Jamey Carroll has won the fifth annual Roy Campanella Award for most inspirational Dodger, the team announced today. Carroll won a vote of Dodger teammates and coaches, and congrats to him for the deserved recognition.
But if history is any indicator, Carroll’s career highlights might be fewer and farther between from here on out.
Previous winners:
2006: Rafael Furcal
2007: Russell Martin
2008: James Loney
2009: Juan Pierre
Mediation aimed at a settlement in the McCourt civil case have been scheduled for Friday, according to Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports and The Associated Press.
Josh Fisher of Dodger Divorce on Tuesday’s Mccourtroom events:
… My gut feeling, the basics of which are shared by several close watchers, is that Frank and Jamie absolutely meant to execute the Massachusetts MPA–the one now extraordinarily favorable to Frank. Remember, it was not always so imbalanced. I believe that Frank wanted the upside and Jamie the stability. But, several years later, as the value of the team skyrocketed and the value of high-end real estate plummeted, Jamie’s late discovery of the document switch might have given her legal team all it needs.
Their argument is simple: if you have two sets of documents which are completely opposite on a material term, how can you enforce either? Jamie isn’t asking Judge Gordon to bless the California MPA. She wants the whole thing tossed, which would put into motion a series of events nearly certain to lead to the sale of the Dodgers.
Frank’s counter is pretty simple itself. Jamie admits to not reading either version of the MPA–she had no knowledge of the California Agreement until this year. If she meant to sign the Massachusetts MPA, the argument goes, and she never knew of the discrepancy at the time of execution, shouldn’t the court enforce the Agreement she meant to sign? Frank supports this case by trotting out witnesses who can testify to Jamie’s knowledge of marital property law and intent to insulate herself from the risks associated with the Dodgers acquisition.
At the end of the day, the lasting question is this: What do you do when two parties signed a document they never read containing Exhibits conflicting as to the most important item in the document? If you believe they meant one thing, is that enough? Or do you have to throw it all out on its face?
Those questions aren’t easy to answer, and each party risks a ton by leaving the issues up to Judge Gordon. That’s why the parties will meet Friday morning at 9:30 in front of Judge Peter Lichtman in confidential, non-binding mediation. Both sides are expected to present Judge Lichtman with a brief summary of exactly what they would want and need in a settlement. If, to use a term of art introduced to this litigation in Silverstein’s testimony yesterday, there is a nexus between the parties’ needs and wants, I believe it’s entirely possible this thing is resolved shortly. …
* * *
… There’s only been seventeen seasons since 1961 in which a third baseman 37 or older (since Blake will be 37 most of next year) has managed to even play enough to qualify for the batting title. Looking at that list, most of them are Hall of Famers (Mike Schmidt, Pete Rose, Brooks Robinson, Wade Boggs, Cal Ripken, Jr.), or about to be (Chipper Jones) – and even then there’s quite a few dreadful seasons on that list. Do we really expect that Casey Blake is the one who bucks that trend?
The Albuquerque Isotopes 2010 season gets a lengthy review and analysis from Christopher Jackson of Albuquerque Baseball Examiner. (Note that the Tim Wallach comments were writtten before Don Mattingly got the Dodger manager job.)
Among the interesting tidbits: Of the 65 players who wore an Isotopes uniform this year, 51 were new to the team.
His loss is our gain: Dodgers assistant general manager of amateur and international scouting Logan White and assistant general manager for player development DeJon Watson are no longer being considered for the Arizona general manager position, Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com reports.
For all the talk about Joe Torre and Don Mattingly, keeping the hope alive in the farm system is probably more important for the Dodgers’ future.
No Cogs and Dogs today — we’ll be gearing up for the season finale edition in two weeks.
… Neal Huntington, the Pirates’ general manager, must decide this winter whether or not to tender an arbitration offer to Andy LaRoche, though that seems unlikely.
“Obviously, when we traded for Andy, we expected more,” Huntington said. “It’s tough to go from playing regularly to a bench role, and it can take time to get used to it. Some never get used to it. We’ve talked a lot about quantity of quality. We need to have a number of good prospects at every position. Andy LaRoche has a good chance to bounce back. You see guys like this in the All-Star Game every year. But, to this point, Andy is one example of why you can’t count on just that one prospect. They don’t always make it.”
Believe it or not, LaRoche, who turned 27 last week, has now amassed more than 1,200 plate appearances in the majors, and he has a career OPS of .640.
Joe Torre conducted himself with a level of class and warmth that will probably be the standard future Dodger managers are measured by … until there’s a Dodger manager who succeeds in a different style.
In 2008 and 2009, he reestablished the World Series as a legitimate possibility for the Dodgers, guiding the team to the brink of the Fall Classic … unless it wasn’t so much him as the confluence of talent that had coalesced around him.
In 2010, that team fell apart, with Torre himself conceding that perhaps he was no longer the best man for this particular job … except maybe that it wasn’t the manager who blew it for the team, but the team that blew it for the manager.
If three years are long enough for an era, I suspect that the Joe Torre Era will be remembered fondly overall, even with the bad taste of this year’s team, which needs to go 9-5 for a .500 finish and at least 6-8 to avoid, as Eric Stephen points out at SB Nation Los Angeles’ The Red Carpet, saddling Torre with his 2000th career loss. If the Dodgers continue their downward trend, Torre’s Time might even be remembered as the good ol’ days. And if the Dodgers reverse their cursed ways of 2010, well then, no real harm done in this final year.
But it would be incomplete not to acknowledge that over his three seasons in Los Angeles – including even the winning years – that Torre exasperated a healthy segment of Dodger followers, whose interest in his gravitas was run over by his debatable baseball decisions on a number of fronts. Whether pro-Donnie Baseball or con, more than a few people were waiting fervently for Friday’s official announcement in a way that the Torre hagiography doesn’t quite recognize.
Torre came to Los Angeles with questions about whether the New York Yankees succeeded because of him or whether he succeeded because of the Yankees, and he leaves Los Angeles (at least as its skipper) with those same questions lingering. And so the fuzzy answer to defining Torre’s legacy in a larger sense, in and beyond Los Angeles, is a compromise: It was part him, and part everything else. How much of each? Who knows?
The practice in baseball of hiring and firing managers – the same guy who won you a title then is somehow responsible for your downfall now – dates back more than a century, and not even Torre was even able to change it. In fact, given his comments Friday about feeling young, wanting to continue to feel young and never saying never to what might come next, Torre did nothing less than extend that practice to himself. (Even if he resigned as Dodger manager for no other reason than to get away from the McCourts, it would somehow reflect his own opinion of the limits of his ability.)
For me, there will always be the Torre I liked and the Torre I didn’t. I think the Torre I liked probably stands out more, because there was more success than failure, and because I did feel warmth toward him. Others will feel differently, no doubt. Both Torres are there, and neither can be denied.
With the tying runs on, Matt Kemp struck out to end the game. He did. He swung, he missed, Rockies 7, Dodgers 5.
He had a beautiful triple in the second inning, taking an outside pitch hard the opposite way. He singled, stole second and scored in the fourth. In the seventh, with the bases loaded, he again went with the outside pitch, sending it into the stands just to the right of the foul pole.
And then he grounded out on the next pitch. And with the tying runs on base in the ninth inning, he got ahead 2-0, and he struck out.
And that’s Matt Kemp’s terrible, no good, horrible, very bad year.
And I still think he’ll bounce back. That he’ll find the way.
The Tim Wallach bandwagon seemed to be gaining steam in recent weeks, but in the end it was as everyone foretold: The Dodgers have officially announced that Don Mattingly will manage the team in 2011, succeeding Joe Torre.
With any first-time manager, you don’t really know how it’s going to go until it goes (that’s my poor imitation of Joni Mitchell). Wallach was something of a sweetheart candidate, partly with his echoes of Mike Scioscia (even though Wallach mainly spent his career in Montreal), but more because he just seemed to have earned the job more than Mattingly had. Player reports were glowing. But unless you’ve been hanging with the Isotopes, you didn’t really see how he managed a team, and even if you were in Albuquerque, you don’t know how his strategy might change with winning a priority over player development.
Of course, Mattingly is an even bigger mystery. The Dodgers are betting that his understanding of the game and Torre’s tutelage trumps any need for having done this before, and that managing in the Arizona Fall League will seal the deal. I wasn’t convinced all year that this was a good bet, and I’m not convinced now. I poured my thoughts out on this in June, and my take on this remains what it was:
… I don’t know of anyone, even his stanuchest supporters, who touts Torre as a brilliant tactical manager. He has had moments of strategic inspiration, but they seem more than undermined by his justifiably maligned use of his pitching staff and other odd lineup and bench moves. Some of the criticism of Torre is overblown, but there’s a layer of truth to it that dates back to his Yankee days. …
Obviously, Mattingly’s baseball knowledge is not limited to his time by Torre’s side, but surely his tactics are going to be heavily influenced by Torre. And that, while not being the worst thing in the world, is not anything to be excited about.
Then you have to ask yourself, is Mattingly the type of person who can nurture a clubhouse, who can make a team better when the game isn’t going on?
I don’t know Mattingly at all, so I’m not qualified to answer that question. But my concern is that Mattingly is being handed this job not because of any actual qualifications, but because he’s perceived (hoped) to be Torre II. He’ll continue Torre’s winning ways just by having soaked up his innate Torreness.
If it were that simple, I don’t think Lakers fans would be concerned about Phil Jackson leaving.
As a counter-example, Tim Wallach has both coached on the major league level and managed on the minor league level for the Dodgers. He was named Pacific Coast League Manager of the Year in 2009. This season, he has been doing a barefoot walk across the coals, because the Dodgers’ pitching problems have absolutely burned their top affiliate in Albuquerque. In this season alone, Wallach has had to use 17 starting pitchers this season in 74 games. He has very little in the way of top-rated Triple-A prospects right now. He has had to work without the safety net of a Joe Torre and then some.
This resume doesn’t prove that Wallach will be a successful major league manager. But I can’t see how it isn’t a better resume than Mattingly’s, whose entire managerial C.V. consists of, “He’s Don Mattingly, Yankees legend and student of Joe Torre.”
As the Dodgers prepare to bid farewell to Torre, this year, next year or whenever, they have some responsibilities, some explicit, some implicit. For one thing, Major League Baseball requires the Dodgers to interview at least one minority candidate for the position. Whether you believe in this rule or not, I’d argue that the Dodgers should not make this interview a token activity, but rather at least one of a number of serious interviews, a wider exploration into whether anyone is better than Mattingly for the job. Clearly, Mattingly has impressed people in the organization, but has he done so in ways that really matter? If they pause and step back, are there not potential managers out there who would be more compelling?
By writing this piece, I risk giving this decision more importance than it deserves. The talent on the field is still more important than the talent in the dugout, and a hire of Mattingly isn’t going to ruin the Dodgers. Mattingly is not Torre, and given what happened Sunday, some might say that’s a good thing. But the Dodgers should ask themselves whether a Mattingly hire would bring continuity in all the wrong places.
I really do think the Dodgers or MLB need to answer why the minority interview requirement for the Dodgers is being bypassed for the second time in a row.
In the end, Mattingly may turn out to be the real deal as a manager, just as he was as a player. Just like Torre, in fact. Keep in mind, though, that Torre (who took over the Mets as a novice manager while still on the active playing roster) didn’t have a winning season until his seventh season.
So maybe the way to look at this is you’re giving a young prospect with great potential a quick route to the big leagues, just like, say, Clayton Kershaw. Or Matt Kemp. Or Joel Guzman. You know, one of those.
Former Dodger owner Peter O’Malley, who has publicly been almost completely silent on the current ownership issues with the team, told Bill Shaikin of the Times that he believes the team should have new ownership.
He said he is not interested in returning to ownership but would be willing to smooth the transition for potential new owners on what he called a “short-term” basis.
“For many years, the Dodgers have been one of the most prestigious institutions in our city and throughout professional sports,” O’Malley said. “Sadly, that is not the case today.”
McCourt responded through a statement from his spokesman, Steve Sugerman.
“Frank has made it abundantly clear he is the long-term owner of the Dodgers,” Sugerman said, “and he looks forward to the day when his four boys own and operate the team.” …
* * *
Dodger coach Bob Schaefer had some weirdly noteworthy comments today in an interview with Jim Bowden on XM radio. Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness has details.
One of them was a no-comment on Matt Kemp that was followed by a comment that indicates there is no love lost there. Another reportedly had Schaefer saying that Don Mattingly had turned down “managerial positions” to stay in Los Angeles, but I’m wondering if Schaefer really meant or said “managerial interviews.”
Also, it’s one thing for me to say the Dodgers have issues for next season, but it’s a bit unusual for a coach to say the team “will have to pull a rabbit out of the hat” to contend. Presumably, Schaefer has already plotted his own exit from the organization.
Schaefer said he doesn’t think Joe Torre will manage the Dodgers next season, but that he will stay in the game in some capacity. However, Torre told reporters that
* * *
Give Clayton Kershaw a hit, and he’ll take it a mile.
It wasn’t quite the same as Sandy Koufax’s perfect game, 45 years and five days ago, but it was close enough. It’ll do, pig.
Supported by exactly one hit and exactly one run from the Dodger offense, Kershaw wrote another chapter in what looks like a storybook career, pitching his first complete game and shutout to defeat San Francisco, 1-0.
Kershaw, who appeared to have perfect game stuff himself in the early going, retired the first 10 batters before allowing the first of his four hits. He struck out only four – including the game’s final batter, Aubrey Huff – but he walked none while throwing an oh-so-appropriate 111 pitches. He now has 201 strikeouts and a 2.85 ERA on the year. The Giants, essentially, couldn’t touch him.
The same was essentially true for the Dodgers against San Francisco starter Barry Zito. Matt Kemp had the game’s only hit, a second-inning single. That was preceded by a first-inning walk by Rafael Furcal. And Los Angeles did nothing else … but win the game.
The Dodgers scored their run in the following manner: With one out, Reed Johnson was hit by a pitch and sacrificed to second base by Kershaw (his league-leading 17th sacrifice hit of the season). Zito pitched around Rafael Furcal, walking him to get to Andre Ethier, who had hit into a double play and struck out against the lefty in two previous at-bats tonight. In one of the more suspenseful at-bats this doleful Dodger team has seen in a while, Ethier worked out a full-count walk.
With the bases loaded, Casey Blake hit a ball up the middle that looked like it might be a single or a double-play ball when it left the bat. It was neither. Shortstop Jose Uribe reached it but bobbled it for an error, allowing Johnson to score. And that was it. The Dodgers didn’t get another baserunner for the rest of the game.
Of course, it has only been two years since the Dodgers won with fewer hits – their hitless victory over the Angels on June 28, 2008. It was a great September game to be a part of, even for a losing team. Kershaw made it happen.
* * *
It’s not like he’s got the upside of Carlos Santana, but will you look at what James McDonald is doing for Pittsburgh?
McDonald has a 3.49 ERA in eight starts with the Pirates. That includes five runs he allowed in the seventh inning of a game in which Pittsburgh couldn’t come to his rescue in time; otherwise his ERA with the team would be 2.59, with more than eight strikeouts per nine innings.
The most telling stat in the above paragraph? Eight starts. That’s three more than McDonald had in his Dodger career, and they’ve all come right in a row. Even if McDonald had a disappointing start, Pittsburgh put him right out there again.
Now, perhaps that’s a luxury that the Pirates can afford that the Dodgers felt they couldn’t. And maybe McDonald needed the so-called change of scenery — although I think that’s more often a mythical benefit than a real one. Maybe this is just McDonald’s version of Elymania, a hot streak whose end is around the corner.
The fact remains, the Dodgers parted with their two-time minor league pitcher of the year and an effective member of their 2009 bullpen, earning a minimum salary, in order to acquire Octavio Dotel. They nurtured McDonald through eight years in the organization, and then gave up too soon.
* * *
Ramona Shelburne, on a roll, continues reaping the rewards of her investment of time in the Albuquerque Isotopes with this ESPNLosAngeles.com feature on Dodger managerial candidate Tim Wallach. The Wallach bandwagon has enough momentum that it’s going to be quite jarring if he doesn’t get the job.
* * *
Update: Jack Moore of Fangraphs says McDonald’s peripheral stats compare well with David Price of Tampa Bay.
We’re hosting a slumber party for seven third-grade girls. Hoo boy. I will catch up with you in the morrow.
That John Lindsey entered his first major-league game Wednesday but was removed for pinch-hitter Andre Ethier before he actually got to see his first major-league pitch generated the kind of national uproar on Twitter that I’m not sure has happened with the Dodgers since the Jonathan Broxton Yankee game. (Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness has examples.) ESPN’s broadcast of the game contributed to that, but still, it indicates how galvanized people have become by his story.
Lindsey handled his close-but-only-a-cigar moment – he ended up with the suitable-for-framing first lineup card bearing his name, writes Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com – with a big smile, as if to say that the moment was anything but ironic. Ken Gurnick of MLB.com has more:
“It was exciting,” said Lindsey, who finally made a regular-season box score by being announced as a pinch-hitter in Wednesday night’s 4-0 Dodgers loss to the Padres, only to be immediately lifted when the Padres made a pitching change. “I was waiting for this all my life and I was a lot cooler and calmer than I thought.”
Lindsey, called up Monday after 16 years in the Minor Leagues, was sent up to bat for Scott Podsednik and face left-hander Joe Thatcher with one out in the top of the eighth inning and runners on first and second. But as soon as Lindsey was announced, Padres manager Bud Black replaced Thatcher with right-hander Luke Gregerson.
Dodgers manager Joe Torre countered by sending up Andre Ethier to bat for Lindsey, and Ethier bounced Gregerson’s first pitch into an inning-ending double play.
“It was something I had to do,” Torre said. “It didn’t work.” …
As Bob Timmermann noted right as it happened, Lindsey became the first player to be announced as a pinch-hitter without actually batting in his major-league debut since Cody McKay of St. Louis in 2002. Billy Ashley was the last Dodger to have it happen, in 1992.
Whether it was really something Torre had to do in a contest that would determine whether the Dodgers would be nine or 11 games back in the National League West (answer: 11), in a game that Russ Mitchell started and Trent Oeltjen pinch-hit, was debatable. It certainly was a perfect moment to bring up Ethier (the Dodgers’ fifth consecutive pinch-hitter of the inning) from a strategy standpoint, if you put aside Ethier’s inconsistent bat of late. And maybe it was even perversely poetic. Perversely.
* * *
Dodger starting pitcher Chad Billingsley looked extremely sharp at the outset Thursday, but his defense didn’t. Billingsley cruised through an 11-pitch first-inning despite a Rafael Furcal error and didn’t allow a hit until Luis Durango’s infield single in the third inning. Durango immediately stole second base – one of 30 consecutive stolen bases the Dodgers have allowed (not counting Clayton Kershaw pickoffs) since Russell Martin’s season-ending injury – and scored the game’s first run following an Adrian Gonzalez intentional walk on a Miguel Tejada single.
In the sixth inning, San Diego loaded the bases on two more infield singles and a sacrifice bunt/failed fielder’s choice. A single to left, an error and a sacrifice fly later, the Dodgers were down by the 4-0 margin that would become the game’s final score. Los Angeles finished the game with two singles, two walks and a double. Billingsley ended up with five walks.
* * *
If the happiest baseball player on the planet right now is John Lindsey, the happiest reporter might be Ramona Shelburne.
The ESPNLosAngeles columnist has been on the Lindsey beat for only a few weeks, but in a Dodger season that has become so dreary – a 4-2 loss Monday to San Diego finally dropping the team back at .500 at 69-69 – Lindsey represents one of the few things worth writing about right now – and even more so nearly the only happy thing.
Shelburne has yet another story about Lindsey’s callup – on the surface, this might start to seem like overkill, because the Dodgers went through something similar with Mitch Jones a year ago – but then you start reading and realize that this is one story we can hardly get enough of. It’s the anti-2010-dote. (In contrast, my condolences to Tony Jackson, who gets to cover everything else.)
It might be imprecise to call Lindsey’s story an entirely happy one, as uplifting as this chapter is. In the dimly lit hours early this morning, I thought about the years I spent trying to break into primetime television. I got an early cup of coffee, getting some lines in someone else’s script while I was a writers’ assistant for this show that none of you will remember, then spent years in TV’s minor leagues, drawing interest and coming agonizingly close to success but never quite making it. The fact is that if I had gotten that one script – but only one – it’s not like there wouldn’t be some disappointment. As hard as Lindsey has worked, there’s no way he’ll be entirely satisfied by a cup of coffee or two. Life is like Lay’s potato chips.
But in the moment, the next opportunity is all you can ask for. And Lindsey, who has been asking for such a long time, will finally get his. Right now, there aren’t many reasons to watch the Dodgers more compelling than seeing that opportunity come, and hopefully the Dodgers won’t draw out the wait much longer. I eagerly await the story on Lindsey’s first major-league at-bat.
Once they get into games, John Lindsey and Russ Mitchell will give the Dodgers 48 players this season. However, climbing the final steps of the mountain to match the Los Angeles record of 53, set in 1998 – Damon Hollins, anyone? – will be an Everestian challenge. Two pitchers on the 40-man roster, Brent Leach and Javy Guerra, could make it 50, and outfielder Trayvon Robinson 51, but with the 40-man roster full, it gets dicey after that.
Will the Dodgers be the cure for the what ails the Padres? Los Angeles isn’t the cure for starting pitcher Mat Latos, who was scratched from tonight’s game and replaced by Tim Stauffer. Not often you see the losing pitcher from the previous day’s game make a start. Stauffer threw 13 pitches Sunday and was charged with two runs. Stauffer is making only the fourth start by someone outside of the Padres’ regular 2010 starting rotation this year.
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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