Opening Day against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium on March 26 is approaching sooner than later. Except for 2B, which ultimately seems to belong to Tommy Edman, who will start the season on the IL, all the positions are set… barring injury… and there will be injuries. Won’t there? Breakout candidate: Christian Zazueta is a RHP who is 6′ 3″ and very skinny. He came to the Dodgers in…
Partly truth and partly fiction. That’s Kike Hernandez. Kris Kristopherson (God Rest His Soul) summed him up in his song, The Pilgrim: Kike Hernandez is one of a kind! If the Dodgers are a Swiss watch, Kiké is the tiny gear that never makes the marketing brochure but keeps the whole thing ticking. In October, the temperature drops, and so do batting averages. Kiké’s does not. He’s built a reputation…
I love the game of baseball. Have since I first picked up a bat at the age of 7. That was 70 years ago, and oh how the game has changed. I like to think that I saw the game when it was still in its purest form. No DH, starters went 9. Strikeouts were a bad thing, and players BA, and pitchers win totals mattered. They were the standard…
The doors are getting oiled so that they can swing open. I have tickets for games on February 24th and 26th. I will be in Glendale that whole week. They have a strict list of what you can take and what you can’t take inside, and these guys are trained ICE agents (I am only slightly kidding), who have no sense of humor and are strictly by the book. Here’s…
With the Pitchers and Catchers reporting next week, it is almost time to PLAY BALL. I thought it might be a good idea to look at the Coaching Staffs at each level. Ontario Tower Buzzers Great Lakes Loons Tulsa Drillers Oklahoma City Comets Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Operations I did not see it listed, but Austin Chubb is the Dodgers Minor League Field Coordinator. The Dodgers should have no trouble…
Baseball America came out with their rankings today, and they rated the Dodgers #13. This is an interesting discussion. Personally, I think the Dodgers’ farm system is in the #5 to #10 range, but BA makes a good case. The only team worse than the Padres (#29) is the Rockies.
Over the last couple of years, I have been concerned with what I have considered a lack of power off of the Dodgers bench. Players like Kike, Rojas, Taylor, do not exactly scare the opposition. The way teams are constructed now, especially the Dodgers, it seems versatility trumps the ability to crush baseballs. Back in the day, that role was usually filled by veteran players nearing the end of their…
Yesterday, it was said that Sandy Koufax was the greatest pitcher ever…. and I agree with that IF YOU JUST LOOK AT HIS LAST 5 SEASONS! However, in his first 7 seasons, he was really bad, then bad, then pretty good. Then, in his last 5 seasons, he became GREAT! However, what if we narrowed it down to the GREATEST SEASON EVER by a starting pitcher? As great as Koufax…
Back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, when I was going to Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida, I made friends with an old, white-haired baseball writer for Baseball America, named Bill. He was in his mid-70’s, retired, and was there with his wife. Before the games, we would talk about Dodger Prospects. Suddenly, I stopped seeing him, and I assumed that he had moved on to be with the…
I have been a fan of Keith Law since he started as a baseball writer 20 years ago. Before that, he worked in the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays. He graduated from Harvard and Carnegie Mellon Universities. Law blends sabermetrics and scouting into public analysis, especially in prospect evaluation, draft coverage, trades, and advanced metrics. Law’s voice matters because he straddles analytics and traditional baseball culture, pushing for…