Dodger Talk

I'm not too concerned with velocity. As you've said, it's about placement, and he has great command/control as evidenced by his low walk numbers and high strikeout to walk ratio (almost 4 strikeouts per walk).

 

Fun watching him put away MLB all-stars

 

Woooo! That is great news. Dare I say we have the best infield in the majors now?

 

You're right. Good thing it takes a complete team to win.

 

9 Days 'til pitchers and catchers report!!!

From the looks of things, what we have so far is:

CF - Joc Pederson
2B - Howie Kendrick
SS - Corey Seager
1B - Adrian Gonzalez
3B - Justin Turner
Rf - Yasiel Puig
LF - Andre Ethier
C - Yasmani Grandal

Bench: Crawford, SVS, Kike, AJ Ellis, Chase Utley, (Guerrero??)

SP:
Clayton Kershaw
Scott Kazmir
Hyun-Jin Ryu
Kenta Maeda
Alex Wood
Brett Anderson
(Brandon McCarthy later)

Pen:
Jansen, Howell, Hatcher, Garcia, Baez, Avilan

Next in line for callups:
Carlos Frias, Frankie Montas, Joe Blanton, Trayce Thompson, Austin Barnes, Micah Johnson

I think that's a pretty solid team. Perhaps we could put together a package of a couple of young pieces + Alex Wood and get an upgraded starting pitcher from a team looking to rebuild. Excited to see how this season progresses, and eventually seeing more top farm pieces like Jose DeLeon, Jharrel Cotton, and even possibly Julio Urias come to play towards the end of the season.

Will write a simple review of each player soon!

 

Yeah I'm not sure how Crawford fits into the equation. But Ethier and Van Slyke still make a great platoon since Ethier hits well again righties while Van Slyke hits well against lefties.

However there have been reports of Ethier getting traded before his 10-5 kicks in, which would leave a pretty gaping hole in Left. No way I want to rely on Crawford with his injury history. I say keep Ethier until promising young minor leaguer Alex Verdugo is ready to take over.

 

Yeah, Crawford is almost certainly here to stay, as probably nobody will take him. Oh well, he was part of a trade from the old regime.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if this was his last year. We released Brandon League and Brian Wilson before their last years, so what's not to say we release Crawford before his last year and open up a precious roster spot for someone like Julio Urias.

 

CF - Joc Pederson

First few months was incredible. After that? Abysmal, though he still had a decent on-base percentage at around .350. Still, that's not gonna get it done. He'll probably end up somewhere between incredible and not-so-incredible (well, duh, right? Lol). 26 homers on the year is still phenomenal. If he can do .240 with 20 dingers and maintain his high OBP, I think I will be happy. Also, he is still an incredibly gifted defensive center fielder, so at least he's certain to have that going for him.

2B - Howie Kendrick

Guess who's back? Lol. Please maintain your career .290 average and be a steady force in contact hitting, something we lacked last season. So glad he is back. I know his defense has suffered a little, but hopefully he is in shape and it won't suffer too much this year.

SS - Corey Seager

Replacing Rollins with Seager is simply winning by default. It's pretty incredible to have a unanimous #1 prospect starting on your team. Literally. All 4 major scouting publications, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, ESPN, and MLB.com, all list him as #1. Can't wait to see how this plays out!

1B - Adrian Gonzalez

Another year, another steady bat and gold glove-like defense. He has three years left on his contract, and I'm imagining his last year will be kinda split with Cody Bellinger, a 1B prospect who is quickly climbing the minor league charts.

3B - Justin Turner

I'm thinking he'll be even better this year now that he doesn't have a nagging knee injury to worry about. He'll still need time off, but it's always a good thing when you are healthy again.

Rf - Yasiel Puig

The big question mark, lol. I think it's unfair to expect him to replicate what he did his first year and a half here. It happens when newcomers make a big splash, then the rest of the league adjusts. As long as he can hit .290 with a high OBP, 15-20 homers, and lots of extra base hits (and less base running blunders!), I'll be more than happy.

LF - Andre Ethier

To remain a Dodger or to not remain a Dodger? Let's just assume he'll remain. Hope he can repeat what he did last season, because that was phenomenal. Again, he recovered from injury issues (I was at the game where he injured his foot in 2013) and started hitting well again, almost having a career year because of all the platooning we're making him do with Van Slyke and occasionally Kiké. As I've said before, I'd take the chance to play out his last two years, and as therealdeal said, we may not even get any real good pieces in return if we trade him.

C - Yasmani Grandal

Lights out for most of last year, but a right shoulder injury derailed his last couple of months and really lowered all his averaged in what was a phenomenal year. Can you believe PECOTA (Baseball Prospectus) projects him to be an MVP candidate? That's pretty high praise. He most likely won't win it because of Buster Posey, but if he keeps his numbers up (had a much higher OBP and SLG than Posey the first half of the year) with his defense and pitch framing, and of course stays healthy, he may at least get a shot at top 10.

Will post more stuff later!

 

Oh yeah, totally agree with the batting depth. I'm not sure about Klay Thompson's brother (was his MLB stint a fluke or for reals?) but the talent is there. Everyone else brings something good to the table, except for Micah Johnson's defense. I'd love to see Barnes get some good playing time, too. Dude has raked in the minors and is one of the best two-way catchers.

While it's true pitching took a bad turn losing Greinke, I like to look at this this way: last year we had Kershaw and Greinke but no Ryu. This year we will have Kershaw and Ryu but no Greinke. Not too big of a drop. That and I have a feeling Greinke won't have a 1.66 ERA again. I would wager it will go back up closer to 2.66, or right around his average the last few years.

On top of that, Greinke's field independent pitching stat last year was 2.76, which was actually higher than Hyun-Jin Ryu's 2.62 from 2014. A few lucky bounces here and there could go a long way towards changing your overall ERA. Would it be nice to also have Greinke? Absolutely, but management doesn't believe he'll be worth his contract after the first few years, so there's not much we can do about it.

Bottom line is, we'll all be happy if we could hit 90 wins (hopefully enough to win the Division or a Wild Card). It takes +18 wins over .500 to get there. So if we break it down:

Kershaw can carry +8 wins.
Ryu can carry +5.
Kazmir +3.
Maeda +2.

Then everyone else overall can play .500 ball, and we'd win the division! I think that's pretty doable.

 

I dunno man, I guess corporate greed!!! It's unfortunate the Comcast-TWC merger collapsed; Comcast actually seemed interested in working with other providers, unlike TWC. :/

I guess people don't talk about it much anymore because it's dragged on so long, and perhaps most of us just use Livestream now, lol.

As far as skimping on Greinke, I've looked up some previous big-name pitchers like Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Pedro Martinez, Andy Pettitte, and Roy Halladay, and they all seem like they've fallen off from their greatness after they hit age 32 or 33. So I can see why they felt it wasn't worth it (on top of deferring $60M of his contract through 2026).

Maeda, yeah it's anyone's guess, but we can only go on the fact that he was Japan's best pitcher the last 7 years, so we'll wait and see.

If the injury bug hits, we still have options like Alex Wood and eventually Brandon McCarthy as our #6 and #7 starters (still concerned about Wood since he can't pitch well against righties). Mike Bolsinger and Carlos Frias can fill in, too. Or hey, maybe even early appearances from Julio Urias and Jose DeLeon. In fact, I would prefer this route to see if we catch lightning in a bottle.

 

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