i'm sure some pundits will say that's just the marking of a good "team" ... I can't wait till next year...

The award is "given annually to a player who demonstrates the values Clemente displayed in his commitment to community and understanding the value of helping others."

They can be e-mailed to you(no pickup)

If anyone is interested send me an e-mail to brendang6@adelphia.net

Tickets are Field Level 44 Row Z.

Then Jeff Weaver comes along with an ERA of 4.40 and has a winning record of 13-9. Let's not forget Ishii's 13-8, 4.71 in 2004.

Why do I still hear announcers point to win-loss records as the indicator of a pitcher's success? Why do we even bother keeping wins as a statistic?

Lowe's biggest weakness has been HRs (26 to 15).

Brazoban did cough up a lead in Philadelphia in the last at bat, but that was in the 10th inning.

It has basically been middle relief that's killed us. I think Sanchez went through some massive streak of blowing leads at one point.

Hmm... looking those two games up, they won one and lost the other. So actually, in both 2004 and 2005 it appears we've had only one loss when leading after 8, unless somehow we lost another such game last year without Gagne getting a blown save.

I don't understand how this can be interpreted any differently.

The Dodgers have been ahead after the end of 8 innings 51 times. They have won 50 of those games.

That means there have been 87 games when the Dodgers were either tied or trailing at the end of eight innings.

The Dodgers record then is 12-75 in those games.

Not sure about all this stuff about runs scored per games and records when certain number of runs are scored. I'd be more interested to see where we rank in pythag. wins predicted.
vr, Xei

2005 Lg Rank Runs/GM, ERA
Dodgers 11th, 13th
Angels 9th, 4th

The Dodger offense is down 9%, the Angel offense is down 11%. Dodger pitching is 14% worse, Angel pitching is 13% better (yet still ranked 4th in AL). And we were the ones throwing money at starting pitchers. So pitching seems to explain most of the 15 wins that separate the two teams.

Last year's Dodger offense of 4.7 runs/gm would be good enough for 4th in the watered down NL this year.

They give out wins and losses to goalies in hockey too and it's not very often when a goalie is solely responsible for his team losing or winning.

That's fine - just an entirely different topic. It doesn't distinguish between the offense and pitching, which is what I wanted to compare today.

Where Gagne's loss has been critical is that it has weakend the overall bullpen depth - it hasn't mattered in the ninth inning at all.

Frankly, I still don't know how anyone could argue that pitching with a lead in the ninth inning is the job solely for the best reliever, that there is some magic to it.

C - Navarro
1B - Choi
2B - Kent
SS - Robles
3B - APerez
RF - Cruz
CF - Drew
LF - New acquisition (Giles, Matsui, Dunn, Lawton)

Bench - Werth, Ledee, Phillips, 2 more bench guys

SP - Penny, Lowe, OPerez, Houlton, New acquisition

Bullpen - Gagne, Braz, Schmoll, Broxton, Wunsch, Dessens, Sanchez

IMO, Izturis (possibly trade bait though his value is low right now), Valentin, Edwards, Repko, Grabs, Saenz (off to an AL team for regular playing time), Weaver (declines arby), and Bradley (bye bye) will not be back on the ML squad.

yeah exactly, 50-1 after 8 and our "closer" was demoted.

I'm sure Tracy could do it. Didn't he say that in the ninth inning, "stuff gets people out?" There must be something magical about the ninth inning in which ordinary pitching effort no longer works. ;-)

The only way I see us signing a quality free agent starter is if Weaver declines arbitration AND Perez is traded. Otherwise, it simply makes no sense. If we're going to sign two free agents, better for it be two hitters than a hitter and a pitcher.

Penny, Lowe and hope for snow?
vr, Xei

While that's true, it doesn't in any way negate the point I was making. In fact, it enhances it. By comparing their W-L record to that of their team, you can determine exactly how good those good pitchers on bad teams were.

The 1998 Yankees were 102-1 when leading after 8.

And the most losses any team had when leading after 8 innings was 11 by the 1978 Mets.

How many wins when trailing after 8 have the Dodgers had this year? The Dodgers did it three times in April (at Arizona, at Milwaukee and in the home opener against the Giants). They did it again on July 16 at home against the Giants (the Jason Phillips check swing game).

Four is a lot of late wins for a bad team.

Bill James has been doing this for 25 years. He even has a name for the stat: WAT (wins above team). This is the number of career wins over what an average pitcher on the same teams would have gotten.

Various career WAT totals:

Sandy Koufax: 28
Don Drysdale: 5
Lefty Grove: 53
Whitey Ford: 35
Walter Johnson: 96
Christy Mathewson: 60
Catfish Hunter: 16

Sorry, couldn't resist. ;)

There are plenty of blown saves in there for non-closers in middle innings. But at least this shows that saves are about as easy to convert as free throws. And 3-run leads are like PAT's.

IIRC, it's about 90 percent overall.

I guess I was trying to say that in spite of the horrendous year we are going through, the pieces seem to be in place for next year. Very little needs to be done despite possibly losing 90 games this year.

I don't think that analogy makes much sense at all actually. If Shaquille O'Neal misses a free throw in the first quarter, his team doesn't get a point. Same thing that would happen in the fourth quarter.

If Middle Reliever A preserves a 4-3 lead in the sixth, that's great. But Middle Reliever B could blow it in the 7th. Your increasing your chances of someone blowing the save.

If you've got the lead after 8 and put in Stud Closer C, your team will probably win. Although, it might be just as likely to win if you have Mopup Guy D pitching.

Meanwhile Tom Glavine has won 91 more games than he has lost.

If?

The other factor to think about when comparing last years pitching versus this years (and i think this gets to what everett is talking about up top) is that the defense has been worse. Last year the dodgers had the best defense in baseball with a defensive efficiency of .715, this year theyve dropped to 20th in the majors to .693. That means (i think) that 2.3% more balls in play become hits.

Whats interesting is that the dodgers this year are not much worse than last year (6.6 k/9 in 2004 to 6.4 k/9 in 2005) in strikouts, especially considering ganges absence. The k to walk ration has actually increased from 2.05 (8th in the league) to 2.20 (4th in the league) from 2004 to 2005. They have given up more hits per nine innings this year 9.33 h/9 from 8.58 h/9, but the hr rate is about the same. There are more hits given up, which seems to me to because of luck and worse defense, but to blame the pitchers for this seems inaccurate given that the three outcomes they control the most (walks strikouts and homeruns) arent significantly different.

I wonder how the lessened foul ground and better hitting backdrop have affected these things.

does anyone have the babip for the team this year or last?

No clue when the vote was taken.

http://tinyurl.com/8ox6w

Neither his problems with Jeff Kent nor the reports of possible domestic violence should negate what he has done for the community. Even if he is not the perfect role model, he seems to have contributed a tremendous amount off the field.

http://www.joeykatzen.com/alpha/ver4/

The dodgers record when they score 4 or more is 54-20.

Does this mean that we should put out the lineup that generates more offense than relying too much on defense and pitching?

The ones I got right were a car company, a candy bar, a TV network, and four having to do with electronics/film/video.

The company style for the product is "Dr Pepper" with no period.

Helps if you've worked with people looking for trademarks.

I'm not paying the guy $4 a hint though!

These were all over the map. Two TV networks, a bookstore, an airline, a hardware store, two car manufacturers, a grocery store, four fast food restaurants, a medication, two types of candy, a petroleum company, a department store, a hotel, two food manufacturers, a newspaper, a soft drink, a deodorizing spray, two movie companies, two computer companies, and four having to do with electronics.

I am firmly convinced that the ones you get right tell you something about your personality. This would indicate that I mess around a lot with computers and electronics (true) and eat too much fast food (false -- we don't even have any fast food restaurants here).

BDHJLNPSTUVZ so far. I'm doing real well on the right column.

B C G J M N O Q R S T V Y Z

I need to get out more.

(B was thanks to the hint from Eric in #87)

O is driving me nuts. I'm extremely familiar with the lettering but can't place it.

A E F I K

Just one of those interesting tidbits -

Greg Dobbs and Bobby Kielty attended the same high school. I played against those guys growing up.

What in particular would you be needing to use "Company B" for in late March? I know what it stands for.

Perez is probably less tradeable, given his balky shoulder. Lowe would still probably be attractive to some AL teams, including the Tigers and Yankees. But who the heck could NY send of some value? Maybe a three-way trade will occur. I think Lowe will be shopped mostly due to his off-the-field escapades, not his stats. Reportedly the team is very upset about Lowe.

Sorry Steve.

Between Lowe and Perez, I like Lowe's chances of being more productive and healthy over the life of the contract. But if the Dodgers are into this "character" business, then he could be moved.

Think Grouch, Meyer, Robles.

The author has no legal right to the truth. You just can't copy the game and market it as your own because of copyright law (which would be hard to prove) and he does have a trademark on the name of the game.

That's what I thought. The time threw me.

Although I have a hard time picturing watching that. I imagine you just watch it for the opening.

Texas might be another taker for Lowe or Perez.

I have all the answers too, so I'll undercut you. 2 bucks a pop. I even take Paypal!

Quincy Jones and Debbie Allen are not very high on my list of favorite people.

d: end of a word you see often if you pack your own lunch

e: You might see it before you propose.

j: You might also see this if you brown bag.

w: A friend in college who pulled an all-nighter with you.

I sense another "you've got another think coming" thread coming.

http://tinyurl.com/aaf3x

F - What Kent occasionally does to Bradley

N - Bill Lee

X - It's not named after anybody

Shouldn't Tracy put in our best offensive players since our record is pretty horrible when we score only few runs.

What do people think about signing Jacque Jones? He doesn't have the career OBP that DePodesta likes. I would like to sign Matsui, but I just don't see him leaving the Yankees.

Not that he's going to sign for a low cost.

Maybe not $10M, but I think we'd have to send a good chunk of change with him wherever he goes.

Werth/Ledee, Drew, and Cruz isn't a horrible outfield, though I'd like to see one of those corner positions upgraded.

He brings nothing to the table that Jason Repko doesn't. Why pay $5-6 mil for the same player that can be had for 300K?

If DePo signs him, that alone could be considered a firing offense.

Wilkerson, however, isn't a bad idea.

Phillips is (0 for 9)
Edwards is (0 for 3)

Proposed Lineup Today:

Perez 3B (5 for 7)
Robles SS (0 for 2)
Kent 2B (5 for 23)
Saenz 1B (1 for 3)
Ledee LF (2 for 6)
Cruz CF (1 for 7)
Werth RF (0 for 5)
Navarro C

Really? In 2005, a professional sports team would dump a player they otherwise would keep, strictly because he cheated on his wife?

Agents for free agents will take note of the new, Simon-pure Dodger sex policies. I thought half of all married people cheated at some time in their marriage, and that half of all marriages end in divorce. Combine that with the temptations of the road; I've always assumed that unless a ballplayer is an avowed Christian, he was probably getting lots of action after hours.

Didn't we go through an impeachment to prove that private behavior has nothing to do with performance of one's duties?

When Phillips starts at 1st (9-8)

When Phillips bats 4th (4-4)

When Edwards starts at 3rd (9-22)

This apparently was not an isolated incident, and last week a reporter claimed it was one reason that Boston parted ways with Lowe. Remember Epstein saying they "went out of their way" not to trash Lowe? Why would someone say that if there was nothing to trash? Curious...

Of course I'm old enough to remember when Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich of the New York Yankees exchanged wives. Back in 1971 that seemed pretty wild; still does.

The Dodgers will populate the roster with clones of J.D. Drew just to be safe.

Four Dodgers (Lowe, Bradley, Werth, Lima when he was with us) have been accused of adultery in the newspapers within the last year. And those four were only reported because there were attached circumstances that caused it to be newsworthy. There are many more we don't know about. And I'd really rather not know about it, because it's none of my business.

But it's certainly very commonplace in baseball, and always has been.

Looping back to Jon's post, I think he's right that Dodger pitching has been the weak spot, but I don't see a way to trade ourselves out of our current circumstance. We have to wait and hope that the Baby Blues are as good as advertised, and the waiting period probably will be as long as Lowe's contract.

I have never gotten this hatred over Lowe.

The contract is a little long (3 more years) but he should be a serviceable 2 or 3 for the majority of it.

We need Izturis back! Against Schmidt he's hitting .304 with a HR (First batter of the year for the Dodgers)

Tonight's lineup (what it should look like:
Robles SS
Perez 3B
Kent 2B
Ledee LF
Saenz 1B
Cruz RF
Werth CF

Tracy's dream lineup:
Robles SS
Edwards LF
Kent 2B
Phillips 1B
Saenz 3B
Werth RF
Navarro C
Repko CF

Tonight's real lineup:
Robles SS
Edwards 3B
Kent 2B
Saenz 1B
Cruz RF
Werth CF
Grabowski LF
Navarro C (possibly switch Grabowski and Navarro)

I take back my reserved positive comments about him.

Oakland had 1st and 2nd and no outs and had Hatteberg facing Guardado and Macha probably figured that Hatteberg would be better off staying out of a DP or striking out.

However, bunting a runner from second with no out is a good idea mathematically (provided you need just one run.)

Please. Feel free to stick around for the rest of September.

Your Best New Pal,

Steve

You will be haunted by the Ghost of Dickey Pearce.

http://tinyurl.com/9tuek

C G H J M P Q T V X L Z

...on the first try. I don't know any of the others.

I was at last night's game and was amazed at the low attendance - 35,000 were announced, but it looked much, much more sparse than that. Still, it was a fun ending to an otherwise forgettable game.

Since I haven't read through last night's comments, did anyone see/discuss the incident at third base in which Penny ran Snow back to the bag, then yelled at him after Snow had taken a big running lead? It was one of the weirder things I've seen during a ballgame.

I like that. "Tricky hit."

Isolated Patience - .073
Double play percentage - 19.9%

I've never seen that man before in my life.

Hoffman CF
Dewitt 3B
Kemp RF
Raglani LF
Dunlap 1B
Rohan SS
Bellorin DH
Bruce 2B
Ellis C

Jacque Jones is a FA, so they wouldn't trade for him. I am not thrilled with his numbers, and they don't sound like DePodesta numbers, anyway. There just isn't much on the market this year.

I would really like Matsui--unlikely, however. Konerko wouldn't be bad, either. He's a run producer, which they sorely need. He has had several solid years. His OBP and avg. are not stellar, but they need another guy or two who can drive people home, with 90- to 100-RBI potential.

However, I don't see them giving a large contract to him to block the 1B prospects. Plus, there's always Choi if he's still here!

Like Eric, the only ones that came easy were the Photography/Electronics companies.

I really don't watch enough commercials. I have a tendency to serially abuse the revert button on my remote.

But, well done!

That's exactly what I would say if he was my brother. :)

P.S. LOL @ the "tricky hit"

It's the first time in A's history that they have trailed by four runs in their last at-bat and come back to win.

First time ever? In the entire history of the franchise? The A's have been playing since 1901. You would think they would have had a bigger comeback than that one of these years.

July 4, 1957, A's vs. White Sox.

I hate it though when teams just figure out their records from the time when they moved to a particular city.

A GM should be spending his money where their are market inefficiencies in his favor. Depodesta was obviously stuck, so he had to swallow lowe at $36/4yrs. But if his era stays around 3.77(and maybe even if it doesnt), Lowe will have plenty of value to teams that think they need to spend a lot of money on a big name/veteran pitcher.

If the dodgers could aquire a younger cheaper pitcher via trade such as Aaron Harang, Krik Saarloos, Brian Moehler, Bruce Chen, or Brandon Claussen, all of whom could be just as good as Lowe at a fraction of the price, they could put more money into other areas of the roster.

On of the dangers GM's commonly fall into is overpaying for marginal talent. While he is usefull, Lowe is marginal talent. (according to BP his translated ERA this year is 4.75 and he's always allowed a large number of unearned runs) How many pitchers are capable of an ERA around 4.00 in Dodger Stadium (even jose lima pulled it off)?

All im saying is that there are better ways of spending $8 million AND filling Lowe's spot in the rotation. That said there are bigger roster problems that Depodesta needs to sort out.

This is the key point, and nobody here has adequately dealt with it.

Lima, ishii, erickson, and mahomes are terrible options. But what does it say about building pitching staffs that a terrible option like Jose Lima worked in 2004. What does a small market team like Oakland or Minnisota do when they need a starte?. They dont pay the going rate for free agents because they cant. Look at what the A's did in getting Lilly in 2002 or Saarloos in 2004 or how Minnisota traded for Silva in 2004. All im saying is that trading a mid-level prospect for a younger, cheaper pitcher is better than submitting to the whims of the FA market place.

Shhh! If you keep talking about this, some other GM might think of it too, and then the value of Harang, etc. will go up! So keep these names on the down-low from now on.

A team of 9 Jeff Kents would score: 7.367
A team of 9 J.Phillips would score: 3.403
A team of 9 H.Choi would score: 5.491
A team of 9 J.Repko would score: 3.334
A team of 9 M.Edwards would score: 3.182

atleast edwards is above Pi. vr, Xei

I'm starting to think that the next market inefficiency (first OBP, then defense, now ???) is going to be some teams' ability to better project durability in certain types of players and predict injuries better. Obviously, the Dodgers are not that team.

New game thread is open.

This doesn't necessarily apply to Lowe v. another young unsung pitcher, but it does apply towards, say, spending $1 million for a position platoon when spending $4 million might get you a solid starter.

This does pre-suppose that the owner is willing to spend some extra money... but honestly, even if the Yanks are wild spenders, over the last decade (from a fan standpoint) it's certainly been worth it, irregardless of how efficient it is.

Odalis Perez has started 30, 31, and 32 games the past three seasons. A full season in a 5-man rotation is 32 starts.

The only injury-riddled season he's had with the Dodgers is this one, with 17 starts. That is a far cry from "10-15 starts a year."

I stand corrected as to Odalis Perez. This is indeed his first injury-riddled season. Let's hope he comes back strong in 2006.

It'd be interesting to read some sort of sabermetric analysis of why this is. I'd do it myself, but, well, I'm not smart enough.

Just from watching Weaver, he appears to be pitching high in the zone too much. He's always missing his target up, and from observation it looks like it's because he's overthrowing.

Of course, that theory could very well be complete hooey.