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"Dodger Thoughts, like TiVo, is one of those things you can completely do without until you start using it."
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SI.com
NL West Preview
Evaluating Defense
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Unreliable Relievers
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2006 Emmys Nominees*
*Comedy Series
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Rookie Actors
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Also ...
A Season in Savannah (Stanford Magazine)
Five Questions: Los Angeles Dodgers (2005) (Hardball Times)
Rick Monday (Baseball Analysts)
Baseball's Odd Couple (Baseball Prospectus)
Five Questions: Los Angeles Dodgers (2006) (Hardball Times)
Five Questions: Los Angeles Dodgers (2007) (Hardball Times)
Dodger home record: 50-35 (.588)
When Jon attended: 9-5 (.643)
When Jon didn't: 41-30 (.577)
Dodgers at home: 795-635 (.556)
Jon attended: 302-238 (.559)*
Jon didn't: 498-404 (.552)
* includes road games attended
Current Roster with Estimated 2009 Salaries
(updated November 14)
Most figures are estimates (some are wild estimates) but will be updated as information comes in. Corrections welcome.
More contract details here.
Starting Pitchers (5)
$10,000,000 Hiroki Kuroda
*$475,000 Chad Billingsley
*$415,000 Clayton Kershaw
*$405,000 Eric Stults
*$400,000 James McDonald
*Total: $11,695,000
Bullpen (7)
*$2,500,000 Takashi Saito
*$1,300,000 Scott Proctor
*$1,500,000 Jonathan Broxton
*$425,000 Hong-Chih Kuo
*$420,000 Cory Wade
*$410,000 Ramon Troncoso
*$400,000 Scott Elbert
Total: $6,955,000
Also on 40-man roster
Mario Alvarez
Yhency Brazoban
Greg Miller
Justin Orenduff
Starting Lineup (8)
$17,100,000 Andruw Jones
*$3,000,000 Russell Martin
*$2,500,000 Andre Ethier
*$600,000 Matt Kemp
*$600,000 James Loney
*$500,000 Angel Berroa
*$410,000 Blake DeWitt
*$400,000 Tony Abreu
Total: $25,110,000
Bench (5)
$10,000,000 Juan Pierre
*$600,000 Jason Repko
*$410,000 Delwyn Young
*$400,000 Danny Ardoin
*$400,000 Chin-Lung Hu
Total: $11,810,000
Note: Team can buy out Ozuna's 2009 option for $200,000
Also on 40-man roster
A.J. Ellis
Lucas May
Xavier Paul
Disabled List
$12,000,000 Jason Schmidt
Also Paying ...
$2,000,000 Brad Penny (buyout of $9,000,000 option)
$50,000 Gary Bennett (buyout of $900,000 option)
Note: Kansas City is responsible for $500,000 buyout of Angel Berroa's $5,500,000 option for 2009.
Working total: *$68,020,000
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1) using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity
2) personally attacking other commenters
3) baiting other commenters
4) arguing for the sake of arguing
5) discussing politics
6) using hyperbole when something less will suffice
7) using sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively
8) making the same point over and over again
9) typing "no-hitter" or "perfect game" to describe either in progress
10) being annoyed by the existence of this list
11) commenting under the obvious influence
12) claiming your opinion isn't allowed when it's just being disagreed with
Baseball Toaster runs on some experimental software called Fairpole. It's still under development.
For more information, please visit the Fairpole blog, or read the FAQ.
From Dugout Central:
(Art) Pennington, an 85-year-old former Negro League All-Star, lost his home in Cedar Rapids to the swell of flooding that has swept that part of the country. The home that Pennington had lived in since 1985 was, in all actuality, a small museum devoted to the great men who played black baseball in the 1940's and 1950's. Pennington said he used to have people just stop by out of the blue and ask to look at all of the memorabilia; asking to look at the history.
All of that is now gone.
Pennington was away with a friend when the flood waters destroyed his home and what took him decades to collect. He is now virtually penniless.
A Pay Pal fund has been set up at Pennington's website:
Do YOURSELF a favor; drop by that site and take a little time to read about a great former baseball man. Drop by and find out about another fantastic ballplayer that never had the chance to play in the big leagues.
Drop by and send him an email letting him know you are all pulling for him.
But most importantly, drop by and click on the Pay Pal button and donate a little something to help this man out. ...
* * *
Outgoing Deadspin editor Will Leitch has a long conversation with Buzz Bissinger about the aftermath of their blogging bogdown on Costas Now. I don't agree with everything either party offers, but you can probably guess those spots by now without me writing further about them. It's still worth a read if you have the time.
I went to the Tigers-Rockies game at Comerica Park last night. Beautiful stadium, very shiny and comfortable. It's nice to see a blighted city like Detroit have a real jewel of a place that the locals can be proud of. Overall, I've been impressed with Detroit. It's kinda cool, in a bombed-out sort of way.
I took some pictures of Tiger Stadium. It's still there, just rusting away. Along with old Boston Garden, it's one of the two venues I wish I could've seen a game at before it closed. I'm told that it's finally going to be demolished later this year, which is a shame. It would've been nice if they had kept the stadium operating for exhibitions and things like that.
But we're not that tight. I'm heading over to paypal--$20 bucks.
Now, I don't want to force my fellow DTers to do the same but I do want to urge every poster to donate a buck. That would be one dollar. We've got, what, two or three hundred loyal readers here? The man didn't cash in his memorabilia, he kept in a safe place--his home. And because of tragedy, his home was no longer safe. That's someone I want to help and you can, too.
End of Bruin pledge drive except to say this: it's a buck, people. Let's do it.
---
1 This is entirely a stupid question, I'm sure, but what's to happen to the old Yankee Stadium when the new one opens? I assume they're knocking it down. I know the remodeled it in the modern era, but still, that's pretty sad. But I guess it's also sad to look at something rust and denigrate over time, and/or have to pay to maintain it.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=766219
Hmm.
Upstairs in the outfield was by far the best place to sit if you were watching a game at Tiger Stadium, IMO. They were the closest bleacher seats in baseball to the action because it was the only place where the upper deck hung over the playing field. The outfielders were standing almost directly below you. The first row of the upper deck at Tiger Stadium was arguably the best seat in all of baseball because you felt like you were almost in the middle of the playing field.
http://tinyurl.com/6frgo4
To be more precise, they should have put a sign on the center field fence that said "440".
It wasn't 440 to center in Tiger Stadium as was later revealed. It was in the 420-425 range.
Thanks for taking the last thing in the world that meant anything to me.
It's understandable to talk about pitch counts and walks as Kershaw's faults, but harping on W's is just plain stupid.
Double-A wins are even more meaningless than major league wins.
Ohhh, I think you mean the pitching statistic, wins.
Sarah's take is that he needs a demotion to regain his confidence. I think it's pretty clear that Kershaw's failure to win a game thus far has more to do with Torre wanting to limit his innings than his inability to get a win. Since Kershaw is obviously an intelligent man, I think he understands this, therefore his confidence is not likely to be a problem. His problem is inexperience. He needs to pitch in the majors, regardless of the impact on the bullpen or other less relevant factors.
Sarah's advocacy of Stults over Kershaw is a kind of grandstanding. I'm happy about Stults too, but if he fights his way into the rotation, it should be at the expense of Kuroda, Penny or Lowe going out in a trade. Or Stults himself could get traded.
Griffin's three-run homer sends 51s to win
>> Heath Totten (1-0), pitching his first game with the 51s since 2005, started and got the win. The ninth-year minor league veteran recently joined the team after his release this month from Rochester (N.Y.), the Twins' Triple-A affiliate, of the International League. <<
http://www.lvrj.com/sports/22300534.html
Pierre, LF
Ethier, RF
Martin, C
Kent, 2B
Loney, 1B
Kemp, CF
DeWitt, 3B
Berroa, SS
Billingsley, P
Right field in the Polo Grounds seemed to me to be just over the 2nd baseman's head, and both it and left field hung out over the outfield. It was 258 down the right field line, and something more (I think about 279) down the left field line (these numbers are from memory; ymmv).
I recall that when you listened to games at the Polo Grounds you would sometimes hear "Mize swings it's gone" with no discernable pause after "swings".
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/stadium/st_polo.shtml
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