Dodgers Diaries

I'll make this argument only because it's the same one I made before the Dodgers were thinking about re-signing Manny Ramirez after the 2008 season. They could have had Adam Dunn for half the price and spent the difference ($12.5 million per year) on pitching. Dunn's offensive numbers since the beginning of the 2009 season have been better than Manny's (.941 OPS compared to .934) and he has played in 73 more games than Manny has, meaning that there were fewer starts by players with much lower OPS like Reed Johnson or Juan Pierre.

It’s fair to say that Dodger pitching was pretty good in 2009, notwithstanding the team’s failure to sign anyone other than Randy Wolf. Even with Dunn instead of Manny, they probably didn’t have the scratch to match the Yankees’ offer to CC Sabathia. But $12.5 million would have bought Ryan Dempster. Or paired with the $5 million the Dodgers spent on Wolf, they could have landed A.J. Burnett.

Would any of this have made a difference in 2009, when the Dodgers easily won their division and made the NLCS for the second straight year? Who can say. Neither Ryan Dempster nor Adam Dunn was going to make Jonathan Broxton any less afraid to pitch to Matt Stairs. In all likelihood, a Dunn-Dempster trade for Manny would have yielded the exact same results.

Speaking of Johnson, the L.A. Times reported that he refused to shave his unfortunate Fu Manchu because of baseball superstition: The team was winning. Thursday's loss should be occasion for him to doff it. While he’s got the razors out, Russell Martin needs to get rid of that horrendous pornstache he’s been sporting lately. It’s the ghost of Jeff Kent.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL