toomanyhatz
LA's Little Ethiopia. More injera, please!
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Dodger fan since birth. Same age as Dodger stadium. Other interests: music (almost all of it), movies, cats.
Other than last night's game- and the whole team looked like they were engaged in a pathetic attempt to "make something happen"- he hasn't looked NEARLY as lost at the plate this year. I'll take .230/.320/.350 with good D from him and be thrilled.
I had fun just now looking at the Dodgers calendar on Yahoo! Sports. Did you know that, outside of the week of April 14-20, in which they went 0-6, the Dodgers are actually 10-5?
OK, I will stop conversing with my inner Ross Porter now.
Yeah, but where was that HR you promised us?
Funny old world. I was assuming we'd lose this game, then it looked like we'd win it, then we lost it. I don't blame Donnie this time, though. So I resign myself to the fact that at least we got lots of encouraging signs from Kemp and Lilly, and really, considering how poorly everyone else has fared against Harvey, I'll take tagging him for three runs as another encouraging sign.
@BearHunter90 @toomanyhatz Wrong Ellis- I meant Mark. Schumakers' OBP and BA are both flukes. OK, maybe not the OBP so much, but I'll take the slightly lower one that comes with occasional power and speed.
Schumaker leading OFF? WTF??? I get giving CC (who's suddenly slumping, don't know if anyone noticed) a day off, but I'd much rather see Ellis (who's hot) leading off, Pnnto (getting lucky, mostly, though he is a scrapper) #2 and Schumaker 8th.
I totally blame Donnie for this one. It's a game you have a chance to win, and Jansen's clearly on his game, and Belisario's clearly not. If he gets in trouble take him out, but if it's worth throwing him out there for that second inning it's worth letting him get six outs even if you lose the chance to use him next game. For all we know the second game's a blowout and we don't need him.
And he absolutely does not know how to use Skip Schumaker. And he should be either giving Uribe more chances- he certainly can't be worse than what we've gotten so far- or they should just release him. All this talk about Sellers' job being defensive- that's the one thing Uribe can DO!! I keep reading how Cruz and Sellers are easily the best defensive players there but I just don't see how either of them are better than Uribe.
Kenley's on his game. He and League should trade roles. Which might happen yet this year.
Didn't think of it that way, but absolutely right. Maybe we can compromise by making it a long deal. 10/260, maybe? Might both sides be pleased with that?
Tying Kemp up- at an annual value a couple million less than Grienke's getting, not to harp on that- now looks like a stroke of genius. Tie up Kershaw NOW before the price goes up again!
So they're willing to spend millions and millions on a surplus of pitching- not that I'm complaining about that- but they're not just releasing Uribe outright because it'll cost them about the same as the nail on Grienke's non-ptiching hand? The mind boggles.
Fine, if you don't buy that, replace him with Cueto or Sele. Lincecum has had one terrible year and two great ones, Grienke has had one great one. Other than that they average out pretty similar. That's off the top of my head, too. There are plenty more that are question marks due to age or health but have a similar WAR over the past 5 years. Fact remains he's been in the top 10 for WAR precisely twice in his career- 2008 and 2009.
Verlander, Cain, Weaver, Price, Kershaw, Lincecum, Gio, Felix, Sabathia, Dickey. OK, there's 10, and that's off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of right off.
Take your pick. There is no metric, traditional or advanced, that puts him in the top 10-15 pitchers in baseball. He's just under that, and would be a #1 on a lot of teams, but that's still not worth what they paid. He'd need to FAR exceed expectations to be worthy of being paid more than Cain, etc., and like I said, it's never happened before in Dodgers history. It's possible my pessimism is superstitious. I sure hope so.
Yes, but only upper realm for 3 years out of 7. And it didn't bring them to where it was intended to- a winner in the postseason. I doubt there's a Dodger fan alive who wouldn't go back in time to give Piazza the exact same contract (which is what he was asking- he was a salary dump for the Dodgers to sign Brown. They could have had Piazza AND Sheffield in their lineup had they been willing to give Piazza what he wanted.)
That's true, but I griped like crazy when the Yankees' spendthrift ways drove everyone's price up. I prefer this to being hamstrung, but I don't like seeing the team I've loved my entire life painting a giant (pun intended) target on their own backs. They better win the next 5 WS, or a whole lot of fans are going to feel very let down.
Grienke could be the #1 pitcher on many teams- still doesn't prove he's an elite pitcher. He'd be #3 or 4 on the Giants, who might still have a superior rotation when all is said and done. (I realize that's counting on a bounce-back season from the Freak, but there's a good chance that'll happen.)
Hate to be Eeyore here, but the unavoidable downside here is, no matter how he performs, we have just paid a #2 pitcher as an elite. He is not elite, he never will be, and we paid him all that money simply because a) we have it and b) it was the only way to get a #2 pitcher, which we obviously needed. When Kershaw refuses to sign for uner $30 million a year, he'll have to have a few years in a row like his '09 year for this to be even remotely a good deal. And let's go back a while. Remember Don Stanhouse? Dave Goltz? Darren Driefort? When's the last time the Dodgers overpaid a pitcher and ended up getting a decent deal on it? Try NEVER! I like the Ryu deal- if he pans out into a #3, he's a relatively cheap one, puts him in team control for the perfect number of years and makes the requisite splash on the international market. Good all around. I'll be VERY happy if I;m wrong about Grienke, but I think most likely scenario is we get a good year or two out of him then he breaks down. When your best-case scenario is for it to work out as well as the Kevin Brown deal, you know you're grasping at straws.
I probably didn't express it well, but what I meant was: the first free agent signing is most likely to be the overpay/overextend. It seems more likely to me that there are other relievers out there as good that could be had later on, for less money and less years. Solid 4th outfielders that can fill in for CC if he's not ready in April are at more of a premium. Meaning, if we were inevitably going to overpay SOMEBODY, I'd rather it be another position than, as you call him, a non-elite reliever. I didn't mind the Rivera signing so much, for example, for just that reason.