Tuesday, October 05, 2004 |
Surrender
Just looking at that makes me slightly ill. No matter how much you want them to win, there comes a time when you look at a club and say -- they're going nowhere. And that's the tale of the Dodgers' 2004.
They're going to roll over for the Cards.
And next year: Perez, Finley, and Beltre, all free agents, and the team with glaring needs in starting pitching. Gagne with a big, expensive arbitration hearing to attend to.
And Frank without any change in the sofa.
And even if they re-sign Beltre, will his 2005 regress some from his 2004? Probably.
2005 will be very, very interesting.
This isn't to complain, though, because obviously it's very effective as a reverse jinx.
Several of the stretch drive wins were gift wrapped in the form of consecutive walks, errors etc... allowing the Dodgers to finish first in a debatable three team race and they barely pulled that off. There is little doubt in my mind that short of finley's heroics they would have been in SFO on Monday.
But the greatest fear is for next year and yes it is a little soon to forget tghis year already and start fretting about next season.
If McCourt is so concerned about cutting costs that he is willing to let Ross Porter go, what will he do with Beltre, Finley, Perez, etc...? How much can he save on Porter's reported $750,000 salary as opposed to the 10-12 million Beltre will almost certainly command? That is all without even addressing the catcher's spot and the glaring holes in the rotation.
By the way, I will never agree with any trade that turns a lineup spot into a non-productive automatic out. Tracy is even having to set his playoff roster around carrying an extra catcher so he can remove them at will.
Bitterly yours,
AHB
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