Rob Schelling, aka as 2demeter2 or 2D2, has decided to retire from his writing duties for LA Dodger Chronicles (LADC). His reasons are personal and nothing to do with the site or the commenters. I do know his reasons, but it is not my place to say.
For the last few years I have come to know Rob as a person as well as a LAD (and USC) fan. Even though we have never met in person, I consider Rob a friend, and I hope that in the future we will be able to meet.
I left LADT last year due to personal reasons, none having to do with Mark. I realized that I needed to continue to write as it is a huge health benefit for me. My wife and daughter pushed me to consider starting my own blog. Not knowing the first thing about creating a blog, I still decided to venture out on my own. I was fortunate that both Harold Uhlman and Rob joined me in the startup of LADC. We lost Harold last year, and with Rob now deciding to retire, I am now an island of 1.
I am a retired CFO/CPA and have never had problems finding qualified personnel to fill positions. But silly me, they all wanted to be paid. LADC is a hobby for me, and not a vocation, so I cannot advertise for writers for pay. I will keep writing as long as the ideas continue to flow and my health allows. Until someone decides they want to write with me, there will be gaps in the number of posts that I can do on my own.
Last year Harold bailed me out on my vacation days, but this year I do not have that luxury. There will be times that I know that I will not be available to write as often as every day. So please bear with me and continue to post. I get a lot of my ideas for posting from the comments I read on this site.
Therefore Rob, I want to publicly thank you for all that you have done for me individually, as well as with LADC. You are true friend, and one that I will miss as a writing partner.
So Go 
and Fight On 
.
Sorry to hear that, Jeff. I totally respect 2D2 and his writing has always been a fun read. He will be missed. We are all getting a little long in the tooth. I remember when we both had posts about Don Demeter, his favorite Dodger, over at LADT. Sorry I never got to meet him.
I, too, have decided to retire from this site. I have enjoyed the baseball conversations but the other stuff I don’t care for. Good luck to you, Jeff, and take care.
What other stuff? Expound please. I see less arguments here than any other site I have visited or write regularly on.
D2D, Thank you for your informative posts. You will be missed.
Great sight Jeff. Enjoy your posts and views/opinions on our Dodgers. Sorry to hear Rob is stepping down. I wish him all the best.
Great SITE.
I was going to say…my optometrist does not think my sight is very good. 😂
Your insights about the Dodgers are very good however.
I wish Rob the best and enjoyed his writing.
Also, I appreciate the work that Jeff does to run this site and to provide entertaining content to Dodger fans. He provides intelligent commentary and helps us understand many of the financial issues surrounding the game.
Thanks for your efforts, Jeff!
Hello Rob,
I hope you will continue to visit and maybe comment from time to time. I always enjoyed and learned from your Posts.
I appreciate what you guys do here. Thanks.
Read an interesting Ardaya piece in the Athletic this morning, more or less summing up what’s being said here and in other blogs. The Dodgers are “appreciably worse”, the Bauer sign was predictably risky and the team is, more or less, backed into a corner. Still, fangraphs has our team WAR predictions only behind the Mets, Padres and Braves. It could be worse and actually could be great if the kids come through. I don’t think anyone really expects that, but it could happen.
An elderly gentlemen walk into a bar and sees a beautiful elderly woman siting alone. The gentleman walks over, sits down next to her, orders a drink, takes a sip, turns to her and says “So tell me, do I come here often?”
Thanks for the humor. Hopefully I won’t share it but I know I will.
My wife really laughed out loud on that one. I generally get a disgusted head shake and roll of the eyes for my jokes.
Let me add my thanks to Rob for his past contributions.
Jeff, just do what you can do. I think I speak for everyone when I say we’d rather have you post stuff 3 or 4 times a week rather than thinking you have to post something new every day and burning out in a few months.
I second that.
Jeff, please keep the site going but do it in a way that you enjoy doing so. It should be up to your readers and commenters to keep the site interesting between your Posts.
So, readers, you can help Jeff by commenting often especially on Posts that have been up a few days. We don’t have to submit Posts to help. No?
San Diego said they are not going to offer a contract to what’s his name.
No, you do not need to submit posts. I generally can get an idea or two from what commenters write. A lot of the time, I sit down to respond, but I find that the response could be the basis for a new post, and I save it.
Thank you. I do plan on sticking around a while. This is still fun for me.
It’s often therapeutic for me. Again, thanks for your work.
You may better at this than you realize. And I second (third?) STB and Sam. Work at a pace with which you’re comfortable. We will adjust.
Hot Stove talked this morning about the Mariners could still use a lefty bat that could be used as DH or 1st base. The Dodgers seem to still want a center fielder. It would no doubt be a multi-player trade but maybe there is opportunity to trade Muncy for Kelenic as two of the players that would change teams.
i like it as a possibility if only because it sheds salary.
I do find this resetting of the luxury tax and its consequences laughable when dealing with billionaire owners, the Dodgers’ local TV deal and the game attendance.
But this is where the team is.
I echo Bear’s question to Jacob.
For me it’s all about the non-dollar penalties that makes me want to reset the payroll.
As long as the Dodger stay under $40MM over the CBT threshold ($273MM this year), the non-tax penalties for the Dodgers would be for losing players with a QO in free agency. The compensatory picks the following draft would fall between the 4th and 5th rounds vs between the 1st and 2nd rounds. But that would happen in any year where they exceeded the threshold, whether reset or not.
Thus they would need to time exceeding the CBT threshold when they do not plan on issuing a QO to a potential FA.
If exceed $40MM over CBT threshold, then their 1st draft pick would drop 10 spots in the draft. Last year the Dodgers dropped from 30 to 40. I have no idea if the Dodgers would have drafted Dalton Rushing at #30 or not. But it might be interesting to follow the picks the Dodgers could have drafted but were no longer available:
· University of Connecticut LHP – Reggie Crawford (SF)
· University of Florida SS – Sterlin Thompson (Colorado)
· HS 3B – Sal Stewart (Cincinnati)
· University of California Berkeley OF – Dylan Beavers (Baltimore)
· Mississippi State University RHP – Landon Sims (Arizona)
· HS RHP – JR Ritchie (Atlanta)
· Campbell University RHP – Thomas Harrington (Pittsburgh)
· Oklahoma State University RHP – Justin Campbell (Cleveland)
· University of Tennessee OF – Jordan Beck (Colorado)
· HS LHP – Robby Snelling (San Diego)
Taxwise, the penalty will be 30% more than 1st time offender for any dollar over the threshold.
1st time offender 1st tier – $0 to $4MM tax
3rd time offender 1st tier – $0 to $10MM tax
1st time offender 2nd tier – $4MM to $8MM tax
3rd time offender 2nd tier – $10MM to $20MM tax
If the Dodgers go over the threshold for the right player (s), the $12MM max difference from 1st time offender to 3rd time offender should not be a hinderance to LAD.
I am not sure I would recommend going over $40MM north of the CBT threshold.
While this complicated formula has been evolving I think we could now give it a name–The Cohen Clause. He is now the poster child for taking payroll out of the MLB parity equation.
The only names I recognize on that list are Beck and Beavers. Beck I saw in concert up in Redding.. wait, that was Jeff. And Beavers…. never mind.
As for the complicated CBT stuff, I still don’t see how it really matters to a team like the Dodgers. But, as Bluto said, here we are.
Last year for much of the season the Dodgers had Ace like starts from Gonsolin and Anderson. As is sometimes said, we are what we do. Anderson is gone but Gonsolin will be back. If healthy, the Dodgers have an Ace with Gonsolin for let’s say 130 to 150 innings.
Gonsolin — Ace for 20 starts.
Kershaw — Ace for 18 starts
Urias — Ace for 25 starts
May could put up Ace starts but he will need to be at full strength to do so. Let’s just say he will be a very good #3. Syndergaard needs to get his fastball back to a level when he was a #2. Let’s put him at a #3 for now.
May — #3 for 25 starts
Syndergaard — #3 for 25 starts
Miller, Pepiot, and Stone are potentially somewhere #2 and #3 but at this time are probably $4 or #5.
Miller, Stone, Pepiot — #5 and 12 starts
The Dodgers should have a strong rotation through August and then who knows. That could be good enough for 100 wins.
What say you?