Category Archives: Ted Lilly

Dodgers Start Fast But Barely Escape Coors With a Win

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On June 27 of last year, the Dodgers crushed the Twins 15-0 in Minnesota, with homers from Matt Kemp, Trent Oeltjen, & Casey Blake leading the charge among 25 hits. Coming as it did just hours after Frank McCourt steered the team into bankruptcy, this led to one of the more memorable quotes of the entire debacle:

This was, of course, laughably ludicrous lawyer-talk, and it earned a rightful place on the long list of McCourt-related sins. Yet it was all I could think of early in today’s game as the Dodgers got off to a fast start in Colorado. Hours after the paperwork was official and McCourt no longer had a claim to the club, the much-maligned Dee Gordon stepped to the plate and hit the fourth pitch he saw from Colorado starter Jhoulys Chacin out of the park for his first big-league home run. After singles from Mark Ellis (the first of four for him tonight) and Kemp, Andre Ethier also took Chacin deep, and four batters into the Guggenheim era, the Dodgers were up 4-0. If it wasn’t the official coming-out party that we’ve yet to see, it sure felt like the start of something special.

That wasn’t even the end of it from the offensive side of things. In the third, A.J. Ellis doubled in Tony Gwynn for the 5th run, then added two more by driving in Gwynn again on a two-run blast off Chacin in the fifth. Look, I know it’s Coors Field and magical things happen there, but this was a game where Gordon (7 HR in 1814 minor-league PA, and while I can’t back this up with facts, we all know at least one was inside-the-park) and Ellis (19 HR in 2119 minor-league PA) both homered. Meanwhile, Albert Pujols is still looking for his first. Life is awesome sometimes.

Yet while it sure seemed like this would be a party atmosphere to usher in the new ownership, life in Coors is never, ever that simple. Ted Lilly breezed through 5.2 scoreless, but then things went downhill quickly as soon as he served up a meatball that was crushed by Carlos Gonzalez for a bomb in the sixth. Oddly, the last homer Lilly allowed was also by Gonzalez, last August, and once he completed the inning, he left after just 79 pitchers after being seen talking to trainer Sue Falsone in the dugout. For the first time this season, Josh Lindblom was completely ineffective in allowing four hits and three runs in 2/3 of an inning; Scott Elbert cleaned up his mess, but Kenley Jansen allowed the Rockies to get within one after letting Troy Tulowitzki lead off with a triple. Despite allowing the tying run to get to third, Javy Guerra bounced back from recent troubles to nail down the save.

By the way, I can’t help but touch upon a somewhat bizarre sequence in the top half of the ninth. Ethier led off with a hit. James Loney then bunted… terribly… in a one-run game. It appeared that Don Mattingly made that call, based on his reaction when Loney returned to the dugout, and while that’s an awful call on his part, it also really speaks to how little confidence you must have in your first baseman to actually get a hit when you’re asking him to bunt. Yet even odder was that against lefty Greg Reynolds, the Dodgers sent up four straight lefty hitters – Ethier, Loney, Gwynn, then Adam Kennedy – without once calling on Juan Uribe. I have to imagine he was unavailable for some reason (especially since it was Justin Sellers who came out to play third for the ninth), but we haven’t heard anything to that effect yet, and if he was available but just not called upon, well, that says a whole lot about him as well. (Kennedy struck out to strand Ethier. Of course he did.)

Get some sleep, because tomorrow is going to be a memorable day; the ownership press conference is at 10am PT, and Clayton Kershaw goes in the series finale at 12:10 PT. If you’re not skipping work, you’re doing it wrong.

Padres @ Dodgers April 14, 2012: Lilly Returns, Lindblom Remains

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As expected, Ted Lilly was activated off of the disabled list to make tonight’s start against the Padres. Todd Coffey was placed on the DL with right knee soreness to make room, and whether that’s the true cause of his early season struggles or something a little more convenient, I do not know. What matters is that Josh Lindblom remains on the roster, and with three shutdowns without a single meltdown, while several other members of the bullpen continue to struggle, there was absolutely no way you could justify sending him down – option status be damned. With Coffey being swapped out for Lilly, the depth chart page has been updated.

Lilly will be opposed by 22-year-old righty Joe Wieland, making his major-league debut. Wieland was obtained by the Padres last summer in the deal that sent reliever Mike Adams to Texas; in 438 minor-league innings over parts of five seasons, Wieland has exhibited fantastic control, walking just 80. (And somehow had a 96/4 K/BB in 14 games at High-A ball last year, which is one of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen.) Since 2000, the Dodgers have faced 12 starting pitchers making their big-league debuts, and are just 3-9 in those games. That’s somewhat misleading, though, because in two of those losses they scored six earned runs off the rookie but still ended up losing anyway.

For the Dodgers, they’re really trotting out the B-team behind Loney in attempt to load up on lefties against the righty Wieland. Dee Gordon returns to the lineup after a day off, as does James Loney, but Jerry Hairston, Tony Gwynn, Adam Kennedy, and Matt Treanor also are all starting tonight. Even with the welcome respite from Juan Uribe, that bottom half of the lineup… yikes. Could make for some quick innings.

Padres
Dodgers
CF
Maybin
SS
Gordon
RF
Denorfia
LF
Gwynn
3B
Headley
CF
Kemp
LF
Guzman
RF
Ethier
1B
Alonso
1B
Loney
C
Hundley
2B
Hairston
SS
Bartlett
3B
Kennedy
2B
Hudson
C
Treanor
P
Wieland
P
Lilly

Andre Ethier, Comeback Player of the Year

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I’m pretty sure I’ve been saying – in bits & pieces, perhaps – that Andre Ethier is going to have a big 2012 around here for nearly six months now. I don’t know if I ever put it all together into one coherent thought, so for my debut at FanGraphs today, that’s exactly what I’ve done. A snippet:

Ethier’s reputation has been further damaged by what can kindly be described as a salty attitude, including complaining about his contract status & suggesting that he might be non-tendered just before Opening Day 2010 and getting into a very public spat with the team about whether he was being forced to play through a knee injury late last season. Beyond that, his total inability to hit left-handed pitching and his less-than-impressive defensive performance (despite a laughable Gold Glove in 2011) led FanGraphs’ own Mike Axisa, writing at River Ave Blues this winter, to label him as essentially a platoon designated hitter, a description I couldn’t really find much to argue with.

All of which is to say that the outlook on Ethier heading into 2012 isn’t exactly what it was following 2009, and that’s reflected in fantasy drafts so far this season. His ADP at MockDraftCentral is 135th overall and just 35th among outfielders, behind Nick Markakis and just barely ahead of Peter Bourjos. At both MDC and in CBS’ auction values list, he’s seen as being only slightly more valuable than Melky Cabrera, who A) had a career year (.349 wOBA) last year which was only slightly better than Ethier’s sub-par 2011 and B) seems about as likely to repeat that performance as McCourt is to go into business with Bud Selig on a nice little bed-and-breakfast.

Here’s the thing, though: absolutely everything is falling into place perfectly for Ethier to have a huge comeback season, and that potential along with his lessened public profile makes him a very valuable commodity.

As you can probably guess, I go on to point out that his lessened productivity over the last two seasons can largely be attributed to the broken finger he returned from too quickly in 2010 and the bad knee he tried to play on for most of 2011. Fully healthy and motivated in his walk year, he’s showing early in camp that if the Dodgers go anywhere this year, he’s going to have a lot to do with it. (And as I’m about to hit publish, he drives in two more with yet another double. Go, Andre, go!)

Notes on the other 24 men who will try to join Ethier as we head into the final weekend of spring training…

*** Ted Lilly hasn’t pitched in over a week due to a sore neck, though he reportedly made it through a bullpen session today withonly some stiffness and no pain. That’s a good sign, though the layoff may yet land him on the disabled list to start the season. Due to April off-days, he would likely not be replaced by another starter – sorry, Nathan Eovaldi – but instead by an 8th reliever. Much as I like Josh Lindblom, who would almost certainly be that reliever, I’m not so sure that’s the right way to play it. We’ll wait and see what happens with Lilly before we get too deep into that, though.

*** Speaking of the elderly, Adam Kennedy is recovering from a groin strain and may also start the season on the disabled list… and I’m trying and failing to figure out why that’s a bad thing in any way whatsoever. Keep in mind that the disabled list does not start on Opening Day, but is retroactive to a player’s last appearance, so if Kennedy doesn’t play in another big-league spring game and starts the season on the DL, he’d be eligible return just a few days into the season.

*** Josh Bard and Cory Sullivan were cut yesterday, and that’s only notable for the fact that Luis Cruz was not. (Well, that, and the fact that apparently one of my readers is Cory Sullivan’s biggest fans.) With Jerry Sands gone, we’ve all been expecting the battle for the last spot to come down to Justin Sellers versus Josh Fields, and while I still think that’s what it’ll be (bet on Fields), Cruz keeps on sticking around and is even picking up supporters. I’m not exactly sure why; he’s been awful in the minors (AAA OBP last three years of .274, .309, .301), and it’s not even like he’s a spring sensation, because he’s hitting just .259 with no walks and two extra base hits in spring (entering today’s game, because oddly enough he just did the same thing Ethier did, driving in a run on a double). So he can play shortstop; big deal, so can Sellers. Just say no, okay?

Ted Lilly Already in Midseason Form

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I know, I’m usually the first to say that spring training results rarely count, especially in the first week of games, and particularly so for veterans who are just trying to get into shape, so take this with the Juan Uribe-sized grain of salt that it deserves.

Ted Lilly‘s thirteen batters today:

1. Melky Cabrera homers to left
2. Emmanuel Burriss doubles to left
3. Nate Schierholtz grounds out 6-3
4. Brett Pill homers to left
5. Hector Sanchez strikes out swinging
6. Mike Fontenot walks
7. Conor Gillaspie grounds out to first base
(Second Inning)
8. Brandon Crawford singles to right
9. Eli Whiteside flies out to left
9a. Crawford advances on wild pitch
10. Cabrera grounds out, 5-3
11. Burris doubles to left (arguably an Uribe error)
12. Schierholtz doubles to right
13. Pill pop to catcher

That’s two innings, six hits, five runs (all earned), two dingers, one strikeout, and one walk. Hey, at least he didn’t allow any stolen bases, though I suppose that’s hard to do when five of the six hits were homers or doubles. Again, is this meaningful? Not in the least. Is it inspiring? Well.. no. Tony Jackson was chatting live during the game and caught up with Lilly soon after he hit the showers:

Lilly said he had no fastball command, which forced him to throw way more breaking balls than he had intended to in his first spring-training start. Two different times, he said, “even though it’s spring training,” which was followed by him saying he definitely wasn’t happy with the result of this start.

At least Andre Ethier crushed a homer off a lefty, an event that is so rare and momentous (it happened just once in 2011) that it should be noted no matter what time of year it happens, though as many people were quick to remind me on Twitter, it came against Barry Zito and therefore barely counts. Still, I’ve been saying all winter that Ethier’s going to have a big year as he prepares for free agency (or perhaps the July trade deadline), and the first two games have been very promising in that regard.

Out of the bullpen, Ronald Belisario actually appeared in a Dodger uniform for the first time since October 1, 2010, even if MLB.com refuses to believe he still really exists (at right). The simple fact that he appeared is notable enough in itself, though it was a bit jarring to see him in Jonathan Broxton‘s old #51 rather than his regular #54 – which now belongs to Javy Guerra – but even though he allowed two hits in one inning, he didn’t break any state or federal laws. Progress! Josh Lindblom, Michael Antonini, and Josh Wall each pitched scoreless innings along with Belisario, while Jamey Wright, Ramon Troncoso, and Matt Chico all allowed one run in their sole innings of work. (As Charley Steiner noted regarding Chico, seeing a lefty wearing #56 who wasn’t Hong-Chih Kuo is going to take some getting used to. Or at least it would, if Chico had the slightest prayer of making the club, which he doesn’t.) Troncoso probably didn’t do much to help his long-shot bid to avoid a DFA by allowing Cabrera’s second homer of the day.

******

Speaking of progress, we all bemoaned the Dodgers’ last-place finish in FanGraphs‘ catcher positional rankings series, and it’s not any better at second base, where they also finish dead last…

Mark Ellis is still capable of providing stellar defense, but he cannot be relied on to stay healthy. When he eventually succumbs to an injury, the Dodgers don’t great backups. Adam Kennedy and Jerry Hairston Jr. should pick up at-bats when Ellis is on the shelf, but the team also has Justin Sellers waiting in the wings. At 25, Sellers isn’t particularly young, but there’s a good chance he would be as good as — if not better than — the Dodgers current reserve options.

…but at least first base finally gets out of the cellar to finish a relatively lofty 22nd:

Given the continued hilarity of James Loney, it is amazing that Dodgers are even this high on the list. The brilliant plan to back him up apparently involves two outfielders and Adam Kennedy, a classic aging utility man without utility. Loney still will get most of the at-bats, I think, as Rivera can only platoon for one guy at once. No word on what Ned Colletti offered Juan Pierre.

I feel like I’m not going to enjoy this series until it gets to center field.

******

We’ve been talking a lot about the potentially record-breaking sale price the Dodgers might fetch, and many have had trouble reconciling the fact that it might double the previous price that the Cubs went for a few years ago. CNBC’s Darren Rovell asks the same question today:

And yet, no one I talk to can figure out how there’s money to be made if the Dodgers are sold for more than $1.3 billion, as has been speculated.

The team itself is worth about $800 million and the land is worth another $200 to $300 million. One insider who has seen the financials confirmed that valuation.

But former owner Frank McCourt is intent on keeping that land.

So where is the additional $500 to $700 million coming from? There’s sponsorship money and ticket money and in good years, that could mean a $50 million swing in revenue.

Some will say it’s in the TV money, but it’s not there either. A deal with a network would yield about $150 million a year, but if the Dodgers start a regional sports network, they’ll likely be sharing at least 25 percent of the overall revenue, which would affect the rights fee.

I would argue you could also kick in an “ego” fee, in which a potential owner would like to be seen as the white knight riding in and rescuing a crown jewel of the sport which has fallen into terrible disrepair. Still, it’s a question we’ve been wondering about for a while; at what point does a ludicrous sale price impact the amount of additional money available to put back into the team?

Plenty of Dodgers Making the Cut on Bill James’ Top 100 Pitcher’s Duels

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Last year, ESPN and Bill Simmons teamed up to launch “Grantland“, a new venture aimed at focusing more on long-form sportswriting, a throwback to the glory days of magazines and newspapers, as opposed to the shorter blog posts which are more popular today. Predictably, the feedback has been mixed; some of the work I’ve read has been excellent, but good lord, can it be pretentious.

Your feelings on Simmons aside, it’s hard to argue with a staff that includes Chuck Klosterman, Jonah Keri, Rany Jazayerli, and Katie Baker, among many others, and today they’ve added a new luminary: baseball stats legend Bill James. James debuts with a list of the 100 best pitcher’s duels of 2011 – completely subjectively, of course, because how else could you do it – and wouldn’t you know it, 10 of his first 42 entries involved the Dodgers. As it turns out – and this is going to come as a huge surprise, I know – Clayton Kershaw is really, really good, and I don’t know if anything was more fun this past season than watching him constantly beat down Tim Lincecum and the Giants.

3. July 20, 2011, Dodgers at San Francisco, Clayton Kershaw against Tim Lincecum

MSTI, July 20:

Now how about adding eight shutout innings with 12 whiffs against just three hits and a walk? By Game Score, which is admittedly imperfect, that was the third best start of Kershaw’s career. That it was also the third best start of his season should tell you a lot about just how good his 2011 has been so far, particularly now that he’s up to 23 consecutive scoreless innings and an MLB-best 167 strikeouts.

5. September 9, 2011, Dodgers in San Francisco again, Kershaw and Lincecum rematch

Looks like I didn’t say anything, because I was traveling for a wedding that weekend. Stupid weddings, part one.

18. September 20, Giants in L.A., Lincecum against Kershaw, Round 3

Stupid weddings, part two. This was my birthday and I was busy getting engaged. Still not sure that choosing those over watching Kershaw / Lincecum was the right move.

23. June 26, Angels at Dodger Stadium, Jered Weaver against Clayton Kershaw

MSTI, June 26:

This is the 12th time in Kershaw’s career he’s put up double-digit strikeout numbers, though it’s the first time he’s done it in back-to-back starts, since he also struck out 11 Tigers last week. It also put him up to 128 K’s on the season, putting him back ahead of Justin Verlander for the most in baseball. That’s impressive, but that’s not what I liked the best about today; it was the fact that he did it without a single walk. Remember when we said that the only thing holding him back from megaultrastardom was harnessing the walks? Yeah, about that: his K/BB rate from 2008-11: 1.92, 2.03, 2.62, 3.66.

Clayton Kershaw, shiny golden god.

25. August 9, Phillies in Los Angeles, Cliff Lee against Ted Lilly

MSTI, August 9:

On the other side of the ball, for all the jokes we have at Ted Lilly‘s expense, the veteran lefty was actually pretty solid against a good Phillies lineup. Lilly allowed just six hits and a walk over eight innings, which ties for his second-longest outing as a Dodger, and he even drilled Shane Victorino in the back for good measure. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Ted Lilly game if he didn’t allow a homer, and that’s how we get back to Lee, who took Lilly out to right field in the 7th inning. That made the score 2-0, though with the way Lee was pitching against the unimposing Dodger lineup, it might as well have been 200-0.

This was also the game where Dee Gordon injured his shoulder attempting to dive around Ryan Howard at first base, nearly causing all of us to pass out in terror.

31. August 2, Dodgers in San Diego, Mat Latos against Hiroki Kuroda

This win merely put the Dodgers to 50-59, and it’s amazing how tuned out we were from worrying about daily results at the time. The second-half improvement didn’t really get going until the latter half of August, and at the time we’d considered this team completely dead in the water, to the point where I was less concerned about recapping a phenomenal Kuroda start than I was about looking ahead to possible waiver moves and September recalls.

32. March 31 (season opener), San Francisco in Los Angeles, Lincecum against Kershaw

MSTI, March 31:

Earlier today, I noted that I had picked Clayton Kershaw to finish 1st in the NL Cy Young Award voting over at Baseball Prospectus. I’m now concerned that I didn’t pick him quite high enough, because Kershaw was absolutely sublime in tonight’s season opener, to the point where San Francisco starter Tim Lincecum allowed just one unearned run over seven innings himself, yet there was still no question about who was the most dominant starter on the mound tonight.

Kershaw scattered just four hits over seven scoreless innings, but even that doesn’t tell the true tale. One of those hits should have been an error on a botched toss from James Loney to Kershaw, and one was a bloop that fell just out of Loney’s reach. But while Kershaw was outstanding all around, it’s not just the few hits he allowed that impressed me most, and it’s not the nine strikeouts he put up. It’s not even how bad he made a handful of Giants look, particularly when he offered his curve. It’s the fact that he walked just one and made it through seven innings with fewer than 100 pitches. In years past, it might have taken him 120 pitches to get that far; in starts that aren’t his first of the season, you’d expect to see him continue into the 8th and 9th.

Need more proof of Kershaw’s progression? This was the 11th time in his career that he pitched at least seven innings without allowing more than one walk. Though he’s been in the bigs since mid-2008, seven of the previous ten came after June 27, 2010 – i.e., in the last half a season. We’ve long known that Kershaw had all the talent in the world, but there’s now a clear pattern of him harnessing the wildness and becoming one of the most dominant pitchers in the bigs. Mark my words, this is the year he gets the respect from the general public he deserves. Oh, and he turned 23 two weeks ago.

35. June 8, Dodgers in Philadelphia, Hiroki Kuroda against Cole Hamels

Kuroda was very good, as I mentioned…

Hiroki Kuroda sailed through the first four innings on a hot night in Philadelphia, escaped some trouble in the 5th, and then was touched for a Ryan Howard solo homer in the 6th. That was the run that put the Dodgers down 1-0 entering the top of the 7th…

…but this game ended up being far more memorable for being one of the low points of a dreadful first half by the offense, as once again, no Dodger other than Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp could contribute even the slightest bit of help:

Down one run, Andre Ethier & Matt Kemp set up the 5-6-7 hitters with two men in scoring position and no outs. To avoid scoring a run in that situation, you basically have to be actively trying to fail. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Juan Uribe, Marcus Thames, and Rod Barajas failed to get the job done. But that’s not news; Ethier and Kemp have been sabotaged by their underperforming teammates all season long. What really got me was the furor on Twitter as this was happening. In rough chronological order…

Tony Jackson (ESPNLA):

horrible AB by Uribe right there. Just horrible.

EephusBlue:

Boy am I glad we kept Thames

Dylan Hernandez (LA Times):

Thames, who batted 3rd Monday, comes up with men on the corners. “It doesn’t matter where you bat him,” someone said, “the game finds him.

Jayson Stark (ESPN):

The Rod Barajas Fan Club will be delighted to know that once that pop-up came down, he was 2 for 37 this year with men in scoring position.

Jackson:

@jaysonst and that .054 average is 54 points better than Thames, who is now 0 for 11 w/RISP

Jackson:

I have never seen a team come up with more creative ways to not score after getting a runner to third with less than two outs.

Kevin Modesti (LA Daily News):

@dodgerscribe It’s another example of we’ve talked about. Ethier & Kemp get on … Uribe, Thames & Barajas coming up — what do you expect?

ChadMoriyama:

That was one of those Dodgers offense moments you sorta knew was coming, but you still feel disgusted anyway watching it happen.

36. July 9, Dodgers in San Diego, Rubby De La Rosa against Aaron Harang

This led to one of my favorite post titles of the season,”Dodgers Win in Most Dodger Way Possible“. This was still a few weeks before the second half surge really got going, and the team was so bad at this point that it was all you could do to laugh at them.

Being no-hit for 8 2/3 innings, nearly wasting six one-hit innings from rookie standout Rubby De La Rosa, and then winning on two miraculous hits from Juan Uribe and Dioner Navarro, two of the worst hitters on the team?

Yeah, that sounds about right.

42. June 19, Houston in L.A., Bud Norris against Hiroki Kuroda

MSTI, June 19:

For 7 1/3 scoreless innings on Sunday, the Dodgers looked likely to set us up for disappointment. Hiroki Kuroda had sailed through the first seven, allowing just five baserunners before Matt Guerrier threw a clean eighth. After a tough turn around the starting rotation, it was a much-needed boost from the veteran. But yet again, there was absolutely no support from the offense, as Bud Norris and Sergio Escalona held the Dodgers to harmless singles by James Loney and Dioner Navarro, and walks by Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. There’s a reason Kuroda has a losing record both for the season and his career, and it’s because of games like this. How many times have we seen a solid starting pitching performance wasted due to an offense that is barely of a Triple-A caliber? Tony Gwynn flied out to center to start the eighth, and with the bottom up the order due up, it seemed just a matter of time before patchwork bullpen (though buoyed by the returns of Kenley Jansen yesterday and Hong-Chih Kuo today) would allow the Astros to score and complete the sweep.

Kuroda didn’t get the win in the boxscore today – Guerrier did – but I think we all know who deserves that W next to his name.

Just barely avoiding a sweep against the lowly Astros. How did we survive the first half of the season again?

Perhaps more pertinent to the current situation, I wonder how this list might look if it were redone after 2012, now that Kuroda is gone and De La Rosa is injured. To be fair, Chad Billingsley does appear twice in the second half of the list, Harang was very good in the De La Rosa game, and Chris Capuano had the single best-pitched game of 2011 as judged by Game Score. (To be even more fair, this is a completely subjective list that’s very easy to tear apart and by definition requires both pitchers to be excellent at the same time, something which the mediocre Dodger offense probably had a big hand in.)