Keeping Up with the Padres

Trevor Hoffman is 38.

What does that mean to Dodger fans? Aside from the fact that he won’t be closing them out in the ninth inning (yesterday’s game notwithstanding), it means that the Padres’ need to win a championship is even more urgent than the Dodgers’. Who knows how much longer Hoffman will be around to finish up for their starters.

For the Padres, the future is now. And that means if there’s a pitcher on the mid-season trade market, they have even more reason than Los Angeles to snap him up. The Padres rotation isn’t as troubled as the Dodgers’, but they have three starters with ERAs over 4. A guy like Barry Zito could put them over the top. Even if they don’t sign him beyond the 2005 season, he could deliver a championship.

The Dodgers have two choices. They can make off with the best mercenary trade bait before the competition does, and sign him to a long-term deal. Or they can hope that the Padres don’t have enough money to sign a multi-year contract and wait until the off-season.

I’m in favor of the former. You just might win something this year, and you’ll lock up a great arm for the future.

Next Year is This Year

Dodger fans, welcome to Milwaukee. With the loss of Eric Gagne for the season (And the first half of next year), it would seem as if the Dodgers’ playoff hopes have been vaporized.

Yes, Yhency Brazoban can step into the closer’s shoes, but who can fill the role Brazoban was expected to perform, that of eighth-inning setup guy? The auditions so far have been unimpressive.

The Dodger’s formula for success was based on giving the opposition seven innings to score against Los Angeles’ eight or nine. (Though recently, it has seemed like the team wouldn’t score no matter how many times they batted.) The Dodgers aren’t equipped to win games in which they have to outslug the opposition.

But giving up on this year would be a mistake. For starters, the team is in a crappy division. The Padres are hardly invincible (As the split of the past four games demonstrates). All it would take is one hot streak to win the NL West.

After that, however, L.A. is not going anywhere. Their pitching isn’t good enough to win a short series, and the offense can’t make up for that fact.

What the Dodgers can do, though, is start building for 2006. If this team is going to win a championship, there are a lot of holes that need filling. Waiting for the off-season might be too late. If an ace pitcher becomes available in July, why not snap him up now?

They may not win it all this year, but for the Dodgers, next year has already started.

Buying or Selling?

As the Dodgers stumble back to the west coast, there are starting to be rumblings about whether they should give up on 2005 and start auctioning off parts and play for 2006. I’m of two minds.

The first says why bother dismantling a team that plays in such a crappy division that a slightly better than .500 record might win it? Why not go get a frontline pitcher who could make the difference between them and the Padres and start building around that guy (hint: Barry Zito!).

The other says “An opportunity to get rid of Jeff Weaver? Woo hoo!” That might even help them win this year.

I doubt the Dodgers will sell off parts because a) they don’t have many players anybody wants, and b) doing so would be an admission that Paul DePodesta has screwed up this team big time. The Dodgers had a nucleus of talented young players who played well together as a team, and he broke them up to bring in Brad Penny and Hee Seop Choi. He let Dave Roberts get away for nothing, and let go of Jose Lima, last year’s victory leader, without so much as a phone call.

Shawn Green, whose hefty contract seemed to be burning a hole in DePodesta’s pocket, was shipped off to Arizona, even though the Dodgers continue to pay him $7 million a year to beat them. Green was hardly an all-star, and not living up to the contract the Dodgers foolishly signed with him. But he played hard every day, be it right field or first base, and he had the lovely habit of tossing his batting gloves to kids in the stands every time he hit a homer.

In his place, DePodesta has signed J.D. Drew, who has the personality of a rosin bag. A god-fearing rosin bag, mind you. He was supposed to be the big bat in the middle of the order that would make everybody forget the Dodgers had let Adrian Beltre go. And while Beltre has struggled in Seattle, so too has Drew here in Los Angeles.

Here are two sets of statistics. One belongs to Shawn Green, the other to J.D. Drew. Can you tell which is which?
G: 69 AB: 257 H: 71 K: 47 HR: 9 RBI: 37 OBP: .334 AVG: 276
G: 64 AB: 230 H: 64 K: 46 HR: 12 RBI: 31 OBP: .394 AVG: .278

In fact, over their careers, their stats are remarkably similar. Green has played twice as many games, and has approximately twice as many homers, RBIS, and hits. Green’s lifetime batting average is .282, or four points lower than Drew’s.

In short, if DePodesta so badly wanted a guy who hits like Shawn Green, why didn’t he just keep Shawn Green?

Meanwhile, Paul Lo Duca is hitting .285 with the Marlins, with an on-base percentage of .341. Jason Phillips is hitting .262 with an OBP of .314. He was a nice pickup, since the price of getting him was essentially nothing (Kaz Ishii). But if the Dodgers hadn’t traded Lo Duca in the first place, there would be no need for Jason Phillips.

I didn’t like the Lo Duca trade at the time, and I still wish we could take a Mulligan on it. Can you imagine Hee Seop Choi screwing up bunt coverage for some other team? I sure can. Maybe that's a trade the Dodgers can make at the deadlin: Choi and Penny for LoDuca and Encarnacion. Somehow, I think the Marlins will pass.