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Presented without comment, just as Vin would want it:
When you’re doing something that makes even the great Vin — who has seen everything — jump for joy… well, you’re doing it right, Yasiel Puig. And let’s all be thankful that it was Vin on the microphone and not… well, anyone else at all.
With less than a week before Opening Day, the Dodgers still have a fair amount to work through. Taking from the most popular questions I receive across all forms of media…
1. Is Yasiel Puig going to make the team?
No. Well…. no. Right? I think?
We’ve been over this a lot, but he’s still here, and even though management said weeks ago that he definitely wouldn’t be on the team, it’s hard to argue .526/.508/.842. But with Carl Crawford looking like he’s going to be ready to play, there’s not a spot here without bouncing Crawford to the bench, which doesn’t seem realistic. Besides, there’s service time considerations at play with Puig, in addition to obvious concerns about his true readiness.
2. So who will get that last spot off the bench?
For most of camp, we thought this was simple. Carl Crawford would start the season on the disabled list, Jerry Hairston & Skip Schumaker would platoon in left field, and Tim Federowicz, Nick Punto & Juan Uribe would staff out the rest of a very unappealing bench. But now it looks like Crawford will be active, and Hairston may be needed for additional duty at third base thanks to Hanley Ramirez‘ injury.
That makes the outfield extremely left-handed, which is why Don Mattingly has been talking about wanting a righty corner outfielder so much. (Thanks for joining the rest of us in “every year since 2009″ in wanting that, by the way, Don.) That’s partially why Puig remains in the mix, as does Alex Castellanos and multipositional switch-hitters Alfredo Amezaga & Elian Herrera. Amezaga’s non-40 man status probably hurts him here, so I really think Castellanos is the right call. That being the case, it’ll absolutely be Herrera because of course it will.
3. Oh my god, Kevin Gregg is going to make this team, isn’t he?
Wellll… yes. I’m sorry.
We know that Brandon League, Kenley Jansen, J.P. Howell & Ronald Belisario are locks. Matt Guerrier, much as I hate to admit it, is probably getting one spot, and let’s say one additional spot goes to an excess starting pitcher. That leaves one final spot for Gregg, Peter Moylan, Paco Rodriguez, etc, but we know that Ned Colletti almost always has one NRI pitcher on the club.
That worked out okay last year with Jamey Wright, who just made the Tampa roster today, and the Dodgers have had success with it in the past. (They’ve also had more than one Ortiz on the same time, so there’s that.) You’ll hear a lot about Gregg’s “1.00 ERA this spring!”, but I’m guessing surprisingly little about his 4/0 K/BB in nine innings. Can’t say I have super high hopes on that one.
4. So if just one starter makes the bullpen, then…
… yes. I expect some sort of trade before the end of the weekend, because noise and rumors have really picked up over the last few days, especially with the amount of scouts watching Chris Capuano and Aaron Harang. My guess is that one (likely Capuano) starts in relief, one gets moved (likely Harang), and as for Ted Lilly, well, he probably has to hope that Chad Billingsley‘s injured fingernail falls off. Considering how rotten his spring has been, it’s probably not too hard to see some sort of DL stint get ginned up for him.
5. Where is Kyle Cofield going to end up?
If the reaction here is “wait… who?” that’s more than justified. The Dodgers signed the minor league free agent in January after many undistinguished years in the low minors for Atlanta & Pittsburgh. He didn’t receive an invite to major league camp (though he has suited up on occasion to fill out the big league roster for the day), and is more than likely destined for the Chattanooga bullpen, if he even makes a roster at all. Why am I bringing this up now? Because I have one person who has asked me about him at least a half-dozen times this spring, both via email and Twitter. I have no idea why I should care about Kyle Cofield, but someone clearly does.
6. What can’t Vin Scully do?
Nothing, apparently.
We’ll put anyone to work: twitter.com/Dodgers/status…
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) March 26, 2013
Just in from the Dodger Twitter feed:
Vin Scully will broadcast 6 games during #DodgersST! Feb. 25, Feb. 28, March 7 and March 18 (PRIME), and March 17 and March 26 (KCAL 9).
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) February 15, 2013
That’s ten days from now — a week from Monday — in the third game of the spring, home against the Cubs. So soon!
This is an apparent change from the originally announced broadcast schedule that indicated Fox would not be broadcasting any games. Still, four games is significantly down from what it has been in previous years.
So far, here’s which games we know will be on television:
2/25 vs Cubs (FOX)
2/28 vs Angels (FOX)
3/1 @ Angels (FSW – Angels)
3/5 @ Padres (FSSD – Padres)
3/7 vs Rangers (FOX)
3/17 vs Brewers (KCAL)
3/18 vs Diamondbacks (FOX)
3/23 vs White Sox (KCAL)
3/26 vs Rockies (KCAL)
3/28 @ Angels (FOX)
3/30 @ Angels (FSW – Angels)
More to come, no doubt, as other teams and MLB Network announce their schedules.
I don’t believe in any particular deity, but any power cool enough to drop a rainbow on Vin Scully day is the closest I’ve come to reconsidering.
I post about this every year on this day, and I’m not sure why I would stop now: happy birthday to the best there is and ever will be. Every additional year we get with Vin is a gift, especially now that he’s on a year-to-year basis and we never know when might be his last.
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I was largely out of the loop yesterday due to day job related business, so I think I missed a lot of derpitude about this tidbit from ESPN’s Mark Saxon that the Dodgers had “inquired” about Kyle Lohse, which turned into this tweet saying they were “showing interest,” which then turned into an MLB Trade Rumors story, because that’s what MLBTR does.
This all makes for a good opportunity to step back and remember the media rules of the offseason, which is that 99% of rumors are fake. In this case, it’s not even a “rumor”, because the story here is apparently that the Dodgers placed a phone call. The Dodgers, like every organization, would not be doing due diligence if they didn’t at least reach out to anyone on their radar. There’s nothing here that indicates the call was anything more than ringing up Lohse’s agent and saying “wait, he really wants more than $40 and a bus ticket, even though he’s inconsistent, overrated, injury-prone, and would cost a first round pick? Yeah, good luck with that.”
Or it could go the other way, in which the Dodgers just want to remind Zack Greinke – who is their true target – that they have other options should his demands get too unreasonable. The point is, these things may be enough to get Twitter in a fury, but it’s far from appropriate to pillage the Dodgers as though Lohse is headed to the park to sign a contract. (Which, in case I haven’t been clear, would be awful.)
I have sources too, and it’s of course up to you as to whether you want to trust me or not, but I’ve been assured that the Dodgers have little true interest in Lohse. I’m not worried about it. You shouldn’t be either.
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The Dodgers aren’t going to sign Lohse, but they are going to sign at least two pitchers, and perhaps three. I still firmly believe they’ll end up with Greinke (my current estimate is now 6/140 with an option for a seventh year) and the only conceivable way they’re not ending up with Hyun-jin Ryu is if they somehow manage to get Greinke and another starter like Anibal Sanchez or James Shields. I don’t think even the new Dodgers are crazy enough to pay to get Greinke and Sanchez – especially not with Clayton Kershaw‘s free agency looming – and they just don’t have the prospects to get Shields. Ryu’s made it clear he wants to pitch in America, his Korean team obviously wants the posting fee… there’s like a 95% chance this is getting done.
But who else? Brandon League may be back in the fold, but Jamey Wright & Randy Choate aren’t, and it’s likely the team adds at least one veteran reliever. Tim Brown of Yahoo! reports that likely non-tender Brian Wilson would like to pitch for the Dodgers. Whether that’s true or not, I can’t say, though unlike many of you, I don’t really care that he’s an ex-Giant. (Juan Uribe‘s terrible because he’s terrible, not because he used to play in San Francisco.) Even if he would like to join the Dodgers, it doesn’t matter unless the team has some interest, and I doubt they will – Wilson’s unlikely to pitch until mid-2013 at the earliest anyway, given that he had Tommy John surgery on April 19 of this season. Besides, if we want a former closer coming off a zipper, a more reasonable target might be Joakim Soria, who I’m quite sure the team has had some contact with.
Another fun option comes courtesy of ESPN’s Jayson Stark, who reports that the Angels are making Jordan Walden available, and while this of course falls under the “don’t believe everything you read” category we just discussed, it’s a lot more fun to think about than Lohse. A 25-year-old flamethrower with a career 10.83 K/9, 2.80 FIP, 3.06 ERA, and some assorted control problems? Yes. Please.
Obviously, trades between the two clubs are rare, though it’s well-known that the Angels need starting pitching. Assuming Greinke & Ryu land, would I trade an excess starter like Aaron Harang or Ted Lilly and a mid-level prospect for Walden? You’re damn right I would. The only problem there is that it might be an excuse for Ned Colletti to dream on Vernon Wells as his answer to the ongoing need of a righty bat who can play multiple outfield positions, and that’s of course terrifying. However, I do like Walden..
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Today’s a big day simply because of Vin’s birthday, but don’t forget that tomorrow has a lot of significance as well, given that it’s the end of the exclusive Fox negotiating period for a new television deal. It was reported the other day that they’d strike a deal between $6 – $7 billion, and maybe they will, but I wouldn’t be so sure. 
As I noted on Twitter on Tuesday, players almost always get bigger deals when they reach free agency and can field offers from many teams. The same principle applies here; what’s to stop the Dodgers from shopping these rights around and getting more? For the record, I never believed Nikki Finke’s insistence that Fox would drop out if they didn’t get a deal done by tomorrow – it just doesn’t make sense. Is $8 billion out of the question? $9 billion? It all sounds absurd, and it is, but just remember the shock around baseball at the original report, and then imagine what it’ll be like if they actually top that. (Borrowed that GIF at the right from good friend “EephusBlue”, and it couldn’t be more appropriate.)
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Hey, it could always be worse – on Vin’s 84th birthday, Frank McCourt still owned the team and they were close to signing Adam Kennedy. I’d say… things are slightly better now.
There’s no game today, and perhaps that’s just as well; the less we have to think about yesterday’s missed opportunities and the possible news that Clayton Kershaw could be lost for not only the rest of the year but part of 2013 as well, the better.
So I thought, what’s the go-to when trying to lift the spirits of Dodger fans? The same as it’s been for decades: Vin Scully. You can imagine how pleased I was when I woke up exhausted on Sunday morning, dragged myself to the couch, flipped on the TV, and saw the unexpected treat that was “CBS Sunday Morning” doing a feature on Vin… and then of course Sons of Steve Garvey had to go and beat me to recapping it.
But no matter! We have something just as good. On Saturday, Baseball Prospectus held an event at Dodger Stadium, complete with guest appearances from Logan White, Steve Garvey, & Vin himself. I was unable to attend for obvious reasons, but reader “Real Tom” made plans to attend based on my posting about it a few weeks ago, and provided the following report. Sounds fun! (Vin Scully is My Homeboy shares some videos of the event provided by BP.)
Tom:
I got to sit 7 feet from the mic, so I got to speak directly with Vin and Logan during the questions-answer sessions. There were less than a hundred people there, I think. Everyone was cool, and just about everyone had great questions. Highlights:
1. Vin opened the event with a question-answer session led by Dan Evans. He talked about the birth of his career, playing college baseball against President Bush at Yale, calling Aaron’s 715th homer, liking Luis Cruz, and not caring enough about the new Yankee Stadium to actually make the trip out. He said that he would have called the Yankees series next year if the old stadium was still around, but basically said that the new place simply didn’t mean much to him. He also pointed out that the Padres series was starting the next day in SD, and that it would be difficult to call both. He was charming, thoughtful, and Vin-like. They opened up discussion to the group, and I got to ask Vin about his relationships with other broadcasters. He was perfect. So so perfect. He made us laugh on several occasions.
2. Logan White and Dan Evans spoke for a while, and then opened up discussion to the group. He was incredible. It was obvious that White is grateful to Evans for giving him that job all those years ago. White talked about tricking other scouts into thinking he would take Kershaw with the 28th pick in the first round rather than the 7th. He talked about the impact of “area scouts,” particularly concerning the drafting of Matt Kemp. He discussed the evaluation of college players versus HS players. He claimed that the new CBA actually helped make this the Dodgers’ best draft in years (he said that it might be the best since 2002). It was a little complicated, but I believe he suggested that restricting teams from paying over slot actually made the picks less risky. He talked about Yasiel Puig being a physical beast, and about his detailed analysis of potential players and their families. At the very end of his question-answer session, he mentioned that the Dodgers just got a letter of intent from a 16 year old Mexican pitcher that throws 94 MPH, Julio Urias. He seemed reluctant to say it at first, but then acted kind of giddy and shared about the kid anyway. I got to meet him and ask a question, so that was awesome.
3. The unexpected guest was Steve Garvey. Apparently, he and Evans are friends. That dude is a charmer and a story teller. One could say he’s similar to Scully, if Vin Scully’s anecdotes were all about himself, and if every story subtly suggested he belonged in the hall of fame. I particularly enjoyed when he talked about his conversations with Bill James regarding the fact that he’s not in the Hall. If that interaction was featurd on a reality show, I would watch it. Seriously. I’ll paraphrase only because I didn’t have a recorder, but he basically said “Bill tells me he just cant quantify my consecutive games streak, or my MVP award, or….” and I can’t remember the rest. Steve Garvey was much more entertaining than I expected. I just loved the idea of Garvey arguing with Bill James about his Hall of Fame qualifications.
4. I sat in front of Jonah Keri during the game, and we briefly bashed Colletti together.
5. Most importantly, I got to hang out with a bunch of cool baseball people while wearing a STOP BUNTING shirt. Steve Garvey and I got into an argument over the shirt, and he somehow suggested that bunting less would only hurt our chances at winning. When I suggested that Mattingly likes to bunt too often, Garvey said that players often make the decision on their own. That’s when Evans started talking about how players and managers no longer hold the same loyalties to each other as they did years ago, pointing out that managers can get thrown under the bus. That’s when I realized that I was shooting the shit with Dan Evans and Steve Garvey. And that was awesome.
Overall, I got to speak with some incredibly smart and unaccessible people, and it cost me about the same amount as parking/entry/food. It was a really cool day.
A “Stop Bunting” shirt, you say? You mean, like the kind that our very own Eephus Blue has been selling? The very same:
