The DePo Era

Just as Paul DePodesta was fired as Dodger general manager, I was wrapping up my chapter on "The DePo Era" for The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2006. The book itself is a terrific compilation of statistics and essays, and believe me, it is an honor for people like myself, Alex Belth of Bronx Banter, Aaron Gleeman, Dave Studeman and Steve Treder of The Hardball Times, and Matt Welch to appear in the same pages as Bill James and Rob Neyer.

For obvious reasons, I can't print my entire chapter here, but here is a 200-word excerpt from the 5,000-word piece:

Stripped of the emotional backstory, DePodesta was almost conventional. Like most general managers, DePodesta alternated between intense activity and dormancy. He made obvious moves and risky ones. He made bad moves and good ones.

And yes, they were mostly good. In reviewing every player transaction that DePodesta executed with the Dodgers, the cumulative effect is stunning. According to The Hardball Times' Win Shares Above Bench statistics (which represent all contributions a player makes toward his team's wins, compared to those an average bench player would have made), players that DePodesta traded or gave up rights to accumulated 12.2 WSAB after their departure. Players that DePodesta acquired accumulated 69.0 WSAB. Even while enduring more player injuries in 2005 than any other team in the majors, DePodesta multiplied many times over the offense and pitching production of the players he replaced.

Of course, there remains one huge statistic against DePodesta. Despite these improvements, the Dodgers went 71-91 in 2005, their second-worst record in 46 seasons in Los Angeles. It's hard enough to sell Win Shares to an unenthusiastic public—is it even worth the effort when the team victories don't correspond?

As is often the way with writing, I started "The DePo Era" worried about filling the space I was given - and ended up giving the editors too much. So here are some charts that didn't make the publication, charts that track every DePodesta transaction. The Win Shares Above Bench-After Transaction figures cover the period for each player from the date of the transaction through the end of the 2005 season.

DePodesta Transaction Summary
Before 2004 Season

Date	Give Up	WSAB-AT	Get	WSAB-AT	Net WSAB
3/6/2004			Jose Flores^	-0.1	-0.1
3/29/2004			Jason Grabowski^	-1.3	-1.3
3/30/2004	Jason Frasor	6.1	Jayson Werth	8.8	2.7
4/1/2004	Steve Colyer	-1.3	Cody Ross	-1.0	0.3
4/3/2004	Jason Romano	0.4	Antonio Perez	4.8	4.4
4/3/2004	Jolbert Cabrera	1.0	Aaron Looper	0.0	-1.0
			Ryan Ketchner	0.0
4/4/2004	Franklin Gutierrez	0.0	Milton Bradley	10.6	10.6
	Andrew Brown	0.0
	TOTAL	6.2		21.8	15.6

WSAB-AT = Win Shares Above Bench Player - After Transaction
^traded for cash considerations

During 2004 Season

Date	Give Up	WSAB-AT	Get	WSAB-AT	Net WSAB
4/25/2004	Rick White	0.8	Trey Dyson	0.0	-0.8
5/15/2004	Tanyon Sturtze	-0.1	Brian Myrow	0.0	0.1
6/2/2004			Giovannni Carrara	7.7	7.7
7/30/2004	Paul LoDuca	4.0	Brad Penny	5.7	-4.9
	Juan Encarnacion	4.9	Hee-Seop Choi	-0.5
	Guillermo Mota	1.2	Bill Murphy	0.0
7/31/2004	Koyie Hill	0.3	Steve Finley	4.3	1.7
	Reggie Abercrombie	0.0	Brent Mayne	-2.3
	Bill Murphy	0.0
7/31/2004	Tom Martin	-0.9	Matt Merricks	0.0	0.9
7/31/2004	Dave Roberts	6.2	Henri Stanley	0.0	-6.2
8/10/2004	Elvin Nina	0.0	Mike Venafro	-0.4	-0.4
8/18/2004			Scott Stewart^	-0.5	-0.5
	Jereme Milons	0.0	Elmer Dessens	2.3	2.3
9/1/2004	Masao Kida**	-0.4			0.4
	TOTAL	16.0		16.3	0.3

WSAB-AT = Win Shares Above Bench Player - After Transaction
*signed as a free agent
**let go as a free agent or on waivers
^traded for cash considerations

Between 2004 and 2005 Seasons

Date	Give Up	WSAB-AT	Get	WSAB-AT	Net WSAB
11/8/2004			Tony Schrager*	0.0	0.0
11/16/2004			Mike Rose*	-1.0	-1.0
11/16/2004			Mike Edwards*	-3.0	-3.0
11/16/2004			Buddy Carlyle*	-2.0	-2.0
12/7/2004			Ricky Ledee*	2.0	2.0
12/9/2004			Jeff Kent*	18.0	18.0
12/10/2004	Steve Finley**	-2.0			2.0
12/11/2004			Kelly Wunsch*	0.0	0.0
12/13/2004			D.J. Houlton***	-2.0	-2.0
12/13/2004	Jose Hernandez**	-3.0			3.0
12/16/2004	Adrian Beltre**	3.0			-3.0
12/20/2004			Wilson Alvarez*	-1.0	-1.0
12/20/2004			Jose Valentin*	-1.0	-1.0
12/21/2004			Olmedo Saenz*	6.9	6.9
12/22/2004			J.D. Drew*	7.0	7.0
12/25/2004	Jose Lima**	-8.0			8.0
1/7/2005			Odalis Perez*	0.0	0.0
1/11/2005			Derek Lowe*	5.0	5.0
1/11/2005	Shawn Green	6.0	Dioner Navarro	0.0	-6.0
			William Juarez	0.0
			Dan Muegge	0.0
			Beltran Perez	0.0
1/13/2005			Paul Bako*	0.0	0.0
1/18/2005	Brian Falkenborg**	-1.0			1.0
1/18/2005	Alex Cora**	-1.0			1.0
1/25/2005			Scott Erickson*	-2.0	-2.0
1/27/2005	Hideo Nomo**	-4.0			4.0
2/3/2005			Norihiro Nakamura	-2.0	-2.0
3/20/2005	Kazuhisa Ishii	-2.0	Jason Phillips	0.0	2.0
3/30/2005	Dave Ross^	2.0			-2.0
	TOTAL	-10.0		24.9	34.9

WSAB-AT = Win Shares Above Bench Player - After Transaction
*signed as a free agent
**let go as a free agent or on waivers
***selected in the Rule 5 draft
^traded for cash considerations

During 2005 Season

Date	Give Up	WSAB-AT	Get	WSAB-AT	Net WSAB
5/8/2005			Oscar Robles^	1.0	1.0
8/9/2005	Tony Schrager	0.0	Jose Cruz, Jr.	5.0	5.0
	TOTAL	0.0		6.0	6.0

WSAB-AT = Win Shares Above Bench Player - After Transaction
^traded for cash considerations

Remember - this is the stuff that didn't make the book, so I hope that some of you get a glance at the chapter in print.

Comments

[KAYVMON]

1.  If a deal has a negative Net WSAB, and you do not take into consideration money or the future (or heart and soul, haha), does that make the deal "bad" in retrospect?

[Jon Weisman]

2.  1 - I guess. I'm not entirely sure I understand your question. The charts are what they are - I don't mean for them to be considered in a vacuum.

But basically, a deal that yields negative WSAB is probably a bad deal unless there is a mitigating factor. For example, a salary dump of an above-average player is a bad deal if you just look at what that player did - however, you'd also want to consider what the team did with the saved salary.

[JJoeScott]

3.  Hmmmm ... so the net Win Shares of the 2004 deadline deals is (minus-)6.2, or the sum of the Dave Roberts trade.

After which they lost 3.5 games in the standings to the Giants.

Fascinating.

[dsfan]

4.  I give Depodesta a B/B-plus for his trades.

I give him a D-plus/C-minus for his major contractual negotiations.

Overall, I give Depodesta a C/C-plus, a pretty good grade for a rookie GM working for terrible bosses.

He's no Theo Epstein, that's for sure, but nor is he another Kevin Malone.

[Jon Weisman]

5.  3- Again, keep in mind that the stats include win shares through the end of 2005.

[Jon Weisman]

6.  4 - "I give him a D-plus/C-minus for his major contractual negotiations."

Why so low, considering how well he did with free agents?

[Jon Weisman]

7.  4/6 - Or do you just not like the guys he picked? That, I can see as debatable - although he certainly seemed to know who not to sign. But it wasn't like he overbid on anyone by a wide margin.

[dzzrtRatt]

8.  This analysis appears to confirm that DePo gave up too much in the Marlin trade, inasmuch as it presents Choi as slightly below "Bench," while Encarnacion and LoDuca both contributed, more than offsetting Penny's contributions.

Am I reading it right? Why do you suppose it shows this?

Obviously, the overall DePo story is a good one, but this trade is going to be his legacy and his trademark for a long time to come, and it looks less than impressive under this particular microscope.

By the way, I was never a critic of this trade; it always made perfect sense to me.

[Jon Weisman]

9.  8 - I think in the long run, the players DePo got in the trade will have more production than those he gave up. But because of Penny's injury (not to mention Choi's disappearance) in 2004, the Dodgers are working from a deficit on that one.

In other words, a healthy Penny would have dominated that trade.

The political cost of that trade for DePo was considerable. In a sense, it wasn't the last straw, but it was a big first straw. It gave life to the anti-DePo movement within the organization.

[FirstMohican]

10.  8 - It didn't help DePos cause that Encarnacion had a career year in '05. It also didn't help that Penny had a somewhat mediocre year.

[Vishal]

11.  why do acquisitions only count in the seasons they were acquired? that is, why don't penny's 2005 contributions count, for example?

and also, to clarify, win shares is a cumulative stat, not a rate stat, right? so more playing time translates into more win shares?

[Jon Weisman]

12.  11 - They do count. I keep saying that the stats are through the end of 2005.

[Bob Timmermann]

13.  So Jason Phillips helped the Dodgers purely be being NOT Kazuhisa Ishii?

[FirstMohican]

14.  Off topic, I apologize: I'm considering getting tickets to the WBC. Does anyone have any advice on where to sit and where not to sit in Angels Stad. and Petco Park?

[regfairfield]

15.  How can Choi have negative win shares above bench? I can't believe that Choi has been so bad that Henri Stanley contributed more to the team in his abscence. I assume Stanley has zero win shares, and that a bench player would have more than zero, so how can he not have a net negative result?

[Jon Weisman]

16.  13 - Just as one or several helped by not being Jose Lima.

[regfairfield]

17.  14 My expirence at Angels Stadium either involves way out in the corner on the upper deck. (Don't bother, the bleachers are better and cheaper), or in the Diamond Club. (Go, go waiter service.)

[Jon Weisman]

18.  15 - A bench player who never plays in a major league game will have the same Win Shares as Stanley.

As for Choi, the position played is taken into account. Given his horrible 2004 with the Dodgers, plus production that was barely above-average for a first baseman in 2005, that's how it plays out.

Choi's WSAB with the Dodgers for 2004 alone was -1.5.

[Vishal]

19.  [12] ah, ok. thanks for clarifying.

[regfairfield]

20.  18 Ah, so it's compared against the amount of win shares that a bench player who played the same number of games would make.

[Bob Timmermann]

21.  At PETCO, you have to be careful that you don't have a seat that doesn't give you a good view of RF. Hence, aim for the LF side of the park.

[underdog]

22.  Getting Jose Cruz Jr for Tony "Who?" Schrager looks like a particularly shrewd deal right now. (I could regret saying this if Schrager becomes an all-star some day but...)

Just the sheer number of people he gave up who are completely forgotten already, like Jerome Millons (unless I'm mistaken) and Elvin Nina... Getting a good prospect like Ketchner for Jolbert Cabrera, etc...

Anyway, thanks Jon, obviously a lot of work went into that.

C

[bhsportsguy]

23.  I still believe the biggest problem Depo had, well 4 problems, the bias against his age; perceived arrogance; non-schmoozing of local media and most importantly, never fully explaining why he did certain things. Should he have to explain his decisions to the public, not really but when there is such skeptism and lack of goodwill, it never hurts to be a little political.

[jasonungar05]

24.  The biggest propblem IMO is that he failed to resign Beltre.

(Not that I disagree due to the money he was asking for. Not that I disagree that it was a McCourt call, but i think thats what really caused the press to turn on him)

[Jon Weisman]

25.  23 - I can't argue with the schmoozing part, but the fact is that DePodesta rigorously explained what he was doing, time and time again, never more so than with the Lo Duca deal. It was to get a starting pitcher that would take the Dodgers beyond the first round of the playoffs. The media (and many fans) just weren't buying the explanations.

[molokai]

26.  Jon I enjoyed your chapter in the Hardball times. Yours is the only chapter I've read so far but looking forward to the rest of the book. Thanks for the additional information up top.
23
Depo was to classy to explain to the media that he traded LaDuca because he was on the wrong age of 30 for a catcher and would get expensive very quickly. He only accentuated the positive reasons for his trades/moves and never said anything negative about the players he moved. I liked that very much about him. It does seem obvious that he was oblivious to the need to cater to the media. He felt winning and losing would answer his critics but when you have that approach you can't have a season like the 2005 Dodgers had. He miscalculated the damage a 71 win season would have and should have made a more aggressive approach to stay in the pennant race. It seems he was to busy looking to the future and ignoring the present, and it cost him his job. It might have cost us some prospects but I'd rather have Depo and a 81 win season then a gazillion prospects. JMO

[dsfan]

27.  Jon,

Here's why I give Depo a C-minus/D-plus for his major contractual negotiations:

He committed a GM felony when he allowed Scott Boras to string him along. Boras dictated the timetable on Beltre and when that played out Boras mauled Depo in the Drew deal.

Certainly JD Drew has premium talents, but his medical red flags/makeup questions were so severe that guaranteeing him $55 million amounts to wishful thinking and potential roster suicide. Surgical patellar tendinitis doesn't go away, especially in a 29-year-old OF. And Drew had other known surgical risks that played out with his shoulder and wrist (not the wrist that was hit by Burnett). Another red flag: The STLC and Braves, two smart clubs and former employers, doubted Drew's competitive makeup.

Drew is capable of a very good year in 2006, but I expect this to go down as a highly inefficient contract. Sure was in '05. Maybe they get lucky and he opts out, but even that opt-out clause favors Boras. Should've been mutual.

The O. Perez deal is egregious because the LAD knew about Perez's many physical and makeup problems yet still rewarded him with a bloated contract.

Better to find some pitching bargains like Kevin Towers did with Pedro Astacio and Jim Bowden did with Loaiza (who wanted to join the LAD but was turned down by Depo).

Criticsm of the Lowe deal gets overcooked. It's a so-so deal, although I think Boras extracted about $4 million more than LAD needed to get him.

Time will tell on the Penny contract. The reason John Boles quit the LAD is that he knew about Penny's shoulder red flags but Depo didn't bother to ask him about Penny, whose shoulder immediately became a big problem. Failed integrity of process there, very un-Theo like.

When the Dessens deal got done, I thought it was an overpay. Still do.

By more than doubling Houston's offer to Kent, Depo got Kent and it paid off. Good job there.

Interesting footnote: Prior to that deal, Depo offered Nomar $27 million to play 2B, according to Gammons. As you know, Nomar again broke down. If Gammons is right, that was a foolish offer and like the Drew deal didn't properly evaluate the medicals.

On another contractual note, I believe Depo should've offered Steve Finley arbitration and gotten the draft picks. Tough call, I know.

I also believe Arizona was willing to do the Green deal without getting $10 million. They would've taken less.

The medicals on Gagne weren't so hot either when Depo gave him that deal, but Boras had Depo by the gonads there, given Gagne's contributions to the LAD.

Final Footnote: One thing I LIKE about the LAD telling Paul Friggin Bako to take a hike over that $50,000 is that they're broadcasting an ability to stick to their bid. Depo broacasted an inability to do so in his deals for Lowe, Drew, Perez and Dessens and the reported offer to Nomar.

This isn't a dismissal of Depo. He was a young GM. A smart employer would've helped him better deal with Boras. Overall, I give him a C-plus.

[Fallout]

28.  Trading Ishii for Phillips was an excellent trade. It filled a big hole in the needs the team because of The Trade and a lack of planning. DePo was fortunate that a catcher
was available for Ishii.

On the other hand, although Ishii's performance fell off, he was valuable to the Dodgers when they had him. Toward the end of his Dodger career how many times did they use him as a last resort because they had no one else? How many times did the team win when he was used in an emergency?

Besides, Ishii was important for revenues. Whenever he was used, the concession sales must have soared because of his slow arduous outings.

[Vishal]

29.  [27] i'd like to know a little more concrete stuff about "the medicals". when offering contracts, is there a general dollar-to-medical ratio that one should go by, as a rule of thumb? do "the medicals" offer some good predictive value, or do you just use hindsight after the season and say "oh, well that player got hurt and he has gotten hurt before, so you should've seen it coming". are there instances in which players who have been hurt are able to recover and don't show any more propensity to get hurt? is there some information in these players' "medicals" that can help one differentiate these players from those that are injury-prone? is it all a crap shoot? should one avoid players with any injury history altogether? if this is going to be used as a criticism, i'd like to know some criteria to use as a yardstick.

[mountainmover]

30.  I was neutral with DePodesta in the beginning, but as time elapsed, I felt that he was not the GM we needed. His trades and acquisitions were very good for the most part (although his foot-dragging and poor communication could have impeded a few).

I was (still am) a proponent of the LoDuca/Penny trade. Mere statistics cannot quantify DePodesta's reign as Dodger GM, the same as Abraham Lincoln's election wins cannot quantify him. It seems to me that most great leaders have something in common that cannot be measured. For the lack of a better word, I'll call it "panache." Colletti has it, DePodesta didn't. There's no doubt that Colletti is intellectually inferior to DePodesta, and while having panache does not guarantee success, I believe that a successful GM has to have a certain degree of it.

How do you define panache in a person? I define "panache" much like Justice Potter Stewart defined pornography: "I know it when I see it!"

[Paul B]

31.  I'd like to second Molokai's plug of Jon's article-- it's good stuff. The Annual seems like a good read (though I found the review of the NL West a bit heavy-handed...yeah, everyone knows that it was a bad division already). Jon's bit on Depo was the first thing I read (of course) and it was excellent (of course). Looking forward to further perusal...

[molokai]

32.  29
Will Carrol at BP has a database of historical baseball injuries and a program that at the beginning of each year will spit out a color based on the probablity of that player being healthy. Red is stay away, yellow is beware and I think green is good to go.

In the Bill James handbook a writer by the name of Sig Mejdal has taken a stab at it the last two years using a database put together using the baseball encyclopedia for the data.

[Jon Weisman]

33.  Of course, there's more good Jon Weisman stuff in "The Best of Dodger Thoughts."

[Jeff Baehr]

34.  23 - It's hard for me to believe that we've heard the entire story concerning the firing of Depodesta. The data points simply fail to add up. Only several weeks prior to his dismissal, McCourt fully endorsed Depo in speech and action(Tracy was let go). McCourt is not a stupid person and, I believe, understands the merits of an empiricist approach to baseball. Although its too early to tell, Colletti seems to differ from DePo only in being slightly more social and slightly less statistically inclined although he has retained Depo's infrastructure and staff. McCourt, no doubt, understood why the Dodgers failed to perform in 2005(freakish injuries) and also saw the promise of 2006. McCourt must also know that the players Depo acquired out performed those that he has gave up. Was the pressure from the LA fan base and mainstream media simply too much for McCourt to shoulder? I don't believe so although I don't have an alternative explanation.

[molokai]

35.  29
On 3/8/05 Carrol gave the following grades to Dodger players:
Reds - Werth, O Perez, Penny, E Jackson
Drew and Milton were both yellows.

[OCDodger]

36.  I was just wondering whether a similar list has been made regarding Dan Evans' moves. I've often argued to anti-Depo friends that at least he was better than Evans. At the same time, however, I tend to think that you would have a pretty good general manager if you could combine the best qualities of both -- the offseason moves of an Evans with the in-season moves of DePodesta, a shrewd deal-maker who actually has a soul, someone intelligent who gives up a prospect from time to time, etc..

[scareduck]

37.  27 - without saying I agree with all of your criticisms, I do give points for them being well-thought-out. A few comments along the way:

He committed a GM felony when he allowed Scott Boras to string him along. Boras dictated the timetable on Beltre and when that played out Boras mauled Depo in the Drew deal.

I think that's a very important point, and it's one that's been overlooked a bit. That problem led to not only the Odalis Perez signing, which you mention later, but to the even more disastrous Derek Lowe signing. By picking up free agents at the Scott Boras Store late in the season, DePodesta assured himself of paying above market rates for essentially leftovers and castoffs.

Despite all that, I would say I disagree as to whether the Drew contract was a bad one. At the time -- and to some degree, still -- the problems Drew has had aren't related to his patellar tendinitis, which supposedly has been fixed surgically.

Time will tell on the Penny contract. The reason John Boles quit the LAD is that he knew about Penny's shoulder red flags but Depo didn't bother to ask him about Penny, whose shoulder immediately became a big problem. Failed integrity of process there, very un-Theo like.

It wasn't his shoulder at all, but a nerve in his elbow. There has been speculation that the two may be related, but so far nobody -- to my knowledge -- had been able to connect the dots.

On another contractual note, I believe Depo should've offered Steve Finley arbitration and gotten the draft picks. Tough call, I know.

True, but I think the team was wiser to stay away from him. 40+ outfielders don't stay healthy.

[natepurcell]

38.  why would jackson be tagged as reds?

hes had one injury in his career (at the time that list was made) and it was just a forearm strain. is it just because hes a young pitcher?

[dsfan]

39.  Carroll was derilect in his duties when he failed to give Drew a red, but even a yellow coupled with the competive makeup question made in an awfully risky bet at $55 million guaranteed plus the out clause that favored Boras. Carroll was also kind to Milton when he gave him a yellow. The Indians, you can be certain, would've given Milton a red (strictly on physical grounds,not the immaturity issues). Molokai has done a great job of chronicling Bradley's many physical problems, which no doubt will place him in the "red flag" section in 2006. He'll be joined there by Werth, Drew, Ledee, Alomar, Gagne, Perez, perhaps Penny and Cruz.
I suspect Carroll gave Nomar a red last year. Depo, according to Gammons, had offered Nomar a 3 yr/$27 million guarantee before signing Kent. Scary.

As for quantifying the "medicals," clubs are getting better at it and Carroll makes for interesting reading, although his ego appears to outsize his work.

Durability often gets under-appreciated. Let's set aside the whole complex debate on how to protect and preserve and develop pitchers. For position players alone, the season is a meat grinder.
Baseball is incompatible with the body's connective tissues -- ligaments, cartilage and tendons. And the whole steroid/HGH dynamics makes it even tougher to project health. Simply there aren't enough good, durable players for the 30 teams.

Shortly after he got the job, Colletti said durabiliity in a player is very important to him. Seems a wise statement. Possibly it factored into the still-risky move to give Furcal $39 million guaranteed and no doubt is one reason he's courting Jacque Jones.

[scareduck]

40.  34 - my pet explanation has DePodesta essentially firing Jim Tracy at the end of the season. When DePodesta's short list for manager makes the Times and it includes

- Torey Lovullo, a minor league manager whom nobody outside the Indians organization had ever heard of
- Jim Fregosi, who had lost a pair of teams, most recently including the Angels

McCourt goes ballistic and reads DePo the riot act. DePo, rightfully believing the choice should be his to make, sees what's coming up, goes on vacation, and lets Frank fire him in the papers, perhaps getting some snickers on the realization that it makes the organization look incredibly incompetant.

[Marty]

41.  Jon, I haven't received my copy of your book yet. I'm not worried, but was wondering if others have received it.

[Marty]

42.  40 Fregosi wasn't on Depo's list was he? I thought Ned was the only one interested in him.

[Marty]

43.  Nevermind, I'm sure you meant Collins, not Fregosi.

[scareduck]

44.  42 - sorry, you're right, I was thinking of Terry Collins. Both ex-Angels managers, though.

[scareduck]

45.  41 - I've gotten my copy already.

[df3]

46.  It seems pretty clear that the people DePo brought in have performed better than the people he let go. But much of the value he added on the field came through free agency, so his overpayment in cash might be distorting the picture. To make this argument convincing, however, you either need some inside knowledge of what these guys would have accepted, or you need some alternative. Who on the free agent market was mistakenly passed up?

[dsfan]

47.  Scareduck,

I didn't like the price for Drew when the deal got done. This isn't the classic hindsight second guess, but of course, you and I never discussed it last year so you have no reason to believe that's how I sized it up. Part of my view was informed by information gleaned from the Cardinals and Braves, who previous employed Drew.

As for J.D.'s knee, surgery for Drew's patellar problem was a short-term fix. Tendinitis is still in the cards for JD.

Go back to last winter. The knee was such a concern that Drew, shortly after getting the $55million, even risked Milton's wrath by immediately lobbying for the CF job so he wouldn't have to stop suddenly in the RF corner. That was a telling remark. For a 29 year old OF, stoppping and starting shouldn't be a concern. With Drew it was.

My recollection, which could be dead wrong, is that Depo admitted in September that Drew's medicals indeed had raised concerns about the other wrist and the shoulder, the ones that required surgery after the season.

So you have a surgical knee and concerns about a shoulder and a wrist going into the negotiations, plus the makeup questions that infuriated the previous employers, and you still guarantee him $55 million and give Boras the out clause?

If Chuck Lamar or Bowden had done something so risky, they'd get lambasted and ridiculed.

I'm not saying the LAD should've kept Steve Finley. Contrary to what a certain LAT columnist has said many times, that was a smart move by Depo.

At the time, I thought Depo could've offered Finley arbitration to get the draft picks knowing that Finley would go elsewhere for a multi-year deal. Tough call there and a very minor point.

I guess the one good thing about all of Drew's injuries last year is that he played so seldom that his legs should be fresh this year. He was spared the inevitable degradation in the surgical knee. Ideally for the LAD, Drew has a great bounceback year and then decides he'd rather leave. Maybe Omar Minaya or Ricciardi will give him $35 million over the final three years, then everyone can say, Gee, Depo's deal wasn't so bad after all.

[bhsportsguy]

48.  25, 34
The true story is that Tommy saw his chance to get his boys Bowden and Valentine to Chavez Ravine and for whatever reason, divine intervention (no inteview for Bowden) and 4MM a year for Bobby V., it never happened.

At least Ned appears to have the national and local media in his corner and despite the inaccurate image portrayed (Does Bonds' injury give SF a total pass while the Dodgers lose Gagne, Izzy and their starting OF and people call it a embarassment for the franchise) of last year, most observers do believe that with some tinkering, the Dodgers can compete in 2006.

[scareduck]

49.  47 - My recollection, which could be dead wrong, is that Depo admitted in September that Drew's medicals indeed had raised concerns about the other wrist and the shoulder, the ones that required surgery after the season.

What happened was that the Times finally reported on it:

http://6-4-2.blogspot.com/2005/09/two-games_21.html

I also wonder about Drew's makeup, especially in light of what you mention, the fact that the Cards and Braves decided to take a pass. What might that mean for younger brother Stephen? Already, Baseball America used it against him in considering the top prospects from the AFL in comparison to the Angels Brandon Wood.

[Jeff Baehr]

50.  40 - I agree with you assuming DePo's intention was to put McCourt in a position where he'd have to fire him. However, I don't believe that is the case. I Believe DePo enjoyed being the general manager of one of the preeminent teams in baseball. It just seems difficult to swallow that the rift between McCourt and DePo was a result of the managerial search and that discourse was no longer an option. Could it be that DePo challenged McCourt's authority and arrogantly assumed he could get away with it?

[King of the Hobos]

51.  The bearded one is officially a Giant. Terms haven't been disclosed, but around $27 mil for 3 years and an option 4th.

Also, as Bob points out in his 100th installment of the Griddle, Vicente Padilla is a Ranger

[Fallout]

52.  I thought that getting Drew was a makeup for not signing Beltre and the declining available free agents to fill a hole in the lineup forced DePo to take a chance on him.

[Vishal]

53.  [50] could it be that mccourt is a capricious control freak who has a habit of reflexively firing people at the drop of a hat?

[natepurcell]

54.  who was padilla traded for?

[King of the Hobos]

55.  54 Everyone's favorite player, PTBNL

[regfairfield]

56.  52 Or maybe he saw a guy with a career .400 on base, .510 slug, and excellent defense, and said, I'd rather have that than a guy who had one ridiculously good season and a bunch of medicore to bad ones.

[Vishal]

57.  [35] while mr. carroll's rating are a step, and are better than nothing, i think their predictive value, for one, is not established.

secondly, it's hard to simply avoid every single player with a red or yellow flag, so how do you factor the ratings into a contract? how many dollars should you shave off your max offer for a particular rating? i think these issues are far from clear.

[Jeff Baehr]

58.  48 – I thinks it's become clear that Tommy wields absolutely no influence within the organization. Was Orel ever a real candidate of just an excuse? In hindsight it appears he wasn't given serious consideration for any position with the organization. Beyond the infamous dinner, he has gone on record saying that McCourt and co. never called him back. In terms of Bowden and Bobby V., beyond rumors, has there been any substitutive claim that either was ever seriously considered? The real hastily arranged candidates appeared to be Hartm Ng, and Gillack. Were those Tommy guys? Lets also remember that Tommy is now busy running around as a 'ambassador of baseball' not assisting the new Colletti administration.

53 – I think it's wrong to assume that McCourt acts without reason. I believe the dodgers are much more profitable than under the prior regime even considering the positive shift in economics for baseball as a whole.

Maybe im just searching for a rational explanation where none exists…

[regfairfield]

59.  Looking at that injury article, it seemed to be very much a looking at the now situation.

If the player was currently hurt (didn't O.P. miss most of Spring Training?) they got a red. If they had a history of being hurt, or were being injected into a starting role for the first time, they got a yellow, otherwise, they got a green.

[JMK]

60.  Jon wrote recently how you can make bad decisions and still end up with good results and you can make good decisions and end up with bad results. Even if Depo's decisions ended up badly (and I don't think they did) one could look at every one of his transactions and see the rational behind them, and they were often backed up by empirical data. If you focus on the process rather than the outcome your odds for success increases but does not guarantee success. For example, he recognized that Dodger stadium hurts players whose production depends on singles/doubles/triples so he signed guys like Drew and Valentin whose offensive value lies in walks and homeruns. He theorized that groundball pitchers who limited homeruns would do better at Dodger Stadium, so he signed Lowe. Transactions like Drew obviously haven't worked out so far but it was refreshing to understand the rational that often went behind many of his decisions.

In addition, it's easy to criticize free agent signings because almost every player signed is gonna be overpayed. It seems to me that the if you want to acquire a free agent you're gonna have to overpay. Drew may have been a bad signing but who would you rather have signed last year? Would you rather have Beltre and his contract on the Dodgers right now? Not me. How bout Magglio Ordonez' contract? or Beltran's? or Finley's? I'm not even sure I would even want Delgado's contract or Sexson's contract on the Dodgers even though they had decent seasons last year.

[dzzrtRatt]

61.  My alternative history of DePodesta is this:

-- As Jon says, he explained plenty about his trades, and was always a gent about the players he let go.

-- McCourt was perfectly happy to let DePo be the lightening rod for post-Beltre and LoDuca recriminations.

-- When DePodesta got the okay to fire Tracy, he believed that proved he was on solid ground with McCourt. At that moment, I believe he, in fact, was.

-- DePodesta's "vacation" was his sister's wedding in Italy, not really a skippable event. Folks in DePo's age group are all into these "destination weddings" now--the farther, more expensive and more exotic the better. He's lucky it wasn't on Mars. I'm lucky I'm not 28-34 now.

-- Between Tracy's firing and DePodesta's firing, McCourt and his wife started to realize that despite their best efforts, most of LA either hated them or was at best indifferent. They were about to make some decisions that had the potential to make them even less popular, like raising ticket prices. They were being mocked as know-nothings dabbling in baseball, which is not the image they want. McCourt is entirely sincere when he talks about "restoring a winning tradition," in just the same way my son is completely sincere in promising me he'll get an A on his next geometry test. When my son gets a D instead, he starts looking for alibis. So did McCourt. His alibi was Mr. Lightening Rod, Paul DePodesta.

And guess what? That son of glitch McCourt might get away with it. He stumbled into a pretty good mainstream baseball man in Colletti. He won't be net +34.9 on above bench replacement (one of my favorite episodes of Home Improvement by the way), but he doesn't really have to be. DePo did a lot of the heavy lifting already--primarily taking the heat for not trading these great prospects when all LA baseball media was howling for him to do so.

Many things Colletti had nothing to do with will redound to his success d'estime. But "it's all good"--DePodesta's reputation will inch back up, and until it does, he's got a lot of money coming in every two weeks.

[scareduck]

62.  61 - McCourt is entirely sincere when he talks about "restoring a winning tradition," in just the same way my son is completely sincere in promising me he'll get an A on his next geometry test.

That is absolutely brilliant, and almost certainly true.

[Vishal]

63.  [58] i'm not trying to suggest that mccourt is totally mindless; rather that his threshold for dismissal is lower than most people.

[King of the Hobos]

64.  The Red Sox new GM is 63 yrs old. Or combined anyways. Assistant GM Jed Hoyer, 32, and director of player development Ben Cherington, 31, will officially become co-GM

[Bob Timmermann]

65.  McCourt is entirely sincere when he talks about "restoring a winning tradition," in just the same way my son is completely sincere in promising me he'll get an A on his next geometry test.

I got an A on every geometry test I ever took. Should I run the Dodgers?

[Jon Weisman]

66.  61 - I'm fairly certain this post can be accepted as canon.

65 - I was great at math (until calculus) and still stunk at geometry.

[dzzrtRatt]

67.  65 Maybe so. And if you want to start a geometry blog for my kids like my son, you might find a lot of takers.

[scareduck]

68.  65 - too bad. I am normally pretty dismissive of the "teachers as heroes" meme that seems to have infected public discourse over the last coupla decades, but I have seen firsthand what a big difference a good teacher can make. My pre-calculus class at Orange Coast was one of those moments where the lights all came on at once, and had a profound effect on my choice of majors and careers. I absolutely lived in fear of math prior to that.

[Jon Weisman]

69.  67 -

And so we return again to ...

www.danicamckellar.com

[scareduck]

70.  actually my 68 was about 66. Jon, does this mean you're no longer of the opinion that DePo got the boot because of the managerial search?

[Bob Timmermann]

71.  I took my geometry class back in 1980-81 in 10th grade. One of my classmates was future USC and 49ers lineman Jeff Bregel, a pioneer in anabolic steroid use. He really messed himself up. Jeff Bregel was also on my brother's junior high bowling team. He was a big guy. I think he just picked up the ball and threw it down the alley and hit the pins on the fly.

[Jeff Baehr]

72.  I suppose im under the opinion he was thrown out for outright defiance of McCourt which was born out of arrogance, rather than strategic thinking.

[dsfan]

73.  Colletti needs to find starting pitching but risks gross overpays if he deals with Boras in this market.

Can LAD find a good value without risking huge dollars?

Towers did it last year with Astacio. Bowden found one in Loaiza (turned down by Depo). Beane is adept at finding them. Contreras gave Kenny Williams nice returns.

Dodger Stadium should be a selling point, and the potential is there for a strong defense.

Anyone out there you like for low dollars?

Here's one: B. Kim as a low-risk candidate for a No. 5 spot.

[Vishal]

74.  [66] you mean, a firing canon?

[Colorado Blue]

75.  61 - I would like to add another twist to the DePo Conspiracy: what about Ng, Smith, and White having a role. They have been complete team players without so much a peep about DePo getting canned. None of them have left and there is no indication of any strife there. They have fallen off the radar since Ned was hired and they just may like it like that. Suppose they had issues with DePo and took it to Frank and Jamie. Given the total lack of info on the situation it may be plausible. Tommy's perceived influence on the subject may just have been coincidental. JACT.

[Curtis Lowe]

76.  73- I would think that Kent and B.Kim's history would not bode well for team chemistry.

[regfairfield]

77.  73 I think we can assume Towers lucked out a little with Astacio. He was terrible in the first half with Texas, struck out about five per nine in San Diego and walked almost the same amount. The only thing he did was avoid the home run (1 every fifteen innings) likely because of Petco.

[the OZ]

78.  "Tracyball" is sweeping Steel City, USA!!!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05345/620678.stm

[Jon Weisman]

79.  70 - I don't see them as mutually exclusive. The anti-Collins take on the managerial search, fed by Lasorda, gave McCourt the ammunition he needed to execute his panic move.

As for 68, I had plenty of good teachers. Like I said, except for geometry and calculus, I was great at math. I'm not complaining. I think my best teachers were in history and English, but that's where my interests were anyway. Chicken, meet egg.

[the OZ]

80.  Excepts from 78 -

"Signs of Jim Tracy's influence on shaping the team in his mold have been evident with many of management's recent comments, and even some of the moves executed this past week at the winter meetings.

Consider that, no matter what subject is raised with Tracy in conversation, he somehow ends up talking about the importance of Chris Duffy, the Pirates' projected leadoff man, hitting the ball on the ground much more than in the air.

"Have you seen this kid run from home to first? Is there anyone faster?" Tracy asked again this week. "Well, that doesn't matter if you pop up."

I feel like I'm beginning in Pittsburgh with a little bit of a track record that there has been some success realized over the past five years. There was a method to the madness in L.A., and you'd be hard pressed to convince me that it doesn't work."

[Jon Weisman]

81.  78 - "as they called it in Los Angeles"

?????

[dsfan]

82.  B. Kim is still young, little if any history of arm ailments, I believe, and would be getting out of Denver.

Sure, there are things not to like. That's why he'll cost a billion less than Millwood/Weaver/Washburn.

As for Astacio, sure, there was some luck there for Towers. But getting him away from Texas/Denver to Petco seemed a good idea. LAD have a pitchers park, too, maybe not as much as Petco, but still a selling point.

[the OZ]

83.  81 - Yeah. That article is pure gold.

Gold, Jerry! Gold!

[Monterey Chris]

84.  Our new manager dismissed the problem of last year's team chemistry by saying that if he loses 91 games he will have bad chemistry with his wife.

[dsfan]

85.  I don't see any Depo conspirarcy.

Owners can be mercurial, often are.

The Packers fired Ray Rhodes after one year. Lots of examples of quick terminations. Not sure it's fair to suggest Ng/Smith/White staged a covert mutiny of sorts.

[Curtis Lowe]

86.  Would B.Kim and Kent be friends? They did'nt seem to friendly when Kent semi charged the mound last season. Kent was either saying "You want a piece of me " or "You complete me", would either situation be fruitful in the clubhouse?

[scareduck]

87.  77 - exactly so. I think it's fair to say he was the Padres' Jose Lima.

81 - and I'm sure that in LA bunting was a very effective strategy, too.

[OCDodger]

88.  Two words for Jim Tracy: "Paul Hackett."

USC football fans will know what I'm talking about. Rather than molding his "system" around the players he has, Tracy will scour the Majors in search of every last slap-hitting second baseman that he can find to plug into his "system."

Here's a hope that Grady Little takes the opposite approach.

[Eric Enders]

89.  Roy Smith was hired specifically because he was a DePo ally and a Beane guy. I'm not sure he's the best candidate for back-stabber.

[dzzrtRatt]

90.  The dreaded Arm Angles return. Hee Seop Choi, watch out! Jim Tracy's got some different ones he thought up, just for you! Like the between your legs arm angle! The over the shoulder arm angle! The bounce it off the pitcher's head arm angle! The Venus De Milo no-arm arm angle! You just can't beat Tracyball, you can only hope to contain it!

[trainwreck]

91.  I have been a Dodger fan since I can remember and since I am from and grew up in the East Bay, I am also an A's fan. When I heard DePo's name mentioned as a candidate for GM, I wished and even literally dreamt of having him as our GM. When he was named our GM I was ecstatic. I kept waking up every morning hoping to read on ESPNews bottom line that DePo was our GM and one morning it finally happened. The sabremetric approach that I came to believe in wholeheartedly even if I was no expert about it (I still lack the knowledge, which is why I love reading posts like this by John who understand the numbers more than I do). I loved and still do love to believe in something that majority of baseball fans think is garbage (even some so called stats-oriented people like my fellow A's fans who still will argue with me about how much I trust stats). I saw DePo as the man that would lead us to NL West dominance for years. In all honesty, no matter what DePo did I believed he knew so much more than I could possibly know that it was a good move. I know dumb, blind faith is not the smart way to go, but I did not care. I questioned some of DePo's moves (I understood why he signed ODP, but I did not really like it, I wanted Tracy fired days ago and I wanted DePo to try to control the lineup a little more because I thought they were ridiculously bad), but I tried to understand and find reasoning for why he made the moves he did (I can remember reading as much as I could on Derek Lowe). Looking back at it, DePo made a lot of the right moves and I am happy I believed in him and am disgusted he did not get the chance to turn us into what he wanted. I wrote this because I wanted to thank DePo for what he made me believe and I know just want to move on and try not to bring up him all the time and instead just concentrate on the present and hope for the best with Flanders. I have to move on and stop being angry about what happened.

[King of the Hobos]

92.  I got all A's in geometry, I think (I was in the 8th grade, does that give me an excuse if I got a B that I don't remember?). I've never gotten below an A in a math class, although my final tonight in Calc II could end that (well, I have like a 95%, but you never know...). I really should study rather than then read DT, but I just can't.

I too am interested in BK. A lot more than any other pitcher on the marlet (unless Millwood will come at 1 year, $7 mil like he did last year for the Indians, I'd even guaruntee all $7 mil, rather than just $3 mil)

[jasonungar05]

93.  gosh you guys, I couldn't get past this.

"Tracy prefers to have a divergent relief corps that shows opponents different pitches, styles and arm angles"

[jasonungar05]

94.  damn, 90 beat me to it as I was editing. How funny.

[Steve]

95.  Jim Tracy is making up every single word of this.

[Colorado Blue]

96.  85 - Not sure it's fair to suggest Ng/Smith/White staged a covert mutiny of sorts.

I said no such thing... I said that it is possible one or more had issues with DePo and brought them to Frank's attention. Please! I like how my suggestion is all of a sudden a "covert mutiny".

I know the tendency on this board would be to dismiss this out-of-hand, but lacking any definitive reason other than Frank's a moron who listens to Tommy and Camille does not make it plausible.

[Colorado Blue]

97.  96 - "...not plausible."

[blue22]

98.  "Consider that Tracy places a premium on defense, then take note that just about every new piece acquired or discussed is a glove man."

player/career rate2
Sean Casey/95
Hee Seop Choi/99

[Steve]

99.  98 -- Try Mike Edwards.

[Bob Timmermann]

100.  The word "Tracyball" does not turn up in a database search of the LA Times, Daily News, and OC Register.

Ever.

"Tracy ball" appears once in the Daily News in a March 30, 2001 article by Brian Dohn.

"For six weeks at Dodgertown, Tracy preached hitting the ball behind runners, hitting cutoff men, sacrificing an at-bat for the good of the team, working deep into counts, making routine plays in the field and every other aspect that seems right out of Little League. It was a call for T-ball, as in Tracy-ball."