After the surprise signing of Todd Coffey, the Los Angeles Dodgers had a decision to make in regards to the 40-man roster, and Ken Gurnick reports that the Dodgers decided to designate Russ Mitchell for assignment.
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In other news, Blake DeWitt was designated for assignment by the Chicago Cubs, and while he hardly set the world on fire (or even made a fire), I do remember him playing good defense with a passable bat, and the Dodgers basically have zero depth at third base.
That said, Russ Mitchell could play third base and they choose to designate him over Trent Oeltjen and friends, so I’m guessing they aren’t going to bother giving him a looksy.
I’ve been repeating this over and over, but DeWitt’s OPS in games he started in 2011 was better than .750. It was brought down overall by his poor pinch hitting. We could have afforded to re-sign Kuroda if Ned had traded Hawksworth for DeWitt, and brought up Tolleson to the majors (who’s better than Hawksworth, Guerrier, and Coffey anyway). And by re-signing Kuroda, we could have avoided signing either Harang or Capuano. If we hadn’t signed Kennedy or Mark Ellis, we could have had a three-way platoon at 2B and 3B with Uribe, DeWitt, and Hairston, with Sellers as a defensive replacement. It’s really too bad that Ned has no concept of building a solid roster at a cost-effective price.
That makes me think twice because pinch hitting is a skill. I guess he just sucks at it.
Hm…I would rather have him as a reserve than Adam Kennedy regardless though.
Simply put, would you rather have one of Capuano/Harang, Kennedy, Mark Ellis, Hawksworth, and Coffey…or Kuroda, DeWitt, Sellers, Tolleson, and Lindblom? I’ll take Door #2.
Makes sense to me.