I'll probably update this a couple of times depending on what the Dodgers do the rest of the day.
First trade of the day for the Dodgers: Wilson Betimet to the New York Yankees for Scott Proctor.
Well, the Dodger's needed bullpen help that was clear. Betimet was an available spare part (since he got off to such a terrible start this year) because long term the Dodgers have much better solutions than him: Andy LaRoche at third and Tony Abreu at second. One or both of those two will be returning from Las Vegas tonight probably. Proctor has demonstrated himself as a quality middle reliever who suffered this year by Joe Torre's notoriously poor handling of the bullpen. He was overworked and often in the wrong situations. Gave up a lot of home runs in left hand hitter friendly Yankee Stadium. In pitcher friendly Dodger stadium and with the better handling that Grady LIttle and Rick Honeycutt will provide, Proctor could be a big help down the stretch.I would say the Dodgers got the best of this trade, although it's fairly close. Betimet may turn into a very good player but if he didn't make it with the Braves or Dodgers (two of the more patient teams in baseball) I'm not sure how he'll manage in New York, or what they really will even use him for.
Well, that's apparently it. Unless there is some secret trade that no one knows about yet the deadline has come and gone. The Dodgers, wisely, refused to part with their key prospects. The next thing to do is: bring up LaRoche and let him play third, bring up Meloan for the pen. If Wolf is ready to go and does well, Hendrickson is designated for assignment. Keep Tomko as long relief. Let Stultz start. You know, if they get in a position where they are short a starter or get stuck with a double header soon, call up Clayton Kershaw for a start and let him get his feet wet. He can't possibly do any worse than Hendrickson or Tomko have.
Tomko is really a mystery to me. He has good stuff. Middle 90's fast ball with movement, generally good breaking pitches. But keeps getting hit because he consistenly has no command, nothing is going where Martin puts his glove. The only thing I can see is purely concentration on his part. But he's got something to work with if somehow they can figure out how to focus him.
They need to make some changes because they have over $10 million in salary tied up in Tomko, Hendrickson, and the (apparently failing) Roberto Hernandez experiment. I think Tomko will be the only one of these three with the team by the end of August.
Some All Time Home Run Considerations
Here are some notes on the all time home run list that I think are worth noting.
To date Barry Bonds has hit 754 Home Runs in 2951 games and 9756 at bats. He hit 117 Home Runs in his first Five years in the majors.
Hank Aaron hit 755 Home Runs in 3298 games and 12,364 at bats. He hit 130 Home Runs in his first five seasons.
Babe Ruth hit 714 Home Runs in 2503 games (about 800 fewer than Aaron and about 400 fewer than Bonds [to date]); and 8398 at bats (or 3966 fewer at bats than Aaron and about 1400 fewer than Bonds to date.
But here is the real difference: Babe Ruth hit only 20 Home Runs in his first five seasons. Mainly because he was probably the best left handed pitcher in baseball at the time. He had records of 18-8, 23-12, 24-14 and 13-7 when he was almost exclusively a pitcher. Oh, he was also 3-0 with an 0.87 ERA in two world series and also pitched a 14 inning complete game for win in the world series. So he holds two all time World Series Pitching records as well as hit hitting later.
Barry Bonds will break the record of Aaron. Bonds, despite all of his flaws personally and the allegations of steroids, is still clearly one of the top 10 players of all time. Aaron is probably in the top 25 all time. However, Babe Ruth, still must rank overall as the greatest baseball player of all time.
Posted by Narnia3 at July 31, 2007 10:57 AM | TrackBack