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

Roster Notes

• Via Jon, Dioner Navarro will start the season on the DL. Sandy Alomar, Jr. will get most of the starts until he returns.
• Jayson Werth can swing a bat (not in the figurative sense of being a good hitter, though).
• Cody Ross's bruise is just that, and not a bone break. Still, he's going to be out of commission for a few days, and if he starts the season on the DL, it would help the Dodgers sort out a few things, as he's out of options.
• Olmedo Saenz had wisdom teeth removed, and couldn't work out because of the pain.
• Darin Erstad is still getting used to playing the outfield and has a sore shoulder from making the throws.

  "I haven't thrown that way it two years," he said of the shoulder he iced down Wednesday afternoon before the Angels' first night game of the spring. "It's just a process. It's going to be sore some days. We're getting through it. It's nothing major. Just some normal stuff."

• Mike Scioscia is retracting his earlier comments about Anderson being ready later in the week; Anderson has said his foot injury could keep him off the field for the whole spring.
• In Seattle, they're talking about how former Dodger Adrian Beltre is off to a fine spring after revisiting videos of his 2004 season, readjusting his stance, losing twelve pounds (twelve pounds? Can that make that much of a difference?) and so forth, but Mr. Small Sample Size also would like to remind readers of such stuff that he's only had five at bats.
• Frank Thomas ran the bases and is looking on target for the season.
• Via David Pinto, the Padres will have a rookie starting at second this year, Josh Barfield, and Dewon Brazelton, who has a 1.50 ERA in spring training with 14 strikeouts and four walks, has cracked the rotation.

  "People think we're an older team," [Padres GM Kevin] Towers said. "But we're getting younger, and we'll be a lot younger in a couple of years."

• Similarly, according to Jerry Crasnick, the Rangers have given their starting second base job to Ian Kinsler, who beat out veteran Mark DeRosa for the job. I have a photo of Kinsler online from spring training (not a particularly good one at that).
• Also from that Crasnick article, anonymous GM's say the kwaziest things:

  Angels GM Bill Stoneman took some hits for refusing to trade prospects for immediate offensive help, but many of his peers think he made the right call. Casey Kotchman and Kendry Morales have crushed the ball this spring, and second baseman Howie Kendrick is going to be a monster.

  "Kendrick could go to the big leagues right now and hit .300," a National League GM said. "He's way beyond his years with his approach at the plate."

  Let's just say we agree to disagree...

"The Chicken Runs At Midnight"

Cute -- if terribly sad -- story at dodgers.com about new Dodgers 3B coach Rich Donnelly, who lost his daughter to a brain tumor years ago:

"We're driving in the car in Pittsburgh during the playoffs in 1992 and Amy leans forward from the back seat and asks, 'Dad, what are you telling them? That the chicken runs at midnight, or what?'" recalled Donnelly.

"I don't know where she came up with that. But we had an infielder back then, Jose Lind, and he didn't speak much English. But that line just sort of stuck with me and when I saw Jose, I told him, 'The chicken runs at midnight.'

"He says, 'OK, good.' And he starts repeating it in the dugout and, pretty soon, everybody's chanting it, even though nobody knows what it means. And from then on, those five words became a family motto."

You can read the rest over there, but trust me, it's heartwearming. The specialists in heartwarming stories, the Lifetime channel, made a made-for-TV movie about it, too.

Betting On The Outcomes

Derek Zumsteg shows the Angels are Vegas favorites to win the division, but notes at the same time bettors' irrationality in making such predictions. Good stuff.

AN's Oakland Roundtable

Third in the series of AL West roundtables comes the AN-hosted Oakland post. I have some specific comments about it that are worth mentioning here. First, I don't think Bradley is as great a threat as the Rev does; having watched him on the Dodgers, he is capable of some offensive fireworks, but as on the Indians, he also has some sigificant drawbacks that prevent him from doing his best, mainly that he's easily injured, and when he is, he takes a long time to recover fully from them. A good example was the freak tendon tear in his ring finger that kept him from swinging a bat for a long time with the Dodgers.

And then there's this from Blez:

Loaiza is essentially the A's fifth starter now and most teams would take him as a fifth starter in a heartbeat. I don't like the length of the deal, but Beane will be able to deal him at some point if he's underperforming. Kennedy as the LOOGY is scary to me right now considering Teixeira, Anderson, etc.

For what, though? The size of the contract (~$21M/3 years) will make that difficult if he isn't performing.

This is interesting from Jeff of Lookout Landing:

Beyond the Box Score: With free agency looming, should the A's trade Barry Zito? Where, what, for whom, etc.?

...

Lookout Landing (Jeff): Short answer - yes, to a team with a stupid GM and a loaded farm system. Zito's perceived value - durability and all - is still so much higher than his actual value that you practically have to see what's out there. I wonder, though, if Beane would have the balls to unload Zito near the deadline if the A's are in the race. He could almost certainly fetch a ton on the market, but you have to think that'd be a PR nightmare.

Hmm, which teams could he be thinking of? A year ago, I might have said the Diamondbacks, who have a shortage of pitching at the highest levels and always have difficulties in pitching development; recall they signed Russ Ortiz to an overgenerous contract in the 2004/5 offseason, much to their chagrin now. But under a new GM? I'm not sure they make the same mistake twice. In any case, Blez adds the following comment:

Blez: First of all, I would love it if Billy was able to make a deal for a Dan Haren-type deal like Mat mentioned. And second, the A's have almost all of their young talent locked up through 2009, so the state of the A's farm system doesn't matter as much this year or even next year as Mat also said.

Huh? What happens if that talent doesn't pan out/collapses/gets injured? You always want a strong farm system.