Thread: Los Angeles Dodgers--Official September Thread

And the two-out nightmare continues for the Madres. Loney doubles and cashes in two runs.

5-0 Dodgers.

The Ox just struck Adrian Gonzalez's punk ass out!

it looks like we'll avoid the sweep - thank God

Good win today. Another nice outing by Bills. We really should have won this series but this is the Dodgers way.

AND...the D'Bags lost again.

Originally Posted by ASUcruz

But he wasn't injured the entire time he was in the minors. He got sent down on June first. He played 12 games in June and these were his splits.

.306/.435/.444

Pretty good.

In July the splits were

.411/.486/.922

You don't think that at some point in July there should have been some talk in bringing him up? I don't have the greatest memory but I'd be willing to bet our offense wasn't doing so great in July.

I don't think you're looking at the whole picture here. LaRoche was horrid in the bigs this year, so he was sent down.

In June, he only had 36 AB's for the '51's and he had no AB's for the Dodgers so he had to have been injured.

In July, his splits were great but I'm sure they wanted to make sure he was healthy before they pulled him up again. Then, he got injured again and basically didn't play the entire month of August. He only had 37 AB's in the month of August. I think Ned's hands were kind of tied with this one, hence Shea Hillenbrand.

Originally Posted by ASUcruz

You didn't even take into consideration Meloan. It's hard to argue against the fact that Colletti has a hard on for veterans. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is when you have young players who can fill the void and are much more talented than these vets.

Your honely telling me that you know Meloan can fill the void? Maybe Ned knows he has something with Meloan and he doesn't want to screw it up by rushing him to Los Angeles.

In 2006, he was still in Vero. They rushed him up to Jacksonville, and then to Las Vegas, and now he's up with the Dodgers. How much faster was he supposed to move through the system? The guy has only pitched in 70 games in the Minors in 2006/2007 and he's already been brought up. That's pretty quick if you ask me.

Originally Posted by ASUcruz

One could make the argument that Depodesta was burdened by injuries and he was killed in the press on these boards despite those facts.

None of the roasting that Depodesta received had anything to do with the following?

The trade of LoDuca, arguably the heart and soul of the Dodgers?
His infatuation with Hee Sucks Choi?
His non-signing of Beltre?
His signing of Nancy Drew, the best lefty strike out swing in baseball?
His lack of Media Relations and ability to communicate his "vision"?

I never hated Depodesta and I don't necessarily agree with all of my examples above but I know many people hated DePo for many or all of the reasons I mentioned.

Originally Posted by ASUcruz

First off, regarding Ned, the Pierre signing wasn't questionable. It was just flat out bad.

I can't agree with you and call the signing bad. Pierre has not produced this year in line with his career stats.

2007
.291 .323 .348 .671

Career
.301 .347 .374 .721

They aren't drastically lower this year but they are lower.

Also, if you can't get power to make your team score the runs, you have to do something and I feel that Ned thought speed was the answer. I can't argue with this. How exciting is it to watch Furcal and Pierre run the bases? To me, it's pretty damn entertaining. That is of course, when Pierre gots on base which he obviously needs to work on. Basically, Ned wasn't able to sign the power that he wanted so he went the speed route. I guess he spent too much money, that's probably safe to say. That's how I see it anyway...

Originally Posted by ASUcruz

I could have also done without Luis Gonzalez. He had a nice start but has absolutely been awful in the second half. I would have been just fine going into the season with Ethier and Kemp as our corner outfielders. But Ned has this hard on for vets so we have Gonzo who started off nice but has tailed off badly. Perhaps Kemp would have stuggled early, but the benefits of being young are ever improving skills and he surely would have turned it around. Hell he's doing good now, so there's no reason to think he wouldn't have been a fine everyday player from the beginning. Anyways I'd much rather have a slow starter that finishes up strong than a front runner who fails down the stretch.

I know what you're saying but I don't feel that Kemp was ready for full time duties in the outfield after last year so Gonzo was brought until he was ready. Kemp was also horrid last year. Sure, he had the great start with his 6 or 7 homers but the pitchers figured him out and made him look stupid for the rest of the year. You can't plan for the what-if. Sure, we know now that Kemp is/was ready but if you go by his production last year, we had to have a backup plan in case he wasn't ready.

Originally Posted by ASUcruz

It's not just off-season stuff though. During the season, Colletti continues to reach in this garbage can for solutions. Hillenbrand, Loiaza(jury still out of course), Wells. And even before(Tomko, Hendrickson). We have perfectly good options in our great system. Let's see if they can play. I would honeslty feel the same about Houlton and Stults starting games in September over Wells and Loiaza with added benefit of the kids get battled tested down the stretch which could benefit them in the future. And at the same time we know whether they can handle it or not. Which helps us next off-season.

Hillenbrand - Didn't have a choice due to LaRoche's, Abreu's and Nomar's injuries. Who else was supposed to play?

Loiaza - Wolf is out for the year and probably won't be back in Dodger Blue considering his injury. There certainly isn't an abundance of free agent pitching this year.

Wells - I'd rather have him than Tomko and he doesn't cost very much. He's a strong voice in the clubhouse as well which is good for all the young guys. 6 of the 9 starters today were young, home-grown Dodgers which need someone to look up to in the clubhouse.

I honestly don't feel that Houlton and Stultz are the answer to our future pitching. Who are the other pitching answers from the Farm? Look what happened to Edwin Jackson. We thought he was the future and where the hell is he now? I don't think you can put all of your chips in the farm club. You have to balance it between vet's and proven players, and the young kids.

Good outing for Billingsley.

As long as the Padres win the series against the DBacks all is well.

GO ADRES!!!


BTW - Who is that in that picture above?