Another year, another early exit. Oh woe is me, what is wrong with my Dodgers??? If I knew the answer to that problem, I would be the GM. Actually I doubt anyone really knows the reason that for two straight years the Dodgers have been sent home very early.
I have theory’s, but that is about it. I do feel the five day layoff hurts the teams getting it more than MLB would like to admit. Now they have to learn from that failure.
Obviously whatever preparations they made did not work out so well. But how do you explain how your two biggest stars suddenly forgot how to hit a baseball hard???
It is really hard to sit and watch a team you dominated most of the season playing for a chance to go to the World Series. But for the second year in a row, that is where we are.
Thank the stars for USC football. I don’t watch the pros, and I quit following the Lakers years ago. Seems like they have a pretty good team though.
This winter I do have one project I need to finish. As I have been writing for this site and Marks, I have not worked on my model of the USS Indianapolis in a while. So as the snow begins to fall, pretty soon now, I will have plenty of time to finish it. It is a pretty difficult model to do. Lots of really small parts. I need a clamp and magnifying glass to do the anti-aircraft machine guns.
There won’t be much Dodger news for a while although McCullough interviewed for the Guardian’s vacancy. Kapler interviewed for the GM job with the Red Sox, and Luis Avilan, who spent a couple of seasons in LA, retired.
Wil Venable turned down an interview request with the Red Sox. And the Giants want to interview Bob Melvin, but need the Padres permission to do so and if they hired him, they no doubt would need to compensate the Padres. They also have some interest in Jason Varitek, the former Red Sox catcher.
There has been no news about Urias’s status with the judicial system at all. Is he even still in the country? Or did he go home to Mexico to await the decision?
We probably won’t know anything about Kershaw until maybe New Years. I think he will wait until after the holidays to make up his mind. I believe we will know about Ohtani sometime during the winter meetings.
Haven’t watched a single game of the playoffs. I have zero rooting interest. I just want Houston to lose.
Hey Bear. When you finish that model, how about posting a picture? Would love to see it when done.
I can do that. I built them when I was a kid, but never painted them or anything. Believe it or not, the hardest one I had to build was a Sherman tank. Japanese model company’s love small parts! I also built PT-109, I took an Arizona model and made it into my dad’s ship, the Nevada. They were sister ships. And I built Von Ricktofens Fokker Tri-Plane.
I’ve got some painting to do before winter. House trim. I used to kinda like painting when I was younger. Not anymore.
I hope Jeff is recovering. That was some game last night. Two failed 2 point conversions being the difference. SC football and Lincoln Riley. Why can’t they recruit and coach defense? I have a buddy in Oklahoma who texted me last night he watched the same thing for 5 years. It’s been two years here. After 7 years is there any reason to believe it will change?
It’s my opinion the Pac 12 is good enough that it’s champion should be invited to the tournament.
The Indianapolis. Interesting choice. It’s sinking resulted in the greatest loss of life at sea from a single ship in the history of the U.S. Navy. I’m sure you know that.
I’ve watched more baseball than I said I would. I’m watching just to see teams lose. Feels kinda strange to be doing that.
Kapler. Don’t much care where he goes unless it’s back with the Dodgers. I am interested in where Ng ends up.
I think it’s important to know about Ohtani and Kershaw as soon as possible. Both of them here is my choice. I know Kershaw is now a 120 inning pitcher, but his ERA and WAR are still good enough to be of value to the club. And Ohtani’s bat would make the top of our lineup another Murderers Row. I know “pitching wins championships”, but I sure like watching my team score runs all summer.
USC’s defense sucks. And that roughing the passer penalty was brutal. The problem was that after that kickoff return by Branch, they left too much time on the clock. But they have given up way too many points.
Having played, coached and refereed this game, granted in a different era, it’s my opinion many of these roughing penalties are uncalled for, including that penalty against Bear Alexander. After charging through a huge offensive line, standing straight up with his arms spread wide he went face to face with the quarterback who took it and flopped. Football players smack each harder than that in celebration. Not only the penalty, but thrown out of the game? Nonsense. Protect the quarterback? He’s a football player right? The whistle hadn’t blown. Alexander didn’t hit him late. They went face mask to face mask. What I saw was no harm no foul. But that’s me.
Yes, USC defense sucks. Some of it is not their fault, like being outweighed on the line by 50 pounds. How can that happen at this level? Recruiting, that’s how.
I am over the loss. I never expected USC to contend this year. They are a one-dimension football team. Lincoln Riley is light years better than Clay Helton, but he is no John McKay, John Robinson, or Pete Carroll. All three of those great coaches knew how to make adjustments. Riley and certainly not Grinch have a clue.
When you are making $110MM to win championships, that has to take precedence over friendship with Grinch.
Helton left the roster bare of any beef. They are trying to compete with guys who were probably not good enough to start for the teams they left to get into the transfer portal. The transfer portal is tough to build a championship program from. It was never meant to replace high school recruiting. The difference has been the QB’s. Most of the transfer QB’s have been good including most of the QB’s in the PAC 12. Michael Penix Jr., Bo Nix, Caleb Williams, Shedeur Sanders, Cam Ward, DJ Uiagalelei.
The lines are undersized, but it is the LB’s that are bad. Bad or badly coached or probably both. The defensive scheme leaves a freshman LB on an island trying to cover a fast RB and got burned twice??? They have nobody up the middle like the great USC teams used to have. They still cannot tackle. The edge rusher cannot hold an edge. Their corners cannot cover, and they are left to go man to man several yards off the ball. And the safeties always seem to be out of position. The defense looked confused all night. They were jumping all around. They were not prepared to win.
They are not recruiting well, and one of the reasons is that they do not provide any NIL $$$ to incoming freshman. Most (if not all) of the major Power Five Conference football teams do. Oregon gives out huge $$$ to their incoming freshman.
NIL is certainly not the only reason. They seem to recruit fine in the QB and WR. I remember when USC was known for their tight ends as much as their RB. I cannot remember the last time USC had a dominant TE, that they actually used in their offense.
I also believe that Caleb Williams needs to stop reading about how great he is, about being Superman. The offense was built to try and get him a 2nd Heisman, and the Defenses figured out how to stop him throwing deep. When the run was working, they still wanted to pass to get Caleb’s numbers up.
You got that right, not enough BEEF on the D-Line. When you start to believe your own press reports, you play worse. He has looked pedestrian these last couple of games.
All of them but Alexander are light. You could see the difference pre-snap. And, as a unit, they are just bad at tackling. That’s coaching.
I like Kershaw a lot but unless he joins the coaching staff, I think it might be in the best interests of the team if he moves on. In a sense, he stands in the way of some of the younger arms who need a chance to prove themselves. The team has a lot of those pitchers. His moving on will also induce the FO to sign a star, possibly Ohtani. Freed up money is always useful as this is a business, run by a corporate entity using numbers in their evaluations of players, etc.
Excellent points Jeff.
The way I see it there’s plenty of starter innings to go around. Kershaw put up 2.3 fWAR in 130 innings. He’s 36 in mid March next year, could he do it again? Maybe, maybe not. But he’s a good guy to have around the younger pitchers.
If he decides to go, I’m ok with it. But, I don’t think he will. This is who is. Others his age and older are still pitching I just don’t believe he’ll make the decision to retire at age 35.
I’m surprised to see you advocating to get Ohtani. What needs does he fill? Pitching? No, not now and maybe not much later, can he play 3rd base or outfield? Hard no, does he provide the edgy Kirk Gibson type personality the team needs? Hardly, could he be a good but way overpaid hitter? Yes.
I would go after Yamamoto, a rh outfielder, a rh 3rd baseman, and another starter besides Yamamoto.
If they can do all that plus sign Ohtani to a reasonable incentive contract then do it.
I’m surprised I have to explain why.
What needs does he fill? He’s one the league’s premier hitters. We would go from a 2 oWAR DH to 6 oWAR DH. He can play outfield on occasion. I believe he will pitch again, though his innings may be limited.
In today’s game it’s all about WAR. Once you understand that the goal is to collect a squad of positive WAR players. That bat in this lineup? Wow.
I disagree, play the outfield? Sure a premier hitter but like I said it will cost.unicorn money for someone who might not beone anymore. But I would like to have him in the lineup for $25-30 mill per yr w pitching incentives. Just my opinion but I would rather spend all fhat money getting pitching and position players who can hit. But I’m just repeating myself. Lots of people want to see us sign him and you all might be right.
The Dogers can do both.
Hopefully Ohtani will sign a long enough contract that AAV will be where both he and the Dodgers want it. But, as long as he hits at around 6 oWAR, he’s worth $30 million. His surgery should drop his value, but if some team wants to pay him more than he’s worth? Good luck with that. A lot of those contracts don’t work out.
I’m sure USC’s problems will go away once they start playing in another conference. I used to root hard for them and finally got myself to root for the Pac 12 team with the best chance to win the national championship. Now I basically root for Oregon State.
I root for the Seahawks because Pete Carroll is there.
The days of John Wooden, John McKay, John Robinson, or Pete Carroll are sadly gone. It’s the Dodgers that are our best hope for keeping the torch burning. With that I am going to go Badger and join him in hoping Ohtani becomes a Dodger and I might as well again add Witt to the team.
The Dodgers have acquired great players via trade and free agency. However my favorites are mostly those that had at least one year in the Dodgers system before joining the Dodgers.
I’m not eager to trade Miller Pepiot, Sheehan or Stone and I don’t want those pitchers to get pushed back to OK.
I don’t have loyalty to Busch, Vargas, Pages, Cartaya or any of the prospect pitchers that have yet to play with the Dodgers.
I do want to see at least one spot in the rotation to be piggybacked. I want to reset the CBT status as a priority and that might mean choosing Yamamoto over Kershaw instead of having both. It also probably means letting Muncy go and instead trade for and extend Burnes.
Burnes, Yamamoto, Miller, Pepiot, Sheehan/Stone piggyback.
Is it too much to ask to have one or two of our young starters working out of the bullpen?
Buehler will be back. Buehler, Miller, new guy, Pepiot, Sheehan, Kershaw. Stone, Grove, Hurt, Frasso and Ryan would all be candidates for the bullpen.
FOr the past three years, I’ve been anticipating the team trading talent if only to amend 40 man issues.
It never really happens (happened a little when they traded Floro, Beaty and White, and a coupla others) but maybe it can be plussed up for a consequential trade.
I forgot Buehler. Beginning a major league career in the bullpen has worked. I’m all for it after trades are made. Between youth, age, and injuries the Dodgers don’t have any 7 inning pitchers.
Buehler was anything but successful as a reliever. In 2017:
8 games (all relief), 9.1 IP, 7.71 ERA, 2.04 WHIP, .306 BAA, 8 BB, 12 K, 2 HR.
I wasn’t thinking of Buehler. More like the prospects for that introductory role to the majors.
Grove and Hurt have already been dispatched to the bullpen. Same with Ronan Kopp. I would not be surprised to see Stone become a reliever. Sheehan still has promise as a starter and will get every opportunity if he stays with LAD.
I have no idea where Frasso and Ryan will end up. Last year Frasso started 25 games with 93.0 IP. He had one start that he went 6.0 IP and one start where he went 5.2 IP. River Ryan had 26 games (24 starts), 104.1 IP, and never had more than 5.0 IP. Both ended up in AAA as starters with Landon Knack and Gavin Stone.
Grove and Hurt might be all we need in the bullpen. That is if we still have Brasier, Feyereisen, Treinen and Hudson still in the mix. Even if they all won’t be there, we still have options and I think the pen will work itself out and be good again.
The More He Thought About it, The Angrier He Got, the Gary section of The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, is perhaps the most finely executed comic passage of 100 pages ever written.
There are parts of Martin Amis Money that are funnier, but that’s a great call.
Great.
Giants have received permission from the Padres to interview Melvin.
That’s a done deal.
Melvin doesn’t want to be in SD and Preller doesn’t want him there.
Who does Preller want?
I am not sure anyone wants to manage for Preller.
I would. And I’d come cheap too.
And yet another Corbin Burnes to LAD trade proposal. Per Zachary D. Rymer of Bleacher Report – Corbin Burnes to LAD for Dalton Rushing and Nick Frasso.
Per the trade simulator, the Dodgers are a little short on the deal.
Burnes – 30.3
Rushing – 17.7
Frasso – 5.2
Both Rushing and Frasso are Top 100 prospects, so the cost is high. Although there are plenty of other prospects that can replace both. While I do not believe Milwaukee would pull the trigger on this deal, as with the other proposed Burnes trade, I would do this deal. I cannot see Milwaukee moving Burnes to the Dodgers without Emmet Sheehan.
Burnes is a bona fide Ace, and the Dodgers have zero idea as to how Walker Buehler comes back. Two of the top FA pitchers are Scott Boras clients (Montgomery and Snell) making it difficult for me to believe that either are realistic options. That would leave Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Aaron Nola, and Sonny Gray as the next best options. Both NY teams will be heavily bidding on Yamamoto. I have not heard favorites for the other two, but there figures to be excess bidding for all of them.
One “insider” thinks that Sonny Gray is the most logical for LAD because he figures to command a lower number of years with a high AAV. This is something that AF prefers over 7 year 9 figure contracts for pitchers. Maybe he breaks the mold this year with signing Scott Boras clients and obligating 9 figures to a SP. I did not think he would extend Mookie as he did, and I was glad to be wrong.
I do not know how you get 2-3 top tier SP without the benefit of a trade.
Yamamoto and Ohtani.
We’re done.
That would be a good start.
Rams lay another egg.
I wonder if the Lakers will be any good?
Regular season or playoffs?
Probably above .500 but no ring in the near future.
Possible 3 seed.
Yay Rangers! Nice 9th inning against the Cheetos. Garcia granny after 4 K day.