One-third of the 162 game season is over! The Dodgers are in first place in the NL West, 2.5 games ahead of the San Diego Padres and 5.5 games ahead of the Midgets. It should not be lost on anyone that the Dodgers have had their #1 and their #2 starters perform poorly and that the #3 and #4 starters have been in the IL most of the season. Let…
Well, it is no battle. That just sounded intimidating. So, yesterday, I wanted to see what fans thought about the Kershaw – Koufax debate… and it pretty much went the way I believed. However, yesterday I deliberately withheld some evidence that may or may not change your minds. This evidence will cause you to re-assess how you might look at things. So, here is the evidence: When Sandy Koufax pitched,…
Why can’t the Dodgers just win every game? Come on, at the rate they are going; they will only win 109 games! That is unacceptable! I had them winning 162. Man, was I off! A lot of us feel that way… even if we don’t admit it, but I am elated that the Dodgers have the record that they do when a lot has gone wrong. Let’s start with the…
Austin Barnes was drafted by the Marlins in the 9th round of the 2011 amateur draft. In December of 2014, Austin was acquired by Andrew Friedman in one of his first trades with the Dodgers. He was a key piece in the Dee Gordon trade wherein the Dodgers traded Dee Gordon, Dan Haren, Miguel Rojas, and cash for Chris Hatcher, Andrew Heaney, Kike Hernandez, and Austin Barnes. Austin Barnes might…
Suddenly, the Giants are four games behind the Dodgers, who are tied with the Yankees for the best record in baseball. They both have a .720 winning percentage, but the Dodgers lead all of baseball in runs scored per game with 5.08. To me, that is an amazing statistic in light of the fact that most Dodger players are not hitting. Look at their batting averages. Freddie Freeman is hitting…
The Dodgers have more RH hitters than LH hitters, but it is close – 7 righties to 5 lefties. Of course, the ratio of LH to RH is not nearly as great, so in that respect, the Dodgers are unique. The problem is that at least three of the LH hitters are the same guy… at least right about now (Bellinger, Muncy, and Rios). Those three players are all hitting…
In 2008, Andrew Friedman took the Tampa Bay Rays to the World Series with a $51,000,000 Dollar Payroll. They didn’t win. The $112,000,000 Dollar Phillies did, but it was remarkable that the Rays made it that far on so little money spent. In 2021, the Dodgers did not even get to the World Series and their payroll was $262,000,000 Dollars. That’s more than 5X what AF paid in 2008. Of…
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. Injuries happen and pitchers are bad one year and great the next. Now, it is not always…
When the Dodgers went 1-2 in Colorado, all of the morons like Bill Plaschke and a host of bloggers wrote about “What we have learned about the Dodgers” and a lot of other drivel. We heard that they had pitching problems and that they were “overhyped.” The only thing they really learned was that they were morons, but we knew that a long time ago. Geeze… after 3 games, you…
I am not a Manfred Man (see what I did there? Not everyone will get that…), but this delay of the baseball season is not on Rob Manfred. It’s on his bosses. He takes his marching orders from them – he does not tell them what to do. Baseball has a huge problem with its ownership. The “have” teams are getting filthy rich and they have a chance to win…