I have a few minutes before I leave for my surgery, so I thought I would drop you a few notes. By the way, thank you for all the kind words and well wishes. Now, let’s do this!
As Dodger fans, we spend many of our waking hours thinking about who to blame for the Dodger’s start. We really don’t have to invent anything. All we need to do is look at the Dodgers Stars, who happen to be their highest-paid players. Of course, I am talking about Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Both players have been described as Team Leaders who lead by their actions, and if that is the case, we need to realize that neither player is earning their keep.
- Max Muncy has more RBIs than Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman – COMBINED!
- Rookie James Outman has 20 RBIs, which is exactly the same as Max and Freddie – COMBINED!
- Will Smith has 13 RBIs in 50 ABs, while Freddie has 9 RBIs in 113 ABs.
- David Peralta (whom many of you want to throw on the scrap heap) has 10 RBIs in 50 fewer ABs than Freddie Freeman.
- CT3 has 11 RBIs in about 50 fewer ABs than Mookie, who also has 11!
If this team is going to contend, then the Stars of the Show (Mookie and Freddie) are going to have to deliver… and they simply have not! Of course, we need as much as each player can deliver, but it all starts with the stars! They lead and light the way.
Rants & Raves
- It was nice to sweep the Cardinals, but they are struggling, and it should have been done.
- Thor looks like he is finished. He was hitting 95 last year and thought the Dodgers could get him back to 100 MPH. I don’t think I have seen any more than 92. Gavin Stone is going to force him out. This may be an obvious bad signing. AF might as well cut bait now. Gavin Stone to the rescue! Syndergaard may have gotten his first win, but his pitching is untenable!
- I am pretty sure that Alex Vesia told Doc, “Thanks for trusting me,” yesterday when he brought in the Bazooka. Sometimes when a player is pitching badly, the confidence shown in him can breed confidence. Doc did that to Vesia and Almonte yesterday, and that might just turn their seasons around.
- David Peralta is hitting .167, but he makes every opportunity count. He was 0-4 yesterday but plated two runs. That’s a professional hitter… now, just add some hits, David!
- The Bazooka – 2.19 ERA!
- Andre Jackson struggles early every year to find his release point and then is lights out. He got smoked again at AAA yesterday. When he is right, his stuff is filthy. He’s just not right consistently.
- Jonny DeLuca was 3-5 with his 6th HR and 3 RBI.
- Andy Pages was 2-5.
- Finally, Diego Cartaya was 3-5!
- Nick Frasso – 4 IP, 1 H, 4 K’s. I could see him pitching for LA in relief this year!
- By the way, the Apple TV Friday night production was College Level at best. I thought it was a disgrace, but I have a son, stepdaughter, and a son-in-law who are all in the film industry, so maybe I am too critical. It was awful!
I am sending good thoughts your way Mark! Best wishes for a speedy recovery!
Prayers and thoughts are with you. You’ll come out 100% better feeling like you did when you were in your 20s.
LA Designates Catcher Austin Wynns for Assignment
Considering they’ll need to replace him with a position player, the move should mean the return of Miguel Rojas off the 10-day IL.Rojas just completed a 2 game rehab stint with the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes where he went 2-6 with a home run.
Tim Bachman of Bachman Turner Overdrive, dead at 71!
Speedy recovery!
The thing with Thor is seams he is making so easy to the opponents to hit. look at yesterday. We manage to get the lead 3-2 playing small ball and next inning to batters and it is tie again. So frustrating.
The other way to look at this is we are in first place WITHOUT our two best hitters contributing, and pitching sub par. You would have to think they will turn it around. Remember all those years JT started horribly.
Exactly! I think we are in a good spot.
I can live with 16-13 and tied for first and not playing anywhere near our best. The Yankees at 15-14 in last and 8 games back. We’ve been fortunate the Pads have also been slow out of the gate. Better days ahead. Speedy recovery Mark. Can B&P fill in to chastize us until you’re back?
Thanks for your great site Mark – safe and speedy recovery for you on the surgery. Here is something you may want to consider to help in the recovery process. We took my wife, 74 years old then, to Montana for her hip replacement 5 years ago as the wait list here in Alberta was a couple of years. A very good friend who is from a medical family told her to start on Arnica Montana. When we went in to the herbal store in Whitefish, the lady asked why are you buying this, explained the hip, and she yes the Arnica will help the flesh/muscles to heal but you need Symphytum to help the bones heal. 5 little pills each every 6 hours for three weeks. Asked her surgeon about it and he said you may do what ever you want after surgery but please do what I ask before. When my wife went into her first physio appointment 6 weeks later, the physio said she had never seen anyone with the range of movement she had so soon after surgery. She did the same three years later for her second hip replacement, same result. I did the same for both my bunion surgeries, same result. Recommended the treatment for a lady at our bridge club with her knee replacement and she won’t stop thanking me. It can’t hurt – good luck to both you and the Dodgers.
Mark, the common name for Symphytum is Comfrey. I took it with each of my knee replacements & had great results. Fresh pineapple is also very healing.
Praying for you to have successful surgery and a speedy recovery.
Thank you so much for providing LADT to all of us Dodger Fans.
Maybe Betts and Freeman aren’t getting RBIs because they’re hitting one and two behind the end of the order that can’t hit if their life depended on it. I talked about this when the season first started.
1 Outman
2 Smith
3 Freeman
4 Betts
5 Muncy
And then go from there.
I also said before the season started that I had question marks about 2B SS LF DH and those positions have turned out to be the problem so far. I assumed Betts would be in RF obviously.
Freeman is doing pretty good so Betts is the problem of the 2 superstars.
Betts is not a cleanup hitter. He is most productive as a leadoff hitter. Even though he has a career avg of .309 in the four hole, he has provided little power there. His OPS + in the four hole is 90. As a leadoff hitter it is 102. Freeman, who is your best hitter, should be hitting third. He has a career .300 avg there and 202 homers. He also has 700 plus RBI’s from that spot. I could see moving Freddie to third and Outman in the two slot. I keep Muncy and Smith in the four or five slots. Freddies OPS in the 2 and 3 slots is the same, .906.
Betts will be fine. Check his career splits April is always a slow month for him and typically his worst month hitting wise of the entire season. It’s funny how none of you mention the fact that he can play above average defense at 3 different positions (probably more if needed) including the most important position on the field. That’s what SUPERSTARS do…..impact the game in other ways when they aren’t hitting to their capability.
I don’t know it’s just me but I don’t think looking at stats about where someone’s most productive in the lineup means anything.
As far as Betts Defense I wasn’t talking about that I was only talking about his hitting so far.
You look at OPS all the time. It is a fact his best OPS is in the leadoff spot over his entire career, so yeah, it means a lot.
Good points Eric on how difficult it is to drive in runs when the bases are empty.
Thanks
RBIs are a lame stat.
That said, both will be fine in the long run.
Runs win games, any stat that scores runs is not lame.
If RBI’s were a lame stat then WRISP would be as lame.
Anybody read the piece on McCourt’s gondola idea? Would run from Union Station to Dodger Stadium.
Read about it, seems cool.
That was my first impression Matt. But….. McCourt?
* Did Syndergaard have any swings and misses? I don’t recall many. He had no strike outs in 5.1
He has NO stuff. He seems like a victim of bad luck with seeing eye grounders, a check swing double, chinkers here and dunkers there, but he misses no bats. That much contact is going to produce traffic. Doc even left him in to face to the 2 right hand bats in the 6th after wiggling out of trouble in the 5th. Our offense just kept getting the lead back for him. I guess the Baseball Gods decided it was time to get Thor a win.
I personally have never warmed up to the guy. I root for him as a Dodger but it’s like rooting for Drago in Rocky IV.
* Geez our guys get into serious “ pull-mode”. We pull way too many pitches away and roll over way too much.
* Jim Wolf is usually a consistent HPU with a small zone. He had some kind of psychogenic fugue in the 4th when every pitch was a strike. He really needs to clean up his mechanics on signals for clock violations. Nobody knows the count or what’s going on.
* Doc / the Wizard seem to be insistent on this Heyward / Thompson platoon at the plate. It doesn’t work because of Thompson’s reverse splits we all know about.
Thompson predictably pinch hit for Heyward, bottom 7 to face LHP and struck out. Trayce is being asked to do what he can’t; hit LHP. They even showed a graphic on the screen. He’s hitting .083 against LHP yet that’s his roll. He’s hitting .250 vs RHP, while Heyward is at .239 vs RHP. This platoon doesn’t work offensively. Our outfield is awful in general versus LHP. CT3 .158, Heyward 0 (0 for 3), Mookie .208, Peralta .400 (2 for 5). Outman at .333 (and .280 vs RHP) should never platoon.
* I’d love to see Outman learn to slide feet first on both sides of his body. His left hip slide exposes his face to catcher’s throws. Sliding on either side allows him to keep his face from being exposed from outfield throws on the left side and catcher’s throws on the right hip. I learned to do it years ago and my face still looks real good……I think.
* If you’re looking for evidence of what a shitty manager of the bullpen Doc is, don’t look to yesterday for evidence. Doc’s use of Vesia, Graterol versus Goldy, Almonte and Phillips to close was great use of the right pitchers in the right situations and not just a guy labeled by inning.
* I’ve had my criticisms about some Doc moves at times but he needs to get credit as well when he makes good decisions.
It doesn’t hurt that his guys executed their jobs and did what they’re paid to do either.
Re the slide, I think we all learned in little league to slide away from the catcher’s throws!!!
Apparently Outman or his Little League coach missed that coaching point. Many players can only slide on one side. Glad you picked it up Bobby.
I found sliding with left foot forward natural and could slide straight in or hook slide with grace as long as it was my left foot going for the bag. I think I would break every bone in my body if I tried to slide with my right foot leading.
“but it’s like rooting for Drago”
Good line.
I get it, but I keep sending him out there. He’s inducing weak contact. Might help if our defense was better.
I don’t particularly like the way most major league players slide. Either they weren’t taught or felt they didn’t need to learn the nuances of baseball. Several really. Like hitting your cutoff, backing up bases, two strike approach, looking forward to the 3rd base coach on the bases, not behind you …. there’s a long list of basic stuff these guys don’t do. What they can do, what got them there and keeps them there? Squaring up Major League pitching.
All that brings me to the point I’ve been meaning to make – how many at bats do we give Thompson and Taylor before we pull the rug. I say 100. That’s at least a month of live pitching and 50 hours in the cages. If that doesn’t do it, will it get done? Probably not. One thing we could do drop a weight on a foot and give them each 2 weeks on the IL. In the interim give someone else a shot. We have minor leaguers who are banging.
Freddie has as many stolen bases as Trea Turner….
And where has Joe Davis been????
Umpires so far have been awful. Wolf, usually a pretty good umpire blew some easy calls yesterday. Max should be pissed. Got approval for my eye surgery. Should happen sometime in May. Play of the day yesterday was the dad with the baby and a beer catching a foul ball.
I feel like the Dodgers are forcing the issue with Trace by saying “you need to hit lefties to be on the roster.” I think he will be the first to be cut/sent down.
Or abandon that platoon plan and give him some at bats against RHP. That would mean managing against the book.
It’s still a small sample but Thompson against RHP .250/.375/.700/1.075 I think one of Heyward or Peralta need to go in favor of an outfielder somewhere that can hit LHP. But that’s asking Doc to look at splits.
In a not so small sample size, like 2022, Trayce had 159 AB’s vs RHP and hit .308. In 86 AB’s vs LHP he hit .174. Yet we continue to insist he platoon to face LHP. It ain’t working. I’m not sure what sample size they need to stop the experiment.
Thompson and Peralta are the same players except Thompson can play centerfield.
Kind of seems that way at the moment. But Peralta has proven much more in the major leagues than Thompson.
10:10 PM ET
Phillies (15-14)
Dodgers (16-13) tied for 1st
SP Taijuan Walker R
2-1 4.97 ERA 25.1P 23K
SP Tony Gonsolin R
0-0 .00 ERA 3,1IP 1K
Confirmed Lineup
SS Mookie Betts R
1B F. Freeman L
C Will Smith R
3B Max Muncy L
RF J. Heyward L
CF James Outman L
DH M. Vargas R
LF D. Peralta L
2B M. Busch L
Cloudy
35% Precipitation
59° Wind 9 mph Out
A few stats (eg K rate) do stabilize in under 80 ABs, but for things like SLG and OBP it’s 300–400+ ABs and for batting average it’s over 900.
Obviously the Dodgers aren’t going to give Thompson 900 at bats. But the more they can give him the better to determine his true potential.
Sunday scores
Oklahoma City 9, Sacramento 4 (Game 1)
Sacramento 5, Oklahoma City 1 (Game 2)
Tulsa 11, Arkansas 10 (10 innings)
Great Lakes 5, Fort Wayne 2
Rancho Cucamonga 13, Inland Empire 8
Tuesday schedule
8:05 a.m. PT: Great Lakes (TBD) vs. Quad Cities [Royals] (TBD)
11 a.m.: Rancho Cucamonga (Peter Heubeck) at Lake Elsinore [Padres] (Henry Baez)
4:05 p.m.: Tulsa (TBD) vs. San Antonio [Padres] (TBD)
5:35 p.m.: Oklahoma City (Robbie Erlin) at El Paso [Padres] (TBD)
Dodgers activate Miguel Rojas off injured list, designate Austin Wynns for assignment
Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated!
How you feeling ?
The incision is very sore, and evidently, the Norco (Painkiller) is out in most of the pharmacies here, so I am just going to the border and get some.
Not really, I hate painkillers so I am just going to go without. So far, so good.
Good for you Mark. Remember don’t fight it(the pain). GET STUBBORN WITH THE PAIN AND DON’T GIVE IN.
Happy to hear you survived Mark! Rest easy!
Well hopefully you can get good rest and recover quickly. Glad things went well, and without too much pain.
And enjoy a Dodger win tonight.
May May
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRwAN9UC/
Good to have you back Mark
Good to hear from you Mark and good to hear you are doing ok. I’ve had plenty of surgeries in my lifetime so I’m glad you are doing ok.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
DAVID PERALTA (aka/”The Freight Train”)
Nice to see Smith back behind the plate and Busch getting the start at 2B, with Vargas taking the DH spot.
Also nice that Mookie is back at SS, which allows Heyward to start at RF. Over the past 15 days, Heyward has compiled a .412 and OPS of .805. Plus his defense out there is nearly equal to Mookie’s.
Compare Heyward’s recent numbers to Taylor’s. Even though he just had a two-hit game, Taylor had an OPB of .233 and OPS of .578 over the past 15 days. One reason for Heyward’s recent surge: He has walked 6 times and struck out only 4 times in that period, while Taylor walked once and K’d 14 times.
I agree with folks here who think that Thompson, with his reverse splits, is interchangeable with Peralta. Peralta has a much better track record, but perhaps Thompson’s numbers suck because the Dodger management force him to bat against lefties.
Anyway, I think one will be gone at midseason–and if Busch makes the most of his opportunity now, maybe he’ll be able to stay.
Just noticed that Smith returned with a homer, and Peralta delivered one too. Nice.
Glad you’re back Mark I everything went well and you have a quick recovery. I don’t know about anybody else I wish they would put Betts somewhere and just leave him there. I think him bouncing around might be some of the reason for his slow start.
Put him at short and leave him there. Let Rojas fill in around the infield to give guys days off.
Let Thompson and Taylor filter in and out of the lineup. Put Busch as the DH and leave him there with Smith giving him days off against tough lefties. You need to see what you have in Busch.
Mike Busch has a sweet swing, he looks the part.
Just caught a snippet from Trea Turner interview on DodgerBlue’s YouTube site.
Re Mookie:
“He just plays a different rightfield–the way he cuts off baseballs, his throws are so accurate.”
Trea also said when Lux got injured he thought Mookie might eventually move to SS, because “he’s a freak” and that he knew that Mookie loved playing 2B.
Dodgers now up 8-1, and Gonsolin cruising, showing why he was an all-star last year.
Here’s the solution. Give Betts SS permanently. Give Busch LF. Give Smith DH. Platoon Taylor with one of the trio of outfielders that only hit RHP in RF. Make Martinez a pinch-hitter. Bring up Feduccia at C.
1 Outman
2 Smith
3 Freeman
4 Betts
5 Muncy
6 Busch
7 One of the trio vs RHP, Taylor vs LHP
8 Feduccia
9 Vargas
Bench
Barnes, Rojas, Martinez, One of the platoon
2 of the trio are gone.
Or keep one of the trio as a pinch hitter and Martinez is gone.
None of this will ever happen because Doc won’t let it happen. But it saves Smith’s career, it solves an outfield spot, Betts solves SS, it solves the platoon needed even though Taylor is out of wack, and Feduccia is tearing it up in the minors.
At the trade deadline if Taylor is still out of wack you get an outfielder that hits LHP. And/or if Vargas is still out of wack you send him down to AAA and get a replacement.
Not of those decisions are on Doc. It’s above his pay grade!
Andrew Friedman, Brandon Gomes, Josh Byrnes, and Jeffrey Kingston (and others) make those decisions.
Dave Roberts just plays the hand he is dealt.
So you are intent on promoting Outman to lead off at the expense of the team? He has 112 MLB ABs and 46Ks. 42% of the time, he strikes out.
I’ll say this: It’s more likely he goes back to OKC than Vargas… and right about now neither is going. Vargas has played with a hurt hand all year. It’s unlikely that they let him play through it and then, as he is finally healing, send him down.
I think Vargas should be on the IL, but evidently, the Dodger Barss feels that his defense at 2B has been stellar and he does get omn base!
Speaking of stellar, Max Muncy has been playing 3B at a high level.
Where’s Heyward? If you are moving Mookie to SS, Heyward in nearly the equal of Mookie defensively, and he has been hitting the ball hard against RHP!
P.S. Watch David Peralta!
Heyward is one of the trio that hit only RHP. 7th in the lineup and I don’t care which of the trio it is. Heyward, Peralta, Thompson, your choice. If you want 2 of them starting, good luck finding platoon partners, Taylor is an option for that but who else?
As of right now Outman has the 4th best OBP (and around the top in other stats) behind Muncy, Smith, Freeman and all are close besides Muncy #1. Do any of them fit hitting first? Outman has speed. So then where does he fit best in the lineup between 1-5? Because he sure as hell shouldn’t be batting lower. In WHATEVER ORDER it should be Outman, Smith, Freeman, Betts, Muncy.
Doesn’t Doc decide the defense and who plays?
How the hell does Outman go to AAA before Vargas when Outman is killing Vargas in production and we have a hole in 2 spots in the outfield against LHP and there is Rojas that can easily replace Vargas? And by the way when is his hand going to heal? The end of the season? 3 quarters of the season? Half of the season? Sorry about being blunt but…..
You bring up strikeouts a lot, we just have a different philosophy about that and that’s ok just a different philosophy..
It’s rare (not impossible) that rookie players’ strikeouts go down that much. There is no way on God’s Green Earth that he will have a 42% strikeout rate and a good OB%. More about this tomorrow.