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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Games, Games, Games

Calling All Homers: Angels 9, Cleveland 5

A better-than-expected game by Dustin Moseley, whose stature in the rotation is "first off when Lackey comes back", but he managed to strike out five over six frames despite giving up four runs. The offense lit up Cleveland pitching, with Mike Napoli, Garret Anderson, Casey Kotchman, and Vlad Guerrero all going yard, and Napoli's with the bases juiced. A great game for erasing some of that negative WPA for those players.

Yahoo BoxRecap

It's Only A Small Sample If You Don't Count 2007: Diamondbacks 4, Dodgers 3

Yesterday, reviewing the results of a game that got ever-so-slightly out of control, Jon wrote of Andruw Jones
Half a week ago, Matt Kemp looked like he had lost all ability to recognize a pitch.

A year or two ago, Jeff Kent went something like 3 for May. Now he's 40 and still hitting.

Yes, player careers wind down. And maybe he does need glasses, or to get in better shape. Certainly, some adjustment is in order. But some of you guys are acting as if Jones suddenly came down with Lou Gehrig's disease. No, not even I will give him an endless period to turn it around, but it's April 9!

It's a fair point as far as it goes; even PECOTA projects a .257/.345/.488 line ($), which, while bad for a guy making the kind of money he is, is still better than his current .129/.206/.161. The major issue I have with it is that Colletti knew Jones would potentially be bad and signed him anyway. Guys do fall off cliffs, and Jones might be one of them. At #117:
My concern is not that Andruw Jones is not hitting. If he were making contact or swinging at good pitches I would write it off to a slow start but he is totally lost out there. He swings early. He swings late. He swings at letter high pitches. He swings at pitches in the dirt. The only pitches he doesn't swing at are the ones over the plate.

He needs to be told to stop pulling the ball. If he doesn't stop then he should be sat down until he does. I don't care about his weight or his smile, but he needs to do what his manager and hitting coach tell him.

If he continues to be a disappointment it won't be a total loss. Eventally we will have the entertainment of Kent laying into him.

I'm told there were some bad calls in this game, and that the pitching just wasn't quite up to it, but a sweep at the hands of the Snakes should be a real wakeup call.

Yahoo BoxRecap

Edwin Jackson Shows Up Colletti: Rays 7, Mariners 0

January 14, 2006: Traded by the Los Angeles Dodgers with Chuck Tiffany (minors) to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for Danys Baez and Lance Carter.
Edwin Jackson transactions, Baseball-Reference
2-0, 0.64 ERA, and eight hits allowed all year. Wow, Danys Baez and Lance Carter are sure useful parts, aren't they?

Something that still could have been if not for Flanders:

Update: As Andrew pointed out in the comments, the lousy trade was essentially forced by an action taken by his predecessor, Dan Evans, who unnecessarily started Jackson's service clock at least a year too early by calling him up in 2003. You can understand that in the context of the worst Dodger offense relative to its hyperproductive pitching in franchise history (and one of the worst ratios of pitching performance relative to offense in major league history), but that doesn't relieve Dan Evans, who so often talked about winning over the long term, from his responsibility of wisely using his resources.

Yahoo Box

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Comments:
In fairness to Colletti, excluding today's game, Jackson has posted a 5.56 ERA and 1.705 WHIP in 278 2/3 IP. He yielded four or more earned runs in 15 of his 31 starts last year, including 9 of his first 12. He has really struggled to match his phenomenal debut performance.

Then again, he did just turn 24 years old. And maybe that's the point.
 
Moseley gave up four runs, not five. And all four came in the sixth.

Another indication this guy is built for long relief. He does quite well in the first three innings for the most part.
 
He was twenty-frickin'-two years old when he was traded. That trade was just crap. The Dodgers could have easily let him figured his problems out in Las Vegas, and should have.
 
Yeah, my brain got stuck on five after the K's. Thanks for the correction.
 
Of course, Jackson had put up some pretty crappy minor league numbers in the interim, too. But the point remains. He was 22. Lots of guys are just starting their professional careers at that age. His Dodger career was a victim of his uncanny debut, and the expectations that flowed. The fact that they could only get flotsam & jetsam in return says as much.

I'm not trying to defend Colletti at all; I'm just sayin' that his star had lost some of its lustre.

Perhaps that is all the more reason why they should have stuck it out. Even at his worst, he really wasn't worse than Esteban Loaiza or the warmed-over corpse of Jason Schmidt (will he even be back this year?)
 
The Dodgers had one year to let Jackson figure things out in the minors, then he was out of options and would have had to spend all of 2007 on the big club.

Would you really be willing to accept an 8 ERA in the first half from him? Since you're already torching Jones, I doubt it.
 
No, I wouldn't, and that's a good point: the only justification for trading Jackson was his option years. But that brings up another good point: did a 3.57 ERA at AA Jacksonville with excellent strikeout numbers (157 in 148.1 IP) justify starting his service clock so early? I would say no, and this amounts to a pretty serious failing on Dan Evans' part.
 
Two Andrews in the same thread? Bosh. Get a suffix, Andrew Deux!

Just sayin': I'm not Andrew #2. I thought the Blue started Jackson's clock too soon, but I've no lasting beef over it.

I'm also not convinced Ervin...er...Edwin is for real yet. If you get my drift.
 

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