Teixeira in So Cal
But not on this particular side of the region. Instead, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are the squad now sporting the services of first baseman Mark Teixeira, which may or may not be disappointing news to Dodger fans. His migration from Atlanta was a hot topic during Joe Torre's pregame discussion, considering how the Dodgers are in need of a little pop and Teixeira certainly provides it. If you recall, he was rumored to be a part of proposed packages involving the Dodgers last season. Was that the case this time around again, with the Dodgers simply coming up on the short end of the bartering table? According to Torre, no, since if a move revolved around swapping out first baseman (as it did between the Angels and Braves), the Dodgers are cool with James Loney. While conceding that Teixeira has more power and experience, the front office didn't see whatever discrepancies as big enough to make a similar offer.
"We never really had any interest in Teixeira because we're pretty satisfied with our first baseman," insisted Torre. "I can't tell you how the Angels feel about their first baseman. The only thing I can tell you is how we feel about out first baseman. We never talked about Teixeira. Do I know he's a good player? Sure, I do."
Personally, I doubt I'd have pulled the trigger on a theoretical "Loney for Teixeira" deal, given how the vet is also an impending free agent and Loney would end up a pretty expensive price to pay for what could turn out to be a rental on a team with a lot of holes due to injury and sub-par performances. If you plug in Teixeira right now, it might be enough to snag a weak division pennant, but do you really think this team would make much postseason noise as currently constructed (or destructed, with their issues)? Even taking into account that "anything can happen" in the playoffs, do you really think so? I honestly don't, which is why I'm not positive I'd losing Loney and Teixeira without gaining much. Not trying to be a downer. Just, in my opinion, pragmatic. But that's also just me, so I asked Torre if concerns along those pragmatic lines dictate how they might approach a deal.
"We're still of a mind to try to help this ball club get to the playoffs, there's no question. I don't think we're throwing up our hands, if I got you right."
Not exactly. I wouldn't have pegged the Dodgers as giving up or going into seller's mode, since the division is legitmately up for grabs. But at the same time, if uncertainties continue swirling around guys ranging from Raffy Furcal to Takashi Saito to Andruw Jones, can one player make that big an impact for this particular team? A big enough impact that it's worth missing out on the services of Loney (or whomever) for the future? In Torre's mind, yes, because Blue arms still remain a Dodger strength. "That'll be the main reason we make the postseason, insisted Torre.
As for Manny Ramirez, Torre acknowledged Ramirez's obvious availability, but cited tampering rules that prevented them from commenting in further detail.
OTHER NOTES
Takashi Saito will continue his rehab, but likely won't start throwing at all until next week when the team is on the road. "We have no time frame for him as far as I am told."
Brad Penny's rehab start is getting bumped to Saturday, but that's got more to do with Hiroki Kuroda, the hope being that by rearranging Penny's schedule, it could end up giving the struggling Kuroda a day off down the road. Penny gets an extra day, which gives Kuroda a day off in SF. Thus, the new plan is to have him pitch a week from Friday in San Fran.
Nomar Garciaparra is apparently thinking a DL stint won't be necessary. Feeling better today than he anticipated, he threw and hit off a tee today, which could make him available to make appearances off the bench relatively soon. Soon enough that a deal for a shortstop won't be necessary? Give it another 24 hours and more may be known.
AUDIO
Joe Torre, Part I: Download joe_torre_part_i.mp3
Joe Torre, Part II: Download joe_torre_part_ii.mp3
Joe Torre, Part III: Download joe_torre_part_iii.mp3
Joe Torre, Part IV: Download joe_torre_part_iv.mp3
Joe Torre, Part V: Download joe_torre_part_v.mp3
LINEUPS
Giants
Fred Lewis - LF
Jose Castillo - 2B
Randy Winn - RF
Bengie Molina - C
Aaron Rowand - CF
John Bowker - 1B
Rich Aurilia - 3B
Omar Vizquel - SS
Matt Cain - P
Dodgers
Pierre - LF
Kemp - CF
Ethier - LF
Kent - 2B
Loney - 1B
Blake - 3B
Berroa - SS
Ardoin - C (Just a regular day off for Martin, who didn't care if it came tonight or tomorrow)
Johnson - P
AK
Subscribe to this Blog | What is RSS?
Loney's and the Dodgers' futures are intertwined. This is a good thing. We are also below .500 right now. Trading for Big Tex made no sense for us this season. I'm glad we didn't pursue it.
It did, however, make a whole tubfull of sense for the Angels and I am impressed with their savvy. The Holies are a legitimate contender right now, and they just made a huge upgrade at a significant weakness. Tex is a beast. .390 OBP + 20 dingers= Beast.
You gotta hand it to the Fightin' Morenos. They have been incredibly lucky this year running so far ahead of their run differential, but there is truth to the rumor that they win close games. This is because they have Good Pitching, and when you have Good Pitching you can get away with scoring fewer runs--thereby winning more games that are low-scoring an d, hence, close. Also, and interesting side product of Good Pitching is that you are usually Good. Being Good is good.
Given that the Angels are Good, adding a monster bat like Tex can make them Contenders. Excellent dancing.
The Blue, on the other hand, are Average, and adding a monster bat may make us Slightly Better, but it does not make us Contenders.
For the record, I am officially in the Fire Ned camp.
Posted by: VA Blueblood | July 29, 2008 at 08:01 PM
About that play where Loney was ruled safe at home...
According to official rules, two bases should have been awarded, so I'm not sure why the umps rewarded Loney the run and Blake a triple.
Rule 6.09g: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/batter_6.jsp
In any case...Go Dodgers!
Posted by: Wasabi | July 29, 2008 at 09:18 PM
Wasabi,
I'm not positive, but I believe Loney was awarded a bag from the moment Lewis' error occurred. He had reached third at the time, which means the extra bag is home plate. Again, not entirely sure (this kinda thing doesn't happen every day), but that's the consensus in the press box.
AK
Posted by: Andrew Kamenetzky | July 29, 2008 at 09:26 PM
AK - it was a make-up call.
Posted by: Benzo Jones | July 29, 2008 at 09:46 PM
getting texiera makes the halos contenders??? they had the best record in baseball prior to yesterday and have averaged 6.1 runs a game in july. they've knocked the red sux around almost as badly as the lakers spanked san antonio with such disrespect. i can hear all the bandwagon, frontrunning never been to fenway fake red sux fans now, chanting an-gels-suck instead of yan-kees-suck. that's when you know you're pretty good. the angels have been contenders for a long long time now. it shouldn't take a trade like this to finally convince the east coast bias so prevalent in the media and bitter dodger fans that the angels are for real. they are. if you need any more proof, just look at the difference in desire and effort between john "give me the ball" lackey and manny "they can send me to iraq" ramirez. and they're here to stay. get used to it. 2002 wasn't a fluke. you won't have the red sux to root for this october to fill your 20 year playoff void so go ahead and become a cubbies fan. the rest of america will root for them too in the world series. they genuinely are nicer people than arrogant bostonians who think they are entitled to appearing in the world series, super bowl and nba finals every year. too bad they'll have to face the best team in 2008 and after the goliath that is the new york yankees, the model franchise in all of baseball, your los angeles angels. thinking red instead
~cmh
Posted by: christopher marc | July 30, 2008 at 12:03 AM
I don't see that Teixera for Kotchman makes the Agnels that much better. Just poorer. Teixera's numbers are only slighlty better than Kotchman's, and he's a free agent at the end of the year. The Angels may come back to rue this trade unless they re-sign Teixera. Long term, Loney is going to be better than either of them.
I hate the Blake trade. What does he give you that the other Blake (DeEwitt, that is) didn't? An ability to strike out three times a game?
The Dodgers gave up way too much for him. I only know what I hear from this site and around the internet, but it sounds like Meloan and Santana are going to be major leaguers next year. Casey Blake probably will be retired by then.
Is Delino DeShields available to play shortstop?
Posted by: SaMo | July 30, 2008 at 07:52 AM
CM,
Yeah there's probably some bitterness against the Angels, however I consider myself a True Blue fan and would never turn my back on them even though the Angels are full of former Dodgers.
THINKING BLUE ALWAYS...
AD
Posted by: Artful Dodger | July 30, 2008 at 08:08 AM
Loney is way better than Marc for he will hit for ave. and still hit 20+ hrs a year and maybe GG 5-7 times in next 10.
Posted by: pk-in-the-mesa | July 30, 2008 at 11:07 AM
CM--several months ago, on this blog, you swore off the Dodgers and declared yourself an Angels fan. So why are you still paying attention to the Blue?
SaMo--Consider:
'08 OBP '08 SLG '08 HR Career OPS
.390 .512 20 .909
.327 .448 12 .762
And yet you declare "Teixera's numbers are only slighlty better than Kotchman's" HAA!!!!! Slightly, my foot. The difference in those numbers is the difference between "Average" and "Excellent." I know you're not a "numbers guy," but this time you've overstepped cold hard facts to an absurd degree.
And of course you know that Blake has significantly better numbers than DeWitt (who was the single worst offensive third baseman in baseball), but I agree with you that it was a terrible trade. It was a terrible trade because we have a .400 OBP guy in the waiting at third in ALR, and Blake is a lifetime .336 OBP guy. But DeWitt 's production at the plate has absolutely no business on the major league roster. Not yet, at least.
At least we are in agreement that Ned is totally outmatched at the negotiating table.
Posted by: VA Blueblood | July 30, 2008 at 11:40 AM
Va Blueblood
Where do you get Andy LaRoche is a .400OBP waiting in the wings?? He has yet to perform at all in the Major Leagues. You can say that DeWitt has no business in the ML but at least he has performed at a much better level than LaRoche ever has. Andy LaRoche does not deserve the respect that you give him!
Package
Posted by: Package | July 30, 2008 at 01:55 PM
Just reading numbers, Package. It's all right there if you follow the stats. LaRoche's minor league career OBP is .382. Yet, since 2005, he has been .399 or better (and is posting .444 this season). You know how many major league AB's he's had? 152. This season: a paltry 59. (for comparison, even Berroa has 90 ABs this year). LaRoche has barely has a chance to get used to MLB pitching, and even so, in that meager amount of ABs (a sample size so small I wouldn't use it to prove anything... but you're asking so here they are), he's still managed an OBP that's 140 points higher than his BA. And when you consider that his major league BABIP is .202, well, it's easy to see he's been on the ends of two extremes: 1) since BABIP is almost entirely a measure of pure random chance, he's been incredibly unlucky; and 2) since his major league OBP is STILL .348, he's been incredibly patient--like seriously, unbelievably, rookies-are-NEVER-this-patient type of patient. Over time, even your most run-of-the mill MLBers will revert to somewhere around a .250 BABIP (and when you look at his minor league numbers, somewhere around .300 for his career (huge swings ignored) will be more likely for LaRoche) Hence, if you extrapolate that LaRoche stands to gain another 50 points on the variance of random chance indicated by his ridiculously low BABIP, you can fairly accurately predict an OBP of .400. And of course since he hasn't posted anything less than a .399 OBP since turning 22 years old, there's no evidence to predict a decline and LOTS of evidence to predict an increase from what he's posted so far.
Now let's put Dewitt's record through the same paces. His career minor league OBP is .333. This is league average for the majors, so you'd expect a little bit of a drop in the minors, and we got that from him this year, with a .324 OBP. Of course, that includes May and June when his BABIP was .336. That, of course indicates a large amount of random chance in his favor, especially when his BABIP afterwards was around .245: right around where most of your average run-of-the-mill players find their BABIP. Looking at his minor league averages, this decline was highly predictable.
So when you say that DeWitt has "performed" at a much higher level than LaRoche, you're talking about 280 at-bats vs. 59 at-bats, and you're basing the judgment almost entirely on a stat that has been shown to undergo huge and random statistical swings (which my brother, a professional poker player, calls "variance"). When you go a bit deeper than just BABIP, you can see a potential .400 OBP for LaRoche... and you realize that DeWitt's June and July were far more in line with his career statistical record than were his April and May.
Of course, it occurs to me that you might not recognize BABIP. If not, read this: http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2005/04/glossary-of-terms.html
Package, you and SaMo strike me as generally intelligent fans, and I'm not trying to one-up you guys or anything. I'm just a huge fan of baseball, and I happened to major in Philosophy in college, which endowed me with a deep love of reason and logic. Since I am now a teacher, I have time in the summer to get REALLY into these things, and so I start looking all over stats (as well as keep up on all things sabermettrically inclined on the internet), especially regarding the Blue. I love DeWitt as a try-hard, nice-guy, earnest young ballplayer, and I'm pulling for his success--I really am. But I also champion logic over all else, and logic indicates that within the next two years Andy LaRoche will be posting a .400 OBP in the majors. I just hope it's for the Dodgers, cuz that's like pretty good and stuff.
Anyhow, read the glossary on that link, dude. Following these lines of carefully calculated science will seriously change the way you look at baseball numbers. As long as, you know, you believe in science and reason and logic and all that SABR stuff dudes like Ned Colletti choose to ignore.
(which, for the record, is one of two reasons I have joined the Fire Colletti train. The other is that I now believe him to be an absolute pushover at the negotiating table)
Posted by: VA Blueblood | July 30, 2008 at 04:06 PM
i don't care about the dodgers . . . at least as long as the parking lot attendant is running the team. i root against them, every game hoping they go 0--162, which gets real hard when they play the evil giants, but the giants aren't as fun to hate without barry.
i've said ad neaseum over and over again on this blog, that the angels are a better team than the dodgers. better than everyone else in baseball so far this year for that matter no matter what front running red sux fans say. they're a better organization from the front office to rookie ball than the dodgers. and they don't charge you as much to park your car and have a beer. they're a model of stability, which was an o'malley trademark but has long since left the dodgers since the evil fox regime took over ten years ago and continued under "the man who wasn't rich enough to buy the red sox but good enough for the dodgers" mc court. how many managers and general managers has mc court gone through in five years? how many has arte?? the angels play national league style of baseball, still, in the much better american league. they go toe-to-toe with the yankees and red sux every year. if you grew up as i did, with vin scully, tommy lasorda and the o'malley family, then blue-red passions aside, you should respect at the least and admire the way the angels play the game. if you care more about .ops and made up stats root for oakland, the team i truly despise.
i honestly thought if teixiera went anywhere it would have been to arizona, where dodger fans probably least wanted to see him go, so you all should thank arte moreno and tony reagins for keeping your sorry team in contention through september, until another disappointing finish to another forgettable dodger season takes place. if this were boston or green bay, or regarding the lakers, much angst would be directed at ned colleti and the need for the dodgers to fire him and hire a new general manager. except that attention will turn to pete carroll and usc, laker camp opening and the return of andew bynum and a second world series parade in oc. the dodgers are an afterthough to most thinking people who don't bleed blue and take a more enlightened view of southern california that doesn't stop at the city limits. these are not your mickey mouse angels anymore. THINKING RED INSTEAD
~cmh
Posted by: christopher marc | July 30, 2008 at 06:03 PM
~cmh:
You used the words "made up stats" and "enlightened view" in the same rant. And you made it abundantly clear that you hold no fan loyalty in your heart; you are simply a front-runner. I see no point in acknowledging your existence any further.
Posted by: VA Blueblood | July 30, 2008 at 06:36 PM