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Well, the baseball winter meetings are now a little over a week away. The big question for Dodger fans is what, if any, moves will the Dodgers make. A couple of free agents have come off of the board: Lynn to the Cardinals, Gibson to the Cardinals, DeJong to the White Sox, and…
Do you remember when (not that long ago) when Dodger Fans were questioning whether Farhan Zaidi was the “ Genius behind Andrew Friedman ?” I hear Farhan is awesome at Fantasy Football and Fantasy Baseball, but suddenly his star is getting tarnished in the real thing. He caught…
That is evidently Andrew Friedman’s new bullpen strategy and I happen to think it is a stroke of genius. We all know that bullpens are fickle and it is hard to predict with a great degree of certainty whether a pitcher who was great in 2021 will even be average a year later…
For several years, Dodger fans complained about the Dodgers bullpen… or lack thereof of one. Maybe a lot of their ire was directed (unfairly) at one Kenley Jansen, but I think that many Dodger Fans believe that in the past Andrew Friedman simply did not value the bullpen and…
Well, let the bidding begin. A number of publications have put out their top 50 Free Agents list. MLBTR is one of my favorites to follow. They are no better with their prognostications than are any other publication. They run contests every year, and many of the readers have…
Last night, the Dodger hitters could not jump out of a boat and hit water, as Walker Buehler proved that he was not unhittable. It’s getting late… EARLY. The Giants homered three times and the Dodgers put up a goose egg. All the Giants have to do now is win two more games. This…
Yeah, I know it is still mathematically possible that the Dodgers will catch the Giants. It ain’t happening! Accept it… move on and get ready for the Championship Round. If the Dodgers win the Wild Card Game, the NLDS, NLCS, AND the World Series, no one is ever going to say, “…
Lots of people are believing the Giants are for real and they may be. They have been consistent up until now, so we have to say that they are real but will they stay real? Time will tell, but you can t help peruse the roster and statistics and ask They did this how? The fact that they are in first place does not really compute, but if we break it
Before I answer with my position, let me do my best to lay out some of the factors assuredly being discussed in the Dodger “war rooms”. Max Scherzer is a HOF pitcher who can still bring it at 37. He would be a front of the rotation pitcher even with the Dodgers. This year he is 7-4 with a 2.83 ERA and an exceptional WHIP of 0.886 in 105 IP.
Somebody made a point as to what the Padres transactions did for the psyche for the other teams. The Padres have now joined the Dodgers, Braves, probably Mets, and maybe the Nationals (with their pitching and Soto/Robles/Turner) to separate from the rest of the NL. Some team from the NL Central will get to the playoffs, because, well one of the teams has to. It is a rule. Because of
On Tuesday, December 22, 2020, the Philadelphia Phillies hired Sam Fuld to be their General Manager, with no real experience in front office player personnel decision making. It is incredulous to me that an industry such as MLB can continue to operate in the manner they are currently operating. It is one thing to talk about Social Injustice as MLB continues to do, and then another thing to do something
In October of 2014, the ownership of the Dodgers decided to go in a new direction and named Andrew Friedman President of Baseball Operations. GM Ned Colletti was moved to another position in the organization and Friedman brought in Farhan Zaidi as the new GM. At the time, the only thing I knew about Friedman was that he had been running the Tampa Bay Rays. I knew they had gotten
On October 14th, 2014, the Dodgers announced the hiring of Andrew Friedman. Former Tampa Bay GM and Vice President of baseball operations as President of baseball operations for the Los Angeles Dodgers. His contract was for 5 years and 35 million dollars. Friedman was born in Houston Texas and attended Tulane University on a baseball scholarship. His college career was derailed by a couple of injuries. He earned a B.A .
Yes, I am thrilled that we have baseball again. And I am just as sure that the Dodgers are going to win this year. I am not much of a gambler, but I dropped a few dollars on the Dodgers winning the 2020 WS. But I have a tough time getting excited about beating a team like the Giants who have very little, if any, chance of making the playoffs.
The evening started with a couple of important comments. Per Rob Manfred – “We’re going to play Baseball in 2020” Announcement with all 30 GMs united in their support for Black Lives Matter. The united front was the brainchild of Theo Epstein. It is certainly a fantastic program in light of current events, but it needs to be more than just feel good platitudes in order for there to be
It’s been said that baseball is one of the most “conservative” of all major sports. Baseball players, managers, coaches, executives, and owners typically succumb to the notion that once a particular idea or system gains broad acceptance, it is almost impossible to change. As one author stated: “Baseball’s ‘Conventional Wisdom’ is, at times, venerated as inviolable dogma akin to Holy Scripture. Woe be unto the those unto ye heretics who
Many loyal Dodger fans believe the Dodgers ownership group is cheap and not interested in winning, and only interested in counting profits. Never mind that the Dodgers have spent more on player personnel contracts over the last five years than any other team. They have also spent lavishly on player development and re-focusing on their MiLB programs. I think we can all agree that the contract costs were not all
I have always had a fascination with the development of baseball players. It started when coaching youth ball, and continued on to high school baseball. But what happens after a player gets drafted and signs that contract? Are these young men receiving the best possible instruction? Are the teams creating an environment for those players to maximize their abilities? How exactly do you accomplish that? Strictly through Sabermetrics? Is it
Where do I start? How about trading Verdugo, Urias, Bellinger, Barnes, Taylor Pederson, Muncy, and Hernandez or not signing Kershaw, Ryu or Pollock? How about firing Dave Roberts or Andrew Friedman? You all know who you are and you would make some dope-fiend moves in a heartbeat! Those are all real moves suggested by fans on this site. Dope-Fiend Fans championing Dope-Fiend moves. It s a good thing the inmates are
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 .
Have you ever been to an auction where one party was hell-bent-for-leather to win whatever the auction target was. The guy who wants to win at all costs is not called a winner where I am from. He usually overpays and regrets it later. My wife has won auctions costing thousands of dollars, only to regret it later. The winner of an auction is often really The Loser. Winning an
RVS gets all the glory (10 runs a game average) at least until tomorrow. The Dodgers are undefeated! Print the tickets! If you listened to the Andrew Friedman interview, you should never say the Dodgers want to be an all or nothing team. Why no MRI on Kershaw? Because you don t want to know La, La, La, La, La, La, La fingers in ears> DJ Peters has added bulk and
Yesterday I wrote about the Padres because of the late signing of Manny Machado. The Padres have suffered mightily for many years, but appear to be on the verge of not only being respectable, but also a contender in a year or two, depending on their pitching progress. Today I suffer because I am writing about the hated Giants. The best thing about the Giants is that they are projected
Last week Mark kind of stole my thunder with his remarks about Raul Ibanez who is a Special Assistant now to Andrew Friedman. He had signed with the Dodgers in February of 2016 along with Greg Maddux. The reasons for my interest in Raul Ibanez was that first, it was recently rumored he had an opportunity to move to another organization and didn’t. Secondly, suggestions were made that others were deserting
There is so little movement in the Hot Stove and yet, so much to talk about, so here goes: TOP FARM SYSTEMS Someone here a few days ago opined that they wanted Logan White back as the GM. Of course, Logan was never GM for the Dodgers before he was Director of Amateur Scouting, and while I love Logan White, I cannot remember when the Dodgers Farm system was
As we are winding down to less than 2 weeks before pitchers and catchers report, I was having a tough time trying to find a single topic to write a novel on. So I am going to just give some of my thoughts on a few topics. 1. Yes, Stan Kasten stuck his massive foot square in his mouth at the FanFest, and for no good reason. I am by
Farhan Zaidi is the President of Baseball Operations for the San Francisco Giants right here, right now and while it may never be fully understood what role Zaidi had in in the managing and coaching decisions by the LA Dodgers, I think by the end of the 2019 season, we will find out that Farhan was a micro manager. Great guy, but he was not good at deligation. He had
Yesterday Mark wrote, “this Dodger Team, right here, right now, is better than the 2018 version.” I will stipulate that the Dodgers may be better just for the loss of Farhan Zaidi and Turner Ward. That may be cruel, and they may do wonderful things for their new respective clubs, but they were a disconnect for this team. Friedman wants more of his fingerprints on the roster and approach, and
Well we are now in December, less than one week away from the Winter Meeting, and the Dodgers have Kevin Quackenbush and Adam McCreery. So, I guess the Dodgers are all set. Andrew Co. addressed the bullpen, what else can anyone else want? I have been scouring the internet to catch word that the Dodgers pulled off a trade for JT Realmuto or Corey Kluber. Or if Andrew
I am sitting continuing to try to understand how the Board of Trustees and the AD at USC have chosen to retain perhaps the most over his head coach in all of NCAA Football, Clay Helton. Rudy mentioned that both Westwood and South Bend are cheering loudly, but my radar has all of the Pac 12 and South Bend laughing at this. Oh well, enough pity party for me. It’s
