Dodger Talk

I don't mind if Either goes though I like him cause I really like Scott Van"beard" who I thought should of gotten a lot more playing time. We haven't given him up have we? And what about The burner Turner?

I agree with Ace I actually don't think we are rebuilding at all. These moves are to make up more even across the board. We did the pay for big results thing and that lack of heart came up short each year. Taking some of the over-ego's out and putting in some players who can step in a roll and still produce is much better in the long run.

 

I agree with that but I also think that is the point the new management is trying to make. We are a team with deep pockets but don't want to go the Yankee route by just simply overpaying everyone. The last two seasons have been derailed when Hanley got hurt in the playoffs especially 2 years ago. We had all firepower and no fuse to light it. I think the FO is being smart building a team that will contend for the West crown again and possibly put up actually runs when we have RISP. Dee Gordon stole a ton of bases but how many times did we leave him there?

So far I am excited for what I am seeing

 

On Matt Kemp (he as my favorite player):

 

"All the firepower, but no fuse to light it..." Man, I like that saying a lot!

So how about we give Scherzer his $200M and call it a day?

 

No. Hell why not, ain't our money and Magic has been shooting his mouth off too much anyway about the Lakers. He and his buddies can take a little less in the profits department.

 

Shields I feel like will get overpaid. If they want to "curb" their spending, putting $20M per for Shields isn't the way to go.

But Scherzer, I think is the real deal and deserves all $200M+. Only thing that worries me is that he's not much of a ground ball pitcher, so Friedman might stay away from it.

Interestingly, though, Brandon McCarthy had one of the highest xFIP last season, even better than Scherzer.

 

So I've been researching pitch framing, and I'm starting to really like the Kemp/Grandal trade.

Here's an article that shows some great examples. Near the bottom are a few samples of Grandal's excellence in pitch framing:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=23503

Now, I know it's not the end-all-be-all of catching, but guys like Zack Greinke have been known to study it and value it a lot. This will probably benefit him the most, as he loves to nibble the corners. Kershaw might be sad that Ellis is taking a back seat, but winning cures everything, and if he starts getting all his corners called, he won't look back. There have been plenty of times where I've seen Ellis lazily pull a pitch out of the zone when it was placed not where he was setup or where he expected it.

Last season, Grandal was ranked #8 overall in pitch framing, whereas AJ Ellis... was ranked well over 100, which is pretty terrible. I read a stat that said Russell Martin averages over 450 more called strikes outside the strike zone on the year than Ellis does.

 

Grandal doesn't come without his flaws, though. The most glaring one is his passed ball rate, which is extremely high. I guess Friedman thinks it's not such a big deal, but when you lead the league with 12 in less than half the season, along with his history of high passed balls, that's something to be a little worried about.

His CS% wasn't very high last year, either, at 13%. Hopefully Kershaw's and Greinke's pitch release speeds will make up for it, but it does feel a little worrisome trading away someone with 64 stolen bases, and then getting a catcher with a low CS success rate. Fortunately, he does have a history of averaging a good 35%, so we'll see if he gets back to that form.

 

Grandal actually has more pop than Kemp. His fly balls average a further distance than Kemp's. He hit two more homers than Ramirez in the same number of games. His numbers may seem a little low, but he improved in the 2nd half of 2014 because his knee started feeling healthy again after he injured it in 2013.

Pederson certainly won't make up for Kemp's homers by his lonesome, but if he can do half as much, like 12 homers, that would be dandy.

Rollins and Kendrick will each add at least another 10, plus Grandal's projected 20 homers... that's 52 homers, which pretty much matches Kemp, Ramirez, Gordon, and Ellis if they all had full healthy seasons. More balance, and a helluva lot more defense. All of a sudden, we don't look too bad anymore.

 

Dodgers sign effective but often injured pitcher Brett Anderson for 1 year, $10M. Dang, but hey not my money! I suppose if we're paying Brian Wilson the same money to pitch roughly the same number of innings at a 2.91 ERA, then sure, why not.

Speaking of The Beard...... he got DFA'd today! Good riddance! What a horrible year he had. He would not have lasted a month under the new regime.

Hopefully our new guys, Peralta, Nicasio, and Hatcher, will help our bullpen. And we're probably not done dealing.

 

League definitely improved, but I think the trend with the new Dodger brass is to find someone with a high SO/BB ratio as well as good WHIP and xFIP numbers, which for League has been below average both years.

I still think he has some value, though, if you ignore is awful WHIP numbers. He allowed zero homers last year, less fly balls, and induced an incredibly high 68% ground ball rate. We do have to be lucky with his ground balls, since we never know where they go, and we're not talking Maddux-type weak ground balls here.

Upon further evidence, his infield fly ball % (IFFB%) shot up 4 times higher than last season, which means he's keeping the ball in the park. It's almost as high as his all-star year in 2011 as a Mariner, but perhaps Dodger brass thinks it's an anomaly.

I guess if we can give more innings to better pitchers and get a young prospect or two in return, that wouldn't be too terrible.