LADodgerTalk.com – Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, Vin Scully, Andre Ethier and the Dodgers

The Dodgers have played 106 games and have won exactly 56 of those games.  That means there are exactly 56 more games in the season.  If the Dodgers go .500 the rest of the way, they will win 84 games.  That’s not enough.  They need to win at least 5 or 6 more than that [...]

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I spent a couple of days last week going back several years and reading what the blogs who focus on baseball sabermetrics predicted about Dodger players, and what I predicted about those same players. Without getting into a pissing match, what I found was that our batting averages were pretty much the same.    I [...]

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It’s on the Radio and in print all around the blogosphere that Andre Ethier could be a “man on a mission.”  In part, he said: “It comes down to the security part, too, but it also comes down to unfinished business and I feel like, yeah, I’m facing that decision now where hopefully it doesn’t [...]

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It only took him five weeks to figure out and write what I wrote on December 13, 2011: If Prince Fielder really wants to come to LA, and I think he does, he and the Dodgers can still make it happen.   Two of his best friends play for the Dodgers, namely Matt Kemp and [...]

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A few years ago, I was repeatedly berated for calling Andre Ethier “soft.”  I backed off for a while when he had some clutch hits, but let’s face the truth:  He is soft.  He’s a singles hitter who can’t hit lefties.  It is what it is.  You can’t pay a soft player what he is [...]

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We have all heard the term “Little Man Syndrome” used in connection with someone who might try to overcompensate for a lack of physical stature in some other fashion.  I think that just the opposite is true in the case of Jon Broxton, and in a minute I will explain why. But first, let me [...]

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The Knucklehead:  Getting shot in the leg is enough to cause you to get branded as a knucklehead, but there’s a lot more to it than that.  Vicente Padilla arguably has some one thebest stuff you will ever see, but it’s his “knuckle-headedness”  which has kept him from achieving his potential.  Obviously, something happened in [...]

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I think James McDonald and Josh Lindblom will both play a big role with the 2010 Dodgers. If Hiroki Kuroda can continue to hit 95 MPH on his fastball and mix up his pitches like he has, he will be an All-Star this year. The Kiddie Corps of Chad and Clayton are starting to hit [...]

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I have a busy day today, but here are a few observations: That’s the Padilla the Dodgers need.  If he can pitch like that, they will be just fine. The Dodgers offense is among the most potent in baseball, with Ethier, Kemp, Loney and Martin coming into their own, Blake improving at 36, Manny being [...]

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Now that it’s all over, we can look back and say that Joe Torre should have brought Jon Broxton in and we would have won right? Broxton has never been known to blow a game right.  Broxton breezed last night, right?  Now, if he had brought in Brox and he had lost the game, you [...]

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Just a laundry list of a few things I expect to see this year (actually my wish list along with predictions): A healthy Rafael Furcal who is 100% physically and (most importantly) mentally (it takes a while to recover mentally from a surgery) regains his form and is again one of the elite short stops [...]

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Spring Training has broken out at Camelback Ranch and the news is pouring in: According to Ken Gurnick, Dodgers’ Bullpen Coach Ken Howell discovered a flaw in Eric Gagne’s delivery which he is attempting to correct. The former Cy Young Award-winning closer made a quick adjustment and, according to Howell, immediately gained velocity on his [...]

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It turns out that Ronnie Belisario and I have a lot in common – No I don’t have a DUI, but we both have Visa problems that prevented us from reporting yesterday.  He hasn’t been able to obtain his, and I have to work to pay mine off!  So there you go.  Joe Torre isn’t [...]

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Pitchers and Catchers report on February 2o, 2010 and the first workout is February 21, 2010, so I am going to take a few days off.  I’ll be back on the 20th or 21st.  I’ll leave you with a few things to cuss and discuss: Is it possible that the Combination of Reed Johnson and [...]

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Some people are saying that the Dodgers are a .500 team (when I say “some people” I don’t mean “informed baseball people”), which I think is just plain delusional.  I think sometimes Dodger fans fail to take into consideration that change is inevitable, and often, it is good.  Will everything be OK?  Seth Godin summed [...]

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Los Angeles – In what has to be somewhat of a surprise, the Dodgers made two major announcements today.  The first announcement has to do with the divorce proceedings of Frank and Jamie McCourt who agreed to a continuance of their May hearing: The McCourt’s announced that they have resolved their personal issues and that [...]

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Some people say I am too optimistic and that I always predict career years for the Dodgers, so I thought I’d post what I said last year.  This is from a February 16, 2009 post, which was BEFORE O-Dog and Manny were signed: 1B- James Loney is quietly becoming a force at 1B.  He will win [...]

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Last off-season, I predicted that it would not be Manny who made the team better, but rather “the kids.”  Little did I know what would happen to Manny and how he would later struggle.  If the Manny Ramirez of 2008 had played in 2009, the Dodgers might still be shaking the confetti out of their shoes, [...]

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Bill Shaikin of The LA Times has an interview with Dennis Mannion, the Dodgers President & Big Kahuna.  While I am not one to believe everything I read, I believe most (maybe all) of what he said.  Here’s one quote I found interesting: “Our baseball and business decisions have not been impacted by the proceedings. [...]

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I am sick of talking about the divorce proceedings, so you won’t find much about it here – you know where to look.  However, I do want to address the Free Pass Baseball Fans are giving Arte Moreno while castigating Frank McCourt.   The Angels lost two of their most important free agents – Figgins and [...]

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