For various personal reasons, I have temporarily shut down this site, but I have not stopped being a Dodger fan, and I have not stopped watching Dodger Baseball and following the team. In the past couple of weeks, I have come to understand that half of the fans are dumber than hell… and the other 50% are worse than that… they are morons.
- I see fans criticizing Dave Roberts’ moves (“Why did he bring in…” “Why did he take out….”). You stupid jackasses: The MLB 162-game season is a war… not a battle. It is a war composed of 162 battles… and sometimes you need to possibly lose a battle in order to win the war! This is why you try different players in positions you may not have utilized them before. You learn what might work and what might not work. It’s not about winning EVERY game, you morons! It’s about winning the war (which is the World Series).
- I see fans criticizing Andrew Friedman and Brandon Gomes for certain moves, and I have been critical of some, like Yates and Scott, but there is still a lot of time to go and a lot to play out. Early in the season, most fans wanted to have Max Muncy shot at sunrise! Well, Morons, how did that work out? Now they have been calling for Michael Conforto to be placed in the guillotine. BABIP, or Batting Average on Balls In Play, is a baseball statistic that measures how often a batter gets a hit when putting the ball in play, excluding home runs. It’s calculated as (Hits – Home Runs) / (At Bats – Strikeouts – Home Runs + Sacrifice Flies). Essentially, it isolates a player’s performance on batted balls that don’t result in a home run, removing the impact of strikeouts and walks. The league average BABIP for both hitters and pitchers is typically around .300. A hitter with a BABIP significantly above .300 might be experiencing good luck, while a pitcher with a high BABIP might be experiencing bad luck. Conversely, a hitter with a BABIP below .300 might be unlucky, while a pitcher with a low BABIP might be having a good year. Freddie, Will Smith, and Andy Pages have all experienced exceptional results this year and all have a BABAIP of over .320 (Smith is at .368), This means that they have been extremely lucky. That happens in baseball – get used to it. Michael Conforto has a BABIP of .223, and Mookie Betts has one at .243. They have both been the recipients of very bad luck. If they become league average (remember this is stat-based, totally on “LUCK” they will both raise their averages by 40-60 points.
- Morons want Mookie to move back to RF. Maybe I am being too kind. They may be idiots. Mookie was off to care for a “personal matter” yesterday. Of course, a personal matter cannot affect an MLB player (sarcasm alert). Morons! Mookie is the SS, and they are still morons.
- Many fans want to trade Dalton Rushing. That is just stupid. Nothing more to say. Morons want to make trades because they like Fantasy Baseball, and I wholeheartedly encourage them to stick to that. They are not good at reality!
- Have you ever watched baseball before? The Dodgers have won two World Series in the last five years and for ten years have been the most dominant team in baseball. That’s very hard to do. It’s even harder to win two in a row, but this team is already better than last year’s team. I like their chances of repeating. Of course, this is contingent upon certain pitchers coming back… pitchers like Treinen, Sasaki, Snell, maybe Graterol, and hopefully Tanner Scott (whose issues all season may have been related to arm fatigue or inflammation – it creeps up on you).
- In the next couple of weeks, Max Muncy, Blake Treinen, and Blake Snell should return. Sasaki may be slightly later, but I expect to see him only used in relief. Then there is a group of Scott, Kopech, Scott, Graterol, Hurt, Ryan, et al who may or may not be back.
- Fans who say that Edgardo Henriquiz isn’t ready don’t consider the “PCL Factor.” He has pitched two hitless, scoreless innings in MLB. Past PCL Performance is not indicative of Future Valve. Also, I would not be the least bit surprised if one or two of Alexis Diaz, Jack Little, and Will Klein become solid relievers. Then there are Ben Casparius and Justin Wrobleski, who could both become Lockdown relievers. The Dodgers are not without a lot of options. The LH Dreyer, Banda and Vesia contingent have been solid to great!
What I am saying is that this team is better than last year’s team, and then there is the “Country Club Factor.” These guys can turn it on when needed. They are pros, and it’s a long season. Maybe we are seeing them step up already. They beat the Red Sox 5-2 last night with Big Ben closing. It should not be lost on anyone that Will Smith is leading the NL with a .325 BA, and Freddie Freeman is 2nd with a .297 BA. Everyone except those two are struggling with the bat right about now.
Hopefully, Mookie can get past what is going on in his life and regain his touch. I’m betting that he does. I think you are going to see this team come to life in August and September. A lot can happen… It’s a long season, but I think Dodger fans are in the best position to experience another World Series Championship of any MLB team in 2025… and way beyond. Kim is struggling (and injured) – maybe Alex Freeland time?
Kershaw and Crochet go today, and May and Buehler go Sunday. It should be fun. Don’t expect much from me, and if you don’t like being called morons… then stop acting like one. 😉
Hope you’re enjoying yourself Mark.
I must admit that I thought to myself that Scott was getting an awful lot of use, quite understandably given the paucity of reliable arms and short outings of our SPs. An injury wasn’t a surprise.
I would give Yamamoto a little break too. He looks like he needs a reset.
On the trade side, I see a mid range BP piece.
Good to see Teo warming up, and Freddie a little more like his old self.
and he is back, how predictable. Good thing I do not mind.
I never said I was gone for good… so it wasn’t predictable – it was obvious!
The Dodgers need high leverage relief arms. Full stop.
I am very optimistic about the starters.
I am befuddled about the prolonged slumps of everyone not named Will Smith or Andy Pages.
Disagree with full stop. Maybe May is the guy or Wrobleski. You just don’t know.
I agree with all your comments except MAYBE trading Rushing. And I’m shocked we agree so much about baseball because I think we’d kill each other over a political conversation!
No, I don’t “want” Rushing traded but I see his value and what seems like (understandable) underutilization. He’s giving Will breaks which is absolutely necessary to keep Will’s legs alive, a HARD thing to accomplish for any player but especially an All Star catcher.
But since they have Feduccia to be a backup Rushing might be key to getting the premium reliever they want/”need” – not a lot of time left to see if the need lessens to a desire before the deadline. BUT countering the idea of trading Rushing is there any reality to the idea of phasing Will Smith in at 3B either with or without Max in 2026? Is that just blog talk or is it actually being seriously considered? I HATE the idea of trading away Freeland, Hope, dePaula, Sirota and a few others. All very promising prospects…….but still “only” prospects. But then I kinda fall “in love” with prospects over the idea of one emerging as the next Piazza, Bellinger (at his best) or Seager or even Joc at his best.
I have lots of friends on both sides of the aisle. Here’s a text from one who is 180 degrees from my ideology:
Before I get too drunk I want to say this…mark I appreciate your calm insight I do actively try to see and understand stances in opposition to my own and I value your voice.
James
With that said…. im to drunk to taste this chicken. Lets cease politics for the day
If you can’t disagree without being disagreeable, then you probably have a shitty argument.
I’m never too drunk to taste chicken.
That’s because EVERYTHING tastes like chicken!
To advance my argument I’ll cite that I once ate a piece of roasted rattlesnake on a dare. It tasted very dry but like peppery chicken.
Chicken leaves a fowl taste in your mouth!
I completely agree the goal should not to be disagreeable so I don’t discuss politics hardly at all. Though I admit the current state of affairs has me hard pressed to open my mouth on the subject without F bombs coming out. As a retired construction manager w/6 grandchildren and coming from a career where F bombs are nouns, verbs and adjectives I HAD pretty much
eliminated it from my vocabulary.
Stock market is humming, son
Maybe that’s because you live in California!
While reading this article my mind was thinking that Mark really needs to take some medicine. Cracked up when I read your last sentence. It is my opinion, for what it’s worth, that the Dodgers 40 man roster is sufficient in winning the World Series. They may need to reshuffle the deck on the pitching staff later in the year because they will only use four starters in the playoffs. As you mentioned we have reinforcements coming from the IL list. If I was GM for a day, I would try and upgrade in left field. I would also be concerned of what version of Max Muncy we will get when he returns. If he comes back strong and Mookie starts being Mookie again, our lineup will be deep. The Dodgers can deal from a position of strength because they are not desperate to move anyone. Hope your doing well. My wife and I are planning a trip to Appleton Wisconsin. I have a very dear friend who is a MLB umpire, his son is in single A. The son will be in Appleton when Great Lakes is there. It’s a bummer that I won’t get to see Sirota play, hopefully DePaula will be back by then.
Appleton is a nice city. I have some friends there.
I once went to Beloit, WI to see Clayton pitch when he was 20.
I live in Beloit.!
That’s where I first saw Clayton in Person. Vold and Rodger Dodger (God rest his soul) were with me.
Conforto has been hitting significantly better over the last month or two but he still hits to many 4-3 ground outs.
Evidently Betts bat speed has dropped from previous years. A player can still be very productive (Luis Arraez) but Betts may need to change his approach.
I don’t agree that BABIP is all just luck. So when Mookie is popping the ball up all the time it will be a low BABIP, that’s not luck–He is just not hitting good. Conversely, someone ‘in the groove’, and hitting a lot of line drives will have a high average. Sure someone can be lucky/unlucky in a certain stretch, but not over an entire season. To me it is one of the most useless stats. Someone batting .365 will have a high BABIP and someone hitting .230 will have a low one. DUH!!!
And don’t get me started on “Regress to the mean’.
From FanGraphs:
“Defense, luck, and talent all feed into the final BABIP number which is useful in different ways for batters and pitchers. For batters, BABIP can be used as an indication about the batter’s overall quality of contact if you have a large enough sample of balls in play. Over three seasons, if a batter has a .345 BABIP, it is probably safe to say that batter is above average in this aspect of the game and is probably making better contact on average than most.
However, changes in BABIP are to be met with caution. If a batter has consistently produced a .310 BABIP and all of a sudden starts a season with a .370 BABIP, you can likely identify this as an instance in which the batter has been lucky unless there has been a significant change in their style of play.
For hitters, we use BABIP as a sanity test of sorts that tells us if their overall batting line is sustainable or not. Virtually no hitter is capable of producing a BABIP of .380 or higher on a regular basis and anything in the .230 range is also very atypical for a major league hitter. In other words, BABIP allows us to see if a hitter seems to be getting a boost from poor defense or good luck or getting docked for facing good defenses and having bad luck.”
Ok. So kind of agreeing with me that it a useless stat and just stating the obvious. So a guy now with the .370 BABIP may not be lucky, just in a good streak and luck has nothing to do with that. So I have been bowling in leagues for many, many years. So there were times I averaged 180. Now and then I go on a streak for a month where I averaged 200. Maybe a lucky strike here and there, but no its not luck I just had good timing, nothing hurting me, etc. And since I haven’t done anything different, after a while back to bowling 180.
So why do we have to come up with a new Analytical Stat just to prove the obvious that guys have good and bad streaks?
I do not think it is a useless stat. Just like every stat; it does not live in a vacuum.
Sometimes, we can use stats for context, and sometimes we can’t. In Conforto’s case, this is the lowest his BABIP has ever been. Now, if you don’t watch the games, that may not mean a lot, but I do, and I have seen a great deal of bad luck, which leads me to believe it will even out. I suspect that’s why he is still on the team.
His career BABIP is .289; even last year, it was .277. His strikeout percentage is down, and his walk rate is up over last year. Is it all bad luck? Doubtful… but that is a factor. If you really want to dig deep go here: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/michael-conforto-624424?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb
Kim is no longer a starting option. Even with Muncy back, we’re one rotation player short. Assuming a bench of Rushing, Keekay, Kim & Rojas, asking Edman AND Conforto to be everyday players is too risky.
Evidently, the Dodgers knew something about Kim we did not, whether that was injury or just over-exposure.
Thanks for popping in again Mark, I needed my LADT fix. So great to hear familiar voices. Dan in Pasadena, I have a book recommendation for you: “Stealing Home” by Eric Nusbaum. It is obstensibly about the removal of three Hispanic communities in Chavez Ravine to make way for Dodger Stadium. But has great depth about the social and cultural dynamics surrounding the development of LA leading up to that event. I believe you will enjoy it greatly. I have. On Dodger business, my untrained baseball eye wants both Rushing and Smith in the lineup alternating at catcher to save their legs. Hard to do with Otahni at DH but there has to be a way somehow.
I like not having to listen to whiny bitches!
Thanks John. I’ve read a bit about it over the years so I know that maybe 75-80% of the residents voluntarily sold their property, many with the expectation they could live in the low cost housing project that was originally intended to be built on that property. Of course that never happened. Another 20-25% were evicted but the two families that resisted right up until they were physically carried out of their homes is what has always gotten the attention. I full understand why – it was dramatic. “If it bleeds, it leads” mentality, etc. But it is interesting to note that the families that sold out “voluntarily” – whether that is a valid characterization or not no one agrees. But they sold in the early 1950’s – ’51 to ’53. Those last two families were ultimately forced out in 1959. So it is reasonable to assume the powers of the day made numerous attempts to get them to leave before the drama happened.
Bottomline, it happened. People come down angrily on both sides of the issue but those that were involved are probably 99% dead by now. They were a marginalized community and nearly all marginalized communities get almost literally “run over”back then and still now. I have an opinion about all that but it doesn’t belong here. I’ll do a search for that book
Betts not in the lineup again. Kim is!
Anyone know WHAT is happening with his baby girl? I read somewhere she is ill and I suppose it’s none of our business. He should be with his little girl, I just hope it isn’t a dire situation like Freddie’s boy last year.
Nunya
They are keeping it a secret, and I don’t want to give it any credence.
This is funny to me:
A couple of days ago, I was joking with a person and said, “Well, maybe I am a narcissist!”
That person said, “Yeah, right! If you are a narcissist, I am the King of England.”
It was just a conversation. Well, today, a commenter from LAdodgerChronicles sent me this which was by DodgerHorsesAss, talking about me:
The guy is a narcissist.
Plain and simple.
I used to think he was an idiot (maybe a useful idiot), but he just confirmed what I really suspected: He is a moron! Complete and Total. I used to wonder why he jumped to such stupid decisions about stuff. Now I understand. Low on the intellect scale.
If you gave him an enema, you could bury him in a matchbox.
Passive-Aggressive little man. Ha! He’s one of the ones I tried to run off but the moron keeps coming back. There are a few other morons there who try and BADGER me. (Bear is not included). BTW, I have taken my gloves off!
Someone copied my name and added “ass” yo It, probably a coward who doesn’t have the balls to say things face to face
Another great post. You have a firm grasp of the reality of the grind that is the regular season. And you are a true Dodger fan. I have zero tolerance for morons and idiots. And I would never hang with them at a sports bar. Therefore I don’t read the comment section anymore, but I read your articles everytime you post one. Good luck and of course……
Book em