Well lace up your cleats and shine up your batting helmet! You're playing the Dodgers! When those boys from Los Angeles are on the field, losing streaks end and winning streaks continue. Mark Sweeney's on that team, Bunky, and if it's close in the late innings, they'll send him up to bat! A brighter day is coming. The sun is shining again and everybody's happy!

(bumped from the LAT zone on the previous thread)

DFA Sweeney
Call up LaRoche.

Pierre/Ethier platoon. Pierre vs Lefties.
DY/Kemp play everyday.
LaRoche plays 2nd when Kent gets a day off, and at 1st when there's a lefty on the mound.

Maza/Pierre/Hu cant end fast enough.

As far as I can tell Vin last told us of Furcal "No new news... Nothing to report."

Very depressing.

Now, I wonder, what does Joe make of Pierre's much more standard .284/.351/.324 line?

Weird.

Dodgers average 7.1 runs when they win.
Dodgers give up 2.9 runs when they win.

Dodgers average 1.9 runs when they lose.
Dodgers give up 5.4 runs when they lose.

Against the more likely to be faced righthanded pitcher, his OPS is less than .600

As much as 3B was a question coming into this year, both Furcal and Abreu being out as SS has tied up this team for the present.

Now you can make the LaRoche move but that's really a once or twice a week issue.

And I'd say he's getting more of a chance against lefties than Ethier seems to be getting recently.

5 It's actually justified to leave LaRoche in AAA now that he's learning second.

Seems like we would expect that kind of offense to score runs inconsistently across games.

I think the question is WHY does our team lack power? I had Kemp pegged to hit at least 25 homers this year, and possibly more. I figured Loney was a lock for 20-25, and Ethier could have slapped 15 or so, along with Martin.

Maybe it was just wishful thinking.

More like "Opportunity to learn a lesson squandered."

I doubt Ned takes anything valuable from the experience.

Ethier: .301/.333/.434
Kemp: .289/.366/.389
Loney: .292/.333/.438
DeWitt: .292/.357/.483

None of these guys have been bad by any means, but these are our corner guys who should be carrying the offense, and only DeWitt is really performing.

I think the performance at those first three positions I mentioned (eliminating shortstop for the moment thanks to Furcal's hot start) has been bad beyond reasonable expectation.

I been Denys Baez'd, Esteban Loaiza'ed.
I been Juan Pierre'd, McCarter'd.
I been Julio Lugoed and Tomkoed 'til I'm broke.
I been Andruw Jonesed, nearly cloned
from Sabean, cause I'm PVL-prone.
That's the bias I use, well, no joke!

(Slur rhymes as needed - folk rock!)

Having them all at the same stage (roughly) is what makes things difficult. That's why the idea of having a few proven vets in there is not a bad one. The trouble is that Colletti couldn't find any real starts and just brought in decrepit vets who turn out to be so declining they're close to worthless. Some of that is bad luck, but most of it was bad judgment.

At least us Kings fans know deep in our hearts that we support a bunch of losers.

Dodger fans always believe that the Series ring is there to be had.

At first, I read that as "expletive-laced trades", which given our GM, would be appropriate.

Who do we get with our 15th round pick?

We had $49 million on the bench (Kent, Furcal, Jones, Garciaparra) today.

We currently have $63 million on the DL or being paid not to play for us (Loaiza, Schmidt, Furcal, Jones, Garciaparra).

I have not been commenting lately, but I can't even watch the games without getting irritated to the point where marriage counseling is needed.

In some ways this is more frustrating than the 2003 team...

Now I'm getting cranky.

Cy Young for MVP?

Unbelievable trade.

Nelson Liriano played short during that period but didn't bat.

My counting may have been off.

Bronson Arroyo
Matt Cain
Ted Lilly
Jeff Francis
Johnny Cueto
Roy Oswalt
Barry Zito
Brett Myers
Oliver Perez

Loaiza wasn't amazing but he was better than about a third of the starters in the league so far. Getting him for seven million wasn't really a mistake, but getting him, then immediately losing patience was.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/AAUX

And we'd whet his beak for 2009 2010 while giving us a taste.

I also check this DT daily just to see when Laroche finally gets his call.

IIRC, he hit foul grand slams--barely foul--in back-to-back games in Chicago. If one or both had stayed fair, fans probably would still be talking about how clutch Loney is/was, since either or both would have been game-winners.

So not hitting in the clutch might be a bit strong. Being a few feet from two grand slams might be about right. He made outs after each foul grand slam, but still...

He's not playing as well as anticipated. But he and the rest of the team have about two-thirds of the season to turn it around.

Anticipa-a-tion...

Or when Kershaw, Bills, Kuroda, etc., pitches their arm off only to get a single run of support.

What is the consensus hope for our #15 pick for tomorrow?

Has there been any mumbling from the front office about paying for talent and not slot?

If Hochevar had signed at the reported offer, it would have set a record for the supplemmental 1st round at that time.

And of course I would have to go to a movie screening tomorrow night so I'll be missing both games live.

But the draft! Now that should be fun.

I think Canuck is right, assuming Hicks is gone by 15, which he likely will be, Collier would be a fine pick. I hope it's one of those guys.

They let Matt Harvey walk to UNC last year.

I just want it to be over and see the list and agonize about guys I have never seen and how they will affect the team in 2012.

Wonderful misery...

No, but the internets (apparently) do.

He has had 4 multi hit games in his last six though. 18 extra base hits in almost 190 ABs won't do much to get you noticed. Looks like we won't be seeing him in LA any time soon.

BA .287 OBP .354 SLG.441 OPS 795

Too many strike outs, not enough walks. Not doing terrible by any means but not wowing anyone...

----

Welp I'm off to try to get through the rest of these Dirty Harry movies (the new remastered box set), as much as I can take anyway. (The first one still holds up as great, the 2nd one's pretty decent, then... mostly not so hot.)

Wow, Jim Carrey was in the Dead Pool. I'd forgotten that. This oughta be good, i.e., bad.

http://tinyurl.com/4rdwqu

All three teams are fielding pretty young teams, based on their age at the beginning of the season and just looking at games started for the 8 position players, the D-Backs have an average age of 25.9, the Rays are 26.7 and the Dodgers are 27.3.

The difference is that the Dodgers have Kent while the D-Backs did not have a regular player over 32 and the Rays nave only 1 player that is 30 who is made 24 starts. Everyone else for the Rays is younger though 4 of their key starters are 26-29 years of age.

The D-Backs have a 5 players 25 and younger that are regulars while the Dodgers wanted to have 3 players that are 30 with Kent at age 40. The Dodgers have 4 regulars 25 and younger.

"The Dodgers want to limit Kershaw to 170 innings this season. Honeycutt said Kershaw could make up to 21 more starts, which, at about of six innings per start, could add up to somewhere around 120 innings. He has already pitched 58 innings this season, including 43 1/3 in double A."

These car insurance quotes I'm getting have been ridiculously high. Everyone hates the 22 yr old, single, male driver.

If Paul actually possessed a .790 SLG, the Dodgers would have him manning the outfield in preference to Ethier. He's actually got a .286/.356/.434 line (you got his OPS for the last figure).

""What's different about this Draft," said White, assistant general manager for scouting, "is that now we're in position where we have to look, at No. 15, at going in a different direction than before and looking at need a little closer now."

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080520&content_id=2740323&vkey=draft2008&fext=.jsp

There was a time when I trusted that the prospects we eschewed were not quite major league quality [Ricardo Rodriguez, Chin-feng Chen, etc.], but that time has passed. We are in trouble with Colletti in charge and there's no way to sugarcoat it. We are a young high-payroll team with a marquee manager and huge fanbase. We also have a lot of injured veterans. In the strangest of plot-twists, I have now given up all hope of winning the wild card and am now solely focused on somehow overtaking Arizona. We are beyond lucky that they stink right now. Shame on us for not taking advantage.

Hicks probably has similiar potential with the bat, though less current power. The big difference between him and Collier is that scouts expect him to keep his speed and stay in CF, and he has a strong RF-type arm. Thus Hicks has true 5-tool potential, while Collier does not.

On Wednesday afternoon, after Seattle's 20th loss in 27 games, Bavasi ordered each of the 25 players to sit at his locker to be held publicly accountable for his performance . . . Bavasi said he is basically stuck with the players he has, that no team wants to make a trade this far ahead of the July 31 trading deadline.

And, who constructed this horrible team?

Maybe Scott Elbert.

http://dodgers.scout.com/a.z?s=283&p=2&c=759080