Imani Abdullah goes scoreless five for the Loons
Nineteen-year-old Imani Abdullah continues to pitch well for the Great Lake Loons of the Midwest League. The 11th round pick out of San Diego in the 2015 draft is making his case to be a piece of the next great Dodger trade.
Imani Abdullah went five innings, gave up zero runs, zero walks, and struck out five. He now has a 33/3 strikeout to walk ratio in his eight starts.
Brock Stewart has one bad inning, the Dodger offense has nine of them
Brock Stewart wowed Dodger fans for all of six batters. At that point, he had struck out two, gotten five outs, and given up two bleeding hits. That would be as good as it gets. Seven of the next eight batters would get on base, and when it was over five runs had scored amid multiple rockets, the big blows being a three-run blast by Captain Kirk, and a two run double by Ryan Braun. It could have been worse, with the bases loaded and two outs, Brock was able to strike out Chris Carter to end the inning.
From that point on, Brock was on point and delivered to the Dodgers five innings. Not that it mattered, because the Dodger offense decided to go AWOL and was shut out.
Howie Kendrick inched closer to getting 100 plate appearances as a left fielder without driving in anyone but himself.
A.J. Ellis went another game without scoring and has not scored in the month of June, and only once since May 1st.
Adrian Gonzalez got himself kicked out early in a game that had the Dodgers playing with limited bench players in the first place.
Puig ran into a fence but hopefully escaped injury.
LAD – by the numbers 06/29/16
Adrian Gonzalez loves Miller park so much that in 136 plate appearances he has the highest BA (.420), highest OBP (.507), and highest slugging percentage (.795) of his career at Miller park. No wonder that last night he might have broken out of his season-long slump by getting on base five times via three hits, one walk, one HBP.
Corey Seager has seven doubles and seven home runs in June and is hitting .340 for the month, with a 1.065 OPS. If Claytons back is hurting from carrying the rotation, Coreys might be feeling the weight of carrying the offense.
Howie Kendrick now has 91 plate appearances in left field with only one run batted in. That run batted in came via a home run, so basically in 91 plate appearances, Howie has yet to drive in someone other than himself.
| Split | PA | H | HR | RBI | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| as LF | 91 | 15 | 1 | 1 | 0.183 | 0.264 | 0.256 | 0.52 |
| as 2B | 58 | 17 | 1 | 5 | 0.309 | 0.345 | 0.382 | 0.727 |
| as 3B | 46 | 12 | 1 | 4 | 0.279 | 0.304 | 0.395 | 0.7 |
| as 1B | 22 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0.211 | 0.273 | 0.316 | 0.589 |
| as PH | 10 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0.333 | 0.4 | 0.444 | 0.844 |
| as DH | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 0.5 |
and now this
Left-handed relief pitcher Adam Liberatore has not allowed a run since May 20th, spanning 19 games. The unheralded Liberatore has appeared in 33 games, and only given up a run one time. For context, the much more ballyhooed Andrew Miller has also appeared in 33 games but has given up a run in five games. Granted Miller is usually required to get at least three outs and has thus pitched 33 innings compared to Adams 25. Still, Adam has been awesome, and I’m not sure he’s been getting the recognition he deserves.
Yazmani Grandal drove in two runs last night and now has 28 RBI. Grandal has struggled this year with his batting average now at .178, but he has made those 30 hits count. Grandal has almost averaged an RBI per hit with 30 hits and 28 RBI.
A.J. Ellis still hasn’t scored a run since May 1st in 77 plate appearances. He clearly needs Urias hitting behind him.
Julio Urias wins the first of a possible four game stretch of Dodger rookie starts
On Tuesday night Julio Urias won the first game of a bizarre stretch of games. It is very possible, the Dodgers will start four straight rookies over four games. Yesterday I tweeted to Eric Stephen if any Dodger rookies had started three straight games, eventually, Eric found that the last time the Dodgers used three first-year pitchers was in 1960.
Dodgers started Jim Golden, Phil Ortega & Ed Rakow on final 3 days of the 1960 season. Last time they started 3 straight 1st-year pitchers
Those games, however, were the final three games of the 1960 season, not smack dab in the middle of a pennant race in June.
How did we get here?
Urias has basically taken the place of Alex Wood who went on the DL May 31st. Wood was supposed to start a throwing program this week. The initial diagnosis was a posterior impingement in his throwing elbow. Wood was supposed to be shut down for four weeks, but once he starts throwing, there is no guarantee he is going to be okay and his return is completely up in the air.
Brock Stewart is going to make his major league debut tonight. He deserves his own column, but for this article, he’s replacing Nick Tepesch who replaced Mike Bolsinger who replaced rookie Ross Stripling who replaced Brett Anderson.
Kenta Maeda is only technically a rookie because of major league rules but just like Jackie Robinson in 1947, he’s hardly a rookie. We got a rookie ringer. Which makes most of this silly, except…
With Clayton Kershaw headed to Los Angeles to have his back examined, it is possible he will miss his start on Friday. And the pitcher lined up to make that start just might be a rookie and Futures All-Star Jharel Cotton.
You just can’t get enough Brock Stewart updates
Brock is such a unique story that I’m trying to post what is being said around the baseball universe. Earlier today David Laurila from Fangraphs weighed in. He too was caught off guard when the Dodgers brought up Brock sooner than was what expected.
On rare occasion, I’ll interview a player and end up not writing about him — at least not right away — despite fully intending to. This happened with Brock Stewart, who will be making his major-league debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers later tonight.
Vince Lara-Cinisomo of Baseball America has a nice story up about Jeff and Brock. Jeff Stewart is a professional baseball scout and Brocks father. This is a great story if anyone pops by, I suggest they click the link and read the article.
“It’s tough being the son of a coach or son of a scout,” Jeff Stewart said. “Because when they accomplish something, someone says, ‘his dad’s a coach, his dad’s a scout.’
“I want my kids to cut their own path.”
Kingston was not surprised by his former boss’ stance.
“I’ve known the Stewarts since the late 1990s, and I knew Brock as a little child, so I knew when Brock got the chance (to be drafted), Jeff’s preference was that it would be
Howard Cole of Forbes feels the Dodgers should get Lucroy
I have, to be honest, I go to Forbes for business information, certainly did not expect to run into a fairly well-written Dodger article. If you click the link you will find that Howard Cole feels the Dodgers should do what it takes to acquire Jonathan Lucroy and either Sonny Gray or Julio Tehran.
Now close your eyes and picture Jonathan Lucroy behind the plate instead of Yasmani Grandal. Open them again and watch Grandal chase a passed ball to the screen.
Lucroy is clearly the better catcher right now.
| Player | Year | PA | HR | RBI | TripleStatLine |
| Grandal | 2016 | 197 | 6 | 28 | .178 / .289 / .331 |
| Lucroy | 2016 | 286 | 10 | 38 | .302 / .360 / .504 |
Yet, just one year ago on June 29th, no one would have argued that Lucroy was better than Grandal. At this time last year this was the story:
| Player | Year | PA | HR | RBI | TripleStatLine |
| Grandal | 2015 | 219 | 10 | 26 | .259 / .370 / .459 |
| Lucroy | 2015 | 157 | 1 | 12 | .215 / .268 / .285 |
For further perspective, Lucroy is 30 years old and a free agent after 2017. Grandal is only 27 and can’t be a free agent until 2019.
It is easy to see why fans are excited about the prospect of acquiring a bat like Lucroy, but I have to feel this is recency bias. This is the most that Grandal has ever struggled, his career OPS+ is 110. Grandal has never had a full season OPS+ below 110. Of course, that will change this year, hard to imagine Grandal getting to that level this year. Lucroy has a career OPS+ of 111, they have been basically the same offensive player until this year. This year Lucroy is having his career offensive season, Grandal is having his career worst season.
Do you trade for someone having their career season at age 30?
Do you trade someone having their career worst season at age 27?
I don’t. I fully expect Grandal to if not out hit Lucroy from this point on, at least match him. I could point to all sorts of advanced metrics as to why I believe this, but if you got this far, you are probably already sleepy. Let’s check back in a few months and see if I whiffed or not.
As far as making a play for Sonny Gray or Julio Tehran, I’ll save that for another day because I’ve yet to give it any thought.
Brock Stewart has little use for the prospect ladder
When Brock Stewart makes his debut tonight he can be excused for being light headed after climbing the prospect ladder so fast. This will be the last time someone can only reference the baseball reference minor league Brock Stewart page. Tomorrow at this time he will have joined the big boys and have his own Brock Stewart baseball reference major league page.
His head must be spinning:
- Brock started the year in the California League, the Dodgers High A affiliate. He lasted two games before getting promoted to AA on April 18th
- Brock made nine starts for the Tulsa Drillers, the Dodgers AA affiliate. On June 13th Brock was promoted to AAA
- Brock made three starts for the Oklahoma Dodgers, the Dodgers Dodgers AAA affiliate. On June 29th, Brock Stewart was promoted to the Los Angeles Dodgers
The best part of the Brock Stewart pie is that as he has gotten promoted he has actually pitched better at each level. His final two starts for the Oklahoma Dodgers is why he is going to be starting for the LAD tonight. The Strike out / Walk ratio is nuts at AAA. 27 to 2. Pumping strikes in the PCL. Yeah baby.
These are his pitching logs this year:
| Date | Lev | IP | H | ER | BB | SO | GSc |
| 4/8/2016 | A+-CALL | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 65 |
| 4/13/2016 | A+-CALL | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 68 |
| 2016-04-18 (2) | AA-TL | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 67 |
| 4/24/2016 | AA-TL | 6 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 59 |
| 5/1/2016 | AA-TL | 6 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 53 |
| 5/6/2016 | AA-TL | 6 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 70 |
| 5/11/2016 | AA-TL | 7 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 79 |
| 5/20/2016 | AA-TL | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 66 |
| 5/27/2016 | AA-TL | 7.1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 71 |
| 6/1/2016 | AA-TL | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 77 |
| 6/7/2016 | AA-TL | 7 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 61 |
| 6/13/2016 | AAA-PCL | 5.2 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 53 |
| 6/19/2016 | AAA-PCL | 7 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 73 |
| 6/24/2016 | AAA-PCL | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 10 | 63 |
Brock is the opposite of Julio Urias, he’s already twenty-four, has made only thirty-four minor league starts, and was never mentioned in any baseball prospect top 100 or even 200 list. No one took notice of Brock Stewart headed into 2016.
Tonight, the baseball world will take notice.
Julio Urias wins the first of many
It took Julio Urias seven starts to notch his first victory, but that will probably be the longest stretch between wins in his career going forward. Eric Stephen broke down all the first time achievements for Julio , and I must admit I’m having a hard time picking my favorite.
Was it the first major league hit for a nineteen-year-old pitcher since one-time phenom Rick Ankiel did it in 1999?
Was it the first RBI for a nineteen-year-old pitcher since one-time phenom Dwight Gooden did it in 1984?
Was it the six walks, and still managing to go six innings for the first time?
Was it the ability to navigate multiple baserunners while still only giving up two runs on one swing of the bat?
Was it the fact Urias ended up with thirty-eight strikeouts in the month of June?
All these are cool, but the coolest fact to me is that Julio Urias in seven starts and only thirty-three innings has picked off four baserunners. Eric describes what he did to poor Villar yesterday to start the game:
After Jonathan Villar walked to open the first inning, Urias threw over twice, then on the third try picked Villar off. But the Brewers challenged the call, and on replay review the call was overturned. But before even throwing another pitch, Urias threw over a fourth time and picked off Villar for good this time.
That was the fourth straight game with a pickoff for Urias, who is tied for the major league lead on the season despite making only seven starts. Dating back to Triple-A, Urias has nine pickoffs in his last 11 starts.
If this is his last start in an effort to control his inning count and be able to use him later in the year, he went out the way a teenage prodigy should go out.
In style.
Cole Figueroa adds to Dodger AAA infield depth and brain power
Light hitting, good defensive infielder, future engineer Cole Figueroa was added to the Dodgers 40 man roster today. Cole had been released by the Pirates just a few days ago.
Figueroa, 28, has appeared in 48 Major League games in three seasons with the Rays (2014), Yankees (2015) and Pirates (2016), batting .208 with nine RBI, and has a .291 career batting average with a .374 on-base percentage, 81 steals, 31 homers and 380 RBI in 815 minor league games since his selection in the sixth round of the 2008 First-Year Player Draft.
Figueroa is known for being one of the smarter baseball players as this article by Travis Sawchik can testify.
He found calculus and physics fascinating in high school and at the University of Florida. Earlier this spring, he recited Pi out to fifty digits to a reporter. His Twitter bio declares he is “Specializing in the process of decision making in .400 milliseconds,” or the amount of time in which a hitter has to decide whether to swing at a pitch.
Maybe when his playing days are done, and they do look to be numbered, he can become part of the Dodger front office.
It is both a failure and triumph that the LAD have 3 rookies pitching the next three games
Is it a failure of the LAD front office that the Dodgers have to use a nineteen-year-old, and a pitcher who started out in A ball to start games back to back in June?
or
Is it a triumph of the LAD front office that they have the best pitching prospect in all of baseball, along with the fastest-rising pitching prospect in all of baseball starting games back to back in June?
Has to be a bit of both. Even though the front office did the work required to have depth before the season started, that depth dissipated so fast that they have been forced to use pitchers no one ever expected to see the LAD mound in the early going of 2016.
- They knew Ryu was a risk, they just didn’t expect he’d be out until July.
- They knew Brett Anderson was a risk, they just didn’t expect him to blow out his back so quickly.
- They knew McCarthy would not be able to help until July.
- They were counting on Montas, what they got was rib surgery
Even with all that they headed into the season with Kershaw/Maeda/Kazmir/Wood, needing to fill one spot with a plethora of options.
- They hoped Beachy had something left – he didn’t.
- They hoped Bolsinger could help out – he eventually did, but not well, and not in April.
- They thought Frias might help in an emergency – he couldn’t.
Eventually, they turned to Ross Stripling who was no one’s choice to be in the rotation in April, and Ross did more than what was expected. He was adequate. But that didn’t last long. Alex Wood got hurt, Ross hit his inning pitch limit, and the team was forced to try options.
The first cavalry charge hit some bumps:
- Montas looked just about ready to get a shot at the rotation when he suffered yet another rib injury and is probably out for most of the year.
- Ryu has been shut down several times, but finally looks to be on track to join the rotation after the all-star game.
- McCarthy might be ready right about the same time as Ryu
Because of that, the team had to turn to someone like Tepesch who predictably made one start and is now off the roster.
Which left them with what to do about this Wednesdays’ game. The first cavalry had no answer yet, they could have done something to get Frias back up (would require a DL move) but decided to instead go with the hottest pitcher in the organization. Brock Stewart. This might be desperation, but it is cool desperation because Brock Stewart is a cool baseball story.
Even as the team needs to replace Urias, they should get that replacement from Ryu or McCarthy. How Brock Stewart does on Tuesday night could decide his major league future.
Even though the first cavalry charge took some bumps eventually Ryu/McCarthy should be able to join the rotation, and once they do that the second cavalry will be starting their rehabbing.
- Alex Wood will start to gear up
- Brett Anderson should be standing up soon
- Jose DeLeon whose minor league pedigree far outshone Brock Stewart before the season started should be well on his way to being stretched out.
It may look like failure right now, but when the options are Urias and Stewart, and the future has arms like Ryu/McCarthy/Wood/Anderson/Deleon I can’t help but think that overall this front office has to feel good about the second half of the year.
Good enough that they don’t trigger a trade for a bonafide number two starter? That is another question, because while the Dodgers may eventually fill the rotation, they might want a bit more upside for 2016.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 