Anyone Still Ticked About the Furcal Signing?
Back at the end of April, when Rafael Furcal was hitting .198, barely cracked .300 in OBP, and had a disturbing tendency to kick virtually everything that was hit to him and throw away the balls he managed to catch, that $39 million Ned Colletti invested in him seemed like those ritzy $640 toilet seats the Defense Department is famous for buying: money flushed down the can (pun intended!).
I think it's fair to say he's made up for it.
Another three hits, three runs, and an RBI in Wednesday night's 6-0 win over the Cubs have Raffy hitting a robust .341 since the break, and a gaudy .429 during the September pennant drive. The Blue scored in three different innings, and Furcal was involved in all of them. Granted, one would have been enough, since Good Penny resurfaced in the Windy City, holding Chicago to seven hits, and walking nary a soul in his seven strong scoreless frames. Dude must dig being the NL wins leader or something (there is a certain cache to the title), because he's now up to 16-8.
With the win, the Blue tied the Redbirds in the chase for the NL's No. 2 seed, and held on to their 1½-game lead over San Diego in the West. Nice rebound from last night's debacle, that's for sure. More on the game tomorrow.
—BK
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Not me. The guy has won me over. He might be the dodgers most valuable player. Honestly, where would we be with out him?
I mean, I really loved watching Izturis play, but Furcal has played pretty good defense lately, and the offence is like night and day. He really makes the club go.
Speaking of Izzy, did he feel guilty for that winning hit or what, booting that routine grounder? As if you could call anything in the major leagues routine if it was you or me out there. They do make it look easy most of the time, which we take for granted.
Posted by: Andy B | September 13, 2006 at 11:43 PM
Oh yeah, as the only person on the blog that defended Raffy I take pride in what the guy has been able to accomplish despite his horrific start. I was getting slammed every day by other bloggers because I was defending him and saying that he was a MUCH better asset than Izzy. Of course, the guy wasn’t helping my cause in the beginning, but I knew he would come around. An boy has he ever.
People need to understand that history doesn’t lie. Too often people get wrapped around a guy on a hot or cold streak. For instance, I called the Hendrickson trade from the start. I said he was “fools gold” and a dumb trade (I was getting slammed on the blog for that as well). How did I know this? Look at his career. It’s not like he has ever been good. When you have a career BAA of .292 it means your stuff stinks. Only reason he has been around this long is because he’s a lefty. Just because Colletti was looking for pitching it doesn’t mean he should have picked up the first piece of garbage off the street. The guy is 30-something years old; it’s not like he has any “upside”. He’s too old to just wake up one day and suddenly “get it”. Seven years of futility are not going away because of one good first-half of the season.
Raffy is in his 7th year in the league. He was a ROY and an All-Star. The numbers he is currently putting up are consistent with what he has done in his first 6 years. The guy is a player. He’s going to make some errors; a gold glove he is not. But the guy has tremendous range and a gun of an arm. Speed, has pop, good OBP, and flat out gets into scoring position. You can’t ask for more from the leadoff spot. Izzy? Roberts? Please. Furcal is better than both those two put together.
I had no doubt he would snap out of his funk. The question was “when”. Now we can thank our lucky stars that we were able to pry him away from the Braves and Cubs.
As for the money, I’ll say this for the “umptieth” time. Colletti had to make a big splash on the market. He got a late start because McCourt decided to fire Depodumbas* in the heat of free agency. Colletti had to put a little extra into the contract to 1) make headlines by stealing Furcal away from the Cubs/Braves, and 2) showing free agents that we were getting away from that Moneyball crap and we were serious about spending money to build a contending team. That and we got the geek out of the office and let him go back to building computer games. None of that is Furcal’s fault. It’s not like Raffy asked for that along with a “take my game to the next level” out-clause in the contract like someone else on the team.
If Colletti is smart he will give Raffy an extension after next season.
Posted by: LoLo | September 14, 2006 at 05:48 AM
live from wrigley last night:
-furcal swings the bat harder than any dodger in the line up last night (nomar was 2nd; kent was 3rd) this is something you cannot really measure unless you're live.
-furcal, as i said it before, is my mvp for this team. check the stats (and today's paper) BTW, my wife attended with me last night and called him FERKLE (as in erkle?)
HA.
-brad penny has the body of an old school baseball player. big, stocky upstairs; thin, short legs. kinda cartoonish, until you see the 96mph heat.
-no mia to be found
-marlon anderson's DEFENSE was much better than andre's would have been. a couple balls hit to left looked nasty off the bat, but marlon got to them when andre wouldn't. something grady needs to consider from now on.
-CORRECTION: wrigley does have nachos -- just not at all the counters.
-it's lots of fun watching nomar throw the ball into the stands after the 3rd out. he passively looks for a kid to toss it to among the 150 or so adults who are arm waving and screaming.
we gotta win the rubber today!
Posted by: Orel Fixation | September 14, 2006 at 05:53 AM
Congrats to Penny on his 16th and NL leading win. Its too bad his ERA is so high, cause he'd almost be a lock for the Cy Young. As it is, he's not even being considered. Hopefully this nice outing will allow him to wake up and trust his breaking ball a little more. We need him big time down the stretch. This weekend series is gonna be crazy. I can't wait. Dodger stadium will be rockin as they cut their magic number down by 8!!! Go Dodgers!
Posted by: Dodger Fan | September 14, 2006 at 08:38 AM
i'll admit, i was down on furcal. i was wrong, go furcal!
Posted by: bmurphy | September 14, 2006 at 09:13 AM
I thought I was the one who was backing Furcal and saying that Izturis was nothing. I said the Dodgers were always near the bottom on offense and Izturis was the leadoff batter during those years.
mike
Posted by: Michael Teniente | September 14, 2006 at 09:40 AM
As a Venezolano, I was sad to see Izturis go but I will admit that Furcal is a huge playmaker especially at the top of the order. I think everyone was riding Colletti and Furcal at the start of the season, I mean he just wasn't producing. Now, however, he is the catalyst on this ballclub and I look forward to watching him lead us into the playoffs.
Posted by: kuluboy | September 14, 2006 at 09:44 AM
Dodger fan since 1952.....Watched them move from Brooklyn to LA.. Never stopped loving them and visit Vero Beach in the winters now that I live here in Fla. It's great !!! Go DODGERS..... Will have much more to say later...
Posted by: terry morris | September 14, 2006 at 09:57 AM
Anybody see a JD Drew sighting lately?...Why is he hitting in the clean up spot when about the best thing he can do is WALK?...Furcal makes him look like a girl...We could really use a power hitter in his spot....!!!!
Posted by: Kate | September 14, 2006 at 10:27 AM
furcal is ok. i like him.
Posted by: stargazin | September 14, 2006 at 11:48 AM
As a long time Dodger fan, I was a bit weary of the big money we gave to Furcal. I knew what he could bring to the table, but thought that maybe he could be another Drew, with such a huge contract to live up to. His numbers were great coming from Atlanta! Then the season started and they were saying he was hurt. I was just hoping he wasn't going to be that way for the whole season. Now that I've got to see the real Furcal from May on, I couldn't be happier about the signing. He's got the fire, the leadership, and he really does take some vicious cuts up there at the plate driving the ball to all parts of the park.
Anyone know why he uses a different bat from each side of the plate?
Posted by: Jordan | September 14, 2006 at 12:15 PM
I'll have to go back and check the archives if I have time, but I don't remember anyone else being on the Furcal bandwagon while I was busy fending off attackers alone. But whatever.
Posted by: LoLo | September 14, 2006 at 12:16 PM
lolo-you check.i be bandwagon guy.furcal ok.
Posted by: stargazin | September 14, 2006 at 12:29 PM
LoLo:
as I recall you were one of the only (if not the only) apologists for Raffy during his early-season slump.
My major beef regarding Raffy during that time was that Grady continued to bat him lead-off, when he was NOT getting on base. There were really no other long-term options to Raffy at SS before Izzy returned from the DL, so it was clear Raffy would have to play.
However, I still maintain we would have been better off batting Raffy in the seventh or eighth spot UNTIL he snapped out of his offensive slump; particularly since we had in Lofton another proto-typical leadoff hitter who was getting on base.
I find it difficult to believe that Raffy snapped out of his funk earlier than he would have because of Grady's bull-headedness in batting him lead-off. Indeed, Raffy may have broken out of his slump earlier batting lower in the order with less pressure to get on base, or to "set the table." In fact it might have even helped him defensively as players can tend to carry their offensive struggles on to the field defensively where they have time to think about their problems at the plate.
Posted by: CamTheFan | September 15, 2006 at 11:30 AM