24 replies to this topic

[Dionysus]

The Dodgers won 95 games last season to win the NL West by 3 games, but look to have a lot of work to do to gear up for 2010, especially with Colorado ready to try and take the division from them. Let's take a quick look at who's leaving.

Brad Asumus, C
Ronnie Belliard, 2B (B)
Juan Casto, SS
Jon Garland, SP (B)
Orlando Hudson, 2B (A)
Mark Loretta, 2b
Doug DontthinkImgoingtotry, 1B
Eric Milton, SP
Guillermo Mota, RP (B)
Will Ohman, RP (B)
Vicente Padilla, SP (B)
Jason Schmidt, SP
Jim Thome, 1B
Jeff Weaver, SP
Randy Wolf, SP (A)

The Dodgers, unsurprisingly, picked up Manny's option almost right away. The departure of Belliard will probably please fans who don't have to see Torre play him in crucial games anymore.

It appears that the Dodgers chief offseason goals will be starting pitching - they lose Wolf, Padilla, Garland and Weaver and will need pitchers to fill out the rotation after Billingsley, Kuroda and Kershaw - and second base, where they have absolutely nothing right now - not even any bench players. The real question is how much money they have to spend with the McCourts divorce.

I'll have more later.

Edited by Dionysus, 20 November 2009 - 02:20 PM.

[RamRez]

I live in Los Angeles now, so I guess that the Dodgers will be my adopted NL team. I bid a bittersweet farewell to NatsTown!

Lots of Dodgers news since this thread was started. To get roughly caught up:

Vincente Padilla will be back with the Dodgers in 2010: he just signed a 1 year, $4M deal with the club, with an additional $1M signing bonus due in 2011. Padilla performed well after joining the Dodgers most of the way through last season, posting a 3.20 ERA over 39.1 regular season innings. Padilla also turned in two great games and one stinker in the playoffs last year, including seven innings of 4-hit, shutout baseball against the then-defending Champs. Of course, Padilla also shot himself in the leg during the off-season--probably one reason (among several) why he'll be earning a lot less than the $12M he pulled in last season.

A few weeks earlier, the Dodgers also signed a deal with potential stud Chad Billingsley. The one year deal is worth $3.85M. Billingsley started out hot last year, but took a turn for the worse in the second half of the season (poor run support also deserving some of the blame), before ultimately riding the pine for almost all of the Dodgers playoff run. Overall, Billingsley put up a 4.03 ERA in just over 196 innings last year. He claims some mechanical problems as well as some hamstring issues are to blame for his late season decline.

The Dodgers also brought back the linchpin of their bullpen, closer Jonathan Broxton. Broxton signed a two year deal, which will take him through the remainder of his arbitration eligible period. He'll earn $4M in 2010 and $7M in 2011. Broxton allowed 22 earned runs in 76 innings last year, with a nice 0.96 WHIP and 11.5 K/9.

The Dodgers also brought back some young studs on offense. Andre Ethier (who played out of his mind in the three Dodger games I attended in person last season--I think he owes me some of this cash) also inked a two year deal worth over $15M (details in the Broxton article above). Gold Glove and Silver Slugger winner Matt Kemp will take home nearly $11M over the next two years. The team also brings back George Sherril, James Loney, Russell Martin, and reliever Hong-Chih Kuo, all on one year deals. On a related note, I was interested to see that the Martin re-up didn't even merit a stand-alone mention on the Dodgers webpage--it was just a short while ago I thought Martin was going to be a superstar.

So, it looks like the Dodgers are pretty content to stand pat with the roster that carried them into Game 5 of the NLCS last year.

[RamRez]

I'm a little surprised by the lack of attention the Dodgers see here on SoSH, especially given that they've seemed like the West Coast haven for Red Sox refugees for most of the past decade or so. In any case, I'll give this thread a bit of a nudge... and perhaps with the Dodgers coming to Fenway soon (and with the legendary Vin Scully broadcasting one of those games!), we'll see a bit more action here.

The Dodgers enter the day (June 7, 2010) 33-24, putting them just a half-game behind the rather shocking division leader, the San Diego Padres. They are making a bit of a surge here after a horrific start to the season. Indeed, their past week or so has been a thrilling one for local fans--they've had four walk off (or, in one case, balk-off!) victories, a seven of their last eight games have been decided by only one run (six of which were in the Dodgers' favor).

The Dodgers biggest question mark entering the season was starting pitching, and with good cause: no one really wants to see Vincente Padilla trotting out to the mound in the first game of a new season (Sadly for those of you holding tickets to the Dodgers' first game in Fenway, Padilla is scheduled to return on the 18th). Lately, though, some young starting pitchers have putting racking up some good innings for the team. In particular, 24-year old rookie John Ely has been doing his best Mike Leake impression: even after a relatively rough outing this weekend, Ely is boasting a respectable 3.00 ERA in 51 innings pitched, and he's striking out nearly seven batters per nine innings, while walking fewer than two. He had a nice run of quality starts, and is starting to garner a bit of attention, both locally and nationally (warning: ridiculous Harry Met Sally theme in that ESPN column. Not for the faint of heart).

Also providing some starting pitching help has been another 24-year old rookie, Venezuelan Carlos Monasterios. The converted reliever will never be a star, and doesn't seem to make it beyond 5 innings, but he's been pitching pretty well, all things considered. He's the scheduled starter tonight, and will bring an ERA of 1.87 and a WHIP of 1.04 into tonight's matchup against the Cardinals. This will also be my first Dodger game of the season, so I'm looking forward to seeing him in person for the first time--hopefully, he can follow up on his 5 innings of shut out ball from last week. If he does, look for the still skeptical Joe Torre to tap him as the team's #5 starter.

Beyond Ely and Monasterios, the Dodgers' can run out Clayton Kershaw, who seems to be settling into a groove, and the somewhat mercurial Chad Billingsley, plus a whole lot of dreck. Their relief corps has been pretty decent, especially mainstay closer Jonathan Broxton, who continues to be a stud. George Sherrill, the team's nice deadline pick-up from last season, is due to come of the DL next week.

The Dodgers offense has been about as expected for the season, with Andre Ethier seemingly capturing some walk-off lightning in a bottle before spending some time on the DL. A pleasant recent surprise has been the play of utility infielder, Jamey Carroll over the past week. To my surprise, I hear much more about Ethier than I do about Manny these days here in LA (caveat: I certainly don't qualify as a die-hard Dodgers fan--rather, I'm just a die-hard baseball fan who happens to be living in LA--so my case may not be typical).

The NL West has been fairly unpredictable this year--I mean, really, the Padres lead not just the division but the entire NL?!?--but as of today, I'd say things are looking good for the Dodgers to hoist another Division Championship this year. With no clear NL beast (a four team logjam just after those miraculous Padres), it's not outside of the realm of possibility for the Dodgers to play well into the Fall. And with this possibly being Vin Scully's final year calling games, that's not a bad thing.

[RamRez]

A few thoughts after attending last night's game (a fun 12-4 romp by the Dodgers) in person.

First off, I may have to revise my opinion on the relative popularity of Ethier vs. Manny. Manny definitely got the louder applause last night. However, the "Mannywood" section in shallow left field was almost empty.

Secondly, it should be noted that Carlos Monasterious made an awfully nice case to be the Dodgers' nnumber 5 starter. He pitched the longest outing of his career, facing the first two batters of the seventh inning. He held Pujols and Holliday hitless; and all in all, only gave up four hits and three walks. He didn't allow anything with runners in scoring position, apart from one walk.

The downside: there we are lot of hard hit balls caught on the warning track; two of those four hits were home runs to Cardinals RF Ryan Ludwick (the second of which was just an inch or two away from being a fantastic catch by Matt Kemp); zero strike-outs; and he definitely tired late, giving up the second home run, all of the walks, and one of the other hits in or after the fifth inning.

Circumstances (seats, company) kept me from getting a good read on his stuff, but thankfully, we've got PitchFX for that.





All in all, I'd say my view hasn't changed too much--Monasterios doesn't seem like a star in the making (picking up only one swinging strike all night is probably not a recipe for stardom), but you could certainly do much worse for your fill-in 5th starter. Heck, if he has a few more games like this, an NL team could probably do much worse for their full time third starter. I'd previously noted Joe Torre's skepticism, but it sounds like last night may have been enough to convince Torre that Monasterios is worth keeping around as a long man, if nothing else.

[RamRez]

The good news for Dodgers fans: Los Dodgers enter the day with the best record in the NL, and trail only the Rays and the Yankees for the best record in all of baseball. This is thanks in part to the team's first 3-game home sweep of the Cardinals since 1988. More good news: the team gets its first day off in 17 days today.

The bad news for Dodgers fans: most of them are convinced that the team deliberately tanked their first round draft choice. True, that may seem to be the height of idiocy; but then again, it's forgivable to reach that conclusion when said first round draft pick announced his intention to be play quarterback for the LSU Tigers just one day after being drafted. These are the kind of things that happen when your owner and your former team president are divorcing each other, I suppose. Still, if the team can convince Zach Lee to sign prior to the mid-August deadline, that would be a nice pick-up; and in the worst case scenario, they add a nice sandwich pick in next year's draft.

The other exciting bit of news from the draft for Dodger fans was that the team drafted young stud Andre Ethier's little brother in the 32nd round. They also drafted a third Wallach brother in the 43rd round: Chad (RHP) joins his brothers © Matt and Brett (RHP) as well as father Tim (AAA affiliate manager) in the organization, no doubt setting the stage for some truly awful Saving Private Ryan metaphors from Dodgers Minor League bloggers.

Up next for the Dodgers: hosting a quick 3-game series against their crosstown (kind of) rivals (kind of), the Los Angeles Angeles of Anaheim, California, USA, Earth. Let's see how the suddenly-pretty-solid Dodgers rotation does against AL bats. Pitching matchups: Pineiro vs Billingsley; Kazmir vs Ely; Weaver vs Monasterios.

[SoxScout]

LOS ANGELES -- Left-hander Scott Elbert, the Dodgers' Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2009 and a former first-round pick, left the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes this week, apparently upset with his recent demotion from the Major Leagues.

Elbert, 24, was called up May 28 when infielder Nick Green was designated for assignment to give the Dodgers an extra left-handed reliever for their series in Colorado. He pitched the next day against the Rockies, walking three left-handed hitters and allowing a single in two-thirds of an inning. Elbert was sent back to Albuquerque after the next game.

Elbert had been a starter in Albuquerque before his promotion and made one start after returning to Albuquerque, allowing one run on four hits in five innings June 3. In nine starts for the Isotopes this year, Elbert is 1-1 with a 4.98 ERA and 34 walks in 43 1/3 innings.

The Dodgers placed Elbert on the Minor League temporary inactive list. One Dodgers player said he's been unable to reach Elbert by phone or text.

Classic: http://losangeles.do...t...jsp&c_id=la

[RamRez]

It's been covered on the main board already, but in the interest of completeness: we're starting to get a clearer picture of the likely pitching match-ups for the Dodger's upcoming trip to Fenway, and it appears that Chad Billingsley won't be part of it, having just been placed on the 15-day DL with a groin injury.

Instead, the pitching match-ups are expected to be

Monasterios vs Doubront

Padilla vs Wakefield

Kuroda vs Buchholz

Not exactly match-ups to make pitching fans' hearts go pitter-patter. With Wake taking the mound against the Dodgers opening day starter--yes, it's true, Padilla really was the Dodgers' opening day starter--the Sox still have to feel pretty good about taking that particular game.

Monasterios will be coming in stronger than one might have expected, though, as described above; and Billingsley's move to the DL keeps him out of the bullpen and in the rotation for another few weeks. Kuroda will be following up his five innings of shut-out, 8K ball in last night's 12-0 mauling of the Cincinnati Reds. Kuroda's outing included a strong 5th inning pitched after a ~2.5 hour rain delay. That Sunday game probably projects to be the most entertaining of the three--although with my new favorite NL team playing my actual real favorite baseball team, I'm sure I'll be watching all three. We'll see if the Sox can do as the Angles recently did and feast on a weaker NL team.

In other news, the Dodgers don't seem to be one of the teams pursuing a Mr. Pedro Martinez to join their starting rotation, despite the fact that a) they are starting Vincente Padilla, for God's sakes, and b) I could really use the help in trying to get a bit more activity in this Dodgers thread. I guess Nick Cardafo was on to something when suggesting that Pedro still "harbors bad feelings toward the Dodgers, the team he came up with and the one that traded him to the Expos." Still, I'll be hoping that Cardafo is wrong, if only for the purely selfish reasons of wanting to Pedro in person for the first time in ages.

[RamRez]

Scott Podsednik, Los Angeles Dodger. It was mentioned in the general MLB Trade Deadline thread, and now we have a bit more details. Evidently, Los Dodgers picked him up for their top catching prospect and an A-ball pitcher.

ESPN's write up of the trade

And Baseball Ref pages for the two prospects:

Lucas "Luke" May, catcher

Elisaul Pimentel, right-handed starting pitcher

I haven't been in Los Angeles long enough to start following the Dodgers farm system, so I don't know much about these two apart from what I can glean from the stats sheet and some quick web browsing. From that, I'd say that this deal is pretty much a "Meh" kind of deal--Podsednik is nothing special, but they didn't give up too much to get him. May, despite being LA's 'top catching prospect', ain't much of a catching prospect at all. Pimentel has had a pretty good line this year, but a good year of single A doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot.

[jon abbey]

Joe Torre and the Yankees have broken Broxton (not that he's ever been able to close out Philly), 0.83 ERA coming into that June 27 game where he threw 48 pitches, 9.88 ERA in the seven weeks since.

[RamRez]

The good news for Dodgers fans: Los Dodgers enter the day with the best record in the NL, and trail only the Rays and the Yankees for the best record in all of baseball. This is thanks in part to the team's first 3-game home sweep of the Cardinals since 1988. More good news: the team gets its first day off in 17 days today.

The bad news for Dodgers fans: most of them are <a href="http://sports.espn.g...ory?id=5266883" target="_blank">convinced that the team deliberately tanked their first round draft choice</a>. True, that may seem to be the height of idiocy; but then again, it's forgivable to reach that conclusion when said first round draft pick announced his intention to be play quarterback for the LSU Tigers just one day after being drafted. These are the kind of things that happen when your owner and your former team president are divorcing each other, I suppose. Still, if the team can convince Zach Lee to sign prior to the mid-August deadline, that would be a nice pick-up; and in the worst case scenario, they add a nice sandwich pick in next year's draft.

Checking back in on this older post, some things have changed quite a bit. The Dodgers have gone from best record in the NL to well out of the playoff race: as of today (August 18), they are 11.5 games behind the division leading Padres (a phrase that still sounds strange to me!) and seven games back and trailing several others for a wild card spot. As mentioned above, the Dodgers bullpen is a shambles, despite the fact that the team for some reason decided to spend a decent pair of prospects for Octavio Dotel. Super-stud Jonathan Broxton has looked bad enough to be removed from his position as closer. Not happy times in Dodgertown.

The silver lining, though, is that Los Dodgers proved a lot of people--me included--wrong by actually signing draft pick Zach Lee. A signing bonus of a cool $5.25 million, spread out over five years, was enough to lure Lee away from the football fields of Baton Rouge. Lee was widely acknowledged to be a top-tier talent, and only feel to the Dodgers at the 28th overall pick over signability issues. It's likely that Lee will debut in the Arizona Instructional League in the fall.

The linked article also notes some of the other last-minute signings made by the Dodgers.

[RamRez]

Going after Ted Lilly still seems like a bit of an odd move to me, given the low likelihood that the Dodgers make a playoff run and the fact that he's only under contract for this year, but Lilly sure has looked good in a Dodger uniform these past few weeks. His complete game, two-hit shutout of the Rockies last night gave Lilly his fourth win in four starts since joining the team. That's 28.0 innings of 1.29 ERA, 302 ERA+ ball, with a healthy 6.50 K / BB ratio.

It seems unlikely that the Dodgers will offer him arbitration, though, so they'll basically lose him for nothing. But I'm sure this streak will have many fans hoping he resigns here in the off-season--he can clearly be a pretty effective NL pitcher.

[RamRez]

Well, the Dodgers 2010 season looks worse and worse, but the 2011 season just started looking better: Vin Scully will be back. Hallelujah for that!

That and the Zach Lee signing are about the only good news these days for Dodger fans. It might be a good time for some of that patented SOSH analysis on why, exactly, the 2010 Dodgers are where they are.

Where they are right now is 63-62, second to last in their division--twelve games behind the division-leading Padres--and eight games out of wild card contention. Now, I don't think many people were predicting World Series rings for the Dodgers, but given that this is essentially the exact same roster that carried them to the NLCS each of the past two years, I think most people (myself included) to be much closer to securing some October games. What went wrong?

The team is performing basically exactly to their Pythagorean W-L expectation, so freakishly bad luck would seem to be unlikely. And though there have been some key injuries--some guy named M. Ramirez has missed quite a bit of time this season, and may go on waivers again soon--they haven't had anything like the injury plague we've seen in Boston this year. The fact that the team is playing like the Cubs on the road (Dodgers road record: 24-35) and the Braves at home (39-27) provides a explanation, but only a superficial one.

ESPN-LA's Tony Jackson puts the blame on the heart of the Dodgers batting order, noting that the core of Blake, Ethier, Loney, and Kemp fared with Manny's absence much better last year than they did this year. That's a mildly more satisfactory explanation, but still leaves much to be desired. When comparing similar Manny-less stretches (meaning changes in opposing pitchers' strategies are presumably the same in both cases), why should these players have performed so much worse? Especially when three of those players are young enough (age 24-26) that they should still be peaking?

Common wisdom seems to be turning against Joe Torre these days, so he's a candidate. As raised by jon abbey above, and others in threads such as this one, I suspect Torre does indeed share some of the blame for what's happened to should've-been mainstays like Broxton lately--but again, I find it highly unlikely that Torre can bear too much of the blame (I'm squarely in the the-manager-doesn't-matter-very-much camp).

I don't follow the Dodgers closely enough to have a solid explanation off the top of my head. Thinking back, some of it may be the simple fact that their parts were never all working at the same time. At the beginning of the season, the offense was passable and the relief pitching excellent, but the starting pitching was awful; lately, the starting pitching has been passable, the relief pitching mediocre, and the offense awful. If this sparks any discussion, I'll try to delve deeper into the numbers to see if that gut feeling is justified.

But hopefully, you bright SOSHers will weigh in, first. What went wrong in Chavez Ravine this year? What can we learn from it?

[RamRez]

It's been noted elsewhere that Manny was placed on waivers, and that the initial common wisdom was that a claim is likely to occur (if Manny made it through the NL, the logic went, the White Sox would claim him). A few hours later, a new opinion seems to be emerging, and SI's John Heyman now states that "executives now believe Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez will pass through waivers unclaimed." It will be interesting to watch this situation develop, that's for sure.

For the sake of completeness, I should note that Casey Blake, Scott Podsednik and Jay Gibbons have also been placed on waivers, according to the LA Times.

[BucketOBalls]

It's been noted elsewhere that Manny was placed on waivers, and that the initial common wisdom was that a claim is likely to occur (if Manny made it through the NL, the logic went, the White Sox would claim him). A few hours later, a new opinion seems to be emerging, and SI's John Heyman now states that "executives now believe Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez will pass through waivers unclaimed." It will be interesting to watch this situation develop, that's for sure.

I would expect the Red Sox would claim him if the White would not. There seem to be a number of teams that could benefit from him though. With some of his salary in deferred money, I would think a 900+ OPS would be worth taking a chance on. It's not like there are a bunch of decent hitters available now.

Edited by BucketOBalls, 26 August 2010 - 01:50 AM.

[RamRez]

As noted in the Manny-specific thread, Manny was indeed claimed. The White Sox and the Rangers both put in claims, as well as one other team--quite possibly the Rays. (One of many sources)

The Dodgers and White Sox have until 1:30 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday to work out a deal.

The situation is a little different for the Dodgers than it was just a few days ago when the put Manny on waivers--a nice sweep of the Brewers has put the Dodgers only five games out of the playoffs (in other words, half a game closer to the playoffs then our own Red Sox). The White Sox, in turn, are 3.5 games behind the division lead (and 9 games out of the Wild Card). The games the Dodgers have between now and that deadline could make a big difference--they are playing the Phillies and the Rockies, two of the four teams currently just ahead of them in the Wild Card race. The White Sox, meanwhile, host the Yankees before heading to Cleveland. I suppose this gives me all the more reason to hope that the White Sox sweep the Yankees, and get excited about their prospects to not just make the playoffs, but win some games there--and are willing to ship a few decent prospects out to LA.

[RamRez]

It looks like today is Manny's final day as a Dodger. Increasingly, it looks as though this will be a straight waiver claim, rather than a trade. (url=http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/news/story?id=5510704]One of many sources{/url]).

In non-Manny news (seeing what's happened in in the Manny trade thread, I'm not even going to get into the issue of Manny's ejection), yesterday's game was the first really bad start for Ted Lilly since becoming a Dodger. As noted above, he'd been pitching remarkably well for LA, with a 1.83 ERA. Yesterday, he surrendered 7 earned runs in just 4.0 innings--ouch. Interestingly enough, his start did garner this description from a Dodger blog: "in plate appearances not resulting in extra base hits, Lilly was dominant, racking up 8 K's in the 4.0 innings of work."

[RamRez]

As we wait for some Manny news (it's looking more and more like it'll be a straight-up waiver claim by CWS), a few other Dodger-related pieces.

For the skinny on the ongoing "Dodger Divorce," check out a primer here, or this Twitter account.

And a bit more directly baseball related, here's a very detailed statistical analysis of Matt Kemp's struggles. It's worthwhile reading. The key paragraph:

When he prematurely releases his hips through his stride action, his bat dips further under the contact zone than intended, in order to compensate for left side pulling away, and the bat head will be slower to get to the launch position because the core is the primary mover in bat speed. So by Kemp not having his stride in gear, instead of keeping his weight back, power stored, and remaining on time, he's off-balance, drained of bat speed, and late on pitches.

Edited by RamRez, 30 August 2010 - 02:31 PM.

[RamRez]

In case anyone was still skeptical, it's now a done deal: MAnny is headed to the White Sox As expected, it was a straight waiver claim, with no players coming back to the Dodgers.

An interesting note from that article:

Ramirez was initially reported to be seeking a contract extension in return for waiving a no-trade clause, which includes waiver claims, with the White Sox balking at that request. Apparently the extension was dropped when Ramirez saw that he had become a bench player with the Dodgers. Eligible for free agency after the season, he has a better chance to audition for a job for next year as a full-time designated hitter for the White Sox, who will be responsible for the remaining $3.8 million on his contract.

I'll leave discussion of what this means to the White Sox for discussion in that thread or that thread (though I hereby offer to bet one US dollar to anyone who'll take it that Manny will not go into the Hall of Fame wearing a White Sox cap), but what this means to the Dodgers is pretty much clear: $3.8 million. The 2010 playoffs are a only very remote possibility, and many wasn't coming back in 2011 anyway.

[RamRez]

I'd gotten so used to thinking of the Dodgers as "Red Sox West" in the years following the 2004 championship season that I was quite surprised to note that, with Manny's departure, there are now no former Red Sox on the Dodgers 40 man roster or DL. Oh, for the good old days when the Dodgers would trot out Derek Lowe, Nomar, Bill Mueller, Doug Mientkiewicz, Manny, or even Nick Green, and when Grady Little stomped around the dugout! Blue Sox no more, at least for now. That probably doesn't bode well for my quest to get more action in this thread.

From our "giving credit where credit is due" department, kudos to Hiroki Kuroda, which took a no-hitter into the 8th last night. A little bit of PitchFX:


Some minorly interesting quotes from one local write-up of the game, from a human / performance psychology point of view:

“In the fifth inning I became conscious of the chance of the no-hitter,” Kuroda said through translator Kenji Nimura. “I knew the fans wanted it. I knew my teammates wanted it. I felt that I betrayed a lot of my fans and my teammates.”

“This was a big night for me,” Barajas said. “Being a Dodger fan growing up in LA, this really was a big deal for me. I had the nerves just walking out there for my first at-bat. My hands were shaking. My knees were shaking. This was a childhood dream to put this uniform on and play on that field as a home team. For us to play the way we did tonight just capped everything off.”

I'd say one of those is the type of psychology we fans expect of sports superstars but not of ourselves, and the other is vice-versa.

[RamRez]

'Tis the season for September call-ups, and the Dodgers have kicked things off by calling up, well, no one.

From the Dodgers' website:

September is here, the callups aren't. The Dodgers brought up no one on Wednesday, the first day Major League rosters expanded. Catcher A.J. Ellis is to arrive on Friday, manager Joe Torre said, along with an unnamed infielder. The Dodgers have an off-day on Thursday.

The Dodgers couldn't bring up Ellis on Wednesday because it was within 10 days of his demotion to Triple-A Albuquerque ... The Dodgers expect pitching help, too -- like Albuquerque right-hander Jon Link -- but only in the bullpen. "At this point it doesn't look like we're going to bring up a starter," Torre said.

The team isn't expected to call up any top prospects.

I'm guessing the next few weeks of Dodger baseball will be pretty boring.

[RamRez]

Light posting in this thread, as I've been travelling for work... but in my defense, the 2010 Dodgers are now so boring, they don't even get mentioned until the 12th paragraph of ESPN's write-up of their most recent game. Can't say I blame the authors.

Not too many reasons left to follow the 2010 Dodgers. The few I can think of are:

• Will Manny hit at all for the CWS, or will the Dodgers basically have gotten money for nothing?
• Will the Dodger finish at .500?
• What happens in the ongoing Dodgers Divorce? (Best news source I know of is this Twitter feed
• Will the Dodgers trademark "Los Doyers"?
• Will Torre be back next season? (My vote: no. One blogger's thoughts for why he should come back)

Yep, pretty slim pickings.

In other Dodgers (Doyers?) news, Vincente Padilla is probably done for the year, and Ramon Troncoso probably sucks. And, to salvage a bit of fun and excitement from these doldrums, here's a video of Dodgers minor leaguer John Lindsey finding out he's being called up to the bigs for the first time after 1,570 games in the minors.

[RamRez]

Not too many reasons left to follow the 2010 Dodgers. The few I can think of are:

• ...
• Will Torre be back next season? (My vote: no. One blogger's thoughts for why he should come back)

Well, my guess was right, but my timing may have been off. As noted elsewhere on SoSH, Yahoo's Tim Brown tweeted "Dodgers: Torre will announce he is stepping down. Mattingly will take over." A bit more context courtesy of ESPN:

Torre told reporters before Thursday night's game at San Francisco that he had decided what he planned to do, but that only his wife, his daughter and Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti knew of that decision and that he wouldn't be making it public until later. ... It isn't immediately clear whether Torre will remain with the organization in some capacity, something he had expressed a desire to do after his retirement.

Mattingly has never managed at any level, but he is slated to manage in the Arizona Fall League after the season, an assignment that is far different from managing a major league club during the regular season because it is a league that exists primarily for showcasing prospects from a handful of different organizations.

I'm not too excited about Mattingly, but it's probably a good thing for Dodgers fans that Torre is gone. And I guess if this is the time of year to let the kids play, why not let the kids manage, too?

Edit: To be clear, I don't think Mattingly actually is going to manage this season; he's just been tapped to start managing next season. The 'let the kids manage' thing was more of a rhetorical point, really.

Edited by RamRez, 17 September 2010 - 07:34 PM.

[RamRez]

Checking back in on this older post, some things have changed quite a bit. The Dodgers have gone from best record in the NL to well out of the playoff race: as of today (August 18), they are 11.5 games behind the division leading Padres (a phrase that still sounds strange to me!) and seven games back and trailing several others for a wild card spot. As mentioned above, the Dodgers bullpen is a shambles, despite the fact that the team for some reason decided to spend a decent pair of prospects for Octavio Dotel. Super-stud Jonathan Broxton has looked bad enough to be removed from his position as closer. Not happy times in Dodgertown.

Perhaps the strangest mid-season Dodgers of the season -- sending a few decent prospects to KC for Octavio Dotel -- took another turn today, as Los Doyers shipped Dotel to division rival Colorado (source). Dotel will earn the Dodgers a PTBNL; and given that Dotel won't be eligible for the Rockies' post season roster, I'm guessing the PTBNL won't be a very good one. So, in essence, the Dodgers shipped off two middling prospects for one middling (or worse) prospect plus 18 2/3 innings of 3.38 ERA middle relief in a lost season. Great move, Dodgers!

[RamRez]

The latest team on the list in the always entertaining (until the Red Sox make an appearance, at least) Playoff Eliminations thread? The Los Angeles Dodgers. No big surprise there.

To quote the ever-eloquent Cannonball 1729:

It's tough to really say that things are bad in Dodgertown. They've got the same relatively young core as before (Kemp, Either, Billingsley, Kershaw, and possibly Loney if he can take another step forward), and they've got a star in Rafael Furcal when he's healthy (since he remembered how to hit this year). Notably, the complementary players haven't been as strong as in previous years; in particular, the bullpen (besides Hong Chih Kuo) was leaky, and the bench players, who were forced into action by the usual injuries and Joe Torre's love of National League-style strategy, didn't really do anything particularly well. That said, this is the sort of thing that happens with good teams; sometimes, the bench players just don't work out. It's certainly something that's fixable for a team with the Dodgers' payroll.

The two major players of most concern for the Dodgers going forward are Russell Martin, who was overworked to Jason Kendall levels in 2007-2008 and has responded by hitting like an overworked Jason Kendall, and Jonathan Broxton, who has been so bad in the second half (6.95 ERA, 3 for 7 in save opportunities) that he's lost the closer role to Kuo. Of biggest concern for the Dodgers, though, is the fact that NL West finally seems to have improved. It'll be interesting to see if the Dodgers can adjust to life in the new NL West, where they can't just make lateral moves during the offseason and expect to make the playoffs every year.

Amen--although personally, I'd say a number of the bench players did better than I thought they would.

In potentially happier news for Dodgers fans, a resolution in the on-going Dodger divorce may be close: the McCourts are taking a (soon-to-be-former) family trip to the mediator's office this Friday.

[Lose Remerswaal]

Went to Chavez Ravine last night for "Bark in the Park" night. About 500-600 fans came with their dogs, and they let them do a lap on the warning track prior to the game. Didn't notice any of them taking a dump on the field, but the Dodgers did a fine job of that themselves.

Box score says 29K fans in attendence, but it couldn't have been more than 17 or 18K there. Was no trouble at all to move about 250 fans out of the upper decks on the right side of the field during the fire in the top deck concession stand that burned for 4 or 5 innings.

They have temporary lighting in the parking lots now, but it's still very dark there. Lots of cops and security, though