AUGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

My eyes!!!!!!!!

Seriously though, the Dodgers may be waiting longer to see Jae Seo pitch since I'm leaning toward picking Korea to make it to the semifinals.

They can't send a scout all the way to Southern California?

I think McCourt still has issues with Moreno over the name of the Angels so he keeps all Dodger personnel out of Anaheim unless necessary.

You would think the Dodgers would have had scouts in Tokyo to watch Seo, Park, Kuo and Hu play.

There is no better indicator of a pitcher's ability to get major leaguers out than his ability to get AA-leaguers out.

Yeah.

It's a tempting scenario for many people -- washed up veteran finds his magic for one more run. Many fans fall for this. Personally I'd much rather root for a rookie or a lesser-known player like Seo.

On another topic, I was just checking out UCLA, and they're doing well again. How far do they figure to go in the tournament?

I didn't realize they had a guy from Cameroon named Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. Threw me for a minute looking at the box score.

Love the last line though. "Seo is out of options, so he essentially has a roster spot locked up."

You have to really appreciate an article that gives an in depth expose only to render it all moot in the conclusion.

5 – "There is no better indicator of a pitcher's ability to get major leaguers out than his ability to get AA-leaguers out."

America could have used that versus Canada.

Wow, reading the last few threads I appear to have missed a high-energy day.

In other news, we sent another spaceship to Mars. Without drifting into the political ("is this a good way to spend our money"), I find it amazing that we can do this.

http://tinyurl.com/qq3d4

UCLA has two guys from Cameroon. Alfred Aboya is from Yaounde, Cameroon.

I still think UCLA will be fortunate to get out of the first weekend.

Meanwhile, Jon's aunt is still worried about the outcome of the UCLA-Cal game.

They didn't trade for Seo not to make the team. Sele is pitching well but he's just insurance that Seo/Perez don't get hurt in the WBC and that Penny's Sept troubles are behind him. Nothing wrong with having insurance in this day and age of fragile pitchers.

To bad about Meadows, that shows he has grit even though he has no stuff. I feel bad about making fun of his outing yesterday. It is easy to be snide and critical in print but the reality is this is someone's career who might be at the end of the road and the end of the best part of his life.

>> Sele, 35, has more Major League wins (137) than any pitcher in the Dodgers' camp.

This is the kind of meaningless stat I wish I would never read again. Gurnick wrote a Dodger capsule in the Sporting News Spring Training issue that ticked me off. Can't recall the details but he trashed the 2005 team without acknowledging the injuries etc.

Apologies to JtD, but I think this one is a keeper:

Joel Guzman, He hits the ball good.

I think UCLA gets to the Sweet 16 and depending on the draw might go one round deeper. Howland is a good coach compared to his predecessor.

I'd feel better about this UCLA team if Dave Immel and Charles Rochelin were on it.

UCLA has had a different high scorer in each game: Hollins, Collison and Farmar.

Somehow I think that Powe might end up being the MVP of the tournament since he had a 20 rebound game and a 41 point game.

If UCLA gets the 3 in the West they could be favored in the Oakland regional against a 2 seed. Best case they get a weak 2 like Gonzaga.

Seo is out of options, so he essentially has a roster spot locked up.

http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060311&content_id=1345102&vkey=spt2006news&fext=.jsp&c_id=la

So there are 11 pitchers who are out of options.
penny, lowe, perez, seo, tomko, gagne, brazoban, baez, carter, osoria, kuo.

So i take it that if the dodgers decide to carry 12 pitchers there is only 1 spot open for competition.

And does anyone know if hamulak has options?

Gurnick has never been a good writer and it bothers me that the 1st four letters of his last name are the same as mine.

More horrors from the Sele article...

"Any offense we get is a bonus."
   Grady Little

And this guy managed a team that scored 961 runs.

18
I know you said this before but where is the link that proves Osoria and Kuo are out of options. They both made their major league debuts in 2005. Just because someone said it here does not mean it is correct. I mean it might be, but I'd like a little proof.

21

I don't have proof.
I'd like the proof too.
I'm just going by what i heard from a couple people here.

Question tho, isn't it true that a player cannot be sent to the minors after 6 years of professional baseball (6 years either or both mlb and minors).

I'm ignorant when it comes to options.

From Rob Neyer's Transactions Primer:

"Options"
After three years as a pro, a player must be protected on a team's 40-man roster, or he is eligible for the Rule 5 draft (more on that later). Once he's served those three years, and assuming he is added to the 40-man roster, his club then has what are called "options" on him.

When a player is on the 40-man roster but not on the 25-man Major League roster, he is on "optional assignment." One common misconception about the rules is that a player may only be "optioned out" three times. Actually, each player has three option years, and he can be sent up and down as many times as the club chooses within those three seasons.

When you hear that a player is "out of options," that means he's been on the 40-man roster during three different seasons, beginning with his fourth as a pro, and to be sent down again he'll have to clear waivers (more on those below).

"Veteran Players"
Any player who has been in the major leagues for five full seasons may not be assigned to a minor-league team without his written consent. This sometimes puts the team in a bad position, because a player with five years has every right to say, "I don't want to go to New Orleans. You can either release me and keep paying me, or keep me on the major league roster and keep paying. Your choice."

i really dont understand this sele article. hes not going to make the 5th spot over seo.

seo pitched in over 90 innings in the bigs last yr with sub 3 era. Sele was released by the mariners.

..and they are going to give the 5th spot to whoever does the best in ST? against AAAA players in a small meaningless sample size??

i just cant believe right now that little or colletti are that retarded.

Brian Meadows would be a lot more useful than Sele. Allowing Sele to make the team is a move that Sabean would make.

Jon's aunt is still worried about the outcome of the UCLA game.

Ken Gurnick provides a sort of 800 word, expanded version of the message board.

23

Then according to that, since osoria and kuo haven't been subject to the rule 5 draft and have 6 seasons as a professional, they are out of options.

Correct?

24 I hope you're instincts are right. But why must Grittle torture us with "We know what he's capable of from his history. It's something you can't hardly ignore."? If that's his criteria we should give Sosa a look in LF.

Everything is really ok. Doesn't "can't hardly ignore" translate to "easy to ignore"?

ST is always a time to fluff up the prospects and the old savvy vets trying to make one last run at glory.

this is nothing new. or at least i hope so :-/

Right as in "Pedro's pitch count is something you can't hardly ignore."

We know what he's capable of from his history.

Grittle has spent a significant amount of capital trying to convince us to forget his history.

some sort of good news for viking fans.

vikes sign
ben leber
ryan longwell
chester taylor

not the premier FAs i was hoping for, its only been one day so far!

Good news for a Viking hater!
I weeded an extra copy of a Fran Tarkenton book from the library.

Tarkenton may go on my list, but he was retired from it.

What's the Tarkenton book? "That's Incredible Backstage Stories"?

Isn't Ryan Longwell a kicker?

yes steve.

and no, kickers arent the middle relievers of the NFL!

28 I believe Kuo was just added to the roster last September, and would have started his option years at that time. He's been left available in the rule 5 draft because he's always been injured, and no one wanted keep someone with 20 innings of professional ball on their roster all year. I could still be wrong though.

It's not like I'm Skip Bayless and advocate their execution, but kickers look like bell curve candidates to me.

#19-Where is there a nick in Cannon?

I like UCLA's chances in the tournament .NCAA games are lost and won by guard play.Farmar and Affalo can ball.I predict Arizona making a quick exit.They're soft inside.
How about Syracuse?They're playing like a team that can run all the way to the final four.There isn't an overpowering team this year.

If UCLA gets seeded highly, in a lucky bracket, they could well make it to the sweet sixteen. But, depending on the odds, I might like a piece of the one and done action. Has it ever happened that all Pac-10 entrants exited the tournament in the first round? I wonder what kind of odds I could get on that. . .

OT: It always surprises me how much I hate Madonna's music. I went out for a cup of coffee and forgot my headphones, so I'm sitting listening to what must be a Best Of CD. And it's wretched. It would be improved by having whoever recorded the theme song for the G.I. Joe cartoon cover it.

Aaron Sele is an attractive nuisance.

Well, attractive to Grady Little, I guess.

Osoria should have two option years left; last year was his first on the 40 man roster. I imagine Kuo probably spent at least one season on the DL, not the 40 man roster; I would think he has at least one option year left.

Aaron Sele is an attractive nuisance.

Excellent analogy.

Aaron Sele is an attractive nuisance

I once took a GRE prep class in which the instructor used the phrase "attractive distractor" to refer to a response that was intended to look like the correct response, but that was in fact an incorrect response.

Andrew just posted a New York Times article over on the List that claims that the Pirates were going to trade Barry Bonds to the Braves for...wait for it...Alejandro Pena.

In 1986, both Pac-10 teams in the NCAA tournament (Arizona and Washington) lost in the first round.

In 1985, four Pac-10 teams made the NCAA tournament and they all lost their first game: Arizona, Oregon State, Washington, and USC.

48- Isn't that great? Not just Pena, but him and Keith Mitchell (plus a PTBNL). The first three times I read the sentence, my brain inserted Kevin Mitchell, and I couldn't figure out how the Braves could have had him to trade.

My favorite part of the article is where Chass explains that, had the trade gone down, the Braves still probably wouldn't have won more WS rings, given Bonds's post-season statistics.

50 -- But who's to say...?

The Wyoming basketball coach has a haircut that could only look good if you lived in Wyoming.

Or Provo. Trust me.

53
Steve - (This may be a stupid question, but) are all BYU students Mormons?

Hey, I would resent that remark except I am rapidly losing enough hair to actually have a haircut.

54 No. Nearly all, but some of my students are not.

56
I take it you teach at BYU...?

57 Yes, computer science.

51- Good point.

Actually, Pena was a bit of a WS choker, his own self. Did well in the '88 series, but once he got to Atlanta, he lost his magic touch. 6 1/3 innings, 3 earned runs? That won't get it done, in big games.

I refer the right and honorable gentleman to the answer given some moments ago. Case study: Jim McMahon

We now return you to your normal page format, with the reminder that, when the link you wish to post is sixty thousand characters long, go ahead and tinyurl the sucker.

58
Forgive my nosiness, but I see that you worked at the UofO for a while. How'd you like it?

Overtime in Denver between Wyoming and San Diego State! The pageantry of the Mountain West Conference!

When it comes to the name Mountain West, I believe San Diego State qualifies under the "West" part.

And now ESPN has to go back and forth between the MWC final and the Big West final. I guess that since I live in Southern California, a game with Long Beach State in it is of local interest to me.

If Long Beach State wins, that means KCBS out here will have to carve out an exclusive time slot for the game and people in L.A. will have to watch the 49ers play their entire NCAA tournament game.

When it comes to the name Pacific-10, I believe Arizona and Arizona St. qualify under the "10" part.

Arizona: Only Pac-10 school to not play in the Rose Bowl
Arizona State: Only Pac-10 school not to win a conference championship in men's basketball nor make a trip to the Final Four.

Ken Gurnick provides a sort of 800 word, expanded version of the message board.

I'm convinced the Dodgers are influencing Gurnick's writing. I hope, for Gurnick's sake.

On the other hand, I'm pretty impressed with the house Dodgers blog. You're not going to get objectivity (and who would expect it), but they update it often and it is generally fun, absurd Plaschke suck-ups not withstanding.

The kids are watching Alice in Wonderland right now. I kid you not.

Not to derail the topic of the post, but is there any accepted explanation of how Erickson made, and stayed on, the team last year? Was it just hubris on DePo's part (Lima worked out; I must be infallible!)? Were his ST numbers (over 36 IP) really the reason? Just what was the theory, there? I understand he didn't want Edwin in the spot, but were 5th starters really at such a premium last off season, that he couldn't trade for one?

Looking at Erickson's numbers, he was much better in Las Vegas. K9 more than doubled, his HR9 fell off by nearly a third. He wasn't, um, good. Just not as bad. It's too bad retrosheet doesn't keep minor league boxscores. Letting Erickson strike you out has got to be a permanent Grabowski principle.

question:

is there a site that has stats for how much run support pitchers get? thanks...

I don't know why Erickson made the team, but he stayed on the team for as long as he did because of a series of well-timed injuries (from Erickson's perspective). Eventually Erickson's luck ran out and one phase of the 2005 nightmare ended.

47 - A couple of people from my high school reading this blog will remember Mr. Miller from chemistry, who had "plausible detractors" on his tests.

"Looks like it - but it ain't."

One day, an anxious kid in my class went up to Mr. Miller to see what grade he had gotten on a test. Mr. Miller looked and said that he had gotten a C. The kid was disappointed, and then Mr. Miller said, "No, you got an A." The kid was really relieved, and then Mr. Miller said, "You got an F." And laughed. And that time, he wasn't joking.

I struggled to get a B in that class.

69 - I think there was great hope that Edwin Jackson would grab the job, and then when he didn't, optimism that Erickson had one good year left in him because the memories of Lima and Alavarez were fresh.

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/sports/pirateslive/s_432453.html

The legend of Jim Tracy as OBP guru grows, and continues to be reported without irony:

"You have 27 outs in a game and the team that is collectively successful with their offensive approach is the one that maximizes their outs," Tracy said. "Make your outs count -- that's what we're preaching."

74
To be fair, every out the Dodgers made last year "counted." They all counted as one out.

"Make your outs count -- that's what we're preaching."
And this explains Jason Phillips at first, how?

Jon, that may be what you are saying, and that may be what the writer of the Pittsburgh column was saying, but that was not what Jim Tracy was saying.

The man is a baseball genius.

"You (need) a group of players that understand that in a given situation it's pretty important for (them) to try and put the ball in play -- not swing and miss."

It's the Pittsburgh Olneys

79 -- That's what Jim Tracy is saying.

77 - Yes, you're right. There are sort of two different threads of thought running through the article. The OBP part, and the profound "swing at a good pitch" part. I wrote about the first and then used a quote that talked about the second.

69. If I remember Erickson wasnt expected to stay with the team that long, but because of injuries (penny was working his way back and Odalis Perez was injured in ST)he made the rotation. He didnt last there all that long, but I do remember him being the last guy out of the bullpen for a long time, not that he pitched all that much. It seemed like he was on some fantasy camp where you get great seats and get to fly with the team to all the games, and occasionally you even get to pitch. I dont think they had anyone ready or able to step in and take his spot on the 25 man roster (Alvarez, Dessens and maybe Carrara were injured as well as Gagne, and Jackson was doing his best Erikson impersonation in Las Vegas). In hindsight, maybe they shouldve called up Osoria. At the time I thought they shouldve called by Aybar, because Valentin had gone on the DL, but Aybar had a trip to the DL himself right around that time. It was a pretty dark time for Dodger fans, and to think we had Mike Edwards and Phillips' 1B experiment to look forward to. Wow, Id really rather not reminisce about last season.

More good quotes from the MLB story:

"Today was a day to involve the group somewhat collectively," said Tracy, who has been working with a combination of different lineups this spring, in part because Major League Baseball rules stipulate that teams must send at least four regulars to road exhibition games. "You pick points in time here and there where it makes a lot of sense to get them together.

"It was an opportunity to put it together a little bit today and take a brief glimpse of what it has a chance of looking like."

Whatever

I think what Jimbo is saying is that he plans to have his team lead the league in sacrifice bunts.

76- Jim Tracy is the rare example of the Emperor's New Clothes, where the Emporer really thinks he sees the clothes. Jason Phillips was the theiving weaver.

84 -- They'll have to go through Colorado.

I think what Jimbo is saying is that he plans to have his team lead the league in sacrifice bunts.
Pointless bunting is a Pirates tradition. In 1990, Jay Bell lay down 39 sacrifices. The next year, Bell posted 30 sacrifice bunts. And these teams averaged 750 runs a season!

Pointless _______________ is a Pirates tradition. Let's see what Gary Burghoff said.

83 - Since when do we know how to underline?

87 - Imagine if those teams had had Alejandro Pena to close out games!

86- but Aaron Miles and Royce Clayton are no longer Rockies and I don't see Choo Freeman getting very much playing time.

"Gene I said late-season baseball"

90 -- As long as Clint Hurdle is around, there will be bunting a-plenty.

I forgot about Cory Sullivan, the left handed Repko...

88 - Drug abuse.

The definitive answer!

62 UofO was a good school to work for, if you could get around the politics of a state supported school. Having the state legislature decide which universities and which projects get funded is ... odd. Eugene is a fantastic place to live; it rains a lot but that adds up to amazing outdoor activities if you don't mind watching your kids play soccer in a pouring rainstorm each fall.

As a Stanford grad, one has to love this line about Cal in the LA Times:

"They haven't won a conference title of any kind since 1960."

97

That statement just meant that Cal hasn't won a regular season or conference tournament in men's basketball since 1960. Cal has won the Pac-10 in other sports since then, such as baseball and softball.

98 Well, yes, I took it out of context, since it was in an article on the tournament game today. It still sounds good.

Does Ken Rosenthal even follow baseball:

"The Red Sox's surplus of starting pitching almost certainly will lead to a trade, and the Yankees could be in a similar position if right-handers Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright stay healthy ... the Yankees currently boast seven starting options, eight if you count lefty swingman Ron Villone, nine if you count non-roster righty Scott Erickson, who has yet to allow an earned run in 6 1/3 innings this spring."

Mind you, two of the Yankee's other starters are Chacon and Wang.

As far as "old friend" Scott Erickson's concerned; the mark of a bad pitcher is that he throws scoreless ball in spring training.

This week's CSPAN2 book club book: The Lexus and the Olive Tree. A seven year old book on globalization. The panal: lefty isolationists. Sometimes I wonder if Brian Lamb hates me.

101 Update: Linda Brown, an Economics Professor, is also on the pannel, and doesn't seem to be an isolationist. Andrew Shimmin regrets the overly broad generalization.

I hear ya with the SelErickson reference, but why not SeLima or SAlvarez? All Erickson did was end the Dodgers' recent trend of getting quality innings from scrap-heap pitchers. If putting Sele on the 25 keeps the Dodgers from rushing someone like Billingsly, I'm all for it!

88-

Charles Nelson Reilly said "Contracts" (see Kevin Young, Pat Meares, etc.)

101 - That book is much less interesting now that he has written two others that are EXACTLY THE SAME...