Baseball fans love to talk about clutch plays and clutch players, and Dodgers fans are no exception, but like with a pitcher’s best and worst pitches, there tends to be a lack of evidence presented. As such, I decided to find some basis for clutch plays and clutch players, courtesy of the WPA and Clutch statistics. WPA Most sabermetric statistics ... Read More »
Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness: Arguing for patience and perspective regarding Yasiel Puig. I know he looks awfully impressive (dude looks like he could be on your fantasy football team), and I’ve liked what I’ve seen as well, but I really do believe people are getting way ahead of themselves. Baseball Prospectus: The Dodgers might have a platoon partner for Andre ... Read More »
Carl Crawford took live batting practice against an actual pitcher for the first time since elbow surgery last August. However, yesterday he reported forearm soreness and was held out of batting practice and drills. Crawford, rehabbing from Tommy John surgery on his left elbow last Aug. 23, took batting practice against live pitchers on Monday, but hasn’t been able to ... Read More »
The Dodgers, as a club, have a ton of injuries or guys rehabbing, so I expect this feature to be busy all season. Two of the most important injury cases will start off today, as we get timeline updates on Matt Kemp and Carl Crawford. Manager Don Mattingly said March 1 is a very rough target date for Kemp to ... Read More »
Andre Ethier is growing rather sick and tired of questions regarding his inability to hit left-handed pitchers and whether or not he’s going to be platooned, and he recently stated that the difference between people nagging him about it and not is an extra five hits a year. It was only one at-bat, and it was only spring training. But ... Read More »
Matt Wallach has replaced Eliezer Alfonzo in major-league camp for Spring Training. Alfonzo, one of the tens of Spring Training invitees operating on a minor-league deal, is suffering from dengue virus (yes, really). Eliezer will report to the minor-league portion of Camelback Ranch when he’s healthy enough to do so. Nobody knows when that will be, but he was a ... Read More »
Paco Rodriguez, Alfredo Amezaga, and Peter Moylan, three Dodgers with shots at making the Opening Day roster, have withdrawn from the World Baseball Classic to focus on making the club. With Scott Elbert rehabbing, Paco in particular is competing for the spot of left-handed reliever, though J.P. Howell would appear to be the front-runner there. Moylan is in the running ... Read More »
The Dodgers begin their 2013 Spring Training with a ton of injury concerns, and now that the whole team has reported, it’s time for an update on player statuses. No better way to start this off than with Chad Billingsley, who might be the biggest question mark of all even if the depth acquired has mitigated the consequences if he ... Read More »
Dodgers starter Josh Beckett is one of many high-risk, high-reward types of players coming into 2013, and at the time of his acquisition, he was seen as somewhat of a throw-in. This was partially because of his contract, but the fact is that both the statistics and the scouting reports matched up to say that he looked more like a ... Read More »
The Dodgers pitchers and catchers report to Camelback Ranch today, on Feb. 12, which officially kicks off the baseball season for the team, and tomorrow, on Feb. 13, they’ll have their first workout, in which I like to imagine Aaron Harang lumbering through conditioning drills like a monkey. The rest of the team will report to camp on Feb. 15, ... Read More »
Rick Honeycutt provided a bunch of updates on the health of Clayton Kershaw, Javy Guerra, Chad Billingsley, Shawn Tolleson, Josh Wall, and Kenley Jansen. “Clayton was great, outstanding,” said Honeycutt. “But he was outstanding his last three starts, so that wasn’t a surprise. Shawn Tolleson had a little back tightness, but he threw a ‘pen. So did Josh Wall and ... Read More »
The Dodgers have signed righty reliever Mark Lowe to a minor-league deal with an invitation to Spring Training. Lowe provides further depth to an already deep bullpen corps, which makes you wonder why he would sign with the Dodgers. He was a solid strikeout man as recently as 2011, but has never been anything more than a back of the ... Read More »
The Dodgers have officially converted former starting pitcher Chris Withrow to relief and former third baseman Pedro Baez to pitching. FINALLY Personally, I’ve seen both Withrow and Baez in those roles for a couple years now (maybe Baez for longer given his swing), and I think most evaluators began to agree within the last year, so it’s good to see ... Read More »
The 2013 projection for the Dodgers from Dan Szymborski‘s ZiPS system was released last week, and given that it’s probably my favorite forecasting tool, it’s worth a look to see how the team fared. Forecasting is not a complete science, obviously, and I’ll address some of the potential pitfalls as we go along, but it’s better to use objective tools ... Read More »
Clayton Kershaw related to Dylan Hernandez that the hip injury which felled him during the 2012 campaign has not been an issue this offseason. “It was never a problem for me,” said Kershaw. The Dodgers allowing Kersh to pitch on the balky hip late last season – in what was a lost season towards the end, no less – still ... Read More »
Chad Moriyama Dodgers, Sabermetrics, Scouting