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.

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.

Dolla Dolla Bill Y'All

So this whole divorce thing is going to turn into a pisser, that’s for sure.  With a fair chunk of change committed for 2010 but then almost nothing beyond (how good is this website, by the way?) the Dodgers would seem to be positioned perfectly to make a run at some serious talent and continuing their perch atop the NL West.  We’re looking at a delta of about $50MM in payroll from last year to next coming off the books (good bye, Jason Schmidt, it’s been real) but thanks to the McCourts’ troubles and a slew of arbitration eligible players we’re sadly not going to be able to cash in on many/any top tier Free Agents.  Let’s break down the Arb cases and take a look at what we’d like to see Ned do on the market:

The No Brainer Payouts:

• Kemp–Ethier got a bump last year from the minimum to $3.1M, so figure the same for Kemp
• Ethier–Does he double his current salary and make $6M+?
• Billingsley–The wobbly second half probably keeps him affordable at $4
• Broxton–Figure another $3 here

The Enigmas:

• Russ Mart–LA signed him to a ~$4M deal before last year, figure $5 large here
• Loney–While the power numbers aren’t there the RBI are and those will be worth a cool $3M

Relievers:

• Kuo–$1MM
• Sherrill–?  Do they keep him even?  No clue what they’ll want to do here

After chalking those up we’re looking at about another $20MM in overhead and without the deep pockets coming through we can’t even look at a Holliday or Lackey type of impact signing (not that Holliday fits in anywhere, I’m just saying) which means we’ve got to look at the bargain bin and see what turns up.  My three favorite arms on the market (not counting Wolf, who will be missed) are the incredibly injury prone troika of Ben Sheets, Rich Harden and Erik Bedard.  While signing one (or more) question mark is not a recipe for success for a team currently boasting about three-fifths of a rotation, I can’t help but think that Sheets, who has now had a full year off, could be had for something like 3 years-$27MM or thereabouts.  Bedard has always been a favorite of mine and is coming off a season where he was the dreaded effective-when-healthy in a good pitcher’s park with a good outfield behind him.  The Dodger D is a step below that of the Mariners but still not too shabby and anything lost there would be made up by the transition to the AAAA National League.  So let’s ink him too…4 years-$52MM?  That get it done?  And there we have it.  We still don’t have a real second baseman so hopefully Blake DeWitt can avoid embarrassing himself and keep it real at the keystone and hold down the 8th slot.  And then we win the World Series.  Easy enough, right?

The Boys Are (Not) Back in Town

If you’re reading this it’s because you’re a Dodger fan and, like me, you’ve spent the majority of this week feeling like you’ve been kicked in the balls.  And not some glancing blow either but a straight up Adam Vinatieri 50 yard field goal to the nuts.  We spend six months following these guys, reading about them, writing about them, watching them, driving to see them and thinking about them at just about all times in between.  The sharp, crushing sensation that began Monday night with Jimmy Rollins’ liner into the gap has dissipated into a dull ache that has finally settled somewhere in the pit of my stomach and, as of yet, hasn’t completely gone away.  As we enter into this offseason of uncertainty with arbitration clocks ticking, Vinny’s final season, and (at best) three-fifths of a rotation we owe it to ourselves to ask: when is it our turn?  When do we get to taste those fruits of victory that I remember hearing so much about?  I was in fourth grade the last time the Dodgers went to the World Series.  Matt Kemp had just turned four years old.  It’s been a while, you know what I’m saying?

Obviously, we here in Dodger land have it better than you poor yokels in Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Cincinnati.  I know this.  We’ve got a team that can compete essentially every year for a postseason berth which is more than most can say.  But is that it?  A few wins over some NL Central foe and a quick parting gift while thousands of “Los Angeles Dodgers: NL Champs!” t-shirts are shipped to some third world country?  I want to win.  I want Kemp and Ethier locked up with 5 year deals for $50M each.  I want John Lackey at the top of the rotation next year and I want Roy Halladay added at the deadline if need be.  I’m tired of running into the Phillies and getting beat every which way in October.  And yes, we will be with you guys win or lose either way…but we’d prefer winning, if at all possible.

BG