I realize that in your tenure as President of Dodger baseball, the LA Dodgers have the best winning percentage of any MLB team and that the organization is the envy of all other teams. In short, the Dodgers are the model organization. I understand that and am even amazed at the fact that even though the Dodgers draft near the bottom every year, the farm system is one of the best in baseball. You are to be commended for that… BUT…
But, what is Chris Taylor still doing on this team? Has he blackmailed you? Does he have photos you don’t want leaked out? This is insane – just pay him off – he has to either voluntarily go down to the minors like Jose Abreu did (and it didn’t help Jose), or he has to be DFA’ed. CT3 has been a wonderful Dodger, a great teammate, and a high-class person, and he can no longer jump out of a boat and hit the water… yet the organization keeps rolling him out there. ENOUGH ALREADY! This was published a month ago. It’s worse now:
Last night, Miguel Vargas sat on the bench with his .857 OPS while CT3 and his .326 OPS played. On what planet does that make any sense? Kike Hernandez is also struggling with and not showing much sign of life. I know that with Max Muncy’s return a long way off, you are looking at a third baseman, but why not get rid of Chris Taylor RIGHT NOW and call up Andre Lipcuis? Maybe, like me, you don’t believe he is a true prospect (a suspect if you will). But what could it hurt? You called up Miguel Vargas, and he has shown that he is past what happened to him last season. Put him in LF and let him play his way on or off the team.
Playing CT3 is insanity. I feel sorry for him. He is pathetic, but this is a bottom-line business. Munch on the $25+ Million you owe him. It’s dead and gone. Call up Andre – put him at 3B for a few games. Maybe he is a suspect, but let’s find out now… and just let Vargas play. That’s all I will say about it. Just do it… already!
NH Dodger asked yesterday about a comparison to Dalton Rushing. While I’d like to say he compares to Mike Piazza (and maybe he does behind the plate – he’s not a great defensive catcher), however, I would say his bat has the potential to be a Salvador Perez. He has a long way to go defensively.
Discussion (29)
Disagree, not disagreeable
Passan’s Early Thoughts about the Dodgers at the deadline:
($$$)
It’s easy to look past deficiencies when a team’s first four hitters are as good as Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith, but L.A. needs to figure out what it’s going to do in the outfield. It’s conceivable James Outman returns from Triple-A and plays like he did last season, or that Chris Taylor remembers how to hit
…
With the scarcity of outfield bats, incremental upgrades might be the best bet, but with MLB so wide open, the Dodgers owe it to themselves to do more.
These fucking assholes, today they did remember to score runs, just today when there was no pitching!
Watching this Wednesday night game, it’s painful watching CT3 take weak swings. If AF is going to pick up any warm arm with an ERA over 6 and try him out for 3 games then dump him ?? Why wouldn’t they take a chance on Lipcuis, who is having a fine season at OKC ? SMDH at all these pitchers he keeps marching out there.
Well, the Dodgers only have three problems:
1. They can’t hit;
2. They can’t pitch; and
3. They can’t field.
Otherwise, all is well!
Turn out the lights
0 – 3 …. GAME OVER!
Yasmani Grandal – Bear’s Favorite Player!
😉
Jason Heyward can hit a fastball and he’s old!
I have a feeling that AF is keeping CT3 in case he can turn it around or so that he can include his contract as a bigger salary dump by another team.
Just saw a stat that Teo Hernandez leads all of MLB with Men Left in Scoring Position with 38.
Okay time to wake up Dodgers !!!
I state this with the utmost respect.
Love the west coast, love the weather, and love the people.
But this Hollywood, lazy-fair culture that the Dodgers seem to live by needs to end.
It looks like Betts is more interested in soliciting his next podcast interview as opposed to slapping down a hard tag on a potential base stealer.
Freeman seems like he is discussing diner plans with the oppositions
1st base runner.
Othani, worries more about a pulled foul ball going into the competitors dugout or his hair being in place after his helmet falls off after a swing and miss.
I can’t recall in over 60yrs of watching this wonderful franchise, for the good and the bad, such a lack of motivation or intensity.
No doubt when its all said and done, the players must perform.
But I look at Doc with only 2 real job responsibilities
MOTIVATE this team.
FIRE UP this team up.
Shoot.
Down a 6pack of Red Bull (Wake up)
So far he has failed in that job
Go Dodgers!!
Two or three years ago, more or less at this point in the season, I expressed my concern about the low velocity that Buehler was having on his fastball, then we saw what it ended up with, in surgery. By the way, “someone” came out to tell me that Buehler was throwing less hard because he wanted it that way, Lol!!!
That said, today I am just as concerned but for other reasons, I have read in recent weeks between 4 or 5 articles where they say that the team is having problems reaching the 95+MPH fastball but they do not say what the causes are. I have a hypothesis and I hope I am wrong and I hope that this problem is resolved and disappears during the course of the season. My hypothesis is that the team has too many players over 30 years old, too many players at the wrong age, some of them are already starting to show a decline in their abilities.
I repeat: I hope I am wrong.
Michael Busch when traded I cringed but was happy he was going to get an opportunity. Last 30 days .200. Saw an article that was critical of his defense. Young players are difficult to judge.
David Vassegh
@THEREAL_DV
Shocking to realize there are only 4 teams in the National League with winning records.
#Phillies #Dodgers #Braves #Brewers
6:40 PM ET
Dodgers (38-24)
Pirates (28-32)
SP James Paxton L
5-0 3.29 ERA
SP Paul Skenes R
2-0 2.45 ERA
Confirmed Lineup
SS Mookie Betts R
DH S. Ohtani L
1B F. Freeman L
C Will Smith R
LF T. Hernandez R
RF J. Heyward L
2B Gavin Lux L
CF Andy Pages R
3B Chris Taylor R
77° Wind 9 mph R
NO Vargas
The last 30 days Lux has hit .239 which is tied for fifth on the team. The dude just sat out a year, he’s young, and his average is getting better. Heyward coming back is going to help the lower end of the batting order as well as Pages will only get better with experience. Yes Wayne, I have a rosy outlook. It makes me and the people around me easier to be around. I do agree on Taylor. I wish they would tell him to go to Arizona and try and get better or you can just hang out and collect your millions. Those are your choices.
I guess Mark Walter is an insufferable Dodger fan to when he said “ if we don’t win a World Series we consider it a failure”. That supposedly influenced Ohtani to sign here.
If people are satisfied with this team as is then what u will get is probably a division championship. I’m all for that but this is not a playoff offense. Will Vargas, Pages, outman etc grow through the season? Mb
At the end of the year Kiki , Taylor, Rojas, etc are who they are. Will it b good enough? I doubt it too much kkkkk in the lineup.
I would trade lux, Kiké, Taylor, outman if it improves the team. Teo would be next in line. He hasn’t driven a run in since May 14 if I have it right.
A. The Dodgers have exactly 100 games left in the season. They have a seven-game lead, the same as the Phillies. B. If anyone believes that the 26-man roster they have right now is the roster they will have on September 1st, they are sadly mistaken. C. There will be changes. Maybe some major ones. They cannot continue the season with the same results from positions 6-9 for an entire season. They miss Muncy’s bat, but he will not return in the near future. The complimentary players have to change or step up a bunch. Although I love Robert Jr. as a player, he would need to be a lot less injury prone for me to give up a ton of talent for his services. I have the same reservations about him as I do Byran Buxton. Another extremely talented injury prone outfielder. I would rather see them acquire a outfielder with good bat to ball skills on the cheap. There will be a lot of outfielders on the market. They do not need to drop a lot of talent on a star that could get injured a week after they get him. I think they will definitely be in the market for an infielder who actually can hit. What they have now is not getting the job done. Mookie and Ohtani need to be better and more consistent. Hernandez, Teo not Kike, needs to up his game, and quit chasing pitches he has no chance of hitting.
Right-hander Dinelson Lamet, who’d been pitching with the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate in Oklahoma City, has elected free agency, per the transaction log at MiLB.com. Presumably, the minor league deal he inked with the Dodgers back in February contained an early June opt-out date that he chose to exercise.
And once again the Dodgers refuse to play a little situational small ball when they should have.
They are having huge problems with RISP for weeks now, were blanked by a rookie P for 6 innings.
Then Lux hits a leadoff double in the 7th. And once again Roberts has Rojas swing away, CT3 and finally Betts leave him on 2nd.Why not have Rojas bunt him over, bring in Vargas to pinch hit ? I really hated that “strategy” by Doc in a 1 run game .
Good blog today , Mark.
Go Dodgers!!!!!!!!!!!
Mark on point in this article. If someone has a contrarian view, let’s see it.
38-24 first place and 7 game lead
MT had a take and did not suck on todays blog post. I am a bit surprised he was so direct in the need for CT3 to be DFA’d; I kind of thought he might defend CT3. Refreshing indeed to see the “warts” he points out in CT3’s game and equalling refreshing to see his comments devoid of “rose colored” comments.
CT3 should have never been given a four-year $60 million contract, but it’s a sunk cost now and it’s time to pull the band-aid off and let him go. Sad to see his offensive skills diminish so quickly but he offers nothing to the team right now now and it’s time to see what a full-time Vargas can do.
Ok it’s a long season we will get in the playoffs. Fine, no panic about that. But, we been making the playoffs and that is where it ends in recent years. So, we have the same people in the same positions doing the same things. I don’t need to tell you doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity but u heard it here first(sarcasm)
First, I believe you have to look at the hitting coach and c what impact he is having on the team. Is it the philosophy to swing as hard as u can on every pitch(simplified version) because u May hit a homer. Don’t worry about the strikeout because we will overcome with a homer. Are u “trying to move the ball forward” as in situational hitting? How is that being recorded? How are hitters being held accountable? Is the hitting coach evaluating situational hitting or prioritizing other areas? So what would the hitting coach say he is doing to improve performance? This offense will not hold up in the playoffs but why? That is the question that AF must get the answer from the hitting coaches.
Is Doc holding the coaches and players accountable? I know they all love him but is that enough? Is that important? He showed compassion with Ramírez and now he is performing. Just hug everyone and that will do it? All the players are comfortable so is that the answer?is Doc trying to win every game everyday or is he playing the long game? This team is not anything special but why not? Is it ok to just “keep running them out there” win or lose? R we on autopilot?
Has AF given Doc the players he needs? Has AF decided nobody can keep the pedal down for 162 so let’s option, dfa, and Il as often as we can play the long game. Has that worked? The playoffs are “a crapshoot” so we just randomly got beat last year even though we had the worst pitching staff of arguably any playoff team. Was that a surprise? Does the ownership think we win the division, we are making lots of money, we should be happy. Why can San Diego make game changing trades before the deadline but we have to wait? For good or bad Preller makes moves all throughout the year. Why do some expect Taylor, Kiké,etc. to hit when there track record is there?
Anyone notice the run support Glasnow is receiving??? So they play Taylor to try and “fix” him? He is not fixable!! Kiki is who he is!! A .200 hitter!! Lux is hitting .208!!! We don’t know how much better he will get!! They won’t play Vargas enough to find out if he’s capable of playing every day. Pages sitting on the bench last night after starting to heat up again!! The season is a third of the way through…. Panic isn’t the issue. The lineup is!!
Rather than just cut Taylor loose, perhaps the Dodgers could eat about 92% of his salary and include him in the blockbuster offer for Luis Robert…. along with Rushing, Outman, Knack and who else?
Seriously, if I ran the White Sox and was willing to deal Robert, what would be my ask to the Dodgers?
–First, a prospect with power potential that could conceivably replace Robert’s, sooner or later. So that would be Rushing, De Paula, maybe Liranzo. (Probably Rushing because he’s closer to the majors and might be able to stick at catcher.)
–Second, A centerfielder like Outman or Pages to take Roberts’s spot on defense. (Probably Outman because of his ’23 performance.)
–A quality pitcher I could plug into the rotation, like Knack.
That’s a minimum.; I’d probably ask for an extra arm or two.
Remember, Robert is under contract through 2027–a contract that LA can easily handle. He’s a quality defender and could lead the OF for 3.5 years. He won’t be cheap.
Give me Rushing, Outman and Knack and I’d probably we willing to take on Taylor at the ML minimum to be a UT guy and provide some of that veteran presence stuff. Who knows? The change of scenery may help.
But I am not running the White Sox and I don’t really expect anything like this will happen.
But it would be exciting.
Wednesday schedule
11 a.m. PT: Rancho Cucamonga (Alex Makarewich) vs. Visalia (Caden Grice)
TBD: resumption of Oklahoma City (TBA) vs. Round Rock (Jack Leiter)
4:05 p.m.: Great Lakes (Jackson Ferris) vs. Cedar Rapids (Christian MacLeod)
5:05 p.m.: Oklahoma City (Landon Knack) vs. Round Rock (Adrian Sampson)
5:05 p.m.: Tulsa (Justin Wrobleski) at Amarillo (Dylan File)
Maybe a letter directly to AF would be a better idea. I agree totally what you wrote and the fix can not come fast enough.
Holy He!! you would think this team is 23-40 and 12.5 games back in the division.
I get it man it sucks to lose and no one likes losing 1-0.
But cmon this is a 162 marathon and then a 5 week sprint.
Settle down, have a beer and relax.
This team WILL be in the playoffs and the team you see on 6.5.24 will NOT be the team that starts game 1 of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium.
Stick with these guys they are good and they are going to be damn good come October.
Mookie has won 2 WS, Freddie has won 1 WS… let me ask you a question, how many WS titles does Harper have, have many does Judge have, how many does Stanton have, how many does Cole and Nola have???
Ill take Mookie and Freddie over those guys anyday…..