Boy, you're right about that. I wonder how often he got up in the pen, leading the likes of us to howl and moan, and we forgot that he didn't actually come in very often.

Does 132 Games Played automatically disqualify one from the designation as "obscure?"

Because the name "Hiram Bocachica" is sure memorable.

1. Shawn Green
2. Adrian Beltre
3. Alex Cora
4. Cesar Izturis
5. Paul Lo Duca
6. Mark Grudzielanek
7. Eric Karros
8. Jeff Kent
9. Olmedo Saenz
10. Dave Roberts

I have to say, as time passes, Eric Stults might end up being the winner. And frankly, you might be able to make a case for Edwin Jackson someday if his career doesn't pan out. His major-league debut will always stick with me.

Funny that Tom Goodwin and Juan Pierre are back-to-back on the list. And then comes Hee Seop Choi.

Oh, and after explaining why he thinks giving up a whole lot of pre-free agency talent for Santana may be a bad idea, Sheehan says he expects one of the L.A. teams to trade for Santana. Like I suggested in a comment yesterday, it seems like if Sheehan can conceive of a bad move for the Dodgers to make, he just assumes the Dodgers are going to go ahead and do it.

I found it interesting that Loney and Kemp had played more games than Gonzo, I know he just got here last year but it seems like he's been here forever.

Yes. In the first-ever mention of Saito on Dodger Thoughts, Jon wrote: "This year's Norihiro Nakamura, pitching side. A 36-year-old (on Valentine's Day) pitcher with a 3.82 ERA in Japan last season doesn't excite."

This is all conjecture. Just one guess for your poll.

I think the Opening Day outfield will be Pierre, Jones, Kemp. The plan will be leaked: Pierre will be sharing time with Ethier. The way this will work is that Pierre and Ethier will start about the same number of games. Pierre will finish most games that he starts and will also come in to finish Ethier's games, to keep his streak alive.

That will be the MO for about a month, I'm guessing. Around the first of May, if Kemp or Ethier slumps, Pierre's playing time will increase. I won't make a prediction beyond that.

I'm a huge Kemp fan, but none of us knows what his walk rate will mean for his long-term success. A month-long slump in April could happen, and if it does, I think we'll see some Pierre-Jones-Ethier outfields.

It would not surprise me to find out that Pierre's agent has quietly already asked to be traded. Pierre is no idiot he knows that Jones is in CF and he knows the talent that Kemp and Ethier have.

If Ned does trade Ethier for relief help then it will validate the opinion that Joe Sheehan and Christina Karl have for Ned. That would be depressing.

Joe Sheehan: Zimmerman (man, he's about to have a year), Longoria, Braun, LaRoche, Gordon.

I might flip the last two because I'm not sure the Dodgers won't screw up with LaRoche. There are a ton of good young third baseman, huh?"

Joe Sheehan: Zimmerman (man, he's about to have a year), Longoria, Braun, LaRoche, Gordon.

I might flip the last two because I'm not sure the Dodgers won't screw up with LaRoche. There are a ton of good young third baseman, huh?"

I absolutely hate this playing streak of Pierre's. It's turned into a sacred cow that can't be infringed upon, even though it's hurting the team. I would never wish for an injury on a player, but a mild turned ankle for Pierre, just enough to keep him off of it for a day or two, would do wonders for the Dodgers. A stomach virus or a good hangover would do the same thing.

But I really have high hopes (or maybe it's just a dream) that Juan will be traded by then.

Not that I actually want Pierre to play. I'm just sayin' there may be a bigger fish to fry.

Note that I'm not taking into account other options at either position, like Young in the outfield and Abreu at third.

Yeah, it's shooting the moon. But it seems logical to think that Pierre wants to keep his streak going and clearly he's going to have to share time if he stays here.

51 I think Nomar can slug .400 and OPS .750. Maybe. Does that count as believing he has something left?

But the one that jumps out at me, a la Lance Carter, is Mike Venafro. Only 17 games in 2004? I couldn't believe it was that few. I remember him making some big outs against Helton and Bonds that year as we won the division--seems like he had a lot more appearances than that.

Also, even though Pierre has a string of five straight 162-game seasons, his consecutive games played streak only stands at 434, because he only appeared as a pinch runner (a streak no-no) on 6/3/05.

I can't remember off the top of my head one play Rickey Henderson made as a Dodger.

1) The 68-pitch, 8 IP, 1-0 ESPN Sunday night game vs. Schmidt (Russell Martin walk off in the 10th!)
2) The welcome aboard 6-inning no-hitter in Cincinnati (I was at Oggi's in Carmel Mountain Ranch and I kept checking my phone for updates since they inexplicably didn't have the game on TV)
3) He helped rid us of Izturis
4) He started the playoff game I attended that year

In 2005, Tony Womack played in 108 games, 351 plate appearances, for the Yankees.

On the other hand, he gave Melky Cabrera a job when it is likely that he could have gotten off clean by running more famous names out there.

62
Maddux was money every game I went to until the playoffs. Nothing like a Maddux game, fast and furious.

t-o-d-a-y is the correct spelling.

You live.

I think the question of which is the bigger disparity depends on whether Nomar has something left. I guess I'm with TC in that I think he can still has something left.

The uncertainty of the Nomar-LaRoche situation (their performance and health) gives me more hope for LaRoche. Nomar can get injured. LaRoche will hit eventually. I have faith in Torre that he'll see that LaRoche is the better player and play him. LaRoche isn't exactly a Cal Ripken either. So maybe it's not a bad idea to have another 3B.

Pierre-Ethier is the bigger problem because everybody knows what Pierre is going to do next season if he plays. And everybody has a pretty good idea of what Ethier can do, too. And yet, people are talking about Pierre playing 162 games in LF.

But, even if Pierre was an above average #8 hitter, Ethier would be way more above-averager, so to speak. :)

My favorite DT posters:

1. Ken Noe
2. Daniel Zappala/GoBears
4. oswald

You can also click on the main page, on "batting splits" (just above the standings for each league).

Perhaps what I am really saying is that I'm more scared of what Nomar will do than I am of what Pierre will do. First-half Nomar last year was pretty much the worst regular in the majors.

I am comforted by the fact that it is pretty clear that Nomar would be benched quickly, while I am not at all confident that Pierre would be.

As I remember it the Yankees signed Lofton to be their leadoff man. But Kenny didn't have a good spring training and when the season started Torre dropped him to the bottom of the lineup. Kenny, being a veteran player, was shocked that Torre would use spring training stats to make that decision. Their relationship went downhill from there.

He also hit .159/.196/.182 for the 2006 Dodgers, but turned out to be OK for that team.

Juan Pierre hit .393/.397/.464 in the 2007 spring.

That may well be true also. But the thing I remember most is that Kenny was really upset with Torre over losing his leadoff spot at the end of spring training. So much so that when Sheffield sounded off about Torre he only got one additional vote that I'm aware of. Guess who?

Nomar has had 4 strange 1/2's.
2006 - 1st half - best hitter on the team
2006 - 2nd half - lousy hitter, injured but had two key home runs in Sept
2007 - 1st half - worse hitter on the team and just about in baseball on the road. At home he had BA but still little power
2007 - 2nd half - his power comes back and he nudges himself back into 800 OPS territory but then is injured again. He still doesn't come close to his 2006 1st half level

If healthy I think he is the 3rd baseman but I also think he really will have to produce to keep his job. Given how poorly he performed for much of the year his leash will probably be short and given how injury prone he is, it will just be a matter of time before LaRoche gets the shot. Hopefully this time LaRoche will have taken care of his back when his time comes.

http://tinyurl.com/2tqt85

>>Lofton said he knew early with the Yankees that things weren't going to go well. He said he was told during New York's season-opening trip to Japan that he wasn't ready to hit leadoff.

"I've never heard that before in my life," he said. "You get in and out of games in Spring Training, you have guys who hit .500, then .200 during the season. It was tough to hear that, it shocked me. It was my 14th year.<<

How about Kevin Elster? Only 259 PAs, but he does know how to christen a ballpark.

http://tinyurl.com/2mazb4

"After watching speedy Juan Pierre spark the Florida Marlins to a World Series victory over the Yankees, New York owner George Steinbrenner signed Lofton to a $6.2 million, two-year contract..."

The circle of life, my friends.

Yep, it was his comment about how shocked he was that stuck with me.

The top-10 pitchers in games started:
1 Odalis Perez 120
2 Derek Lowe 101
3 Brad Penny 98
4 Kevin Brown 94
5 Kazuhisa Ishii 86
6 Hideo Nomo 85
7 Chan Ho Park 69
8 Jeff Weaver 68
9 Darren Dreifort 58
10 Andy Ashby 44

For those of you who are season ticket holders, I just got off the phone with the ticket department and if you pay your invoice by Jan 11th, you can go to the stadium Jan 26/27 to see what seats are available for an upgrade.

He is much different from just a hot spring hitter in that he proved himself ready in a call-up situation in 2006 and had led the Pacific Coast League in hitting to boot.

I guess hot springs won't sway Ned.

Did Billy Ashley ever hit in the spring?

Yes, power-sitting. In a hot tub. In a mansion.

If you want true obscurity, then I'd give the award to Ron Coomer.

With all these guys, it's hard to keep in mind that if we had played any of them in high school, we'd probably have been in awe of them. Even Mike Judd pitched in one major league game, which puts him in an exclusive club.

Rudy Seanez is waiting for an offer from the Dodgers, but it hasn't arrived yet.

Wilson Valdez will officially be gone in a couple of days.

Colletti will be playing in Nomar's charity soccer game. Nomar himself can't play due to his contract.

He of course was on that very talented 2005 team that sometimes featured Jason Phillips at first base (hitting clean-up) and Jason Grabowski in left.

84 I might as well make a macro out of this, but there is no evidence that hitting eighth gives you more unintentional walks.

This is what happens when Jon doesn't write NPUT.

P.S. McGriff spent a few months sitting in the Tampa dug out in 2004 before retiring. We weren't his last stop, just his last payday.

Have you met Mitch Jones
Someone said as we shook hands
He was just Mitch Jones to me....

I actually wish he'd hit number 500 before he hung it up.

http://www.insidesocal.com/dodgers/archives/2008/01/dodgers_invite.html

2005 became a joke. Injuries hurt us the most, but we weren't deep at all. DePo had some bad contracts to unload (Ishii, Green) and we simply couldn't fill the gaps with what was available.

But he did manage to bring back Odalis with a nice three year contract. Did he sign with anyone for 08 yet?

I wonder if Hillary and Norgay ever met Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard?

139 This year's minor league home run leaders were Craig Brazell, someone named Davis, Val Pascussi and Rick Ankiel. Old guys that have no hope of having a useful career (yes I'm including Ankiel in that) can destroy the minors without being of any use in the bigs.

I do personally like the idea of calling those guys up in September and using them off the bench. They wouldn't play long enough for anyone to know how to pitch to them, and they might end up cranking a few home runs before they're done.

I see what you're saying, but painting all AAAA players with the same "he'll never hit in the majors" brush is kind of silly. There are too many counterexamples, from Jack Cust to Hank Sauer to Mike Easler to Ken Phelps to Olmedo Saenz to you name it.

As I recall, he hit .400 or something crazy in spring training, I think, '05... I recall arguing with JimBilly4 over the percentage chance that Repko would be a star.

129 games of 74 OPS+... Limited to 69 games in '06... injured all of last year... will he even be on the team this year?

Hillary was an extraordinary man in every sense. No doubt we in New Zealand lost our favourite son today.

I'm biased of course but I think "We knocked the bastard off" is the best sporting quote ever. (Hope that survives the rule 1 test.)

1) Players who are memorable for their whole careers, and in 2015, it'll be hard to believe they played on the Dodgers: Wells (7 games), Maddux (12 games), Alomar (21), Henderson (30), Mueller (32). Of course, with how fresh the 2007 and 2006 seasons are in our memories, we can recall the contributions Maddux and Wells made, even the controversy about Wells being given more rope than he should, perhaps. But I contend that by 2015, we won't be able to recall much that any of those players did in Blue.

2) Pitchers who were memorable because of their performances, who will seem obscure because they played relatively few games. Scott Erickson (19), Aaron Sele (28) & Jose Lima (38). Of course, Lima will always be remembered by me for his shutout of the Cards in the playoffs, but mostly, we'll remember these three because of what they represented (scraping the bottom of the barrel).

3) Joel Guzman. Played in 8 games for the Dodgers, he's memorable because he was such a highly touted prospect and was traded. He'll seem obscure in a few years if he never does anything in the bigs.

Mike Kinkade is a good one...I remember being upset that he didn't get more playing time....

Gawd....Dodger baseball since 1988 is so depressing....The one mitigating factor is the sense of humor it has bred among die-hard Dodger fans...

P.S- Jason Phillips looked like MC Search...

Add Mr. Berrora to Mr Enders list.

Andrew I do think you painted much to broad a brush this time. To many players just needed an opportunity that they never got.

I was fortunate enough to meet Norgay once, though I was only eleven year old and therefore unable to form a meaningful question to ask him. I do remember being impressed to see, in the flesh, a living person that had accomplished a memorable and historic feat. This being only a couple years after watching Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon, human firsts were a big deal.

Look, I'm not really an Aaron Sele fan. But the rotation in 2006 was messed up. Who made the third-most starts? Billingsley, with 16. Fourth-most? Sele, with 15, and Tomko, with 15. Billingsley we know. But Sele, in 103.3 innings, had an ERA of 4.53 (ERA+ of 99). Tomko had an ERA of 4.73 (ERA+ of 95) in 112.3 innings.

Maybe we'd call Tomko the bottom of the barrel, too, but in 2006, one was on an $8million/2 contract and the other was an NRI (I think), but their performances were about the same. He did his job.

And ironically, Phillips didn't very often get to 3rd base. Very nice call!

1. Julio Lugo
2. Juan Pierre
3. Jason Phillips

http://youtube.com/watch?v=iwY5o2fsG7Y

"Ay yo I came from Cali where they hooped it they hooped it!"

That's pretty cool, and obscure, even more so perhaps than Squiggy being such a baseball nut.

Death makes strange bedfellows.

I did that once and it seemed to work.

Can someone explain the logic whereby a pinch hitter is considered to have been "in the game" but a pinch runner is not.

Chin-Feng Chen.

more memorable than what he did on the field that's for sure. (at least in the US. he's destroying the league back home these days. best win share / OPS guy )

As for Tony Womack, actually the Yankees brought up Robinson Cano just a month into the season. but Womack still ended up getting some playing time the rest of the way because a. Cano struggled out of the gate and more importantly b. Bernie Williams was falling off a cliff and the 4th OF was ... Bubba Crosby ouch.

It's pretty dumb, though. Either you played or you didn't. It's stupid that there are two different sets of games played rules, one for streaks and one for everything else.

Or is that not what you meant? ;)

Does Herb Washington have constant consecutive-games played streak of zero?

1. Vacuum up the ants that are already in the house.
2. Figure out what hole they are coming into the house from by where they reappear after vacuuming.
3. Spray a small amount of Raid into the hole.

They almost never come in the same hole again.

So a guy is announced as a pinch hitter. But, as he is standing in the batter's box awaiting the pitch a baserunner is picked off for the final out. How did he affect the game?

Which reminds me, I remember some guy hobbling up to the plate in the '88 World Series. :-)

So what happened in Pierre's case? Was his manager at the time not aware of the rule?

Maybe JP can just get ejected in the top of the first of every game.

And after scoring the run he could take the field for the first two outs on defense and then have to leave the game with an injury and his streak is toast.

Keefe stays in to play center field in the bottom of the ninth. The first batter hits a ball that looks sure to be a home run, but Keefe makes a leaping catch at the wall to rob him of a homer. The next batter hits a sinking liner to center and Keefe makes a diving catch to rob him of a double. In doing so, however, he bruises a rib and has to come out of the game. The next batter is easily retired and Keefe's team wins the game, 2-1.

The good news: Keefe's team has won the game largely to his own heroics.
The bad news: Sorry, Jack, you didn't really play in this game. Your consecutive games streak is over.

I love that scenario except for the part about there being two strikes on the batter. :-)

There's actually a special chalk you can buy (from a Chinese company), but regular old chalk gets the job done.

I lived in Portland for a year and rented a big old cheap old dusty old house. After a few weeks, we got around to cleaning up all the weird chalk trails around the basement stairs.

INVASION AND MAYHEM FOLLOWED.

IT WAS LIKE THEM II.

Then the landlord told us to put the chalk back and we were free from our angry ant overlords.

But it's Sam DC vouchsafed! Tis true!

And along with Ken's Raid trick, I even find spraying just 409 or something like that in the hole and along their trails does the trick. Plug up the holes and cracks with caulking too.

Oh and on the obscure Dodger list, of the ones who are likely not going to amount to anything, I like McKay Christensen and Larry Barnes. Thank you.

b.he didn't hit enough... he show flashs with quick hands and very solid power. but his overall pitch recognition wasn't good enough. it wasn't terrible. but it wasn't good enough. which showed when he got up to the high minors. espically AA. he raked (somewhat ) in AAA, but it's Vegas...

in the end. he was indeed a very promising prospect but really didn't pan out. he had good athletism / very good bat speed and been there in big games (he was and still is routinelee the Taiwan National team's cleanup hitter). there's several possible reasons for that i suppose.

1.Something was fishy with the system : the Dodger system virtually produced nothing in the early decade. NOTHING. name 3 guys from that period who are anything more than utility players... maybe they had terrible luck, maybe their development system was horrific. maybe a good dose of both.

2.Playing for the national team: Chen was virtually playing for team Taiwan EVERY offseason. so his wear and tear was very very significant..