In homage to Grant Brisbee’s terrific Baseball Nation piece today, “The Stories You’d Be Reading If The First Half Didn’t Exist,” I offer some Dodger headlines you might be seeing if the season had actually begun July 13. Go to Los Angeles Magazine’s City Think Blog.
Jerry Sands’ latest stay in Los Angeles has turned out to be ever-so-brief, as the Dodgers have sent him back to Albuquerque — where he will meet up with Tony Gwynn Jr., who cleared waivers and accepted a minor-league assignment — to make room on the Dodger roster for Adam Kennedy coming off the disabled list.
The moves mean that with 23 days to go until MLB active rosters can expand to 40, Juan Uribe is probably going to defy Damocles’ dagger and remain a Dodger though the end of next season and, presumably, on into 2013. This is the case even though Uribe has only three plate appearances in the past 17 days.
One position-player move that remains for the Dodgers to make is the potential activation of Dee Gordon from the disabled list if he’s ready before September 1, but at this point, I expect the Dodgers would send Gordon or Luis Cruz to the minors for a brief time and then recall the player when rosters widen (or just keep Gordon on the DL until then). As far as I can tell, the breaking point with Uribe for 2012 has come and gone.
Cruz, by the way, is in a 3-for-22 slump with one walk, lowering his 2012 on-base percentage to .286 (nearly identical to Gordon’s .280) and his slugging percentage to .385. According to Baseball Prospectus’ True Average statistic, which factors in baserunning, Cruz is at .245 compared to Gordon’s .224. Cruz, four years older, might be a better player than Gordon right now, but I still am interested in seeing how Gordon can develop, even if the next opportunity doesn’t come until next year.
* * *
… MATTINGLY LIKES to joke that truebluela.com’s Eric Stephen knows more about the Dodgers than anyone else in the media.
“Go ahead, Eric,” I tell him after Mattingly speaks highly of Stephen again, “ask him about some minor leaguer.”
“All right, I’ll ask about Juan Rivera,” says Stephen …
© Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers
Dodgers 6, Rockies 4 – and a picture that’s worth 1,000 runs.
At the start of the season, there’s no one in baseball I would have traded Matt Kemp for. But that’s not the case anymore, as you’ll see in my latest post at Los Angeles Magazine’s CityThink blog.
“Trouble with the Curve,” starring Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake, comes to theaters September 21. “Trouble with the Curve” looks like “Revenge on ‘Moneyball,'” though both have father-daughter stuff going on.
The group that includes former Dodger owner Peter O’Malley can become official owners of the San Diego Padres as soon as August 16, when Major League Baseball owners meet in Denver, according to Bill Center of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
O’Malley’s sons, Kevin and Brian, and his nephews, Peter and Tom Seidler, “are expected to become ‘hands-on’ owners while assuming many of the club’s business, operational and community leadership roles,” Center confirms. San Diego businessman Ron Fowler and golfer Phil Mickelson provides the local accent for the ownership group, notes Barry M. Bloom of MLB.com.
The new owners are paying $800 million for the Padres and a 21 percent stake in Fox Sports San Diego, Bloom says.
Pathetic night, right? “Pathetic” is the subject of my latest piece for Los Angeles Magazine’s CityThink blog.
Old friend alert: On Sunday, John Lindsey reached base eight times in one game, going 5 for 7 with two singles, a double, three walks and home runs in the third and 19th innings for Triple-A Toledo.
Rockies at Dodgers, 7:10 p.m.
Shane Victorino, LF
Mark Ellis, 2B
Matt Kemp, CF
Hanley Ramirez, SS
Juan Rivera, 1B
Jerry Sands, RF
Luis Cruz, 3B
A.J. Ellis, C
Chris Capuano, P
The Dodgers have dedicated a newly hired executive, Janet Marie Smith, to lead the franchise’s Dodger Stadium upgrades.
Smith, who has been named senior vice president of planning and development, had most recently been the Baltimore Orioles vice president of planning and development.
“Dodger Stadium is one of the most iconic venues in sports and Janet Marie is one of the few people I would trust with its future,” Dodger president Stan Kasten said in a statement. “She respects baseball’s tradition and knows how to retain a ballpark’s distinctive charms while providing fans with the amenities and comfort they’ve come to expect. Any fan that has walked through the gates at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the renovated Fenway Park or Atlanta’s Turner Field has been a beneficiary of her understanding of what a ballpark means to its community.”
Added Smith: “Dodger Stadium is a treasured piece of the Los Angeles community and a special place where I watched more than a dozen games per season when I lived in L.A. during the early 1980s. It’s important to all of us that we restore and enhance the park in a way that honors its heritage and highlights its distinctive appeals, while still capturing what fans want and franchises need in a modern venue.”
More from the press release:
… Prior to rejoining the Orioles in 2009, Smith had spent seven years with the Boston Red Sox as Senior Vice President of Planning and Development, overseeing preservation of and improvements to historic Fenway Park and its surrounding neighborhood. In Atlanta, she held the positions of President of Turner Sports and Entertainment Development, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, and Vice President of Planning and Development for the Atlanta Braves, where she helped transform the 1996 Olympic Stadium into Turner Field for the Braves, and oversaw the development of the Philips Arena, home of the NBA Atlanta Hawks and NHL Atlanta Thrashers.
From 1989-1994, Smith worked with the Orioles as Vice President of Planning and Development overseeing the design and construction of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, which opened in 1992. Camden Yards is considered the archetype for new ballparks and ushered in a wave of downtown ballfields that capture the warmth and appeal of classic older parks while offering comfortable, state-of-the-art facilities. …
The Dodgers have parted ways with Tony Gwynn Jr., designating him for assignment while calling up Jerry Sands to add some power off the bench.
Gwynn, whose defensive skills were marginalized after Shane Victorino was acquired, had a .570 OPS this season and had a .209 on-base percentage in his past 110 plate appearances. In addition to his $850,000 salary this year, Gwynn is guaranteed $1.15 million in 2013.
Sands, in his past 23 games with Albuquerque, has a .438 on-base percentage and .733 slugging percentage.
Interestingly, this was not the only Sands news I received in the past 10 minutes. The following press release also arrived:
What do famous celebrities such as: Charlie Sheen, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Robert Downey Jr, Shaun White, Britney Spears, Ryan O’Neal and foreign royalty have in common with the rest of us? The obvious answer is not much, but the truth is that everyone has equal access to one of the most successful cosmetic dentist in the nation; Beverly Hills cosmetic dentist of choice, Dr. Kevin Sands. …
Update: There’s more, from the Times — “Justice Department investigates Las Vegas Sands Corp.”
Dee Gordon, who hasn’t played since Independence Day, is still tied for the National League Lead in stolen bases.
There’s a real possibility that A.J. Ellis (10 so far) will finish the year with more home runs than Andre Ethier (11 so far). In his past 50 games, Ethier has a .332 on-base percentage and .364 slugging percentage with two homers.
Even after ESPN the Magazine writer Molly Knight explained Twitter to Vin Scully earlier this year, the beloved Dodger broadcaster still hadn’t quite mastered it as of earlier this week, when he was charmingly saying such things as “The twit read …” Tonight, however, after Scully received a Twitter refresher course, the social media outlet became the spine of his broadcast tonight.
A.J. Ellis was a major part of tonight’s Twitter talk by Scully, and darned if Ellis didn’t have the most productive game of his career, hitting two solo home runs and singling for a third RBI in the Dodgers’ 6-1 victory over the Cubs.
“They are trending, twittering, tweeting, you name it, about ‘A.J. Ellis’ all over the United States,” Scully said mid-game, before signing deeply, almost exhaustedly, adding, “Ahhhh – he’s a nice boy.”
The way Scully got Twitter talking about Ellis was reminiscent of the way he would get the transistor radio crowd at Dodger Stadium in the 1960s to follow his lead.
Ellis and Hanley Ramirez, who had two hits and two RBI, weren’t the only Dodgers to give fans something to flap their fingers over. Chad Billingsley went seven breezy innings, allowing six baserunners on 105 pitches while striking out seven. In three starts since coming off the disabled list, Billingsley has pitched 20 1/3 innings and allowed only 15 hits and three walks while striking out 13. His ERA in that time is 0.89, and he continues to maintain his season-long progress in attacking the strike zone.
The Dodgers have put a waiver claim in on Cliff Lee, reports Jon Paul Morosi of FoxSports.com, though it’s still unlikely that they’ll end up with the Phillies lefty.
That makes this piece by Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com on Dodger ownership leader Mark Walter that much more timely.
… After missing out on Ryan Dempster at the deadline, the Dodgers’ brass was insistent it wasn’t done dealing. In fact, when I caught up with him on the field Tuesday afternoon, new controlling owner Mark Walter was openly hinting at that idea.
“Do you really ever want to say we did enough?” Walter said. “That’s not an attitude I really want a lot of around here. I guess if the entire All-Star team is on your team, you could feel like you had enough. But I don’t want to think that way. That’s now how you want to look at it. …
… Walter actually has been at the stadium quite a bit, and when he’s there, he’s often down on the field or in the clubhouse before games. He’s not shy, either.
When I joked with him about how much money he had spent in the last few weeks, he laughed and said, “Yeah, I guess I have.”
He described the trade deadline as something of a roller-coaster ride, said he was hanging on every phone call from Kasten or GM Ned Colletti and wasn’t doing much to conceal some disappointment he felt at not being able to do even more.
In other words, Walter’s invested — and not just financially. …
Ted Lilly, meanwhile, has suffered a setback in his rehabilitation, tweets Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A.
Joe Blanton, the 31-year-old Phillies righthander, has been acquired by the Dodgers for a player to be named later.
Averaging 6 2/3 innings per start in 2012, Blanton has a 4.59 ERA (88 ERA+) with 7.8 strikeouts and a National League-best 1.2 walks per nine innings. He has allowed 9.5 hits per nine innings and a career-worst 1.5 home runs per nine innings. He was limited to 41 1/3 innings in 2011.
Blanton’s becomes a free agent at the end of this season — his 2012 salary is $8.5 million.
At least until Ted Lilly returns from the disabled list, Blanton will replace Stephen Fife, whose 2.16 ERA belies his 1.500 WHIP and 3.8 strikeouts per nine innings.
Update: Ben Duorino of Fangraphs (via Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness) on Blanton’s weird 2012 season.
What happens when three old friends in crisis fall into an unexpected love triangle? In The Catch, Maya, Henry and Daniel embark upon an emotional journey that forces them to confront unresolved pain, present-day traumas and powerful desires, leading them to question the very meaning of love and fulfillment. The Catch tells a tale of ordinary people seeking the extraordinary – or, if that’s asking too much, some damn peace of mind.
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