With little to fix the Dodgers do little
Headed into day three of the winter meetings the Dodgers have done nothing to enhance the team that got within one game of being the 2017 World Champions but we did learn a few things.
We learned once again that Houston feasted on Yu Darvish because he was tipping his pitches but Dave Roberts felt it was more about execution. We could moan a bit about using a pitcher that management kind of knew was tipping his pitches but that is now history so what would be the point?
Today, the Dodgers lost free agent Brandon Morrow to the Cubs. Morrow was one of the many feel-good stories from the 2017 Dodgers and while I don’t hope his arm problems come back, I do hope that he doesn’t hurt the Dodgers in the 2018 postseason while pitching for the Cubs. Then again maybe he can talk Joe Maddon into using him in the postseason after he had pitched in consecutive games and had nothing left, thus allowing the Dodgers to pound him as Houston pounded him in game five.
The Dodgers said they don’t have any holes, and they are right. They don’t. I speculated on how much fun it would be to have Stanton as a Dodger but they sure didn’t need him.
They will need to replace Brandon Morrow and that will happen.
What else can they do?
Every spot on the team is taken except left field. Left Field will be an open competition between Toles/Pederson/Verdugo unless Adrian Gonzalez takes some David Ortiz medicinals and proves he can play 1st base on a regular basis in which case the three mentioned will take a back seat to Mr. Bellinger.
Toles was the starting left fielder in 2017 before he got hurt.
Pederson was the starting center fielder in 2017 until he lost the job late in the season to Chris Taylor.
Alex Verdugo is the best positional prospect in the Dodger farm system. Not really, we all know that is Keibert Ruiz but we will pander to those who still think otherwise.
Left field could use an upgrade, but I expect the Dodgers to run with what they have.
Starting pitching seems to run deep.
Kershaw, Rich Hill, Wood, Kenta Maeda, Ryu, McCarthy, Buehler, Stewart, Kazmir.
Yeah, yeah, yeah – I can see a hole. About the size of Yu Darvish. Maybe Walker Texas Ranger Buehler can fill it. They say he’s one of the top three pitching prospects in all of baseball.
Fact is, the team is 95% set for 2017. Might as well take a nap and wake up on March 1st.
Invigorated with Wonder
There is no way to sugar coat how the last twelve months have made me feel about being part of these United States. I understand two party realities but I don’t understand the hatred I’ve seen being delivered by a percentage of our population.
We can disagree on abortion, economic issues, tax cuts, spending cuts, health care but when it comes to outright hate for people because of color or religion I just don’t get it.
I never have.
As I watched the Nazi’s march on TV this past summer in Charlottesville, nausea was the overwhelming feeling that struck and stayed with me. I know only a small percentage of Americans felt this way but the fact that in 2017 any percent felt this way just left me with the idea that the human race will never be able to overcome its own insecurities and that the future would continue to repeat historical horrors.
We all have different perspectives, but from my own perspective, many of my early heroes were people of color and that has continued as I age into pointlessness. I can’t imagine a life for me that didn’t include those of non-Christian faith and people of color.
One of my greatest heroes has always been Stevie Wonder. I was lucky enough to see Stevie Wonder at the Coliseum back when Roman Gabriel was still the Los Angeles Ram QB. That was before Talking Book and Innervisions. It was a fun show and has its own story, but this story is not about that. I was lucky enough to get tickets to his show this past Sunday. It is the 21st year that Stevie Wonder has done his “House Full of Toys” show. Stevie is all about love, having written some of the greatest love songs of any generation. But I’m not about love, my cup of tea is the gritty Living for the City. It rang true in 1973 and it still rings true today. I know how easy my life was because of my color. I worked hard, but I got in the door because of the color of my eyes. Many never get in that door.
I don’t have a bucket list but if I did have one, hearing Stevie Wonder do Living for the City would have been on the list, and I would have crossed that off this past Sunday at Staples. I can’t express the joy I felt when he broke into that song, and let me tell you, he owned that song. No going through the motions. I would have felt worse if he had half-hearted the song, but he put his full emotional payload into it and gave me a moment in my life I’ll never forget. If you can’t leave a Stevie Wonder concert without feeling uplifted you are simply to far gone.
And man did I need to be uplifted.
Tonight was another shot in the arm. Sports bloggers aren’t supposed to talk about politics but politics today are bigger than sports. I never felt that Roy Moore could be defeated but everyone worked hard for a goal that seemed foolhardy to even consider. Those people who never gave up, those are heroes. From several thousand miles away I just have thanks for Doug Jones running a classy campaign, for not giving up on the Alabama conscience, for the endless hours’ volunteers put in to help Don Quixote slay the demon, the #meetoo movement for putting a light on a subject that had been hidden in the basement for most of human recorded history. It is going to take a lot of baby steps to defeat the monster at our doorstep, but this was a big baby step.
I’m going to bed tonight with a slice of hope for our own national conscience.
Can the Dodgers have their Stanton and eat it too?
Supposedly the Dodgers would like to get under the luxury tax threshold this winter but Derek Jeter is throwing a monkey wrench into this by deciding to trade the greatest active player who played high school ball within 100 miles of Dodgers Stadium.
Grant Brisbee thinks it is a done deal that the Dodgers will end up with Giancarlo.
I was wondering if the Dodgers could not only trade for Stanton but also get under the luxury tax for 2018.
This is going to involve math.
This is going to involve the Eric Stephen Special – his Dodger payroll worksheet.
This is going to involve speculation
Getting Stanton doesn’t seem so hard. The Marlins want to trade him, he has a huge contract making him less desirable for teams who don’t have the capital to afford him, he has a no-trade contract and would like to play for the Dodgers. He would like to play for a winner so I don’t think the Giants are exactly in play for him given their present and probable future situation.
What is hard, is adding Stanton and his contract and staying under the threshold for 2018. A task made harder by the horrible Cuban contracts still on the books for Oliveras / Erisbel Arruebarrena / Yaisel Sierra. According to Eric $10M is still owed Arruebarrena and Sierra for 2018 but he does not have Oliveras on his worksheet. Baseball Reference says we owe Oliveras. I’ll always trust Eric on this and go with the $10M for the two players mentioned. Not only did the Dodgers get zero return on an investment of $50M but that cost is now problematic as they try to get below the Luxury Tax in 2018.
Still, it could be accomplished but how? And the bigger question besides how, is should they?
| 2018 | 28 | $25,000,000 | 7.118 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 29 | $26,000,000 | |||
| 2020 | 30 | $26,000,000 | may opt out of contract following 2020 season | ||
| 2021 | 31 | $29,000,000 | |||
| 2022 | 32 | $29,000,000 | |||
| 2023 | 33 | $32,000,000 | |||
| 2024 | 34 | $32,000,000 | |||
| 2025 | 35 | $32,000,000 | |||
| 2026 | 36 | $29,000,000 | |||
| 2027 | 37 | $25,000,000 | |||
| 2028 | 38 | $25,000,000 | |||
Working with $25M for 2018, we need to turn to the Eric Stephen Luxury tax worksheet we mentioned above. The Luxury Tax in 2018 will be $197M. According to Eric the Dodgers are currently at $179M for 20 players on a 40 man roster.
If we add Stanton that puts the Dodgers at $214 for 21 players on a 40 man roster.
So we need to do some serious deducting.
Since the Marlins are trying to get out from under the Stanton contract the only way the Dodgers can deal with them is if they take some bad contracts back from the Dodgers that will expire after 2018. That won’t be hard as the team has a series of bad contracts that expire in 2018.
I’m speculating that two bad contracts and four other parts could persuade the Marlins to make the move.
Scott Kazmir is one. According to Eric his Luxury Tax salary for 2018 would be $15M. That is a nice place to start.
Brandon McCarthy is another one. Again, according to Eric his Luxury Tax salary for 2018 would be $12M.
Boom you just removed $27M from your payroll while adding $25M.
But hey, if you going to ask the Marlins to take Kazmir and McCarthy you have to give them some toys.
Joc Pederson and Alex Verdugo would be some nice toys for them. Two possible cost-controlled starting outfielders for years to place around Yelich. Pederson is estimated to make $2M in 2018 from arbitration.
Right now you have given them two starting pitchers whose contracts expire in 2018. If either of them show anything they might be able to flip them this summer and get more toys. If they don’t, they are done with the contracts after 2018.
You have a starting left or right fielder in Joc Pederson. Plenty of warts but plenty of promise.
I already see a problem here. Three left-handed outfielders. The assumption here is that Marcell Ozuna will also be traded as he’s about to get very expensive and would bring back some very nice parts.
I’m going to swap out Alex Verdugo with Enrique Hernandez who is only estimated to make $1.3M in 2018. If the Marlins are able to deal Dee Gordon as they are trying to do, Hernandez can become their 2nd baseman. This is also a team that had Riddle and Miguel Rojas start 130 games at shortstop so you could see where Hernandez could be used.
The next two toys are just my speculation. One will be Wilmer Font the PCL pitcher of the year. He may or may not be anything but he’s worth the Marlins finding out.
The final toy has to be a real prospect. I would give them a choice between the right hand hitting CF Diaz or Dennis Santana. They were both in AA in 2017 and in most Dodger top ten prospect lists.
So what you have is Kazmir/McCarthy/Pederson/Hernandez/Font/Santana for the best power hitter in the National League in his prime.
You could easily argue the Dodgers don’t need Giancarlo Stanton. This was after all a team that just won 114 games, came one game short of a World Championship, and looks built to make another run in 2018 without Stanton.
But……… if you want to look not only at 2018 but after 2018 you might want someone like Stanton in your lineup.
Puig is probably gone after 2018 leaving a fairly large hole in RF. Stanton can fill this hole and when he fills the hole it will be a mountain.
You could also argue that Stanton isn’t healthy enough for the contract he has. I’m not sure getting hit in the face counts, and when it comes to health, recent bias works here and Stanton played 156 games in 2018. The most games any Dodger played in 2017 was 152 by Puig. You might remember that Puig also had health concerns entering 2017.
I kind of feel that Stanton is being discounted because of the contract and the fact he has the no-trade. If the price is right I think you do this deal provided the Marlins want to play ball with the 2018 contracts of Kazmir/McCarthy.
If you do that there are still plenty of ways to keep lowering the tab in 2018 before adding the contracts of the rest of the team.
Adrian Gonzalez certainly stands out. Adrian is a 10-5 guy but I doubt he wants to sit on the Dodger bench in his walk year. I would think that the Dodgers could find a team for Adrian if the Dodgers pay all but $5M of his salary, thus saving them $5M in 2017.
The Dodgers went with Austin Barnes as their starting catcher for most of the playoffs. Grandal was not hurt, he was simply made into the backup catcher. He’s due to make about $7.7M in arbitration this year. For a backup catcher. The Dodgers could either trade Grandal or simply not offer him arbitration thus freeing up another $8M (rounding up). A team with no conscious about their payroll budget could afford an $8M backup catcher. A team trying to get under the Luxury Tax cannot. Not with the unmoveable Cuban contracts still on the books. Just to show this isn’t complete speculation, a story appeared the day after I wrote this the the Dodgers are actively trying to trade Grandal.
“Rival clubs say #Dodgers are willing to trade catcher Yasmani Grandal, who is entering his final season of arbitration eligibility,” Morosi tweeted on Wednesday night. The Dodgers have not confirmed the report.
A projected 2018 team with Stanton:
1st – Bellinger, 2nd – Forsythe, SS – Seager, 3rd – Turner, C – Barnes
RF – Puig, CF – Taylor, LF – Stanton
Bench – Segedin, Toles, Thompson, Culberson, Backup Catcher type
Kershaw, Hill, Wood, Ryu, Maeda, Jansen, Cingrani, Avilan, Stewart, Stripling, Fields, Baez
Top prospects Verdugo and Buehler are still in AAA to start the year ready to help when injuries show up or they simply knock down the door. Others ready at AAA to help would be Locastro as the utility player and whoever they sign as veteran minor league depth.
A projected 2018 Lineup:
Taylor
Seager
Turner
Stanton
Bellinger
Puig
Forysthe
Barnes
Looks very intimidating does it not?
Of course, it does. But that is for 2018. And it will look just as good for 2019 – 2020. If Stanton ops out after 2020 isn’t that a win-win? That would mean he was so good over the prior three years that he and his agent feel they can do even better on the market than the huge contract he has. It also means the Dodgers would not be on the hook for the downside of his career.
The downside, of course, is that you would have Stanton on your books until the baseball age of 38. The final 3 – 5 years could just be Carl Crawford/Andre wasted money.
It could be. Stanton has no real comps. The closest physical specimen to him was Dave Winfield or Darryl Strawberry. Winfield was productive into his late 30’s. Straw of course had the huge drug problem and crashed early. It should also be noted that at the time the Dodgers got Strawberry he was also the best active player who had played baseball within 100 miles of Dodger Stadium. Unless it was Eric Davis.
Yikes
I created a leaderboard list to show what Stanton has accomplished. This is a list of every major league player 6’6 or more and what they had done by the age of 27 related to home runs.
Player HR Ht Age PA OBP SLG OPS Giancarlo Stanton 267 78 20-27 4120 .360 .554 .914 Adam Dunn 238 78 21-27 4098 .381 .519 .900 Darryl Strawberry 215 78 21-27 3928 .358 .520 .878 Troy Glaus 182 77 21-27 3479 .357 .497 .854 Frank Thomas 182 77 22-27 3492 .450 .593 1.044 Mark McGwire 178 77 22-27 3156 .351 .488 .839 Freddie Freeman 166 77 20-27 4304 .376 .496 .872 Dave Kingman 150 78 22-27 2456 .296 .482 .779 Richie Sexson 146 79 22-27 2645 .341 .521 .862 Dave Winfield 134 78 21-27 3869 .356 .466 .822 Derrek Lee 130 77 21-27 3314 .353 .467 .820 Tony Clark 127 80 23-27 2483 .351 .503 .855 Frank Howard 123 79 21-27 2321 .326 .495 .822 Jason Heyward 115 77 20-27 4502 .344 .412 .756 John Olerud 109 77 20-27 3689 .395 .471 .866 Mike Marshall 106 77 21-27 2550 .327 .457 .785
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/29/2017.
I don’t care what the Dodgers do. If they make the trade it would be exciting to have someone like Stanton on the team. If they don’t, the team itself will be exciting.
I just hope they are serious about getting under the luxury tax because anyone can simply outspend everyone else. I’d like to see what this management team can do while under some actual constraints.
Ira Glass and the deal with mothers
I recently saw Ira Glass the media heavyweight who does This American Life among many other things at the Ace Theatre in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday Night.
I’m not sure what kind of show I was expecting but it turned out to be interesting. There were some nuggets in there and some big surprises.
The biggest surprise for me came during the question and answer at the end of the show. During the show, Ira had mentioned several times that his mother had passed away about a decade ago. Ira started the show with an interesting clip about a mother and daughter conversation that didn’t show the mother in her best light.
The question from the audience was “How were you able to deal with the death of your mother, mine passed away 11 months ago and I’m still having a hard time with it”. The lady who asked the question did not get the answer she expected, nor did we.
Ira wasn’t flippant with his answer. He looked anguished for a few seconds before starting to answer. You could see the wheels turning as he grasped with how to answer such a personal question in a very public arena. Turns out that Ira Glass and his mother were not on the best of terms. Based on his answer it seemed that his parents never quite approved of his choice of a career. Can you imagine that? Ira Glass pretty much checks off every single successful checkpoint that a parent could have about what they would hope their child would accomplish. And yet, that wasn’t enough for his mother. Ira fought valiantly with his answer and blamed himself for not doing more to build the bridge.
I just left the show with the idea that if Ira Glass couldn’t please his mother then who could?
My own mother passed away two years ago this month. It had been a long time in coming so when she did pass away everyone in the family was prepared. I thought I was. I wrote the obituary.
Katherine Cordell Gurnee passed away on November 10th at the age of 86. Katherine was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1929. Her parents were Red and Cordell Koerner of Madison, Wisconsin. She was married at West Point, and her marriage lasted for 65 years to her high school sweetheart retired Lieutenant Colonel Paul L Gurnee; they had five children, nine grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
Katherine traveled the world with her military husband, having children in Puerto Rico, Alabama, and California. The places she called home as an officer’s wife were: Panama, Puerto Rico, Glendale California, Kentucky, Huntsville, Taiwan, Glendale, El Paso, Boston, Kansas, Germany, and Alexandria VA. When her husband retired from the military, they moved to Glendale, CA and spent the next 35 years there. During that time she assisted in her mother’s seamstress business and was much sought after for her seamstress skills. In 2006, in an effort to be closer to their oldest son they moved to Ferndale.
By that time Katherine was in ill health but tried to be as active in the Church of the Assumption Parish as her health would allow. Over her lifetime she spent many hours working with various Catholic charities, devoting her time and money. In Ferndale she became a voracious reader and was a regular at the Ferndale Library.
She is survived by her
Husband Paul L Gurnee
Siblings: William Koerner and Marette Troller
Children: Paul (Gretchen), Peter, Chris (Cheryl), Tom (Debbie), Phil (Verdell)
Grandchildren: Heather, Justin, Sara, Josh, Tanya, Kalia, Eli, Eme, Ani
Greatgrandchildren: Cain, Cameron, Damien, Ayden, Holden
Her four Ferndale grandchildren were all valedictorians at the local Ferndale High School.
Her service will be held on Friday, Nov 20th, 1:00PM at Church of Assumption Catholic Church
The reception will be held after the memorial service at the Ferndale Omelette Factory in downtown Ferndale.
I’m not particularly proud of that obituary. There was no soul to it, it could have been written by an Autobot. I think a key reason was that by the time my mother had passed away we had not been able to have a meaningful conversation for years, and she had become a very embittered woman who was not a joy to be around.
Still, I wasn’t ready. I was the only person to speak at her service, and I thought I’d be able to handle it well. I didn’t. I barely got through the beginning, my point of speaking was to let the congregation that had shown up know who my mother was. They only knew an old lady in a wheelchair who had shown up eight years ago. They were unaware of all the work she had done raising her children, her grandchildren, and being a very active member of every Catholic church she became a part of. I think I accomplished that goal.
My mother had made lots of friends over her lifetime but by the time she passed away none of them would be there for her service. Just family and strangers who happened to attend the same church. I always think about stuff like that. If my Mom had passed away at the age of 60 in Glendale, Ca her service would have been loaded with people she had befriended. Now, nothing but family and strangers and even some family who lived in town didn’t make the service. My ex-wife sent some gorgeous flowers, it was greatly appreciated by myself and my father.
My mother was far from perfect but in retrospect what she was great at, was simply being a mother, and for a good part of her life a good grandmother. She wasn’t a good grand-mother at the end, but when the grandkids needed her to be a grandmother she was there for them and helped their families through some very tough times.
She was certainly judgemental, but what she didn’t do was allow those judgments to ever cloud her love for her children. All of her children had made decisions that were questionable, and while she may not have approved of them, she did her best to deal with us and continued to love us in the measure we needed from her. Her greatest disappointment had to be in our choices of worship. Her catholicism was the biggest part of her life, yet none of her five children became practicing Catholics. A few of us aren’t believers at all. She even dealt with that well, even though it had to eat at her.
As I hear from friends and watch other relatives who have had rough relationships with their mothers, I feel lucky that my mother felt that being a mother overrode her own thoughts on what her children should be accomplishing with their lives.
I had a mother
I was lucky
Baseball Prospectus Dodger Prospect top ten lists from Nov 2016 – Nov 2017
Now that Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America, and John Sickels have all done their Dodger top ten lists, let us look at how they compare this year and last year.
This particular article will focus on Baseball Prospectus.
Below the comments is a quick chart on Baseball Prospectus Dodger Rankings comparing Nov 2016 with Nov 2017.
Yadier Alvarez was ranked number one in Nov 2016 but he struggled most of the season, while Cody Bellinger won unanimous NL ROY honors. Jose De Leon was ranked 3rd before he was traded, and he basically missed the whole season to injury but didn’t pitch well even when he did get on the mound. The Dodgers traded the right pitcher for Logan Forsythe.
They have been high on Dustin May for two years now. Last year they didn’t rank him that high though eleven was still high for him, this year they really like him. If you read the article you can see just how much they like him as they gave him multiple paragraphs.
Ruiz was not even ranked last year and jumped to the 4th spot. That is what you call a prospect leap frog. He was mentioned in the Nov 2016 comments as someone who would have fallen into the next five, meaning 16 – 20.
Austin Barnes was not eligible due to service time issues but they said in the Nov 2016 comments that he would not have fallen into the top 10. I’d call that a whiff given what he produced at the major league level in 2017. If you are impressed with someone starting every game of a seven-game World Series anyway.
Mitchell White was able to crack the top ten this year coming in at 7 after being ranked in the 12-15 group last year.
Jeren Kendall was not in the system last Nov and immediately cracks the top ten with a ranking of eight in his first year of eligibility.
Gavin Lux is at number nine in both 2016 and 2017 rankings.
Jordan Sheffield is at number ten in both 2016 and 2017 rankings. I would have gone with Dennis Santana myself as I’m high on Santana but not on Sheffield, though the odds seem high that both will end up in the bullpen.
Starling Heredia is once again not ranked in the top 20 by either BA or BP. Sure hope John Sickels is right on this one and I fully expect Starling to have the largest leap at this time next year. They did mention Starling in the comments:
11/20He was discussed with a fair amount of vigor, and one of the last cuts. A testament to the system’s depth as much as anything. There’s a lot of thunder in his stick, but we’d like to see him in a longer sample against full-season pitching before we project him to hit enough for the thump to matter. Intriguing young hitter though, no doubt.
| ProspecName | BirthDate | AGE | League | 2018 BP | 2017BP |
| Walker Buehler | 7/28/1994 | 23 | AAA/MLB | 1 | 6 |
| Alex Verdugo* | 5/15/1996 | 21 | AAA/MLB | 2 | 4 |
| Yadier Alvarez | 3/7/1996 | 21 | AA | 3 | 1 |
| Keibert Ruiz | 7/20/1998 | 19 | A+ | 4 | NR |
| Dustin May | 9/6/1997 | 20 | A | 5 | 11 |
| Yusniel Diaz | 10/7/1996 | 21 | AA | 6 | 5 |
| Mitchell White | 12/28/1994 | 22 | AA | 7 | 12-15 |
| Jeren Kendall | 2/4/1996 | 21 | A | 8 | NA |
| Gavin Lux | 11/23/1997 | 19 | A | 9 | 9 |
| Jordan Sheffield | 6/1/1995 | 22 | A+ | 10 | 10 |
| Will Smith | 3/28/1995 | 22 | AA | 11 | 12-15 |
| Omar Estevez | 2/25/1998 | 19 | A+ | 12-20 | NR |
| Imani Abdullah | 4/20/1997 | 20 | ExtendedSpring | 12-20 | NR |
| Edwin Rios* | 4/21/1994 | 23 | AAA | 12-20 | NR |
| D.J. Peters | 12/12/1995 | 21 | A+ | 12-20 | NR |
| Trevor Oaks | 3/26/1993 | 24 | AAA | 12-20 | NR |
| Dennis Santana | 4/12/1996 | 21 | AA | 12-20 | NR |
| Caleb Ferguson* | 7/2/1996 | 21 | A+ | 12-20 | NR |
| Cristian Santana | 2/24/1997 | 20 | A+ | 12-20 | NR |
| Morgan Cooper | 9/12/1994 | 23 | DNP | 12-20 | NA |
| Cody Bellinger | 7/13/1995 | 22 | Majors | Graduated | 2 |
| Austin Barnes | 12/28/1989 | 27 | Majors | Graduated | NA |
| Brock Stewart | 10/3/1991 | 26 | Majors | Graduated | 12-15 |
| Andrew Toles* | 5/24/1992 | 25 | Majors | Graduated | 7 |
| Starling Heredia | 2/6/1999 | 18 | A | NR | NR |
| Johan Mieses | 7/13/1995 | 22 | AA | Oops | 12-15 |
| Jose De Leon | 8/7/1992 | 25 | Tampa | Traded | 3 |
| Willie Calhoun* | 11/4/1994 | 23 | Texas | Traded | 8 |
Dodger prospect updates from BA, Fangraphs, and John Sickels
Baseball America just came out with their Dodger top ten prospect list.
Dodgers Top 10 Prospects per Baseball America
- 1. Walker Buehler, RHP
- 2. Alex Verdugo, OF
- 3. Keibert Ruiz, C
- 4. Mitchell White, RHP
- 5. Yadier Alvarez, RHP
- 6. Yusniel Diaz, OF
- 7. Jeren Kendall, OF
- 8. DJ Peters, OF
- 9. Will Smith, C
- 10. Dennis Santana, RHP
Read more at https://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2018-los-angeles-dodgers-top-10-prospects/#YOKli2hf64SP63kW.99
This comes on the heels of John Sickels last week, and Fangraphs earlier in September.
The consensus is starting to build about the top ten.
Walker Buehler is clearly the top prospect in the system and some consider him the top pitching prospect in the game.
Alex Verdugo continues to hold off Keibert Ruiz for the top positional prospect though I believe that is more about Verdugo knocking on the major league door than it is about who will have the more productive major league career.
Yadier Alvarez and Mitchell White will battle for the next best pitching prospect. This is a testament to how pedestrian a season that Alvarez had after being the top pitching prospect headed into 2016 and how much of a jump White made in 2017.
Dennis Santana is now on everyone’s radar and appears to be a consensus top ten prospect who will probably battle Dustin May for the next pitching prospect after Buehler/Alvarez/White. The Dodgers have five legit starting pitchers with four of them having pitched in at least AA. Some still consider Santana a future bullpen piece and if the rotation gets too crowded it is easy to see that scenario unfold. Especially when considering that Urias is not even being mentioned.
Dodgers have a nice group of outfielders but Sickels is on the outside looking in regarding DJ Peters, as Baseball America has him ranked 8th, just behind Diaz and Kendall. John and I disagree on DJ Peters but we agree on Starling Heredia who we both expect to eventually be better than all of them. Baseball America did not put Starling into their top ten.
Dodgers have two catchers in the top ten with Keibert Ruiz and Will Smith but Ruiz is just 19 while Smith is 22 so expect to see Smith long before we see Keibert.
The Dodgers have no infielders in the top ten unless you consider catchers, infielders. This is clearly their weakest spot but it is possible that Lux and Erroll Robinson will be making a move up. Robinson is the under the radar prospect while Lux might be ready to show why he was the 2016 number one pick. Tim Locastro tore up AAA so I’m curious what he does in 2018. Edwin Rios was unable to crack the BA top ten, Sickels also showed him little respect. The best Dodger minor league hitter for two years in a row is just not getting much respect, the scouts may know something.
The Baseball America starting lineup for the future in 2021 is always a silly exercise. I’m not sure how Joc Pederson can be listed as the projected starting center fielder in 2021 when he most likely won’t even be the starting center fielder in 2018.
Things of note among the skills:
Locastro is listed as the fastest player in the Dodger system. I saw this guy play in the 2016 AFL, I would have lost a lot of money if someone had told me that he would be the fastest Dodgers in the organization a year later. Especially when they added Jeren Kendall.
Errol Robinson is listed as the best defensive infielder even though Drew Jackson has the best arm.
As expected Alex Verdugo is listed with the best outfield arm but number one pick Jeren Kendall is listed as the best defensive outfielder.
John Sickels is bearish on Dodger number one pick
John Sickels reviewed the Dodgers minor league system and presented his rankings and grades. John ranked 2017 number one pick Jeren Kendall at eight behind Diaz and Heredia. That doesn’t seem very bearish but he was the number one pick in 2017 and in the comment section he said he agreed with a very bearish comment about Kendall.
I think it is too soon to be discounting his considerable baseball skills based on a few hundred at-bats in the tough MidWestLeague. He came right from college into pro ball, and it is doubtful any Dodger tinkering has had an effect yet. They may be right that his contact skills are going to be his downfall but I kind of see his floor as Drew Stubbs and if he can manage to get his contact skills under control, I’m not sure what his ceiling is. He also needs to work on his baserunning skills because for someone with his speed, those caught stealing numbers are abysmal. As Marc Hulet from Fangraphs noted, let’s give the excellent Dodger development team a chance with him.
I’m really interested to see what the Dodgers’ player development staff can do with him. He has a chance to be an all-star even if he hits .250.
I also completely disagree with his evaluation of DJ Peters and I expect time to show that he whiffed on his future production. DJ is going to be a playa
As expected most everyone is jumping on the Keibert Ruiz bandwagon. I said back in June that he was the Dodgers best positional prospect when he wasn’t even in the conversation and now he’s right behind Mr. Verdugo. By the time the spring rankings come out I still expect that everyone will have jumped completely on his bandwagon and the rankings will show this.
Trevor Oaks barely pitched this year but he was listed above 2016 number one pick Gavin Lux. Not that he’s bullish on Oaks, he has him listed as 13th and Lux 15th. Not exactly where you want your 2016 number one pick to be at. At noted here before Lux had a very strong finish to what had been a very disappointing season. If he can carry that forward he might be able to take a huge step forward. That Drew Jackson is even within shouting distance of Lux on the shortstop depth chart doesn’t make sense to me. Drew had his supporters in the comment section but I really don’t get it. The ISO popped in the Cal League but once he was promoted to AA it went right back to the horrible .90 level. He is 23 years old and has played most of his considerable minor league career in A ball without much offensive success. I would certainly rather have Errol Robinson over Drew Jackson, but I hope that Lux can put to rest who is the best Dodger shortstop prospect by kicking some ass in 2019.
I’d say he’s bullish on these players not so much on how he ranked them but based on how I expect others to rank them.
Estevez, Oaks, Beatty, and Drew Jackson.
Bearish on:
Jeren Kendall, Gavin Lux, Edwin Rios, DJ Peters
In the comments, Matt Beatty is getting more love than Edwin Rios which seems improper but they might be right. Beatty had a surprisingly great year and if the left handed hitting corner infielder can play a passable third, he might carve out a major league career, something no one was saying one year ago.
Verdugo is the only major league ready outfielder in the system with Diaz/Peters probably not ready until at least 2019. Depending on how the Dodgers do free agency and settle the Adrian Gonzalez situation they may have an opening in left field. A battle for left field between Verdugo and Toles would make for an interesting spring.
I have to admit I’m not as high on Verdugo as the prospect folk. Marc Hulet loves him but I’m not sure I can trust a Marc with a C instead of a K.
Verdugo has an advanced approach at the plate and really understands what he’s doing — but he sacrifices pop to hit for average and make consistent contact. He’ll probably make an excellent No. 2 hitter who will score a ton of runs and perhaps flirt with a batting title or two if he keeps the current approach
I’m not sure what Vedugo gives you that Andrew Toles does not but evidently, I’m on the wrong page. Toles is older but just as toolsy. Verdugo has the better arm, but Toles kills him in speed. Both have average pop with excellent plate discipline.
I understand Verdugo being the number one positional prospect because he had a solid year at AAA at a very young age. But he wasn’t playing in the California League and tearing it up at 18/19 as a catcher now was he?
Tim Locastro wants to know what is up? Timmy blew up AAA, blew the minds of many when he was added to the Dodger roster and was being considered for the postseason. I never thought of Locastro as a burner but there he was being considered for the spot of speed merchant.
Kyle Farmer has a very very small window to impress. If the Dodgers keep both Barnes and Grandal this winter, Farmer is headed back to AAA. Will Smith looks to have better baseball tools across the board than Farmer and will be playing in AA and possibly AAA in 2018. Behind both of them is Keibert Ruiz who was playing high A ball at the age of 18 and should be two years away but who knows. Connor Wong seems to be in the exact same mold as Barnes/Farmer/Smith, an athletic infielder who was turned into a catcher. It will be interesting to see if the classic catcher Keibert will be better than the transitional catchers. I’m betting on Ruiz.
Largest and smallest take MVP honors
Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge are about as opposite as you can get on a baseball field but they both had MVP type seasons and that might be why baseball is the greatest game of all. No matter how big or how small, desire and athletic skill can get you on the big stage. Jose Altuve won the AL MVP as he continues to morph into this generations Joe Morgan complete with World Series ring.
The giant Giancarlo Stanton had to fight off Votto and Goldschmidt to win his NL MVP.
Dodgers got little love in MVP voting for a team that won a franchise-tying record of 104 wins. Which of course made me wonder, how did other teams that have won 102 or more games do in MVP voting.
Let us find out.
2016 – Cubs won 103 games, Kris Bryant won the MVP
2011 – Phillies won 102 games but the highest ranked was the recently deceased Doc Halladay who placed 9th. They had five players receive an MVP vote including ex-Dodgers Carlos Ruiz, Shane Victorino. That seems to be the best comp for the Dodgers in that numerous players received an MVP vote but no one was considered one of the top five players in the league. A team effort indeed.
2009 – NYY won 103 games but they went a different route than the Phillies. They also had five players get MVP votes but two of them Teixeira and Jeter finished 2nd and 3rd in the voting.
2004 – Cardinals won 105 games and were 3/4/5 in the voting with Pujols / Rolen / Edmunds. That was kind of how I thought it was going for the Dodgers in July with Bellinger/Turner/Seager.
2002 – the NYY and A’s both won 103 games. Miguel Tejeda of the A’s won the MVP. Zito and Chavez were 13th and 14th, with Billy Koch plugging in at 18. The NYY placed 3rd, 5th, and 10th, with Soriano, Giambi, and Bernie Williams.
2001 – the historical 116 win season by the Mariners. Remember when the Dodgers were on track to better that as last as July 31st? Ichiro won the MVP vote and steroid poster child Brett Boone was 3rd.
Okay, that is it for the 21st century which is where I’ll stop.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 