I Am Not An Ostrich

I wrote this before Game three in partial response to MT’s comments.  With the way my year is going, the Dodgers will win 25-0, Belli will go 7-7 with 4 HRs, and the team will go 15-15 WRISP.

Update – Well not quite as good as described above, Wednesday’s game had some definite positives.  The Dodgers actually used two bunts to put the team in a position to score two runs.  Maybe Doc did believe that he needed to try something new to try and shake things up.  And then after another couple of weak ground balls to the right side, Belli took an outside pitch with a little off the swing and lined an oppo double.  That is the kind of hit that can lift a player and turn things around.  Hopefully, this will start something for Belli.

Tony Gonsolin was terrific.  4.2 IP, 0 runs, 3 hits, 8 Ks, and 1 walk.  Unfortunately, he was not able to get Jurickson Profar to end the 5^th so he could get the win.  The bullpen was the star of the night once again.  How about KJ coming in to preserve the shutout and to bail out Scott Alexander.  Blake Treinen is gaining more and more confidence as the season progresses.  He is absolutely looking more 2018 than 2019.

I am more than thrilled to see that the Dodgers were in fact able to manufacture a couple of runs, and still got a 3 run HR from JT.  JT got his 2^nd 3 run HR in 5 games.  Belli got an oppo ground rule double.  That is a good sign for progress.  Not wanting to rain on the parade, but one game does not make a trend.  Let’s hope that the team can work to continue the build on Wednesday’s game. 

Now to what I originally wrote.  Mark and others are free to castigate me for daring to say something that is obvious to me.

Mark is the eternal optimist, while I am more of a pragmatist.  I will never surrender my LAD Fanclub card or my love for the Dodgers and the belief that they will win every year.  But I am not blind.  Something is not clicking with this team.  I am also not an ostrich hiding my head in the sand thinking everything bad is just going to go away. It is not like the hitters are in a mini-slump. This TEAM has not hit well since Game 2, save an 11-2 drubbing of the DBacks on 08-01-20.  Notice I said team…not Belli, not Muncy, not Joc singularly, but TEAM. 

I said last year that I would withhold judgement on RVS until there were more results.  Last year during the season, the team feasted on poor pitching and outslugged everyone in the NL.  They also had good starting pitching.  After getting to the playoffs, they floundered.  They were not alone.  3 of the top 4 HR hitting teams all went down in the playoffs…Twins (1), Yankees (2), Dodgers (4).  In the WS, the #3 HR team got beat (Assterisks), by the #13 HR team. 

In the NLDS, the Dodgers had 9 HRs vs 5 HRs for the Nats, including 3 in their last 3 innings.  The Dodgers were 5-37 WRISP, while the Nats were 8-35.  The Dodgers scored 4 runs in the last two games, all directly from HRs, but were 1-15 with RISP.  That one was a Max Muncy HR in the 1^st inning of Game 5 after a Kike’ double.  So other than the HR, they were 0-14 WRISP in Games 4 and 5, both losses.

That trend has seemingly seeped into 2020.  If they hit HRs, they will score runs and generally win.  But when they face even average pitching lately, the HRs dissipate.  How many times do we have to see the same scenario play out in the post season.  If you only count on HRs and cannot manufacture runs during the season, it is extremely unlikely you will be able to do so against superior pitching in a playoff series.

While the issue appears to be season long, I think that the five games preceding Wednesday are emblematic.

• Game 1 SF – Dodgers win 7-2.  4 HRs (resulted in 5 runs) – 1-8 RISP
• Game 2 SF – Dodgers lose 5-4. 1 HR (resulted in 3 runs) – 1-2 RISP (JTs HR) – 2 hits in game.
• Game 3 SF – Dodgers win 6-2.  2 HRs (resulted in 6 runs) – 2-5 RISP (Pollock & Betts HRs)
• Game 1 SD – Dodgers lose 2-1. 0 HRs – 1-8 RISP
• Game 2 SD – Dodgers lose 6-2. 0 HRs – 2-9 RISP
• Game 3 SD – Dodgers win – 6-0. 1 HR (resulted in 3 runs) – 3-4 RISP (and the one that wasn’t a hit was an Austin Barnes’ safety squeeze bunt to score a run).

I will agree that RVS worked very well with JDM and the results were very positive.  Good for him.  The same approach has worked for JT and Daniel Murphy.  But that front leg lift and huge launch angle does not work for everyone.  RVS never hit a lick in high school (much less college or professionally).  How can he possibly know how to get a batter out of a slump when he was incapable of hitting period.  Apparently, he only knows one approach to hitting.  One size does not fit all.  It is the good TEAM coach that can break down a swing and build it back up for what had been successful.  Perhaps the Dodgers were so dependent on immediate video access that they no longer have, that without it, they cannot make the adjustments.  I contend that RVS can be a successful personal hitting instructor for a player looking for a specific approach.  I am not convinced he can coach a ML TEAM of different hitters.

Yesterday, I brought up one of my all-time favorite Dodgers Brett Butler. I wonder if he could crack the lineup in today’s game.  He was certainly not a HR guy. He never had double digit HRs for a season. Although, he did have a career OBP of .377.  How about Ichiro?  He had three seasons with double digit HRs with a high of 15. Not very productive for a corner OF. Neither fit into that high launch angle bucket.  They were just flat out good hand/eye coordination hitters.

I know the development team was working on Keibert Ruiz’s swing and launch angle.  Why?  He consistently made contact.  As he gets older and more physically mature, line drive doubles could become line ert RHRs.  He is a see ball/hit ball type hitter.  Leave him alone.  He does not need to hit HRs.  I know most here do not care for Austin Barnes, but he was a consistent .300 hitter in MiLB.  His career MiLB line is .298/.388/.443/.831 in 2,685 PA.  He also was a good MLB hitter in 2017 with a .289/.408/.486/.895 in 262 PA.  Did he just forget how to hit, or is it he cannot hit the Dodgers way for the last three years. 

This may be RVS’ 2^nd year, but AF got the person who best embodies their approach to hitting.  Time will tell if it is the right approach.  Just as I did not judge his selection for 2019, I am not going to judge him for 19 games in 2020.

One player I cannot wait to see is CWS 2B uber prospect Nick Madrigal.  Nick was the 4^th overall pick in the 2018 draft.  Mark is right that OPS is the big metric in today’s analytics. Madrigal is not going to have a big OPS because he has no power.  He is a tremendous hitter for average. He will walk more than strikeout.  Considering his college and professional career, he has walked 110 times and struck out 60.  Professionally, it is 51 BBs and 21 Ks.  So far in 2020, Nick is hitting .294/.333/.294/.627 with 1 BB and 2 K (18 PA).  Is someone going to make the argument that Nick cannot play at the ML level because he has no power to boost his SLG %? I admit I am a little partial to Nick because he is another 2B from the Sacramento area who I got to watch a little in HS.  Dustin Pedroia and Steve Sax are a couple of others.

Mark said:

“Fans all have a better idea about who should play where and when because they are much closer to the situation than Dave Roberts. They are in the clubhouse daily with the players and chat with them frequently. The fans talk to all the other coaches and medical staff about each player. The fans know if a certain player is dealing with some personal issue or nagging injury because they are around the players each day for quite some time. The fans communicate with the players frequently by cell phone, obviously because they have the player’s personal numbers.”

He did include a sarcasm alert.  I dare say that Bill Russell, Glenn Hoffman, Davey Johnson, Jim Tracy, Joe Torre, and Don Mattingly all had access to the same information.  What did that do for them?  Got them fired, all without winning a championship.  I will give you that at least Dave got the team to the WS twice.  So are we not allowed to question the manager on his decisions?  I may not have access to all that “copious amount of analytics spewed out by the nerds in that department,” so therefore I cannot have an opinion?  Of course it is the players who are not executing.  But it is the manager’s responsibility to get the team to be in a position to win.  For all of Bruce Bochy’s issues, he never had the best team in the NL much less MLB, and he still has three rings for SF Giants WS champions.  He knew how to get the most out of his players when it mattered.  Let’s not forget that it was Bochy that got the Padres to the WS in 1998.  He won the NL West with the lowly Padres 4 out of 12 years.

I am not naïve.  I know there are many on this site and throughout the Dodgers blogosphere that would like to see Roberts fired.  I am not one of them.  I still do not know who would replace him.  Plus, Bear is right, he is not going anywhere after signing his extension.  But his rope is getting shorter and shorter

As far as the players go, until Wednesday, I saw no evidence that Cody is going to pull out of his funk any time soon.  I am NOT in favor of benching him.  But I am also not going to continue to beat my head against the wall by putting in him the #3 hole, where he can ground into DPs.  Who is going to replace him?  Because teams are not fearful of Cody right now, Mookie is not going to see much of anything.  Now, lead off Mookie with Seager #2, teams are not going to pitch around Mookie, especially if he can become a base stealing threat.  I would have been fine with 2019 version of Max in the #2 hole with Mookie leading off.  Max was a terrific fastball hitter for 2018-2019, not so much this year.  Maybe Max can get it together, but what if he doesn’t?  At what point do you say we need to give Lux/McKinstry a shot at 2B and Rios at 1B.  I admit I do not know what game number that is, but there has to be one. Right?  There needs to be enough time to evaluate the change.

I do not know if Lux is an answer.  But maybe he is.  Same for McKinstry.  Beaty got his chance, and did not do much with it.  I do not believe he got the same chance as did Rios, because Rios has prodigious power.  Beaty is more of a hand eye coordination – see ball/hit ball and sometimes for power hitter.  With the LAD braintrust, Rios is going to get a longer look.  The team is deep with a lot of options.  When do you start looking at those different options?  The point many of us are making is that while we still believe in this team, there are problems.  To continue to ignore them and not make adjustments, makes me think someone else might be an ostrich. 

I know Bear mentioned it, but I would be remiss if I did not congratulate JT on 1,000 hits.

I just happen to have the vinyl for Steppenwolf’s first album, and The Ostrich is on that album.