Dodgers, Yesterday and Today

Kyle Garlick FFA Weekly winner for May 7th – May 13th

Phil Gurnee ♦ May 14, 2018 ♦ 1 Comment

Kyle Garlick was promoted to AAA on April 30th and has already made quite an impact. In seventy-eight plate appearances in AA , Kyle hit five home runs. In only twenty-two at-bats last week, Kyle hit four home runs for OKC in the PCL. For the week Garlick had nine hits in those twenty-two at-bats. Overall, Kyle now has five home runs for OKC which leads the team. Given he didn’t join the team until April 30th that is both an indictment on the lack of power on the OKC team and a hat tip to Garlick for bringing the bomb to OKC.

Earlier this week we noted the performances of Dustin May, Dennis Santana, and Yusniel Diaz.

Drew Jackson was named Texas League Player of the Week off of his big performance.

Jackson started five games in the week and put together monster numbers during that stretch. The infielder went 7-16 with four doubles, a triple and a home run while collecting five RBI and stealing a pair of bases. He also had five walks and struck out only once.

Justin De Fratus was named the Pacific Coast League Player of the Week. Earlier in the year, De Fratus earned the Texas League Player of the Week.

De Fratus tossed a complete game shutout against Memphis on May 11, the first nine-inning shutout in the PCL this season. It only took him 89 pitches to do it, recording 12 groundball outs while allowing four hits and striking out three without allowing a walk.

Jesus Vargas is a name I’ve never written about but he is one of the few bright spots for the Great Lake Loons. Vargas is a 19-year-old Venezuelan who has made six starts, gone 27 innings, only 17 hits, five earned runs, eight walks, and twenty-four strikeouts.

Before you panic, remember we went 5 – 20 last season during a 25 game stretch

Phil Gurnee ♦ May 14, 2018 ♦ 3 Comments

It is easy to panic when the record is 16 – 24 to start a season but every season will have hot and cold streaks. I’m sure no one has forgotten the Dodgers went 5 – 20 from Aug 26th to Sept 20th in 2017 on the way to 104 wins. If the 2017 team had started out 5 – 20  everyone would have been making October vacation plans.

The question we have to ask ourselves doesn’t relate to the record of 16 – 24, the question we have to ask ourselves is “Can a team who won 104 games the previous year and made very few changes to the team really become this bad a team?” There is a reason the season is 162 games long but with 25% of the season already in the tank, the Dodgers have to play the rest of the year like a postseason contender team.

The good news for the Dodgers is that the Diamondbacks did not run away and hide as they also had a horrible week. They didn’t lose four to the Reds at home but they did lose four games at home to the Nationals and now carry a five-game losing streak into the upcoming week.  The Dodgers lost a huge opportunity to make up big ground on the Diamondbacks but at least they still have skin in the game.

The better news for the Dodgers is that Justin Turner is returning to the lineup on Tuesday. They have clearly missed everything about Justin Turner, from his bat, his glove, to his leadership. When Kyle Farmer and Matt Muncy are the replacements you have a right to question those of us who claimed the Dodgers were deep everywhere. Evidently, the Dodgers weren’t.  One of the arguments for the depth comments was Logan Forsythe. Logan was supposed to be able to play 3rd base at an above average replacement level, but instead was below replacement level when he took his predictable injuries back to the DL.  While JustinTurner is going to help the team, I’m not sure how much Logan Forsythe is.  I’m going to assume that Logan will not get the full-time gig at 2nd as imagined at the start of the year and will be in a strict platoon with Chase Utley. We can only hope that Logan remembers how to crush left-hand pitching and somehow along the way starts to hit RHP so that Chase can rest more as the season goes on. All this while staying healthy.  That is probably a false hope. I’m starting to feel that Logan will only hit well when completely healthy but the times where he is completely healthy will only be for a few weeks.

When I started writing this column my goal was to show that even in our 104 win season we had a stretch of horrible baseball that lasted for 25 games and that all is not lost in 2018 because of the 16 – 24 record on May 14th.

But…………………..the more I wrote the more I have to admit that this team just doesn’t feel like the past five teams.  Headed into the season the Dodgers had four legitimate top ten MVP candidates. Of those four:

• Seager is gone for the year
• Justin Turner has yet to play a game, and while he returns on Tuesday we have to expect he’ll take a while to get his game upto the level we have seen the past three years.
• Clayton Kershaw is already on the DL. The issue is hopefully minor and he’ll come back in a week or two and be ready to take his place as the ace of the rotation.
• Cody Bellinger is really starting to struggle with ten strikeouts in his last twenty-one plate appearances. He still has a decent OPS+ for the season, but he is clearly not a top ten MVP candidate which might be what the Dodgers need with Corey Seager out for the year.

With none of the MVP candidates performing at anything close to MVP level and one already gone for the year the rest of the team needs to step up and that simply isn’t happening beyond Walker Buehler, Yazmani Grandal, and Matt Kemp.

None of these comments below are unique to Dodger fans.

• The bullpen has to pitch better but I’m not sure the arms the Dodgers have accumulated in this bullpen are up to the task.  They might need to dig deeper and look at some prospects to help in the bullpen.  What Koehler can bring when he’s finally healthy is still a huge question mark. Alexander may have gotten it together. Venditte is a great story but has never had any sustained major league success. It is doubtful that will change in 2018.  Baez is………..Baez. Cingrani was brilliant, then wasn’t and is now hurt. Anyway, five-inning starters are a big deal when the bullpen is not a lockdown bullpen but a sieve of runs.
• Ryu is gone until Aug which is only a big deal because he was the best pitcher in the rotation when he got hurt.
• Kenta and Hill are 2/5 of the rotation and neither has pitched consistent enough to lay claim to a rotation spot on a contending team.
• Roberts is making questionable in-game moves game after game.  He’d be a great seven-inning game manager but it seems his moves are made without regard to how his roster would play out in the 9th when he has emptied the bench. Maybe that was why he let Ross Stripling hit the other day in a key situation.
• Walker Buehler is pitching great, but that means he is also eating up his precious innings in May.
• Jansen was allowed to do whatever he wanted this spring and wasn’t ready for the season. He is now getting outs, but he still isn’t Kenley Jansen.
• The second best hitter in May so far has been Matt Muncy………..
• The defense seems less with Taylor at SS and Kiké/Joc manning CF instead of Kiké at SS and Taylor manning CF but that could simply be perception.

Is this team good enough to make a run from the depths they are currently sitting at? Probably. Are they good enough to make the postseason without a trade to upgrade the rotation, bullpen, or infield? Probably not.

Right now the Dodgers just need to accomplish some baby steps.

• The first step is to win a series. The last series they won was against the Nationals back on April 22nd.
• The second step would be to win a week
• The third step is to get back to .500
• The fourth step is winning enough to put their hat back into the wild card ring
• The fourth step if they can accomplish the first four baby steps is to get back in the Nl West Divison race.

I would bet on the team having the legs for the first three steps, I’m not betting on steps four and five unless different legs are added to the team.

Jansen and Dodgers winding into shape

Phil Gurnee ♦ May 10, 2018 ♦ Leave a comment

Kenley Jansen still isn’t striking out anyone, but he is getting weak contact and is no longer walking anyone which bodes well for future Dodger fortunes.

Date   Inngs              Dec   IP  H ER BB SO HR
May1                  8-GF(8)  1.0  1  0  1  1  0
May2    9-GF             S(4)  1.0  1  1  1  0  0
May3    9-GF             S(5)  1.0  0  0  0  0  0
May8                     9-10  2.0  1  0  0  1  0
May9    9-GF             S(6)  1.0  0  0  0  0  0
             

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/10/2018.

Also boding well for the Dodgers was the return of Yasiel Puig who quickly made an impact with two of his three hits being key to keeping a rally going. Scott Alexander was another key part of the cavalry getting four key outs to bridge the gap for an ineffective J.T. Chargois to Kenley Jansen.  For the first time this year, Scott Alexander looked like the guy the Dodgers traded for this past winter.

Justin Turner and Logan Forsythe should both be joining the team next week along with Clayton Kershaw.  Seager is never coming back and Ryu won’t be available until after the all-star break so unless the Dodgers make a deal, this is the team that will be tasked with hunting down the League leading Arizona Diamondbacks.

With all that due to happen soon, the potent three Dodger catcher offense will take a seat, hopefully never to be seen again. They had their highlight of the season in the bottom of the six with the score tied at 1. Starting catcher Yasmani Grandal starting the inning off with a single.  After Bellinger struck out, back up catcher playing second base Austin Barnes plopped a single into left-center field. Puig followed with a single to left putting the go-ahead run on 3rd base with one out and the third-string catcher playing 3rd base Kyle Farmer up. All the Dodgers needed was a fly ball, and Farmer delivered just that driving in Grandal. The Dodgers had their first lead since May 5th.

With eight games back the Dodgers are in a world of hurt. They will have to have a hot streak at some point this year. I don’t expect the Diamondbacks to fold, as they have stayed the National League’s best team even though they have suffered many key injuries and their best hitter has been in a season-long slump.  In a few days, they will get back their all-star 3rd baseman. They just got back their starting right fielder. Their best pitcher should be rejoining them soon.

In a week the Dodgers will have no more excuses, and the road to the postseason in 2018 will be tougher than any road they have had in the Dave Roberts era. The ride will be bumpy, but it could be worth it if they can pull this off.

Reviewing the updated Fangraphs top 23 LAD Prospect List

Phil Gurnee ♦ May 9, 2018 ♦ Leave a comment

Fangraphs dropped their updated LAD top 23 Prospect list today, and I have to admit I have some quibbles with it.  Acknowledging they know way more than I do about such things I still feel the need to put in my two cents.

This is a good article to read as they also address many other parts of the farm system besides the top-ranked 23. I do wonder why they stop at 23, it seems like such an odd number. I should probably ask (and I did).  10, 15, 20, 25, or 30. But they stop at 23. Must be a reason.

At this point, Yadier Alvarez is simply projection, but I don’t think you can rank someone that high simply based on projection when his actual production has been terrible.  Dennis Santana, on the other hand, has had to earn his way up the ranking because he didn’t come in with a multi-million dollar bonus and has had to prove himself at every level.  Santana is probably going to pitch in the major leagues this year and it could be an impactful debut. For me, Santana is clearly the Dodgers second-best pitching prospect and maybe even the top pitching prospect now that Walker is in the Dodger rotation.

You can really tell the scouting against the production when it comes to Alvarez and Ferguson. Alvarez gives up more runs in one inning than Ferguson has done all year and Ferguson can’t crack their top 23 list. Ferguson is mentioned later in the article but this seems like a huge omission for a Dodger top 23 prospect ranking list.

Jordan Sheffield is still listed as a top ten prospect. He doesn’t appear to be a major league rotation arm so if his future is in the bullpen just how dominant can he be in that role? We won’t know until he makes that transition and he might never do that until he’s actually asked to pitch in the major leagues.

I’d be moving Diaz and Lux into top ten, along with Connor Wong just sitting outside looking in.  Diaz was just added to the Baseball America top 100 updated list, granted he barely made the cut.  I may be getting ahead of myself with Lux but he is a shortstop and possibly the only shortstop in the Dodger system who might have a major league career in front of him.  He’s also a left-handed shortstop and I love those.

They did mention in the article that a concern for Ruiz is based on historical issues related to his age.  I’m ignoring those concerns myself and instead considering the fact that a 19-year-old has been so fast tracked by the Dodgers that they must love him internally because there is no actual reason the Dodgers needed to put Ruiz at AA after less than half a year at Rancho.

The only other concerns here are the attrition rate of teenage catching prospects generally and Ruiz’s lack of athleticism specifically.

The final sentence is a hurtful one.

It’s a very well-funded operation that looks poised to sustain success for a while, even as the pitching at the big-league level grows flimsy and old.

Rich Hill is flimsy and old but that broad brush wouldn’t appear to apply to the rest of the rotation. I’d have said “Flimsy or Old”. As Alex Wood is flimsy but not old.  I simply can’t say that Kershaw is flimsy even as he hits the DL again.  I have a different opinion of what “flimsy” is.

Papa Down, long may you run

Phil Gurnee ♦ May 8, 2018 ♦ 3 Comments

I’m not sure how to best measure a man or if I’m the person who has the right to put a ruler on a man given all of my own shortcomings, but I’m going to give it a shot here.

A  man passed away today, a man I didn’t know that well but always enjoyed the few times we were in company together. Papa Down came from the truebluela community, one of the few father/son combinations on the board. Possibly the only father/son combination that I’m aware of.  They were a bit of an odd pair with Bobby Down being the enthusiastic young man who was but a boy when he started commenting on truebluela and his father, the grizzled veteran who had seen more than most of us and sometimes let us know just how ignorant we were.

This may end up being more about Bobby Down than about Papa Down because I know more about Bobby. Papa was indeed a character, he looked like someone who was cast as a character actor for any bar shot. The patron that everyone knew, not just at that particular bar but at every bar in Simi Valley.  Except Papa Down wasn’t a character actor, he was indeed that character.  I know this to be true because I had an occasional drink with Papa Down and just the sound of his voice would bring people over to say hi to him, even if they had not seen him in years. The bartender, the patrons, and even the beer vendors.  It kind of felt like you were having lunch with the Godfather of Simi Valley. That is how I remember him.

Was he a good man? I don’t know enough about him to say that for sure. What I do know is that he raised one of the most polite young men I’ve ever met, and if the saying is true that the apple doesn’t fall far from the cart, I would guess that Papa Down was indeed a good man with rough edges who probably had friends everywhere he went.  His life may have been cut short today, but he left this world with a family who loved him, a multitude of friends, and the knowledge that he’ll be missed because of the life he led.

We should all be so lucky.