It'll come, it will come. His WHIP is good, his K rate is good, even his BAA isn't very bad. The only thing I'm concerned about is his ERA, but given that he's a rookie, it's not a major concern.

I'd say his ERA looks better than his WHIP. But command issues are solvable. It just depends on whether people want to watch the solving or have it take place out of sight in Jacksonville.

Jon just wanted to break up NBA talk and bring up baseball or whatever they play at Dodger Stadium.

It's not so much walking people, just being wild inside the strike zone. Case in point is the RBI single Ramirez had today. An 0-2 count, Ardoin puts his glove way up in the air indicating he wants a fastball around the shoulders. Instead it's right down the middle and Ramirez smashes it.

Once Kershaw learns to harness it, he'll be unstoppable. I wonder if the fans and management will have enough patience. Sandy Koufax was allowed five years to find his control; not that I'm saying Kershaw will need that long, but if he does, the Dodgers will likely not stick with him as long as they did Koufax.

Oh, and I totally agree that he needs to stay in the majors. There is nothing for him to learn in Jacksonville or Las Vegas.

Billingsley's first 32.1 IP:

34 H, 16 ER, 26 BB, 18 K, 4.45 ERA

Kershaw's first 33 IP:

33 H, 16 ER, 22 BB, 29 K, 4.36 ERA

3 - Not that I wouldn't talk about the Jason Collins trade all night long.

I would bet Kershaw solves his command issues on a pace faster than Billingsley.

I was just going to bring that up, actually. Their rookie performances were very similar, except Kershaw's strikeout rate is much, much better.

I wrote 7 before I saw 6 .

Watching the replay, I am STUNNED Brian Falkenborg can throw 97 MPH.

I thought he was a junk baller or something. He actually looks pretty good.

More comparisons through their first six starts:

Billingsley:
Opposition batting .282/.419/.442
582 pitches (3.85 pitches per batter), 327 strikes (56.2%)
Average game score of 44

Kershaw:
Opposition batting .255/.360/.377
531 pitches (4.18 pitches per batter), 321 strikes (60.5%)
Average game score of 49

Billingsley really picked it up in the second half until he went down with an oblique strain.

(I forgot to note that the numbers in 11 don't include today. It's the first six starts for each guy.)

With left-hander John Danks starting for the White Sox and Andre Ethier hitting .164 against left-handers, Torre elected to sit Ethier on Thursday -- much to Danks' delight.

"Fortunately, Andre Ethier wasn't in there," said Danks, who pitched six scoreless innings. "He owned me all the way down to the minor leagues. I was definitely excited to see that."

The above is from the LA Times, and sort of fits my view of the season and the tad of frustration that some are feeling with Kershaw and this team.

We are so close but yet so far away!

I was at Kershaw's first game pitching, against STL, he pitched very well the Dodgers couldn't quite hold a lead, but won in extra's. He clearly needs more time and will be special, we just have to be patient. Unfortunately we may have to be patient this year.

Today's game a few timely hits and perhaps we win, or maybe Joe looks at the hold splits and goes against convention and lets Ethier start god forbid over JP, because he owns Danks, and we get that series win against a good team.

Unfortunately it doesn't happen, we lose another close ballgame and don't pick-up any ground. Again we must be patient until Furcal comes back and maybe Jones adds some power.

I hope Kershaw can eventually be a spark, just hope it is sooner rather than later this year.

5 -- Nothing left to learn in the minors? Consistency with command and secondary pitches is something that has to be learned somewhere, and practiced through sheer repititon. I would rather Kerhsaw be working on those things in a place where it doesn't matter if he can only pitch 4 innings a game and where no MLB service time is being burned. Kershaw is going to be arbitration-eligible when he's the age Billingsley is now. That's not good.

14 Wow. I hope Torre reads the paper.

Of course, it was nice to see Delwyn in there. But we all know who he should have been replacing.

"This is where you want ... to ... trade," Honeycutt said.

Fun with ellipses!

15 I see where you're coming from, however:

1) As one of the five best starting pitchers in the organization, he belongs on the team, and

2) Why is the minors more conducive to improving one's command? If anything, wouldn't the minors be less conducive to learning command, with all the less disciplined hitters swinging at stuff out of the strike zone? It seems to me that one of Kershaw's challenges so far is learning that MLB hitters aren't going to offer at the slop outside the strike zone. Striking out Double-A hitters on pitches in the dirt might accomplish nothing except encouraging bad pitching habits.

3) You're drawing sweeping conclusions from a 30-inning sample. For all we know, the severity of his command issues could be nothing more than randomness. If he still has the same walk rate after 12 or 15 starts, then let's talk.

4 - Sandy had five years because of the stupid bonus baby rules in effect then. He was one of the few who came out on the other side unscathed.

18 - then just push everyone (or at least, every top prospect) straight to the majors. (2) is an argument against having a farm system altogether. It's just nonsensical. You could have said the same thing about Mark Alexander a couple years ago when he was all but unhittable for Jacksonville; yet suddenly AAA Las Vegas held some surprises for him.

19 Obviously I know that, but it doesn't change the fact that they were willing to let a guy sit around taking up a roster spot for five years without contributing all that much. The modern Dodgers would never do that.

If I'm remembering my archaic baseball transaction rules correctly, the Dodgers could have optioned Koufax to the minors starting in 1957.

10 - IIRC Falkenborg's problem is command and a lack of movement on his pitches.

20 The difference, as you bloody well know, is that I'm talking about players who have already mastered the minor leagues and are already good enough to contribute in the majors, while you're not.

I guess I just don't buy the theory that dominating the minor leagues with one's hand tied behind one's back is conducive to learning. It seems obvious that any player would have far more to learn by playing in the majors than playing in the minors. So if a guy is already good enough that your major league team is benefiting by playing him, then that's where he belongs.

there is a huge difference between a Mark Alexander type minor league pitcher and the Scott Kazmir, Clayton Kershaw type prospects.

18 -- I didn't say, or imply, that the minors is more conducive to improving a pitcher's command. My point was, is, that while improvement in command is being worked on, it is ideal that it be done in a place where the winning and losing of games is irrelevent, where issues like over-working the bullpen are irrelevent, and where no MLB service time is being eaten up. Should that be an unbreakable rule? No. Looking at what the Dodgers have in the way of pitching in the majors, at a given time, comes into consideration too. That's why I think it was permissible to let Billingsley work through his rough patches in the majors. But right now, Stults and Park give us the luxury of taking our time with Kershaw.

26 Of those reasons, the only one that persuades me to any degree is the service time one. Minor league bullpens have the same overwork issues that major league ones do. And I don't see any good reason why the pitcher needs to be in an environment where winning and losing don't matter. Perhaps what you mean by that is that Torre will be tempted to pitch Kershaw more than he should, but (a) I doubt he would do that, and (b) That would only become a temptation if the command problem is solved.

And despite recent events, I also don't buy that Park and Stults are comparable to Kershaw in terms of reasonably expectable MLB performance.

27 -- You can ride a Double A bullpen so hard that every reliever's arm falls off and nobody will care. The tired relievers can cause the team to lose ball games it should win and nobody will care. That is why those things aren't "issues," while they would be issues in the majors. In the majors, if a pitcher's command problems are leading to losses either directly or indirectly, that is a problem.

What is a reasonably-expected performance from Kershaw in the majors right now? Between four and five earned runs per nine innings. The way Park and Stults are pitching, in 2008, I expect better than that from both Stults and Park, and nobody can adduce any good reason to believe they will fall apart imminently. Everyone says it is smoke and mirrors, but I'm a big believer in getting use out of players when they are demonstrably "hot."

More speculation from Rosenthal:

http://tinyurl.com/3q2aro

I am really not a big fan of Dunn's but I find myself considering this one. Parting with Hu would be tough but I do think that Furcal comes back next season plus we should have Abreu playing utility. The opportunity to get two draft picks for Dunn also helps to soften the blow of losing Hu. Getting a healthy Furcal and Jones back and adding Dunn could really change our fortunes in the second half. The only downside is that we would be squeezing out Ethier again.

I'm showing my Dodger solidarity during these rough patches & especialy cause we are playing the Halos this weekend by sporting my DT gear.

We must defete the Halos!

The funny thing is Kershaw has never REALLY dominated in the minors. The only stretch you could really call dominant was spring training 2008. That might have some influence on the keep up/send down decision???

15 The 2008 Major league Dodgers is actually a place where it doesn't matter. What's he going to hurt? Are we going to finish with a .425 record instead of a .440 record?

I love the Jerome WIlliams signing..... not sure what happened to that guy be he looked sooo good early on before he fell apart. Great risk/reward that we can fix him for some role.

29 I would do cartwheels (at least a round-off) if the Dodgers were able to complete such a deal.

I didn't see where Kershaw had dominated the minor leagues to the point where he couldn't learn anything more.
We brought him up when we needed him, but once Penny and Kuroda are back in the rotation, then I'd have no problem if they optioned Kershaw back to the minors pitching 6/7 innings on a regular basis.

Hey Canuck I don't get to say I told you so regarding the prospects to you very often but we did argue about Kershaw getting the call up in 2008 and pitching meaningful innings.

I dont mind Kershaw staying with the Dodgers either. This season is going nowhere anyway, so instead of wasting it on guys that have no future (Park) in the rotation...keep that spot for Kershaw and let him learn here.

How about the Clippers having their best draft in my lifetime. At least before they play the games and that doesn't say much given their draft history but Gordon and Jordan. Nice

29
I guess we like Ken when he proposes a trade for the 1st time ever that favors the Dodgers.

29

Ethier is making himself squeezable. Really like the guy, but he just isn't forcing his way into PT.

38 - I don't know why we would like Rosenthal for that proposal since it is obviously just speculation like most of his writings, but at least the reasoning behind this one is sound. It is a trade that may favor us slightly but still has value for the Reds. They are not going to sign Dunn long-term and had trouble trading him last year. They also need a young SS (though I don't know what their opinion is of Keppinger), which Hu would provide them.

Gordon is a really short shooting guard. I dont think he has much upside, certainly wont be better than Maggette.

Jordan is a complete project.

I'm just throwing this out here for some other opinions, but what happens, if what you see is what you get with our young players. What I mean is, what if they're all over rated, and nobody develops into a difference maker? I don't have the stats to prove any of this, and it's just from watching these past years, but it seem to me that all of them have regressed a bit from last year, even Martin. Tampa Bay has Longoria with something like 14 home runs, and he's a young player, also last year Chris Young hit 30 , another young player. None of the current group of players look like star material so far. It's true they might need more time to develop, or worse yet the current group of coaches is hindering and maybe even destroying their confidence and or ability. I would be willing to bet that if any of them are traded they will do much better elsewhere. The other thing to consider, is that if the possibility exists that this group of young players stays pretty much as they are now, what does that say about Logan White, is it possible that he's overrated also? I personally feel it's the coaching and managing, but there are no guarantees in baseball either way.

42--> If that happens, as Regairfield pointed out a week or so ago--the Dodgers are screwed.

If all the youngsters just remain average players, the Dodgers are going to be an average team, but one with very little flexibilty bc all of our own average players will be A) Under Contract, and B)Not coveted by other teams in trades.

Certainly Martin, Billingsley, Kershaw are difference making caliber players.

But Kemp, LaRoche, Ethier, DeWitt, Loney must develop more.

I dont think Logan White would be considered overrated even if the kids dont become stars. He did his job, in that he's drafted players that all became rather valued commodities at one time or another. Thats all you can ask.

At that point, its up to the GM to use those prospects either as currency to get more valuable players, or to keep them and hope they develop.

43- The bigger problem is Ned can't be trusted to do either.

30 - We must defete the Halos!

You forgot the little hat on the ê. But nobody likes a party pooper.

23 - The difference, as you bloody well know, is that I'm talking about players who have already mastered the minor leagues and are already good enough to contribute in the majors, while you're not.

What does "mastered the minor leagues" mean? I'm assuming that it's about

a) putting up outstanding numbers against his same-age or younger competition or
b) something else unspecified.

Alexander isn't the best example simply because of his age, it's true, but is a 25-year-old at AA really that far out of the pale? Your entire argument here seems to rest on some very subjective criteria.

And by the by, what's with the trailing part of that sentence, "and you're not"? My ability to compete at the major league level has never been at issue, and is irrelevant to this discussion.

38 - I have no love for Rosenthal, but I am intrigued by the idea of another team's GM proposing Dodger-friendly trades through a columnist. I'd change my opinion and support keeping Colletti if I knew he was getting his acquisition ideas spoon-fed to him by a GM who actually knew what he was doing.

31 - The funny thing is Kershaw has never REALLY dominated in the minors.

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/K/Clayton-Kershaw.shtml

Wow, so a 2.28 ERA with a 9.76 K/9 and 3.12 BB/9 isn't dominant? I guess he was 0-3 over 43.1 IP and 9 GS, so from a traditional baseball perspective -- i.e. the one that keeps Bert Blyleven out of Cooperstown because he never got to 300 wins -- he wasn't dominant. But he was doing everything else right.

I remember a few weeks back there was some talk as to whether or not Kershaw was throwing his changeup enough. It was mentioned that he didn't have the confidence to throw it enough at the big league level and had even struggled with it a little bit at Jacksonville this year. I am curious as to how that is playing out for Kershaw now. Is he throwing the changeup more often, or is he still hesitant to use it?
vr, Xei

46 - pale = defete

I hadn't quite gotten around to saying anything until Canuck weighed in, but it is an important question where Kershaw works out his problem. I'm optimistic that it may work out either way, but I hope the D's know what they are doing.

Also, as conservative of prospects as I am, I could see that kind of Dunn deal.

With all the choices out there, if anyone wants the Dodgers to make a trade, why Dunn?

We are only 2 or 3 weeks away from having Pierre, Jones, Nomar, and Kent in the starting lineup.

I'd be extremely in favor of that Dunn deal. It wouldn't really push out Ethier either, as long as Jones is out. I think it would become a 4 way platoon with Kemp spelling Jones, Ethier spelling Dunn, and Dunn spelling Loney with Ethier sliding from RF to LF, from time to time. This type of deal would make a huge impact just ridding ourselves of a portion of the black hole. While I think Hu is a good prospect, loads better than what he has shown this year, I think he'll be expendable for us because of De Jesus.

Rosenthal is hooey, of course. He mentions Dusty when talking about Pierre, but I wonder what Reds GM Walt Jocketty thinks of JP.

52 We are only 2 or 3 weeks away from having Pierre, Jones, Nomar, and Kent in the starting lineup.

Aren't we always?

32 Makes a good point.
What is the point of sending Kershaw to AAA when he will likely be called back up again this year anyway? With the big club the team can monitor all aspects of his development. Kershaw is competitive at the MLB level.
He got a lot of practice throwing out of the stretch yesterday, as every leadoff hitter that he faced got on base.
The Billigsley comparison is a good one.

DeJesus looking very good at AA. (.407 OBP 9/10 SB, seemingly decent fielding at SS & 2B)

One of Hu and DeJesus could be traded right now without tears being shed.

Trading for Dunn only makes sense if the front office believes that the Dodgers can win now. He's a free agent at the end of the season and I highly doubt the Dodgers would be able to resign him. Otherwise, it's better to just let the core of this team develop one more year.

Plus, let's keep in mind he'd be going from the bang box of Cincinnati (and really, the rest of the NL Central) to Dodger Stadium, which, while not as much of a pitcher's park is still better than Cincinnati (not to mention the rest of the NL West parks). So, the ultimate question is: could we expect him to put up the numbers he has been?

As for Kershaw, I'm in the keep him in LA camp. The service time issue is absurd, as far as I'm concerned. If he does extremely well, he'll get paid at arbitration (as he should), if he doesn't, he won't - or the team could be smart and sign him through his arbitration years.

I'll say this though: if the Bums aren't competitive by next year, there needs to be a reevaluation of the ML roster. And for sake of argument by competitive I mean above-.500 and challenging for either the NL West and/or the Wild Card.

58
Dodgers needs now:

A Shortstop

A Second Baseman

A Left Fielder with some power.

Dunn is a poor defender no matter what position that he plays. DH him in the AL?

50 - guess again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale
A pale is a territory or jurisdiction (possibly non-territorial) under a given authority, or the limits of such a jurisdiction. The term was often used in cases where the territory or jurisdiction outside the pale was considered hostile.

The most famous pale was in Ireland in the 14th and 15th centuries, and was known simply as the Pale, or as the English Pale. This was a region in a radius of twenty miles (32 km) around Dublin which the English gradually fortified against incursion from Gaelic Ireland.

58. You are completely missing the point. Dunn would get us 2 draft picks if we didn't resign him, and the huge plus is that we'd only see JP in chavez ravine 3 games a year, and in a different uniform. It's more addition by subtraction than anything else, even if Dunn would be a 3 month rental towards nothing.

46 - correction: I meant to say, "same-age or older competition".

I don't want to add any OFer (other than a superstar who falls off the back of a truck somehow) unless Pierre goes in the deal. Because one thing I think we know for sure is that Pierre will not be benched as long as Furcal is out, and maybe not ever.

Torre killed his streak to show that he could, but he, like most "old school" managers and GMs, actually thinks that Pierre is a good baseball player.

31 Small sample size. Look closer, in '07 he pitched 5 games at AA and gave up 17 BB had 27 SO and posted a 3.65 ERA. In '08 he pitched in 10 games in AA and gave up 15 BB but had 47 SO and posted a 2.28 ERA. So in those 15 games total he showed he was haveing control problems. What could he have learned in with a full season in AA? How to pitch for one thing, developed a slider, gotten better at holding runners etc. He also could have worked on his stamina, which the PTB limited by not allowing him to go deep into games so no one really knows how he would have done past the 5th inning. He only pitched 24.2 in '07 and 43.1 in '08 so those BB look even worse, considering that he was only pitching 4+ innings per start. Too lets not forgeet that AA is where the best minor league competition takes place. Edwin at least pitched 27 games at AA before being called up with no limit on his IP. If nothing else it would have given Clayton another year before he hit FA.

64 - Too lets not forgeet that AA is where the best minor league competition takes place.

This is just not true. AAA has quadruple-A players, rehabbing major leaguers, and guys one step away from contributing to the majors.

64

That was exactly my point. By the way- where can we get pitch count numbers for those AA games? My recollection is he was only going 5ish IP/start for total inning conservation reasons, but he was pretty much maxing his pitch count by then anyhow.

I'm not an Adum Dunn fan at all... I'd be very dissapointed in the Dodgers if he were to sport a Dodger uni.

58 - While I am not a Dunn advocate, I would not be concerned about him being able to hit homeruns in Dodger Stadium. He has plenty of power. Despite his lofty strikeout totals and horrendous defense, I would probably make this deal if it were on the table.

That Reds-Dodgers deal makes no sense for the Reds. Why acquire Hu when they already have Jeff Keppinger?

If Ned dealt Pierre/Hu for Dunn, that would be the most lopsided trade the Dodgers have made in a long time.

Rosenthal's ramblings are just that: Any body with a keyboard could do it.

41
Sure he's a project, but we got him in the 2nd round so who cares. For once we got an athletic big and I can't remember the last time the Clips had an athletic big. Basically he's going to be Tyson Chandler and I can live with that. For fun check out this footage
http://tinyurl.com/4k4djx

Ken Rosenthal columns are actually written by an infinite number of monkeys.

69
Yeah, but for once we are on the right side of the lop sided trade rumor and when was the last rumor that had us on the winning side?

As 68 said worrying about Dunn's power translating to LA seems out of place. It is not like the guy is hitting pop flies that carry out. He is a beast in LF but given our power problems I could live with it even though I'd be doing some serious jaw clenching.

His excellent stats aside, Jeff Keppinger is probably not considered the long term solution for the Reds at SS.

Chad Ford gave the Lakers' draft an A since their first round pick was used in the Gasol deal.

Memphis will ultimately have gotten some cap room, Marc Gasol, Javaris Crittenton, Darrell Author and the Lakers 2010 first round pick for Pau Gasol, Chad Ford rightly said the Lakers would do that deal 100 times over.

66 - meaningful pitch counts are only available for AAA AFAIK.

I have no problem sending Kershaw back to Jacksonville temporarily if the coaches feel there is significant instruction that he needs, like building the confidence in his change-up. The good thing about experimenting in the minor leagues is that it doesn't cost your team anything at the big league level. Sure, Kershaw is competitive at the big league level as is, but if there is some benefit to instruction in the minors and there is a competent (Guo) pitcher who could replace him for three or four starts, then I'd have no heartburn with sending him down. I really don't have the info to have an educated opinion on the matter, but just saying in what situation I wouldn't argue with a trip down to the minors. Hopefully, everything can be ironed out over time in off day bullpen sessions.
vr, Xei

72 - It's significant to me that in almost all the scoring the Dodgers did in Cincinnati, the balls were hit to left field.

75 - If it were possible for me to agree with that more than 100 percent, I would.

He's no Jay Bruce that is for sure:)

75
I've always wondered what can be learned in bullpen sessions. I have no idea.

Something to ponder for me this weekend, who was the best Dodger of 1970's. For myself, I choose Ron Cey.

What do others think (aside from Toy Cannon).

80 - Without researching it, I'd pick Reggie Smith.

81 Not a bad one and he is one of my favorites.

Of course, again without looking it up, with Sutton you get an entire decade of Hall of Fame performance.