Light schedule or not, the Dodgers have now won two straight from the third-best team in baseball, and become tied for the third-best team in baseball with a 42-28 record - .600. Now .600 - that's a gaudy number. That's a 97-win pace.

This may seem like an odd time to pick at the team, but nothing is forever and some things are barely temporary, as we note from the losing streak that followed the Dodgers' previous day tied for first place.

But for a while now, Brian Greene, or BigCPA as I now think of him, and I have debated the composition of the team. Brian thinks that over the years, the Dodgers have been too eager to pursue pitching and not eager enough to pursue hitting. My feeling has been that it doesn't matter which they pursue, as long as they make smart moves, but Brian believes at a certain point, the over-emphasis on pitching becomes inherently flawed.

Read our e-mail exchanges, and if you have any thoughts, send them over. How much does the imbalance of the team matter?

***

(May 7)

Jon,

Brian Greene

Hi Brian,

I've gotten a couple of comments on that 4/12 entry - doesn't look like I did the best job on that one. I still stand by what I was trying to say :)

Here's what I believe:

1) The Dodgers have great pitching and terrible hitting.

2) The Dodgers need to hold their opponents to no more than 3 runs in a game to win, because it's unreasonable to ask this offense to come up with more than 4.

3) If your barometer for successful pitching is the quality start, meaning that 3 runs in 6 innings is a success, you're then asking your bullpen to pitch shutout ball.

4) I don't think that's fair. The bullpen should have as much right to a 3.00 ERA (one run in three innings) as the starters. It shouldn't be 4.50 for the starters and 0.00 for the bullpen.

5) Therefore, for the Dodgers, a quality start isn't the best barometer.

By the definition of the term, Odalis Perez had a quality start yesterday. But it's tough for me to see it that way. Yes - if the Dodgers had scored four runs yesterday, they would have won - but only assuming the bullpen throws three shutout innings. If the bullpen can be expected to pitch that well, why can't I expect the starters to do better?

By and large, I think we're in agreement on the major points. The offense sucks, the pitching is great, and (I really appreciate this one) Ismael Valdes was unappreciated. I don't think that quality starts is a worthless stat - but I think it was being overemphasized. On 4/12, at least, I think the bullpen had been making the starting pitching look better than it really was. I was just afraid that the starters would rest on their laurels. There was, in fact, room for improvement.

I think, for the Dodgers, a quality start is two runs in six innings - or even two runs in five innings. That gives both the overachieving bullpen and the underachieving offense the cushion the team needs to win.

What do you think?

- Jon

Jon,
Thanks for the response. I agree with you that Qual Starts is just too rigidly defined. I don't necessarily think you should adjust your threshold of a QS based on a given team's offense. In the case of the Yankees I suppose a QS would be 6 runs!

Later,
Brian

(I had an e-mail reply that, among other things, said that there's no way the Dodgers could get Nick Johnson for Adrian Beltre, but I can't find it. Let's move forward...)

(May 21)

Jon,
I sent you the email a few weeks ago with the Dodger offense rankings by year. I still think that data is worth an entry on your site.

Brian Greene

Hey Brian -

You're right - there is more to be said on this topic. I'm sorry I haven't hit it yet.

Just to answer you,again for the time being...

1) I take Evans' quote with a grain of salt, but I don't think we have had that pitching-defense combo during most of the past 13 seasons. Certainly not the defense. And as you suggest, what looks like a good ERA may not be that good when you consider park effects. The pitching stats must be exceptional for the pitching to be above-average.

2) "If Dodger stadium is so pitcher-friendly, does this automatically mean you should allocate 3/4 of your payroll to pitching?" Of course not. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't. The point is, you don't build a payroll from scratch - you are always adjusting one or a few players at a time, based on the talent available and the talent you can get. It's not as if Evans is against improving the offense. But given the hand that he was dealt - for example, $33 million-plus to Brown, Ashby and Dreifort alone this season, all of whom are untradeable - there's a limit to what he can do.

3) "If Darren Oliver and Adam Eaton and Brian Lawrence and Livan Hernandez can put up zeroes in Dodger Stadium, why not save some money and just buy yourself an average staff?" Again, I'm sure the Dodgers would love to save some money - but thanks to Kevin Malone, how do they do it?

Also, I think you're trying to have it both ways here. You are giving those pitchers credit for shutting down an offense that you yourself (correctly) indicate is poor. I think there's a pretty clear difference between Kevin Brown and Darren Oliver, despite how close last night's game was. Put them on opposite teams, and Brown's Rockies win the game by about a 5-0 score.

Overall - I agree with you. I think it's a myth to say that you win with pitching and defense. You win by having players who perform better than the other team's players, and it doesn't matter whether it's offensively or defensively. The Dodgers certainly could have their talent allocated better - of their top 25 players in the entire organization, I would say that perhaps 15 are pitchers. That's not a good balance. Yes, I'd like to see them make a trade to alleviate that imbalance, but it just ain't that easy. You have to be realistic. I take Evans' quote mainly as trying to put a good public face on what probably is a frustrating situation for him privately. I guarantee he'd like to unload Ashby and maybe Dreifort, but people only want Gagne and maybe Perez.

(June 17)

Hey Jon,
Nice article on the Dodgers by Tom Verducci at SI:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/tom_verducci/news/2003/06/17/insider

Brian

Hey Brian -

You must think me a total flake. I actually did go back last week and look at the chart you sent me and all the past e-mails - all valid information, but I just had trouble adapting it into a column.

But maybe this is the launching point - maybe I should just run our e-mail exchanges. Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong or oversimplifying, but it almost seems to me like you are advocating balance for balance's sake. We can both stipulate that the Dodger offense is criminally bad. But the important thing to me is run differential, not whether the team is balanced. A team could score 162 runs in a season and go 162-0, after all (an extreme example, but it sort of evokes the 2003 Dodgers, doesn't it?).

Why is it better (I'm not asking this rhetorically - feel free to answer) that the Giants, in a pitchers' park, are sixth in the league in offense and ERA? What makes balance better? The 2003 standings certainly aren't that strong an arugment for balance - the Dodgers are only two games out.

To me, the Giants are better right now, simply, because their run differential is greater than that of the Dodgers. Slightly, but there it is. And I don't need to look at where the pitching and offense rank.

The key, to me, is not to rebalance the team, but improve the offense more than you hurt the pitching. Am I willing to consider a reasonable package that includes Guillermo Mota for Mike Lowell? Sure. But I'm not sure that the Marlins would be. And that's the problem. Just because this is the most pitching-rich, hitting-poor team in memory doesn't mean that there's a good trade being offered. I'm in the middle of Moneyball now, and one of the key points is that for Billy Beane, it's all about relative value. It's not about doing a trade because you have to.

Now, you can argue that somehow, Dan Evans should be able to find a profitable trade, and I'd agree with you. But that's not something we can really know, right now at least. It could be that Evans, for example, is waiting the Marlins out, hoping they'll reduce their asking price. He might be doing the smart thing.

I don't know.

But do keep in mind that the Dodger pitching really is truly exceptional so far, and has compensated for the lack of hitting - imbalanced team or not.

Feel free to hound me on this!

- Jon

(June 18)

Jon,
I totally agree that run differential trumps the design of a team. As Tom Verducci pointed out, 11 of the 16 teams to lead their league in scoring since 1995 have made the playoffs. And the Dodgers made it with the second to last offense twice. So whatever works works.

Regards,
Brian

Hi Brian -

You got me. I can't think of a significant pitching-for-hitting trade since Pedro-DeShields. Of course, that one worked out so well...

Yes, Manny Ramirez is more valuable than the Dodgers' No. 5 starter, be he Dreifort, Ashby or Alvarez. But it's like when you proposed getting Nick Johnson a month or two ago. Great idea - but how do you get him?

The trades for Trombley, Baldwin, Valdes, Mulholland and Shuey et al were awful at the time and look even worse now. That fact doesn't make the question above any easier to solve. It's not like they haven't gone after hitters. Tyler Houston, anyone?

This offseason, the Dodgers will have an opportunity to go after a bigtime slugger. But right now, which I gather is the time period that concerns you most, the only power hitter available is Mike Lowell. And depending on the package, that's a trade I could get behind. And Dan Evans may get behind it too. Beyond that, what exactly can you do?

One reason the Dodgers' pitching is so good right now and the hitting is so bad is that they simply have gotten more mileage out of guys like Gagne, Mota, Perez, etc. than they have out of their hitters. They're just better at it right now. You can ask Shaquille O'Neal to start making 80 percent of his free throws, and maybe he can concentrate on that some, but the bottom line is, he's just not very good at it. That's the situation with the Dodgers right now. The Dodgers are paying Kevin Brown about $15 million this year and he's been awesome. They're paying Shawn Green almost the same, and he hasn't been. Last year, it was the opposite. That's just the way it's going. I think you're over-extrapolating the extremes of this year to previous years. The Dodgers have had obvious gaps in both their hitting and their pitching over the years. You've convinced me that they've tried to solve the pitching gaps more than the hitting gaps, but it doesn't necessarily mean that either gap was "solvable" - meaning that they could have made a move that would put them in the playoffs. Ultimately, in most of the trades of the past several years, their best move would have been no move.

So if there's a moral in the 1989-1991 Dodgers, I think that moral is to make moves to improve your club, but not to make moves out of desperation. If the Dodgers can parlay their pitching depth into a front-line position player, then they should go for it. But if you're thinking that somehow Wilson Alvarez or Steve Colyer is going to deliver a 40-homer player, it's just not realistic. I'm all for improving the offense, but show me how.

I think I'm ready to take this to the web...

Jon