Making a statement

They're whimsical, see?

The continuing refrain from the mainstream media during the Dodgers' surprisingly good start this season has been "Yeah, they're winning, but not against quality opponents.  Just wait until a good team plays them."  Sure enough, against better competition (Brewers & Braves), the Dodgers dropped two out of three, despite hanging tough with both.  This weekend's three game series vs. the Nationals was therefore looked at as a big litmus test- a battle against a powerful young team with three strong pitching matchups.  Taking two out of three (considering one was against Stephen Strasburg) would have been an accomplishment- a sweep wasn't even considered.  

Which makes the final result that much more gratifying.  There are still major flaws with this team, position players in particular- but they scratched together juuuuuuust enough offense to back up the dominant pitching performances this weekend.  Chris Capuano has been a VERY pleasant surprise thus far, holding the Nats scoreless over seven strong innings yesterday.  If he can stay healthy, he's going to be an asset in the back of this rotation.  

This upcoming series vs. the Rockies is going to be a big one- taking the series in Colorado would give the Dodgers a chance to really separate themselves in the NL West race.  And following it up with three games against the lowly Cubs means there's a very real chance they can return to Dodgers Stadium May 7th as the league's first 20 game winner, a nice feather in the cap for the incoming owners.

Bryce Who-per? You mean Matt Kemp.

They're looking up at Matt Kemp.

In the immortal words of The Wire's Clay Davis... Sheeee-it.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around last night's game.  It was definitely one of the best games I've ever seen live (other highlights, in no particular order: 4+1, Manny's first dodger home run, Kershaw's first start, Russell Martin's first hit, 2008 playoff clincher), and I've been trying all morning to contain my enthusiasm for it's long-term implications, considering that it's a single game in April.  Still, with a sellout crowd and the Washington Nationals' 1-2 Strasburg-Harper hype punch, this game felt like a game with a lot more on the line than the typical April matchup.

Matt Kemp doesn't warm up.   He waits.

The Good: My god, Matt Kemp is good.  On an night where he had gone 0-3 (with a walk and a stolen base), he delivered when the team needed him most.  We're witnessing history on a daily basis right now, and everyone should be enjoying this as much as possible.  This is the crowning of a true superstar, the best player in baseball.  And the palpable joy that he gives off from the field is intoxicating.  During warmups, he hi-fived and shook hands with every other Dodger on the field.  He performed personalized hi-five routines with at least two of the SECURITY GUARDS, for god's sake.  He's always standing on the top step of the dugout, cheering on his teammates and focusing on the game.  To see someone with his natural ability caring about all 24 of the other guys on the team is so much fun to see.  Simply put, he seems to be having just as much fun playing as we are watching.

Chad Billingsley deserves to be singled out as well.  Coming off the shellacking in Houston, Chad needed to bounce back with a solid outing to keep his many, many critics from starting their yearly calls for his release/trade/disembowelment.  That he needed to do so against one of the best young pitchers in baseball, and against a pretty dangerous lineup (Ryan Zimmerman's absence notwithstanding), made it even more daunting.  For whatever reason, the permanent story about Billingsley, as long as he is a Dodger, will be whether or not he is mentally "tough enough".  Dating back at least to the 2009 playoffs, the media and public discussion has revolved around this, and the vicious hatred for him that has developed is baffling.  At worst, he's a mechanically inconsistent mid-to-back of the rotation starter that will have streaks of both dominance and failure.  And that's the level he's being paid at.  At best, he's exactly what we saw last night- a power pitcher with good command and the ability to go toe-to-toe with a quality opponent.  Is it too much to ask that people just enjoy that?

Jerry Hairston Jr: defense wizard.  He's been a very solid contributor so far, both at the plate and especially in the field.  While I'd love to see him just in the infield (bat plays better filling in for Ellis & Uribe better than a would be LF one), he's been the best of the new signings so far in this early season.

The bad: Javy Guerra's in a world of hurt right now.  Plug in Jansen as the closer and hope Javy figures out what's going on in lower-leverage innings.  The Dodgers would be 17-4 if you erased the last week of his work.  No closer is perfect, and I like Javy, but objectively, he needs to get fixed before getting sent out in a high-leverage situation again.


Dee Gordon isn't looking so hot either.  Unfortunately, unlike with the bullpen situation, we don't have an easy alternative to replacing Dee while he works this out.  In a world where I'm filling out the lineup cards, I'd swap out Gordon and Ellis in the lineup- putting someone with a >.400 OBP on in front of Kemp and Ethier seems like a good idea where I'm from.  But the odds of that happening are beyond slim.  Maybe a temporary platoon of Gordon and Sellers would help?  Gordon's having a very hard time with lefties so far- putting Sellers in against lefties and giving Dee a few days of rest here & there seems like a nice compromise right now.

What we learned: All season, the media has pointed at the Dodgers' superior record and countered with the claim that it came against inferior opponents.  They can't do that anymore.  The Dodgers have been better than expected this season, and it gives a great deal of hope that the incoming ownership is going to be in good position to add at the deadline for a legitimate playoff push.  And expect any and all free agents this coming season to be pretty excited to play alongside the National League's two best players in Kemp & Kershaw.

Weekend Update: Dodgers(13-6) vs. Harpers(14-5)

Bryce Harper is VERY excited about Johnny Depp's version of Tonto.

We're going to ease back in nice and gentle-like here... with the news that UBER-FUBU-PROSPECT Bryce Harper has been called up by the Washington Nationals (to replace the DL-bound Ryan Zimmerman) and will be in Saturday's starting lineup for the Nats.  So tomorrow brings: Stephen Strasburg on the mound, Bryce Harper in the lineup, and Maury Wills and Don Drysdale in the palm of my hand (It's a cool bobblehead, but they have gotten seriously smaller in the last couple of years).  Good thing we had already scored free tickets to the game, because the joint will be jumpin.

On the Dodgers front, Juan Rivera seems to have managed to avoid the DL, but Nathan Eovaldi has been called up in an as-yet-unknown roster move... maybe swapping him for Antonini, who hasn't yet made an appearance?

Swinging back into things

So as it turns out, this takes effort.  Huh.

The Dodgers should not spend big on the bullpen next year

Ned Colletti was recently quoted in an interview as saying "I don't think we're that far away" re: the 2012 Dodgers roster.  Strange as this statement may be, we thought we would take a look around at various parts of the team to add our ridiculously insightful opinions on what exactly he may mean, arbitrarily starting with the bullpen. 

When this season started, Jonathan Broxton, Vicente Padilla, and Hong-Chi Kuo were expected to be the bedrocks of the bullpen, a trio of “proven veteran leaders” (see what we did there?) that would dominate the last two to three innings of a game.  That plan worked out flawlessly.

Look, there is no getting around the fact that Broxton was a disappointment this year- though probably not because he lacked the balls to pitch. No matter how much people may say Broxton lacked the heart or guts or other cliches to close, his absence since May 5th shows that his ineffectiveness was due to SOMETHING being wrong with him physically.  Still, he brought no value to the Dodgers this year and will certainly be gone next season.  You can add Vicente Padilla to that list as well, for mostly the same reasons.  We wish them both a healthy recovery and a chance from another team- hopefully one in the American League, so they can’t shut us out 15 times next season as a Giant.  We’ll get to Kuo shortly.  

 
Before we get to the Kuo question, though, let’s look at the good that came from the early season bullpen implosion::  the Dodgers brought up four young pitchers who have quietly (too quietly) been very good this year.  Javy Guerra, Kenley Jansen, Scott Elbert and Josh Lindblom have all stepped up and provided Mattingly with some impressive weapons out of the bullpen.  Guerra got the flashy job- saves are overrated, but 18 of them in 19 attempts is pretty darn good. But what really jumps out to us is the fact that he's only given up one homerun in 169 plate appearances against him while holding opponents to a .602 OPS.  His strikeouts could stand to come up a little, but they're not terrible either.  We already did an entire post on Kenley Jansen so we won't rehash just how great he is here, but needless to say he's still awesome and in fact gotten even better since our post. He and Guerra should be handling the closing duties from here on out in one fashion or another.  Scott Elbert has long been an interesting case- the talent has never been questioned, but he's just never seemed to be able to put it all together,  in particular, his control has always been an issue.  This year, though he’s been used sparingly, it seems like he’s finally figured it out.  His ERA sits at 2.64 in just over thirty innings with 30 strikeouts and, here's the part that has us optimistic about his future, just 11 walks.  Josh Lindblom hasn't been quite as good as the previous three, at least in terms of his strikeout to walk numbers.  His ERA is a shiny 2.88 and he's holding opponents to just a .591 OPS so he's clearly doing something right, but in 25 innings pitched he's struck out 18 and walked 9 (though 3 of them were intentional).  These might not be dazzling stats, but they're good enough to go to battle with him next year.

That leaves us with four locks for the bullpen next year, all (here’s the great part) making the league minimum.  Matt Guerrier and his $3.75MM salary can be added to that list as well-  overpaid he might be, but he's still a veteran, rubber arm type of guy that can eat up middle innings and pitch back to back nights.  Plus, there’s no way anyone else would take him off our hands at that salary, so there you go.
 
So we have one to two spots open in the bullpen next year, depending on whether they go with an 11 or 12 man pitching staff out of the gate.  The current candidates include Hong-Chih Kuo, who has had all kinds of problems this year and stands to make a hefty chunk of change in arbitration next season, Blake Hawksworth, Mike MacDougal, Ramon Troncoso and John Ely.  It's hard to tell which direction the Dodgers will go, but I suspect they won't be willing to pay Hong-Chih Kuo too much, and will continue to have zero faith (for good reason) in Ramon Troncoso.  John Ely doesn't really seem suited to pitching out of the pen, but he has a shot to make the squad as a mop-up/swingman type.  We honestly wouldn't be surprised if Hawksworth and MacDougal are both brought back, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Those two probably would not be pitching the highest leverage innings and neither one has been too bad this year either.  

The bottom line is this: the Dodgers are in desperate need of offense and have little money to upgrade.  Let's put aside our hopes of Fielder or Pujols- that just isn’t going to happen- but they're going to have to do something.  Having a bullpen this good, and this cheap, is crucial to providing the payroll flexibility needed to sign a bat or two.  

Pardon the Interruption...

The last week or two here on the site have been pretty darn spotty, as far as coverage goes.  Our apologies.  Between job obligations (Richard) and unchecked laziness (Danny), we've been unable to spend the time lovingly crafting the blog posts all twenty of you have grown to know and love.  The good news is, nothing interesting has happened with the Dodgers in the last two weeks, right?

...What's that?  Hottest team in baseball?  Billion dollar offers from state-owned Chinese institutions?  Dee Gordon returning from the DL?  DIONER NAVARRO BEING DFA'D FOR POOR WORK ETHIC?  Aw, crap.

While neither the work (Richard) or sloth (Danny) figures to change anytime soon, you have our assurances that this lapse in coverage will not happen again.  Starting again very soon, we'll be back to filling you in on all the on-and off-the-field travails of the boys in blue.  

Wishful Thinking

Could this wonderful partnership/friendship be coming to an end?

 In recent news there is a long shot chance (extremely long shot, so let's not get too excited) that the Cubs may be interested in our very own Ned Colletti to fill their opening for general manager.  Because of our admiration of his work and our desire to see him succeed, we here at Proven Veteran Leaders have decided to be grown-ups about this and submit the following letter of recommendation.

Dear Tom Ricketts,

We are writing on behalf of Ned Colletti, who we believe is an ideal fit to be the general manager of your fine franchise.  He got his start in your organization and we feel that a reunion would be good for you and good for baseball.  You see, Ned’s an old-school type, a real “baseball guy.”  He’s not one of those nerds who tend to rely on things like statistics and “facts” in their evaluations of baseball players.  He relies on his own damn peepers, and looks for players with guts and a knowledge of how to win.  You might be saying to yourself: “Those sound like intangible things with no real way to measure or quantify them.”  Well first of all, that sounds like Communist talk to us.  Second of all, and this really is the greatest thing about Ned Colletti.  There is a way to quantify intangibles, and Ned Colletti is the only one who can do it!  That’s right, he has figured out a way to measure the immeasurable, calculate the incalculable, tangabilize  the intangible. 

                It’s because of this we feel Ned Colletti would be a great leader for your organization.  In addition, he likes the same gritty white players the Cubs seem to enjoy.  We’ve employed both Ryan Theriot and Aaron Miles in the past two seasons.  Of course, you know all about Ryan Theriot as you traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Blake Dewitt.  What’s that you’re saying?  Blake Dewitt is not nearly scrappy enough, or white enough, for you?  Well, then rest easy.  Ned Colletti will trade him for the most valuable asset in the game of baseball.  That’s right, middle relief. 

                Now you might be wondering why we’d be so eager to rid ourselves of such a great leader.  Well, the thing is, as you may have heard the Los Angeles Dodgers are in a built of a pickle with their ownership.  See, with Frank McCourt at the helm, the Dodgers won’t be able to afford to go after the top tier free agents, or middle-tier for that matter, so we feel Ned’s gifts of overpaying for marginal talent would best be put to use where there might be money for him to waste, pardon, invest.  What the Dodgers will do, is just give a young guy like Logan White a chance to build a cheap team.  Dodger fans everywhere are willing to make this sacrifice for you.  Plus, Ned Colletti already has an awesome Chicago ‘stache.  Hell, if Saturday Night Live ever brings back the “Da Bears” sketch, he could fill the late Chris Farley’s role no problem.  That kind of ‘stache just can’t be bought. 

Sincerely,

Proven Veteran Leaders

And in other news, Kenley Jansen has been activated with Josh Lindblom sent back down to aaa to make room.  Don't worry, Lindblom fans.  He should be up as soon as rosters expand on September 1st.  Also, it looks like Dee Gordon should be back by Saturday.  Let's just hope this means that Eugenio Velez can continue his pursuit of a hitless season in another uniform rather than Justin Sellers getting sent down.