This year will be Julio Urias’ 8th season as a Dodger, during which time he has made almost $30 Million Dollars. His next contract will be for ten years and be around $400 Million. He will make more in one season than he has in his whole career. When he hits free agency, he will be just 27 years old! That put him at the intersection of entering his prime…
I started to think about this after Yoshida was signed by the Red Sox. The Dodgers were one of the first teams to dive into the Asian market. The Giants were the first team to ever have an Asian player when they signed Masanori Murakami back in 1964. He saw some success as a reliever. His last season with SF was 1965, It would be 30 years before another would…
There’s a pretty good chance, unless you are an ardent student of “old-time” baseball and you are a scholarly student of the Negro Leagues, that you have never heard of Bullet Rogan. I have to confess that I knew very little of Bullet Joe Rogan until my recent article on the Negro Leagues. Frankly, even with the information we have, there is far too little known about him. From those…
Players are expected to report to camp beginning today and there are a couple of topics that have caught my attention. It has been close to 50 years since MLB moved from a four man rotation into the current five man rotation. However for 2020, in an abbreviated season, the six man rotation is being considered. There are now a couple of teams coming out indicating that they are going…
Earlier I listed the teams in each of their proposed divisions. At the time, it was anticipated that the Braves and Pirates would switch divisions, but otherwise the two West divisions, the two Central divisions, and the two East divisions would join together to form a single West, Central, and East division. The starting pitching in the West figures to range from terrific to bad to really bad. The Dodgers…
As we are getting ready to see who the Dodgers first opponent will be in the post season, it is extremely difficult for me to consume any negativity ascribed to the Dodgers after this season. No conditional statements…they were great. The best team in LA Dodgers history. I say LA Dodgers because the 1953 team that 105, did so with 8 less games. I still read from some how bad…
Don’t think about that too long. It might hurt your brain. I know it did severe damage to mine… well, I’ll blame it on that anyway! Here we are – less than two weeks from OPENING DAY and we know a lot, but we don’t know what we don’t know, and that is the conundrum under which we currently operate. What We Know We Know OK, I’ll get this first…
Think about this: One of the first free agents signed last year was Charlie Morton by the Astros. Charlie was a 33 year-old journeyman pitcher who went 14-7 with a 3.62 ERA (1.193 WHIP) in the regular season and then put up a 1.74 ERA (0.581 WHIP) and was the winning pitcher in the clinching game of the World Series. What I remember is that “experts” from many sources ridiculed…
By the time Brandon Morrow got to the big leagues in 2017, the Dodgers were ready for someone to set-up Kenley Jansen on the back of the bullpen. Brandon Morrow filled that bill and while I would love to have him back, there are two problems: (1) He was healthy last year, but he has generally never been that healthy at any time in his career; and (2) some other…
Anyone who really believes they know what the Master Plan is could be delusional. One thing I have learned is that one never knows in what direction FAZ goes. Did anyone truly believe that FAZ would have signed all three 2016 FA? Most did not even think Hill was a consideration, and that FAZ would only sign one of Jansen and Turner. I thought that Turner would come back (LA…