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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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4) arguing for the sake of arguing
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Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street
From my window I'm staring while my coffee grows cold
Look over there! (Where?)
There's a lady that I used to know
She's married now, or engaged, or something, so I am told
Is she really going out with him?
Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
'Cause if my eyes don't deceive me,
There's something going wrong around here
- Joe Jackson
Dodger chairman Bob Daly believes that everyone has has unfairly judged prospective owner Frank McCourt, and that McCourt has the Dodgers' "best interests at heart," according to Ross Newhan in the Times.
If that's true, why is McCourt buying the team?
Let's stipulate that the Dodgers' best interests are these:
How does a man purchasing the Dodgers almost entirely with borrowed money help achieve those ends?
Absent McCourt, the Dodgers are on a path, after years of meandering, toward satisfying those interests. Their minor league system is in the best shape it has been in years and still improving. They have cleared payroll and are able to pursue quality ballplayers. They have most of an 85-win team returning in a mostly weakening division. And they play in a lovely ballpark whose only drawbacks are the traffic hampering access to it, ancient bathrooms and expensive food.
If the debt-ridden McCourt succeeds in purchasing the team, the first thing he's going to need is cash. Here are his options to get that cash:
If the last of those is true, then we'd have much less worry about. But if the last of those were true today, I don't know if News Corp. would be so anxious to sell the Dodgers.
Make no mistake - I've somewhat doubted the reports of how much money the Dodgers lose and completely doubted that the right owners can't make a profit from the team. But the key to making money is molding a team and an atmosphere the fans can be enthusiastic about - that makes them as happy to spend money on you as if you were one of their own children at Christmas.
Though it helps, you do not need a $120 million payroll to create that atmosphere. McCourt could come in, set the payroll at $80 million (and Daly made it even clearer that a payroll cut is coming), hire the right people, and deliver a better team than we've seen at Dodger Stadium in years - keeping them at the Stadium all the while.
I want to believe. If the sale goes through, I'll swallow hard and start over and try not to pre-judge.
In the meantime, I look for evidence to indicate that this is a possibility. So far, the very best that I've gotten is Bob Daly saying in the Times that McCourt "is a good guy who will have the club's best interests at heart."
Any objective observer can see that the Dodgers can do better then a Boston real-estate investor who is subletting the team. How is it possible that McCourt is our best man, and not our gorilla?
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