He's in late season form.Originally Posted by TonySCV
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I'm all for having veterans on the squad. I do believe that the best way to win a title is to have a the correct combination of young players and seasoned vets. I'm by no means advocating a total youth movement.
BUT the veterans have to be productive. You can't have veterans in the lineup just because they are veterans. Ned has a bias towards veterans even if they aren't enough for snuff. Tomko, Hendrickson, Gonzalez, Hillenbrand, Hernandez, and even to a lesser extend Seanez. These guys are dead weight. They have experience but for guys like Tomko their experiences in the majors have been sucky. He was useless last year and for whatever reason was kept around this year. There is absolutley no point in having the guy on the 25 man roster.
I think we would have. Colletti likes having veterans, even though they are mediocre. It's what Sabean did and Colletti does.
Ok, the team has been hurt by injuries. So the solution is to pick up crappy players like Hernandez when there is a perfectly good option like Meloan in the minors? Loaiza I'm fine with, Wells, I'm not sure he's that much a better option than a kid likes Stults.
The key thing here is when has Tomko ever pitched to his pay grade? What is the point of even having around. Colletti made a mistake by signing him in the first place. I'm fine with that, he didn't get paid a ton of money or anything. But you don't exacerbate the problem by just ignoring it. Tomko brings nothing to the table for the Dodgers.
I don't know what is in Colletti's head but it is clear he favors veterans over young players, even though they flat out suck(Tomko). Realize your mistake and fix it, there are AAAA players in our system that are much better options than Tomko. Bring them up, at least they have a chance in producing.
Some of the blame also lays in Grady's lap for continuing to start Tomko(and Lurch) over Billingsley for the first half of the season. Not only does Colletti favor Vets, Grady has some sort of obsessive compulsion to start Veterans in place of the kids. Let's not forget that Loney almost went so far as to request a trade because of Ned and Grady's hard on for older players.
Was he that much worse than Betemit or even Nomar? I don't think LaRoche really had an extended run of games for us. He got sent down responded and probably should have been called up middle of July when he was tearing it up.
I don't think your looking at the big picture. Regardless of injuries or players, it's the concepts Colletti lives by. He likes veteran players even when their play is detrimental to the team. Hillenbrand is just one example. Even the Nomar signing. Was it really that smart to give Nomar a very injury prone player a 2 year deal when you have a guy like Loney ready to take over?
Yes, I honsetly think Meloan could be a much more effective pitcher than Roberto Hernandez. Obviously they have no qualms bringing Meloan up to LA since they did it when the rosters expanded. Why not do it earlier and not have to waste a spot on a ****ty pitcher like Roberto Hernandez. Clearly they don't care about him being rushed since they brought him up anyways. There was no reason to waste time and money paying Roberto Hernandez.
Meloan is a relief pitcher who started 3 full seasons at U of A. He has a lot of experience under his belt already. We're not talking about some high school pitcher here. Plus relievers are always brought along much faster than starters.
You say he was "rushed to Jacksonville". Most college pitchers are much more advanced than the guys your average rookies in A ball. Especially a guy like Meloan who was dominant in college. Your reaching if your saying he was rushed.
Relievers always come up fairly quickly. Street, Cordero, these guys went right to closing after their college seasons ended. Meloan's assent seems quick, but he has a lot of innings under his belt.
Huh? I think you made my point for me. Depodesta in his second year, had just as many injury issues as Colletti, yet everyone blamed him for all these other reasons(most unfair). Yet when under in Colletti's second year, his team struggles and everyone just goes ahead and uses the injury excuse.
I'm not sure how anyone can argue that Pierre was a good signing. Not only is he a mediocre player, he's a mediocre player who is about to cross the wrong side of 30. Speedy players like Pierre don't get better with age, their skills regress. Are you going to call the Juan Pierre signing a good one when he's the most expensive pinch runner in baseball in 4 years?
A .323 OBP is just putrid.
Speed doesn't do a lot when it can't get on base(Pierre). You can't steal first base last time I checked.
Pierre's OBP has been crappy the last three years. Is he going to magically improve his batting eye to walk more?
We haven't even mentioned Juan Pierre's shoddy defense. Your centerfielder is supposed to be your best OF. On the days Gonzo is sitting, Pierre is our worst. I don't think his arm is going to improve with time and he's only going to get slower.
The problem is, Gonzo wasn't a backup plan. He was brought in to start the entire year. If he wanted to sit around and mentor kids he would have just stayed in out here in AZ. Your also assumin that Kemp didn't improve after he was sent down and played in Vegas/winter ball.
At some point you have to believe in your kids, not just hand the LF job to some has been.
I'm not saying put all your chips in the farm club. Vets are important but they have to be productive especially if they are playing everyday. Gonzo has just fallen apart completely in the second half, Tomko has always sucked. Hendrickson, disaster. What's the point of having vets when they've proven that they suck.
Yup, that's a fair point. Perhaps the time in the bullpen helped Billingsley, he's clearly a much better pitcher this season than last season. But yea, the switch had to happen at some point.
My thing is, there was clearly a problem with Tomko and/or Hendrickson starting games. If Ned thought there wasn't he wouldn't have picked up Wells or Loaiza correct? Then why did he wait so long to solve this problem when there are possible solutions in Vegas. Good point with Grady though, he also played Nomar for far too long.
Grady definitley does, but he didn't even have the option to try out Houlton or Stults because Ned didn't call them up.
Yea, luckily that didn't happen. Ned's done a good job of keeping that talent(although I think Logan White has a lot to do with that). It's pretty clear Loney is our 1B of the future. What to do with Nomar next year?
Nomar still has a place on this team, I feel. He should probably take over Olmedo's role next season while splitting time at 3B with LaRoche. In that role Nomar could easily reach 250+ ABs which should keep him happy and healthy enough to last deep into October.
Another thought I had is why not give Nomar R.E.M.'s role on next year's team if he's healthy enough to play the middle IF? If that happens I wouldn't mind seeing Colletti keep Mark Sweeney around to replace Olmedo.
Not sure how you split 3B between two right handed hitters. It's not really a true platoon. My guess is Nomar will be handed the 3B job next season. He'll probably hit for zero power, and it will take until middle of July for him to be replaced. Best case scenario he produces like he did 2 years ago.
Healthy or not, Nomar has nowhere near the range needed to play the middle IF, especially SS. Maybe he could play 2B, but when was the last time he played 2B? It's not a real easy position to just pick up in the latter stages of your career especially when he's also new to 3B. Guys have done it before, like Grudzielanek did for us(quite successfully) but Grudzielanek had far more range than Nomar at that point in his career. It's either 3B or 1B for Nomar I think. No chance he plays middle IF the rest of his career.
Because this team is 72-65 and only three games out of the playoffs, the 2005 team finished 20 games under 500 after a 9-2 start. August and September that year were for diehards only, hoping that Willie Aybar and Jose Cruz Jr were going to be the future. Big difference.
Not to mention that DePodesta started out with a pretty good team that was completely on a roll when he decided to break it up. By opening day 2005 we only had slight remnants of the team that won the division six months earlier. Ned took over that mess, we made the playoffs last year and we're in the hunt this year. It's not even a close comparison, more like night and day.
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