The Fortune Cookie

Howdy campers! Today, I'm interested in looking at whether the Dodgers' 2008 misfortune relates more to planning or misfortune.

Catcher
The plan: Rely on All-Star catcher Russell Martin for brilliant offense and defense. Replace the retiring Mike Lieberthal with Gary Bennett as a backup. Position Danny Ardoin as the third catcher in Las Vegas. Hope Martin can play the whole year.
Good plan? Good to have Martin, but the signing of offensively and defensively challenged Bennett was nonsensical.
The midseason reality: Little of significance has gone wrong with the Dodgers' easiest challenge. Martin has been strong offensively. His defense seems a bit off his 2007 standards, but overall there was certainly no need to fear a junior-year slump. He has caught 86 percent of the team's defensive innings this season, which hasn't been a problem thanks to numerous scheduled off days for the team and some improvised dalliances for Martin at third base, but the Dodgers will suffer if they can't replace his offense as it tapers. Bennett managed to undercut the lowest of expectations, but he played too little for it to matter. Just as it was wrong to expect much from Bennett, it would be wrong to overly fret over how bad he was. Ardoin, though a March villain for the fluke injury his throw brought to Andy LaRoche, at least appears capable defensively. It's early, but in 38 innings, he hasn't allowed a stolen base on his watch. So at least there's that.

Infield
The plan: Head into the season with James Loney, Jeff Kent, Rafael Furcal as starters at three positions. Stage a competition between LaRoche and Nomar Garciaparra for third base, with the loser either going to the bench or Las Vegas. Use Tony Abreu or Chin-Lung Hu as another backup infielder. Mark Sweeney would be a pinch-hitter. Face the inevitability that a Ramon Martinez-type might also factor in.
Good plan? Yes, if (as it appeared) the Dodgers were to give LaRoche a fair shot at winning. In theory, this should have been above average offense at at least three positions, with Kent as the weak link.
The midseason reality: Cynics might have expected LaRoche, Garciaparra and Abreu to be hurt, but certainly it was bad luck that it happened at the same time. Blake DeWitt's unexpectedly well-played first two months muted the damage, and now as he slumps, LaRoche is being given a chance. Furcal was sensational until his back went out, and the Dodgers got blindsided by the disappearance of Hu's bat. Everything that was expected to happen at third base in April happened at shortstop in May. At second base, Kent got off to a terrible start, which became more problematic when Furcal got DLed and Loney slumped, and even more so when Luis Maza replaced him in the lineup instead of forcing in Young, DeWitt or LaRoche - even if it meant sacrificing defense. But in June, Kent has rallied a bit, and Loney a lot. All in all, the infield has performed below all but the most cynical expectations for long stretches, but there can be hope for the second half of the season.

Outfield
The plan: Sign Andruw Jones for a power boost. Have Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier and Juan Pierre compete for the corner outfield spots. Use Delwyn Young as fifth outfielder/pinch-hitter.
Good plan? Yes, if you believed that Jones could improve on his 2007 performance, and if the Dodgers were willing to honestly look at Pierre's value. About the latter, they gave mixed signals.
The midseason reality: Fair to poor. Putting aside the debate over whether Colletti should have seen it coming, Jones has been a bust to date. His importance was such that giving him a lot of rope to work his way into form was the right idea if he were healthy, but failing to realize sooner that his knee was balky exacerbated the damage he was causing. If Jones musters a comeback on a rehabilitated knee this summer, it'll be a case of "Why didn't that happen sooner?" The Dodgers also used the Furcal injury as a perverse excuse to stop evaluating Pierre's performance relative to his fellow outfielders, on the theory that the Dodgers needed him to replace Furcal as leadoff hitter, even though he shares almost none of Furcal's skill set. Young, though no one would expect him to be the hitter he was in his 2007 debut, has been underused relative to Pierre and Sweeney until very recently. (That being said, playing Young over Pierre probably wouldn't make that much of a difference.) Kemp has disappointed from a power standpoint, but until a recent slump was one of the Dodgers' top hitters while holding down the fort in center field. Ethier has been about what you'd expect. The collective outfield performance should improve in the second half, but there still may be some rough patches ahead.

Starting pitching
The plan: Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, Hiroki Kuroda and Chad Billingsley in the first four spots, with Esteban Loaiza holding down No. 5 while Jason Schmidt rehabilitated and minor leaguers Clayton Kershaw and James McDonald matured.
Good plan? I don't see why not. Getting a higher quality pitcher like Johan Santana would have been too costly.
The midseason reality: Starting pitching as a whole hasn't been a problem - not that there haven't been issues. An April rain delay caused Joe Torre to mess with Billingsley's schedule, but it also helped unveil the new, improved Hong-Chih Kuo. And Billingsley continues to mature. A mediocre Loaiza was cut with almost surprising eagerness. Lowe had his usual recovery from a bad month. Kuroda has had mostly good moments, but is going through some arm issues. Penny has had mostly bad moments, and is going through some arm issues. This group hasn't been able to throw the kind of eight-inning, one-run games the depleted offense needs them to - they suffer, for example, in comparison to the Angel starting pitching this season - but they're solid. Even the young Kershaw.

Bullpen
The plan: Bring back Takashi Saito, Jonathan Broxton, Joe Beimel, Scott Proctor. Mix in two or three other low-cost guys to fill the back end.
Good plan? Pretty much. Perhaps it relied too much on faith in Saito, Beimel and Proctor to maintain good form, but it's as good a plan as any. Very little wasted energy in putting together this group.
The midseason reality: Better than expected. Saito and Broxton have had some costly moments, but together, they have combined for 81 strikeouts against 82 baserunners in 63 1/3 innings. In case it's not clear, that's good. Beimel and Kuo are having their best years yet (though Kuo went through a period of severe underuse), and Chan Ho Park and Cory Wade have been hugely pleasant surprises that mostly compensate for the ineffectiveness of Proctor and Yhency Brazoban. But how long can it last?

Manager, coaches, training staff
The plan: Bring in Joe Torre to help reunite the clubhouse and provide the experience of a World Series champ. Try to get the rest not to screw things up.
Good plan? Other than the money spent, it was a much less significant plan than most people would think. Because it's been proven time and again that winning is the most important contributor to chemistry, Torre's mixology skills weren't going to matter if the team didn't perform on the field. And that's mostly the players' responsibility, except to the extent that Torre's lineups influence things. As for that, based on his track record, it wasn't clear that Torre would really know what to do with the roster he was given. It was especially disconcerting that he was as casual - as procrastinatory, if you will - about getting to know his team this winter as Jones was about his offsason workouts. It wasn't likely that Torre was going to cause any more harm than the average manager, but it was dubious from the start whether he'd do any more good than a fresher and less expensive leader. Now, to the extent that his famed presence might take pressure off the players, he could have value. But was that really going to happen in this climate, or was it inevitable that the media would let him skate for any failings the players showed? The "try to get the rest not to screw things up" was a great plan, though.
The midseason reality: Unless you believe this Dodger team is playing above its head at 35-41, it's hard to find much to celebrate in Torre's work. Some welcome outside-the-box moments, like the sparing use of Martin at third base, have been countered by other more conventional and sometimes inane choices. He's had the right philosophy of trying to get his hitters to force a lot of pitches - yet continues to blame the kids publicly for not implementing the approach, even though the Dodgers' top four players in pitches per late appearance are all more than a decade younger than Jeff Kent, who is last among the regulars.

Pitches per plate appearance, 2008
4.13 Ethier
4.06 Martin
3.90 Loney
3.86 DeWitt
3.79 Pierre
3.68 Kemp
3.37 Kent

The training staff actually has shown some improvement in aggressive treatment of injuries, but given that it's their job to monitor players, it still seems too many health problems go unaddressed for too long. They cannot expect players to come to them every time they are hurt. They have to play Sherlock Holmes.

Summary
Most of the planning for 2008 was solid. Well, let me qualify that. The front office made some bad bets in previous years that added dead weight to the roster. However, thanks to good drafting and the occasional useful pickup, the Dodgers were still well-positioned to take a step forward this season. The three most damaging events this year were Furcal's injury (accompanied by Hu's lack of readiness), Jones' injury/ineffectiveness, and the lack of power from the younger players. Except perhaps in the case of Jones, those are just unfortunate events, things that could have gone right but that the fates chose not to.

And here's some news: As bad as he was, Jones couldn't bring this team down while he was playing. The Dodgers lost only 14 the 35 games he started in center field this season, including only three of the final 15. That's right: The Dodgers are 21-14 with Jones starting in center, 14-27 without him. Sure, it's largely coincidental, but unless Jones' presence prevented the team from acquiring someone better, he hasn't caused much damage to the Dodgers' record to date.

As the pressure mounts on this team, the challenge for the collective front office is to grasp where the true strengths and weaknesses are. Dodger management must continue to show the patience that it preaches. And looking further ahead, the Dodgers have to minimize their poor acquisitions. Not every bad move is a product of hindsight. Some were bad gambles from the start.

Making young players the core of the team and filling the gaps with veterans was the right idea. But the execution of that idea has had some hits, some misses and some misfortune. For the long-term health of the franchise, it's critical for the Dodgers to recognize what goes in each of those three categories.

Comments

[Bob Timmermann]

1.  The key is to sign both Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

[scareduck]

2.  And here's some news: As bad as he was, Jones couldn't bring this team down while he was playing. The Dodgers lost only 14 the 35 games he started in center field this season, including only three of the final 15. That's right: The Dodgers are 21-14 with Jones starting in center, 14-27 without him. Sure, it's largely coincidental, but unless Jones' presence prevented the team from acquiring someone better, he hasn't caused much damage to the Dodgers' record to date.

Jones represented one and only one good thing for the Dodgers: the acknowledgment that the team had made a mistake with Juan Pierre. But they compounded that mistake by pushing Pierre to left and reducing Kemp and Ethier's playing time; when Jones turned into a bust (and later was injured), the kids slumped, too, making for an unfortunate series of events. Frankly, the kids should be getting the AB's unless there's some compelling reason to believe they're not as good as advertised.

[Bumsrap]

3.  Torre says hitters have to make the pitchers work.

Colletti signs Jones and Pierre.

[GoBears]

4.  Great new post. But I can't help repeating myself, having been all LAT'd and stuff:

404. I disagree. First of all, the Yankees' success was not necessarily the result of their approach to hitting. It could just have been vastly superior talent. You wear a pitcher out by getting a lot of hits against him too.

Second, Kent made a clearer point than Jackson is making. The problem isn't (necessarily) that young guys can't wait for their pitch. The problem is that they are getting contradictory advice (take pitches vs. swing at good pitches). As Kent said, if a pitcher throws first-pitch strikes right down the middle, that might be the best pitch you'll see, and swinging early is the same thing as swinging at a good pitch to hit.

If youth (read, inexperience) matters, I'd guess it matters in two ways. First, their pitch-recognition skills are not that well developed. This seems clearest with Kemp. It doesn't matter how patient you are - if you can't tell a strike from a ball, you're in trouble. Second, maybe (this is just speculation) young guys see strikes early, whereas vets with proven success see more nibbling.

How often does A-Rod look at 2 strikes? Rarely, I bet. I bet he swings at early strikes or else starts counts 2-0.

The confusion, as I see it, is that Jackson and others (maybe even some of the coaches and players) equate "patience" with "taking pitches, whether they're hittable or not."
Sure, any kind of pitch-taking will help to wear out the opposing pitcher (pitches is pitches for him), but if those pitches are called strikes, you're not going to have a lot of success against him starting every count 0-2.

[regfairfield]

5.  3 Jones does walk a decent amount.

[Jon Weisman]

6.  4 - I agree.

[Bumsrap]

7.  5 - To be fair, Jones walks more than Pierre because he more often doesn't make contact swinging at pitches that Pierre puts into play.

[underdog]

8.  Great Jon! That's just great. Now that you've basically said it all, what're we gonna talk about here? ;-) No, seriously, that says it all above.
---

re: the topic of working the pitch count, I think Torre's philosophy in general is the right one, but it's not a problem of age vs. youth as far as how it works or doesn't, it's more that it should be adaptable for certain players. There are two players who I don't think should have to abide by that approach; one of them, Kent, never has, and has had a pretty good career, the other, Kemp, is much better when he is allowed to hit the first pitch if it's what he's looking for. We've seen how much more erratic he looks when he's taking pitches. Other players may get resentful, "Why don't they have to do it, tooooo?" (whine) but I think it should be adaptable. Kemp needs to scrap it basically.

[underdog]

9.  Or, what Go Bears said.

[jasonungar07]

10.  .211/.278/.307/.585 Kent with runners on base.

.246/.301 /.268 /.569 Pierre with bases empty

Joe talks roles and situations all the time. If there is anything these two should be leauge avg at is in the main roles they are suppossed to be providing to the team

So when Joe and Ned talk about the kids, although they may be right it holds no weight with me. It's all PR. It should be about the whole team

[Greg Brock]

11.  4 To continue from last thread, my kids read The Jungle over winter break. Right when we get into Progressivism.

[Prescott Pete]

12.  There's been so much talk in the media about Torre's patience approach that I'm sure scouts are telling their pitchers to throw strikes early and often to Dodgers hitters.

[schoffle]

13.  0

I am not sure that I understand how having our centerfield OPSing .540 for the first two months of the season did not bring the team down, are you saying that by have a decent hitting centerfield over that time that our record would not have been better? If that is indeed what you are suggesting then I strongly disagree.

2

So they acknowledged that they made a mistake with Pierre (in centerfield) and instead decided to make a bigger mistake with Pierre in leftfield. This does seem to represent anything good to me.

[Ghost of Carlos Perez]

14.  I think it is refreshing that Joe Torre recognizes his own need for patience, as indicated by the quote from the PE blog:

"My patience has to be as patient as I need to be."

[Bumsrap]

15.  14 - Reminds me of the joke where two hungry buzzards are sitting in a tree and one says to the other, Patience my *ss, lets go kill something.

[Ken Noe]

16.  When I was in college I had a summer job working construction. We were behind schedule. My friend and I came up with a way to produce tied rebar twice as fast as we were doing it before, but it required sitting on the ground. Our boss promptly forbade us to do it because it involved "sitting down on the job." I learned a lesson: in the "real world" appearances sometimes count more than results.

The Dodgers seem no different. While no one has been a world-beater, the results are clear, Loney is out-performing Kent and Pierre in all offensive categories except SBs, while Kemp and Ethier are in most all categories. Yet Pierre and Kent are praised for their "approach," while Sweeney continues to pinch hit because, according to Torre, he keeps himself in shape and has a nice swing. I certainly don't blame the vets alone for the season, it truly has been a team effort. And I like working counts; the basic theory is correct. But thirty years after working that construction job, I still think results to count more for than how something looks.

[underdog]

17.  Based on our discussion last night about books, here are some of the great novels that have been written about the Dodgers:

"Tender is the Shoulder" - F Scott Fitzgerald

"The Catcher is the Guy" - Salinger and
"The Golden God" - Henry James, tied

"An American Tragedy" - Dreiser

"A Portrait of the Lineup as Young Men" - Joyce

"Lord of the Fly Outs" - Golding

"Something Wacky This Way Comes" - Bradbury

"Sometimes a Great Notion..." - Kesey

"In Search of Lost Time" - Proust

"One Hundred Games of Solitude" - Marquez

"The Black and the Blue" - Stendahl

"Bleak House" - Dickens

"Les Miserables" - Hugo

[ToyCannon]

18.  Excellent breakdown.
While the big name injuries to Furcal, Jones, and LaRoche undermined the plan, the little injury to Abreu really screwed the plan. If he had stayed healthy he would have been an excellent option at SS instead of Berroa and allowed Kent to rest much more often when Furcal was healthy.

Picking up Berroa displays the weakness of Ned's in-season adjustment to problems. We replaced the worse SS in baseball with the worse SS in baseball.

[Jon Weisman]

19.  13 - The Dodgers went 21-14 with Jones in center. Given the alternatives available, how many more games could they have won? Sure, they'd be better, but it's not like they'd have gone 35-0. The Dodgers, for the most part, overcame the Jones problem while he played.

[ToyCannon]

20.  Preston Mattingly is in the midst of an 0/25 streak.

The Odgen Raptors are 0-8.

[Bumsrap]

21.  But the more Jones played the more the team seemed to change and by the time he was out, the Dodgers were a mess.

[Johnny Nucleo]

22.  0 I think this is a pretty fair-minded assessment of the 2008 Dodgers and their front office. I really can't find much to quibble with in your post.

[Jon Weisman]

23.  21 - "But the more Jones played the more the team seemed to change."

What do you mean?

[fanerman]

24.  0 The only thing I'd really add is that the Dodgers record with Jones in the line-up probably has more to do with Furcal also being in the line-up than it does with Jones.

[fanerman]

25.  24 Well, yeah, that was kind of covered, too. Okay. Nevermind.

[GMac In The 909]

26.  This is where I blame Pierre, right?

Moving on, I really enjoyed Slimers' piece on NedCo's wheeling and dealing. Hopefully the heat continues to be turned up.

"Most fans probably have you pegged as a GM who hasn't done a very good job of bringing in talent," I suggest, and he disagrees.
"I don't know if that's fact or fiction," he says. "That's your opinion."

http://tinyurl.com/5flyku

[KG16]

27.  But the execution of that idea has had some hits, some misses and some misfortune.

One can only hope that the front office recognizes that this happens any time you execute an idea and that it's not always the result of a bad idea.

Who was it that said a battle plan never survives the first engagement?

I also wonder if there was a little bit too much hope that this team was set to break through, especially after watching what the Rockies and Snakes did last year. And if some thought those two teams would regress rather than improve.

[regfairfield]

28.  26 Yeah, I really didn't like Ned throwing Watson/White under the bus there, even though I had no idea what moves he could have been referring to.

[Frip]

29.  I was wondering what you all think of the Fox broadcasting team of Matt Vasgersian and Eric Karros?

I'm ok with Vasgersian, but Karros is grating, a very unpleasant and inharmonious presence. I could do without his combative voice bouncing around my living room on otherwise peaceful Sunday afternoons. No matter how trivial the subject that comes up, he feels the need to take either a hard-pro or hard-con stance on it. Take a pill dude.

His partner will make a light, go-with-the-flow type comment, and this Karros pyranha gets all Judge Judy on him.

Maybe I'm biased, as he's one of these conversational type-A's that I can't bleeding stand.

Plus he shares with John Madden the maddening habit of starting sentences with the wholy unnecessary phrase, "as I was saying earlier." Just talk man. We know you're going to touch on themes you mentioned before, it's called conversation.

He does offer more strategy talk than your average announcer though, which is good.

[El Lay Dave]

30.  Jon, well-reasoned, well-presented, and spot-on analysis.

"[Torre's] had the right philosophy of trying to get his hitters to force a lot of pitches - yet continues to blame the kids publicly for not implementing the approach,..."

I have seen some comments recently where Torre indicates that he still needs to figure out how to present his message, but it would sure go a long way (with me at least) if he would step up and publicly take some blame for the current W-L record. It can be couched speculatively and doesn't even have to be completely true, but doesn't a good manager try to take pressure off those he manages in attempt to allow them to perform? How about, "these young players have had to deal with two different major-league coaching staffs in two or three seasons and the transition cost probably doesn't help in their development process, yada, yada, yada"?

Or take a look at a Colletti quote from the Simers column that Jon linked:

" "Some of those are minor league deals and I had nothing to do with them," Colletti protests when I mention his trading track record, and while I find it odd the Dodgers' GM doesn't have final approval of all deals, he adds, "The player development people made five or six of those." "

Again, I would like to see Ned and the front office publicly accept responsibility and stop deflecting. Isn't Colletti better off simply replying with something like "our front office (whether it was him directly or his staff) is responsible for all the player transactions, some work, some don't, and we'll take the credit and blame accordingly. We try to learn from the ones that don't work, but the most important thing is to field the best team we can, etc. etc." (BTW, is this more fuel for the front office factions fire?)

How about the veterans stepping up and acknowledging their own underperformance? Has Jeff Kent been quoted saying that he realizes he's been slumping and that that can place additional burdens on the offense, but that he is continually working hard to perform? Wouldn't that be leadership? Or is he only quoted on how the kids are still learning to hit and approach batting?

OK, sorry if that comes off whiny or if I'm totally off-base, but I sure feel like there's a lot of finger-pointing with the Dodgers these days and less taking responsibility.

[underdog]

31.  I still hold out hope we'll be writing about some more positive developments with this team in a month or two. We'll see...

[silverwidow]

32.  LHP James Adkins isn't pitching well in the High-A Cal League.

[GMac In The 909]

33.  28 Is it common practice for GMs to allow moves without their rubber stamp? I mean, is NedCo really trying to sell the idea that transactions went down without his consent? I find that very hard to believe.

The PR Machine™ is in full spin mode.

[Jon Weisman]

34.  Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness analyzes the Simers column:

http://mikesciosciastragicillness.com/2008/06/25/prizefight-simers-vs-colletti/

[El Lay Dave]

35.  26 Jon links to that with the underlined phrase "made some bad bets in previous years".

[scareduck]

36.  4 - How often does A-Rod look at 2 strikes? Rarely, I bet. I bet he swings at early strikes or else starts counts 2-0.

Easy enough to check on B-Ref:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=rodrial01&year=2008

119 plate appearances in which he gets to a two-strike count, nearly half of his 244 plate appearances for the season. Over his career, that's 4,237 of 8,726, roughly in line with his career numbers.

[Bumsrap]

37.  23 - When a very good veteran joins a team and carries a team, puts them on their back, everybody plays better. The team plays more relaxed and confidently. But when a proven veteran joins a new team out of shape and stinks the place up, the team plays tight and no-one really knows their roles.

Jones was not just bad, he was real bad. His back foot sliding back with every swing and most swings missing the ball by a foot. Yet, Jones was in the lineup while the younger players were hearing all this stuff about patience and having a plan and situational hitting.

Anybody that has ever played or coached a team knows that one great player can make all the other players better and one player that is really bad but continues to get prime playing time, makes the team worse. And the more the latter happens, the worse the team gets.

[underdog]

38.  Oh and that may be the first time I've ever appreciated TJ Simers! Either the earth is going to now split open or it's a one-time deal, but...

Still has some of that Simers' smugness that bugs me, but it's a very useful column. I mean, Colletti did make one good point in his own defense, that he's made a few good moves (clearly not enough) and hindsight is easier and yadda yadda, but he does come off as defensive and wrong-headed.

[underdog]

39.  34 Totally spot-on, tragicillness! That's it, that's exactly how I felt reading it -- I detest both these guys, and they're both often wrong, but... Anyway, good and fair breakdown, I thought.

[Jon Weisman]

40.  37 - "Anybody that has ever played or coached a team knows that one great player can make all the other players better and one player that is really bad but continues to get prime playing time, makes the team worse."

I wouldn't buy that as a rule in general - but the Jones example in particular argues against it. The Dodgers won 12 of his last 15 starts in center. The worse it got with Jones, the better the team performed. And it's a pretty huge stretch to say that it's Jones' fault the team wasn't winning when he wasn't playing.

Good players make a team better because they're good players, not because they're gnomes that the rest of the team can rub metaphorically.

[JoeyP]

41.  So was Ned blaming White/Watson for dumping Navarro, Ruggiano, Guzman, Denker, Jackson?

Getting back to the patience dicussion around the Dodgers young players:

It doesnt surprise me that these guys dont have the best patience yet (excluding Martin--he's excellent)--> because the Dodgers have really emphasized making contact (not striking out), over patience and power at the minor league level. I think this had changed temporarily when DePo took over (judging by the players he drafted/acquired), but now its back to the way it always has been. The Dodgers just dont emphasize plate discipline at the minor leagues---probably resulting in players being afraid to strike out so they swing early in the count.

Loney, DeWitt, Kemp, Abreu, Hu---> never been guys that drew many walks--> but still were promoted.

Ruggiano, Denker, DeJesus, Martin, LaRoche---> How much did the Dodgers really value 4 of these 5? They like Martin---> but did White like the others?

[scareduck]

42.  13 - yes, I'm aware that Pierre in left = loss. I wanted to ac-cent-u-ate the positive, which is admittedly tiny.

19 - I guess I don't care about winning right now so much as I do seeing the kids get at-bats and figuring things out. I expect rough patches, as the Dodgers are going through right now.

Chuck Jones, in his wonderful autobiography Chuck Amuck, tells the story of how his drawing instructor at Chouinard (now CalArts) told his class that they all had 100,000 bad drawings in them, and it was in his pupils' best interests to get them out of their systems as soon as possible. Jones said he figured that was a good thing, because he had already produced something like 30,000 bad drawings. The same sort of thing applies to young players. It's frustrating to see the Dodgers lose, but I'd rather seem them do that and learn instead of pretending by getting veterans of dubious utility who thereby slow down this process.

[bhsportsguy]

43.  Kim Ng made the deal for Anderson on her own and Ned has acknowledged thatin the press at that time.

I believe that those early deals involving young talent certainly came from recommedations made by his staff not from Ned drawing names from a hat as he certainly did not see much or any of their games.

Now, ultimately it is his job so I don't think he should phrase it that way but I am absolutely sure that Ng, Terry Collins, and Logan White all had say sos in those deals involving Jackson, Navarro and the like.

How has one player adapted to Jones being gone, well here are two stat lines, each representing over 100 PA:

.276/.327/.410/.737
.311 .336/.509/.845

The first line represents Matt Kemp's stats as a CF, the second as a RF. Now some of those CF stats are from games when Jones was still on the team but I am just put them out there.

[Jon Weisman]

44.  42 - I don't disagree. But except for Pierre and Kent, it's happening. Nagging included, of course.

[Bumsrap]

45.  40 - Good argument but I stand by what I said regarding Jones having a negative influence on the Dodgers. Maybe the sub-.500 winning percentage is as simple as the team not having a great clean-up hitter protected by a consistent and clutch #5 hitter. Giving Jones as many PAs as Torre gave him gets in the minds of younger players like a little league coach who always lets his son pitch even though his son can't throw strikes gets into the minds of the little league team.

[JoeyP]

46.  Should playing CF really affect Matt Kemp's hitting?

Looks to me like he somehow hit a few more homers while playing RF than CF.

Does it really state anything?

[GoBears]

47.  36. scareduck
4 - How often does A-Rod look at 2 strikes? Rarely, I bet. I bet he swings at early strikes or else starts counts 2-0.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=rodrial01&year=2008

119 plate appearances in which he gets to a two-strike count, nearly half of his 244 plate appearances for the season. Over his career, that's 4,237 of 8,726, roughly in line with his career numbers.

Thanks scareduck, but that's not what I meant. That's the number of PAs in which he gets to two strikes at some point (includes 0-2, 1-2, 2-2, or 3-2). And it doesn't distinguish strikes looking and strikes swinging. My hypothesis was that it's rare for someone like A-Rod to get to an 0-2 count without swinging at either pitch. Because I'm pretty sure that 0-2 from two misses or foul balls would still strike some as "impatience" whereas 0-2 from two called strikes would be called either "patience" (if a PVL) or "poor strike zone judgment" (if younger than 26). Or bad umpiring.

[GMac In The 909]

48.  46 Does it really state anything?

That the right field battle is heating up!

[LoneStar7]

49.  0 very well said

"Not every bad move is a product of hindsight. Some were bad gambles from the start.
Making young players the core of the team and filling the gaps with veterans was the right idea. But the execution of that idea has had some hits, some misses and some misfortune."

While there is some blame to be put upon the front office for some of its decisions, and possible lapses in judgment when analyzing the risk/reward factor in certain players, I was excited about the team that had been put together at the beginning of the season, and thought we would be serious contenders..

while this echoes what many have already said, the unfortunate injuries have really been tough for this team, but I still hold out hope that we can win this division.

[LogikReader]

50.  41

Now, whose fault is that? "Not Striking Out" is SO overrated.

[bhsportsguy]

51.  46 Actually he's hit more homers playing CF than RF. Perhaps when Jones around, even though he wasn't hitting it did relieve some of the pressure plus playing RF is easier for him than playing CF.

Again, all I am doing is putting out the numbers, if you are going to use numbers to illustrate points you agree with than you should be able to use them to indicate that there might be something else going on.

Of course, maybe numbers don't mean anything, evaluation should be based solely on observation.

[Jon Weisman]

52.  45 - Certainly, the Dodgers' lack of power in the middle of the lineup has hurt them. That's a separate argument from the one you've been making.

The argument that giving Jones 133 at-bats poisoned the younger players - I just can't even fathom it. Jones hurt the team because he wasn't hitting. It wasn't because other players looked at him and said, "If he can be bad, then why can't I?"

It's certainly your right to believe that, but it's not convincing.

[bryanf]

53.  Great, great post Jon. You always have a way of bringing levelheadedness to my emotional downfalls after long losing streaks. :)

Some of your best points, I think, are about Torre, and I wonder why he still continues to mostly get a free pass from pretty much the entire world outside of DT. Colletti is no saint, but Torre is about as average a manager as I've seen so far this year.

[ToyCannon]

54.  That is very sad that Ned won't stand behind all the deals made on his watch, good or bad.

If Kent and Pierre have had the best approach to hitting I shudder to think how bad they would be doing if they took approaches like Loney. Evidently Joe is more interested in the approach then in the result.

[Jon Weisman]

55.  It was a Jim Tracy characteristic to take credit for the good things and pass along blame for the bad things.

[dzzrtRatt]

56.  42 I guess I don't care about winning right now so much as I do seeing the kids get at-bats and figuring things out.

I agree. This season is turning out exactly as I'd hoped. My fingers are crossed that Ned won't mess up a very good thing. I don't care if they're one game out on July 30th, don't trade for that veteran bopper, Ned, unless it's straight across for Juan Pierre.

What this whole, Zen-like take-pitches-but-swing-at-your-pitch discussion reminds me of is the Wes Parker interview on KABC about six weeks ago. In some ways he sounded like an old veteran fart, opining that the problem is, the team isn't hitting in the clutch. But asked why, he said it's because the young players don't yet know what the pitchers will do in these situations because they haven't seen them enough. That's where veteranyness is an inarguable advantage.

But it's not available to the Dodgers at a price we can afford. We don't have anybody who's really good, healthy, and in their prime right now. Kent might have superior pitch expectation and recognition skills, but he's too old now to take complete advantage of them. Furcal obviously does, but it's not doing us any good at the moment. Jones, who knows? Our only choice is to wait it out, let the young guys build up their experience a pitch at a time, and hope they stay healthy and Ned doesn't panic, so they can all peak together in a year or three.

[bryanf]

57.  55 Is it a Jim Tracy characteristic to take credit for the good things and pass along blame for the bad things? Yes.

[sporky]

58.  42 I'm about to compare the Dodger hitting/offense to bacterial growth, but the log phase shall soon follow this lag phase!

[underdog]

59.  I think the most important and overlooked point was made earlier, which is Jones being in the line-up occurred when Furcal was also in the line-up. Having both of them meant that Pierre was rarely starting, and never batting lead-off. Having a more productive lead-off hitter may have had more of an affect than Jones being in or out of the line-up. But I pine for the both of them for that reason and for the glimmer of hope that when Jones returns he may also be closer to the productivity we'd hoped for, rather than the useless at bats he gave us earlier. Either way, Furcal's absence is still the bigger story to me for the domino effect it had up and down the lineup. Furcal + Jones > Pierre + Berroa.

Or as Bill Paxton once said, "Game over man."

[bhsportsguy]

60.  I'll add this to the debate. Speaking for me and not as someone trying to decipher smoke signals from Chavez Ravine, I was not pleased at all by the comments I have heard both on the radio on Sunday by Ned Colletti or in print in today's column by Simers.

Now I tend to take Simers with a ton of salt because he would easily lay into the players too, it just right now, Ned is a targert du jor.

My first problem is Ned's comments about how players are adjusting to the coaching staff's instruction. If Mike Easler, Larry Bowa or Joe Torre want to fill up a column with their critiques, fine, that's their jobs and the players are being paid so they should be able to take criticism public or private. But I don't think it is something for the GM to talk about since I don't believe it is his hitting philosophy or his organizational philosophy that is being taught here.

Two, between Simers' shots about the player acquisitions, I have stated positions on most of those and I won't go into them now but Ned should just stand up, tell Simers that he felt those were the moves he felt would improve the club and regardless on whose recommendations he listened to and considered when making these deals, the good, the bad and the ugly falls to him. If he does that, hey, that is all I ask for.

And three, certainly no one points out more than me, the fact that the organization has held on the majority of their prospects over the last 2 1/2 years, what I don't need to hear now is someone telling me that he is willing to live out some sort of Shakespere tragedy for the betterment of the club.

[Ken Noe]

61.  42 56 59 I love that Parker quote and I generally agree with him and all of you. While I still think we can make a run on the Snakes with Furcal, I'm perfectly happy if necessary to write this off as a rebuilding year (or a "building" year as someone wrote) and shoot for a better 2009, especially since there are increasing signs that Ned will stand pat with the core. In some ways my favorite LA team remains the 1973 group--they finished second but the future was clear.

[JoeyP]

62.  Again, all I am doing is putting out the numbers

Right, but you are not stating why you think there is a descrepancy in the numbers.

Are you suggesting that Kemp hits better with Druw in the lineup, Kemp hits better playing in RF rather than CF, or is it as simple scheduling---meaning the Dodgers have faced better pitching since Druw has been out of the lineup as opposed to being in the lineup?

[jujibee]

63.  I was behind the Jones signing, especially because it got Pierre out of CF, and sometimes on the bench. Whether or not Jones' contributions, or lack thereof, while he played had any bearing, good or bad, on the record is irrelevant. Most of the games that Jones was a part of, we also had a guy named Furcal tearing the cover off of the ball. I forget the exact day, but Furcal, as of a week or two ago was still leading the team in runs scored. That is amazing to me.

Furcal 34 runs in 134 AB over 32 games
Pierre 29 runs in 254 AB over 68 games

While I remain nuetral on whether Jones hurt the team more than he helped the team, I can say without a doubt that having Furcal/Jones in there over Pierre/Berroa-Maza-Hu is the significant impact of the slumping Dodgers. And, as I mentioned earlier, Jones, for the most part, was playing while Furcal was, and that is the point to be made for what the record is when Jones has started.

[Jacob L]

64.  59 Furcal + just about anybody > Pierre + Berroa.

[bhsportsguy]

65.  62 I have no idea why there is a difference, like I said, maybe he is relaxed knowing that he is starting all the time, maybe playing CF is more taxing physically, I don't know, all I know is that those are the numbers.

[underdog]

66.  64 - I guess that goes without saying, but I said it anyway.

Well, Furcal + Me not necessarily > than Pierre + Berroa, but maybe it is.

[MC Safety]

67.  Lol @ Slimers pointing out Milton Bradley is second in batting average behind ARod.

That was brilliant. Made my day.

[underdog]

68.  Hey I have this kooky idea, Dodgers!

How about just winning more games, so we can all relax and take a break from worrying and analyzing for awhile. Could you be dears and do that for us? Thank you so much!

sincerely,
Underdog

[jujibee]

69.  this just in from the Jim Callis chat

Ryan (LA, CA): Where on the moron sclae (1-10) would Frank McCourt rate if he lets Logan White leave to be the GM somewhere else while Ned Colletti stays on in LA?

Jim Callis: (2:02 PM ET ) That would be a disastrous decision. Still can't believe the Astros hired Ed Wade over White, reportedly because Wade's experience would allow them to contend quicker.

[underdog]

70.  What's a moron sclae? (tee hee.)

[KG16]

71.  50 - no, "not striking out" is properly rated: it is bad, very bad. Not as bad as hitting into a double or triple play, but still pretty bad. It is the only thing a hitter can do that does not give him at least a chance of advancing the offense. There is pretty much zero chance of a run scoring when a player strikes out.

[Bob Timmermann]

72.  I believe the Dodgers tend to play better when I'm not around to see them.

I'm at the airport!

[KG16]

73.  Just curious, who else was available that the Bums could have traded to get Ethier? Seriously, an outfield of Ethier-Bradley-Kemp with Young playing once or twice a week would look pretty nice right now.

[KG16]

74.  66 - I don't know, can you throw from the warning track to the in field on less than four bounces? Because if so, you could probably get lucky enough at the plate to be close to Pierre.

[Daniel Zappala]

75.  This entire season can be laid at the feet of none other than Bob Timmermann:

74-88 as the Dodgers succumb to a wave of injuries to the pitching staff and infielders.

[GMac In The 909]

76.  73 While I enjoyed Slimers punching holes in NedCo's regime, Slimers was cherrypicking the Bradley vs. Ethier argument. Sure, having Bradley over Ethier right now looks grand, but what about when Bradley was acting like a mad man in the months leading up to his trade or last year when he was hurt? Does the Bradley vs. Ethier argument hold up then? Not so much.

[underdog]

77.  If Bob would just travel more all this could be avoided!

[bhsportsguy]

78.  73 Maybe the Padres would be happy if they had Bradley as opposed to the Edmonds experiment or maybe even the A's wished they still had him too.

And Milton Bradley has yet to come close to playing a full season.

[underdog]

79.  76 I'm with you on that one. I know some here wold disagree but I wouldn't want both his emotional meltdowns and his recurring injuries added back to a team that already teeters on the brink with both as it is. The numbers look good but behind the numbers, no thanks. And I don't see him keeping it up.

[dzzrtRatt]

80.  By the way, William Faulkner is my favorite author. I missed last night's thread, but I wanted to rush to his defense. He's about a lot more than "the decline of the South blah blah blah," or whatever was said, just as James Joyce is about a lot more than "the pettiness of Dublin" and Ernest Hemingway is about a lot more than "the decline of my manhood."

[silverwidow]

81.  Tony Jackson says (in the comments section) that Ethan Martin's negotiations are "on hold." Apparently, the Dodgers will not go over slot ($1.73 million), so that could be a reason.

If he somehow doesn't sign, we will have the 15(a) pick in the 2009 draft.

[Bob Timmermann]

82.  75 - I thought Kent would get injured though.

If my prediction comes true, I'm changing my name to Cassandra.

[underdog]

83.  80 Oh I love Faulkner, too. Absalom and As I Lay Dying are still brilliant (I recently re-read the latter), among others. I wasn't sure about recommending him to high schoolers, but I think depending on the class and students, he'd be great. Either way, I still appreciate him.

[LogikReader]

84.  72

Bob, where are you going again? The Sabr convention in Toronto?

[Daniel Zappala]

85.  82 The Dodgers are on a pace for 74 wins right now, so I'll get the paperwork ready.

[fanerman]

86.  83 We read "As I Lay Dying" in HS. My mother is a fish.

[bhsportsguy]

87.  84 Cleveland. Bob does not his passport for that.

[bhsportsguy]

88.  81 Tony Jackson's complete comment.

Ethan Martin is somewhat on hold at the moment. Logan White is in the Dominican, although it could get done while he is gone.

The Dodgers are pretty hard-core when it comes the slot money, and slot money in this case is $1.73 million. They aren't going to go above it, and I think once the player and his agent advisor realize that, the deal will get done. The kid isn't going to turn down that kind of money.

[scareduck]

89.  70 - a moron sclae is a Scottish variant of curling, played with the decapitated head of a baseball general manager.

[scareduck]

90.  72 - if a Slappy pops up to the shortstop while Bob is in Toronto, will the Dodgers still lose?

[bhsportsguy]

91.  90 Like the man said at the end of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," print the legend.

[Ghost of Carlos Perez]

92.  I dislike when people give too much emphasis on how a player does something instead of what the player does. For example, I don't care if a player is a great hitter because of physical talent or because of his "approach."

More obvious examples are seen in statements like, "Chipper Jones is a special player because he is a switch hitter. Only X switch hitters have hit more homers than Chipper has," or "Curt Schilling belongs in the hall of fame. Only X righthanders have more wins than he has over the last 20 years."

I can picture the discussion when Tim Wakefield retires: "He's a hall of famer. He was the most dominant knuckleballer of his generation."

Certainly there is room to consider a hitter's approach (e.g., a coach trying to help the hitter improve) or a pitcher's handedness (figuring out the best matchup), etc, but it does not really fit when trying to figure out how well a player performed.

[GoBears]

93.  That was me, bashing Faulkner. As I said, I had to read it all in the course of a few months. I don't remember, but it's possible that I liked the first book I read. But I found the canon to be monotone. The same theme over and over and over.

That's the nice thing about art, however: there's no accounting for taste.

BTW, Ratt, it was at Rolling Hills HS that I was subjected to this. Not that that matters one way or the other - just thought I'd give a shout out to your neighborhood.

[Bob Timmermann]

94.  Toronto? That was three years ago? Since then, there's been Seattle and St. Louis.

Seattle, where people left angry criticisms directed at me on the Grilddle because they didn't like Sean Forman's research.

[Linkmeister]

95.  If Bob ends up in Toronto he's gonna miss the convention, which is in Cleveland.

Query: Toronto. Is it a better location than Cleveland? My mother would say unequivocally yes.

[Bob Timmermann]

96.  For those not scoring at home, next year's SABR convention will be in our Nation's capital.

[Daniel Zappala]

97.  94 And if there's one thing we've learned, with all this talk about obelisks, is that Bob carries a grudge quite willingly.

[Ken Noe]

98.  (a) If the LADs win this weekend, it's because of me. If not, it's still on Bob. (b) I still root for Bradley, but he had to go. (c) "Moron sclae" is nearly the opposite of "squee," but more emphatic than {sigh}.

[Bob Timmermann]

99.  Toronto may be a better city than Cleveland, but it was harder for a convention with border crossings and the inability of many vendors to bring stuff across the border without a million permits.

[Ken Noe]

100.  The last time I went to Toronto, the US border guard said he wouldn't let me back into the county until I said "Roll Tide." He finally relented, or I would still be there.