I think it was DodgerRick who coined the moniker “El Gasolino” in reference to Pedro Baez. He has also been called “The Human Rain Delay” because an infielder can make a sandwich and drink a beer between pitches. I also call him “Dumb” because you can’t get major league hitters out with a fastball as your only pitch unless you can throw it 120 MPH! The offensive explosion caused by…
Kenta Maeda appears close to mastering a changeup, which could help him pitch deeper into games. We will see. Kenley Jansen did not make his appearance yesterday due to a tight hamstring. Hopefully it’s just tight and not pulled. The Dodgers have 18 players OPS’ing 1.000 or more. That’s sick! Kyle Farmer leads the way at 1.579. Toles and Verdugo have shown they belong although Verdugo wil likely go to…
Many Dodger fans think that Chris Taylor will move to 2B in 2019 after Logan Forsythe moves on. While that is not a crazy idea, we need to realize that Chris Taylor is a pretty good CF – He is a conscientious Top 10 CF… maybe Top 5 by the end of 2018 (that is to be decided). While I am not against moving Taylor to 2B, who plays Center…
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support, refute, or validate a hypothesis. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Make no mistake, the Dodgers are going to carry out the Matt Kemp Experiment… and it is truly an “EXPERIMENT.” We did a few experiments in high school chemistry class, some of which caused violent explosions, but some were pretty…
The New MLB Pipeline Dodger Top 30 prospeccts have been published. Jim Callis is a premier minor league talent evaluator. He is not the typical sabermetrics talent evaluator. He uses the eye test as well. If he has not seen the player live, he has studied hours of tape. Some people prefer Eric Logenhagen of Fangraphs or Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser, but I am partial to Jim Callis. The…
Contrary to what the Dodgers say, I do not believe there is a battle to determine who the starting left-fielder will be. It has already been decided. When Matt Kemp showed up early to Spring Training 40 pounds lighter and looking to be in the best shape of his life, he had a leg up on the competition and when he blasted a HR in his first game, the deal…
The Dodgers will not win 104 games this year… and I am not saying that they aren’t as good as last year. Depending upon how things shake out, you could be even better. They just won’t win as many games because all the teams in the NL West are better… in fact, most of the teams in the NL are better… except for maybe the Marlins and the Pirates. Competition…
When a rookie pitcher gets a September call-up, one of three things generally happens: They look bad; They look mediocre; or They look good! Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals came up in September and put up a 13.50 ERA, but followed that up with a 3.12 ERA the next year. There are many other instances of where pitchers did not impress in their September auditions, but came back and were…
I am going to go out on a limb and make a few predictions as to what could or might happen during Spring Training. Pitchers and Catchers are just hours away from reporting, so I am going to throw out a few things to look for. Watch Kiebert Ruiz. You are going to be amazed at how good of a catcher he is and expecially his footwork behind the plate,…
Three weeks before pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report, and the free agent market is still in slow motion. MLBTR listed 50 top free agents. Of those 50, 25 remain unsigned, including eight of the top ten. Of those eight, only Darvish is rumored close to signing. What’s to become of the other seven; JDM, Hosmer, Arrieta, Moustakas, Cain, Lynn, & Holland? There are no fresh rumors. Four of…