Diamondbacks Bullpen

[shoewizard]

[Dangerfield]

Man I wish they didn't have Kent and Nomar.
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My wife is always trying to get rid of me. The other day she told me to put the garbage out. I said to her I already did. She told me to go and keep an eye on it

[shoewizard]

They are both in decline and high injury risks. Sure, if they both play 145 games and revert to their levels of a few years ago they are formidable. The odds of both of them doing that are extremely remote.

[Dangerfield]

Yeah, but that fricking Nomar played in a 120 games last year and still had 90 rbi's. Kent played in 115 and 70?? Both had more than Gonz and Tracy, I think.
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My wife is always trying to get rid of me. The other day she told me to put the garbage out. I said to her I already did. She told me to go and keep an eye on it

[stu]

How many games would a team with zero WARP win?

[shoewizard]

I think like 30 or 40 or something like that.

[shoewizard]

[McCray]

[tmar]

Imagine how bad our record would have been without RJ. We might have gotten picks #1 & #2.

[shoewizard]

[qudjy1]

More about the dodgers Linup on CNNSI

Southern Californians don't all set out to be different. Sometimes, it just ends up that way.

And so it goes with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who against their fondest desires will again try to generate a winning offense via the baseball equivalent of windmills and solar power.

The 2006 Dodgers were alternative energy mavericks. Despite finishing 15th out of 16 National League teams in home runs, Los Angeles outscored its opponents by a greater margin than every other NL squad except the New York Mets.

Then, with every intention of boosting their home-run power, the Dodgers instead lost co-leader J.D. Drew (20 homers) to free agency, replacing him in the batting order with 39-year-old Luis Gonzalez, who hit 15 out of the park in 2006.

With Los Angeles' other major offseason offensive acquisition being the fleet-of-foot, free-of-muscle Juan Pierre (1,007 career games, 12 home runs), wags have wondered whether the deadball era will make an untimely return to Dodger Stadium. Can the Dodgers repeat their above-average offense, or are they tilting at windmills?

The news, both good and bad for Los Angeles, is how easily the Dodgers' offensive success last year can be explained. The team piled up runs because it topped the NL in two really nice categories to top in: on-base percentage and batting average with runners in scoring position. Lacking the hammer, the Dodgers performed admirably with their chisel.

As far as doing it again in 2007 goes, as much as the lineup has changed, the end result may remain the same.

On the upside, two Dodgers who emerged as starters last year were rookies -- Russell Martin and Andre Ethier. Odds are in their favor that their production will improve with more playing time. The presence of former Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal as a backup should allow Martin to stay fresher. Ethier was unconscious at the plate for most of the summer before blacking out in September, dampening his first-year stats enough so that they won't be impossible to match, sophomore jinxes notwithstanding.

Third base, where mid-2006 acquisition Wilson Betemit and prospect Andy LaRoche have formed exploratory committees with their respective parties, is another area where the Dodgers can be optimistic -- last year, the team watched Cesar Izturis run cold water on the hot corner for weeks on end. And 29-year-old shortstop Rafael Furcal, who recovered from a slow start to become the Dodgers' offensive leader, is in his peak years.

On the downside, however, is the team's right side of the infield, where Nomar Garciaparra (33-years-old) and Jeff Kent (39 in March), will venture farther into the decline of their careers. That's not at all to say they won't have value -- Kent, in particular, remained one of the top offensive second basemen in baseball (.862 OPS, .297 equivalent average, according to Baseball Prospectus) despite hitting his fewest homers (14) in 10 years -- just that when it comes to matching 2006 performance, it won't get any easier.

It's in the outfield where the Dodgers may find their downfall. While Ethier remains promising, the Dodgers have taken a step backward by replacing a Kenny Lofton-led platoon in center field with Pierre, a lesser talent even when you factor in his speed and durability. Pierre had a .255 EQA last season, trailing 2006 Dodgers center fielders Lofton (.278), Jason Repko (.261) and Matt Kemp (.260). And as hinted at before, Gonzalez (.271) is a retreat from Drew (.306), though Gonzalez did make 74 more plate appearances than Drew last season.

In the end, the Dodgers' season might come down to whether Matt Kemp can hit the breaking ball. He blasted seven homers in his first 15 career games before pitchers began crossing him up. He is perhaps the one player in the entire organization that might resemble a conventional power source. Should Gonzalez or even Ethier falter (Pierre has been soldered into the lineup after signing a five-year, $45 million deal), Kemp or 21-year-old James Loney, who EQAed .299 in 111 plate appearances, could become blessings in very thin disguise.

With all the variables at play over the course of a 162-game campaign, the wind is not blowing strongly enough to indicate whether the Dodger offense will improve or decline. But essentially, it is shaping up that the team will have to survive with a similar offense to last year's, one dependent tenuously on age, youth and difficult-to-replicate clutch hitting.

That, in a sense, leads to perhaps the best news of all for Los Angeles: The Dodgers should have more depth on the pitching staff this year. Not only do free agents Jason Schmidt and Randy Wolf provide compensation for the departure of Greg Maddux, but while at one point the Dodgers were dependent on Brett Tomko and then Mark Hendrickson in their rotation, those two are likely bullpen-bound to allow up-and-coming Chad Billingsley or Hong-Chih Kuo to ascend. (Scott Elbert is another prospect on the rise, roughly at the point where Billingsley was last season.)

The Dodgers also have more resources to trade pitching for power, though you'll get wide ranges of opinion on whether they should. Kind of like the way you see Hummers and Priuses on the road, side-by-side. Efficiently or not, the Dodgers will be in the thick of the NL West traffic, fighting to get through

[EvilJuan]

How many of the 15 HR Gonzo hit last year were hit at home, or in other hitter-friendly parks?

How many is he likely to hit in 81 games in the friendly confines of Chavez Ravine?


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Is It Next Season Yet?

[stu]

Gonzo hit 8 at home. On the road: Wrigley, Coors, Miller (2), Phillies (2) and RFK.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=gonzalu01&year=2006]link

[EvilJuan]

Michale Ventre's take on the 2007 Doggers:

Dodgers don’t have power, but pitching aplenty

He also sees Gonzo as a "stabilizing veteran influence" for the Doggers dugout...
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Is It Next Season Yet?

[Dangerfield]