Thanks for the link to that Plaschke article, Jon. Very interesting stuff.

B.R. is just amazing. The site keeps getting better and better.

Two things of interest:
C, Lucas May 22, Vero .319/.379/.628/1.007 with 8 home runs.

22 might be a tad old for Vero, but that is still impressive.

2B, Travis Denker 21, Vero, .339/.377/.464/.841. Nice to see Nate's one time favorite sleeper finally hitting in Vero after falling apart there twice. 21 isn't all that old, but he is the longest of long shots at this point.

Fascinating topic, Jon. I had no idea Baker struggled like that, as I only remember him from about '78 onwards. I'd love to hear what some scouts think of Betemit and his fuure. I'd be willing to sit and wait on him for the whole year if people really thought he would have a chance of becoming an above-average third baseman for the Dodgers.

I broke my year-long ban on reading Plaschke this morning, even before you linked his article, because I found the topic interesting. I guess if it was one of his best columns in years, then I made the right choice. I wonder why he can't write like this more often, using a more fact-based story rather than trying to inject his own opinions about players and the direction of the organization.

What a miserable year that was for Dusty. Later he became a favorite but in 76 he was a victim of my scorn as in my younger days I had no problem letting players who were underperforming hear about it. Plus he was traded for my favorite player so booing him came naturally in 76 when he stunk up the place and stunk up the place he did.

Didn't get in last night but here is a shout out to Golden State. WoooHoooo

1
Except they are no longer playing in Vero but in California.

I don't get how it hurts the integrity of the game for "rich snots" to ask clubhouse attendants for a towel or a beer. Or how the attendant is diminished by it. Or how a hundred grand a year (or, even half that) is minimum wage.

The Betemit debate revolves primarily around what people expect from him.

With Dusty Baker, I think everyone expected Dusty to do reasonably well. They were surprised when he didnt.

With Betemit, probably half expect him to be decent, and others arent really surprised he's doing so poorly bc they have no expectations of him.

That clubhouse attendant story was a good read. It just sort of underscores however why I enjoy football much more than baseball. Its hard to respect a game in which players are allowed to drink during the game. The major leagues is no place for beer league softball behavior IMO. If I owned a team and found out that was happening, I also would have fired the attendant and suspended the player.

Its a colorful story.
But I find that sort of behavior not at all endearing or charming.

6
Plenty of HOF were drinking before, during, and after games. If you don't think your football players aren't on serious drugs to help with pain and performance your deluding yourself.

JoeyP needs to get a copy of North Dallas Forty.

As for Betemit, again, again, again, it's not that we expect him to hit like Baker - it's that he's not hitting even at the level he has established. He is currently hitting so far below his established level that if you're not surprised, you should be.

8. Exactly what I was thinking until you beat me to it.

Given that he's had two years in a row with an OPS+ above 100 and that he's at 31 (!) this year ... I say we cool it on Betemit, let him play every day, and wait to see how he's doing in August, when maybe LaRoche will be ready.

So far the Dodgers are getting a total line of .205/.263/.246/.509 from the number one spot in 135 PAs. That is about 12.3% of all the plate appearances working out to an OPS+ around 40*

Other Spots
.331/.375/.398/.773 (Martin was good here, Pierre has a relative to expectations servicable .708 OPS)
.284/.336/.414/.750 (Nomar has got to hit better, he has been extremely mediocre expect for with RISP)
.303/.384/.431/.815 (Kent has outperformed his spot with a .852 OPS, but his high BABIP and low HR rate predict a slight regression)
.255/.352/.425/.777 (LuGo has a .812 OPS even with a low BABIP, this should go up)
.273/.368/.374/.741 (Martin has a .892 OPS, but Betemit, Clark and Valdez are keeping the aggregate low)
.300/.368/.460/.828 (Fluky, Ethier has gotten most of the ABs and has a .750 OPS here but five other hitters have combined 29 PAs over 1.000 OPS)
.186/.265/.268/.534 (Betemit has been terrible, but actually only has 38 PAs here, Martinez has 42 and a .539 OPS to show for it)
.176/.267/.264/.530 The pitchers are outperforming the lead off men and equaling the 8 spot.

To sum all this up, the Dodgers should see massive improvements in the #1 and #8 spots, slight decreases in the #7, #2 and #9 spots, and slight improvements everywhere else. The Dodgers have been pretty terrible on offense despite scoring a decent amount of runs, hopefully improved performance from LF, CF, SS and 3B will make up for good luck so far.

So Hancock was drunk, smoking pot, speeding, talking on his cell phone, and not wearing a seatbelt.

11 * I can't figure out how to calculate OPS+, but Furcal has a .548 OPS and a 46 OPS+ so I figured that a .509 OPS+ would be about a 40 OPS+.

7--I think there's a major difference between taking pain killers to play a football game, and drinking beer during baseball. One could be argued as necessary, while the other is purely voluntary.

I agree with you that the clubhouse culture of baseball hasnt changed much over time.
Maybe its because baseball has never been a game that required peak physical conditioning and performance?

Can you imagine any NBA or NFL player drinking beer on the sidelines during time outs?

5. I totally agree Andrew. With all due respect to Jon who I think wrote one of his most interesting posts of the year today, I think Plashcke's article was typical Plaschke slanted emotional garbage. In case it wasn't clear (and apparently it wasn't), drinking during the game is NOT allowed. That a fired clubhouse boy says it happened once is not much of a story. Referring to players as rich snots seems inappropriate. I'm not saying none of them are, some are some aren't (snots that is- most are rich).
If players asking the attendants to do things like wash their cars is a story, please go to your local golf club. He explicitly said that he didn't get them drugs, never saw steroids (which by the way, is more of a story) and has only one story that sounded inappropriate to me.
Other than that, it was just a chance to take a shot at how the snot players exploited the poor clubbie by not always bumping his salary by $50K per year.

6
If I owned a team and found out that was happening, I also would have fired the attendant and suspended the player

I can't go along with such a double standard. Either both are fired or both suspended. But before anything is done the new rules have to be discussed and given a date for their implementation.

The only thing I have against Betemit is that he is getting off to a slow start using Loney's spot to do it.

15 - I don't know, I feel like that what you're focusing on wasn't the point of the story.

I think it illustrates the hypocrisy in baseball, where people turn a blind eye to inappropriate behavior (I'm not talking about bad tipping) - and then wring their hands publicly when someone gets in an off-field incident or tragedy, wondering how it could have happened.

14 - But you find taking painkillers, to use your earlier quote, "endearing or charming?"

Camille Johnston is quoted as saying the clubhouse atmosphere is different under Colletti and Little.

Because Tracy and DePodesta were both straight out of the Animal House school of management.

I would expect that when Davey Johnson was in charge, the clubhouse probably had a lot of shenanigans.

18 I was just wondering the same thing.

Good read, Jon. I was also curious because I couldn't remember, who the Dodgers traded away to get Dusty Baker in that trade. It was Jimmy Wynn, Tom Paciorek, Lee Lacy, and Jerry Royster - which must have seemed like an awful lot back then, even for a young budding star like Baker. Even if at least a couple of those players were well past their prime. I wonder what i would have thought of it back then had I behind older than a toddler who didn't know "trade" from "parade." But it surely seemed like a good one within a year.

Hey guys- check this out-

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6764122

In particular:

"…Like it or not, power rules all in the modern game, and the Dodgers don't have enough of it…"

I usually ignore statements like that, but decided to look at last years successful teams and check it out….

The 8 teams who made the playoffs ranked as follows in HR totals: 5,6,7,12,16,23,27,28.

If you take that avg = 15.5 ranking, the 8 playoff teams were right at the median for the league (slightly below, actually). Clearly there is more to the story….
I do worry about reversion to the mean on avg. with runners in scoring position.

Thoughts?

Funny that I wrote "behind" when I meant "been" - I must need coffee, so I should get off my been and get some.

21 Check out the previous thread for some thoughts on that Perry column. Overall, opinions were mixed on it. He made valid points but seems to be overrating power (some of us thought).

20
The Dodgers reacquired Lacy in the 1976 season along with Elias Sosa once Mike Marshall had worn out his welcome.

wow, you guys are quick.

I don't know that Perry was overrating power. He basically said if you don't have power, you had better have some great ways to compensate - and he argued that he doesn't think the Dodgers will ultimately have that, even with pitching.

I think you can make a case that a) power does matter generally but also b) the Dodgers might squeak by this year because their pitching is better than last year, even if their hitting is worse, at least at the moment.

[25] your moniker makes me think of the nameless medical hologram on star trek: voyager.

24 Years before another Mike Marshall would wear out his welcome. That's right - I remember Lacy on the Dodgers as a kid, so now it makes sense. He was a good pinch hitter as I recall.

17- They really don't turn a blind eye to behavior. In fact, they keep a much closer eye on behavior than most employers probably do. Yes, Josh Hancock died while drunk driving. So if an accountant has a DUI, does his employer take responsibility for allowing it? Do ballplayers have more DUI's than the general poulation?The teams don't allow drinking during the game and would quickly suspend a player who they knew to be doing it. Yes, there's beer in the clubhouse. There's also dinner in the clubhouse but not at the accounting office. The point is, what did the Dodgers explicity condone or even look the other way on that was inappropriate?
What is the assumption of how it SHOULD be?
And BTW, in the end, this guy still loves the players. It's the McCourts who fired him and newsflash... say you don't like your boss at the company softball game and the possibility of getting fired comes into play.

I am very upset with Tony LaRussa, he should be ashamed. As should the fans who game him a standing ovation in StL. Nice message/ precedent.

I wonder less about the team responsibility in this case and more about his friends and family - was he drinking and toking alone? Maybe he was, but if not, did no one try to keep him from driving himself home? I'm just wondering aloud. Just as I was when someone I knew a little bit nearly died the same way.

One more quick point- being a baseball player involves endless hours on the road, on planes, in hotels and clubhouses. These are adults and this is the bulk of their time. A little bit of slack to be adults is appropriate.

I was going to post this on the Griddle, but you're already discussing the topic, but what do you think of Bernie Miklasz's column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch?

http://tinyurl.com/yoomsp

27 "I'm a doctor, not a doorstop!!"

Doctor?

26 Seems to that saying "power rules all in the modern game" after a season where making the playoffs didn't correlate at all with hitting home runs is clearly overating power.

24
That may be the only trade in Dodger history where my two favorite players(Wynn/Lacy) were dealt away in the same deal.

From the article is sounds like things haven't changed a bit from Ball Four days. Spoiled children playing a child's game with the only difference now is that they are now millionaires doing the same thing. Good to see the beaver tradition is still going strong.

28 - Lee Lacy as a pinch hitter:
G 297
AB 253
R 32
H 66
2B 9
HR 8
RBI 31
BB 33
SO 59
HBP 1
SH 2
SF 3
GIDP 4
.261, .345, .391, .736
.286, .339, .410, .749 (career averages)

29 - Those are some good points, I have to admit, though I still think it's a worthwhile topic to explore in a column.

33. What I fail to see is his link between any of those people's death and their careers.

33 - Man! Miklasz had the opportunity to write the same exact column after the LaRussa arrest, before Hancock's death, and did just the opposite, defending LaRussa. And he doesn't even bring up LaRussa's arrest!

He writes:

"And that's another reason why it's way past time to stop being overly polite about alcohol-related, or drug-related, tragedies involving current or former athletes in St. Louis. "

I wrote an e-mail to Bernie after he defended LaRussa and standing ovation fans in March, suggesting he was not taking this seriously enough, and he disagreed with me pointedly.

30 Excellent point about the fans giving LaRussa a standing O. We need a little less open armed forgiveness and a little more moral outrage in our society I think. I didn't judge LaRussa too harshly, but those fans sent a clear message that drunk driving is nothing to be ashamed of.

While I'm not a McCourt basher they do seem to lack a sense of humor. If I was a wrongfull employee discharge litagator I would have loved to work on his case. You would have thought that when they let him go they gave him a big chunk of change to keep his secrets to himself.

41 I remember your article Jon. You were dead on.

Hancock hit the trifecta: Drunkenness, speeding, and using a cell phone while driving. It's fortunate that no one else was killed.

It's pretty frightening when you're forced to pull off to the side of the road late at night, knowing the roads are full of drivers like Hancock.

I don't see how Tony LaRussa or Cardinal fans are implicated, however. I agree with "Branch Rickey" -- this kind of stupidity is pretty evenly distributed among all occupations. But if it was your friend, your coworker, someone in your family, it's still tragic; you're still entitled to feel sorrow at the loss. Memorials are for the living.

45 Oh, wait. The reference being made to LaRussa was to his own drunk driving incident. Forgot about that. Sorry. Yeah, that standing O was lame.

"I don't see how Tony LaRussa or Cardinal fans are implicated, however."

Society teaches people what is or is not acceptable behavior. Basically, the Card's fans are society in this case.

39- Thanks. I guess I agree it's a worthwhile topic. I Just wish it hadn't been a top page headline topic followed by a Plashckeesque story that stirs the blood. Especially on the day we find out Hancock died while driving drunk.

I totally agree that LaRussa should feel great responsibility for setting a terrible example. The day Hancock died I thought if he was drunk, that should have implications for LaRussa. We'll see.

21 Home runs don't correlate directly to playoff appearances, but they tend to correlate directly with runs scored. Here's the playoff teams and their rank in runs scored in the MLB.

Yankees: Runs: 1 HR: 5
Detroit: Runs: 8 HR: 6
Mets: Runs: 7 HR: 7
St. Louis: 14 Runs HR: 12
Oakland: Runs: 16 HR: 16
San Diego: Runs: 26 HR: 23
Dodgers: Runs: 10 HR: 27
Minnesota: Runs: 13 HR: 28

These don't matchup perfectly since on base percentage is a more important stat in terms of scoring runs, but in general, more home runs means more runs scored, and it takes a great team on base percentage and clutch performance to overcome a lack of power, something that both the Dodgers and Twins pulled off last year.

45 - With the obvious aside that it isn't smart to be doing any of those things, let alone all three, his accident was a fluke due to a parked tow truck in the road, not something like running a red light or driving in the wrong lane. I haven't read anything about how straight the road was, so I have no idea how visible the caution lights were at night. Speeding lowers how much time there is to react and drinking slows how fast reaction occurs, so obviously that compounded the problem. Still, many sober drivers might have been involved in a similar accident in those circumstances.

50 How does that make it a fluke? People break down on the freeway all the time and towtrucks have to pick them up. The tow truck had it's flashers on, no doubt looking like a christmas tree visible from space. If a driver can't adapt to that situation he shouldn't be driving.

50 - It's sabermetrics. You increase your odds of things going wrong with each bad decision.

Although as people, I do think the temptation to wield the sword of karma should be avoided.

14--Necessary. Pain killers are sometimes a necessary part of the game that in fact are enhancing peformance, and thus making a player more helpful to the team and more entertaining to the fans. I never said they were endearing or charming at all. But I understand the necessity.

Drinking beer during the breaks in the inning--thats not necessary at all. Its completely unprofessional.

51 - So should the hundreds of other people that were sober that died in a car accident that day have not been on the road? Maybe alcohol wasn't the deciding factor in this crash maybe the tow truck guy didn't turn on his hazards or maybe they were dim or it was foggy.

Interesting convergence of topics.

I remember laughing at David Eckstein, when he said he couldn't drive a manual tranny, and that really he didn't drive that much anyway. If he's not into cars, and as a car guy I can appreciate that not everyone is, why should he drive or want a corvette? It is probably smarter not to do so.

If a team is like a family, and I think sometimes it really is for younger players especially ones far from home, then I think the team has some responsibility for both letting them unwind in their "home" when they are not on the field AND also teaching them how to do that responsibly.

For me with the case like Leonard Little who I thought the world of as a person and a player, it seems such a shame that a guy who has millions won't pay someoneelse to watch after him and drive him around... and that the teams and agents won't basically insure that that happens.

A fluke? So if the road had just stayed straight the whole way, and there weren't any pesky obstacles, cars or trucks in the way, he would have been totally fine. Even with twice the blood alcohol limit and pot in his system increasing the odds of him killing himself or killing someone else (it's a miracle that didn't happen). Yeah, it's a fluke.

55 How in the world did you get that out of what I said? I'm just saying that hitting a towtruck isn't a fluke. The roads are covered with towtrucks. Unless you get hit by a meteor, or at least a moving car, nothing that happens on the road is a fluke. You have a responsibility to be prepared for everything. That's why your supposed to be sober. Stuff happens and you need to react.

Your right, truly unprofessional but it was the rest of your assertion that I found lacking any sustance.

And then there's Paris Hilton.
http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2007-05-04/#celeb12

Anyway... how about that Braves-Dodgers series this weekend - think the D's have a chance of taking 2 out of 3?

54 - How is drinking beer during a ball game unprofessional if the drinker is still producing? Beer calms and relaxes which is good for games like baseball.

Drinking beer during the breaks in the inning--thats not necessary at all. Its completely unprofessional.

Do you think that anyone on the face of the earth, including the person who did it (if in fact anyone did) disagrees with this?

57 - If he is coming around a turn going 12 m.p.h. over the speed limit (which is probably less than 1 standard deviation above the average speed on that road) and the tow truck was hidden by the curve, then maybe the alcohol didn't matter. I agree with Jon that all of those behaviors make an accident more likely, but driving is inherently dangerous behavior. This is a case where being drunk kept him from reacting to a somewhat extraordinary circumstance (why didn't the tow truck move the car over to the shoulder?) rather than being drunk causing the extraordinary circumstance. I am now defending him, I just want to point out that distinction.

62/61 I retract my question.

62 - Ha. See 61.

5 I don't get how it hurts the integrity of the game for "rich snots" to ask clubhouse attendants for a towel or a beer.

Since the Mets attendant sparked this column, I assumed his point is that this hurts the integrity of the game when it crosses over into steroids and other illegal substances. Presumably some attendants, with their income dependent on not saying "no," would buckle and get the players whatever they asked for.

62 - I have had a drink before a high pressure situation (an exam, a date) in order to loosen up. There is an obvious difference between drinking and being drunk. If the player felt that drinking improves his play, then perhaps the question is: should Babe Ruth get an asterisk for all the P.E.D.s aka pitchers of beer he used during games?

Is this Bill Plaschke's best story in years?

Yes.

The content is perhaps better, but the short, single-sentence structure reminds me of everything I hate about USA Today.

---

Anyway. Interesting story about Baker, but if your point is that Juan Pierre's 2007 is an anomaly, well, just go ask some Cubs fans.

58
To true, I drive a miata and I'd be a dead man now if I just coasted while driving. Something may fly off a truck and bang me in the head and I'll attribute that to fluke but if someone cuts me off I'll only blame myself for not being on the lookout for it. If you see little cars always on the move it is because we have to be to make sure were seen. If I see someone on a cell phone next to me I move, talking to a friend, I move, next to a truck, I move, next to teenagers, I move, next to Giant fan driving, I move.

67 - no.

67 A driving exam? ;-)

Anyone else find the STLtoday web site extremely, annoyingly slow? It can take up to a minute to load a page there, and I go there fairly frequently for Rams news so this isn't a one-time thing.

[edited]

68. PalmdaleSteve1
48

"totally agree that LaRussa should feel great responsibility for setting a terrible example. The day Hancock died I thought if he was drunk, that should have implications for LaRussa."

So where does an employer, and a manager (LaRussa) treat employees conduct away from the job?

Are they to be your mother and nag you to death?

Your nanny who watches over everything you do at all times?

Or just totally clueless to anything other than getting the job done and winning?

I'm not sure I know, but consider what happens at your own work place. Where is that line (and baseball is a job) where the job gets into what you do away from the job, in short, where that privacy line?

LaRussa stepped up like a man and admitted his mistake when he had his DUI earlier in the year, but what else could the Cardinal organization do as a business for the rest of it's employees? Go all Colorado Rockies on them or what?

LaRussa goofed up, which I am sure he is totally ashamed of and regrets, but to put this on him because of what he has done, give me a break.