The Kid (Clayton)
The Lady's man (Russell)
The Cook (Ether)

Next Door Landlord/Chaperon (Larry Bowa)

I have read this comment many times regardinig JP, and I often wonder if the people who write it understand its just more of an indictment of just how bad a signing Pierre was.

You are getting exactly the performance you would expect out of Pierre, which is terrible (performnce). Which I can only conclude that it means there was "never" any chance at upside with him. And if the performce is bad, and there isn't a realistic chance at upside, then why the heck would "any" GM sign that player?

Is it really that difficult to find players who can't hit for power, can't get on base, can't play the field, and can't throw the baseball? I guess the answer is it is difficult, and when you find a player who can't do all those things, then you better sign him to a 5 year deal, and quick!

And how is that the players fault? JP signed a contract based on 10 years in the bigs, with a track record. He has delivered on that track record, playing the same as he did in the 10 years before.

If there is a bad actor here, it's Ned for the sort of team he put together, not the player in this case JP.

Going even further, the character of JP is pretty darn good given the other attitudes of players in the MLB today. If just about any other player had been disrespected by the club the way JP has, they would be a problem for the team. JP has been been slammed by the media, the fans and to some extent the club, yet he shows up everyday, plays hard, works hard and pretty much takes it all without much complaint and keeps his mouth shut. Take a look at the Grumpy old man last year when his AB's were cut for an example of the spoiled nature and attitudes of today's players.

JP may not have the arm or the power that many in the fan base wants, but he is doing the job he was hired to do, pretty simple.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone has said it's Juan Pierre's fault for losing playing time. The fact of the matter is the team decided it needed more out of his position and that seems to be a reflection of Ned and not JP.

I have read this comment as well many times. Who says it has to be the players fault? Of course it's not his fault he's not better. He doesn't have the ability to be any better then he is.

And, when someone like myself indicates how bad a signing it was, I pretty much expected that everyone knew that meant the blame resided with the GM not the player. If I'm not mistaken, I think I even asked why the heck would "any" GM sign that player?

He seems to have a good head on his shoulders at a very young age. Is this what the baseball guys describe as "good makeup"? I really dislike that phrase because it sounds very vague to me and seems for the most part irrelevant.

Then we agree, well unless it's the major of Chi Town trying to sell a place on a MLB team for profit...but that's another kettle of Chicago political fish all together....LOL.

.326 .354
.330 .388
.331 .353
.327 .328

These are numbers you don't want in an everyday lineup. He hasn't been "good" since 2003-04 w/FLA.

and is Kershaw a Vet now? or was that a compliment to his maturity or was it a joke?

im really confused.

http://tinyurl.com/7326ex

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Matt Kemp fan, but, Kershaw seems to avoid the cliche better. Is my use of cliche becoming cliche?

Not true at all. He and his agent complained all year after he lost his starting job. He deserved to lose his job because he sucks. And he has sucked even more with the Dodgers than with his previous teams (career OPS of .717; OPS of .684 and .655 in two years with LA).

Please explain that statement.

The team would be better off if he converted his groundouts into a combo of Ks and BBs, but he's too embarrassed by the Ks to do it.

I've come to the conclusion that since JP has no power, pitchers don't pitch around him. Therefore most pitches are in the strike zone. It's kind of hard to walk when pitchers are throwing you strikes. Can you blame them? What's the worst he'll do, bunt a double over the third baseman's head?

I fail to see that as selfishness on his part.

Yeah, but like all of us he grew up with stupid coaches telling him that it is far better to make contact than to strike out, so it's hard for me to think there's something sinister from Pierre's POV. He's just a lousy player who does almost nothing well.

Please see the career of Brett Butler. He could've used the same excuse.

Just because he's not as "good" as taking a walk at Butler doesn't mean he's selfish. It could mean he doesn't have a good as eye.

See above. I'm not making the selfish argument. I'm making the "he royally sucks" argument.

I don't think Juan realizes that his unwillingness to risk striking out is actually hurting the team, and that the team would be better off if he both struck out and walked more. I think he thinks he's helping by putting the ball in play so much.

This is not a defense of Pierre. I think he is terrible and that he shouldn't be starting for any team in the majors, except the Giants, Red Sox, and Yankees - but that's just a sign of how much I dislike those teams. But it's a fundamental point about the game of baseball.

It's not a fundamental point. Strikeouts are not as bad as you think, and groundouts are not as good as you think. Throwing your bat out there to make contact just for the hell of it is a really bad approach, no matter what your Little League coach told you.

1. strike out
2. ground ball to the right side, runner moves to third

And I'm not saying a hitter should be "throwing [his] bat out there to make contact just for the hell of it". I said: I understand getting on base with a walk if you're not given anything to hit. But swinging wildly a good or decent pitches, and missing, does not advance the offense either.

Say Juan Pierre has 100 plate appearances. Consider the following:

Likely result of his normal, fear of striking out approach

30 singles
70 groundouts

Likely result of taking pitches approach

35 walks
65 strikeouts.

The above "analysis" is obviously over-simplified, but it helps make my point, which is that IMO Pierre would get on base more often if he took more pitches and didn't worry about striking out. Plus, he has so little power that it's not as if he has to worry about giving up extra-base hits by not swinging.

A hit is better than an out. A walk is better than an out but not as good as a hit. Strikeouts have the same value as other kinds of outs, EXCEPT that it, in general, can generally have no positive outcome on the game for the offense (reach on wild pitch/error notwithstanding). Calling this a "fetish" is to ignore the fundamentals of the game; it would make as much sense to say that hitters have a fetish for getting hits, or pitchers have a fetish for making outs.

My point about striking out and walking was more general, rather than Pierre specific.

http://www.japanball.com/news.phtml?id=13604

"A walk is better than an out but not as good as a hit."

I'm not so sure I believe that to be true 100 percent of the time. A ten pitch walk is better than a one pitch single in my opinion.

More specifically, Pierre has publicly reported his aversion to striking out. He said something to the effect that doing whatever he can to avoid striking out is "his thing".

Why aren't any other possible outcomes presented? Such as:

3. Draw a walk. Now there are two on and no out.
4. Batter, not wasting an out by intentionally grounding to second, instead forces the pitcher to make 8 pitches until he finally leaves one over the plate that is smacked for a double. One run scores.

One of the biggest benefits of the high-walk-rate teams is the high pitch counts they force. A strikeout is bad, but the pitcher at least has to throw a few pitches. Batters like Pierre swing early in the count, at everything, so in that sense the strikeout is the more productive out because it puts more work on the pitcher and helps get to the soft bullpen quicker.

You take what you can get and don't try to do too much with it. That's what I learned as a hitter growing up.

Another option would be: hitter hits a two run home run, but that's not relevant to the discussion.

I'm glad he has chosen to rest his shoulder instead of being a "gamer" and playing through pain. Let's hope it's nothing serious.

And with what is probably my first cycle, I'm off to finish Christmas shopping and then to a poker tournament.

I don't mean to make fun of the writer. There was probably a time in my life when I would have agreed. But I copy the quote to remind the participants here that we have a more advanced understanding of the game than much of the ticket buying public. And the McCourts must play to the folks who think that giving IP to Jon Garland instead of Kershaw is a good idea. We're only lucky that the the writer isn't arguing for Trevor Hoffman over an unready Broxton.

I actually think that's at least partially a result of his approach. As it is, he swings weakly in order to make contact, with little concern for driving the ball. Plus, he chases pitches that aren't easy to drive, whether in the strike zone or not. This combination of weak swings and no plate discipline is pretty much the worst possible combination for a hitter, though it (somewhat ironically) produces a high BA and number of hits, which is enough to convince certain types of GMs that the hitter is worth 5 year/$45 million contracts.

I would assume that he could not only increase his OBP by taking more pitches and being more selective, but also his power. If he focused on swinging only at good pitches instead of everything that leaves the pitcher's hand, he'd probably end up hitting the ball with more authority.

Why Boston lets Matsusaka pitch is beyond me too.

0. As great as Kershaw will be, we need more starters here. I'd hate to have Kershaw picth 200 innings and would love Minotaur and McDonald in the pen to start the season. We could then phase them into the rotation as other starters inevitably breakdown or miss a turn or two.

Kuroda was not a big star in Japan.

Who would have thought that that the Div I-A people (and Div II and Division III)could have figured out how to run a national playoff?

Yi Jian Lian of the Nets looks to be 3 years older than his stated age.

The Ted Williams argument actually goes exactly the other way-- Ted always wanted to get a hit, but used the count and the pitcher's fear of a walk to his advantage. If Pierre could incorporate even a little bit of that approach he'd probably be better.

Well, those ground balls usually are intentional. Ask Darin Erstad.

And the two-run home run is relevant to the discussion, because the discussion goes beyond strikeouts vs. groundouts. Impatient hitters who swing early in the count are not helping their teams by grounding and flying out instead of striking out.

They are giving the pitcher easier outs because they would rather swing early to ensure contact instead of waiting and possibly not getting that pitch they can really do something with, ultimately striking out.

A player like Adam Dunn is an example of the latter. Juan Pierre could characterize the former.

In the aggregate, teams with players who are more like Dunn not only get on base more, despite making less contact, but they also get more extra-base hits because they swing at the pitches they can actually hit well, all the while forcing higher pitch counts throughout the game.

Oh boy. Kid K indeed :)

As far as I'm concerned, worst case scenario is that Blake loses his job in 2010 (to DeWitt most likely) while DeJesus knocks down the door to become our starting 2b. Blake would still have value as a veteran bench player (replacing Loretta who replaced Nomar, etc.).

Hu is really the only one who suffers from the Furcal signing, but he's done very little to suggest he even needs to be taken into condsideration. Right now, Hu profiles as a nice back-up middle infielder who might improve his way into a starting job somewhere down the line (perhaps in 2012 when Furcal is gone).

Because we lack the organizational depth in the infield that we had fairly recently, these infield signings are nothing but good news. And, they are a major part of the reason why I see less of a need to add another outfielder: good or bad, we are swimming in those.

Rule 1? ;)

As for JP's OPS, I feel that we should be looking at OBP much more than his slugging. That said, its possible for JP to walk more, and we don't even have to look at Brett Butler's career to point that out. Russell Martin had a sub .400 slugging percentage in 2008, but was able to post 90 walks in 2008. Its possible to show little power and walk a ton, but JP doesn't have Martin's eyes either so I don't know.

71,4 I'm not sure how innocent that looks:0)

If they don't sign Manny, there's no way they go into the season with Jones as the everyday CF with no backup. I agree with your point, but we aren't dealing with a perfect world, in what the Dodgers should do. If they always did what they should do, Pierre wouldn't have been signed in the first place.

Would be in February if I do.

Ha. Alas, I'm leaving for a cruise tonight.

My friend and I went when she was in town about a year ago. Once was enough.

If the next batter taps back to the box on the first pitch, does it matter? Baseball is very contextual. Yes, you do want to tire the opposing pitcher, but from an overall scoring perspective, the only time the two are even close to equivalent is if the bags are loaded. Even then, a well-placed single can cash in two runners.

Its a nice dream, but Furcal would fight any move off of shortstop.

Jones' backup would be Kemp. The Dodgers would be looking for somebody to replace Ethier in left field, and moving Ethier to right.

The downgrade from JP in left field to Jason Repko or Delwyn Young can't be that bad right? Hopefully?

I don't see any scenario where Matt Kemp would back up Smiley McManboobs.

We still have three other options to fill in for Kuroda if he is not ready for the start of the season: Stults, Kuo, or Schmidt.

If Schmidt is not ready for the start of the season that could create some problems if anyone else goes down.

Channeling my inner Jim Tracy...

Do I want to see Pierre traded? Yes, immediately, whatever the return.

Do I think Pierre will be traded if Manny is not re-signed? Nope.

SS-Furcal
2B-Hudson
C-Martin
RF-Ethier
CF-Kemp
1B-Loney
LF-Blake
3B-DeWitt

(Obviously, I haven't perfected the entire lineup, but the top two would be set.)

If we do THAT, then I could see Pierre staying . . .

1) USC Hoops - North Dakota State. Enough said.
2) Fresno State (can't stop CSU? Seriously?

Now this is a good game.

That's my quote. I didn't say I thought a multi-pitch walk was better than a one pitch ground out every time because of course it depends on the circumstances.

Mainly because nobody knows where it is.
Summit
North Dakota St.
Southern Utah
Western Ill.
Oakland
South Dakota St.
Mo. Kansas City
Oral Roberts
IUPUI
IPFW
Centenary

Those are some hellacious road trips.

(193) North Dakota State at (37) USC.

Later it will be

(314) Mercer at (5) UCLA

It's Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis.

IPFW is the same mixture except it's in Fort Wayne.

I think IUPUI likes the palindrome. If they don't, they should.

SS Furcal
2B Utley
1B Pujols
LF Manny
3B A-Rod
CF Sizemore
RF Berkman
C Mauer

Now that line-up could win the NL West.

But to go back to answering what I meant..I watch every game. Pretty much have since I was 10 in 1981 other than when I went to College in 91..And now it's just not a good summer night without a dodger game due to my lack of partyness. Anyhow others have said it but he is sooooo predictable in how he is a leader in baseball in outs every year. That makes him selfish to me. He won't bunt for hits, he won't change his approach to get hits, he just figures he will go up there 700 times. Get 100 clean grounders through the right side, get another 50 or so bloopers to left field to fall and 50 beat em out hits for his .300

The other 500 times (ok 450 minus the k's and walks) he will hit a grounder to ss or to 2b or a fly ball to shallow left. When needed to do the small ball stuff he can't or he won't. He can't bunt for hits or refuses to..For someone who should know the ball is coming at 85 right down the gut he never seems to work the count, foul of pitches etc.

When I watch him I see a guy who has a chip on his shoulder a guy who will do it his way. I don't see joy from him as a player other than stealing bases

Diamond Lueng says that Kuroda's off season throwing program developed by the Dodgers, and not anything wrong with his arm is forcing Kuroda to skip the WBC.

And Robert Parish is not a nice human being.

The Red Sox owner is smarter than the Dodgers owner.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3783590&name=gammons_peter

Henry could only buy the Red Sox if he could sell his Marlins ownership, Loria wanted somebody to take the Expos off his hands, and switched to the Marlins, and MLB had to play stewardship for a few years and then cashed out to the Learners.

And we already went over the debt McCourt had to take from NEWS Corp, just to attain ownership of the Dodgers.

Uh oh.

http://lakers.freedomblogging.com/2008/12/20/farmar-out-with-torn-meniscus-in-left-knee/7284/

On Christmas.

In Russia.

Let's get it on!

I'm ready for some baseball.

http://tinyurl.com/7w6hek

The Pac-10 is absolutely terrible.

http://www.lataco.com/taco/xia-long-bao-crawl-san-gabriel-valley

I work in the insurance office in that center of Kingsburg Kitchen. You should stop by if you need some insurance. Or if you just want to say hi to a fellow DT reader. We can go get lunch. Not right now though time for me to leave.

Makes sense.

I say very long, especially after the draft decision they made last year.

Got to be at least 70% BYU fans.

Now, if they don't sign that guy . . .

You would risk banishment if you root for Arizona tonight in the Las Vegas Bowl.
But that's just me and my arbitrary justice.

It reads

Set 2 2 Stan 3 1 Penn St 7 Penn St Leads 1-0

The Vegas Bowl is heading to halftime.

If you're a truly wealthy person, you can watch the NFL Network.

Some cable systems are giving unadvertised demos of the MLB Network.

I believe that the NFL Network is run by the Freemasons.

In his first show, Cash did duets with Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.

http://tinyurl.com/5l9n2r

Not only is "Under Pressure" a great, great song on its own, but it spawned Vanilla Ice's greatest hit (C'mon, people. Don't pretend you didn't once own "To The Extreme"!).

Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush - Don't Give Up
Nancy Griffith/Adam Duritz - erm, something about Georgia I think
John Prine/Bonnie Raitt -- Angel from Montgomery

They may well not "know" it's Christmastime, BECAUSE THEY MIGHT CHOOSE TO WORSHIP IN SOME OTHER WAY. Or not at all for that matter.

I meant Africa.

The Pogues, Fairytale of New York, with Kirsty MacColl and Shane MacGowan.

As far as I knew, Arizona has had Willie Tuitama as its starting QB for the past 9 years and that's about it.

Mike Patrick must not watch Wildcat football!

You can set your watch by it.

One day Arizona will do something like beat a #1 ranked team. And then the fans will celebrate by setting off a nuclear device.

They make ASU fans look like they attended Harvard.

Hopefully not on Pete Carroll's watch. In his tenure, USC has lost once or twice to every Pac-10 team...except the Arizona schools. 7-0 against Arizona, 8-0 against ASU.

Which is better than a splitting double night-day headache in Vegas.

9/5 - Central Michigan
9/12 - Northern Arizona
10/17 - Stanford
10/24 - UCLA
11/7 - Washington State
11/21 - Oregon

Arizona plays 3 schools next year with a direction in its name. The Wildcats will win just two of them.

Seeing the U of A team just devastated watching the UCLA / Miami game was priceless too.

291
Classic. A couple of my uncles -- who grew up on a farm in Kansas -- are Kansas State fans and love to needle the USC fans/grads in the family that Pete Carroll is 0-2 against Bill Snyder.

291 - not surprising at all. I hate the K State's, Iowa's, and Wisconsin's of the world that duck everyone.

I thought Williams would be great in the NFL. If I remember correctly, so did Mel Kiper, Jr. Kiper was defending him during the NFL draft, and made some comment like "we'll see him in the Hall of Fame." Bill Tobin probably really enjoyed the fact that Kiper was wrong.

here are a few of my favorite holiday jingles:

Atom and his Package - What We Do On Christmas (plus the dude in that image kinda looks like an old McCourt!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGC0ga4ifUE

then of course Patrick Swayze Christmas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZyJCV_dyug

"Whispering Christmas Warrior" are you ready to get merry??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah8Kv9QCnvg

and of course, Yingle Bells.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSF8vGO2Dvs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9YY8slevwg

Anyway, I get far more pleasure from watching this young kings group work their tails off every night and compete with the likes of NY, San Jose, and Detroit...and if not for crappy goal tending probably win 1 or 2 of em.

I'm bitter tonight, at least the Bruins won...

http://rays.scout.com/2/823439.html

273 - seconded.

302 - somafm.com's Xmas in Frisko channel is tres cool:

http://somafm.com/play/xmasinfrisko

As Rusty would say, it's not for the easily offended, but he plays a wide variety of Christmas music, and most of it is great.

http://tinyurl.com/8sa3pm

Not the best song, but the only Christmas song they have that I know of.

If someone would have told me before the season that during the Week 16 Cardinals-Patriots game a USC quarterback would start I would have guessed Matt Leinart.

Ray Davies Rules

Soon we will all have to put up with him on the MLB Network.

May God have mercy on us all.

Time Warner is supposed to have the MLB Network, but my cable system doesn't advertise it and won't tell me what channel it will be on.

It's very strange.

A draft position we will just waste.

Miami vs Kansas Cit, with 62 points scored, is still in the third quarter.

And both TDs in the game came on passes. One TD catch by the Bengals and one INT return by the Bengals.

It's kind of like Versus was a couple years ago.

If it's going to be an HD channel, then it might be somewhere else.

Now we can suck and have like the 7th pick.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=An_FSN2ISgvfSlEALtwUSyoRvLYF?slug=jp-freeagenttracker111008&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Or else my friend in Pasadena is lying to me.

More peculiar is the FSN situation. On Cox last year, there was no FSN HD at all here (unlike in LA Time Warner), only standard def. DirectTV does carry FSNHD here, but then you don't get the KCAL games. However, there was a sort of "secret" channel: a peculair channel called MOJO that was one of the very first HD channels, and a collaboration between several cable networks. I discovered in 2007 that they sometimes showed Dodgers or Angels FSN broadcasts in HD, but never advertised them: in the TV guide, the general network programs were advertised. Last August they finally started showing them in the Guide. But half the time they were wrong: either they'd advertise bit not show it, or show it but not advertise it, or advertise Dodgers but show Angels, etc. And if the game went over 3 hours, or sometimes 3 1/2 hours, it would suddenly fade out to disco dancing in the 9th or extra innings.

Anyway, on Dec. 1, MOJO ceased to exist. Within days, its channel number, 777, is now called "FSNPR" - which sounds promising - FSN Prime Ticket from the sound of it. Most of the time at the moment it's showing "Digital Previews" - ads for On Demand programs. But whenever there's a game that used to override regulat=r MOJO programming - mostly Lakers games, some Clippers and Kings - they show it. It looks like for the moment they're just keeping to whatever contract they had while MOJO was on. But perhaps from Jan. 1 or some later date they'll show either FSN PT in HD or else a lend of PT and FSN West. (All the NBA and NHL games currently being broadcast are from FSN West, not PT.) It's probably too much to hope that they will have both FSN channels in HD, more likely a blend like the FSNHD channel on DirectTV. But you never know. Last year, FSN did 75 Dodgers (out of a 100 total) and same Angels in HD; I winder whether they're expanding to all of them this year. Either way, it looks like I'll be getting far more games in HD this year, and hopefully in their entirety.

End of Santa Barbara cable TV thoughts...

But it doesn't.

The marketing for this channel is very, very, very odd.

Anywhere. It's not advertised at all.

I also have a cable system that carries FSN West perfectly, but FSN Prime looks like I'm watching through cheesecloth.

http://tinyurl.com/2478pg

I can't even take joy in a high draft pick for the Raiders anymore.

http://www.pastamiaw.com/

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8975210/Source:-Halos-withdraw-offer-to-Teixeira?MSNHPHMA

big whoop.

let the circus begin

- http://somafm.com/play/bootliquor
- Tift Merritt; her first album, "Bramble Rose", more than her second, "Tambourine", in which she attempts to reinvent herself as Dusty Springfield. I haven't heard (and don't own) her two most recent efforts, "Another Country" and "Broken".

Heh.

Rosenthal fills the vacuum in the sports news market for plausibly true news.

What about MLBtraderumors.com? That doesn't even have any semblance of reporting behind it. And admits it!

372 I thought re-signing Rivera meant that the angels weren't going after manny? Gawd I hate the hot stove

Angels pull out of Teixeira chase

>> The Angels confirmed Sunday that they have pulled out of the bidding for free agent Mark Teixeira's services. Team spokesman Tim Mead said the club would have no further comment today. <<

http://tinyurl.com/8f296o

Angels withdraw their offer to slugger Mark Teixeira

>> The Angels are expected to go with switch-hitter Kendry Morales at first base. They signed outfielder Juan Rivera to a three-year, $12.75-million deal on Friday.

They could still look to bolster their offense by pursuing free-agent outfielders Bobby Abreu or Pat Burrell, or they could look to trade for a hitter such as Jermaine Dye, Paul Konerko or Garrett Atkins.

They will probably use some of the money budgeted for Teixeira to sign closer Brian Fuentes, who is seeking a three-year, $30-million deal and has said that the Angels are his first choice. <<

http://tinyurl.com/8delhn

What anyone chooses to believe is a different matter.

The interesting part here is that no one really disputes the main parts of the publicized offers (8 years/20+ million a year), and I have not read anything to indicate any "mystery" teams involved.

I guess, its just no one likes lawyers, until you need one.

(Sam DC, LAT, KG16, and all other practicing attorneys who frequent DT excepted of course)

I didn't hear if someone was charged a timeout or if gold passes for a white.

It's not very nice to watch someone's leg break in midair either.