The Narnia 3 Blog

Some Miscellaneous Baseball Thoughts

There have been some interesting baseball news in the last weeks or so that I thought were worth noting.

First of all the Dodgers may be starting their first really long winning run of the season. They swept the Giants over the weekend and one their first game of the homestand tonight against the Phillies. The Giant series wasn't even really close. Take away the fluke Grand Slam in the Saturday game by Randy Winn and the Dodgers have had four "laughers" in a row. They have had a total of 32 runs and 57 hits in the last four games. A couple of observations:

• James Loney, Andre Either, and Matt Kemp are forcing their way into everyday lineup. The Dodgers are simply a much better team when all three play. Tonight Kemp and Either started (while Gonzales sat).
  
• Despite the fact I still think the Juan Pierre signing was bad, he has been hitting, getting on base, and stealing at a high rate. His speed in the outfield allows him to still make a lot of good looking plays, although he still is a liability with his terrible arm.
  
• Another Dodger reliever went on the DL. Since Billingsley went into the starting rotation (and has now hit his grove I think), they've had some issues with a "pre-set up" guy, that is a 6th or 7th inning pitcher. I 'd like to see them bring up Jonathan Meloan from Double AA and give him a shot as that guy. At Jacksonville he's 5 and 2, 18 saves, a 2.07 ERA (remarkable at that level and in a largely hitters league) and a 65 to 18 ratio of strike outs to walks. He could be just the guy to strengthen an already very good bullpen for the second half of the season.
  
• Eric Stultz should be given a start over Mark Hendrickson.
  
• If Randy Wolf comes back from the DL and pitches well, the Dodgers do not need to make any big trades before the deadline.
  
• Another couple of big games from Wilson Betemit and continued anemic hitting from Garciaparra and the Dodgers will have to seriously consider making a change at third.
  
• The change in hitting coaches from Eddie Murray to Bill Mueller and the Dodgers hitting since that move are more than coincidences.
  

Elsewhere the Cubs (who may win the central division despite their manager Lou Pinella) are benefiting from the Brewers poor pitching (and now their best pitcher, Ben Sheets on the DL). But their trading for Jason Kendall, always a terrible defensive catcher who now doesn't hit well (about .220 with only 2 home runs) is really strange. How exactly the Cubs think they are a better team with him is beyond me. Oakland probably would have been happy to trade Piazza, who at least would bring a big bat to hitter friendly Wrigley. By the way, Mark Cuban would make a great owner for the Cubs. The little baseball "owner's club" probably will not allow it because he would make too many of them look bad; but surely Chicago deserves an owner who will at least care about the fans and having a winning team; if nothing else to compensate for "Dollar Bill" Wirtz, owner of the Blackhawks hockey team, maybe the worst owner in all of professional sports.

The New York Mets hired Ricky Henderson first as a hitting coach, but now as the first base coach. The Mets are taking all the proper steps to not win their division. Henderson, a great player in his day, is a complete head case. Players are not going to this guy after they figure out he's not quite all there. There are some real issues in the management of the Mets and perhaps people are going to begin to see that their GM, Omar Minaya, is part of the problem.

Gary Sheffield accused Yankee manager Joe Torre essentially of being a managerial racist the other day; treating black players "differently" than whites. Sheffield seems to always have bad things to say about every team that either lets him go or trades him. How he can continually get a free pass to say whatever nutty thing that comes into his head is beyond me. Racial comments always seem to get traction and now Joe Torre has to defend himself for absolutely no reason.

San Diego helped themselves tremendously getting two players, Michael Barrett from the Cubs and Milton Bradley from the A's for practically nothing. Bradley has issues, but I've always thought he was basically a good guy who lets his emotions get out of control sometimes.

Watching Barry Bonds play this last weekend against the Dodgers was painful. Like him or not, Bonds is probably one of the 10 greatest players of all time. Personally, whether he used steroids or not, I think the biggest assist he's had in hitting is the body armor he's been allowed to wear on his right arm. Take that away and I doubt he would be chasing the all-time home run record.

Brian Sabean, the GM of the Giants was given a contract extension, so he could be part of the "rebuilding" process for the Giants. However, isn't he the guy who crafted this team, which may end up having the worse record in baseball this year (right now only the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have fewer wins). The Giants are just an awful team and I doubt Sabean is the guy to lead them back to a front line team.

Well, two more weeks to the trade deadline. I'm not sure what the bubble teams are going to find available. Although Eric Gagne will be going to one of the front line teams pretty soon I think (my guess: the Cleveland Indians). Should be a fun two weeks.

Posted by Narnia3 at July 17, 2007 1:02 AM | TrackBack