2012 Previews: Los Angeles Dodgers

Kershaw! Kemp! Nothing else!

The Majors
Frank Mccourt should be sent to jail for murdering this organization.

Beyond Kershaw and Kemp, this team is pretty much just a big abandoned shed of old yard-sale eligible Nintendos and bikes and lawnmowers.  I honestly don't think they have any intention of contending for the next two years while they rebuild this club and settle their ownership issues, but they're following through with that plan in a pretty expensive way: they signed Aaron Harang, Mark Ellis, Adam Kennedy, Jerry Hairston, and Chris Capuono to deals taking them through the 2013 seasons this past offseason (not to mention re-signing Juan Rivera for $4.5MM and giving Juan Uribe 3/$24MM last year).  It's hard to justify being this bad and having a payroll of $120MM, but they've got some trade candidates in Andre Ethier and James Loney if they can stay healthy, plus any of the aforementioned names could turn in to something at the trade deadline with a decent season.

The Minors
They really need to develop some prospects over the next few seasons.  They have a lot of really good arms in the system to complement Kershaw, Kenley Jensen, and Javy Guerra, but it appears as though their lack of depth in position players could hold them back.  Again, they should have some chances to move guys like Ethier for prospects, plus some people could develop from the 2010 or 2011 drafts to look better going forward.

The Verdict
Going forward, they should be able to rebuild fairly quickly once their ownership situation gets resolved, thanks to the fact that they're the Dodgers, steeped in tradition and whatnot.  They play in a great big market that can sell a bunch of tickets and support a payroll that will be competitive enough to make up for any major holes on the roster.  They need to lock up Kershaw long-term.  If they do, they've got their core locked up and can easily toss aside any old scrubs that are in the way.

Projection: 73-89, 5th place in the NL West

As if I Haven't Posted Infrequently Enough Lately

I have this now.  See you next week folks!

Daily Jays Internets

The Jays lost a spring training tilt with the Tigers today.  You can relive that one via boxscore here, or choose to not care, the way I do.  I'll save you the reading, and let you know that Colby Rasmus was 2-for-2, and nobody else really did much.  I think I read that Edwin missed a homerun by a matter of inches, but that was just what twitter said.

JP Arencibia was on The Dean Blundell Show today (32-minute mark), and, among other things, claimed that Ricky Romero is balls to the wall now that he's free of Rima Fakih, who is batshit insane, apparently.  This is pretty entertaining, so have a quick listen.

Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe says that the Jays and Red Sox are both still very interested in Gavin Floyd.  It's literally a paragraph in a long page, so:

Gavin Floyd, RHP, White Sox - He continues to be a focus of teams looking for one more starter. He could be in play for the Blue Jays or Red Sox. The White Sox don’t appear eager to move Floyd, but general manager Kenny Williams wouldn’t be shy if it brought him a decent bounty in return.

Lastly, Marcel projections are out.  Jays batters and pitchers. Bautista projects to be the third best hitter in baseball, and Brett Lawrie projects to be the best hitting 3B, per this system.

2012 Previews: New York Mets

It just keeps getting worse.

The Majors


It was always going to be bad, but if Ike Davis actually has Valley Fever, as is being reported, then sweet Jesus.  This lineup is going to be David Wright (if he stays healthy), sort of Daniel Murphy, and that's about it. Instead of re-signing Jose Reyes, they used the money that they saved on that contract and spent it on a bunch of aging relievers who aren't worth free agent compensation anymore.  They'll get two draft picks out of Reyes, thanks to his deal with the Marlins, but if they had opted to trade him early in the season (before his injury), they could have found much more value, and would have found themselves relatively equally far from the playoffs (see: really far).

I can understand the non-trade of David Wright, thanks to the goofy little clause in his contract that allows him to void the club option on his contract, but I think the management in this organization has really dropped the ball, and the ownership fiasco obviously hasn't helped anything along.  They need to either shed the contracts of, or get rebound seasons from guys like Jason Bay and Johan Santana.

They've cut about $40MM worth of payroll since last opening day, and I don't think any team has ever had success in the season immediately following such a salary drop.

The Minors

I feel like the direction that the club is moving (eventually) is correct, but its' just going to take quite a bit of time.  This farm system isn't anything special, but it should be a lot better, since they should have traded some guys for a wealth of prospects by now.  I can see Jon Niese getting moved somewhere at some point this year, especially if he ever begins to match his peripheral stats and stays healthy.  He's pretty much Gio Gonzalez, so if he does get traded, we can expect to see a similar pile of prospects.

Until then, they do have some prospects to go along with their young position players, so it's not a complete disaster forever.

The Verdict


They could probably finish with the worst record in the NL, thanks to their division.  They'd have to be pretty unlucky, or just trade a whole bunch of their players, but it is at least possible.  They've still got some good young players, and who knows, maybe Jason Bay and Johan Santana aren't completely finished.

Projection: 71-91, 5th in NL East

Sunday Stuff For You

Bill James, in all his socially awkwardness, was on the B.S. Report with Bill Simmons on ESPN on Friday.  The interview was in front of a live audience, which probably helped contribute to James' nervousness, but I'm sure that if you edited out all of the Ummm's and Uhhh's, it would probably translate in to a pretty interesting 40 minutes or so.  As is, it's an hour long, and still pretty good.

Sticking with ESPN, Jayson Stark has a piece about the Jays and their corresponding chances for the Wild Card, now that there are two of them.  Again, it's a lot of what we've heard recently about the amount of talent that they're stockpiling, and the strategies that they've put in place to get to where they are and where they're going.  Obviously, Stark mentions both the Rays, and Joey Votto.  Because who wouldn't?

Here's a terrible piece of shit by Kevin Glew of CBC Sports.  He thinks that Kelly Johnson should be the leadoff hitter.  I thought about making a whole post about why this is terrible, but meh.  I might make one similar to this, only reasonable, closer to opening day.  For what it's worth, I think Johnson should be closer to the 4-5-6 area, simply due to his profile as a hitter.  He strikes out too much to be a leadoff guy, but still has good on-base and slugging tendencies, even coming off a shitty year.

Shi Davidi of Sportsnet has a recap of the Jays 7-1 spring training win against the Pirates yesterday.  Worth noting, the Jays had their starting lineup from last year (post trade deadline) playing yesterday, while the Pirates opted to play only rookies.  The two teams will play again today, though lineups haven't been released.  The game will be broadcast on the FAN590 and the Bluejays radio network, and if you have MLB.TV, you can probably find it their too.  I, of course, am cheap and have chosen to wait for the inevitable discount, the way they do it every year, since I'm not really going to burst my cherry on spring training games anyway.

Fangraphs' Dave Cameron was on Clubhouse Confidential yesterday, talking about ZiPS projections.  Among the topics, and something that I was going to point out in my fantasy baseball primer that I haven't posted yet, is the fact that Ian Kinsler is probably a better pick than both Robinson Cano and Dustin Pedroia, despite being ranked much lower than both (Based on Yahoo rankings, Cano is a 1st rounder, Pedroia an early 2nd, Kinsler is a late 2/early 3).  Cat's out of the bag, I guess.  By the way, there are a whole bunch of Clubhouse Confidential videos there for free, and they're all pretty excellent.

Quick Stuff Dump

The above is the debut of Logan Morrison and Bryan Peterson's (of the Miami Marlins) youtube show.  LoMo is a great, great twitterer, and Peterson is halfway decent as well, so I'm hoping that there's a bunch of these coming up, because I had a few chuckles at this one.

Alex Anthopoulos was on the Fan590 this morning (audio here), talking about Kyle Drabek and September baseball.

Kevin Goldstein of baseball prospectus was also on Fan590 (audio here), this time with Jeff Blair, talking about prospects Jake Marisnick and Anthony Gose, as well as the new CBA.

The Jays played a 5-inning split squad game today, but I have no idea what happened.  They basically took their 2011 starting lineup and played it against "the others", such as Snider, Francisco, Davis...  Romero started for the good team, Morrow for the bad.

My latest on Nowhere Plans is up.  Episode 3 of Survivor.  That can be found here.

Grady Sizemore is going to miss 2-3 months after having a little back surgery yesterday, apparently something similar to what Peyton Manning had done.  That guy seriously just gets paid to do absolutely nothing.  Speaking of injuries, AJ Burnett bunted a ball in to his face, and broke an orbital bone.  Should miss quite a bit of time.  I wonder if Richard Griffin is going to shit his pants now, because if that trade should have been vetoed by the commissioner's office before the injury...

JP Arencibia as Tim Kirkjian

MVP.