I Need To Vent
Sorry for the delay in getting this posted. I already had my article queued up and ready for publish before last night s come from behind walk off win. Zac Gallen is going to be a superstar in this game and he just shut the Dodgers down. But the 2020 Dodgers are relentless and have no quit. I think that is a tribute to Mookie, just as 1988 was a tribute
Sorry for the delay in getting this posted. I already had my article queued up and ready for publish before last night’s come from behind walk off win. Zac Gallen is going to be a superstar in this game and he just shut the Dodgers down. But the 2020 Dodgers are relentless and have no quit. I think that is a tribute to Mookie, just as 1988 was a tribute to Kirk Gibson. Hopefully this attitude will be a precursor to a WS championship just like 1988. I thought… should I scrap what I had already written, and write up a new one or go with what the original.
I have learned that with my depression I just have to let out pent up feelings or they tend to fester and sour my moods. Writing is a catharsis for me in that regard. While I expect pushback, I decided that it was best for me to get my feelings about the trade deadline out of my psyche and onto “paper” as it were. So I have to use this site to vent. I know I need to let it go, but that is not happening. I am not trying to change minds…just vent. Here goes…
With this pandemic, I am not allowed to go to Starbucks and discuss baseball with my friends as I used to do. I miss that. Now I need to unleash my inner thoughts onto this page. My negativity does not come out very often, but when it does I have to let it out and not bottle it up. I am not a Kool-Aid drinker and I am not convinced that the Dodgers are significantly better than the Padres (or Cubs or Braves). Better? Yes. Significantly better? No. I do not think the Padres fear the Dodgers, and with the changes they made, they are confident they can beat the Dodgers on a neutral field in a best 4 out of 7.
Yesterday Badger commented …”Make no mistake, everything the Dodgers do is targeting October.” I concur 100%. But that is exactly what San Diego did as well. It is my opinion that while the Dodgers are very good, they missed an opportunity to get better for 2020. I dismiss the position that LAD got better simply by promoting Tony Gonsolin over Strip. That decision was already made before Strip was traded. Strip was never going to be a playoff starter anyway, so how were the October Dodgers improved?
Tony Gonsolin came to summer camp late, and was not ready to compete as the 5th starter in the rotation. Strip got the job by default. To his credit, Strip came to camp in great shape. For whatever reason he lost command of his fastball and deservedly lost his starting role. I have always maintained that within the existing roster, May, Gonsolin, and Urias were always going to compete for #3 and #4 in October. I believe that was always the intent, with the one not making the October rotation, and Strip, moving into the bullpen. The original plan did not change, so there was no improvement.
San Diego did not miss the opportunity to get better in 2020. Some opined that San Diego did not do enough to catch the Dodgers. I stated that IMO San Diego did not care whether they caught the Dodgers or not. There is no home field advantage. I got some push back that of course San Diego was trying to catch the Dodgers. They needed to make the playoffs. The Padres are in ZERO danger of not making the playoffs. Wild card teams have previously won the WS, so why not the Padres? You do not need to go too far back…2019 Washington Nationals. The Pads have the third best winning percentage in the NL, and because they are 5.0 GB the Dodgers, they will go into the playoffs as the #4 seed and play the #5 seed in the first round. As of this column, that would be Miami, Philadelphia, or St. Louis. They always felt confident in getting to the playoffs. They wanted to be able to beat the Dodgers 4 out of 7 games.
Let’s assume that both the Dodgers and Padres beat their opponents in the first round. They would then go head to head in a best 4 of 7 series. In the first 7 games they played against each other in 2020, the Dodgers have won 4, while the Pads have won 3. The Padres already have a better offensive team, and they improved with the addition of Austin Nola replacing Austin Hedges at catcher, and Mitch Moreland as the DH. Two huge offensive additions.
They needed a top of the rotation pitcher, and they went out and acquired RHSP Mike Clevinger. They paid a stiff price. There is no doubt. But they did not trade highly rated pitcher prospects MacKenzie Gore, Luis Patino, Adrian Morejon, or Ryan Weathers. They did trade a pair of middle infield prospects (Gabriel Arias and Owen Miller) but they kept their top middle infield prospect, CJ Abrams (Padres #2). They traded a ML catcher (Hedges), but with Mejia, they have three ML catchers and retained their top catching prospect, Luis Campusano (Padres #4). Preller paid a steep price, but he made the decision…”if not 2020, when”.
It is curious that during the Winter and trade deadline discussions, the majority on this site were in favor of AF trading for Mike Clevinger. Now the discussion drifts to…Not that big of deal, overrated, brittle, he would not have made the Dodgers better. Okay, then. We see things differently. I am talking only about his pitching ability. I think he was wrong with his actions with respect to quarantining.
SD lost Kirby Yates, so Preller went out and traded for Trevor Rosenthal. Rosenthal has a stellar resume in the post season (targeting October). In 7 post season games against the Dodgers (8.0 IP) Rosenthal allowed 1 run. He is reportedly pitching at that elite level again. Some baseball pundits have labeled this trade as the most significant for them. With Pomeranz and Rosenthal, the Padres now have a stellar pair of late inning high leverage relievers.
The Dodgers are still better, but the Padres have narrowed the gap fairly significantly. I cannot be upset that the Dodgers did not end up with Lynn. I predicted he would stay with Texas and that is exactly what happened. The Rangers did not have to trade him, and they wanted a clear overpay from anyone, and they did not get it. The price for Clevinger was high. In the long term, Cleveland will be very happy about this trade. But SD did not hurt their future that much and improved their rotation with an Ace Like SP THIS YEAR. It is very clear that AF would not meet that price.
But AF couldn’t find a better player than Edward Olivares to give KC for Rosenthal?!? IMO, that was a mistake. Earlier in the month of August I said that Trevor Rosenthal should be a target for AF. For no other reason than because of his post season resume.
The Dodgers are in the bottom third of MLB in hitting against LHP, and yet did not address this apparent weakness. When I heard that Starling Marte was being made available, I opined that he would be ideal to fit into the Dodger lineup. Badger asked who he would replace, and I said Joc. People like to point out that Strip played himself off the team, but Joc hasn’t? I would rather have CT3 in LF facing RHP than Joc. Marte would have been great. But I doubt that Arizona would have traded Marte to LA nearly at the price Miami paid. But what about Todd Frazier from the Rangers. You know AF was on the phone with Jon Daniels about Lynn, why not Frazier? Against LHP this year, Frazier is hitting .343/.425/.514/.939. The only Dodger regular hitting LHP is AJ Pollock at .359/.366/.641/1.007. In the recent past, AF went out and got David Freese, Brian Dozier, and Tyler White (amongst others) for that RH bat off the bench. I am sure there are other RH bats that could have been available. IMO, missed opportunity.
2017 Astros picked up Verlander. 2018 Boston picked up Steve Pearce (WS MVP). 2019 Astros picked up Zack Greinke and the Nats picked up Daniel Hudson. This will be a big year for AF. If the Dodgers win, his standing pat will be vindicated. But if the Dodgers lose, especially to SD, AF will come under a great deal of scrutiny. I love the MiLB as much as anyone, if not more. But the Dodgers have been without a WS championship for 31 years. If not 2020, when? This was the year they were primed to win. With the additional 2 players, the prior mismanagement of the bullpen should be minimized. The bullpen is now deeper in quantity as well as quality.
I am certainly pleased that Julio Urias had a dominating effort. However, it is one game. He needs to back that up with his next 3-4 games. His next scheduled start projects to be against the Rockies, then Astros, then at Rockies, and finally A’s. That is how it is projected with no changes in the rotation.
My final vent regarding the trade deadline was the dismissal of Strip. I say dismissal because contrary to what Mark says, AF did not get value for Strip. I said it earlier in the week that Kendall Williams’ ceiling is a Ross Stripling clone. Per MLB Pipeline:
| Pitch | Strip – 2015 | Williams – 2020 |
| – | ||
| Fastball | 55 | 55 |
| Curve | 55 | 55 |
| Slider | 50 | 45 |
| Change | 45 | 50 |
| Control | 55 | 50 |
| Overall | 45 | 45 |
Williams is currently the #26 in the Dodgers top 30 (MLB Pipeline). He is rated between Edwin Uceta and Ryan Pepiot. He is rated two spots above Hyun-il Choi. Earlier in the week I said that Williams is another of Uceta and Choi, and that is where he has landed. I have nothing to base it on, but in my opinion, AF did not believe that Strip could help the team in 2020, thus the trade. I do not for a minute believe that he moved Strip as a favor to him. It is the job of the GM/President of Baseball Operations to make the team the best he can going into the playoffs. If AF thought that Strip would help the team, he would have kept him.
As a huge fan of Ross Stripling I hope he lights it up for Toronto. Also as a huge fan of Ross Stripling I will be rooting for Kendall Williams simply because he is the one who replaced Strip in the organization. Harold this is your cue to give us one of your great exposes on Taylor Williams.
I will get over my disappointment that Strip is no longer a Dodger, but I will never buy into the Dodgers are a better team without him.
Okay, it is now out of my system, and I am free to put back on my rose-colored glasses and finish the season in full throttle cheer my my Boys In Blue on their way to the 2020 WS championship. Thanks for letting me vent.
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Discussion (114)
Disagree, not disagreeable
I know about the experience argument, but statistically career wise our 3 young inexperienced starting pitchers (Gonsolin, May, Urias) are better than Lance Lynn.
Career stats:
Statistically Gonsolin is better than Clevinger.
Statistically May is similar to Clevinger.
Statistically Urias is similar to Clevinger.
So I understand the argument that Clevinger has experience and our young 3 do not, but statistically Clevinger is not a clear upgrade over our 3 young starting pitchers.
Now adding Clevinger would have allowed 2 of our 3 (instead of just 1) to go to the bullpen to make the bullpen even better.
So yes Clevinger would have made our team better by moving 2 of our 3 young starters to the pen for the playoffs to make our pen even better. But what price would AF had to pay for Clevinger?
And as far as Stripling is concerned, he just was not a good enough pitcher to deserve a spot on this team.
Spirited repartee today! I love it. Couple of things. First, all of us here are just fans. None of us has any influence on decisions AF, or the ownership makes. We all have opinions on those, some negative, some positive and some neutral. But none of us are in the room when the decision is made. One reason I loved the movie Draft Day was because it showed the behind the scenes manipulation. There are players who were out there I thought would make the Dodgers better, Bauer was one of my first choices. He went no where simply because the Reds are still in the race. Had they been 5 or 6 games back, they might have felt compelled to trade him before the lose him for nothing. I believed that one of the Jays RH hitting outfielder would have been an upgrade from the Kike-Joc debacle. But neither of those guys would have brought much in return. Even the Giants did not do much because they are not out of the picture either. I disagree that the Dodgers are far and away the best team. They have the most depth. They have statistically the best pitching. But they are behind the Padres offensively. Padres are better across the board offensively. Dodgers are tied with them in homers, but Pads BA, OPS, and OBP are higher. They have 10 triples to the Dodgers 3. More hits, more RBI’s and more runs scored. The Dodgers might have the biggest run differential, but it is simply because they beat up bad pitching, and even though their BA against lefty’s is abysmal, they own a 8-1 record against LH starters. What is OBVIOUS to anyone who has decent eyes is that the Dodgers are pitiful against quality starters. And that is what they will see when they get to the playoffs. They lost to DC because DC had superior starters, and a great pen. You cannot win in the playoffs with just 2 experienced starters. I think AF and the manager are putting an awful lot of faith in a trio of kids. This bullpen, bad apples and all, will be able to handle things better than the pens of the past, but even they are not super men. And at some point, they will have bad games. In the first round, they are not going to be able to do that.
I’ve been reading LADT for a few years now and I have really enjoyed it. Like Jeff, I am a transplant to Northern California. I was young (obviously!) when the Dodgers came to LA and have loved them from Day one. I brainwashed my older son who lives in Reno and he and his 3 children are also die hard Dodger fans. I too, like Jeff, lost a son recently. so we have several things in common–some to cheer about and some to grieve about.
We try to go to at least one series at Dodger Stadium each year. This year will break our streak but, God willing, we’ll be back there next year.
As far as the Dodgers go, both my son and I are extremely happy with their success over the last several years. They are almost always competitive and have built a wonderful baseball organization, from top to bottom. Yes, they haven’t won the big one yet but we both feel that the playoffs are a crap shoot and require both good timing and good luck. It would be nice if they won the WS not so much for the trophy but to get the monkey off their back so we can relax and enjoy the wonderful day in and day out play of the best 162 season team in baseball over the last several years. I think AF has done a great job and I’m quite content to go into the playoffs with the team we have now. They have the best record in the Majors by miles. Like I said, they just need some good timing and a little luck, or at least not another team to have better luck.
Thanks again for the opportunity to be a part of your group.
Today vs. Luke Weaver:
Mookie
Seager
Muncy (3b)
Belly
CT3 (CF)
Joc
Beaty (DH)
Kike
Barnes
Kersh
When you have a really good team with really talented players there’s not a lot of openings. Maybe a big rh dh bat or Clevinger. But to have a successful long term team like the Dodgers you have to develop young talent and trust them to perform. You just can’t sign all stars at every position. In our case we have a lot of talented young pitchers. Time to trust them! I do.
I think Bear is technically right about the Padres having better numbers but my rebuttal would be “oh yeah, well you just wait!”
Pretty strong, right?
This Dodger offense hasn’t hit as a unit yet. There is of course no guarantees they ever will in this bizarrely flocculant year, but if they do, they can beat anybody. My money, what little I have left at this point in my life, is on the Dodgers.
The Dodgers are not a perfect team. No team is. Most of us see weaknesses
1 – 3rd starter in the playoffs
2 – RH bat (presumably to DH)
3 – less reliable version of closer (Jansen) than in 2015 – 2017
4 – no offense out of Joc, Kike, and marginal contributions from many other key performers (Muncy just starting to hit, Smith bad BA, Lux nothing as of yet
So – the Pads are better than LA on offense? Here is their lineup
C – Hedges
1B – Hosmer
2B – Cronenworth
SS – Tatis Jr
3B – Machado
LF – Profar
CF – Grisham
RF – Myers
DH – Pham
I’d take the Dodgers over the Pads at every spot except 2B, SS and 3B. They have better numbers after 35 games but the Dodgers have better players at most spots. And clearly better pitching although the Pads did narrow the gap.
I agree we didn’t get much for stripling but maybe that says more about how the league valued stripling. Stripling has been around for awhile so the league knew him. Everybody needs pitching so you would think if he was really good teams would have competed for him. On the other hand if you like stripling and you say Williams is a clone then you just got stripling back only younger.
I think AF has built the Dodgers into a franchise to emulate. However, he has used the Dodgers financial strength to swing deals and has blown a wad of money on mediocre players A few we are still paying for. The last deal with Boston and Minnesota: we paid all of maeda salary plus money for price plus the prospects. Maeda is a pretty fair pitcher but they basically paid to give him to Minnesota where he has flourished to date. My point is who can argue with Betts and graterol but we didn’t outmaneuver anybody we used the la financial strength to do it.
To all on this board that served (Bear, Badger, and please tell me who else):
As someone who moved to this country and became an American Citizen: I will never EVER call you veterans losers or suckers. Please know that.
Kershaw looking sharper than a Wilkinson blade! No one on SD matches up to his level.
How it must suck to be Justin Smoak. He was just DFA’d by the Brewers in favor of Voglebach who has been DFA’d by 2 teams already after posting a .088 average with 2 homers. Smoak by comparison is Babe Ruth hitting .178 with 5 homers. AJ Ramos also DFA’d today. Clevinger lost his debut in Anaheim today losing to the Angels.
Opposing teams are going to learn real fast that the Dodgers hitters have a real problem with changeups. Luke Weaver, owner of the worst ERA in MLB, is taking a page out of Zac Gallen’s book. Thru four innings, the Dodgers have 3 hits and should have zero runs. Weaver has retired 10 in a row, and the change has been the outpitch on most of those ABs. They are going to get a steady diet of changes until they learn to wait on that pitch.
Joc hitting .189 with 5 HRs. He’s on the list.
All I will say is be careful of what you read in the media. Period! They are ruthless. This applies to sports, news, and life. This is not meant to be political… only educational.
Clayton’s ERA sits at 1.54 right about now. However, he will not have a no-hitter. Too many pitches.
The Padres have scored 222 runs (5.69 a game) while the pitiful Dodgers have only scored 215 runs (5.51 a game).
However, the Dodgers average 2.67 Earned Run a game, while the Padres ERA is 4.26.
Yeah, the Padres are just amazing!
If the Dodgers don’t win, they are choke artists… just sayin’…
Just about every Dodger batter does not swing on the first two pitches. This is the strategy they used last year. This makes for a very boring Dodger offense, grinding down pitchers, many BBs, and boring games.
Wow! Kersh!
I thought Pollock couldn’t hit RHP.
Kike Hernandez is an incredibly gifted athlete.
I am going to miss him next year.
Man that’s a bad Arizona baseball team! Maybe we could play them in the World Series!
Kershaw:
5-1
1.50 ERA
0.76 WHIP
36 IP
20 H
6 BB
41 K
.157 BA against
Who wants to say he is not the Ace?
Mike Trout hit the 298th homer of his career the other day. He is now 1 short of the franchise record of 299 held by Tim Salmon. Former Dodger Richie Allen’s # 15 was retired by the Phillies today. Going against the unwritten policy of the Phils to only retire numbers of players in the hall. One of the reasons cited was the way Allen was treated while he was a Philly by fans who were very racist at the time. The plaque was unveiled by Hall of Famer, Mike Schmidt. Fernando Rodney was released.
I was born in Philly and grew up a Phillies fan. Richie Allen was my favorite player. Johnny Collison, Tony Gonzales, Wes Covington, Jim Bunning, Chris Short, Ruben Amaro, Rick Wise, Clay Dalrimple, Cookie Rojas Bobby Wine, Jack Baldshwin. I know I’m butchering the names but many nights listening to my radio under my pillow. Allen swung like a 300 ounce bat! He was a monster! Broke my heart blowing that 6 or 7 game lead with 10 to play! Lot of great memories!