Chad Moriyama Dodgers, Sabermetrics, Scouting
Dodgers owner Peter Guber encouraged fans to keep the optimism because the trade with the Red Sox was for more than just this season, which is indeed the rational thing to recognize. However, what the hell did he mean by saying they did it to “send signals”?
“It’s not fair to judge anything for almost a season,” said Guber. “The objectives of both groups were completely different. [Dodgers president] Stan Kasten, [general manager] Ned Colletti and [manager] Don Mattingly had an objective and the Red Sox had an objective to rebuild.
Right, that’s fine. While it’s ridiculous that the Dodgers are as close to finishing third in the NL West as they are to winning it, the trade was made with a long-term idea in mind, as every single player involved in the trade will be with the team beyond 2012. Besides, they’re only a game back of the Cardinals, and as the Cardinals showed last year, anything can happen once you get into the postseason.
It did, however, irk me a bit how he basically reinforced the notion that the trade was done as a public relations stunt.
“You can’t tell nine days later. Look at it for a season. Not over three weeks. We did it to send signals, to the fans, to the media. You have to recognize that it’s a business proposition. The biggest risk in business is taking no risk.”
Hopefully I’m reading too much into his words here, but he took on a quarter billion dollars to “send signals” to the fans and media? He did it as a “business proposition”?
Ugh.
It’d be a whole lot more comforting to think they did it because they thought Josh Beckett had correctable flaws, A-Gon would thrive once back in the NL West, and Carl Crawford showed enough improvement that they thought he could be an All-Star again. Not because they wanted to make a P.R. statement to the media and fans. I mean, honestly, who gives a shit what the media and fans think if the product on the field can’t win? At the end of the day, nothing will change attitudes quicker than winning, and nothing speaks to that fact more than the current state of the Dodger fandom.
The unbridled joyous optimism of the trade is no more, and if anything it has turned negative due to increased expectations. No longer am I getting angry Twitter messages for basically writing “we’ll see how it turns out”, rather, all the buzz has worn off and I’m fielding more inquiries about how screwed the team is down the road. Why? Because they’re losing and people hate it, especially when they’ve just been given the baseball version of blue balls after such a mega-trade.
Look, I’m sure they did the deal because they believed it would help the team win as well, but if it really was a secondary concern to doing the equivalent of renting a Ferrari for your high school reunion, then it’s more than a bit worrying to me. As I’ve said before, their willingness to invest in the product is a great sign, but not if they’re going to be making baseball decisions from the perspective of winning back popular opinion.
I think the series of trades were executed with both objectives in mind. To be competitive on the field as well as sending a publicity message. In fact, I would say that the desire to send a public message made the Dodgers toss in De La Rosa, Webster, & Sands when they probably didn’t need to.
To reiterate, the trade in a vacuum was alright but everybody was talking about the Dodgers getting snowed because they not only gave up money (which the new ownership doesn’t much care about) and well regarded prospects. The teams probably could have executed this trade in the off-season without giving up the prospects that they did but the zeal to want to make a splash pushed them over the edge.
If I truly believed the ownership didn’t care about money (like say a ~300 million payroll), then yeah, the trade was fine since they can always just keep signing guys with no regard for value.
However, until I see them go out and sign Zack Greinke and friends in the years to come, I don’t honestly believe they won’t be limited by the payroll obligations at some point. Therefore, it’s still important to target the right types of players and not give away all your relevant prospects.
I absolutely agree, which is why all along (going all the way back to when the Walter/Kasten/Magic group won the bid) I’ve been cautioning against the desire to make a splash for the sake of PR. And you certainly won’t be catching me defending any of these moves since I’ve very down on them from the beginning.
I just worry about the pitching staff with the rotation ready guys being traded and the payroll probably close to the maximum.
The Dodgers were already back to being third in attendance, so what was the incessant need to “send a message to anybody”? I would argue things were a lot more positive before they did this because expectations were hopeful for the future beyond 2012.
Now fans are fucking flipping out if they don’t win this year because expectations are 90s Yankees even though the players they got aren’t anywhere near that caliber right now. Maybe it’s because I get more of this on Twitter or whatever, but people’s attitudes shifted dramatically after they started balling out.
Are they back to third? I thought I heard the other day that it was back to 5th… but either way, it’s splitting hairs.
And ya, you probably see much more of the vitriol and expected Stupid Fan™ mentality.
Yeah, 3rd.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAD/attend.shtml
Best blog ever. Where else are you gonna get 100% perfect descriptions such as “the baseball version of blue balls”? That’s exactly the way fans are left feeling right now with the Dodgers anemic offense.
Not that it’s much of a sample size, but prior to the Boston trade, the Dodgers were scoring 4.0 runs per game on average and allowing 3.7 to the opposition. Since the Boston trade, they’re scoring 3.1 and allowing 4.4. So almost a full run less on offense and almost 3/4 of run more given away by pitching. That’s a huge swing, especially when you consider that they’ve had only two big offensive outbursts since the trade, one of which was the very first day with their new teammates and the other occurred in Colorado 4 days later. Their average runs scored in the remaining 14 games has been a dismal 2.2.
Pitching lately has been up and down, but the loss of Bills and Jansen is a large contributor to that and you can’t really expect Blanton and Guerrier (or whoever filled the bullpen hole Jansen left) to produce the same results. The offense has been beyond horrendous though and there’s really no reason for it. I get that Kemp has been injured, but Loney has been replaced by Gonzalez, Gordon by Ramirez and Rivera/Gwynn/Abreu by Victorino. How those three changes have resulted in almost a full run less scored per game is beyond me, except to keep going back to small sample size.
Ownership has tried to field a better team in a short period of time, but it’s up to the coaches and players to get the team to produce. Injuries can’t be helped, but when the offense swings the bats as if every pitcher they’re facing is an elite pitcher, you’re not gonna win games. 4 shutouts in 14 games should be unacceptable, just like the 5 shutouts in 6 games were back in late June. I’m starting to think that coaching may have something to do with this, when the entire offense can be shut down that often in a semi-short period of time. You’d think they’d have some plan or ideas to help try and get guys out of their offensive funks.
Whatever it is, these guys really need to pull their heads out and start producing at the plate before it’s too late. Coming into the season I had zero expectations for 2012, but now they’re in the thick of it and have some decent pieces to give ‘em a shot to compete…they just need to start stringing together some runs and some Ws so that they can at least get a chance to make some noise in the postseason. Even if it is only a whisper. At least then they’ll have some experience together and something to build off of next season. If the pitching is their downfall, then fine…at least we know that injuries are the culprit there. The offense doesn’t have that same excuse any more, imo.
Sorry, this rant has been building up for a while now, lol.
It’s a small sample size and it was a trade for the future. Hell, they could still very well make the playoffs and get hot and win the World Series. Who knows?
My only concern is their motivation behind doing certain things, because so far almost everything they say seems motivated by assuming fans are idiots, giving said target audience of idiots a bunch of rhetoric, and trying to get them to start making it rain at Dodger Stadium.
Like a quick fix instead of their continued insistence on patience and doing it the right way.
Not to be the voice of reason (hell, I’m STILL the guy ready to march down to Colletti’s house and burn it down) but just as the point above re twitter, maybe you’re taking this Peter Gruber statement a bit too far.
I mean, he is in the business of bombastic statements. The movie industry is all about PR and marketing. (Not to mention their promotional business which _is_ PR/marketing.) So to a person who has that kind of mindset, of course everything is about PR and buzz.
I still have faith in Kasten’s MO from Atlanta and DC.
Absolutely, I acknowledged the possibility in the post itself, but it’s just a feeling I get from all the statements they’ve made thus far.
They seem intent on winning fans back, which isn’t a bad thing, but I worry it interferes with baseball decisions.