• Clayton Kershaw 'Nuff said. Could he win 20 again? I still can't believe the dude is only 27; lots more years of greatness ahead! • Scott Kazmir Had a career resurgence the last few years and did marvelously in Oakland. Just needs to repeat it this year and next if he stays. He missed a couple years in his late-20's so he probably still has plenty left in the tank as a 32 year old. • Hyun-Jin Ryu 80% chance of returning to normal with his type of injury. Insanely good his two years here and arguably an ace for most teams in the league. Let's hope for the best! • Kenta Maeda Team-friendly contract because of possible injuries is definitely a concern. Confident the pitching staff will keep his innings down if need be so he stays healthy. • Alex Wood Eh, not sure of him. Righties hit almost .300 against him last year, so until he returns close to 2014 form, I don't really trust him on the mound. Good thing he's still young, so hopefully there's a chance. He definitely has talent. • Brett Anderson Still young and in his prime, was ok last year overall. Hopefully he can do just as well or better and hold down the 5th spot so we remain competitive for the Division. • Brandon McCarthy (later) Still anyone's guess. Don't expect much when he comes back mid-season, so maybe next season he can contribute. He'll be past his prime, but at least his mileage is low.
Most everyone looking solid in Spring Training except for Alex Wood. Yikes. Even Seager yesterday had two errors, but overall he's been great.
Well, some injury concerns: - Brett Anderson already out most of the year with a bulging disc. - Hyun-Jin Ryu is taking April and probably some of May off to make sure he's perfect. - Justin Turner slowly working back in from his surgically repaired knee - Wood (forearm), Grandal (right arm), Kendrick (groin), and Seager (knee) have small nagging injuries but should be day-to-day, except Seager who will be out two weeks. Hope we can stay healthy this year. As much depth as we have, losing anyone in our lineup can be a huge blow to how good we can potentially be.
Well, despite some ups and downs in terms of injury and giving up home runs, we seem to be handling the scoreboards very well and winning games. Maeda is looking pretty good so far. The last thing we need is Kazmir struggling, though, because our youngins like Urias and De Leon are clearly not ready for the Majors yet. Nice to see Austin Barnes getting in some good action. He and Kiké could be our x-factors if and when our normal infielders get hurt or need extra rest.
Outside of Kershaw and Maeda, the starting rotation looks like a mess. Andersen gone, Ryu not ready, McCarthy not close, Wood looks terrible, Zach Lee looks like he'll never make the jump, De Leon and Urias not ready, and now Kazmir's velocity is gone again? We let Iwakuma go so that we could get Kazmir and he's looked terrible. Good thing we let Greinke go though. This franchise doesn't care about winning a ring any time soon. They only care about fielding a good team that's not expensive so they can maximize their profits. Also they're still not providing Dodger games to most of Los Angeles effectively robbing the majority of their fans from hearing Vinny's last season. Inexcusable.
Well, I mean Kansas City doesn't exactly have any big names on their roster. Just a bunch of above-average guys who can put it all together and win. I don't think I can name more than two players on their roster! Lol. I think every projection system out there, save for one, has us at around a top 5 team in all of baseball and making the playoffs this year. Some rankings have us as high as the best team in baseball. Yes, hard to believe, right? And they're usually not very far off. No, we won't be the best team in baseball, but if we can just put it all together and manage the scoreboard well, the sky's the limit. By the way, we let Iwakuma go because he failed his physical. There actually is nothing wrong with Kazmir's arm (at least that's been reported) other than the fact that he's rebuilding arm strength from resting in the off-season. It's still a bit early, so I wouldn't worry. He only needs to sit at low 90's to be effective. Bolsinger and Beachy have both looked pretty good, too. So even if Kazmir is slow to regain form, we have depth to pick up the slack. I don't have high hopes for Zack Lee; dude would rather play football instead, lol.
And as far as maximizing profits, any MLB team that makes the postseason makes a pretty significant killing in terms of generating extra revenue. http://thefieldsofgreen.com/2014/10...ostseason-appearance-hold-for-mlb-franchises/ You can expect anywhere from a 20-30% increase in revenue, which is pretty dang hot. So it would BEHOOVE Guggenheim to field a competitive team to make the playoffs every year. We are spending money, but more towards building the future by hording prospects since most championships are built on a strong farm system anyway. And avoiding dead weight contracts like Carl Crawford's.
That's precisely my point. They're want to make the playoffs every year, but they don't care about winning any particular year. They have the resources and ability to pay whomever they'd like to field the most competitive team every season, but they won't. That's expensive. Why spend 100 million to make 120 million when you can spend 85 million to make 110 million. Great business model, doesn't get us a ring.
The playoffs are so unpredictable that almost no amount of extra spending will help you be the first team to win 11 measily games. We have 100 years of postseasons to prove it. Yes, the Yankees did it in the 90's, but they quadrupled the average MLB team salary. Today, quadrupling the average MLB team salary (of $130M) would mean we have to skyrocket our spending to over half a billion dollars! I feel like we went over this before. Dodger revenue in 2014 was just over $400M. And that's before having to pony up for our $200M payroll, among other things like stadium renovations and what not. So I'm sorry, but it's never happening, ever. It's completely unrealistic. Guggenheim has a lot of money, but if the Dodgers are losing money, then why bother owning and operating it?
You're making excuses for an organization that needs none. Where did I say they need to quadruple the average salary? I never said it and I wont. That's taking my argument to a hyperbolic level to make a point and it's not what I'm saying. I'm saying they're not willing to spend the extra money on positions of need aka starting f***ing pitching that they struggled with last season and now it's going to bite them in the a**. They're going to be cost-efficient and continue lowering their salary while spending modestly for a pretty good team. They have the means to spend a lot of money for a great team, but they won't. Not only will they not do it, but they won't even make a deal so that Dodger fans can watch Vin Scully in his final season. They don't care about winning, they care about their bottom dollar. That's not the kind of owner I want. Defend them all you like, but I won't. I'll root for our players, but I hate management. They're nothing but greedy crooks.
Struggled with starting pitching last year? We were second best in the league!! http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2015-starter-pitching.shtml I think I've posted this before, but anyway, I understand why you're upset we didn't keep Greinke, but once again, history has proven that he realistically has only 2 or 3 good years left in him, in which case his albatross contract will end up biting Arizona in the butt when they realize they can't afford to plug other holes in their lineup when needs arise. And again, despite his great ERA, his field independent pitching wasn't nearly as spectacular at all, so he realistically isn't as good as his ERA indicated. You need more than just a Greinke to take us to the promised land. You need a full team of talented individuals. There is no LeBron James in the MLB that can automatically make a team a title contender.
And of course the Dodgers don't need excuses. They've been winning 90 games a year for three years straight, and had a new Dodger record of winning the Division Title three years in a row. They are not just a "pretty good" team, either. They've been among the best the last three years. And with guys like Pederson, Seager, Urias, De Leon, Bellinger, Holmes, Verdugo, Calhoun, Jharrel Cotton, and 6 of the top prospects in all of Cuba, we will continue to carry on this winning tradition. No, we won't win the Division every year. No one does. But we will remain highly competitive year in and year out and will probably not see a <80 win team for a long, long time. Plenty of analysts and scouts have us ranked very high, so that's reason to be optimistic.
They struggled to have a healthy lineup yeah. If it wasn't for the miraculous play of Bolsinger, there's no way they rank that high in starting pitching. Not to mention exactly how much pressure are we going to put on Kershaw and his arm? How much of his prime are we going to waste? He's not going to dominate forever. I don't care how many years Greinke has left. I told you back when we didn't sign him that this was a bad move. Those 2-3 years he's an effective pitcher are the 2-3 years we can win a title. Now? We're going to rely on Kazmir's weak arm? We're going to hope Ryu gets healthy again? When is McCarthy coming back? He's not even that great a pitcher anyway. Those 2-3 years carry us into the time when De Leon and Urias would be 100% ready to go. Instead we're stuck with a team that's not as good as it could be. The spending power of these Dodgers is such that they should have been able to spend for Greinke AND get Kazmir or Maeda too. They should have been able to really beef up the starting lineup, but instead they went cheap and it's already biting them in the a**. Now we're going to have to be one of those teams that puts up 5-6 runs to win games because our pitching isn't built to hold guys down to 1-3 runs. That's a stupid place to be WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE. I don't care where people have us ranked. That is completely and utterly meaningless. Is this a team built to win a title right now? Yes or no? If the answer is no (it is), then what the f*** is the purpose of having all that money in the bank? And where the f*** is our tv deal so fans can watch them? This management doesn't deserve your great fandom. You give them too much credit.
Bolsinger's performance wasn't miraculous when you consider the fact that our pitching coaches realized his curveball was his best pitch and encouraged him to use it more. Also, no, we are not "wasting" Kershaw's prime, or anyone's for that matter. If we were a 70-win team like the D-Backs or the Phillies, then yes, we would be wasting his prime. We're not. We were 5 wins away from winning the World Series. That's not being wasteful. If that's the case, then I guess everyone's wasting everyone's primes every year, even if they did win 92 games. I'm not sure what you mean by pressure, unless you mean the mentality of carrying our pitching load without Greinke. But these guys are superstars, so they can handle it. Kershaw will be Kershaw and continue doing what he does best. Plenty of superstar pitchers pitch well with or without a secondary star. There are no stats that prove otherwise. And no, nothing is biting us in the a** right now. The season hasn't even started yet! People are still rounding into shape. If we started the season like 18-22, then yes, it would be biting us in the a**. Also, yes, we have to be ($200M) "cheap" because believe it or not, you can actually lose money owning a baseball team. Yes, Guggenhim has $100 billion in assets, but if one of their assets isn't making money, then there's no point in owning it. The Dodgers really didn't make much money in the last couple of years, so payroll had to be reduced.
And who cares if we "struggled" to have a healthy lineup if we ended up #2 in all of baseball? That is hardly a valid complaint considering we've invested in so much depth to make up for the inevitable injury. Most other teams can't say that. Also, 5-6 runs per game is completely unrealistic. The second highest in the majors was the Yankees at 4.7 runs per game. You act like we're the Padres or something. We have plenty of talent all across our roster. Speaking of the Padres, I remember everyone getting bat-sh*t upset that we didn't get James Shields or Craig Kimbrel, and that we traded away Matt Kemp. I almost thought people would have traded our Dodgers roster for the Padres roster. Well, look at where they are now. We'd rather have their management instead? It's further proof that spending willy nilly doesn't equate to championships and in fact can give false hope to even a winning season, especially when you deplete your farm system to try to get top veterans.
My complaint about our soft starting lineup isn't valid? That's pretty remarkable. It doesn't matter that the team has the resources to have a better team and they don't use them? Really? What if the Lakers could have paid 100 million dollars for Kevin Durant this summer and chose not to? Would that sit well with you? Why is it okay that the Dodgers do it?
