There is bad, really bad, terrible and then this unnamed layer of hell

The hot stove league is heating up for just about everybody with the obvious exception of the Dodgers.  Let’s take a quick look at the top FAs on the market and also at a few of the names dangled as trade bait and see exactly why the Dodgers won’t/can’t get involved.  Below is a quick rundown of Free Agents or pieces that might be available in the order that I think represents the best to the worst with a serious emphasis on hitters since we’ve established that the rotation actually looks solid…congrats to the braintrust on the Kuroda and Garland signing too, a combined $17MM for two quality innings-eaters isn’t terrible.  Still though, where was this last year?  At the start of last season we all knew the Dodgers lacked pitchers but their hitting was good enough.  After the inking of Kuroda the attention should have been turned to the offensive side of the equation but today the word out of LA is the Garland signing, which again I’m fine with but really, why now?

Recipe: To win more games you either need to score more or allow less.  Run prevention wasn’t a huge problem for the Dodgers but the offense had a real knack for disappearing for weeks on end so our solution is pretty simple: let’s score more runs (13th in the NL in scoring last year).  The Dodgers had the sad misfortune of leading the league in sacrifice bunts last year which obviously speaks volumes about their lack of pop and complete inability to move runners around the basepaths with any sort of efficiency.  You can blame a few losses on Big Jon Broxton but pobody’s nerfect you know what I mean?

Shopping List:
It’s going to be easier to sum up what we DON’T need at this point.
–CF: We heard so much about Matt Kemp vs. the organization last year but come on, 5 tool outfielders under team-friendly contracts don’t grow on trees, let’s pencil him in and expect a bounceback 2011.
–RF: Might as well pencil in 25 HRs and 100 RBI now.  If not for his mid-season injury (look at the pre/post ASB splits) Andre looked like he was ready to make the leap from Good to Great.  A right-handed caddy would be nice though, the Giant batted a paltry .233/.294/.333 vs. lefties last year.
–A #1 starter.  We’ve got one of those in Kershaw and a pair of 2s in C Bill and Lilly.  The backend is once again going to be a hodgepodge with a possible return of John Ely buffeted by some other schlubs.  It looks like Kuroda will sign elsewhere and they don’t have any arms close to the big league level in the minors.  But at least the top of the rotation will start off the season looking good, unlike last year where the hole left by Randy Wolf was never filled.
–The Bullpen.  You can go to war with Kuo, Brox, Kensley and a few spare parts.

What remains is what we need.  Circling the bases: Russ Mart is gone, Loney’s an atypical first baseman who provides close to nothing in the power department which would be fine if anybody else on the infield did but the expletive-producing Mount Rushmore of Ineptitude Theriot, Furcal, Belliard, and Blake produced Little League numbers the entire season.  And, of course, left field is a total mystery spot as (thank Buddha) Scotty Pods has declined arbitration.  The Dodgers did offer a small offer sheet to late season call up Jay Gibbons so we can assume they’d like to add him into the LF slot but at $400k even the penny pinching Dodgers might be quick to turn the page if he gets off to a slow start.

Do you see this team scoring more runs than last year?  Figure we get a full season from Ethier and Kemp rebounds to 2009 form and Furcal stays healthy enough to give a productive 120 games (which seems to be the best we can hope for at this point).  Doesn’t this look like a lot of sac bunts to you?  Sure does to me.  Later this week we’ll look at the FAs available and see if there’s anybody that might fill a need or two we can lock down for the 2011 season.

Sigh.

My phone buzzed pretty much all last night…first it was G Snide calling to tell me we’d won high points in our football league (I had no idea since footy was an afterthought this week) but all night I got a variety of messages and emails from the various Giant and Dodger fans sprinkled throughout my phone book.  Here’s a random yet representative sampling:

This is lowest of the low for us- Doctor J.
I think I am still rooting for the Giants – My dad
I just wet myself- Nick G.
How can you root for the Giants?  I was taught to hate the Giants – the girlfriend
The Giants win the World Series, The Giants win the World Series- G Snide
And the photo to your left/above from Newby.

Nice going, gents.  And of course I’m still (mostly) happy you San Franciscans even though for most Dodger fans this is Armageddon times the Apocalypse times a rectal exam but at the moment I feel like a nutter standing on the street corner with one of those THE END IS NEAR signs and I couldn’t be happier.  If the 2010 Giants can win a World Series then literally anybody can.  No, neither the Rangers nor the Giants are small market clubs but that Giant payroll suddenly looks a lot more skimpy when you deduct Barry Zito and Aaron Rowan’s bloated figures (dropping from a mid-tier $96M to a Washington Nationalesque $66M according to Cot’s).   The lesson, as always: spend to develop good young pitching, don’t throw money at pricey veterans that have a terrible ROI, get hot at the right time and get really, really lucky.

Oh, and just in case you think I’ve gone soft…nope.  Just jealous, that’s all.  And in case you need a little ammunition for the off-season and a reason to rekindle the NorCal hate, here’s a random sampling from Rob Neyer’s ESPN chat earlier today:

duuuder commented on Chat with Rob Neyer

So congrats, NorCal friends-you’ve earned it.  Go flip a car over or something.

Coming up later this week: Dodger’s offseason needs and shopping list.

The Sac Fly Heard 'Round the World

As a Dodger fan how were you supposed to feel when Aubrey Huff slid across home plate with the winning run last night?  Growing up it was always a zero sum game between the two teams–what was good for the Dodgers was bad for the Giants and vice versa.  If you were a Giants’ fan and you couldn’t win the NL West then you wanted to either finish ahead of the Dodgers or at least play the role of the spoiler.  We Dodger fans loved reveling in Barry Zito’s contract and Bonds’ steroid saga–sure they had the nice stadium and the well-heeled fans but we had at least a few World Series memories and a team that seemed poised to sit somewhere near the top of the West for a while and (almost as importantly) certainly ahead of those all-pitch-no-hit Giants.  But now?  Now I’m happy for the Giants and (gulp) rooting for them.

Not even this guy could help McCourt sell tickets

Well, well, well.  Look who needs a little help in their Ad Department.  What’s wrong Frank?  People aren’t lining up all the way to I-5 to give you money for your stupid parking lot and $7 beers?  What a shock.  What’s gross  is all the emails, texts and phone calls I’ve had regarding the Dodgers the last few weeks have all been tabloid-style divorce talk instead of on field performance.  Yeah, sure this is an embarrassment for us fans and for MLB—who wants one of the signature franchises run by a couple of boobs who can’t keep their private lives private?  Bottom line is this is good for the club…after we get through these sordid tales and petty bickering about who owns what and what should be divided hopefully we get the judge to say SELL IT ALL and Mark Cuban and his billions can ride in to the rescue.  The McCourts had already begun to do some serious damage to the Dodger brand and we’re lucky that this divorce is shedding some light on all the dirty details.

We don’t deserve an owner who says one thing and then does another—if it takes $100M to win this division then spend $100M.  This isn’t the Pirates, this isn’t the Marlins.  This is the gal dammed Los Angeles Dodgers.  Let’s make this right.  Oh, but anyway, dust off your resumes, Frank needs help getting people through the turnstiles.  Job description below, good luck on your interview-

Sales & Marketing: Consumer Promotions

MANAGER OF ADVERTISING & PROMOTIONS – Los Angeles Dodgers LLC (Los Angeles, CA)

Department: Marketing
Status: Full time
Reports to: Senior Director, Marketing
Posting Date: August 31, 2010
Deadline: September 10, 2010

General Purpose:
Develops and directs all Dodgers advertising and promotional programs for Dodger revenue and branding initiatives.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: include the following. Other duties may be assigned.
Media / Advertising
• Plan, negotiate and execute General Market and Spanish Media partners including Radio, Television, Out of Home – Traditional & Non Traditional, Print, Online and Community events.
• Develop fully integrated advertising and promotional strategies with media partners and corporate sales team.
• Develop, in association with the Dodgers PR Department, Multi Cultural marketing strategies to communicate to the diverse fan base; primarily the Hispanic community, as well as the Asian Communities.

Manny Ramirez is scheduled to be in the starting lineup tonight for your Chicago White Sox (but for whatever reason wasn’t).  When it was announced he was leaving Sunday evening (or as they call that in internet time “one billion years ago”) I’m sure you went through your own personal range of emotions—I know I did.  They went like this: Acknowledgment.  Indifference.  Resignation.  The surprise factor was clearly lacking as this was a scenario reported on by various media outlets for the better part of two weeks and moving an aging, former superstar through the waiver process when you’re miles out of contention in exchange for a few prospects isn’t exactly a novel idea.  Oh, what?  They DIDN’T get any prospects?  A straight salary dump?  Wow, what a surprise.  At least we have a deep pipeline of prospects waiting in the wings.  Oh, right.  We don’t.  Sigh.

You know what though, I didn’t intend for this to be a post ripping the Dodgers organizational management, it was just supposed to be Manny focused and I’m going to try to bring this thing back to his time with the club.  One of my favorite songs is “Statler 2000” by Armchair Martian (and covered by Bad Astronaut…or maybe the other way around, who can even keep them straight) with the seemingly prophetic lyrics: “All I know is you came too quickly/ And left the same” which basically sums up my thoughts completely—he came in out of nowhere, achieved instant rockstar status and made every Dodger game a must-see event…you know, pretty much exactly like he did with Boston.  For a solid year we got to see one of the best hitters mash NL pitching and mask an infield full of deficiencies.  And then the Homer Bailey fastball off the wrist (or was it Bronson Arroyo?  Who can even remember).  And then something called hCG?  And then the suspension.  And then the Disabled List.  And then the DL again.  And again.  And now he’s gone, replaced by Scott Podsednik who is basically the anti-Manny at the plate.

Was it fun having him in town?  Absolutely.  Will we miss him now that he’s gone?  Probably not.  The team isn’t going anywhere with him and while it would have been awesome to flip him for something/anything of value we got the full Manny experience and we were better off for it in the end.  Oh, and in case you think having Manny on another club means the Dodgers are off the hook for the remainder of his payroll…yeah, sorry—we’re paying that bill for the next few years (hello Andruw Jones!) thanks to the McCourt-Colletti-Enron bookkeeping process. Can we get a new owner now, please?

Editor’s Note: A dark day and Dodgers season just got brighter as Vin Scully shocked many of us when he announced this afternoon he IS coming back for another season of “Dodger baseball.” Best news of the weekend! Now back to our previously scheduled post, pre-Vinny’s return announcement.

I have nothing clever to say on this day, which follows another rough night/morning with two crazy kids, a missed stoke with Pembertonian, and a Saturday where I spent most of the day in WordPress databases trying to restore a corrupt WCBias database.

If you were one of the two people who visited The Bias yesterday, you probably noticed all 500+ of the Bias’ posts were missing. Gone. Disappeared. Like Manny. No production whatsoever.

Strangest thing I’d ever seen in four years working with WordPress.

Took half the day, but I fixed it, thanks to WP-DB Backup. If you have a WP blog, be sure to use this plugin. Saved my ass, not to mention 211 posts by BG, and a couple hundred posts by Slim (194 posts), Pembertonian (76), Ryantific (36), WCBias Guests (27) and notsellingjeans (3).

Whatever happened to that jeans guy anyway?

Probably had a kid or something.

In fact, I believe our boy Ryantific will be having one shortly. Which means we’ll probably see less of him, too.

Now if BG has a kid, we might as well shut down this blog, because he’s our lifeblood, our ambasador to the blogosphere. Our Vin Scully if you will.

Which brings me to the topic of this post: Vinny.

Today was expected to be one of the saddest in LA Dodgers history as Vin was announcing his future plans before today’s game.

Why did we think he was leaving us? Health reasons? The guy is older than dirt. Family reasons? The guy probably has a million grandkids by now. Tired of travel. Tired of technology. Tired of where the game is headed. Tired of Manny.

He’s like a lot of us. And that’s why we love him.

Vinny, fortunately, is coming back for another season of memories. Here are some of the best memories he’s shared with us here on the West Coast over the past 61 seasons:

Tony Gwynn called Vin Scully an ambasador of the game when I was lucky enough to interview the Hall of Famer a few years back, and that’s something when one of the greatest hitters of all-time is saying that:

“Like most people, I was a fan to begin with. I listened to Vin Scully every night, knew all the ballplayers, their stats and all of that. I always made sure to show my respect to the guys before me. I’m about the game and giving back what a lot of those guys passed on to me. That’s the most important thing you can do, give these younger players what they need to know to be better.”

Scully is so good, he’s one of the Seven Wonders of the (Sports) World in my eyes:

“L.A.’s Big Three: Vin Scully, Bob Miller and the late-Chick Hearn, the greatest trifecta of sports announcers a city will ever see. Gold mics all around.”

And of course, Vinny is an all around good guy and one of the greatest sports announcers of all time. Pembertonian went with Harry Caray No. 1 on this day, but we all know he’s biased to the Midwest. We here at WCB aren’t “Biased.” And West Coast natives know who the real No. 1 is:

“There may not be a cozier baseball voice out there. While Scully has been the voice of the Dodgers for 59 years, I first heard him doing NBC games with Joe Garagiola — perhaps the greatest baseball commentator pairing of all.

“There are too many great Scully calls to mention, but to name a few: Kirk Gibson’s World Series homerun, Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth’s homerun record, and Dwight Clark’s endzone catch in the NFC championship game.”

And our kicker comes from our boy, BG, who has Vinny by his side every time he has to go to that sad sap job of his:

“I have two pictures tapes to my computer monitor in my office/extra bedroom. One is of Morrissey because anyone who can come up with a song like, “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get” deserves all the props in the world, the second is a postcard imagine of Vin Scully.”

Here’s to Vinny being at all of our sides for at least another season.

- Sick file photo illustration by our own BG, who has been talked down from the ledge and will be posting for The Bias again shortly.

Shameful

Worst season ever.  I really don’t want to say anything bad about the franchise that made me love sports but I hate everything about this season and now, thanks to a few ill-advised trades, I might end up hating future seasons as well.  If you want a rundown of these despicable moves just click to this ESPN link, it’s as good as any other.   The smell emanating from the Dodgers right now is probably the worst thing you can smell in professional sports–a mix of desperation *and* incompetence.  If McCourt thinks he’s losing the team in the offseason and he’s going to go down firing, that’s fine; just go out with some noise.  Trade for Dan Haren who has a fairly club-friendly contract for the next few seasons, not for Ted Lilly who is a rental.  Trade for Soria (another great contract) instead of Dotel.  Trade for Ludwick instead of Podsednik.  The pieces the Dodgers acquired are not guys that put you over the top–these are the types of players you trade for when you are UP by eight games and want to shore up your squad for the postseason, not when you’re DOWN by eight games (and fading) and also mortgaging your future in the process.  If you really wanted to add somebody, try adding some impact pieces (not this rice pilaf that you just took on) BEFORE your season has been blown to bits and never, ever throw good money (or prospects) after bad.

Here is a smattering of text messages I got on the days leading up to the deadline:

Greg: Scotty Pods?  Where is he going to play.

Jason: The Riot?

My Dad: The should have traded away Broxton.

Look McCourt and Colletti–I know you guys are hamstrung financially.  I know you entered the 2010 amateur draft intending to punt your first round pick to you wouldn’t have to pay a signing bonus.  I know you’ve spent less money in the international draft in recent years than anybody else.  I know your farm system is not what many in the industry consider to be strong (and just got a lot weaker).  You have a certain left fielder who isn’t doing your team any good this year named Manny Ramirez–other teams might want him, maybe you should have looked at spinning him into a prospect or two?  No?  Don’t like that plan?  Make too much sense?  McCourt and Colletti, you are both terrible/horrible at your jobs.  In the immortal words of George Constanza, “Well, I wish I could say the same, but I must say, with all due respect, I find it very hard to see the logic behind some of the moves you have made with this fine organization. In the past twenty years, you have caused myself, and the city of New York Los Angeles, a good deal of distress as we have watched you take our beloved Yankees Dodgers and reduced them to a laughing stock, all for the glorification of your massive ego.”

And that’s it, my friends.  I’m not going to another Dodger game (note: Spring Training doesn’t count.  Spring Training is still in play) until these boobs are out.  I will watch on TV, I will pay attention, I will bleed blue but you are not getting another nickle of my money, Franky.  Choke on it.

#1 Fan

Rihanna was pacing around her Beverly Hills mansion one Thursday afternoon when she decided she was bored.  She was tired of riding on her pet unicorn and she couldn’t find her diamond encrusted, solid gold iPhone to call up her friends so instead she paced around her room and tried on different leopard and zebra printed outfits.  She looked stunning in all of them and couldn’t decide which one she should wear downstairs to see what was in the refrigerator so she opted to just stay in her room and update her facebook profile.  Facebook was sort of her guilty pleasure and she gave a quick glance through her friends file and laughed at Eve’s pictures she had posted from her night out with the girls at Novu last night.  Eve was so funny!

Next she clicked on Ashleigh Simpson’s profile and Ashleigh had posted new pictures of her baby.  Gross!  Rihanna didn’t like babies at all and she defriended Ashleigh.  ”Boo yah, how you like me now!”  She yelled at her macbook.  She looked at her status page and updated it to FEELING FIESTY RIGHT NOW!!!!!!1 and looked over at her Relationship Status (In a Relationship, it read) and heaved a lusty sigh.  As if on cue she got an IM from her boyfriend, Matt Kemp.  Their exchange went like this:

UmbrellaGirl: Just chillin around da house.  Can’t find phone, LOL

UmbrellaGirl: Yup.  Ca’nt find it!!1

The car arrived later than expected and took her into the stadium in the middle of the second inning.  She made her way down towards the box seats and waived at Larry King as she walked past.  ”Hi Larry!”  She shouted.  She continued on through the crowd and gave the stink-eye to Jon Lovitz and hissed, “Deadbeat!” Rihanna had to kick some kids out of her seats who had moved down into her section; “Shoo!  Shoo!”  She said, flicking them away while she stuffed a mustard covered pretzel into her mouth.  Matt Kemp stepped out of the dugout and walked to the ondeck circle.  ”Go Matty!”  Rihanna screamed at the top of her lungs, spraying the couple in front of her with bits of pretzel.  Matt Kemp looked over his shoulder and gave a sheepish grin of surprise.  The last game she had been to was at the end of last year and had been a bit of a disaster.  She had thrown a fit when she wasn’t allowed to sing the National Anthem and another fit when she was denied Take Me Out to the Ball Game and it wasn’t until Jonathan Silverman gave her a stern talking to near the All You Can Eat Right Field Pavilion that she calmed down.

Already in midseason form

Chad Billingsley sat inside his dark apartment and stared warily out the window.  He had the curtains drawn and almost no light entered into the dark void.  Chad was busy applying for jobs posted on Craig’s List, brooding silently and clutching a mug of green tea which had gone cold thirty minutes ago.  He’d taken two showers already this bright morning and was considering a third but he couldn’t tear himself away from the laptop.  He was afraid if he got up he might miss a new posting and he wasn’t sure his blackberry could get service in his bathroom.  He made a mental list to check the signal from inside the bathtub later the afternoon and glanced out the window.  Across the street he saw a mailman slowly delivering packages and letters of joy to the neighborhood’s occupants and Chad silently cursed the man, envious of his anonymous and worry-free existence.  He lowered his head and gently massaged his temples, eyes squelched shut…how had he fallen so far, so fast?  Not one year ago he was the face of one of the best pitching staffs in the league, a shoe-in for the All Star Game and a fantasy force to be reckoned with.  Now?  Now he was a punching bag.

He brought the putrid tea to his lips and grimaced as he tasted the tepid liquid.  He put the cup down on his countertop but missed the surface completely and the mug dropped to the floor, exploding on impact.  This wasn’t the first time this had happened.  In fact, it was a daily occurrence around his apartment and the floors were littered with mug shrapnel from mornings just such as this.  And that wasn’t all-his entire house was a mess.  He couldn’t pour cereal into a bowl or put bread into the toaster and the bathroom situation was…well, the bathroom was just an embarrassment.  Chad sighed again as he turned the volume down on the Morrissey CD he was listening to.  He tried to flip the remote control onto his couch but missed badly, sending the device flying into the wall where it predictably exploded into tiny pieces.

Chad went back to the computer, clicking on all of the Craig’s List links; applying to anything that looked easy: Receptionist, Data Entry Clerk, things of that nature.  He had been really excited to get a response back from an ad which promised “Fabulous Riche$$!! Work from You’re Home!!” and quickly gave his credit card information to the very legitimate sounding bOb ESposito so they could process his background check.  He expected to hear back from them any day now, but didn’t want to put all his eggs in one basket so he kept applying everywhere.  Suddenly there was a knock at his door.  He looked nervously through the peephole, tripping over the hem of his robe in the process.  “Shoot,” he said to himself as he spied Jimmy Nunez, the neighbor’s kid standing on the other side of the door, a stack of baseball cards wrapped up in one sweaty hand, a careworn first baseman’s mitt in the other.

“Hey Chad!  Chad!  Chad come out and play catch with me!”  Jimmy yelled through the door.

Chad retreated to the rear of his kitchen and crouched down near the pantry, hoping Jimmy would tire himself out and leave him alone.

“Chad, come out!  I heard you in there crying, I know you’re home, let’s play some catch!  Don’t worry about last time, I brought extra balls so you won’t have to chase them when I throw them past you anymore.  Chad, come on!”

With a grunt and a resigned snort he arose and slunk to the door, throwing it open and invited Jimmy in.  Jimmy made a face at the weird smells coming from the kitchen and stepped cautiously around the broken bits of ceramic before flopping himself down on a kitchen stool.  “Well?  Get your glove, I have Pony League tonight and I want to get a practice in before I go.  Plus, I think I can help you with your curveball.”

There was a shady park right across the street from Jimmy and Chad’s so they crossed the street and squared off 50 feet from each other.  Jimmy’s first throw hit Chad in the chest and fell to his feet.  “Did you lose it in the sun again?”  Jimmy asked, concerned.  Chad picked up the ball and threw it 100 feet over Jimmy’s head.  “Did it slip again?”  Jimmy asked, producing a second ball from the pocket of his Warren G Harding Middle School windbreaker.  Chad focused with all of his might and managed to snare the second throw from Jimmy.  His second toss shot like a rocket straight out of his hand and into the ground 10 feet in front of him, it rolled harmlessly to a stop just in front of Jimmy’s Vans.  He scooped, picking the ball up and flipped it back to Chad who caught it with a suspicious stab of his glove.  Jimmy shouted, “Nice grab, Chad, two in a row!  Good work!” in an encouraging voice.

Chad began to wonder why he hadn’t wanted to play catch with Jimmy earlier, playing catch with him was fun!  Nobody in the stands yelling at him, no visits from his coaches every inning to discuss how they wanted him to pitch to somebody, just free and easy, back and forth, the way it used to be.  They stopped after fifteen minutes when Jimmy’s mom called from the front door reminding him he had homework to do.  Jimmy bargained for an extra 5 minutes which they used to go to the 7-11 on the corner and get Slurpees; Jimmy went for strictly Wild Cherry but Chad was feeling good and went with a mix of all four flavors.  They enjoyed their Slurpees in silence before Jimmy took a step towards the door.  “Keep up the good work,” he said.  “Maybe I’ll bring Tommy Janowitz over tomorrow and we can work on your fielding a little bit.  I’ll remind him not to hit it too hard though, we don’t want you getting a bloody nose again.  Anyway, see you later.”  They fist-bumped and then walked out into the midmorning sunshine.