Are these the two highest Game Scores of all-time?

Sandy Koufax, 9/9/65 vs. Cubs (Perfect Game); Game Score: 101

Randy Johnson, 5/18/04 vs. Braves (Perfect Game); Game Score: 100

Addendum: Now that LaRoche is on the 25-man roster and Torre clearly plans to use him, I think we can all be calmer about the roster, don't you think?

I like Ardoin better than Bennett, so I hope they don't bring Bennett back. That's about it. I assume when Rafael comes back, it's Maza who goes down, not LaRoche. If we get both Garciaparra and Furcal back, I expect we'd demote Berroa and keep him warm down in Vegas, and that Andy would stay. Have to admit, Berroa has played well enough to forestall a bigger, dumber move, so he's been a net plus.

LaRoche's trump card is the potential for power. They certainly don't expect him to start hitting dingers and turn around the team's fortunes immediately, but they know if they don't get power from him, there's nowhere else to go (except Jones), so they're going to have to find a spot for him.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN199805060.shtml

Some extra inning performances are longer.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/twMj

Bobble error! I learn something new every day.

If Ng or White is becomes a GM elsewhere, I wonder how much (if at all) that would affect Ned's general managing.

5 I didn't know you could be charged with an official "bobble error." I thought it would be a fielding error.

To pick an obvious possibility, what it would take to get Matt Holliday would almost have to include either Billingsley or Kershaw, plus LaRoche, plus more, or else why would the Rockies do a deal?

The Angels should try to get Holliday. That's the kind of team that should do a deadline deal. They aren't good enough to overcome the Sox in the postseason, but they're close and adding Holliday would make them scary. They can afford to give up pitching and youth to get him. They kinda owe it to their fans to go for it before Vlad gets too much older.

11 That would be quite an expensive outfield.

http://tinyurl.com/4v8oqf

0
Hopefully for White or Ng they get asked.

0
Good news on the shuttle. I'll have to give it a shot when it is up and running. If I drive my truck I figure the cost is 20.00 in gas. If they market it right they should get a decent response. The downside is that I'll probably be riding back to Union Station with a bunch of drunken fools so if we win the ride will be fun, if we lose it will be irritating. Kind of like DT without the drunken fools part.

LAD .262 .328 .381
LAA .260 .322 .389

I don't see a lot of columns about the dysfunctional Angel offense this year.

Unfortunately this column sows the seeds of the "offense is too young" theory. This paragraph is especially bad:

On the days the Dodgers rest Jeff Kent, they might run Kemp, Martin and Loney through the heart of the order.

The horror! At least acknowledge that Kent has been awful himself. And our leadoff guy gets another free pass. This dysfunctional offense avg'd 5.1 runs/gm in April.

In either case, the Dodgers would risk disrupting the core of young players they have trumpeted for years without ever letting that core establish itself. They also would risk gutting the depth of an organization that now calls Angel Berroa its major league shortstop.

The kids won't all pan out, but Russell Martin, Chad Billingsley and Jonathan Broxton already have. James Loney, in his first full season, is hitting .308.

Matt Kemp, in his first full season, is hitting .291 with seven home runs and 13 stolen bases. He has driven in 43 runs, the team high.

The coaches might tell Blake DeWitt something once and might have to tell Kemp the same thing five times, but he is by far the most talented among this group, the most coveted by opposing teams. The Dodgers say they aren't trading him.

The Dodgers could get to October yet, in this division, without an extreme makeover. If they shatter the emerging core, there could be a lot of veteran patch jobs in the future, a lot of overpriced .500 teams. That's a high cost for one round of the playoffs, unless you believe you better get there today or you won't see tomorrow.

Home: .363 AVG/.427 OBP/.658 SLG/1.085 OPS
Road: .274 AVG/.337 OBP/.444 SLG/.780 OPS

Is Holliday really worth a Billingsley/LaRoche package?

The Angels mix in Howie Kendrick or Casey Kotchman, relatively invisibly, because they have Vladimir Guerrero and Garret Anderson to carry the load.

Exactly what load has Garret Anderson been carrying?

I'm still not seeing anything in the column that indicates that Shaikin believes the kids are the offensive problem.

Would you have written that?

Good Microbrew on Sunset. Lovely.

VORP is funny. Not 60 million dollars dead money funny, but still...Humorous.

Jokes. Funny guy. Humor. We laugh!

Sigh.

In reality, there is no scenario whereby the Dodgers could improve their chances to "win now" by trading young players, because any such trade would involve creating multiple holes on the MLB roster. To get a Matt Holliday, you'd have to trade at least three guys currently filling roles on the team, which means you'd be making your team weaker overall despite adding a marquee player. For the top-level players that Shaikin and Colletti are dreaming about, James McDonald ain't gonna cut it. We're talking about giving up some combination of Kemp, Loney, Billingsley, Broxton, Ethier, Kershaw, LaRoche, or DeWitt. The notion that the 2008 Dodgers could be improved by such a trade is a ludicrous proposition that could only be advanced by someone who was predisposed to believe that veterans, simply by their veteraniness, are the only types of players capable of helping a team win a pennant race.

Shaikin does talk about the rash of injuries, but it would have been nice to see him acknowledge the obvious truth that the Dodgers' problems this year have been caused almost exclusively by the poor performance or unavailability of veterans, namely Jones, Pierre, Furcal, Penny, Schmidt, Sweeney, Nomar, Berroa, Loaiza, and Proctor (along with the poor performance of one young player, Hu). Any column that attempts to assess the state of the Dodgers without recognizing this is a column that hasn't been completely thought out.

I mean, he's basically saying that "those three" are no longer kids that need to be babied. If that's the smoking gun, there isn't much smoke.

In response to 35, it seems clear to me that Shaikin thinks trading the kids to win now would be a mistake. Again, reread the graphs in 24 and 25 . I agree he could have assigned more blame to some vets, but I think some of these criticisms border on nitpicking.

And what are we to make of Colletti's completely unsolicited offer to send Ng or White off to Seattle? The cynic in me sees a desperate attempt on Colletti's part to save his own job by removing his rivals one-by-one until all viable replacement GMs have been cleared from the room. Then again, if Ned is as nice a guy as they say he is, maybe he's just being vocal about trying to get a deserved promotion for one of his people.

Of the three, he's the only one with no discernible achievements.

38 - That's the obvious question, although I don't know why you call it "completely unsolicited." Do you think Colletti sought out Shaikin to talk about this? Much more likely it was the reverse.

Of the three, Colletti, the cagey baseball lifer, is the only one to accomplish a thing in the game of baseball.

The inexperienced White may have gotten lucky with his stable full of untamable young bucks like Matt Kemp.

Ng, a baseball outsider, is at her best on paper, staring down Eric Gagne in arbitration.

But neither of them knows what it takes. Neither of them has the experience.

Neither of them knows what it's like to make that exhilarating deadline trade. Neither knows what it's like to fire a manager.

And, most important of all, neither of them has a shiny gold World Series ring like Colletti does.

Shiny.

Gold.

Ring.

[/Plaschke]

Like Caesar, he is surrounded on all sides.

The scouting guru is beloved.

The front office impresario ready to break the glass ceiling.

He sits in his office, 60 million lighter and surrounded by potential.

His time is now.

But has it passed?

/Plaschke

Guido (Charleston, WV): Will the Dodgers be dumb enough to trade Kemp? Hu? LaRoche?

Joe Sheehan: I think this is a battle for the soul of the franchise. If Ned Colletti makes another Dioner Navarro deal with one of those guys, I think the Dodgers lose Logan White within the year, and it gets very dark and cold up from Sunset Blvd. If Colletti doesn't do that, perhaps White gets elevated into the GM's chair, and the Dodgers become the Red Sox West in three years.

I bet he died.

(1) He calls Schmidt, Nomar, Jones and Loaiza "busts."
(2) He says that breaking up the young "core" would lead to a .500 future.
(3) He recognizes that "they're not one player away."
(4) He does lament that our youngsters are not supporting players in the offense, they ARE the offense... and implies we should adjust our expectations accordingly.

38 And regarding Ng/White: even considering the soul-wilting season we're enduring, I can't see Ned as being so machiavellian... besides, isn't there a 'viable replacement' in NY whose contract expires in September?

And speaking of offering unsolicited GM advice to Seattle, I think Colletti himself would be a great fit for them.

Ng and White could run the baseball ops, and Colletti could coordinate the father son catches and Hollywood Stars extravaganzas.

"I feel like I'm signing him on the way up!"

I agree with Jon, Shaikin asked Ned if he would object to their interviewing for the job and he said no he wouldn't.

Why is that a story, its not likely that a move like that would take place during the season. White already interviewed for the Houston job last off-season.

I have never been comfortable with the kids vs. everybody else argument, frankly its tired and it really doesn't make much sense to me. And when it comes up, I tend to want to vacate for a while.

And to be absolutely clear, it doesn't matter who brings it or which side anyone is on. If you like the kids fine, then be ready to take the criticism, fair or unfair because they are getting paid to play baseball in the No. 2 market. If you think the veterans are to blame, than suggest reasoned alternatives not just play 8 guys from Jacksonville.

My read between the lines is that whatever happens with this team, ultimately Colletti will answer for its success or failure. For now, it appears, he has all the cards he will get to play with since he appears to holding the company line on not dealing his young players. However, this also probably negates the Dodgers being "sellers" since McCourt isn't offering any guarantees yet.

I missed the part where the plucky vets have led this team to its winning ways.

Given that eight guys who were recently with Jacksonville are the ones carrying this team, that's probably not as unreasonable an alternative as you're saying it is.

In fact, the single biggest thing that's gone wrong with the Dodgers in the last three years is the reluctance to play guys from Jacksonville unless absolutely forced to.

I hope the McCourts have somebody going over his browser history every night. It would solve everybody's problems if Colletti's been looking at porn on his work computer. Think about it: The Dodgers would get a new GM. The McCourts wouldn't have to take the hit for firing another one. Hour after hour of Dodger coverage on ESPN. Colletti could get a show on one of those cable channels devoted to giving shows to people who get famous for being morons, publicly. Win/Win/Win/Win.

What else could he do?

He's also suggesting that there's no short term fix available, and reporting that Dodger brass seems to share that opinion and is determined to "stay the course." This, naturally, is a great relief to all.

Ppfffft!

I see McCourt thankfully committed to looking to the long term, as quoted by Jon above. "We have never made a decision during my ownership based on immediate, near-term, win-loss results." I also see that about the best he can say about Ned and his "group" is that they have "more of a team in the front office." And then there's this: McCourt refused to say whether Colletti will keep his job if the Dodgers finish with a losing record."

So when I look at the ink blot, I see McCourt saying that Ned won't be making a big deal involving the young ones, even if he wants to--and he says he doesn't. Ned rather seems to invest most of his hopes in getting people off the DL. If the team rebounds, fine. If it falls apart, Ned could be job hunting. Stay around .500 and he's probably okay another year. But whatever happens will happen with the the essential team that now exists, DL included, barring a surge in the next two weeks.

But then the ink blots always say more about us, don't they?

Who suggested this? Billingsley is the best pitcher in the organization and won't be traded for anything.

I want Logan White to be the GM of the Dodgers. I want Kim Ng to stay with the Dodgers. That is all.

If McCourt decides to go outside the organization to fill the job, would any A-list GM dare come work for an owner who's already on his third general manager in five years?

Probably Brian Cashman.

I can see Ng getting the interim job if Colletti is fired in-season, though.

Colletti will most assuredly finish this season and I think he has a 95% chance to finish next season.

Sometimes I feel I'm Daffy Duck and everyone else is Bugs Bunny.

Bugs: "Duck season!"
Daffy: "Rabbit season!"
Bugs: "Duck season!"
Daffy: "Rabbit season!"
Bugs: "Duck season!!"
Daffy: "Rabbit season!!"
Bugs: (reversing the flow) "Rabbit season!"
Daffy: "Duck season!!!"
Bugs: "Rabbit season!!!"
Daffy: "I say it's duck season, and I say, FIRE!"

How many lumps do you take?

This is a bad thing? Anyone who has ever done a cost/benefit analyses on free agents would conclude you stay away from just about all of them. Certainly the most expensive ones.

If McCourt decides to go outside the organization to fill the job, would any A-list GM dare come work for an owner who's already on his third general manager in five years?

I would go with Ng/White as co-GM's and let them do what they do best. As for free agency, I am not opposed to them taking their time in this department. After years of watching other supposed exeperienced Dodger GM's screw up in free agency, isn't taking their time, perhaps even sitting out a year the best strategy anyway?

I read that quote as, ""I'm tired of people making excuses and saying Scott Proctor is hurt. Scott Proctor is not."

If everyone spoke like Rickey Henderson, communication would be a lot clearer in this world!

I doubt he could do worse.
You look at the dead money free agent signings, and the dumb trades--->and Juan Pierre---> Colletti just doesnt understand how to assess value to MLB players.

I hope the Dodgers can get a stat guy back in there, and then they'll become Red Sox West. Its not going to happen with Colletti.

If so, he should have just followed up that comment with "and I'm tired of people saying I belong in the major leagues. I don't." Not that I can imagine their are many who still think he does.

No it wouldnt.

Bob, I think you summed up the last 20 years of the Dodgers in just one sentence.

It was either write that, or write "as opposed to?"

Entering June 22, 2007, Jeff Kent was hitting .264/.349/.460. From that point forward,he hit .337/.400/.537.

The "kids" comprise the majority of the lineup, so it's not like a new GM is going to suddenly ship off multiple regulars. It makes no sense.

I predict the Dodgers season concludes with a twist ending!

But, couldn't one say the same thing with regards to free agent contracts? Meaning, the bad free agent contracts comprise the majority of the DL list players or underacheivers, so it's not like a new GM is going to come in and saddle the Dodgers with even more bad free agent contracts. It makes no sense.

Drafts usually take the best player available regardless of position. Shouldn't free agent signings and trades mostly try to fill position weaknesses first before worrying about best player?

I ask this because the Dodgers and Colletti signed both Pierre and Jones as centerfielders when Kemp was already here, and Ethier available for right field. Additionally, the Dodgers already had a leadoff hitter in Furcal so getting Pierre was merely doubling up at leadoff.

Maybe Colletti didn't want any of the third basemen that were available and he thought he already had a veteran in Nomar and backup in LaRoche. He had veteran Kent at second backed up with Abreu so Colletti had no personal reason to go after a second baseman. That kind of leaves left field as the place to shore up instead of signing Pierre for CF.

Hindsight is usually more accurate than foresight and maybe Kemp was too big of a question mark than he is turning out to be, and Abreu's breakdown was as a big of a surprise as Nomar's wasn't. And, nobody knows what is going to happen with Kuo physically.

The Dodgers need a clutch 4 and 5 hitter and good obp in the first two spots in the lineup. Furcal, Martin, Loney would be great in the 1, 2,and 3 spots but Kent, Jones have not been the answer for the 4 and 5 spots. Kemp is more than an adequate 6 hitter and Ethier and DeWitt/LaRoche are more than adequate in the 7 and 8 spots.

It is not the youth that is hurting this team it is the absence of clutch and consistent and power coming from the 4 and 5 spots and those spots are usually filled with proven and well experienced hitters.

So I would suggest that if the Dodgers make a trade, they should make the unrealistic trade of Jones and Pierre and Kent and Ethier and Penny, and Lowe and get two corner outfielders for the 4 and 5 spots and a second baseman for the 8th spot. Either that or admit that they already have championship level hitters in the 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 spots and what is missing is a 4 and 5 hitter because Jones and Kent have failed to adequately fill those roles.

most people out there, including much of the front office, sees the young regulars as part of the "kids"...therein lies the problem...

but in reality these "kids" are in a middle ground, not seasoned vets, but no longer raw kids...and no one in charge quite knows where they are or where the team is...

The trick, particularly for a big market, high payroll team, is the getting the first two steps right.

Anyone who has watched baseball for more than 8 years can figure out how to do this.

As far as Ned getting fired, I'm really don't care at this point. The Dodgers are where they are this season for a whole host of reasons, and removing Ned midseason doesn't really change anything. Besides, even if it makes sense on a baseball level, it doesn't make sense on a business level - going with 3 GMs in 5 years will make the McCourt's look like clowns that no one but the most desperate will want to work for (read potential exodus of current staff).

but Coletti has proven a poor judge of free agent talents and abilities (at this point in their careers), and what we have are over the hill guys who see themselves as being still in their prime

The key was JD opting out.

The McCourts have already come out publicly stating they "don't make decisions based on immediate, near-term, win-loss results,"

That should be a message to Colletti to leave the core young players alone. It should also be a message to leave alone any of the other good young players (in the minors or on the 40 man roster) for short-term returns.

Essentially that would leave purging the roster of any bad contracts without bringing in any other bad ones. That might mean simply staying the course until the bad contracts are gone with Torre not playing the bad contracts or Colletti keeping them on the DL.

The Dodgers would simply be stating they are a young team building for a bright future. If Coleeti were on board with that, then he stays on. If he's not, then he can quit, and Ng/White can move up. It's not as if the Dodgers were choosing some wild new approach. Just a prudent one.