Yeah, it’s less than a month, but I have seen enough. Right field belongs to Alex Verdugo. Book ’em, Dano! Now, I know that Cody Bellinger is a pretty dang good right-fielder too, but Cody is also a good CF and a Gold Glove 1st Baseman. It’s pretty apparent why Andrew Friedman was loathe to trade Verdugo . The kid will be a star. I said it, I meant it…
Mark goes with Rants and Raves, and DC now has his Bites and Bits, so I might as well come up with my own…Random Thoughts. I cannot get too excited about the last two losses. It really was to be expected in April, at least by me. Admittedly, I am having a tough time getting excited about this early part of the season. It is going better than I thought…
Sunday afternoon Ross Stripling was not fair – he was just very good, so since his nickname is Chicken Strip, he is fowl and this should be a reminder of how very good he was before the All-Star Break last season. I would say his pitch tipping is behind him and he could be a very solid piece in the rotation all season. His ERA dropped to 2.92 as he…
I wrote a post on slow starts by the Dodgers, and while I did not predict there would be a slow start, history tells us to expect it. When the team got off to such a fast start (8-2), comments like “What slow start” were readily made. I indicated that I was happy with the fast first 10 games, but I also cautioned that it could not last because: a)…
Well… at least the pitchers do! All that most Dodger fans remember about Yasmani Grandal were the passed balls. He was regaled, reviled and ridiculed by many fans. “Sure he hit a lot of home runs, but they were in streaks and he struck out too much even though he had a good on base percentage. And on top of that he just disappeared in the playoffs last year”. He…
The strength of the Farm system is unquestionably the pitching. It is not even close. The breakdown of the MLB Pipeline Top 30 prospects is: 12 – RHP 2 – LHP 4 – Catchers 5 – SS/2B 4 – 3B/1B 3 – OF Baseball America pretty much resembles MLB Pipeline’s prospect list except BA includes reliever Josh Sborz, and OF Carlos Rincon, replacing Braydon Fisher, Marshall Kasowski, and Leonel Valera….
Ernest Hemmingway once said “Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors.” I scanned several Dodger blogs today after the game and the silence was deafening! If the Dodgers had gotten smoked yesterday, man, the critics would have been cranking out the text! But, as it is, the critics did not have much to say. Well, I did read this:…
There has been a lot of discussion about the potential of a slow start this year. I and others have pointed out how the “starters” cannot get through 5 innings before the proverbial melt down. Both Hill and Strip went a solid 4 innings, and then came the 5th. Hill is penciled for his final ST outing on Friday (Saturday?), while Strip is scheduled to start Sunday’s game against LAA…
We all look at the stats and sometimes believe that the stats tell you “you are what your stats say you are,” and while that is sometimes true, players can grow in their skill set or regress. However, the progression (or regression) is not always linear. Witness one Enrique “Kike” Hernandez. About this time last year (March 15, 2018, to be exact) I wrote this, while referring back to a…
As usual, the sharks are circling the USS Dodger as they have been since the Andrew Friedman Era started. They are hoping, wishing and praying that the hull has cracks in it and sinks so that they can devour the man for whom they have developed an irrational hatred. The sad part is that the sharks are Dodger fans and Andrew Friedman has done nothing but make the team better….