Jon and I are the only ones who are awake? Wild. Not much to say. Just wanted to be the first poster.

Enjoyed the Dewitt articles.

As exciting as this all is, it seems unnecessary right now (unless Penny is more hurt than has been let on). The "Chan Ho Kuo Duo" can get it done if this is temporary. Penny and Lowe have been ineffective recently, but unless you're ready to take action on one of them, the rotation seems full.

Yeah, I don't understand the rush to bring Kershaw up. If he wasn't ready to join the rotation after Spring Training, why is it that he needs to be part of the rotation after not even two months of pitching at AA?

I drove with a buddy of mine and his wife about an hour to watch Kershaw last night in the greater Zebulon/Lizard Lick MSA. There were literally dozens of people in attendance, so we were able to sit wherever we wanted, so we settled with our drinks right above the Suns dugout. Man, most of those guys are young! You forget sometimes...
Anyway, Kershaw was a little jittery and threw a couple of balls (clocked around 95-97) but then blew away 3 batters, maybe threw 15 pitches total. There was contact on only a couple, the best was a weak dribbler to first.
Then he was pinch hit for in the 2nd..what the heck? Then, he walked out of the dugout with another player with a bat in his hand, down the first base line, over the bullpen mound, and out of the stadium entirely, kind of shrugging his shoulders in surprise. For the life of me, it looked like he was going to get in a car to RDU and fly to LAX.

We watched most of the rest of the game, a 6-0 win for the Suns. Keep your eye on Lucas May, this guy seems like a player. And De Jesus is going to make somebody a nice SS one day.

Commissioner Bud should announce Wednesday that the 2010 All-Star Game will be held in Anaheim.

5 - And the Dodgers are aiming for 2013.

At least tomorrow's game is an evening start, meaning it should be available on the package.

Is tomorrow's game on KCAL or something? Looks like only the Cards feed is available on DTV.

Holy cow! Only 2 1/2 games out. Are the D-backs in the doldrums yet?

Jon mentioned the sweeps...that was on my mind alot last night. What a wild, weird and somewhat perplexing game is this that I love so much.

Fox Prime Ticket Friday and Sunday and KCAL on Saturday.

Dodger Stadium to host 2009 World Baseball Classic:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3409221

11
The triumphant return of Hee Seop Choi to Dodger Stadium!

What I want to know from Molly is how big the ESPN The Magazine baseball crew is.

The last four Dodgers to make their MLB debut as a starting pitcher, and six of the last eight (dating back to Hideo Nomo in 1995) have made their debuts on the road:

http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/DKDE

With Doug Davis returning to the D-Back starting rotation, Max "2 Days Older Than Billingsley" Scherzer will be moved to the bullpen (something Keith Law suggested even right after his perfect MLB debut).

15 - Yeah, that's a shame. I (like multitudes of others) used my waiver priority to grab Scherzer in a fantasy league. He's still got value as a middle reliever, but I've used up the waiver claim that could've gone to Kershaw.

15 Good thing I used my #1 Waiver priority on Scherzer. I think Randy Johnson will get hurt or Doug Davis will be ineffective sooner than later and Scherzer will be starting again. Hopefully the D-backs only win the games he starts the rest of the year.

Debuting Kerhaw against the Cubs in Wrigley would be about the toughest offense he could go up against.

They pound left handed pitching.

18
Wow, you're right, the Cubs have pounded LHP to the tune of .295/.387/.461, a 130 OPS+, best in the league. The Cubs are 10-5 in games started by LHP.

The Dodgers offense has also been great against LHP (.300/.378/.462, 127 OPS+). The Dodgers are 10-4 in games started by LHP.

Maybe Kershaw could face Ted Lilly. :)

Speaking of the Cubs, Carlos Marmol is on pace to pitch 100 innings this season, yet he's only 5th in MLB in relief innings.

Old friend Franquelis Osoria is on pace to hurl 111 frames.

1 I was lurking earlier in the last post but after returning from an appointment it dawned on me ther must be a "NPUT".

From Derrick Goold in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

>>With three hits in his past four games, second baseman Jeff Kent is slowly emerging from an offensive plummet. He has five hits in his past 48 at-bats (.104) and is hitting .145 this month<<

Really, 3 hits in 4 games means he's slowly emerging from a slump? 3 hits every 4 games means about 122 over a full season. Not good.

And over these past four "emerging" games for Kent, he is 3 for 16, hitting .214/.313/.214.

Interesting bit of kooky wishful thinking in the comments of the Viva El Birdos Cardinals' blog:
>>We need to really sweep the Dodgers and hope every day they get closer to falling out of contention. Furcal is still the one player that can solve all our problems. The Dodgers are trying to sign him but he already said if is not re-signed by mid season than he is just going to wait till the off season. If there is anyone we should overpay for in a trade and resign it is Furcal. He could easily bat lead off to bat clean up.

The problem is we don't match up well with what we have and what the Dodger need. What is half a season of Furcal worth?<<

To their credit, other commenters pointed out that there's no chance of him being traded, especially given the draft pick reward awaiting them if they don't resign Raffy.

Btw, I am being totally selfish when I say I hope there's no Minotaur debut this weekend, if only because Sat-Mon I will be somewhere without a TV or internet connection, a cabin on the water (okay, I might sneak a look at the scores and DT via my cell phone) so I'd miss the live excitement. I guess there's always the MLBTV archives at least. My gut still tells me we're not gonna see him this week, but we'll see.

Three hits in four games, no wonder Kent continues to hit cleanup.

Competition for hitting 8th in the lineup continues to heat up with Jones, Kent, Hu, and Pierre all (should be) contestants.

24
For selfish reasons, I don't want Kershaw up yet because in the March predictions thread I predicted he would make his debut June 11 in San Diego.

I don't want Kershaw up tomorrow because I have tickets tonight and if I try to go tomorrow night, my wife will divorce me. Twice. Of course, tonight is game night for my son's kindergarten class, so it doesn't really count as attending.

Nice that we're in the playoff mix. That's a tough group of teams. I would be happy going 3-3 in the next six.

Though I'd like to see Kershaw in person, there's an argument that there might be no better way to enjoy him than listening to Vin broadcast his debut.

Once you knock the bad teams like St. Louis, Florida, and Houston off the list, we're looking pretty darn good.

Jon's premise is entirely correct: The only thing unusual about his 1 inning stint was not being told. Otherwise, it fits perfectly with the 25 IP per month mandate.

I bet he stays with Jacksonville through the end of June.

29
You've just given the Cardinals bulletin board material!

23--If Furcal signs with the Cardinals, that would mark the 2nd time he's replaced Cesar Izturis.

30 Hah!
I said that right after he was taken out yet no one in the media took my reasoning to heart and instead called up exhausted Dodger PR personnel in the middle of the night to locate the Minotaur.

Uh, no discussion of Logan White calling up Single A prospects and giving them pep talks?

And how do know that Colleti's blackberry is not responsible for our cleanup hitter's three hits in four games? Actually, who I am kidding, Kent wouldn't get the email anyways. Kemp and Loney got the clubhouse computer on lockdown making MySpace friends.

29 How can you say the Marlins are bad? Lurch is their ace!

29

Unless you were being sarcastic, Florida and Houston are not bad teams. Florida in particular is really looking good... and I believe the Dodgers beat them in South Fla, yes?

At what point in the season do you call a team that was suppose to be a bad team a good team. 50, 75, 100 games?? And more importantly, can Tampa Bay hold on to the wild-card spot and make the playoffs?
vr, Xei

29- I think Houston is for real. They can create runs and they've gotten nothing good out of Roy Oswalt yet.

The Cards I'm not sure. But remember the Giants teams that had Bonds and little else, yet still managed to score runs and win lots of games. Cards have an average pitching staff, and Pujols can create runs by himself. It helps that Ludwick/Schumacher/Ankiel are doing well too.

Cards could stick around if Ludwick is for real and they get anything good from Mulder.

Isn't the fact that Kershaw wasn't told of his shortened performance enough of a reason to speculate? It seems every other time he has pitched a short start he was told ahead of time.

34
I am not ashamed to admit I am friends on MySpace with both Loney & Kemp.

I updated my "in-season" Dodger WAR calculations (upon request) and it has the Dodgers with 87.11 wins. My pre-season WAR calculations based on ZIPS had the Dodgers with 87.50 wins. The Dodgers are currently 25-21 and if they keep up their current winning percentage through 162 games, they will win 88.04 games. All of this is posted over at DodgerSims. Billingsley's WAR broke the 4 win barrier and Loney's WAR is creeping up. DeWitt still has the 3rd best offensive WAR on the team. The Dodgers really need Furcal back as his WAR is astronaumical and Hu's is at the far other end of the spectrum al momento.
vr, Xei

16 . In a odd situation I have a claim to kershaw even after I used my priority on scherzer. I wonder if other leagues handle this the same way. We were originally using espn for our league and I drafted kershaw as one of my last picks. Because of issues we were having with espn we switched to yahoo but kershaw was not listed as a player yet on yahoo. So, I argued that I should get to keep a right to kershaw as long as I kept a bench spot open, which I have. As far as I know I will get to pick up kershaw after he goes through waivers.

Off topic question: does anyone know how the pairings are made for college golf tournaments.

It's the final round of the NCAA Women's Golf Championships today and USC leads UCLA by three strokes.

How do they pair off the players? Does one school make up one foursome or do they mix up the schools?

39 I am "friends" with them too!

Dodgers are have played 5 teams with records over .500 currently:

Angels, Astros, Braves, Marlins, D-bax.

They are 5-12 vs those teams.
20-9 vs under .500 teams.

I've been sitting on my #2 waiver priority waiting for Kershaw. The problem is, the guy at #1 is also a huge Dodger fan, so I doubt I'm gonna get him.

Oh well. Is David Price gonna make the majors this year?

36 How on Earth are they good teams? The Marlins can't play defense, they have no pitching staff and only have an above average hitter at three positions.

The Astros have eight players in their organization that I would mind if I lost them forever. They don't have a single pitcher besides Oswalt. If it weren't for Berkman, they wouldn't be scoring either, Tejada is the only other guy giving them above average performance right now.

The Astros and Marlins are also your current leaders in over performing their third order wins, both should have four less wins or so than they have right now.

44 That seems like it's been the story of the decade so far for the Dodgers.

28 - why not do both? I always bring a little necklace-style portable radio to the games so I can hear the game called from the booth. I usually keep score, so that helps me to figure things out when I miss something.

44 And let's look at Arizona.

Against the Dodgers, Astros, Mets, Phillies, Cubs and Marlins - 9-12

Against the rest of the NL West. Reds and Tigers - 19-7.

49 - Good point, though Vin's done on radio after three.

This speaks for itself. SFW:

http://franklinavenue.blogspot.com/2008/05/retro-friday-stephanie-edwards-and.html

46--They have 4 guys that can SLG the ball:

Berkman--.770
Tejada--.510
Lee--.505
Pence--.451 (and he got off to a bad start, he's hit much better in May).

Matsui's OBP is .380

I'm not arguing whether those are sustainable, but I wouldnt say they are a bad team. Even if your pitching sucks, if you bash the ball it doesnt matter.

How many teams have 4 guys that can expect to SLG over .500 in the lineup? Not many.

50--The Mets are below .500.

The Dbax are: 8-10 vs above .500 teams.
They are 20-9 vs below .500 teams.

53 Even with that their third order record is just 23-26. Those four guys are surrounded by below replacement level players, so the offense still isn't that great. Carlos Lee is doing about as well as expected but is producing at a lesser rate than Ethier because he's bad at getting on base.

Once Berkman's OPS drops back to the high .900s, the team won't be able to do much.

44 Yeah, and if the Dodgers had been swept by the Pirates, Pittsburgh would be over .500 and you could say the Dodgers were 5-15! Same with the Brewers and Mets. So the Dodgers are 6-3 against teams that would be over .500 if they did well against the Dodgers but are not. And the Dodgers have a bad record against teams that have a good record because they beat the Dodgers! What a concept!

A team's record against the teams with good records in the season does not tell you anything. The teams with good records are almost certainly going to have been lucky (and the opposite for teams with bad records).

The Dodgers are 14-15 against teams with winning records in 2007. That doesn't mean anything to me, but if forced to choose I would take that figure over "5-12 against teams with winning records in the under 50 games so far this year."

56 - A team's record against the teams with good records in the season does not tell you anything. The teams with good records are almost certainly going to have been lucky (and the opposite for teams with bad records).

This early, Tom, this early (and I think you meant "in 2008" in the last graf). But certainly by the end of the season it should mean something.

57 - By the end of the season, I think you can go with "records against MLB opponents." :)

RE: Kershaw coming up. Is there any chance Penny is headed for the DL?

59 There's a chance, although I doubt it.

If Kershaw is somehow brought up, they need to do some roster tinkering.

*Furcal activated; Hu optioned

This is the only move I expect tonight. In order to get Kershaw on the 40-man, somebody MUST be DFA'd in addition to someone else getting sent down or DL'd.

Tony Jackson oddly claims that it will be a pitcher who's sent down when Furcal is activated, which seems unlikely. (And by "a pitcher" he presumably means Brazoban, since he'd be the only candidate.)

Man, could an early Kershaw callup be prelude to more stupidity down the road a la Edwin Jackson? Jackson was brilliant in the early going, stumbled, and appears now to have regained his footing with Tampa Bay. Say Kershaw finds an extended bout of control problems after his excellent spring training. Does Ned decide to trade him for a bucket of balls and a couple never-was relievers, just because of the early start on his service clock?

57 , 58 - s/at/near/

62 Ned really never saw Jackson pitch. He relied on scouting in that trade.

I'm pretty sure Kershaw and Jackson are seen in different lights.

62 Aside from Kim Ng, there is no one else around in the front office that was here during the Edwin Jackson fiasco. Logan White was the scouting director during that period but I doubt he had any input in that matter.

Actually, it was really Jim Tracy, Jim Colburn, Terry Collins, Dan Evans, and Paul DePodesta who controlled Jackson's fate. I am not absolving Ned who eventually dealt him but those other guys were the ones who decided where and when he pitched once he was added to the 40 man roster.

But the Dodgers have certainly been patient (some say too patient with Billingsley) and aside from Broxton, they have resisted the urge to agressively bring their pitchers up to big leagues.

36 - getting back on the subject of good vs. bad teams in the NL, the Astros have an overperforming Lance Berkman (45 VORP already in a season that's barely a quarter over -- there's just no way he's hitting 54 home runs over the rest of the season, what his prorated 16 to date would amount to if he finished that hot), declining Miguel Tejada, Carlos Lee, Kaz Matsui, Hunter Pence as second-tier performers, and a bunch of nothing back of them. Geoff Geary leads the team in pitching VORP, and he's a reliever f'r cryin' out loud! Roy Oswalt actually has negative value so far this year!

Houston is not a good team. By the All-Star break they'll be in fourth or fifth place in the NL Central.

On Tuesday, the game against the Cubs is on both FSN Prime and on ESPN (Wednesday both KCAL and ESPN2). I can't be home (actually I'll be in hospital) on Tuesday and have to record it.

In Santa Barbara, Tuesday's FSN game is not going to be on HD on cable (They're doing the Angels game instead in HD). ESPN will be in HD. I can only record one version, since I also record another program during the game on a different channel, and there's a limit of 2 at a time.

So should I go with ESPN HD, or Steiner and Lyons on FSNPT SD? It's not Vin, so there's a choice, but I must decide in advance.

(On Wednesday, I should be home and can switch between them or settle down with the one I prefer at the time. We don't get KCAL in HD up here.)

67 Yeah, the original statement was pretty much correct. Houston and Florida are bad teams.

I hate the idea of rushing a player. The Dodgers did it with Beltre and then with Jackson. Both showed that they could have used a bit more seasoning in the minors. They could use an arm like Clayton's but I'd rather he was up for good rather than going the Edwin route and yo-yoing him if he stumbles.

Bob - re NCAA Women's Golf Championship, my understanding is that they play in threesomes, one player from each school (UCLA, USC and ASU). They are probably matched up No. 1 plays with other No. 1 golfers.

But it is stroke play. And golfers carry their own bags.

70 - The interesting thing about your comment is how differently Beltre and Jackson were handled. Beltre wasn't yo-yoed at all.

Anyway, some players are ready at a young age and some are not. I can think of a couple of Seattle Mariners that were Kershaw's age or younger when they came up, and they did just fine.

Beltre wasn't rushed, he just could've used a better appendix. He had an OPS+ above 100 in his first two full seasons.

The point being, it's going to be different for every player.

70-I agree, I hate the idea of "rushing" Kershaw, but I don't really think that's an exponent of his age anymore. There's a colossal tide of hype, which is going to be there no matter how long we wait to bring him up. The question is, once we do bring him up and he struggles--if he does, a little or a lot--how patient is the team, the media and the fan-base going to be? My suspicion for the latter two is: not much, not so long as Bill Plaschke has a bullhorn. But hopefully the team will do better. I can't help but think even Colletti has absorbed the lesson of trading Jackson, or at least the Scott Kazmir fiasco and such like.

Also, Beltre was called up after hitting .321/.414/.581 in AA.

And, for that matter, also color me unimpressed by the argument that Edwin Jackson was rushed. Nobody has even a smidgen of evidence that his later struggles were caused by pitching four games in the major leagues at age 20. Blaming it on the call-up is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction. He may very well have collapsed even without the major league callup. And his struggles were physical, not necessarily mental, as his fastball velocity dropped 6-7 mph and he became unable to throw the ball over the plate.

76 - I agree. He got the same September cup of coffee that is common to many players, only in his case, fate conspired to given him a high profile matchup with Randy Johnson in which he excelled. The most unusual thing that happened with Jackson was a memorable debut.

If Jackson wasn't called up, he probably wouldn't have burned an option the next year, so we would have had control of him for one more year.

Diamond Leung on Kershaw:

http://www.beloblog.com/Pe_Blogs/prosports/2008/05/dodgers-to-call-up-kershaw.html

78 True enough. But in that one extra year, he posted a 5.55 ERA in AAA, so the end result of his Dodger career likely would have been the same.

57 No, I meant 2007. They're 14-15 against the winning teams from last season. Given the choice between that and their record against a group of 5 teams that, had the Dodgers swept them, would only have 2 teams over .500, I'm going with the former. (I see why you jumped to this conclusion since the 15 losses match up if you include MIL/PIT/NYM, but the record would be 11-15.)

What would the info even tell us at the end of the season? If the Dodgers go 18-42 against the best teams in the league and 70-32 against the rest, what exactly would that tell us? Let's say that the top group has a .560 win%, which makes the bottom group .410. (Assuming the Dodgers' schedule averages .500). So we would think the Dodgers are a .360 team (opponent neutral) against good teams and a .596 (opp-neutral) team against bad teams? Clearly, the number of games is not enough to draw such a conclusion, and even over a sample of ten seasons, on what basis could a conclusion be drawn?

There are all sorts of factors that go into each individual win or loss. Who was starting on the mound? How close was the game? Who was injured? Why would we think that a team's record against an ill-defined competition (the top by 30-40% of teams by record) tells us more than their record against the other group? The answer must be that these are the teams in the playoffs. But that doesn't mean that the playoffs will have the same matchups as the regular season had, and even if it did, we're talking about a pretty tiny sample that is being selectively taken.

How any team did, win/loss-wise, against the best teams by w-l is a junk stat. You would rather have how their hitters did against top SP and how their defense did against top lineups. But the size of those samples would be such that you probably would have no reason to care.

79 Mystery solved. If they burn Park & Kuo this weekend, it's CK time. If not, they'll wait.

What if they just burn one or the other?

73 Beltre did not need a better appendix. He needed a better doctor in the Dominican. The "surgeon" who performed his emergency appendectomy made a mess, resulting in complications and later an infection. I saw his scar in the clubhouse several months later and it was the size of a cigar.

Thanks to Diamond for p