Author Archive: Phil Gurnee
Chase Utley clocks in at #92 on MLB Top 100 plays of 2017
Chase Utley was the first to clock in on the top 100 MLB plays of 2017 but he did it as a first baseman on May 10th. The play involved a ground ball down the line that hit the bag and caromed over his head but Chase somehow knew where the ball was going to …
Zipping along with the Dodgers
It is always fun to check out the Fangraphs Zips projections by Dan Szymborksi for the Dodgers. Lots of projection data is in the link above but I’m going to simply say over/under on key or interesting players on the list related to either wRC+ or ERA+. Player AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Betting Corey …
Fangraphs / Zips / Koehler
I was waiting for Fangraphs to produce an article about how Tom Koehler was a brilliant signing by the Dodgers and they did deliver an article on Koehler. On the same day, they published the Zip projections for the Dodgers. First, let’s talk about Koehler. He has been a lousy starter for almost all of his …
Dick Enberg, the sporting voice of my youth, RIP
We lost one of the great broadcasters of the 20th century last night when Dick Enberg passed away. I’ve written about Dick several times on this blog. On Oct 16th after he retired from the Padres. Yup, in the early 1970’s Dick Enberg was my favorite announcer. Sure I loved Vin Scully but truth be …
Dodgers deliver lump of coal to STH for Christmas
Los Angeles Dodger season ticket holders have been receiving their invoice for the 2018 season and they aren’t happy with what they are seeing. I’ve heard a few complaints and Bill Shaikin decided to find out just exactly how much of an increase is really happening. The Dodgers say they haven’t finalized all prices on 2018 …
Naughty and nice
The Dodger front office had a lot more nice than naughty in calendar 2017 but let’s give a brief rundown of a subjective review of Dodger front office actions. Naughty – asking outfielder Brett Eibner to pitch and then releasing him outright after he blew out his arm. Nice – giving a Sept callup to O`Koyea …
What’s next? Cutch or Cain?
With the trade of the three onerous contracts this weekend the Dodgers have opened up some financial flexibility for 2018 even as they hope to stay under the luxury tax and reset the fines that MLB has been hitting the team with ever since they decided to be the $250M pound gorilla of major league baseball. Eric Stephen as always does a …
Dodgers pull off the expected in a very unexpected way
Most Dodger fans knew the Dodgers were going to try to get rid of the contracts of Adrian Gonzalez and at least one of Scott Kazmir or Brandon McCarthy but no one expected them to trade all three in one big fell swoop. It helps of course that the new GM for the Braves was …
Angels going for it
Using baseball reference the players with the most at-bats per position for the Angels in 2017 looked like this: Pos Name Age PA BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ C Martin Maldonado 30 471 .221 .276 .368 .645 74 1B C.J. Cron 27 373 .248 .305 .437 .741 99 2B Danny Espinosa# 30 254 .162 .237 .276 …
Are the Dodgers in decline?
Craig Minami in the TrueBlueLA comments asked this question. Is this a team on the rise, a team at the pinnacle or a team that be in some small decline? I started to answer but realized why I stopped posting lengthy comments at truebluela. By tomorrow, they will be gone, so I thought I’d answer …
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 