Baseball Notes 4/10/17

I love early season stats.

Matt Kemp leads MLB in slugging % and OPS at 1.125 / 1.654. Matt has four doubles and two home runs sixteen at-bats.

Jason Castro of the Twins walked seven times last week and leads MLB in OB%. Castro walked only 45 times all of last year.

Matt Reynolds leads all of baseball in total bases with twenty-one. Reynolds came into Rockies camp with an NRI and turned it into a starting gig when Desmond broke his hand.

Justin Turner is tied for the MLB lead in doubles with Travis Shaw at five.

Salvador Perez is tied for the MLB lead in home runs with four. Perez home run totals have been trending up each year 13 – 17 – 21 – 22. With four already in the books, he may just keep that trend going.

Realmuto and Matt Kemp are tied at 10 in Runs Created.

 

LAD System POTW – 4/10/17

Dodgers:

Pitching – I’m going with Hyun-Jin Ryu simply because he made his first start in Coors, and no one really thought he’d ever get there. He didn’t win his game but he pitched well enough to win and more importantly, he looks very much like the Ryu who was the best number three starter in baseball in 2015.  We don’t know if his shoulder/arm/elbow will hold up but we can say,  he made it back.

Hitting – Puig, and Turner were in a deadlock on the offensive side, but since I saw Puig hit his two bombs on Thursday, I have to go with Puig. Hopefully, this will be the first of many this year.

Farm System:

Prospect Hitting – Ibande Isabel blasted two home runs in route to a 1.203 OPS. Honorable mention to Brendon Davis who starts off the year by going six for eleven with three doubles.

Overall  Hitting – O’Koyea Dickson slugged three home runs and put up an OPS of 2.143 with ten hits in only fourteen at-bats. Brett Eibner gets honorable mention by going six for ten with a double and two home runs.

Prospect pitching – Mitch White made his season debut in Rancho and threw four hitless innings, walking three, with five punchouts.

Overall pitching – Jair Jurrjens pitched a gem in his first start for AAA, going six innings, giving up three hits, one run, walking zero, and striking out three.  Jair is in AAA for rotation depth and something will have to go wrong for him to pitch for the Dodgers but that was a nice season debut for the thirty-one-year-old journeyman who hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2014. Somebody named Parker Curry hurled a gem for the Loons. Curry struck out six of his ten outs without giving up a hit or walk.

Who is Parker Curry you ask? I’m glad you did, Harold Uhlman has the info on the undrafted pitcher from Samford. 

In his senior year with the Bulldogs, the 5’9” / 155-pound Curry had a 7-2 record over 78 innings pitched while posting a 3.69 ERA along with 60 strikeouts and 23 walks.

He was not selected in the 2016 June Draft but was signed – perhaps unexpectedly – by the Dodgers on July 6. His message following his signing was a simple, but heartfelt, “Blessed. Thank you.”

That 5’9 probably explains why he went undrafted and why I’ll be keeping on eye on him and rooting the little guy on.

Weekly summation 4/9/17 – Runs a plenty, wins not so much.

With a week of baseball in the books,  the Dodgers managed a 4  – 3 record which puts them smack in the middle of the NL West.  It was a strange week where the offense scored in double digits three times in seven games.   When you outscore your opponents 40 runs to 22 you’d probably expect to win at least five of those seven but when 34 of those 40 came in three games you realize they were lucky to win four games.

On the plus side:

  • they only lost one pitcher to the DL in Rich Hill.
  • they finally tagged a left-handed pitcher on Sunday
  • Puig has the highest OPS on the team
  • They have four starting players with an OPS over .900
  • Ryu and McCarthy gave solid efforts
  • Kershaw has yet to issue a walk in 2017
  • Josh Fields looks to have recovered his velocity
  • Chris Hatcher has started 2017 very nicely

On the negative side:

  • After opening day heroics, Grandal and Joc went into hibernation.  Grandal hit two home runs on opening day and those were his last hits for the week. Joc hit the grand slam on opening day and managed three singles the rest of the week. That means they were meaningless in Coors.
  • Enrique Hernandez and Franklyn Gutierrez didn’t do much damage against LHP when asked upon.
  • Clayton Richard toyed with the Dodgers.
  • Freeland didn’t toy with them but he certainly beat them
  • Logan Forsythe woke up on Sunday, but prior to that he had been MIA

 

Name                 PA R  H 2B HR RBI SB   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS OPS+
Yasiel Puig          29 5  7  2  3   5  1 .292 .414 .750 1.164  197
Justin Turner        26 3 10  5  0   3  1 .400 .423 .600 1.023  165
Corey Seager         29 4  8  2  2   7  1 .308 .379 .615  .995  155
Adrian Gonzalez      26 5  7  2  0   3  0 .350 .500 .450  .950  153
Joc Pederson         21 2  4  0  1   6  0 .250 .381 .438  .818  115
Austin Barnes        11 3  2  0  0   0  1 .222 .364 .444  .808  111
Scott Van Slyke      10 2  2  1  0   1  0 .250 .400 .375  .775  106
Andrew Toles         18 3  4  0  1   3  0 .250 .333 .438  .771  101
Enrique Hernandez     8 2  1  1  0   2  1 .167 .375 .333  .708   89
Yasmani Grandal      20 2  2  0  2   3  0 .118 .211 .471  .681   71
Logan Forsythe       29 4  6  1  0   1  0 .250 .379 .292  .671   81
Franklin Gutierrez   13 2  3  2  0   0  0 .231 .231 .385  .615   58
Chase Utley          12 1  1  0  0   0  0 .083 .083 .083  .167  -56

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/10/2017.

Name                     ERA   IP ER BB SO ERA+   FIP  WHIP   H9 BB9  SO9
Clayton Kershaw         3.46 13.0  5  0 14  124  4.84 0.769  6.9 0.0  9.7
Kenta Maeda             6.30 10.0  7  3  9   69  4.70 1.400  9.9 2.7  8.1
Brandon McCarthy        3.00  6.0  2  1  4  148  4.33 0.833  6.0 1.5  6.0
Rich Hill (10-day dl)   1.80  5.0  1  3  5  249  5.40 1.000  3.6 5.4  9.0
Chris Hatcher           1.80  5.0  1  0  5  249  1.00 1.000  9.0 0.0  9.0
Hyun-Jin Ryu            3.86  4.2  2  1  5  117  4.28 1.500 11.6 1.9  9.6
Luis Avilan             0.00  3.2  0  1       4  1.63 0.818  4.9 2.5  9.8
Ross Stripling          2.70  3.1  1  0  5  172 -0.00 1.200 10.8 0.0 13.5
Grant Dayton            0.00  3.0  0  0       2  1.66 0.333  3.0 0.0  6.0
Kenley Jansen           9.00  2.0  2  0  2   55  1.00 1.500 13.5 0.0  9.0
Alex Wood               0.00  2.0  0  1       1  3.49 0.500  0.0 4.5  4.5
Sergio Romo             0.00  2.0  0  0       2  1.00 0.500  4.5 0.0  9.0
Josh Fields             0.00  1.1  0  1       4 -0.75 0.750  0.0 6.8 27.0
Team Totals             3.10 61.0 21 11 62  146  3.42 0.984  7.2 1.6  9.1
Rank in 15 NL teams        2    4  5  1                                 3

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/10/2017.

OK O’Koyea

Cody Bellinger, Willie Calhoun, Rob Segedin, Edwin Rios,  and Alex Verdugo will have to wait their turn because this weeks LAD Farm Factory award goes to O’Koyea Dickson who out muscled every hitter in the system.

O’Koyea started hitting with authority last May and has yet to stop. He hit all summer. He he hit all spring. He’s still hitting. Mr. Dickson tore up the PCL this week and now has ten hits in only fourteen at-bats, including one double, and three big flies. Sporting a 2.143 OPS.

 

Blast from the Past – Go Go Go

With Phil on vacation here is a blast from the past with Easter just around the corner.

Almost three years to the day, Dee Gordon was enthralling Dodger fans with his blend of speed and excitement. I hearkened back to the day of Maury Wills, and the inaugural season of Dodger Stadium when Maury captivated Dodger fans with his MVP season built on 104 stolen bases.  With Maury in mind, I penned this little ditty for TrueBlueLA after spending a delightful evening at the Ravine with David Young and Craig Minami.  One of my favorites and maybe the last time my mind ran wild with imagination.

http://www.truebluela.com/2012/4/12/2943564/deegordon

 A sad King Eric was frustrated with his abject poverty as he contemplated how to tribute the new Knight Kershaw who was going to be honored at the Chavez Ravine Temple for his grand deeds the previous summer. He had no trinkets to lay forth, his kingdom of True Blue was awash in useless knowledge but had little in the way of intrinsic value.

With a big sigh, he knew what he had to do but was reluctant to use his powers, as his followers were a bitter bickering fickle flock who had other kingdoms they could change alliances to if he used his powers poorly. Still, something had to be done, so the tweet was sent.

Put the mod’s in action

ModCraig quickly tweeted that he was available and that he had ModDavid in tow. With consternation, King Eric noticed ModMeerkat also had said he would do what he could. King Eric was aghast, he had not counted on the ModMeerKat to be a follower. Nothing could be done other than to pray to Saint Scully and hope for the best.

The wet rain that had blanketed the blue basin ran out of steam around noon and gave way to a glorious spring day, the kind of day that poems are inspired by, love, and babies. It would be a good night to honor the newest Blue Knight.

The mods converged on the Chavez Ravine Temple from all corners of the blue basin. They did not have a star to guide them but their GPS did the trick. ModDavid who hails from the NorthWest, came from the South and refused to pay duty to the evil King Frank, and parked on Academy. ModMeerKat came from the West, and also refused to pay tribute, not because he had any problems with King Frank but because he simply was a cheap bastard, not by choice but because the North American Meerkat is born that way. ModCraig was simply lazy and paid the tribute so his task of surmounting the daunting flights of concrete steps would be lessened.

In this way, the BlueMods made their way into the Temple. ModKat was the first to arrive but since ModDavid and ModCraig did not really want to sit with him they refused to tell him where they were sitting. Yet he knew from previous sojourns the whereabouts so he placed himself in the general area. Eventually, ModDavid showed up, saw ModMeerKat from afar but kept silent as he wanted no one around to notice he was eating four blue dogs. Luckily for him, the ModMeerkat was oblivious to him until he had finished his feast. ModMeerkat ever weary of the tricks cast his eyes about and finally noticed ModDavid. With a skip to his step, he quickly ran over to join his good friend. Like a good friend ModDavid pretended to be happy that he had company and they settled into for the brief wait before ModCraig joined them.

ModCraig meant well but the seats he provided were in the high heavens. As the Blue Knight Kershaw was honored they did their best to honor him by beating their collective breasts but the thumping of flabby breasts was drowned out by the distance. The Blue Knight was gone and the three mods were left to wonder if they had done enough to make the decent King Eric happy. Deep down they knew they had failed, again. It silently gnawed at them as none of them had the nerve to talk about it.

Each of them had noticed a strange feeling starting around the third mark of the contest. A sense of urgency was building, a tingling sensation they had felt before but couldn’t remember when. Finally, ModDavid voiced what they had all been thinking. We must get closer he said, we must leave the heavens, the ninety-nine percent and join with the one percent. In unison, they agreed and got up to take on the task of leaving the comfort zone for the ball zone. ModCraig was pleased as punch when he pulled out his new gold membership cards that allowed him to move freely from level to level. He gave one to ModDavid and they proceeded with the plan expecting ModKat to be left behind. Yet the Modkat had skills of his own and pinched a ticket from an unwary patron which would allow him to follow his fellow Mod’s on their quest.

As the three blue Mod’s started down the harrowing steps, an aura developed around them discernible to only the true believers. They were a motley crew who were short of statue, short of wisdom, with little life left. Why King Eric had chosen them for this task was as confusing as to why James Loney was allowed to hit against a Loogy when he had been benched in the first place because he could not hit left-handers. In a word, it was befuddling.

Yet this crew did have something. Combined they knew everything about the history of the Chavez Ravine Temple and the power of the temple sensed something within this trio and fed them with the energy to complete the task. As they entered the ball zone, a row of seats opened up for them and beckoned for them to take them. So they did. One by one they plopped into their seats and as they do so a power surge shifted from the seats through the asses to the tips of their fingers. They looked at each other in awe.

The other patrons felt something had changed and looked around and saw the three mods. Some simply saw three short fans who looked like any other fans, but others saw more. They could see the blue aura hovering around them, they saw a glow, they saw knowledge. They felt hope.

In the eighth frame, the young Gordon came to the plate and got on the base. With that action, the trio realized why they were there. The old stadium infused them with the knowledge of what they needed to do. But who would lead them? ModDavid of course, he cupped his hand, and with all the training his karaoke had provided belted out the first cue. GO

ModKat quickly followed GO

ModCraig finished the crescendo with the final GO.

Quickly they realized this was a chant and in unison

GO GO GO

GO GO GO

Nothing happened

But everything happened.

Old men who had not heard the chant for 50 years woke up in their seats. Young girls who could scream anything realized they could scream something that meant something for the first time in their lives. Young boys who just wanted to make noise realized what a joy it was to yell that simple word.

Again

GO GO GO

again nothing happened, but with each chant, more patrons felt moved to join the trio of Mods.

King Eric noticed from atop his throne and stood up. The tyrant Simers bellowed for him to sit down but King Eric knew this was his time. He put out his hands and broke the law of the land.

GO GO GO he bellowed

GO GO GO his disciples screamed

GO GO GO his mod’s chanted

and this time, something did happen.

It wasn’t Magic, it was Dodger Baseball

Be there

Hill joins Kazmir and Stewart on DL

It didn’t take long for Rich Hill’s blister to show it’s ugly face in 2017, putting Hill on the DL after only one start. He’ll be joining Scott Kazmir and Brock Stewart on the DL. The rotation spot for this Monday will either be taken by Alex Wood, Ross Stripling, or Julio Urias.

This might depend on if they have to use Wood or Stripling this weekend. Urias was set to pitch Monday for Oklahoma so he could simply slot into the spot though he was only supposed to pitch about four innings. I’m not sure Wood or Stripling could go any more than four innings either.

Anyway

Healthy – Kershaw, Maeda, McCarthy, Ryu, Wood, Stripling, Urias

DL – Kazmir, Hill, Stewart

Hopefully this 10 day DL is exactly that for Rich Hill to get his blisters in order.

The frugal fan

Just how inexpensive can you make a trip to Dodger stadium and still sit in premium seats? I intended to find out today.

Using SeatGeek I was looking for one ticket in the Field Box and was willing to pay around $15 – 20 knowing full well that no matter where the seat was, that a Thursday day game would have plenty of empty seats. I perused the seats on Wednesday night but decided to wait until Thursday morning feeling that many tickets would go unsold and thus would suffer from pricing pressure. At 09:00 AM,  I checked the tickets and found most of the tickets I had been looking at were gone. Yikes. I had to do some errands and went back to check at 10:00 AM.  Lots of tickets in the reserve but the normal field box tickets in the corners were unavailable.  I found a $10 loge ticket around section 150 and went for it. I brought up the seatgeek app to see if the ticket had appeared but the confirmed box was not lit up, just the order. As I got ready to leave at 11:00 it was still unconfirmed.

Do I leave without a confirmed ticket?

Yeah, what the hell, I could always find another ticket so off I went. While I was driving to the game I hit some traffic and checked the SeatGeek app and found the ticket gone. The owner had declined so I was going to have to find another ticket.  I wasn’t going to pay for parking since it was a day game and parking would be available in Elysian Park. With the Scott Road gate opening back up a few years ago it had become easy to park below and walk up to Scott Road into the stadium entrance. I’m a walker, I like to walk whenever I can, but today it was about being frugal.

I still needed a ticket so brought up the SeatGeek app and still no decent seats in the Field Box or Loge that I was willing to pay for. Even the reserve had little to offer so I switched my search options to two tickets instead of one and a plethora of options were spread out before me. I purchased two Reserve tickets for $3 bucks a piece but I didn’t want to sit in the reserve today.  I was hoping to meet someone in the field box and couldn’t do that with a reserved ticket.

Or could I?

I remembered going to a game last year with David Young who had reserve tickets but we entered at the field box level. He said he does it all the time and that you just have to tell the ticket folk that you have a bum knee and need to use the elevator.  I’m not a fan of pretending to be something I’m not and soon enough I really will need the elevator but today seemed like a perfect day to game the system.

It worked just fine and I entered on the field level and found a sweet seat in row K Sec 27 with plenty of seats to move around if the actual owners of those tickets showed up. They never did so I got to spend the whole game in excellent seats. Because I was trying to make a point about how inexpensive taking in a game could be I didn’t buy anything. That was brutal because I really wanted a few beers. Where was Bobby and the beers he owes me? Or the myriad of other bets that no one has ever paid off?

Anyway, let’s look at the tally:

Tickets – $6

Parking – $0

Gas – $12

Grand total – $18

Watching Puig hit two absolute laser shots into the Dodger bullpen – Priceless

Weaver time

Jered Weaver is a pitcher, not a very good pitcher anymore, but nonetheless, he’s a pitcher. At one time Weaver was one of the best in the game, but that time has long past. He gets by on guile alone now, with a fastball velocity that is the lowest for any right-handed major league pitcher that does not throw a knuckleball.

He has had historical success against the LAD, particularly at Dodger Stadium where he has a career 1.98 in six starts.  Even last year Weaver managed to go seven innings, though he was hit hard for ten hits and four earned runs.  The fact he gets any outs is kind of magical.

Logan Forsythe,  Corey Seager, and Joc Pederson have all homered off of Weaver.

On the Dodger side Brandon McCarthy hopes to shut down the young Padre hitters and prove that he does belong in the Dodger rotation. If he can’t succeed at home against the Padres…………..

Puig has started his “I’m 26 campaign” with a bang and has the highest OPS on the team.

 

Hill cruises, Puig goes boom

Rich Hill toyed with the young Padre offense for fifteen outs, and then let the new Dodger bullpen build the bridge to Kenley Jansen. Sergio Romo and Alex Wood got their nine outs and Jansen finished things up with a perfect ninth.

The right fielders traded home runs in the 4th, with Renfroe taking Hill deep, and Puig answering with his own shot.

Looking forward to tomorrow’s game against Jered Weaver. With no off days until next week, and a day game following a night game I’m expecting the bench to be fully utilized in the starting lineup just not sure how Dave Roberts is going to go about it.

When Alex Wood got six outs tonight it marked the first time a left handed relief pitcher for the Dodgers had gotten six outs without giving up a hit since Grant Dayton did it on Aug 31st, 2016.  The LAD did it five times last year, Dayton three times,  and Liberatore twice. It is easy to forget how great Liberatore was the first part of 2016.

Alex Wood has the stuff to be a dominant multi-inning setup man, and that just may be what he has to be in 2016 given the rotations options in front of him right now.

Baseball Notes 4/5/17

Mauer went hitless 27 straight times against the Royals before collecting a single in the 3rd innings against Ian Kennedy.  Not long ago Mauer looked like a HOF catcher, a few concussions later, he’s now a light hitting first baseman.  1118 hits as a catcher, almost 2000 in his career (1826).  Hard to believe that AJ Pierzynski has the most hits as a catcher in the 21st century with 1971.

Justin Haley Twins – Rule 5 pick pitched for the first time in majors today. His road to the majors had some wicked sharp turns. In the span of a few hours, he was drafted by the Angels in the Rule 5 draft, traded to the Padres, and then traded to the Twins. He made the Twins roster and pitched a clean 9th inning.

Matt Kemp had three doubles including the key double in the top of the 12th that plated two runs including the game winner.

How about them ex-Dodger prospects pitching for other teams:

  • Jharel Cotton started against the Angels on the same night the guy he was traded for was toeing the hill for the Dodgers. Cotton gave up five runs while getting only 13 outs.
  • Frankie Montas who was also part of the same trade followed Cotton to the mound and got eight outs without giving up a run. That was the major league debut for Montas.
  • Chase De Jong made his major league debut and he’ll hope to forget all about it. De Jong gave up a walk-off home run in the 13th inning to George Springer. His team had taken the lead in the top of the 13th.  De Jong had just been called up this week.

Texas closers should avoid April. Last year Shawn Tolleson lost his role as the Ranger closer when he imploded in his second game.  Actually, he didn’t lose the gig until last May but the writing was on the wall. Is the writing on the wall for Sam Dyson? He saved 38 games for the Rangers after taking over for Tolleson but so far in 2017 he’s pitched in two games and given up three and five runs. Matt Bush is waiting in the wings.