A Classic Spring Classic

I don’t usually go in for loudness for the sake of loudness, but I found last night’s Japan Korea thunder stick fest exhilarating. I can’t imagine keeping up that kind of energy for 162 games, but it was an awesome sight.

All in all, it was an unforgettable night. Great baseball played by two evenly matched teams that required more than 9 innings to get it all in. Ichiro went 4-for-6 and yet never scored. Japan had all of two extra base hits (both doubles), and just one home run hit the entire game. Great pitching to say the least.

Here are some other things I noticed, in no particular order:

No beach balls. The fans came to watch baseball.

Until Ichiro’s at-bat, there were very few foul balls. Upon taking our seats in the loge just to the third base side of the screen, I recall thinking, “We had better be alert, since foul balls are likely to come screaming back at us. Yet nothing came close. I don’t know how to verify this other than with my observation, or for that matter, what it means, but I found it unusual. Maybe it just means I’ve been watching spring training games where batters haven’t yet caught up to pitchers, while Japan and Korea were in midseason form?

With all the routinized cheering (Nip-pon, Nip-pon was prevalent in our heavily Japanese rooting section), not once did I see the execrable wave ripple through Dodger Stadium. This act is tiresome to say the least, and annoying to those who are trying to watch the game at most. The fans knew exactly when to cheer, when to stand up to watch an incredible defensive play, and when to sit back in their seats (by the time the next pitch was thrown).

The Dodgers put on a pretty good show, linking both teams to L.A. baseball history, bringing in Japanese and Korean announcers to introduce the players, even charting the Ks on the pizza board (it’s no longer California Pizza Kitchen) thrown by Korean pitchers (they were the home team). Shortcomings on the scoreboard included the lack of the players’ full names (so many Lees and Kims on the Korean team made it hard to identify each one) and failure to recap what batters had done in their previous at-bats. I keep score anyway, but I never did catch what Bum Ho Lee did in his first at-bat.

On the farm

I’m the last guy to defend Ned Colletti, given his horrendous record of free agent signings. But before we start dumping all over him for destroying the farm system, let’s have a closer look.

Here are Baseball Prospectus’s top dodger prospects from 2006

Excellent Prospects
1. Clayton Kershaw, LHP
2. Andy LaRoche, 3B
3. Scott Elbert, LHP
Very Good Prospects
4. James Loney, 1B
Good Prospects
5. Jonathan Meloan, RHP
6. Josh Bell, 3B
7. Preston Mattingly, 1B
Average Prospects
8. Blake DeWitt, 2B/3B
9. Bryan Morris, RHP
10. Chin-Lung Hu, SS

Well, Kershaw, Loney, and perhaps DeWitt are on the big league roster, with Elbert and Hu probably in AAA. LaRoche has yet to show that he was worth waiting for. Meloan was overhyped. Bell, Morris, and Mattingly are not making anyone forget Buddy, Jack, or Don.

Going back even further, here’s John Sickels’ analysis of the Dodgers' farm system from 2004

Top pitchers
Edwin Jackson, RHP
Greg Miller, LHP
Joel Hanrahan, RHP
Chad Billingsley, RHP
Top hitters
James Loney, 1B
Franklin Gutierrez, OF
Delwyn Young, 2B
Xavier Paul, OF
Koyie Hill, C
Reggie Abercrombie, OF
Sleepers
Jon Broxton, RHP
Andy LaRoche, 2B
Mike Megrew, LHP
Brian Pilkington, RHP
Disappointments
Willy Aybar, 3B
Joel Guzman, SS
Joe Thurston, 2B

Jackson has been an average major league pitcher, certainly not the all-star everybody expected when he was traded. Hanrahan was DFA’d. Gutierrez is a career .258 hitter. Koyie Hill has played 96 games. Abercrombie is 27, and less promising than Kemp, Ethier, or Delwyn Young, or even Xavier Paul. Megrew and Pilkington have yet to see major league action. Aybar cost the Dominican team a crucial game against the Netherlands. Joel Guzman can’t hit the curveball. Joe Thurston is 30 and has 59 major league games under his belt.

So I ask amid all the hand-wringing, where is the Delino DeShields for Pedro Martinez moment? The Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi? The Jeff Bagwell for Larry Andersen. John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander?

The answer: nowhere. The Dodgers have done a rather excellent job of holding onto their best prospects while trading off players who have not exactly become all stars. I’m willing to concede the possibility that we may some day be talking about the guitarist as “the other Carlos Santana,” but for the moment, the Cleveland catching prospect is still just a prospect.

The Dodgers farm system is weak right now because so many of its jewels are studding the major league roster, competing for playoff spots even as they garner major league experience. Kemp, Martin, Loney, Dewitt, Young, Broxton, and Billz, are all proven major leaguers at a very young age. Kershaw is clearly on his way to joining them, and Ethier, though he did not come from the Dodger system, was an outright steal for Milton Bradley.

There are still plentyof things that stand between this team and a world championship (mostly starting and relief pitching). But let’s quit griping about the farm system. There are no tomatoes coming up from the ground at harvest time. They’re already on the plate.

Whelmed

I had my first glimpse of Camelback Ranch over the weekend, and I have to report that I’m whelmed. Not overwhelmed, not underwhelmed, just whelmed.

It’s not the finest spring training facility, nor is it the worst. It’s perfectly adequate. Good sightlines, fairly comfortable seating, and inviting grass berms where you can sack out for $8. There’s no scoreboard behind home plate, however, so you have to look behind you to see the count or the score. Not that they matter much in a spring training game.

The food is no worse than the offerings at Dodger stadium, and there are plenty of friendly vendors roaming the isles. They don’t sell much other than lemonade, beer, or peanuts. For anything else, you’ve got to go up to the concession stands, where the lines appear to be too long.

There’s not a whole lot of shade, however. That wasn’t an issue on this past weekend, but I’ve been in Phoenix on hotter weekends when that would have been a serious concern.

Parking is adequate, but the folks taking your $5 move a bit slower than they ought to.

The practice fields are numerous and well manicured, and if you get to the stadium in the morning, you can watch workouts.

I had the opportunity to see a White Sox game on a weekday in addition to Saturday’s contest against the Mariners. In contrast with the 11,00+ for the Saturday game, there were no more than 2,000 people at Friday’s contest, many of them dressed as empty seats. Methinks the slow economy is taking its toll on spring training trips, especially from as far away as Chicago. MLB says average attendance is up, but I don’t believe it based on the Chicago game.

That cheap, cheap, cheap sound you hear is the Dodgers ruining their future

If I'm Andre Ethier, I'd be pissed about the recent signings of scrap heap pitchers. He and the Dodgers are squabbling over a difference of $1.1 million in arbitration for 2009. He wants to be paid slightly less than Russell Martin, who he outhit in 2008.

The Dodgers continue to be super-cheap with their young players (remember the bickering about whether Abreu was on the major or minor league DL?) while lavishing money on retreads, losers, and so-called "diamonds in the rough" like Eric Milton, Jeff Weaver, Shawn Estes, and the like. What, Esteban Loaiza wasn't available? Elmer Dessens has worn out his welcome?

Sure, one of those guys may turn out to be Chan Ho Park. But none of them is going to be as valuable to the club as a happy Ethier, Loney, Kemp, Martin, or even Abreu. When it comes free agent time, does anybody think those guys are going to give the Dodgers a home town discount after the way the team has treated them when it had the hammer? I don't think so.

Sometimes it Rains

I think the umps should have called the game in the 4th inning. That would have meant starting all over tomorrow (today), and it would have killed Hamels for the game. They didn't want to do that, but they also didn't want the game to end after 5 innings. As soon as the Rays tied the score, the decision was clear, however.

Baseball made the right call here. The summer game should not be played in a driving rainstorm, and McCarver and Buck were right in that the sloppy basepaths took away from the Rays' strength in baserunning. Not to mention the risk of injury. Football players may be expected to run through a brick wall, but baseball players are actually athletes. You'd hate to see an Evan Longoria or Ryan Howard seriously injured because of poor playing conditions. Certainly in basketball, they stop the game and mop up the floor the minute there's a single drop of water on the court. And hockey stops the game twice to clean up the messy ice.

Football is the only one of the four major sports that is played regardless of weather. And if you've ever been forced to sit through a three-hour slogfest in the cold, driving rain, you'll agree that this is no fun for fans. Frankly, I can't understand why people like to go to football games in Green Bay or Buffalo, but I guess if you're going to be freezing anyway, you might as well enjoy some football. Me, I'd prefer to see a football game from the comfort of my own couch, where beers arefree and tivo allows me to skip over commercials, time outs, and the endless boredom of official review.

LA fans--we have it easy. There's hardly ever been a rain delay at Dodger Stadium, and even USC football is played in brilliant sunshine most of the time. But in the rest of the world, where there is weather, there are consequences. Even the Phillies said they wouldn't have wanted to win the World Series in a shortened game.

I'm usually the first to criticize baseball for having its head up its butt, but Selig made the right call here.

Like West Hollywood

I don't usually toot my own horn, but I went out on a limb a few days ago with this one, so I was glad to see it come true:

"Kuroda owns the Phils. Jamie Moyer will be lit up like West Hollywood by the third inning.
Posted by: SaMo | October 10, 2008 at 09:48 PM"

In the same vein, I'm going to make an even bolder prediction: The Dodgers will hand Brad Lidge his first blown save of the year. Could be tonight, could be tomorrow night, or could be in a deciding Game 7.

Joe-Torre-managed teams have a habit of blowing up other teams' closers. Look at Mark Wohlers in Atlanta, Trevor Hoffman in San Diego, and the collection of losers in the Mets bullpen in 2000. Of course, Torre had Mariano Rivera in those days as his own unimpeachable closer. Broxton has a ways to go before he's in that stratosphere.

Still, I've long thought that Phil Garner did irreparable damage to Lidge by not bringing him in the night after he gave up that homer to Pujols in the 2005 NLCS. Your closer blows a save and a game, and you don’t bring him back to be on the mound when your team celebrates victory? No, Garner brought in Dan Wheeler, and Lidge was never the same again. Talk about a confidence booster.

As for the beanball wars, somebody—Manny, Plaschke, whoever—had better give Bills a dose of confidence and quick. The Dodgers need Bills to pitch well if they’re going to win this thing, and hanging him out to dry for his supposed lack of guts isn’t going to help. All of this posturing about protecting your own guys is a bunch of crap. Jamie Moyer doesn’t throw hard enough to hurt anyone with a pitch. The Dodgers have momentum on their side now. They can only screw it up by starting another beanball war.

AK: You talked about Nomar scooping up a hot grounder by Shane Utley. Is that the guy who hits between Shane Victorino and Chase Utley? :-)

That's the breaks

Boy oh boy did things break right for the Dodgers yesterday.

Manny Ramirez kept coming up with men on base. Ryan Dempster forgot his google map of the strike zone. Derek Lowe’s sinke was sinking. And James Loney scrapes a millimeter off of strike three to stay alive for another pitch. Then he breaks out the rye bread and the mustard (for the salami, that is).

But beyond that, the heart of Chicago’s order came up in the eighth inning, otherwise known as Broxton time, giving Big Jon what was really a save opportunity without the pressure of pitching in the ninth inning, something that has often spooked him. The 9th inning guy often has a tougher job than the closer depending on which batters are due up in each inning, and last night was definitely an example of that happening.

Then, with a five-run lead, the Dodgers don’t have to waste Saito, can give the Man from Japan another day of rest, and best of all, get to throw Maddux in the home field where he began his career. If the Dodgers don’t advance—and it’s only one game, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves—that may end up being the Hall of Famer’s final appearance on a baseball field. And where better to end your career than closing out a victory for your team in the Friendly Confines.

I love the patient approach showed by all the Dodger hitters—except, oddly enough, Loney. Although Dumpster had walked the bases full, Loney came out swinging at two pitches in the dirt. Can’t argue with the results, however. Definitely a haircut of the highest quality. You can’t get a better haircut than that, not at Supercuts, not at Fantastic Sam’s, not at Iago of Beverly Hills.

I also loved seeing Manny in the camouflage argyle sweater. What’s the deal? Is he hoping to blend in with the preppies, or stand out from the GI Joes?

Pulling Away?

Welcome back Cory Wade. The kid just looks confident out there now, as though there's nothing he can't handle. Shuts down six in a row without ginv up so much as a walk. Fs Brad Penny's ERA by giving up a sac fly, but that's the price you pay for loading up the bases and not getting anyone out.

Is it just me, or does it look like Penny ate Andrew Jones while he was on the DL? He was never exactly svelte, but he seems ever more like Larry the Cable Guy than a professional athlete. As I recall, it was his shoulder that needed rehabbing. Maybe he was compensating by eating twice as much with the fork in his left hand.

Simers is already slotting him into the 3-spot for the playoffs. The only three spot I'd put him in right now is the third pitcher to enter the game after the first two suck. Some combination of Maddux and Kershaw probably gives you a better shot of winning a game. And frankly, if the Dodgers use Lowe and Billz in Games 1-2, Game three will be here in LA, where Kuroda has been good.

Apparently, hitting behind Manny is good too, as James Loney will attest. Manny is just sick. That first home run he identified as a slowly breaking pitch and he just would up and socked the hell out of it.

Would somebody tie Jeff Kent to the training table so that FAJ and Penny might mistake him for food. Please.

The Dodgers are playing so well right now that I didn't even mention how pathetic Weeney is. See, I definitely didn't mention it this time. Torre must be playing the law of averages. After all, a stopped clock is right twice a day. Because of those incriminating pictures WY has of Torre, all we can do is hope that the clock reads 10:03 on 10/03 for Sweeney to get right.

Jeff Kent, Hall of Famer?

It has long been speculated that Jeff Kent is a sure Hall of Famer, the latest example being last week when he, Maddux, and Manny all appeared in the same game, bringing the total number of Cooperstown-bound men to three.

The primary reason cited for Kent’s enshrinement is that his career numbers are so good for a second baseman. His 560 doubles, 376 homers, and career .290 average place among the top 5 second basemen of all time, alongside Joe Morgan, Rogers Hornsby, and Ryne Sandberg. There are precious few second basemen in the Hall of Fame, which is how Bill Mazeroski got there.

But the thing about all the aforementioned Cooperstown denizens is that they were good second basemen. Kent is not. He is an average fielder at best, with limited range. Were he a first baseman (a position he played a bit while with the Giants), his numbers would pale beside those of Gehrig, Greenberg, Foxx, and Killebrew. The player whose stats Kent’s most closely resemble is Orlando Cepeda, who hit 379 homers during the dead ball era. Kent hit his 376 in the steroid era, when dollhouse ballparks, crappy pitching, and a lower mound allowed homers to leave the park in record numbers.

So is Kent a Hall of Famer or not?

Broken from the ground up

I think another no-hitter is the key to solving the Dodgers' problems. They seem to do better when they don't get any hits at all.

As for a curse, why go looking to the supernatural when there are plenty of rational explanations for why this team stinks.

1) three gms in five years.
2) three managers in five years
3) three owners in ten years
4) unwillingness to go through a rebuilding year by any of these officers.

You can't just throw a team together and expect them to win World Series. Championships are bred, not bought. Look at the Yankees of 1996-2000. That team was built on home-grown talent that matured together through the years and complemented by a few well-placed veterans.

Since then, however, they've tried to restock every year, trading away young talent for overpriced veterans. They make the playoffs, but don't go far.

The Mets haven't won a World Series since 1986, but they're not cursed. And the Giants haven't won it all since moving to San Francisco 50 YEARS AGO! Nobody talks about them being cursed. Down here, we laugh knowingly at them at point to bad management as the cause of their problems. But we don't do the same with our own team.

This team has been poorly assembled from the beginning. Flanders attempted to do the right thing by building strength up the middle. But he pissed away all his money on players who for one reason or another haven’t delivered. He overpaid for Furcal, making him the second-highest paid shortstop in baseball. Now I like Furcal, and he’s definitely a leader. But you had Cesar Izturis coming back from surgery just a few months into the 2006 season, and could have spent that $13 million per year on a decent pitcher, a third baseman, or a top caliber center fielder.

Then he compounded the mistake by signing Pierre to a ridiculous deal, both in terms of money and length. Everyone knew Pierre had no arm and no power. But in the wake of JD Drew’s departure, Flanders rushed into a deal for a center fielder.

When he signed Schmidt, Giants fans all laughed (though they signed Zito, so who’s laughing now). How do you commit that much money to a guy with a history of arm trouble? He brought in Danys Baez to be the closer. The only reason nobody remembers that debacle is because Saito turned out to be so good. But he was fourth on the bullpen depth chart. I don’t think even Ned knew how good Saito would become.

Then Andruw Jones. Nuf said.

Frankly, the Dodgers would be a better team with half the payroll. Money in Ned’s hands is like an expense account in the hands of an SEIU union boss. The list of things to do in the off-season is so long already, I don’t even know where to start. But if I were McCourt, I’d think long and hard about whether I’d want Flanders making those decisions. His track record so far sucks.

Lost opportunities

Boy did Andre Ethier save Joe Torre’s bacon yesterday. I was at the game—beautiful day in the shade, by the way. Torre made several huge mistakes in managing that game and it almost cost them.

First, removing Kershaw and hitting Weeney. Kershaw wasn’t blowing them away, but he was getting them out. Even the hits were piddling infield grounders. But I understand if you want to take the kid out after 96 pitches. I’ll give him a pass on this one, especially with runners on 2nd and third and one out. But I can’t excuse hitting Weeney in that spot. The guy’s average is lower than every pitcher on the team except Kershaw. I’d have batted Stults ahead of Weeney. Certainly there were better options as your first guy off t he bench. Let’s see, Nomar comes to mind, Pierre, Ardoin, even Ozuna is a better choice than Weeney. That guy gets more chances than Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden combined.

Second, in the 8th, if you’re going to let Jason Johnson hit for himself, let him pitch for himself in the 9th. Johnson had retired 7 of the 8 batters he faced, and then s truck out Cameron to start off the 9th. But as soon as Kendall hits a single up the middle, all of a sudden he’s vulnerable? With Craig Counsell coming to the plate? What’s the worst thing that could happen? I know, a little league homer in which guys boot the ball, then try to atone for their mistakes and then throw it all over the yard. Well, guess what, Joe. That happened anyway. And because you took out Johnson and brought in Park to serve up that gopher ball to Braun, now two pitchers’ confidence levels are shot.

And Kershaw loses what should have been an easy W because Torre has no idea how to use his bullpen. I lived in NY and watched Torre manage the Yanks from 1996-2003. He didn’t know how to use his bullpen then either, but Mariano Rivera could make any manager look like a genius. Even LaRussa.

On a separate note, how about a hit and run with Casey Blake and Russell Martin. Russell was on base four times yesterday, but didn’t score because Blake flew out twice, struck out, and hit into a DP. Getting some fielders moving around can only help his luck.

BETTER, YOUNGER, CHEAPER

After looking at career stats for the center fielders available this off-season, it’s clear that the Dodgers should be pursuing Aaron Rowand, rather than Torii Hunter.

Start with age: Rowand is two years younger than Hunter, and hasn’t played half his career on the terrible turf at the Homer Dome. Rowand is often injured from playing all-out Darin Erstad-type baseball, but I anticipate that Hunter is theplayer whose knees will be giving out by the end of his next contract.

Rowand is also a better hitter. His career average is 15 points higher than Hunter’s, and his OBP is 20 points higher. Hunter has never ever hit .300 The two players’ slugging and OPS are nearly identical. Rowand steals fewer bases than Hunter, but that has as much to do with the bandbox ballpark he plays in, where base-stealing is useless.

Rowand will also assuredly come cheaper than Hunter or Andruw Jones. Jones will want to be paid based on his entire career, even though he had a terrible walk year; Hunter will want to be paid based on his walk year, even though he has never put up those kind of numbers consistently.

But do we need a centerfielder? Only if we can move Juan Pierre. I can’t imagine who would take him and his nancy arm and giant contract.

The best move of all would be to sign Mike Lowell, whose numbers are almost identical to Rowand’s. He plays a position where the Dodgers are deficient: third base. It would require moving Nomar once again, this time to second base, and probably using Andy LaRoche as trade bait. But I’m all for it.

HE BROKE THE BROXTON

Way to go Slingblade. The season’s over, even Saito has been breached, and you continue to trot out Broxton in a no-win situation? Are you trying to ruin the kid? It’s his first full season in the majors, and everybody from Washington to West Adams knows he’s lost something on his fastball. He’s thrown a record number of innings. But no amount of failure persuades Forrest to abandon any of his pitchers. He did this with Tomko, who merely sucked; he does it with Hernandez, who’s old; and now he’s doing it with Broxton, who is clearly overworked.

Message to Forrest: you’ve got fifty or sixty minor leaguers just chomping at the bit to get big league experience. How about we see some Jon Meloan? Give Stults some work. Houlton? Hull? It would be nice to know if these guys have major league arms, and when better to find out than in meaningless September games?

Broxton needs to be shut down now before he loses all his confidence. The kid was lights out for five months of the season. It’s only now that he’s been overworked that he’s proved mortal. His ERA has gone up by almost a full run since September 1. Does that not tell you anything? Please please please shut him down for the rest of the season. We don’t want to screw up next year as well.

PLAYOFFS!!??

I bought a ticket package for the first time this year, thinking I'd be in line for playoff seats. Of course, the Dodgers then went about losing 11 of the 14 games I purchased. Forget playoffs. I'd settle for .500 at this point.

Did anybody else notice how Vin had already thrown in the towel on this team even before the second game ended? In the promo for Dodger playoff tickets, he could barely hold his astonishment that the Dodgers were seriously asking people to throw in for playoff tickets at this stage.

To be honest, I don't really understand why 4 million people go to Dodger Stadium each year. When I go to games, I'm usually surrounded by people who cheer loudly for every medium-deep fly ball as if it were a homer, and don’t really understand baseball.

Worst of all, they boo opposing players who once wore Dodger uniforms, no matter how the player left the team. Like Piazza. The Dodgers traded him because they didn't want to pay him. Or LoDuca. He cried when that idiot Depodesta traded him away. Shawn Green too. All he ever did was hand out his batting gloves to some lucky kid whenever he hit a homer, and now he gets booed?!

Baseball knowledge is nowhere to be found at Chavez Ravine. There seems to be more interest in the video board GM car race, the hidden ball game, the trivia, and the moronic wave than in what's happening in the game. People arrive late and leave early. They seem not to mind $12 beers, lousy hot dogs, long lines for soggy fries, and baking hot afternoon affairs.

I’m tempted to suggest that fans speak with their wallets, but I believe real baseball fans are grossly outnumbered by people who go to the game because it seems like a nice thing to do on a summer’s eve. Which it is. But when you’re selling 4 million tickets a year for a team that’s barely above .500, what’s management’s incentive to improve the product?

Consistently Wrong

What is the big fucking deal with consecutive game streaks? For 100 years, there were only a few guys so narrow minded as to pursue them, and outside of Lou Gehrig and Everett Scott’s family, nobody much gave a crap. Then comes Cal Ripken and decides that this is an important accomplishment and gives rise to this kind of idiocy all over again.

Is playing in 2600 straight games difficult? Of course. But so is plate spinning. So is shooting yourself in the foot and running a marathon. It is a feat for the sake of itself. You do not help the team win by playing every day. On the contrary, you hurt the team by grinding yourself down over the course of each long season, to the point where you don’t contribute the way you should, and would, if you had ample rest.

It’s also a matter of luck. Hideki Matsui played in hundreds of consecutive games in Japan and then with the Yankees before a freak injury landed him on the DL, upsetting his cherished streak. Ditto for Miguel Tejada. It wasn’t for lack of conditioning that these players got hurt. Sometimes, you just get hurt. Does anyone doubt that Lou Gehrig would have played in a million straight games if he hadn’t gotten hurt?

So what is the big deal about playing all 162? Juan Pierre seems to take it as a point of pride, since one of the criteria for such a streak is that you be good enough to crack the starting lineup every day. But here’s the thing: HE’S NOT THAT GOOD! The Dodgers have at least two outfielders who should be starting ahead of Pierre in Ethier and Kemp, and perhaps third, if we ever get to se what Delwyn Young is made of. One might even argue that with the Dodgers’ punchless lineup, Luis Gonzalez gives the offense a better chance to score runs.

So why is Pierre in there every day instead of platooning with Luis (and Kemp shuttling between left and center)? Because of his stupid consecutive games streak. He’s played in 600-some straight games, and if he plays for 15 more years, he’ll catch Cal Ripken some time in 2022. And then, he’ll be recognized as the greatest rag-arm centerfielder with an on-base-percentage of .301! Hooray! Not!

If Pierre is going to insist on being on the field every day (And, more importantly, if Sling Blade is going to indulge this stupid little league fantasy), can he at least pay lip service to the streak. Gehrig routinely played just one or two innings when hurt to keep his streak alive; Grady Sizemore pinch-ran yesterday to maintain his moronic quest to play in all 162 games for three straight years.

Come to think of it, pinch-runner is an excellent role for Pierre. It’s one he’d better get used to, because he’s not good enough to be an every day player any longer. Come 2008, he could be sitting for 162 straight games.

$7/hour, not $70 million

When Frank McCourt took over the Dodgers, he said the three greatest concerns were the quality of the seats, the parking congestion, and long lines at the concession stands. After “fixing”—and by fixing I mean jacking up the price of parking and tickets—the first two items on the list, he’s turned his attention to the third. But his solution, like the two previous efforts, only promise to raise prices for the average fan yet again.

McCourt will spend $70 million this winter expanding the field level concourses to include stadium clubs for the swells who sit in the luxurious box seats behind the dugouts. That’s where the money is and always will be.

But the biggest problem with the concessions is not the lack of grilled Dodger Dogs or the shortage of fancy restaurants where you can go to watch the game on tv. It’s the lack of skilled employees working behind the counters. Dodger Stadium averages more than 40,000 fans per game, but the concession stands that are already in existence are not always staffed to capacity. At some stands, a single employee is taking the orders, making the food, handling money, and making change. And changing rubber gloves with each purchase.

The situation is even worse when the joint is sold out, especially when the team know the game is going to be sold out far in advance. Like Opening Day. If you know there are going to be 56,000 fans in attendance, it only stands to reason that you need to bump up the number of people on hand to quench their thirst. But somehow, this eludes them, like on Opening Day this year.

A simple increase in the number of $7/hour concessions employees (or $8, or whatever it costs) would go a lot farther toward fan satisfaction than a $70 million renovation. And it would pay for itself. When you’ve got people lined up two innings deep to pay $8 per beer, you’re losing money by not having more staff around to collect that cash. I’ve given up on a beer more than once because I didn’t want to miss more of the game standing in line.

So how about it, Mr. McCourt? Are you willing to hire more people to collect more money for you? It’s a win-win for everyone. So what’s the holdup?

At the press conference, McCourt outlined “our three core values: championship-caliber baseball, giving back to the community and providing our fans with the best experience in all of sports."

Hmmm. Championship caliber? Wouldn’t that mean a team that wins a championship every now and then?

Giving back to the community? Would that include creating parking nightmares that cause traffic to back up throughout the Los Angeles area? Raising ticket prices, and heisting parking fees by 50 percent?

Providing our fans with the best experience in all of sports? I don’t think so. Dodger Stadium is one of the most beautiful ballparks in baseball by virtue of its wonderful natural setting. But traffic jams, high parking fees, expensive concessions and long lines make it less than ideal. If Mr. McCourt wants to provide a great fan experience, I suggest he take a trip south to Anaheim and see how the Angels do it. They play in a shopping mall of a stadium, but the overall fan experience is so much better that it almost makes you forget the rats.

Season Saver

As I predicted, David Wells rose to the occasion of a big game with his career and the Dodgers’ season on the line. His wheels hit in the fifth could literally be the thing that turns this team around. I don’t know that Wells will be much more than a .500 pitcher for the Dodgers the rest of the way through, but the novelty of him will work for a little while.

Besides, .500 is a whole lot better than what Tomko was giving us.

Tomko compiled a 2-11 record between starting and relieving. His record as a starter was better than as a reliever: his only wins came as a starter, while he lost three additional games by giving up the winning run in relief. In Tomko’s 15 starts with the Dodgers, he was 2-8, but the team was 5-10. Since the All-Star Break, the Dodgers won only two of Tomko’s starts. His ERA hasn’t been below 4 since May 1.

Had Tomko pitched last night’s game, I have no doubt the Dodgers never would have recovered from the 2-1 deficit. I can’t see Tomko picking off a runner from second, and I can’t see him doing anything as brash as laying down a bunt and beating it out. Another loss last night would have dropped the team behind Colorado, given them a 2-4 road trip, and we’d all be pointing fingers at Matt Kemp’s baserunning stupidity. David Wells isn’t a long-term answer, but he is better than the alternatives we had before. I look for him to get up for another big game against his former mates in LaJolla on Friday.

Now if only we can get rid of Hernandez, we might have a shot at this thing.

Alls Well If It Ends With Wells

There's only one positive way you could spin this: anybody is better than Brett Tomko (we've all been saying that for weeks now). Even David Wells, at 44 gives you a better chance to win. Not much better, but a tiny bit better.

Nobody will remember this if it fails, but if Wells gets juiced by appearing in New York on national television, Colletti looks like the master showman. In his dreams, the win energizes the team which goes on a roll and makes it to the post-season, where Wells is money in the bank.

Too bad this dream is from 1998. I'd say Wells is more likely to win the Coney Island hot-dog eating contest than any World Series games this year.

But at least Sunday will be entertaining. I had already started to look for things to do that night rather than endure the agony of another Tomko start.

Grady does it again

Here is the Dodgers’ top hitter against lefthanders:
AVG OBP SLG OPS
James Loney .382 .435 .509 .945


Here are the Dodgers’ three worst hitters against lefties:

AVG OBP SLG OPS
Luis González .299 .365 .448 .813
Juan Pierre .261 .299 .290 .589
Ramón Martínez .227 .294 .273 .567

So who’s playing today against a ROOKIE lefthander? All three of these punch and Judy hitters! Gonzalez, with an .813 OPS, has the highest power rating among them.

And who’s NOT playing so these guys can practice not sucking against lefties? Loney, who is the team’s BEST hitter against lefties, with a .382 average. Also Ethier, who hits .325 against southpaws. It’s quibbling to argue with Gonzalez, who hits .299 against lefties. But Pierre and Martinez are head scratchers. Derek Lowe has a better average against lefties than either of these guys.

It seems as if Grady sat down with the lineup and thought to himself “how can I get my two worst hitters into the lineup tonight? I know, I’ll rest my best hitter and the guy who hits lefties really well. That should produce the kind of offensive explosion we had last night.

Money Ball?

The Dodgers make a lot of money. Every home game, after they announce the attendance, they proclaim that they are the most successful franchise in the history of baseball (perhaps all sports, but I forget). They routinely draw 3 million fans a year, who pay top dollar for everything from parking ($15!) to hot dogs to $12 beers.

Too bad they spend it so poorly.

Their payroll is $108.4, including $12 million to Odalis Perez and Bill Mueller. That’s a lot of money, but not as much as the Angels ($109.3 million), Mets ($115.2 million), or White Sox ($108.7 million). And it’s not even in the same league with the Yankees ($+ or – 200 million, depending on the day) and Red Sox ($143 million).

I’m not saying that money equals championships. If that were true, the Yankees would win it all every year. But it does equal competitiveness. The Yankees are in it every year, as are the Red Sox, Mets, and Angels. So are the Braves, though they spend somewhat less because they have smart management.

What I am saying is that the Dodgers act like a discount franchise, refusing to spend big money on big time players. What they do spend big bucks on are mediocre players like Darren Dreifort, Odalis Perez, J.D. Drew, and Juan Pierre. This is a case of cheapness exacerbated by mismanagement.

I’d like to see the Dodgers pick up Torii Hunter this offseason, as he is a perennial all star who delivers big hits and has playoff experience. He’s really the only jewel in the 2007 free agent class. But if they don’t get Hunter, I’d hate to see them repeat the Pierre for Soriano mistake of last year by signing an inferior player like Adam Dunn or Brad Wilkerson to a slightly cheaper contract.

It’s the rare player in baseball who merits the kind of millions being paid to the elite. For the most part, the Matt Kemps of the world can deliver the same numbers as the Juan Pierres and Luis Gonzalezes for a whole lot less money. It’s appropriate to spend huge sums on players who provide that added differential that truly makes them superstars.

Day Off

Good win. Must win. Clutch win. Come from behind win. Gutty win by Penny.

Now, can somebody smack Grady Little for letting Russell Martin catch all nine innings after catching 14 innings just 12 hours earlier? I don’t care if Martin volunteered to catch. I don’t care if Mike Lieberthal is hitting .098. You can’t let your young stud catcher play every inning of every game. Grady has no problem playing light-hitting Ramon Martinez whenever Kent or Nomar or Furcal needs a break. He needs to rest Martin just as often.

Catchers wear down over time, over seasons, and over a lifetime, and if Martin continues to catch as often as he does, he’s going to tear both knees.

The manager has relatively few decisions to make, but making the lineup is one of them. I was astounded to see Russell out there again yesterday (and he’s my favorite Dodger). This is a recipe for him struggling at the plate all through September.

Where was Saito?

I know you don’t want to wear out your closer, but honestly, where was Takashi Saito in last night’s encouraging then deflating loss?

Saito pitched 2/3 of an inning in Friday night’s win, throwing all of seven pitches. Same for Thursday, 2/3 of an inning, seven pitches. That’s fewer pitches than he would throw just warming up to take the mound. Yet he was nowhere to be seen in the Dodgers bullpen last night. He could have thrown two innings if necessary.

Any manager knows that in a tie game at home, you don’t get to use your closer in a save situation. Any win will come in the last at-bat. So you use your bullpen backwards, throwing your strongest pitchers first and then the next-strongest after that, and so on, hoping you don’t have to get to Roberto Hernandez.

Then again, the way the Dodgers were hitting, having Saito throw an inning would merely have prolonged the agony.

Did we learn nothing from Eric Stults’ satisfying performance on Friday? Give the kids a chance. They can’t do any worse than the aging losers in the bullpen, and they might even provide a needed lift. Houlton or Hull instead of Hernandez is a no-brainer. And a whole lot cheaper for the skinflinty McCourts who can’t even pay Abreu the major league minimum while on the DL.

Today’s game will tell us a lot about this team. Do they rally from last night’s loss and continue their winning ways, or do they return to the form of the past two weeks? Brad Penny shows some cojones by going out on three days’ rest. Can the rest of the team follow his lead?

Credit where credit is due

Credit for the current Dodger youth movement does not belong to Ned Colletti, though at least he has seen the wisdom of not trading it all away.

It does not belong to Paul DePodesta, though at least he has seen the wisdom of not trading it all away.

It belongs to Dan Evans, much maligned GM under Fox, who acquired the following players:

OF Jason Repko (1999)
OF Matt Kemp (2003)
1B James Loney (2002)
2B Tony Abreu (2002 free agent)
SS Chin Lung Hu (2003 free agent)
3B Andy LaRoche (2003)
C Russell Martin (2002)

P Chad Billingsley (2003)
P Jonathan Broxton (2002)


Hmmmmm. Notice anything unusual about this collection? Oh yeah, it could be the Dodgers starting lineup in 2008. The two guys who have succeeded Evans have done a mediocre job of stocking the major league roster with overpriced veterans in the past four years.

But at least they didn’t trade it all away.

Will they ever win again?

For a brief moment there, I actually had a glimmer of hope that the Dodgers might win a game. It’s been so long, I can’t remember what that feels like. You’d think you could get more than 2 wins against the Reds, Cardinals, and Astros.

Forrest finally played the kids, but had the good sense to stick Jeff Kent in the middle of the Loney, Kemp, Ethier trio. Result: Kemp gets on, Ethier gets on, but Kent hits into DP in between them so that no run can score.

As for next year, Derek Lowe is signed through the end of 2008. And don’t look now, but we may have Kent for one more year. His 2008 option is guaranteed if he reaches 550 plate appearances this year. So far, he has 424 with 43 games left in the season. He needs to average just three appearances per game for the rest of the season to remain a Dodger. Though at this rate, maybe he won’t want to stick around.

The stats all say Kent’s a sure hall of famer, since he plays second base. If he played short or third, however, he probably wouldn’t get in. Add to that the fact that he’s not a particularly good second baseman. At least Mazeroski saved some runs with his glove.

Still, when all is said and done, Kent has been a much better addition to this club than I ever imagined when they first signed him. His bat has been pretty good, and he gives a punchless team power from second base. He will be hard to replace. He looks better at 40 than Nomar does at 35.

It’s Over

Can you bear to watch this team any longer? Billz wasn’t great last night, but who could excel under conditions where the minute you give up a run, the game is over? He pitched like a guy afraid to give up a singleton.

That’s the way this team is playing these days.

Part of the reason they can’t come back is because there’s no pop in the lineup. There’s not a serious 30-homer threat anywhere, not Kent, not Gonzo, not Nomar. Ethier might have that kind of power, but we’ll never know it, because he doesn’t get to play every day. The Dodgers have fewer home runs than every team in the league save the Washington Nationals. Even the Pittsburgh Pirates go deep more often.

The supposed rationale for the Dodgers not having home run hitters is that Dodger Stadium is not a homer-friendly park. Hogwash. Remember the year when the Dodgers had FOUR 30-homer guys? Remember a guy named Mike Piazza? Remember Adrian Beltre?

Even this year’s punchless team has more home runs at home (46) than on the road (39). Meanwhile, Dodger opponents have outhomered them at the Ravine (48) and on the road (47). If other teams can hit home runs at Dodger Stadium, there’s no reason the Dodgers can’t. Certainly Troy Glaus had no problem hitting jacks when he was here as a visitor. Certainly Torii Hunter would have no problem hitting home runs here.

The team’s inability to come from behind will soon translate into pitchers being reluctant to play here. Derek Lowe has to be at the end of his rope. If he goes nine, the team doesn’t score. If he goes less than nine, the bullpen blows it. I see why he’s considering other options when his contract is up at the end of next season.

Tinker?

"Maybe [I'll] tinker with what I do preparation-wise in the bullpen. . . just to find a little bit better rhythm when I get out there in the first inning," said yesterday’s (and every fifth-day’s) loser, Mark Hendrickson.

Tinker?!

Tinker is what you do when you have a genome that cures cancer but can’t be shelf-stabilized. When .240 hitters are launching bombs off you, it’s no longer time to tinker. IT’S TIME TO PITCH WITH THE OTHER HAND. Hendrickson has been abominable ever since the Dodgers got him. The only positive thing that can be said about him is he makes Brett Tomko look good. The time to tinker was when he was deciding between careers in the NBA and baseball.

The Times article seemed to suggest that the first inning was his problem, as his ERA in that inning alone is 7.20. But his overall ERA since the All-Star is 9.69, meaning that the first inning is one of his better frames. The Dodgers must have somebody better than this at AAA. Elmer Dessens was better than this.

Genius, part tw

I was sunned to hear Joe Girardi falling all over himself about LaGenius’s move to hit the pitcher eighth instead of ninth. If it’s so important to have runners on base in front of Pujols, then put your two best hitters in the 1-2 hole. Then, when the Cardinals did load the bases in the third inning, he acted like LaGenius was somehow responsible for Furcal making the error that allowed the whole debacle to unfold. Puh-leeze.

I expect such lunacy from Cardinal fans and commentators who never played the game, but I have more respect for Girardi, who actually played the game and understands that you get more at-bats for your best hitters, not your .180 hitters. They also quoted LaRussa as saying the pitcher only hits two or three times; the remainder are occupied by pinch hitters who might be better hitters than the #9 hitter. Really? If they’re such good hitters, why aren’t they in the starting lineup? Does every team in the NL have a Jack Cust, a guy who kills the ball but can’t play the field a lick?

Compared to Forrest, however, LaGenius at least looks like he’s thinking. His moves don’t always make sense, but they’re an attempt to shake up a lineup that continues to do nothing. Another 0-for-four from Furcal, more Ramon Martinez and his .176 average, more lack of production from Pierre. Why must he be in the lineup every day? All this against Braden Looper! 10-9 Braden Looper with an ERA

Meanwhile, Andre Ethier continues to be a doubles machine. There’s even a story about it in the paper today. Unfortunately, it would seems Forrest doesn’t read the paper, because he continues to bat Ethier below his prized veterans. I like Loney in the 3 spot, but Ethier could go there as well, or the five-hole. Put Kemp in the middle and all of a sudden you have a nice righty lefty mix in the 2-3-4-5 spots.

It might be too late, however. If you don’t win the Derek Lowe games against the Cardinals, who is it that you can beat?

Winning combinations

Yesterday’s game points out the stupidity of the rules about pitching wins. Brad Penny pitches seven innings of scoreless baseball, while Joe Beimel pitches one inning, and who gets the victory? Beimel, since he was in the game when the team took the lead for good. What’s worse, let’s say Beimel had given up the go-ahead run, or say Penny had left a 1-0 lead and Beimel let the Cardinals tie the game before Loney’s two-run homer. He’d still get the win, even though he didn’t do his job at all.

This is all foolishness. When a starting pitcher fails to go five innings but his team still wins, the official scorer gets to decide who gets the victory, based on his assessment of which pitcher performed most effectively in relief. Why shouldn’t it be the same in games where the starter does go five but leaves in a tie game or on the losing end? If you pitch eight innings of scoreless ball but leave trailing 1-0, you should get the win if your team comes back and wins 2-1.

The rules for pitching wins are left over from the era when relief pitchers were the lousiest pitchers on the team, and a starter didn’t deserve a win if he didn’t go eight or nine innings. But these days, managers feel great if they can coax five innings out of a kid (even a kid with a rifle arm!) and hope the bullpen doesn’t blow it.

We trust the official scorer to make these decisions when the starter stinks. Why shouldn’t we do it when the starter is good?

Forrest finally gets it!

Juan Pierre dropped to seventh, FINALLY. Too bad it took four months of sucking for anybody in the organization to realize he was killing rallies. And what does Pierre do in response? One for five with no walks.

Now if only we could do the same for Furcal. He lost the game for the Dodgers several times before he won it. The season isn't a total loss yet, but unless they reel off another 15-game winning streak soon, the Dodgers are done. That will free them to play the kids every dy in preparation for next year.

Sweeney is a decent addition, seeing as how they need a pinch hitter who does something other than swing and miss at anything offspeed (sorry, Olmedo, I, and half of Mexico, loves you, but you've been lost at the plate lately). We needn't worry about a roster spot, however. The Dodgers could use another bench player, even if it means sending down the 13th or 14th pitcher on the staff. That guy, be it Houlton or Stults or Hull or Roberto Hernandez, isn't getting anybody out anyway.

The Dodgers limp into St. Louis, home of dreaded manager Tony LaRussa. He’s the worst thing to happen to baseball aside from steroids, and I'm not so sure we can't blame that on him too. Notice where all the juiced up players played? Oakland and later St. Louis. Think Tony didn't know what was going on? Baloney.

The guy thinks he invented baseball, what with batting McGwire in the top half of road games, then subbing for him inthe bottom halff becuse he couldn't play the field. How dumb is that? You waste a power hitter in the top of the first, insted of having him on the bench to pinch hit in a key situation. But Tony smiles as if he's put one over on the lords of baseball.

But his most shameful contribution to the game is all this lefty righty crap at the end of a contest. What used to take 2 hours now drags on for 3 and a half because of three-pitcher innings and seven trips to the mound per side. It must work, because everybody has copied him. But does it?

Who is the middle-inning specialist, other than Paul Assenmacher, who's continued to get out big league batters over more than a two-year stretch? If these guys were any good, they'd be starters or closers. They used to have middle relievers back in the 50s and 60s too; they were the guys who weren't good enough to start. All this specilization has made baseball more like football. Pretty soon, none of the fielders will be required to hit. We'll just have juiced up Cansecos at every DH position and Furcal and Pierre playing the field.

Thank goodness for Tivo. A LaRussa trip to the mound is over in a heartbeat, and a three-pitcher inning flies by with just the touch of a fast forward button.

A New Beginning for the Dodgers?

Are the Dodgers prepared to go to their graves with the failed experiments of Juan Pierre and Rafael Furcal atop the lineup? It sure seems that way. At the beginning of the season, there was a question about which man was the better leadoff hitter. After all, both players seemed to be the prototypical top-of-the-order guys: rabbits without a lot of pop who could steal bases and create runs.

There’s only one problem. These guys don’t get on base. Pierre’s refusal to take walks (he has all of 22 this season) is well-known around the league by now, so he hardly sees a strike. Furcal walks twice as often, but injuries have kept him from being a stolen base threat. Neither man is hitting, however. Furcal’s .284 average is right at his career mark, while Pierre’s .277 is significantly below his career mark of .300. The Dodgers’ offense depends on these guys getting on base, being moved over, and driven in by the bigger bats. The Dodgers have won 2 of their last 10 games; Pierre had two hits in each of those games, while Furcal had two hits in one game and a single and two walks (And scored three times) in the other.

But the plan doesn’t work when they go 0-for-8, like they did yesterday, or when they go 0-for-6 in Penny’s last loss, or when they go 1-for-7 in the losses to tthe Rockies or 0-for-8 in the July 25 loss to the Astros.

Those o-fers are taking away valuable at-bats from guys who ARE getting on base. Like Andre Ethier, who seems to get a hit, and often an extra base hit, whenever he’s in the lineup. Like Matt Kemp, who despite struggling of late still has a higher Batting average (.323) than Pierre’s on base percentage (a dismal .314). Even Brad Penny gets on base (.326) at a higher clip than Pierre. In fact, Pierre has the worst OBP of any Dodger starter. Furcal, at .348, leads only Pierre, Penny, and Nomar (.329).

If the Dodgers are to score runs, the guys who don’t get on need to bat lower in the lineup. Jeff Kent leads the team in OBP with .384, but he’s the team’s only legitimate power threat, so batting him leadoff seems a waste. Loney (.379) seems too slow for the role. That leaves Ethier and Kemp, who platoon but should be playing every day given their averages (.304 and .328, respectively) and their OBPs (.370 and .372). How about we try them in right and center and in the 1-2 hole? Could the results be any worse than the two shutouts over the weekend?

That would necessitate sitting Pierre and or Gonzalez much more often (Amazingly, Pierre leads the team in games played, despite his lack of production. Imagine if Ethier had another 100 at-bats this season; that could be 30 more hits!). But the Dodgers are at the point in the season where they have to admit they made a mistake in signing two old men with poor throwing arms to man left and center. The playoffs almost assuredly depend on it.

Not Grady's Fault

August 3, 2007
You can’t blame last night’s loss on Grady. He’s not the one who left the bases loaded three times. He’s not the one who made the errors. He’s not the one who walked the leadoff hitter who eventually scored. And he’s not the one who gave up three runs in the first on 43 pitches. The players did that.

Grady just puts the players he has on the field. The problem is what he has to work with. And that you can blame on Ned. This week, the Dodgers traded away Betemit. good move. But when Kent went down with a hammy, that left them without a backup infielder and Ramon Martinez in the starting lineup. So what does Ned do? He brings up Delwyn Young, an outfielder. Huh?

The mistake was glaring in the eighth, when Ramon came up with the bases loaded. Most managers would have pinch hit for Martinez and his .188 average, but because the Dodgers had nobody else to play second, Grady’s hands were tied. How can you not have a backup infielder around? I know Abreu’s hurt, but then bring up LaRoche, or whoever is playing second at Vegas.

Colletti’s other shortcoming is not getting a bat to replace Olmedo Saenz. The Killer Tomato has clearly lost it. He never could hit anything other than a fastball, and these days, he can’t even do that. He’s gotten too fat to play third, and probably first, so he gets no more than three swings a night, if that. I don’t think he’s had a hit since the big homer in Toronto. In fact, the Dodgers have lost 9 of the last 10 games in which he appeared. the lone exception being a 5-4 win over Philadelphia July 18. A typical Olmedo night is a late-inning pinch hit appearance in which he fails to deliver a crucial run.

The best thing you can say about Ned is that he didn’t trade away the farm system to get an overpriced guy like Jermaine Dye. We’ve seen the value of Martin, Loney, Kemp, and Ethier. Could we please get them all in the starting lineup at the same time, now? I’m tired of seeing Juan Pierre hit lazy fly balls to the outfield and Luis Gonzalez swinging wildly at pitches in the dirt. Gonzalez left seven runners on base last night, despite owning a monster average against Barry Zito. He carried the team briefly in June, but he’s had just three extra-base hits since June 24 in his hometown of Tampa.

Pierre has just three extra base hits since July 5. He doesn’t hit home runs and he doesn’t walk. He plays great defense, but that’s not enough to make up for his shortcomings at the plate. The outfield platoon needs to be Pierre and Gonzalez, not Ethier and Kemp. LET THE KIDS PLAY.

Dodgers Half Full

If I told you at the beginning of the season that the Dodgers would be in the playoffs despite getting nothing out of Jason Schmidt, mild production from Nomar, Kent, Furcal, and Pierre, and average seasons from Gonzalez and Ethier, and a rotating cast of characters at third base, you'd take it, right? Well, if the season ended today, the Dodgers would be in the playoffs.

So I choose to look at the glass half full. There's plenty of empty, largely at the top of the order where neither Furcal nor Pierre is getting the job done. Pierre has just 15 walks, or one per week! That doesn't cut it for a guy hitting .275. Furcal is a notorious second half player, so maybe he gets a pass, but he's not getting on either. The Dodgers score runs despite the poor production from the top of the lineup, not because of it.

The kids, however, are alright. Kemp, Loney, and Russell Martin are setting the lineup on fire, and should be grouped together to produce more runs. The Dodgers don't have a deep threat--why is that?--so they need to piece hits together to score. It just makes sense to group your three best hitters together in the 3-4-5 spots. Ethier could join that group with more regular play, but since the Dodgers are stuck with Pierre for another FOUR YEARS! that's not going to happen any time soon. I'd prefer to see Kemp in center and Ethier in right, with Pierre subbing and pinch-running, but nobody pays $50 million for a pinch runner. So Pierre it is, but with Ethier spelling him and Gonzalez (who has been exactly as advertised, no more no less) regularly.

How's this for a lineup:
1. Furcal SS
2. Nomar 3B (yes, in the two spot, where he'll see more first-pitch strikes to keep Furcal from stealing).
3. Martin C
4. Kemp RF
5. Loney 1B
6. Kent 2B
7. Gonzalez LF
8. Pierre CF
9. P

I don't love having Pierre in front of the pitcher, since he doesn't get on base. But when he does get on, he helps the team manufacture runs with his speed. Say he leads off an inning with a single, steals second, then gets bunted over to third by the pitcher. Then you've got Furcal and Nomar to drive him in.

Baseball Shoots Itself in the Foot. . . Again

From Yahoo sports:
The World Series will begin the first Tuesday after the completion of the League Championship Series starting in 2007, possibly pushing the championship into the first week of November and setting up a schedule that sets games on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and, if necessary, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Great idea moving the World Series to Friday and Saturday nights, but extending the schedule by four days so that games six and seven can run into November is just plain dumb. I can't wait to see a Chicago-St. Louis World Series this November. Should be plenty cool, with a chance of snow.

Memo to Baseball: Start the world series on a Friday night, play games Friday/Saturday, Monday Tuesday Wednesday, and Friday/Saturday. Yes, you'd be going up against Monday Night Football, but you won't have to compete with Pro Football on Sundays.

Better yet, move the weekend games to daytime so that there's a chance anybody under the age of 12 might get to enjoy them.

Derek Jeter, Hall of Famer already

When the Yankees host Kansas City Friday, Derek Jeter will in all likelihood nail down his 2,000th hit. I don’t feel like figuring out how many guys have gotten to 2,00 faster, and doubtelss some geek on the Yes Netwok already has done the reserch, but suffice to say it’s amazingly fast. Here’s a look at the active leaders in total hits. Look how many fewer games Jeter has played than the rest.


G AB Hits Avg.
1. C Biggio* 2609 9988 2847 .285
2. B Bonds* 2769 9246 2768 .299
3. J Franco* 2401 8447 2528 .299
4. S Finley* 2443 9008 2462 .273
5. G Sheffield* 2216 7991 2378 .298
6. O Vizquel* 2336 8548 2350 .275
7. K Griffey* 2146 7956 2326 .292
8. B Surhoff* 2313 8258 2326 .282
9. J Bagwell* 2150 7797 2314 .297
10. L Gonzalez* 2207 7930 2261 .285
11. B Williams* 1986 7586 2255 .297
12. I Rodriguez* 1927 7366 2241 .304
13. K Lofton* 1868 7281 2178 .299
14. F Thomas* 1996 7083 2161 .305
15. R Sierra* 2179 8032 2150 .268
16. J Kent* 1970 7308 2109 .289
17. D Jeter* 1570 6348 1999 .315


A couple things stand out.
1) Jeter is averaging 206 hits over a 162-game season. At this rate, he'll hit 3,000 in five more years. It's not unfathomable to think he might get to 4,000, though I can't see him putting up with 10 more years of this crappy team.

2) His career average is much higher than I would have guessed. He's hitting better than Bonds, Sheffield, Manny , A-Rod, and Piazza. You have to go down to Vlad Guerrero, at 36 on the active list to find a hitter with a higher average.

3) Who knew Julio Franco was such a good hitter. And at 62 years old, that’s even better than Ty Cobb said he would be hitting at that age.

With these numbers, four rings, and MVP awards from the World Series and All-Star Game in the same year, I have to nominate Jeter for the Hall of Fame already, no matter what he did the rest of his career.

Pitch to Albert; Pitch to A-Rod.

Who says baseball is doing nothing about the fact that Barry Bonds is thumbing his nose at its most hallowed record. The conspiracy theorist sees an organization hard at work.

Unwilling to punish, censure, or even reprimand Bonds for what everyone except die-hard Giants fans knows, baseball is working feverishly to ensure that Bonds’ place in the record books will soon be overshadowed.

Witness the deference that Albert Pujols is being given in his assault on the single-season home run record. As of May 11, Pujols had 18 homers in 34 games, a rate that translates into a full-season total of 86 homers. Now nobody expects Pujols to hit 85 roundtrippers, but baseball sure would be happy if he eclipsed Bonds’ 2001 mark of 73.

That year, Bonds was intentionally walked 35 times, a far cry from seasons since, in which he was given first base 68, 61, and a whopping 120 times. This year, he’s already been walked 15 times and hit five home runs. Some of that has to do with the fact that the Giants have nobody to protect Bonds in the lineup, so it makes good baseball sense to put him on, rather than give him the chance to hit one out.

Now look at Pujols’ line. He’s been walked intentionally only 6 times this year, and only 76 times in his entire career. That’s little more than a single-season stat for Bonds. Again, having Scott Rolen or Jim Edmonds or Larry Walker batting behind you makes pitchers less interested in putting you on first for free. But you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder if baseball is somehow getting the message out: Pitch to Albert. Let him break Bonds’ record.

I have absolutely no evidence that this is the case, but wouldn’t baseball just love it if this problem went away?

Then there’s the all-time record. Bonds isn’t likely to make it to 755. But even if he does, it’s becoming apparent that A-Rod will break whatever record Bonds sets within just a few years. Rodriguez already has 436 home runs, or an average of around 40 per year. At this rate, he’ll reach 800 in 2015, or his 40th birthday.

Yet he too has been given the opportunity to swing in the vast majority of his at-bats. Rodriguez has been walked intentionally a grand total of 52 times in his career, or less often than Mike Matheny, a career .239 hitter. For sure, Matheny’s high number of free passes comes from hitting in front of the pitcher’s spot, and Rodriguez’s low number is influenced by hitters like Ken Griffey and Garry Sheffield hitting behind him. But still. Mike Matheny!

Orlando Merced has more intentional walks than A-Rod. J.T. Snow has more. Brad Ausmus too. Rey Ordoñez. Rey Ordoñez! Why on earth would you walk Rey Ordoñez? To get to the pitcher? Most pitchers hit better than Rey Ordoñez (.246). You’re doing him a favor by walking him.

Now, as long as we’ve got conspiracy theories floating around, look at the active leaders in intentional walks. Barry is number by a mile: his 622 is more than the next three guys combined. But who are those guys? Ken Griffey (210), Vlad Guerrero (171) and Frank Thomas (162). Aside from prodigious home run power, what do the top four have in common? They’re all black. So is #6 on the list, Carlos Delgado, and #8 Manny Ramirez.

That’s 6 of the top 8 who are black. In a sport where only about a third of the players are black. Does it prove anything? Of course not. Especially not when you realize that five of those six are also among the top 10 in home runs (Guerrero is 17th already; his high number of intentional walks can be traced to his years as Montreal’s lone power source).

Drew Who?

Who in the organization has J.D. Drew been blackmailing to retain his spot in the middle of the order? Since his arrival in Los Angeles, Drew has consistently batted third or fourth, even though he’s never shown any aptitude at driving in runs.

In seven full seasons (well, the closest thing to full seasons, since the injury-prone Drew never has played more than 145 games in one year), Drew has never driven in more than 93 runs, and cracked 60 only twice. He’s never hit more than 31 homers, and only twice hit more than 20. His career average is .287. A typical year for Drew is 60 RBIs and 19 homers. Nice numbers, but not for the toughest out in the lineup.

Yes, his on-base percentage is high, .393 as of today, and .426 this year. But getting on is not what you want out of a 3-hitter. You want him to drive runs home. How often must we sit still as Drew takes pitch after pitch in hopes of drawing a walk, even though runners are dying to score from second and third. Worse still, how many times does he take a called third strike in hopes of getting such a walk?

I know, he’s batting third because he makes the big bucks. You don’t give a guy $55 million bucks and not give him the star treatment. But Drew would be so much better in a slot where he didn’t have to drive in runs. Like leadoff, or second.

That begs the question, who should hit third? Olmedo Saenz has long been the team’s most consistent run producer, but it seems odd to have a platoon player hitting third. Jeff Kent is the likely replacement, but then who would hit fourth? The Dodgers don’t really have a slugger on this team.

If it were up to me, I’d bat Furcal first, Drew second, Bill Mueller third, Kent fourth, Saenz/Nomar fifth, Cruz sixth, Lofton seventh (in hopes he gives way to Repko soon), Navarro eighth, and the pitcher ninth.

Good World Series So Far

I swear this is the same thing I would have written even if I hadn't seen the results of game one and two.

I want the White Sox to win. But I want Andy Pettitte to perform well and I want to see Roger Clemens let his teammates down again with a poor performance, cementing his reputation as overrated, despite the Cy Youngs (he so often comes up short in playoff games!) I was hoping the Astros could have won the game for Pettitte, but at least he didn't wear the albatross last night.

Now, given what I've seen, I think the Astros will win one behind Oswalt, but then lose the next two when Backe and Clemens or whoever replaces him return to the hill.

Last night's game was one of the best in recent memory. An instant classic, thrilling in every way. Timely hitting, big power, shameless comebacks, and a controversial call and all. I'll tell you what. Whether or not Jermain Dye got hit doesn’t even matter. There’s no excuse for grooving that fastball to Konerko with the bases loaded. That ball got out of there faster than it came in.

Then Vizcaino coming through in the clutch again, shades of the 2000 World Series, how exciting is that, and the play at the plate and he should have been sooo out.

Lidge is done. He has Mark Wohlers written all over him. I said this at the time, I swear, though I didn’t write it, how could Phil Garner not bring him to close out the NLCS. If the score was 10-1, you bring in your closer, just so he can be the guy on the mound when you clinch, so he can celebrate on the field. But he brings in Dan Wheeler? Who the $%^*$* is Dan Wheeler? Oh yeah, he’s the guy who loads the bases so Chad Qualls can groove a fastball that costs you game two.

Now Garner brings Lidge back in an equally stupid situation: He can’t win, he can only lose. Boom! Podsednik (Podsednik?! ! If he hits it out, that means I can hit it out.) One of the biggest home runs in World Series History. Who lives that down? Eckersley? OK. Rivera? Sure. But Trevor Hoffman? Nope. Armando Benitez? Nuh-uh. Billy Wagner—we’ll see, if he ever gets back to the postseason. Kim is more like it, though Lidge has been better than Kim ever was.

Meanwhile, I love the White Sox. They play great baseball. They bunt, they advance runners, they make productive outs, and then when you’re exhausted from trying to make sure they don’t pester you to death, they bonk you over the head with doubles, triples, and bombs. That’s the kind of baseball the 1996-2000 Yankees played, and they won all the time. You can’t lose playing that kind of baseball, if you have the kind of talent they have. Good hungry young players who field the ball well, a few veterans (good on whoever turned Carl Everett into a good citizen). And fantastic pitching.

The secret of the White Sox is one that needs to be told throughout the league: good starting pitching, used deep into game, makes your bullpen better because they don’t have to work that often. The Sox starting five averaged better than seven innings per start. That’s an amazing stat in a LaRussified era in which starters are lucky to go seven these days. But starters who go deep into ballgames keep the bullpen fresh. The stats of Buehrle, Garland, Contreras, Garcia, and Duque aren’t that impressive individually. But collectively (they all had 18 or more decisions , and, except for Duque, had ERAs under 4) they add up to a winning formula.

If I were a GM, I’d start looking more at innings pitched to see if there are some sleeper pitchers in the offseason. He may not be the guy who blows em away every fifth day, but he could be the guy that prevents your bullpen from having to come in and makes sure a 4-2 lead doesn’t become a 6-4 deficit in a big hurry.

In the old days, the guys in the bullpen were there because they weren’t as good as the starters. With the possible exception of the closer, it’s still true today.

Strike Three, you’re part of a mechanism that could lead to being out

Forget whether the ball touched the ground before Josh Paul caught it (it didn’t).

Forget whether Paul should have tagged A.J. Pierzynski even though he caught he cleanly (he should have).

Forget whether Doug Eddings blew the call and then was too proud to admit he made a mistake (yup on both counts).

What’s all this crap about his “strike call mechanism?” Since when are umpires allowed to make up hand signals for different things? When 99 percent of umpires punch their fist, it means the player is out. So why is Eddings allowed to have his own “mechanism?” What was he doing sticking out his thumb, telling Pierzynski he was as cool as Fonzie?

Shouldn’t this be the first thing they teach in umpire’s school? Arms spread wide means safe. Twirl your finger in the air for a home run. And punch your fist means out. Allowing Eddings to have his own “mechanism” leads to the kind of chaos that ruined last night’s otherwise beautiful ballgame.

What’s next, umpires making the peace sign to indicate safe? Will Eddings start doing the cha cha each time a pitcher throws a strike? Can he adopt a mechanism in which spreading his arms wide actually means strike three? Can he pick his nose to indicate that a runner at first was picked off?

Of course not. Strike means strike and out means out and safe means safe. All the players on the field, Pierzynski included, saw Eddings make an out call. That’s why they walked off the field, Pierzynski included. Eddings isn’t allowed to go back and say that was just a part of his mechanism.

Baseball is using QuestTec, a computer system, to encourage umpires to agree on a uniform strike zone. Apparently they have an even more dire need for a uniform system of calling safe and out.

Justice?

Who is it that the left expects Bush to nominate for the Supreme Court? Lawrence Tribe? William Brennan? Bush won the right to appoint whoever he wants when he was re-elected in 2004. We're just seeing that chicken coming home to roost now.

Even if the Democrats got their act together and stood united, filibustering down every nomination until Bush appointed a moderate—I know, wake up from that dreamland—there’s not a chance in hell that Bush would give in. He’d just keep nominating more conservatives agreeable to his fascist thinking.

And that’s IF the Democrats had the balls to stand up to him, which they don’t. The fact that wing nuts are upset about this nomination says to me that it’s as good as we’re going to get from this administration, and the sooner she’s confirmed, the better. It’s not who I’d choose for the Supreme Court, but you don’t get to choose your enemies.

As for the endless stream of e-mails we’re all about to get from People for the American Way, Democracy for America, and the pro-choice groups, I say save your breath. You might as well get to work on 2006 or some other productive case. Complaining about individual nominees isn’t going to do any good in this political era.

The fight for the Supreme Court was lost in 2004, and to a greater degree, in 1991, when the Senate set the idiotic precedent of allowing a nominee (Uncle Thomas) not to comment on his views on abortion or pretty much anything else. Ever since, nominees have refused to talk about anything they believe, and the Senate’s role has become little more than a rubber stamp.

Tracy

Do I have to say it? The Dodgers fired the wrong guy. Paul DePodesta rolled into town, took a good nucleus of a team and fucked it up and they went to the playoffs anyway. Then he rid that team of all its charm, fun, and likeability and brought in a bunch of losers and malcontents, most of whom then got injured.

Jim Tracy did what he could with this ragtag lineup, but in the end, the Dodgers lack of pitching, hitting, speed, and defense sent them to a sub .500 record for the first time in Tracy’s tenure.

Now Tracy is gone and we only have DePodesta to show for it. Tracy is going to half-empty Pittsburgh, most likely, where he’ll get a BETTER OFFER than he would have gotten from the 3-million-drawing Dodgers.

Who would take the Dodgers job at this point? The team has no interest in spending money on players, so the manager’s salary is going to be low. And it’s clear who’s calling the shots: the guy who brought in Hee Seop Choi.

You’ll excuse me if I don’t rush out to buy tickets for next year’s opener. I have a feeling I’ll be able to boo for free.

Undeserved

Baseball doesn’t deserve the fantastic season that just ended. The owners have done just about everything they could think of to screw up the national pastime, and yet this amazing game has been not only resilient, but undaunted in its ability to provide thrilling moments at every turn.

With one game left to play, four teams were still battling for two playoff spots—yes the wild card, I realize. But had there bee no wild card, Atlanta and Houston would still have been slugging it out for the Western Division championship in the last week, and the Yankees, Red Sox, and Indians would have been battling for one spot instead of two in a crowded American League East.

In the end, we got six of the same eight teams that were in the playoffs last year, and San Diego doesn’t really count anyway. But Chicago is still an exciting story, and despite their swoon in mid-September, they finished wit 99 victories. Ozzie Guillen gets my vote for manager of the year. Bobby Cox is a shoo-in in the NL, even if the Braves don’t win a single playoff game.

Yankee lovers and haters will get to root for their respective sides in the playoffs, and the Red Sox still have an opportunity to prove that 2004 was not an aberration. Baltimore and Washington thrilled for half a season (and people actually saw them play this year), while Milwaukee finished at .500 for the first time in memory. The Mets proved they were an above average team, but no more. The Cubs played in a beautiful ballpark, as did the Giants.

My choices for postseason awards:

AL MVP Alex Rodriguez (can we stop calling him A-Rod). His numbers are parallel to David Ortiz’s. Ortiz has more RBIs, Rodriguez had a higher average. To settle the tie, you have to look at position. Ortiz saved a total of zero runs by snaring a grounder, stabbing a line drive, or making an incredible throw to cut down a runner at first, second, or the plate. Rodriguez did all of those things 150 times a season, and for that reason, he gets the nod.

NL MVP Albert Pujols Yes, Andruw Jones carried the Braves, but you can’t deny Pujols’ numbers. Take him off the Cardinals lineup and maybe they don’t have trouble making the playoffs, but they certainly aren’t the dominant team that they proved to be this year. Despite injuries and poor performances from Rolen, Walker, and Edmonds, Pujols was still a stud in the middle of the St. Louis lineup.

AL and NL Hank Aaron awards: same as above.

AL Cy Young: Mariano Rivera. Mo is the mvp every year. Take him off the Yankees and they go 85-77. His ERA blows away anybody, and he was responsible for bringing the Yankees back into the race. Bartolo Colon had a nice year, but he had far fewer strikeouts than Johan Santana, who is the most deserving starter of the bunch, but won’t get the award because nobody noticed.

NL Cy Young: I can’t stand to give Roger Clemens another award, so I’ll give it to Chris Carpenter. His numbers are better than Dontrelle Willis’s or Roy Oswalt’s, and he carried the Cardinals in the first half to such a big lead that everybody stopped chasing them. Roger’s ERA is astounding, and he deserved victories in each of the 8 times the Astros were shutout with him on the mound. But he has benefited from extra generous run support in the past. This is just things evening out.

Car Pool Chaos

In the newspaper business, it is often joked that two occurrences makes a coincidence. For a trend story, you need three examples. That’s apparently the number of people the L.A. Times found for its article on hybrid car owners griping about the size of the stickers they must post on their cars in order to drive solo in car pool lanes. The Times then felt compelled to slam hybrid owners a second time on the editorial page as whiners.

Regardless of how hybrid owners feel about defacing their cars with yellow stickers, the whole idea is flawed in more ways than the Dodger pitching staff. For starters, why are we letting hybrids drive in the carpool lanes solo? The purpose of car pool lanes is not to save gas, but to discourage people from driving by themselves. In other words, to CAR POOL.

In fact, kids shouldn’t count as passengers for the purpose of car pool lanes. Putting a kid or two in the car doesn’t reduce the number of cars on the road. It probably just increases the numbers of gas-guzzling SUVs and minivans.

(When’s the last time you saw a family with even one kid driving a sedan, the way millions of parents did for most of the 20th century?) But I digress.

If the intent of car pool lanes were to save gas, then Hummers, Escalades, and Expeditions should be banned from the lanes no matter how many soccer teams or posses they’re carrying. Allowing single-passenger hybrids into car pool lanes won’t alleviate traffic one bit. It will just clog up the car pool lanes with solo drivers

The sticker idea is equally misguided. As dumb as the idea is, if you want to allow hybrids into the car pool lane, why not make a special license plate for them so police can track them? Those would be a whole lot more identifiable than any little stickers without defacing cars. You could even charge a small fee for them, something most owners would be happy to pay for.

How long does anybody expect it will be before counterfeit Car Pool Lane OK stickers start appearing on the Internet? As the number of hybrids multiplies, it will be increasingly difficult for police to distinguish between real hybrids and ones disguised as hybrids, especially at 70mph. And when hybrid SUVs are allowed into the car pool lanes, any ass with a Tahoe will be able to slap on a bogus sticker that allows him to both guzzle gas and clog the carpool lane.

Mild Card

Earlier this week, the L.A. Times had an article extolling the blessings of the wild card, citing the exciting pennant races in this year’s hunt for October. But is the wild card really responsible for the excitement? Hardly. Here’s the way things look in the current three-division format as of 3pm PDT on Sept. 22.

The Yanks lead the Red Sox by half a game in the AL east, Chicago’s up by 2.5 over Cleveland in the Central. One of these four teams is going to win the wild card, and one is going to stay home. In the west. the Angels lead the A’s by 2.5 games.

In the National League, St. Louis has had the central wrapped up since May, Atlanta is about to clinch the east, and San Diego is battling itself for king of the sub .500 teams in the west. The wild card is a three-way battle between Houston, Philadelphia, and Florida (Washington at this point has no more than an outside shot at it, from 6.5 games back.

Now here’s how things would look if there were two divisions and no wild card.
In the AL East, Cleveland would lead the Yankees by half a game and the Red Sox by a full game. In the West, Chicago would be up by five games over the surging Angels.

In the NL East, St. Louis would still be running away with the division. But the NL West would be a dogfight between the Braves and the Astros, two games back.

To be sure, fewer teams would be playing meaningful games in the last week of the season. Philadelphia, Florida, and Oakland (three teams that are still very much alive in the wild card format) would be mathematically eliminated by now, and the Angels would be close to done. But there would still be plenty of playoff-level excitement. I love the idea of a three-team race for the AL East. Best of all, San Diego, at 76-76, would not be in contention for anything. That’s how it should be.

There’s no arguing with the wild card. It’s here to stay. But let’s hope it doesn’t lead to interminable NBA-style playoffs. Four teams is plenty.

The Undecideds Have It

The votes aren’t all in, but the early polls are muddled. Fully half of the 10 people who’ve responded so far have vigorously supported the rule of law. The remaining half are divided among support for the junta and undecided. In a bizarre way, this probably reflects the American electorate in 2000 and 2004: half the country supported W and the other half was divided between those who held their nose and voted Democratic and those who voted for Nader or didn’t vote at all because they were so disgusted with their options.

Draw your own conclusions about what this means for 2006, 2008, and other opportunities for change that don’t involve elections.

It’s time for me to weigh in. I guess you can count me in the undecided category. I don’t favor a junta, for sure, and I don’t favor a French-Revolution-style beheading of the elite classes. As horrendous as this administration is, I don’t see things being ameliorated by a decade of Robespierre and Danton, followed by the ascension of another Napoleon (can you say Rudy Giuliani, a dictatorial midget with popular wartime appeal?).

And besides, armed revolution won’t work because the left doesn’t have nearly enough guns.

That said, I don’t see the ballot box as the solution either. Hand-wringing, arguing, money-raising, op-ed writing, and ribbon-wearing aren’t getting the job done for two reasons.

First, the Democrats have no spine. Despite everything that this administration has done, nobody on the other side of the aisle has done anything to stop them. They pretend to ask tough questions, but go ahead and confirm losers and criminals like John Ashcroft, Condescending Rice, and Alberto Gonzales. We have no equivalent of an opposition leader in this country because there's barely an opposition. Look for John Roberts to win approval easily, and the Supreme Court to shift even further right for a generation. But naming justices to the Supreme Court is a right Bush "won" by taking the 2004 election.

Second, and more important, I believe the game is rigged. There's too much evidence of vote manipulation for me to believe that either of the past two presidential elections were won fair and square. The 2000 Election was obviously stolen by Florida Republicans on the payroll. And the evidence from Ohio in 2004 is just as disturbing. And as electronic voting increases nationwide, the opportunities for vote stealing are multiplying. Since the main companies that make the electronic voting machines are all heavy Republican contributors, you can guess which way those votes will be rigged.

That’s why I don’t put much faith in voting. When we went to Washington in 2001 to protest the inauguration of a thief president, I was interviewed on TV about why we were there. At the time, I was optimistic: I said it was a great sign of a free country that people could go to the capital and express their opinion.

Four years of this administration has changed that opinion. There’s little right to protest in this country now that anybody who disagrees with the party line is fired, quietly reassigned, denied access to future briefings, put on hold, or made subject to a vicious smear campaign. And even those who aren’t silenced by the administration have been ignored by a media that is owned by defense contractors, Republican sympathizers, or giant corporations that benefit from the fascist policies of this government.

That was something we learned in four hours in Washington. Despite the presence of at least 20,000 protesters at the inauguration, the media coverage was almost nil. Ordinary citizens converging on Washington to protest the stealing of an election was something that had not happened in over 100 years (unless I’m ignorant of a large anti-Kennedy contingent in 1961), yet most national newspapers either wrote nothing about it or buried a story on page 17. The news networks covering the event live simply ignored the protesters as Bush’s motorcade sped by them.

Katrina has exposed the mask of Bush. But we won’t be voting for or against George Bush in the next two elections. Congressional candidates will distance themselves from him in 2006, and he won’t be running in 2008. Bush isn’t the problem; it’s the entire fascist state that has appointed him the Grand Wizard. When he’s gone, they’ll simply anoint a new leader.

The only way I see to end the fascism is to find a Democratic candidate with a backbone who will call these guys on the carpet, and then make sure that he or she (please, not Hillary; she'll lose by Mondale-like proportions) wins by a tamper-proof landslide.

I don't see that happening in the next three years. So I'm looking for other solutions that won't condemn us to decades of debt, generations of oppression, and rolling back of New Deal programs. A military coup isn't the answer, that’s true, but what is?

I wish I knew.

American Junta?

I’m asking this question not because I want to start an argument, but because I honestly don’t know how I feel about it. I’m hoping to start a sane conversation about a serious subject.

Let’s say a group of high-ranking military officers loyal to Gen. Eric Shinseki (or some other brass hat who opposed the war in Iraq) decided they had seen just about enough of their troops dying in Iraq for no reason and staged a presidential coup. Like a South American junta, they stormed the White House, guns blazing, took the president and vice president hostage, and declared that they would hold onto power only long enough to end the war and bring the troops home.

There are any number of ways for the story to go from here, and I suppose how you feel about the aforementioned scenario might depend on how the story ends. But since we’d have no way of knowing the eventual outcome if it actually happened, I want to know:

Which side are you on?

Do you support the overthrow or do you fight to maintain the rule of law?

Better?

Now that the baseball season is largely over (and let’s face it, for the Dodgers it has been over for a long time, though they remain mathematically in contention), it’s soon enough to evaluate some of the moves the bonehead general manager Paul DePodesta made with this team over last year’s offseason.

Let’s start with Adrian Beltre. Here’s a guy who played on a bum ankle all season last year and finally put up the kind of numbers the Dodgers had been expecting of him since he arrived in 1998. He led the majors in home runs while hitting .334.

The Dodgers, however, didn’t want to give him a long-term deal based on one year’s numbers, and let him go to Seattle. Admittedly, he hasn’t exactly been Mike Schmidt. His .257 average and 18 home runs make him look more like Mike Pagliarulo. But his 79 RBIs is more than any Dodger except Jeff Kent. And that’s on a Seattle team, where even Ichiro is batting a mere .302, that isn’t exactly putting a lot of runners on base for Beltre to drive in.

Beltre has also played in 138 of Seattle’s 144 games this year, something no 2005 Dodger can say. Meanwhile, the five guys named Mo who DePodesta slotted to fill Beltre’s role are hitting a combined .258, a percentage point above Beltre in fact.

And if you add up the RBI totals for Robles, Antonio Perez, Mike Edwards, Jose Valentin, and Norihiro Nakamura, you get 79, the exact same total as Beltre. Except that those 79 RBIs came in 914 at bats, compared to 536 for Beltre. Beltre therefore has 1.7 RBIs for every run driven in by a Dodger third baseman.

J.D. Drew was the guy who was supposed to replace Beltre’s big bat in the lineup. He played 72 games and hit a whopping .286 with 15 homers and 36 whole RBIs before getting injured yet again, as he has done every single year of his career. Even if you double his half season stats, he would have all of 72 RBIs, but also 100 strikeouts.

Meanwhile, the guy he replaced, Shawn Green, (whose salary the Dodgers are still paying), is hitting .299 with 22 homers and 73 RBIS, while playing 141 games for the Diamondbacks. It’s nice to double a player’s statistics and say that’s what he would have hit if he hadn’t gotten injured.

But Drew is on the DL more than George Bush is on vacation. When a player is as on the DL as often as Drew, you can’t assume anything. Everybody in baseball, except, it seems, Paul DePodesta, knew that Drew was a guy who was injury prone, didn’t try very hard, and was a clubhouse killer. And that’s exactly what he has delivered for the Dodgers in 2005.

Let’s look at the lineup DePodesta intended to put on the field at the beginning of 2005:

Hee Seop Choi at first. If you’ve been reading my blog or anything Jim Tracy has to say about this guy, you know my feelings about him.

Jeff Kent at second. Good move. Kent is the core of this horrible club, putting up his usual Hall of Fame numbers. He’ll end the season with 30 homers, .300 average, and 100 RBIS. I wasn’t a huge fan of this acquisition when it was made, but he has performed admirably.

Cesar Izturis at short: He started strong, then faded, perhaps because of injury. His excellent defense makes him worth keeping, though he probably shouldn’t be batting leadoff.

Jose Valentin at third: If you’re going to let Beltre, the team leader and offensive sparkplug, leave, you’ve got to replace him with more than a .174 hitter. Especially when guys like Troy Glaus, Corey Koskie, even Joe Randa were available.

Jayson Werth, Milton Bradley, and J.D. Drew in the outfield. Three guys who all wanted to play center field, probably so they wouldn’t have to hit like a corner outfielder. All three spent time on the DL this year. Bradley was the best of this bunch on the field, but his off-the-field problems mean he assuredly won’t be back next year.

David Ross, catcher. David Ross? Are you kidding? How do you trade away Paul LoDuca, get nothing for him, and think David Ross is going to solve your problems. Luckily for the Dodger, Jason Philips fell into their lap, and he did a great job at catcher, except when it came to throwing out baserunners. He’s third on the team in RBIS.

Derek Lowe, Brad Penny, Jeff Weaver, Odalis Perez, and Scott Erickson, starting rotation. Scott Erickson? Puh-leeze. A guy who was washed up three years ago. DePodesta seems to think catching lightning in a bottle is as easy as playing against the 49ers.

Moreover, where’s the ace? Who’s the guy you’re afraid of in a big playoff series? Who’s the #1 starter? Jeff Weaver? Big game loser Jeff Weaver? Now maybe no aces were available in the off-season. But in that case, you have to go out and get five #2 starters, not hire some other team’s retreads.

Injuries hurt, for sure, but this Dodger team was poorly assembled from the start. The 12-2 start masked serious flaws.

Looking forward to 2006, who would you build around? Kent, a 37-year-old guy in the last year of his contract? Izturis, who’s going to recovering from Tommy John surgery? Dioner Navarro, a decent catcher who hasn’t played a full season? Elmer Dessens, the only pitcher with an ERA under 3.00? Drew?

If they traded every single one of the guys on the roster today and replaced them with the Milwaukee Brewers, would anybody even notice? The Brewers are playing .500, something the Dodgers haven’t done since May. They’d be an improvement over the current club. In fact, if the Brewers were playing in the NL West, they’d be a playoff team.

It’s hard to believe that less than a season after a division championship, it’s ttime for the Dodgers to clean house. But there isn’t a single irreplaceable part of this team.

The best place to start would be with DePodesta.