I'll also add that I don't understand why the Dodgers are babying Penny. It's not like this is his first time pitching since his injury. It's not like he hasn't pitched in a similar launching pad in Vegas. At worst, if the weather is really crummy, why don't they just lower his pitch count, but trot him out for as long as he'll go?

In light of being short a man, I believe Penny becomes "the body" you outline in your post. The Dodgers should have planned on some combination of Penny and Houlton Sunday regardless of the weather. At least that may have lightened the self-induced bullpen burden Tracy's been playing under in Colorado.

I think he missed an opportunity to get a pinch-hit or two which might have changed the game, based on the logic that you'll start the clock on most of the players mentioned sometime this season anyway.

Maybe we should keep a running Tracy-stat: WARM, wins above replacement manager. Take a vote on how many wins he contributed to or took away by his moves - pitcher-swaps, rosters, pinch-hitters. have to normalize somehow....

Roster moves are certainly complex over the course of the season, yet i'm sure managed well they add a number of wins. Not something i've thought about much. Just part of my never-ending baseball education.

I think his season makes/breaks the dodgers -- if he becomes a headcase out there due to lack of confidence or screwing his mechanics out of worry about his arm we'll remember our season start as the highpoint of this year.

It was a gamble by JT but I think the right one given the opportunities that presented themselves later in the game with so many men left on base (especially the ninth with the bases loaded and Kent up). If we were meant to win the game, Kent would have gotten the hit.

I don't blame Tracy for last night.

----------------------------------------------

TODAY'S FACT OF CHOI, SB'S FAVORITE PLAYER, 2005:

Constipation is not funny. No it's not.

This is the recipe for Hee-Seop Choi's favorite dish. He likes anything to do with eel and this is what apparently sends his taste buds over the wall:

INGREDIENTS
------------
1 x Eel
SEASONING SAUCE
2 tbl Soy sauce
1 1/2 tbl Sugar
1 tbl Rice wine
2 tbl Water
Metal skewers

* (1) Place eel on chopping board and make head immobile with metal skewer. Insert knife through back and cut through to tail area. Remove intestines and bones and cut off head and tail. Cut large eel into 3-4 pieces and small eel to 2 pieces.

2. Put skewers through back end of eel piece.

3.Broil eel slightly, cooking first on skin side with skewers. Remove skewers.

4. Mix soy sauce, sugar, rice wine and water in saucepan and cook. When sauce boils, add eel pieces and cook over low heat about 10 minutes until all sauce is absorbed.

5. Place eel on serving dish and decorate with chrysanthemum.

* Note: Eel has a high content of protein and fat and is an excellent source of vitamin A. However, it is not recommended for patients and children to consume large amounts of eel since it takes a long time to digest.

Sounds like a wonderful day.

The Tigers were snowed out in Detroit for their second straight day.

Chicago is at 43 right now and windy. It's a great day for baseball. Let's play ....

one.

"And go-cart mozart was checkin' out the weather chart
To see if it was safe to go outside..."

With a lefty pitching today, Repko, Saenz, and Nakamura get starts in the 2, 6, and 8 slots.

The Dodgers lost that day to the Mets at Dodgers Stadium, 8-5.

The Mets sent 11 batters to the plate in the second inning against Tommy John and scored 6 runs. Lee Mazzilli hit two home runs, a leadoff homer against John and another in the 7th off of Charlie Hough.

Six future major league managers played in the game: Lee Mazzilli, Bobby Valentine, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell, Dusty Baker, and Johnny Oates.

As well as one future GM: Tom Grieve.

That same day, the second place Giants swept a doubleheader from Philadelphia to move one game behind the Dodgers in the standings.

The Dodgers then proceeded to sweep an odd 2-game home series from the Giants that was played over three days (they played on Labor day, took a day off, then played the second game Wednesday) and the Dodgers were on their way.

Odd stuff indeed.

" After playing a Thursday night game in San Diego, the Dodgers arrived at their downtown hotel here at about 4 a.m. Club officials offered to fly Weaver in Thursday so he could rest up for his start, but he declined, a decision he stood behind even after getting raked.

"We had been winning with everybody together, and I didn't want to change anything," Weaver said. "I didn't think the time we arrived would have any effect, and it didn't."

Pitching coach Jim Colborn didn't second-guess Weaver's choice."

On the bright side E Jackson threw a gem yesterday against Sacramento shutting them out for 6 innings and collecting 6 K's.

Fortunately, two of those innings where they led were the 10th inning.

on the other hand, it was 3 fly balls.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/magazine/24BASEBALL.html

And it will now be 2 of 52 innings.

The Yankees got hit 6 times in a game vs. Washington in 1913 and Louisville got his 6 times by St. Louis pitchers in 1897.

The record in an inning is 4 by Boston against Pittsburgh in 1893.

The 1937 Philadelphia Athletics got hit by 5 pitches. FOR THE WHOLE YEAR. Apparently, Connie Mack collected a bunch of guys who were good at ducking.

Nakamura did a decent enough job in that rundown to let Izturis get to second.

Was that a baserunning error by Nakamura?

And those two guys managed to hit 5 guys in the first 3 innings.

And on May 1, 1974 Dock Ellis of the Pirates hit Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Driessen to start a game. However, he was trying to do that.

Disturbing to see all the hit batters by the Rockies. I guess the Dodgers thought they were all unintentional.

96 mph fastball by Brazobahn. Now we're talking.

4-3 road trip... thank goodness no sweep by the rockies, coors field or not

Curious note: The Dodgers had 21 HRs in 16 games leading up to this series. They only had 1 HR in 3 games at Coors.

Could I be rooting for the wrong team?

The Diamondbacks have three good starters (Vazquez, Ortiz, and Webb). Their fourth and fifth starters are likely to be pretty bad over the course of the season, though Halsey has been pitching very well so far.

Their offense should be strong as long as Glaus, Gonzalez, and Green stay healthy.

And, I think their bullpen could be good once everyone gets healthy. Lyon, Villareal, Valverde, Koplove, Aquino.

Should we be worried about these guys?

Steve Yeager is the hitting coach for our AA Jacksonville team????? I could understand if he was helping Russ Martin learn the nuances of catching, but hitting coach. Wasn't Joe Ferguson available?

The Dodgers also lead the majors in HBP with 13 and are tied for second in SF with 11. The White Sox have 12.

The Dodgers have faced more pitches than any other NL team.

And they have the highest team OPS in the majors at 827

HR: The key to me is not on-base percentage, a lot of people are talking about that for a leadoff hitter—if you don't score runs it doesn't matter and walks, if your not going to put pressure and help everybody through the lineup out, it doesn't help anyway.

Harold detailed his three keys: ability to steal bases (like Brian Roberts), ability to handle the bat (like Juan Pierre) and knowledge of the game (like Derek Jeter). His ultimate leadoff hitter is Rickey Henderson.

Karl Ravech chimed in with this gem:

KR: And one of those fallacies about on-base percentage and the whole slugging thing is you as leadoff hitter if your coming up ninth and you need to move a guy to second base you lose your—your not getting on base, your not slugging, your sort of sacrificing yourself in those situations which goes to knowledge of the game and ability to handle the bat so a lot of those statistics can be misleading.

Two infield singles spelled his doom in the sixth.

Seriously, I'm kind of glad that Yang is in the Dodgers organization. It still bums me a bit that Scoscia and Hershisher are high-ups for other teams.

"His ultimate leadoff hitter is Rickey Henderson."

Of course, one of the reasons Rickey is the greatest leadoff man in history is because his career OBP is .401. His career batting average is only .279. Rickey took a LOT of walks, which gave him way more opportunities to get those stolen bases Reynolds is so fond of than batting average alone would've gotten him.

Joel Guzman: .316/.394/.579 (20K in 65AB!)
Russell Martin: .333/.468/.438
James Loney: .241/.313/.448
Chad Billingsley: 3.86 ERA, 20 K, 8 BB in 18.2 IP

Willy Aybar: .364/.426/.600
Dionner Navarro: .265/.350/.441
Edwin Jackson: 9.64 ERA, 5K, 7 BB in 9.1 IP

Looks like Jackson isn't successfully making it past the injury nexus. I think DePodesta was being overly optimistic when he said this winter that Edwin Jackson would be the first pick out of the draft at this time had he gone to college. But can you imagine how well off we will be if Aybar can take over for Kent in two years while Guzman slots into third?

Looking forward to 2006, I've got to believe that Brad Penny will be extended, but I doubt Weaver will be back next year. He's obviously overpaid now, and I doubt Scott Boras will be looking to sign for less than he's already getting. With all our hot pitching prospects, do we extend Weaver, giving us 4 starters signed through at least 2007? What if Billingsley and Tiffany (and maybe even Jonathan Broxton) are ready by '06 or '07? Don't mean to sound like Jim Tracy and all, but I just don't know.

jon, i've assumed you've read this. any thoughts from you or anyone else on the board? another continuation of moneyball i guess---interesting read

Having too much good starting pitching is a problem we can deal with when it actually happens.

Padres G.M. Kevin Towers says Dodgers hitting coach Tim Wallach deserves credit for the team's run production. "The at-bats these guys have are such quality at-bats," Towers says. "The Dodgers never used to hit. They would pitch well but couldn't score runs. Now they come up with timely hits. They get into good hitters counts and take solid passes at the ball." . . .

http://tinyurl.com/aaypz

For some reason, the Minor League Baseball website and the 51s site hasn't updated Jackson's stats.

With apologies to whomever mentioned it earlier (perhaps in another thread), Jackson pitched 6 innings on Saturday night, allowed 3 hits, 3 walks, and struck out 6 without allowing any runs.

After yesterday, his line should like more like this:

5.87 ERA, 11Ks, 10BB, 14H, 15.1 IP

Not great, but at least he pitched a nice game last night.

For example, in 2003 he walked 53 guys in 148 innings at J-ville. Last year, in Vegas, he walked 55 guys in 91 IP.

I imagine that being injured had something to do with it. My own personal opinion is that the guy has pitched 427.1 IP as pro up until this point. He is far from a finished product. IIRC, the Dodgers drafted him as a pitcher, but he didn't pitch a whole lot during high school.

I know he has a sequel to Moneyball in the works. He said at the time of Moneyball's release that there was 2 books there...the first examining the A's philosophies and style of operation, the second following up with a lot of the characters in the book (A's draftees and other prospects) and seeing how they progress and if Beane and Depo were on the money or not. I'm sure this piece comes from his work on that book, and may end up being a chapter.

I didn't think Weaver ever looked comfortable out there. And you could see where the hitters were affected by the cold as well.

I missed Saturday's game completely as I had other commitments, but Sunday was much more encouraging. It was wet and cold pretty much the whole time, but Penny obviously was comfortable enough to go sleeveless. He looked a bit rusty early on, but after the 2nd he looked pretty darn good for a guy who's been de-activated for a while and rehabing in the heat of the desert.

Anyway, any team that can afford to should send their starters to Denver early... let 'em sit in the stands if they have to, but they should understand that Spring in Denver is no picnic. Obviously, the everyday players adjusted by Sat. and Sun., but never saw too many LA pitchers comfortable with the exception of Penny and 'Ghame Over'.

Remember the Bull Durham line: Never #$%& with a winning streak!

I came across an article saying the Dodgers left it up to Weaver and he decided to stay behind. The team was winning by staying together and he implied he didn't want to screw that up. He added that he didn't think arriving early would've made much difference.

I think that last part was wishful thinking but there it is.

"Ron Shandler, who has worked as a statistical analyst for the St. Louis Cardinals and publishes Baseball Forecaster, an annual survey of major- and minor-league players for fantasy leaguers, expresses his suspicions another way: he flags players who acquire power the same season that they've come back from vacation 20 pounds or more heavier. For instance, Shandler has noted that last season Adrian Beltre, in his final year with the Dodgers before becoming a free agent, reportedly showed up 20 pounds heavier than the year before. Beltre, whose career up to that point had been a story of unfulfilled promise, blasted 48 home runs, 25 more than he had ever hit in a single season -- for which he was rewarded, by the Seattle Mariners, with a new five-year, $64 million contract. (When a Tacoma, Wash., reporter asked if he had used steroids, Beltre laughed in denial.)"

I guess it's hard to argue with that logic given the natural superstitious-ness of ballplayers... it is also hard to pull yourself away sometimes; like being at a good social gathering. It really is a different animal here in the Spring, though: one day it is 70 and sunny, the next 40 rain/snow.

Having said that, another POV would be he gets here on Thursday, which was fairly nice, and doesn't get the full cold-effect anyway. The Dodgers probably figured it was 3 games in April and not worth the fuss.

Although arriving at 4am of gameday may have been more of a factor...