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> MARCH 2009 March 27, 2009
For the last fourteen years, Juan Castro has arguably been the worst hitter in all of baseball. He’s been in almost 1,000 games—don’t get me started on that—and he has a career average of .228. And that .228 average isn’t the product of some mediocre seasons and some bad seasons—they’re all bad seasons. Let me put it another way: Juan Castro consistently sucks. He sucks in April, he sucks in June, and he sucks in September. He sucked at the beginning of his career, he sucked in the middle of his career, and now approaching the end of his career (God willing), he still sucks. He goes up to the plate with a bat, but it’s just so he won’t look stupid with nothing in his hands. According to baseballreference.com, similar batters through age 36 include Phil Roof, Pat Moran, and Mike Gonzalez. Never heard of them? That’s because they sucked. Now go look at the Dodgers’ stats this spring. Who’s their best hitter? Of course—Juan Friggin’ Castro. And not only is he the Dodgers’ best hitter, there isn’t a single hitter in all of baseball with a higher average in more at-bats. Juan Castro has 47 at-bats, and after going 0-for-1 on Friday, his average stands at .426. That’s higher than the averages of both Rafael Furcal and Orlando Hudson—combined. Watch your back, Raffy… the Dictator is back. March 22, 2009
Jason Schmidt figures to start the season on the disabled list, Eric Stults has an ERA of 12.00 (and a WHIP close to that), Shawn Estes has an ERA of 8.44, and Claudio Vargas has an ERA of 6.28. Only Eric Milton’s ERA is below 5.00 (barely), and he’s given up three home runs in fourteen innings. James McDonald (with his 5.84 ERA) has entered the mix now, and I’m figuring the Dodgers might take a look at Jason Repko on the mound before this whole thing is over. So no word on a fifth starter, but the Dodgers did announce that some dude named Eric Collins was chosen to take Vin Scully’s spot in the broadscast booth for thirty-eight games east of the Rockies. Collins was in competition with five others for the job, but his experience in calling women’s softball games must have been the deciding factor. He’ll be well-prepared to watch Juan Pierre make throws from the outfield.March 16, 2009
Now—once again—Scott Boras is the one laughing. Manny will play fifteen games for the Dodgers this season, crumple up the opt-out clause in his contract come October, and then struggle with injuries, consistency, and his teammates in 2010. Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic since we’re talking about a hamstring injury and not a broken spine, and maybe the Dodgers caught it in time to prevent nothing more than a week or two of rest, and maybe Manny only needs a week to get ready for the season. Or maybe not. Maybe this signing ends up being even worse than the signings of Darren Dreifort, Jason Schmidt, and Juan Pierre. Maybe Red Sox fans were right. Maybe this time next year, 50,000 Manny Ramirez bobbleheads are going to be dumped into the L.A. River. Maybe Matt Kemp grows dreadlocks to try to compensate for the loss of Manny, gets his hair stuck in the door of a cab, and is dragged fifteen blocks through downtown San Diego. Maybe with no Manny and a worsening economy, ticket sales plummet and to make ends meet the Dodgers are forced to sell the land around the stadium to a Native American tribe wanting to build the biggest Indian Bingo & Casino west of… well… Temecula. Maybe the McCourts have to rent out one of their Malibu beach houses for a month each summer. Dodger Disaster. March 8, 2009
If you throw Shawn Estes and Eric Milton into the mix, you’ve got quite a bouillabaisse of arms. Who knows, Shawn Estes could regain his form of… uh… 1997, I guess, but on paper this rotation is clearly the worst of the last twenty years. The only other Dodgers rotation that even comes close is the ’01 rotation with Kevin Brown, Darren Dreifort, Eric Gagne, Terry Adams, and Luke Prokopec—but even then at least you had Brown, who was still dominant, and Dreifort who… well… could hit home runs. This season, get ready for some early calls to the bullpen. (And who exactly will be taking those calls?) In other news, Mark Sweeney has officially retired. (Evidently it was only his ability to make contact that he retired three years ago.) Not to fret, though, Sweeney has been hired by the Dodgers as an assistant coach. Now he’ll be able help other over-the-hill pinch-hitters continue their careers far too long. March 4, 2009
Even though all along the Dodgers made the most sense for Manny, I began to worry a little more each time Scott Boras rejected an offer, each time Ned Colletti said he hadn't talked to Boras in weeks, and each time Frank McCourt would make it personal. Would Manny turn to the Giants just to spite the Dodgers? Would some other team sweep in and get a deal? I worried, but I really should have realized one thing: it's still just about the money. The Dodgers had the money, and Boras and Manny wanted the money. McCourt could have released pictures of Boras having sex with a horse—it wouldn't have changed the fact that the Dodgers were Boras's best shot. Fans and writers worried that things said publicly would hurt the chances of Manny returning, but that's because fans and writers have emotions. Scott Boras doesn’t have emotions—he has an unquenchable desire to be the richest prick on the planet. And he's not stupid. Everyone is talking about how Boras is the loser in all of this because he didn't get Manny the four- or five-year deal he was seeking back in November, but who's to say he actually expected to get a four- or five-year deal? Why would he publicly say that he only expects to get a 2-year deal? That's something that a douchebag would say, not Scott Boras. It's all a big game, and this time, everyone is a winner—Manny, the Dodgers, the fans… maybe everyone except for Juan Pierre. So, glad this whole thing is over? Well, don't get too excited—$20 million says we're going to have to go through it all over again starting in November when Manny opts out of his contract. March 1, 2009
As for the Manny mess, amazingly everyone involved has gone about ten hours without publicly trashing the other party. Of course I’m writing this at 6 a.m. on Sunday, so ten hours isn’t exactly saying much. Give Frank and Ned a few minutes to wake up, and I’m sure they’ll come up with some distorted version of the truth to tell the media. That’s the biggest lesson to learn from all of this: Everyone is completely full of shit. A couple days ago, the Dodgers released a statement announcing that Manny had rejected the Dodgers’ latest offer. "When his agent finds those 'serious offers' from other clubs, we'll be happy to restart the negotiations," Frank McCourt said in the statement. Scott Boras was being completely unreasonable, McCourt sarcastically and not-so-subtly suggested… and we all fell for it. Forty-five million? With no other offers? Boras is a fucking asshole! Which is exactly the reaction that McCourt and crew wanted. Only problem is that our pal Frank left out a little detail: half of the $45 million would be deferred. Don’t get me wrong, I still think Scott Boras is a fucking asshole… but not any more of an asshole than McCourt. The Dodgers shed a ton of payroll this winter, but can’t afford to pay Manny without deferring $25 million? They’re deferring Andruw Jones’ contract, which should help… but apparently not enough, as the Dodgers have quietly started deferring chunks of almost every contract they’ve given over the last month. A piece of Randy Wolf’s contract is deferred, as is Orlando Hudson’s… and these aren’t particularly big contracts. So is the McCourt Family’s annual purchases of beachfront Malibu property starting to catch up with them? Or do they just want to be screwed three years from now when they’re still paying the salaries of guys who are long gone? On a brighter note, it appears that there are at least three or four Dodgers who haven’t injured themselves yet this spring. |
If you ever wanted proof that Spring Training statistics don’t mean a goddamn thing, I give you Juan Castro. 
When the Dodgers reported to camp in February with Eric Milton, Shawn Estes, Claudio Vargas, Eric Stults, and Jason Schmidt as the candidates for the fifth spot in the rotation, everyone had a good laugh. But I think we all expected that someone would step up and make the decision easy for Joe Torre. Well, so much for that. 
Being the pessimist I am, it would have been the obvious thing to say: Manny Ramirez signs a $45 million deal, and I predict it’s just a matter of days before he gets hurt. But I didn’t. I applauded the signing, listened to Manny’s off-the-wall news conferences, and started looking forward to the season. It was a win-win deal for everyone… for about a week.
There’s still some time before Joe Torre has to choose an Opening Day starter, and you can’t blame him if he’s not exactly relishing the opportunity. You’ve got to figure he won’t saddle Clayton Kershaw with the Opening Day pressure, so that leaves three exciting choices: Chad Billingsley (who completely folded in the NLCS), Hiroki Kuroda (who had a losing record last season), and Randy Wolf (who’s on his fifth team in the last three seasons). Oh, and then there’s Jason Schmidt, of course, but I think it’s pretty safe to say he’ll be on the 180-day DL by then.
There. Now that wasn't so hard, was it? After more than four months of offers, negotiations, rejections, sarcasm, trash-talking, lies, rumors, confusion, fear, hatred, and love, the deal is finally done. Manny Ramirez is a Dodger again—at least for the next eight months. Never in my life have I witnessed a free agent pursuit like this one, but maybe it's appropriate considering I've never witnessed a player make more of an impact in the span of two months. Though the Dodgers were only a few games over .500 with Manny, they suddenly became a team people cared about. And after not caring much this spring, I suddenly care again. I'm alive. It's like I've been trapped in a dark little cave for months, and someone just pulled away the last couple boulders blocking the entrance. Sunlight! Birds singing! Fresh air! A Tommy’s burger!
Don’t look now, but the Dodgers may not even need Manny Ramirez. Juan Castro—competing for a utility role—is batting .750 this spring. His six hits are more than he typically has over an entire season. The steroids focus this winter has obviously been on A-Rod, but lets just say Castro shouldn’t be surprised when Major League Baseball officials show up at his locker this week for a urine sample.