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

As it stands right now, this is the Dodgers Rotation: Clayton Kershaw – 2.73 ERA Chris Capuano – 2.60 ERA Nate Eovaldi – 2.35 ERA Aaron Harang – 3.76 ERA Chad Billingsley – 4.15 ERA With Ted Lilly making progress, a decision as to who comes out of the rotation will have to be made [...]

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There are a variety of reasons for this, but the not the least of which is the disconnect between the coaches and the players. Joe Torre and Company are not known for being brilliant strategists, and that issue was readily exposed this season. In my opinion, none of the coaching staff should be back. There needs to be a clean sweep. I would give Ned Colletti one more year. I think he has learned a lot, but I still think giving up James McDonald for Dotel was a bonehead move. I believe that James McDonald IS BETTER RIGHT NOW than Octavio Dotel.

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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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Baseball seems to put Spring in your step when Spring is in the air.  It’s been a long, cold winter here – I usually enjoy the winter, but my surgeon told me that the first winter would be rough on my hip and it has been a bear.  Stiff, sore and constantly aware of it, [...]

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Since the Dodgers failed to offer arbitration the Hudson and Wolf, I have heard such incessant crying and complaining about the Dodgers failure to do so and how stupid it was.  Right about now, I am going to publish what Jon Weisman  wrote today at his new gig at ESPN Los Angeles, where he has [...]

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The Orioles have signed Joe Guzman to a minor league deal.  Is he Jack Cust?  Maybe.  Maybe not!  Do you remember when…? Kemp, Ethier, Loney, Martin, Manny and Furcal should be better,  Blake should be the same.  DeWitt/Carroll/Belliard may be worse than 2B last year (maybe not).  How does that make us not as good as [...]

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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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What are the odds that Padilla has a better year than Wolf? Pretty good, I predict! Padilla has every reason in the world to act right, train hard, pitch good and step up. If he wins 12-15 games with a sub 4.00 ERA, he’ll be in line for a bigger payoff next year. It is in situtaions such as this that starters like Padilla can put up their “career year.”

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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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Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts made a good point yesterday when he asked:  Honestly, if the Dodgers had done nothing to this point except offer Wolf and Hudson arbitration — if they had gotten those draft picks as compensation, made no roster additions and were just waiting out the market to sign a No. 4 [...]

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Yeah, Arte Moreno looks really swell – He signed Lackey and Figgins and Matsui, right?  What?  not Lackey and Figgins?  Well, Matsui is a friggin’ gazelle, I tell you!  Moreno is a genius!  Yeah, that’s the ticket!  You guys kill me with your incessant sobbing! Come next season, you goofballs are going to look back [...]

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It’s 12 degrees F outside in Indy today, but the windchill factor is -7 below Zero (wind gusts up to 30 MPH).  -7 below ZERO wind chill in Indianapolis in December!  Who knew?   It will be 30 years before the Winter Meetings are back here. From Diamond Leung in Diamond Notes: Dodgers GM Ned Colletti [...]

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It’s no secret that the McCourts are in the midst of a messy divorce, but would things be any different if Frank and Jamie were still together? Would that have caused the Dodgers to offer arbitration to Randy Wolf and/or Orlando Hudson?  Would that have caused the Dodgers to sign Wolf?  Well, no one can [...]

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After talking with lots and lots of scouts, pro personnel people and writers, I am convinced that the Dodgers did the right thing in refusing arbitration to Wolf and Hudson.  There are lots of reasons why and I will articulate them later this week.  I overheard some other scouts talking about the Dodgers Young Arms and [...]

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There’s not a lot of movement, so far – Just the D-Backs trade with the Tigers and Yankees.   I find it curious that the D-Backs gave away “Mad-Max” so easily. Jamie and Frank have allegedly agreed on her monthly stipend so the hearing is cancelled the 15th! Ned is kicking the tires of Pinero and [...]

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The Baseball Winter Meetings are being held in Indianapolis beginning on Monday, December 7th thru Thursday, December 10th.  While MLB would not issue me a credential, I will be there and hopefully get lucky.   The only thing that credentials really do is get you inside the interview room when there are news conferences. I can [...]

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Answer:  One is a bottom-dwelling garbage-eater and the other is a fish! Get used to it.  The Dodgers are now officially bottom-dwelling, garbage-eaters.  They love to eat up cheap, journeyman-like players who may not have much upside but are cheap, cheap, cheap.  Warm bodies to stock AAA… and maybe, if a Randy Wolf or Adrian [...]

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The Spin:  “We didn’t think it was prudent to offer Wolf or Hudson arbitration in this down market because we really didn’t want either one and we were afraid they would accept.” The No-Spin:  “Frank won’t spend a dime and we are a bunch of ignorant jackasses.” The Spin:  “The divorce won’t have an effect [...]

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If you have a home which is worth $400,000 or $400,000,000 and you are served divorce papers by your spouse,  what do you do?  It’s obvious that a great part of the parties’ net worth is that asset.  Some people are idiots about this – some have even burned-down the house rather than split the [...]

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The Dodgers have improved over 2008.   They won more games, but they still couldn’t get past the Phillies, and the Phillies will still be good next year.  I suspect that Raul Ibanez had his career year and will slip back to reality next year and the Phillies will have some holes to fill, just like [...]

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