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Archive for the ‘Dodgers’ Category

Projected NL West 25 Man Rosters

Posted in Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Giants, National League, Padres, Rockies, Rule5 on April 2, 2025 | Leave a Comment »

The final rosters do not have to be finalized until Sunday afternoon, but looking at what we know today, here’s how I see it in the NL West:

Pos Giants Rockies Padres Dodgers D-Backs
C Molina Ianetta Hundley Martin Montero
1B Huff Helton Gonzalez Loney LaRoche
2B Uribe Barmes Eckstein DeWitt Johnson
SS Renteria Tolowitzki Cabrera Furcal Drew
3B Sandoval Stewart Headley Blake Reynolds
LF DeRosa Gonzalez Blanks Ramirez Jackson
CF Rowand Fowler Gwynn Jr Kemp Young
RF Schierholtz Hawpe Venable Ethier Upton
OF Bowker Smith Hairston Johnson Parra
OF Lewis
 Spilboroghs Stairs Anderson Macias
IF Ishikawa Mora Hairston Jr. Amezaga Abreu
IF Veliz Giambi Salazar Belliard Roberts
C Whiteside Olivo Torrealba Ausmus Snyder
SP Lincecum Jimenez Garland Padilla Haren
SP Cain Francis Young Kershaw Jackson
SP Zito Cook Correia Billingsly Kennedy
SP Sanchez de la Rosa Richard
 Kuroda Lopez
SP Wellemeyer Hammel Latos Haeger Benson
RP Wilson Morales Bell Broxton Qualls
RP Affeldt Bentacourt Adams Sherill Howry
RP Romo Corpas Gregerson Troncoso Gutierrez
RP Pucetas Flores Gallagher Ortiz Zavada
RP Medders Belisile Mujica Weaver Heilman
RP Runzler Smith Stauffer
 Miller Boyer
25th Rohlinger Dayley Russell
 Carroll Bailey
  • Giants: Peguero, Ford, Escobar, Cameron, Martinez, Posey, Buress, Sanchez, Torres
  • Rockies : Redding, Beimel, Street, Buchholz, Spier, LoDuca, Eldred, Phelps, Escobar, Hererra, Reynolds
  • Padres: Denorfia, LeBlanc, Antonelli, Cunningham, Durango,Thatcher, Barfield, Munson, Geer, Inman, Poreda
  • Dodgers: Ortiz, Wade, Monasterios, Ayala, Towers, Kuo, Hu, Ellis, Green, Barton, Paul, Belisario
  • D-Backs: Webb, Vazquez, Kroenke, Rosales, Noberto, Ojeda, Ryal, Hester, Mulvey, Buckner, Allen, Gillespie, Augenstein,

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Delwyn Young’s Dodger Town Sendoff

Posted in American League, Around the Web, Dodgers, MLB, National League, Phillies, Pirates, Rookie Of Year, Tigers on April 14, 2025 | Leave a Comment »

The Dodger’s finally ran out of room on the roster for Delwyn Young. In the minors as an infielder he crushed the ball, but his defense made him into an outfielder. His bat is intriquing, but as he turns 27 this years old, he is running out of chances. In the right situation, it would be interesting to see what he might be able to do.

We lost Harry Kalas yesterday. Here are some of the memories of him:

World Series Calls

Its Outa Here

Philliadelphia long time writer Jayson Stark

Mark “The Bird” Fidrych is gone too. I was just watching a feature they had on him over the weekend on MLB network. I’ll never forget him as he was someone I grew up watching his first year in the league.

MLB.tv q&a

Tom is still Terrific

David Wells is now miked

Zach Duke - is he back?

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Dividends Paid Out For Former Dodger Pair

Posted in American League, Dodgers, ESPN, Infield, MLB, National League, Orioles, Rays on June 10, 2025 | Leave a Comment »

The Rays could of taken a high end catcher in this years draft , as they held the first overall pick and Gerald “Buster” Posey of Florida State was a name making the rounds. But, there is a new sheriff in Town. Dioner Navarro is his name. It is several years after the trade with the Dodgers, Navarro is finally looking like a talent both with his bat and his leadership skills behind the plate. I am not sure what has transpired with him, but the Rays are certainly well stocked at the catcher position with Shawn Riggins a young capable catcher baking him up.

The Rays also took a chance on Willy Aybar taking him from the bargain basement bin of the Braves. In Aybar, they have a valuable backup who can fill in all over the field. The Rays were patient with Aybar, and are now being rewarded. Seems like another score for the Andrew Friedman who also got infielder Chase Fontaine in the deal.

In other news. Here in North Carolina where are regional teams are “supposed” to be the O’s and the Nats, we are blacked out seeing their games by a cable dispute. So unless we drive over 250 miles, we can not see a game from either of those teams. Gone are the Braves on TBS for the most part. Thus, unless you buy some games over the air in media packages like Extra Innings, or MLB.TV, our only avenue for watching games is Fox’s game of the week, or games on ESPN.

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What Can Ground Balls Do For You?

Posted in Around the Web, Braves, Cubs, Defense, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Infield, MLB, National League, Padres, Pinto, Pitching, Sabermetrics on March 1, 2025 | 2 Comments »

In 2007, Jake Peavy was rewarded with his first Cy Young award as a 19 time game winner, while pitching most of his games in pitcher friendly Petco Park. His progression from one of the best best power pitching prospects in baseball, to one of the best pitchers in all of baseball seemed to have started in 2005. But, after the impressive 2005 season, his 2006 season was slightly a disappointment. But, fantasy owners who showed him the faith got to witness a Tom Seaver like season. With the 19 wins, an ERA of 2.54, a WHIP at 1.06, strikeout rate of 9.67 per 9 innings (which amounted to 240 Ks), these pitching numbers were the equivalent of a hitter winning the triple crown.

One thing I thought is interesting about Peavy, is he is a balanced flyball/ ground ball pitcher.

Name GB BABIP TB BB HR SO/9 DIPS ERA WHIP TEAM DER
Peavy 254 .266 253 68 13 9.67 2.76 2.54 1.06 .7125 (6th)

For example, his teammate Chris Young who had a real nice season in 2007 had only 131 ground balls (GB) on the season, where as two other very good pitchers in Brandon Webb and Hudson had over 400 ground balls on the season.

Name GB BABIP TB BB HR SO/9 DIPS ERA WHIP TEAM DER
Hudson 441 .281 298 53 10 5.30 3.40 3.33 1.22 .7188 (7th)
Webb 431 .277 295 72 12 7.39 3.18 3.01 1.19 .7066(10th)
Lowe 398 .278 293 59 20 6.64 3.89 3.88 1.27 .6991 (16th)
Oswalt 361 .300 324 60 14 6.54 3.51 3.18 1.33 .6997(15th)
Maddux 359

.297

 326

25

 14

4.73

 3.55

4.14

1.24

.7125(6th)

The balls that are put in play on the ground are much harder to turn an out with than fly balls are as indicated by higher BABIP.

Name GB BABIP TB BB HR SO/9 DIPS ERA WHIP TEAM DER
James, C 157

.264

 295 58 32 6.47 5.19 4.24 1.38 .7188 (7th)
Young, C 131

.235

 183 72 10 8.69 3.43 3.12 1.10 .7125 (6th)

With Ground ball pitchers, the success the pitcher exhibits depends highly on the defense. Where as, fly balls are easier to make an out with. If a pitcher that is balanced like Peavy, he gets the benefits of getting the easier outs with the fly balls, and have the infield defense to help you out on the ground balls. A stat that measures this is Defensive Efficiency Ratio (DER ) :

measures the percentage of times balls in play are turned into outs by the team’s fielders, not including homeruns. There are different versions of the formula for DER but one most commonly used is (BFP-H-K-BB-HBP-0.6*E)/(BFP-HR-K-BB-HBP) where BFP = batters faced pitcher, H=hits allowed, K=strikeouts, BB=walks allowed, HBP=hits batsmen and E=errors

Thus, for these ground ball pitchers in 2007, How did their defense help them is worth taking a look at.

Projection GB BABIP TEAM DER
Hudson 441 .281 .7188 (7th)
Webb 431 .277 .7066(10th)
Lowe 398 .278 .6991 (16th)
Oswalt 361 .300 .6997(15th)
Maddux 359

.297

.7125(6th)

So, all these pitchers with the high number of ground balls, are backed with defenses that are good at making outs when the ball gets in play. Take some of these pitchers, and place them with a bad defense, it would be interesting how there numbers would turn out.

One last thing I decided to do was take a look at the Range of the infielders involved in these good ground ball pitchers. I used Dave Pinto’s PMR:

uses play-by-play data to determine the probability of a ball in play being converted to an out based on six parameters: Direction of hit (a vector), The type of hit (Fly, ground, line drive, bunt), How hard the ball was hit (slow, medium, hard), The park, The handedness of the pitcher, The handedness of the batter.

Arizona (99.87 19th)

C 1B 2B SS 3B
96.26 (24th) 99.98 (14th) 104.12 (4th) 100.82 (11th) 94.61 (28th)

Braves (100.66 10th)

C 1B 2B SS 3B
115.67(2nd) 104.28(7th) 97.70 (22nd) 99.22 (17th) 99.90 (15th)

San Diego (100.08 17th)

C 1B 2B SS 3B
95.97 (25th) 105.21 (5th) 96.61 (27th) 98.44(22nd) 98.37 (18th)

Los Angeles (99.87 20th)

C 1B 2B SS 3B
108.91 (5th) 97.07 (19th) 96.99 (25th) 105.60 (3rd) 100.85 (14th)

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Tampa’s Infatuation with ex-Dodgers

Posted in Braves, Dodgers, Rays, Trade on January 18, 2026 | Leave a Comment »

In an interesting move, another former L.A. Dodger is now property of the Tampa Bay Rays. Except this time Ned Colletti was not involved. The Rays already had one former Dodger prospect Joel Guzman in the infield mix, now they have Will Aybar who can play both 2B and 3B. At one time, Aybar was considered the Dodgers the second baseman of the future. As far as a player who can fill a valuable role as a backup, I like this move. However, he most likely will be battling Guzman for a spot on the team. Aybar is a good insurance policy if the problems of last year are behind him. Also included in the deal is Chase Fontaine another middle infield prospect who in the past has shown an offensive part of his game. With Chase thrown in, I love this trade. Another good Friedman deal.

Related Blog Posts:

3 player deal

Chase Fontaine

Fontaine used as 2b and 3B too

Chase Utley Comparisons

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Jackie Robinson - Brooklyn Dodger

Posted in Dodgers, MLB on April 16, 2025 | 1 Comment »

Jackie Robinson‘s 60 year anniversary of 4-15-1947 debut.

robinson-dorinson-warmund.jpg

Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports and the American Dream

jackierobinson-hanft.jpg

Jackie Robinson Heroes America


alstondodgerssiburick.jpg

Alston And The Dodgers

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Billingsley’s Walks, Strikes and More

Posted in Dodgers, Minors, MLB, National League on February 24, 2026 | 1 Comment »

Billingsley‘s 2006 data with Dodgers:

Billingsley‘s 2006 data with Las Vegas

  • Batting Average Against : .221
  • BABIP: .289
  • K/9: 9.93
  • BB/9: 4.08
  • Homeruns/BB : 7 /32
  • Groundballs : 85
  • Flyballs: 55
  • Gamelog

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Pitcher Parks Through Time

Posted in Dodgers, MLB, National League, Sabermetrics on February 13, 2026 | Leave a Comment »

A few weeks ago, I had noted that Dodgers Stadium in 2006 had become more of a pitcher neutral ballpark, and had not behaved like a pitchers park that it has been known to be. In fact, it was ranked the #10 hitters ballpark. I was advised that one year does not make a trend, and to look at a longer time frame. Well, today I found what I was looking for with the historical park factors .

Interesting how it went from like 25th in 2005 to where it was in 2006:

Ever since its opening in 1962, Dodger Stadium has long been recognized as one of the most extreme pitchers parks in baseball. Over the past few years, Dodger Stadium has gradually leaned more towards the hitters’ favor, most likely from the depletion of foul territory from the recent installation of additional field boxes. In 2006, Dodger Stadium had a hitter-friendly, home run park factor of 1.22 (1.00 being indifferent to hitters or pitchers), while AT&T Park in San Francisco had a home run park factor of 0.69. If this trend continues in 2007, Schmidt could surrender more home runs in 2007 since he’s a fly-ball pitcher who had the fifth lowest groundball-to-fly ball ratio in the National League last year.

Last but not least, Schmidt’s shoulder weakness in 2005 is another negative factor to consider given his age is 34. Shoulder problems are a red flag because generally they are the most devastating ailments to a pitcher’s career. In Schmidt’s defense though, he did instill a rigorous workout regimen last offseason in which credited to his healthy turnaround in 2006

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Made it to the Show

Posted in Braves, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Marlins, Minors, National League, Nationals on February 9, 2026 | Leave a Comment »

In 2006, the National league proved to be a good place for some players to get their first legitimate chance at Major League Ball. Take Matt Diaz, the former Devil Ray who killed AAA pitching at Durham a few years back. He finally got his opportunity at the show, and proved he will be sticking around for a while. Russ Martin was only supposed to be filling in for an injured player. He went on to steal the starting job which allowed the Dodgers to trade their other catching prospect to the Rays. Uggla, the Rule V pick by Marlins was well worth the roster spot and he proved to be one of the best stories of the year. Stephen Drew has been lighting it up with his bat in minors ever since he signed. He proved to be as good as advetised. Lastly, Ryan Zimmerman who got a cup of coffee after signing following the 2005 college season. With a full year of at bats, he showed he has an all around game that reminds alot of people of David Wright with bat and the stolen bases,

RC - measure of the number of runs a batter truly contributed to his team’s offense.

VORP - value over replacemnt player that is adjusted by position.

EQA - A measure of total offensive value per out.

MLV - an estimate of the additional number of runs a given player will contribute to a lineup that otherwise consists of average offensive performers. MLVr is approximately equal to MLV per game. a psoitive number indicates above average.

OPS - On base average plus slugging percentage

Home Runs Percentage - Home run per at bats multiplied by 100

Name RC VORP MLVR EQA OPS HR%
Russ Martin 62 18.5 .062 .274 .791 2.41%
Stephen Drew 29 18.1 .191 .266 .874 2.39%
Dan Uggla 104 39.1 .115 .281 .819 4.41%
Ryan Zimmerman 107 26.9 .123 .283 .822 3.26%
Matt Diaz 39 16.1 .181 .283 .839 2.36%

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More On Jason Schmidt

Posted in Dodgers, Giants, MLB, National League on February 4, 2026 | 2 Comments »

In an attempt to dig deeper on the Dodgers Jason Schmidt (other than the new Jason Schmidt feed on the sidebar), I will take a look at a few metrics from last year.

I have brought you so far his projections. I have interviewed Marc Nordmadin from Baseball Prospectus and Heater Magazine who was the founder of Beyond The Box Score and got his take:

I worry about Schmidt in Dodger Stadium. Not a lot, but I don’t have the same confidence I would if he was still in San Francisco. Dodger Stadium is fairly neutral nowadays instead of the pitcher’s park it used to be, with homeruns allowed being the significant problem. Schmidt is an extreme flyball pitcher with homerun tendencies, and pitching half his games in San Francisco helped to mask that somewhat.

Schmidt’s 2006 data from Giants:

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