I'm surprised Dick Young deigned to go to Los Angeles to cover any sporting event.

If Dick Young were still alive today, we'd hate him with the heat of ten thousand Bill Plaschkes.

Roto league 2nd pick Wright or Hanley?

I'm really glad to hear Strawberry is still alive. I don't meant to be flippant, but there were a few moments there where I was simply concerned for his welfare. He himself said "I'm just glad to be back." Darryl, it's GREAT to see you back in the game.

--

Speaking of "great to see you back," it is so wonderful to have Vin Scully back at the mic again. I'm looking forward to more of his stories and his reflections on 50 years in LA.

--

TC, you might enjoy this, but during the Clippers/Pistons game on Saturday, Clipper Darrell had a chance to visit one of the Luxury Suites during the game. Based on his enthusiasm (he has a lot of it) it might have been one of his first such visits. As we were leaving, Clipper Darrell shows up right next to me on the escalator. Very cool! I wanted to make sure he went ahead of me.

Oddly enough, I scored a great deal on premier seats for the game. If you can swing it Premier Seats are worth every penny!!! Shorter lines, better food selections (like that amazing Turkey Club sandwich), and in-seat service. A lady comes up and lets you order food while you're watching the game. Two minutes later, the food comes right to you in your seat.

I know that most baseball parks have this "feature" anyway, but for an NBA game, it was a nice touch.

2

HANLEY!!!

3
But you have to tip!

2
Depends on categories.

Re: HD coverage in the previous thread...

DirecTV EI Superfan should have over 80-100 Dodger games available out of market in HD (the new sat is really paying off, last year there were ~30). The actual number various on where you live, here in Phoenix I must rely on local FSAZ & Ch. 3 when they play the D'backs as the LA feed is blacked out. While most you hear Vin, I'm locked into Grace & his man-crush on Broxton :(

AVS Forum has a thread on HD MLB coverage:
http://tinyurl.com/yqxpbo

And a member there is maintaining an Excel file with details here:
http://tinyurl.com/2cxowh

I'm pretty sure the late(?) great Eddie Wilson sung that song.

Just read the article by Phil Gurnee (alias ToyCannon). He used the word "industry" as a synonym for "hard work." Nothing wrong with that. It's impishly archaic, really. But now I find myself imagining what it would be like if Plaschke abandoned "indeed" for a spell and used "forsooth" instead. He can pimp Juan Pierre all he likes he would just do that me.

9 That's like when I talk to kids about "having agency" in a situation, and they look at me like I'm just throwing words together.

10 -- Ever thought of speaking to your students all the time in a way that they wouldn't have a clue what you were saying? That'd be fun. I'd do it if I were you. But you're probably one of those teachers who cares that your students actually learn something. Do-gooder.

Ever thought of speaking to your students all the time in a way that they wouldn't have a clue what you were saying?

We call that "teaching."

12 -- Oh. From my own days as a student I thought that was called "teaching Calculus."

3

Yes, tipping is important, but I think of it like a pizza delivery. It's worth it for me...

14 Dave?

Kent's injury could be a blessing in disguise. It's good that it happened now, not later during the regular season because I feel we need his experence at least for this year which may be his last. The blessing is the fact it gives Young & Chavez a chance to practice for the post Kent years. Maybe Hu can be added on if he plans to switch positions and we'll say HU's on 2nd. I say switch because I'd rather see Furcal re-signed. I don't think it will be good, or necessary to have both 2nd & ss with first year players occupying them, next year. I hope either Nomar or LaRoche settles the issue at 3rd, preferable the younger LaRoche. When Abreu gets back he can add to the mix at 2nd and may the best man win. No use talking about Pierre unless you figure Colletti & Torre are reading all this negative stuff about him and may change their mind or realize that Ethier is our man.

Torre was touched by the Angels

>> Matt Kemp, the 23-year-old physical marvel whose blunders on the basepaths have been well-documented, appears to be listening.

"It's not OK to make mistakes," Kemp said. "But you can change ballgames by taking that extra base and being aggressive. You can't be afraid to make a mistake. I'm going to be aggressive, but controlled." <<

http://tinyurl.com/yuee7l

10 "That's like when I talk to kids about "having agency" in a situation, and they look at me like I'm just throwing words together."

I hate to admit but I looked at you that way when I read that, too.

Ah well. Me fail English? That's unpossible.

Jon, you're not about the random "shazbat" comment (even as a kid that word made me think its creators knew Hebrew) reminded me that last night Robin Williams appeared in a dream. Talk about random. I was at a party at my mom's house and for some reason he was there and then had to go to the bathroom and yet my mom wasn't paying attention and was blocking his path, and I had to step in and say, "Uh, mom, Robin needs to use the bathroom". I haven't even watched him in anything recently, what the heck!

So, uh, how about those Dodgers? Yep, pretty much. Mm-hm.

18 "your note about..." that should read above. Sigh, Ralph Wiggum here I come. No, bed, here I come.

So Moises Alou is out 4-6 weeks. I think a Reyes/Pierre top of the lineup would be devastating to opposing pitchers.

Sorry for coming a little late to this, but this evening I saw Jon's reference yesterday to the Plaschke column about the need for a lefty starter, and I felt like running the numbers to test the hypothesis that the NL West acutely requires a southpaw starter. If you're not interested, go ahead and skip this too-lengthy comment.

For the eight regulars from each of the Dodgers' NL West opponents, I took their Marcel projection and regressed their career splits to project their 2008 hitting ability versus LHP and RHP.

I count 18 right-handed batting regulars, 7 lefties, and 7 switch hitters. The seven lefties are Todd Helton, Brad Hawpe, Adrian Gonzalez, Brian Giles, Jim Edmonds, Stephen Drew, and Dave Roberts (while they happen to also be in order of team, that is in ascending order of their offensive projection). Of the switch-hitters, Orlando Hudson and Omar Vizquel are the only ones who are worse against southpaws, although it could be with more data we'll find out Chase Headley and Dan Ortmeier also suffer against LHP (they might also be better against LHP).

Since I'm using Marcel projections which don't incorporate minor league data, I'll note that among the young players who might fare better in PECOTA or other systems with minor league data, we have one lefty (Drew), two switch-hitters (Headley and Ortmeier), and six righties (Jackson, Reynolds, Tulowitzki, Kouzmanoff, Young, and Upton).

Weighting all 32 players equally - which isn't a precise measure of who Dodger starters would face, but which is a pretty reasonable approximation based on the spread of players - I found their average wOBA projection against RHP to be .341 and against LHP to be .342. To put it in runs, a pitcher facing 25 batters a game making 12 starts against the Dodgers' division opponents would be expected to yield an extra 0.3 runs. Based on the division opponents alone, the Dodgers should theoretically favor a righty by the tiniest of margins.

It also appears that both Torre and Plaschke are having difficulties fully understanding the implications of Torre's claim that "Having a left-handed starter prevents teams from stacking lineups against you." While it is certainly true that starting a southpaw will prevent the opposition from stacking the lineup with left-handed hitters on the day that the lefty pitches, this has no effect on the days that other RHP start; it is only salient when directly comparing the right-hander you have to a potential lefty replacement. Any such comparison must similarly account for the likelihood that the opposition can stack the lineup with right-handed hitters, and in general a team benefits much more from "stacking the lineup" when facing a southpaw: if a team's bench has left-handed hitters who are better than the RHB regulars, then the lefties should be playing regularly anyway (with the titular starter as their platoon partner); meanwhile, it is quite common for teams to start left-handed batters who are inferior to their potential replacements against LHP (for a Dodgers example, consider the latter years of Shawn Green, Steve Finley, and Juan Gonzalez).

If we consider the lineup-stacking potential of the rest of the NL West, I think it's clear that any stacking is more likely to harm a Dodger lefty than a Dodger righty. The only LHB upgrade I see on an NL West bench is Chad Tracy, who isn't much better than either Mark Reynolds or Conor Jackson. Meanwhile, Giles, Edmonds, Roberts and Vizquel (and perhaps even Stephen Drew, at this point in his career) are bad enough hitters against LHP that for each a replacement-level right-handed batter at their position would constitute an upgrade with a southpaw on the mound. Helton, Gonzalez, Hawpe and Hudson are slightly better starters overall against LHP than RHB replacements would be, and mostly because they're good defensive players (Hawpe less so).

Plaschke also contends (perhaps based on something Torre has said) that "The lack of left-handers means Torre will have to carry two left-handers in the bullpen." Strictly speaking, this can't be the case: no team 'needs' even one lefty reliever. Since the Dodgers are intent on keeping Beimel, the only consideration is whether they should choose a mediocre lefty over the righty who would otherwise earn the last spot in the bullpen. If you start a southpaw there will likely be more RHB in the opponent's lineup, so if the other manager has decided not to use his benched lefties in the later innings then yes, your overall need for a southpaw reliever is slightly reduced. The difference to your bullpen is confined to a period of about 450 PA (30 starts times 15 batters faced by the bullpen). If all of your opponents aggressively pursued the platoon advantage in the starting lineup and then kept those batters out of the rest of the game, then at two hitters a game you've got an extra 100 plate appearances where you don't need a lefty on the mound to get the platoon advantage. The advantage of having a lefty instead of a righty for those 100 PA is the equivalent of 2.3 runs. Realistically speaking, though, that 100 PA is not accurate. Few if any teams have more than two or three lefties that they would bench against a southpaw without seeing a dropoff in the starting lineup, and in the NL it's pretty unlikely that more than one would be given the full day off and not used as a pinch hitter. Given that at least a third and maybe more like half of the teams in the league will rarely bench their left-handed starters unless they have a major reputation for not being able to hit lefties, I don't think the difference can really amount to more than 30 PA, or 0.7 runs. That's just the raw difference between having a lefty face those batters and having a righty do so (that is, a righty and a lefty with equivalent projections); given that many of these PA would happen in blowouts or at times when you really wouldn't take out your RHP (Saito and Broxton aren't getting pulled when a lefty's up), the advantage is further reduced. Factor in that the lefty will also generally be asked toface a righty or two, and you have to give back a big chunk of the platoon advantage.

All in all, I would strongly recommend that the Dodgers not pursue a left-handed starter unless he is ostensibly a better pitcher overall than the righty he would replace. Even if the Dodgers are convinced that the potential advantage of having a lefty is in line with the most lefty-favorable assumptions I could make, then the southpaw's projected ERA can be no more than ten points higher than that of the righty he replaces.

Dick Young**Did someone mention Dick Young? Bob Timmermann?**Dick Young was like the voice of the Dodgers in print. That's where I started out. From his writings I learned about the team.

15

Yep, that's me.

23

Btw, I'm sorry to hear about your flight being delayed. Man, of all the places to be stuck for a day too, Detroit. Hopefully things will sail more smoothly going forward.

At first I thought this column was a joke, but I am not sure now.

http://tinyurl.com/34jum9

What do people think?

Ok, it is a joke and a good one. He sounds so much like Plaschke it scared me.

25 Ha ha. Yeah, it's a joke. This isn't the first thing "Art" has written.

BTW, Watchmen pics are up all over the place.

Alternative titles for that article:

Ignorance Is Bliss or
Living Under A Rock and Loving It.

27
Plaschke's of the world have got me paranoid.

The uniforms for Watchmen are a little too Batman and Robin for me.

The best part of parody or satire is when people don't get it. The comments on that piece are priceless.

22
Did you ever read Dick Young, after say, 1957? Young held all of Los Angeles in disdain as if it were unfit for the Dodgers. He thought Angelenos were all idiots. He got more vitriolic as he went by.

And eventually when he had a son-in-law work for the Mets, he succeeded in driving Tom Seaver out of New York.

Young started out as a new breed of writer, and then turned into a cartoon character. He was meaner than Mike Lupica, dumber than Plaschke, and all in all, a traitor to everything he said he espoused when he started out for the NY Daily News.

Dick Young. Blech.

2 i'd go for reyes. I know he wasn't an option, but I think hanley will be less productive without miggy.

speaking of fantasy baseball, I am looking for a leauge. I am pretty open, I am just trying to avoid a public leauge because everyone is usually gone by june.

bob, is there room open in your nephews leauge, I am as mature as an 11 year old.

32
I haven't heard from for a week or so. It's possible he may just forget.

I'm up to 255,327 pts in the Hot Wheels game. Not because that's as good as I can get, but because I can't afford to lose any more sleep!

Woo hoo. I got to a point where I could play forever.

Now I'm going to have a dream just like Eric's...

"Gas or Rocket Fuel?"
"Cruise on in!"
"Cool Ride"
"That's a sweet paint job"
"Yea you're gonna need some rain tires"
"Hot WHEELS POWAH!"

Dick Young was still writing for The Sporting News when I was in high school. Couldn't stand the guy. I think I even wrote them a letter once complaining about him.

Now that Plaschke has officially pronounced Jones to be overweight, I see his clever plan: last year's outfield alignment.

27 - His bit on the Patriots' "Perfect season" is pretty good.

32 - I have a league with a couple open spots. It is not a standard 5x5, but it is competitive and almost everybody stays active throughout the year. Rule 1, 2, & 3 violations are not uncommon there, though it is all in good fun. E-mail me if you're interested: roidefou AT yahoo dot com.

10 If you taught in Utah, I guarantee every single kid in your class would understand the phrase "having agency". It's a major part of the theology here and is taught in Sunday School at an early age.

34 You do feel great power at the 250,000 level. You're doing things fast, and getting it all done on time. The problem is that when you hit 500,000+ the cars start coming in faster than you can service them. And there are so many events going on, that Flash can't keep up with them, so you have to double or triple click every time you want to do something. In the end, you will lose. I topped out at 630,000.

25 Apparently, ESPN is in the comedy business now. Or they're just bored and feel like baiting the FJM guys.

BBTF has some thoughts on "Art": http://tinyurl.com/3x82gq

Kemp goes from hitting 8th to cleanup.

Terry Tiffe is playing 1st base and Lowe is starting. I heard a rumor that Loney has refused to play 1st base this spring when Lowe pitches because of lingering problems from last summer.

Shouldn't D Young be getting every possible inning at 2nd base at this point to make up for the two years he never played the position?

Anyone see the rookie Al Thornton take over the 4th, and both overtimes to bring the Clippers back from a 17 point deficit? He really is starting to look like Dominique.

If anyone takes my Loney comment seriously please look around for your common sense.

41 thanks, found it.

41
Loney should play first, but refuse to catch any throws from infielders.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=spring_training

he's human after all!

41/43 - Is DLowe's favorite song "Loney Again, Or..." by Love?

Cool! ItD, presumably Josh, answered my question in his latest blog entry:
>>For the person who mentioned James McDonald, I'm not sure when he's scheduled to pitch but I'm fairly certain there's nothing wrong with him. I think the issue is just that we have a ton of pitchers in camp this spring, mostly because of the trip to China that will create the split-squads, so you'll probably see more of him once Tommy is managing half the team here in Vero. It seems like most of the guys getting work in right now are the veterans who are more likely to make the Opening Day roster and I think it's safe to say that James likely isn't in that group just yet, given that he hasn't pitched at Triple-A yet.<< (sigh)

I really enjoy the name Terry Tiffe, has he started a game yet? I don't even remembering hearing his name among people invited to Spring Training. If I weren't leaving work early today, I'd make it my goal to find out everything I could about this man.

41 Sure, just give me more fuel for the Lindsey-over-Loney camp.

43
Jeff Kent already has that schitk, but he refuses to catch groundballs hit toward him.

In case you missed it, Blue Notes expands on their feelings on the Pierre/Ethier, uh, issue. Not much that's new, but it's well thought out and good to see more taking up the cause of Plaschke-smacking:
http://sportsblogs.latimes.com/sports_baseball_dodgers/2008/03/another-install.html

From RotoWire:
Randy Wolf (P) SD 3/6/2008
Wolf was removed after surrendering four runs in two-thirds of an inning Wednesday versus the A's, his second straight poor outing of the spring. "I felt a lot better than I looked," Wolf said. "I just didn't have any command at all. I couldn't throw the ball where I wanted to and it makes a difference." Wolf has given up seven runs in 1.1 innings this spring.

In the latest Dylan Hernandez piece, Furcal is quoted is saying, "We don't have players who can hit 30 or 40 home runs." This troubles me. We do have many players with power, including Martin, Loney, and even Ethier. I firmly believe that one of the reasons why those three are such good hitters is that they are hitters WITH power as opposed to "power hitters."

This obsession with big number power hitters is what drives the fascination for the Adam Dunns and Alfonso Sorianos of the world. Truthfully, I'd rather have what we already have.

Last I looked Andruw Jones hit 92 home runs in 2005/2006. If he ain't hitting 30 this year the Dodgers aren't getting their money's worth.

49 - I saw it linked by Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts last night in this thread:

https://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/918171.html#comments

Well it turns out I can't make it to Vero Beach next week. I'm going to try to unload tickets on craigslist or eBay, but on the off chance that anyone from DT can get to Florida, I thought I'd offer them up here. I've got 1 for Sunday against Boston, and 3 each for Tuesday and Wednesday (Fla. and Wash.). All tix are in Sect. 25 row 6. Email me at jacobandjulie@sbcgobal.net.

51 To be fair, he is quoted as saying "We don't have many batters who can hit 30 or 40 home runs." You missed the many...

51 Does it trouble you that he said it or trouble you because it is true?

There were only 4 NL hitters with 35 or more HR last year.

Kent was our leading HR hitter last year with 20 which placed him 43rd in the NL. Andruw was 26th in the NL.

I am hopeful that one or 2 of our guys will wind up in the low part of the 30 to 40 range but if we have 1 or 2 near 30 and 3 or 4 in the 20's we could score a lot of runs.

55 Thanks. I try to make at least two errors per comment. It keeps me from getting a big head. :)

51 Dunn, and to a lesser extent Soriano, are very good players. There's a reason people are fascinated with them. Right now, they are better players than our collection of Ethiers, Kemps and Loneys.

53 Ah, sorry, guess that was past my bed time, or my brain's bed time at least. Maybe if someone hadn't told me about a certain addictive computer game I wouldn't be so tired!

56 Yah, the key is "many" and the greater point is how many do the Dodgers need? Just a couple more guys picking up their HR totals into the 20s and beyond is about all the Dodgers need. Kent's totals could be going down but Kemp, Loney, Martin and (if he gets the playing time) Ethier's #s could all go up.

Al Thornton is a monster.

56 Actually, my point was that even if Martin, Loney, & Ethier all hit 19 homers, some people would complain. I don't think having ONE big hr guy necessarily makes a team dangerous. Top to bottom--assuming certain lineup decisions are made--we have the potential for power at every position.

I haven't checked, but I don't know how many teams stand to have more power at C, SS, 2B, & CF than we do. I'd guess we're above the average there. If our infield and outfield corners [Kemp excepted] are Ethier, LaRoche, & Loney, we can still have a potent offense, even if none of them is liable to break the 30 hr mark.

58 Don't you have to be a good fielder to be considered a good player? Or did you mean good hitters? I'd certainly put Dunn in the latter category, not sure about the former. Would certainly rather have him in left than youknowwho of course.

Yah, actually, how many home runs came from the Dodgers' third base position last year? I'm too lazy to look it up and know someone here has already done it awhile back, I'm sure, but I have a feeling if they give LaRoche the starting gig he'll top the number. Call me crazy!

63 The last time I made a comment here that I was too lazy to look something up someone asked me if I was a sportswiter for the Times. I laughed out loud (which is not always a good thing to do at work).

45 Underdog gets extra points for bringing Love into the conversation. One of my favorite bands ever.

61
If/When Andre Ethier is playing LF, I think this team could see every position player posting an OPS > 800. That would be impressive. Rafy would be the only real ? mark but I'm expecting a power surge from him in 2008.

It is possible the Giants will not have one position player post an OPS > 800.

65 And one of the best LA bands ever, I have to add.

63
How quickly Boom Boom has been forgotten.

Zito losing 20 games would make me happy.

62 Dunn's bad fielding certainly hurts his value, but his hitting more than makes up for it. Unless Ethier can save 30 more runs than Dunn with his glove (as bad as Dunn is this is still very hard to do) they aren't comparable.

58 Salaries taken into consideration, I would rather have Ethier, Kemp, & Loney than Dunn & Soriano. Actually, give me our guys notwithstanding money. If we disagree on that, fine.

Whoa. I don't know where my infatuation with the word ever came from either.

Dunn and Soriano are a lock for 70 HRs and 300 Ks.

69
I like Zito and wish he hadn't signed with the Giants but I'm glad he didn't sign with us. He was my favorite A's pitcher of the big 3.

68 Indeed. So his 10 homers were probably the majority of the ones hit at third, yah? Maybe LaRoche won't top the overall total, though I bet he hits more than 10, even if he's platooning with Nomar.

71 I'd take our guys going forward, but I'd much rather have them if I knew the world was going to end in November.

73 Making them very good players.

damn mlb.com doesn't have todays line-up up anyone know?

forget 77

The Dodgers general lack of power makes me wonder what people mean when they say Pierre is a good complement to the Dodgers lineup. He's absolutely not. He would be a good use of a lineup spot for some team that didn't need to squeeze some power out of every last spot.

79 Yup.

If Abreu or Hu have to start in place of Kent, does that make Andre Ethier a better fit for the starting lineup than Juan Pierre?

Oh no - I did not just go there, did I?

New post up top.