I hope he does well with all the young talent we have--especially in rookie and A.

De Jons interview article

http://tinyurl.com/ygn2d9

He has worked for the Marlins, Reds and Indians. But he also is one of the sons of R&B legend Johnny "Guitar" Watson.

(Yes, yes; I know Yakov Smirnov is now living and working in Branson, Mo.)

"Beimel had a disastrous finish to an unexpectedly effective season. The hand injury he suffered in a bar undermined the club's playoff chances and his initial lie about how it happened blew his credibility with management. Left-handed relievers who can make 62 appearances in five months with an ERA below 3.00 are coveted, yet they rarely duplicate their best seasons with any consistency. Hong-Chih Kuo has the goods for the role, but he seems destined to be a starter. The Dodgers probably figure if they can find a Minor League free agent like Beimel once, they can do it again.

I hope Gurnick is wrong. While I would be furious with Beimel if I were a member of the team (Hell, I was furious with him as a fan), effective left-hand relievers do not fall off of trees. I know Ned is a character guy and we kicked this dead horse with Milton Bradley, but based on what we know (which may not be the whole story) I would give Joe another chance. I assume he has showed the requisite contrition and he regrets the injury and lying more than anyone. Let's face it, if it were Kent or Furcal or Lofton there wouldn't even be a discussion about their return. IIRC Ned was the Asst GM when Kent lied about breaking his arm and Ned somehow excused that. It seems hypocritical of Ned not to give Beimel a second chance.

Here's my article showing how much relief performance fluctuates. Middle relievers - especially veterans - fall into the job precisely because they aren't consistent year over year.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/jon_weisman/07/17/relievers.random/index.html

I started thinking about those relievers who don't fall off trees, and remembered Gagne. Do you think he'll be wearing blue next year? I honestly don't know how many years he'll get with Boras as his agent and teams like the Red Sox begging for a Papelbon-like replacement. Do you think a one-year incentive-laden contract is enough to retain him? I sadly have my doubts.

Free Agency:
It sounds as if the only deadline is the one-week period that begins at midnight the day after the World Series. Which must mean that teams are now allowed to bargain with their own players with no imposed deadlines.

The tender date for clubs to offer contracts to all players has been moved up to Dec. 12.

And players traded in the middle of a multi-year contract can no longer demand a trade.

First Year Draft:

First, the good news is that teams will get same-slot compensation if they don't sign their 1at and 2nd round draft picks and a sandwich pick between the 3rd and 4th round for failure to sign your 3rd round pick.

Here is the doozy of the new agreemennt, teams will no longer have until the next draft to sign their picks (except for college seniors) but must do so by the following Aug. 15th or the player goes back into the pool. So, no more draft and follows.

Rule 5 draft protection

They have increased the timeframe for having to protect players, now players signed at 18 or younger can be protected for 5 years and those 19 and older will be protected for 4 years.

Free Agent compensation.

Type C Major League free agents will no longer carry draft pick compensation for the club that loses the player, beginning this year, while Type A and Type B free agents will continue to carry compensation.

Next year the Type A and Type B pools shrink. Right now, Pool A is the top 30 percent at their position, but in succeeding with decrease to 20 percent. Pool B is the top 50 percent, but it will decrease from 21 percent to 40 percent.

Again, it is hard to know if these changes take place this year or not, the draft compensation probably does and several of the current free agent deadlines fall beyond the effective date of the new agreement so I do think that those changes go into effect now. The only ones I am not sure about are the ones regarding the Rule V draft.

Cleveland has produced a good minor league system so I like the hire of Watson.

However, he was involved with the Reds minor league system and I am sure he had some input on the Indians talent.

Oh well, I still think White has a lot of say in what goes on with the prospects. So as long as he is there I am not worried.

The Indians have a nice minor league system. No real stars but lots of talent. Miller is the exception, he should be an ace if he can stay healthy.

It might, except that Ned hasn't made that decision public nor has he in any way indicated that that is his decision. And how would Ned's role as Assistant GM with the Giants have anything to do with either Jeff Kent's doings at the time, that organization's collective reaction to his doings, or Ned's attitude toward Beimel's actions now?

Nice article Jon. I especially liked this stat.

Of the Top 100 in ARP at this year's All-Star Break, 53 had not been on the list once in the previous four seasons.

That is unbelievable. Maybe that is a reason to let him walk him. Apparently lightning doesn't strike in consecutive years.

In any event, my point was the decision to retain Biemel should not be driven by his post-season stupidity. If the decision is made to cut him lose because middle relievers are a dime a dozen. that's fine but it shouldn't be driven by Ned's need for character.

33 - Given his acquisitions of Furcal and Lugo, does Ned still have a jones for character?

You are correct, Ned may have wanted to throw the book at Kent for lying and Sabean may have overruled him. But I assume Ned, as AGM, was involved the decision on how to respond to motorcycle-gate. My point is that Ned should be consistent in his response to both the Kent and Beimel incidents.

Moreover, I did not say Ned was being hypocritical. I said, IMO, based on the information we have to date, that it would be hypocritical if he treated Beimel differently than Kent.

I agree with that. Beimel worked hard to get to where he is, and should get a second chance to be evaluated on merit. Certainly, if he were to pitch well next season, and also behaved, it would more than atone.

The Dodgers draft Bob Timmermann with the 1st pick in the 2008 draft. Bob holds out and the Dodgers are unwillingly to meet his demands. The Royals (1st) and Marlins (2nd) finish with the worst records in baseball in 2008. The 2009 draft would look like this:
1. Royals
1a. Dodgers
2. Marlins

Is that not correct? Can someone clear this up..

38. Nah, I doubt David Price/Matt Wieters/Andrew Brackman/etc. will have extremely insane demands that the Rays wouldn't be able to sign them.(Yes I realized it was just an example)

As I've read it, the teams will receive a compensatory pick in the next year's draft.
---

Next, I'd like to ask any Dodger fans who are
knowledgable about the Dodgers farm system(npurcell, canuckdodger and D4P to name a few) to email me(FLUBADUB2K@aol.com) for a story that I'm writing this offseason to both highlight how good the Rays system is, but to also highlight other great systems in baseball.

How did I manage that...?

In watching the playoffs and world series you can't help but notice that Carpenter, Suppan, Rodgers have been able to go deep into games 7 plus innings with low pitch counts and not overwhelming strikeouts. Who out on the current pitcher free agent market reflects the high inning low pitch count equation?

D4P is only knowledgable of the prospects that are needed to be traded in order to acquire Torii Hunter.

http://tinyurl.com/wwc8c

Does driving 75 mph in a 45 mph zone without getting caught constitute bad character?

Does drinking in a bar after curfew predicting victory in a super bowl ala Joe Namath constitute bad character or just marketable charisma?

Duke Snider was in two automobile accidents after curfue I believe and both times hurt his knees and those injuries reduced his value to the team.

So, what should be the rule. Miss curfew get suspended, or get hurt away from the game and get suspended?

MLBPA: Agreed. Nice doing business with you.

The message to the team and to the fans is simple: Nobody can put themselves in front of the team. Nobody. He did something dumb and then LIED about it! He is gone. Period. He'll get a chance elsewhere, but he cost himself millions. See ya. Wunsch returns...

Send the message to the organization and it's fan base. Team first. Integrity counts. No more Bradley-like nonsense. Beimel will not be back. I could be wrong. He came through this year. But if he comes into game one instead of Penny...

The larger point, as we've discussed, is how replacable Beimel is, talent-wise. That's what governs the debate. There's no widespread integrity message being sent to the organization and its fans if the Dodgers don't keep him.

As a free agent, can he sign a guaranteed contract with anyone or do we control him? If he can sign elsewhere, that would resolve the issue. My point is that he indeed made a major error and wasn't contrite or apologetic until he was caught in his lie. Any second chance he could have received was blown by the attempted cover up. I guess when he is facing the loss of millions, he felt he needed to lie. I wonder if he cut himself slamming down a shot glass.

Bottom line: He's replacable. I think he's gone. I think that will improve the clubhouse. He might be a scapegoat and not deserving of that, but it could help us forget 06 playoff stumbles and move forward.

Like many of us, I'm sure Beimel is contrite about his mistake and his lies, and is more than willing to try to make up for it. Were I running the team, I would be happy to give him a second chance and see if he could be a part of the bullpen.

If you live in California, the first should be easy.

The Mets should sign all available Loogy's and stash them away so they don't have to face any of them during the season.

It's time for Dodgers baseball ... on another network
KFWB-AM (980), which has been losing millions each year on its radio rights deal to carry the Dodgers games as it enters the fifth and final season of its contract with the team, has sent the first nasty indication that the end is approaching after it informed executive producer and key department head Tom Boman that his job has been eliminated for budgetary reasons.

The station has decided to trudge ahead without anyone really in charge of the broadcast.
"I'm stunned, more than anything," Boman, who practically runs the entire Dodger radio network and oversees all programming, said Wednesday morning. "There's no logical reasoning behind this."
Boman had been running everything involved with the Dodgers' radio broadcast for the last four years, and the prior three years when the team was at 1150-AM.
Boman's involvement went beyond just getting the show on the air every night -- he coordinated many sales deals for the station and was generally the unsung player who'd smooth out all the rough edges that listeners would have otherwise not noticed. While Dodgers radio broadcasters Charley Steiner and Rick Monday are Dodgers employees, Boman was in charge of the team's radio booth, making all calls on what went out on the air. Any change in the broadcast teams over the last seven years started with Boman.
Boman said station boss David Hall told him at their meeting Tuesday that it had nothing to do with his performance, it was simply money. And if money's the issue, the Dodgers have to be looking elsewhere now to line up a radio home for beyond 2007.

1) If Beimel is being scapegoated because the Dodgers didn't win, that's absurd. He might or might not have pitched well. But baserunning straight out of the 3 Stooges--who's on third... Anyhow?--a team ERA over 5, lack of timely hitting from several players, etc. override anything Beimel might have added. Given those problems, LA loses, Beimel or no, as most teams would.

2) If you wouldn't cut a superstar Pujols for the same offense, the argument loses steam. We all know a Pujols wouldn't be cut. The team would lose too much. He might be traded, so a team could "make a statement." But the team would get back enormous value for him, so it really wouldn't be sacrificing to make its "statement."

3) Let any of us who have not been given a second chance after fouling something up cast the first stone/insist Beimel be cut loose...especially if there he hasn't had other incidents.

But if he comes back and there's another similar incident, that's a different story.