So a couple days ago, I asked Eric Stephen of True Blue LA to ask Carl Crawford about his hitting mechanics, and he did so for me, primarily because he’s awesome.

Why, you ask? Because of my article for Baseball Prospectus back in October broaching that exact subject. Basically, I wanted to know if I was right so I could pat myself on the back.

:o

Anyway, he allowed me to publish the convo.

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Are you going back to your style and/or stance from 2010?

“I’m pretty much trying to get back to how I was doing things then.”

“When I got to Boston, my stance was more open. I’m trying to get back to being more square to the pitcher, and my batting stance isn’t as wide. Those are two of the little things I’m trying to focus on.”

On Going The Other Way

“Batting more square, more closed, instead of being more open. When I’m open the ball away looks far away, so I’m trying to get more square so everything looks closer to me.”

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I AM A GENIUS!

But seriously though, it’s positive that he’s trying to get back to his 2010 stance, because there’s a gigantic difference between his approach then and in 2011.

My hopes that he would carry on with his 2012 adjustment seems valid, as he appears to acknowledge that it’s something he could benefit from. Now all that’s left is to see whether he can stay healthy enough to implement it and whether or not he can stick to the plan.

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Amazingly, the evil dictator Mike Petriello picked up on Crawford’s comments and wrote about Crawford’s mechanics as well, though he picked up on one thing that I didn’t.

So what impact did the stance shenanigans have? Among other things, it made him unable to get to the outside pitch. Using the Baseball Prospectus heat maps, we can see that when Crawford was having his career year in 2010, with his stance slowly opening up, he was quite good at getting to pitches on the outside part of the plate. In 2011, fully open, he had absolutely no prayer. (And, it should be noted, even in September of 2010 he was beginning to have trouble getting to outside pitches.)

This is a cool finding because it expands on my point that he was struggling with hard stuff due to his timing errors. So now we have another specific thing to watch, which is his plate coverage.

In the end, a major-league player confirmed that I am an absolute genius…

…or maybe that he’s just trying to go back to the last time he was successful.

The Dodgers have dealt John Ely to the Astros in exchange for minor-league lefty Rob Rasmussen.

Rasmussen, a SoCal native and UCLA graduate, was selected by the Dodgers in the 27th round of the 2007 draft but declined to sign and instead became a Bruin. He was drafted by the Marlins in the 2nd round of the 2010 draft and acquired by Houston in 2012 as part of the Carlos Lee deal.

John Sickels of Minor League Ball gave his thoughts on the deal for both teams here. A detailed report on Rasmussen, soon to be 24, can be found here from True Blue LA.

Rob profiles as a relief pitcher and adds some lefty depth to the organization. He’s been emphatic in his joy following the deal:

Speechless/incredibly excited to be a Dodger, truly a dream come true!

— Rob Rasmussen (@RasmussenRob) December 19, 2012

For a kid who lived 10 minutes from the stadium, and saw the likes of Piazza and Nomo, I couldn’t be happier than I’ve been all day today

— Rob Rasmussen (@RasmussenRob) December 20, 2012

Ely, who was merely organizational depth with the Dodgers and profiles as such going forward, was a small price to pay for a flier on a small lefty with some upside.

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Scott Van Slyke has cleared waivers and been outrighted to AAA Albuquerque.

While Van Slyke is probably just a bench player or perhaps a one-year stopgap for a rebuilding team, I’m surprised nobody took a chance on him.

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The Dodgers have signed former Angels third baseman Dallas McPherson to a minor-league contract with an invitation to Spring Training.

Over 10 seasons, McPherson owns a career minor-league line of .289/.370/.563/.933, but a career major-league slash line of just .241/.292/.446/.738 with a .316 wOBA while whiffing in an unseemly 32.1% of his plate appearances.

Over the past six years he’s amassed just 30 plate appearances and appeared in 22 games in the bigs. That doesn’t even tell the whole story though, as Dallas didn’t taste MLB ball in 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2012 due to a combination of injuries and ineffectiveness.

McPherson profiles as a classic AAAA player.

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Ryu Hyun-jin: It was assumed he would not participate in the WBC and that assumption was confirmed today with the replacements being named.

— Dan (@MyKBO) December 21, 2012

The Dodgers have announced their minor-league staff for 2013.

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Greg Zakwin is the founder of the site Plaschke Thy Sweater Is Argyle. Follow him on Twitter @ArgyledPlaschke.

I had the opportunity to speak with Chris Reed before his Nov. 8 Arizona Fall League game.

Edited for sanity, because nobody wants to read “uh” and “um” and laughs and transitions and crap.

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Pitching in the AFL is always difficult, so are you making any conscious adjustments to that or is it just specifically working on things beyond results?

“Yeah, we’re working on a few things. Working both sides of the plate and throwing off-speed in fastball counts. And I’d say adjusting to the hitters too because that’s who you’re going to be facing in the future.

Is there a mental aspect to that due to the increased competition or the hitter’s environment there in Arizona?

“Guys are looking for fastballs here, so you have to throw off-speed in fastball counts, and you have to be consistent with the fastball. Also, taking a mental approach where you have to pound the zone and make them hit it, hopefully right at somebody.”

As far as adjustments go, were there any mechanical or mental things that the Dodgers have made with you or wanted out of you?

“Yeah, I made a few mechanical adjustments. We’re trying to work them out because we didn’t want to make them in-season, so I’m working on that here. It’s more about repertoire and facing hitters here, but yeah, a few mechanical adjustments.”

Is there anything more specific you can say about it?

“Staying behind the ball and taking my hand behind me versus towards third base, shortening my arm path up, and hiding the ball a little better.”

You talked about pitch selection and what not, so as far as that’s concerned, what pitch do you have the most confidence in and what pitch needs improvement going forward?

“I’m most confident in my two-seam fastball, that has been my go-to pitch, both inside and outside. It’s been my best pitch and my best command, but also, I’ve been working on getting my slider back, so when I have that, I’m most confident in using that in two-strike situations or even like getting ahead of lefties. I like to use that pitch. In terms of what pitch I need to work on the most, it’s my change-up, but I felt I came a long way with that here so I feel I can use that next season as well.”

As far as your change-up goes, do the Dodgers have an organizational philosophy to teach that or is that more of your own work?

“We’re working with individual coaches that throw similar to you or have an idea of what you’re going through, so I’ve been working with Matt Herges here in terms of putting more pressure on the inside of my middle finger and the circle part of the change-up. So that’s what I’ve been working on, is just putting more pressure on the inside of the ball.”

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Chris Reed was great to talk with because he seemed conscious of what I wanted to know and even provided extra details to questions without me asking. I thought it was a pretty revealing conversation because I was personally interested to see what the Dodgers were having him do mechanically so I could look at it later.

The last question I asked was because I know readers here and commenters at True Blue LA have speculated that the Dodgers hate the change-up and don’t teach it, speculation primarily based on the lack of pitchers that use the pitch in the system. However, it seemed to me that if you do throw the pitch, they don’t mind and find coaches that can work with them. Maybe it’s a new switch in organizational philosophy? I dunno, but if they did have something against it before, it certainly didn’t seem like there was an organizational mandate on it now.

After a scare the other day due to the results of his first MRI, which led to speculation that he could miss up to a year, Chad Billingsley‘s second MRI came back with much better news for him and the Dodgers.

Manager Don Mattingly said he doubts Tuesday’s starter will be Chad Billingsley, who took an MRI on Monday — his second in as many days — that revealed only inflammation in his sore elbow. Billingsley played catch before Monday’s game and said it went well.

Mattingly added the team was being cautious with scratching Billingsley from his scheduled start on Sunday. After Monday’s game, the manager said the team doesn’t want to push the panic button and feel forced to start Billingsley and risk further injury. Mattingly said he doesn’t foresee any time needed on the disabled list and expects Billingsley to miss just this one start.

But somebody has to start for him, so who will it be? Not Jamey Wright according to Don Mattingly, but Stephen Fife and John Ely seem like prime candidates to me.

A likely scenario would be the team calls up Fife to start Tuesday and sends down either Josh Wall or Shawn Tolleson, who pitched two innings in relief on Monday. Javy Guerra, who is expected back Tuesday or Wednesday from visiting his father in Mexico, would likely return from the bereavement list on Wednesday, when the team sends Fife back down after making the spot start.

It’s interesting that Ely isn’t even mentioned, despite the fact that he’s been by far the best pitcher at AAA for the Dodgers and has MLB experience. Of course, a large reason for the preference for Fife lies in his status on the 40-man roster, but I do wonder if there are other reasons at play.

A while back on True Blue LA, there was a since-deleted FanPost that got featured on the main page. It was from some area scout (or something like that) sharing information from a scouting meeting with Ned Colletti. In the FanPost, along with other solid insight, he mentioned Colletti’s dislike for Ely. Fife, on the other hand, was traded for by Colletti in what I still consider a confusing deal.

I mention this because Ely has a 3.22 ERA, 3.29 FIP, and 2.78 SIERA, whereas Fife is at 4.53, 3.91, and 4.37. It’s not like Fife’s a better prospect than Ely, nor does he have a plus arm, so I’m unsure why Ely merits zero attention in this case.

I understand the complication with the Dodgers 40-man roster, but it’s not like they are short on players who can be designated without worrying about: 1) hurting the team or 2) a team picking the player up.

Just saying.

Who is consistent or inconsistent in the Dodgers starting rotation? Does it even matter?

Find out over at True Blue LA: here.

If you hadn’t noticed already, all of us contributors over at True Blue LA recently gave our predictions for the 2012 season.

As you can see, I have the Dodgers at 81-81, finishing 3rd in the division, and missing the playoffs.

I explained why in a few paragraphs.

Chad Moriyama

While a new era in Dodgers history has begun, the current roster is still stuck in the previous era, arguably surrounding the prime talent with even worse veterans than last year. Any hopes of making a run at either the division or the playoffs revolves around the team making a gigantic splash in trades or career years from 3-4 players.

Given that a compilation of projection systems has the Dodgers going 77-85, finishing fourth, and PECOTA has the Dodgers going 78-84, finishing fifth, I don’t think my view is out of line. I believe the Dodgers are better than their projections though, with Andre Ethier having a better year to make up for Matt Kemp’s inevitable regression, a strong bullpen with depth (unnecessarily deep), and Nathan Eovaldi and Rubby De La Rosa (down the stretch) to help out with the rotation.

While I suppose there’s always hope in what is still a weak division, the future seasons are where the light at the end of the tunnel lies.

When I submitted my prediction, I actually thought I was being a bit generous with the .500 mark, as I put them there despite the fact that every projection system has the Dodgers going down like the Hindenburg.

To my surprise though, the overwhelming consensus among the contributors was that the team would finish in the mid-80s to high-80s in the win column, with half of them predicting the playoffs and nobody predicting a finish lower than 2nd.

Exploring further, the sentiment among the commenters was that of agreement with the contributors, and more than a few even went as far as predicting over 90 wins. Now to be fair, two statistically minded commenters did provide a bit of realism. Andrew Grant, who formerly ran True Blue LA, had the Dodgers at 79-83, while Xeifrank of Dodger Sims put the team at 80-82. As for most everybody else, I’ll just say that comments don’t generally bother me when I read them on mainstream sites or message boards, but I consider the True Blue LA crowd to be generally intelligent, so if they are solidly optimistic about 2012, then I can’t imagine how high the casual fan must be (*snicker*).

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Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly fine to have optimistic predictions because you want things to end up a certain way. However, it concerns me that the expectations seem to clash harshly with the reality of the odds, as the mixture seems to point directly to a huge letdown this year.

While I hope the Dodgers win it all in 2012, I expect to see something that resembles a .500 team, and I hope you do too.

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Thoughts?

Explores the effect that the addition of Davey Lopes had on the 2011 Los Angeles Dodgers.

Read it over at True Blue LA.