First-Year Players 1990-1999

                                                              1990

                    As the new decade started, the Dodgers were making some changes and some players were headed elsewhere. Valenzuela, Anderson, Shelby and Tudor were granted free agency in November of 89. The team signed Jim Gott and re-signed Shelby and Valenzuela in December.

                  Mike Marshall and Alejandro Pena were traded to the Mets for Juan Samuel. Hubie Brooks and Mike Maddux were also signed as free agents. Just prior to spring training they signed reliever Don Aase. Then just before opening day they sent Franklin Stubbs to the Astros for Terry Wells.

               In May they traded Willie Randolph to the A’s for Stan Javier. Shelby was released in June. In September they would trade Darrin Fletcher to the Phillies for Dennis Cook.

              They started off with a 11-10 April. They heated up a little in May, but then had a losing month of June. In July and August they went a combined 34-23. But they never really threatened the Reds who won the division over them by 5 games.

              Starters were Scioscia, Murray, Samuel, Griffin, Sharperson, Daniels, Gibson and Brooks. Gibby was still hobbled and appeared in only 89 games. He hit .260 with 8 and 28. Murray hit .330 with 26 and 95. Daniels at .294 with 27 and 94. Brooks contributed 20 HR’s. Scioscia hit 12, Samuel 13. Sharperson while not providing any power hit .297. Lenny Harris and Stan Javier hit .304. Chris Gwynn hit .284. Jose Gonzalez got into 106 games, but only had 108 at bats. Hatcher and Dempsey were in 85 and 62 games. Rookies Jose Offerman and Jose Vizcaino got into 29, and 37.

          On the pitching side, Martinez was the ace, going 20-6. Morgan was 11-15, Valenzuela, 13-13, Belcher, 9-9, and Jim Neidlinger was 5-3. Howell, Crews, Hartley, Gott and Aase led the BP corps, with Howell getting 16 saves. Hershiser was injured and only got into 4 games. Wetteland was  2-4 in 22 games, 5 of them starts. Wells in his only action ever in the majors was 1-2 in 5 games. Darren Holmes made his debut as did Jim Poole.

                                                            1991

                    Gibson, Hatcher, Dempsey, Samuel, and Valenzuela all became free agents in November, but on the 8th of November, Claire signed FA outfielder Darryl Strawberry. He signed Kevin Gross and Brett Butler. Traded Vizcaino to the Cubs for Greg Smith. Then he sent Brooks to the Mets for Greg Hansell and Bob Ojeda. They also re-signed Samuel, Valenzuela and Hatcher. They traded Holmes to the Brewers for a minor leaguer and did the same with Poole.

                     They got Dave Veres for a minor leaguer and signed Roger Cedeno and John Candelaria and Gary Carter in March. Valenzuela was released before the season started.

                   In July they traded Jose Gonzalez to the Pirates for Mitch Webster, and also sent Braulio Castillo and Mike Hartley to the Phillies for Roger McDowell. Their record improved by 7 games, but they again finished 2nd, this time to the Atlanta Braves who would be beginning an incredible run of 14 straight division titles. They only finished 1 game back.

                   They were sluggish out of the gate, but in May and June they went a combined 36-19. On the 30th of June after taking 3 of 4 in Atlanta, they were up by 4 games. They played .500 ball in July and managed to gain 1/2 game in the standings.

                  In August, they struggled. Going 13-16. On the last day of August their lead was down to a game. They had their best month in September going 20-8. And as October came, with 5 games left on the schedule, they were up by a game.  They beat SD on the 1st, then lost 3 straight games, 1 to the Padres and 2 to the Giants. They were tied on the 2nd, and the Braves clinched when they lost to the Giants, 4-0 on the 5th. So even though the Braves lost on the last day, LA was done.

                   The lineup was the same except for Harris taking over at 3rd and Strawberry and Butler now manning spots in the outfield. Butler took over in CF and at the leadoff position giving the Dodgers something they had not had in a while, a true leadoff man. He did well, hitting .296, leading the team in hits and stealing 38 bases. Strawberry hit 28 HR’s and drove in 99. Murray, slowing down at 35 added 19 and 96. Daniels drove in 73, but his HR output dipped as did his average. Harris got into 145 games, hitting .287. 5 of the 8 position players were over 30, and all were over 26. Carter as the backup catcher saw action in 101 games and Sharperson was in 105. The most active sub was Javier who was in 121 games. No one on the team hit .300. Offerman got into 52 games and Hansen 53. Eric Karros saw his first action as did Tom Goodwin.

       Morgan won 14, Martinez 17, Belcher 10, Ojeda 12, and Hershiser won 7. Gross won 10 out of the pen and spot starting, and Howell saved 16. Crews was 2nd with 6 saves. No rookies cracked the pen or the starting staff.

                                                           1992

       In November, Howell left as a free agent. Carter went to Montreal on a waiver claim. Belcher and Wetteland were traded to the Reds for Kip Gross and Eric Davis. Tom Candiotti signed in December as a free agent. They traded Mike Christopher and Dennis Cook to the Indians for Rudy Seanez. They traded Domingo Mota, yeah, Manny’s kid and Chris Gwynn to the Royals for Todd Benzinger.

     Howell, Dave Anderson, and Juan Samuel returned as free agents. In June they traded Daniels to the Cubs for Dave Sodders. Javier went to the Phillies in July for Julio Peguero. Samuel was released in July.

      The 1992 season was the WORST season in my lifetime. They ended up losing 99 games. The most ever for a LA Dodgers team. Only one player hit 20 HR’s. ROY Eric Karros hit 20 and batted .257. He also led the team in RBI’s with 88. Strawberry, who was out with a substance abuse problem only played in 43 games. Butler hit .309 and stole 41 bases. Dave Hansen took over at 3rd and was in 132 games hitting .214.  Eric Davis at 30, was nowhere near the player he had been with the Reds. Offerman took over at SS and hit .260. Sharperson hit .300 in 128 games, Benzinger hit .239 in 121, and Mitch Webster hit .267 in 135 games. Carlos Hernandez was the backup C. Henry Rodriguez, Eric Young, Billy Ashley, and a kid named Piazza all made their debuts.

      Hershiser won 10, Gross 8, Candiotti 11, Ojeda 6, Martinez 8 and rookie Pedro Astacio won 5. McDowell won 6 and had 14 saves Gott saved 6. Candelaria and Howell contributed 5 and 4 saves respectively. A young 20 year old, Pedro Martinez made his debut and was 0-1.

                                                         1993

           The Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins were joining the league in 93. LA traded Seanez to the Rocks for Jody Reed, who they had drafted from the Red Sox. They lost Eric Young to the Rocks in the draft and young P, Jamie McAndrew to the Marlins. Besides resigning some of their own free agents, they signed Cory Snyder and Tim Worrell. They traded for Tim Wallach in December. They signed Lance Parrish, Kevin Elster, and Lee Gutterman as free agents. Gutterman lasted about a month. Parrish and Elster were released in May.

     They made no major trades in July, but they sent Davis to the Tigers at the end of August. They received John DeSilva in return.

      They were 8-15 in April. Then they had a 18-8 month in May. After that they did not have a month where they were more than 1 game over .500 and they finished 81-81 in 4th place behind the Braves.

      The bright spot? Mike Piazza earned ROY honors with a very good .318,35, 112 season. Karros added 23, 80. 36 yr old Butler had a solid .298 year with 39 bags. Davis was a little better hitting .234 with 14, and 53. Snyder had 11, and 56 batting .266. Offerman, now the starting SS only hit 1 homer but drove in as many runs, 62 as did Wallach. Davis and Offerman also stole 30 or more bases. The most active bench players were Webster, Rodriguez, Harris and Hansen. Hansen hit .362 off of the bench. Raul Mondesi got into 42 games, but would not lose his rookie status for 94. Ashley, not showing any of the power he had at AAA got into 14 games.

       Hershiser, definitely not the pitcher he was in 88 won 12. Candiotti 8, Ramon Martinez won 10. Gross won 13, and Astacio 14. Pedro Martinez won 10 out of the pen. Gott saved 25. Worrell added 5. Omar Daal made his debut.

                                                          1994

       1994 would be a bad year for baseball in general, and it would leave a really sour taste with the fans. The offseason featured some movement. Reed left as a free agent. So needing a 2nd baseman they traded young Pedro Martinez to the Expos for Delino DeShields. It would turn out to be one of the all time worst trades in Dodger history. DeShields was pretty much a bust as a Dodger, and Martinez would go on to have a Hall of Fame career. They signed Tom Prince, Jeff Treadway, and Rudy Seanez as free agents.

       They traded a minor leaguer for Al Osuna. They sold Kip Gross to Japan in May, and on the 26th of May, they released Darryl Strawberry. They did not make any major trades at the deadline, but  it would not have mattered anyway since a strike was imminent.

       On Friday, August 12th, the players walked out. The Dodgers were leading the west with a 68-56 record. But the team that really got screwed was the Expos. They were cruising in the east. With the realignment, there were only 4 teams in the west, and the Braves had moved to the East. But the Expos were 74-40 when baseball shut down. There was to be no compromise or agreement this time, and the playoffs and World Series were cancelled.

      Piazza was outstanding again, going .319, 24, 92. Karros hit .266, 14, 46. DeShields disappointed with a .250 campaign. Wallach rebounded to hit .280, 23, 78. Rodriguez took over in left and hit .268. Offerman dropped to .208, Butler hit .314, and stole 27. Mondesi took over in RF and won the ROY with a .306, 16, 56 performance. Snyder and Webster were the most active off of the bench. Webster hit .274 and Snyder .235. Hansen had another stellar year off of the bench hitting .341. Gary Ingram was the only rookie besides Mondesi to see any time.

        Martinez won 12, Gross 9, Candiotti 7, Astacio 6 and Hershiser 6. Worrell saved 11 games, Dreifort, a rookie 6 and Gott 2. Ismael Valdez made his MLB debut and won 3. Chan Ho Park, the first Korean to play in the majors got into 2 games.

                                                     1995

        1995 started with a lot of uncertainty. The owners were ordered by President Bill Clinton to resume bargaining and reach and agreement by Feb 6th. That did not happen. 5 days earlier, the owners agreed to revoke the salary cap they wanted and return to the old agreement.

       After the deadline passed with no agreement, the executive council approved a full season and spring training using replacement players. Commissioner, Bud Selig declared that the league was committed to playing a full season and would do so with players willing to play.

     On the 14th of March, the players union announced they would not sign an agreement if replacement players were used in regular season games and the results were not voided. Tiger manager, Sparky Anderson was placed on leave because he refused to manage replacement players.

     Replacement players caused major issues for 2 American League teams. The Blue Jays would not be able to play with replacement players due to labor code amendments passed by the Ontario NDP. Manager Cito Gaston was sent with his staff to Dunedin to work with minor leaguers and the Jays announced that they would play spring games with replacement players.

    Oriole owner, Peter Angelos announced that the O’s would not be using replacement players, and they cancelled the rest of their spring schedule on the 20th of March. On the 21st, the Maryland House of Delegates approved legislation barring teams from playing at Camden Yards with replacement players.

     Another casualty of the strike was the television deal. MLB took over selling the games as brokered programming to ABC and NBC in a joint venture with both networks alternating the All Star game and the World Series. The agreement was to run for 6 seasons and end in 1999. After the strike though, NBC and ABC’s local stations and MLB lost a combined 595 million dollars in advertising revenue. So both networks announce they would opt out of the deal after the shortened 95 season. Fox network took over in 1996 and has remained the primary partner ever since NBC stayed on for only the post season until 2000.

    On the 26th of March MLB reduced the number of games to 144 because of the use of replacement players. On the 28th of March, the players voted to return if a US District court judge would support the complaint filed with the Labor board on the 27th. The strike ended when Judge Sonya Sotomayor of the US District Court for Southern New York issued a preliminary injunction against the owners on the 31st of March. The decision was upheld by the Court of Appeals on the 2nd of April, and the owners were forced to operate under the old agreement until a new one could be reached.

    The season was postponed 3 weeks, and the teams would play the revised 144 game schedule. The entire thing alienated fans who were irate over the whole thing. The season started on the 25th of April with the Dodgers taking 2 of 2 from the Marlins. After a sluggish start through May, they got better in June winning 18. They slipped a little in July with a .500 month, then won 16 in both August and September. They finished the season, 78-66 winning the division by 1.The surprise was that the Rockies finished 2nd.

      They played the Reds in the division series and were swept. It was their first post season appearance since 1988. The only game they were close in was a 5-4 loss in game 2.

     Piazza had another outstanding year, hitting .346, 32, 93. Karros .298, 32, 105. DeShields improved a little to .256 Offerman, .287. Wallach .266, 9, 38. Ashley got into 81 games and hit .237 with 8 HR’s. Roberto Kelly .279, 6, 48 and Mondesi, .285, 26, 88.

    Chad Fonville and Dave Hansen got the most action off of the bench with Fonville getting into 88 games and Hansen 100. Butler, now 38 only was in 39. Butler also the teams union rep caused a lot of problems about replacement players.

     Todd Hollandsworth, Roger Cedeno, and Karim Garcia all made their debuts. On the pitching side, Hideo Nomo from Japan was the rookie of the year. He won 13, lost 6, and had a 2.54 ERA. Martinez won 17, Valdez 13, Candiotti 7, and Kevin Tapani won 4. Worrell won 4 and saved 32. Astacio won 7 out of the pen. Felix Rodriguez made his MLB debut.

                                               1996

                The off season brought some roster changes. Roberto Kelly left as a free agent. They signed Jim Bruske. Miguel Cairo and Willis Otanez went to the Mariners for Mike Blowers. Greg Gagne was signed as a free agent. Offerman was sent to the Royals for Billy Brewer. Scott Radinsky came over as a free agent. In July they would traded John Cummings and Joey Eischen to the Tigers for Chad Curtis. They picked up Dave Clark at the end of August. But the biggest change would come after 76 games.

            1996 was the first full season played under the new divisional format. 94 and 95 had been shortened seasons. The Braves would continue their dominance of the NL East. The Padres would come in to win the division over the Dodgers by 1 game. LA was .500 in April, 15-12 in May, 13-14 in June but they went 32-21 in July and August. And finished up with a 16-11 September.

         They led or were tied for the lead for most of the year. With 4 games left they were up 2.5. But they lost to the Giants on the 26th of September at Dodger Stadium. The Padres came in and swept a 3 game series to win the west. 2 of the games were extra inning games including the last game of the year where they lost 2-0 in 11.

       But something that happened in June would affect the organization for years to come. In later June, Lasorda suffered a mild heart attack. Bill Russell became the acting manager. Lasorda’s health returned, but management decided to make Russell’s appointment permanent on the 29th of July. Russell became only the 3rd man to manage the Dodgers in 43 years. That kind of stability would not be seen over the next 20.

     The team was 41-35 under Tommy and 49-37 under Russell. They did have leads as large as 6.5 at some point during the season. Piazza led the offense with a .336,36,105 line, Karros was .260,34,111. DeShields disappointed again with a .224 avg. Gagne provided solid defense and some pop hitting 10 HRs and batting .255. Blowers was .265,6,38. Todd Hollandsworth became LA’s 5th ROY in a row with a .291,12,59 line. Wayne Kirby was the main CF playing in 65 games and Mondesi added a .297,24,88 line.

     Cedeno was the main 4th outfielder getting into 86 games. Fonville was in 103. Neither was impressive with the bat. Butler, now 39 got into 34 games. Ashley was in 71. Curtis played in 43 after coming over in a trade. Wilton Guerrero made his debut.

     Nomo led the staff with 16 wins. Valdez had 15, Martinez 15, Astacio 9, and Candiotti 9. Worrell saved 44 games. Park won 5 and started 10. Osuna had 9 wins out of the pen and 4 saves. Radinsky had 5 wins and a save. Dreifort went 1-4.

                                                       1997

              More changes in the offseason. They signed Mark Guthrie in November, selected Nelson Liriano from the Pirates off of waivers. Then they signed Todd Zeile in December. In June they drafted Chase Utley, but he did not sign. The only real significant trade they made was in August when they traded for Otis Nixon.

         The team never really played well until July when they went 20-7. They followed that with a 19-11 August. But they were 10-14 in September. They went 7-9 over their last 16 games and finished 2 behind the Giants.

        Piazza had his best season to date, hitting .362,40,124. Karros was .266,31,104.Wilton Guerrero took over second base and hit .291. Gagne at SS, .251. Zeile in his first season in blue hit .268, adding 31 HR’s and 90RBI’s Hollandsworth slipped from his rookie stats to .247,4,31,Butler, now 40 went .283 in 105 games. Mondesi, .310,30,87.

        Cedeno, Nixon and Eric Young all hit over .270 off of the bench. Ashley added 6 HR’s.Tripp Cromer hit .291 after coming over. Darren Lewis .299. Paul Konerko and Adam Riggs made their MLB debuts.

        Nomo won 14, Valdez 10, Park 14, Astacio 7, and Martinez 10. Worrell saved 35, Dreifort and Radinsky won 5, Candiotti 10.

                                                   1998

                There was a new team joining the NL West. The Arizona D-Backs come into existence. They took Karim Garcia in the expansion draft and the Rays took Rick Gorecki. Butler became a free agent. They signed Trent Hubbard and Jose Vizcaino as free agents. Mark Gubicza was signed in January. And Billy Ashley’s Dodger career came to an end in March. The team was purchased by Ruppert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation, and Dodger baseball was forever changed. The next several years would be brutal for Dodger fans. And it started in May. Free-agent to be, Mike Piazza and Todd Zeile were traded to the Marlins for 5 players, Manuel Barrios, Bobby Bonilla, Jim Eisenreich, Charles Johnson, and Gary Sheffield.

          Dodger fans were stunned, and most of them irate. Especially when it came to light that the trade was not made by the GM, Fred Claire, but by Fox executives who had zero baseball smarts at all. The reasoning was that they were going to lose Piazza as a free agent and that he was seeking a 100 million dollar plus contract. Piazza had supposedly turned down an 80 million dollar deal earlier.

         What made it even more maddening was that Piazza played 5 games in Miami before being traded to the Mets. They traded Clontz and Nomo to the Yankees in June for McMichael and Milicki. In July, Tommy Lasorda, who was the acting GM made a trade out of need that would cost the Dodgers one of the most prolific sluggers of the 2000’s. He sent Dennys Reyes and Paul Konerko to the Reds for Jeff Shaw. Shaw would do well as a Dodger, but Konerko after he went to the White Sox would slug over 400 HR’s.

       They traded Bergeron, Guerrero, and Lilly to the Expos at the deadline for Bocachica, Grudzielanek, and Perez. Russell was fired after a 36-38 start and Glenn Hoffman took over and went 47-41 and they finished 3rd.

       Johnson was no Piazza. Hitting .217. Karros hit .296,23,87. Young went .285,8,43.Vizcaino, .262,2,29. 19 year old Adrian Beltre got into 77 games and was .215,7.22. No indication of how good he would get. Matt Luke was the primary LF, hitting .236,12,34. Mondesi went .279,30,90. And Sheffield hit .316,16,57. Cedeno  was the main bench guy hitting .242. Bonilla hit .237 and added 7 HR’s. Hubbard was at .298 off of the bench. Grudezielanek, .264 in 51 games. Piazza before he was traded was at .282,9,30. A much better pace than what they ended up getting out of Johnson.

    Alex Cora appeared in 29 games in his debut season. Park was 15-9. Dreifort, 8-12, Valdez 11-10, Milicki 7-3, Martinez, 7-3, Brian Bohanon, 5-7. Shaw saved 25, Osuna went 7-1 out of the pen, Radinsky was 6-6 with 13 saves. Perez went 2-2. Nomo was 2-7 before his trade to the Yanks.

                                                         1999

        The first big change was at GM. Kevin Malone came over and declared, there is a new sheriff in town. He hired Davey Johnson to manage the team. They signed Devon White and traded Bonilla to the Mets for Mel Rojas in November of 98. They traded Cedeno and Johnson to the Mets in Dec for Arnie Gooch and Todd Hundley.

    Kevin Brown was signed to a HUGE contract in December. They signed Pedro Borbon and Matt Herges. Tim Laker came aboard in Jan to be the backup C. Laker was then traded to the Pirates in March. Mike Maddux came back as a free agent in April. In June they traded for Craig Counsell. They also signed Hun-Chih Kuo as a free agent in June.

     Unfortunately for the Sheriff, none of these moves improved the team. And Johnson was a less than inspiring leader. After a 13-10 April, the team went a combined 32-49 through July. They rebounded in August and September going 31-24. But finished 8 games under in 3rd place to the D-Backs who won the division.

      Hundley only hit .207, with 24,55. Karros was .304,32,112. Clearly his best season. Young went .281 with 51 bags. Grudzielanek playing SS hit .326. Beltre hit .275 with 15 HR’s. White .268 adding 14. Sheffield .301, 34, 101 and Mondesi .253,33,99. Vizcaino got into 94 games, Hansen 100, and Hollandsworth 92 being the most active subs.  Angel Pena was the backup catcher getting into 43. Hubbard hit ..314 off of the bench.Paul Lo Duca saw his MLB debut.

      Brown was 18-9, Valdez 9-14, Park 13-11, Driefort 13-13, Perez was 2-10. Shaw saved 34, but the rest of the pen was not very effective. Eric Gagne got into 5 games in his rookie year.

                        So that was the 90’s. The 2000s would bring more drama, some heartbreak, and new ownership again. To me, Mondesi had the best arm I had seen from RF in a long time and the best on the Dodgers since Carl Furillo.