Category Archives: Ronald Belisario

Ronald Belisario’s Troubles Are Far From Over

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This morning, it was “we don’t expect Ronald Belisario to arrive today.” Okay, no one really expected him to be completely on time, so if he’s a day or two late, no big deal. Right?

Yeah, about that…

Ronald Belisario could miss the 2011 season, according to his agent, Paul Kinzer.

Pitchers and catchers were supposed to report to the Dodgers’ spring-training complex on Wednesday, but Belisario wasn’t there. The hard-throwing reliever reported late to camp in each of the last two years because of visa problems.

His latest problems could be more serious.

Kinzer would not specify why Belisario was still in his native Venezuela. But asked if Belisario was having trouble securing a visa, Kinzer replied, “It goes a little deeper than that.”

Kinzer said he didn’t think Belisario would be able to enter the United States at any time this year.

“Unless some things change drastically, I’m not very optimistic at this point,” Kinzer said.

Every time I read that quote, all I can think of is Ron Burgundy in Anchorman: “Boy, that escalated quickly… I mean, that really got out of hand fast.”

(Cue Belisario: “I killed a guy with a trident. I stabbed him right in the heart.”)

I’m going to predict the fan reaction here, and that’ll be “cut him loose! He’s unreliable! We don’t need him! Get rid of him!” That’s fair, but also unnecessary. If he doesn’t report, then the team can just put him on the restricted list, freeing up the 40-man roster spot. Any action beyond that is obviously going to depend greatly on what the circumstances are here, though I must admit I’m less interested in knowing what’s really going on than I am in knowing why this is just being brought to light now.

There’s always a silver lining, however, and in this case there’s two. First, seems like I’ll be able to keep up the “Has Belisario Reported Yet?” image on the sidebar there for quite some time. Second, you know there’s a few guys doing a jig in Arizona right now – guys like Blake Hawksworth, Ron Mahay, Ramon Troncoso, Scott Elbert, and even Lance Cormier, who all just saw their chances of making the club rise by quite a bit.

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Unrelated, but still interesting. All winter, we’ve been treating it as a foregone conclusion that Tony Gwynn, Jay Gibbons, and Marcus Thames would all make the team because of their major-league contracts. Not so fast, says Tony Jackson…

Gibbons’ ability to play first base and the outfield could be a factor in the ultimate decision as to whether to go with five infielders and six outfielders or vice versa. But although Gibbons’ contract is technically a major league deal, the fact that he has to actually make the club to get the last $250,000 of his $650,000 salary means he isn’t viewed as a lock. If he has a bad spring and the Dodgers cut him loose, that would open a spot for an outfielder — presumably Paul — and another utility infielder. Thames could serve as the backup first baseman if Gibbons isn’t around.

I still think that Gibbons is an overwhelming favorite to make the club – whether that’s deserved or not – but this is the first indication we’ve heard that his chances may be at something less than 100%. It gives Xavier Paul a ray of hope, anyway.

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Finally, as you’ve no doubt seen elsewhere, Don Mattingly named Clayton Kershaw as the Opening Day starter today. I’ve long felt that the gig was completely overrated, but I definitely dig Mattingly’s style of getting it out of the way on the first day, rather than waiting until camp was nearly over like Joe Torre did last year.

MSTI’s 2010 in Review: Relievers, Part 5

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This is it – we made it! After slogging through all of the Jack Taschners and Nick Greens, we’re finally at the end of the line as far as player reviews go. Unfortunately, these three aren’t pretty.

Ronald Belisario (D)
5.04 ERA, 4.31 FIP, 6.2 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, -0.4 WAR

You know, part of the reason that we had to suffer through two different awful Ortizes on the Opening Day roster is because Ronald Belisario wasn’t there taking up the roster spot he’d otherwise have been assured of. For that sin alone, he deserves his F and then some. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that. Belisario was a completely out-of-nowhere contributor to the 2009 bullpen, and he was expected to be a main cog in the 2010 crew.

That was before he got stuck in South America with visa problems for the second year in a row. There was a ton of back-and-forth about where the fault really belonged there, but none of it mattered; Belisario missed all of camp, and had to spend weeks in extended spring training trying to catch up. It was April 21 by the time he made his season debut, an absence exacerbated by Hong-Chih Kuo starting the year on the disabled list.

The layoff clearly hurt him, as he allowed seven earned runs over 7.2 innings in his first seven games of the year. But he got back into gear once May began, and was excellent for the next two months – between May 6 and July 5, he allowed just 8 ER over his next 28 IP, with a 21/9 K/BB ratio. That stretch included 19 consecutive games without allowing more than one earned run. Belisario had proven he wasn’t a fluke, and could be just as effective as he’d been in 2009. Except on July 7…

Eric Stephen (a blogger!) scoops the “real” media with some out-of-nowhere news:

Ronald Belisario placed on restricted list for personal reasons (!!!) to make room for Carlos Monasterios, who was activated from DL.

We have no idea what those reasons are yet, so while I’ll note his DUI last winter and two late arrivals to camp in a row thanks to visa issues, we can’t really speculate on what’s going on yet. (That’s your job, commenters.)

Initial reports were that he was entered in a substance abuse facility, though we never did find out for sure what happened. Belisario missed over a month, and once again he was rusty upon his return, allowing nine earned runs in his first three games back. The second of those games was particularly painful, and indirectly led to Jonathan Broxton losing his closer’s job:

All I ask is this: while you burn him in effigy, you don’t ignore the fact that Ronald Belisario faced five men in the 8th and got zero outs, and that Broxton induced a perfect double-play ball that went right through Casey Blake‘s legs. Broxton’s going to get the lion’s share of the blame here, and probably rightfully so. But he’s not alone in this loss, and that’s important to remember.

But just like before, he was very good after working out the initial kinks, not allowing more than one earned run in his last 21 games of the season. So while the 5.04 ERA looks awful, it’s kind of misleading since so many of the runs he allowed came immediately after returning from his stretches away from the team.

Of course, that doesn’t excuse the fact that Belisario’s personal issues were the cause of those absences. So there’s that, and you absolutely cannot depend on him going forward. Still, he’s proven that he’s an effective reliever when he’s available, and he’s not going anywhere; he’s out of options, and his trade value is low. There’s no question you bring him back next year, but there’s also no question that you duct tape his visa applications to his face and make sure they get taken care of on time. A third season in a row with a delayed arrival would be funny if it weren’t so frustrating.

Octavio Dotel (C-)
3.38 ERA, 4.69 FIP, 10.1 K/9, 5.3 BB/9, 0.2 WAR

Must… not… kill… Dotel… for… awful… trade. I’m trying so hard not to blame Dotel for the circumstances which brought him to Los Angeles, because it’s really not Dotel’s fault. I know, I know; I can’t even say his name without thinking of how James McDonald & Andrew Lambo were wasted. But Dotel probably wasn’t sitting in Neil Huntington’s office helping the Pittsburgh GM abuse Ned Colletti, right?

For all the words spilled on Dotel, he only pitched 18.2 innings as a Dodger and didn’t even end the year on the squad. During his short time in blue, he was basically as expected. He struck out plenty of batters (10.1/9,), walked a lot (5.3/9) and was homer-prone (1.4/9), yet actually had a lower WHIP than he did in Pittsburgh. So I’m not going to kill him too much for his on-field performance.

That said, it’s not like he was really good or contributed a whole lot, either. Sure, a 3.38 ERA looks nice, but I don’t have to remind you yet again how useless ERA is for relievers, particularly in small sample sizes. And in case I do have to remind you…

Sherrill did his job in the 8th, coming into a situation with two men on and getting out of the inning. After allowing two singles and getting two outs in the 9th, Dotel allowed a walk and a double, letting both runners score. Those runs are charged towards Sherrill’s ERA, not Dotel’s.

That was from August 10 against the Phillies; less than a week later, this happened, after Hong-Chih Kuo loaded the bases:

At this point, Joe Torre can take no more, and he comes out to rescue the All-Star. Octavio Dotel offers no relief, however, by allowing all three runners to score on a walk and a walkoff single.

In neither of those two games was Dotel charged with an earned run, so let’s not put too much stock in that stat, okay? It’s why the 4.69 FIP is a far more accurate indicator. As the Dodgers fell further out of the race, Dotel was sent to Colorado on September 18 for a player to be named later. Three of the nine games he pitched for the Rockies in the last two weeks came against the Dodgers.

Last week, the player to be named was revealed as 26-year-old outfielder Anthony Jackson, who just put up a .676 OPS in his second season in AA. He’s a complete non-prospect, not even ranking in the top 30 Rockies prospects before the season per Baseball America, and many just saw that as the distasteful icing on a terrible cake, but it’s really irrelevant. Did we really think the Rockies were giving up a top prospect for two weeks of Dotel? Of course not; it was just a way for the Dodgers to save his $250k buyout for 2011, but mainly, it was a fittingly anticlimactic ending to a trade which never should have happened.

Russ Ortiz (F-)
10.29 ERA, 3.51 FIP, 7.7 K/9, 6.4 BB/9, -0.6 WAR

Much as I’d like to blame Ortiz for everything that went wrong with the Dodgers in 2010, he only pitched seven innings for the club and was cut before April ended, so it’s hard to act as though he had a huge impact on the season. While I do not want to spend even five more seconds of my life thinking about or writing about Russ Ortiz, it is pretty fun to see how little we thought of this at the time.

January 20:

Finally, via Diamond Leung, Troy from West Virginia has some strong thoughts on the Russ Ortiz signing (along with a wicked beard). Hey, I can’t say I disagree with him; Ortiz is abysmal and has been completely cooked for years. Troy is probably on his way to jail, and if the things in that article are true, then his future is well deserved. Still, when a man has that much facing him and he’s still bothered by a minor-league invite to Russ Ortiz… well, it probably means you shouldn’t have signed Russ Ortiz.

March 16:

Russ Ortiz. I know that he’s not allowed a walk or a run in 5 innings, and I do not care. I refuse to live in a world where Russ Ortiz – Russ Ortiz! – can win a rotation spot on a team with playoff dreams. Since his last decent season in 2004, his MLB line is 10-28 with a 6.56 ERA. He is, quite possibly, the worst pitcher in baseball, and he’s about to be 36. No amount of spring training niceties should be able to undo that. Odds: 0.0000001%

If you’re wondering why I’m giving slightly more hope to one busted R.Ortiz over another, it’s because Ramon has thrown nearly twice the innings Russ has in camp – and because I’ll be the first to admit I have an irrational hatred of Russ Ortiz. The Giants and D-Backs connections, the huge contract, the total flameout, the age – I don’t want any part of it.

April 11 (from Tony Jackson, on why Jonathan Broxton‘s usage was questionable):

In part, then, it was the ripple effect of Ortiz’s failure to carry out his assignment Friday that led to the Dodgers’ ninth-inning woes Saturday — although that could hardly be blamed for Sherrill’s personal implosion because he hadn’t pitched since Wednesday night at Pittsburgh, when he turned in a scoreless eighth inning and appeared finally to have found his long-lost mechanics.

He made it all the way to April 18 before getting DFA’d, and it was hard to hide the enthusiasm:

Hurrah! He’s gone! And thus ends the short and painful era of having the worst pitcher in baseball wearing Dodger blue. Shockingly, a mildly productive spring against inconsistent opponents didn’t mean more than six solid years of being horrible. Who’d have thunk? It’s just surprising that it took this long to happen, is all. Ortiz ends his Dodgers career with a line of 0-1, 10.29 ERA, 2.143 WHIP thanks to allowing 12.9 hits/9 and 6.4 BB/9, along with a trail of Dodger tears, and one surely hilarious entry in our season review series this fall.

Hilarious? Perhaps not. Just relieved at the proposition of never having to write about Russ Ortiz ever again.

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Next! Ned Colletti cashes in his goodwill! Joe Torre mails in a farewell tour! It’s the last installment of the 2010 season in review, management!

The MSTI 2011 Plan, Part 2: Pitching

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Lots of good comments on the Offense post yesterday – thanks. Of course, you can’t have a team without a pitching staff, and today we try to do some reconstructive surgery on the arms. I’ll be honest up front and say that it’s not going to be pretty. Filling three rotation spots isn’t easy even when you do have a ton of free cash, and the available starters are less than awe-inspiring. Other than Cliff Lee, the jewel of the market who’s never coming to the Dodgers, the best free agent starter is… Carl Pavano? Jorge de la Rosa? Ted Lilly, maybe? It’s not a great group, and the always-large demand plus that lack of supply means that some team is going to get silly and give those guys 3-4 years at big dollars. This is the one time that the payroll restrictions are actually a good thing, because Ned Colletti likely won’t have the chance to go out and be the one to make that mistake.

That said, you still have to put together a staff, and here’s one man’s crack at it.

1) Sign Clayton Kershaw to a 5 year, $30m contract…

…if you can even still get him that cheaply. I’d go into this in greater detail, except I already did just that in August. Basically, based on recent deals signed by comparable pitchers like Ricky Romero, Yovani Gallardo, and Jon Lester, this is about the going rate for a quality young starter with a pre-arbitration year left.

Sure, you could wait another year. You could enjoy the fact that he’s making just $500k or so in 2011, but that’s only going to cost you more down the road. He’s increased his WAR in each of his three years in the bigs, at the same time as he’s decreased his WHIP and K/BB. What happens when next year is the year he truly blows up? The cost is going to get astronomical. Better to do it now.

Fortunately, deals like these are rarely paid out evenly over the length of the contract, so we don’t have to worry about fitting in $6m into the 2011 budget. Doubling his 2011 salary ought to be enough to start, and the dollars increase over the remainder.

This is probably my highest priority of any move this entire winter.
$72.5m + $1m = $73.5m

2) Offer Ted Lilly arbitration, expecting he’ll decline.

As detailed here, I think it’s more likely that Lilly would decline rather than accept. If he does accept, you can make it work, of course. For this exercise, we’re assuming he signs a Randy Wolf-like three-year deal elsewhere.
$73.5m+ $0m = $73.5m (plus two draft picks)

3) Don’t offer Hiroki Kuroda arbitration, fearing he’ll accept.

As detailed here. I love Kuroda, and he could command a big free-agent contract, but the danger that he’ll want to commit to only one more year of American baseball and end up with a $16m+ arbitration judgement is far too risky, especially for an older pitcher with an injury history.
$73.5m+ $0m = $73.5m

4) Deal with the arbitration cases of Chad Billingsley and Hong-Chih Kuo.

Guessing arbitration prizes can be notoriously difficult, so I’ll go with Eric Stephen’s predictions on the TBLA payroll sheet for Chad Billingsley & Hong-Chih Kuo, which are $5.5m and $2.5m, respectively. I’d just as soon sign Billingsley to a long-term deal as well, but it’s probably pushing our luck to think that even Kershaw would get signed this winter, much less both.

As for the others… say “smell you later” for the moment to George Sherrill , Jeff Weaver and Vicente Padilla.
$73.5m + $8m = $81.5m

5) Trade James Loney to the Cubs for Tom Gorzelanny.

Loney’s an interesting case, because I think he’s one of those guys where there’s a massive divide between what regular fans and media types think of him as opposed to the impression the hardcore stat types have. We of course know that Loney’s a decent enough MLB hitter, yet subpar among his first base peers, especially in a league stacked with Albert Pujols, Joey Votto, Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Aubrey Huff, and Adam Dunn (and that’s only the NL!). Sure, the RBI totals are somewhat shiny, but he finished 19th among 24 qualified MLB 1B in WAR. That was fine when he was an 0-3 player making $500k; it’s becoming a lot less fine as he ascends the arbitration scale without making a lot of progress on the field.

That doesn’t mean he’s without value, of course. I think a lot of other people see a guy who’s only 26, has a sweet swing and a smooth glove, and nearly drove in 90 runs for the third year in a row. It’s not enough to get you an ace starter, but it should be enough to get you a decent enough pitcher – and it just so happens the Dodgers have rotation holes to fill.

Meanwhile, the Cubs need a first baseman with Derrek Lee in Atlanta and Xavier Nady headed to free agency. Though it didn’t work that way in 2010, Loney’s always been more successful away from Dodger Stadium – more than 140 points of OPS better, in fact, with a career line of .309/.362/.495. That’s a lot more like it, and I worried back in the 2010 Maple Street Press Annual that he might need a change of scenery. The Cubs have most of their rotation set with Carlos Zambrano, Carlos Silva, Randy Wells, and Ryan Dempster, and could probably manage to fill the #5 spot elsewhere in order to take a chance on Loney.

As for Gorzelanny, he’s a 28-year-old lefty who’s been a bit up-and-down, but has FIP of 3.91 and 3.92 the last two years, good for 2.1 WAR this year (you can safely ignore the 5.55 ERA from 2009). Joe Pawlikowski of FanGraphs was pretty high on Gorzelanny back in July:

In fact, Gorzelanny has enough going for him that he can be expected to continue pitching well. I’m not even sure exactly why Pittsburgh, a team desperate for pitching, traded him in the first place. He was quite excellent in the high minors prior to his full-time MLB promotion, and even when the Pirates demoted him in 2008 and 2009 he pitched very well in the minors.

Like Perez, Gorzelanny’s resurgence could be a temporary thing. His control still isn’t where it needs to be, and that will be an important component of his game going forward. Yet Gorzelanny’s peripherals, both in the minors and the majors, make him look like a better case for permanent recovery. The Cubs, to their benefit, have three more years of team control, so they’ll get a long look at what Gorzelanny can do in the long run. Considering the state of the Pirates’ pitching, I’m sure Hungtington would love to get backsies on this one.

Gorzelanny’s probably not much more than a 4th starter, but he’s also going to make just about $1m next year in his first year of arbitration. Besides, Loney would probably make between $4-5m in arbitration, so moving that means you’re only paying an extra $3m or so for Dunn, assuming you backload his contract a bit.

I also considered trying to move Loney to Tampa for Matt Garza here, but the Rays are in serious cost-cutting mode and don’t seem like the type to pay $4-5m to a player like Loney who doesn’t get much love from the statistical community.

(Note: I’ve had this part written for nearly three weeks. I only just now realized that a few people in the TBLA comments suggested this deal as well on Friday, and then more than one person did so in my own comments yesterday. Great minds, right?)
$81.5m + $1m = $82.5m

6) Sign Vicente Padilla to a one year, $4m deal.

What a bizarre year for Padilla. After coming off the offseason shooting incident, he got a totally unexpected Opening Day start, which he turned into an underwhelming April and then nearly two months on the DL with a forearm injury. Yet when he came back, he was sublime, going eight consecutive starts without allowing more than two earned runs – before missing the last month with a bulging disc in his neck.

Padilla made $5.025m in 2010, and his summer stretch had him positioned for a possible multi-year deal. But the multiple injuries and his well-documented personal issues combine to make that unlikely, and he seems to have found a home in LA. You’re taking a risk on his health, but when he is healthy he’s quite good – and that’s worth the $4m to me.

Besides, I want another season of Vin Scully saying “soap bubble”.
$82.5m + $4m = $86.5m

7) Don’t rely on John Ely to be your 5th starter.

I was one of the few who supported Ely even after his season headed south, because the bar for 5th starters is so low. He had a FIP of 4.38; from a 5th starter, that’s fine with me.

The problem here is that teams almost never use only five starters, due to injury and poor performance. The Dodgers this year used ten starters, from Clayton Kershaw‘s 32 to James McDonald‘s 1. If Ely is your 6th or 7th best option, then you can still be reasonably confident that he’ll get a few shots to prove himself next year, but you won’t be totally dependent on “good Ely” to appear instead of “bad Ely”. If you do rely on him to win the 5th spot, then as soon as someone gets injured or faltered, you’re already relying on someone who’s worse than Ely. And that’s not a good situation to be in.

Of course, if Ely’s not rounding out the rotation, someone else needs to, and we’re going to handle that when we…
$86.5m + $0 = $86.5m

8) Trade Chin-lung Hu to Atlanta for Kenshin Kawakami.

In a vacuum, I’d prefer Hu to Kawakami. However, Hu’s out of options headed into 2011, and there’s no room for him on my Opening Day roster, so I need to turn him into something, and Kawakami’s my ultimate buy-low idea this winter. Just look at his stat line for the last two seasons..

2009: 6.04 K/9, 3.28 BB/9, 4.21 FIP, 4.61 xFIP
2010: 6.08 K/9, 3.30 BB/9, 4.35 FIP, 4.56 xFIP

Two basically identical seasons, right? Sure, except that in 2009 he was 7-12 with a 3.86 ERA, getting him at least a mention in NL ROY articles… and in 2010 he was 1-10 with a 5.15 ERA, getting him banished to the bench as insurance, as he pitched only 3 times after June and badly damaging his relationship with the team. He was more hittable than in 2009 for sure, but this definitely looks like another case of far too much stock being put in a pitcher’s W-L record and ERA (in addition to the Braves having plenty of quality starting options). It seems impossible that he’ll be back in Atlanta, and the Braves could use another shortstop option with Yunel Escobar in Toronto and Alex Gonzalez headed to free agency, even if Hu isn’t the starter – and his slick-fielding may appeal to a team that just saw their defense implode in the NLDS.

As for Kawakami, I’m not pretending he’s anywhere near as good as Hiroki Kuroda, because he’s not. I just can’t help pointing out that they each spent their final season in Japan in the Central League, and Kawakami (2008: 1.06 WHIP, 8.59 K/9, 1.92 BB/9) outpitched Kuroda (2007: 1.21 WHIP, 6.16 K/9, 2.10 BB/9).

It clearly hasn’t worked out as well in America for Kawakami, but it seems like a gamble worth taking. Kawakami is due $6.67m in the final year of a three-year deal. We’re going to say that the Braves will eat much of it in order to save $2m and get Hu in exchange for a pitcher they have no use for.

If it works out, great, you get a decent 5th starter. If not, all it cost you was $2m and a backup infielder who wasn’t going to make the roster anyway.
$86.5m + $2m = $88.5m

_____________________________________

Now that the starting rotation is set, it’s time to look at the bullpen. I’m sure a lot of people would love to keep Kuo and Kenley Jansen and blow up the rest, but it’s just not realistic, either from a financial or a talent standpoint. In the same way that it was hard to imagine that Jonathan Broxton and Ronald Belisario and Ramon Troncoso and George Sherrill would all have blown up together in 2010, it’s hard to imagine that not a single one is going to recapture that 2009 magic in 2011.

That’s not to say that we need to bring back the exact same crew, of course, but spending big money on relievers isn’t an option with the Dodger payroll, nor is it a good idea even if you did have that money. Big dollar investments in non-closer relievers rarely ever work out, as the Boston Herald does a good job of displaying here.

Kuo and Jansen ($88.5m + $0.4m = $88.9m) are no-brainers, and in this age of the seven-man bullpen, we have five more spots to fill. Here’s how we’re going to do it.

9) One of five: Give Jonathan Broxton a chance to rebound.

Broxton’s second-half nosedive really killed my plans, because I wanted to trade him. I wouldn’t want to pay any closer $7m, and that money can be put to better use elsewhere. If Broxton had just made it through another three months performing like he had for the previous three years, he could have been a great trade chip to bring back a bat or a starting pitcher.

Of course, his implosion changes all that, and as I detailed last month, I don’t see much of a trade market for him. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do a deal if the right offer were made, just that I wouldn’t give him away for nothing. Don Mattingly claims that Broxton goes into 2011 as his closer, which I don’t totally agree with, but that’s obviously the best possible outcome. If he can come back from whatever took him down, then you get back a top closer, take pressure off Kuo and Jansen, and have a great piece to trade in July if the Dodgers are out of it. Really, I just want to extract the most value from Broxton, whether that’s on-the-field performance or return via trade, and moving him now isn’t the way to do that.

Besides, all the people you hear saying he’s “mentally weak” were saying the same thing about Chad Billingsley last winter, and you saw how well that worked out. If Broxton’s late-season disaster proved anything, it’s that the 9th inning wasn’t the source of his problems. Whether it was bad mechanics, overuse by Joe Torre (don’t forget that he was asked to throw 99 pitches in five days, and that’s where his troubles began), or an unknown injury (Josh Suchon on DodgerTalk claimed he saw Broxton’s ankle heavily taped after a late-season game), there’s a lot of viable reasons for his downfall. The hope is that a winter of rest can help him come back and regain that value, and giving him that chance – even if he’s not the closer initially – is the right move.
$88.9m + $7m = $95.9m

10) Two of five: Sign Justin Duchsherer to a one year, $1m deal.

Sure, he’s pitched in just five MLB games over the last two seasons due to injury, but what fun would this be without a lottery ticket? Unlike other “pie in the sky” guys like Brandon Webb, Ben Sheets, and Rich Harden, Duchscherer likely won’t require a big base salary, as he made just $1.75m with Oakland in 2010.

Duchscherer missed most of the last two years with injuries to each hip, but he’s proven that he can be effective if healthy. It’s of course the “if healthy” part which is a problem, and here’s how we make that work. Unless he comes into camp and blows everyone away, you make him your 6th-starter/bullpen ace. Before Oakland converted him into a starter in 2008, he was a bullpen weapon, appearing in 53, 65, and 53 games in 2004-06. We’ll do that again here, leaving the option of him being a spot starter available – basically, it’s the Jeff Weaver role.

The idea here is that if you can get 25 or so basically-average starts combined from Kawakami and Duchscherer, along with some bullpen value out of JD, that’s a great return on $3m.
$95.9m + $1m = $96.9m

11) Three of five: Accept that Ronald Belisario is going to have a spot next year.

I don’t want to gloss over Belisario’s extreme unreliability, but assuming nothing else happens, he’s basically assured of a spot. Why? Because his value is low enough that it’s not worth trading him, but since he’s out of options, you can’t send him to the minors and you’re not just going to cut him loose for nothing.

It’s also worth nothing that his 2010 wasn’t just a giant pile of suck, as many would have you believe. After his late arrival to camp, Belisario was reasonably decent through July: .608 OPS, only 2 HR allowed in 35 games. Then he disappeared for a month, and in August and September he fell apart: .856 OPS against, 4 HR allowed in 24 games (though to be fair, he gave up 9 ER in his first three games back and was much better after that).

We still don’t really know what happened to cause his month away from the team, but it’s not hard to infer that it was some sort of personal problem which took his focus away from baseball. That, plus the two long absences, could easily have thrown his timing and conditioning off. If he’s able to avoid such issues in 2011 – which, I admit, is far from certain – he’s my best choice for a rebound.

This assumes he can make it to camp on time, of course. Third time’s the charm?
$96.9m + $0.4m = $97.3m

12) Four of five: One spot goes to one of the up-and-down righty relievers we saw this year.

That’d be Ramon Troncoso, Jon Link, and Travis Schlichting. Hell, even toss Josh Lindblom in there. I imagine all four will see time in LA in 2011, and the first three have all had their moments. Whichever one breaks camp with the team is largely irrelevant, but you know at least one will. For the moment, I’ll say… Link.
$97.3m + $0.4m = $97.7m

13) Five of five: Insert veteran non-roster invite here.

It happens every year, so while I’d love to go out and sign Koji Uehara, Joaquin Benoit, Hisanori Takahashi or someone similar, we all know that this is going to be filled by your obligatory Jeff Weaver or Chan Ho Park-type. Perhaps literally Jeff Weaver or Chan Ho Park, which is fine, just as long as it’s no one named Ortiz.

I’ll actually propose something pretty unpopular, and that’s to bring George Sherrill back for the minimum after he gets non-tendered. I know the fans would revolt if that happened, and Sherrill might not want to come back himself, but it’s worth noting that even in his horrendous 2010, he was still dominant against left-handers: .192/.286/.288. It’s going to be hard to find anyone else who can do that, and Sherrill at least comes with the slight chance that he finds the performance he brought with him to LA. You really think Weaver or Park has that upside?
$97.7m + $0.8m = $98.5m

14) Just turn Pedro Baez into a pitcher already.

This doesn’t really impact the 2011 team, and I realize that every light-hitting, strong-armed minor league hitter isn’t going to be the next Kenley Jansen. I also realize that Baez has absolutely no hope of making the big leagues as a third baseman. He’ll be 23 next spring, yet had just a .306 OBP and 6 HR despite playing against kids 3-4 years younger in the Inland Empire launching pad. The one thing he does have going for him is a rocket for an arm. Why not take that 0% chance of him being a 3B and turn it into a 5% chance he makes it as a reliever? I’d be shocked if DeJon Watson hasn’t already begun those conversations already.
$98.5m + $0 = $98.5m

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Here’s your 2011 pitching staff:

SP L Clayton Kershaw
SP R Chad Billingsley
SP R Vicente Padilla
SP L Tom Gorzelanny
SP R Kenshin Kawakami

RP R Justin Duchscherer
RP R Jon Link
RP L George Sherrill / NRI
RP R Ronald Belisario
RP L Hong-Chih Kuo
RP R Kenley Jansen
RP R Jonathan Broxton

Then you have John Ely, Carlos Monasterios, Travis Schlichting, Ramon Troncoso, Josh Lindblom, Brent Leach, and a cast of thousands in reserve behind them.

Unlike the offense, where I think I was able to clearly improve it, I guess I can’t say the same about the pitching – though I do think it has more depth. It’s just important to remember that having Kuroda and Lilly in your rotation was never more than a short-term solution, because having them both for next year is totally unrealistic – unless your offense was full of rookies making the minimum. So while this rotation may not seem as good as the one that ended 2010 (and I don’t argue otherwise), you’re not working from that rotation. You’re working from one that has only Kershaw and Billingsley right now.

What you hope for here is that Kershaw continues his ascent, giving you a solid 1-2 with Billingsley. You pray that Broxton figures it out and that Kuo holds together for one more season, and you realize that what your team looks like in April is never what it looks like in July. If the team is in contention, adding a 3rd top pitcher could really do wonders.

Either way, I was able to do all of this for about $98.5m and cashing in Scott Elbert, Xavier Paul, James Loney, Russell Martin, and Chin-lung Hu, while adding two draft picks for Lilly. I won’t say this team is suddenly a World Series contender, but I do think the offense and pitching I’ve presented the last two days are definitely superior to the team we saw fall apart in 2010.

Pile On the Blame

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You’re probably coming here expecting me to defend Jonathan Broxton, as I’ve done so often. But you’re not going to find that tonight. He was crap, loading the bases with no outs (on a hit batter and two walks), and eventually blowing the three-run lead that was handed to him on a game-winning double by Carlos Ruiz. So if you want to tear apart Broxton, you go right ahead, because you’ll get no pushback from me, and I’ll need to be devoting an entire post to his recent failures soon. I don’t want to hear any crap about how “he’s scared of the Phillies,” because that’s just amateur psychiatrist BS. He’s been lousy against everyone lately, and that points towards a larger issue.

All I ask is this: while you burn him in effigy, you don’t ignore the fact that Ronald Belisario faced five men in the 8th and got zero outs, and that Broxton induced a perfect double-play ball that went right through Casey Blake‘s legs. Broxton’s going to get the lion’s share of the blame here, and probably rightfully so. But he’s not alone in this loss, and that’s important to remember.

If you’re looking for anything to make you feel better, it’s probably this: despite those who will claim that “this was the biggest loss of the season,” which apparently every game that Broxton blows is, this is a 4th place team that’s barely over .500 which was dead in the water anyway. It’s a painful loss, I will not argue. But it’s not really any sort of historic loss, because who cares if you finish 7 games out or 8?

We Know Where Ronald Belisario Is… Or Do We?

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Reports are that we finally know what’s going on with Ronald Belisario, and it’s not good news:

Reliever Ronald Belisario left the team earlier this week to receive treatment in a substance abuse program, according to a source familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The source, who was not authorized to speak on the matter, would not specify if Belisario is receiving residential or outpatient treatment. The source also would not identify the substance abused by the right-hander.

Though this report comes from Dylan Hernandez and Bill Shaikin, who I consider to be two of the top three (along with Tony Jackson) Dodger reporters, I’m not sure I 100% buy this just yet.

Obviously, it makes sense on the surface, since he did pick up a DUI last summer. There’s just a few things that bother me about it – first of all, the fact that it comes from an unnamed source, with no confirmation. As we’ve learned over and over, unless someone’s willing to go on the record – and sometimes even then – it can’t be taken as gospel. Secondly, you’d think that if reporters started making that claim that someone, anyone, connected with the situation would admit to it to try to get out ahead of the story, yet everyone is still silent. Belisario’s agent even went so far as to reply via text message, “Why would you write that?” That doesn’t sound like a response that a man who knew he had been outed would give; it sounds like a man who doesn’t like that misinformation is headed out but can’t do much about it.

The other oddity is that the other day, the agent said Belisario might be headed back to Venezuela. You would think that international travel would not be the first order of business if this were an abuse situation rather than a family issue, no?

Or, I could be just looking for conspiracies where none exist. Wouldn’t be the first time. Either way, I hope he’s back soon.

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Regardless of the reasons for Belisario’s absence, the Dodgers are going to need to make a relief addition, and soon, because they have two reliable relievers right now, and the way Torre’s using them, that could be zero at any time. I had started an article about what reasonable starting pitcher they could acquire, since they obviously didn’t get Cliff Lee and won’t get Roy Oswalt or Dan Haren. But now I think that a relief pitcher article may be more important. Thoughts?

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Speaking of Lee, you’ve certainly heard that he’s headed to Texas for a package led by 1B Justin Smoak. Dodger fans shouldn’t be all that upset, because there’s no one like Smoak in the minor-league system. Reports are that if the Dodgers were going to get in for Lee, it would have cost them James Loney or Chad Billingsley, which makes no sense at all. That would obviously hurt them for the future, since Lee can walk at the end of 2010, and it doesn’t even help them that much for this year since there’s no replacement for Loney at 1B, dealing Billingsley means there’s no improvement in the rotation depth, and the bullpen is a mess anyway.

J, of J’s Dodger Blog, tweets that the LA Times reports that the Dodgers were willing to include any minor league in their system except one. I would have just linked directly to that piece, but I can’t seem to find it on their site. Either way, who do we think that one player is? Gordon? Chris Withrow? Ethan Martin?

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More weirdness from Joe Torre last night. One day after not allowing Clayton Kershaw to start the 9th with 97 pitches under his belt, he lets Chad Billingsley start the 8th with 115. Thanks to the big ball of fail that George Sherrill and Justin Miller followed up with, the seemingly-harmless single Billingsley allowed to the one hitter he faced in the 8th turned into an earned run against him. (Never trust ERA, kids).

I’m not actually going to kill Torre for bringing in Broxton last night, because the Cubs were slowly nipping away at the lead and Miller allowed the first batter to reach in the 9th. I mean, what else was he going to do there, let Miller blow the game? Bring in Carlos Monasterios or Jeff Weaver in that situation? Try to quickly warm up Hong-Chih Kuo? Of course not. The problem is that he’s now pitched in five of the last seven days, and warmed up in at least one of the two days he didn’t. It’s no wonder that he wasn’t in top form last night, though he did get the job done. That, more than anything else, is why I wanted Kershaw to get the opportunity to complete his game on Thursday. Sure, it’d have been nice for Kershaw, but more importantly, you just can’t use Broxton every single night. I pray that today’s game is a blowout, and if it’s not, we might see Kuo in as the closer.

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ESPN’s Keith Law ranks the prospects in the Futures Game. Gordon comes in at 23 in his list, and Pedro Baez is in the “Remaining Prospects” section.

23. Dee Gordon, SS, LA Dodgers: The Dodgers took a big risk promoting Gordon two levels to AA, and as predicted he’s struggled at the plate, with poor pitch recognition leading to all-around trouble on offense. He’s a plus runner and a potential Gold Glover at short, and he has the hands and bat speed to hit for average. His father is Tom “Flash” Gordon.

Pedro Baez, 3b, LA Dodgers: Has bat speed and some pop, with a plus arm at third, but is unrefined across the board, notably in plate discipline and instincts in the field. He’s had knee trouble as well, limiting the reps he needs to improve as a hitter.