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

Gibbons Has A Role In Dodgers Decline And Fall?

No Giambis In This Lineup

Vinny Through 2006

"The new owner has borrowed a lot of money. We all know that," Scully said. "He has a tremendous passion to succeed. My only feeling is a simple one: Give him a chance. He's the one with everything at stake."

At some point, however—probably in the not too distant future—Vin Scully will retire. And at that time, there will be absolutely nothing that is consistently good about Dodger baseball.

// posted by Rob @ 8:28 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Found, in our front yard this afternoon: one long-haired dachshund. No collar. Sweet-natured.

... and very, very tired, especially after a long walk around the neighborhood looking for possible owners. Our two dogs, a husky-shephard mix and an Australian Shephard/Keeshond mix, nearly killed him when we took him in our backyard, even after we did everything we were supposed to. We're not sure what we're going to do, but first we're putting up "found" posters around the neighborhood. After that, he probably will go to the Seal Beach or Huntington Beach shelters. ("Doosie", as my wife has taken to calling him, is curled up under my feet beneath my desk.) We're going to spring training in a week, and this dog just can't be here.

We find too many dogs like this one, really. A year and a half ago in October, while the Angels were busy winning their first championship, I found a little white mop of a dog in the elementary school behind our house. Like an idiot, I conned my parents into taking it, and it has subsequently proven to be a complete bust -- one of the few mean-tempered dogs I've ever known. And then there was another dog I found on one of our walks in the neighborhood, a sweet Lab mix we took to the shelter. That one was tough. Sometimes it works out okay, like the time the guy came and retrieved his dog from us.

Once, when I was in Arkansas visiting my in-laws a few years ago, the power went out in the middle of the worst ice storms in a decade. A sad, short-haired, liver-colored retriever of some kind -- maybe a Springer Spaniel or some kind of coon dog -- came up to my in-laws' house, naturally, wearing no tags. He was freezing -- literally, he had icicles hanging from his belly. With no time to observe formalities with my in-laws' dog, no place to put him besides a downstairs bathroom, and no real heat, we took turns watching him. The next morning, after I left for home (and of course the power came on -- I have a knack for causing natural disasters, a subject of some amusement), his real owner showed up. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, because my sister-in-law's kids had given him a name already.

I hope this little guy has a home. He sure deserves better than to be abandoned.

Update: We washed him and gave him a flea treatment or two. We forget, having used Advantage for years, that dogs really do have fleas, and they need to be kept in check. We hadn't seen a flea for ages, but caught sight of a bunch in the bathroom after we gave J. Random Dog his bath.

// posted by Rob @ 7:10 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

1. occaisionally, someone, frequently a judge, takes the rule of law seriously, and
2. naked vote-buying is generally frowned upon.

The government of the Dominican threatens baseball, and worse, the pocketbooks of their already poor citizens, by buying nearly a million dollars in tickets to give away to their friends, thereby associating the game with the Republic's native criminal class. In the U.S., the McCainiacs now threaten baseball with more anti-drug hysteria, when it is crystal clear that all the hype about steroids is election-year humbug on the order of Tell Your Children, aka Reefer Madness. Probably the biggest risk is for reporters, who must brave interviews with surly players, and it is for this reason we hear endless tirades against the stuff. No wonder the Senators left Washington -- twice.

// posted by Rob @ 10:22 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

A Slippery Scale

The right-field seats, which went on sale last week, are priced according to whom the Sox are playing. Tickets for Opening Day, for games against the Blue Jays, games against the Yankees, plus the interleague opponents (Dodgers and Phillies), will sell for $100 apiece. All other games will be for $75. Monster seats, which went for $50 apiece for every game last season, will have a new pricing scale, expected to be announced this week.

"There are about 14 or 15 teams in Major League Baseball that are engaged in some kind of variable pricing," Dee said. "Some are as simple as this. Others are crazy: day of the week, opponents. There's sort of a general migration toward the airline model: You fly on a Tuesday during the peak time on a 14-day advance ticket, you pay less than you would on a Saturday during a peak time, with a two-day advance.

Lies, Lies, Lies, Yeah

Eleven years ago, when the Giants were being sold by Bob Lurie to the current ownership group headed by Peter Magowan, Magowan was given the go-ahead by Lurie to sign Barry Bonds to what was then the game's biggest contract, a six-year, $43 million deal. Why couldn't McCourt have done something similar during his transition stage? "Baseball feels very, very strongly that prospective owners not act like presumptive owners," McCourt said. "They feel very, very strongly about that. I am familiar with the Giants situation. That caused a lot of consternation. That was not something we felt any need to replicate in this particular situation. We've already made a very big move here. The big move we made was to bring in Paul DePodesta [as GM].

1. The Dodgers' 2004 is over. There will be no bats added one way or another.
2. Frank is a pathological liar. Or, who do we believe more: McCourt, who's already broken several promises, or Bill Stoneman?

Hall of Shame

The news disturbed All-Star right fielder Shawn Green.

"He's one of the unsung heroes in the organization," Green said. "He's the best in the business at what he does. I don't know all the dynamics of the situation, but I have a lot of respect for Derrick. I know he would only do this if he felt he had to."

Hall, who had left briefly in 1999 to become a sports radio talk-show host, declined to elaborate on the philosophical differences that drove him from the organization he joined in 1992 as a member of the Vero Beach Dodgers.

However, multiple team sources said Saturday that Hall was concerned about the new owners' handling of many situations and apparently feared his credibility would be called into question.

"In Oakland, They Really Don't Karros"

Deprived of first base in Chicago, Karros scanned the market, saw an opening with the Dodgers, thought about how it might be to possibly end his career where it started, and was relieved to learn over lunch with Tracy that their sometimes heated and closed-door talks involving playing time and other issues in 2002 had left no scars.

Ultimately, Karros said, he also talked with Evans and Chairman Bob Daly and came away thinking an offer was imminent, although he laughed in reflection and said:

"It's just that Daly would say he had to clear it with Evans, and Evans would say he had to make sure Trace was on board, and it obviously took Dan about three months to walk downstairs to check with Trace because that's about how long it was before I decided that I'd better find work. In the end, I guess, Dan felt he could go in another direction and there were other things he could do, although I don't know what they were."

Neither does anyone else.

// posted by Rob @ 7:37 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Jon: Regarding the Dodgers (and by the way, I don't know that a good year from Jeff Weaver is the key to their success any more than a good year from Neifi Perez is for the Giants), here are the questions:

* If the Dodgers add one legitimate bat, do they not become a division contender?
* If the Dodgers add two legitimate bats, do they not become division favorites?

I say yes to both.

But that was last year.

I don't have time right now to do a 2004 projection justice, but it's conceivable that this might have worked. But I would be willing to bet that we'd have to keep Brown around.

// posted by Rob @ 7:56 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

• The Basic Bad Assumption
  
• The Better Assumption

Brendan Donnelly

Troy Percival

Francisco Rodriguez

Scot Shields

Ben Weber

The Rest

// posted by Rob @ 10:51 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

The good news for Sele is that he's finally healthy and ready to regain the form that helped him win 69 games from 1998 through 2001, the most in the American League in that span.

The bad news is that the offseason bolstering of the Angels' pitching rotation with flamethrowers Bartolo Colon has put the heat on Sele this spring. If he doesn't pitch well, he might not be on the team come Opening Day.

// posted by Rob @ 7:23 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Italicized words go here. Normal font words go here.

// posted by Rob @ 5:54 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Spiezio Wearing Cape And Tights In Seattle?

Bonds Flat On His Back Through Monday

Angels Could Use A Guardian Angel Themselves

Weaver... 15 K's... Zzzz

// posted by Rob @ 12:00 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

• working as hard as possible at seeing Frank McCourt to the door.
• getting as many belly laughs at his expense as possible in the meantime.
• cheering on the Dodgers and Angels, the former despite whatever bankrupt stupidity the McCourts may inflict upon that team.

// posted by Rob @ 10:10 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

McCourt also said he hasn't decided to bring in an entirely new front office staff.

"Everybody here is going to be given a chance," he said.

Frank, on priorities:

"Spring training is great, but, really, what we're focused on is June 11, 12 and 13 in Fenway," McCourt said, "and, of course, playing in October is as good as it gets."

On the life expectancy of Dodger players:

"I have a lot of confidence in the players on the squad," McCourt said. "This team is a lot better than people give them credit for. That said, we're going to plug holes."

Update: As if that weren't enough, get this Ken Gurnick article. On the Dodgers picking up a hitter before opening day:

Continuing the general feeling around the club that a major acquisition is unlikely, McCourt lowered expectations on player movement.

"I promise to do what is necessary to win on the field," he said. "The emphasis on one bat, a fix-all and cure-all, is a little misguided.

McCourt spoke to reporters before watching his old favorite team play his new favorite team Friday.

"I wouldn't say I have divided loyalties," McCourt said before the game between the Dodgers and Red Sox. "I have 430 million reasons to root for one team and not the other."

// posted by Rob @ 5:11 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

It's the Atari 2600 all over again. We didn't buy Sky Worm Attack once we realized it was just Missile Command in a different box. Will we line up for Grand Theft Auto 5 if it's the exact same thing, only with prettier texture-mapped bruises on the whores? What's the difference? Would the NES have taken off if it turned out to be just an Atari, only with eight colors of square blocks instead of four?

All it will take is some other fad, some toy, some other hobby to come along, and interest will fade. It's out there, on somebody's drawing board. Something truly new and different and novel, dammit. The market is ripe for it.

// posted by Rob @ 1:05 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Update: Okay, never again.

// posted by Rob @ 8:17 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Assume, then, that Mauer isn't the best catching prospect in the minors now. That means Jeff Mathis is, which, as an Angels fan, has got to make you feel pretty good.

// posted by Rob @ 9:00 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

• James Loney "... might be the best young hitter I've ever seen... he's a 19-year-old man." He says Loney will be up in the next couple years most likely.
• Dreifort is going to be in the bullpen -- no surprise there.

// posted by Rob @ 7:01 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

It's hard in lines so very terse
To say whether the Cubs are still cursed.
With Clemens and Pettitte
The Astros might get it
Is Maddux enough to take first?

// posted by Rob @ 4:47 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

To rely on the wisdom of scouts
For projecting who hits or makes outs,
And just eyeball at-bats
Without using stats--
Well, that's like trying to write a poem without knowing anything about meter--you might write a good one if you're lucky, but I have my doubts.

// posted by Rob @ 8:56 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

"It's about the ring on the finger," he said of that elusive championship. "It's more valuable than whatever money you make in your whole career. Family, friends, everybody remembers when they see the ring. When you're done playing, they don't talk about how much money you made. They talk about how many rings you won. That's what it's all about.

"That's all that matters to me now, is to win. I've done everything else in the game. But before I go home, I want a ring. Some guys don't see it that way. But when they get older, they'll know. When I was younger, I just wanted to play and have fun. Now I know you don't feel complete without winning. Thank God, I've got everything else in life. But for a baseball player, there's something else bigger than the money and the personal success."

// posted by Rob @ 7:42 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Now, if the outlier 1955 season is unusual, so is the magical year 1988, with it's woefully underperforming offense. Most Dodger championships are right in the middle offensively. One bat, by itself, couldn't have fixed the Dodgers last year, and it won't fix the team this year, either.

// posted by Rob @ 6:10 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Or, he'd have to start the season on the DL. Kinda like he is now.

// posted by Rob @ 11:12 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

• The pitcher must have changed teams from 2003 to 2004.
• The pitcher must be 37 or older. This is something of an arbitrary cutoff, but there's a convenient break in the numbers of 36-year-olds and below.
• The pitcher must have thrown 100 or more innings in 2003.
• The pitcher's age is taken from Baseball Prospectus' 2004 PECOTA projections data.
• I use Baseball Prospectus' VORP as the means for assessing player performance. You can find a definition of VORP here. Essentially, it tells you the theoretical number of runs a player will contribute over a league average replacement player (hence, "Value Over Replacement Player"). Its unit, therefore, is the run.

So, the question is, which of these guys is most likely to help his team the most? Based on VORP alone, the answer is Schilling, who towers over the rest. But that doesn't consider the replacement guys. Let's look at whose innings these guys will be eating:

Brown

Brown clearly marks a step up from the 2003 version of either of these guys, Wells especially so. But it's not a huge step up, and it has to come with the caveat that Brown has substantial injury risk at this point, as the Dodgers well know. Brown 2004 represents, essentially, David Wells 2003. If you're the Yankees, though, you're kicking yourself for not re-signing Pettitte, as Brown is done after 2005, but Pettitte still has a lot of gas left in the tank. I'm going to say Brown replaces Pettitte, as they are the most similar.

Clemens

Maddux

Rogers

Schilling

Wells

Conclusion

// posted by Rob @ 8:51 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Barry Bonds hurt his back during batting practice Wednesday and was taken out of the lineup for the San Francisco Giants' game against Texas.

Bonds swung at a pitch, then walked out of the batting cage and threw his bat down.

He was flat on the grass behind cage as Giants assistant trainer Barney Nugent worked on his back. Several minutes later, Bonds stood up, walked back into the cage, swung at another pitch, then walked off the field.

// posted by Rob @ 4:54 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Gagné avant Dodger uniform.

Thanks to the Texas League website for this one.

// posted by Rob @ 1:21 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

"It gives me an opportunity to play," he said. "All that stuff is going to be a little different, but the city is awesome and Frank [Robinson, the manager] is a great guy."

This time last year, Cordero was the closer for Cal State Fullerton. The Expos drafted him in June and called him up in August, and he posted a 1.64 earned-run average in 12 games.

// posted by Rob @ 8:28 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Start writing. You have thirty minutes. At the end of the period, please fold your blue books and hand them to the person on your right.

Update: The answer should be obvious. I'll take the Mariners' situation any day. A bad GM can be fired. Bad ownership cannot, save by the courts.

// posted by Rob @ 11:56 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

As the Director of Operations for the facility, I attended a number of meetings with Frank, and his lovely wife Jamie, and found them to be earnest, but totally incompetent people. Their ideas were useless...

Imagine my surprise when we began to have delays because, among other things, the diner for the building was sitting on a flatcar in New Jersey because Frank didn't have the money to pay for it. ... The $23M project could not even place the electronic signage for the main entrance into place, because the money wasn't available to get it delivered.

... I was pulled aside one day by the controller, a personal friend who had originally called me in Ohio to tell me about the job. He was ashen. He told me he had just finished a meeting with the McCourts and their financial people, and that the project was doomed.

I asked how he could know that, when we hadn't even yet opened the doors (the delayed opening, which had finally been settled when we informed Frank that he could not open the facility without the diner, since the liquor laws were going to require the eatery for us to get our license, was still about a month away)...and he said "for us to make this work, everything's going to have to be perfect. We're going to have to turn a profit within six months, and we told Frank that this was not realistic; our people had projected it would take 12 to 18 months. This place has to be a cash cow right off the bat, because the debt load is huge. I'd never seen those numbers before, I'd only seen Opryland's numbers. I swear that if I had seen McCourt's, I'd have never called you to fly in here for that interview."

Back to the present, or something like it. In January, the Daily News ran an article including one anonymous baseball insider's estimate of McCourt's financial leash to be no more than three years. In October 2003, the Boston Globe interviewed Sportscorp's Marc Ganis, who said "The Dodgers are losing money. There is not the cash flow to support debt." Despite these reports, despite the litany of actual problems (as opposed to anonymous reports) associated with McCourt ownership, somehow, there are those who still insist that this guy is going to get us to the promised land. The arguments against skepticism all have the qualities of extreme naifdom swirling about them, as flies circle Pigpen. Consider one Tommy Naccarato's words:

Lets [sic] get behind McCourt for a couple of years; help him make the team a winner and hipefully [sic] we can enjoy winning again in Chaves [sic] Ravine. I know for a fact that I certainly miss it.

Oh yes, and about Kris Rone, well her job has nothing to do with the team's performance. I'm sorry she isn't going to be getting the chance to NOT stock my size of shirt at the Top of the Park this upcoming season--as if she ever intended too.

Right. I bet that works great if you're a wildebeest amidst lions.

And I've got some news for you, dude. Rone's job has plenty to do with the team's performance: she's the gal who gets the cash that the team plows back into player salaries, scouting operations, and the minor leagues. Losing somebody with her track record is no small matter.

But in the end, results don't -- or won't -- matter. When spring turns to summer and the Dodgers still don't have a hitter (or five, which is more like the number they need), the McCourt apologists will be back at it with their Pollyanna stories about how we all need to get behind the team, and so forth. Everybody needs a supporter come what may, no matter how slimy, or in this case, blatently stupid they might be. Even Nixon had Pat.

// posted by Rob @ 8:49 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

The Angels added big-time attractions in Vladimir Guerrero and Bartolo Colon this off-season, and on Saturday, the first day that fans could purchase single-game tickets, the team sold 58,828.

The Dodgers did nothing this off-season, and continue to do nothing, and on Saturday, the first day that fans could purchase single-game tickets, the team sold more than 87,000, and close to 100,000 when including package deals. "This will be our biggest year in memory," ticket manager Billy Hunter told The Times.

In fact, 33,000 of the 87,000 single-game Dodger tickets sold Saturday were to just the Yankee series, and "I would imagine a number of people were turned away after the Yankee series was sold out," Hall said, "so rather than leave with nothing, they bought tickets for other games with the Giants, or maybe for July 4th."

It appears we're getting closer and closer to that time when the Dodgers, like the Clippers have been doing for years, begin urging fans to buy tickets for the chance to watch some of the game's greatest players — none, of course, who play for the Dodgers.

// posted by Rob @ 6:59 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

• Of course, there's the protracted sale itself. If this were such a good deal, MLB ownership would have put this one in the can back in October.
• McCourt's blatant disregard for legitimate fan concern. Come on, Frank, we deserve better than a cheap brush-off.
• His shameful firing of Dan Evans.
• The departure of Graziano and Rone. Rone, the article says, "is credited with increasing sponsorship sales 271% and raising net revenues 51% in five years with the club", so presumably they know a thing or two about business plans.
• Peter O'Malley's timely comments about Frank's plan, or lack thereof. Hmm, has he been talking to Graziano, too?
• Maybe I'm reading too much into this one, but Arte Moreno's comment

  "We have a business plan," Moreno said, "and it's not like it's written on the back of a napkin."

  was delivered by somebody who (a) actually read Frank's business plan, and (b) has made a lot more bucks -- and in an arguably closer-related business -- in his lifetime than Frank. My guess is, it wasn't just a napkin, it was a cocktail napkin.

In the movie Aliens, before the colony's terraforming generator went supercritical, the automated warning voice cried, "You have fifteen minutes to reach minimum safe distance." Whether they have such machinery at Chavez Ravine or not, Graziano blasted off for deep space before the reactor blew. The rest of us will just have to sit and watch.

// posted by Rob @ 10:31 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Oct. 9, 1995--For the last 15 years the Walter Haas family has been the flip side of George Steinbrenner: a shining model of altruistic, self-effacing, and successful sports franchise ownership. Now the Oakland A's have been sold to a couple of businessmen, Steve Schott and Ken Hoffman.

On the final home weekend of the A's season a crowd of 30,112 fans said goodbye to a tenor of baseball enjoyment that had been set by the shy and smiling Walter A. Haas, Jr., who bought the club in 1981 as a means of doing something positive for the economy and the spirits of the city.

The A's won a World Series and three league pennants during Haas' stewardship, but with him, pleasure in the day always outranked winning, and this game (against Minnesota) had the atmosphere of a company picnic. The players sat on folded chairs in the infield, with their wives beside them and their younger children on their laps. In the bleachers and outer stands, there were a half-dozen hand-lettered signs thanking the Haas family: "THANKS FOR HAASPITALITY," "HAASTA LAVISTA," "HAAS #1," and the like.

Haas, who had been in declining health for months was not present but the name "Haas" was spelled out on the green grass and brought the crowd to its feet in a spontaneous roar. The players stood and cheered, too -- and in an instant, it seemed, everyone was up again for Mark McGwire's second-inning 465-foot home run into the left-field bleachers: a shining meteor sent up, everyone knew, for Walter Haas. Three days later he died.

// posted by Rob @ 5:47 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Anyway, because the Safeco blogosphere is so heavily peopled, it surprises me that he didn't pick up on a rumored move of injury magnet Ken Griffey, Jr. back to Seattle whence he came*. Of course, as the article says,

The biggest hurdle to returning Griffey could be the five guaranteed years left on his contract, starting at age 34 with major injuries wiping out most of his past two seasons. Balanced against that is the fact that Griffey's money is spread out for years after he is done playing — $6.5 million a year is deferred.

// posted by Rob @ 8:22 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

There's actually been a couple stories I missed on Jenks -- one here in the Daily Bulletin that says his stint in winter ball has lead, not to more alcohol-related violations, but to 47 strikeouts in 52 innings, and a frame fifteen pounds lighter. And Stephen Smith says he heard Mike Scioscia on the McDonnell-Douglas show say Bobby's developed a cut fastball in Puerto Rico. Bobby, if you're reading this, we're all pulling for you. I can't wait to see you at Angel Stadium.

// posted by Rob @ 5:55 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Rob-

Poking around and found your Dodgers/Angels blog. Good stuff and some very interesting and thoughtful takes. However, I think you may have misinterpreted my Fox column on DePodesta. Nowhere did I claim that free-spending owners weren't ready and willing to purchase teams (Broad and Checketts are but one example). My point was that, generally speaking, I think MLB selects owners who are willing to toe the "reduce labor costs now!" party line. I think McCourt will be of this mold. I never claimed that the Dodgers had only a group of insolvents to choose from. It's MLB's selection criteria more than anything. When I wrote "It would be better for everyone, the game included, if we had more John Henrys out there willing to invest in their own products. But we don't." I was referring to the current coterie of MLB owners--not prospective owners. I thought that was clear, but perhaps it wasn't. As for my shill status, well, I've critical of Bud Selig and baseball owners on many occasions, and I've yet to be called on the carpet. If I ever were, well, you can ask ESPN.com whether I'm willing to resign when I think I'm being treated unfairly. Many thanks.

dp

One thing I enjoy -- usually -- is being proven right, as in hearing my wife repeat, "I was wrong, you were right" several times over. But sometimes the satisfaction of being right doesn't offset the sickly feeling I get when my nominally pessimistic tendencies prove accurate. The Dodgers 2004 season keeps looking worse and worse. Today, Mariners Wheelhouse redoubles my efforts on Nomo, complete with charts and comparable pitchers. Note to DePodesta: don't trade Perez. Please.

// posted by Rob @ 9:15 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Before the 2001 season, the Diamondbacks were looking for help in right field.

"As much as I wanted to stay here with one club, that was weighing on me," said Salmon, a former Greenway High School and Grand Canyon University standout who resides with wife Marci and four children in the same Valley neighborhood as Diamondbacks left fielder Luis Gonzalez. " . . . I had a lot of family and friends waiting for me to come home and play."

But Salmon received a four-year contract extension, and the Angels finished third in the American League West. The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, signed Reggie Sanders, who slugged 33 home runs as the Diamondbacks made their championship run.

Salmon, 35, admitted he did some deep thinking after the Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series.

"For a little while, I was asking myself what could have been," Salmon said. "But to come back the next year and do it the way we did it with that club, it's ultimately the greatest satisfaction.

An old-fashioned hard-hat kind of player, good arm, not too much speed, works hard and rarely goes into a slump. Ninety walks a year and a .290 average give him an on-base percentage near .400. Has gone over 200 this season (2000) and will probably hit a couple hundred more before the fastballs get too fast for him.

Salmon is in my mind an archetypal Angel, a quiet, no-nonsense guy who shows up to the park to get his job done. It's pretty obvious, to me at least, that his career is sloping downward faster than James thought four years ago; later in the Arizona Republic article, Salmon questions whether he'll finish his contract. Well, Tim, here's to a productive end.

// posted by Rob @ 8:11 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Meantime, the Dodgers hit and hit and hit.

It's only spring training, it's only spring training...

// posted by Rob @ 11:05 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

This is not a pretty picture. Nomo's strikeout rate and control have been slipping for three years now. He's clearly on a downward slide, and Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections has even worse things to say about him: he's due for a loss of over half his VORP (subscription required? scroll halfway down). For an ace, that's scary news. I'm a lazy man: here, I'll just copy their 2004 VORP projections for the starting rotation:

So, PECOTA sees Nomo going down, hard, this year... but tradebait Perez rebounding nicely. Looking at the 2003 DIPS numbers for each of our starters, you see also that OP is on the leaderboard for ERA-dERA, that is, he's been pitching in bad luck, where our friends Ishii and Nomo both are on the dERA-ERA leaderboard -- pitching in good luck.

I've always been leery of trading Odalis. He said what needed to be said last year about the offense. For a combination of durability and dominance, he's going to be extremely hard to replace. I'd look to Perez (if he doesn't get traded), Alvarez, or (gulp) Ishii, in descending order of likelihood, to be the staff ace this year, not Nomo.

Margin Note: No, you're not hallucinating. I took this down for additional info and DIPS analysis.

// posted by Rob @ 1:14 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Former Dodger owner Peter O'Malley, reacting to the resignation of club president Bob Graziano and vice president of business Kris Rone, said Friday that he hoped this didn't portend another long period of instability for the organization and that new co-owner Frank McCourt needed to reveal his vision and agenda as soon as possible.

"We don't know what his vision and agenda is," O'Malley said. "When we do, maybe we'll have a better understanding and be better able to evaluate these changes.

"It's important he communicates and tells fans what his direction is. You can't fool the fans. My dad and I had their total support for decades because they understood what our direction was."

O'Malley said he wasn't being critical of McCourt. "With change of ownership comes change of management," he said. "I just hope there aren't too many changes in too short of time.

// posted by Rob @ 6:38 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

These infectious people can be hard to find because they do not always receive attribution for being the first to point to an interesting idea or news item.

Indeed, the team at HP Labs found that when an idea infected at least 10 blogs, 70 percent of the blogs did not provide links back to another blog that had previously mentioned the idea.

To get past this obstacle, the researchers developed techniques to infer where information might have come from, based on the similarities in text, links and infection rates.

For instance, if Blog A used the words "furry germs" to link to an infectious topic like Giantmicrobes just days after Blog B in the same social circle used the exact same words and link, that would be a good sign that Blog A copied Blog B.

// posted by Rob @ 4:21 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Update: now, on mlb.com, too.

Update 3/6/04: Reader Ralph Rooney writes to mention that the MLB World Series link above is wrong about Sandy's won-loss record; he was actually a 25-game winner that year, and Whitey Ford won 24. Ah, the days of four-man rotations. And I should also correct myself: the Reds blanked the Yanks in 1976. But it was the first time anybody had done it.

// posted by Rob @ 6:57 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

"We hope based on his progress that he comes onto our radar," Scioscia said. "It's a stretch to call him depth now, but at some point in the season we hope he jumps up onto the chart. We've got to give him time to get it together."

The story goes that Jenks threw a pitch clocked at 103mph over the winter in Puerto Rico. As usual, opinions are split about the reliability of the radar gun.

"I've got to think the battery might have been a little bad," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said.

// posted by Rob @ 8:01 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

But then there's the juicy part. As expected, Bob Graziano finally did, in fact, resign, but it's how he did it that fascinates, in a watching-a-car-wreck-as-it-happens manner:

"I met with Frank and Jamie at the beginning of February, at which time we decided [resignation] would be an appropriate course of action because we had decided to go our separate ways."

Word emerged of the Graziano-Dee shakeup on the same day Dodger executive Kris Rone, the fourth-highest-ranking woman in Major League Baseball, resigned because of philosophical differences with the McCourts.

...

"My responsibilities within the organization changed significantly" after his February meeting with the McCourts, prompting Graziano to instruct his attorney to send the letter of resignation to the Dodgers on Feb 20. He is scheduled to leave the organization March 22.

Man, would I love to hear what Rone's "philosophical differences" were.

// posted by Rob @ 6:46 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Number 14: Jeff Weaver, 42 ms before his right arm and head detached. Courtesy Harold Edgerton, MIT.

// posted by Rob @ 8:41 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

A-Rod he ain't. He doesn't have to be.

// posted by Rob @ 9:37 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Update 6/6/04: Changed the link on this one to reflect the reorganization at Baseball Think Factory. They sure don't make it easy to find.

// posted by Rob @ 6:49 PM link  //   //  links to this post

A player comes into the organization by one of two ways. The scouting department runs the annual drafts and usually has the final call on which players are chosen. The scouts also sign the foreign free agents not eligible for the draft. Once a player turns pro, he comes into the organization by some transaction ultimately orchestrated by the general manager. The farm director may sign some minor league free agents but, for purposes of our analysis, I'm giving that credit to the general manager.

This came as something of a shock to me, so it's maybe worthwhile looking at the 2003 Dodgers through this same prism.

So, in review, the blame for 2003 may be in some measure apportioned to

What's interesting to note here is that Edwin Jackson, our phenom-or-not, was a Malone-era pick by Ed Creech. Greg Miller, ranked even better by some reports, is the highest-rated Logan White era pick. That's not surprising considering most of those guys have barely had a year and a half in the minors. Of Terry Reynolds picks, only Eric Gagné has gone on to anything like stardom, with Loduca a solid player, Beltre arguably a middling disappointment, Dreifort an experiment gone wrong (made far worse by Kevin Malone), and Ross an unknown at this point. It'll be interesting to see how well the Logan White picks progress this year.

Update 3/3/04: Jon writes that it's a bit negative to say an 85-win season requires "blame"; I intended that as a sardonic comment, but on re-reading that, it didn't come across that way. Also, the issue of Dan's salary limitations didn't come up. I hadn't intended them to; this was a simple exercise designed to trace responsibility for an individual player back to the initial signing.

Update 3/5/04: Forgot Ishii.

// posted by Rob @ 8:05 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Update: Ryan Drese is "still hanging around, hoping for one more chance", he says, and you'd have to believe that after his awful 2003 campaign that had him start the year with a 135.0 ERA. Seattle absolutely shelled him with six runs in 1/3 of an inning. Ouch.

// posted by Rob @ 3:57 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

A Run In Tommy's Dodger Blue

A Grinning Magowan Looks Ahead

The Giants begin the season with a payroll just under $80 million, almost identical to their opening-day payroll of $81.5 million last season, and Magowan said he envisioned fairly similar levels over the next two to three years. With the Dodgers expected to retrench under new owner Frank McCourt, the Giants could become the biggest spenders in the division within two years. [emphasis mine]

The club also has flexibility to add payroll at the trade deadline, Magowan said.

// posted by Rob @ 7:47 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

New right fielder Vladimir Guerrero has been wearing a brace to support his lower back during spring training workouts, and he plans to wear the brace during the regular season.

Guerrero, who signed a five-year, $70-million deal with the Angels this winter, began wearing the brace in July, when the former Montreal Expo star returned from a monthlong absence caused by a herniated disk in his lower back.

"I feel great, but I'm going to continue to use [the brace] because it gives me confidence, it makes me feel more comfortable," Guerrero said through an interpreter. "The day I feel extremely good will be the day I take it off."

// posted by Rob @ 9:33 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Probably my favorite chronological anomaly is the leap second, made necessary by advances in timekeeping made in the 1950's, and in particular, the invention of the atomic clock. This unimaginably accurate instrument discovered the earth's slow deceleration by roughly one second per 18 months. To compensate, scientists running the world's time system created a leap second periodically if needed. I used to work for a company that made military surveillance satellites, and on the days we would get a leap second, one of the staff would bake a chocolate cake. So perhaps I have a Pavlovian fondness for leap seconds. But, things are speeding up, and the earth itself seems to be one of them. There hasn't been a leap second since 1999 because of that small acceleration, but it strikes me a little sad that the leap second seems destined to go away. Perhaps we should have a chocolate cake today, anyway.

// posted by Rob @ 12:43 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

It must comfort Frank McCourt to know the ball and chain attached to the Dodgers' hindquarters pays for such stuff. Revenue sharing will have no effect on small-market team competitiveness until the system is overhauled to require owners to either spend money on the field or return the cash to the league and its otherwise rightful owners.

// posted by Rob @ 12:15 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Ramon Hernandez' 2003 CS% of .330 was good, but not nearly as good as the .400 he sported the year before. While it's altogether possible that Miller may actually represent a step down given age and years behind the plate, it seems to me that something else is going on here. Consider this:

So, it looks like something happened for all three here: a light came on in 2002 and suddenly steals against dropped dramatically. It couldn't have been Hernandez, as he caught most games back to 2000. Did they change coaches? Was there an anti-theft elixir put into the water coolers in the Oakland dugout? Whatever happened, it doesn't seem to coincide with the principle catcher. Despite what Tyler believes, I'd be more likely to bet that steals against will change only minimally with the addition of Miller. David Eckstein, you are cleared to take second.

// posted by Rob @ 9:31 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

The way the Yankees' critics see it, the YES network has been, essentially, a license for the Yankees to print funny money. They're reporting $50 million a year in rights fees. But MLB suspects the true value of YES to this club is actually much higher.

To determine how much higher, sources say that MLB is ready to bring in an independent auditor to determine YES's true market value to the team. If that value turns out to be more than $50 million, the Yankees would have to pay another 40 percent of that difference. Not just this year. Every year. Retroactively.

This doesn't affect the Angels much, a club with one of the worst TV rights deals in the majors, but it most assuredly will affect the Red Sox, Blue Jays, and a whole host of other teams -- including the Dodgers. You think McCourt will scream if MLB tries to get retroactive revenue out of the team? Wait 'til MLB tries to cash that check! It's remarkably bad timing for McCourt, who apparently has such a bad TV deal that he overpromised on the number of games that would be aired in order to conjure up some extra revenue. Earlier, he claimed all Dodger games would air, but it seems that this is a non-possibility thanks to national coverage rules (nationally televised games may not conflict with locally shown games). Promises are cheap, Frank. I can hardly wait to see what happens when the season is halfway through and the team is sunk firmly in the middle of the division -- again.

// posted by Rob @ 7:42 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

CLICK HERE TO MAKE YOUR PENIS A GIANT

I get no offers to make it into a Padre, Diamondback, Athletic or Mariner. Not even the Rangers are so desperate. Hard times by the bay, I suppose...

Update: I beg your humble pardon if my blue humor may have offended...

// posted by Rob @ 1:57 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

The first pass came in the 1990's after Wayne Huizenga, the garbage magnate, bought the expansion Marlins. (Huizenga's involvement in the garbage industry, notorious for its mob connections, and subsequent creation of Blockbuster Video, an all-cash business, has never sit well with me. You can find an anti-Horatio Alger bio of him here if you're interested.) He decided he wanted to buy a title -- and proceeded to boost payroll buying players like Kevin Brown, Moises Alou, Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonilla, and Alex Fernandez. The team's collective salary was $47 million, an incredible figure at the time for a small market team. In fact, here's a breakdown of 1997 final standings with payroll rankings:

For the most part, you had to be first or second in spending to win your division. The anomalous Giants (behind the Dodgers and, unbelievably, Padres) and Astros (trailing the Cards and Cubs) provided the exceptions to the rule, but since both were erased in the playoffs, attentive GM's learned a lesson that was about to get expensive for everybody. The path to the postseason was clear: purchase the services of free agents, and lots of them. But those free agents were about to get a lot more expensive.

Of course, the next year, Huizenga had a fire sale, his team unable to support the payroll level he had established. In 1998, the Marlins finished 54-108, dead last in the NL East and the worst record in baseball. The next year, in exchange for their awfulness, they acquired Josh Beckett in the first round, the second overall pick of the 1999 amateur draft. And thus began the recapitulation of a story about how winning might be possible: through the farm.

Push The Button, My Friend, Take Me Back Into Time

Clearly, the Braves had the most productive farm system, followed by the Indians, Marlins, Astros, and Mariners, and then the rest. And while the Marlins won the pennant that year, the Braves won their division, as they have continued to do to this day. Cleveland, in the Central, was in the midst of a surge that had them winning six division titles and two pennants. In a thread on the Angels' fan forum about Moneyball, Stephen Smith of Future Angels had this to say about the relationship between the Braves, the farm system, and solid teams:

... keep in mind that teams with poorer win-loss records in the prior year get higher draft picks. Given the natural cycle over time, the idea behind the draft was to at least provide all teams with an opportunity to improve themselves. It may take ten years or more for this cycle to play out.

The A's are the classic example. They had mini-dynasties in the early 1970s, the late 1980s-early 1990s, and then started upward again in the late 1990s. Inbetween, they had some horrific teams -- which meant they were drafting higher than other teams for several years in a row.

Last winter I began to research this "circle of life," to see if since the draft began what was the relationship between a parent club's win-loss record over time and the cumulative win-loss record each year of its minor league teams. Given the theory being tested, if correct we should see something like a helix, or put another way a "bubble" in the minors preceding a later "bubble" in the majors.

Sure enough, I saw that pattern with the A's.

It was less apparent in other organizations. Some organizations like the Angels were quite peripatetic, because player development philosophy constantly changed based on the whim of the owner. The Braves, certainly the most consistantly dominant team in the last decade, actually had a lot of losing years in the minors even though they were regularly pumping out minor league talent, because they signed more players than everyone else. While most teams carried five or six minor league teams, the Braves had seven or eight until Major League Baseball standardized the minor league structure with the 1997 Basic Agreement. So the Braves did it with volume. [emphasis mine]

The Necessity Of Farmhands

While such speculation makes for good for watercooler fodder, whether it translates to wins on the field later is another story, a point Jon and Mariners Wheelhouse made earlier. The farm is great, the farm is good, but only the games at the major league level count. Trouble is, a strong farm is a requirement; few teams can afford to consistently (that word is important) buy their way to a pennant. It's commonly said that the exception to this rule is the Yankees... or is it? The 80's-era Yanks tried to buy their way to glory, to no avail; so have others tried in vain. This week in Baseball Prospectus, Steven Goldman discusses the Peter Angelos of his day: Thomas Yawkey. Yawkey tried to buy a championship in the 30's, an era when "rival teams [were] 'freely' giving away talent". But of course, we all know that it didn't work. Goldman says this is for two reasons:

[It's] almost impossible to buy enough [players] to staff an entire ballclub. Not only will the pool of available talent, at its deepest, be unequal to the demand (note that even this year's Yankees, who have acquired a number of big-ticket items from more conservative clubs, have not been able to buy certainty for their starting rotation) but buying off the rack forces a team to be overly dependent on making the right selections--that is, on luck. A team that chooses to bank on stars rather than on depth faces a greater risk of having no fallback should their star prove to be infirm, unreliable, or simply on the way down. The large influx of talent that comes with developing a strong minor league system gives a team the depth to survive its own misjudgments.

// posted by Rob @ 11:44 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Thanks to Baseball Reference for reminding me of that. Third highest career winning percentage of any franchise over ten years old. More World Series wins than any other National League team since 1950. This is the Dodgers, not some squeak toy. We shall outlast you, Frank. Get used to it.

// posted by Rob @ 12:40 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

boot... boot ... boot ...

I log in.

chime ... background ... blah

Twenty minutes later it still hadn't finished coming up. I couldn't even see Outlook, which is set up to start at login. Fine. Get a browser window and check the news on Drudge, Yahoo, whatever. I click on a link. Nothing happens... then a flurry of activity, and from nowhere, a browser fullsizes itself and demands I click to a link that promises it will rid me of nasty spyware forever.

Yeah, right.

Somehow, I'm not quite sure how, I think I ended up saying "yes" to installing some malware on my machine, and all due to Windows' insistance on being only apparently ready to take my requests -- but then routing them randomly (from my point of view) when they are at last presented. It reset my browser to point to their unpleasant little site, and popped out the CD I was listening to (Lyle Lovett's "Live In Texas", thanks for the suggestion, Jon). So long as Microsoft thinks ease of use should come ahead of actual, meaningful security, so long will we have viruses and trojans.

And, did I mention I'm going to run Linux on my new work computer?

// posted by Rob @ 1:59 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

"If you're a baseball purist like me," David Letterman once said, "you know the season doesn't really begin until Jose Canseco gets arrested."

// posted by Rob @ 8:01 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

1. The team stayed healthy, except for Sele, and they had Lackey to replace him. Well, no.

2. Several players had career years, including Benji Gil and Scott Spiezio.
Two does not equal "several." More to the point, one does not equal "several." As I said before, Scott Spiezio was the only Angel to post numbers significantly above his norm in 2002. Gil, like Palmeiro and Wooten, had above-average years, but none experienced the best year of their career. The rest of the lineup either put up numbers that were very close to what they could have been expected to do, or haven't been in baseball long enough to evaluate whether their 2002 season was a statistical outlier (like Washburn and Ortiz). In a few more years, I suspect we may conclude that Adam Kennedy had a career year in 2002, but we can't tell yet, as he's still in the portion of his career where he's likely to improve. For a while, I thought that Ben Weber and/or Brendan Donnelly had also topped out in 2002, but their performances in 2003 seem to indicate that they may just be that good (I'm not completely sold on that, but that's how the evidence looks now).

Moving right along:

Regardless, the fact is that it's actually normal for any given team to have a guy or two experience the best year of his career. I mean, you've got nine guys in the lineup and five starting pitchers, plus a closer - even if you don't pay any attention to the bench or the guys in the bullpen, that's fifteen chances for a career year.

Moreover, getting back to Gil, the bench guy you lose can be a worse than the starter who goes down. If the team loses a starter due to injury, you put your bench guy in, but if you lose the bench player, you get hosed when the starter needs a day off, or worse, also goes down, because then it's time to call up a AAAA type (read: Amezega). That's why I say the team got lucky losing Sele for two reasons: first, he was having trouble that year (4.89 ERA, anyone?), and second, Lackey was ready to go and actually excelled. Who knows but that we could have gotten the 2003 Lackey in 2002?

3. Appier had his last good year. Probably true, but so what?

4. The Angels had great pitching in the minors to draw on. See, that's just not luck at all.

After reading Sean's blog, I still think the Halos had a guardian angel on their shoulder in 2002, who promptly went on vacation in 2003. But I'll give him kudos for a great rejoinder.

// posted by Rob @ 8:17 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

"Right now," Green said, "this lineup definitely requires me to have a year equal to or better than any I've ever had.

"I'm going to try and do it, but I still feel that what the club needs most is another hitter for the middle of the lineup.

"I mean, it's difficult going to spring training knowing your lineup is such that a lot of guys have to have career years if we're going to have a good offensive team.

"That's not the right way to go into the season."

Why is Newhan publishing this stuff? Does he want Shawn gone?

Update: Another possibility: Shawn wants off the team, bad. Read this as a trade-me plea. After last year, I don't see how that could happen unless Greenie has a monster first half.

// posted by Rob @ 9:17 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

"What's going to surprise people is how well Paul and I get along," White says. "I think we'll learn a lot from each other." ...

"My sincere feelings are that we'll hit it off real well. We've talked about how our philosophies mix. I think everyone is visualizing he's going to tell me to take all college players. He's been pretty open. We haven't sat down to talk about all of the particulars, but we're going to get along tremendously. We just may surprise the industry."

// posted by Rob @ 7:52 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

What We Say To Ballplayers

We're not rebuilding. My goal is to win this year, to win every year. It's a single focus like a laser beam, to win with the right people, with players that have the drive, that have the courage to be the best they can be. To have players that have respect and pride for the Dodger uniform. To wear it with respect and pride.

What They Hear

Blah Blah Blah Win This Year Blah Blah Blah Win Every Year Blah Blah Blah

// posted by Rob @ 11:51 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

• The team stayed mainly healthy. Anyone looking at Erstad's career would know he's had trouble with his hamstrings -- as he did in 2003. Sele was a notable exception, but he gave way to a far more effective Lackey.
• Several players had career years, including Benji Gil and Scott Spiezio.
• The declining Appier gave the team what was likely the last 14-year win of his long career.
• The Angels had remarkable young pitchers waiting in the minors -- including and especially John Lackey and Francisco Rodriguez, the latter arriving on the 25-man roster by a sleight-of-hand.

// posted by Rob @ 7:49 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

"The new regime's only been here a couple of weeks," said Green, who is experimenting with a move from right field to first base this spring. "They've had a lot going on. It sounds like they've established a good game plan.

"I still feel right now the offense is much better than it was last year. There's the addition of Juan Encarnacion, who's a very solid guy and a really good run producer."

My boss in my first real job out of college told me that once you cross the $100,000 per year salary mark, the qualifications reduce to how much shit you can take. By that standard, Green currently labors in the Hyperion plant, moving the effluence one $92,500 shovelful at a time.

// posted by Rob @ 8:39 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Mr. Tid (Graham Chapman): Well, gentlemen, we have two architectural designs for this new residential block of yours and I thought it best if the architects themselves explained the particular advantages of their designs.

<There is a knock at the door.>

Mr. Tid: Ah! That's probably the first architect now. Come in.

<Mr. Wiggin enters. >

Mr. Wiggin (John Cleese): Good morning, gentlemen.
Clients: Good morning.
Mr. Wiggin: This is a 12-storey block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive here and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these....
Client 1: Excuse me.
Mr. Wiggin: Yes?
Client 1: Did you say 'knives'?
Mr. Wiggin: Rotating knives, yes.
Client 2: Do I take it that you are proposing to slaughter our tenants?
Mr. Wiggin: ...Does that not fit in with your plans?

// posted by Rob @ 7:19 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Yet, the news is not all good. If Boras, through Gagné, speaks sweet words of conciliation and long-term contracts, it is because the number of teams requiring the services of an übercloser that can afford this one are small, and at the moment, perhaps zero. Even if DePodesta wanted to sell-the-Gagné for a bat, his franchise player might not have a home anywhere in baseball. This could be a bad marriage waiting to happen.

// posted by Rob @ 6:58 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Frank McCourt
Chairman and President, Los Angeles Dodgers
1000 Elysian Park Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Dear Theo Paul,

Who is this Green fellow and when did he get on the team? We simply cannot have the players making comments like this to the press, especially that nasty little T.J. Simers fellow. I hear he's an awful bore -- but I can't find his column in the Globe anywhere. Are you sure he's a sportswriter? Please find a way to shut Green up; remind him that a trade to Texas is still possible. ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE!!!

Best,

Frank

// posted by Rob @ 9:26 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

• Eckstein, with an injured hip
• Erstad, with his hamstrings going out again
• Percival, with a degenerative hip condition
• Brad Fullmer, who ripped a patella on a bad play at first
• Tim Salmon, with back problems
• Washburn, with shoulder problems acquired in ST
• Benjie Molina, who broke his wrist during a game
• Kennedy, who pulled his hamstrings early in the season
• Sele, whose injured shoulder left him all but ineffective

// posted by Rob @ 4:31 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Entracte

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

// posted by Rob @ 7:19 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

More Mr. Happy News

Wile E. Throws From the Mound

Ishii/Roberts Trade Rumor

Erstad At 1B Won't Keep Him Healthy

Erstad had a sore right shoulder for much of the second half of 1997, didn't start the final 13 games and had surgery after the season. In 1998, when Erstad played 72 games in the outfield and 70 at first, he strained his left hamstring in early August, went on the disabled list, aggravated the hamstring in early September and missed 10 more games.

// posted by Rob @ 7:48 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Arte Moreno, who purchased the Angels from Disney in May, has an entirely different mind-set. He made it clear, as Angel pitchers and catchers began spring training workouts Friday, that this winter's $146-million free-agent splurge was the beginning of a major paradigm shift, not a one-time shopping spree.

"We're a big-market team and should act like one," said Moreno, who plans to be a regular at Tempe Diablo Stadium this spring. "We're in the No. 2 media market in the country. There's no reason we can't bring a championship-caliber team here every year."

... "We have a business plan," Moreno said, "and it's not like it's written on the back of a napkin." [emphasis mine]

Update: Man, that's doubly nasty: Arte would have been asked to vote his business proposal up or down, and therefore had to read the thing. Ouch!

// posted by Rob @ 10:39 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

When Schlegel projects McPoor as "a boon" to the Dodgers, it makes you wonder what kind of mind-altering chemicals he's been taking. My wife once had a music prof like that; they called him "Professor Android" 'cause his brains were so fried. It's called, going from the frying pan to the fire. But maybe they don't let you write the obvious if your pay partially comes from one of the guys you're covering (i.e., the Dodgers' own Captain Ahab).

// posted by Rob @ 5:22 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

1. He's not facing the batters in the AL East. I'm not sure if this is a huge factor, but getting shelled by Boston just can't be a good feeling, against whom he went 0-0 with four no decisions with a 5.21 ERA. Reviewing his record, however, he fared far worse, surprisingly, against the unlikelies of Kansas City and Tampa Bay.
2. He's pitching in Dodger Stadium, the tonic effects of which have already been noted on other pitchers.
3. He's out of Yankee Stadium minus the expectation of being some sort of Greek god.
4. He's got better infield defense behind him. Beltre, Izturis, Cora, and Green (Green? Please say it ain't so...) will be better than anything he had in New York.
5. He's moving to the NL minus the DH.

Update: Looking up Weaver's DIPS ERA lends a lot of credence to this -- he's on the leaderboard for dERA-ERA. Not that this necessarily matters; dERA-ERA discrepancies only tend to work if they're positive (i.e., they predict decline). It does make me wonder, though, whether the league suddenly get a read on him somehow.

// posted by Rob @ 9:03 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

A Cuppa, Cuppa, Cuppa -- Ahhh

YES Says Yes To Japan Opener, ESPN Says No

Kinkade Tearing It Up, SYL News, Japanese ST Invitee At Vero

Yu Who?

Angels' Rotation Set

Validation On MLBPA Reinstatement

// posted by Rob @ 7:39 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

[He] had grown in excess of 6’ and he appeared to have the baseball world at his feet when disaster struck. Just prior to going to Canberra with the Victorian U18 team Matt developed shoulder problems which saw him dropped from the team. He still went to Canberra but had to be content with watching the game from the stands, sitting most times with Trevor Jarrett. “That was so tough”, said Matt from his Grovedale home, “to sit each day and watch my team mates playing in the National Titles.” On returning to Geelong it was discovered that he had torn his labrum in his pitching shoulder which required an operation and a long period of rehabilitation. Not only had he had to sit out the National Championships but now he was unable to attend the MLBAAP Academy on the Gold Coast in July. However, instead of letting it get him down he showed the mental toughness which will get him through the pro leagues and set to work on his rehab to ensure his place in the Victorian team playing at the Championships in his hometown of Geelong this January.

“He hadn’t fully recovered at the time of the Tournament,” said Trevor Jarrett, “ and he was given duties as a hard hitting 1st baseman when he wasn’t being called upon to pitch.” With 6 other lefties the Victorians could afford the luxury of using Matt sparingly on the mound and so the pro scouts had the opportunity to witness his ability with the bat, and they liked what they saw and were soon in heavy negotiations with his agent.

// posted by Rob @ 4:17 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Meantime, In St. Louis: Albert Pujols is reported to have a 7-year, $100M deal done. It may be a lonely ride for Albert much of that time; the Cards' farm system is in shambles now, Jim Edmonds is looking towards retirement, and the Cubs have arguably the best young starters in the game. I wouldn't want to be a Cards fan over the next few years; it's gonna get brutal.

// posted by Rob @ 3:26 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Bartolo Colón tiene una corta lista de aspiraciones en la próxima temporada de grandes ligas: ganar 20 partidos y llegar a la Serie Mundial.

Colón, quien durante el receso firmó un contrato de 51 millones de dólares por cuatro temporadas con los Angelinos de Anaheim, ganó 20 juegos en el 2002 con Cleveland y Montreal.

Bartolo Colón has a short list of aspirations in his next season in the big leagues: to win 20 games and get to the World Series.

Colon, who signed a $51 million, 4-year contract, won 20 games in 2002 with Cleveland and Montreal.

Vladimir Guerrero reveló que uno de sus sueños es disparar 50 jonrones en una temporada.

"Me gustaría pegar 50 jonrones. Es un sueño que tengo'', dijo Guerrero previo a su viaje a Estados Unidos para asistir a su primer campo de entrenamientos con los Angelinos de Anaheim, reseñó AP.

Vladimir Guerrero revealed it is one of his dreams to hit 50 home runs in a season.

"I would like to hit 50 home runs. It is a dream I have," Guerrero said prior to his trip to the United States to attend his first training camp with the Anaheim Angels.

// posted by Rob @ 1:23 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

That year [1986], the Red Sox went on the win the American League. If that happens again in 2004, more than heads will roll in New York. There may be bodies. Piles of bodies. But in light of the recent A-Rod trade, one thing is clear: Steinbrenner is the same old Steinbrenner. Focus on the hitting and "the hell with the pitchers."

// posted by Rob @ 12:51 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Q (New owner) Frank McCourt said he wanted to keep the payroll around $100 million this year. Can you take on money beyond that?

A We haven't gotten into that. My sense is Frank's definitely committed to putting together a winning team, so it's probably a case-by-case basis. He set an area where he feels the payroll needs to be, but he hasn't said this is an absolute ceiling. [No, in the same sense that a 757 can't go into low earth orbit.] He's committed to finding a way to put the best team out there possible. If that means going over budget, I'm sure he'll be open to discussion.

Q A lot of the players here have below average on-base percentages. Do you feel given how bad the on-base percentage was collectively and individually, you'd be comfortable starting the season with that this year?

A I'll say this. The good thing about having the pitching staff that we had here last year is this doesn't have to be the best offensive team in the league to win a lot of games. ... The one thing we have over last year is we have a healthy Shawn Green.

Coda (2/19): I claim DePodesta knows the oft-repeated $100M payroll figure is purely fictional and meant as a balm to the wounded pride of the typical Dodger fan, who -- rightly -- imagines his team should compete with the likes of the Yankees for both fiscal clout and star-studdedness. But imagine McCourt is lying even unto his general manager. Well: there is no honor among thieves. Would we expect less?

// posted by Rob @ 10:47 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Update: Today's Times indicates Hundley's injury is career threatening. Much as I hate to say it, I sure hope so...

// posted by Rob @ 8:25 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

"Last season, one study showed that Bonds reached base 1.1 times per plate appearance."

// posted by Rob @ 8:36 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Now, you could certainly argue against the idea that hitting is, at the major league level, a teachable skill, but Jon doesn't do that. Instead, he says that, well, because some people assign Jim Colburn the glory of the pitching staff, the same ignominy should have attached to the hitting coach. Fair enough. But when your raw material consists of Kevin Brown, Hideo Nomo, Wilson Alvarez, Guillermo Mota, Paul Quantrill, etc., etc., etc., how good do you actually have to be? I could be a hitting coach for Barry Bonds. I wouldn't be any help at all teaching Minnie Mendoza -- or, for that matter, Alex Cora. If you're going to be throwing comparisons like that around, Jon, ask yourself this: why hasn't Colborn somehow fixed Masao Kida? And, does Clark get credit for Alex Cora's completely respectable .291/ .371/ .434 line in 2002?

For the record, I was in favor of firing him at the time as well, but principally on the grounds that whatever was going on wasn't working. Unfortunately, in retrospect, it looks like the problem was in the front office, not the dugout.

Followup: Jon also worries about DePodesta's apparent casual assignment of the hitting coach position to someone equally inexperienced at coaching as Wallach. Well, say DePodesta believes the numbers tell all. Isn't is also possible he could have a sound basis for the opinion that coaching doesn't effect performance significantly? And if that's true, why not utter a few homilies for the press? After all, Moneyball made much of Beane's contempt for the field manager...

// posted by Rob @ 6:53 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

A-Rod

• The New York Times has an article on the A-Rod situation. In particular, two friends wrote that the passage

  while Rodriguez is the most talented, the team stressed yesterday that Jeter still has the most clout.

  is rather interesting from two standpoints:
  • We'll see just how long that lasts after ST (Rodriguez has never played 3B in his career and is the superior defensive SS)
  • An obsolete definition of "clout" is "a cloth used to cover a man's genitals". Hee!
  So we suppose A-Rod will be nearly naked in April? Or will they let him wear his numbers? Some controversy erupted after A-Rod found this town wasn't big enough for him and the Babe, so he switched to number 13. I thought he should use 25,000,000 -- the annual average dollar value of his contract. Heck, if they can fit Grudzielanek on the back of his...
• And of course, ESPN has its own columnist to look at matters, humorously or otherwise. Some good reasons why A-Rod to the Yanks won't matter:

  1. Last time I checked, pitchers and catchers haven't even reported yet. ...

  2. All right, how can this POSSIBLY turn out well with Jeter playing shortstop and A-Rod playing third? ...

  3. Consider this: No more Grady Little.

  6. For the first time in 16 years, the Red Sox have three prime starters, thanks to the addition of Schilling. Isn't this a stronger version of the team that came within one managerial boner of the World Series? Suddenly we're writing them off because a guy who's never even played in a World Series landed on the Yanks?

  7. Have I mentioned that Pedro is in a contract year? ...

  So it should be a full year for my second-favorite AL team, the Red Sox.
• Now comes Cap'n A-Rod's Fun Page!

Finally, All The Cubs' Maddux Are In A Row

And Now For Our Human Interest Story

// posted by Rob @ 10:46 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Edit: lose that old hed, what was I thinking?

// posted by Rob @ 8:33 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Thursday, September 13th, 2007

New York, (AP) -- Bud Selig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, today announced the long-expected purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers by a group led by David Checketts. As part of the bankruptcy settlement, former owner Frank McCourt will receive $150 million.

Checketts refused to answer questions regarding rumors of the team's relocation to Brooklyn. With the team slipping into insolvency and the Yankees' continued unrestrained spending, Selig has floated the idea of dividing the New York market by adding a third team, thereby increasing competition for the Yankees. Many baseball insiders consider the Dodgers, with their historic roots in Brooklyn, the ideal team for this task.

// posted by Rob @ 7:14 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

• Jim Tracy is staying on through the end of his contract.
• Paul has a five-year contract. (But he's never been a GM before, Frank...?)
• McCourt mentioned the Sons of Sam Horn website as something his sons frequent; one poster there described DePodesta as "the only superstar left who Steinbrenner hasn't bought." Gee, wouldn't it be nice to know they thought enough of the Dodgers to spend time looking at any of our sites? Update: ... starting with Dodger Blues... Update again: Glad to see T.J. Simers found that interesting as well. Dammit, Frank, you own the Dodgers... D-O-D-G-E-R-S. No, Nomar's NOT playing shortstop, there's no Green Monster, and the Yanks are not in our division or even our league.
• I didn't listen to the whole thing, but others on the fan forum have said that Paul made some comment to the effect that he "can't wait to rip off Billy Beane", probably as a response to some of the speculation that Beane will vacuum up all the Dodgers' quality prospects in a few weeks. (Update: it got picked up by the Riverside Press-Enterprise.) Also, "we both hate the Giants", a line designed to get a yuck or two, but not a bad start.
• I'm sick of Frank's Bahstahn accent already. At least he acknowledges that trading the best prospects weren't a good idea. But his admission that firing Evans was strictly an exercise in turf-marking -- yuck. Frank, you have no class whatsoever.

// posted by Rob @ 9:00 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

I have been visiting this message board frequently over the past two-plus years, and have enjoyed meeting and talking with many of you during my time as the Dodgers' General Manager.

First off, I want to thank Fox, Bob Daly, Bob Graziano, and Dave Wallace for the tremendous opportunity two and one-half years ago. I was honored to have had the chance to be the Dodgers' GM, and I wish we would have had the opportunity to complete our job here.

My staff deserves a huge compliment for their work, especially during this very difficult transition process. I know it has been a stressful offseason, and I wish them the very best and thank them for their support throughout.

I want to thank Dodger fans, because I have seen and felt your passion for your favorite team. My good friend Don Drysdale used to tell me great things about the Dodgers and their fans, and he was so right. You have been great, and while I know the past few months have been frustrating, the organization will benefit from the work our staff accomplished.

I feel good about what we had done in only two seasons -- we inherited the oldest roster, an inflexible one with over $200 million committed, and an organization rated 28th in talent -- near the bottom for the fifth consecutive year when we started.

After only two years, the Dodgers are now in the top four in talent as a result of great work by the amateur, international, and professional scouting staffs, along with an excellent, innovative player development staff. As a result, the Dodgers are on the right track for long-term success and you the fans will be the real winners.

This entire offseason has been extremely frustrating for everyone in the Dodger organization. The offseason is the worst possible time for an organization to go through an ownership change, since nearly all of the key personnel and financial decisions are made during that period. It has been very difficult and the entire organization was affected during the long process.

Everyone in our baseball decision-making group, including Bob Daly and Bob Graziano, knew that we needed to use the increased flexibility obtained in the Kevin Brown trade to the Yankees to improve our offense, and there is no question that we would have accomplished our goal of acquiring a prolific offensive player in his prime -- without giving up any of our prospects -- had it not been for the circumstances surrounding the ownership transition [emphasis mine].

We always took into account the best interests of the Dodgers, both short and long-term, whenever we made a baseball decision. The fans and the organization deserved that. I knew it was our responsibility to make the unpopular decisions which were actually in the best long-term interests of the Dodgers. We developed a gameplan and adhered to it in order to achieve our goal, and our philosophy had the complete support of upper management.

Lastly, I never realized that one pink shirt would cause so much discussion!

Best wishes to all of you and thanks.

  Dan Evans

Mr. DePodesta -- welcome to the furnace.

// posted by Rob @ 7:37 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

1. They have the highest paid player in baseball. I'd have to remember a ways back, but there have been very, very few teams with the highest paid player to even go to the postseason, let alone win. (There was a good article on this and unfortunately I can't find it at the moment.) Update: found it on Sean Lahman's site. A little old, but the story's basic facts remain unchanged, unless the Yanks defy history this year.
2. They have four ex-Cubs - Kenny Lofton, Tom Gordon, Felix Heredia, and Jon Lieber. Outside of the Cubs themselves*, this gives them possibly the highest ex-Cub factor of any team in the majors.
3. A-Rod will be playing with the number 13 on his back.

// posted by Rob @ 3:55 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

1. 1B Casey Kotchman
2. C Jeff Mathis
3. 3B Dallas McPherson
4. RHP Ervin Santana
5. RHP Bobby Jenks
6. 2B Alberto Callaspo
7. SS Brendan Wood
8. SS Erick Aybar
9. RHP Rafael Rodriguez
10. RHP Steven Shell

In other news, I had further discussion with Stephen Smith of Future Angels about the status of Arizona Fall League prospects:

[The] dirty secret is that not everyone sent to AFL is actually a prospect. Teams need to have a certain balance at each position, so sometimes teams will send pitchers or catchers or whatever who really aren't prospects just to help the AFL office balance out the rosters. Not all teams buy into the philosophy that the AFL is for "top prospects," and keep those guys at home where they won't get hurt, sending instead marginal players. Sometimes they send players coming off an injury who need work to catch up for the next season.

// posted by Rob @ 10:01 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Billy Beane, you may start your vacuum cleaner.

Edit: One A's fan has already figured out the obvious: Dodger fans should get used to the idea of Chavez Ravine minus Eric Gagne, and sooner rather than later.

// posted by Rob @ 9:17 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

So last year, after the Angels' title run, I saw the improbable: blue rally monkeys in the Dodger concession stands. I don't think anyone was buying them, but it was ... ironic? Yeah, that's it. So now, I think I've heard everything: the anti-Angels, the Oakland A's (who I refuse to hate but enjoy beating nonetheless), are selling monkeys as well. Dang, who knew a little simian could be so popular?

// posted by Rob @ 6:32 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

ESPN is reporting that the Yankees are close to acquiring the Ralley Monkey from the Angels for an autographed Jorge Posada game-worn jersey and 110 million dollars.

There goes the pennant.

// posted by Rob @ 1:24 PM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

Edit: Vlad Injury Watch: Did you see in the Times where it says

The back is fine, Guerrero says, but he has experienced tightness in his legs during winter workouts. He'll take it easy on his legs for two to three months, he says, but he still can steal 30 bases.

// posted by Rob @ 7:51 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post

On May 9, in the Berlin suburb of Zehlendorf, Colonel Oster of the Abwehr [and a Nazi mole] dined for the last time with his friend Colonel Sas, the Dutch military attaché. Oster once more confirmed that Fall Gelb [the plan to attack France] would be unleashed at daybreak. ...

At 10:20 that Thursday morning ... [Prime Minister] Paul Reynaud announced he would present the premiership of France to anyone who could form a government, unless the cabinet agreed with his indictment of Gamelin, commander in chief of the French army; supreme commander of the Allied forces, British as well as French; and the officer to presided over both the Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre and the Haut Comité Militaire. ...

"I consider the government as having resigned." They were dismayed. None had thought he would actually dissolve the government. Now they were all ex-ministers, as he was an ex-premier.

During the afternoon Gamelin, glooming around in his Vincennes dungeon, learned of the bill of particulars Reynaud had drawn up against him. Indignant, he too resigned.

At 1:00 A.M. he was awakened. A French agent behind the German lines had sent an urgent signal: "Colonnes en marche vers l'ouest" -- "Columns marching westward."

Hitler was on his way.

France had no government. The French Army had no commander.

// posted by Rob @ 6:36 AM link  //  0 comments  //  links to this post