Matt Beaty belongs here

♦ June 24, 2019 ♦ 1 Comment

Every Dodger position rookie is making their mark this year and Matt Beaty is no exception. I haven’t looked at the statcast data, but it seems every time he makes contact it is hard contact. Matt was doing everything right, and yet because of the Rich Hill injury, he was sent down last Wednesday.  He didn’t take his flight to Oklahoma and it seemed awful convenient that Josh Sborz suffered an injury that would put him on the injured list so that Matt could rejoin the team in time for the series with the Rockies.

Good thing that the Dodgers never planned on sending Matt to Oklahoma because he was a big part of the Dodger walk-off sweep of the Rockies this past weekend. Matt had been making most of his starts at 1st base but with the Dodgers thinking long term they moved Matt to LF and gave Joc Pederson his first major league start at 1st base. Matt is not an outfielder and Joc is not a 1st baseman but if/when AJ Pollock comes back if Joc is going to play that means he may need to learn how to play 1st base because Cody and Alex are going to be in RF/CF every night for a while. Matt made his mark by hitting the walk-off home run and is now part of major league history by being part of the Dodger Rookie trio who hit back to back to back rookie walk-off home runs this weekend.

That might be the highlight of his career. Or it might just be the start of his career. Max Muncy and others have broken what we expect of AAAA level players. It is very possible that Matt Beaty has the hit tool to have an impactful major league career. I won’t pretend to know what is in store, but what he has done for the Dodgers in June has already had an impact on the team. His ability to play 1st, allowed Max Muncy to move to 2nd, and Max shocked me (maybe everyone) with how well he has handled second base. The Dodgers looked down the road and decided that Joc needed to play 1st base, which tells me all I need to know about who they expect to be on the roster when AJ Pollock comes off the injured list. Unless something happens at the traded deadline it won’t be Matt Beaty but if the Dodgers earn a ring, Matt Beaty will have earned the right to wear that ring.

 

Alex Verdugo lights up Chavez Ravine

♦ June 24, 2019 ♦ 1 Comment

With the injury to AJ Pollock, Alex Verdugo has planted himself in centerfield and in the hearts of Dodger fans. I don’t want to talk for all Dodger fans but for this fan, his spirit and play has supplanted the fun that Yasiel Puig used to deliver. This comes as a shock to me for several reasons.

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t a big fan of Alex Verdugo when I first saw him play for the Dodgers. He had the excellent minor league pedigree but there was something that just didn’t sit right with me. Most of it probably had to do with the massive gold chain that seemed out of place but that was just a reactionary response from someone who has never understood the place that jewelry has in our society.  Once I got over that I still had the feeling that he simply wasn’t going to be good enough to be an everyday outfielder for a team hunting for a World Championship.

Instead, Verdugo just might be the player you need to win a World Championship.  He can hit for average, for power, has decent speed, good arm, makes contact, and plays the game hard. Verdugo may not be great at anything but he’s good at everything you want a player to be good at. The scouting reports said he wasn’t a center-fielder – that seems to be wrong. He’s played a solid centerfield. Not great, but certainly adequate.  The scouting reports said he wouldn’t have the power needed in today’s game – the dude hit the longest home run of any Dodger and this team has Cody Bellinger on it

I’m not a big antic fan, and Verdugo has plenty of antics, and the fans are eating it up. I always thought if the fans are having fun who am I to get in the way. If they want to hit beach balls, let em hit beach balls. If they want to do the wave, let them do the wave. If they like their players doing bat flips, dancing in the dugout, doing shimmy things, crazy wild home run greetings. Whatever, we are all at the game to have fun. Your fun is not my fun but why should I get in the way of your fun?

Verdugo is fun. and he’s good. and he might have been exactly what the Dodgers needed.

The ridiculousness of Will Smith

♦ June 24, 2019 ♦ 1 Comment

Will Smith entered the 2019 season stuck between the present in Austin Barnes and the future in Keibert Ruiz. The Dodgers had signed Russell Martin to back up Austin Barnes which left Will Smith in AAA.  The good news for Will Smith is that the Dodgers didn’t trade for Realmuto or trade for any other catcher that would block Smith for the future position of Dodger catcher. The bad news for Smith was that Keibert Ruiz was right behind him, and many considered him the Dodger heir apparent at catcher, not Will Smith. At best it was thought that Smith might be able to grab a year before Ruiz showed up.

Given what Will Smith is doing, he might not only be the Dodger catcher of the future, he might be the Dodger catcher of the present. It wouldn’t take much of a case to show that Will Smith might be the Dodgers best option for catcher right now. Part of that is because of how awesome Will Smith has been, part of that is because Austin Barnes continues to look like 2018 Austin Barnes and not the hoped-for 2017 version.

How awesome has Will Smith been? He has a 1.006 OPS in AAA with fourteen home runs in only 147 plate appearances.  He has hit another three home runs as a Dodger in only nineteen plate appearances which have fueled his 1.148 major league OPS.  Home runs aren’t his only game, he has also walked thirty-three times in about 200 combined major / minor league plate appearances.  Among his three major league home runs are already two walk-off home runs with the latest coming yesterday.  Most major league players will go a complete career without a walk-off home run. He has two in his first twenty-two major league at-bats. If you want to forget the hitting because the most important job for a catcher is to run the pitching staff, he’s considered a top defensive catcher with good framing skills.  In short, Will Smith is probably a good guy to entrust as your starting catcher.

@clylealt has been telling me for several years that Will Smith is so good that he will be the Dodgers future catcher. She just might be right. 

@DustinNosler opined several weeks ago that the Dodgers should carry Will Smith on the roster because of the flexibility of all three Dodger catchers. I didn’t see how they could configure the roster to make this happen, but they should probably do exactly that.  

 

Walker Buehler is on the board

♦ June 24, 2019 ♦ 1 Comment

At the beginning of the year, I thought Walker Buehler would be in the Cy Young conversation but as April turned to May that thought was long gone from my memory. On June 21st, Walker reminded me why I had such lofty thought for him when he pitched a complete game with sixteen strikeouts.

I thought the Walker Buehler game on Friday night was going to be the best game score of 2019 but I must not have paid enough attention to the game that German Marquez threw on April 14th when he threw a one-hit shutout. Still, the game on Friday night by Buehler was the best game by a Dodger this year and it did include the most strikeouts in one game by any pitcher this year.

Player                    Date  Rslt  IP H ER BB SO GSc
German Marquez      2019-04-14 W 4-0 9.0 1  0  0  9  94
Sandy Alcantara     2019-05-19 W 3-0 9.0 2  0  1  8  90
Walker Buehler      2019-06-21 W 4-2 9.0 3  2  0 16  89
Freddy Peralta      2019-04-03 W 1-0 8.0 2  0  0 11  89
Noah Syndergaard    2019-05-02 W 1-0 9.0 4  0  1 10  88
Hyun-Jin Ryu        2019-05-12 W 6-0 8.0 1  0  1  9  88

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/24/2019.

Player                 Date  Rslt  IP H ER BB SO GSc
Walker Buehler   2019-06-21 W 4-2 9.0 3  2  0 16  89
Max Scherzer     2019-06-02 W 4-1 8.0 3  1  1 15  86
Jacob deGrom     2019-04-03 W 6-4 7.0 3  0  1 14  84

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/24/2019.

This game has to be one of the most dominant games by a right-handed LAD pitcher using strikeout as the cherry-picked criteria? Let’s find out.

Yeah it was:

Player                 Date  Tm  Rslt  IP H ER BB SO GSc
Ramon Martinez   1990-06-04 LAD W 6-0 9.0 3  0  1 18  98
Hideo Nomo       1996-04-13 LAD W 3-1 9.0 3  1  3 17  91
Walker Buehler   2019-06-21 LAD W 4-2 9.0 3  2  0 16  89
Hideo Nomo       1995-06-14 LAD W 8-5 8.0 6  2  2 16  74

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/24/2019.

Only four right-handed LAD pitchers have struck out at least 16 hitters and Walker Buehler is now one of them. Granted strike-outs in 2019 are as prevalent as lies by POTUS compared to the historical past but still, you have to count them.

This was also the best game score by Walker in his brief career, with two his best game scores coming in the month of June.

Date          Tm Opp  Rslt  IP H ER BB SO GSc
2019-06-21   LAD COL W 4-2 9.0 3  2  0 16  89
2019-06-03   LAD ARI W 3-1 8.0 2  1  0 11  85
2018-09-14   LAD STL W 3-0 8.0 2  0  2  9  85

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/24/2019.

With his dominant June, Walker is once again making a case for the 2019 CYA. Max Scherzer has a sizable WAR lead but Max is 6 -5 and Walker is 8 – 1 and while wins don’t have the caveat they once had, they might still have enough to sway just enough voters. The chart below was created via export download from www.fangraphs.com. 

Name K/9 BB/9 ERA FIP xFIP WAR
Max Scherzer 12.36 1.86 2.62 2.2 3.01 4.2
Hyun-Jin Ryu 8.18 0.55 1.27 2.5 2.91 3.3
Jacob deGrom 11.23 1.86 3.25 3.04 3.17 2.8
Walker Buehler 9.85 1.28 2.96 2.88 3.25 2.6
German Marquez 9.05 1.96 4.32 3.61 3.43 2.6
Brandon Woodruff 10.88 2.39 4.01 3.07 3.35 2.5
Stephen Strasburg 10.59 2.38 3.79 3.4 3.2 2.4
Cole Hamels 8.76 3.1 2.92 3.55 3.99 2.3
Zack Greinke 7.68 1.24 2.91 3.45 3.72 2.2
Kyle Hendricks 7.64 1.63 3.36 3.49 4.16 2.2
Noah Syndergaard 8.81 2.27 4.55 3.61 4 2.1
Zack Wheeler 9.56 2.57 4.69 3.73 3.89 2.1
Mike Soroka 7.24 2.18 2.07 3.07 3.66 2
Tanner Roark 9.07 3.02 3.47 3.41 4.39 2

Rookie magic takes over Chavez Ravine

♦ June 24, 2019 ♦ 2 Comments

The well-known screenwriter texted his agent and said he’d just written a script from a dream he’d had. In the script, the home town baseball team (let’s call them the Dodgers) was playing the team in 2nd place trying to catch them. The agent asked for the highlights and the screenwriter provided the bullet points.

  • The two games prior to the series the Dodgers had to use their bullpen because of an injury to their starter. To make this happen they had dropped a rookie on the team and picked up another rookie. That rookie got hurt and the originally dropped rookie was re-instated for the first game of the series. Are you with me so far? That rookie hits a walk-off home run to win the first game after the Dodger pitcher pitches the best game of the year.
  • In the second game of the series, the Dodgers are playing a rookie center-fielder who is only playing because the original center-fielder is hurt.  That rookie center-fielder hits a walk-off home run to win the second game.
  • In the third game of the series, the Dodgers bring up another rookie to help out with roster depth. That guy is a catcher. He doesn’t start, in fact, he doesn’t even come in when the original catcher leaves. The second catcher blows a play at the plate and the came is tied headed into the bottom of the ninth. With a runner on second, the opposing manager walks the second catcher to face the rookie. On the first pitch, the rookie hits a three-run walk-off home run.

The screenwriter stops texting for a second and takes a call from his agent. All he can hear is laughter from his phone. Loud cackling laughter. The laughter finally stops and the agent gasps out “let me get this straight, you want to pitch a screenplay where a baseball team wins three games in a row with walk-off home runs, and the kicker is that each walk-off home run was hit b a rookie?”

This is a cliche, but not even Hollywood would believe what happened this weekend at Chavez Ravine.

Matt Beatty was sent down Wednesday Night because Rich Hill only pitched one inning and they needed arms. Josh Sborz was one of those arms. Josh pitched on Thursday Night and either was legitimately hurt, or the Dodgers told him he was hurt. Either way, Josh Sborz was put on the injured list Thursday Night, and the Dodgers brought back up Matt Beatty who was plugged into left field. With the score 2 – 2, Max Muncy worked a walk and Matt Beatty slugged a two-run walk-off home run. This might end up being the greatest moment of Matt Beatty’s career.

Alex Verdugo was already having another great game on Saturday Night with three hits including a double and home run when he came up in the bottom of the eleventh with the Dodgers tied at 4. At this point in the season, the Dodgers had yet to score one single run in an extra-inning game in 2019. One pitch later the Dodgers had won 5 – 4 when Verdugo deposited the Jesus Tinoco deep into right field. That gave the Dodgers two straight walk-off home runs, and both by rookies. That was the first time in history that two rookies had hit back to back walk-off home runs.

The best was yet to come.

Will Smith was brought up before the game on Sunday. He had been on a tear with the AAA Oklahoma Dodgers having hit six home runs in his previous twenty-seven AAA at-bats. Will Smith didn’t start the game Austin Barnes did. Will Smith didn’t come into the game when Austin Barnes was lifted for a pinch hitter, Russell Martin was. As I was watching this game, I said to myself that this was set up perfectly for a Will Smith walk off. I laughed to myself at the thought but when Martin misplayed a play at the plate and the game was tied a 3- 3, I tweeted out my ridiculous thought.

The bottom of the ninth found the Dodgers facing the Rockies best relief pitcher Scott Oberg. Matt Beatty (remember him) started the ninth with a single. Enrique Hernandez fouled out. With Chris Taylor batting a wild pitch sent Beatty to second. It was a great read by Beatty because the ball didn’t get far from Wolters but he took second anyway. Chris Taylor had tied the game with a stirring three-run pinch-hit home run in the 7th which removed Austin Barnes from the game. Russell Martin was up with Will Smith in the batting circle ready to hit for Kenley Jansen. Bud Black intentionally walked Russell Martin who had appeared to be in a fog ever since he entered the game for Austin Barnes. Will Smith hit the first pitch over the RCF wall for the third straight walk-off home run by a rookie.

Unprecedented

Unreal

Unbelievable

 

 

Lakers get their marquee big man once again

♦ June 17, 2019 ♦ Leave a comment

It took longer than usual but with one big swoop the Lakers finally ended up with someone else’s marquee big man once again. The story of the Lakers championships have all had their genesis in trading for coveted “generational” big man from Wilt Chamberlain to Pau Gasol.

Way back in 1968, the Los Angeles Lakers had zero banners because they kept losing to the Celtics and Knicks in the finals. Wilt Chamberlain had one championship on his belt and was by far the best big man if not the best player in the league when he was traded to the Lakers for Jerry Chambers, Archie Clark and Darrall Imhoff.  Elgin Baylor was no longer one of the best players in the league but Jerry West still was. Even so, it still took the Lakers a few years before they won their only Championship with Wilt. The 1972 team is the team that I can still recount from heart. West/Goodrich/Hairston/McMillian/Wilt with huge contributions off the bench from Keith Erickson/Flynn Robinson/Leroy Ellis and of course Pat Riley.

By 1975 both Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain had retired and the team was starting a youth movement behind Elmore Smith and Brian Winters. The best big man in the NBA was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and when he became available the Lakers trashed their youth movement and traded their youth movement for the best player in the league. Players headed to the Bucks were Junior Bridgeman, Dave Meyers, Elmore Smith and Brian Winters.  Laker fans need to remember that even with Kareem they only won 40 games the first year. It would take time to build a team around him after they gave up their four best players to the Bucks.  It wasn’t until Magic Johnson joined the team in 1979/1980 that the Kareem Lakers would win a championship. Together, Kareem and Magic would win five championships.

The Kareem era ended in 1989 and so did the Lakers Championships. The Lakers would not win another championship until they got their next superstar big man. Once again they went after the best player in basketball and signed Shaq in the summer of 1997. They also traded for a skinny young kid named Kobe that same summer. Shaq was never able to win a championship for the Lakers until Kobe came of age, and “together’ they won three straight championships from 1999/2000 – 2001/2002. By 2004, Shaq was gone and so was any attempts at championships.

To get back to a championship level team, the Lakers needed a big man star to team with Kobe and they find their next big superstar big in Pau Gasol.  On Feb. 1, 2008, the Memphis Grizzlies traded Pau to the Lakers for his younger brother Marc Gasol, Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie and two first-round picks. Pau was just what the Lakers needed to team up with Kobe and those two won back to back titles in 2008/2009 and 2009/2010.

Now the Lakers have traded for arguably the best big man in the league today in Anthony Davis. They will team him up with Lebron James. A player in his prime with a player starting his decline years. This isn’t Shaq and Kobe in their prime or Kobe/Pau in their prime, or even a prime Kareem with a budding childman in Magic. It is a dynamic duo but unlike Kareem or Shaq, Anthony Davis has zero titles to his name and hasn’t even played in a conference final yet even though his talents are far above most players in the league. On the other side of him will be Lebron James. On the surface this appears a perfect fit, and it probably will be if they can both stay healthy when the toll of the postseason hits. This summer we saw what happens when you start playing the grueling postseason from start to finish. Lebron may get the team to the playoffs but can the oft-injured Anthony Davis and the old Lebron James survive the postseason marathon to bring another title to the storied Laker franchise? The upcoming season is the perfect season for it to happen with the wounded Warriors having little chance to return to the conference finals with two of their big four out for the upcoming season.

I like this trade for both teams, the Lakers needed Anthony Davis and rolling the dice on him will get the Lakers to a championship level at the speed they need with an aging Lebron James on the clock.  The Pelicans might be drafting the best future big man in basketball, and if he is, combining him with the young talent the Lakers are sending their way could make them formidable in very quick order.

Wouldn’t it be great if by 2020/2021 the Western Conference finals was a grudge match between the Pelicans and the Lakers?

Is Madbum really a monster?

♦ June 10, 2019 ♦ 5 Comments

Max Muncy hit a home run off of Madison Bumgarner and watched it soar toward the Bay and Madison Bumgarner reacted predictably and started yelling at Max. Max yelled back and we had one of the great retorts in Pitcher / Hitter history.

Shawn Green who was doing the Dodger analyst after the game said the quote was great because most of the time, the player can’t think of a great comeback line while in the moment but Muncy did and most of us at home could only nod as we’ve all been in a situation where we needed a snappy comeback line but could only think of it after the moment had passed.

Anyway, this article isn’t about Max Muncy though it could be because Max has followed up his “fluky” 2018 with a season that might even be better considering his remarkable improvement on the defensive side of the diamond.

This is about Madison Bumgarner. He infuriates Dodger fans when he gets in the face of the hitters who have big moments off of him. Mad commented on it last night and Jon Weisman tweeted about the comment:

And predictably Dodger fans jumped all over Bumgarner including Jon. But I disagree with most of you for several reasons, but mainly for this one. I just had a hunch based on watching Bumgarner pitch against the Dodgers for almost ten years. What stays with most of us is the Bumgarner who confronted Puig and created the memorable “Don’t look at me” meme.  What I remember however is that Bum never threw at Puig to make a point. He yelled at him, he vented, it was done. I couldn’t remember Bumgarner throwing at a Dodger to “get even” for pimping.  To find out if that was true I went to the trusted Baseball Reference and looked up all the Dodgers that Bumgarner has hit since 2010. It isn’t very many. Bumgarner has hit only eight Dodgers and hasn’t hit any since 2016.  If you take the time to look at this link

Dodgers hitters, hit by Madison Bumgarner since 2010

You will find that only once when he hit Hanley Ramirez in 2014 could it have been on purpose without putting the game in jeopardy since all the other games were within one or two runs. Whatever you think of Madison, I would hope that most of us would agree that he cares too much about winning to put a game in jeopardy to make a point. Mad did hit Puig, but it was back in 2014 and the Giants were down 1 – 0 and the count was 1 -2.

So my point here is simple. I would much rather have a pitcher scream and pout at a hitter and get that out of his system instead of being a silent assassin and waiting for a cheap shot to get back at the hitter. No harm is done by vetting, but real damage is done by the hit by pitch. The Dodgers may have lost a chance for a World Series ring in 2014 when Hanley Ramirez was hit “on purpose” by Joe Kelly.  Some people like to compare Mad to Don Drysdale, but Don Drysdale hit over 150 hitters and did it to make a point. Though I do agree that if anyone had pimped a home run off of Big D there wouldn’t have been any yelling, there would have been a major brouhaha

Does Madison Bumgarner look silly when he confronts the hitter? Sure, is it any more silly than all the various things hitters do now when they are successful? I don’t think so.  His confrontations have added excitement to the game. Where would we be without the “Don’t look at me meme”? Shirtless, and some people would have to find a new twitter name.

I’m sure Madison is a jerk, but does he have the right to yell at players who pimp home runs? In my opinion, he does, just as those players have the right to pimp.

I not so secretly think that Dodger fans like to jump on Madison because he did what Clayton Kershaw could never do. He put his team on his back and carried them to a World Series title even though he was never the pitcher in his prime that Clayton was in his and that was unforgivable.

Corey Seager isn’t the shiny new SS anymore

♦ May 3, 2019 ♦ Leave a comment

Hard to believe but Corey Seager is already twenty-five years old and while Dodger fans wait for the 22/23 Seager to show up, the team down south in San Diego has the shiny new shortstop who has already been ordained the best young Shortstop in California.

We won’t get to see Fernando Tatis Jr. this trip against the Padres due to his untimely injury but the 20-year-old has lived up to the hype and is probably the odds on favorite to be the next National League ROY.  Meanwhile, Corey Seager is laboring at SS for the Dodgers. Dave Roberts continues to bat Seager near the top of the lineup, and Corey continues to make critical out after critical out.  All those outs have been masked by the brilliance of Cody Bellinger, but there will come a time when Cody can’t do it all, and it would be a good time for Seager to get it going when that happens.  Until the bat wakes up, Corey is just an afterthought at the Shortstop position with Javier Baez, Paul DeJong, Tatis Jr., Trevor Story, and even Dansby Swanson outperforming the one time Dodger stud.

Player               WAR/pos  PA OPS+ Age Lg   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS
Javier Baez              2.1 128  155  26 NL .314 .352 .653 1.004
Paul DeJong              2.1 135  159  25 NL .333 .393 .585  .978
Fernando Tatis Jr.       1.6 111  145  20 NL .300 .360 .550  .910
Dansby Swanson           1.4 120  126  25 NL .262 .333 .534  .867
Trevor Story             1.4 141  113  26 NL .272 .348 .520  .868
Nick Ahmed               0.9 125   81  29 NL .261 .304 .400  .704
Jose Iglesias            0.7  91   98  29 NL .302 .341 .419  .759
Corey Seager             0.4 130   81  25 NL .228 .323 .351  .674
Jean Segura              0.3  87  133  29 NL .338 .391 .500  .891
Miguel Rojas             0.3 100   94  30 NL .286 .340 .352  .692
Orlando Arcia            0.2 113   77  24 NL .231 .292 .385  .677
Erik Gonzalez           -0.1  59   62  27 NL .216 .298 .294  .592
Amed Rosario            -0.2 119   95  23 NL .268 .311 .393  .704
Wilmer Difo             -0.6  89   69  27 NL .238 .307 .338  .644

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/3/2019.

 

Justin Turner is just about ready

♦ May 3, 2019 ♦ Leave a comment

If you have access to Spectrum or are an out of town Dodger fan you have heard Joe Davis say over and over that Justin Turner doesn’t hit in April. The stats don’t lie as Turner has only three home runs in 480 plate appearances in April.  Turner hits more in May but his bat doesn’t historically catch fire until June. I think if Turner can stay healthy this May that he’ll hit more like June this summer and erase the doubts that his bat is slowing down.

If you don’t have Spectrum, you might find the Turner splits interesting.

These are his career splits.

Split           G  PA   H 2B HR RBI   BA  OBP  SLG  OPS  TB
April/March   148 480 124 27  3  43 .289 .353 .378 .730 162
May           166 559 139 31 11  73 .283 .360 .413 .773 203
June          155 576 152 26 25  86 .302 .381 .511 .892 257
July          138 504 130 34 14  56 .291 .363 .461 .824 206
August        177 652 161 40 24  82 .279 .354 .484 .838 279
Sept/Oct      183 635 168 46 17  75 .304 .385 .487 .873 269

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/3/2019.

 

 

Alex Verdugo is the poster child for “Let the kids play”

♦ May 3, 2019 ♦ Leave a comment

MLB has created an ad campaign around “Let the kids play” and no one epitomizes that more on the Dodgers than Alex Verdugo.  You might have thought that with Yasiel Puig gone the Dodgers would no longer have a child-man playing in the outfield but the brash massive gold chain wearing center fielder Alex Verdugo is a bundle of emotion that erupts in jubilation whenever he successfully does something significant with the bat.

Many Dodger fans had no idea what they had in Alex Verdugo because the Dodgers had kept him under wraps because of the depth of their outfield and 2019 looked to be more of the same. You can’t fault the Dodgers for signing A.J. Pollock because the deal was so team friendly but when they failed to trade Joc Pederson it put Verdugo squarely on the bench. I even “wrongly” argued that Verdugo would be better off in AAA until the Dodger figured out a way to playing time for him.  Instead, Verdugo took every opportunity to show that he was a major league starter and finished April with one of the best age 23 or younger months in LAD history.

With Pollock once again on the disabled list for a significant amount of time, Alex Verdugo has had one of his roadblocks to playing time removed.  If the Dodgers are lucky they might even have the rare left-handed hitter who can hit left-handed pitchers. Joc Pederson is a platoon player for a very valid reason, he can’t hit left-handed pitching. (career .570 OPS against LHP).  Andre Ethier was basically a platoon player for the same reason given his career .633 OPS against LHP. Alex Verdugo is crushing LHP, but in very limited sample size.

Cody Bellinger put up one the greatest Aprils in Dodger history, but when you look at Aprils for Dodgers, twenty-three or younger, Verdugo is right there with Joc Pederson, Adrian Beltre, Willie and Tommie Davis, and Corey Seager. That is a great leaderboard list to be part of.

Player                 Split Year  PA 2B HR   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS
Cody Bellinger   April/March 2019 132  6 14 .431 .508 .890 1.397
Joc Pederson     April/March 2015  77  5  4 .298 .461 .596 1.057
Adrian Beltre    April/March 1999  93  8  1 .355 .441 .553  .993
Alex Verdugo     April/March 2019  72  4  4 .333 .361 .623  .984
Willie Davis     April/March 1962  65  1  5 .298 .369 .614  .983
Tommy Davis      April/March 1962  81  7  5 .316 .333 .646  .979
Corey Seager     April/March 2017 107  6  5 .319 .411 .549  .961
Tommy Davis      April/March 1961  75  3  5 .309 .373 .574  .947
Bill Russell     April/March 1969  70  2  1 .304 .443 .464  .907

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/3/2019.

The Rookie of the Year race has been dominated by Pete Alonso on the East Coast and Fernando Tatis on the West Coast, but Alex Verdugo is right there in the discussion.  Will be curious to see if he still in the discussion a month from now.

Name                 Age OPS+  PA Year  Tm Lg 2B 3B HR RBI SO
Pete Alonso           24  175 128 2019 NYM NL  8  1  9  26 36
Alex Verdugo          23  157  76 2019 LAD NL  4  2  4  16  9
Christian Walker      28  150 116 2019 ARI NL 10  0  7  15 34
Fernando Tatis Jr.    20  145 111 2019 SDP NL  5  1  6  13 32

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/3/2019.