Carry on!

Will Gonsolin complete 5?

I really feel bad for Bellinger. Nothing he does right now is working. O for his last 22. Kershaw is going to start on Monday.

Not good for us when Barnes has the best avg in 5-9 today.

I was ready to make a comment about CB batting 5th, and then I looked at the BA of the next 4 hitters. .167, .192, .218, 154, that along with Cody’s .160 means that more than 1/2 of our batters are at less than .200 with one exception. It is hard to generate much offense at that rate. If it weren’t for our pitching we would be in deep dodo.

First of all I think we all agree that this is a great site. And for an old time Brooklyn Dodger fan like me., Bears historic articles are great. Ok. So this is not an official LADodger public relations site, so just post your opinions and if someone is a ridiculous a**hole there is no need to reply to them. And if this is getting you down, I say stop saying 10 times that you are thinking of stopping. Stop the whining and pull a Naomi Osaka (or Simone Biles) and do what is right for you and find something else to do that will make you happy.

Ok And for Beli, I think we all agree he is a great guy, great teammate, trying hard, not sulking etc. But lets face it he is the WORST hitter in Baseball for this season. He is NOT in a slump like Taylor or Muncy. Ok with Pollock out he probably has to play. And it is up to management to decide if his defensive skills outweigh his crappy offense. And to say that they see improvement because he had an RBI by grounding out to short, or flies out to warning track. Well ok for you. If you disagree. Great. post your opinion. And everyone can discuss.

Finally for those who complain about ‘ordinary fans’ posting stuff that they know nothing about because they never played professional sports!!! If that bugs you I suggest you start another blog and get peoples resumes before yopu allow them to post. You can call it ‘LA Dodger Professional Athlete Site, No One Else Welcome’

Cards aren’t much better their last 4 batters are, .228, .198, .182, then they pinch hit for the pitcher, . 083 with Carpenter at .171. Where have all the hitters gone, long time passing? Where have all the hitters gone, long time ago??????

After 4 1/3 innings from Bellinger (5) down has 3 1/3 innings worth of outs. That’s serious middle bottom of the order suckage.

Team is 4 for 19 after 5. We stink.

Apparently Belli does not want to walk ….. freaking ball out of hand. SHEESH!

A good time to offer Bellinger a 5 year $60M contract.

Bellinger needs to bunt more until his shoulder is at full strength. Also, when he is not taking a big full swing, he actually has very good bat to ball skill that could be used to hit line drives to beat the shift.

Notes from Internet:

Great stuff from keith law below

Hyun Choi had a rough outing, FanGraph goes a little into it:

Hyun-Il Choi, RHP, Los Angeles Dodgers

Affiliate: High-A Great Lakes Age: 21 Org Rank: 17 FV: 40+

Line: 4 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 0 BB, 4 K

Notes

Hassell struck out swinging twice against Choi, but the righty wasn’t able to keep the rest of Fort Wayne’s lineup at bay, giving up a season-high eight hits. More reassuring was the zero in the walk column, which hopefully indicates a return to the unflinching command that had become his standard at Low-A, where he walked just seven batters in his 65.1 innings of work, good for a microscopic 2.8% walk rate, before his early-August promotion. In his last three starts before Wednesday’s contest, however, he nearly matched that season total, issuing six free passes in just 13.2 innings.

On Wednesday, Choi’s struggles had more to do with his inability to miss bats in the zone, rather than missing the zone itself, which could conceivably (and perhaps correctly) be interpreted as swapping out one problem for another. If he can harness his splitter as a more consistent out pitch, I’m willing to chalk this rough patch up to growing pains.

From FanGraphs’ look at pitching for the playoff stretch run:

For the Dodgers, future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw’s fastball sat mostly 89-91 last night and touched 93 in a 3-inning, 50-pitch rehab start at Triple-A Oklahoma City.

Keith Law Chat:

Pj (Jersey City): What is wrong with cody bellinger at the plate? He looks completely lost.

Keith Law: My guess is it’s a lingering effect from the shoulder injury. He’s getting beat on fastballs. You don’t just forget how to hit a fastball.

Bill S.: Keith, (accidentally hit send too soon, I’ll try again). The Dodgers organization has clearly been successfully through the minors with player development. However, does their perennial contender status actually hurt them with the final stage of player development – young players in the majors?

Thinking about Gavin Lux, and to a lesser degree Zack McKinstry this year. To finish their development young players need to play regularly in the majors. Yet, the Dodgers divisional race makes it hard for them to roll out players who are not fully baked. How should they handle Lux, as well as other talented minor leaguers that will eventually come up and need regular time? Thank you!

Keith Law: It’s a reasonable concern, especially for players who come up at positions where the Dodgers have established regulars – Lux (Seager), Keibert (Smith, plus Cartaya behind). Easier on the pitching side because they can always work in those guys in long relief first. I think the Dodgers are among the top 2-3 organizations for drafting & development, but even they can’t ignore those structural issues and it may mean certain players don’t develop fully unless there’s an injury.

C-Note: Best guess….% chance Bauer pitches in the MLB again?

Keith Law: It sounds like 0%, and I’m fine with that.

Matt: I have a really hard time believing Bauer won’t pitch again. He may be suspended for all of next year and by 2023, I could certainly see some team hoping the public won’t remember what he did and take a chance on him because of the talent. If he was a lesser player, his career would be over, but I have to think some team will think it’s worth whatever PR hit they take.

Keith Law: I don’t think so.

Keith Law: He’s always been a headache. Now he’s a headache who has admitted in court to violent behavior towards women.

Jesse B: Andy Pages is striking out 30% of the time albeit with big time power. Do you think that’s something he can improve or will he always be a 3 outcome player?

Keith Law: He’s striking out 24% of the time, and with everything else he does, he’s a hell of a prospect.

Great, great, great stuff from this Dan Szymborski Chat

L west enjoyer: is this year’s NL West the most difficult division ever?

Dan Szymborski: I’ll say yes

Guest: What’s the change in Bellinger’s ZiPs from his post 2019 MVP numbers to now?

It’s crazy how bad he’s been.

Dan Szymborski: His velocity numbers have been distinctively meh. Dude just doens’t turn on fastballs anymore, like he’s 35

Towson Town Center Floor Fries: Which team in each league is best set up for a 7-game playoff series?

Dan Szymborski: Dodgers

John B: Dan, I get frustrated when I see bWAR and fWAR vary by so much. You basically can see players that are 1 WAR off in a world where most players are 2-3 WAR. It seems to undermine the metric to have such wide variances. I leave out WARP, but I’ve seen similar issues. Why can’t there be more consistency to a stat that we all use every day? Why doesn’t MLB weigh in on how they want their official data presented ?

Dan Szymborski: The thing is, you don’t count WAR. You *calculate* WAR. And you’re going to run into different philosophical concepts of establishing value

If you visit 8 doctors with a stomach ache, you may find that the recommended treatment isn’t identical either. Some might recommend X medication, some X and Y, some may also make a point to suggest diet changes, some may see a need for further tests. But it doesn’t undermine the practice of medicine that approaches are different.

You should think of statistics as an *exploration* of an answer, rather than something that will give you the One True Answer. And sometimes, it’s complicated. Like pitch framing.

Nice look at the former Dodger Prospect AJ Alexy

Baseball America on Vargas ($$$)

Miguel Vargas, 3B, Double-A Tulsa (Dodgers)—Vargas has impressive bat-to-ball skills, but before this season his power lagged behind. He added strength during the 2020 shutdown and …..

Baseball America on prospects excelling vs. older competition ($$$):

Dejesus, Pages, Bolivar and Jose Martinez get mentions.

Dominican Winter Ball draft:

These four Dodgers were selected:

Rd 2 (9th overall pick): Eddys Leonard

Rd 6 (31st overall): Alex De Jesus

Rd 9 (51st overall): Ismael Alcantara

Rd 16 (95th overall): Carlos Duran

Super-Heliumy Jose Ramon is at Rancho and crushing

Via @jokeylocomotive

Jose Ramos has homered on back to back nights for Rancho Cucamonga, it’s his 7th since being promoted from the Arizona Complex League, and it was absolutely crushed

Bobby Miller is now at AA:

Via @FutureDodgers

Bobby Miller faces the minimum in his first Double-A inning. He allows a leadoff single, but the runner was caught stealing and he then induced a couple of groundouts.

Rough second inning for Miller. After a flyout, he allows a single, walk, triple (line drive deflects of Outman’s glove after a dive), and homer, for four runs total. He got the next two batters to end the inning. Fastball consistently 96-98

Apropos of past discussions here, here’s a slightly (SLIGHTLY) more informed debate on Bellinger:

Do the #Dodgers have a better option than Cody Bellinger on the roster / in the organization? I chatted with @FutureDodgers about the alternatives (Beaty, McKinney, McKinstry, Lux, Souza Jr., Reks, Raley, Neuse) in AJ Pollock’s absence.

Two minor league pitchers to note:

Gavin Stone

Emmet Sheehan

3 things that are not going to happen!!

5 yr 60K contract offer

Beli bunting

Beli going other way

I don’t THINK they are going to snap out of it, I HOPE they snap out of it.

No doubt that they CAN, no guarantee that they WILL.

And yes, it’s FRUSTRATING, VERY FRUSTRATING.

Perhaps, the Dodgers have decided to play their luck in a game against Walker vs. Snell. at the risk of Tatis Jr. having a great afternoon and hitting 3 homeruns

I used to think that the word impotence referred to something else, but now realize it refers to our offense.

I have never played professional baseball so I won’t comment on that. I have been using the toilet since I was very young, a long time.

The guys looked like crap today ! Can I say that?

Put TT, and Saeager together (one after the other) in lineup. so maybe they’ll have hit after hit, once or twice in a game, putting TT on 3th base After all the injuries they have had, Pollock’s may end up affecting more

It’s a sad state of affairs when you’re resting players and have to bat a guy 0-23 in the 5th spot in the batting order now batting .158 with no other options to choose from with a team payroll north of $250 million.

Sam McWilliams has been promoted to the Great Lakes Loons from Rancho Cucamonga.

Bring on the one game playoff! I’m not scared of you.

I hope we pitch our bullpen too…that way we can save Scherzer for game one.

Just looked at the box score and I can not say I am susrprised. MOF I called exactly what would happen today. No production from 5-9 in our batting order and 1 run scored.

What a shame and Yes, I blame this on Roberts. Can not trot out a lineup like that when you are in a tight pennant race middle of September. Just can not do it. At least if you are trying to win the divsion.

This will end up in a one game playoff vs either the Padres, Mets, or Reds.

Padres can throw Snell at us who has absolutely dominated us even when our O was clicking. Mets have DeGrom. Enough said. Reds can trot out Miley. Probably the least formidable of the three but still having a great season.

Go Dodgers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So much for the “vaunted Dodger depth”!

Buckner may be the poster boy for warning track power but he still won a batting title. Make contact Belli.

For all the current or former all-star talent in the lineup, the Dodgers are notably unable to hit good pitching. There have been a few exceptions, but in almost every game with one of the better teams, we struggle to score runs. Of course this is why they are good teams with good pitchers, but you have to be able to occasionally have big games against them; otherwise we are vulnerable to any team we would meet in the playoffs. Today we scored one run. Yesterday, one in the first seven innings.

We have a very good record, so one shouldn’t make too much of it, but our lineup seems to lack synergy, the kind which teams like the Giants or Tampa Bay seem to have, where the sum is greater than the parts. We do not often put together innings where we score three or more, except for the occasional games where we score 14 runs which we did not need. Some of this may be due to the fact that we don’t play hit and run, do not try to aggressively take charge from the outset. And we have too many at bats where we do not hit the ball hard, so that we rarely even get someone from second to third with a fly ball, much less score from third on one.

And as many have mentioned, we have hitters are are mired in very bad slumps. I doubt that the team will suddenly put it all together, and start scoring a lot of runs. Our pitching has been quite good, even with the loss of Bauer and Kershaw. I have my concerns about the ability of Kershaw to be a major factor now, but we have to try to let him be. We can still win the division, but we do not look impressive as a team, even when we were edging the Braves at home, and certainly not against the Giants or the Cardinals.

Just to add, to look at the Giants’ rally yesterday, they are down one in the ninth. Posey is just about the most dangerous hitter in the league in that spot, and he draws a 3-2 walk. Then a base hit through the infield, the Giants specialize in those. Then an infield single hit to the right spot, to load the bases. Then a line drive single to score two runs. A strikeout. A double steal with the next batter, unless it was a wild pitch which got them to second and third. Then another base hit. Five batters, all but one hit the ball, and none of the hits went more than 150 feet in the air, but all were well placed. I don’t think this is just good luck, it reminds me of how Bochy’s teams won. Also, many pinch hits, sometimes home runs, to turn games around this year. Not too many late game rallies for us.

.200 Mendoza Line

.150 Belli Bar

But one Seager like October could wipe it all away!