Didn't I hear that Lyons went to another team? Perhaps I dreamed it?

Observant readers of the Griddle would have noted that story and how for several hours, I thought it was Ken Singleton who got the job.

My hope (against hope) is that Reuss gets the backup TV slot with Steiner on those days when Lyons is off playing with big FOX.

Still, Monday is the Jason Phillips of the lineup. He's adequate as the 2nd-string analyst, but utterly horrible as the play-by-play guy. Because he's misused, he gets even more vitriole than he might otherwise.

Remember, we weren't excited about Phillips as the catcher, but we were (most of us) apoplectic when he started at first base.

Here's hoping Reuss moves up in the lineup and gets more and more at bats.

LoDuca and Dave Roberts are good suggestions. From the current team, nobody comes immediately to mind, unless Derek Lowe wants to join the family business.

My high hopes for Hershiser were dashed a little after listening to him do the WBC games.

I know he's not an ex-Dodger, but I'd take him over Monday in a New York (Yankees or Mets) minute.

I can see Curt Schilling taking a turn at broadcasting. He likes to talk and it seems like a perfect fit.

Spealing of announcers, I can't take Hawk Harrelson period.

http://tinyurl.com/rwbka

Calhoun's hissyfit in the first half was a brilliantly calculated move. In the second half he got every call and then some.

They must have done a poor job then, considering it took some desperation 3's and 3pt plays for UConn to tie the game.

I don't know that I'll write any more about Colletti before the season starts, though.

On the other hand, last year's roster contained Repko, Robles, Edwards, Grabowski, and Phillips.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/cbasketball/264370_thiel25.html

kevin hench at fox sports thinks the refs handed the game to uconn as well:

http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/story/5444338

Meanwhile, baseball related - I didn't see this mentioned here before, so apologies if I missed it, but Baseball America's Jim Callis had a couple of Dodger-related comments in his Q&A column a day or so ago.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/columnists/askba.html

When asked about this year's candidates for "breakout status" - moving way up the chart of top 100 prospects, he included:
"My other breakout candidates, all from the bottom half of the Top 100: Dodgers lefthander Scott Elbert (No. 55) and third baseman Blake DeWitt (No. 82)..."

Then he's asked about Guzman's move to the OF. Here's part of his answer (go to the web link to read the rest):

"Undoubtedly. Scouts already had doubts about Guzman's ability to stick at shortstop, and then the Dodgers closed off that position by signing Rafael Furcal for three years and $39 million. The next most obvious position to move Guzman to might have been third base, but Los Angeles gave Bill Mueller a two-year, $9.5 million deal and also have prospects Andy LaRoche and Blake DeWitt at the hot corner. Scouts have been comparing Guzman to Juan Gonzalez for the last two years, and the move to the outfield makes a lot of sense. ... "

Btw, I'm wondering what the Dodgers will eventually do with LaRoche and DeWitt at 3b - was there talk one of them (DeWitt?) can play second? Oh well, guess we don't have to "worry" about that for awhile.

by the way, jacksons pitching on mlbtv against the yankees.

If Colletti had followed my advice (7 years, $56 millions) on Encarnacion, the Dodgers would have a chance at being the greatest team in history. Oh well. Maybe next year.

I also see that Robles is leading off.

More and more, I fear that the only thing we gained in the Tracy for Grady exchange was a marginal improvement in interview style. Marginal.

He doesn't even have good counting stats. At least King Scrappy (Lo Duca) had nice counting stats.

that has to be a joke.

ledee looks goood to go, offensively and hamstringy.

ask me again by july, i'll have a different answer for you.

His best season as a major leaguer was last year. His OPS+ was 113. Now that is above average, but not in the stud range.

Penny was the only one of our pitchers who didn't have an extended run of good luck (via low BABIP) last year. If he had one of the months like Derek Lowe had, he'd of finished with an ERA in the 3.5 range.

Well, if you're gonna scuff and spit during the regular season, you might as well use ST to see how the pitches are gonna react.

which was a mistake. its not like great franchises cant make mistakes.

for example, the mulder deal was a mistake.

Stud may have been overdoing it. I'll give you that. He is solid though. I'd take him as our left fielder today over Cruz, Werth, Repko.

I would say, Repko is a tool. Forget the 5.

He seems like a Colletti acquistion, pretty terrible numbers (.282/.377/.405 in the minors, at least some patience, but these numbers are boosted by his amazing season at low A. He's been bad since) but he sure can steal a base (103 for 132 in five years.)

Plus, as soon as we do this, Kuo's elbow tendon is going down the first base line.

One for each of the infield positions he can play...

People, I'm begging you. Stop taking shots at each other.

Speed - He hasn't run much in the last couple of seasons. The Marlins don't seem opposed to running (see Pierre and Castillo). He did run well early in his career, but I don't see it anymore.

Average - .268 career. Don't really need to say anything else. He doesn't get on base either, but that isn't part of average.

Power - Career high is 24 HR. So he has power, but I wouldn't say it is overwhelming.

Arm and Defense - I'll give that to Juan.

So out of 5 tools, he has effectively used 2 of the tools for his career. He did have speed and has decent power.

106 Sorry Nate.. I just can't help it. Calling Encarnacion anything other than a slightly above average (and that is a stretch) player just makes me cringe.

1B: 100
2B: 102
3B: 89
SS: 101

I don't want to become part of the problem.

(1) The Cardinals are a great franchise
(2) The Cardinals signed Encarnacion.
(3) Therefore Encarnacion is a great player.

That logic only if works if your definition of a great franchise is one that never signs anything less than a great player. Since that would mean that there has never been a great franchise in the history of team sports, either (1) is false or (3) is false.

And now I see that Deivi Cruz is hitting for StL. So clearly, the Cards do dumb things too. He'll probably homer after I submit this, but it won't be because is great, or even good, or even average.

How is a team with Joy Mays as its 3rd starter possibly be a hard team to make?

The two robbers were embarrassed to be sent to Sing Sing.

Two Rs and two Ss.

Off topic grammer question: how would you do the possive of a player whose name ends in a Z. Neither Martinez's nor Martinez' seems right.

Do you have a mnenomic for mnemonic?

Vinny actually pronounces without the 's. If that was accepted in 1950, it's just not standard practice any more.

What saith the Timmermann on this question?

Cuz if I'm wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Is your name really Go Bears...?

actually, his arm is very good. he will move to right field eventually. Left field is on the same side of the diamond as SS, so they wanted to make the transistion a bit easier. but he is prototypical right fielder.

Apparently Dewitt and Denker, who did 3nd and 2rd at Columbus for a while will switch. Dewitt will learn 2nd and Denker 3rd. Denker has some pop but big questions about range and hands, from what I can recall of what I've read.

That doesn't mean he won't leave, but I'm not going to lose any sleep worrying about it.

Atl - Lowe
Atl - Penny
Atl - Perez
off
at Phi - Tomko
at Phi - Lowe
at Phi - Penny
at Pit - Perez
at Pit - Seo
at Pit - Tomko
at Pit - Lowe
SF - Penny
SF - Perez
SF - Seo
ChC - Tomko
ChC - Lowe
ChC - Penny
off
AZ - Perez
AZ - Seo/Tomko
AZ - Tomko/Lowe

As an Aybar backer, I'll probably be wearing your shoes in a year or two. Something tells me it won't work out for him here, either.

There can be some cheap 370 foot homers and some monstrous 340 foot homers.

-ducks-

His defense is pretty good. If the Cardinals have a staff that gives up a good deal of fly balls, there would be added value to Encarnacion. Is the new ballpark going to play big or small? That would be another excellent question for the defense side of the argument.

I do think the Cards do a nice job evaluating players, but I'm not going to give them a free pass. Jocketty has made many more great moves than bad ones, but he still has made a couple of bad moves (Eli Marrero for Placido Palanco comes to mind).

If there was a solid rationale why the Cards signed and it was backed with solid evidence, then I would buy it.

170. False. Great organizations make lots of mistakes. Also, the whole point of yesterday's discussion was that we need to move beyond anyone's subjective judgments and look at the data. In the case of Encarnacion, we're not arguing about a prospect who is more potential than performance, and about whom there is accordingly a great deal of uncertainty. Encarnacion is a known quantity. And the numbers tell us that he's a good defender and a below-average hitter, especially for a corner OFer.

So, the only way one can "trust" the "judgment" of StL over those numbers is if one believes that StL has a crystal ball that tells them that Encarnacion will have an anomalously good 3-season stint as a Cardinal (or that they're risk-acceptant and didn't have any obviously better uses for that money). It's not impossible that he will have a good run in StL. But, given what we know about his quality, it's highly unlikely. What's more likely is that he will decline from his career averages as he ages. And his career averages are mediocre.

This is the true (or more meaningful) meaning of "proven veteran." There is proof of JE's quality, such as it is. That StL values it at $5M/yr is interesting, but it's not evidence that he's better than he's proved to be.

No it's not new, he's had it for a while. I remember seeing it the first time he hurt his arm in LA. A lot more baseball players have tattoos than you think. In general, a lot more people have tattoos. You just don't see them on baseball players because almost their entire body is covered up.

ATL: Last year they began the season with Raul Mondesi and Brian Jordan in the outfield.

OAK: Marco Scutaro fascination.

NYY: Signing Jaret Wright.

BOS: Alex Cora.

LAA: Darin Erstad fascination.

I could go on, but the point is made, I think. Nothing is infallible.

Don't tell Benedict that...

The way the roster is shaping up, the manager's decisions are going to determine a good amount of wins or losses.

If we can go from the starting pitcher to osoria in the 6th when needed kuo 7th baez 8th gagne 9th, we will be fine more often then not, but if grady tries to rely on brazoban and carter watch out.
Plus with our bench being so weak, the team has to convert leads into wins.

I hope grady doesn't turn out to be another tracy.

I didnt get this either. But the A's did eventually trade an equally sCrappy Eric Byrnes. AP gives the A's alot more than Scutaro does.

He's just not scrappy enough. Plus, I dont think Colletti is going to trade Izturis. I think Izturis will get the 2nd base job by default once Kent leaves.

Now, granted this year I'll be surprised if Kent moves off 2nd. But can you imagine how much worse off our offense might be, if that were to happen. They'd be essentially replacing Cruz's bat with Cesar Izturis.

Shades of 2003 without the dominant pitching to off-set things.

As for Jackson, he gave up 6 runs (4 earned) in 3.2 IP, walking 5, striking out 4 and allowing 8 hits including a homer to Arod

Edwin Jackson's an enigma. I don't know what to think of him. I don't want to wish him ill will, but it wouldn't feel good if he became as dominant as people expected a couple of seasons ago.

Yeah, why can't he be like Paulie and hit a PH HR in his first AB?

I doubt Coletti is stupid enough to NOT trade Izturis. If we project forward for next year, with what you said, an Izturis at second infield, it's scary.

3B- Mueller
SS- Furcal
2B- Izturis
1B- Loney/Free Agent

That's an absolutely inexcusable lack of power on the infield, especially if it is indeed going to be Loney at first. I've not liked the majority of Coletti's moves, but I doubt he's an absolute fool. At least so far.

Take your time, no rush.

In 2007 you could be looking at

1. Furcal, 2b
2. Navarro/Martin, c
3. Drew, of
4. Dunn/big FA, of
5. Ethier/Guzman, of
6. Loney, 1b
7. Mueller, 3b
8. Izturis, ss
9. Pitcher

I'd like a little more speed out of the 2 hole, but Martin/Navarro are OBP machines, so I say their superior OBP supercedes their lack of speed.

In that situation, the 2 spot, and 5-9 would either be extremely inexperienced or total offensive holes. Mueller/Izturis, if healthy (and that's a big if), would be a very weak left side. We can definitely do better.

I say that we need to keep Furcal at SS where he is above average both offensively and defensively and find a quality offensive second baseman. This is especially important if Loney and Mueller are going to be manning the corners. We'll need someone to make up for the lost powere there. That doesn't mean that we don't also need a big bat in the outfield, because this team has plenty of holes that do/will need filling.

Speaking of Phillips, I wonder how he and Molina are doing in the 40 meter races.

205- Andy LaRoche

Big Baby is an animal. He reminds of an in shape Shaq. He's so mobile for a big man.

pitching
free agent or trade
penny
lowe
seo or perez, not both
billingsley

I prefer free agents over trades.
And the problem is that we have tomko and mueller signed for 2 years, plus perez signed with a big $ contract.

I'm not high on loney, but that could change if he develops power.

And i think the dodgers should start focusing on drafting power ss, 2b, c.

His batting average, for one, is a career .267. Over the last three years, in an era of huge offense, it's been .264. And respective OBPs for those periods are .316 and .320; slugging is .440 and .434.

Tahoe, your hatred of Choi is now even more inexplicable, since his numbers for the same period (as a young, developing player) are:
career: .240/.349/.437
3-yr: .243/.351/.447

As for the "speed" tool, Baseball Prospectus has a stat that measures that. As they explain: It is based in principle on the Bill James speed score and includes five components: Stolen base percentage, stolen base attempts as a percentage of opportunities, triples, double plays grounded into as a percentage of opportunities, and runs scored as a percentage of times on base.

The Speed stat is designed so the average rating is 5.0. Mr. 5-tool Guy's speed ratings for the last 2 years are 5.0 and 5.0.

If Encarnacion is a 5-tool player, a few of those tools are pretty badly bent. Or if there's more to his game that I'm not seeing, fill us in.

This is exactly what sets so many people off with respect to Choi: We're told he sucks, then that someone like Encarnacion with worse offensive numbers is a "stud."

For someone who knows better than me, what are the power projections for Apodaca and Jansen? Can either of them stay at catcher? Apodaca displayed some nice power last year in Ogden, but that's the PCL of Rookie leagues, and he was overmatched in Columbus

I want to see if he can go two for two.

1) He was brought aboard in 2004 with high expectations. He stunk it up. I don't think that's debateable.

2) Here are some Choi stats from last season
From ESPN

Close and Late
AB - 60
BA - .200
OBP - .284
SLG - .283
OPS - .567

Scoring Position
AB - 79
BA - .203
OBP - .323
SLG - .329
OPS - .652

His overall stats are better than that, but they are what I call EMPTY stats. Empty meaning they are misleading.

With these 2 points I've presented, why should I LIKE Choi. He's done basically nothing for my Dodgers. A poor man's version of Shawn Green, basically.

Most fans like me remember the failures to produce when it counts, they don't remember the 2 out, bases empty walk, double, or even home run in the 3rd inning.

• One scout says, "if Russell Martin opens the season as the Dodger catcher, it will be a decade before he's moved out. He should book his travel plans for the All-Star Game every year through 2015."

238- Collison is a very good defender. He has great quickness. He kind of reminds me of (to quote Bill Walton) "former UCLA great" Earl Watson.

I'm not a big fan of Jordan Farmar because he's very turnover prone and a pedestrian defender. I think he's a bit overrated.

But since we're doing that, Choi got traded here on the heels of two pretty damn good months (June 04: .292/.395/.472; July: .284/.404/.419). And for that, he got benched for a year and a half. If he hasn't done much for your Dodgers, blame the genius who made that decision.

You mean he's not a student? Or is this just the man's avocation?

Kuo, although left-handed, is so effective against right-handed hitters he is considered more than a situational pitcher, and he could resume starting at some point.

I'm glad the people in charge are getting this one.

I was there for the better part of twelve years as student and employee.

Are you sure this isn't a Pac-10 football game? And if so, will it last four hours?

I'm going to miss the end of the game. Such is life.

It does look like Choi played most everyday in June and July of 2004, but check it out.

June 04
HR - 2
RBI - 6

July 04
HR - 2
RBI - 7

See. Not impressive. Translate that over a full season and you've got 12 HR and 39 RBI.
I know RBI's are a dependent stat, but c'mon, 13 RBI in two months. Thats TERRIBLE.

261 Definitely. There needs to be more players like Wunsch and Morris

C'mon George Mason!

For the purposes of argument I assume that players get on base at a more or less steady rate over the course of their career (say 5000-7000 PAs). While it's not something that is not exactly steady, you can figure out a mean value to use (Career OBP). Situational at bats (other than LHP-RHP) such as "Close and Late", "Tuesday Nights", and "While Hungover" are distributed more or less at random throughout those those PA's. Situation PA's are members of both the set of career PA's and the set of Situation PA's (NB: This assumption can be misleading in some cases. If a player bats 3rd on a better team during his better years, he'll have more RISP PA's during those years than he will during his twilight years batting 8th for TB). Given a long enough career, the probablility that the OBP of the situation subset will deviate meaningfully from the that superset of all ABs can be shown to be very, very, very small.

https://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/211050.html

Just as a snapshot from last summer, 10 of Choi's 13 home runs tied the game or gave Dodgers the lead. How empty is that?

Not every baseball game is decided in the 9th inning with a runner in scoring position.

You might also consider that if his overall stats are better than his stats with runners in scoring position, logic dictates that maybe Choi was the guy who was getting in scoring position.

As one more example, in half a season's worth of plate appearances, Choi was fourth on the team in total bases plus walks. That doesn't mean he was great, when you consider the Dodger offense. But he did not stink it up.

If people can just concede that Choi did more than nothing, I have no interest in asking any more of anyone. But it takes a pretty stubborn group of people to say that this guy was worthless. You really have to go out of your way to reduce him to nothing. Picking out 80 at-bats from an entire season is no way to evaulate a player.

No two players provoked more discussion on the internet than Eric Karros and Hee-Seop Choi. As a color commentator during the WBC, Karros said Choi can play the game, he just needs to play every day. It was an ironic statement coming from a guy whose critics (almost soley found on the web) strongly believed that Karros should've been platooned long before he ceased becoming an every day player.

I'll miss Hee-Seop Choi. He was fun to watch and looked like he enjoyed playing the game during the rare times he was allowed to do so. Besides, if it wasn't for Choi, I wouldn't have discovered the joys of researching the life of Wayne Belardi.

Finally, who wants to bet that Nomar plays in fewer games than the Dodgers win?

I think he'll get pitched around a lot, and wont have the opportunity to rack up HR's or RBI's. His run scored column wont be that good either bc there's not much thunder behind him in the order. He doesnt steal any bases. So basically you're left with OPS.

I think the key to fantasy baseball is pick guys that are in good lineups to begin with, since Runs/RBI's are dependent stats.

But that wasn't the worst part. I thought the referees were execrable. Not biased so much (tho I thought UCLA probably got more than their fair share of help), but control freaks. Memphis's 2 best players missed most of the first half in foul trouble on ticky-tack stuff that should not have been whistled, esp. in an Elite 8 game. Besides being unfair to the players by not "letting them play," however, this just made for lousy entertainment. Someone mentioned all the timeouts. But they were magnified by the constant stoppages in play for no good reason.

I'm no fan of the late 80s Pistons/Knicks -style basketbrawl, but this was absurd. I actually turned the game off with about 5 minutes to go, and with it still in doubt, because I just found it unwatchable. And I wasn't rooting for either team, just for a good game. Now, LSU-Texas -- THAT was a good game.

Whether you're in the pro-Choi or anti-Choi camp, it was a sad day for Dodger fans.

While Hee-Seop may or may not be a major-league first baseman, he was a class act from start to finish.

Choi went through a lot of crap the last two seasons, and handled it with a great deal of dignity.

The Gary Sheffields and Milton Bradleys of the world would do well to learn a few things from Choi.

You should have seen some games this year with Washington State.

I actually have no memory of Serfas, though I did play at their golf course out in Corona a few times.