Rant & Rave Friday

Posted By on June 18, 2021

  • Who will go down next? That seems to be a broken record for this season. Hopefully, everyone gets healthy for the stretch run. Tonight, Trevor Bauer goes against the D-Bags in AZ.
  • The Dodgers are 3rd in team ERA… within .06 of the Padres and .10 of the Mets. They are still #2 in starter ERA behind the Mets, but deGrom keeps breaking down (he’s older than Clayton) and it is just a matter of time. The Dodgers are still tied for #8 in bullpen ERA, but the Padres bullpen is WAY overworked. That will become apparent down the stretch.
  • The Dodgers still are #1 in the NL in runs scored, although their OPS has dropped. They just need to get healthy.
  • I root for guys like Steven Souza, Jr. He could be a solid player for a team that needs RH bats.
  • Remember when I wanted Nicholas Castellanos? Through 250 AB’s he is hitting .348 with a .401 OB% and 1.005 OPS. He has 23 Doubles and 13 HR. Just sayin’…
  • I have ZERO doubt that the Giants can keep this up! ZERO!
  • In his second Low-A game, 22-year-old Ismael Alcantara went 3-3. I know very little about him, but I will try and learn more.
  • In his past two games, Sheldon Noisy has gone 3-4 and 4-4 and raised his BA to .300. Something is starting to click.
  • In 12 games, spanning 13.1 IP, 6′ 4″, 32-year-old Kevin Quackenbush has a 1-0 record with 5 saves for OKC. He has allowed six hits and has 12 K’s. There are two stats that jump out at you: 1. He has not given up a run; and 2. He has walked 9! Close, but no cigar!
  • Miguel Vargas took the collar in his first game at Tulsa. It will be a process.
  • Bobby Miller has no pitched 21 innings at Great Lakes and has allowed 11 hits to go with 24 strikeouts and just 5 walks. His ERA is a deGrom-Esque 0.86 and his WHIP is 0.76. I think he is ready to move on to Tulsa, but they seem to be restricting his innings.
  • 20-year-old Jorbit Vivas (2B) is hitting .28 with a .355 OPB% (.851 OPS) at Rancho Cucamonga. He has 7 Home Runs to go with 4 doubles. He is worth watching.
  • Cole Percival is somewhat of a puzzle at Great Lakes. He has pitched 25.2 innings, allowing 13 hits. while walking 19 and striking out 17. His ERA is 1.75, but the walks are worrisome. He is 6′ 5″ tall and has a high-leg kick like his father, Troy. His fastball occasionally touches 94 to 95 MPH, but he had a high 80’s slider that is his best pitch. With the control issues, it appears that the bullpen is his future, but I think he should be able to add 2-3 MPH to his fastball with a Driveline program.

The Latest on Dustin May

Trevor Bauer’s Solution to Foreign Substances

I pretty much agree with Trevor Bauer 100%, but the timing is wrong. It should have been done in the last offseason, but Rob Manfred is his typical bonehead fashion makes the wrong decision at the wrong time. Who let this clown out of the circus (I am talking about Rob Manfred)? Add this to the fact that MLB made the balls “slicker” this season. It’s pretty clear to me that whenever Manfred makes a decision, it is the wrong one. Here he is while contemplating this latest rule change.

Headed to Vegas Tomorrow

I like Vegas for about 2-days and then I am ready to go home. God Bless You if you live here and love it. The 115 degree heat is hard for me to take. I have to come back at the end of July. So, I may be off the grid until Tuesday. I will be checking the blog and maybe posting and I have access to e-mail. I am a high-roller, but I have a limit on how much I lose gambling. It’s $20.00. Usually takes me less than an hour….

This article has 50 Comments

  1. Totally agree with Trevor Bauer. No thought goes into anything anymore. Typical Manfred nonsense. Why would you do this at this stage of the season?

    Bobby Miller, if he stays healthy, looks like a future Dodger ace.

  3. Any chance Bobby Miller gets a shot to be a playoff reliever on the 2021 Dodgers? We tried it with Buehler in 2017.

    I’d guess for that to happen, he’d need to be in Tulsa soon.

    1. Why not? Bob Welch was 21 years old when he struck out Reggie Jackson in the World Series…
      Reggie got some payback, but still.
      Dodgers have several interesting arms on the farm…

  4. I’m with you Mark. I love Vegas for a weekend. I go up on Friday, come home on Sunday. Two nights, one full day and then get the hell out.

    I have found a way to have fun while losing my money slowly. I get $100 in $1 chips at the Roulette table. I spread my $10 bet around by placing chips on two corners, and play the same 4-6 numbers every roll of the ball, I might double up 2 numbers. By doing this, I will sometime get on a roll and even make some money. If I start to roll, I increase the chips on each roll. If I go cold, I bet the minimum $10. The goal of the game is not to win money, but to lose my money slow enough to get really drunk and tip the waitress generously. It usually works out pretty well.

    Ahh Nick Castellanos. He’s crushing it this year, but he wasn’t very good last year. Would we have the ring if we went that direction? He’s a bad outfielder, but not as bad as Matt Beaty. He came up as a prized third base prospect, but couldn’t handle that position either and was a bit of a late bloomer. He is a big right handed bat and a first baseman, but he doesn’t want to play there. He’s a bit of an enigma. That’s a guy I would put in LF over Pollock.

    Bobby Miller looks like a stud, but they are doing their baby steps thing with him. 7 starts and 21 innings. He won’t be MLB ready for a while at that rate. I don’t mind bringing along prospects slowly. I would rather they reach free agency at 30 than at 27 before entering their prime years.

    I sure hope something miraculous happens in regard to Muncy and Belli on the recovery front. The feeble lineup that we used in the last game makes me a little worried, even against the D-Bags. After that we get the Padres, Cubs and Giants. Not a great time to be banged up.

    We have a short bench with 14 pitchers going into the series. But, at least we have Julio and Kershaw available to pinch hit. Good thing we added a left handed pitcher just in time to face a team that struggles against right handers.

  5. That pic of “manfred” is so timely & funny to me. I just bought a tee from officialhodgetwinsdotcom that says “I was going to be a liberal for Halloween, but I could not fit my head up my ass”. True story.
    Thanks for the laugh!

    1. Those guys are pretty funny, especially when they keep talking over each other. I’d like to see them on their stand up tour.

        1. I like how they take accountability for all the stupid things they did growing up. Their security guard stories and military stories are pretty good.

  6. I like Trevor Bauer and agree with him 100%. He is well-spoken and out-spoken. We’ll see if he becomes a target during the crackdown. I’m on record as being an opponent of starting this crackdown mid season and not thinking this through, clarifying, and exploring every solution and start fresh in Spring Training. What’s the hurry? This has been going on for sometime now, as Bauer states, and nothing has been done. Now all of a sudden MLB thinks the problem has reached critical mass. Is it due to .238? Maybe MLB has .240 as the magic number. Once the leagues batting average dipped below .240 it’s panic time.
    I’m not an advocate of screwing around with the baseball all the time but the most simple solution is to come up with a baseball with a less slick surface. Make the hide more tacky. It is very doable. Oddly MLB made the baseball fly less to help the pitchers but now they want hurt a pitcher’s ability to grip the ball. That’s a little convoluted. There are other, better ways to address this over the winter and implemented changes next spring. But no. Steve Stone has some great ideas. Bauer has shared his. I’m sure there are many more that MLB could have considered during their “research” and collection of evidence. But that fell on deaf ears. Now they hurry up, to screw up.
    So let the “shit-show” begin.

    1. Manfred is the king of knee jerk reactions, just like the all star game. He is in WAAAY over his head & just does not have a basic understanding of the game most fans want to see, nor how to make the game “better”. Like the worry about drawing in more young fans, not just to the park but the tv & streaming audience. They are effing around in the lower leagues, but actual tech exists TODAY where they could impose a 3d strike zone that is 100% accurate ( as opposed to trusting the various networks that have their own “boxes”. They could show that strike zone, and actually add live the ball flight line like it was a video game. Kids would love it & it not change the game one whit except to eliminate bad umps from deciding almost every game. Because EVERY bad ball/strike call either way affects the game. Changes what pitch the pitcher will throw next, changes what pitch the batter will look for next, and of course changes the actual count.
      Cheers

  7. Morning guys, nice refreshing day at the lake fishing, caught our limit. Vegas is ok for a short time, but I never win there. Did much better down by the state line when the Nevada Landing was there. Used to get some nice jackpots on the 1.00 machines. Never anything huge, but 800.00 a few times. Loved the Red, White and Blue Sevens. Anyway back to baseball. Giants have a 2.5 game edge on the Dodgers now, but over the next month and a half, the Dodgers have a lot of games against them. After September 5th, they do not play them again, so, they are going to have to win a majority of those games. Next 6 games against SF are all at Dodger Stadium. Last 6 are in SF. Bauer, Buehler, and Gonsolin against the Dirtbags this weekend. Should be able to take 2 of 3, or maybe even sweep which would be nice heading to SD.

  8. I wonder if the front office has considered about looking into trading for Pittsburg’s reliever Richard Rodrigues. He is sporting a 2.43 era since 2018. What do you guys who know more about this, is he a good choice? The pirates have 2 more years of control.

    1. Might be a bit pricey with that much control left. Not sure who the Pirates might want, but he would not come cheap.

    3. I mentioned in my post early this past week that Rodriguez would be my #1 choice from all of the teams that are sellers. My secondary picks were Taylor Rogers, Paul Fry, and Ian Kennedy. Maybe some more teams will become sellers, but for now we know all those will be available. Josh Hader and Craig Kimbrel will not be.

      Rodriguez will be traded and to a contender.

  9. 14 pitchers again. As bad as the offense has been, they should have replaced Raley with someone who knows how to hit.

  10. The Dodgers need to go on a winning streak to take first place in the division.

    Sweep the Diamondbacks
    2 of 3 against the Padres
    3 of 4 against the Cubs
    Then the Giants

    July schedule looks easy except 7 against the Giants.

    National League stats:
    Dodgers 4th in team batting OPS
    Dodgers 2nd in team starting pitching ERA
    Dodgers tied for 4th in team bullpen ERA

    Does anyone know a website that gives team starting pitching OPS and team bullpen OPS stats separately? Not just overall team pitching OPS stats? If so can you give me a link? I would absolutely appreciate it.

    I’d rather know how the team starting pitching is doing compared to the team bullpen by OPS stat instead of ERA stat. I don’t like ERA stats.

    1. There is no single stat that captures everything BABIP is also very telling. The Dodgers BABIP is #5 for bullpen pitchers. % of Runners Stranded is also good. I wish I had more time to do so, but I would like to be able to “blend” several stats into one “supreme” stat for bullpens.

      Where do the Dodgers rank on BP Pitching OPS?

      1. “Where do the Dodgers rank on BP Pitching OPS?”

        That’s what I would like to find out. I’m hoping there is a website with that stat and starting pitching OPS.

        The whole Dodger pitching staff ranks #2 in pitching OPS in the National League and overall.

    1. Most likely, so has AF, but we will see. Reks has not had a shot yet. Me, I might bring up Ruiz just to shake things up.

      1. It makes sense that they aren’t going to expose Ruiz to MLB pitching much ahead of the deadline. If you’re shopping Barnes, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to cut into his playing time before the deadline and it doesn’t make much sense to use Ruiz off the bench. You have to give him some playing time if you call him up.

        If Smith was going to start playing some third base, Wednesday night would have been a great time to keep his bat in the lineup ahead of an off day. Belli will be back after 4 more games, a pitcher will be sent down at that time.

        It’s a little odd timing wise that they activated a pitcher ahead of Bauer and Bueller. Couldn’t it have waited a couple of days for the bullpen game, I mean Gonsolin game? I guess they figured no one else was worth calling up? Choices are Peters, Recks, Nuese, Yoshi and Raley (Who they sent down). I thought Nuese can at least hit a little off the bench. Maybe they think he’s making some progress at AAA and want it to set in before calling him up again. Maybe they want to give Souza Jr. more ABs.

        Lefty on the bump, so…

        Betts CF
        Taylor 2B
        Jurner 3B
        Fat Albert 1B
        AJ LF
        Smith C
        SSJ RF
        Lux SS – the only lefty in the lineup
        Bauer P

        2. Souza is in RF, Lux is the only lefty in the lineup, and remember the only bench players are Burns, Barnes, Beaty and McKinstry.

    2. Ruiz is the only one who matters.

      I guess we’ll give Reks a chance someday but I’m not expecting much.

  12. Remember this:

    1. Not every guy who hits at AAA can hit in the major leagues.
    2. Guys who can hit in the majors don’t always hit right away.
    3. Some guys learn to hit MLB pitching.
    4. Some don’t!

  17. Today is the anniversary of Kershaw’s no hitter against the Rockies. Some say the most dominant no hitter ever, and just a Hanley Ramirez error away from a perfect game. Some also forget the great play Miguel Rojas made at third to preserve the no hitter. I think it was a great performance, but I think Koufax’s perfect game was the best pitched game in Dodger history. Especially since he got absolutely no run support in a 1-0 win where his own team was held to 1 hit by the opposing pitcher, and it was not involved in the scoring. Plus Sandy struck out the last 6 hitters he faced.

    1. Yeah, I think it might have been written by the same Kershaw fanboy who argues that Kersh has surpassed Koufax to be the greatest Dodger pitcher ever.
      Part of his bizarre argument is that Kershaw has had a slower decline–and we didn’t get to witness Koufax’s decline.
      Well, um…. Certainly true that Koufax didn’t strike out a single batter after he retired at age 30 because of the constant pain.
      Koufax only won 165 games in his sadly shortened career. But four were no-hitters.

  18. Saw the cap that they are selling for the All Star game. Not even Dodger blue. It is navy blue, with a lot of red in it. Not something I would run out and buy. I have the spring training cap with the curly D on it, a camouflage cap from Memorial Day, and a 4th of July cap that is Navy with a red bill. But those are the only variants I have. I do have a LA cap that has Kershaw’s # 22 and his signature embroidered on it.

    1. That’s the 4th of July hat, not All-Star Game hat. Each team has one and each team comes in one of two colors. Either red, or blue to match the flag.

      I keep meaning to get a “Big D” hat, just haven’t got around to it yet. I’m embarrassed how my Dodger hats I have, so I’m not gonna list them. I also picked up this year’s cammo hat and got one for my wifey as well. I wear my Championship Trucker hat the most. It has the mesh and snap back like my old little league hats. It’s all black with a Dodger Blue border around the championship patch on the front.

      1. You are right, but it is still ugly. I have a couple of Brooklyn caps too. I have a grey World Series cap also. I have seven jerseys, Koufax, Robinson, Gibson, Gonzalez, Bellinger road, Kershaw road, and a green Corey Seager jersey that honors the military.

  19. So much for the theory that Bauer is worse because he can’t use the sticky anymore.

        1. Yeah I know. Maybe by the end of the year he’ll end up having a good year. But definitely not a good start.

          I go by OPS and his OPS is bad right now.

          2. The guy is 36. He is past his prime, and with this team, he is purely a mop up guy.

  21. Very happy for Souza. You have to love a guy like that who was so close to quitting until the Dodgers came calling. He went down to OKC and did the work, and it paid off. I also loved that he hit that laser right after he picked himself up out of the dirt. And Burns getting their second hit and it being a double was nice to see too. Vintage Jansen tonight. He just pounded the strike zone.

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