All of the teams who cruised to 100+ wins in 2023 were bounced from the playoffs in short order. Now, you can believe that there are no excuses, but you have to have your head someone dark to believe that sitting out a week for the Wild Card Round has no effect. I don’t believe in excuses either, but there are reasons, and we would be foolish not to consider…
The Dodgers this season saw two of the best in the major’s bat back-to-back all year. Both put up excellent seasons. Both have had stellar careers to this point. Both Freeman and Betts will get some serious Hall consideration. Where do they rank with the hitters of the past? That would mostly be based on one’s personal preference and just how many years do they have to play for the…
On September 29th, 1976, Walter Alston, who had been the Dodgers manager since 1954, stepped down and retired. He was replaced by third base coach, Thomas Charles Lasorda. Tommy had been a part of the Dodger organization on and off since 1949 when the Dodgers drafted him from his original, and favorite team, the Philadelphia Phillies. He had quite a career at AAA, but never reached those heights in the…
If you have been around baseball for as long as I have (and many of you have been around it longer), if a team won the NL or AL Pennant, they played the winner of the opposite league in the World Series. Then, if they won four games in that series, they were declared World Champion. Simple! They were the best team in baseball that season. It was simple. It…
Well, in a couple of weeks, after the dust settles and a new Champion is crowned, if the Astro holes don’t win, we can all put on our GM caps and begin making our fantasy selections on just who the Dodgers might target via trade, free agency or dipping into the Asian free agent pool and plucking a Nipponese pitcher. I expect some changes, maybe even one or two in…
The Dodgers have three position players on the AFL Roster: Yenier Fernandez, Damon Keith, and Joke (I mean Jake) Vogel. Fernandez (.276 BA, .400 OB%, .517 SLG, .917 OPS), and Damon Keith (.231 BA, .474 OPS, .782 OPS) are the only two who have played. Vogel has not. Why? I have no clue, but players are brought here to generally work on something specific. Maybe he has an injury or…
The only constant is change. Nothing could be more true than what is going to happen with your LA Dodgers this offseason. I am sure that Andrew Friedman has a plan that is better than mine, but I am willing to share my plan, and he is not. He just does not play well with others, and I do. So here is my plan for 2023. Here’s my rationale. If…
All season, the Dodgers have touted that they have a clubhouse full of high-character players… and they really did. Most of these guys were Boy Scouts and have always helped little old ladies across streets. They have so many friends within MLB, and they cultivate those friendships. They have charities, and they are active in the community. They visit sick children in the hospital and encourage cancer survivors. They don’t…
Well, it is over. Judging from the comments I read on yesterday’s post, most think that there will be some huge changes coming, and well, there might be. The loss to the Diamondbacks was, if nothing else, embarrassing. Embarrassing to the players. Embarrassing to ownership and embarrassing to the fans. The fans will get the bulk of the feedback. We always do. I have already heard it from several Rockies…
I like to break things down to their simplest form, and here is why the Dodgers were swept in the NLDS: They could not score more than two runs a game. In 162 games, the Dodgers averaged 5.6 runs a game, but in this three-game series, they scored just two runs a game. They were blown out in the first game, but the next two games were very winnable and…