Dodgers offseason

Well, as we approach the Winter Meetings for baseball, it will be very interesting to see what the Dodgers do. There are plenty of holes, yet plenty of freed up salary to go after some players. I will say that I'm very annoyed by our owner, Jaime McCourt asking the fans if it's more important to sign a high priced free agent pitcher, or build little league fields in the community. She fails to realize these examples are exclusive from one another. Community involvement and fielding a good baseball team should not be a choice of either or. If success results on the field, more $$ and revenue will come off it. And of course Dodger fans want the best player possible. The McCourts are the owners to win, not be charity to the community.

As to what we should do, I've stated in previous posts the need to keep Furcal. Unfortunately, Furcal and his agent are wanting a four year deal. Being that he has only had one injury free season as a Dodger, they are not willing to give Furcal that kind of contract. However, the Oakland A's are the front runners, and appear like the ones that will match Furcal's contract desires. It's a shame, but part of the business.

The good news regarding Manny Ramirez- Even though the Dodgers have taken their initial offer of 2 years/45 Mil. off the table, we've offered him salary arbitration. If he accepts, he should make as much, if not more than A-Rod. Even though it would only be for one year, it would make him the highest paid player for a single season in the history of the game. A lot of the Dodgers optimism of keeping Ramirez has to do with the lack of interest by other big revenue clubs. The Yankees want Sabathia and more pitching, plus they already have three corner outfielders who make a ton of money. The Mets want starting pitching and a closer. The Phillies don't appear interested. Forget about the Red Sox. The Angels want Teixeira and/or Sabathia. The Giants have said they won't pony up that money for him. Who else is there? The Dodgers still appear to be the hands on favorite to keep Manny, whether it be through the one year arbitration, or if they hammer out a 2-3 year deal with an option.

My dad keeps telling me that the Dodgers might be better off letting Furcal go, letting Berroa take over. This would allow more money to be freed up for other signings. Although I understand the point and it makes sense, I'd still LOVE for Furcal to come back.

Infield takes shape- Casey Blake's agent says the Dodgers and Twins are the favorites to land him. If the Dodgers were to get him, it would possibly allow the infield to be set, given the above scenario with Berroa.

Catcher- The need to get a decent backup to Russell Martin is important. Martin is so valuable, that we cannot wear him down toward the end of every season. For that reason, we need to get a capable backup, such as a Javier Valentin, who is available. Since Martin is capable at 3B, he can give Blake a blow once in a while as well, allowing Valentin to catch 30-40 games. This would help Martin immensely.

Starting Pitching- Do we sign a middle rotation guy? If so, our pecking order would be Billingsley, Kuroda, new guy, Kershaw, McDonald. This doesn't look strong enough for me. However, it would be good enough to compete for the NL title. But is that all we want? If we can get a guy like Sabathia, that would turn everything on its head. We'd immediately become the favorite in the division. And if Manny accepted arbitration, we'd have a huge payroll next year, but then Schmidt and Jones contracts would be gone.

Outfield- Ethier and Matt Kemp are definite starters. If Manny comes back, there's our outfield, with Pierre being the fourth outfielder. Ethier, Kemp, and Pierre is simply not a good enough outfield, especially if Furcal doesn't come back. But the question looms, who bats leadoff?

Here's my best guess on who the everyday lineup will be, on the eve of the Winter Meetings, where a lot can happen.

CF- Matt Kemp
2B- Blake DeWitt
LF- Manny Ramirez
RF- Andre Ethier
1B- James Loney
C- Russell Martin
3B- Casey Blake
SS- Angel Berroa
P- Chad Billingsley

P- Hiroki Kuroda
P- Clayton Kershaw
P- James McDonald
P- FA pitcher to be named

Dodgers are done

The fairy tale Dodgers run is now over. Though stuck in mediocrity through August, The Dodgers ran away with the division over the past week and a half.

Next came the beatdown of the Cubs.

And for the series against Philly, the Dodgers lost 2 closely played games. But it came down to clutch hitting by the Phillies. And the Dodgers really didn't have any answer to them. Case in point:

Andre Ethier and Russell Martin. These are supposed to be our second and third best hitters on the team. Even though Manny was unbelievable, Martin and Ethier were brutal. In fact, pretty much every hitter was brutal. Besides Manny, Loney was the only one who was fairly consistent when guys were on base.

Blake DeWitt- Terrible. This guy KILLED rallies. He looked completely overmatched in the postseason. He did get one big hit, albeit against softball pitcher Jaime Moyer.

Matt Kemp- He had a few hits, but none when he had a chance to drive in runs and make an impact. He oftentimes looked overmatched. Plus, he made a few defensive blunders.

Rafael Furcal- Looked ok on offense, nothing great. But I would give him the benefit of the doubt, being that he missed 145 games with a back injury. His defense in the Philly series hurt us quite a bit.

Casey Blake- Had a couple nice hits. Most of his chances though, he didn't come through.

The pitching seemed out of synch. The list starts with Chad Billingsley. He looked unsure of himself, and things continued to plummet once things started going wrong. He seemed incapable of righting the ship.

Dodgers 2009

Here's a look at what I think the Dodgers should do this offseason-

There are several big contracts coming off the books. These are close estimates: Nomar (9M), Kent (9M), Lowe (10M), Penny (8M), Bennett (2M), Loaiza (7M), Furcal (14M), Beimel (1M).

Nomar- Let him go. That's WAY too steep of price. Money better used elsewhere. He's not a starter anyway.
Kent- He'll retire. Even if he wants to still play, Blake DeWitt is ready to take over at 2B, and gets paid the minimum.
Lowe- Good pitcher, but let me walk.
Penny- Let him go.
Bennett- Let him go.
Loaiza- Dead money. He's already gone.
Furcal- Bring him back (more on him below)
Beimel- Re-sign him for one year.

And here's what we do with the 45M we let go (Furcal's $$ above not included in 45M, but will not require 14M to resign him, so the 45M may be as high as 50-52M:

Resign Manny. Do whatever it takes, even 4 years/80M, which might get it done. So that's 20M per season.
Sign CC Sabathia. Again, do whatever it takes. His salary, even around 18M, would just be a replacement of Lowe and Penny. And with Penny going downhill and oft-injured, it's basically a Lowe for CC swap. And word is the Dodgers are his first choice, so it can be done.
Resign Casey Blake at the same 1 year/6M deal he has now to play third.
Resign Furcal for 2 years, heavy incentive laiden. Where he can earn up to 10M if he's healthy. If the gamble doesn't pay off, keep Berroa, or maybe Hu will be ready. In any case, there's nothing close to the potential that Furcal has out on the FA market. It's worth the gamble. If healthy, next to Manny, Furcal's our best offensive player. And our best defensive. To top it off, he WANTS to be resigned by the Dodgers.
Resign Park to one year deal, around 2M.
Add a 5th starter for 2-3M.

So with all of this, our payroll next season will be roughly the same, depending on a few things. Nonetheless, it would be a GREAT sell. We'd definitely be the team to beat, merchandise and attendance would spike with CC and Manny. Plus, after next season, 34M of dead money is freed up (Andruw Jones, Jason Schmidt). So if McCourt wants to slash payroll a little, he just has to bite the bullet for one year, then get the refreshing 34M off the books with these bums.

Our lineup would look like this:

Furcal SS
Ethier RF
Manny LF
Loney 1B
Kemp CF
Blake 3B
Martin C
DeWitt 2B

Our rotation would look like this:

Sabathia
Billingsley
Kershaw
Park
Unsigned fifth starter

Pen:

Saito
Broxton
Beimel
Wade
Elbert
etc..

This would win the division, no doubt. The other teams wouldn't be able to match up against us, when you include everyday lineup, rotation, and pen. And all this for the same payroll we have this year.

Dodgers split with Dbacks

After suffering two heartbreaking 2-1 losses, the Dodgers came back with more life offensively. This in large part should be credited to Manny Ramirez. On Saturday night, Manny hit a 2 run homer in the first inning and went 2-4. On Sunday, Manny put on a clinic and went 4-5, including three separate at bats in which he drove in runs. He had a double and a homer included. With Manny's addition, I've not felt as excited to see a Dodger come up to bat since Mike Piazza was around.

At this point, I'd put an unbiased opinion that the Dodgers have a better than 50-50 chance of winning the division. Currently, we are 1 game back from Arizona. I'd feel even more confident that we win the division if two things happened:

• Rafael Furcal came back from his back surgery sometime in September.
• Andre Ethier gets most of the playing time over Pierre (this won't happen).
  

Dodgers get Manny

The Dodgers picked up Manny Ramirez from the Boston Red Sox. This was an excellent move by Ned Colletti (finally). In exchange, we gave up Andy LaRoche and Bryan Morris. LaRoche was widely known as one of our top minor league prospects but Dodger management was never really enamored by him. Morris, our second 1st round selection in 2006 was out all of last year with Tommy John surgery. His stuff is known to be great, but he's still a couple years away from making the big show.

In addition to picking up one of the best hitters of our time, the Red Sox are paying all of his salary for the rest of the year. Plus, to compensate for the loss of our two prospects, if we don't resign Ramirez, we'll pick up two first round sandwich picks for losing him.

Who knows how this will work long term, but this move was definitely needed. Now, if we can get some of our guys healthy again, our lineup won't look too bad.

My August lineup:

Matt Kemp (CF)
Andre Ethier (RF)
Russell Martin (C)
Manny Ramirez (LF)
Jeff Kent (2B)
James Loney (1B)
Nomar Garciaparra (SS)
Casey Blake (3B)

* Give Pierre starts depending on matchups. I'd start Pierre against tough lefties to give Ethier the day off, and tough righties (Peavy, Webb), to give Kemp's strikeout prone bat a rest. Pierre's can be used as a late inning pinch runner

** Two options with Andruw Jones- Either DFA him and outright to AAA, or use him only as a late inning defensive replacement. Better to cut bait than continuing to give him a spot on the 25 man roster.

*** If we can get Rafael Furcal back in September, that would be a huge lift for us. When healthy, he's our best overall player in my opinion. His absence has killed us these past three months.