I think the “trickle-down effect” of Manny Machado in the Dodger’s lineup will be significant. The Dodgers really miss Corey Seager and he replaces Cory with a stronger RH bat. This should help everyone in the lineup. Watch Chris Taylor and Cody Bellinger’s stats improve. Depending upon what happens between now and the end of the season, the Dodgers offsense could be more potent than that of 2017… and I salivate to think of a lineup that includes both Machado and Seager in 2019, but I’m putting the horse before the cart! Let’s win this one first!
I am heading to Milwaukee this weekend and doubt if I have much time to post, so hopefully AC can entertain you while I am gone. I hope to get to see Manny upclose and personal. Milwaukee’s Stadium is beautiful… and I get to see Clayton pitch as well. I have not been to Milwaukee for several years, but one of the previous times I was there, Shawn Green hit four homeruns. That was a great game.
Bullpen Help
The next few days should be very eventful. The Padres Brad Hand brought back one of the Top 15 Prospects in baseball… because he is controllable for several more years. That’s the price of control. Manny Machado brought back a lot because he is a superstar, but the relievers that are on the market like Rasiel Iglesais and others of his ilk who are “controllable” for years to come, will bring back prospects generally in the Top 25, or multiple prospects in the Top 50. The bullpen guys we all talk about and want, like Iglesais, Vazquez (aka/Rivero), Bear Claw and others will likely cost Verdugo and Ruiz or one of those and a couple of lower-ranked prospects.
I think that is too much to pay. Relievers are a fickle bunch – very few provide consistent production year-over-year, making long-term control certainly less meaningful. One thing that jumpedIn 12 June appearances, teams were OPDS’ing almost 1.000 against Hand. I think the Dodgers need to try and move some player or players on the 25 man roster (Pederson, Puig, Toles, Wood) in order to get a reliever and it likely won’t be one of the top names that are available. Think: Get Brad Hand BEFORE he is Brad Hand. It should be interestiung how this plays out.
Dodger News
- The Dodgers are up to 5th in the latest power poll by Bleacher Report!
- The Dodgers are said to be going with a six-man rotation and Ryu may start a rehab assignment as soon as next week. TGhat leave him two weeks or so away. What then? a 7-Man?
- Jim Bowden says that “the Dodgers made it very clear in their trade discussions with the Orioles that top prospects — including outfielder Alex Verdugo, catcher Keibert Ruiz, and pitchers Mitchell White and Yadier Alvarez — were all off limits in a “rental” trade for All-Star shortstop Manny Machado. LA’s front office, led by Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi, never wavered from that position, and ended up landing Machado without giving any of them up.” – From TheAthletic.com
- Manny Machado is big, but Ndamukong Suh IS the BIGGEST offseason pickup by any LA team.
Discussion (69)
Disagree, not disagreeable
The Mets are about to send Jeurys Familia to Oakland. Take him off the market as a potential 8th inning guy for us
With Alexander showing some really good stuff, and with Maeda eventually returning to the bullpen, I like that they could cover a 6th and or 7th inning. The Floro/Hudson/Fields types have great stuff, but don’t give me the Morrow (or Guillermo Mota or Takashi Saito) type confidence in the 8th. Cingrani might; I like him.
But yes, I think we need 1 stud bullpen arm. Since we likely won’t trade for a playoff game 1 starter, we better shore up the last 4 innings of a game. However, if this management team has shown anything, it’s that they know how to get a good arm in here and have Honeycutt take care of the rest.
Speaking of Kenley, one pitch does not a season make, but he looked like the old Kenley on his last pitch last night. Hopefully it’s a harbinger of things to come.
Enjoy being there Mark. Who’ll be with you? At any rate I’ll keep my eyes peeled when the camera scans above the dugout. Maybe some Dodger brass will tip a beer with ya as it would seem likely the big shots are at hand the these Manny intro games. they have to appreciate all the support you’ve been giving through the years. Oh yeah and CHEERS!
Heading out to Milwaukee, We are sitting just behind the Dodgers dugout – I’ll wave! 😉
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Just a couple of notes:
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1. Chad Moriyama of The Athletic has a nice piece on Scott Alexander. In part he wrote: “…things are not quite as dire as they appear at first glance. Scott Alexander recently rounding back into form likely means the Dodgers need to deal for only one back-end reliever instead of needing to make multiple moves. After his acquisition from the Royals in the offseason, Alexander looked like a bust early on, and he was mercifully demoted to the minors on April 28. However, after spending some time in Triple-A, Alexander returned on May 9 and has since looked every bit of the guy the front office thought they were trading for.” He makes a great case that the Dodgers do not need to swing a deal for multiple arms.
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2. Kenley’s velocity was back up but the results weren’t good. He needs to figure it out… unless he’s hurt…
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3. Manny looks good in Blue – he wasn’t trying to do too much. He let the game come to him.
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4. Kike Freaking Hernandez. Need I say more?
Kasowski
.203/.264/.294
This feels like a first round playoff game.
Did Jansen gain some weight or does my TV need an adjustment maybe that’s why his fastball is down
Who needs Manny Machado? We’ve got Kike’.
Dave larussa
7/31 bobblehead night for Alex wood. Cross him off the potential list. Mark 😉
Here is a post from earlier today that I put up right before comments closed:
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Here’s an excerpt from an article in the NY Post about today’s baseball:
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“To that end, June 24 may have provided the most telling game and broadcast of the season, if not the era. It was the clincher, the one containing indisputable evidence that The Game has lost its heart, soul, good senses and mind.
On SNY, Ron Darling watched the Mets play more fundamentally bereft and bullpen-senseless losing baseball, an 11-inning game of modern home-run-or-whiff ball against the home-run-or-whiff Dodgers. With both teams pulling effective relievers as if they’d arrived at their one-station stops, 14 pitchers appeared.
Darling: “It seems teams now try to win games through some math algorithms in real time, when the game is calling for you to do something to win the ballgame.”
Or, as the long-ago radio comic Fred Allen said, “The only thing I know about algebra is that X equals my old man’s signature.”
And it was Darling who last season said what logical fans have for years been saying to one another: “They pay the big money to the starters, then expect the relievers to win the games.”
June 24’s game presented final, indisputable evidence of a game in needless free fall. In the bottom of the 10th, the Mets had a runner on first, no out. Next, even against a radical shift, Dominic Smith, 11th overall pick in the 2013 draft, didn’t try to bunt the runner over, perhaps even for a hit. Instead, he struck out on three pitches.
Afterward, Mickey Callaway offered both a stunning — or was it? — explanation and indictment: Smith had “never bunted in his professional career.”
At the All-Star break, the Yankees have proven that a team can be competitive playing one-trick, home-run-or-whiff ball because most everyone else does, except with fewer, less-expensive sluggers in mostly larger parks.
At the break, the Yanks had 821 hits. But as MLB concludes its likely first-ever season with more strikeouts than hits, the Yanks had 866 strikeouts. Consider: The 1978 World Series champion Yanks finished the regular season with 100 wins and only 695 K’s.
Modern slugger/superstar Aaron Judge, in roughly two full seasons, has struck out 382 times. In 13 seasons Joe DiMaggio struck out 369 times. In 18 seasons, Yogi Berra never struck out more than 38 times.
And Bryce Harper, this season with 102 strikeouts and 70 hits — and a career disinclination to run to first base — is the new standard in must-get, mega-millions superstardom.
But we’re not going to abandon the game we love. With all the millions spent for fourth and fifth starters and .235 batters, money should not preclude the cure. Thus we propose:
MLB teams’ Directors of Bunting, Shift-Defeating and Opposite Field Hitting. That could cause a significant swing in wins over losses, no?
From there, who knows? Directors of Running To First Base (with video case-studies of why it’s important). Catching With Both Hands coaches. Directors of Allowing Effective Relievers to Pitch a Second Inning. Instructors of Base Runners Noting Where Outfielders Are Positioned.”
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I couldn’t agree more.
Are we thinking floro or Hudson in the 8th?
Btw. That defensive play by keekay was all world. Exactly what your supposed to do in that situation. Run at the runner. So many would throw.
I thought Grandal going home was not very smart if there was any question that he would score. It would have been 2nd and 3rd with no outs, and the top of the order coming up. I believe in being aggressive, but there are times that that it can be ill advised.
Bases loaded, 1 out. 2 pop ups. Great clutch hitting.
Very very very happy with CT3’s base hit there to bring Utley in. Man if he wakes up this is going to be a fun next few months!!
Name a better hitter in the national league than machado. Arenado?
Is that elvira behind home plate?
Why in the world are they sending Grandal with no outs?
The Dodgers have Machado. The second half starts tonight with the first of a 3 game series with Milwaukee than Philadelphia for 3, Atlanta for 4, and Milwaukee again for 4, and then Houston for 3. All very good teams, let’s see what happens.
Mark, I don’t like your lineup, but I don’t like mine either.
Machado is a STUD
Watching Rich Hill is like watching an Artist at work.
Typical runners left on base so far. But if Rich Hill can keep this up, I think we’ll get a big hit for him and break this game open.
I haven’t thought about this a lot, but I was just thinking that with the acquisition of Manny, the Dodgers have quite a bit of extra base hit power following Chris Taylor. I know it isn’t easy to make changes mid-season, but if he can do it, it might behoove Taylor to change his approach and make a concerted effort to cut his strikeouts and better utilize his speed by getting on base more. Again, that sort of adjustment is probably very difficult to achieve mid-season, but if together with Turner Ward, he can pull it off, I think it would make the Dodgers all that much more dangerous. And if Manny then signed on long term with the Dodgers, and Cory Seager returns fully healthy next year, Taylor would become even more valuable next year.
Mlb.tv is free this weekend.
So JT didn’t start any of the last three games of the first half, had a four day respite with the break and isn’t starting game 1 of the second half. Should we be worried? Why not a ten day DL and keep Foles up?
The below is from: https://dodgerblue.com/dodgers-manny-machado-trade-analysis-right-move/2018/07/19/?utm_source=Dodgers+Subscribers&utm_campaign=dd8c6ad05c-The+DB+Report+04-2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5603c26edc-dd8c6ad05c-204389565
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Matt Kemp deserved his start in the 2018 All-Star game, but age might finally be starting to catch up with him. Over his last 25 games, Kemp is hitting .232 with a .655 OPS. Take out a couple big games in the beginning of July and he’s 11 for his last 73.
ROLAIDS
FanGraphs on the team’s 24 YO Righty:
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Tony Gonsolin, RHP, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
Gonsolin debuted among the Five last week following a series of increasingly impressive starts that culminated in an 11-strikeout effort against just 20 batters on July 10th. While he failed to overwhelm his opponents so decisively in his lone appearance over the past week, his July 16th start was notable for another reason — namely, that it occurred against the Arkansas Travelers of the Texas League and represented the right-hander’s debut at Double-A.
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The former ninth-round pick was still quite strong, recording an 8:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 26 batters over 6.0 innings (box). ONe account indicates that Gonsolin touched 98 mph, as well, which is roughly in line with previous reports.
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Gonsolin’s slider is naturally effective against same-handed batters, but he appeared to have some strategies for dealing with lefties, as well.
.300/.408/.555
21db/3tp/15hr
48bb/71k
40g @ 1b
37g @ 3b
Previous experience in OF
Bats rh throws rh
How long before we see connor joe in blue?
This will likely be the biggest issue for the club heading into the postseason. What to do with starters and relievers. Ryun wasn’t able to pitch out of the pen last year (but mccarthy sadly was) and that affected our playoff staff. Assuming good health, we could have as many as four starters into the pen in October. How wr handle that could determine our success. Obviously, Houston did it better than we did.
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Nobody wants to see fields or Baez throw a single playoff inning. Some of the other guys are more questionable [floro. Hudson, etc.]. Jansen and Alexander are in and then there are the inevitable deadline additions.
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How will Robert’s and the front office manage the staff heading into the postseason? Big decisions will have to be made and starters will have to be unselfish [like maeda] and take one for the team. If wood or hill turns into a dominant short relief arm like Kenya did last year we could be in luck. We still need to add at least one more durable arm that can be counted on to pitch every day come October.
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I dont think there is that much in the minors that can help us. Maybe sborz or Hernandez but I’m not expecting much.
I think they shouldn’t part with Verdugo or Ruiz, but instead put Maeda, Ryu, or Beuhler in the BP as inning eaters… unless BearClaw is available. Then Verdugo, not Ruiz… especially with Grandal being FA in the off-season.