The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

For a few weeks a few years back, Trayce Thompson looked like a keeper. Then he got injured and he’s struggled ever since. Obviously not a dramatic move but with Mookie hurt and Pillar out for the season, it’s nice to have Klay’s brother back.

Lamb certainly has earned a shot. If they just want a bat, he’s the prudent choice because he’s a veteran and the service time issue. (Perhaps Cody could run into Max on a flyball….)

Almonte as closer? Hmm….

I really hope this is a strategic IL and not a concern one…

Caleb Ferguson placed on IL. Thompson not added yet, but they are down to 13 pitchers.

Be Bold and Mighty Forces will come to your aid!

Tell me this lineup would do any worse:

1. Lux 2B

2. Vargas 3B

3. Turner SS

4. Freeman 1B

5. Smith C

6. Busch LF

7. Taylor RF

8. Bellinger CF

9. Lamb DH

Screw it! Call up Vargas and Busch!

Trace Thomson.

That’s what I was hoping for when I said “shake shit up”.

The rotting animal corpse is really starting to smell.

Somebody brings out a Tic Tac.

Well, I suppose then that now we have to DFA DPrice. We need to add TT to the 40 man roster and then to the active roster.

Dodgers acquire Trayce Thompson from Detroit.

He may become the temp right fielder for a couple weeks.

I wait to read all comments to make my own but sbuffalo said it first:

“Right field at Dodger Stadium during the day is an adventure and you need an experienced outfielder”

I recalled CTaylor having nightmares a Sunday he replaced Mookie previously and the same Mookie having problems almost every Sunday home game. Don’t you think is fishy CTaylor playing the previous game in Right, was playing Left?

This album is the Truth!

Only reason Martin isn’t up yet is because he’s out of options. But dude should be playing left field on the regular.

McKinstry is on the roster, start him. Outman is on the 40 man roster bring him up and start him.

While Betts is out:

Lux

T Turner

Freeman

Smith

Outman

Taylor

McKinstry

J Turner

Bellinger

Roberts hinted that the Dodgers might go out of the organization for a bat. If you look at the roster, the only two players listed as outfielders are Taylor and Bellinger. Far cry from the days when they had five or six. Machado out with a sprained ankle. They have six very winnable games on the next road trip, three in Cincy and three with the Rock heads. Atlanta will be tough. The pitching is going to have to be right on the money. Kimbrel has given up runs in each of his last seven appearances. Bad pitching not bad luck and certainly not what you want from your closer. But, in his defense, offense left 15 men on base yesterday. They lost two of three when they just as easily could have swept the series with some timely hitting, which this team has not done in the last 16 games.

Makes me wish we had kept Kenley and AJ. Or at least AJ. I actually wanted to see Blake Treinen close. That, of course, wouldn’t have gone well with the injury. But I think maybe they should try someone else. Kimbrel seems to be a bit of a mess. They won’t, of course.

Yes Craig Kimbrel is bad. Maybe something clicks and he has a run. But it doesn’t look promising. Maybe BP is right. It will all be okay.

Right field was a mess. Right field at Dodger Stadium during the day is an adventure and you need an experienced outfielder. They didn’t have one. It cost them the game. I did find it interesting that Dave Roberts questioned why the collision happened in the first place. Lack of communication? Obviously. But it wasn’t noise from the crowd at that point in the game.

I really don’t understand what is wrong with Cody Bellinger. The talent is still there, but the production isn’t. Originally, it was the injury. Understandable. But now? This guy is a big time talent who just isn’t getting it done. Consistent play somehow fading away.

Apparently all the hitting gurus and all the process just isn’t getting it done. Maybe too many gurus and way too much process. Trust the process, right? Maybe he just needs to simplify his approach. I’d be curious how the new age coaches explain all of this.

How exactly does Cody swing through 92 mph fastballs anyway? Seems to happen often these days.

Or maybe it’s just the new ball. Or not.

If effort or production or play means anything in the minors, you simply have to give Jake Lamb a shot. The Dodgers owe him that.

What are they waiting for?

Yes, Max Muncy needs to take a seat. He’s not a prime time hitter right now. Yes, you hope he returns to form, but the injury is probably still lingering. Wasting at bats hoping that suddenly his bat comes alive seems unproductive.

How many hitters can you have that aren’t producing and still put up rallies? Too many holes and the results have become obvious.

So after listening to all the hype, I have reached the conclusion that is all it was. Look at the Dodgers line-up, we were repeatedly told by pundits and analysts, no way a pitcher can work through that kind of offensive firepower. Runs will come in bunches. Only it hasn’t happened.

Maybe, somehow it all clicks in August and rolls into the post season. More than likely the woes remain.

Yes, they won lots of games last year, that means something, right? The Dodgers should be even better. After all they added Freddie Freeman. There is a certain logic to that and this is only June.

You have to be impressed with Tyler Anderson and Andrew Heaney, both rising up expectations. So, not all is lost. We’re just in the midst of June gloom.

Sunny days are ahead.

I do not think the sky is falling, but already two teams have fired their managers when the team underperformed. It has made a difference. I am calling for Robert’s head! Robert Van Socyoc! The Hitting Coaches? RVS, Bates, and Brown are not getting the job done. We have seen this movie before. There is evidently something to the RVS Approach that produces feast or famine and occasionally turns good hitters into guys who can’t jump out of a boat and hit water.

What has he done to Cody, Max, JT, and even Mookie for much of the season? I think that Andrew Friedman needs to take this team in another direction. Hitting coaches have a short shelf life.

Patch likes to use certain stats selectively to make a case for a player’s future performance. It makes me wonder if he checked Kimbrel’s FIP before he went on his tirade this morning, which sits at a pristine 2.32.

I like to look at a player’s baseball savant page to tell me how lucky / unlucky, good / bad a player is compared to the rest of the league…

Hard hit % 97 – Elite

xwOBA – 88 – Great

xERA 88 – Great

xBA – 93 – Elite

xSLG 89 – Great

Barrel % – 74 Good

K% – 95 – Elite

Fastball Velo – 87 – Great

All of that matches what I can see with my eyes. He will be fine. All of these indicators suggest a lot of bad luck. Believe what you want. Cry now, smile later.

B&P I have to disagree with your assessment of Kimbrel. Sure, there were several missed calls by the umpire and a couple of soft hit base hits. And the Alvarez play would have been an exceptional play if he had caught the ball. And I know if it wasn’t for bad luck he would have no luck at all. Yada, yada. But, with all that a closer is supposed to come in shutdown the other team. You know, kind of like the Cleveland closer did. Look at Kimbrel’s stats so far this year. Sure, he has a nice K rate, but look at the BB’s and hits he’s given up. I don’t think he’s had a clean inning this year. It seems every time he comes in the first batter he faces gets on base. Color me totally unimpressed with him not only as a closer, but as a reliever. His ERA (4.71), WHIP (1.57), and average against (.262) are god awful. Despite his 12 saves he’s not worth the $16M he’s being paid. Let’s try someone else for right now (Almonte maybe?). It’s been mentioned that he’s working on some things. Well, have do that in the minors.

Graterol is another reliever that has had some issues. He throws 100+ much of time and gets hit around much too often. I don’t think he has improved much in the 2+ years he’s been with the Dodgers. I had him pegged to be the next closer, but that doesn’t seem to be the case right now. Look at the Cleveland closer yesterday. He throws 100+ with a nasty slider and completely shuts down the Dodger hitters. Graterol has to develop a way to get some movement on his FB. His slider is adequate, but would be more effective with a better FB. Also, he should stop that ridiculous crap he doesn’t at the end of an inning especially when he hasn’t been that effective.

Please, get Lux a strap for his helmet. Every time he swings it seems to come off. When he hits a ball in play he takes a second to grab his helmet to keep it on his head. One day that second is going to cost the Dodgers a game because he’s thrown out at first in a split second, bang bang play. I’ve never seen anything like it except maybe for Willie Mays. Lux ain’t no Willie Mays. Oh yeah, keep him in the ninth spot. It’s working. Leave it alone.

Talk about leaving it alone what’s the deal with Max Muncy and Roberts’ (front office?) obsession with him batting fourth? The same over and over and getting the same result is….insane! Are they trying to lose? It seems so lately with the recent lineups. I agree with those that suggest bringing up at least Lamb, and maybe this Martin guy, I never heard much about him, but lately he seems to be someone to try to bring a spark to this boring, unproductive lineup. Something has to be done to stir things up right now. We are wasting a lot of good pitching and losing too many games to teams that we should dominate. It’s long season, but it’s going to be even longer is we don’t become more consistent offensively. If the team fails come playoff time they can look back on this part of the season as to why.

Here’s a lineup I would like to see upon Mookie’s return:

T Turner – SS

F Freeman – 1B

M Betts – RF

W Smith – C

C Bellinger – CF

J Turner-DH

J Lamb -3B

J Martin – LF

G Lux – 2B

Luck has nothing to do with it, why does someone always have to find and make excuses for the poor performance of the team or of a certain player?

Bad luck, bad fielding, bad umpire, bad manager, minutes delay, lineup batting order, not too many lefties in a row, no righties in a row.

Roberts may be a great manager, but he’s not the one for LA.

Dodgers have too many “nice and smiling players” but none with killer instinct. Where is an Eddie Murray, a Kirk Gibson, a Bumgarner, Donaldson, Harper, …Sorry, but even an asshole like Machado… I know, I must be high to say this, but at least that jerk didn’t think to claim Tatis, remember?

You are not going to participate in a dog fight with only poodles, they need some Dobermans

At least seeing that jerk fall at first base was worth it, it was the best of the last 10 days!

Oooooh! So, we are going to place the blame on Alvarez now? Nevermind that the line in the box score for Kimbrel reads – 1.0 innings / 2 hits / 2 runs / 2 BB for an ERA of 4.71.

Maybe outfield isn’t his normal position. Maybe Doc had to put him out there because of that thing about needing a right handed bat who he can put in the outfield. You know who’s a good right handed bat who plays outfield? AJ Pollock.

I’m not going to bash on AF for making this move. AF is better than any other GM aside from maybe the guy from the Rays and Beane (Farhan is making a name for himself, too) in making the necessary and correct moves to ensure a winning ballclub. The Dodgers needed a closer, so they traded from a position of perceived surplus to fill a need. The move made sense at the time. A little risky, maybe, and AF is better, I think, at plucking out guys from obscurity with high upside. He usually doesn’t chase big names.

The move hasn’t worked out.

“You’re a negative Nancy! Kimbrel’s just unlucky. His arm was cold. The outfielder didn’t catch the ball, etc, etc.”

Ok, Pollyanna. You go ahead and publicly pronounce that you are totally confident going into the playoffs with Kimbrel as the Dodger’s closer. I dare you!

There are no internal options. It’s not going to be Bobby Miller. It’s not going to be Gavin Stone. It’s not going to be some journeyman named Yencey.

In the last two games I witnessed two times Bellinger swing right through a 92 MPH center cut fastball with little movement. He’s late on fastballs. Because he’s late on fastballs, he’s become a guess hitter, but his pitch recognition isn’t good, so he’ll be badly fooled by pitches well out of the strike zone or overpowered by fastballs when he’s not expecting them. Now, even when he times a pitch that’s hittable he misses. I don’t know what the answer is. I’m just a dumb fan. The Dodgers don’t know the answer, either.

It is very very very hard to build a WS winning baseball team, let alone do it year after year. The planets all have to align just right. Looks like it’s the year of the Yankees – and they’re doing it with pitching other than Gerrit Cole. Who woulda thunk?

Why does Roberts send out the same lineup. Because the bench is as bad as last year. As good as the Dodger prospects are there is no right handed outfielder available (except Pages). Depth is an issue with this team and that’s on AF.

Okay, that sounds interesting. Let’s just go ahead and say you can call JT and Max into Docs office and while they’re in there, you have someone pour some Crisco on the staircase and when they leave, you give them a shove down that staircase and they both land on the IL. You call up Lamb and Martin. Who gets the axe on the 40 man to make room for them?

Eddie Alvarez is an easy cut, so you wouldn’t necessarily have to injure one of these guys. You can just put one of them on the bench. Lorenzo Cain got the straight DFA the other day as the result of a .465 OPS. JT is sitting at .620, Muncy at .597. Both are a far cry from .465.

Maybe you just bring them both into the trainer’s office and leave them alone with a couple of big jars, one labelled “The Clear” and the other “The Cream” and send them on a two – three week vacation in the weight room and home their number isn’t called for a piss test.

Do you just go ahead and DFA one of them and “Rehab” the other? That would create the two roster spots necessary for adding Martin and Lamb. DFA Alvarez and JT and hope you can rehab Muncy? That would leave you with 6 lefties in the lineup, batting back to back in three spots in the order. Something that Doc has been allergic to so far in his managerial career.

Moving on to Kimbrel. No, it wasn’t a good outing, but it wasn’t like Kimbrel completely failed either. He struck out Owen Miller, the first hitter he faced on 5 strikes, somehow only three of them were counted as strikes. He genuinely walked the next hitter on a 3-2 count. He then gave up a fake double on a ball that should have been caught. Next hitter, Doc walks. Next hitter, with bases loaded, instead of playing corners in, Doc has the infield in and Andres Gimenez shoots a soft liner (80mph exit velo) through the pulled in infield. An easy out if the infield was playing double play depth.

Kimbrel was a victim of bad luck and bad decisions and bad calls at the plate. All three exit velocities, the fake double, the soft liner and the sac fly had exit velocities of 82, 80, 83. By the Ninth inning in a tie game, there was no reason to have Eddie Alvarez in right field after he already botched two plays. After intentionally loading the bases with one out, Doc should have had the infield at double play depth instead of in.

As far as Lux goes, they probably should bat him leadoff. IMHO, they have it right by batting him 9th, which is essentially leadoff once the lineup turns over. It’s tomato, tomato for me. I think he would do the same either way. In fact, I think I would have him bat second and Freddie third. I, unlike Doc, don’t think it’s a big deal to have a lefty bat in front of another lefty that can hit lefties.

Here’s what I would do.

Injure Muncy again, cut Alvarez and Bruhil. With all the pitching we have in the minors, and all the left handed relievers already in the system, we don’t need to keep Bruhil. Add Martin and Lamb to the roster as you suggested. JT stays on the roster and Muncy goes on the IL and works out in Arizona until he can hit, then send him on a rehab assignment until he proves he can hit. This will give him about another month to see if it’s worth keeping him on the roster. BTW, there’s no way in hell I let Hanser bat cleanup.

Lux 2B

Turner SS

Freeman 1B

Lamb 3B

Smith C

Bellinger CF

Taylor RF

JT DH

Martin LF

JT, Z-Mack and Lamb can split 3B and DH duties with some off days for JT against tough righties.

Mark, I get it. Years ago when I was a teacher, there was a question about sending mail because many students didn’t live with people who had same last name as them. So one question was ‘name on mail box’. One came back with answer ‘US Mail’!!

As for Lux, I guess Roberts answer is, after first at bat Lux is batting before Turner anyway. So if he gets on base, we have our top three hitters following him. But unless they are all hot it is still a struggle when you have 3 guys hitting about .200 playing every day