Dodgers Diaries

Let me get this part out of the way first: I love the acquisition of Adrian Gonzalez, a San Diego native who will energize the Latino fan base in Los Angeles. His three-run homer in his first at-bat yesterday is the first of many dividends he will provide. And his defense may be superior to the offensively disappointing James Loney, who went to Boston in this deal.

Let’s just hope somebody can figure out a better nickname for him than A-Gon. Because it has the word “gone” in it, using the first-initial, first syllable of last name nickname structure isn’t quite as lame as it is for A-Rod (M-Teja anyone? S-Vict? A-Eth? A-Puj? M-Hol?

But I hate the other parts of this puzzle. Josh Beckett seems like a malcontent whose best days are behind him. I loved the Hanley Ramirez deal, even though he seemed like a malcontent, too. But Hanley is only 28. Beckett is 32. Big difference there.

Carl Crawford has an albatross of a contract for a player who has never played up to his potential. His ability to steal bases appealed to people who don't understand OPS, but even those days were three years ago. He has stolen just 23 bases in the past two years, and hit just nine triples. His return from Tommy John surgery (for an outfielder!) is another nine months away. As he has gotten older (he just turned 31), he has become injury prone. Nick Punto? The Dodgers already have a third baseman who can’t hit his weight?

I also don't like giving up Allen Webster and Robby de La Rosa, two of the Dodgers top pitching prospects. De La Rosa may not become Pedro Martinez, as some have suggested, but I do believe he would have been the #3 starter in the Dodgers’ rotation in 2013. Not bad when your No. 1 is Clayton Kershaw and your No. 2 is a guy who won six straight starts before hitting the DL.

More than the players involved in the trade, however, I don’t like the economics. Taking on an additional $250+ million in salary for one All-Star and three spare parts is lunacy. It turns the Dodgers into the west coast version of the Yankees, a team that spends its way to success rather than building from within.

I tired of the Yankee way just as I was leaving New York. Bringing in hired guns like A-Rod and Clemens and Teixeira undoubtedly created a team that made the postseason almost every year. But they became a team that was hard to root for, because they were expected to win every game. When they lost, it was almost a personal affront to the fans.

The high payroll also turned Yankee Stadium into a cathedral for the rich. Economists say high player salaries don’t translate into high ticket prices. But I’m wary. The joy of Dodger Stadium is that it’s affordable and timeless in its beauty. Turning it into New Yankee Stadium would make it less appealing to me.

Experts also say the expected TV deal will make a quarter of a billion dollars look like chump change. Again, I’m suspicious. If the Dodgers have this kind of money to waste, they didn’t need to keep Juan Uribe and his piddling $8 million contract on the bench. I worry that a year from now, when Beckett and Crawford are both sucking, management will be just as reluctant to eat those contracts. The only problem is Crawford is signed through 2017. It’s as though, having finally shed the onerous contracts of Juan Pierre and Manny Ramirez (they’re still paying Andruw Jones, if you can believe it!) they decided to take on an even bigger financial headache.

If Crawford stands in the way of the Dodgers playing a better option, be it Yasiel Puig or whoever, this trade will continue to plague them for years down the road.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

A day that began with endless talk about the end of Manny Ramirez’s career with the Dodgers ended on a happier note: The stellar pitching performance of Hiroki Kuroda. Kuroda had a no-no going through 7.2 innings before the hated Shane Victorino broke it up. He also had his first hit at the plate all season, giving him as many as the entire Phillie lineup.

That he did it against a surprisingly hittable Roy Halladay was even more impressive. Halladay didn’t exactly get bombed, but he gave up a staggering 10 hits in seven innings, including a homer to Rod Barajas, making his Dodger Stadium debut in front of 100 of his closest friends and family (he’s from the area and has, like Ted Lilly, long dreamed of wearing the blue).

(A word about guys who supposedly have long wanted to be Dodgers: What stopped you before? If being a Dodger was so important, why not take less money to play for them? Lilly was a free agent in 2007, but he accepted a four-year $40 million deal from the Cubs rather than play for his hometown. Let’s hope Lilly likes being a Dodger as much as he likes $40 million.)

Halladay, meanwhile, has pitched with some awful luck this year. In his 10 losses, the Phils have scored a total of 23 runs this year. Monday night was the second time they’ve been shutout while Halladay was on the mound; meanwhile, the doctor has held his opponents scoreless seven times. (and given up just one unearned run on another occasion). In 28 starts, he has yet to be removed before the sixth inning.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

The season is now just three games long. Three games for the Dodgers to determine whether they are in the race or not. Three games for them to decide whether Manny Ramirez is worth holding onto for five more weeks.

Judging by the fact that Manny hasn’t started the past three days and is not in the starting lineup Sunday, that decision has already been made. Manny is as good as gone. They’re being extra cautious with him, assuring he won’t get injured before a trade can be consummated.

So why go on with the charade that they’re actually in a pennant race? Why not make it official and unload Hiroki Kuroda to the Yankees at the same time? Vicente Padilla’s on the DL, otherwise he’d be another fire sale candidate. Might as well showcase Ted Lilly one last time and include him in a deal. He’s been great as a Dodger, and I hope he signs here in the offseason, but unless he can also play left field and OPS .900, he’s not going to do it alone. Lilly is in fact a terrible hitter, even as pitchers go.

It pains me to see three outfielders wearing White Sox pinstripes while still collecting deferred money from Los Angeles (Manny, Fat Andruw Jones and Slappy Pierre). Only a three-game winning streak can stop that from happening.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

I have pretty much given up on the likelihood of the Dodgers making the playoffs. But I haven’t given up on the possibility that they could make the playoffs. The wild card is a wonderful thing for those bereft of any other chances. Without the wild card, the Padres would be ahead of the Reds by 2.5 games and the Braves by 3.5 games in the West, while the Phils would be ahead of the Cards by one game. The Dodgers would still be 10 out.

With the wild card, however, their deficit is just 4.5, and they have games remaining against all the teams in front of them except St. Louis. If the Dodgers do make the playoffs, it’s going to be because they play exceptional baseball down the stretch. They can’t count on all four of the teams ahead of them to falter.

Which brings us to Manny Ramirez. Before the current four-game winning streak began, I’d have said sure, dump him on the White Sox for whatever you can get. The guy has never been one of my favorites, and his presence in the lineup has been so erratic that it’s hard to argue he has made that much of a difference. But with just 33 games to go, the finish line is in sight, and Manny has always been best when he can see the finish line.

Manny is making $10 million in salary this year, so dumping him for the last 1/5th of the season would save at best $2 million. It’s hard to say what prospects the Dodgers might get back from Chicago in exchange. I tend to doubt the White Sox would give up on any real prospects for five weeks of Manny.

There’s still the chance the Dodgers could make the playoffs without Manny on the roster. But selling him off would be seen as an admission that the season is over. The Dodgers might lose more than $2 million in gate receipts, merchandise, and concessions if attendance were to fall off for the last 15 games of the year.

I imagine there’s already a deal in place with the White Sox. But there are still four games before Sept. 1. If the Dodgers win three or more of those games, I suspect they’ll hold onto Manny. If they lose three or more, they’ll trade him. The hardest questions will be if they win two and lose two.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

It’s time to add another entry to the best games of Vicente Padilla’s career .

Wednesday night’s shutout of the Padres may be the best of all. Like the others, he gave up two hits. Unlike the others, Joe Torre actually left him in the game to finish the job. When the Dodgers tallied five times in the bottom of the 8th to put the game out of reach, you could smell Torre wondering whether he should bring in Travis Schlichting or Elmer Dessens to close out the ninth. Instead, he let Nicaragua’s second-greatest pitcher finish his 105-pitch outing and saved the bullpen for Thursday’s finale.

It may all be too little too late for the Dodgers. But there are still 54 games to go. The Dodgers will have to win at least 35 of those games, and probably 40. But if the starting pitchers continue to put on performances like they’ve been doing since the All-Star Break, they have a chance.

Nice to see Andre Ethier wake up with a big game: Two doubles and a homer. With Matt Kemp taking a step back in his development, Furcal hurt, Martin possibly out for the season, Blake struggling, and Manny Ramirez returning who knows when, Ethier will have to carry the team offensively. James Loney will have to help.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Sigh.

Is this how it all ends, not with a flameout by Jonathan Broxton, but with a whimper by the offense? The Dodgers’ 2010 season may have come to a close Sunday with their 2-0 shutout by the hated Giants, completing a payback sweep from June. The Dodgers are 8 back in the division and 6 in the wild card and show no signs of pepping up.

Larry Bowa found lots of places to lay the blame and has used a well-known LA Times columnist as his megaphone. I won’t link to it for the same reason baseball games don’t show the morons who run on the field: I don’t want to encourage that kind of writing.

I believed this team was flawed at the beginning of the season, and I’ve seen nothing all year to dissuade me of that opinion. Bringing in Ted Lilly was a long overdue solution for the fourth starter role, but the time to do that was in April, when Charlie Haeger and James McDonald were costing the team games. Bringing in Lilly for just two months now may be too little too late.

If the cost of Lilly was Blake DeWitt for Ryan Theriot, I’m not sure the Dodgers improved themselves. Theriot is quick and a capable defender, but his OBP is terrible. As Orel Hershiser quickly deduced on the Sunday telecast, he seems afraid to take a 3-2 pitch. He’s also six years older than DeWitt and a whole lot more expensive.

Octavio Dotel for James McDonald and Andrew Lambo bothers me a little less. Dotel seems to be exactly the same kind of closer as Jonathan Broxton: Good in easy spots, but can’t get the big saves. McDonald showed in two straight seasons that he wasn’t capable of retiring major league hitters on a consistent basis. Lambo is much heralded in the Dodger organization, but his 50-game suspension for PEDs makes me wonder whether his talent was real or man-made.

Scott Podsednik added a left-handed bat to a team that needed a right-handed one. He’ll be the fourth outfielder if and when Manny returns. If the Dodgers are out of it and Manny is dealt to a team in contention, Pods will play out the string in left field.

In all, I see the Dodgers made a lot of moves that didn’t really make them all that much better. This team was built on Manny Ramirez providing pop in the middle of the order, and without him, it’s not capable of producing runs. Sunday’s lineup attempted to manufacture runs by placing speed in the top three spots. But speed alone doesn’t win games. You can’t steal first, as the 1-for-11 performance demonstrated. Theriot’s OBP is too low for that strategy to work, and Podsednik’s caught-stealing rate makes him as much of a liability as Matt Kemp on the bases.

It’s not over. The 2007 Rockies showed you can go .500 for the first five months of the season and then go on a winning streak that will take you through the playoffs. We’ll see if the Dodgers are capable of that kind of performance.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

What a difference a three-game winning streak makes. Playing back in their own age group, the Dodgers smoked the lowly Giants three times in a row, with good pitching performances all around.

Are the Dodgers good, or the Giants bad? A little of both perhaps. Matt Cain seems able to beat every other team in the National League, but the Dodgers give him fits. Jonathan Sanchez has no-hit stuff some nights, but in Wednesday’s matinee, a team of supersubs (no Ethier, no Manny, no Blake, no Dewitt) found him thoroughly hittable. Oh, and did I mention the Dodgers evaded Tim Lincecum?

Matt Kemp’s return from his Joe Torre-imposed timeout has to hearten everyone. Kemp worked the count to three balls three times before collecting a single, a home run and a walk. Yes, he struck out, but he showed the kind of discipline that will make him a much more dangerous hitter.

I’d still trade him straight up for Cliff Lee, but only if the Dodgers can sign Lee to a long-term deal. Given everything we’ve heard about the team’s finances, that’s not going to happen during Divorce McCourt.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

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

I’ve been to two Dodger games this year, and the team has lost both of them. But Sunday’s was so much more satisfying than the April 17 9-0 loss to Lincecum and the dreaded Giants. In that game, Charlie Haeger pitched in and out of trouble all afternoon, surrendering 7 runs in 3 innings, and was emblematic of all that plagued the Dodgers’ pitching staff. The defense was lousy, and the Furcal-less, Manny-less, Blake-less offense was inept, mustering just seven singles and a double, and not getting a runner to third base until the ninth inning.

Sunday’s game, but contrast, was more of a near miss. The Tigers jumped out to a 3-0 lead, courtesy of a Miguel Cabrera rocket off starter Hiroki Kuroda. But the Tigers scored in the first inning of the two previous games, only to go silent for the next five or six innings thereafter. And Sunday was no exception. Kuroda shut down the potent Detroit offense through the sixth, and would have pitched into the seventh had his spot not come up with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the sixth.

Manny Ramirez, hitting for Kuroda, grounded out weakly, though in his defense, his meager grounder was in the direction of Mannywood, even if it didn’t get out of the infield. In the tall tale of Manny being Manny, they’ll probably omit this deflating moment. That episode too was symbolic of this game. The Dodgers had many chances to win it, but kept coming up short. Mostly, they lost because they kept hitting the ball right at Tigers’ starter Rick Porcello, who will take his black and blue marks as long as they gave him the victory.

Porcello snared a Matt Kemp line drive in the first and turned it into a double play. An inch to the left or right and the ball goes through the middle for a run-scoring single. In the 4th, James Loney hit Porcello with another grounder, but the pitcher fielded it in time to get Kemp at second, and almost turned another double play. If that ball gets by Porcello, a run scores and there’s one out with men on firs and second instead of two gone and runners on the corners.

In the 8th, Ronnie Belliard hit into a double play subbing for Blake DeWitt, who made a nifty play in short right field, and Russell Martin hit into a tough ground out double play to end he game in the ninth. If the team had been scuffling all week, we’d point to this as another example of its ineptitude. But because they’ve been playing so well, I’m happy to chalk it up to the way the ball bounces over a long season.

The other constant in both games has been Garret Anderson starts in left field. Correlation with losing? You be the judge.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

No, I’m not going to take credit for the fine performance put on Sunday by the 2010 Dodgers. But I’m going to enjoy it. Great pitching (on both sides) and some extremely timely hitting from Manny Ramirez, who seems to have a flair for the dramatic, in case you haven’t noticed, contributed to a thrilling 2-1 victory over the visiting Giants.

If only Clayton Kershaw could have gotten the win. The 22-year-old lefty has a talent for pitching brilliantly, only to see the game decided after he departs. Can’t blame him for Sunday’s game: he gave the Dodgers 7 strong innings, and maybe went a batter too far when he gave up a home run to Juan Uribe. Ramon Troncos snuck off with the victory, as he was the last of the four FOUR! Pitchers Torre used in the 8th inning to get three outs.

As if to underline the point I made yesterday, Jonathan Broxton got his first opportunity 12 games into the season. Thankfully, he converted it with six strikes on eight pitches.

Day off today means the nobody in the bullpen will have to work consecutive days for a bit. They’ll need the rest: the Dodgers play 13 games in a row until their next off day May 3. Prepare for a lot of Jeff Weaver. Those games are against the Reds, Nationals, Mets, and Pirates. They need to make hay against the underbelly of their schedule if they’re going to compete this year.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

No amount of Andre Ethier offense was going to make up for the Dodger pitching staff’s woes on Saturday. If Ethier had come to the plate 8 times, he probably couldn’t have hit enough homers to mask this ugly loss.

Charlie Haeger couldn’t throw his knuckleball for a strike, and the Giants waited on him to make a mistake, which he did plenty of. He was gone after three innings, trailing 7-0.

The Giants trailed 7-0 after two innings Friday, but managed to rally to come within 10-8 by the time it was all said and done. The Dodgers on Saturday mailed in the rest of the game.

Of course, Tim Lincecum was pitching, and he makes it easy to look like you’re not trying. But lazy and poor defense also came before, during and after the Giants’ offensive outburst. Even Joe Torre seemed to concede this one before it had even started. He rested not only Russell Martin for a day game after a night game, but also Casey Blake, Manny Ramirez and Rafael Furcal. I can’t blame him. Their replacements didn’t do much: Rafael Belliard missed an easy grounder in the first inning and Jamey Carroll, despite getting two hits, made an error in the fourth that opened the door to a big inning. Garret Anderson was involved in one of the weirder fielder’s choice plays I’ve ever seen (as a left fielder, no less), but whiffed twice in an 0-4 night.

Troubling signs the Dodgers have not held an opponent under 4 runs in over a week (Friday’s 7-3 win over Florida). They’ve gone 3-4 in that skein, thanks largely to timely hitting. I don’t hear any more talk about the Dodgers’ average with RISP. For them to win consistently, they’re going to have to pitch better, not hit better.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Being a travel writer, I have to name Brian Barton as my new favorite Dodger. Being well-traveled isn’t exactly a feather in one’s cap in baseball terms. And indeed, the 28-year-old outfielder has seen his share of minor and major league towns since being drafted.

If he never sticks with a big league club, Barton has a promising career ahead of him as an aerospace engineer. I’m rooting that he gets to go out and play for a while before he settles into a desk job.

For a complete interview with Barton see the following story from the Riverfront Times.

Barton is among the 33 players who will make the Dodgers’ trip to Taiwan next week. Of course he is. With experience visiting more than a dozen countries, he’s better traveled than the rest of the roster put together. What’s interesting to me is how little international travel experience the rest of the roster has. From the Dodgers’ PR staff:

SEEING THE WORLD – A survey of the Dodgers’ Taiwan roster reveals that there are several international travelers in the group. Among the more unique places that Dodger players and coaches have traveled are Spain and Morocco (Jon Link), England (Josh Towers), Holland and Cuba (Chin-lung Hu), Brazil and Japan (Manny Ramirez), Belgium (J.D. Closser), Colombia and Panama (Ronnie Belliard), Germany and Italy (Lucas May), Argentina and China (Xavier Paul) and Saudi Arabia (John Shoemaker). Brian Barton is the most seasoned traveler, having visited more than a dozen countries, including Ethiopia and Peru.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL