Category Archives: 2008 in review

MSTI.com’s 2008 In Review: Starting Pitchers

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87toppschadbillingsleyChad Billingsley (A)
(16-10, 3.14 ERA, 1.336 WHIP)
Let’s get it out of the way right at the start: Chad Billingsley killed the Dodgers in the NLCS. 2 starts, 10 runs, 12 hits, 7 walks, and just 5 total innings. Absolutely brutal, with no argument from me on that one, and that’s all that’s keeping him from getting that nice little plus next to his grade. That said, let’s not let that overshadow his great start in the NLCS (1 run over 6.2 innings) and his outstanding regular season so much so that we miss the truth of Chad Billingsley, 2008: at 24 years old, he’s become a a bona fide ace.
I’m about to throw a whole bunch of stats at you, but I think it’s important to show that by just about every single measure, Chad Billingsley was one of the top 10-15 starting pitchers in all of MLB in 2008, regardless of his age or experience. The names in parentheses are a sampling of the famous people that finished behind Billingsley in that particular category.
ERA: 3.14, 11th in MLB (Peavy, Webb, Oswalt, Greinke)
VORP: 51.6, 12th in MLB (Peavy, Webb, Oswalt, Dice-K)
K: 201, 9th in MLB (Hamels, Dempster, Cain, Lee)
K/9 (min 100 IP): 9.01, 7th in MLB (Sabathia, Beckett, Haren, Santana)
OPS against: .687, 26th in MLB (Lester, Oswalt, Beckett)
I mean, you can’t say enough about this kid. I suppose none of this should come as too much of a surprise, given how highly touted he was coming through the minors and the fact that he posted a 118 ERA+ as a 21-year-old rookie in 2006, but you can never count on young pitching prospects. Really, what’s higher praise than saying that if we’d traded him straight-up for Brandon Webb, Jake Peavy, or Josh Beckett, it would have been a downgrade in 2008 – and that’s before even considering the massive differences in their salaries, or that in order for the Red Sox to get Beckett, it cost them Hanley Ramirez. (Sidenote: Chad Billingsley was as good or better than Jake Peavy in 2008, at a fraction of the price, at several years younger, in a less pitcher-friendly stadium, and didn’t spend time on the DL with elbow trouble. Can we please knock it off with having to hear Billingsley’s name come in up Peavy trade rumors? It’s just beyond ludicrous.)
And, oh yeah – he’s just 24!
The crazy part is, there’s ample evidence to show that he could be even better, and not just because of his age. If you look at the top 30 starting pitchers as ranked by VORP, Billingsley has the second highest BABIP (batting average on balls in play) at .320. The average BABIP is .290; this means that Billingsley put together this incredible season despite being victimized more often by poor defense and/or bad luck than most other top-flight pitchers. Not only that, but Billingsley got off to a terrible start in 2008 – 0-4 with a 6.87 ERA in his first four starts, which many of us felt could be directly attributed to the bizarre way in which Joe Torre handled him through rain delays and relief appearances his first two times out (relieve that horror here, if you must). It’s not that April starts don’t count, because they do, but if you look at his season from his last start in April on, it’s clear that he was even more dominating than the full season stats show – 16-6 with a 2.75 ERA in 28 starts.
There’s other hope for improvement, as well: Billingsley definitely has to work on his control and working deeper into games. Not that he’s wild, but his BB/9 rate is tied for 4th highest among those top 30 VORPing pitchers. On the other hand, he had some pretty great success despite that, and he’s shown improvement in that area in his each of his three seasons. We have yet to see the best of Chad Billingsley, and that’s a pretty exciting prospect. Still, I can’t pretend that it’s all going to be roses, kittens, and Cy Youngs; the fact that he just jumped 65 innings between 2007 and 2008 is definitely something to keep an eye on.
Yet, I continually feel as though Billingsley is widely underrated by the baseball public. You’ve got a kid who’s already in the same league as the top aces in baseball, and is only likely to get better, yet he’s rarely mentioned to be in their class. This is part of the reason I’ve been saying for six months that I don’t understand everyone’s need to throw money and/or prospects at an ace pitcher when it’s so obvious that what this team needs is a bat – because we’ve already got an ace, and he’s making the minimum.
Speaking of which, we’re pretty sure he’s the real deal, right? Can we try to sign him to a long-term contract, oh, I don’t know, yesterday?
87toppsderekloweDerek Lowe (A+)
(14-11, 3.24 ERA, 1.133 WHIP)
You know, if you’d have asked me to describe Derek Lowe’s Dodger career entering 2008 in one word, that word would have been without a doubt, “consistency”. It’s amazing to look at his 2005-07 seasons, because they’re nearly carbon copies of each other. In all three, he made 33-35 starts, pitched between 199-221 innings, had ERA+’s between 114-124, and best of all, look at the yearly WHIPs: 1.252, 1.266, 1.269. You figured you knew exactly what you were going to get from him, and unlike a lot of guys, he didn’t have a track history of stepping it up in contract years, at least judging by his disastrous 2004 in Boston (5.42 ERA).
Well, Derek Lowe in 2008 completely destroyed all of that. First of all, he was three different pitchers this year. You got your standard-issue Lowe, if not slightly improved, in April, June, July, and August, months in which his ERA was never lower than 2.81 or higher than 3.65. You got your BIOHAZARD!!! Derek Lowe in May, when he was 0-4 with a 6.11 ERA. And finally, you got CC Lincecum in September, where he allowed just 2 earned runs in 30.1 innings. Somehow, Lowe managed to pull the second best season of his starting career out of his pocket, which I basically how I described it in the middle of his September run when I lamented his impending departure:

It all adds up to the second-best year of his career as a starter, behind only his 2002 campaign in which he finished 3rd in the AL Cy Young voting. 2008 has seen Lowe set non-2002 career highs in WHIP and ERA+ (as a starter; remember, he was an All-Star closer in Boston first).

Incredibly, many of the same things I said about Chad Billingsley above apply to Lowe as well; Derek had a higher ERA than Billingsley, but his lower OPS allowed him to place 9th in all of MLB. That’s right; Derek Lowe was a top 10 pitcher in terms of OPS, and top 20 (17th, actually) in VORP. Over the last month or two of the season, few pitching combos were as effective as Billingsley/Lowe.
Mostly, I’d really like to call attention to the completely ridiculous season ending streak that Lowe pulled off. On August 6th, Lowe gave up 8 runs in 3.1 innings in St. Louis to fall to 8-10 with a 4.11 ERA.  From that point on, he made nine more starts (I’m not counting the season-ending 2 inning tune-up), and it was unquestionably one of the most impressive displays of pitching dominance you’ll ever see: over 9 starts, he was 6-1 (the one loss a 2-1 affair), with a 1.33 ERA and a sparkling .484 OPS against. He kept it going in the playoffs, going 16.1 innings with 6 earned runs over three starts.
Unfortunately, we’ve probably seen the last of Lowe; most reports have him going back east to either the Red Sox or the Yankees. But can we at least agree that, regardless what you think of Paul DePodesta, the production we got out of this 4-year, $36 million contract was one of the best things about his regime? Smart guy, that DePodesta. Sounds like a guy I wouldn’t mind having for a general manager. 
87toppshirokikurodaHiroki Kuroda (B+)
(9-10, 3.73 ERA, 1.216 WHIP)
Now remember our grading scale on this one, because I don’t intend this “B+” to mean that I think Kuroda was nearly as valuable as Lowe or Billingsley – he wasn’t. It’s just that coming into the season, no one really had any idea what to expect of him. Unlike high-profile Japanese imports like Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, and Dice-K, Kuroda wasn’t exactly seen as “the next big thing” from overseas, mostly due to his age (33) and the scouting reports that showed him to be solid, but not spectacular. Besides, the success of Japanese pitchers coming to America has been checkered at best; while Dice-K has been successful in Boston, guys like Kei Igawa and Hideki Irabu were unmitigated disasters. All that being said, Kuroda came over and was a very solid #3 starter – and if you don’t think that’s worth the $35.3m he’s getting over three years, you haven’t been following the state of pitching in MLB lately.
Here’s the thing with Hiroki Kuroda, however. When he was good, he was good. He probably pitched two of the most dominating games of the season – a complete game 4-hit shutout of the Cubs on June 6, and a complete game one-hitter shutout against the Braves on July 7. In fact, he had seven different starts in which he went at least five innings and gave up three hits or less. On the other hand, he had some real clunkers, with five different starts in which he couldn’t even get through the fourth inning. This tendency is reflected in his crazy monthly stats, as well – he was excellent in May, August, and September (ERA’s in the 2′s in all three months), average in April (3.82 ERA), lousy in July (5.24 ERA), and simply brutal in June (7.71 ERA). We’d seen this pattern back on August 15th, when I said:

Nearly lost in the glee of sweeping the Phillies was yet another stellar performance from Hiroki Kuroda – just two hits and seven strikeouts over seven one-run innings. This makes three excellent starts in a row from Kuroda, three starts in a row where he’s given up just one run while going at least seven innings.
Of course, in the three starts before that, he gave up 6, 5, and 7 earned runs – twice not making it out of the 4th inning.
And in the three starts before that, he had three more excellent starts, giving up 3 earned runs over 22 2/3 innings, including a one-hit complete game shutout of Atlanta.
See where I’m going with this?
Let’s keep it going; what happened in the two starts before that? A complete game shutout followed by 6 earned runs and getting knocked out in the 3rd inning.
I’ve never seen a pitcher as schizophrenic as this before. When you get a guy who’s expected to be your 3rd or 4th starter, you expect a level of inconsistency. You don’t really ever hope to see dominating shutouts, but you hope to get innings and never have to dip into the bullpen in the 3rd inning. What you don’t expect are splits like this:
Kuroda in his 7 wins:
54 innings, 0.83 ERA, 38 K, 3 BB
(Walter Johnson + Cy Young + Secretariat + Michael Phelps)
Kuroda in his 8 losses:
39 innings, 7.38 ERA, 24 K, 18 BB
(Brett Tomko + well.. Brett Tomko)

That said, after I wrote this, Kuroda reeled off eight good starts in a row to end the season (3.25 ERA in them), and really, isn’t that what you hope for from a #3/4 starter? Make 30+ starts, and be more good than bad. Which he was, and you like to think that maybe next year can be even better now that he’s got the whole “first year in a new hemisphere” thing out of the way. There’s some hope that he may have gotten that part down already, as he was excellent the last two months of the season and in each of his playoff starts. Here’s hoping that among all the change we’re going to be looking at next year, penciling in Kuroda to that #3/#4 rotation spot is something we can safely count on.
87toppsclaytonkershawClayton Kershaw (A)
(5-5, 4.26 ERA, 1.495 WHIP)
At first I had second thoughts about this A grade; “am I really going to give the entire starting rotation awesome grades?”, I said to myself. My first reaction to that was, “oh, well, Brad Penny’s going to be coming along to drag that whole grade point average down,” but more importantly, Clayton Kershaw is twenty-motherflerking-years-old and was a very effective major league pitcher. So, yeah, he deserves that A. Remember – the grade is based on what we expected at the beginning of the season, and at that time I didn’t want to see Kershaw at all, save for perhaps a cup of coffee in September. Actually, let’s go further than that – I was very against calling him up when they did.

For the record, I’m not convinced this was the right time to bring him up. We all knew he was making his debut this season, and that’s fine. But I guess I’m just not sure why it’s happening now. There’s no new injury to the starting rotation, and no one’s pitched poorly enough to lose their jobs. The front four of Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsley, and Hiroki Kuroda is about as set in stone as any rotation in the game right now. For the 5th spot – when you even need it, which isn’t always – you’ve got Chan Ho Park and Hong-Chih Kuo, who have each been surprisingly effective.

Part of that paragraph may look weird now, but at the time, Brad Penny was only two bad starts into his death spiral, before which he’d been 5-2 with a 3.19 ERA. Anyway, despite my hesitation, Kershaw did come up, and gave you more or less what you would expect out of a talented player his age – inconsistency, but with definite flashes of raw skill. His 4.26 ERA was almost exactly the league average, which might not sound all that great, but again I cannot stress this enough – he turned twenty years old during spring training. When you think of how many veterans there were out there this year who couldn’t come close to being an average pitcher, for a kid just two years removed from high school to do it on pure talent is mind-blowing.
Look, there’s no question that Kershaw’s got the skills to succeed; believe it or not, his 8.36 K/9 was 18th best in all of MLB (min. 100 innings), better than guys like Johan Santana, Zack Greinke, and Felix Hernandez. But that’s not to suggest that he doesn’t still have plenty to work on. Walking a man every other inning is far too much, and his home/road split is baffling (3.41 ERA at home, 5.36 ERA on the road) – plus, there’s the huge concern over whether his innings count was increased too much this year (49 innings, including minors and postseason, more than his minor league work in 2007).
Bottom line, though, is that guys who are 20 just do not make it to the majors at that age, especially not if they’re pitchers – and if they do, they usually get pounded. For Kershaw, with so much left to learn, to be able to hold his own at this level? Let’s just say, the idea of Billingsley/Kershaw tag-teaming the top of the Dodger rotation for years to come makes this fan drool.
87toppsbradpennyBrad Penny (F for Fat Fail)
(6-9, 6.27 ERA, 1.627 WHIP)
Well, I guess they can’t all be good grades. We’ve spent a lot of space discussing Brad Penny around here, so I see no reason to go through it all again. You mostly know how I feel about him by now, so instead, I’ll just point you to some of the high and lowlights of his 2008, as seen through the eyes of MSTI.
June 1 (first discussion of picking up option)

Besides, Penny hasn’t been a complete disaster here. We’re not talking about the Andruw Jones of pitching. Don’t forget, he won four out of his first six starts this year. As recently as May 2 – a month ago tomorrow – he was 4-2 with a 3.29 ERA, having not allowed more than four earned runs in any of his first seven starts. Of course, he’s gone off the cliff since then; in his ensuing five starts he has four losses and a no-decision, having not allowed less than four earned runs in any of them. While again, he hasn’t been effective, there’s something to be said for his just plain being unlucky, too: in the last month, his BABIP (batting average on balls in play, generally considered to be a stat that the pitcher has little control over) is .391, which is completely unsustainable and points to either a ton of hits falling in the wrong places and/or the defense not helping him out.

June 14 (last start before DL)

Well, that happened. After a mini-resurgence (2 ER over 6 IP and 3 ER over 6 IP his last two starts, and just the fact that mediocre outings like that count as a positive should tell you how lousy he’s been) Brad Penny is now rocking a 5.88 ERA. And I have to say… it’s time to worry. Yeah, I argued a few weeks ago that he’d had one good month and one bad month in 2008. But after getting off to such a hot start in 2007, he was only mediocre to end the year. Throw in how bad he’s been this year, and over the last 365 days Brad Penny is 13-11 with a 4.41 ERA. Hardly the stuff “aces” are made of.

July 15 (first half review)

Brad Penny (5-9, 5.88) (F)
Ugh. The supposed “ace” coming into the season – he did start the All-Star Game last year – has been on the DL since June 17, and he was probably hurt for quite a while before that. On June 1, I put forth the idea that Penny had a very good April and a lousy May, so it wasn’t time to panic based on one bad month. Of course, it only got worse and then he went on the DL. Fortunately, the starting depth has been excellent, because there’s not too many teams who can weather the loss of their opening day starter and improve, but it does sort of muddy his future. He’s still got that team option for $8.75 next year which I still feel you simply have to pick up (as long as he can return and show any sort of effectiveness), but it’s hardly a given anymore.

Aug. 13 (just back from injury)

* Remember when Brad Penny started the All-Star Game twice in a row? Geez, Brad – what the hell was that? 3 homers and 6 earned runs in 3 crappy innings, pushing his ERA all the way up to 6.05. With Arizona losing and Joe Blanton no great shakes tonight for Philly either, Penny did his best to ensure that the Dodgers wouldn’t capitalize on a golden opportunity to reclaim a share of first in the NL West. Fortunately, the offense let him off the hook (and when was the last time we could say that?) He was moderately effective in his first start back against San Francisco, although he didn’t look that great – and the lousy Giants offense certainly helped out with that. While his velocity was up a bit from the last start, you just cannot leave meatballs out over the plate when you’re facing guys like Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. The question here is: what now? How long of a rope do you give him to work back into shape when every game is so important?

Sept. 17 (Is he hurt, or is he popping 96?)

I thought that was interesting, because we haven’t seen the possibility of his season “likely” being over from any of the local guys, and it’s unusual for a national guy to pick up on something like that first. Besides, in his first time back, velocity was not the problem. Against San Diego on Sept. 10, Penny threw fastballs on 16 of his 17 pitches, nearly all of which were between 93-96 MPH. Now I’m no doctor, but if you can still hit 96, it seems to me like there’s not a major injury there. No, Penny didn’t get an out, but he didn’t get hit all that hard either. He walked one, gave up a single to left, and an infield hit. It’s hardly surprising that his control would be off after his layoff, and besides, if you’re throwing almost entirely fastballs, you can’t expect to be fooling anyone.

Sept. 26 (Penny leaves the team)

Sounds like we’ve seen the last of him, but what a way to do it. Who clears out their locker on the day the team – of which you are the most senior member of – wins the division? I was still considering the possibility of picking up his option next year, which is really only a $7 million decision thanks to the buy-out. But if he’s just going to bail on the team during the playoff run, and not even tell anyone at that, then no thanks.

Oct. 20 (MSTI’s 2009 Plan)

So why am I picking this up? Two reasons, the first of which being, he was excellent as a Dodger before 2008. His ERA+ was better than league average in every year since he arrived in LA, and 2007 was fantastic at 16-4 with a 159 ERA+. I have a hard time believing that he’s just “lost it” – again, barring a more serious injury we don’t know about. The second reason is, it’s cheap. Since the $8.75m option has a $2m buyout, we’re only talking about $6.75m here. Do you really think you could go out and find a pitcher with his track record for one year, $6.75m? Of course not. This is exactly the kind of gamble a large-market team like the Dodgers should be taking.

Nov. 5 (Penny’s option declined):

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that I’m not in favor of this move, since I already advocated picking up his option in my 2009 plan, but I still think this is a huge mistake.
With Derek Lowe and Greg Maddux likely departing, Jason Schmidt an eternal unknown, and James McDonald an untested rookie, you don’t think you could use a guy who as recently as last year, I was looking into whether or not he was having the best non-Koufax LA Dodger starting pitching season ever? Because if you don’t think he’s going to be able to go elsewhere and get more years and bigger paychecks than one year and $7.25m (forget the $2m buyout, he gets it regardless), you’re absolutely wrong – assuming doctors clear his arm. Meanwhile, the Dodgers could be short on starters and paying much more than that for a lesser pitcher.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg

MSTI.com’s 2008 In Review: Right Field

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Welcome to day 8 of MSTI.com’s 2008 in review.  Today we will review right field, so let’s get to it!
Andre Ethier = A+
(.305/.375/.510, 20 HR’s, 77 RBI’s)
If you’re Andre Ethier, 2008 had to be one of the more topsy turvy years of your career.  Spending portions of the year on the bench while the inferior player took up your playing time, with a manager screwing you around in the process…
Oh wait, silly me.  He went through that in 2007, as well.
O.K., O.K.  We could go through the fact that he completely slaughtered the ball during Spring Training to win the LF job from Juan Pierre, only to get playing time this year… then not get it, then get it back again, etc., before finally becoming the full time starter far later than he should have.  But, shockingly, I’m going to try and let that pass because what deserves the most attention is the following:
One of the best kept secrets of the 2008 season was that Andre Ethier was not just one of the best right fielders in the National League, but also in baseball.
Ethier was very consistent this year.  Unlike both 2007 and 2006, where he would have a couple of really hot months, only to mostly miserably tail off at the end of the year, Ethier only really had one horrific month (June = .195/.253/.390) one “eh” type of month (May = .292/.330/.416) mixed with a good month (July = .281/.346/.490), some really good months (March/April = .315/.400/.461, August = .292/.346/.615) and then just finished off the year with just a sick .462/.557/.692.  Just to show how sick it was, here was Manny’s September: .370/.465/.753.
That’s pretty freaking good.
So I’m not even going to give you stats relative to Ethier’s peers in the NL, but MLB in general.  Amongst ALL right fielders this year, Ethier’s .305 batting average ranked him 5th, while his sweet .375 OBP put him 6th.  His .510 SLG% and .910 OPS rank him 4th.  In terms of our more geeky stats, his 39.7 VORP and 33.9 MLV and .304 EqA also ranked him 4th.  Remember, unlike what we usually do, I’m not comparing him to just the NL, but rather every qualified right fielder in baseball.  He was that good.
So it should be a cakewalk to compare him to the Dodgers.
When ranking him amongst the Dodgers, I’m comparing him to the Dodgers who were actually Dodgers on Opening Day and therefore have enough at-bats to qualify.  Because of this, there are only four Dodgers who qualify (Ethier, Loney, Martin, Kemp), so no Manny.  Amongst his teammates, Ethier ranks 1st in BA (.305), HR’s (20), SLG% (.510), OPS (.885), OPS+ (130), RC (100.6), RC27 (7.11), XBH (63), and 2nd in OBP (.375, second to Martin) and P/PA (4.15, also second to Martin).  But even if we take away peer comparisons, the reason we also give Andre the A+ is because he managed to build greatly on his previous numbers in 2007: we saw a .021 increase in batting average, a .025 increase in OBP, a .057 increase in SLG%, a .083 increase in OPS, and a .027 increase in OPS+, to name a few categories.  That is how you exceed expectations.
Although the one caveat to Ethier’s year is that surprisingly, according to some defensive metrics (which, as we’ll likely continue to say ad-nauseum: they’re not as etched in stone as offensive statistics), we did see somewhat of a decrease in defense.  As a right fielder this year, Ethier’s Rate 2 dropped from 112 last year in RF to 93.  While we did see a slight increase in ZR from .876 to .884, and while he did have a 1.000 fielding percentage this year, we also saw a decrease in range factor from 2.12 to 1.83.
But, in any event, at the end of the day, when it comes to all of our young offensive players, Ethier was the only one who not only managed to step up to the plate, both figuratively and literally, but also exceed our expectations in 2008.  Despite the fact that Ethier is still young, 26, there had been doubts about his potential as a full time starter and last year’s good but slightly above average year didn’t help matters, especially coming off his brilliant rookie season of 2006.  But Ethier stepped up in a big way this year and was, by far, our best offensive player this side of Manny Ramirez.  Hell, for a brief time during the end of the year, he was actually outhitting Manny himself.  2008 would not have been the success it was without the major contributions of Andre Ethier, which brings up the point: remember when the Manny trade went down, how relieved we would have been if it were Ethier going to Pittsburgh?  Well, I probably still would have been O.K. with the deal, but, if hindsight is an indicator, then thank God he’s still here.  For we can talk about the unlimited potential of Matt Kemp and what we hope from him and the other young kids at the plate, but in terms of actual production and what’s been done through 2008, Andre Ethier has been the best hitter out of the bunch since coming up in 2006.  It hasn’t been an easy ride, going through many bumps on the road, but he has shown a fine perseverance.  But the thing is, he’s not only a good hitter, he’s also a smart hitter; he can work the count and take a pitch at least, and maybe better, than anyone on the team.  He can drive the ball to all parts of the field and, as he begins to enter his prime years, I expect him to continue to grow and only get better as he continues to man either LF or RF.
So you can now expect Juan Pierre as the starting outfielder for your 2009 Los Angeles Dodgers…
Delwyn Young = D+
(.246/.321/.341)
Ah yes, Delwyn Young; Pee Wee.  You remember him?  The guy who has a lifetime stat line of .303/.360/.515 in the minor leagues?  The one who in 2007 broke the PCL record in doubles?  Here’s a little more of a recap from MSTI earlier this year:

Delwyn Young, 6 minor league seasons (5 full seasons)
BA: .303
OBP: .359
SLG: .512
Seasons w/ 10+ HR: 6
Seasons w/ 30+ doubles: 5
Seasons where he broke a 41-year-old PCL record for doubles: 1 (2007)
Look at the line he put up in AAA last year: .337/.384/.571 and a .955 OPS. 54 doubles. He hasn’t gotten much of a shot in the bigs, but in 76 at-bats over three seasons, he’s still got a .316/.366/.474 and a 114 OPS+. Sure, he’s a lousy second baseman – but are we really playing Jeff Kent at the keystone for his defense?

Unfortunately for Panda, he didn’t get too much more of a chance this year, other than the period from around June through July, where he did get 56 AB’s and 36 AB’s respectively.  In June, he put up a respectable .288/.339/.442, but did tank in July (.152/.222/.182) before a trip to the DL later that month kept him from returning to L.A. until early September.  The problem is, if you look at the other months besides June and July, he only received 13 AB’s in April, 15 in May, and 13 in September.  Now I’m not one to argue that his numbers in L.A. were awe inspiring (hence the grade), but you have to keep in mind two factors: 1. it’s hard for any player to be good and produce when the amount of AB’s you’re getting per month is Andy LaRoche-esque, especially for a young kid like Delwyn.  But the most important factor of all: even if his numbers weren’t great, you don’t think he could have, at the very least, been useful as the go to pinch hitter or at least taking some of the at-bats from Pierre or Jones?  He may not be a defensive stalwart, but hit he can and let’s not overlook that or let him completely fall into the shadow of the other kids; he’s a legit hitter.  But you can’t expect him to crush the ball when he’s getting so little playing time.
Going into 2009, hopefully Delwyn can get some more time, but if not, then perhaps he could be a useful trade chip to an AL team where he could be a DH, where he’s probably best suited, anyways.

- Vin vinscully-face.jpg

MSTI.com’s 2008 In Review: Center Field

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Matt Kemp (C+)
(.290/.340/.459 18hr 76rbi 35sb)
I suppose I’m going to have to give Joe Torre a little credit sometime, so here it is: in a season that began with us asking him to “Free Matt Kemp!”, Joe, well, did. Kemp’s 657 plate appearances were the most of any Dodger, just beating out James Loney’s 651 and Russell Martin’s 650 – and yes, 650 plate appearances for a catcher does completely blow my mind, thank you for asking.

Just like everyone else, it seems, this is a really difficult grade to assign. You can really look at Kemp’s season in a few different ways:

1) As compared to his own 2007. This one’s not going to go too well for the young Bison. Granted, Kemp played only about half a season in 2007. That said, between 2007-08, Kemp declined in BA, OBP, SLG, OPS (obviously), HR/AB, K/AB, EQA, and runs created - in addition to setting the all-time Dodger record for strikeouts with 153.

2) As compared to other outfielders. For the purposes of comparison, we’re going to compare Kemp’s entire offseason season to other center fielders, not just the games in which he actually played there. Now, he did finish 9th among all center fielders in VORP, which is pretty nice for a 23-year-old. However, VORP can be a little deceiving, because it’s a counting stat and therefore skewed towards players with more at-bats, which means that when Vernon Wells is just 2.4 VORPsicles behind Kemp despite nearly 200 fewer plate appearances, it’s not exactly a point in Kemp’s favor. (Then again, the ability to stay healthy and/or not having to get platooned should be considered important as well, but that’s another conversation entirely). When we look at VORP rate/game, Kemp drops to 15th among center fielders with at least 200 at-bats. That is higher than names like Aaron Rowand, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Mike Cameron, but still leaves him in about the middle of the pack. While he does get credit for stealing 35 bases, that still places him seventh among center fielders, and on defense, Baseball Prospectus ranks him at 4 runs above average in center field.

Taking all this into consideration – plus his 108 OPS+ – it’s pretty clear that Kemp had an average-to-slightly-above-average 2008 campaign compared to his positional peers. Considering how fantastic he was in 2007, this has to be considered somewhat of a disappointment, and that’s why he gets a C+. He was good, but not as good as we’d hoped he would be. Now you might wonder why Kemp gets a C+ after we said basically the same things about James Loney, but gave him a much lower grade. Each came into 2008 with high expectations, and while certainly neither flopped, neither really lived up to what we’d hoped for them. The reason for that is simply experience. It’s a well-known fact that Kemp spent much of his childhood focusing on basketball, and was considered a very raw – though talented – prospect, which is partially why he was available to draft in the 6th round. Not only was Loney considered a much more polished player when he was drafted in the 1st round, he accumulated nearly 600 more minor-league at-bats than Kemp had. We’ve seen Kemp do a lot of on-the-job learning at the MLB level (as we’ve seen with his occasional baserunning gaffes), while Loney was expected to be ready, if not more than ready. In fact, age plays a central role in the final way of looking at Kemp’s 2008…

3) As compared to other players his age. There were 11 outfielders aged 24 or under who qualified for the batting title in 2008, and here Kemp compares very favorably. He finished third in OPS, HR, and RBI, second in stolen bases, and that becomes all the more impressive when you realize that the two guys who topped him in the first three categories are insta-studs Nick Markakis and Ryan Braun. If you expand it to all players regardless of position in that age range, you’re now looking at 19 players, but you’ve now added huge names like Hanley Ramirez, Prince Fielder, Brian McCann, and Evan Longoria. Still, Kemp holds his own, placing 7th in OPS, ahead of B.J. Upton, Loney, and Delmon Young. The point here is, among players in his peer age group, Kemp acquits himself pretty well – and that’s despite his relative inexperience compared to them and the fact that some of the best players in baseball are represented here.

So don’t let the C+ grade mislead you. Here at MSTI, we still think Matt Kemp is going to be a huge star (I had to defend him against claims of being overrated here in July). A 23-year-old who was a slightly above-average hitter, showed excellent speed in stealing 35 bases, and proved he could hold down center field (16 outfield assists between CF and RF) is an unbelievably valuable asset. Consider that this is what he’s doing now, just a few years after choosing baseball as a full-time profession, and it’s not that hard to get excited over what he might be able to do in a few years once he hits his prime.

So please. Please. Can we just leave him be, give him a lineup spot (be it CF or RF), and just leave him alone and let him play? No more overpriced free agent outfielders (Manny aside), no more complaints from Old Man Jeff Kent about lockerroom respect. Just let the kid play.

Andruw Jones (F)
(.158/.256/.249 3hr 14rbi)
No, that’s not quite right…

Andruw Jones ()
(.158/.256/.249 3hr 14rbi)
The pig is closer, but not exactly…

Andruw Jones ()
(.158/.256/.249 3hr 14rbi)
Ahh, there we go. Andruw Jones is a criminal. Yes, much better. Andruw Jones stole money from the Dodgers at such a rate that it’s making Jason Schmidt and Darren Dreifort look like sensible investments.

And really, I’m not even sure what needs to be said here. Do you really need me to tell you how unspeakably awful Andruw Jones was in 2008? Of course you don’t. But it’s just unfathomable how disastrous he was for this team, and how there was never once at any point a glimmer of hope. I mean, the first mention I can find of us wondering about Andruw Jones on this blog was way back on April 5, less than a week into the season. He hit .175 at home, and .142 on the road. He didn’t hit above .178 in any single month of the season, and he struck out in nearly a full one-third of his at-bats, He hit exactly zero homers at Dodger Stadium, and there were even rumors floating around that Frank McCourt might try to sue him for his astoundingly horrible “performance”. He had three multi-hit games all season (all of just two hits), and if anyone finds pitchers Chuck James of Atlanta, Ben Sheets of Milwaukee, or Ron Villone of St. Louis hanging by a belt in their closets, it’s because they form the unholy trinity of pitchers who actually allowed home runs to the Worst Player of All Time, Andruw Jones.

Oh, and lest you think I’m kidding about “the Worst Player of All Time”, avert your eyes. It’s no surprise that Jones was just about the worst MLB player in 2008 (no player with as many plate appearances as him had a lower VORP rate/game). But on July 12, ESPN’s Jayson Stark annointed him a contender for the all-time title, saying,

Sheez, what happened to this man? If Andruw Jones‘s second half resembles his first half, he’s potentially heading for (ready for this?) the Worst Offensive Season in Baseball History. At this rate, he’d finish with a .172 average, .261 slugging percentage, five homers, 21 RBIs, 125 strikeouts and only 64 hits. And you shouldn’t be flabbergasted to learn that the all-time list of players who have had numbers that gruesome consists of, well, nobody. Heck, only three other players in history have even had twice as many strikeouts as hits (in a season of 100 or more whiffs): Rob Deer (175-80 in 1991), Dave Nicholson (126-60 in 1964) and Mark McGwire (118-56 in 2001). But at least those fellows made a few home run trots, or finished over the Mendoza Line.

Take a close look at that quote, especially the part where Stark says what Jones’ final stats would be if he continued on that rate. If he’d finished with the number Stark says above, then that would be good enough to get him to the level of worst ever. Considering that Jones somehow did even worse after this article came out (.128 with 1 homer) and couldn’t even reach the levels of ineptitude laid out above, I’d say he took this title and made it his bitch – and that’s not even considering the absurd amount of cash he was paid to do it.

The best part is, 2009 already sounds like it’s not going to be any better. One would assume that after a historically embarrassing season, a player would want nothing more than to be out of the public eye, work hard all offseason, and come back in the spring hungry to clear his name. That’s what you said to the Los Angeles Times, right Andruw?

Jones said he expects to be the everyday center fielder next season.

“I’m an everyday guy or I need to move out,” he said.

Great start. And about moving out, Andruw?

“I’ve got one more year in my contract,” said Jones, now playing with the L.A. Dodgers. “Hopefully, I can come back to Atlanta. I would love to finish my career here.”

Phenomenal. So now we’ve got a guy who’s not only despised in Los Angeles more than any combination of Paul DePodesta, Hee-Seop Choi, Juan Pierre, Georgia Frontiere, Al Davis, OJ Simpson, and Perez Hilton, but he’s already demanding a starting role and is plotting his escape.

Well guess what, you fat sack of crap? We’d love to have you gone. LOVE to. But there are almost no circumstances in which that’s going to happen, because you were so transcendently awful, your big contract is not even the concern. You were so dreadful that it’s questionable whether you even deserve a major league roster spot, even at the minimum. And it’s at that point where the contract does come into play, because even if a team decided to expend a precious 25-man roster spot at the veteran minimum (which is not a guarantee right now), that’d require the Dodgers to pick up nearly $20 million just to move you. Now we all know that just isn’t going to happen, unless the Dodgers take back a similarly awful contract in return, which is unlikely, because how could anything be nearly as bad as this? You’re stuck with us, and we’re stuck with you, except hopefully next year you won’t be shoveling Funions down your maw while watching Manny, Kemp, and Ethier patrol the outfield.

Unless… if a current Dodger is openly talking about playing for the Braves, maybe the lawyers can find a loophole in the deal to void the contract? Probably not. A man can dream, though. A man can dream.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg

MSTI.com’s 2008 In Review: Left Field

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Welcome to day 6 of MSTI.com’s 2008 season in review.  Today, we review left field where we will discuss Juan Pierre, Jason Repko, Terry Tiffee… and some scrub called… I think, Manny?

Manny Ramirez = …
(With LA: .396/.489/.743, 17 HR’s, 53 RBI’s)
Yes, notice that there is no grade next to Manny’s name.  Why, you ask?  Because no letter grade could ever do Manny justice.  Manny just transcends grades, at this point.  So, instead, we then have to ask: what is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life?  Or perhaps the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened?  Something that fills your heart with joy and utter happiness?
Perhaps puppies:

Maybe you just won the lottery:

Perhaps you just landed two girls to have a threesome with who will finally love you:

Maybe you just saved hundreds of dollars by switching your car insurance to Geico:

Or maybe you’re even like the guys from “Pulp Fiction” after they open the briefcase…

We happy?  Vincent?  We happy?
Yeah, we happy.
Translate all of this into a grade and, well, there you go; except even that doesn’t do it enough justice.
Who the hell are we kidding?  After a year and a half of writing articles on this blog, this, by far, has to be the most superfluous article I’ve ever had to write.  I mean, writing an article talking about how awesome Manny Ramirez is and trying to put up stats to prove my argument is like trying to show how crapulicious Andruw Jones was this year.  In other words: you don’t need ME to tell you, as this is one of the instances where the eyes don’t deceive and it’s just pretty fucking obvious.
But I’ll give it a shot, anyways.
Simply put, if you were able to watch what Manuel Aristides Ramirez did for this team in even the slightest capacity over the past two and a half months, be thankful: for you saw offensive production from a player at a rate at which has never been seen before in Dodger history.  His production was historical in that context and also in the sense that we will never likely see what he produced again.  But let’s not be mistakened: it’s not as if the Dodgers haven’t had incredible offensive years from players in their prime, from the days of Snider, Garvey, Piazza, Shawn Green, Gary Sheffield, Adrian Beltre in 2004, and other offensive powerhouses in their prime, but this is just another animal.
When he started off with his incredible hot streak the first week and a half, I think it’s safe to say that most of us thought that it wouldn’t really last.  We were wrong.  During his stint with the Dodgers, Manny had an OPS+ of 219.  Two hundred and fucking nineteen.  For those aren’t familiar, if you have an OPS+ of 100, that’s considered average.  What this means is that Manny was 119% better than the average player.  That’s just freaking insane.  In fact, I’m going to show you the rest of the notable statistics not so much to prove an argument moreso than to show just how absurd he was.  It’s literally comical:
He hit .396, with 17 HR’s, and 53 RBI’s.  O.K., you know that. But how about the fact that he had a 47.6 VORP to rank him 24th in all of baseball?  Now “Vin,” you might say.  “What’s so impressive about that?”  Well, that’s just Manny in L.A.  In fact, to compare, Vladimir Guerrero’s VORP throughout THE ENTIRE YEAR was 44.3.  Aramis Ramirez’s was 44.8, Justin Morneau’s was 45.5, Miguel Cabrera at 46.8, etc., etc.  So Manny’s VORP from August 1st throughout the end of the year was better than what these high profile names did the entire year.  Relative to other NL left fielders, he only ranks second in VORP to Matt Holliday’s 60.4.  If we compare this relative to the other Dodgers, only Andre Ethier comes within striking range, with a 39.7 VORP.  But remember: we’re only comparing two months of Manny to 5-6 months worth of production from the rest of the league.  That’s what’s so mindblowing about this.  He made video game numbers look pedestrian.
In terms of MLV, L.A. Manny ranked 11th in all of MLB at 43.9.  Again, relative to other left fielders, he only trails Matt Holliday, but this is much closer, with Holliday at 45.0.  Ramirez also put up an EqA of .401 and here’s the especially absurd part: Manny’s RC27 this year was 15.2.  What that means is that if there were 9 Manny’s in the lineup, the team would score on an average 15.2 runs per game.

Hell, he was even 2 runs above fielding average and had a 106 Rate2 in left field, which is more than adequate.  Actually, the above photo might be more pertinent with this than the offense.
But I could go on and on about the stats, but it’s rather futile: you KNOW how good he was, we all do.  However, what’s important to keep in mind is that it’s not just what he did at the plate that made these past two months so damn fun.  On July 31st, the Dodgers were 54-54 and, frankly, I don’t think many (outside of us diehards) cared much about them, nor were we particularly overly optimistic on their chances of a postseason berth.  Yes, the acquisition of Casey Blake helped matters, but once Manny arrived, the city of Los Angeles was just electrified.  I was fortunate enough to be there the night he debuted and, as I recapped about it, I had never seen Dodger Stadium as alive as it was and once the Dodgers won the final two games of the Arizona series to split, everything changed.  The city changed, the team changed and, in many ways, it really was Mannymania (or as he called it: Mannywood).
Having said that, let’s not completely get ahead of ourselves and only look at this through the rose colored glasses.  I think we’re all aware of what brought him to L.A. in the first place and his actions near the end of his tenure in Boston were hardly condonable and, while I do believe that some of this has been overblown since the trade and that he’s not 100% to blame, he is not exempt from it either.  But at the end of the day, you can argue all you wish about the reasons which caused Manny to leave Boston in the first place, and make some strong arguments against him in terms of how things ended, but what you can’t do is use that to take away the impact that he had on the field (and off) for the Dodgers.  When the trade was made, I said that its success was contingent on how well the Dodgers did.  Well, in retrospect?  I can’t say this trade was a failure.  At all.  While the team didn’t make the World Series, they accomplished at least the minimum of what they had to do: go deep into the postseason. If you told me at the beginning of the year that we would not only win our first postseason series in 20 years, but also win our first NLCS game in 20 years?  I’d be happy (yeah… we happy?).  We finally showed some big progress this season (in fact, our biggest in 20 years) and he played a huge, huge role in why that happened and also why this team was so damn fun to watch for the last month and a half.  He is really fun to watch on the field and he always looks like he’s having a ton of fun, which really makes him infectious, and not in the Jose Lima kind of way.  Manny was simply everything we could have hoped for and so much more.  He had the best offensive stretch in Dodger history and it’s kind of ironic and twisted that one of the other reasons we were able to land him was due to our center fielder having the worst stretch in Dodger history.  But even if Manny doesn’t come back and jettisons to another team, I will always be thankful to the man for what he brought to the team, to the city, and to all of us.  Unforgettable.
Thanks, Manny.
Juan Pierre = D
(.283/.327/.328, 1 HR, 28 RBI’s)
So, right after a competition in Spring Training between Pierre and Andre Ethier for the starting left field job, Joe Torre, in a surprising yet rare moment of competence, gave the nod to Ethier and regulated Pierre into the bench role.
Finally!  We rid ourselves of the Pierre Man!  The Juanster!  Herbert!  He’s sent to the bench in his rightful role and we will go on our merry way throughout the season with the three best outfielders!
Uh… no.  If only things were ever that simple in Dodgerville…
After some early season struggles by Matt Kemp and then, of course, the injury to Rafael Furcal, Pierre found himself back in the lineup and, more importantly, eventually back in the leadoff spot, where he would take over for Furcal.  Now I know Pierre has become the whipping boy here at MSTI and probably every other Dodgers blog out there since his arrival in L.A., last year.  So, with knowing this, why the D?  I mean, after all, if our grades have a lot to do on our expectations, what’s the deal?
Well, because in 2008, Juan Pierre even had trouble being Juan Pierre.
After being inserted into the leadoff role, in order to bring about more “speed,” “experience” and “patience,” at least according to his manager, Pierre stepped up with a killer line of .261/.293/.299 in 268 plate appearanes in the leadoff spot.  Just to compare, that young, impatient, whippersnapper Matt Kemp in the leadoff spot, this year): .305/.360/.492.
But it’s not just Pierre’s horrendous lead off skills that took a further dive, this year.  In 2008, we saw a decline in nearly every statistic; his .283 average and .327 OBP were his lowest since 2005, while his .328 SLG% and 4.1 RC27 were the lowest totals he’s had since 2002.  His MLV was a ridiculous -10.1 (which means he costs his team 10.1 more than the average player), a VORP of 1.1, and an EqA of .247, also his lowest since 2002.  For a man who will be on the wrong side of 30 next year who has a game that’s dependent on speed and has shown a steady decline since his 2003-2004 heyday in Florida… that’s not good.
For the sake of not beating a dead horse, I won’t rehash the Pierre argument yet again, but even by his own standards, which many supporters of the signing like to point to in terms of what our expectations should be, he failed to meet them.  But I will give him props for not at least publicly bitching about getting demoted to the bench… I’m guessing he might have learned from the last time.
Ultimately, Pierre’s fate with the Dodgers has a lot to do with what happens with Manny.  If Manny re-signs, there’s no way Pierre will get the playing time, as Andruw Jones will have first shot at center field and with Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp finally climbing up the depth chart above Pierre, it’s in the best interests of the organization and Juan’s to just end this relationship.  It’s not working and, chances are, it’s not going to.
Calling Dusty Baker…
Jason Repko = Inc.
(.167/.250/.222, 0 HR’s, 0 RBI’s)
If there was ever a player who defined the “incomplete grade” for this year, it is Jason Repko.  He only came up briefly and had a grand total of 18 AB’s.  While this is an incredibly small sample size, he looked pretty shitty at the plate, with 9 of those official plate appearances being strikeouts.  But, hey, he did have 3 hits.  Look out, Mark Sweeney.
On the other hand, the good news for Repko is that after missing 2007, he did come back to put up a solid 2008 season at Triple-A Las Vegas, hitting .283/.373/.449, with 12 HR’s and 50 RBI’s.
Funny how things change, though.  Remember when he got off to that great start in 2005 and some people were calling for him to perhaps be the Rookie Of The Year?  Or even the great start he got off to in 2006?  Time hasn’t been kind to Jason Repko, due to injuries and, well, just not being all that impressive from either side of the spectrum (no, folks, even though Kevin Kennedy might say he’s one of the best outfielders in the game, taking a route from left field to Pasadena and then back again to catch it while taking out your shortstop, and then airmailing the throw into the stands does not make a great outfielder).
But, hey, I’ll give him a few points for not killing anybody on the team during his brief stint up.
Terry Tiffee = Inc.
(.250/.400/.250, 0 HR’s, 0 RBI’s)
Actually, I was wrong.  Terry Tiffee defines the incomplete grade this year, stringing together a whopping 4 at-bats, this season.  Although this hardly describes the year he had in Triple A Las Vegas, where he absolutely destroyed the league by hitting .378/.416/.561 with 9 HR’s and 61 RBI’s.  Sure, these numbers might have come in the PCL, but they’re impressive regardless.
Yeah… so that’s why after 4 at-bats with the big club, he was DFA’d to make room for Angel Berroa.
Thankfully, he wasn’t claimed, but you can add Tiffee to the list of people who should have saw MUCH more playing time than he did in L.A.  In fact, with the numbers he was putting up in Las Vegas, perhaps we could have used even a fraction of that coming off the bench, after it increasingly clear that if you’re hitting below .100 like Sweeney was then, chances are, you’re not very good? I mean, if he didn’t work out, then all you replaced was, again… Sweeney.
Wow.  What a loss that would have been.
Alas, it wasn’t to be, putting an end to one of our more vocal campaigns of the year: Free Terry Tiffee.

- Vin vinscully-face.jpg

MSTI.com’s 2008 In Review: Third Base

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Blake DeWitt (A+!)
(.264/.344/.383 9hr 52rbi)
Dig this: Blake DeWitt had a 91 OPS+, meaning he was 9% worse than the average ballplayer. He had a month (June) in which he hit just .182 with two extra base hits. He ranked 25th in VORP among third basemen, behind such notables as Martin Prado and Ramon Vazquez. Worst of all, he got demoted to AAA for over a month in the heat of the pennant race. This sounds exactly like the prescription for a “F-, let’s get rid of this guy” rant, right?

But no: Blake DeWitt gets an A+, and if anything that’s too low.

In order to really judge how DeWitt performed in 2008, you have to go back to the beginning of the season and see how frightened everyone was at the prospect of him being forced into the job after injuries to Nomar, Andy LaRoche, and Tony Abreu (remember him?). This is what ESPN’s Rob Neyer had to say:

DeWitt’s just not ready. He spent most of last season in the Class A California League before moving up to Double-A. Also, he wasn’t great at either level, and in 128 games he drew 27 walks and struck out 88 strikeouts. The major league wolves would eat him alive.

This wasn’t a case of Neyer being biased or anti-Dodger; this was a very reasonable outlook, because how could you expect a guy who flopped so bad in AA in 2006 that he had to start 2007 in A-ball to have a prayer? More importantly, there was no backup plan. If he couldn’t hack it for the first month until Nomar “returned”, we’re looking at… what? Chin-Lung Hu? A highway robbery trade for Joe Crede? It may seem crazy to say it, but Blake DeWitt may have been the most vital player for the Dodgers this season (non-Manny division), because if he doesn’t come up and perform to some level of adequacy, the season is over before it starts.

Here’s the best part, though. He wasn’t just passable; he was good. In April he OPS’d .761; in May it was .896. I mean, I went so far as to say this on May 6:

Let’s make it as simple as possible: the kid who was decent but not great in A/AA ball last year is statistically one of the top 5 offensive third baseman in MLB right now. He’s 2nd in batting average at .321, behind only Chipper Jones’ insane .425. He’s 4th in OPS, behind only Jones, Aramis Ramirez, and David Wright.  How about this? He’s on pace for 101 RBI this season. Think about that for a second.

Not only that, DeWitt showed a plus glove at third base – Baseball Prospectus has him down for 11 runs above average on the season. Now it’s true, he went off a cliff in June and July as the league caught up and ended up with his demotion to Las Vegas. And you know what? If it had ended there for him, that would have been fine. He would have played a large role in the Dodgers’ success, proven to himself that he has what it takes to succeed at the top level, and gone into the offseason with a lot to work on. I mean, it couldn’t get any crazier for him than being the Opening Day 3B and having two hot months, right?

But no, DeWitt had to go top it all by coming back up from Vegas having reinvented himself as a second baseman, and not only that, became the team’s starter at the keystone through September and the playoffs with Jeff Kent recovering from knee surgery. Even better, DeWitt’s bat returned, as his September OPS of .872 was his second best month of the season. Finally, for a guy who’d tried the conversion to second in the minors once before and had failed, his fielding was a pleasant surprise – just two errors in 27 starts.

Really, I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Blake DeWitt, and that’s really odd for me. Maybe, however, we shouldn’t have been that surprised, because he was a first round draft pick, so it’s not as though he was a completely unknown commodity. It’s just that he’d shown so little of his talent in the minors, to the point where his huge increase in the bigs just floors you. I mean, his OBP was higher than that of James Loney, Jeff Kent, and Matt Kemp. For 2009, it remains to be seen if DeWitt will be a second baseman, third baseman, some combination of both, or if he’ll even get a shot at a starting job. But here at MSTI, you can consider us: Big Blake DeWitt Fans. Now let’s get rid of all those positive thoughts and move on to…

Casey Blake (B-)
(.251/.313/.460 10hr 23rbi)
You know what? I don’t even need to go back and find previous posts in which I said I hated the Casey Blake deal, because I have no problem with saying it again: I hated the Casey Blake deal from day one. Oh, it’s not so much that I didn’t like the idea of acquiring Blake, with DeWitt struggling, Nomar unreliable, and LaRoche apparently untrustworthy. It’s just that the price of catcher Carlos Santana and reliever Jonathan Meloan was so astronomically out of line with what Blake was worth – and his BA and OBP, by the way, were each lower than what Blake DeWitt put up over the course of a season in which he never should have been in the bigs in the first place and got demoted to AAA. Don’t forget, Santana got named MVP of the California League (and he’s a catcher!) after putting up a .994 OPS, and then proceeded to put up a 1.042 OPS with Cleveland’s affiliate after being traded. Meloan completely dominated the minors on his way to making his MLB debut at just 22 in 2007, before struggling a bit this year thanks to the ill-advised attempt to make him a starter. And for that? We got 211 at-bats of league-average (100 OPS+) performance from Casey Blake, although I do hear his charisma can be seen from space.

I keep trying to remind myself while writing this to not be unreasonably hard on Blake, because he didn’t make the trade (but you better believe this is coming up again in Ned Colletti’s review). So Blake gets a B-. He really deserves a C-, because we had a certain expectation for him when he came over from Cleveland, and he didn’t quite live up to it. After starting 2008 with a line that was more or less similar to the player he’d been in the last few years, he came over to the NL (the easier league, remember) and lost 48 points off his batting average and 52 points off his OBP, although he did keep a nice amount of pop. However, even that was still an improvement over how lousy DeWitt was playing and the dearth of other 3B options, so for providing some measure of stability – and for being the most interesting man in the world - we’ll bump him up a bit to a B-.

You know what? I can’t do it. Any time I think of Casey Blake, I think of how much I wish we still had Carlos Santana and Jonathan Meloan. Because it’s not like any team ever has need of a young slugging catcher and a fireballing reliever, do they? So long, Casey. Enjoy going back to Cleveland or whatever other outpost you end up in – just don’t come back to Los Angeles.

Andy LaRoche (inc.)
(.203/.319/.322 2hr 6rbi)
And thus ends the short, complicated Dodger career of Andy LaRoche. Unlike the other members of the highly-touted Dodger farm system, LaRoche was never able to turn his minor league potential into major league performance. But there’s no simple solution as to why; in 2007 he was kept down with a bad back, and when he did get a shot in LA, his performance was uneven (a .365 OBP is outstanding, but a .211 BA isn’t really getting the job done).

2008 looked to be the year he finally broke out; unfortunately, we know that didn’t happen for a variety of reasons. First and foremost would be his inability to stay healthy, because after 2007′s back problems, his 2008 was dealt a huge blow with Danny Ardoin’s errant throw into his thumb on March 7. It’s almost impossible to imagine how much that one throw in a meaningless game changed the entire course of the franchise. If that never happens, then LaRoche is likely the Opening Day 3B. Which means: maybe we never see Blake DeWitt; maybe we never have to deal for Casey Blake; maybe LaRoche isn’t included in the deal for Manny and another young player like Andre Ethier is. You want chaos theory? Danny Ardoin might have been the most important player in the last ten years of Dodger history.

After injury, you’ve got lack of opportunity. It’s absolutely incredible how much LaRoche was jerked around by the Dodgers over the last two years, but especially in 2008. After his rehab stint at the end of April, LaRoche was optioned to AAA for over a month until June 10. At the time, DeWitt was still playing great, so no one was suggesting that LaRoche be handed the job back. But as you can see in any number of our posts at the time, there was no reason for LaRoche to be stuck in the minors. He had absolutely nothing to prove, and with the eternally useless Mark Sweeney taking up a roster spot in LA, it seemed more than reasonable to let Andy get a few starts a week between first and third base. It took just barely a week for me to make this post asking for more playing time:

Why isn’t Andy LaRoche playing more? He’s been back up for over a week now, and he’s gotten all of 8 plate appearances, in which he’s garnered a homer and two walks. I thought the entire point of recalling LaRoche after letting him get some time in at 1B and 2B in the minors was to be somewhat of a super-infielder – the righty yin to the lefty yang of Loney and DeWitt at the corners, and as a way to keep Luis Maza from playing whenever Kent needs a rest at second. But what have we gotten so far? One start at first base, one start at third base, and two pinch-hitting appearances.

And it never got any better, because nearly a month later (July 14) I was writing this for him in my first half review:

Seems like LaRoche is shaping up to be part of the next Dodgers holy war, following in the footsteps of Juan Pierre and Hee-Seop Choi. No, he hasn’t done much in the bigs. But the people who want to write him off are insane – he’s gotten just 44 at-bats this year. Look, he’s got nothing more to prove in the minors (career .895 OPS). The Dodgers need power. Blake DeWitt is slumping badly. So then why can’t LaRoche ever start more than two games in a row? Why has he been benched the day after hitting a home run both times? Some things, I’ll never understand.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he got sent back to the minors on July 27 in order to make room for… that’s right, Mark Sweeney, which is just indefensible, especially when you still had Pablo Ozuna and Angel Berroa sucking up roster spots. I will never know why it was that Andy LaRoche was never given any sort of decent shot as a Dodger, but for a player who had a track record such as he did, it really stands out as a glaring mistake for this team – especially since we yet again have no idea who’s going to be the third baseman next year.

And then he was gone. Yeah, it’s true, I did say before the fact that I didn’t want to see him get moved for Manny, but it’s hard to pretend that this wasn’t a worthwhile deal in retrospect. Really, it didn’t matter what LaRoche did in Pittsburgh with how Manny performed here, but in the first chance Andy’s had to play on an every-day basis in the bigs… he was absolutely terrible. Amid whispers about his work ethic, he put up a brutal .152/.227/.232 line with the Pirates and made 9 errors in just 45 games. So I can’t absolve Andy of all blame here, because in 316 career at-bats he’s hitting just .188, and at some point you have to stop coasting on that minor league record and start producing. I just know that if and when he does, I’ll be a little sad that it’s not going to be happening in Dodger blue.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg