putting Thames in LF alongside Kemp and Ethier would be atrocious, to the point that it might be the worst fielding trio in the game. This is going to be another test for Don Mattingly, and we’ll have to see how he handles that.

We never found out. Thames was as poor as advertised in the field, but he was also surprisingly bad at the plate, albeit in just 70 plate appearances. I think some of that might be chalked up to his usage, because after starting five of his first eight games in left field, he was essentially reduced to pinch-hitting until he was injured in early May. For a player used to getting three and four at-bats per game as a designated hitter in the American League, the transition to pinch-hitting was a difficult one.

Thames landed on the disabled list on May 3 after injuring his left thigh and missed slightly more than a month. When he returned, Mattingly attempted to get him back in the mix by giving him eight starts in left field in June, but it didn’t work; Thames failed to hit and missed several more games with a calf strain. He pinch-hit twice in July and was finally DFA’d in favor of Juan Rivera over the All-Star break, eventually returning to the Yankees on a minor-league deal.

Like so many other Dodgers in 2011, Thames couldn’t stay healthy and didn’t do much to justify his existence when he was. Not exactly a memorable tenure from a short-term Dodger.

Jay Gibbons (D-)
.255/.323/.345 .668 1hr -0.5 WAR

Gibbons, as you probably remember, was a nice story at the end of 2010. As much as that made for some fun puff piece stories in the press, I was a bit concerned about what to really expect from him going into 2011:

You all know his story by now, as he went from “reasonably successful Oriole” in the early and middle part of the decade, to “blackballed Mitchell Report name who was largely out of baseball” in 2008-09, to “heartwarming success story for his hometown team” in 2010. Though he was certainly a nice boost for the team last year, I’ve always felt that his performance got a little more hype than it probably deserved. Coming on the heels of the Garret Anderson debacle, the bar was set pretty low, and Gibbons made a great first impression – he homered in his first start and put up a 1.102 OPS over his first 47 PA back in the bigs. That’s all well and good, except beyond his own defensive issues, 47 PA is hardly a large sample size, he ended the season in a 6-32 slide, and we’ve learned several times that people put far too much stock into first impressions. If this sounds familiar, it’s because I’ve been saying the exact same thing about Rod Barajas for months.

This isn’t to bash Gibbons, who made for a nice story in the dog days of a lost season. It’s just to point out that despite all the accolades, he’s still a 34-year-old who put up a .313 OBP in 80 PA, and can’t possibly be expected to sustain a .507 SLG. While all the stories read that he hadn’t played in MLB since 2007, it actually goes beyond that; due to injuries, he didn’t even get into 100 games in either 2006 or 2007.

I think I nailed the trepidation there pretty well, and Gibbons did little to change that in 62 plate appearances in May and early June. That said, while i don’t think he was ever likely to produce, you do have to feel bad for him in how it went down. Gibbons returned early from winter ball complaining of vision problems, and started the season on the disabled list with the same issue. When he returned in May, he made it to early June before getting a somewhat surprising DFA which landed him back in Albuquerque, where he underwent another eye surgery in hopes of restoring his vision.

On the season for the Isotopes, he hit an Albuquerque-fueled .305/.407/.463, which is nice, and if we’ve learned anything about Gibbons it’s that you can’t count him out. But he’ll be 35 next spring, didn’t get a September call-up, is a poor defender, and in 2012 it’ll have been nearly six years since he was last an effective big leaguer for more than a few weeks. If he wants a job in AAA I’m sure he can have one somewhere, but I wouldn’t expect to see him back with the Dodgers again, especially since he elected to become a free agent in early October.

Xaver Paul (inc.)
.273/.273/.273 .545 0hr -0.1 WAR

I don’t use this photo in Paul’s card to make fun of him, but mostly because it was one of the few photos of him playing for the Dodgers this year I could actually find.

That’ll happen when you get just 11 plate appearances before being shipped off to the place where all mediocre Dodgers go to die: Pittsburgh. (Here’s looking at you, Delwyn Young & Andy LaRoche.)

Paul had long been one of my favorites, but he never really seemed to get the chance he deserved based on his minor-league track record and strong throwing arm. It’s not that he ever looked like a future star or even more than a fourth outfielder – I can’t even say he did much in Pittsburgh in his first crack at semi-regular playing time – but the simple fact that he kept getting swept aside for over-the-hill veterans like Garret Anderson really burned me.

So long, Xavier. We’ll always have you as the answer to the trivia question, “who was DFA’d to get Jerry Sands on the roster?”

Jamie Hoffmann (inc.)
.000/.000/.000 .000 0hr -0.2 WAR

Hoffmann had four plate appearances over two April games, so obviously there’s not a lot of his MLB season to analyze. The greater question here is, who did he piss off? Hoffmann hit .297/.356/.497 in AAA this year, while backing up his reputation as an excellent defensive outfielder by breaking a 53-year-old PCL record for consecutive errorless games. While the standard ABQ disclaimers apply (dig that 200+ split in home/road OPS), you don’t hit 22 homers completely by accident, yet on a team that carried both Eugenio Velez and Trent Oeltjen for months, Hoffman didn’t warrant even a token September recall. That can’t bode well for his future with the team, though I still don’t see why he couldn’t be a useful backup.

******

Next! It’s center field! You may know the guy who plays there! I hear he’s sorta good!

Dodgers Crush Pirates, Pirates Relegated to AAA

September 18, 2011 at 4:56 pm | Posted in James Loney, Jerry Sands, Matt Kemp | 34 Comments

Here’s how ridiculous today’s 15-1 destruction of the hapless Pirates was: James Loney went 5-5 with a double, driving in three… and by the WPA (Win Percentage Added) chart, that career-best hit total was merely the fourth-most valuable Dodger performance of the afternoon. Jerry Sands, who had all but claimed a role on next year’s team with his recent hot streak, cemented his claim with four hits (including a three-run homer) while Matt Kemp, continuing his rampage towards the MVP, finished a triple short of the cycle; Dee Gordon (two singles and a triple) and Juan Rivera (two singles and a double) joined Kemp in having three hits on the day.

It should be noted that the Pirates are absolutely atrocious, since Brad Lincoln‘s four-out effort was the third consecutive time that a Pittsburgh starter failed to make it even three full innings, and they’re 14-33 since the beginning of August. Aside from the litany of helpless pitchers they trotted out – eight, tying the franchise record – Rivera’s double really ought to have been an out, since center fielder Alex Presley and right fielder Xavier Paul (who had two hits on the day, good to see from an old friend) stared at each other as it fell right between them in right center.

Still, Pirate-aided acceleration aside, this was a game worthy of Fan Appreciation Day, and the offensive outburst shouldn’t obscure what was a decent outing by Chad Billingsley. We’ll not go past “decent” because it still took him 98 pitches to get through five innings, but he still struck out five while allowing just four hits and one run, and considering how poor his last few starts have been, that counts as progress. With Billingsley most likely receiving just one more start this season, there’s only so much he can do to turn the tide going into the offseason, and this was a small but positive step.

Back to Loney, with only nine games left, I’ve begun to change my tune. No, I don’t necessarily think he’s “for real”, and there’s still a very good argument to be made that he should be non-tendered, but I think we’ve reached the point where the conversation is mostly going to be for the sake of argument: whether any of us like it or not, he’s going to get tendered a contract for 2012.

With the win, the Dodgers are now back at .500 (76-76) again. For a team that was once 14 games under in July, it’s a notable achievement.

2011 Midseason Grades: Offense

July 11, 2011 at 6:13 am | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Aaron Miles, Andre Ethier, Casey Blake, Dioner Navarro, Eugenio Velez, Hector Gimenez, James Loney, Jamey Carroll, Jamie Hoffmann, Jay Gibbons, Jerry Sands, Juan Castro, Matt Kemp, Rafael Furcal, Rod Barajas, Russ Mitchell, Tony Gwynn, Trent Oeltjen | 54 Comments

The All-Star break is here, and that means it’s everyone’s favorite time of the year: midseason grades. It’s been a tough year for the Dodgers on and off the field, though we do of course have the pleasure of a few exceptionally bright spots. As always, the grades are in relation to what was reasonably expected of the player at the beginning of the season, not in comparison to other players in the bigs. Otherwise, Jose Bautista would get an A, and no one else would get above a Q. Fewer than 50 plate appearances or 10 innings pitched gets you an incomplete.

All stats are via baseball-reference. Today we’ll do hitters, and before the break is over we’ll get to pitchers, management, and one new kind of review. As always, these letter grades are subjective opinions and meant more for fun than anything. Except for Juan Uribe’s. There’s nothing fun about Juan Uribe.

Catchers

Rod Barajas D+ (.220/.262/.385 8hr 0.2 WAR)
And right off the bat, our rating system is being tested. Do I give Barajas an F, because he’s not any good, or a C, because we never expected him to be any good? I’ll go with a D+, because even though he’s underperforming his own mediocre career stats, he was still second on the team in homers until the final game before the break. I suppose that says a lot more about the Dodgers than it does about him, though. Due to the low bar for offense from catching in the bigs, he’s actually slightly above replacement, though it’s hard to look at the 46/8 K/BB without getting a little ill. He’s due to be activated from the disabled list on Friday, allowing us to start up the always fun “Navarro or Ellis?” game again. (It’ll be Navarro sticking, of course.)

Dioner Navarro F (.183/.234/.287 2hr -0.1 WAR)
You don’t need me to go back and really find all of the articles I wrote over the winter asking why he was worth a $1m major-league contract and why he was guaranteed a spot over the likely superior A.J. Ellis, right? Navarro came in with the lowest of expectations, yet after missing the first month with an oblique injury, has somehow still managed to underperform. Despite that, he still manages to come up with the game on the line in the ninth inning nearly every single night. The world is a twisted place.

Fun fact: Navarro is the only player in history with the name “Dioner”. Fun fact #2: he’s still looking for his first hit against a lefty in fourteen tries this season.

A. J. Ellis (C) (.222/.364/.222 0hr -0.1 WAR)
I realize I’ve heaped far more praise on a 30-year-old minor league lifer with absolutely no power than he really deserves, but the Dodger catching situation is dire, and his long minor-league record and short major league stints show an above-average ability to get on base, which is exactly what this lineup is missing. Defensively, I won’t insult your intelligence by citing CERA, but it’s hard to think it’s a coincidence that Chad Billingsley’s mid-season slump turned around precisely when Ellis started being his regular catcher. Too bad he’s almost certainly headed back for Barajas on Friday.

Hector Gimenez (inc.) (.143/.143/.143 0hr -0.1 WAR)
I would like to say something witty or insightful about Hector Gimenez, but that infers that I have absolutely any recollection of him as a Dodger whatsoever. Pass.

Infielders

James Loney (C-) (.268/.311/.342 4hr -0.5 WAR)
I feel weird giving Loney a C-, because his line and a grade in that range suggest that he was his normal mediocre self all season. Far from it; by early May, he was the most hated man in LA since OJ and we were all writing articles about how bad his season was going to be on a historical level. Since then, he’s basically been the best non-Kemp hitter on the team. That doesn’t mean he’s good – hooray, a .751 OPS from a 1B since April 26! – and again, that says a lot about the rest of the players on this team, but nothing tells you more about the plight of the 2011 Dodgers than the fact that their punchless overpaid first baseman is no longer even close to being the biggest issue here.

Jamey Carroll (A+) (.297/.368/.366 0hr 1.6 WAR)
Last season, Carroll had a .718 OPS and was largely hailed as the team MVP for stepping in to cover for Rafael Furcal at shortstop for nearly the entire season. For a 36-year-old career backup who had played in more than 113 just once, it was quite the impressive feat. More impressive? The fact that he’s exceeding that this year, currently with a .734 OPS. In a lower run scoring environment, that’s good for a 111 OPS+. Once again, the team has been crushed by injuries. Once again, Jamey Carroll has risen to the occasion and more. I’m not sure what the future holds for Carroll in Los Angeles – this is the last year of his contract, and unsurprisingly teams are showing trade interest – but he has consistently outperformed expectations. I’ll miss him when he’s gone.

Fun Carroll fact: since you know I have no use for RBI, regard this as more of a fun statistical quirk than any sort of value judgement, but he has somehow managed to step to the plate 311 times and drive in just 8 runners. I suppose that’s what happens when you don’t hit homers and you’re either batting leadoff (behind the pitcher and the horrible bottom of the lineup) or 8th (behind low-OBP guys like Uribe, Barajas, and Loney).

Aaron Miles (A) (.318/.337/.381 1hr 1.1 WAR)
Credit where credit is due: Aaron Miles has been a really, really nice part of this team. I hardly need to remind you about all the jokes we made at his expense when he was signed and in the spring, but after being forced into far more playing time than anyone expected, he’s responded by becoming arguably the 4th-best hitter on the team. (Like Barajas and his homers, that says a lot more about the other hitters on the club, but still). We expected absolutely nothing from him – less than nothing, perhaps – and not only has he stepped up where needed, he led the NL in batting average in June.

It’s not all that simple, of course. .300 average or not, he’s not walking and he provides zero power, so his OPS is just barely over .700, and his .344 BABIP, 35 points over his career average, seems unlikely to hold. So let’s not get too caught up in praise for Miles to pretend he’s actually, you know, good. But for a non-roster guy who was something like the 8th infielder entering the season? Well done, Aaron. Well done.

Hey, you think we can sucker some team into trading for him at the deadline?

Ivan DeJesus, Jr. (inc.) (.188/.235/.188 0hr -0.5 WAR)
So far, DeJesus looks to be this year’s winner of the “Blake DeWitt Memorial LA-to-ABQ Frequent Flyer” award, because he saw three different stints with the big club, including the pleasure of flying all the way to Cincinnati for the pleasure of one pinch-hitting appearance in June. That being the case, you can’t really judge his big-league performance too much, though he also didn’t do a lot to change my perception of him as a bench player at best. Back in ABQ, he’s hitting .304, which is nice, though a .758 OPS in that environment isn’t encouraging.

Fun fact: for a guy whose name isn’t exactly “John Smith“, Ivan DeJesus is neither the best Ivan or the best DeJesus to play in the bigs this year.

Juan Uribe (oh holy good lord, F, and I don’t just mean the letter grade) (.207/.273/.306 4hr 0.4 WAR)
Uribe has been so bad that there’s an entire Tumblr dedicated to how sad he looks and makes us feel. He’s so bad that when an obviously fantastical rumor popped up for about five seconds about how the Dodgers might be looking to send him back to San Francisco, we jumped on it even though we knew it was BS, just for the small amount of hope it brought. He’s been so bad that he had a lousy April (.247/.303/.420) and hasn’t come close to even matching that since. He’s been so bad that of all the players in the bigs with at least 200 plate appearances, only three have a lower TAv than him. He’s been so bad that he has just one homer since April turned into May, and even that came off Brad Penny, so I feel like he was just trolling us. But hey, not like we have to stare at him for 2.5 more years or anything.

The funny part is, he’s actually been so good in the field that it pushes him above replacement level. That 0.4 breaks down into -0.4 oWAR and 0.8 dWAR. It doesn’t make him a good player, and it doesn’t justify the contract, but it’s something. I suppose that something should probably be enough to get him more than an F, but… no.

Rafael Furcal F (.185/.227/.228 1hr -0.5 WAR)
How do you even judge Furcal at this point? It can’t be on health, because he’s managed to end up on the disabled list twice more this year (though at least it wasn’t his back this time). It’s hard to do so on production, since he’s constantly either just about to go on the disabled list or just coming back from it. I suppose the fact that he’s not in a full body cast is something, but that line above… yeesh. Anyone who’s still dreaming of trading him to someone at the deadline probably needs to wake up because unfortunately, Furcal’s best days are behind him. As, probably, are his days of being able to obtain health insurance when he’s no longer a ballplayer.

Dee Gordon C+ (.232/.250/.280 0hr 0.0 WAR)
We all knew Gordon was recalled far too soon, and it showed: he was overmatched at the plate and made some critical errors in the field. He also brought the kind of excitement that we haven’t seen in years, if ever. If you have any doubt about that, just head on over to this GIF-heavy recap of the amazing feats he pulled off in just a single game. A lot of players end up with 0.0 WAR because they’ve been boring or barely playable, and haven’t contributed anything either positive or negative. That’s not the case with Gordon; he did plenty of things that hurt the team, but he made up for them with a ton of positives. That’s how it all evens out, and for a raw 23-year-old, yeah, I’ll take that.

Juan Castro A (.286/.333/.286 0hr 0.0 WAR)
Castro gave us the greatest gift of all, retiring this week before subjecting us to a fifth stint as a Dodger. That alone gets the man an A.

Casey Blake D- (.243/.346/.386 4hr 0.3 WAR)
Things the 37-year-old Blake has been on the disabled list for this season: sore oblique, infected elbow, pinched nerve in neck, Legionnaire’s disease, athlete’s thumb, bone-itis, ringworm infestation, osteoporosis. Also, he narrowly avoided a brush with the law for continually yelling at those damned kids to get off his lawn.

Casey Blake is old.

Russ Mitchell (inc.) (.115/.258/.269 1hr 0.1 WAR)
Mitchell has 74 MLB plate appearances in his short career. He has nine hits, and though one was a game-tying homer in the 9th inning against the White Sox earlier this year, that’s good for an OPS+ of 29. That’s an unfairly small sample size, of course, but he’s also hitting .244 in ABQ right now. Russ Mitchell: nope.

Outfielders

Jerry Sands (C-) (.200/.294/.328 2hr -0.4 WAR)
Like Gordon, Sands was probably promoted too soon, and like Gordon, he didn’t really provide results, but did provide hope for the future. All of the stories we heard about his maturity and plate approach seemed to be true, yet so far it hasn’t translated into production. Sands is crushing the ball once again in ABQ, and with the Dodger offense still stagnant, we’ll see him back up in blue before very long.

Tony Gwynn (B-) (.256/.316/.326 0hr 0.6 WAR)
It’s been something of an interesting season for Gwynn. He was his normal Gwynn-like self in April (i.e. bad), hitting .264/.291/.377 before going completely off the rails in May: he managed just two hits all month and received only four starts, as Sands took over the bulk of the left field work. At that point, with his batting average below .200 and with nothing to his name other than two game-saving catches, we started wondering how long he’d stick on the roster, especially when he didn’t get into any of the first three games in June. On June 4, he entered in the 8th inning and got two hits in a game that went 11 innings. He got a hit the next game, and the next, and before you knew it he’d hit in 7 of the first 8 games of the month. It would get better – since June 26, which was two weeks ago yesterday, he’s had five multihit games, including three with three and one with four. Now that Sands and Gordon are both in the minors, he’s effectively taken over as both the starting left fielder and leadoff hitter. Because he owns the only plus glove in what is a subpar defensive outfield, this was the outcome we’d always wanted. Now let’s see if he can really keep it up.

Marcus Thames F (.197/.243/.333 2hr -0.6 WAR)
Injured? Yep, twice, even if only one led to a DL stint. Poor on defense? You better believe it. Unproductive on offense? Well, the line above doesn’t lie, right? I sure hope he’s renting, not buying.

Jay Gibbons F (.255/.323/.345 1hr -0.5 WAR)
Well, he got DFA’d and claimed by no one, placing him back in AAA, so it couldn’t have been that good of a first half, right? You want to feel bad because his vision problems really derailed last season’s feel-good story right from the start… but then you remember he wasn’t really ever that good in the first place. The best part of that -0.5 WAR is that his oWAR is actually 0.1… meaning he’s really, really bad in the field.

JaMarcus Gwybbons, Jr. D-
Remember when the left field situation was going to be a nice trio between Gwynn, Thames, and Gibbons? Sheesh. Until Gwynn’s hot spurt over the last few weeks, they combined to offer absolutely nothing. Less than nothing, if you just went by WAR. At various points this season, we’ve made arguments for DFA’ing all three of them. Count this under “plans that were unlikely to work and then did, in fact, not work.”

Trent Oeltjen (inc.) (.265/.386/.441 1hr 0.6 WAR)
Hey, remember when Oeltjen went 4-4 with a homer in that 15-0 drubbing of Minnesota? That was rad, right? Unfortunately for him, he had 3 hits in 20 PA before that game, and just 2 hits in 20 PA since.

Xavier Paul (inc.) (.273/.273/.273 0hr -0.1 WAR)
Paul’s ultimate contribution to the 2011 Dodgers is managing to grab a left field start before his departure, thus helping us push towards our ultimate goal of setting a record for most left fielders in a season. He’s got an 84 OPS+ for Pittsburgh since being picked up, though he’s improved his OPS in each full month there.

Jamie Hoffmann (inc.) (.000/.000/.000 0hr -0.2 WAR)
The man got four plate appearances. Let’s not infer too much from that. I still think he could be a pretty useful fourth outfielder in the bigs, as he’s a well-regarded defender having another high-OBP season in the minors, this time with a little pop.

Eugenio Velez (inc.) (.000/.000/.000 0hr -0.2 WAR)

Baron Ironglove von Pickoff. Still can’t believe he’s a Dodger. Or a major leaguer. Or a human being.

Matt Kemp (A+++) (.313/.398/.584 22hr 27sb 5.7 WAR)
I know you come here for informed baseball analysis and all (uh, I hope), and I could write 10,000 words on why Kemp is awesome. I will at some point, and 9,990 of those words will probably be about how I always said that he’d have a monstrous season this year, even as half the city was tearing him apart last year. There will be a time for that sort of insight, but for now, let’s leave it at this: 91 games into the season, Kemp has 5.7 WAR. That puts him on pace for about 9.9 WAR over the full season… a mark bettered by just two Dodgers in history. Yeah. His season is that good. Remember when everyone wanted to trade him, secure in the knowledge that he had neither the baseball IQ or work ethic to become a star? Yeah, me neither.

Matt Kemp is a shiny golden god.

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.

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Don’t forget: Matt Kemp is in the Home Run Derby tonight and will be live tweeting @TheRealMattKemp throughout.

Which Prospect Could Replace Marcus Thames?

June 25, 2011 at 6:39 am | Posted in Dee Gordon, Jerry Sands, Marcus Thames, Rafael Furcal, Trayvon Robinson | 36 Comments

The Dodgers lost to the Angels for the sixth time in seven tries last night, in a game marked mostly by some hilarious base-running and another wild start by Rubby De La Rosa, but let’s focus on some possibly impending roster moves.

Marcus Thames strained his left calf doubling in his first at-bat last night, with Tony Gwynn immediately coming in to replace him. Tell me this doesn’t sound like someone who’s about to take a nice long stay on the disabled list:

Thames is listed as day to day, but he already missed a month earlier this season with a strained right quadriceps muscle. After Thames pulled into second base with a double, Dodgers medical-services director Stan Conte ran out from the dugout to check on him. Moments later, the two left the field together, an obviously frustrated Thames stopping as he entered the runway leading to the clubhouse to slam his helmet against a wall in disgust.

“Initially, I heard three to four days,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. “But obviously, they’re going to look at it again. That would be the best-case scenario.”

Even if Thames wasn’t old and injury-prone – which he is, don’t you know – Thames is hitting just .207/.258/.362 on the year, and has seven hits (six singles) in 26 plate appearances some returning from injury in early June. With negative defensive value and little production at the plate, there’s little point in playing a man down for several days in order to keep him on the roster. With Thames hobbled, Gwynn as lifeless of a hitter as usual, and Trent Oeltjen neither getting much of a chance (16 PA) nor doing much with it (.641 OPS), the left field hole is as big as ever.

Here’s the question, though: do you call up Sands or Trayvon Robinson? When the Dodgers shipped off Sands, which at the time I agreed with, the idea was that he just needed to get his confidence back, not that there was any specific giant hole in his game. I’d say he’s done that; he homered twice last night, giving him three in three games, and since he’s been back in ABQ he’s hitting .297/.378/.568. You can make an argument that 2+ weeks back down isn’t enough, but he’s clearly got nothing left to prove in AAA.

There’s also Robinson, who’s shown a great deal of improvement as the season goes on. While his season stats are great – .316/.386/.582 – there’s a lot more of interest when you look deeper. For most of the season, we’ve been concerned about his high K/BB rate, which was 57/16 at the end of May. That’s a factor of over three; in June, he’s cut that down to 26/13. But dig this: every time we talk about an Isotope who is putting up numbers, we also have to caveat it with the usual line about how ABQ is a high-offense environment. That doesn’t apply to Robinson – at home, he’s hitting .304/.376/.574, while on the road he’s doing even better, with a .330/.398/.591. Unlike Sands, he can play center, though he isn’t an option at first base.

They’re clearly both better options than Thames or anyone else the Dodgers are currently playing in left, but while calling them both up would probably give the team the strongest 25-man roster, you’re also not going to do that when there’s only one starting spot available.

So which do you prefer? I tend to go with Sands, simply because he’s been here before and you hope that his break from the bigs would serve him well the second time around. On the other hand, you could probably DFA Gwynn with Robinson’s experience in center. I can certainly see an argument for either.

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The other news of the day is that the Dodgers are reportedly considering what fans have been asking me for years, which is moving Rafael Furcal to second base when he returns. In theory, this sounds great, right? Playing Furcal and Dee Gordon up the middle would be one of the more exciting duos in baseball, and it would strengthen the bench by having three of the Casey Blake, Juan Uribe, Jamey Carroll, and Aaron Miles group – whomever isn’t starting at third base – available in reserve. Great! Where do I sign up?

Except… it’s not that simple. In order to do that, the club would need to have seven active infielders, which is a configuration they rarely go with. That would leave room for just one reserve outfielder behind Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, and whomever the starting left fielder is, which is unlikely unless the often-discussed-but-never-implemented idea of letting Blake play the outfield is revived. Of course, Blake is banged up and Uribe is awful, so you could potentially put one on the DL to make room.

Even still, as exciting as Gordon’s been, I wouldn’t consider him up for good. He’s reached base just twice in his last 21 plate appearances, sinking his season line to .246/.270/.295. Ludicrous speed is nice and all, but as the old saying goes, “you can’t steal first”. That doesn’t mean that I’m saying he needs to be sent down right now, of course; just that I’m not sure he’s proven himself enough that it’s really worth trying to make a veteran player make a position switch for him.

Rubby and Dee Hit the Big Time

June 7, 2011 at 11:23 am | Posted in Alex Santana, Dee Gordon, Jerry Sands, Pratt Maynard, Rubby de la Rosa | 21 Comments

Tonight in Philadelphia, Rubby De La Rosa will make his first MLB start. (As Joe Block notes, it’ll be just his 24th professional start since arriving in America.) Dee Gordon will likely make his first start at shortstop, though that’s not confirmed yet. (Update: now confirmed. He’s leading off, and Jerry Sands is in there too.)It’s a momentous day for both, and I’m trying to remember the last time we’ve looked forward to a Dodger game with such high anticipation. Ignoring Opening Day or other special events, when was the last otherwise nondescript regular season Dodger game that drew such interest? I suppose we have to mention Clayton Kershaw‘s debut in 2008 – “Like Christmas in May“, as I referred to it at the time. There’s also Manny Ramirez‘ Dodger debut later that year, or his return from suspension in May 2009. Other than that, though? Seeing Gordon and de la Rosa appear at the same time has to rank pretty high. This is all totally unscientific, of course, so tell me where this ranks for you.

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In Buster Olney’s ESPN column this morning, he noted that Jerry Sands had seen more pitches per plate appearance of anyone in Monday’s games, seeing 23 in 3 PA, an average of 7.7 per. Even when he’s not producing, it’s a clear sign that he’s also not helping the pitcher at all by getting himself out. For the season, he’s seeing 4.21 pitches per plate appearance. If he had enough PA to qualify, that would place him in a tie for 14th best in MLB. You might recognize some of the 13 names ahead of him, which include Jose Bautista, Adam Dunn, Jamey Carroll, Curtis Granderson, and Dustin Pedroia. Try not to look at the #1 name on that list, however. Trust me.

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The draft continues, as the Dodgers selected Florida high school third baseman Alex Santana (son of Rafael) in the second round, North Carolina State catcher Pratt Maynard in the third, and college RHPs Ryan O’Sullivan and Scott McGough in the fourth. (Jon Weisman also notes that the potential is there to see first round pick Chris Reed pitch for Stanford on Friday at 12pm on ESPN2.) The Santana pick is somewhat underwhelming – as Baseball America’s Jim Callis wrote, “Think Santana is the first guy who didn’t get full-writeup treatment in our state by state coverage” – but I’ve taken an unexpected shine to Maynard.

It helps that he’s a college catcher entering a system all but completely devoid of backstop talent, of course, and especially so because his speciality seems to be getting on base. But part of it is because his name sounds like a PCU fraternity brother of Carter Prescott III & Bantam Draper. Part of it is because moments after the selection, a woman claiming to be his aunt tweeted her excitement at me. Part of it is probably because I’ve always been infatuated with catchers who hit from the left side, and absolutely part of it is because when I did a Google image search for him, what you see at the right is what popped up.

I also came across a March post from Mariners blog MySeattleSports.com, outlining his virtues and hoping the Mariners would take him. It’s worth clicking through for the various reasons why.

Who’s Going to Lose Their Job When Marcus Thames Returns?

May 31, 2011 at 11:19 am | Posted in Jay Gibbons, Jerry Sands, Marcus Thames, Tony Gwynn | 52 Comments

Over the weekend, the Dodgers got some good news as far as the continued recovery of their legions of injured, as both Vicente Padilla and Marcus Thames began their rehab stints in the minors. Padilla threw two scoreless innings for Rancho Cucamonga, striking out one and allowing a hit, and he was reportedly back at Dodger Stadium for Monday’s game. He’ll likely need another outing or two in the minors, but may not be far from returning. When he does, there’s no shortage of young relievers in the current bullpen who could be sent back down to the minors to clear up a spot. (My money’s on Ramon Troncoso.)

Thames homered in his Albuquerque debut on Sunday, then went 0-4 on Monday. He played left field both days, and considering he was able to play in the field on consecutive days to start his rehab, we can do a bit of speculation and infer that he’ll be ready to return soon. But unlike with Padilla, there’s no obvious answer to the question of how he gets put back on the roster. So the question must be asked: who is about to lose their job for Marcus Thames?

Let’s get the obvious right out of the way and say that as much as we might pray for it, I don’t think there’s any chance that Juan Castro goes. If he’s cut, the club will have only four active infielders for the three non-1B spots in Casey Blake, Jamey Carroll, Rafael Furcal, & Aaron Miles. All four are at least 33, and I don’t need to remind you of the various injury concerns there. It’s not a risk the club would – or should – take at this point, though we may finally get rid of Castro when Juan Uribe returns later in June.

That means – assuming that they won’t drop from 12 pitchers to 11, which is extremely unlikely – that when Thames returns, we’re saying goodbye to Tony Gwynn, Jay Gibbons… or Jerry Sands. Let’s look at how they’ve been used since May 3, the day that Gibbons returned from the DL to take Thames’ spot.

There’s no typo there – Gwynn has just two hits in May as we enter the last day of play, and has only 16 on the season. Though he’s gotten into more games than anyone, he’s started just three; he’s been all-but-exclusively a defensive replacement, and if not for the fact that he had to replace Matt Kemp against Florida last week after Kemp was ejected, he might not have even had the chance to get that second hit.

Gwynn’s lack of production and low-impact role would seem to make this a simple choice… except for one issue: he’s the only one capable of playing center field other than Kemp, and he’s the only plus glove in what is generally a below-average defensive group. Sands and Ethier are average fielders on their best days, and Gibbons and Thames are really designated hitters who have been handed gloves. If Gwynn is gone, what happens if Kemp needs a day off or suffers a minor injury? Do we really want Thames or Gibbons out there in the 9th inning of a tight game when defense is crucial? Were you that entertained by Sands’ emergency appearance in center recently that we should make it a more regular thing?

So that leaves us with Gibbons or Sands… and here’s the part I don’t think you’re going to like. I think it’s going to be Sands heading back to the minors.* I don’t like it any more than you do, but just look at how the pieces are falling into place. (My arguments here are just how I imagine the team might think, not necessarily how I’d look at it, of course.)

*unless, of course, another injury – real or imagined – pops up in the next few days.

Thames is a righty power bat who can kind of sort of play left field & first base, as is Sands. If Gwynn is really just the defense guy, I can easily see Don Mattingly preferring a lefty/righty duo for this role in Gibbons and Thames, rather than two righties in Sands and Thames.
Sands has been good – dig that .371 May OBP – but you can’t argue he’s been great. This isn’t Russell Martin coming up and wowing in 2006; this is a guy who is hitting .221 with two homers. (This is where you chime in and note that Sands has shown much improvement since arriving and is tied with Kemp for the highest May OPS, at .784. I get it, and I agree. Just playing devil’s advocate here.)
Mattingly seems to like Gibbons, who has started nine of the last ten games (partially, I will admit, because Ethier’s injury opened up more playing time last weekend.) Gibbons hasn’t done much to repay that faith with indifferent offense and questionable defense.
The Dodgers have a long-established history of wanting to keep as many players under control as possible. Unless a veteran has been so bad that he’s just impossible to hang on to (I’m looking at you, Lance Cormier), they’ll usually wait as long as possible before dropping the DFA hammer. Sands has options. Gibbons does not.
With James Loney showing signs of life in recent days – the Dodgers having shown no inclination to dump him anyway – and Casey Blake now available to be a RH 1B on some days (along with Thames), there’s less of a need for Sands to be available to play first base.

I don’t like to think it either, but there’s plenty of reason to be worried that Gibbons sticks and Sands doesn’t when Thames returns, as crazy as it may sound to send down one of the team’s top offensive performers. To be honest, I don’t think the Dodgers really want to send out either, but they’re also not going to not activate Thames. So unless you think that they’ll really go down to 11 pitchers, risk cutting Castro and have just one backup infielder, or cut Gwynn and risk not having a backup center fielder, this is the choice you’re left with – unless you’re a true believer in the ‘phantom injury.’ (Hey, maybe Gibbons is still having eye issues?)

Let’s hear your opinion in the comments and the poll below.

Who Had a Better Night?

May 24, 2011 at 7:49 pm | Posted in Jerry Sands, Rubby de la Rosa | 25 Comments

Rubby De La Rosa, who not only was recalled to make his major league debut, but held a one run lead in the 8th by blowing away the heart of the Houston order in Hunter Pence, Carlos Lee, and Brett Wallace?

Jay Gibbons, who finally showed a pulse by hitting his first homer since 1972?

Javy Guerra, who notched his first major league save (the sixth Dodger this year with one) and helped avoid the total catastrophe that would have occurred had he blown another 9th inning lead the night after Kenley Jansen did?

Jerry Sands, who continued his ascent to stardom by hitting his first career grand slam, runs which were vital in a one run victory?

Chad Billingsley, who struck out nine and worked out of a bases loaded jam with only minor damage, and actually had the bullpen hang on to a lead for once?

Clearly, the answer is “none of the above”, and the winner of the night is actually us, for not having to suffer through Lance Cormier any more.

I’m joking (okay, only mostly), because after the events of this weekend and last night, this was a game the Dodgers absolutely had to have. I can’t remember ever feeling that a season was at a lower point than after Jansen coughed up the lead last night. The fact that tonight’s victory largely came on the back of the new wave of prospects – Sands, de la Rosa, and Guerra – only serves to make it sweeter, and though it’s just one game in a long season, it’s at least a positive step in the right direction.

Hiroki Kuroda Was Awful, and That’s The Least Of Our Problems

May 22, 2011 at 2:32 pm | Posted in Andre Ethier, Hiroki Kuroda, Jerry Sands, John Ely, Rafael Furcal, Rod Barajas | 49 Comments

At this point, if it weren’t so sad, it’d be funny.

Through three and a half innings, this was just another nondescript game in what’s quickly turning into a very forgettable season. The Dodgers were down 4-0, thanks to Hiroki Kuroda allowing first-inning homers to Alexei Ramirez and A.J. Pierzynski on his way to giving up nine hits and six runs (four earned) in 5.2 innings. (It should be noted that most of the last two innings fall under the category of “taking one for the team”, as mopup guys Lance Cormier and Ramon Troncoso each threw multiple innings yesterday.) With one out, the White Sox were threatening to add to the lead, having Gordon Beckham on first thanks to a Rafael Furcal error.

Pierre came up, and took a Kuroda meatball deep to right field. (The simple fact that Pierre was able to do that should tell you all you need to know about how ineffective Kuroda was today.) Andre Ethier went hard to the wall trying to come up with the ball, but was unable to, allowing Pierre to reach second. It was immediate from the moment it happened that Ether had injured himself, though while it initially appeared he’d hurt his shoulder, we later learned that it was a “right elbow contusion, lower right back contusion and sprained left big toe”. That’s three injuries for the price of one, apparently. Ethier stayed in for one more batter, a run-scoring single to right by Ramirez that Ethier clearly was hindered in getting to, before being replaced mid-inning by Tony Gwynn.

Pierre wasn’t done yet, however, apparently having decided he hadn’t caused enough damage to the Dodgers in his three years with the team. Having advanced to third on the Ramirez hit and standing firm while Adam Dunn walked, he took off for home on a Paul Konerko sacrifice fly to center. 95% of the time, Pierre scores on that ball without breaking a sweat, but Matt Kemp‘s laser throw made it a tight play. Kemp’s throw was just ever so slightly to the first base side, so Rod Barajas shifted to grab the ball and dove back to the plate to try and tag Pierre. He was unable to do so in time, but came away with a fun parting gift – Pierre’s spikes in his right wrist. Barajas stayed in for Pierzynski to strike out, and was hit for by Dioner Navarro in the next inning; while x-rays came back negative, he has a sprained right wrist and is “day to day”.

This was a day that had actually started with some optimism, as Furcal had returned and Casey Blake & Blake Hawksworth are each expected to within the next week. The Dodgers were one game away from finally winning a series in an AL park. Now? Now, they were just a Russ Mitchell last-second homer away from being swept, and have to quickly make some roster decisions. They’ve been playing shorthanded all weekend, with the combination of the extra hitter in the lineup at DH and the “active but unavailable” status of Aaron Miles & Juan Uribe before today meaning that the team had only two healthy bench players for the first two games of the series. That became three today when Furcal took Uribe’s spot, but while you can get away with that when you’re in the AL and not hitting for your pitchers, that’s not going to fly when they head back to the NL with a series in Houston tomorrow.

Uribe’s trip to the DL was the 15th disabling injury the Dodgers have had this season in less than two months, and it’s hard to believe that we won’t see at least one more in the next 24 hours, between the uncertain statuses of Miles, Ethier, and Barajas. Since the 40-man roster is pretty sparse at this point, the AAA call-ups would seem pretty straight forward: Ivan DeJesus for Miles, Jamie Hoffmann for Ethier, and A.J. Ellis for Barajas. My total speculative guess? Ethier and Barajas go to the DL, Miles does not. Barajas probably gets less leeway than Ethier does, because if he is unavailable for even a few days, you either have to call up Ellis or be comfortable with Mitchell as your backup catcher.

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Let’s not totally ignore some bright spots: As I joked on Twitter, James Loney is slowly moving into “not our biggest problem” territory, after reaching base three times today. That doesn’t mean that he’s suddenly become all that good or that I’ve changed my overall opinion on him, but he has doubled in three straight games and hit in 8 of 9 & 15 of 18, raising his line from an unbelievably bad .167/.191/.211 on April 23 to a more realistically poor line of .240/.283/.292 after today. With the rest of the injury and production issues mounting, and Loney still contributing his usual solid defense, he’s no longer the biggest concern. That said, he can’t afford any mental mistakes, like the one he made today by being doubled off of first on a Barajas pop-up caught by the second baseman in short right field.

In addition, Jerry Sands followed up his first career homer on Saturday with his first career four-hit game today. His OBP is now up to .330, which is far from great, yet still miles better than anyone on this team not named Kemp, Ethier, or Carroll. In May alone, his line is .289/.407/.467, which is a great sign. Like the Saturday homer, the first three hits were pulled to left field, which could be a sign that he’s becoming more comfortable. It’s also a good sign that the first two of those hits came against righty Edwin Jackson, as recent comments from Don Mattingly had me worried that Sands would be in a strict lefty/righty platoon with Jay Gibbons.

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Yes, Furcal went 0-5 with three strikeouts and an error, far from the spark we’d all hoped for. Still, it reminded me that we’ve seen this before. Last season, he missed nearly a month starting in April due to injury, returning in late May. In his first game back on May 25, the Dodgers went into Chicago and lost 3-0 to the Cubs. Furcal went 0-4 with two strikeouts and two errors that day in his return to the lineup.

Sound familiar at all? The good news is that after that day, Furcal hit .319/.381/.518 through May, June, and July, before being injured again in early August. He’ll need to have another run like that if this team is going to stay afloat.

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Bullet dodged: Ken Rosenthal reminds us that it could still be worse, passing along the news that Scott Podsednik signed a minor-league deal with the Phillies today. Frankly, I was shocked that Ned Colletti didn’t jump on him as soon as he was cut by Toronto a few weeks ago, and the timing here is key, particularly if Ethier is out for any significant period of time. Hey, remember when Podsednik turned down his half of a team option this winter? Yeah, me neither.

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(Update) I meant to add this originally, but there was good news from Albuquerque today as well. John Ely throw a complete game three-hitter today, needing 107 pitches to beat Reno. He struck out seven and walked just one. Christopher Jackson has the full story.

Jerry Sands Hits First Big League Homer

May 21, 2011 at 1:48 pm | Posted in Jerry Sands | 8 Comments

Ninety-six plate appearances into his big league career, Jerry Sands picked out a low 1-0 pitch from Mark Buehrle and golfed it into the left field stands for his first home run. The fact that he pulled it to left was most notable, after all the talk we’ve heard about his expertise in going the other way.

Congrats to Jerry. It was literally the only thing worth taking away from today’s 9-2 loss.