6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

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Catcher

Paulie's grand slam in yesterday's game capped an even better first half than last year's, but as Jon observed, the early plan to platoon the thinking man's position collapsed along with David Ross's hitting. His .313/.355/.461 line is roughly the same as last year's at the same time -- .347/.374/.438, only a little less OBP, and a little more power this year. The inevitable second-half offensive decline awaits. Defensively, it's easy to note his sudden drop in putouts on stolen bases: last year he nailed 40% of base stealers, but this year only 27%. Also, he now has as many passed balls (6) has he had all of last year. However, I generally tend to blame the large changes in the starting rotation for these problems, and so am likely to think that this will come closer to Paulie's historic norm as the season progresses and he has a more time to work with his pitchers.

Paulie needs to

1. convince Paul DePodesta to get a steal-proof rotation
2. convince Paul DePodesta to get an effective backup catcher
3. hijack the plane to Houston to a tropical paradise where they serve fruity drinks with parasols in them

First Base

Green hasn't done anything to impress anybody at the plate this year, though he's occaisionally shown flashes. He might not be done as a player, but his transformation into Eric Karros combined with his ridiculous contract prevents the team from losing his ineffective bat from the lineup. That doesn't prevent them from moving him south in the order, which Tracy has, and to great benefit. He hasn't taken his injury well, and every interview with him on the subject -- and with the team as well -- has amounted to a denial of his ongoing shoulder problems. The team prevaricated through most of last year about his wounded labrum, so we shouldn't expect anything different, but at least it's been tempered with acceptance of the obvious. The positive is that he's become a wonderful defensive first baseman, much better than we had any right to expect.

Shawn Green should

1. get an anger transplant from obvious donor Milton Bradley
2. collect random Albert Belle quotes and hand them out to the press whenever they ask about his hitting
3. hang 'em up and move to a tropical paradise where they serve fruity drinks with parasols in them

Second Base

Will the real Alex Cora please stand up?

Year	VORP
2001	-5.5
2002	23.9
2003	5.9
2004 to date	17.4
2004 complete season, 90th percentile projected	20.3

When you recall that VORP is time-additive, like RBIs, this tells you Cora is very possibly having a career year. Or, perhaps that his 2003 was a very awful year for him. I'm not sure I'd long-term the guy, but none can dispute his incredible glove at second. But hey, eighteen-pitch at bat. The kid might be learning something.

Alex Cora needs to

1. take a vacation on a tropical paradise where they serve fruity drinks with parasols in them during the All-Star break, so he can stay fresh for the second half
2. get a DNA test so we can see if this is really Alex Cora, or if not, whether his good-hitting doppelgänger will show up in the second half
3. try to convince DePodesta that hitting is overrated, and defense and pitching win championships

Third Base

With the emergence of Adrian Beltre as a legitimate -- and more importantly, consistent -- power threat in the middle of the lineup, the Dodgers have finally acquired the bat they needed last year. He walks, he hits, and he hits for power. Only a flinchy ankle keeps him from reaching an even higher plateau; his PECOTA projected 90th percentile VORP was 46.5, while his season-to-date VORP is 37.3 -- meaning he's tearing through the game. If he can keep this up -- and remember, Belly is nothing if not a second-half performer -- the team's got the kind of power it desperately needed starting the year.

Adrian Beltre should

1. Not check in to any hospitals in the Dominican Republic over the All-Star break to have those bone chips in his ankle removed
2. Watch reruns of ¿Quien Es Mas Macho?
3. Celebrate the best first half of his career with one of those fruity drinks with parasols in them

Shortstop

Okay, we've seen Jeter enough: it's time Izzy was crowned best defensive shortstop in the league, if not the game. Unlike A-Rod, he'll never hit for much power, but ask any of the starting rotation which other NL shortstop they'd rather have behind them. Easily one of Evans' best pickups, ever. His PECOTA season projected VORP is a paltry 4.0, vs 14.2 season-to-date. If he can just keep this up -- hard to do, of course -- this could be the best infield the team's had since Garvey-Cey-Russell-Lopes. We sure don't expect any more home runs from little Cesar, but they're nice when we can get 'em.

Little Cesar should

1. log on to Netflix and sharpen his Edward G. Robinson impression
2. taunt Yankee infielders mercilessly about how he doesn't have to dive headfirst into the stands to collect foul balls
3. make tiki shrine so Jobu will bless bats

Left Field

Left field for the Dodgers this year has seen more characters than a Charles Dickens play, but in the main we're talking about one of (Grabowski, Werth, Roberts). For now, we'll put Grabby and Werth back on the bench, where I think both will spend most of their time, though Werth is making an increasing case for his spending time as a starter, especially against lefties. So that leaves Dave Roberts. Roberts once again injured his hamstring, a tough injury for a centerfielder, but he was smart in not forcing a comeback too soon. PECOTA looks pretty dead-on in its assessment of Roberts, projecting a 17.7 90th percentile VORP; he's already at 11.6, so he's a bit ahead of projections, but we've got half a year for him to go back on the DL.

Dave Roberts should

1. watch old "I Love Lucy" re-runs over the All-Star break
2. grumble to the press about the All-Star games having a Home Run Derby but not a base-stealing derby
3. make one of those fruity drinks with parasols in them so Jobu will bless bats

Centerfield

Milton Bradley's midterm VORP is 20.3, but 90th percentile PECOTA projection was 42.2, which means he's right about on target for the optimistic scenario. There's nobody more entertaining on the club than Bradley, whose ball-throwing antics and utter contempt for umpires keep us amused. Nobody -- except the blindest Moneyball disciple -- would have ever confused Bradley for an impact bat, but his descent into a singles hitter (.284/.377/.437) was not a little startling. Even though he homered twice this month, he hit none in June. In fact, he had only four extra base hits in that whole month. Still, he gets points here at 6-4-2 for giving good quote:

"They should know I'm glad to be hated by Giants fans. I'm proud of the opportunity to be a Dodger and to be hated."

And isn't spreading a little hate for the Giants what Dodger baseball's all about?

During the All-Star break, Milton Bradley will

1. refine his steely glare and epithets for umpires making crappy ball-strike calls
2. practice handing the umpires the lineup cards without using the word "c*cksucker"
3. drain enough bottles of Iron City malt liquor to knock out a horse and come back angry and recharged

Right Field

As with left field, a big collection of spare parts, but in the main, this is Encarnacion. The big E has been a big "D" -- as in, disappointment. But maybe we shoudn't have been too surprised, given he had shoulder problems going into the year that -- surprise, surprise -- went undiagnosed before the Dodgers signed him. (Thanks to John's Dodger Blog for that link.) Frank Jobe & Co. used to be the premier orthopedic surgeons in baseball, but I'm now beginning to wonder; did anybody do their homework on Encarnacion? And what about Green, especially after last year when he went two-thirds of a season before finally admitting his shoulder was held together with bailing wire and duct tape? At a 2.9 VORP, he isn't even performing at a 40th percentile PECOTA projection, very, very bad news for the Dodgers outfielder. In all probability, his shoulder could be suffering from the same thing that's wrecked Shawn Green's career. With Werth's sudden appearance as a lefty-killer, Encarnacion will have a tough time convincing Tracy that he needs to come back as a starter.

Once Encarnacion comes back from the DL, he should sell Tracy on his need for playing time -- not shoulder surgery -- by

1. hitting more home runs
2. hitting more doubles
3. holding the bat vertically and striking out, instead of grounding weakly into double plays, because it's worked so well for Shawn Green

Starting Rotation

Nomo's career is over, maybe. Despite the fact that I predicted this, or rather, PECOTA did, it gives me no pleasure to say it. The Dodgers would obviously be much better off with the 2003 version of Hideo than the clearly-still-injured postsurgery 2004 model. Let's look at the teams' starters and their projected VORPs versus their actuals at the season midpoint. For consistency, I'll use the projected VORPs from my article "Can You Find The Ace In This Picture?", linked to above, as the PECOTA projections seem to have shifted a bit since I took those numbers. In any case, the numbers seem to represent the 90th percentile, or the most optimistic projection.

	VORP
Starter	Actual	Complete Season 2004 Projected
Alvarez	15.4	26.4
Ishii	16.2	4.9
Jackson	2.4	N/A
Lima	9.6	26.1
Nomo	-17.6	20.2
Perez	31.3	29.3
Weaver	15.6	17.9

Alvarez's time as a starter is obviously over, but I put him here to show just how good a job he's done. Even if he only gets to 75% of his projected VORP, he'll have done a man's work.

The amazing year of Ishii doesn't show any signs of stopping. Despite a puzzling and worrisome decline in peripherals (4.26 K/9 in 2004 vs 8.36 and 8.57 in 2002 and 2003), he has actually become more effective than he was last year. In becoming much more of a flyball pitcher over the last year and a half, he's actually managed to still be a decent pitcher and go deeper into games. He's already pitched 101.1 innings this year, vs 147 and 154 the two years previous, while shaving two pitches off his P/IP from 2003 (16.1 vs 18.2). We saw this tendency in his two complete-game shutouts. His increased efficiency might let him still be sharp in the second half. He's already exceeded his 2003 VORP, an excellent sign he's come up with a working strategy for pitching in the North American big leagues.

The news isn't so good for the team's other Japanese import, however. Nomo's conversion to a below-replacement-player is starkly underscored by his obscene 8.06 ERA in 67.0 IP. I don't blame him so much as Tracy, who gave him opportunity after opportunity to enlarge that crater. His negative VORP is exceeded only by Scott Elarton and Denny Stark of the Rockies (-18.8 and -20.4, respectively) and Brian Anderson of the Royals (-27.1). My feeling is that his career is at an end; he didn't heal quickly from his previous injury, and I don't think he'll be in sufficiently good shape before the end of the season, either. He could prove me wrong, but his efforts to date don't show it. This, incidentally, represents the biggest miscue PECOTA has made for the Dodgers; it projected Nomo's value to decline by about half, rather than become tragically worse.

Odalis Perez reverted to his outstanding 2002 form, and proved my skepticism about trading him correct. He might be emotional, but he's no slouch, and while nobody will ever confuse him with Randy Johnson, he's got the stuff. The Dodgers need to long-term him at the end of the year.

Like the forlorn Christmas tree Linus resurrected with a little love, the Dodgers and Jim Colburn have breathed life into the right arm of Jeff Weaver, giving him a simply wonderful bounceback from his time in Hell, er, the Bronx. Weaver's 4.22 ERA looks right on target for PECOTA's earlier low-fours projection; his refusal to buckle in the face of his old teammates is just icing on the cake. No doubt, he's got some awful games left in him this year, and we won't be too surprised when he blows up in first innings, but he's already proving to be far better than his Yankee detractors thought.

Will Jose Lima's string of good starts continue? Astonishingly, PECOTA seems to think so, projecting him to perform much better than his first half -- assuming the very optimistic projections hold.

Lastly, we can't forget Edwin Jackson. He's so new, like a newborn colt on wobbly legs, we just don't know what to expect. Was his last game representative? Is his velocity down because he's nervous about throwing hard? Does his arm have trouble? Who knows, but we can expect the team will not be forthcoming with any significant injury information if there is a problem. I'm cautiously optimistic about this guy, though.

Relievers

Zipping through this list: Shuey is done for the year. Falkenborg was awful and not likely to come back except in a moment of desperation. Duaner Sanchez was a nice surprise; his 7.2 actual VORP is well over his most optimistic 9.7 projection. Giovanni Carrara has come back from wherever he was last year to do a surprisingly good job thus far.

Gagné still hurls thunderbolts. And Mota is so good, DePodesta has to use insect repellant to keep away teams hoping to get him.

Dreifort and Martin are two guys who you simply don't know what to expect of from day to day. Dreif looks forever sullen on the mound, like each time up is his last.

Bench

This is where DePo did most of his moving, and those moves have proven critical. Jayson Werth is on the cusp of becoming a regular starter, especially with Encarnacion's bum shoulder. Just in time, too. Jason Grabowski, while not of the same tier as Werth, has nonetheless proven a useful reserve, unlike last year's clutch of un-clutch players. Saenz and Hernandez, two veteran peas in the Dodgers' pod, have played acceptably, but not noteworthily enough to justify regular play; Saenz' glove, in particular, smells like month-old fish. As Jon observed, Ventura no longer has any offensive value, but his glove still works.

A longer-term problem is Dave Ross's weak hitting. The Dodgers need talent at the catcher position, and Paulie, bless him, is getting older. If not Dave, then who? Koyie Hill, the Dodgers' best prospect, could be a year or two away. That means a platoon of Ross and Lo Duca, with a deteriorating Lo Duca getting the lion's share of playing time, accelerating his decrepitude.

Crystal Ball Time

Time. Please pass your completed Scan-Tron forms to the right. The proctor will pick up the forms.

In addition to the three problems Jon outlined (Beltre's health, the temptation of reinserting a still-injured and walk-free Encarnation into the lineup, and the lack of available players on the trade market), the Dodgers have one additional problem: what happens if one of the starters loses it. The Dodgers have now spent their starting depth, and Jackson is a pure gamble to see whether he can stand the strain of being in the rotation. The only good news there would seem to be Ishii's discovery of the flyball out, which is saving his arm by costing him fewer pitches.

It's a weak division. We've got a chance.