But what if grit contributed to his awesome performance...

Think about it.

I have a feeling we're going to be doing a lot of "20th anniversary of [seminal moment from 1988]" this year.

I absolutely cannot believe it's been two decades since that season. My God, where have the years gone?

1 - I'm sure it did, so I don't need to think about it.

By the way, in case you missed it, there's a Mike Lieberthal Retires post under this one.

2 I have a feeling we're going to be doing a lot of "20th anniversary of [seminal moment from 1988]" this year

August 20 will be the 20th anniversary of Gibson scoring from 2nd on a wild pitch.

http://tinyurl.com/2ek9pd

Looking at that Baseball Prospectus list, I forgot Ron Gant played 2B when he came up.

5
Ron Gant stood in the general vicinity of second base with a glove to be more precise.

6
Speaking of standing in the general vicinity of a position, Bobby Bonilla played 3B!

Brando was admitted to the hospital on Monday, and had been expected to make a full recovery.

Seems like someone was off a bit in their expectations.

8
Scrubs taught me that 1 in 3 who enter a hospital will die in it. I've seen nothing since to believe they made it up.

We just got our 1-6 Scrubs DVD. We've already watched season one so as the rains break out we are set for the weekend. Popcorn, brownies, christmas cookies, chocolates, and Ben & Jerry cartons will be keeping us company.

Scrubs taught me that 1 in 3 who enter a hospital will die in it

I wonder how many of those 33% wouldn't have died if they hadn't entered the hospital.

Scrubs marathons are great, especially through the first 3 seasons.

re free agency:
i don't remember walter o' as a guy who went in for fads. but i think the success he had with gibson turned him into a mini steinbrenner, west-side... at least for a little while... of the top 11 VORP players in 1988, six eventually played for the dodgers (gibson, strawberry, davis, k. daniels, b. bonilla and b. butler)...

1988 was the first season that I actually remember following baseball, I was 10 years old and while I have a passing rememberance of Steve Garvey, it Kirk Gibson that made me a true baseball fan. It's hard to believe it's been that long, but hey, it could have been much worse - the Dodgers could have been swept by the Mets, or not even won the NL West. And then the last 20 years would have made us just like the Brewers.

6 , 7 - kind of like Jeff Kent, circa 2008?

Walter O'Malley had little to do with the 1988 season. Other than siring Peter years earlier.

Gonzo is being interviewed during Wazzu/ASU game. He said that he would likely play for Florida and he has moved on from Arizona.

Luis Gonzalez is in the ASU student section at the ASU-WSU hoops game. He was just interviewed and said Florida was the frontrunner to sign him, and he did not sign terribly excited.

At least I was beaten to the punch by a fellow Raider fan.

16

If he wants to play everyday that's the place to go. If he wanted a lesser role he could probably sign with a more competitive team one would think.

Maybe Al Davis wants Gonzo to coach the Raiders.

11
I wish I still had my "Triple Threat" poster, featuring the 1992 outfield of Davis, Butler, and Strawberry.

19
I am still holding out hope for Steve Finley.

20 - https://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/244056.html

9 Even though Scrubs is one of my favorite shows, I can't rationalize buying all the seasons at $40 a pop. I'd probably skip season 6 though, that one was pretty awful.

"Former Dodgers catcher Mike Lieberthal took the field for F.C. Mia, but his big moment came before the game.

" 'Elisabeth Shue has a locker right next to me," Lieberthal said. "I'm really excited, because I loved her in "Sideout." '

"Colletti put his footwork on display early in the first quarter, rolling on the turf after trying to corral a ball near the sideline at midfield. He bounced up and played on, saving most of his moves for player acquisition, no doubt."

http://tinyurl.com/2oky22

I was driving by a community college today & couldn't help but notice the college team practicing, so I stopped to check them out, the sun was out & it was windy but still a very nice day. It's just cool watching them practice on there DP (so effortless & smooth) & the pitcher throwing heat there catcher had a gun also, it was just beautiful.

ps I just rarely notice those things cause I'm always on competitive mode, noticing all the wrong things there doing instead of just sitting back & enjoying the great athleticism of theres, it was just great!!

Tiger leads by 8 after three rounds. I guess he can just walk the course tomorrow.

Pac-10 Scoreboard
Arizona 84, Washington 69 - final
Stanford 31, California 30 - halftime
Arizona State 29, Washington State 27 - halftime
USC at Oregon, 6 p.m.
UCLA at Oregon State, 8 p.m.

22 Wow, reading the old comments is really entertaining. I can't believe people wanted to move Martin to the outfield!

28 and Bob said something nice about Russ Ortiz!

and CanuckDodger is a soothsayer: "Loney will be a fixture at first base starting in 2007"

28 - Tough loss that day.

How is the Stanford/Cal game not on television in the Bay Area? I hate the sports coverage here.

29

I wonder if there's any comments were he says something nice about Frank Robinson.

I was looking at Hershiser's numbers from 1988, and I always have been perplexed a to how he had an essentially identical season in 1989 yet only went 15-15. He probably should have won the CYA (he finished 4th; it went to Mark Davis).

Hershiser was 14-8 with a 2.40 ERA after beating the Braves and a 22 year old Jon Smoltz on August 8. Amazingly, in his final 10 starts, Hershiser went 1-7 in spite of allowing a 2.10 ERA and only 1 HR in 73 IP. The Dodgers had a stretch during this period during which they didn't score for Orel in 34 straight innings.

4 - I was at that game against the Expos-it was Hollywood Stars night. I remember seeing him tearing around 3rd and yelling -he's not stopping-he's going for it! Man that was exhilirating!! Then to top it off by being at Game one of the WS that year with the shot off Eck - 1988 could not have ended more perfectly. Thank you Gibby for a wonderful year of great BB memories!!

Frank Robinson is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

Did you type that with your fingers crossed?

Orel also pitched 7 scoreless innings in relief in the 22-inning loss in Houston in 1989, on 2 days rest!!

https://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/889332.html

That game was only one of two 22-inning contests for the 1989 Dodgers (they also beat the Expos 1-0 on August 23). Hershiser also pitched 7 scoreless innings in that game, although in a starting capacity.

To tie this into the subject at hand, Kirk Gibson went 2 for 6 with a HR and a walk in Houston, and didn't play in Montreal. His replacement in LF against the Expos, Lenny Harris, had 5 singles in 9 AB.

38
In the August 23, 1989 game, the Dodgers set a major league record by playing 22 innings and not having one batter draw a walk.

"Colletti, who played soccer at Northern Illinois University, said he got into the game as a child "when nobody was playing and I was on the only team in town, before the time when there were leagues and leagues."

Ok, I've read and re-read that like 10 times and can't make sense of it.

Once more into the breach...
It seems that there is a trend now that after each primary or caucus for the losers to congratulate the winner.

So on February 5 how will that work. Does each candidate make a checklist.

Candidate A: "Hey, Candidate B, congratulations on winning states X, Y, and Z"
Candidate B: "Thank you A, congratulations on winning Q, W, and J."

40
I think he meant there was not the proliferation of youth soccer leagues when he was growing up as there are today (AYSO, JUSA, etc).

40
When Ned Colletti was a kid, there was just one organized soccer team in his town and it likely had a hard time finding other teams to play.

But now, there are usually multiple soccer leagues for kids to play in.

Just a jpeg of a Dodger player in 2007 game action:

http://tinyurl.com/33lbpk

Nice to know that Furcal was playing at 2nd base in Dominican Winter League. Some scouting reports suggests that Kuroda needs a strong defense.So it would be a good idea to give Kent a day off when he pitches, Furcal could play at 2nd and Hu at short.

Using +/- (+1 for a road win, -1 for a home loss, 0 for a road loss or home win), here are the adjusted Pac-10 standings (before USC-Oregon & UCLA-OSU games):

WSU +3 (5-2 actual record)
UCLA +2 (5-1)
Stanford +1 (5-2)
USC +1 (3-3)
Arizona 0 (4-3)
Wash. 0 (3-4)
Oregon 0 (3-4)
ASU -1 (4-3)
Cal -3 (2-5)
OSU -3 (0-7)

WVU Georgetown game ended on one of those impossible "blocked shot or goaltending" calls that went GTs way at WVU.

WVU coach was steaming angry, and I don't what the crowd was doing (sound off for sleeping kids) but a line of West Virginia Troopers immediately filled the center of the court.

45
That would require Hu to be on the big club, which is a remote possibility. More than likely, Abreu will play 2B when Kent gets time off.

Also on blogads, the Ayn Rand dating service drew some comment.

45
Also, a big reason why Furcal was playing 2B was that Miguel Tejada was playing SS for Aguilas.

Reading that thread from 2005 reminded me of what a miserable season that was.

Gibson signing with the Dodgers is not a pleasant memory for me as a Tiger fan. He was one of the most exciting players I ever followed.

Lee

I enjoyed the 2005 season. I learned about the losers dividend that year. It changed my life.

Choi arguments were more enjoyable than Pierre arguments.

Ah, those old comments...

Steve, where have you gone? We deeply miss your pith. And vinegar.

50 Also, IIRC, he felt the shorter throws would be better for his arm while playing winter ball. I don't think we'll see him at 2nd base during the regular season.

Interesting: Hu is perhaps not the most immediately useful. It may be argued that Young and Abreu could be slightly better offensive players in the next few years. But Hu has a much higher ceiling, as BA and some prospect pickers agree. No one denies that he is going to be a good SS, and defense is important when you are not playing fantasy.

55

I think we can safely assume that.

Furcal has one of the strongest arms I have ever seen. The injuries that made him so ineffective last year didn't seem to affect that fact. I have wondered how he might do as a relief pitcher myself.

Looking at D-Youngs #'s & Jason Repko's #'s, Delwyn Young is the better hitter but Repko's overall game gives the Dodgers more flexibility, we'll see how that little saga plays out. I'm just glad they kept Repko around as insurance, smart move by Ned & the gang.

The weirdest thing about finding out that OJ Mayo's father was arrested in West Virginia was discovering that his father's name is Kenny Ziegler.

Kenny Ziegler?

Baseball Musings has some interesting comments made by Brian Cashman regarding Torre's mancrush on PVL Bernie Williams. Worth a read, to be sure.

59 I'm just glad they kept Repko around as insurance

We're on opposite ends here. :-) Repko scares me whenever I see him in the outfield next to any Dodger except Juan Pierre. Frankly, I wouldn't lose any sleep if I never saw Repko in the Dodgers outfield again.

60
Even weirder is this article, which doesn't mention Mayo until the last sentence of the article.

http://tinyurl.com/2zlkg6

I wouldn't call Mayo a "superstar" yet, but he's certainly well known enough to elicit a headline of something like "O.J. Mayo's Father Arrested", instead of "Huntington Man Arrested..."

62 I think I get where you are coming from, so I woudn't mind seeing him play next to JP. Rep is so like a dog going after a frisbee that I can't help but like him!

60

Who knows what's up with that. I have some what of a similar issue in that I'm going with the wrong last name my self, I was hung over when I went to the DMV & decided to go with my mothers last name instead of my Dads (Don't ask why, my only excuse is that I was still kind of drunk when I went to the DMV) I still get an ear full from mom when ever the subject comes up, & it's also pretty annoying at work because I'm going with the wrong last name.

Don't know how I picked up this obsession with the Godfather trilogy, but its on A+E
and I just saw the scene where poor Fredo said "I'm smart". What can I do?

USC playing give away in Eugene.

Free basketball in Eugene!

USC and Oregon going into overtime after a last second lay-up by Bryce Taylor tied it up for Ducks.

62

Yeah that's true, the most likely scenerio is that Repko will play in Vegas & Delwyn Young will make the big club, but we must remember that Repko has had great ST threw out his career, so who knows.

Now that this game delays me from seeing UCLA/Oregon State, I must sit in agony wondering whether UCLA can muscle up to the powerful Beavers.

71
In L.A., we get to see both!

Both teams have already called timeouts in the first three minutes.

Timmermann's Law: First team to take a lead of four or more points in overtime wins!

A three barrage in Oregon to start OT!

I am going out now, so now I will not get to see either game.

I need Prime Ticket!!!

73
One of these days, I'm going to research an entire NBA season to test the validity of Lawler's law.

USC blew a 10-pt lead with 2:30 left in regulation. An 8-point lead in OT should be no problem for Oregon. Oops, did I say 8? I meant 5!

SC sweeps in Oregon. Sweet.

71

Likely not:)

Rob Reiner casts a vote for the kids. This may have been mentioned before but I just saw the Bucket List and there is a scene where Jack Nicholson is watching a Dodger game. The dialog stops and only Vin can be heard and the screen shows a clip of Matt Kemp driving in a run against the Giants. It clearly wasn't random.

BTW, the movie was much better than I expected. Best line of the movie:

Here's something to remember when you're older - never pass up a bathroom, never waste a hard-on, and never trust a fart.

That last one is right up there with the Golden Rule.

Hey, at least here's this:

"When Oregon State briefly took a first-half lead against UCLA (No. 7 ESPN/USA Today, No. 8 AP), the Bruins realized they should have taken the Beavers a little more seriously."

I can't wait until baseball season.

23
Thanks to Ebay we got the whole set for 81.00. Bidnapper wins again.

Has anyone thrown the outlet passer better then Love? Wes Unseld?

- 2005 was pretty much the best season ever at Dodger Thoughts, er, Suns Thoughts. There will never be anything else like that, mostly because we'll never have a minor league team that good again. The '05 Suns will, I think, replace the 1970 Spokane Indians as the greatest farm team in Dodger history.
(The '70 Indians were picked by Baseball America as the best minor league team of the second half of the 20th century. However, they were strangely left off MiLB.com's list of the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time. Instead, that list picked the 1981 Dukes as the greatest team in the latter half of the 20th century.)

- I would be really ticked off if I were Bob Huggins. Criticizing that call was worth a fine. He should have let loose.

- Oregon should have beaten USC in regulation, because Bryce Taylor was blatantly smacked in the face by Taj Gibson when he hit the tying shot. In college basketball, why does a whole different set of rules take effect in the last 30 seconds of the game? What good does that do anybody? Why not just have a good set of rules and, you know, follow them?

- Thank you, Jon, for pointing out how freaking awesome Kirk Gibson was. He's somehow become the poster boy for guys who won undeserved MVPs due to grit and hustle, but statistically he was among the best too.

Plaschke has a classic up, though D4P may like it. Brady isn't bloody enough to be a great quarterback. The rules made him what he is. Just like A-Rod!

I didn't even know Otto Graham won seven championships. Yes that is a Plaschke classic!

Under normal conditions, the enemy of Tom Brady is my friend.

But there are exceptions.

I'm guessing FJM will review Plasschke's latest.

It is clear from that old thread that I had a lot of time on my hands in 2005.

And anger.

86
What happened to your time..?

I hope this isn't a rule 5 violation, but the rap on the Vote Obama link is pretty sweet.

That Plaschke article is too dumb for words.

That reminds me, Will Leitch's new book just went on sale. I browsed through it yesterday, and it's really good.

87

I was between jobs then. And the job I had before moving north consisted of me commenting on DT about 80% of my day.

I have lots of weekend time on my hands now, though.

I have lots of weekend time on my hands now, though

Nothing a Filipina can't solve.

90

You were a pretty good ball player Icaros, why not join a sunday league team, the camaraderie alone is worth the effort & if you join a really good team even better.

re: Plaschke

Like the NY vs Boston column linked in FJM, this is a pretty blatant attempt to bait Brady fans.

Not much else to say...

pretty blatant attempt to bait Brady fans

Plasschke tries so hard to be controversial, but it falls flat. His mechanizations are too obvious, not to mention too stupid.

Ugh. I had misspelled "machinations", and then accidentally chose the incorrect suggested spelling.

91

Tell me about it.

92

I played in the Sunday men's league in Long Beach a few years ago. It was pretty fun, but always rather disorganized. It kinda made me miss Little League, when we had real uniforms and our parents were in the stands taking things way too seriously.

a lot of teams are very disorganized but there are a few teams that aren't (the organized teams usually are pretty crummy) there's this one team that is organized & pretty good, we're fighting them for 1st place this year, a few of those guys played on our team (there catcher, 3rd baseman & CF'er) when I say organized I mean that they all wear matching Uni's, that's it.

Looking at the front page of Dodgers.com I wish SooHoo or Ocampo would have taken pics of the Mia Hamm/Garciaparra soccer challenge, sounds like they had a blast.

Speaking of brilliant writing, Sarah Morris somehow still has the authority to post articles on Dodgers.com. Her article about the Dodgers' 3B history, she includes this gem:

Before Spring Training in 2001, Beltre underwent a botched appendectomy in the Dominican Republic. At 20, without the generosity of Bob Daly, who was president and CEO at the time, Beltre probably would have died

I don't get how Bob Daly saved Beltre's life. That is a very odd passage.

99 - Did Daly fly Beltre to the U.S. for treatment? I don't know.

Looks like Beltre came back for ST, as usual, so, no special flight. Maybe Daly was especially insistent that a guy who couldn't eat sold food, and had a bag taped to his side, full of unpleasant stuff collecting from a shunt needed further medical attention, but I bet more than one eyebrow raised over that. Maybe Daly's generosity was in permitting the team doctor to have a look at him? Paying for good medical coverage, instead of Schruting it?

Bad idea: I had the idea that if I left my TV on in my bedroom that I would be able to see bits and pieces of the Australian Open final.

I ended up missing most of the match until it was over and then couldn't get back to sleep.

102
"So I figured, when's the next time I'm going to be in Haiti?"

I'd say we need to get Tom Cruise to get the Gitmo flight logs and determine when the first flight out was. Could we handle the truth.

100 Even if he did, it's still a ridiculous statement.

What a great post!! My Pee Chee folder in high School had a pic of Gibson on the field, looking up at the crowd with a Budweiser, after winning the WS. What a player. What a leader. If all 2008 Dodgers played the game as he did we would win the WS for sure.

If all the 2008 Dodgers played the game like Kirk Gibson, the pitching staff would have problems.

93 , sort of

I feel like I've been baited. I've been tricked into thinking the Lakers were actually good again. It might be more like last year.

When will I learn?

Jones or Hunter?

>> Guillen, who played with Jones in Atlanta, said Jones was currently the best defensive center fielder in baseball. <<

http://tinyurl.com/yss3my

The Lakers would be playing better if I could have attended the game.

re 83

Plaschke's thinking:

Hmm...lets see, er...oh I've got it!

Tom B*r*ady

Alex *R*odriguez

I have established a connection!

108
Geez, they are missing a key person on their team. When you don't have depth an injury to Bynum or Kobe or Lamar is going to have repercussions.
Last year, Bynum just hit a wall, this year he was hurt, the end result is the same but how they got there are completely different.
Laker fans should be quite excited about 2008/2009.

108 I feel like I've been baited. I've been tricked into thinking the Lakers were actually good again. It might be more like last year.

The way Bynum was improving they were actually good. And now they do in fact look more like last year.

112 Or what ToyCannon said. :-)

112 Laker fans should be quite excited about 2008/2009.

Actually, I could get excited about 2007/2008 again if Bynum recovers well from his injury.

112

Actually I am pretty excited about '08-'09, but I think the hardest part is/was having four guys injured in Bynum/Radmonovic/Ariza/Mihm.

I think in truth, it's just timing. The fact is that Bynum hit a freak injury right when the Lakers were about to hit their most grueling stretch of the season. Like TC said, if Bynum comes back 100%, they could be darn good!

Incidentally, the Lakers just tied the game :)

-- oh yea, that,plus, we're not the Miami Heat

:D

These players carry heavy burdens in '08

>> 9. Andy LaRoche, 3B, Dodgers <<

http://tinyurl.com/22b59m

Lakers are getting a gift with the time on the clock.

I'm retired but I could really use some extra cash. I'm thinking of applying for a job as Shaq's babysitter.

Value of the Shaq trade is clear

>> And now his personal life is blowing up in a very public way as divorce proceedings leak out details of an extravagant lifestyle. (Uh, $26,500 a month in babysitters? ... $24,300 a month on gasoline?) <<

http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_8090739

Separated at birth: The Cavs' Z. Ilgauskas and "Fargo" killer Peter Stormare.

Ah well, that game wasn't meant to be I guess. Nice Laker comeback, poor effort at the buzzer. As I said before, if they can play slightly above .500 ball 'til Bynum returns, I'll feel confident enough. But the Western Conf is murder.

Going to the Warriors-Knicks game tonight with my dad, a humbled lifetime Knicks fan. Should be fun to watch. For at least a half.

The Lakers are in the middle of the toughest part of their season.

Here's who they have played so far in this stretch. Brace yourself:

at Seattle, W
Phoenix, L
Denver, W
at San Antonio, L
at Dallas, L
Cleveland, L

still to go

New York (Just because it's New York, I expect a close game)
at Detroit
at Raptors
at Wizards
at Nets
at Hawks
at Magic

Every team on that upcoming road trip (except the Hawks) is a legitimate playoff contender.

By the way, since the Jan 9th game against the Hornets, the Lakers gave up more than 95 points in every game played up to now.

Staggering?

Lakers arent a lock for the playoffs at all. Very tough schedule, a stacked Western Conference---they'll be around the 7th/8th seed much like last season.

120 I have a very difficult time believing that Shaq spends $24,300 per month on gas. At $3 a gallon, that's 8000 gallons, which would get you 80,000 miles of travel at a gas-guzzling 10 MPG (does even a Hummer get mileage that bad?) This comes out to 2500+ miles a day.

A day.

Clearly Shaq does not do the equivalent of a cross-country drive every day. Even 250 miles a day, every day, is a LOT. And he'd have to be staffing 10 people, all driving at that rate? I don't buy it.

Everyone likes to know where someone was when something important happens. I was 50 years old separated from my wife and kids, living with a women 8 years younger than I, in an apartment in Brooklyn. BTW she was crazy about Gibson, he reminded her of a guy she went out with, until she seen him without a hat. She was sleeping on the couch. I was sitting on the floor watching the game. After beating the Mets in the NLCS, I was just happy they were in the WS. Like most people, I quess, I was just waiting for the game to end. Gibson looked like he was just prolonging it. Then BOOOM, I made such a racket, I scared the hell out of my girlfriend and the landlord almost called the cops. Well I thought you'd like to know.

My sons were members of the Cub Scouts when we took the Pack out to a Dodger game. Our seats were in the left field pavillion. It was a chilly evening. I was eager to see Gibson play.
Gibson was on deck for his first at bat. Something happened with a call by the Home Plate Umpire that got Gibson upset. Gibson became so enraged that he slammed his bat down onto the on deck circle and was ejected form the game by the Home Plate Umpire.
The remainder of the game was cold and uneventful for me. I think the Dodgers lost.

I was never one of those who criticized the Lakers for trading Shaq. It was obvious that, while you might be able to squeeze out another championship out of him, in just a few years he'd be the most overpaid player in the league and a huge albatross.

For a team like the Heat, they might consider it worthwhile. But the Lakers have won plenty of championships, and it wasn't worth keeping him.

Apparently Bedard is a Mariner. Adam"not pac-man" Jones an Oriole.

128

The Heat may have found it worthwhile, but it sure doesn't help Miami's reputation of being "the one year wonder" sports city.

See: Marlins, Florida, 1997

I hope I have decent enough syntax above.

130
Weren't the Marlins a two-hit wonder...? I seem to remember them winning twice.

Or so says the MLBTR feed in my google reader...

The Seattle Times's house blogger says the same thing.

http://tinyurl.com/38onxp

USS Mariner is not pleased.

http://ussmariner.com/

You're right, D4P, but those two championship teams were two completely different teams. The '03 team was built with the help of youth. I singled out the '97 team as a team a mercenaries.

The Marlins are a weird franchise...

How is Jones's defense? I thought I remembered his being a CF, but it looks like he was playing a lot of LF, last year.

A.Jones was quite popular on NW/Seattle sports talk radio.

Will the Mariners let Morse play RF, or are they going to need a replacement? Ichiro in RF, and Pierre in CF could be just the ticket! Pierre might well be an upgrade from their current #2 hitter. And it would hardly cost anything--their backup catcher, say. . .

Just got back from USS Mariner. I had no idea their franchise was in that state of affairs.

Two years ago I thought the M's were on the up and up. How would folks on DT evaluate Adam Jones?

Let me check baseball-reference...

Hmm... interesting.

139 -- As a young talent, Adam Jones is on the same level as Matt Kemp, and some would take Jones over Kemp (possibly myself included).

This deal for Seattle is like the one we were all fearing Colletti would make this off-season, but didn't: a short-sighted move for a proven quality player at the expense of far greater upside in the near future. I wouldn't have traded Adam Jones for Bedard straight up, and no doubt other young talent is going to Baltimore.

From a glance, it appears that Jones swings a very big stick. His plate discipline could use some work but he tore the cover off the ball at every level of the minors. Kemp has produced at the big league level, something Jones has yet to do, albeit in very limited action.

If that trade is for real, it officially ends the great what-team-can-we-shop-Pierre-to? navel gaze of 2008.

Cold reality is finally setting in. Juan Pierre will be a Dodger all season long.

142- Pierre to Seattle for Jeff Clement is a perfectly cromulent fantasy scenario, thank you very much.

124 - the scary thing about the west right now is that the difference between the first seed and the sixth seed is 3.5 games. And the fifth and sixth seeds have a better record than the 4th. Even being the seventh or eighth seed this year, won't necessarily be a bad thing... if Bynum is healthy. The Suns can't defend him inside, as we saw earlier in the year, and against anybody, he adds a ton of defense. We could, realistically, look at 7-8 in the western conference finals.

RIP Gordon B. Hinckley

126 I think I can understand, having been through a somewhat similiar situation(although very different). What is amazing is that being a D's fan can be of overriding importance no matter what else happens.

ITS OFFICIAL D's get SANTANA For HU,ABREU and McDonald.

Only kidding, but I've never been so bored in an off season. I'm sorry. This is unlike me; I must have off-season fever. I would be unhappy, Twins fans would also be unhappy
Nobody would feel good. Sorry.

I think Jones and Clement are very good comparisons for Kemp and LaRoche (consider Clement's position and how much of a pitchers park Tacoma is). If it's just one of them straight up for Bedard, good deal, albeit one that's futile when trying to keep up with the Angels if you're the Mariners, the team just isn't that good.

If it's anything else, terrible move.

146 but I've never been so bored in an off season.

I much prefer this boredom to the alternative, Colletti trading away the youngsters. The boredom will only last a few more weeks. The trades could have upset me for years. :-)
What's more, I haven't looked forward to a season with this much anticipation since the 60's which usually started with me thinking this might be the year Koufax wins 30 games. He never did but it wasn't his fault. :-)

Lifelong Dodger Fan
Mariner season ticket holder
Dodger Thoughts Lurker

I have seen more of Kemp and even Laroche on TV then Jones and Clement in person. If those are comparable I am going to be sick about this deal.

I hope that Colleti does not reach the "do a big deal to save my job stage that Bavasi is at".

Kuroda to the Dodgers made this Jones/Bidard deal have to happen. He had better be worth it for the Dodgers...

Of course I could blame Jason Schmidt for not coming to the M's last year and we know how that worked out...

Thanks to all for the informed discussion

It would appear that Kobe really likes Bynum. :-)

Lakers' supporting cast offers little in 98-95 loss

>> "He developed into the player that I prayed about having on my team for years," Bryant said. <<

http://tinyurl.com/2ty2yg

125

I think it was 125

It has occurred to me that Shaq could be using all that gasoline for his private jet. Maybe....

150

I am glad to hear that from Kobe, and Bynum is every bit valuable, but you only need one word to explain the loss today:

DEFENSE.

Does anyone else remember the headline splashed across the Sporting News after the Gibson signing:

"Did the Dodgers Just Buy the Pennant?"

For some reason, that has always stayed me.

As for anniversaries, the one I am looking forward to is the anniversary of when Gibson stormed out of camp after his teammates (was it Mike Marshall?) filled his cap with shaving cream.

142
I think that the really cold reality is that Pierre will be a Dodger for the next three years...

149
It seems that McCourt's MO is that the people he fires are pretty surprised by it. Really bad in some ways, but hopefully this also means that the man with his hand on the switch for Dodger personnel does not make the "manage like your life depends on winning the next game" sorts of decisions that GMs like Ed Wade and Jim Bowden make.

If the Dodgers didn't have the benefit of Collusion III which freed Kirk Gibson of the the contract he signed with the Tigers in 1986 our drought might be of epic proportions.

I believe Jesse Orosco was the man who did the shaving cream incident.

152
Really, I thought the one word was LeBron.

155 You could also argue that winning the World Series through a series of miracles made us not realize our actual place in the competition cycle, which led to the massive free agent signings in 1990 and 1991 that killed the team.

I seem to recall that Gibson didn't make the all-star team in '88 yet he won the National League MVP award. Has that even happened before or since?

158
That doesn't seem in the realm of possibility...how could that happen? I never knew that.

158 Morneau in 2006.

156
LeBron is overrated trash. He's not even fit to sniff Kobe's practice shoes. All he will ever be is a stand out in the eastern conference and nothing more. Championship? Never....That is the equivalent of being the best player on the Kansas City Royals. Sure you're pretty decent, but you play for the Royals and you haven't won anything EVER and nobody cares.(1985 in KC's case)
The guy wore a freakin Yankess hat to a CLEVELAND INDIAN playoff game. Come on! He is a product of media hype and overexposure that's why everyone knows his name, not because he's great.

158 - Given the respective ways voting is done for the All-Star game and MVP, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more.

I forgot to agree with 152 !

The here today/gone tomorrow defense is an integral part as to why the Lakers look almost untouchable one game and then like they should be playing in the inferior eastern conference the next. If they can play solid D while Bynum is out, they can easily play .500 ball. And if Lamar would play to his strength and drive the lane 95% of the time he touches the ball, they'd have an even better chance.

161 - Rule 6 violation.

161 I don't know a ton about baskerball and how good the advanced stats are, but the systems I've seen rate LeBron as far and away the best player in basketball this year, and he's 22. That probably counts for something.

161 I follow the NBA and would have to respectfully disagree. LeBron is a true stud. Having jumped into the NBA out of high school with all the pressure and hype, what's he able to do on the floor is even more impressive. Watching him in the playoffs last year was the most memorable post season individual effort I've seen since Jordan played.

To see him keep his nose clear off the court is even more impressive. All that money, all that opportunity, he appears to be handling it well enough to stay out of the negative media frenzy that has trapped so many others. Of course Kobe was sqeaky clean until his trip to Colorado...

I wouldn't even bother to respectfully disagree if Jon didn't keep us in line.

Reminds me of how I made a bet with a friend when Shaq couldn't win a championship and the bet was that Shaq would win two before the Celtics won one. Of course two short years later I had already won the bet. LeBron does more with less then anyone in basketball. Winning a championship is more about the GM then the player.

161
So the Royals are trash because their last championship came 3 years before our last championship?
Royals Postseason record since 1980
13 wins 16 losses
Dodgers Postseason record since 1980
22 wins 29 losses

Royals Postseason record since 1990
0 wins 0 losses

Dodgers Postseason record since 1990
1 win 12 losses

If the Royals are trash what does that make the Dodgers who have the worse postseason record since 1988? The Giants/Padres/Diamondback and Rockies have all now won more posteason games then the Dodgers since 1990.

168 Relax Mr. Cannon, no need to get yourself upset. The poster is just a passionate Laker fan, I'm sure he didn't mean to irritate your sense of fairness.

I remember a Mr. Jordan who took the Bulls to six championships. It took seven years in the league for HIS TEAM to get to the finals. I was living in Chicago and we would all hear how we needed a big man to rebound and help Jordan out. That man was Bill Cartwright.

If you would add a Duncan or a Yao to the Cavs, it wouldn't even be fair to discuss how good LeBron is.

Jon, I'm curious about the ads that appear on this site. Do you have control over them? I don't get why there is an Obama ad when we have Rule 5. Would ads that violate Rule 1 be tolerated? Just seemed odd to me that a particular candidate it being pushed.

160 Morneau, however, was an All-Star in 2007. Kirk Gibson, astonishingly, spent his entire career without ever making the All-Star team.

170 Scroll down a few posts. Jon addressed this already.

170
https://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/899887.html

171 Is Kirk Gibson the best player to never make an All Star Team? Tim Salmon's probably in the running.

Ty Cobb never made the All-Star team.

Hey, you didn't put in a time frame.

170 - It's like people think I haven't thought this through. I wrote about this three days ago, and you can see more about it in the comments of that post.

you hear that domincian winter league game is 5 outs away from a no hitter?? hopefully i can finish off my 12 pack by than. By the way that dominican league game is 5 outs away from a no hitter... al gore

174
Tim Salmon winning a world championship was a big motivator for me in rooting for the Angels that year. One of the classiest players to ever play in Southern California.

ok just so i don't contribute nothing but garbage today...

i don't know if someone touched on this already, but if the world of the internet and the craze of fantasy sports and basing judgements of a players season on numbers alone we're alive in '88 like it is today it's pretty safe to say strawberry wins MVP that year

wow just looking at the old strawberry and E.D. combo, Eric Davis' 1987 has to go down as one of the better offensive seasons in history, .293/.399/.593, but here is the amazing part 129 games 474 ABs,120 runs, 37 HR, 100 RBI, 50 SB, 6 CS (89%), 10 assists and a gold glove. pretty amazing

177 - Please see rules 9 and 11 at the bottom of the sidebar.

177 - Please see rules 9 and 11 at the bottom of the sidebar.

179 I doubt Strawberry would win the award today, even if he did deserve it. Players seem to get punished in the MVP voting for being on a good team. Strawberry was surrounded by guys like Kevin McReynolds and Howard Johnson. The only other player the Dodgers had that was even average was Mike Marshall.

i guess bonds '92 and '93 dwarfs those numbers

181 , 182 what about 5 and 8?

185 Rule 8 has a Juan Pierre asterisk.

Plus Strawberry hit .269 that year and Gibson hit .290, so I'm sure that played a huge part.

i'm not sure where in the line-up gibson hit, i was only 3 that year. but that 76 RBI number so i'm sure a #3 or #4 hitter is just really tough to look at for a MVP, i know he didn't have much help around him however

Even back in 1988, Darryl Strawberry was unpopular with a lot of writers and fans.

Gibson had the whole "Darin Erstad - football player" aura. And at least Gibson actually played a position in football where people would hit him.

189 I don't classify field goal kickers as football players.

185 - What's your point?

185
Your relatively new here but Jon does have one quite eccentric rule and that is rule 9. You can say "interesting" or any other word describing a "no hitter" except for the word "no hitter". It is his site so you have to respect it. It does make for an interesting thread when an interesting game is going on but on one is allowed to say the actual word of what is going on. I assume "perfect game" is also not allowed but I don't remember going down that path.

190
Football would be so much interesting if they abolished the kicking game completely. No punts, no kick offs, no field goals, no kicking whatsoever.

I actually think the kicking game makes football interesting. More strategy introduced, etc. But we need to bring back the barefoot kicker. Make it a requirement.

190 I've made that point to my friends millions of times and all of them just stare at me blankly. Think outside the box!

If it were up to me, I'd at least get rid of field goals and extra points. At least punting and kickoffs have "something" to do with conquering the field. I've also asked my friends what kicking a ball through goal posts has anything to do with the rest of the game of football, but nobody has given me a good answer.

Anyway, no field goals and no extra points. Touchdowns would be worth 2 points. Safeties would be worth 1. "extra points" would be played like 2-point conversions and would also be worth 1 point. No more of this 7-point nonsense.

193 While I disagree with you (blocked punts, onside kicks, missed FG's and kickoff's returned for TDs are some of the most exciting plays) it would be fun for them to try it in an exhibition game just to see how it worked.

If they did away with the kicking what would they call it? I don't think they could call it "Foot" ball anymore.

196 I thought the same thing, how about yardball.

195 I also scoff at the football game that ends on the feet of a little white guy who's half the size of all his teammates and who has done nothing but sit on the bench for 59 minutes of the game.

197 Why does that make me think of something they would play in a prison?

Things that would improve pro football in my humble opinion:

1. Take the college rules for one foot inbounds is a catch. Many spectacular catches and plays are disallowed by the need to drag a second foot.

2. Take the college rules for overtime. Each team gets a chance to score, a coin flip shouldn't determine as much as it does.

3. Take the Candian rules for width of field and 20 yard end zones.

193 can't taking kicking out of football, it'd be like taking pinch hitting or defensive substitutions out of baseball. those guys on a baseball team although they have a small role, become very valuable, same with kickers to a football team. I will say this though, you shound not be aloud to kick extra points in college football overtime at all, rather than only the 3rd overtime on. Too many OT's too many plays, OT games are too long.

194 If baseball were like football, with the bases loaded and 2 outs, the batting team would have the option of playing marbles to score one run as opposed to trying to get the grand slam.

201 The difference is, pinch hitters do the same thing that regular players do: hit, and run, and maybe field. Same with defensive substitutions.

Kickers kick the ball. Who else on the football team kicks the ball?

200 I don't think the OT thing would fly but then again, who thought there would be shoot outs in hockey. Maybe we can have home run derby to end tied baseball games.

200 what about NFL adapting the college rule of stoping the clock to move the chains. 2 minute drills will become a lot more exciting

ToyCannon, you have earned a quote on my gmail chat status message! With my standards for quotations, you should be honored. (ha, ha, ha)

203. Doug Flutie.

The NFL wouldn't want to stop the clock on first downs because the games would take too long. The NFL has more commercial breaks and shorter time slots to show its games.

If you're watching Home State vs. Neighboring State, you just want to watch that game until it ends. You don't care when Way Far Away Tech takes on Back of the Country State starts most of the time.

Football has kicking because it started with kicking, so it's hard to get rid of it. Until the 1960s, there weren't kicking specialists.

208 Didn't some guy named Paul DePodesta like to ask questions like "If we weren't always doing things this way, would we be doing them this way now?" Though perhaps asking those questions are what got him fired.

203 - By the same logic, you could argue against quarterbacks. Who else on the team throws the ball.

The game is called football, after all.

210 Bad analogy I guess. But the quarterback has the same goal as the wide receiver and everybody else, ie, getting the ball into the endzone. Sure his job is different, but the goal is the same. Nobody else in football has the goal of kicking the ball between the goal posts. They might as well replace field goal kicking with horseshoe toss or something. And no, "scoring points" does not count as having the same goal as the rest of the team.

In baseball, a pitcher is a bit "special" compared to everybody else, but he plays the same game the batter plays, just from the opposite side. One guy tries to score runs and the other guy tries to prevent it.

210 Maybe I'm thinking about this the wrong way. Maybe they should abolish quarterbacks and wide receivers and running backs and create a game centered on kicking balls between posts. Then they can call it football. And the league can be called "Football Association." But to be cool, they can abbreviate it to "Assoc." But to be cooler, they can play around with the letters and pronunciation call it "soccer."

When playing unorganized football as a kid did any of you ever use the kicking game? No, it was up and down the field and 1st down was either 2 or 3 completions and you didn't complete your offensive set until you scored a touchdown or failed to make a 1st down.
No one punted, no one kicked field goals, no one even kicked off, you just got the ball on the 20 and got going. It was a blast. Kickers are parasites. All of them.

I think hockey should get rid of goalies with all their pads. Just have another defenseman stop the puck. It will be more fun!

And in soccer, let's have the goalie not be able to use his hands.

Just stick to basketball where all the players have to play offense and defense more or less equally.

It is problematic that the term is "football".

214 That's one of my favorite things about basketball.

I'm okay with goalies. They fall in the same clause as pitchers (that is, if I ever had a sports manifesto). Even quarterbacks fall into that. As long as they're playing the same game, they can be part of the game. It's okay to have different roles.

215 Players still use their feet to run. It can still be called football if people want.

213. We had kicking games, if your field goal attempt hit the pine tree anywhere on the left side of the mail box it was good and we usually only punted when the ball was near our own goal line and every kickoff was an on-side attempt. vr, Xei

213 i used to hate 2 completions for a 1st down, that was so stupid. so many 4th and 1 completions turned into a screen pass for a 1st

214
You seem to be missing the point. The goalie in hockey is on the ice the whole game. As Fanerman has said no other sport has a specialist like a field goal kicker decide the outcome of a game based on what the rest of the team has accomplished. When football was created it wasn't with the intent of field goal kickers dominating the outcome of games. If the founding fathers knew then what they know now, the rules would have been different from the beginning. The drop kicker was quite a different animal then the Yaro's of the world.

If you really wanted to get rid of the kicking game, but not change the game too much, you could have the quarterback throw the ball. A punt would be the QB throwing the ball, perhaps you'd have to signal the play before hand so they know your pass/punt is not really a pass. Kickoffs would be throws and field goals would be throws between the posts, you'd just have to narrow the posts quite a bit to make it more challenging. Might be fun to watch Favre attempt a game winning 75 yard pass/fg.
vr, Xei

219
Wimp league, we never allowed passes behind the line to count.

221 the cofin corner would be alive and well

I never played unorganized football as a kid. At school we played dodgeball and kickball. At home it was always whiffleball.

I support taking the kicking game out of football. Just be prepared for lots of lopsided games. Take a team like the Dolphins and tell them they can't punt and lose the ball if they can't make a first down -- and have them play the Patriots. Be prepared for 50-0 games, even when touchdowns count as one point!

I never played unorganized football as a kid.

Oh man, you really missed out. Nothing like having the end zone be a dog leg left over the garage.

vr, Xei

172 173 thanks. Somehow that got by me. When I read the original post by Jon I don't believe the ad addition was there. I try to atleast skim every post, but missed those.

224 You are risking an irate DP4 popping up here.

Kickers and punters are about the only normal sized players left in football. And you still have guys like Todd Sauerbraun who takes steroids.

Almost every player in football is a specialist.

And as Daniel points out in 224 , field position issues would be a big problem without kicking.

If you want to bring back dropkicking, make the ball rounder. It will be really hard to throw, but at least the game will be pure.

176 my apologies. I didn't see your comments originaly. It was just a question. Since the baseballtoaster is not run by you I wasn't sure if you had control of the ads.

224 I think the Patriots would beat the Dolphins 50-0 anyway.

Eliminating field goals would also eliminate the ridiculously silly "consolation prize rule." Oh you made it to 3rd base but you didn't score. Would you like half a run? The ball hit the rim and rimmed out, here's a third of a point! Of course you have to play a game not related to baseball or basketball to get it, but that's okay right?

228 Round balls aren't necessarily hard to throw. Maybe football could be played with a tennis ball instead.

224
Never, to bad.

I played unorganized until I was 26, then we had to stop when players got hurt who needed to work. Nothing better then a game of 5 on 5 where everyone is eligible and blocking is counting 1 2 3. I think the last time I played was about 20 years ago when we organized a company game before the super bowl party I was having. It had rained the night before so it turned into a mud bowl. My roomates were none to thrilled when we showed up for the superbowl party with mud being the one thing we all had in common. It was a coed game which also added some highlights.

228 As I said somewhere ago, I'm not horribly against punting or kicking off. The game of football is about field position. Punting and kicking off deal with field position, so they have that going for it. Field goals and extra points do not.

227
Is there any other kind?

We use to punt in our kid games. But the "punter" was the quarterback touching the ball on the ground and then throwing it as far as he could.

The kicking game adds strategy. Not only is it not going away, I don't think it should go away.

Currently, football is exciting and filled with pressure situations.

I wouldn't change much, but they could add to the excitement with some areas that increase the ability to make big plays and increase scoring.

As a Bears fan, the most fun I've had the last two years is watching Hester return kicks and punts. He has to be one of the most exciting athletes I've seen. I just think teams won't kick his way too often from now on.

236 You can insert random rules or random games into baseball (ring toss anyone?) to add strategy, but nobody would bother doing that. So why keep a random game (kicking a ball between goal posts) integrated with the rest of football? Adding strategy, further complications, isn't a good enough reason to keep an arcane and illogical rule.

Place kicking is arcane and illogical? It wasn't arcane and illogical when the game of football started.

Having to catch the third strike on the fly to record the out has been a rule in baseball since the 1840s. That's a fairly arcane rule.

The game of football has evolved greatly over the past 130 years. And the game today would be almost unrecognizable to a fan from the 1920s. There's unlimited substitution. There's way more passing. You can throw an incomplete pass into the end zone without it being a turnover. The players actually shift less now than they did in the 1920s. Receivers and quarterbacks get all sorts of protection. The players wear huge amounts of padding.

When football was first played, teams scored touchdowns to get the right to try a field goal. Eventually, it was decided that the touchdowns were more interesting.

But I don't think fanerman or ToyCannon will be dissuaded from their dislike of field goals.

Vive l'difference!

237 I am not suggesting inserting kicking to the game, it already exists and provides strategic elements that would be eliminated should the kicking game be removed.

That is quite different from adding in an arcane random thing like ring-toss.

Anyway, it is all moot because the kicking game in football isn't going away, regardless of who posts what here.

just think of the kicker as the sniper.

Sure it would be more fun if the battle were decided by one side demolishing the fort of the other side, then running them over and doing the ickey shuffle in their presense. But sometimes you only get a small push before you are stonewalled, so you get one shot from a sniper to kill off one of theirs. It's a smaller reward, but you get something out of your push.

Receivers and quarterbacks get all sorts of protection

Take Tom Brady, for example. When was the last time you saw blood on his face?

241
I think Brady cut himself shaving once back in 2002.

There is the rest of you and then there is Fanerman who only wants to replace field goals and there is me playing yardball on my island.

238 I don't understand how you're disagreeing with me. It made sense back then but the game has changed. I don't see how it fits now so why shouldn't the game evolve? Of course nobody's going to get rid of the kicker anytime soon, but I hoped other people would see things the way I do (thanks ToyCannon).

To me, kicking field goals in football makes as much sense as adding ring toss to baseball. It has nothing to do with the rest of the game. Sure it would add "strategy," but at the cost of an unnecessary complication. And who wants consolation prize points? Baseball doesn't have consolation prize points. Neither does basketball, hockey, soccer.

240 Yeah but you're still shooting/blowing up something. Kicking a field goal in football feels like... kicking a field goal while trying to take down a fort.

Why was the Leper hockey game cancelled?

There was a face off at center ice.

243 I'd get rid of punts if it meant I could play yardball on your island.

The only major rule change football needs is to figure out a new overtime scheme. Sudden death is great for hockey or soccer, where possession of the ball is fluid. But it's ridiculous in a sport where possession is structured. It's like a baseball game ending if a team scores a run in the top of an extra inning.

While we're on the subject of radical rule changes, hockey needs to eliminate one player and go to a 4-on-4 skating situation at all times. Players are too big and fast, and the rinks are too small. Less men on the ice opens things up for players with skating speed and puck-handling skills, and would lessen obstruction. It would be a much cleaner, exciting game. I feel very strongly about this one.

Basketball could also use fewer men on the court, and I'd also suggest that a non-shooting foul in the final two minutes should result in three free throws, not two. The final minutes of a game should just play out normally, instead of turning into a boring intentional foul-fest.

The only thing baseball needs is a way to speed up games, which basically means shortening the time in between half-innings. Somebody ought to elect me all-sport commissioner. I'd do a great job.

242
Brady can't afford to mess up his pretty face with nicks and cuts. He probably pays a professional barber to shave him.

247 I will put you on my ballot Feb 5th as a write in candidate. Assuming you'll eventually come off the disabled list at some point.

Dodger Thoughts: Where tilting at windmills is not only acceptable, it's encouraged!

if it meant I could play yardball on your island

Is that a euphemism?

being that players associations won't want to reduce the number of starters, does it make more sense to make the rinks / courts a little bigger?

I'd like to eliminate referees in basketball. Let's just let the players call their own fouls.

There have been consolation points in football since ... forever. Getting rid of field goals and extra points would change the game of football so much that you would not recognize it. And I can't guarantee that you would like it.

Basketball is the only sport I know of where the team that is behind tries to catch up by breaking the rules.

The biggest problem with hockey's overtime is that even if you lose in overtime, you get a point. And you only get two for winning. That's a pretty good incentive to play for a tie. All OT games in hockey end up with three points given out. But a game that ends in regulation, there are only two points.

If you gave a winner in regulation in hockey, three points (as soccer does and hockey overseas), you'd create more incentive for teams to win in 60 minutes.

So I got an e-mail today from Amazon saying that they're selling a bunch of old best-sellers on the cheap, and among them is "The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed" by JC Bradbury, for $5.99. I'm an Economics major at school, and I really like baseball, so I felt obliged to order it, along with some other stuff I've been meaning to get.

The reviews on Amazon looked pretty good, but has anyone on here read it? Bob?

sweet, then you'd have players booed for being soft and calling fouls. And if a European guy flopped, the opponent gets to knock him down AND call a foul on him? Is it first to call it?

Over the weekend, Raffy Furcal hit his 2nd home run of the playoffs that led to his team winning the Dominican Winter League.

It appears that he spent most of the month playing 2B because Miguel Tejada was playing SS but if you look at the stats linked below, it looks like the 2006 version of Furcal is coming to play.

Also you will see some old friends on this page, good news for Willy Aybar fans, he had a nice month too.

http://tinyurl.com/3avcwr

252 I foresee things in all the sports that encourage scoring and a more fluid flow to the game.

Football expanding end zones and the width of the field has some support from past discussions I've had.

Bringing in outfield walls in baseball has some support. Not sure about basketball courts though. They changed rules on defense and shortened the 10 seconds in the backcourt rule. All is designed to open the flow of the game. I sure get tired of watching a guy one-on-one backing into the defender and trying to hit a fade away jumper. Boring.

243 At first I was going to say that the reason I was sorta okay with punting was because it meant raising the white flag. If football is "war", you can either win/capture the battlefield or lose/surrender it. But surrendering ought to mean giving up the ball where you left it, not 50 yards back. Punting is a consolation prize in itself. The real way to play Yardball would be to give up the ball where you left it. Okay I'm with you. Let's just get rid of punting and kickoffs and start a Professional Yardball League.

Of course people would whine if they didn't have punting. Football is such a silly game.

257 Let's skip the Furcal from April 06 and go right to the one who showed up in May. I really liked that guy. A lot.

247 DL I agree with almost everything. The intentional foul filled last few minutes in Basketball is particularly disgraceful.

257 It wasn't Tejada who played SS but nonetheless, Furcal played all 25 games at 2B.

260 Agreed.

My understanding is that Furcal has not played winter league ball in a number of seasons but this being his contract year and coming off his 2007 season, I guess he had something to prove, I wonder what his splits were like, I hoped he banged out some hits while batting lefty.

For every silly rule in football, basketball, or hockey, you can find an equally silly rule in baseball.

Why are teams that bat out of order only penalized for it if the other team notices? Why do you not get called out for missing a base unless the other team appeals?

The rules themselves aren't inherently silly. It's just our own opinions of them.

if you eliminate punting, you can have the inside track on how the heck to run new betting spreads. You'd get so many 70-21 games.

It may add more time to the length of a game but since basketball has the highest prices while being played in the least amount of time I don't see how it is disgracefull. Making someone make free throws hardly seems wrong since putting the ball through the basket is the basic component of being able to play basketball.

259
I've never had a convert before, should I get T-Shirts made up and create a web site?

Actually, I wouldn't have a problem if the NBA outlawed defense altogether.

254 I don't like the fouling at the end of games, but I don't see it as a fundamental flaw.

I think some of you are talking about sports rules by major professions. Of course those standards aren't perfect. I'll fully agree that every sport could use tweaking. But you could change those rules and not really change the heart of the game. I find football to not make sense. The only way it would make sense to me would be if it were fundamentally changed.

264 On that note, I imagine there would be ways to tweak Yardball as needed.

267 Just clone Corey Maggette, you'd eliminate defense.

266 I'd buy t-shirts.

Nice Bryan Smith chat at BP today. He ranked Kemp just behind Jay Bruce and maybe even his equal among all young OF prospects. He also answered a question of mine about the relative success of recent Dodger prospects and responded with high praise for Logan White.

I'm pretty sure that Bob Oates, who was the LA Times longtime football writer, wanted to eliminate kicking from football all together.

For those wanting to eliminate field goals, I'll also require a ruling on the safety.

267 They did. It is called the All-Star game.

271 I am going to say right now, Logan White will never have a better draft than he did in 2002 and 2003.

Injuries have affected his last 4 drafts (and possibly some knudging from DePo whick may have led to some picks in 2004 and 2005 he might not have made otherwise see, Dewitt, Dunlap, Hochevar, Pedroza) but he has bounced back with Kershaw in 2006 and a pretty deep draft in 2007.

Did you know that you can attempt an free kick fair caught punt, and that if the ball is kicked through the uprights, it counts for three points?

Fanerman's whole argument is based on the assumption that football is a battle for territory.

That's a faulty assumption. It's about who scores more point.

210 It's called football because the game's ancestor, the common ancestor or all football codes, was played on foot, not horseback.

Not to mention giving a guy a single on what should be a walk-off ground rule double.

272 Football is about field position. If you capture the entire field, you score. If you give up the entire field, you give up points.

I'm such a doofus.... Here's 275 in standard English.

Did you know that you can attempt an free kick after a fair caught punt, and that if the ball is kicked through the uprights, it counts for three points?

Fanerman's whole argument is based on the assumption that football is a battle for territory.

That's a faulty assumption. It's about who scores more points.

210 It's called football because the game's ancestor, the common ancestor or all football codes, was played on foot, not horseback.

275 Every sport is about who scores the most points... by that logic, you can add field goals to any sport and justify it.

277 You don't need to capture the whole field. You can kick from the field to reach your goal.

is seattle the favorite to win the west if they do land Bedard?

280 You're reaching a different goal by kicking. That one looks like a yellow fork.

281 No. The Angels were the favorite when the season ended and remain the favorite now.

265 The problem with the intentional fouls at the end of a basketball game is that it's BORING. Inbound, foul, shoot free throws, hurried shot attempt, repeat. That's lame. The most exciting finishes to a basketball game usually occur when the final 60 seconds of a game take little more than 60 seconds to play out.

And as Bob noted, there is something fundamentally wrong when an acceptable game strategy involves intentionally breaking the rules.

279
Since the game of football started with field goals, the burden of proof for their ouster is on fanerman.

Essentially, fanerman wants a game without kicking. That's fine. It's not what most people want or have gotten used to.

I guess if they don't get rid of the field goals, then this football thing might not catch on.

What fanerman really needs is a catchy phrase about why he dislikes field goals and get Jon to put it on the sidebar. Then, he will be getting somewhere. Until then, fanerman's quest to remove field goals will go as far as my quest to get rid of of the double error in baseball.

280 Nope. It's the same goal: Points on the board.

Also, the yellow fork used to stand on the goal line. That's why it's called the goal line.

Kershaw, Kemp, and LaRoche for Santana (he agrees to a 6 yr. $120 million dollar extension) do you do it?

Contolling the field is a means to the ends of scoring points. You can't kick a field goal from about 60% of the playing field, meaning that you can from about 40%. Since a fieldgoal is has about 40% of the value of a touchdown/PAT, it's about right.

The same sort of thing has been happening in rugby union over the last couple of decades. While the point value of the kicking game has held steady, the value of a try has climbed from 3 points in 1971 to 5 points since 1992.

284
UCLA's dramatic win over Gonzaga in the NCAA tournament in 2006 was notable because during the comeback, UCLA did not once intentionally foul.

285 I make no claims as to which way would be more popular. And today I found out that ToyCannon agrees with me. Which is 1 more than I thought ever would.

I've stated my reasons for why field goal kicking doesn't belong in the game of football already. I doubt re-stating them would convince anybody else (especially given my lack of rhetorical skill), and that'd just be a Rule 8 violation. But I don't think anybody would ever convince me to change my stance.

288 I wouldn't trade Kershaw and Kemp. Let alone Kershaw, Kemp, and LaRoche.

To be precise, the goalposts in football have been on the goal and on the end line at various times throughout the sport's history. They've moved depending upon whether or not more scoring was wanted.

292 wow really?!?!?!?

288 No, first, I don't think Santana wants to come out West, second, there is no way the Dodgers deal 2 players projected as regulars (and who they control for 5-6 more seasons) and one of the best pitching prospects in baseball (who Ned feels could contribute in 2008) for any player in the game and certainly not one starter, even one as good as Santana.

I mean, if a guy gets an HR for a walk-off ball hit over the outfield fence on the fly, why shouldn't a guy get a double for a walk-off ball that bounces over the fence?

As this is a baseball forum, I'm curious about the baseball tradition of having parks designed with such different dimensions.

While it would be stale to see 31 parks that look the same, it would indeed keep the game more consistent and would see logically to be more fair.

Can you imagine different dimensions for football fields or basketball courts?

Why has that not been brought up about baseball stadiums more often? It seems when a new park opens, you can do weird things like the Houston park with the little hill in an obscenely deep center field and it is shrugged off as acceptable.

297
I've fought that battle here before. I think I lost.

293 (At risk of running afoul of R8)
Since Football came, it's goal posts started out on the goal line, right? Did rugby ever put its goal posts on the end line? That wouldn't make sense, as you can return a missed drop goal.

292 Yeah, for the reasons 295 mentioned.

300 Err, that should be 294 not 292 .

"And as Bob noted, there is something fundamentally wrong when an acceptable game strategy involves intentionally breaking the rules."

Barry Bonds and his 6 million intentional walks agree with you.

"Can you imagine different dimensions for football fields or basketball courts? Why has that not been brought up about baseball stadiums more often?"

297 In baseball it matters less because outfield distances affect the game far less. No baseball player is ever required to run the full distance of the playing field even once, much less spend the whole game doing it as in basketball, football, and hockey. The fact that the bases are the same distance in every park is what matters.

kershaw still hasn't pitched past AA, shows some control concerns. LaRoche has less than 100 major league PA and the only major league proven player you're trading would be Matt Kemp. If you make that trade it makes your team better for sure this year, and depending on his health better for the next 3 at least

Santana's value seems quite overinflated considering you're basically bidding for the chance to give a guy a huge contract. I'd consider a deal centering around Kemp or Kershaw, but even then I'd be wary of pulling the trigger.

Technically, an intentional foul in basketball results in two free throws and the other team gets the ball out of bounds.

The reason you can foul late in a game is there is an "appearance" that you are actually defending the player with the ball and you have unintentionally fouled him. While we all notice it was intentional, it isn't technically intentional. Just saying.

Baseball fields had to be fit into different size lots in the sport's early days so you had to build the stadium to fit.

Dodger Stadium has its own big parcel of land, so it can have symmetrical dimensions. But AT&T Park really can't because the stadium is so close to the water.

But for the most part, stadiums could all be built relatively the same size, but people don't like that idea. Remember how the stadiums of the 70s like Three Rivers, Riverfront, Veterans, and Busch were derided as "cookie cutter?"

288 Of course not. You're talking about our best pitching prospect in a generation and our starting RF & 3B.

The stupidest thing about football by far is not the kicking game, it's the specialization. In every other sport you have to play both offense and defense (except for the satanic DH). But in football you only have to be good at the tiniest component of the game, and somebody will sign you to a multi-year contract as a long snapper or something. It's just idiotic. Football would be much improved if you put a rule in that, say, at least 1/3 of the plays in which a player participates have to be on offense and at least 1/3 have to be on defense. Then football would be played by real all-around athletes instead of the one-trick ponies who currently play it.

288 is SO November. ;-)

Speaking of sports travesties, I went to the Warriors game last night with my dad, and he hadn't been to a pro game in awhile. He spent much of the night complaining about how obnoxious the bombastic between game "entertainment" is - which is mostly marketing nonsense. The PA system is loud, music plays even while the game resumes action (which is particularly vexing - it's not like basketball is a dull sport that needs livening up.) Basically, I expected all that stuff so it wouldn't have bothered me as much if it hadn't bothered my dad, an old school hoops purist. But alas, Oracle Arena is not the only place to practice such drivel.

kershaw still hasn't pitched past AA, shows some control concerns.

Well, yeah, HE'S 19. The fact that Kershaw is in Double-A at that age is a huge accomplishment. The command issues will get sorted out with age and experience.

Santana: I'd lean towards waiting a year and seeing what his price is as a FA. Then it is only money, which he would want upfront to waive his no trade clause right now.

Somewhat related but not entirely, is he the best Rule 5 guy there ever was? I can't think of a better one off the top of my head.

308 Is not the kicking game the most extreme example of the specialization?

288 -- I swear people post stuff like this as some sort of conspiracy against my blood pressure.

best pitcher in baseball for a AA, AAA, and 2 year vet sounds like a good deal to me. If they do that the dodgers go from 7-1 to win the pennant to 2-1 overnight

303 Arguably, it makes the team worse for this year. It also unquestionably makes it worse for any year beyond this year.

No thanks.

At this point, does it even look like Santana is going to be traded? I suppose things probably will change into the season and near the trade deadline.

311 he'll never hit the free agent market next year

316 st. paul press is reporting he'll be dealt in the next 10 days, i fear the mets a lot now

311 -- Roberto Clemente has to be in the conversation. The Pirates took him from the Dodgers in the Rule 5 draft.

309 I first read your post as "sports tranvestites". Then I saw the the post had an Adam's apple.

312 I'd have to give that to specialized kick returners: fast guys with good vision who can't run a route or block to save their life.

312 Not at all. It's just another specialized task, like throwing the ball or blocking or catching the ball. It's not specialized tasks that suck -- every sport has them, and that's what makes them sports. It's the fact that the players are so specialized that they are only asked to perform one of these tasks. Football is the only sport in which that's the case.

322 So what you're saying is that you'd cut NFL rosters by a third to discourage specialization?

Evolution of scoring changes in football:
1869 - All goals count for 1.
1883 - Safety 1, TD 4, PAT 4, FG 5
1884 - Safety worth 2
1897 - TD 4, PAT 5
1904 - FG 4
1909 - FG 3
1912 - TD 6, PAT 1
1927 - Goal posts moved to end line
1933 - Goal posts moved to goal line (NFL only)
1958 - Two point conversion added (college only)
1974 - NFL moves goal posts back to end line

The 1869 Rutgers-Princeton game is probably the closest version of ToyCannon's yardball that's ever been called "football."

FJM finally got around to skewering that dumbbell Plaschke article about Tom Brady.

314 best pitcher in baseball for a AA, AAA, and 2 year vet sounds like a good deal to me.

Santana is not the best pitcher in baseball, Peavy is.

And since when do Kershaw and LaRoche get labeled "AA and AAA"? They're the two best prospects in the organization, not letter classes.

309 I was doing some research on the 1929 World Series last night. One item I found was an article about how at that Series they played canned music over the loudspeakers for the first time ever at a baseball game, and that all the fans appeared to really hate it.

But if you're a basketball fan, you really have no business following the NBA, which is all about flash and marketing to non-fans. College basketball is about, well, basketball.

peavy is the best pitcher in baseball... speechless

308
Right, which is why I despise the "satanic DH rule". Then throw in the specialization of the coaches, calling defense and offensive schemes for the robots and it is strike 3 for football unless gambling is involved.

313
Everytime I see a post like that I wonder if Canuck will show restraint or a rip new hole that did not previously exist in a living human being.

327
Utter Nonsense

Santana's the best pitcher in baseball. You don't get that title by having one really good year. You get it by proving your awesomeness over a period of years. Santana's down year in 2007 doesn't change the fact that he's the best pitcher in baseball, and by a pretty wide margin.

327
Utter nonsense

326
Being the best pitcher in a huge pitchers park for one year does not make one the best pitcher in baseball. I doubt Peavy would be taken 1st if baseball could take any pitcher in baseball. October also counts in baseball.

Cargill seems like the sort of fellow who might exchange a cashier's check worth $500 for a $100 bill, since he can't spend the cashier's check right this minute.

333 ya because all highly touted prospects all turn out to be all stars... every one of them

334 Logan White's top prospects who have made it to the majors ALL have the potential to be great. That's all that matters.

If cargill had $100 to spend, I suggest he start with a new keyboard, one that has a working shift key.

J/K :) I actually like the little homie's posts, they get things stirring a bit.

333 and actually wouldn't it be the opposite, i'd that the proven safe investment rather than the lottery ticket?

337 There is a job opening at a French bank for people who count like this.

Okay, which would you rather have, $500, or three lottery tickets that each have a 70% chance of being worth $1000?

337 A cashier's check is safe. You just have to cash it at the bank.

337
It's cool man. I see your points. Be careful here though, if you're not part of the inner-nerd circle, they'll eat you alive.

341 lol, not passing judgements on you guys. but that's funny

311 Just to show how Dodger Thoughts has become imbedded in my consciousness, my first thought when I saw "Rule 5" in your post was to wonder when Santana got into politics. :-)

339 and those are just numbers your throwing out there to support your opinion. fact is the dodgers would become a huge favorite to win the nl, and i'm sorry i trust vegas' sportsbook more than anyone after all they do that for a living. watch how much the mets odds change once they trade for santana regardless of what prospects they trade.

right now the mets are 9-2 to win the pennant, when they trade for johan they'll either be 1-1 or 4-5 watch

342
not passing judgements on you guys

Um.....them guys. I ain't one of em'!

344 watch how much the mets odds change once they trade for santana regardless of what prospects they trade...

... for this year.

cargillo,

I like the dialogue you bring to the table, but I don't know how your post in 314 helps the argument. Where do you come up with odds numbers like that, especially not taking into account what we would lose in that trade?

And, sarcasm 334 never seems to help a thoughtful conversation.

347 well in baseball in this market you can play for one year, go out and sign a 3b in 09 or 10... maybe delwyn young could play a good RF for us in 09 and we don't have to worry about kemp.

348 the dodgers are 7-1 right now to win the pennant. watching many lines and odds changing that's just my guy they'll go to about 2-1 as long as the deal doesn't include billingsley

Hey hey. No rule 12 violations here.

Kershaw is really an incredibly rare prospect. Kemp has superstar potential. LaRoche ought to be a legit starting 3B. It's hard to extrapolate major league performance from minor leaguers, but even major leaguers fluctuate from year-to-year and decline as they get older.

Kershaw/Kemp/LaRoche together will probably be more valuable than Santana/3B replacement/Pierre together in 2009. (If that deal goes down, Pierre becomes starting LF no question I bet.) Plus they'll be a hundred million dollars (or more) cheaper and locked in as Dodgers for 4-6 years.

349 I think the odds that Santana shuts down forever (which is a completely unfounded fear in my opinion) are way better than Delywn Young coming close to replacing Matt Kemp's production.

350 According to who?

I don't see how creating 2 huge holes in the lineup and trading away a Santana clone for Santana makes this a better team. See the 2003 Dodgers for the last time they had great pitching and nothing else.

349 So then you're paying big money to keep Santana and to your mystery thirdbaseman.

You can't forget the money you would be saving by keeping the three guys in that trade for the long haul. What could we do with that money in the future?

355 ... and Pedro Feliz is now off the market. Shucks.

353 According to his bookie.

Let's try this Santana discussion another way, right now, according to published reports, the Mets are offering their number 2, 3, 4 and 7 top prospect for Santana. However when you look closer at this offer, the three pitchers in the deal, Guerra, Pelfrey and Humber are at best middle-of-rotation guys and Calos Gomez is a pretty good CF prospect in terms of defense and speed, hitting and hitting for power remain question marks.

The players suggested above to go from the Dodgers have more upside to them and have done more in the minors than the Mets' players. Matt Kemp might be among the top 5 players under 25 in terms of ceiling in the game. Andy LaRoche has had the best overall minor league career than any of his contemporaries. And no prospect on the Dodgers over the last 6 years has gotten as much universal love than Kershaw.

So lets go back to the original presmise and change it a bit. Say you made it Delwyn Young, Elbert, McDonald and Orenduff, I think that would be a better deal than the Mets even with Elbert's injury.

The question isn't whether the Dodgers could make a great offer for Santana, they could blow any team in baseball away if they chose to, but thus far they have not and for that, I am happy.

356 Sign Johan Santana.

I am happy to admit that I don't expect us to win it this year. It is not worth it to me to increase our odds for this year (if those odds are even fair) for the sake of the next 4-6 years. I expect us to be fighting for the playoffs, and if we make it, anything else will be icing on the cake. I am excited to see how this season plays out and then to shed some of our excess salaries. It will be fun to see what the 09 off season is like.

358 He needs a better one. Vegas is offering 22-1 on the Dodgers winning the series right now. It's probably the best bet out there.

359 I'll amend that post by saying Kemp may be in the top 5 at his age (23).

Also its Carlos Gomez.

Santana's last 7 starts- 44 IP; 25 ER; ERA 5.11 Very un-Santana like.

I'll bet that's given some GM's some heartburn.

360

exactly

359

Well said, BH. It goes back to the beginning of this offseason and the ridiculous rumors about what was being demanded of the Dodgers versus other teams (see Cabrera). I admit those were rumors, but it does seem like we are treated differently with our "prospects". It should also be a sign to us that so many teams are interested in LaRoche. And it appears Ned might finally be paying attention. I am excited for this year to start!

Vegas odds are influenced by the desire of bettors to place bets on certain popular teams. They are a reflection of what the casinos think public opinion is -- not a reflection of a team's actual likelihood to win. I'm not sure what they have to offer in the real world. Not much. Certainly not more than objective analysis of what Santana would add vis-a-vis what he would cost.

The Dodgers' odds would get better because people who have heard of Santana but have not heard of Matt Kemp would be more likely to bet on the Dodgers. And yet, there's a chance that Matt Kemp might, by himself, add more value to his team in 2008 than Johan Santana does.

You're trading 17 years of likely stardom (5 from Kemp, 6 each from Kershaw and LaRoche) for 1 year of somewhat-more-likely stardom. It makes no sense. None. There is no way a rational human being can advocate such a move, unless you want to win a championship in 2008 and never thereafter. And even then, the trade probably doesn't help you.

359 The question isn't whether the Dodgers could make a great offer for Santana, they could blow any team in baseball away if they chose to, but thus far they have not and for that, I am happy.

Exactly. You only need to be a little bit better.

I'd trade two of Kershaw/Kemp/LaRoche for Santana, but not all 3.

Kemp worries me because of the lack of plate discipline and home run power. Plus, since he's not going to be a CF'er, his value becomes even less.

LaRoche has very real injury concerns.

Kershaw is the closest to a sure thing, but if you trade for Santana you have to give up something.

Overall, I'd probably lean towards offering Kemp/Kershaw for Santana (with the caveat that Santana must sign an extension). The Dodgers have no one ready for 3rd base besides LaRoche, and no one is going to be on the free agency market any time soon that could be an above average 3rd basemen.

Santana, Penny, Billingsley, Lowe, Kuroda would be a very good rotation.

But I cant see Ned dealing for Santana knowing that he's got Schmidt (15mils) and Loaiza (7mils) just collecting checks in the bullpen.

If Boston does not have to include Buchholz and the Yankees can leave Chamberlain off the table, why would the Twins even get to ask about Kershaw.

369 Because those guys can contribute right now and Kershaw can't.

369 Because it give Ned a chance to use his game show buzzer and say "thank you for playing."

360--I think the whole point of the proposed trade is that Santana wont ever reach free agency.

No logical thinking person would deal Kemp/LaRoche/Kershaw for 1yr of Santana. But trading 2 of them for 6/7yrs of Santana I could see.

If Santana's going to be dealt in the next 10 days, then I'd at least hope the Dodgers would make an offer. Its not every day that the best pitcher in baseball is put up for auction.

359
It again comes down to the fact no one will trade with us and take our 2nd tier prospects while their fans wail that they didn't get the guts of our system not taking into account our 2nd tier is better then their 1st tier.
Goldstein coming out tomorrow with his Dodger prospect breakdown.

I do think we have enough parts between LaRoche,Abreu,Hu,McDonald,Meloan,Young, and Elbert that we could make a deal if Johan is interested in pitching out West or McCourt is interested in a 175 Million / 7 year deal which is what it will take to sign him. Neither is interested which is why the Dodgers aren't players.

367 Perhaps, but again, the Twins have the additional problem of the no-trade clause.

Who knows if the Lakers ever seriously considered dealing Kobe but what stopped them was the fact that Kobe could dictate where he goes and because of that teams could hold back on their offers. The same thing applies here, if there was an open market for Santana, surely the Twins would hear from a lot of teams. But apparently only Boston and New York need apply and because of that, the offers are less than steller.

372 If Santana were guaranteed to not become a free agent, that would change things. But I haven't seen anything indicating that's the case in any of these rumored trades.

372

I imagine if it were possible for us to get Santana for just two of them and to sign an extension that it would happen.

Did anyone receive the Presale code for the Dodgers Coliseum game tix (vs the Red Sox)?

I don't need to know what it is, but I was wondering if anyone got it.

On a lighter note...any of the Xbox guys thinking about MLB 2K8?

377

I signed up for notification and news, but I have received nothing from the Dodgers.

Zippo here

In case anyone missed it, Pedro Feliz signed a 2 year deal with the Phillies. One less worry.

joey p, exactely. if you told the padres, diamondbacks, and rockies that they dodgers are potentially trading "fill in the blank" for Santana they all are praying the trade doesn't happen

look at arizona, vegas had them finishing 4th and just trading for dan haren they are now favorites in the west, and that's just dan haren we're talking about

Nerdy cannibals are an underrepresented group in the MSM. What's the matter, Hollywood? Are we too real for you to handle?

Speaking of nerdy cannibals, I just finished Nando Parrado's new book and it is quite good.

366 the steelers have a bigger fan base than most any other franchise, certainly a bigger fan base than the Jags, so than why would vegas give the steelers points at home vs. jax if they thought the loyal steeler fans would bet on Pitt no matter what the line

RIP, Larry Smith.

382 Arizona was able to make the deal w/o dealing any players expected to contribute this season.

386
Larry Smith the x-Ram RB or Larry Smith the CNN anchor? Google netted no results of any demise.

387 if the deal was kershaw laroche and kemp we're trading a player who won't contribute much, a player who may not even start, and a above average right fielder for the best pitcher in baseball who posts sub 3 era's in the AL and is as consistant as a pitcher gets, so like i said we'd go from 7-1 to 2-1 at the worst.

387
Right, now if they had dealt Justin Upton and Reynolds for Haren would they still be the favorite?
Not that we put any stock into favorites.

Larry Smith, former coach of USC.

389 The "best pitcher in baseball" gave up an alarming number of jacks last year.

I agree with everything's that been said about Kershaw in this thread, but just to play devil's advocate, everyone needs to remember TINSTAAPP. In 2003, Greg Miller was even more dominant in his brief promotion to AA than Kershaw was this year, and was a year younger to boot. Five years later, he looks more likely to wash out of baseball completely without ever pitching a major-league inning. It doesn't matter how phenomenal the prospect is, there's always the cautionary tale lurking.

389
Your whole argument is a pointless exercise because it is Johan who decides where he wants to play and McCourt who decides if he will be the one to give out the largest contract to a pitcher in history. You keep acting like the contract is a done deal when it is the biggest hurdle in the whole scenario. How much you trade for Johan is determined by his contract status.

393 Miller's delivery and body type probably contributed to his injuries. Kershaw has a crisp delivery and is built like a tank.

I have no recollection of the Larry Smith USC era.

383
Uh yeah.....that's it.

394 when i brought this up i started by saying assuming a 6 yr 120 million dollar contract comes with it (which is his market right now), 20 mil a year for johan seems like a bargain to me.

395
He's tall and lanky, but maybe tanks are built different these days.

398
Sure it is which is why it is a bogus point. He won't come close to signing a deal like that. Think 7 years and 175 Million.

I could say would you sign Sabbathia for 5 years and 75 million but it means nothing because it won't happen. At least deal in the reality of the marketplace.

There's a lot still to like about Miller, actually. Even with all the injuries, his actual performance was never bad until last year, when his walk total rose to LaLooshian levels. Even then, he struck out 97 hitters in 76 innings. The stuff is still there. If the control ever returns (admittedly a big if), he probably becomes an immediate major league star.

389
If everyone else here is allowed to post their assinine ideas/trade scenarios that have zero plausibility of ever happening, why can't Cargill06 do the same without being chastised for it?

I vote that we chastise all ridiculously implausible hypothetical scenarios.

378 I thought 2k7 looked great, but the gameplay was kinda crappy. My roomate got his boss' old ps3 that he didn't want so I think I'll pick up the ps3 MLB licensed game. I really liked the last one for the ps2.

378 I have not been terribly impressed with the last few installments of the MLB series. I was considering buying last year, but I'm glad I rented. I much preferred the 2K- series but EA is not currently doing baseball on the 360.

Also, I don't know when I'd find the time, I'm addicted to COD4. I only take the occasional break to play a little GH3. I may consider the MLB game, but only after I prestige all the way on COD4.

If you combine Tall and Lanky you get tanky.

I'm sorry for Larry Smith, but I wish I was I had no recollection of the Smith era at USC.

402 Because the Santana trade was brought up before. Nobody brought up the merits of field goal kicking until today.

i've heard many rumors in oct and nov that the dodgers were in the santana market witch that deal. if he is going to be dealt in the next 10 days the dodgers have to throw their hat in the ring, if he goes to the mets they're scary scary good and the dodgers can't just let that happen without trying to acquire him themselves

Too much faith being put in Vegas odds.

378 I might get MLB 2k8... depending on if I can find it at a decent price and if it gets good reviews. I finally beat Gears of War so maybe I'll play some COD4 this week.

405 You haven't answered my friend request invite!

I don't know where that extra I was came from

Can we just sign CC in the offseason?

if they somehow got santana in their roatation they'd have a really good chance of 5 starters with a sub 4.00 era (min 25 starts) wonder who was the last team to do that?

Vegas odds are a horrible way to try to gauge a team's competitiveness. The goal of the oddsmakers is to try to get the same amount of people to bet on one side as on the other. Then they have no risk and can rake in the vig.

The last baseball game I played was Manny... I mean MVP Baseball 2005 (EA game). It had Manny Ramirez on the cover so my friends and I referred to it as "Manny." I thought it was quite good. I've since heard that it's been the best baseball game of the last few years.

408 The Dodgers have already committed more than $35 million on a pitcher this offseason. There are not an infinite number of spot in a starting rotation. Nor is payroll limitless.

I dont think the Mets have the pieces to get Santana.

Quit Frankly, all their pitching prospects combined might not convince me to trade Kershaw for them.

415 Someday before I die there will be a baseball game where all my pitchers don't have K/BBs of infinity.

402 My life's goal is to chastise every terrible trade offer that comes up here.

402 I didn't chastise his proposed trade, I just wanted to point out two things that have been said by others, one, Santana decides where he goes and that his proposed deal was much much better than anything currently being offered.

418 Are you sure that's not because you've created rosters full of Clayton Kershaws?

351 i think nomar/santana/pierre is a better trio than loaiza/laroche/kemp, but that's just me

420 I intentionally draft poorly so I don't have a heart of the lineup consisting of Pujols, Cabrera and Vlad.

413 The last team to do that was actually the Dodgers. In 1992. Eighteen teams in baseball history have done it, five of them Dodger teams.

http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/kBQp

I don't know if by "they" you mean the Mets or the Dodgers would be likely to do it. The Mets have no chance; their rotation's a joke. The Dodgers would also be pretty unlikely, I would think. Any of Penny, Lowe, or Kuroda might have an ERA under 4 but for all three of them to do it strikes me as very unlikely. Penny's 2007 was, sad to say, largely luck and we should expect a big comedown in 2008.

421 correction pierre is going to start this year, so it'd be nomar/ethier/santana vs loaiza/laroche/kemp

414. True, but there are quite a few professional gamblers with large bankrolls who if the odds are skewed too much to one side are waiting in the wings to jump in and then you have your lopsided betting pool. Vegas actually does a very good job of setting the odds of individual games and they have nearly a 10% margin of error to play with. Your statement is 100% true, but from my experience tracking Vegas odds makers they do a very good job on a game to game basis. vr, Xei

410 I haven't been on in a few days. I should be on tonight or tomorrow night. I'll add you...I need all the friends I can get.

423 incorrect, ramon marteniez that year had a 4.0022 not sub 4

421
If it makes you feel any better I have a rooting team scoresheet league in which the Dodgers are my team. Our draft started yesterday and we could draft one player in the AL. I took Santana, so at least in my little world I have a rotation of Johan/Billingsley/Penny with Loney/Kemp/LaRoche/Furcal/A Jones.
I'm so looking forward to 2010 when the rotation will be Kershaw, Santana, and Billingsley.

373 Very true.
Of course the best revenge would be if the second tier prospects proved out and stiffed these teams who want us to feel sorry because they can't keep the best talent. Whats the long term answer--I'm sure it won't happen but it could be contraction.
IMO the main point on Santana is just how much can you give up in players and cash for a player who will only play once every five days, and what % of a billion can you guarantee a player who depends on one arm staying in perfect shape, while it is subjected to the ultimate abuse?

nomar/ethier/santana vs loaiza/laroche/kemp

Kemp + LaRoche destroys Nomar + Ethier. There is no comparison - NONE - in terms of power potential.

with all that being said, i hope someone brings up this thread 2 years from not and can tell me how big of a moron i am becuase kershaw and laroche have blossumed into young inexpensive stars

424 I was referring to 2009 in that comment. And after 2009 Kershaw/LaRoche/Kemp will likely only get more better (if that makes any sense) than Santana/3B replacement/Pierre-Ethier. And of course there's the possibility of Kershaw showing up this year.

431 Part of our bias is because we were here in 2005 when everybody was talking about how bad the Dodgers were and we all knew that Russell Martin and Chad Billingsley and James Loney and Jonathon Broxton and Matt Kemp were all gonna be in the bigs very soon.

427 I think that says all I need to know.

431
They did to me when I suggested trading Russel Martin for Tejada two years ago when he was just a AA catcher and we already had Navarro and hadn't signed Furcal yet. Canuck quickly put me in my place which kept me from venturing another opinion for about 30 seconds.

430 wait a minute, first off laroche and nomar are competing for a job, so for this year alone it's not that big of a difference (nomar could still have a .280 15 hr season if he starts 135 games), and let's be honest kemp is probably not a .300 hitter yet, he is somewhere between the .250 and .340 we've seen so far,so kemp ethier isn't a huge difference so that leaves us santana vs. loaiza....

he is somewhere between the .250 and .340

cant you say that for about 99% of the MLB population?

423 look at that '92 team offensively, that was really scary 1 guy over 10 HR :-/

437 That, according to my stats teacher, is how you get a 99% confidence interval.

437 i don't think 99% of the MLB population had one year hitting .250 and 1 year hitting .340

Anyone know the answer to the "Let's Play 'Guess The Criteria'!" on www.sonsofstevegarvey.com/ ??? Its 4 posts down.

barry bonds hit more home runs in one season (73) than the '92 dodgers hit (72)

437. More like 95%. :)
vr, Xei

436
If you're arguing we should trade Loaiza for Santana, then I'm in your corner, chief.

441
No, but the Bus information was nice to read about. Jon has had a few threads here on how we could get better bus service to DS. It will be curious if they adopt any of the strategies that came up in that thread.

440. No, but a large portion of ALL players hit between those two thresholds. Almost the entire population of mlb players.
vr, Xei

I actually enjoyed MLB 2K7 quite a bit, and it looks like the depth of fielding and pitching for 2K8 is going to make this one a great game. I am also excited to see Loney get the attributes he deserves for the game.

I have not played COD4 in a while. I think I am ranked at the 47 mark

443

not including pitchers?

448. of course.

Random variations for a player with an OBP skill of .330 would lead to 95% of players will have measured OBP between .288 and .372 with a sample size of 500 PAs. This is somewhat similar to the .250 -> .340 (batting average) example above.
source: The Book
vr, Xei

There's one point I haven't seen addressed yet. If Kemp is a part timer (probably this year, but maybe next year too, huh?), it's possible that the team would be better off with whatever could be gotten in trade for him. His real value isn't the necessarily the same as his value to this team. For a horribly stupid reason, but that doesn't make it less true.

423 can you come up with a list, least amount of HR by a team in a a non-strike season since 1950

451 No, BB-Ref does not have that capability.

You'd have to think the Dodger 68 team with 67 home runs would be near or at the top of that list. Led by Lenny Gabrielson's 10 home runs which I'm sure is the least amount of home runs to lead a major league team since integration. Maybe those Colt 45 or bad Met teams beat it. I'll let you know in a minute.

Yup the 1963 Colt 45 team hit 62 with John Bateman leading the way with 10.

453 "Lenny Gabrielson's 10 home runs which I'm sure is the least amount of home runs to lead a major league team since integration."

1948 Senators.

Then again, you did say major league team.

I don't want to discuss the specifics of the trade proposal under discussion because it is so...oh, you can infer what I want to say, but I choose to be a gentleman. Today.

However, I have to respond to Greg Miller's case being brought up as something that could conceivably happen to Kershaw. The specific injury Miller suffered is so unusual and freaky that the odds are way against the exact same thing happening to Kershaw, but the larger point -- that Kershaw's MLB career could be jeopardized by an injury before he even makes the majors -- is true enough. But the even larger and more relevent point would be that ALL pitchers are injury risks, not just the prospects. Why not talk about Koufax when talking about the risk of acquiring Santana at a high price in talent and money? From 1964 to 1966 Koufax was the "best pitcher in baseball," and where was he in 1967, at the young age of 31? Out of baseball altogther. Because of injury.

I'll put on the record now something that a lot of people will disagree with, and that is that I really wouldn't want the Dodgers signing Santana even as a free agent. Not at the contract length and money that some team is going to give him. Investing huge money over many years in something as fragile and volotile as a baseball pitcher is the quintessence of stupidity. If Kershaw's career ends tomorrow, all that has been wasted is a $2.3 milion signing bonus and a whole lot of hopes and dreams entertained by people like myself. If something goes wrong with a guy signed to a $150 million deal, that cripples the organization and cripples it for a long time. Cost has to be factored into risk analysis, and when that is done, Santana is revealled to be a far, far, worse risk that Kershaw over the next six or seven years.

456 If you don't spend the money on Santana, what do you spend it on?

457

kyle blairs, alex whites, etc...

456. it's not a subject that I know alot about nor that gets mentioned too often, but aren't these rather large contracts signed by pitchers insured? Any insight on this?
vr, Xei

456

Agreed. I think it was Rob Neyer who compiled evidence that, whereas hitters on average progress to their prime seasons (27-31), pitchers on average are basically on a downhill slide throughout their careers.

Okay, that covers five of the 150 million.

456 If Kershaw's career ends tomorrow, all that has been wasted is a $2.3 milion signing bonus and a whole lot of hopes and dreams entertained by people like myself.

There's also an opportunity cost involved. We could have traded Kershaw for Santana or Cabrera. Even if his career ends tomorrow, we would still have had those assets.

456

Agreed. I think it was Rob Neyer who compiled evidence that, whereas hitters on average progress to their prime seasons (27-31), pitchers on average are basically on a downhill slide throughout their careers.

458 But signing the Blairs and Whites instead of Santana would require some sort of budget flexibility, and thus a fundamental reworking of the Dodgers' organizational structure. They've stated before that the draft budget and major league budget are separate, disconnected things, and that they are unwilling to move money around from one to the other even if the situation calls for it.

In other words, the Dodgers have a completely dysfunctional way of doing business, and they like it that way.

456

A point I'm with, but a a few weeks ago Eric Enders made me think twice about it. I'm still with your logic but Eric's point is also a great one.

456

Thanks for that perspective.

by the way, does anyone know any slow-pitch softball leagues in Pasadena? I want to play where I live

To the Spring Training vets out there, do the Orlando or Miami airports offer advantages over the other in terms of ease of arrival departures, etc.? The distance to Vero is only +/- 30 miles between the two, any recommendations would be appreciated.

457 -- In the very short run, the Dodgers' payroll should decrease as more young players are substituted for expensive vets, but it will not be long before our young stars are going to get expensive, perhaps even during their arbitration years if they really are stars. When or if we sign free agents, I would like to see us continue what the Dodgers have been doing -- outside of Pierre's case -- and stick to two, three year deals. It is not just Santana I oppose giving a six year deal. Eevn a cheaper pitcher shouldn't be given more than a three-year contract by the Dodgers. If that removes us from the market for really attractive pitchers, so be it. I really want to see us build our pitching through the farm anyway.

So, anybody else besides me throwing a super bowl party? I'm going with a sort of Mexican theme. Making a boat load of enchiladas, stuffed chiles, guacamole, buying a boat load of tamales (from my favorite place, Sandra & Lolitas in East L.A.).

Oh, and Margaritas and Mexican beer.

467. Pulled off of the internet.
Adult Softball Leagues
(per team for a 10 game season) Come and play softball!

Men's leagues available Monday through Friday evenings & Sunday mornings. Co-ed leagues available Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Games are primarily
at Brookside & Jefferson Parks.

For more information contact Cathy,
Major League Softball at (818) 559-8787 x3.

468 Orlando's slightly closer and also has less traffic between the airport and Vero.

470 - I should throw a Super Bowl party myself. Except it'll be celebrating the fact that football season is over. We'll have College Basketball on the tube instead.

472 Can you really find a college basketball game on at the same time as the Super Bowl?

If you watch it, Eric, will the announcers address you by name?

470

So, when should I be there for the food?

We had a party last year, but we will be driving back from Santa Barbara this time. It will just be me and my wife, which will be nice.

471

thanks! Do you have a link for that?

never mind, I found it

I think Jefferson park is the one on Villa, east of Allen.

yea, I have a friend that lives right near it. It has the fences, with a right field version of the green monster

Options for watching the super bowl

1. Family, which I usually do... 46" Sharp AQUOS
2. Friends in West LA, 30" Sony HDTV
3. other friends in Santa Barbara, 9000" projection screen, but Standard Def.

Which would you choose?

I lived just down the street at Villa and Catalina in the 90's

468 Also look at West Palm Beach.

478 Have you watched the projector during the day? Either with daylight or with some light turned on?

Anyone looked at the Hardball Times Season Preview 2008 yet? Worth getting?

Normally, I would never tell anyone to eat at Panda Inn unless they have children who eat nothing but orange chicken. (Ok it is not that bad, but I there are many better Chinese restaurants around)

But next Wednesday, you can join Matt Kemp, James Loney, Hiroshi Kurada, Eric Karros and Tommy Lasorda among others for lunch as the Dodgers have their Fan Caravan. They will be at the location on Foothill off the 210 in very eastern part of Pasadena.

If you would rather meet Jeff Kent and Charley Steiner, you can go to Santa Monica on Tuesday.

Also, the game on the 3/29 at the Coliseum is a fundraiser for ThinkCure and tickets go on sale on this Saturday.

http://tinyurl.com/2e4qra

483 I apologize to Hiroki.

478 - I don't know which I'd choose, but the quality of the TV would play no part in my decision.

484 It's Hiroki Kuroda actually, but that's okay, he knows you still like him.

Man, I know which event I'd choose!

486 Jeff Kent, right?

478
Well I am guessing the television viewing for options 1 & 2 would be good, so then it depends on if you want to hang with friends or family.

Marty's parties always sound so delicious.

Hmm. I understand a cannibal would be more interested in the particulars of the food served, but you'd think the nerd aspect would make the television size/specifications at least play some part.

478

It also depends on what type of person you are, for me, I can be introverted at times (aren't we all) so I'd go the safe route & just kick it at home, specially because I know next to nothing about football.

Or is Jon not a part of the inner circle? In but not of, maybe.

470
Party tease

There are just six Division I men's basketball games scheduled for Sunday.

The latest one starts at 1:05 pm. Montana at Eastern Washington.

If you had Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary of the Interior in your office SotU pool, you won!

Cargill06,

Do you recall the A's ransacking of the Cards farm a few years back when they traded them Mulder? Look it up, if you had forgotten. Let's not go that route, capiche?

I hate phantom commas.

someone asked ealier if anyone had received presale info for the Coliseum game; just checked my email and I got my info. my order day is wednesday from 10am to 5pm. it says tickets are available for $25 or $15. I can order up to 16 tix. no word on ticketmaster fees, but I doubt they will change anything different than standard despite the charity.

I wonder if walk ins are welcomed, I've yet to hear anything about that. I'll also by the ticket but just thinking out loud.

is there any way to find out the game time for the Coliseum game?

I am currently watching "In Treatment" and HBO deserves a lot of credit for pushing boundaries, but I would be amazed if this show comes back for a second season.

Wow. Alot of action here. But I don't think there will be much action in MLB until something mitigates the guaranteed contract.

497
If each Season Ticket holder can buy an extra 16 seats and they already bought 4 when they renewed and the Dodgers have roughly 25,000 season ticket seats sold, so how many seats will be left for the public?
25,000 / 2 = 12, 500 * 4 = 50,000 seats
Let's say they show restraint and only buy 4 tickets per season holder
4 * 12,500 = 50,000 seats

Seems we are already way over the number of seats available.

never mind, game time is 7:10 pm

I can't imagine any possible act (while fully clothed) more humiliating than getting an autograph at the SotU address.

I think a naked person asking for an autograph while watch the SotU address would increase ratings.

Drinking game: Heartland. Go.

I have to say I would rather sign a pitcher and risk the money lost due to injury WAY over trading for a pitcher and risking injury loss and prospects like Kemp etc.
Starting pitching is simply going to make or break your season. So I have never been against a GM taking a chance on a pitcher in FA. It is a gamble, but a legitimate one. One that a contender has to take at times.

Schmidt is probably done for his career, but I have no problem with that signing. I guess you can argue things that no one really knows for sure, like did the Dodgers ignore obvious warning signs, but I think that is hard to quantify.

So with all of that said, I would never trade for Santana in a million years simply because the risk vs. reward is too great in terms of injury and prospects.

Next year, the out party should auction off the right to give the rebuttal. I'm pretty sure I'd rather watch a Marry Kay pitch, or some other kind of infomercial. Just brutal. Maybe if there were a dance number, or an explosion or something.

507-509 I think you have it right. With the guaranteed contract you can buy a Schmidt, and all you lose is money. But you can't afford to roll the dice with money and years of position players. With Schmidt, all we had was a bad year, not a bad half decade.

NPUT

Off topic, but great article on the 2008 Phillies team. It picks the Mets to win division though, with possible assistance of Johan. Either way, clear rivals to the Dodgers for the playoffs.

http://mlbfleecefactor.com/2008/01/28/2008-philadelphia-phillies-looking-to-take-next-step/