Bellyachin' over a win
Not "bellyaching" in the sense of "bitching and moaning." The 5-4 downing of the Rockies brought a smile to everyone's faces (well, except Colorado residents, but they don't get a vote). We mean, a literal bellyache was endured while setting up victorious circumstances. The unlucky stomach in question? Brad Penny's. Dude caught a case of The Midols while running out a seventh inning base hit. Big man was more than willing to fight through the gut issues, but Stan Conte insisting on sitting him. The scare will likely end up much ado about nothing, since the ace ain't expected to miss any starts. It didn't even prevent Penny from entering his 13th win into a box score. Perhaps the gut knots were a byproduct of queasy circumstances faced a mere inning earlier, when Penny saw his shutout turn into three Colorado runs and a serious pickle. Or perhaps it was just a freak thing, another reminder of a season filled with trials and tribulations. As Grady Little pointed out, the truly freaky thing is that after all the drama, the Dodgers are still in first. Seriously, the man ain't lying.
Speaking of freak occurrences/oddities endured, Derek Lowe couldn't even get an MRI on his groin (a freak injury in its own right) without it turning into a circus. But once the madness subsided, the results were fairly tranquil. Randy Wolf, however, doesn't need an MRI to know he's not ready for action just quite yet.
Sharing sentiments with Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part for Barry. But when 756 finally does come upon us, how will you react if it's in your house?
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Laughing at L.A.
Laughing at L.A.
Everyone laughs at L.A.
(Can you Dodger fans even guess what that is a play on?)
Now Penny's hurt, too.
Only thing better would be if at least some of these injuries were career ending.
Go Giants!
Posted by: Tim McCuddahy | July 27, 2007 at 09:58 AM
I had thought of the silent treatment also. I agree that would be the loudest way to demonstrate distaste for the man and yet not be petty or disrespectful for the game. Kind of like the polite applause that Patton gives the Russian dancers. Almost inaudible.
Posted by: Butch | July 27, 2007 at 10:08 AM
so the baseball gods must hate us!!!!!!!!!!! WOW i have never seen such a thing with everyone getting hurt, screw Stan Conte he is still a dirty giant!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: bigtaxdizzle | July 27, 2007 at 10:53 AM
We recognize the song, Tim. We're just ignoring you.
Posted by: Eric B. | July 27, 2007 at 11:30 AM
Sorry to see a classy guy like Chase Utley get hurt. Maybe this will be Joe Thurston's big chance. The Phils have promoted him.
Posted by: Chunkdog32 | July 27, 2007 at 11:54 AM
You stay classy, Tim. Rooting for career-ending injuries, always a nice thing. Good to see the Giants doing so well this year at least.
Meanwhile, glad that Randy Wolf is being realistic and patient instead of trying to rush back. He definitely needs another rehab start. The team can survive another week or so without him. Do you guys think the Dodgers are more likely to acquire a starter or a reliever, at this point? I'm thinking the former now, or maybe someone who can be both - like Zach Greinke.
Posted by: Craig P | July 27, 2007 at 01:22 PM
The bad baseball snooze alarm is going off because the Giants won.
Wakee, wakee...
What a loser you are to only post when your team wins. At least that keeps you from posting very often.
Man, I would HATE to be a Giants fan....
Posted by: Andy B | July 27, 2007 at 01:36 PM
I was pleasantly surprised by this upbeat take on LaRoche's potential in the big leagues.
http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?page=srinivasanml726
Posted by: Steve M. | July 27, 2007 at 02:49 PM
Laughing at last place Tim!
Laughing at last place Tim!
Everyone laughs at last place Tim!
Posted by: Jim | July 27, 2007 at 02:57 PM
Hopefully he's also learned to field and adjust to inside pitches when he gets to majors. His bat speed seemed slow in spring taining and on his call up.
Posted by: DODGER 1955 | July 27, 2007 at 03:47 PM
Hopefully he's also learned to field and adjust to inside pitches when he gets to majors. His bat speed seemed slow in spring taining and on his call up.
Posted by: DODGER 1955 | July 27, 2007 at 03:48 PM
Steve,
That take on Andy LaRoche contained the Dodger kiss of death. Big bat potential, but has to be given a chance. Let's face it, only a desperately poor offensive showing gave Loney and Kemp (sort of) a chance. Otherwise, Little League would have stuck with his "regulars".
Irony...Stan Conte comes to the Dodgers, complete with a great reputation. Now, nearly the entire pitching staff has been injured. Meanwhile, although they suck, the AARP giants have used the DL very rarely for a team with that much mileage.
Posted by: Chunkdog32 | July 27, 2007 at 05:13 PM
You don't think that Conte is still secretly working for the Giants?
Posted by: DODGER 1955 | July 27, 2007 at 06:08 PM
This is pretty good stuff, if you haven't seen it.
How To Fix The Dodgers, Part Three: Mark Teixeira
By Andrew
Posted on Fri Jul 20, 2007 at 05:30:13 PM EDT
Despite having over a year left on his contract, Mark Teixeira is being dangled as the big trade target this year. It's plain to see why a team would want Teixeira for the stretch run. Over the past two seasons, he's put up OPSes of .966 and .998 in the second half, on top of being a guy that's almost a guaranteed .900 OPS who plays Gold Glove caliber defense. Any team would be happy to have Mark Teixeira on their team. The question is, is it worth it for the Dodgers to give up top flight talent to get him?
Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning news keeps suggesting that the Dodgers would be dumb not to trade James Loney and Clayton Kershaw for Teixeira. This idea is patently absurd. As I mentioned with Andy LaRoche, top 100 prospects rarely get traded at the deadline, let alone two of them. I think a better question is, if the Rangers offered Teixeira for Loney straight up, would it be the right thing to do?
My first instinct is to say "of course it is". Loney's lack of power will keep him from ever being a superstar first baseman. Teixeira could hold down the job until 2008 then be replaced with the biggest bat on the free agent market. When you are a team with the young talent and resources of the Dodgers this seems like the correct course of action.
When you glance at Loney and Teixeira's PECOTA projections for 2008, you would probably come to the same conclusion. Loney projects to a .294/.352/.479 line while Teixeira is looking to produce at a .290/.374/.537 clip. Now, PECOTA numbers aren't perfect, but do these numbers seem unreasonable to anyone? This 79 point difference in OPS is a pretty substantial gain, and would seem to indicate that Teixeira is the superior option. However, when you look at their projected VORP, Teixeira's 39.2 runs represents only a 16.6 run improvement over Loney's 22.6. Why? Park factors. Texas is a launching pad, and VORP adjusts for these things. Still, a win and a half is a win and a half. He would still improve the team, right? There's also another factor here. PECOTA is projecting that Teixeira will receive 114 more plate appearances than Loney. Since this seems like somewhat faulty reasoning given Loney's recent very clean bill of health, it seems unfair to arbitrarily punish Loney for this. If you normalize Loney's VORP over the same 672 plate appearances, it jumps up to 26.8 runs. Suddenly, Loney is worth only 12.4 runs less than Teixeira.
Now, 12.4 runs are about 1.2 wins. Is it worth giving up Loney for these 12.4 runst? Is that extra win next year worth the 12 million dollars or so more than Teixiera would make? How about losing the most productive years of Loney's career in exchange for Teixeira, followed by a hitter that will likely be passed his prime. If you believe that all it will take is one more win to push the Dodgers into the World Series, maybe it is. Otherwise, it seems like more substantial improvements could be made to the team elsewhere, without giving up James Loney.
Admittedly, I ignored defense in this analysis, and it could play a part. Teixeira was an elite defensive player in 2005, but zone rating suggests that he's slipped towards the middle of the pack these couple years. Scouts love James Loney's defense, but he's hasn't played enough in the majors to have any real data about him. Since PECOTA rates defense based on fielding runs, which have next to no predictive value in my experience, I can't trust the ratings they use. Because of this, I'm going to call the whole thing a wash.
Until Loney develops some power, I'll never consider him an untradeable part of the team. I still think the Dodgers would be best served by picking up the biggest bat they can find, sticking him at first, and then trading Loney for something else. However, trading James Loney for another first baseman, even Mark Teixiera, just doesn't make sense. Let alone moving Loney and someone else for the big first baseman.
Posted by: DODGER 1955 | July 27, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Tim,
That would be the Missing Persons song "Walking in LA", but you did it wrong if you truely changed it the Lyrics should be:
Laughing at LA
Laughing at LA
Nobody Laughs at LA
Which is the really true situation
Posted by: K T USN | July 27, 2007 at 07:29 PM
tim.....the giants suck and everything having do do with them sucks
namely.......tomko, colletti, barry, you, and the cold, foggy, depressing place that you all call home
why are you on this website anyway frisco boy?
go back to that hellhole
Posted by: dave m | July 27, 2007 at 08:40 PM
I love the dodgers, have since i was a kid, and it kills me to watch a team with this much talent, albeit very young and some old too, underachieve through this season. i know they're in 1st place, but just look at some of the comparisons with the teams that are chasing them...
BA. era...
dodgers .277 3.94
dbacks .248 3.90
padres .242 3.10
yes, i know the dodgers have a very poor defense, but just look at the position the d-backs and pods have put themselves in with absolutely NO hitting.
Having said this, how can grady littleleague sit Kemp on the bench for 2 CONSECUTIVE GAMES when he' hitting .360, is hitting hr's, has the strongest arm on the team (no arms between pierre and ethier), and has a slugging avg over .600?????? SOMEBODY EXPLAIN THAT ONE TO ME!!
Bottom line is that you have 3 guys for 2 spots. Pick the best 2, and the other can pinch hit until he gets another chance. The 3rd guy can even pinch-hit in place of the amazingly untalented Saenz. If guy no.3 wants back in the lineup, he better make the best of his oportunities. Heck, that's how Garvey got into the lineup...
Time to stir the pot and get the guys with the numbers on the field.
The dodgers are just a team waiting for someone to beat them. They are only 4 games over .500 since their quick start, with all this offensive talent. Watch out, littleleague is at the helm.
I say Grady littleleague is a piece of crap, and he's not a winner, and this team is massively underachieving because of him. He's probably not going anywhere, so i'll have to bang my head against the wall every nite until we lose this race.
By the way, Mr. olmeido Saenz is 5 for his last 47 ab's, but mr.littleleague continues to parade him up there every time we need a pinch-hit with runners in scoring position. Do you mean to tell me there isn't a single guy in the bigs who cant waddle to first base faster than this slug, and maybe hit 250 at the same time??? Get rid of him!!! Heck, pull ricky henderson out of retirement. He'll beat out some groundballs, and he's not stuffing his face all day with enchiladas, PLUS he's a hard worker.
I'd rather put a steak knife in my eyeballs than watch saenz pinch-hit.
Now i hate the red sox for firing littleleague, because if they didnt he wouldnt be here. Amazing how you get an owner from boston, and all of a sudden some guy from boston is the skipper. Hey McCourt, ...there are 29 other teams in the league to do deals with, you know??
Dodgers will lose this race, you heard it here. And littleleague will calmly tell you why. And we'll do this all over again next year. You just watch.
Posted by: jim | July 27, 2007 at 09:20 PM
I hope that Ken Gurnick's report doesn't turn out to be true. We've had so little (sorry) good info concerning injuries from the official Dodger public relations machine that I'm beginning to wonder whether Ken has also become fed up with it and is starting to come forward with more accurate stuff.
http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070727&content_id=2113261&vkey=news_la&fext=.jsp&c_id=la
Posted by: Chunkdog32 | July 28, 2007 at 08:13 AM
I have to agree with jim, this team will never be great with Little at the helm.
Also, releasing Marlon Anderson and keeping Saenz was a huge mistake.
Posted by: Jim | July 28, 2007 at 10:06 AM
I agree....keeping Saenz over Anderson was a BIG! mistake. But then again, Colletti gave Pierre a 5 year contract!!!!!!
BTW Maybe I misread, but I saw somewhere That teixeira bats .265 away from Arlington Park?
What's that all about?
Posted by: DODGER 1955 | July 28, 2007 at 04:05 PM
Dodger 1955, Jim-
It's not really a question of Anderson vs. Saenz, but whether or not they need a better RH bat off the bench to replace Olmedo. They need a righthaded bat back there.
BK
Posted by: Brian Kamenetzky | July 28, 2007 at 04:22 PM
Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports said today that the Dodgers are the front-runners for Octavio Dotel. No word as to what they'd give up.
I agree with those who wonder about Mark Teixeira. He's a solid player, but those Arlington numbers may be somewhat like Coors stats.
Posted by: Chunkdog32 | July 28, 2007 at 04:37 PM
Chunkdog-
Hu is the name that seems to come up most often with Dotel, but he'd really like to stay with the Royals if possible and sign an extension, so I read today. So who's to say?
BK
Posted by: Brian Kamenetzky | July 28, 2007 at 04:44 PM
Yikes. Guess the magic run of Brett Tomko is, for at least one night, over.
BK
Posted by: Brian Kamenetzky | July 28, 2007 at 05:58 PM
what good is tomko eating up innings if he gives up 5 runs
grady sucks
Posted by: dave m | July 28, 2007 at 07:02 PM