And I would think that Joe Beimel, Andre Ethier and probably Ramon Martinez are locks too. I suppose they added Wilson Valdez to the 40-man roster for a reason so its possible that he could battle for that middle infield bench position. If Beimel wasn't going to make the club, I don't know why they would be going to arbitration with him.

I had the same conclusion about Lowe's contract, both his deal and Penny's deal look fine compared to similar priced contracts, both are only signed for 2 more years with a team option for Penny for 2009.

So hopefully this is a sign the Dodgers didn't give up much, but I would think Navarro and Guzman might have still made the Dodger lists if they stayed.

If this is true, does anybody remember the other 5?

I am curious as to see what this fitness program does for those 8 players.

2. i have higher hopes for nomar than kent.

There is a reason why the Devil Rays and D-Backs have a lot of prospects, they have had a lot of No. 1 picks plus they have been willing to pay the big bucks. Certainly you have still pick the right guys but while Loney, Billingsley, Elbert and Kershaw were all first round picks, its because of guys like Kemp, Martin, LaRoche, Meloan that have made the system what is today.

Navarro would have had too many at-bats to make the list, Baseball America still projects Navarro and Guzman to be in the regular lineup in 2010. I think the prognosis on Jackson and Tiffany are much more up in the air, you might want to keep watch on what they do with Edwin this spring because he will be out of options.

Not such a longshot in my mind would be for Loney to open at first.

And my pick to drive you guys crazy would be for Betemit to open in right.

As far as where some of the former Dodger prospects rank in other systems,

Guzman was 11th, which is still a drop since he was a top 20 prospect in all of baseball last year, Sergio Pedroza is 27th for the D-Rays, Tiffany was not in their top 30.

Julio Pimentel and Blake Johnson were 17th and 16th last year in a deep Dodger system, this year they are 17th and 18th in KC's system.

Jhonny Nunez was traded for Merlin Anderson and he is National's 14th best prospect.

Starting from Jon's Roster Lock list,

Randy Wolf has a one year deal though a second year is guaranteed if he pitches 180 innings.

Jeff Kent has a one year deal, a second guaranteed year if he has 550 PAs or a team option for 2008.

Luis Gonzalez has one year deal.

Olmedo Saenz has one year left on his contract.

Marlin Anderson has one year left on his contract.

Ramon Martinez has one year deal plus a team option for 2008.

Elmer Dessens has one year left on his contract.

Brett Tomko is in the second year of his two year contract with a mutual option for 2008.

BTW Tsao signed a contract for both an MLB or a Minor League assignment so he probably will be someone who Jon likes to consider being part of the grab bag for the bullpen later on in the season.

That is really sneaky though, because Saito has more innings pitched than any closer(tied with J.J Putz at 78.1). Gagne's 82.2 is amazing by the way.

Here are the closers with 20 saves and a lower ERA: K-Rod, B.J. Ryan, Papelbon,
Rivera and Joe Nathan. No one in the NL had a lower ERA with even 10 saves.

Until that is demonstrated as a fluke, Sammy is the closer!

Okay, I really need to go to work.

http://sportsblogs.latimes.com/sports_baseball_dodgers/2007/02/talking_with_lo_1.html

seanez could prove to be a safer bet as a one-inning middle reliever than tomko or dessens.

bigbie, healthy, could show some power in spring training and tempt the dodgers to carry him as part of an outfield rotation.

i may be in the minority, but i don't see players like laroche, miller, & meloan having any realistic chance of breaking camp with the big club.

http://guomania.blogspot.com/

if so, that would open up our bench to more offensive possibilities . . .

Er, anyone we gnow?

The news isn't about to get better for Selig any time soon. Bonds told the Giants this winter, through his agent, that he has no plans to retire—not after this season and probably not after next season, either.

As everybody knows, I am practically a Logan White groupie. But I have to be honest and confess that sometimes White says things that really disappoint me. For instance, in the new interview he is asked if there has been somebody he didn't think was good enough that turned out to be a quality player. White says that the biggest "miss" of his career was Fernando Vina, whom (in his first year as a scout) he allowed other scouts to talk him out of liking even though he initially liked him. I really hated reading that. First of all, note that he is not admitting to being wrong about a player. He is actually paying himself a compliment, as he says he was right about Vina and other scouts were wrong, and his only mistake was in not trusting his own opinion and letting other scouts' opinions influence him. That was a pretty arrogant response to a question that was asking him to admit some fault in PLAYER EVALUATION at least once in his career, not fault in the sense of not trusting himself enough. But the most fundamental problem with White's answer is that it is just factually incorrect. White has made a much bigger "miss" in terms of underestimating a player, especially considering that he didn't even admit to underestimating Vina at all.

On July 15, 2005, the San Diego Union-Tribune had an article that said the following: "General Manager Kevin Towers griped a few years ago that he allowed a scout, Logan White, now a well-regarded scouting director for the well-regarded Dodgers, to talk him out of drafting (Javier) Vazquez..." So, let me get this straight: asked to admit to one mistake in player evaluation in his whole career, White brings up Vina -- whom White carefully notes he was NOT wrong about, but other scouts were -- and says nothing about completely dropping the ball on a player who turned out to have a much bigger impact in the majors than Fernando Vina? A big enough mistake that White's GM at the time, Towers, was still "griping" about it nearly a decade later? Has White forgotten about this, or is he just too embarrassed to want to admit to it? White has surely done enough in his career to make up for that, so he really shouldn't try to conceal that he not only seriously underestimated a player, but his error had a direct, adverse impact on the team that employed him as a scout.

43
Good point. The "creative" process is much of the fun...

I didn't much of pattern to indicate what if any influences Logan White had over this draft, they drafted both college and high school pitchers prior to Vazquez going in the middle of the 5th round. All I can say is that White must have protested pretty strongly because Towers certainly had 3 picks (3rd, 4th and 5th) to pick him before he was gone.

Who was that 3B, Troy Glaus, imagine if he was there, no Ken Caminiti, no Sean Burroughs, we'll never know.

On a major league level the opposite is true. The contracts are so much bigger and the track record is so much more established, that success is far more likely. Thus, bad Free Agent contracts are far worse than missing out on signing Free Agents.

Your olive oil should be fine once it's thawed out.

White bears responsibility for his draft CHOICES, but most of his choices on draft day are inevitably going to be based on his scouts' evaluations, not his own personal evaluations. No scouting director has the time to look at every available player in the draft. I am sure White has seen anybody he takes in the first couple rounds, but after that, who knows. I do know he personally "discovered" Matt Kemp in 2003 and took him in the 6th round.

And while 2002 3rd rounder Nixon was a definite bust, I don't think that 2003 5th rounder Jordan Pratt was misevaluated, or is beyond hope yet. You aren't going to get a sure thing in the 5th round, and Pratt was a hard-throwing high schooler who was very raw when he was drafted. The Dodgers surely had no illusions about how raw he was. Pratt still throws very hard -- reaching 97 MPH -- but control and the art of pitching are things he has either not learned or they are coming along slowly. I think Pratt at this point looks like Zach Hammes before this year, whom everybody, including me, wrote off as a bust. In 2006 Hammes finally turned into a legitimate prospect four years after he was drafted as a hard-throwing but raw high school hurler. Pratt could be on the verge of the same transformation, and on the same timetable as Hammes -- four years after he was drafted.

Phew. But it may take a while.

Both Kemp and 30+ rounds later, Andy LaRoche, were drafted after Pratt in the 2003 draft.

will answer all of your olive oil chemistry questions!

Our olive oil (the Whole Foods 365 brand) currently looks like that photo in the middle of the page. Kinda like split-pea soup.

Best guest star ever.

Meanwhile, any other movies with two?

I didn't click the link. But do we really live in a world in which animals are "ish" -- I mean, someone knows just exactly what kind of animal was caught.

Don't we deserve better?

We were a pretty good team last year. Hopefully our pitching will be even better this year (historically good is my hope), but last year was nothing to sneeze at.

Meanwhile, Defamer has been casting the Astronauts Love Triangle movie.

Gary Coleman and Mary Cary both tried, of course, but neither was elected and I don't think they were ever in any films together.

But did he ever appear in a movie with another future Governor or is Predator unique.

I mean, of course Predator is unique in a whole bunch of ways, but I'm thinking about just this particular one right now.

What I find interesting is, T3 was released during the guvernator's run and Arnold has released two more movies since he has been in office! How can you vote for someone who is killing people willy-nilly on the big screen (not to mention a semi-nude scene)?

My Fact of the Day email also claims its Babe Ruth's, Bob Marley's, and Axl Rose's birthday.

And 87 was written before seeing 86 and was not a response.

Course, there's variation in the degree to which Americans consider "American" to be a compliment

"You know, back in the winter when I made mention of that it was before we signed Luis Gonzalez and with his addition, I think that kind of inks in Nomar hitting third, Kent fourth and then Luis. The one and two hole, in whichever order they hit, those guys will create a lot of excitement."

Dodger production from the #5 spot in 2006:

.311/.385/.537/.921

Good luck, LuGo

February 6th, 2007...Greatest day ever?

http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=243

Washington, D.C.: I heard Nowak was to return to the shuttle in March. Is this now on hold?

Michael Cabbage: Nowak was not scheduled to fly on the Shuttle in March. She was, however, planning to be a "capcom," for the next flight. A capcom is an astronaut at Mission Control in Houston who talks to the crew in orbit. I would be very surprised if she is still the capcom for the next mission.

Yes, Michael, I too would be surprised if she were to serve as capcom for the next shuttle mission.

(at washingtonpost.com)

"We don't want either one of them [furcal & pierre] to get too much out of character just because of where they're hitting in the order, like the No. 2 hitter taking too many pitches so the leadoff guy can steal bases."

does this mean pierre may bat 2nd but not be pressured into taking pitches? or does it mean furcal will bat 2nd and be aggressive early in the count?

the other possibly telling line was this:

"Last fall, Billingsley and Hendrickson were outstanding coming out of the bullpen and neither one of them had much experience either."

every time little uses "billingsley" and "bullpen" in the same sentence, i start to wonder . . .

Jon, in case you didn't see the email, no hurry.

So when can we reasonably expect Yhency to return? I've been thinking about whether or not Saito can repeat last year.

DT, and it's notions has been on my mind alot lately. On the subject of hazardous sports, I've been trying to come up with why it's ever OK to do something inherently risky. For instance, I myself am very happy in a race car, even knowing I could die at any moment (possibly from no fault of my own (mechanical) as opposed to my own stupidity). I think I feel most alive then, sort of like Burt Munro saying he lives more in 5 minutes than most in a lifetime. If I had my life to live over, the one thing that I'd do differently is commit ealier and harder to making a living at it. And I envy the people that can do that young, whether they succeed or fail. All this comes from the football discussion and just now reading Logan White. Sort of the "do what you love thing, 'cause you could get hit by a car tomorrow" philosophy. Anyway, I appreciate everyone's viewpoints.

I felt exactly the same way about "Gonzo", an affectionate nickname and the name of a beloved character in film/television.

However, most folks around here don't get warm and fuzzy at the mention of "LuGo", and I feel comfortable using it.

Space Cadet, I pledge my heart to thee.

http://w3t.org/c/grittle

Aha! That explains the crunchy pizza in Northern Nevada.

Meanwhile, any other movies with two?

The Running Man, although it was the same two future governors. As for a third future governor from that movie, I'm gonna go with either Professor Toru Tanaka or Dweezil Zappa.

Now isn't that a little bit harsh? Either way, I'll have it stuck in my head all season, but still:

Dodgers 5-hitter slugging percentage in 2006: .537

Julio Lugo's Dodgers OPS: .545

http://w3t.org/c/wallaby

I too have never been to facebook.

I was just passing as a facebooker.

If it wasn't for "Diaper wearing murderous astronaut" and "Hatchet throwing boxer" Sam would have the unique quote of the day. Well, after "Todd Bozeman ham sandwich rampage."

Bozeman and Bobby Knight should go out for beers some time.

CSUN won.

UCLA fans were ready to throw punches at Steve Lavin.

My favorite was losing to Athletes in Action or the EA sports team or whatever intramural NBA reject squad we lost to. That was awesome!

You should be sorry you mentioned that.

Joe Mays! The operative word is "ugh".

Of course, if Mays is still on the team when that happens, I won't be alive to see it.

I was shocked to see that Damian Jackson was an NRI.

Maybe Joe Mays was signed to provide pitching depth in the minors? I really don't see starting pitching being a major area of need though.

Rotoworld said he'd be in the starting rotation at AAA.

Btw, just to make it official - Letters from Iwo Jima is indeed much, much better than Flags of Our Fathers. In case you're keeping score at home. (But each worth seeing, close together.)