Category Archives: Tony Gwynn

Jerry Sands Likely Headed to AAA As Roster Games Continue

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Look, he can play first! (Brendan-C on flickr)

If this report from Eric Stephen of TrueBlueLA is to be believed – and I say that not because I don’t trust Eric, who is wonderful, but just because it strikes me as odd that no other outlets have this news right now – Jerry Sands is going to be sent back to Albuquerque prior to the start of tomorrow’s road trip to make room for Adam Kennedy, who is returning from a short stay on the disabled list thanks to a strained groin.

This is, of course, tremendously disappointing, because it’ll mean that despite all of the furious roster moves we’ve seen over the last few weeks this is a club that will still have Kennedy and Juan Uribe and James Loney and Juan Rivera and Luis Cruz all on the roster at the same time. Beyond that – and I almost feel like I don’t have a whole lot more to offer on it, because I’m just as “WTF” as the rest of you – it would cap off a week of absolutely bizarre roster machinations.

On Monday, Tony Gwynn was DFA’d to bring up Sands. (Gwynn, it should be noted, will accept his trip to Albuquerque, as Stephen reports.) Sands started that night in right field against Drew Pomeranz, went 0-3 before being double-switched out in the seventh, and was never seen again for the rest of the series. So this was worth interrupting Sands’ hot streak and DFA’ing Gwynn… how, exactly?

The funny thing is, I didn’t even mind letting Gwynn go. I mentioned it even back on July 31, when we were trying to figure out who would get cut for Shane Victorino, that Gwynn no longer had a role on this team. Sure, he’s a plus defensive outfielder, but he is not a major league quality hitter, and “backup outfielder on a team with three set starting outfielders” isn’t a very large piece of the puzzle.

All I can think of is that they were planning to cut Gwynn all along – which, again, fine – and rather than wait until Kennedy returned to do it, they figured they might as well get the benefit of Sands for a few days first. That’s defensible logic in theory. Or at least it would have been, if Sands had been actually been allowed to play, particularly when the Rockies started lefty Jeff Francis last night. Juan Rivera went 0-4, now has one hit in his last 18 at-bats, and is not the solution to this or any other problem; it’s worth noting that his seasonal line now sits at .246/.282/.351, or worse than the .243/.305/.360 that got him DFA’d by Toronto last year.

Now, I’ll admit that if Sands isn’t going to play, I’d much rather him getting regular time in Albuquerque than riding the bench in Los Angeles. But what concerns me is that it’s hard not to look at this situation and not see signs of a larger problem. Ned Colletti refuses to free us of the scourge of Juan Uribe, and Don Mattingly responds by absolutely refusing to play him, with just one appearance as a defensive replacement in more than two weeks – and Mattingly is absolutely right to do so, even if it means playing the quickly-descending Cruz. Colletti cuts a popular if flawed player in Gwynn in order to get a potentially powerful bat in Sands up for a series with two lefty pitchers, and Mattingly barely plays him either, refusing to give up on the execrable Rivera. Are there signs that the front office and bench aren’t totally on the same page? I can’t say that I have any hard evidence to point to, but something smells weird here.

Perhaps worst of all, we’re talking about all of this rosterbation without confronting the main issue head-on, which is that Adam Kennedy is somehow a player who absolutely must be on the roster when he’s healthy, as though there’s no other possibility here. (I don’t want to hear about his “hot July”, as though 40 pre-injury plate appearances somehow carry more weight than months and years of ineptitude beforehand.) So now you’ve got two completely useless sides of a first base platoon, three backup infielders who range from “can’t hit” to “really can’t hit” to “will never get a chance to play again”, and I have absolutely no idea what to make of it all.

I am hopeful, at least, that seeing Gwynn & Bobby Abreu culled is the beginning of the new regime cutting bait on the bottom part of the roster. I suppose we can argue about what order these guys should have gone in, but if anything, it makes me realize how much more work remains. This roster is soft, and confusing roster choices and inexplicable dedication to far-over-the-hill veterans isn’t helping.

Dodgers DFA Tony Gwynn to Recall Jerry Sands, and That’s a Good Thing

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Wow!

I am all but floored by the move, but thrilled about it nonetheless. Gwynn’s utility to the team ended the moment they picked up Shane Victorino (who could cover center if anything happened to Matt Kemp), but also when he continued to prove that he simply cannot hit at a major league level, having a year at the plate worse than his usual mediocre self.  With Victorino, Kemp, & Andre Ethier squarely set as the starting outfielders and Jerry Hairston, Sands, and several others able to spot in as needed, Gwynn’s role as a defensive replacement was tough to justify. What’s mostly shocking to me is that he was signed for 2013 as well and it’s rare for clubs to DFA guys like that; then again, I never liked giving him a two-year deal in the first place.

Sands, meanwhile, has been struggling much of the year in the minors but has been red-hot lately, leading the PCL “since the All-Star break with 9 HRs, .733 slugging% and 28 RBI (T-1st) in 23 games,” according to J.P. Hoornstra. The real question now is, what is his role? Will he really be given a chance to replace Juan Rivera & James Loney at first base every day? For both his sake and that of the team’s, I hope so.

If he is, that raises another question, which is why was it Gwynn that was jettisoned over Juan Uribe or Rivera. I still believe Uribe gets gone on Thursday when Adam Kennedy returns, so that might explain that, and in Gwynn or Rivera, your choice is between a plus defender who can’t hit and a poor defender who can sorta kinda not really hit. I suppose I’d rather have Rivera coming off the bench as a pinch-hitter than Gwynn, and if Sands fails again in the bigs, you’ll want to have more than just Loney as your first base option.

I’m very surprised by this, but I can’t really argue one word of complaint about it. Excited to see Sands back, and impressed that a backloaded two-year deal isn’t an impediment to roster improvement.

A Dee-Lightful Dodger Walkoff Gwynn

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On Father’s Day, famous baseball sons Dee Gordon & Tony Gwynn combine in the tenth for yet another walkoff come-from-behind win. (Not to shortchange Chris Capuano & Elian Herrera, who were both of course outstanding, baseball fathers or not.)

At what point does this stop becoming “magic” and simply start becoming a trend? Your 2012 Los Angeles Dodgers, an unexplainable collection of talent, opportunity, and wonder.

Tony Gwynn Gets Two Years

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So much for wondering if Tony Gwynn was going to get tendered:

Tony Gwynn Jr.’s deal with the #Dodgers is for $2 million over two years. He will earn $850,000 next season and $1.15 million in 2013.

I’m kind of at a loss on this one, but I’m trying to do it with the right reasoning. Unlike, say, Adam Kennedy, Gwynn has value and deserves a spot on a major-league roster. Unlike, say, Juan Rivera, the yearly cost is not jaw-dropping and is in fact a pretty good rate for his services. So at face value, fine.

Yet it’s the second guaranteed year that’s really galling here, and I’m not just talking about the obvious jokes regarding Ned Colletti handing out two years to every warm body he can find. (Speaking of which, Rivera must be wondering what’s wrong with his agent right now, right?) Unlike free agents like Mark Ellis, Chris Capuano, or Aaron Harang, players who had to be lured off the open market with the promise of a multiyear deal, Gwynn was under team control. They merely needed to tender him a contract, and he’d have been theirs for 2012. Would he have made more than $850k? Probably, but not by a whole lot; it almost seems that in order to save a lousy $200k right now, Colletti felt it was worth it to hand out a second guaranteed year.

Of course, we all hope Colletti won’t be around to see that second year, and maybe he knows as such and just doesn’t care. Gwynn will be around, though, just like all the other mediocre veterans signed this winter. Don’t like the 2012 club? That’s unfortunate, because 2013 looks like it’ll be more of the same, just another year older and probably without Andre Ethier.

Gwynn’s a decent piece to have around, and the money is small, so it’s not worth getting too upset about this. It’s just another two-year commitment to an easily replaceable player that didn’t need to happen.

Non-Tender Monday

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Tonight at 12am ET / 9pm PT represents the deadline for the Dodgers to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players, and while there’s not quite the “will they or won’t they?” drama that accompanied the Russell Martin decision last year, there’s still some choices to be made. Entering the off-season, the Dodgers had seven eligible players to decide upon…

… but obviously, Kemp’s new mega-deal and Eveland’s trade to Baltimore takes them out of the mix. Let’s look at the other five.

Kershaw. Uh, yeah. Pretty sure the reigning NL Cy Young is going to get tendered, and assuming he doesn’t sign a long-term deal, he’s in line for something like $7-$8m in his first year of arbitration. Yes, of course.

Gwynn. Though this is his second year of eligibility, Gwynn hasn’t actually gone through the arbitration process, since San Diego non-tendered him last December. After signing with the Dodgers for $675,000, he provided the expected mixture of mediocre offense and outstanding defense, in addition to being a useful piece on the bases. Though I think you could probably do a little better with the roster spot, he’s an acceptable backup outfielder, and so the question of whether he gets an offer comes down to numbers, both in terms of money and personnel. Gwynn could get over $1m in arbitration, perhaps more than the Dodgers want to spend, and the addition of Jerry Hairston means that they now have someone who can in theory spell Matt Kemp now and then in center field. In addition, if the Dodgers do plan on adding that additional bat we keep hearing about, there just might not be room for Gwynn on the roster, particularly if the addition is left-handed. Still, the outfield defense is subpar and Hairston isn’t really ideal in center, so Gwynn is valuable enough for his glove alone; I think it’s slightly more likely than not that he is tendered, though this is clearly the toughest call of any today. Probably.

Loney. It’s amazing to think that this is even a consideration after how certain we were for much of 2011 that he was absolutely going to get non-tendered, but Loney’s stellar finish seems to have earned him another chance, at least based on Ned Colletti’s comments of late. Loney’s recent (and increasingly bizarre) run-in with the law on a Los Angeles freeway last month aren’t helping his case, though it doesn’t appear to have hurt his standing with the club, and assuming the Dodgers have no prayer at landing Prince Fielder, there’s few other first base alternatives left anyway. Yes.

Kuo. The inverse of Loney, where a year ago it was difficult to imagine that a non-tender was even a possibility. If an awful 2011 was the only issue, you could perhaps see the club taking a chance, but yet another arm surgery torpedoed any shot that they’d risk the ~$3m he’d get in arbitration. That doesn’t mean we’ve definitely seen the last of him, however, because it’s unlikely any other club gives him a serious offer, and if he returns to baseball, he might not feel comfortable trusting his fragile health to a training staff who doesn’t know him nearly as well as the Dodgers do. No.

Ethier. Despite worrying before the season that he’d be non-tendered if he didn’t perform well and then going out and having an injury-plagued, sub-par season, Ethier’s a lock to receive a tender. He’ll likely receive about $12m in his final season of arbitration, and while that’s a bit pricey for me, I’m relatively optimistic he’ll have a productive season – and if the Dodgers are out of it in July, they can trade him and save about $4m of that. Yes.