MSTI’s 2011 in Review: Starting Pitchers, Part 3

November 4, 2011 at 9:29 am | Posted in Hiroki Kuroda, John Ely, Ted Lilly | 16 Comments

You know the offseason has started to get fun when it’s been over a week since I’ve posted a Season in Review piece, thanks to all the hoopla over ownership and the signing of Juan Rivera. Before we completely turn the page to 2012, let’s continue our look back at 2011 with the third and final installment of starting pitchers, featuring two veterans who combined for 65 starts and a youngster who received just one.

Hiroki Kuroda (B+)
3.07 ERA, 3.78 FIP, 7.17 K/9, 2.18 BB/9

Here’s one of my favorite “pitcher wins and losses are stupid” notes yet: Kuroda set career highs in both wins (13) and losses (16) this year, which must of course mean that he had both the best and worst season of his career.

That’s ludicrous, of course, because the 36-year-old Kuroda had nothing but another productive season, breaking the 200 inning mark for the first time, though an uptick in home runs allowed made it slightly less valuable than in 2010. Kuroda got off to an especially good start this season, allowing three earned runs or fewer in five of his first six and seven of his first nine starts, but he didn’t always get the support he deserved, as we noted on June 14:

The failure of the bullpen and the inability of the offense to overcome it really has to make you feel for Hiroki Kuroda, as Steve Dilbeck points out at the LA Times blog. Kuroda was once 5-3, but has now been hung with five consecutive losses to push him down to 5-8. On the surface, it sounds like he’s struggled, but we know better; the Dodgers have scored eight total runs for him in those five games. While he deserves his share of the blame for the first two, games in which he allowed four and five earned runs, he’s allowed a grand total of five earned over his last three starts. All of them go in the books as losses, despite his season xFIP of 3.50.

And again on June 19:

For 7 1/3 scoreless innings on Sunday, the Dodgers looked likely to set us up for disappointment. Hiroki Kuroda had sailed through the first seven, allowing just five baserunners before Matt Guerrier threw a clean eighth. After a tough turn around the starting rotation, it was a much-needed boost from the veteran. But yet again, there was absolutely no support from the offense, as Bud Norris and Sergio Escalona held the Dodgers to harmless singles by James Loney and Dioner Navarro, and walks by Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. There’s a reason Kuroda has a losing record both for the season and his career, and it’s because of games like this.

And yet again on July 28:

If Wednesday night’s loss to Colorado was indeed the final start as a Dodger for Hiroki Kuroda, it came in the most appropriate fashion possible: six innings of one-run ball, twice as many strikeouts (six) as walks (three)… and yet another loss, since the inept Dodger offense couldn’t be bothered to put a run on the board until Rod Barajas‘ solo homer with one out in the ninth. (On a side note, another strike for pitcher W/L records; Kuroda, Blake Hawksworth, and Mike MacDougal all allowed the same damage of one earned run. Kuroda allowed that much over six innings, while Hawksworth did it in one and MacDougal in one and a third. Yet Kuroda is the one with the blemish on his record. Uh, okay.)

That inspired Jon Weisman to pass along this astonishing note:

Since May 22, Kuroda is 1-10 with a 3.38 ERA.

Of course, noting Kuroda’s misfortune was hardly what we’ll remember this season for, because the “will he or won’t he” question of whether he’d accept a trade at the deadline of a lost season swirled for weeks. Kuroda almost certainly would have been the most desirable starter on the market other than perhaps Ubaldo Jimenez, and could have brought the Dodgers a nice return. It’s amazing to think what might have been if Kuroda had accepted a deal to Boston, wouldn’t it? Perhaps the Red Sox might have avoided a full collapse, and Theo Epstein and Terry Francona might still be there.

Part of the speculation was fueled by Kuroda himself, since for most of July he refused to come right out and say that he would or would not accept a trade. Finally, one day before the trading deadline, he announced that he would be exercising his right to reject a trade and stay in Los Angeles. Though I respected his decision, I had to admit that I was disappointed at the time:

I look at it from more of a “wanting my team to win” point of view, and from that standpoint, it’s hard not to think that Kuroda has hurt the chances to do that, even if only in a small way. A few weeks ago, I noted that I would be more than okay with keeping Kuroda to soak up some innings over the last few months if the deal was just going to be a salary dump, with little in the way of talent coming back. Yet as dominoes have begun to fall over the last few days, we’ve seen that this particular trade season is shaping up as a clear seller’s market. Look at what Toronto was able to do in exchange for some relievers and eating a bad contract. Look how much the Orioles got for 36-year-old Koji Uehara, or the Mets for two months of Carlos Beltran, or the reported return for Ubaldo Jimenez if that goes through. With Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland (maybe) all having picked up starters, that left the Red Sox, Yankees, and Rangers to fight over Kuroda, the clear top remaining starter. That’s an enviable position to be in.

Instead, we have 8-10 more starts of Kuroda to look forward to, and that might be it if he decides to go back to Japan after the season. I know some will be happy with that, saying that it proves he’s “true blue” or makes the club better for the last two months, but I don’t really see what that accomplishes. At the end of the season, his current 6-13 record will be something like 8-17, and the team will still be several games under .500 and double-digit games out of a playoff spot. Having Kuroda around, or not, was not going to change the fortunes of the 2011 club. Trading him might have helped future versions of the club, teams he’ll have been long retired from, and while I’m glad he enjoys being a Dodger enough to invoke his no-trade clause, he could have also gone on a two-month road trip somewhere and re-signed in Los Angeles the day after the season ended, if he chose. His gain, short-term, is probably our loss, long-term, and it’ll be a bit hard for me to watch his next start without that thought in the back of my mind.

That came to fruition the very next day, when the dust had settled from the unexpected and unpopular Trayvon Robinson / Tim Federowicz deal:

Worse, there’s also the feeling that this goes back to Hiroki Kuroda‘s refusal to accept a trade. Boston writers Gordon Edes and Sean McAdam each reported that Federowicz and Juan Rodriguez were initially discussed in negotiations for Kuroda, an assertion backed up by Ned Colletti’s comments that Federowicz was someone he’d been eyeing for some time. (McAdam says that a third prospect likely would have been included, though he doesn’t state if that was Stephen Fife or not.) Kuroda was clearly higher on Boston’s starting pitching shopping list than Erik Bedard, so if he agrees to the deal, the Dodgers send two months of Kuroda to Boston for a package nearly identical to the one that ended up coming for Robinson. That’s a deal that I think most of us would have been pretty satisfied with – I know I’d have been – and Robinson would have remained in the system. Remember when I said I was disappointed in Kuroda’s choice? Yeah, that paid off a lot quicker than I thought it would.

I know the arguments on the other side of that, namely that Kuroda had the right to choose to stay and that he should be commended for his loyalty, or that Robinson wasn’t stellar in his short MLB debut in Seattle (which again, is totally beside the point) and I understand that. But as we saw, even though Kuroda pitched well down the stretch (slightly hampered by a neck injury) and the Dodgers played well, there was never any chance they were going to get back in the race, so that asset is now lost.

Still, that’s in the past, and for the third time in a year, we’re playing the “will he or won’t he” game with Kuroda, this time about if he’ll return to America for 2012. There’s no one who seriously thinks he’ll come back to MLB with anyone other than the Dodgers, and right now I put it at 70/30 odds that he will return for another season.

I hope he does. Kuroda’s been a solid performer and by all indications a good teammate, and the Dodgers are in the unique position of being (probably) the only team able to buy a valuable asset for one year when pitchers of similar value would require three or four.

Ted Lilly (C-)
3.97 ERA, 4.21 FIP, 7.4 K/9, 2.4 BB/9

Of the two main starters on this page, it’s a little surprising that it was Hiroki Kuroda who dealt with neck pain rather than Lilly, considering that the veteran lefty was the one who was constantly whipping his head around to see balls leaving the yard – hence the card picture, which come on, I had to use.

To be fair, Lilly improved greatly as the season went on, but we’ll get to that in a second. When he initially signed his 3/$33m deal last October, my reaction was less than positive:

So sure, I’m happy to see him back in 2011, but we can’t be short-sighted about this. Remember, Lilly just finished a 4-year, $40m contract, which is an average annual value of $10m/year. Somehow, despite being 4 years older, less than a year past shoulder surgery, and on the decline, the Dodgers saw fit to give him a deal which increases that value?

I’m not arguing that he wouldn’t have found a contract like that on the market, because he would have. I would have just preferred it be some other team to make a foolish investment. Spending money does not equal spending wisely, because while Lilly’s a good pitcher, he’s hardly a difference-maker, yet he’s being paid like one. Though I’m glad he’s back for 2011, I really think we’re going to regret this deal in 2012 and 2013 – which is basically exactly what I said about Blake’s deal after 2008.

The fact that it started with a $7.5m outlay this year and increases to $12m and $13.5m in 2012 and 2013, incredibly high numbers for a late-30s mid-rotation pitcher, doesn’t help to ease our uncertainty. The discomfort increased as Lilly failed to make it through five innings in either of his first two starts, and his ERA was still north of 5 even headed into his first start of August.

The funny thing is, as I look back through the year of posts, Lilly was just sort of “there”. He was rarely bad enough to get killed, nor was he effective enough that he really stood out. Scrolling through the database, I see more than a few times where I note a solid Lilly outing that avoided a “what’s wrong with Ted Lilly” post after several bad starts. Despite the seemingly outrageous homer rate, when I looked at him in June, that wasn’t the largest concern:

So what’s going on? Well, it appears to be two issues. First, despite the fact that I mentioned his K/BB hasn’t changed, he’s definitely missing fewer bats. He’s striking out more than a man less per nine innings, and his swinging strike percentage has sunk from 9.5% in 2009 to 8.9% in 2010 to 7.5% this year – and that last number is sure to fall further when tonight’s game is factored in. He’s walking fewer than he ever has as well, so that’s how the K/BB stays lower.

If you’re striking out fewer, you’re relying more on your defense, and that’s where we run into our second problem. According to Baseball Prospectus‘ “Defensive Efficiency”, the Dodgers currently rank 28th in MLB as far as turning balls into outs. So you’re seeing exactly what you’d expect to see when you have a pitcher who isn’t striking people out, and isn’t getting support from his defense. The problem is that I’m not sure how we see either of those items changing any time soon, particularly since Lilly is still signed up for his age-36 and age-37 seasons the next two years.

In July, you can see just how we felt about him during our midseason review:

Ted Lilly (D) (6-9, 4.79 ERA, 4.59 FIP)
Lilly hasn’t been awful (back, back, it’s gone!), but nor has he been (throw to second, and the runner is in!) in any way worthy of the $33m deal he received in the offseason. He’s (that ball is far, it is out of here!) striking out fewer than ever, and more (he’s going, and he swipes second without a throw) batted balls in front of a defense that isn’t great at converting them into outs isn’t (that ball is crushed into the second tier!) a good mix. Oh, and he’s 35 and has complained (Navarro’s throw to second, not in time, another steal!) of arm soreness already. Loving that three-year deal more than ever.

Not exactly the sort of start you’re looking to see in the first year of a multiyear deal, particularly from a player Lilly’s age, and at the time, there was little hope for improvement. Yet somehow, he did, perhaps based on this chat with Clayton Kershaw that provided really the only Lilly-based entertainment all season.

No, really: through the first 22 starts of Lilly’s season, the returns were poor, allowing 23 homers, a .791 OPS, and a 5.02 ERA. But beginning with a six inning, one run performance in San Diego on August 3, Lilly was practically a new pitcher; in his final 11 starts, he allowed just five homers, a .543 OPS, and a 2.09 ERA. We noted this on August 15:

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

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

Of course, one area he never improved at was holding runners on, where he allowed 35 steals against just two caught stealing, among the worst rates in baseball.

Despite the roundabout way in which he got there, Lilly had a basically average Ted Lilly season, despite another year of declining strikeout rates. His 4.21 FIP and 3.72 SIERA largely fall into line with what he’s been doing for years.

John Ely (inc.)
6.23 ERA, 5.67 FIP, 9.3 K/9, 5.2 BB/9

Geez, how long ago does “Ely-mania” seem right now?

Ely made only one start for the Dodgers this season, and even that was way back in April. That’s mostly due to the season-long health of the top four in the Dodger rotation, but also because Ely followed up a 6.22 AAA in 2010 with a 5.99 mark in 2011. The usual “yes, but Albuquerque” caveats apply, which, fine, but that’s still pretty ugly. (His home FIP of 4.52 and road FIP of 4.71 are at least a bit less stomach-turning.) Despite being called up in September as depth, he spent most of his time watching, logging just four innings over three unimportant games.

All of which is not to say that Ely has no place with the Dodgers. Every team needs a decent-ish 7th or 8th starter for a spot start here and there. I’d just recommend he get mighty comfortable in New Mexico.

******

Next! Javy Guerra, Proven Closer™! Scott Elbert‘s enormous comeback! And far too many words spilled on Vicente Padilla! It’s relievers, part 1!

Dodgers Recall Three to Not Face Stephen Strasburg and Nationals

September 6, 2011 at 1:04 pm | Posted in Ivan DeJesus, John Ely, Tim Federowicz | 22 Comments


With the AAA season at an end, the Dodgers have recalled three Isotopes to bolster the roster, according to Dylan Hernandez: Jerry Sands, John Ely, and Tim Federowicz. Not a single one counts as a surprise, and if anything that seems to say that we should not be expecting Ivan DeJesus or Jamie Hoffmann to be making cameos, since there’s no reason to delay their recalls. If anything, I’m more intrigued to see what happens when AA Chattanooga’s playoff run comes to an end, since there’s been a lot of fun names tossed around as possible callups from that club, names like Shawn Tolleson, Allen Webster, Scott Van Slyke and Cole St. Clair.

Of the three newcomers, only Federowicz is seeing the bigs for the first time, and it will be interesting to see how they’re used. Ely is simply depth, of course, who may or may not get a start down the stretch depending on schedules, health, and Dana Eveland. Ideally, Sands will see a healthy amount of playing time as the club attempts to see if he can be counted on in 2012. Considering that Juan Rivera has been awful for the last two weeks (and remember, he was already DFA’d once this season) and that James Loney has only his recent hot streak to fall back on, you’d think it wouldn’t be too difficult to get him time, but things have a way of getting complicated. (He is not in tonight’s lineup.) (Update: Hernandez later added this, which, yay: “Mattingly wants to see Sands. Could result in more days off for Ethier and Rivera.”)

Then there’s Federowicz, who I had given little chance of being recalled in September until the Dodgers cut Dioner Navarro, this making Federowicz the third catcher on the depth chart. My guess is that he’s here mostly to get acclimated to the bigs and serve as depth rather than see any real playing time since he’s still so raw (just 115 games above A-ball). (Update: Hernandez, killing it today, confirms this as well; Federowicz is unlikely to play before the last week or two.) With Rod Barajas telling Steve Dilbeck of the LA Times that he would very much like to return in 2012, the catching situation is certainly in flux. I absolutely wouldn’t give Barajas another $3.2m, but if he wants to stay a Dodger so badly that he’s willing to do so for $1.5m or less, I’d be okay with that, since even though he’s generally terrible, his power is rare among catchers and a Barajas/A.J. Ellis combo would allow Federowicz more time to mature in AAA. Federowicz will wear #31, and while that may invite Mike Piazza comparisons, I’ll settle for at least being better than Jay Gibbons.

Of course, none of the three callups need to worry too much about getting to the ballpark on time, since it’s been raining all day in the east and the much-hyped return of Stephen Strasburg looks unlikely to happen tonight, setting up a likely doubleheader for tomorrow. Beyond tonight, the weather looks terrible in the DC area all week, and the Dodgers don’t have a day off before flying to San Francisco to start a weekend series on Friday, which raises the fun-but-ultimately-meaningless question, what happens if all three games get washed out? It’s not likely, but remains possible; other than a three-game set to end the season in Arizona, the Dodgers don’t leave California for the rest of the year.

With both teams hopelessly out of the chase, the league could choose to just not make up the dates, leaving the Dodgers and Nationals with a 159-game season. It’s not at all rare for teams to miss one game and finish with 161 games, which has happened dozens of times. Even a 160-game season isn’t unheard of, which has happened 17 times, though not since the 1991 Cubs. But 159 games? Since MLB went to a 162-game schedule in 1961, and excluding the strike years of 1972, 1981, and 1994-95, it’s happened just ten times, and even then it’s been over three decades since the 1979 White Sox did it. Of course, even they can’t top the 1971 Orioles, who played only 158 games thanks to 13 home rainouts. (Hat tip to Bob Timmermann for that info.)

2011 Midseason Grades: Pitching and Management

July 12, 2011 at 9:29 am | Posted in Blake Hawksworth, Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw, Davey Lopes, Don Mattingly, Hiroki Kuroda, Hong-Chih Kuo, Javy Guerra, John Ely, Jon Garland, Jonathan Broxton, Josh Lindblom, Kenley Jansen, Matt Guerrier, Mike MacDougal, Ned Colletti, Ramon Troncoso, Rubby de la Rosa, Scott Elbert, Ted Lilly, Vicente Padilla | 37 Comments

Thanks for all the feedback on yesterday’s hitting grades, and today we move on to pitching and management. Remember, the letter grades are just for fun, without a whole lot of thought or science behind them.

Starting Pitchers

Clayton Kershaw (A+) (9-4, 3.03 ERA, 2.45 FIP)
Is A+ even high enough? I’m not sure it is, though we certainly expected great things from him. Think about this: his HR/9 rate and H/9 rate are unchanged from last year, but he’s managed to do that while lowering his walk rate (again!) and increasing his strikeout rate. He’s leading the league in whiffs, and he has two shutouts among his three complete games. He’s 23. He’s lefty. He’s an All-Star.

Don’t let anyone tell you that he’s progressing towards being an ace, or one day he could be one of the best. Clayton Kershaw is, right now, one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball. The scary part? He could still get better.

Chad Billingsley (B) (8-7, 3.87 ERA, 3.41 FIP)
Over at Baseball Prospectus this morning, Geoff Young of DuckSnorts offers the opinion that Billingsley “should be a star, but isn’t”. And that’s true. 26-year-old Billingsley is walking more and striking out less than 23-year-old Billingsley did in 2008. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because he’s still a very valuable asset and the extension he signed over the winter was welcomed, but he’s also not going to be a Kershaw-level star like we’d once hoped he would be. Again, that’s not to get on Billingsley, it’s just seemingly who he’s going to be – a durable #2 or 3 type who will be consistently inconsistent (3 starts this year of at least 8 IP and 1 ER or less, 3 starts allowing 5 ER or more). That’s not a star, but it is a quality pitcher we should be happy to have.

Hiroki Kuroda (B) (6-10, 3.06 ERA, 3.73 FIP)
Only five pitchers have received less run support than Kuroda (shockingly, no other Dodger appears on the top 40 of that list), so let’s not pretend the poor win/loss record means absolutely anything at all. Conversely, the ERA is a little misleading as well, since he’s striking out fewer and walking more than he did in either 2009 or 2010, facts which are reflected in the higher FIP. Still, he’s been a solid member of this rotation… and probably the only Dodger with any real trade value at the deadline. I’ll be sorry to see him go, if he does.

Ted Lilly (D) (6-9, 4.79 ERA, 4.59 FIP)
Lilly hasn’t been awful (back, back, it’s gone!), but nor has he been (throw to second, and the runner is in!) in any way worthy of the $33m deal he received in the offseason. He’s (that ball is far, it is out of here!) striking out fewer than ever, and more (he’s going, and he swipes second without a throw) batted balls in front of a defense that isn’t great at converting them into outs isn’t (that ball is crushed into the second tier!) a good mix. Oh, and he’s 35 and has complained (Navarro’s throw to second, not in time, another steal!) of arm soreness already. Loving that three-year deal more than ever.

Rubby De La Rosa (A) (3-4, 3.74 ERA, 3.40 FIP)
Probably the most impressive of any of the rookies pushed ahead of their schedule this year, de la Rosa has shown immense talent while being forced to learn on-the-job. While his first few starts were dicey – good lord, the walks, and that one game that he nearly got bounced in the first inning was a heart-stopper – RDLR has shown marked improvement, even flirting with no-hitters in each of his last two outings. The talent is unquestioned, but the real concern now is limited his innings, since he’s quickly coming up on matching his previous high with more than two months remaining in the season. But if he’s limited and if someone like Kuroda is dealt… how do you finish out the season? John Ely? Dana Eveland? Yikes.

Jon Garland (D-) (1-5, 4.33 ERA, 4.59 FIP)
Hey, remember when Garland was signed largely because he’d never been on the disabled list before? If you do, then you probably also remember him saying he couldn’t get multi-year deals because other teams didn’t like the looks of his medical reports. Garland gets a lousy grade not because of his performance (ignore the 1-5, a 4.59 FIP is in line with his usual season), but because he sells his durability as a skill. Clearly, that’s one item he forgot to pack for his second (and likely final) tour with the Dodgers. At least that large 2012 option won’t kick in.

John Ely (inc.) (0-1, 6.23 ERA, 5.61 FIP)
Remember Ely-mania last year? Seems so far away, doesn’t it?

Relief pitchers

Jonathan Broxton (MRI) (1-2, 7 saves, 5.68 ERA, 5.56 FIP)
I have absolutely no idea how to grade Jonathan Broxton. Was he good this year? No, of course he wasn’t, and for many people that justifies their opinion that at around midseason 2010, he somehow lost his heart / mind / balls / toes / earlobes / whatever. The fact that he somehow managed to even close out seven games earlier this year is somewhat misleading, because he rarely did so smoothly; conversely, it’s difficult to blame him entirely for the big blown save in Florida because the Dodgers would have won if Jamey Carroll had merely fielded a simple ground ball.

I’d say the answer lies in the fact that he’s been on the disabled list for over two months due to a right elbow injury, with no estimated return date. We never saw the healthy Broxton this year, just as I felt we never saw a healthy Broxton in the second half of last year. The lesson, as always? Joe Torre cannot be trusted with relievers. You hate to say it about a guy who is only 27, but Torre may just have ruined Broxton’s career. Thanks for stopping by, Joe!

Hong-Chih Kuo (-) (0-0, 8.71 ERA, 4.12 FIP)
Take everything I said about Broxton above and multiply it by 100 for Kuo, because the anxiety issue he’s been fighting for years makes it impossible to really judge his on-field performance. Since returning, he’s at least managed to limit the walks (6/2 K/BB in 5.2 IP), though the results (five runs, four earned) haven’t all been there yet. The fact that he even returned as quickly as he did should count as a win.

Kenley Jansen (B+) (1-1, 4.40 ERA, 3.15 FIP)
I bet a lot of people will be surprised by this grade for Jansen. “But his ERA is 4.40, rabble rabble rabble!”, they’ll yell. That’s true, it is. That number is also heavily inflated by two poor outings – allowing 5 earned runs to Atlanta on April 19 in a game that the Dodgers were already losing in, and allowing 3 earned runs on May 23 in Houston, a game which preceded his stint on the DL with right shoulder inflammation by less than a week. Since returning from injury on June 18, he’s been nearly untouchable, striking out 13 while allowing just two singles in 9.2 innings. While the walks remain a problem, he’s actually striking out more per nine than he did in 2010, and you might remember that even last year’s rate was on the verge of being historic. The question for me is, why is he stuck in middle relief and garbage time rather than in higher leverage situations?

Matt Guerrier (C-) (3-3, 3.10 ERA, 4.44 FIP)
Boy, who would have thought that handing out an expensive multi-year deal to a non-elite middle reliever wouldn’t have worked out well? Besides everyone, that is. Guerrier actually hasn’t been that bad, but that’s sort of the point: players who get $12m over three years should be able to do better than “hasn’t been that bad”. Though he’s striking out slightly more than he did as a Twin, he’s allowing both more walks and hits than he did in either of the last two years, despite moving to the easier league. He’ll be 33 in less than a month. It’s not a good trend.

Mike MacDougal (C+) (0-1, 1.67 ERA, 3.74 FIP)
2003 All-Star MacDougal has done an excellent job of reviving his career after several years bouncing between the bigs and AAA. MacDougal, who made the 2003 All-Star team as a member of the Royals, has just a 1.74 ERA, emerging as a leader of the injury-plagued Dodger bullpen. The former All-Star has allowed only six earned runs to score, putting him in contention for 9th inning responsibilities. All-Star.

(I can’t do it. MacDougal has allowed approximately 982 of the 48 inherited runners he’s received* to score. For nearly the entire season, he’d walked as many as he’d struck out, before finally giving himself some distance in recent days. He’s not a good pitcher, but like Aaron Miles, we expected nothing, so the small contributions he’s made get him some minor credit. *note: numbers may be fabricated.)

Number of Ortizii: 0 (A++++)
Say what you will about this club, at least they’re not employing anyone named Ortiz who was last useful 6-8 years ago, much less multiple players like that.

Javy Guerra (B+) (1-0, 4 saves, 2.33 ERA, 4.01 FIP)
Guerra, like MacDougal all those years ago, is a perfect example of why we shouldn’t overrate saves. For a guy who walked 6.8/9 in the minors last year and was forced to the bigs simply because of injuries, he’s been fine. He’s keeping the ball in the yard, he’s cut down on the control issues, and he’s even managed to steal a few saves while serving as the last-ditch closer. As far as debuts go, his has been a successful one. Let’s just not go overboard in anointing him as the man in the 9th inning, because he hasn’t been that good – 13 K in 19.1 IP doesn’t thrill me – and in each of his last two saves, he loaded the bases before getting out of the jam. That’s not the kind of tightrope you can walk for very long.

Blake Hawksworth (B) (2-2, 3.00 WHIP, 4.12 FIP)
“Isn’t Ryan Theriot“, and that alone gets him a boost. Actually, I joke, but it’s sort of true: when healthy, Hawksworth has been a perfectly acceptable and average reliever, doing a decent job of keeping runners off the bases (WHIP of 1.000), and striking out more than double as he’s walked. Considering that Theriot is doing his usual “I’m not a very good baseball player, but I am short and white, and that counts for something, right?” routine in St. Louis, even just getting that moderate level of contribution in exchange is a big win.

Scott Elbert (B-) (0-1, 5.25 ERA, 2.54 FIP)
I know there’s been a lot of turnover in the bullpen this year, but Elbert is one of those guys where I constantly have to check if he’s still on the team or down in ABQ. I suppose that’s partically because he’s pitched just twice in the last two weeks, and partially because he’s rarely in for more than 2-3 batters at a time. As for his performance, he’s a bit of an oddity in that you’d expect a power lefty to be hell on lefty hitters, but he’s actually rocking a reverse split: lefties (.701 OPS) are actually doing more damage than righties (.561 OPS) against him. Overall, I guess you can say he’s been “acceptable”, in that he’s finally gained a foothold in the majors, but hasn’t exactly made us think he’s going to be a difference maker.

Then again, considering his mysterious disappearance at this time last year, even that is a massive step forward.

Ramon Troncoso (D) (0-0, 6.23 ERA, 4.92 FIP)
I know it’s popular to blame Torre for Troncoso’s downturn as well, and maybe that’s part of it, but I do remember writing a post last year that outlined how he had larger issues than overuse. Whatever it is, he’s barely a major league quality pitcher right now… which probably explains why he’s not in the major leagues. That’s what’ll happen when you aren’t striking anyone out and giving up an absurd amount of hits, though I’ll allow that since he was never a strikeout guy, pitching in front of a defense that does no favors probably doesn’t help.

Ronald Belisario (MIA)
Ha, no. There’s about as good of a chance that he pitches for the Dodgers again as there is that you’ll see Orel Hershiser or Don Drysdale out there.

Josh Lindblom (B+) (0-0, 1.69 ERA, 3.43 FIP)
Nearly two years after we first thought we might see him, Lindblom finally got the call this year, and so far, so good. It’s hard to make judgements based on just eight games, but he’s yet to allow more than one earned run in an appearance, and for now, that’s good enough.

Lance Cormier (dFa) (0-1, 9.88 ERA, 6.84 FIP)
I’m still convinced the only reason Cormier wasn’t DFA’d a week or two earlier than he eventually was (on May 24, when Rubby De La Rosa came up) is because he had a charity event for tornado victims set up at the stadium on May 15, and it would have been poor form to cut a guy just before or after that. I also like that we can say “nah, he wasn’t as bad as his ERA, look at his FIP” and while that’s true, even his FIP says he was awful.

Vicente Padilla (inc.) (0-0, 4.15 ERA, 2.61 FIP)
I sure do feel like we’ve talked about Padilla a lot this year for a guy who piched just 8.2 innings. First he was signed to a somewhat confusing 6th starter/longman/Broxton insurance role, in a move for depth I actually really liked. Then he required surgery for a forearm injury in the spring, preventing him from taking Garland’s rotation spot to start the year. He returned exceptionally quickly from that, taking over for the injured Broxton to nab three saves of varying quality in late April and early May, leading many to proclaim him the next big thing… until he returned to the DL with a recurrence of the arm injury. But the fun doesn’t stop there, because he was supposedly hours away from being activated in June before a neck injury flared up, leading to more surgery and probably the end of his season. Got all that? Phew.

Management

Don Mattingly (B+)
It may sound odd to praise a rookie manager when we weren’t fans of his hiring in the first place and when the club he’s leading is on pace for its worst finish in decades, but I don’t see how you pin much of this mess on Mattingly. He’s proven himself to be far more than a Joe Torre clone, in particular showing a nice willingness to be creative with his bullpen. It hasn’t been perfect, as some of his Navarro-related pinch-hitting escapades still burn, and he likes bunting more than I’d prefer, but he was handed a subpar roster that had its infield and bullpen totally destroyed by injuries, all as fans stayed away thanks to the off-field mess. It would be an impossible situation for any manager, and though the final record won’t be good, Mattingly has been a pleasant surprise, managing to keep the team playing hard through it all. Let’s just hope he doesn’t end up shouldering more of the blame than is needed when all is said and done.

Davey Mutha-F’ing-Lopes (A+^100)
I don’t usually grade the base coaches. Matt Kemp doesn’t usually lead the league in WAR. There you go.

Ned Colletti (F+)
Let’s quickly review all of the contracts handed out last winter by Colletti that were for at least $1m, shall we? Uribe, massive bust. Lilly, missing fewer bats than ever. Guerrier, adequate but overpaid and having one of the lesser years of his career. Garland and Padilla, both injured multiple times and likely out for the year. Barajas, crappier than usual and hurt. Thames, ineffective and injured. Navarro, hitting .183. To be fair, Kuroda has been very good, but it’s hard to say that without caveating that he clearly took a huge paycut to stay in LA.

There’s been a few positives – signing Billingsley was great, the no-risk NRI of Miles worked out, and trading Ryan Theriot for Hawksworth was a good move if you try to forget that it was necessitated by acquiring Theriot in the first place – and you want to be sensitive to the fact that the ownership mess has really put him in a bad position. But overall? Not good, Ned. Not good.

******

Tomorrow, the final review of the series: me.

The Injury Merry-go-round Keeps On Spinning

June 4, 2011 at 9:50 am | Posted in Ivan DeJesus, John Ely, Jon Garland, Rafael Furcal | 20 Comments

Per the official Dodgers Twitter feed, Rafael Furcal and Jon Garland have each been placed on the disabled list, as the team will go with a 23-man roster going forward. I suppose that’s only half true – Ivan DeJesus and John Ely are headed to join the team for the third and second time this season, respectively – but based on how little we saw DeJesus in his previous stints, there’s little reason to believe he’ll get any more of a shot now, particularly with Juan Uribe expected to return in the next 24-48 hours. Actually, I’m not even sure why DeJesus is bothering to get on the plane; when Uribe is activated, is there really any chance they’re not just going to send him right back down so they can keep Juan Castro?

As for Ely, he’s had a very bizarre season in Albuquerque. He dazzled Reno, one of the top hitting clubs in the PCL, with a three-hit shutout on May 22. But in his two starts since, he’s been crushed, allowing 11 baserunners in three innings to New Orleans on May 29, and then nine hits (including two homers) to Memphis on Wednesday. What makes all that so weird is that for all we’ve heard about the high-offense environment of Albuquerque, the Reno shutout was at home, while the last two disasters have been on the road. While there’s some argument to be made that he should get Garland’s start in order to protect Rubby De La Rosa, the team has made it pretty clear that de la Rosa will get the ball, and Ely’s poor last two times out makes it hard to dispute that. That said, he’ll probably be used in tandem, as de la Rosa’s unlikely to go deep into that game.

We’re still awaiting an official report on Furcal, but all indications are that he’s pulled his oblique muscle, an injury that can take weeks to heal even in the best of conditions. Furcal’s hardly wowed us with his durability, so I wouldn’t expect to see him until at least mid-July. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for him to get healthy and productive to impress any potential suitors before the deadline, which, as you can tell, is my main priority right now. I sure hope Hiroki Kuroda enjoys pinstripes, though.

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.

******

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.

******

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.

******

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.

******

(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.

You’ve Seen This Game Before

April 10, 2011 at 4:10 pm | Posted in Hector Gimenez, John Ely, Jon Garland | 24 Comments

If you didn’t watch today’s game, then you didn’t miss anything you haven’t already seen, unless you’ve somehow managed to miss the awful San Diego camouflage uniforms before. Seriously, let’s run though the list of what happened this afternoon, and tell me that I couldn’t be describing 90% of the other games we’ll see this year, wins or losses:

Part of the Dodger scoring came from friendly opposition defense. Just as we saw in the opening San Francisco series, some of the Dodger scoring came directly as a result of poor defense. After Matt Kemp singled and stole second, James Loney grounded weakly back to pitcher Aaron Harang, who attempted to get Kemp at third but threw wildly to the fence, allowing Kemp to score. The first run wasn’t exactly a fireworks display either; Tony Gwynn singled, stole second, was sacrificed to third, and came home on a fielder’s choice.

The outfield provided all of the offense. Kemp, Andre Ethier (on his 29th birthday) and Gwynn had the only four Dodger hits and both runs, with Ethier getting the only RBI and Kemp & Gwynn each notching steals. Kemp and Ethier are off to good starts, but Gwynn’s been a pleasant early-season surprise too, even collecting his first walk today. This kind of production from the outfielders is great, but it’s only going to get you so far when…

Juan Uribe, James Loney, Rod Barajas & Aaron Miles provided absolutely nothing. Nothing. The foursome combined to go 0-for-12, with Loney ending the game by grounding into a double play, and with Barajas the only one who isn’t showing at least 2/3 of his triple-slash line in the .100s. (Jamey Carroll went 0-3 as well, but I’m exempting him here because he’s at least shown some life this season.) I’m still confident that Uribe and Barajas will at least start to add some power to their generally lousy production otherwise, so we can be a bit patient there. Loney, well, we know all about – completely unrelated, Jerry Sands hit his second homer of the season for ABQ today – and Miles has no place on a big-league roster whatsoever.

Don Mattingly’s batting orders will always confound me. I don’t particularly like the idea of putting Gwynn leadoff, but I suppose on a day where Rafael Furcal is sitting I can see the case for it. But Aaron Miles hitting second, really? The guy who is, by one measure, the fourth-worst player in baseball over the last eight seasons? I get, of course, the idea that batting orders generally don’t mean as much as we like to think they do, but Miles shouldn’t even be on the team. Letting him generate outs in front of Ethier and Kemp, particularly while Carroll is buried at 8th, makes no sense.

Pitchers who don’t belong on major league rosters aren’t going to produce. Actually, that’s a bit harsh on John Ely, because his line of four earned runs in 5.2 innings leaves him with an ugly 6.35 ERA, with no expectation to have a chance to change that any time soon, but it obscures what was mostly a decent spot start. Ely’s basically the club’s 7th starter, but managed to work into the sixth inning having allowed just two runs before running into trouble. There’s plenty of teams who can’t get that out of their third starter, and Ely wasn’t going to win today anyway due to the offense, so overall I’m satisfied with that out of a fill-in guy. Really, I’m referring more to Lance Cormier here, who gave up two hits and a walk in allowing two runs in his one mop-inning.

Now tell me none of that sounds familiar? Of course it does, and it’s partly why the Dodgers have the second-worst run differential in the National League, ahead of only Houston. (That is, of course, also largely due to the 10-0 loss to the Giants, and that’s something that won’t last throughout the season.)

For all of that, of course, the Dodgers did win two out of three in this series, and head to San Francisco tomorrow with Clayton Kershaw on the mound against Madison Bumgarner.

******

Before the game, Hector Gimenez was placed on the disabled list with an all-too-convenient knee injury, opening up a spot for Ely. I joke about the timing because the spot was needed and we hadn’t heard anything about this until now, but Tony Jackson reports that A.J. Ellis was already packing his bags for Albuquerque before being told to stop, so apparently it’s real. Ellis is more valuable than Gimenez anyway, so I consider that a win.

Ely will almost certainly be returned to AAA in time for tomorrow’s game, with an extra arm (Ramon Troncoso, Scott Elbert, Travis Schlichting) or additional bat (Jamie Hoffmann, Russ Mitchell) coming up to round out the roster for the week. Whomever does come up would do well to travel light, since they’d be heading back down for Jon Garland on Friday. Garland allowed six hits and three runs in 4.2 innings for Rancho Cucamonga in a rehab start today.

Hold On, Ely’s Coming

April 7, 2011 at 1:15 pm | Posted in John Ely | 25 Comments

(Update: Completely unexpectedly, I’ve been invited to be on Sirius/XM Fantasy Baseball tonight at 8:35p ET / 5:35p PT, so tune in.  XM 147 / Sirius 211.)

It’s an off-day, so at least the Dodgers can’t get shut out, right? Hey, it could be worse: the Red Sox are 0-6 and the population of Boston is about to plummet by 40% as half the inhabitants line up to leap off the Tobin Bridge. I joke, but so far we’re seeing exactly what we expected: relatively good starting pitching, a hit-or-miss bullpen, and just about no offense. Can’t say you’re surprised, right?

All indications are that John Ely will be recalled to make the Saturday start in San Diego, and I couldn’t agree with the decision more. If Ely’s going to succeed, there’s no better place than in Petco Park. Besides, as I laid out the other day, it makes no sense to DFA someone to recall Tim Redding, then risk losing him on his own DFA after one start. Since Jon Garland is all but certain to be ready the next time the spot comes up, it’s far, far easier to just call up Ely for one start and then send him back down immediately after. The question then becomes, of course, who loses their job on the 25-man roster; that would almost certainly be A.J. Ellis, simply because he has options left and the Dodgers are carrying three catchers. Ellis couldn’t be recalled for 10 days following his demotion (unless Hector Gimenez was injured), so you might see one of the rest of the usual grab-bag of roster fodder called up to sit on the bench before Garland is activated – Scott Elbert, Travis Schlichting, Russ Mitchell, or Jamie Hoffmann.

Speaking of the Isotopes, Chris Jackson of the Albuquerque Examiner kindly stopped by my comments section to lay out the early-season rotation. Dana Eveland starts the opener tonight, followed by Carlos Monasterios tomorrow, Randy Keisler (!) on Saturday, Alberto Bastardo in place of Ely on Sunday, and Redding on Monday.

On to other notes of the day…

******

If you’ve been reading this blog for even a second, you know how little I think of saves, a statistic that tells you nothing about performance yet has completely changed the way the game is managed. Come on, the guy who comes into a bases-empty situation against the 6-7-8 hitters in the 9th is more valuable than the guy who gets out of a two-on, one-out jam against the meat of the lineup in the 8th just because of what inning it is? Please. In the same vein, blown saves are even worse offenders.

It’s with that in mind that I heartily recommend this look at “Shutdowns” and “Meltdowns” from FanGraphs, which even the article admits are nearly a year old but which I hadn’t known about until now. A quick definition:

Using Win Probability Added (WPA), it’s very easy to tell exactly how much a specific player contributed to their team on a game-by-game basis. If a player increased his team’s win probability by 6% (0.06 WPA), then they get a Shutdown. If a player made his team 6% more likely to lose (-0.06), they get a Meltdown. These cutoff points put Shutdowns and Meltdowns on a similar scale as Saves and Holds, meaning that 40 shutdowns is roughly as impressive as 40 saves. While the WPA aspect can take a bit to explain to saber newbies, having Shutdowns and Meltdowns on the same scale as Saves makes it much easier for new people to accept and understand.

This eliminates the difference between “closers” and “everyone else” and makes the 9th inning less important. As the article goes on to state, all-timers like Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman still rank at the top (no one would buy the stat if they didn’t), but quality non-closing arms like Arthur Rhodes get their due as well. I recommend the full read; for the record, Jonathan Broxton‘s 2010 doesn’t appear on the noted leaders of either side, though Hong-Chih Kuo ranks 2nd in terms of highest ratio of Shutdowns to Meltdowns.

******

As usual, I think T.J. Simers’ take on the ballpark violence issue is a bit over the top, because his schtick is well-known and his “data” consists of people emailing him to complain, as though anyone nutty enough to take Simers seriously was really going to write in to say “no, everything’s cool!” On the other hand, he’s taking the opportunity to turn this into yet another example of how the ownership of Frank McCourt has ruined the Dodgers – apparently Frank’s now even responsible for driving families away from games – so if Simers wants to take the approach of driving public opinion even further against Frank McCourt, that’s fine by me.

What happened to Bryan Stow (who is reportedly stabilizing) is no joke, of course, and we all hope not only for the best for him but also that his assailants are found and prosecuted. I suppose I’m just having a difficult time with the perception that this is some kind of Dodger Stadium-specific crisis, as though idiots don’t do awful things at football games in Philadelphia or basketball games in Miami. Yes, there should be more security, but you could have guards every 20 feet and you still couldn’t stop someone from randomly punching someone else. I’m all about personal responsibility, and the blame ought to be directed at the two animals who attacked an innocent fan.

Then again, when you’ve fired your head of security and neglected to replace him – as McCourt did last year – it’s hard to drum up a whole lot of sympathy for him, especially with his flaccid public statements on the matter. Just another black mark on the McCourt era, I suppose, and hardly the last. Yes, he hired former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton this week, which is nice, but that’s a move that can’t be seen as more than reactionary to this crisis.

******

Speaking of McCourt, there’s a whole lot of talk lately that he’s close to making another deal with FOX about television rights, and if Bud Selig blocks the deal, McCourt would sue; the idea being that while his first proposed deal was denied based on FOX getting a below-market rate on rights, this deal would be more fair. I’ve even seen some people saying that Selig has no standing whatsoever to block the deal, since he’s approved similar deals in the past.

I prefer Buster Olney’s take, though:

Baseball’s biggest concern with the deal that Frank McCourt’s representatives are proposing is that it really doesn’t benefit the Dodgers franchise. The money that McCourt would receive wouldn’t be thrown into the baseball operations; it would be used to deal with McCourt’s debts.

Exactly. To put it in terms we’re all familar with, the Dodger television rights are a f’n valuable thing, man. Why should we want to let McCourt use them to bail out his own personal mess? This is the kind of thing that could hamstring the franchise for years to come.

******

Lastings Milledge got DFA’d by the White Sox. The Dodgers won’t go after him, of course, and they’re overloaded with outfielders as it is. I’d prefer him to Jay Gibbons, though.

******

Finally, and I’m a few days late on this, congratulations to Howard Cole of Baseball Savvy for his new gig blogging Dodgers over at the Orange County Register. He’s also selected the top ten Dodger blogs, and I’d say he’s chosen wisely.

There’s No Such Thing As Pitching Depth

March 9, 2011 at 1:15 pm | Posted in John Ely, Jon Garland, Tim Redding | 25 Comments

For all the happy thoughts about the seemingly solid Dodger starting rotation, I never thought that the front five of Clayton Kershaw / Chad Billingsley / Ted Lilly / Hiroki Kuroda / Jon Garland was going to last through the entire season. You knew that Vicente Padilla would get some starts when injuries hit, and it wouldn’t stop there. John Ely was going to get a crack. Blake Hawksworth, perhaps, or Carlos Monasterios, or a retread like Tim Redding. That’s just a fact of life.

But if you really thought you’d be dipping into the extra guys a week before St. Patrick’s Day, raise your hand, because you’ve won a prize, inasmuch as watching Tim Redding pitch can be a prize.  That’s because Bill Shaikin, Ken Gurnick, and half of my Twitter feed are reporting that Jon Garland just left his start in the second inning clutching his side. As Shaikin notes, it for all the world looked like an oblique injury, and that’s generally a recovery that’s measured in weeks, not days. (Update: Shaikin is reporting that Garland says it is indeed his oblique.)

Let’s be clear right now that we don’t know yet the details are going to be, other than that he came out. So any speculation on who might replace him is far, far too premature… but that’s certainly not going to stop us from doing it anyway. Padilla was the obvious answer, yet he’s down with his own injury, so that leaves with Ely, last season’s short-lived hero, or Redding, who didn’t pitch in the bigs last year and had a 5.10 ERA in 2009. Each have had excellent starts to the spring, with Redding scattering six hits over eight scoreless innings, and Ely striking out seven against zero walks in six scoreless innings. There’s still plenty of camp left, but it’s hard for me to root against Ely.

There’s also another option, one that I was thinking about but was beaten to the Twitter punch about by Eric Stephen of TrueBlueLA. Since the Dodgers have several off-days in the first portion of the season, they could conceivably make it until April 10 or 12 without needing a fifth starter. If that’s the case, they could avoid Xavier Paul‘s out-of-options status by carrying him to start the year, with Garland on the DL. They could then make a move to either activate Garland or recall Ely/Redding for that game.

That probably wouldn’t do much to help Paul’s long-term Dodger fortune, though it at would at least allow him the opportunity to stick around for two more weeks in case another hitter comes up with an injury, and as we’ve seen this spring, that’s not altogether unlikely.

So while we wait for news on Garland, keep these two nuggets in mind. #1, if you didn’t like Garland, this might help have him not pitch enough innings to get that 2012 option to vest, and #2, rather than be disappointed that the extra depth didn’t last, just imagine what things would have looked like if the team hadn’t come to camp with six starters. Ugly, right?

Who Will Make Up the 2011 Albuquerque Isotopes?

December 21, 2010 at 9:40 am | Posted in A.J. Ellis, Albuquerque Isotopes, Dee Gordon, John Ely, Jon Link, Oscar Villarreal, Scott Nestor | 44 Comments

Last weekend, my friends at River Ave. Blues took a stab at predicting what the AAA roster for the Yankee farm club in Scranton might look like in 2010. I found it interesting, and I liked it, so I’m going to shamelessly steal the idea and apply it to the Dodgers. 

Let’s be clear that it’s not even Christmas yet, and this is all subject to change. Trades could happen. Injuries could happen. Prospects who we expect to see in AAA could start the year in AA, or vice-versa. More veterans can (and almost certainly will) be invited to camp on non-roster contracts, and while some will end up in ABQ, some will wash out entirely.

All that said, I had a surprisingly easy time putting the 24-man (yes, 24) Isotope roster together, especially for a team that ran 66 players through town last year. Let’s check it out.

Offense

C: Seven players suited up behind the plate for the Isotopes in 2010, though the majority of the work went to Luke May, who’s now in Kansas City. With the signing of Dioner Navarro, A.J. Ellis likely starts his fourth AAA season as the main backstop. I like to think he has a chance of beating Navarro out with a good spring, but if the Dodgers were foolish enough to give Navarro a $1m MLB contract, they’re probably not cutting him short of disaster. Last year’s backup, JD Closser, was re-signed recently and is likely to fill the same role again. There’s a non-zero chance of Hector Gimenez, inexplicably added to the 40-man roster, pushing aside Closser, but we’ll stick with the veteran for now.

1B: John Lindsey‘s not DFA’d yet, but he soon will be to clear up badly-needed space on the 40-man roster. One would think that he’d be willing to sign a minor league deal to return, though it’s hardly a certainty. For now, let’s say that he will. Prospect Jerry Sands will see some time at first base as well.

2B: There’s still a chance that Ivan DeJesus forces his way onto the Opening Day roster in Los Angeles, moving Juan Uribe to 3B and Casey Blake to LF. I consider that to be less than a 50% chance, however, so it’s more than likely that DeJesus starts 2011 as the Isotope second baseman.

3B: Russ Mitchell made his Dodger debut in 2010, but he fulfilled low expectations by being pretty awful. Some may say that he’s in the running for a bench job in 2011; I just don’t see it, and there’s not really anyone behind him to play 3B in ABQ anyway. He starts here, at least in April.

SS: Here’s the first real question mark. Dee Gordon received an aggressive promotion to AA Chattanooga last year, and was good but not great. He noted on his Twitter recently that he had not yet been told whether he’ll start the year in AA or AAA. Much probably depends on his spring performance, and neither would surprise me; if I had to pick right now my guess is that he’ll probably start in AA and move up later in the year. That’d leave Justin Sellers, who hit an ABQ-fueled .867 OPS last year, to remain as the Isotope shortstop.

LF: Though he’ll play some first base as well, Jerry Sands likely sees the bulk of his time in left field. After his impressive tear through the minors last year, it’ll be fun to see what he can do at ABQ, and it’s not out of the question to think he can make it to Los Angeles by September.

CF: Joining Sands in the outfield will almost certainly be Trayvon Robinson, who had a very good year in AA last season and has nothing left to prove in Tennessee. He’s already on the 40-man roster, and he could also be a candidate for an MLB callup at some point in 2011.

RF: Jamie Hoffmann may have a better chance at winning a big league bench gig than you think. He’s right-handed, has big-league experience, and he’s a plus defender, attributes which fit perfectly on the current roster. Still, while we’ll see him at some point, I’m doubting it’s to start the season. Trent Oeltjen, who played 41 games in RF last year before being recalled, and who recently re-signed with the Dodgers, will also get plenty of time.

Bench: Former Giant Eugenio Velez, signed to a minor-league deal which I surprisingly did not hate, will battle for an MLB job but likely fills the role of AAA utility guy. He can play 2B and all three OF spots. Whomever isn’t starting between Oeltjen and Hoffmann on a given day will fill one spot, as well. Then there’s Juan Castro, who you may remember as one of the worst hitters in the history of the big leagues. I cannot imagine he makes the big league team, yet as I noted when he was signed, he doesn’t generally end up in the minors. So I’m going to say that he doesn’t go to Albuquerque, and the spot is filled by either a veteran NRI we’re not aware of yet or Travis Denker, who has some MLB experience and ended last season in Albuquerque. My guess is that’ll last only until Gordon is recalled, and Sellers is pushed into a reserve role.

Others: Xavier Paul & Chin-lung Hu are no strangers to AAA, and neither seems to have a spot saved for them on the big club. However, both are out of options, so expect one or both to be traded. Paul would have almost no chance of slipping through waivers, so he wouldn’t be back in Albuquerque; Hu may make it through, but even that’s unlikely.

C – A.J. Ellis
C – JD Closser
1B - John Lindsey? 
2B – Ivan DeJesus
SS – Justin Sellers
3B – Russ Mitchell
IF – Travis Denker / NRI
LF – Jerry Sands
CF – Trayvon Robinson
RF – Jamie Hoffmann
OF – Trent Oeltjen
UT – Eugenio Velez

Pitching – Starting Rotation

I’ve given 12 spots to offense, and that leaves 12 left for the pitching staff.

The rotation is a little easier to peg than in previous years, because there’s not a mess of guys competing for the 5th starter role on the big club. So while I do expect we’ll see someone like John Ely at some point in the season, he’s definitely starting 2011 in AAA. The same goes for Carlos Monasterios, now that he’s finished his Rule V status and is Dodger property; though he was more effective as a reliever in the bigs, he needs innings more than anything and so likely slots into the Isotope rotation.

They’ll be joined by veterans Dana Eveland, who signed a minor-league deal in November, and I believe Tim Corcoran, who started 18 games last year. I can’t find evidence of Corcoran having re-signed, but the Albuquerque Examiner refers to him as a “returning veteran”, so I’ll take that as close enough. (Update: in the comments, Chris Jackson of the Examiner directs me to this Baseball America link confirming Corcoran’s re-signing. Thanks, Chris.)

For the 5th spot… well, who knows. This is a great spot for an NRI, or an injured big leaguer who starts the year on rehab. I’m going to start with Brent Leach, who you may remember as a reliever with the Dodgers in 2009. He spent 2010 transitioning to a starter, and it didn’t go particularly well. Still, he’s 28 now, so it’s now or never. (Commenter Jeromy points out that Leach signed in Japan yesterday. Oh well.) Or maybe it’s Antonio Bastardo, who’s seen AAA time in each of the last two seasons but has never been able to stick. Maybe it’s Rubby De La Rosa, who had a breakout year last year but probably needs more than 8 AA games, or Mario Alvarez or Jesus Castillo, who each will be 26 and started 19 games in AA last year. Or even Chris Withrow, who started more games at AA than anyone last year and is still just 22, but had a pretty disappointing year. Likely, it’s some combination of all of them.

Remember, though, as often as the 5th rotation spot tends to change in the big leagues, it’s even crazier in the minors. The Isotopes had 22 starting pitchers last year, though several were rehab one-offs, so whomever begins as the final starter certainly won’t end that way.

Pitching – Relievers

The bullpen’s even tougher to predict. Are Travis Schlichting, Jon Link, and Ramon Troncoso likely going to be squeezed out by the overstuff big league staff? Most likely, but they’ll all almost certainly get their chances in LA as well as injuries mount. Throw in Josh Lindblom to that mix, who seems perpetually on the edge of breaking through but just hasn’t been able to make it happen, and Oscar Villarreal, signed as a veteran free agent. I’m also going to include Scott Elbert here, because even though I do think he has a chance to be the second lefty in the big league bullpen, his disastrous and mysterious 2010 makes it not the worst idea in the world for him to start off in the minors.

For the last spot? Pick a name out of a hat. Maybe it’s another veteran NRI, like Justin Miller last season. Maybe Jesus Rodriguez, who pitched 27 not-very-effective games for the club last year. Maybe former first-round pick James Adkins, who struck out 9.9/9 in AA in 2010, or Javy Guerra, who impressed for the Lookouts, or Wilkin De La Rosa, who just recently signed from the Yankees. Like with the #5 starter, this is a spot which will rotate constantly. I’m going to start with a dark horse, 28-year-old Jon Huber, who pitched in AA last year and re-signed last month. He has some big-league experience with Seattle and had a fantastic 48/11 K/BB with Chattanooga; I doubt he would have signed without a decent chance to move up a level. Again, we’ll see plenty of guys there.

SP – John Ely
SP – Dana Eveland
SP - Tim Corcoran
SP – Carlos Monasterios
SP - Bastardo / Alvarez / NRI

RP – Travis Schlichting
RP – Ramon Troncoso
RP – Scott Elbert
RP – Jon Link
RP – Josh Lindblom
RP – Oscar Villarreal
RP – Jon Huber / NRI

I don’t consider myself a prospect expert, so feel free to disagree with me, and we all know there’s still going to be some movement around the edges, but I think this is pretty close. And honestly, it’s not a bad group. There’s some star potential in Robinson and Sands – more if Gordon makes it – some decent offensive depth in Ellis, Hoffmann, Velez, and Oeltjen, and a ton of relief options. Really, the only weakness here is in the rotation, where Eveland and Corcoran are disposable veterans and neither Ely nor Monasterios offer high-ceiling potential. That said, Ely & Monasterios have each had their moments in the bigs and are far superior to last year’s Ortiz buffet plate, and with the way Ned Colletti has put together the big league staff, you hopefully don’t need to dip into the minors that often.

Update: Per MLBtraderumors, the Dodgers have signed someone named Scott Nestor to a minor-league deal. He’s got a high strikeout rate but walks approximately one billion per nine, and yep, he was in the Giants system last year. Toss him into the Isotopes bullpen mix as well.

MSTI’s 2010 in Review: Starting Pitchers, Part 2

November 4, 2010 at 12:32 pm | Posted in John Ely, Ted Lilly, Vicente Padilla | 20 Comments

Note: I don’t want to make a new post and shove this review down the page for the sake of lousy Scott Podsednik, so I’ll share it here: Dylan Hernandez reports that Podsednik has declined his option and will be a free agent. Hooray!

John Ely (A)
5.49 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 6.8 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, -1.0 WAR

I bet you’re dying to know how a pitcher with a 4-10 record, 5.49 ERA and a -1.0 WAR pulls an A, right? Well, before the season started, who the hell was John Ely, as far as Dodger fans were concerned? Even Andre Ethier didn’t know who he was. He was just one of the unknowns who came back in return for Juan Pierre, and that was about the extent most people bothered to even think about him. (Or as Chad from MOKM said about the return at the time, “Whatever, they could be dead for all I care.”)

He didn’t do much to change that impression with a lousy debut on a cold, wet April day in New York, allowing five earned runs in six innings, particularly damaging at a time when Vicente Padilla was injured, Charlie Haeger was imploding, and Chad Billingsley was off to a slow start. With James McDonald battling a broken fingernail in AAA, if Ely couldn’t hang in there, there no were other good options. Josh Towers? Seth Etherton? Yeeesh.

In Ely’s second start, he allowed Milwaukee just one earned run over 6.2 IP, striking out 7 without walking any. Then he allowed just two earned runs against Arizona, again not walking a man, and repeated the feat against Houston. From April 28 – May 22, he faced 89 batters without issuing a single walk, helping him go six straight games (the first six after his debut) without once allowing more than two earned runs.

Coming out of nowhere as he did at the most critical time in the season, you might say we’d found a new hero:

John Ely put up yet another quality start against Houston, going seven innings while allowing just two runs, striking out eight – a new career high – and walking zero. However, he achieved even more than you think he did tonight.

John Ely can sing God Bless America in three seconds. #ElyMania (@chadmoriyama)

Cy Young never won a John Ely award #ElyMania (@truebluela)

Even more impressively, John Ely can change Juan Pierre into a useful starting pitcher. (@jay_jaffe)

It’s been just four starts, but Ely is quickly becoming somewhat of a folk hero among Dodger fans. Of course, that’ll happen when you’re a guy who 98% of Dodger fans hadn’t heard of (including your own right fielder, and let’s face it, the left fielder didn’t know who you were either), and you come up with the rotation falling apart and immediately contribute, all the while doing it completely opposite from how the other young starters are doing it.

Of course, it didn’t last forever. His next three starts were rough, and though he rebounded with back-to-back 7 IP, 1 ER outings in late June, he failed to get out of the 3rd inning in either of his next two starts and was sent back to the minors until September. I’d worried that this was coming even back in May:

Let’s be clear here; Ely is not going to keep this up. He’s not a 0.94 WHIP pitcher over a full season, especially not when he wasn’t close to that in the minors. There’s going to come a day, probably soon, where he doesn’t have his pinpoint control, or batters don’t flail at his looping curveball, and sit on his mid-80s fastball.

And that’s exactly what happened, both after his great start and in four mediocre September/October outings. Look at it this way; in Ely’s first nine starts, he had a 41/13 K/BB ratio, helping him to hold batters to a .640 OPS and a 3.38 ERA. But in his last nine starts, that ratio skyrocketed to 35/27, and it’s no surprise that he got rocked in that time – .999 OPS and 8.18 ERA. Or this: he gave up 12 homers on the year, and after going eight starts in a row without one, every last one came in his last ten starts.

Ely’s never going to be more than a #4/5 starter, and in his second half he wasn’t even good enough to be a major league pitcher. If the Dodgers start off 2011 with him in the rotation, that’s probably not a good sign; you can do much worse than having him as the 6th or 7th best guy, ready to step in when injuries hit, but if you start off the year with him then that means you’re almost certainly going to have to suffer starts from pitchers worse than him. But he keeps the A, if only because the Dodger rotation was teetering on the brink, and he stepped in from nowhere with a run of outstanding starts.

ElyMania, indeed.

Vicente Padilla (C+)
4.07 ERA, 4.20 FIP, 8.0 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 0.7 WAR

I’m not even sure where to start here. How about the completely unexpected Opening Day start?

Thanks to the magic of Twitter, let’s see the immediate reaction from several people I have a lot of respect for:

jay_jaffe Why, did he shoot Kershaw and Billingsley?

craigcalcaterra This has to be a joke, right?

injuryexpert RT @jay_jaffe: Why, did he shoot Kershaw and Billingsley?

truebluela What the hell?

DodgerDivorce You’ve got to be kidding me.

Padilla repaid that trust by being awful on Opening Day (7 ER in 4.1 IP) and pitching just 4.1 IP in his second start as well. He was better in his next two starts before landing on the disabled list with a forearm injury, a malady which knocked him out for two months until late June, returning with an unremarkable start in Boston.

On the morning of June 25, Padilla had made just five starts, allowing 40 baserunners in 27 innings, helping him post a 6.67 ERA – not exactly the kind of performance you’d expect to see from your Opening Day starter. But on June 25, the Yankees came to town, and were held to two runs over seven innings. On June 30, he held the Giants to one run over seven innings, and Padilla and his “soap bubble” were off and running.

From June 25 – August 9, Padilla was simply sublime:

Padilla took a no-hitter into the 7th in throwing his fourth career shutout (and first as a Dodger), baffling the Padres with painfully slow “soap bubbles” scattered among 90+ mph heaters, with James Loney just inches away from snaring a liner that may have kept the no-no going.

That, amazingly, is Padilla’s eighth straight start without having allowed more than two earned runs. No, really: look at his game log since his return from the DL:

As I mentioned on Twitter earlier, I can’t wait to see what the free agent market does for him. He missed two months with arm trouble, accidentally shot himself in the offseason, has a long reputatation as a jerk… and is pitching like an absolute ace.

But that’s where the magic ended. Padilla had a mediocre start in Philly on August 10 (4 ER over 5 IP) and a disaster start in Atlanta on August 15 (8 ER in 4.1 IP) before heading back to the DL with a neck injury. He came back for one forgettable start in September (3 ER over 4 IP) in San Diego, and was back on the shelf due to the neck.

At the end of the day, Padilla threw just 95 innings, though he did end up with career bests as far as K/9 and WHIP. He seems to have finally found a comfort zone in Los Angeles – no small feat given his well-known personal history – and the run of injuries this year should keep his price down. Yet he’s also proven that he’s effective when he’s healthy, so if he’s willing to come back for one year, ~$4m? I’d have no problem trusting one of the two spots at the back end of the rotation to him.

Ted Lilly (B)
3.52 ERA, 3.98 FIP, 9.0 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 1.4 WAR

I feel like we’ve been talking about Ted Lilly quite a lot lately, so I’m going to get through this one quickly.

When he arrived, I was incredibly unhappy at the deal, though this was far more because the deal was unnecessary than because I didn’t like Lilly:

Even if it is an improvement, is it one worth making? Lilly’s the 5th starter. You’ll never convince me he’s better than Kershaw, Billingsley, Kuroda, or Padilla right now, and the problems we’ve seen lately have been caused by non-existent offense and unreliable bullpen work, not poor starting pitching. Other than Ely’s poor last two starts, the most recent outings by #5 guys (Monasterios/James McDonald/Ely before those starts) have been overall a soup of mediocrity, no different than any other team. So if you’re using some of your trade chips, you really ought to be doing it on an area that’s a big problem, not to mildly improve an area that’s not desperately in need of it.

Again, I don’t mind seeing Lilly as a Dodger, but trading anything more than a non-prospect for him makes it completely not worth it. Ted Lilly is not the piece that propels you into October. And since he’s making $12m this year, you know he won’t be offered arbitration, so you can’t even look forward to any draft picks. If you were going to trade for a middling lefty who won’t really help that much this year, it might as well have been for Paul Maholm, who’s at least signed for 2011.

He started his Dodger career by being amazing for a month, but as the team fell further out of contention, I thought there was a better way he could contribute, by swapping him to a contender:

He’s been about a thousand times more effective than even the most optimistic among us would have ever hoped for, and for that he’s to be commended. Now if you remember, when he was acquired, I didn’t like the trade. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Lilly, who I acknowledged was an upgrade to the rotation, but that the the rotation wasn’t the problem as much as the offense was, and that the Dodgers weren’t good enough this year to be trading the future for 2010 anyway.

Think about it – Lilly’s good, and has been for a long time, but he’s not this good. His BABIP as a Dodger is just .138, and that’s not going to last forever. If he keeps this up for the rest of the season, that’s great, but it’s not going to put the Dodgers in the playoffs and it’s only going to price him out of their league should they wish to retain him in the offseason. Much more likely, he is at the absolute peak of his value right now, because with the performance he’s shown, there’s really nowhere to go but down.

The point is, Ted Lilly‘s been awesome for the Dodgers, and there’s two ways to extract value from him for the remainder of the season; let him make 6-7 more starts for LA and help you finish 7 games out, or let him go to the playoffs with another team and possibly bring back prospects, while finishing 10 games out.

I know which route I’d take.

Lilly then went out and gave up 7 runs in 4 innings in Colorado to kick off a streak where he lost four of his last five starts, with the sinking Dodgers declining to trade him to the Yankees after they had claimed him on waivers.

After the season, I hoped that the Dodgers would offer him arbitration, arguing that his declining velocity, advancing age, and increasing homer rate might make a longer deal an untenable risk, as I outlined here:

To be sure, I’m happy to see him back in 2011, but we can’t be short-sighted about this. Remember, Lilly just finished a 4-year, $40m contract, which is an average annual value of $10m/year. Somehow, despite being 4 years older, less than a year past shoulder surgery, and on the decline, the Dodgers saw fit to give him a deal which increases that value?

I’m not arguing that he wouldn’t have found a contract like that on the market, because he would have. I would have just preferred it be some other team to make a foolish investment. Spending money does not equal spending wisely, because while Lilly’s a good pitcher, he’s hardly a difference-maker, yet he’s being paid like one. Though I’m glad he’s back for 2011, I really think we’re going to regret this deal in 2012 and 2013 – which is basically exactly what I said about Blake’s deal after 2008.

I’ve softened on this somewhat since, as a large part of my concern was the idea that the Dodgers would be able to make only one big signing this offseason, and if Ted Lilly‘s the best they can do, that’s not going to be enough. As signs point to both the payroll being larger than anticipated and the free agent market being more expensive than in recent years, the deal doesn’t look quite as bad. I’m still not looking forward to paying him $13m (it’s backloaded) in 2013, of course.

******

Next! Carlos Monasterios lives the dream! Charlie Haeger fails miserably! Ramon Ortiz gives up another homer! And MSTI regrets sorting pitchers into threes, because a post with those three is miserable! (Trust me, though, the picture on Ortiz’ card will make it worth it.) It’s starting pitchers, part three!

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