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

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Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Pickoff Moves

Dodgers Agree To 3-Year/$26M Deal With Penny

Brad Penny and the Dodgers have agreed to a three-year, $26M deal that could go to $33M with a fourth year if various incentive clauses kick in.

Plaschke Doesn't Kill Himself

On a decent piece on Kirk Gibson. Plaschke can't really do analysis well, but he's pretty good at character sketches, and this is a respectable, if monosentence one. Sample:

"I've got a photograph of a lady with a big ol' black and blue mark on her leg, the ball must have hit her there," Kirk Gibson says.
"But nobody has ever said anything about the ball."
He talks about the bat. He keeps it in a darkened room, perfectly preserved, its scars beyond decay.
"It's cool," he says. "Where the ball hit the bat, it chipped a piece right out of it."
He talks about the game-winning homer in the 1988 World Series opener against the Oakland Athletics, the greatest moment in Los Angeles Dodger history.
"When I got out and heard the crowd, I programmed myself to say, 'I won't hurt,' " he says.
But Kirk Gibson will not relive the fist pump.
He can't explain it. He will not repeat it. He never has. He never will.
"All the time guys are saying, 'Gimme the pump, Gibby,' but I can't do it," he says. "You gotta feel it. You can't be phony about it."

Update: Robert Tagorda's comments at the Baseball Crank are worth reading on this.

Spin Cycle In The Chavez Washing Machine

This Times story reminds me that the Dodgers blame too much their "lack of communication" for wildly varying things that include

Writers of questionable competence "explaining" some of the team's unpopular offseason moves.
Less-than-competent architects designing the team's new seating.
Incompetence within the organization. (An example given in the article included one part of the organization cooking up ticket promotions -- and then informing no one else about it.)

Some of these things are within their control, but others are not, and I sense a Canutian itch to take an axe to the printing presses when I read about some parts of the "problem". The examples given of Boston Globe columnist's "The McCourt Appeal", as well as the epithets from Times columnist T.J. Simers, sports talk host Joe McDonnell, and a resolution by city councilman Jack Weiss aren't something a public relations blitz will wipe away; they reflect a close-lipped approach to the purchase of the team, which, while common in sports, doesn't help to alleviate fan concerns about a lack of financial wherewithal.

The problem ultimately isn't ticket prices or seating arrangements; it's more a top-down systemic lack of trust. One year's division win won't wash that away, and a tumultuous postseason followed by a .500 season the next year won't help.

Two Good Players Together Make A Great One

Greg Patton in the Press-Enterprise makes an interesting point, namely that Saenz plus Choi equals an All-Star player at first base. Unfortunately, they don't nominate platoons.

Dodgers 5, Tigers 3

Kent has "the good face" of a ballplayer so despised in Moneyball; hell, his toenails-to-cranium poster on the Dodger Stadium pillars behind the seats makes him look like Robert Redford's body double from The Natural. He's statuesque, and more, he can produce. Last night's effort against a good pitcher who unusally gave up two successive walks followed by a tater was what the Dodgers surely thought they were getting from April through September, but Kent seemingly is streakier this year than most.

Is Pudge's 1-4 line because of his broken hand? How helpful to the team is he when he's impaired? (Now watch, he'll blast Thompson today.)

Recap

// posted by Rob @ 8:54 AM link // 0 comments