But that has never stopped us before… has it? We will say whatever we damn well please… and worry about the consequences later. So, here is what I think I know, and if you disagree you must be some kind of derelict! After all, 10 games into the season, we should have all the answers (or not).
- Cody Bellinger – He’s better than last year, but this will be a process. BTW, it’s a process that I think he will conquer, but it will take time nonetheless. Prediction: I would say that at the end of the season, his stats will look something like this: .249 BA, 26 HR, 67 RBI, 29 DBL, 6 TRP, 18 SB, and I will be happy with that.
- Mookie Betts – Last week, I tried to trade him back to the Red Sox, for Alex Verdugo but was vetoed by the Sox. In fact, they said, “This is the second Trade we have swindled you on.” I also rue the day we traded for Crawford and A-Gon… and predicted it at the time. Prediction: Mookie Betts will hit .267 with 29 HR and 61 RBI, with a .887 OPS. But, damn, that guy can bowl!
- Chris Taylor – CT3 is the heart and soul of this team. Everyone loves him. Prediction: He will man LF most of the time, and will hit .251 with 28 HR and 69 RBI.
- Justin Turner – 2022 will be his last season as he will retire and join the Dodgers’ Front Office. Prediction: JT will hit .278 with 17 HR and 69 RBI.
- Trea Turner – In his last year as a Dodger, Trea Turner will be the equal (not the better) of Corey Seager defensively, and provide steadiness at the top of the lineup. Prediction: Trea will hit .306 with 39 DBL, 7 TRIP, 18 HR, and 119 runs scored.
- Max Muncy – Max will split his time between 2B and DH – in fact, Max and JT will be the primary DH’s. Prediction: If he is fully recovered from his injury, Max will hit .234 with 29 HR, 108 BB, and 71 RBI.
- Gavin Lux – Here is where I am lost. I have no clue. No prediction. I just hope he does exceptionally well.
- Freddie Freeman – Freddie will become the face of the Dodgers and fans will love him and Charlie. Prediction: Freddie will win the NL MVP, hitting .319 with 34 HR, 119 RBI, and a .987 OPS.
- Will Smith – He will make his first All-Star Game Appearance and be recognized as the best catcher in the NL. Prediction: .286 BA, 28 HR, 92 RBI, .901 OPS.
By June, the lineup will look like this:
- T. Turner SS
- Bellinger CF
- Freeman 1B
- Smith C
- Muncy 2B
- Taylor LF
- Betts RF
- J-Turner 3B
- DH – whoever
The Dodger’s offense will not be what they projected, but it will be solid top-to-bottom and along with their deep, deep, pitching, they will win over 100 games again, beating the Giants by 9 games and the Padres by 13 games. The Dodgers Rotation will win 79 games, led by Clayton Kershaw with 17. The Dodgers will not have a Cy Young Finalist in the Top 10. Craig Kimbrel will have his arm fall off, and someone will need to step up.
Ryan Pepiot also had 3 months in the majors and was a swingman, winning 4 games with a 3.14 ERA. After Justin Turner broke his right hand being hit by a pitch in late August, Miguel Vargas took his place and batted .308 with 12 HR and 47 RBIs. Trevor Bauer returned after MLB refused to suspend him and was 2-3 in his 6 games with a 4.44 ERA, however, he was kidnapped in July, and never heard from again. Weeks later, his alleged victim, was quoted as saying,”But I was just kidding.”
Disclaimer (or not): OK, maybe I do or maybe I don’t believe a word of what I just wrote, but now half of you want to kiss me and the other half want to lynch me. I just cannot win!
At Your Leasure…
Jordon Leasure is a 6′ 3″ 215-pound RHP for the Great Lakes Loons. He was born in Brandon, Florida in 1998, and was drafted in the 2021 Amateur Draft in the 14th Round out of the University of Tampa. So far, in 7.1 IP this season, he has 16 Strikeouts. Yes, he walks a few (that is to be expected) in that he has 5 Walks to go with those strikeouts. In his senior year at Tampa, he had an ERA of 1.17 and in 38 innings, he struck out 60 batters. He is 23-years-old… soon to be 24, so he could move quickly IF HE CAN HARNESS HIS CONTROL A LITTLE BIT! Just a little!
See, here’s the deal: He has a fastball that is in the high 90s and an above-average-to-very-good slider. He’s a perfect closer! He won’t be in Great Lakes for very long – as long as he can shave a walk or three off of his stats. Next year, Jordon could be a Top 20 prospect, but he is not even in the Dodgers Top 40 Prospects right about now. It is sick how many big, large, huge, arms are in the Dodgers farm system. It boggles my mind!
A Tribute to Badger
Badger has been around so long that most of you think that is his real name. However, it is not. I am one of the few who know his real moniker and now I am going to reveal it. His real name is Elwood P. Suggins, Jr. There, I said it. Next, we all know that he played a lot of baseball in his younger days. However, he is now 108 years old and only plays pickup games with the Little Sisters of the Poor. You may wonder what position he played, so I am going to show you his very best position. This is it:
At any rate, Badger has been on the blog forever (don’t I know it?) But, it is only because everyone else who was here this long is dead… except for me. Here’s a song for you, Badger… from where you used to frequent!
Discussion (27)
Disagree, not disagreeable
Well it was bound to happen. Some moron Padre fan chucked a beer can at Cody after he caught a ball. Then later 2 Dodger fans and 2 Padre fans went toe to toe in the stands. I would never go there or SF to watch a game. Had fun pickin with some really old friends tonight. A couple are even older than Badger.
I think we have too many bullpen options now. (not that it’s a bad thing, but we have so many good arms and more down in the minors ready to go)
Who woke the two Mendoza guys up tonight?
Another fielding mistake by Turner. I’m not impressed so far.
Except for Joc!!!!
When you look at the offensive numbers for the Giants you would think they’ve only won a couple of games. Just incredible pitching. Seems like everybody who pitches there has career years! Who’s their pitching coach?
Here’s a good article on BABIP and the hitters who are likely to maintain it if it’s above average:
https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2017/12/26/16815098/babip-mlb-batting-average-on-balls-in-play-stats-statcast
Another SF starting pitcher goes down. Anthony DeSclafani is going on the IL with right ankle inflammation. 2/5 of their Opening Day rotation is now on the IL. OF Steven Duggar is going on the 60-day IL so he will miss a couple months.
SPJulio Urias L
0-1 3.86 ERA
Confirmed Lineup
RF Mookie Betts R
1B F. Freeman L
SS Trea Turner R
3B Max Muncy L
DH J. Turner R
C Will Smith R
CF C. Bellinger L
LF Chris Taylor R
2B Gavin Lux L
Partly-cloudy-day
0% Rain
62° Wind 12 mph L-R
I was listening to AM570 just now and they were talking about the upcoming Padres Dodgers series…
Manny Machado coming back to LA after opting out after the 2023 season.
Padres 14 errorless games to start the season is largely because Fernando Tatis Jr.’s injury.
No more swag in the dugout, the chain is gone!
New manager has a more professional acting team. Not talking a bunch of crap before the Dodgers series.
Many are pissed at Tatis, refusing shoulder surgery and breaking his wrist on a motorcycle. Fans would trade him to Texas for Seager.
I’m really looking forward to this series.
I use three Stats to evaluate a position player:
OPS
WAR
OPS+
OPS+ is slightly redundant, but with those three, I can make a determination.
We can talk about how guys like Cleavinger and White might not be that good (and many were saying the same about Gonsolin a few days ago), but if you really look at them with open eyes, you will see that they have some really great stuff. That is something you cannot teach. But you can help them to refine their stuff… and there is a fine line between success and failure.
All these statistics are giving me a headache! Just tell me if he’s doin good or ain’t doin good!
Just curious….so how old is the BADGER?
I read something earlier this week and I thought I would just pass it around for the heck of it. His name is Roki Sasaki. He’s a 20 yo RHP who is 6’3″ and 188 lbs.
He pitched 8 perfect innings (14Ks) before being taken out….after throwing a perfect game with 19Ks in his previous start!!! In his previous game he had 13Ks in a row. No one had pitched a perfect game in the NPB for 28 years.
The reason given was he was over 100 pitches in both games and the manager did not want to take a chance on him hurting himself. He has three pitches a 102 mph FB, a 91 mph splitter with intense movement and a forkball. The man set down 52 batters in a row.
To me that’s AWESOME no matter what level a player is in. Just FYI
Blake Treinen to the IL with Shoukder issues.
It’s still too early to predict much of anything; however, I am not as sanguine about Cody Bellinger as you are. The peripherals don’t support it.
Per MLB.com:
He has a 31.3% K rate
He has a 42.9% GB rate
He has a .385 BABIP.
The last number is unsustainable and shows that he has been more lucky than good. His highest single season BABIP is .313 and for his career it’s .284. There’s a lot of air in his numbers and I expect that they will deflate if the peripherals don’t change.
Thoughts:
* I’m anticipating some motivated baseball against the Padres, Make a statement early and often.
* I would think that some enterprising Orthpaedic Surgeon will someday figure out a new procedure for Tommy John surgery. Instead of replacing a harvested ligament from the body they will use a piece of woven steel cable for a UCL The market will be dads of 13 yr old pitchers on travel teams. The surgery will be part of preparation for a pro career and not due to injury. The hope is get up to 115 to 120 mph. Instead of Tommy John the procedure will be named the Steve Austin Procedure and cost about 6 million dollars.
* I must admit I was wrong about how MLB decided to check a pitcher for illegal substances as they left the mound. I over complicated the solution by wanting to wait until the new season started, they could introduce a new tackified ball, and an approved substance. After some initial rebellion by some players last year, the whole deal has quietly faded away. The umps now unobtrusively do the quick check on the baseline as the pitcher exits. Now just part of the game. MLB got this one right without any long-term fuss.
* The physical characteristics and skills of who hits where in a modern day lineup certainly has changed. The stereotypic leadoff rabbit followed by the contact / bunter type, then the best hitter before the bopper in the 4 hole. To illustrate the change you need not go no farther than the Pirates. Their leadoff lead guy last night was Daniel Vogelbach. If your not that familiar with ole Dan, just google up his picture to see what I mean. He makes Babe Ruth look like Maury Wills. And he homered.
* Sorry but this is the best I can come up with after a day off.
Hey Mark, fun predictions, but even better is that photo of you and Badger. Looks like a good memory and makes me feel like Badger might have a sense of humor in there somewhere. While I don’t agree with all of those predictions, they certainly aren’t beyond the realm of possibility. Maybe a little bullish on Smith and Freeman and a little bearish on Belli and Mookie, but hard to argue at this very early point in the season.
One of the best off days all season. A whole day off after a day game and a short trip to San Diego. Gotta love that! On top of that, Patch’s favorite team finished off losing 3 of 4 against the Mighty Mets. Ouch, that’s gotta hurt!
Another test this weekend against the Padres who seem to hit lefties well with nothing but lefties lined up to face them. Big ballpark and the ball not travelling particularly well in the early season, humidors and all. Weather is a little on the chilly side, but offshore winds are on the way with a nice warm day game on Sunday. Petco is going to have a large crowd. I checked for tickets for giggles and kicks. There’s not much out there on the mlb site and they aren’t cheap either.
The Giants get a mediocre Nationals team in DC as the Rockies get ready for a rising Tigers team that’s off to a less than eye-opening start to their season. Who cares about the D-Backs? Anyone?
I don’t think Diego’s slow start is going to last long. I was perusing through the stat pages of our Top-30 prospects yesterday and was pleasantly surprised that most of them are performing quite well in the early going. I think Keith Law has it right. We are absolutely stacked in the minors.
Vogel was always supposed to be a project with the bat. The early showing isn’t good. I haven’t seen his swing, so I don’t know if it’s fixable. The Dodgers tried with Kendall who has the worst swing I’ve seen since Erisbel Arruebarrena. I have no idea if Vogel is that bad. He’s a local kid from my home-town, so I’m rooting for him.
I try not to get overly high or low on guys in the early going. If you start off on a streak, you look like Trout and if you start on a slump, you look like Mendoza. I’m encouraged with Belli and Lux, I don’t think Mookie will be as bad as you do and I don’t feel too good about Muncy, coming off injury and shuffled between second and third. I’m not that fond of “three true outcome” type players like Muncy and Joc to begin with.
Baseball is very contradictory at times. Why is it that strikeouts are glorified for pitchers, but not stigmatized for hitters? You have to be wary of the usefulness of stats that emphasise or emphasize outcomes that a large parts of the population like BABIP or FIP. No stats are perfect, that’s why you have to look at all of them.
Even a stat like OPS favors some players over others.
It does not take into account strikeouts
It treats walks like singles – How often does someone score from second on a walk? – Is the walk earned if it sets up a force play with less than 2 outs?
Who says that 1 point of SLG equals 1 point of OBP? Would you rather have a player with a 300 AVE 320 OBP and 500 SLG, or a guy with a 260 AVE, 400 OBP and a 420 SLG? Both players are slow baserunners.
Who says a double is worth twice as much as a single and a triple three times as much? Both can clear the bases with 2 outs.
What good is a FIP of 3.00 if your ERA is 4.50 or vice versa. What does it really tell you? It really favors ground ball pitchers and xFIP is even worse. BABIP favors guys that don’t hit homers.
FIP penalizes pitchers that give up homers and BABIP penalizes hitters that hit a lot of homers. How does that make sense?
Fangraphs WAR and Baseball Reference WAR can’t even agree how to rank players. Every team with an analytics department would rather user their own version of WAR than BR or FG.
Vargas, Cartaya, Busch, Pages. None of them put up numbers like Gavin Lux so far in the minors. The best bet for our next great home grown player is Gavin.
Mark desperately wants to be right about Alex Verdugo. I maintain he’ll wind up looking a lot more like Todd Hollandsworth than Tony Gwynn when his career is over. I’ll say it again. Not enough speed for Center and not enough power for a corner. Mark wants to trade Mookie for Verdugo? I say no. Let’s see who’s right at the end of the year.
Don’t forget. Without Mookie no way we win it all in 20!
Out of all your predictions, this one slapped me in the face…..
Chris Taylor with 28 HRs…..are you his brother?
The most he ever has hit is 21 and that was when he was a virile young man at 26 (2017). He has none to date this year…..I’d be happy if he hits half of what you said (14).
I’m glad you decided not to do Lux because you are right- we still don’t know what path he is heading on. And yes, I will take those numbers you gave to Bellinger.
As for Mookie- hard to believe Verdugo may outhit him this year. Did he do it last year? If not, I’m sure they were close to each other. And to think, I thought when we got Mookie, he was one of the five best players in baseball. Don’t think that now…..maybe Fenway is much friendlier for batters. That Green Monster does look alluring.
Overall, nice job Mark…I certainly give you an A for effort.
TM
Morning gang. I have to take a training class today to learn what I need to know about helping with my brothers’ physical therapy. Then this afternoon I am off to Riverside where an old-time pickers bunch is playing at the VFW to celebrate the birthday of one of us old farts. Not me. That happens in June. My nephew loaned me his telecaster for the gig. I left mine at home, the altitude change makes it hard to keep them in tune, Got the Padres tonight. I should be back in time to watch the game. I like most of Mark’s predictions, but I think Mookie is going to turn it around a lot more than some of you do.
Hey Mark, any thought to buying the naming rights for Dodger stadium?
And add Hoese as another first round bust
Our superstar catching prospect at Rancho is off to a horrible start. Four K’s last night. Vargas, Busch and Pages look like our best near future position prospects so far. If Busch continues to develop it would seem less likely to sign TT. Unless he’s into deferred money. A lot more arms in the pipeline than bats. A couple of former #1’s Kendal and Vogel look like busts
Thanks for the shoutout Mover. One correction, I won’t be 103 until next March. Elwood is a family name.
You look taller there.
I miss Sedona.
Now predictions:
Yours. Entertaining. Mine. I predict you’ll be wrong on every one of yours. Except for Will Smith being an All Star. There’s nobody better. I also predict we will need, and find, another starter.
Jordan Leasure. Never heard of him.
Well Will Smith will want to kiss you! I’ll take the under on that one. I’ll take a whack at Lux. .278 with an OPS of .789. But a big breakout next year as our new SS! Other than Smith, the only other somebody wanting to kiss you is your beautiful wife. Maybe!