Dodger Thoughts

Jon Weisman's outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers and baseball

42 and thankful

November 25, 2009 |  8:41 pm

Every five to 11 years, my birthday falls on Thanksgiving. The first time was in 1970, at which point, had I been so self-aware, I could have given thanks for only needing to get stitches on four separate occasions while I was 2.

The next time was in 1981, a big Dodger year –  a celebration of a World Series title and the coming 1982 season, when my family would have Dodger season tickets for the first time.

The third time, 1987, was memorable because I was in France, during my quarter-of-a-junior-year abroad. I missed being with my family, but it was kind of a magical experience. 

In 1992, I was living out of California for the only other time in my life – in Washington D.C. – but this time I flew home from the snow of the capital to the warmth of home.

The most recent time was in 1998. The most lonely, frustrating, depressing portion of my life was nearing an end. My career was on an upswing (nearing its peak, as it turned out), with work writing for a television show. And at this particular moment in time, I had met my future wife, but she had not deigned to go out with me yet.

Since the last time my birthday was on Thanksgiving, my marriage and my three children were born. My financial situation, the best it ever was then, is the worst it has ever been now. My career took a left turn and then a fork in the road. It has been quite a time. Perhaps the only constant over the past 11 years has been that the Dodgers are still looking to 1988 for their last World Series title.

Though I complain, I'm fairly aware that as I'm greeted Thursday by No. 42 – the Jackie Robinson age, I like to think – the most important thing in my life is as good as I could possibly hope for. I would honestly stop the clock if I could. 

I wish you all the happiness you can have this Thanksgiving, and the strength to transcend that which you can't have.


Future and past

November 25, 2009 |  8:45 am

Future: Memories of Kevin Malone had a nice chat with Dodger prospect Trayvon Robinson.

Past: Two items of note from Blue Heaven. Some great old pics from Brooklyn and a poem about the 1955 champions by Marianne Moore (plus a link to another Moore composition, "Baseball and Writing").

Update — Past: Playbill.com interviews Roger Guenveur Smith about his new play, "Juan and John," focusing on the 1965 fight between Juan Marichal and John Roseboro.


With Juan Castro eyeing Philadelphia, Dodger utility closet opens for Chin-Lung Hu

November 24, 2009 |  7:44 pm

It's not official, but there are enough signs indicating backup infielder Juan Castro will sign with Philadelphia that Dodger fans who care to do so can speculate whether the Dodgers will let Chin-Lung Hu replace Castro.

Hopes for Hu, who will be 26 in February, to become a starting infielder for the Dodgers have faded with consecutive AAA seasons in which his OPS didn't break .725. There has been sporadic concern about his eyesight, but so much time has passed that it seems less likely that vision is the main bugaboo in Hu's offense.

In any case, Hu certainly seems capable of replicating Castro's 2009 season (good defense plus .650 OPS), if not his 15-year career (great defense plus .601 OPS). Will the Dodgers settle for that in 2010 from their No. 6 infielder, or will they aim higher? And if they aim higher, will they find someone is actually worth the extra cost?

This is not by any means a major question that I'm asking.

Update: I laughed at this quote in Todd Zolecki's MLB.com article from Castro's agent, Oscar Suarez: "(The Phillies) probably need a guy who can play shortstop if Jimmy Rollins needs a day off or he gets thrown out of a game or he needs a break at the end of a game." Always good to plan for your ejection backup.


McCourts find themselves in a 'baloney' sandwich

November 24, 2009 |  7:32 pm

The Wall Street Journal took its swing at the McCourt divorce tonight. Excerpts from John R. Emshwiller's piece:

Dodgers team owner Frank McCourt, locked in a nasty divorce fight with his wife, Jamie, says he is behind on his mortgage payments and essentially living from paycheck to paycheck. ...

Mr. McCourt's filing paints the picture of a man who, relative to his lifestyle, is operating without much of a cash cushion. In the filing, Mr. McCourt said his liquid assets consisted of a bank account with less than $1.2 million.

His filing said Mr. McCourt wouldn't see any significant income until next year -- possibly as late as March -- when he expected a quarterly payment of as much as $1.25 million from the partnership that owns the Dodgers. He said payments from the partnership were "my only source of personal cash flow" other than checking-account interest. Mr. McCourt said his liquid assets recently fell as low as $167,000, after paying about $700,000 in expenses for his wife, who filed for divorce last month. He said the Dodgers don't pay any of his personal expenses.

By contrast, Ms. McCourt has more than $3.5 million in liquid assets and an additional $1.8 million coming from an investment account, according to Mr. McCourt's filing. Ms. McCourt "is in a much better current liquid financial position" than Mr. McCourt, the filing said. ...

Bertram Fields, an attorney for Ms. McCourt, called Mr. McCourt's financial claims "baloney." While "he is not the first husband to claim poverty when he is asked to support his wife," Mr. Fields said, someone as wealthy as Mr. McCourt "should be ashamed of himself." ...


Frank and Jamie McCourt, a short but long time ago

November 24, 2009 | 11:15 am

Sunday on KPCC 89.3 FM, Town Hall Journal with Judy Muller went back to the archives, pulling old interviews and speaking engagements with Frank and Jamie McCourt to try to bring historical context to their current strife. The contrast between the optimism of a year ago with the ugliness of today is striking. (I contributed two cents worth of opinion to the program.)

Muller also airs an excerpt of a 1997 Tommy Lasorda speech that laments in advance the departure of the O'Malleys as Dodger owners.

* * *


Ned Colletti on Dodgers' starting pitching: 'I don't believe we can subtract from it in order to improve it'

November 23, 2009 |  3:20 pm

A Dodgers trade for Roy Halladay is unlikely, reports Dylan Hernandez of The Times after speaking with  General Manager Ned Colletti.

Of course, this could just be a bargaining posture, but it's certainly not surprising to hear the deal called, in the words of an anonymous Dodgers insider, "a longshot."

From Hernandez:

General Manager Ned Colletti made clear today that the any speculation about a deal that would send Chad Billingsley to Toronto for Roy Halladay is nothing more than speculation. Colletti refused to talk specifically about Halladay but said, "We would like to improve our pitching, especially starting pitching. I don't believe we can subtract from it in order to improve it."

In other words, the Dodgers won't trade a pitcher to acquire a pitcher.

I presume the last sentence implies "won't trade a pitcher from the current rotation to acquire a pitcher."

Trivia: One decade, one game

November 23, 2009 | 12:04 pm

Name the four players who were in exactly one game for the Dodgers in the 2000s.

Answer to come. Don't cheat!

Continue reading »

Chad Billingsley's head on a stick

November 23, 2009 |  7:20 am

My main goal in my Sunday post was to argue that Chad Billingsley should be judged by his fine performance in the vast majority of his starts, rather than his not-so-fine performance in the minority.

So I sort of undermined myself by bringing Roy Halladay into the conversation, mainly because that steered the conversation into "Whom would you rather have?" And frankly, even that got confused, because some people felt I was arguing that Billingsley was better than Halladay, which I wasn't. I stand by what I wrote, but it did overwhelm the point I was really wanting to get across.

Anyway, a main argument for the "minority camp" was the quality of Billingsley's brain. Because his poor performances have occurred, most notably, in the 2008 National League Championship Series and the 2009 stretch run, that was evidence that his mental state would always let him down when the going got tough.

My rebuttal, in brief for time's sake:

1) Billingsley performed well down the stretch in 2008 (2.86 ERA in the second half, 3.24 ERA in September) and in the 2008 NL Division Series, so there's plenty of evidence that he steps it up in pressure situations.

2) It's not like Billingsley had Steve Blass or Rick Ankiel disease. He wasn't incapable of pitching well or crazy bad – he actually strung together several good innings at a time. His problem was typically a single bad inning in a game that undermined him, and I don't see why that's something you can't recover from.

Look, there have been some big situations where Billingsley has let us down. I get it. What I don't get is why one would be so sure that this is a terminal condition or one that renders irrelevant the majority of good outings Billingsley has had, including in pressure situations.

Despite the occasional psychological horror story in baseball, I believe talent usually wins out in the end.


Trading Chad Billingsley for Roy Halladay would create more problems than it solves

November 22, 2009 | 12:13 pm

Phil Gurnee of True Blue L.A. wrote a post I enjoyed today, "Frustrations and Celebrations," that looked at the good and bad of the Dodgers. A snippet of that post reflected the disappointment in Chad Billingsley's 2009 finish that was shared by even some of his longtime supporters.

This might be a tangent, because I don't gather that Gurnee has given up on the Dodger right-hander, but I'm still taken aback by how many people think Billingsley's second half represents the real Billingsley. 

Of the 46 starts Billingsley made from April 30, 2008, through July 5, 2009, 36 were quality starts. (That doesn't include two outings in which Billingsley reached the seventh inning with a quality start, only to lose it later in the game.) And by and large, we're not talking of the worst-case scenario, six-inning, three-run, 4.50 ERA quality start. Billingsley's ERA in that time was 2.91, with 8.5 strikeouts per nine innings.

Just to emphasize the point, we're talking an ERA below 3.00 for more than a year.

Billingsley's quality start percentage for this period was .783. That figure would have placed him fifth in the major leagues in 2009, behind Felix Hernandez, Tim Lincecum, Zack Greinke and Chris Carpenter. His ERA would have been in the top 10 in all of baseball.

Billingsley was particularly hot at the start of 2009. He had 15 quality starts in his first 18 of 2009 (.833), good enough to lead the National League. His ERA was 3.14, with 8.6 strikeouts per nine innings.

And then, in the remaining portion of the 2009 season, during part of which he was suffering from leg injuries and possible first-half overwork by Joe Torre, Billingsley's quality start percentage dropped to .571 (8 of 14), and his ERA during that time was 5.45.

The disappointing finish caused Billingsley to fall into a tie for 17th place in quality start percentage (22 of 32, .688) -- with Roy Halladay. Yep, the sainted Halladay had as many ineffective starts in 2009 as Billingsley did.

Now, I'm not trying to argue that Billingsley was a better pitcher than Halladay in 2009. Halladay was better. And I'm certainly not asking you to accept quality starts as a be-all, end-all definition of greatness.  It's just one measurement of several I could have employed.

But I ask you, which of the following is most logical?

1) Billingsley's six sub-par starts in the final three months of the 2009 season -- plus, if you must, his two poor starts in the 2008 National League Championship Series -- represent his true ability, a distance so far from Halladay that the Dodgers must make it a mission to acquire the Toronto star.

2) Billingsley's body of work outside of those six starts better represents his true ability, and he remains a bona fide asset who, at age 25 compared with Halladay's 32, is much more likely to get better -- while allowing the Dodgers to avoid a trade that would be costly in both players and salary.

Trading Billingsley and others for Halladay doesn't solve the Dodger pitching depth problem -- in fact, the trade might worsen it if another pitcher is included in the deal, or if Halladay's $15.75-million 2010 salary in the final year of his contract prevents the Dodgers from signing a free-agent arm.

And though acquiring Halladay might make the Dodgers stronger at the front of the rotation, the difference, based on the evidence, is not a substantial one -- unless you are willing to use only Billingsley's six poor starts in the second half of 2009 as evidence.

The Dodgers are bound to get a lot of grief this off-season if they don't acquire a star pitcher -- a perceived ace -- with the assumption being that they are too cheap and/or too chicken to make a move. But a trade for Halladay that involves Billingsley (and don't even mention the even sillier idea of including Clayton Kershaw) seems most likely to create more problems than it solves. It is doubtful that it would bring the Dodgers closer to a World Series title.

You want to get Halladay? Leave Billingsley out of it.


Dodger Trailers of the 2000s: Pitching

November 21, 2009 |  9:35 am

Minimum 250 innings

Adjusted ERA (ERA+)
91 Andy Ashby
92 Kazuhisa Ishii
95 Darren Dreifort
97 Hideo Nomo
101 Terry Adams

ERA
4.41 Darren Dreifort
4.30 Kazuhisa Ishii
4.26 Andy Ashby
4.07 Brad Penny
4.06 Terry Adams

On-base percentage against
.357 Kazuhisa Ishii
.336 Darren Dreifort
.335 Andy Ashby
.333 Chad Billingsley
.331 Brad Penny

Slugging percentage against
.425 Andy Ashby
.421 Jeff Weaver
.416 Odalis Perez
.409 Brad Penny
.405 Hideo Nomo

OPS against
.760 Andy Ashby
.754 Kazuhisa Ishii
.742 Jeff Weaver
.741 Brad Penny
.739 Darren Dreifort

Hits per nine innings
9.56 Andy Ashby
9.39 Brad Penny
9.05 Jeff Weaver
9.05 Terry Adams
8.81 Derek Lowe

Walks per nine innings
5.80 Kazuhisa Ishii
4.62 Clayton Kershaw
4.41 Darren Dreifort
4.15 Hideo Nomo
4.09 Chad Billingsley

Strikeouts per nine innings
5.24 Andy Ashby
5.96 Derek Lowe
6.08 Hiroki Kuroda
6.13 Brad Penny
6.19 Odalis Perez

Home runs per nine innings
1.20 Darren Dreifort
1.19 Hideo Nomo
1.13 Odalis Perez
1.08 Kazuhisa Ishii
1.05 Jeff Weaver

Strikeout-walk ratio
1.25 Kazuhisa Ishii
1.76 Hideo Nomo
1.87 Andy Ashby
1.97 Darren Dreifort
1.99 Clayton Kershaw

Batting average on balls in play
.312 Terry Adams
.310 Brad Penny
.306 Chad Billingsley
.305 Jonathan Broxton
.299 Andy Ashby




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Recent Posts
42 and thankful |  November 25, 2009, 8:41 pm »
Future and past |  November 25, 2009, 8:45 am »
McCourts find themselves in a 'baloney' sandwich |  November 24, 2009, 7:32 pm »
Frank and Jamie McCourt, a short but long time ago |  November 24, 2009, 11:15 am »

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