Today’s blog is written by Bumsrap. Thanks for a day off… Pitching Depth In 2008, Cole Hamels seemed unhittable for much of the season and the post-season. He was 24 years old in 2008 when he pitched 227.1 innings in the regular season plus 35 more in the post season. That was 63 more innings total from the previous year. His worst year of his career was 2009. Here is…
Today is one of those days which gives me little time to post. The next three weeks are going to be crazy for me as I have a lot of places to go and people to see. I wish I were in Arizona but I am headed to Florida. There are a couple of things, but then I am going to turn it over to you. If you are a…
The 2017 version of the LA Dodgers has nearly 40 players who have shown that they deserve to be on the Opening Day Roster, but many won’t. I am not going to include Willie Calhoun, Alex Verdugo or Cody Bellinger because they will be ready soon enough, but I am talking about players who have demonstrated that they belong on the big league roster. I am not even considering Charlie…
It’s March 16th and Adrian Gonzalez will never play in the WBC again… so there is that. He says Little League is ran better and he would be right – it’s mostly a joke! Julio Urias is pissed he’s going to extended Spring Training… and the Dodgers have more good players than they have positions. Life is good! Just to be clear, Urias is not going to the pen or…
Every Dodger fan knows that Zack Greinke signed with the D-Backs after the 2015 season for $200+ million. On Thursday, The Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro wrote this about Zack Greinke: After his first pitch of the day on Wednesday afternoon – a fastball on the outer half for a called strike – Zack Greinke stole a glance at the video board at Salt River Fields: pitch speed, 88 mph. For the second…
I told a buddy of mine yesterday that Scott Kazmir’s hip tightness was probably going to keep him out all season. He said “That’s negative – you have to think positive.” So, let me try to get over this negativity: “I am Positive that Scott Kazmir’s hip tightness is probably going to keep him out all season.” How’s that? This is the same problem he had last year which led to other…
Yesterday, Bluto called our attention to Q & A session with Jim Callis of Baseball America. Callis has always been high on Yadier Alvarez but now he says he has a “Cy Young ceiling“. He’s still high risk, but he’s really high reward. He also mentioned Caleb Ferguson and AJ Alexy who are in the pipeline as prospects who make make big jumps this year. Neither are in the Top…
Every Spring there seems to be some non-roster invitee who steps up and either makes the club or comes close and makes it interesting. This year, there 21 non-roster invitees who have a shot. Ken Gurnick of Dodgers .com lists them: The complete list: Pitchers: Ralston Cash, Fabio Castillo, Steve Geltz, Brandon Morrow, Trevor Oaks, Josh Sborz, Patrick Schuster, Yaisel Sierra and Madison Younginer. Catchers: Jack Murphy, Wynston Sawyer, Bobby Wilson….