CK is in our rotation next year, with Peavy or without.

...the franchise's results with multiyear contracts in the past decade is worse than abysmal.

That seemed kind of harsh, but let's look at this decade to see what we are dealing with:

2000
1) Extended Eric Karros (3/$24). Karros put up a cumulative 94 OPS+ over the next 3 years (only Travis Lee and Kevin Young were worse NL 1B offensively)
2) Signed newly acquired Shawn Green (6/$84) one year before his FA eligibility. Had 3 great seasons in his first 4 years in LA, before a shoulder injury hampered his power. Overall, Green had a 130 OPS+ before being traded. I'd still call his signing a success.

2001
3) Signed Darren Dreifort (5/$55). Ended up pitching only 210.2 pain-filled innings in 5 years, racking up an 87 ERA+. One of the worst FA deals in MLB history

2002
4) Signed Hideo Nomo (2/$12.25). Two really good 16-win seasons (112 & 130 ERA+), but fell off a cliff in the 3rd (option) year (4-11, 50 ERA+) in 2004. I'd rate this signing as a sizable net positive for the club
5) Signed Kaz Ishii (4/$12.2). Very wild pitcher (5.8 BB/9 with LA), but up a 92 ERA+ in 3 seasons before being dealt to the Mets for 1B/C Jason Phillips. Bad signing.

2005
6) Signed Jeff Kent (2/$17). Initial two years were outstanding (133 & 119 OPS+, before total rigor mortis set in defensively). 2/$20 extension was questionable given the cliff dive of 2008, but I'd rate it as a net positive.
7) Signed J.D. Drew (5/$55 with an opt out). A broken hand halved his first season in LA, but he put up a 133 OPS+ in his 1.5-season Dodger career before opting out. I'd rate the signing as a positive.
8) Signed Derek Lowe (4/$36). I remember being outraged at this signing at the time, but Lowe was an absolute bargain, putting up a 122 ERA+ over 4 solid seasons. An unqualified successful signing

2006
9) Signed Rafael Furcal (3/$39). When healthy, he was one of the best SS in the league. However, ailments limited him to about two seasons worth of games over three years, only half of which were played while fully healthy. Still produced a 99 OPS+ over the contract with plus defense. Because of the cost, I'd rate this as a slight negative.
10) Signed Brett Tomko (2/$8.7m). Ugh. 10-18 with an 86 ERA+ over most of two seasons before being foisted upon the Padres.
11) Signed Bill Mueller (2/$9.5m). Played 32 games before getting hurt and becoming the highest-paid scout in MLB history. Ugh, again.

2007
12) Extended Nomar Garciaparra (2/$18.5). Rode his amazing first half of 2006 to an extension. Blocked Loney for a while in 2007. Immensely popular, but his 85 OPS+ over 2007-2008 makes this deal a bust.
13) Signed Juan Pierre (5/$44m). Of the 66 players with 1000 or more PA in 2007-2008, nobody has been worse offensively than Pierre (73 OPS+): (http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/JkN6). Pierre is an excellent baserunner though.
14) Signed Jason Schmidt (3/$47m). Schmidt and his 25.2 Dodger innings is trying to make Dreifort's contract look like a bargain.

2008
15) Signed Hiroki Kuroda (3/$35.3). Hard to judge only one year in, but thus far has been a success (119 ERA+, plus two exciting home playoff wins).
16) signed Andruw Jones (2/$36.2). Unmitigated disaster thus far (34 OPS+, 5 singles in 58 AB with RISP). Dodgers hope to weight and see if Andruw will contribute at all in 2009.

So of the 16 signings (I might have missed a couple) this "decade" (2000-present), I would classify them like this:

Great (1): Lowe
Good (6): Green, Nomo, Kent, Drew, Furcal, Kuroda
Poor (5): Karros, Ishii, Nomar, Tomko, Mueller
Disaster (4): Dreifort, Pierre, Schmidt, Andruw

Certainly not a stellar record, but there have been enough positives to avoid the "worse than abysmal" moniker ascribed by Gurnick.

I've always voted at the booth because I enjoy the experience but I really wish I'd followed my wife's advice and gotten an absentee ballot this year. I'm not one for lines and when you have 85 year old's handling the process a line of 10 people would take them a 1/2 hour to process.

It isn't McCain/Obama but a close vote is going on at True Blue over who they consider to be the 2nd best prospect in the organization.

Lambo will be a great pure hitter, but his Ks are a bit high right now. Also need to find out if he's a 1B or LF.

1) Dr. Robert Watkins "predicted that he'll be able to avoid any further problems"
2) Cubs, Tigers, and Giants have shown the most interest (not sure of the source on this of course)
3) His gut feeling is that Furcal will return to LA (huge grain of salt here)

http://tinyurl.com/5b6mbc

Normally I wouldn't post this speculation, but I thought the doctor info was newsworthy.

I'm not sure. Didn't Plaschke start the fire on this one?

I can't believe anybody is taking this seriously.

I'm currently voting absentee as I'm still registered in SoCal even though I live a bit north. Perhaps when I make my triumphant return to SoCal I can vote at the booth.

It's usually bench guys (Saenz, backup catchers) and/or veteran reclamation projects (Park, Alvarez, Lima, etc) though.

http://tinyurl.com/6p7bwz

Also, at the GM meetings today, one of the topics is "arbitration hearings." I wonder what specifically is being discussed.

I live in California and I got the Prop 8 ad

Now if it were an ad advocating a neutral site World Series, I would be apoplectic.

Had you posted about the high speed rail I wouldn't have cared. I perceive Prop 8 as a divisive hot button issue that seems best expressed in another forum. It made me very uncomfortable.

The press corps would hate that even more. The biggest reason for writers supporting a neutral site is that they don't want to travel as much. They just want to check into a hotel for 10 days and forget about stuff.

or

Neutral Game
2
2
1
1

but you can't do it with the moving target of who would be playing unless all tickets are sold to the public, and the teams involved don't get any. The problem with that is that I don't think they could sell the tickets at World Series prices to neutral fans. I don't care about weather I'd just like to eliminate the home field advantage in the World Series. I understand it during the playoffs because best record in your league should be recognized.

"Interjections are separated by a comma when the feeling is not as strong."

Oh, boy.

What is going on right now is the GM meetings in Dana Point. These meetings tend to deal with more procedural things (like instant replay, length of games, etc) rather than deals.

2010 free agents include LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Ray Allen, Tyson Chandler, Manu Ginobili, Richard Jefferson, Joe Johnson, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Redd.

(I hope that link is short enough to not bother tinyURLing it)

Setting up the firing of Phil Fulmer.

I watched DeJesus play in the AFL and he looked more polished defensively than anybody else that played, hit the ball hard and impressively, guided a ground ball through the middle. Never before have I been sitting in a place where I could see a hitter purposely guide a ground ball up the middle.

Sorry I went to lunch...ha..10 team league...h2h action.

Guards
Deron Williams
Andre Miller
Peja
Manu Gibnobli
Jammer Nelson
Anthony Parker

Forwards
Josh Smith
Elton Brand
David West
Gerald Wallace
Al Thorton
Darrell Arthur

Centers
Andrew Bogut
Ilgauskas
Spencer Hawes

SOOOOO

Obama wins the electoral vote 364-174. Carries all the usual democratic states plus Minn, Iowa, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Florida, Penn, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.

Just a poll and some money down on the outcome.

I would try to acquire a center, using one of your guards (Peja or Ginobli) and forwards (West or Wallace).

Your base is solid with Williams, Miller, Smith & Brand. Bogut is decent enough, but an upgrade would be nice.

I like Al Thornton a lot. Every second Camby is hurt will help his rebounding totals.

I know, I am very guard light.

One of the strategies I tried going for is to secure wins in all the columns that people overlook -blocks, steals and assist.

This is a new strategy...we'll see if it works. Any ideas on any good sleeper guards I can snatch up or make an under the radar trade for?

Got to admit, I'm thrilled.

It is amazing how great the first 5 minutes of SNL have been since Sarah Palin was nominated, and how bad the rest of the show is. Does that show still resonate for many of you?

Does winning a bet by insulting a foreign-born centerfielder count as professional?

Forget it; I call Rule 5 on myself.

I think its 10 spots per week.

PG
SG
G
SF
PF
F
C
C
Util
Util

http://tinyurl.com/5ddtx7

It says he was the 4th San Bernardino player to achieve the honor. The only one I can think of as a guess is Ken Griffey, Jr.

I like the Stuckey option...Are they going to play a lot of AI?/Stuckey backcourt combos?

http://tinyurl.com/5jnzx2

I hate to bring up rule 5, but this is my last politic-free sanctuary.

2004 - Edwin Jackson (pitched AA/MLB)
2005 - Joel Guzman (High A/AA)
2006 - Chad Billingsley (AA)
2007 - Andy LaRoche (AA/AAA)
2008 - Clayton Kershaw (Low A/AA)

1. Make the WS a neutral site.
2. The team representing the league that won the All-Star Game needs to win only three games to be declared champion. In the case of a "4 games to 3 tie," the all-star game winner shall also be declared champion.

Thus: imagine.

The AL wins the All-Star Game. Later, in the World Series played at Tropicana Field, the Dodgers go up (!) 4-0 on the Red Sox. Sweep, right? Wrong. The next three games are played and the Red Sox win all three and are declared World Series Champs!

Done. How'd I do?

96 I used to have a few issues of BA from the early 'oughts, and I think the streak is solid a few more years back. Darn, I've been unable to find them for a couple of years.

From 1999-2002 (Karros's last four years as a Dodger), here are the OPS+ of both Karros and Konerko:

1999: 132 Karros / 116 Konerko
2000: 100 / 111
2001: 84 / 119
2002: 96 / 124

For that four year period, Konerko outproduced Karros (117 OPS+ over that period compared to 104 for Karros), and was paid a total salary of $6.62m. Karros during that same time period earned $25.25m.

If Lasorda's claim that "bullpens win championships" (his justification for the Shaw trade) is true, I'm sure they could have found a few high-quality relievers for the difference in salaries of Konerko and Karros (at the very least Karros wouldn't have been signed to the 3/$24 extension before 2000).

That last one will never happen. What baseball hotspot would they play these seven games at? Boston or NY? Bad weather. The Florida cities? Please. Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix? Meh. And LA? Dodger Stadium didn't even sell out for playoff games involving the DODGERS. I can imagine all the empty seats for say, Phillies-Rays.

I guess the bleak circumstances surrounding Game 5 caused some folks to stay home (also judging by how hard it was for some DTers to get rid of tickets for that game).

Though then there would be complaints about the cross-country travel

Going by tickets sold, at least according to the Dodgers, all home games were sellouts.

I don't doubt that there could have been less than 56,800 people in the stadium for the NLCS games, but I think the difference is negligible.

Does the depth of a puddle affect the evaporation rate of the water?

Milton Bradley is at 4.

So I guess no.

Is showing the compensation picks over the last decade. I'd forgotten that we nailed DeWitt because we lost Qualls.

Kenny Lofton and Royce Clayton both played for 11, but they retired at the end of 2007. Matt Stairs currently holds the major league record among active players for having played for the most teams with 11. Surprisingly, the trade to Philadelphia was only the third of his career (it was the fourth if you consider the Rangers picking him up on waivers in Sep. 2006).

Alan Embree has been traded five times so far as I can tell. I don't have an easy way of determining who the most-traded player, but there is one Dodger who came straight to the top of my mind, Bobo Newsom. Traded 19 times (I'm including transactions where he was released and signed as a free agent as trades), his career was very peripatetic.

Granted, this is a relative realization--both in regards to present company and my present self.

That's certainly a great bullpen to remember! My favorite stat from that pen was Tom Martin allowing 5 of 42 runners to score.

--
Is it the lack of fan support?
Is it the media market we play in?
Is it that both guys wouldn't want to play on the west coast?
Is it that you don't feel by adding them we would win?
Was it not enough sold out games?
Not enough merchandise?
Do Ethier, Kemp, Martin, Loney, DeWitt, Bills, Kershaw, Broxton etc cost too much already?

Why is it so difficult.

Amongst the inactive, the most-traded players I could find were traded eight times:

Dick Littlefield was traded eight times in the 1950s, a ninth (rather famous) trade involving a Dodger icon was voided.

Recent Dodger batting coach Mike Easler was traded eight times in the 1970s and 1980s.

Willie Montanez was traded eight times, including being replacement compensation for Curt Flood refusing to report to the Phillies.