If I were to write AF, the following is probably what I would say. Mind you, I pull no punches, and I am pretty blunt. Don’t get me wrong, I think Freidman took a rebuilding organization and infused it with even more talent. And he did that while drafting low. But he has also had the luxury of pretty much-unlimited resources at his disposal. You cannot argue too much with…
It’s a day later, and I have moved on. I am resigned to waiting until next year. Many of the fans on LADT are of the “older variety.” They remember when the winner of the National League and the winner of the American League played for the World Series Championship. If you had a good team and got there, you had a decent chance of winning. Today, you have to…
I will start this diatribe by saying that this epic fail will possibly cost Dave Roberts his job, but that is not the biggest part of the problem. The bigger problem lies in the office of Andrew Friedman. He is the President of Baseball Operations, and the buck stops with him. I have been a champion of Andrew since he was hired. I have defended him against many assaults on…
Everything is crystal clear! The Dodgers either have to win today, or the 2022 season is over for them. If the Dodgers win, they go back to Chavez Ravine for Game Five, where the winner takes all. If they lose, their best season… the season for the ages is over. It will be a shame if the season ends today, but that’s baseball. The baseball gods can be cruel. I…
This is a few days old, but the latest player discrediting the Dodgers championship in 2020 is none other than former teammate Alex Verdugo. His quote: “A 60-game season, it’s still hard to judge to this day. Like yeah, it’s a World Series, right? Yeah, they got a ring. But they didn’t play any games at their home field. They didn’t. There weren’t any fans there. It was 60 games….
I know it bugs him, so here it is. 😉 The Dodgers clinched the NL West in May… or they might as well have done it then. Right about now, sitting on 108 wins and knowing they will play the Rockies for six games at home and then be off for the next five days, they aren’t exactly excited. Many players are just going through the paces. Gavin Lux’s neck…
In 2004, the first season under new owner Frank McCourt, the Dodgers won their first division title in 8 years. The 1995 Dodgers won the division after the strike was over in a shortened season. But they were ousted out of the playoffs in the NLDS. The new GM was Paul DePodesta, a strong advocate of analytics when teams were just starting to use that kind of data. He traded…
Do you remember when (not that long ago) when Dodger Fans were questioning whether Farhan Zaidi was the “Genius behind Andrew Friedman?” I hear Farhan is awesome at Fantasy Football and Fantasy Baseball, but suddenly his star is getting tarnished in the real thing. He caught lightning in a bottle last year… never to happen again. Freidman is like the EverReady Bunny. The Playoff Roster for position players is set…
I find it hilarious that some of you think Doc is a “puppet manager.” I guess it is human nature to ridicule what we don’t understand. “Puppet” implies that Dave does exactly what the front office says, which is so much beyond silly; it is ridiculous! The job of a baseball manager has changed dramatically in the past 20+ years. It used to be the manager was a “John Wayne-type”…
If you ain’t failing… you ain’t trying! Well, Andrew Friedman has failed a lot! It all started with Brett Anderson, Scott Kazmir, and Brandon McCarthy. Maybe they weren’t an absolute failure – maybe they were a “bridge,” but most people view it as a failure. He tried… Good on Andrew. Seth Godin (one of my favorite writers) writes about the “Lizard Brain. Some people call it the “resistance.” Seth Godin…