DODGERS: Offseason Thread

Dodgers announce Minor League coaching staff

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Dodgers today announced their 2012 Minor League coaches with eight former Dodger players from the Major League club on staff.

After a successful 2011 season throughout the Dodger organization, Albuquerque and Chattanooga will return their entire coaching staffs next season, while the club will keep in place the managers from six of its seven minor league affiliates. Last season, four of the Dodgers’ seven affiliates reached the postseason with the Rookie-level Arizona League Dodgers winning their league championship. The organization posted a combined .543 winning percentage (414-349), which was the second-highest winning percentage among Major League teams last season.

The majority of the Dodgers’ minor league staff will remain in place with Field Coordinator Bruce Hines (third season) returning along with Senior Advisors, Player Development P.J. Carey (fourth season in current role), Gene Clines (second) and Charlie Hough (second). Ramon Martinez will return for his third season as a member of the Dodger front office and second as a Senior Advisor, Latin America.

Minor League Pitching Coordinator Rafael Chaves and Hitting Coordinator Eric Owens will return for their fourth and second seasons, respectively, in their current positions and Damon Mashore will join the Dodger organization as the Outfield/Baserunning Coordinator. Mashore served as the interim manager of the Angels’ Single-A affiliate in Inland Empire last season and was a hitting coach in the Angels’ organization from 2008-11. He previously managed Rookie-advanced Missoula (D-backs) in 2007 and played in parts of three Major League seasons with the A’s (1996-97) and Angels (1998).
Jody Reed will become the Dodgers’ new Infield Coordinator after earning Arizona League Manager of the Year honors and leading the Rookie-level club to a championship last season. Travis Barbary will return for a sixth season as Catching Coordinator and his 18th overall season with the Dodger organization.

Triple-A Albuquerque Manager Lorenzo Bundy and his coaching staff of Pitching Coach Glenn Dishman and Hitting Coach John Valentin will return for a second consecutive season after leading the Isotopes to a second place finish in 2011. In his eighth season as a minor league skipper last season (fourth with the Dodgers), Bundy managed the Pacific Coast League All-Stars in the Triple-A All-Star Game and also served as a coach in the XM All-Star Futures Game. Dishman enters his eighth season with the Dodger organization and 2012 will be Valentin’s fifth campaign as a coach with the organization.
The Lookouts reached the postseason last year by clinching the second-half division title and will return their entire coaching staff in 2012. Carlos Subero will return for a fourth season with the Dodger organization and a third year as manager of Double-A Chattanooga after leading the team to a 77-62 mark last year. Hitting Coach Franklin Stubbs will return for a second season with Chattanooga after helping the Lookouts tie for the Southern League lead with 705 runs scored and lead the circuit with a .444 team slugging percentage last season. Second-year Lookouts Pitching Coach Chuck Crim will once again lead the Chattanooga pitching staff, which topped the league with a 3.66 team ERA and 1,103 strikeouts in 2011 and had four pitchers make the jump to the Majors a year ago.

The 2011 California League Manager of the Year Juan Bustabad will return for a second season at the helm of Single-A Rancho Cucamonga after leading the Quakes to first and second half division titles and a franchise-record 80 wins last season. Rancho Cucamonga led the league in team batting average (.287), on-base percentage (.362), slugging percentage (.455) and runs scored (848) under Hitting Coach Michael Boughton, who is back for a second season with the Quakes. Pitching Coach Matt Herges will make the jump to Rancho Cucamonga from Rookie-level Arizona, where he made his coaching debut last season and guided the club’s pitching staff to the Arizona League crown.

John Shoemaker will manage Single-A Great Lakes again in 2012 for his 20th season as a minor league manager and his 36th season in the Dodger organization. Shoemaker will be joined in the Loons’ dugout by Pitching Coach Hector Berrios, who served in the same position at Rancho Cucamonga last season, and Hitting Coach Razor Shines. Shines played in parts of four seasons in the Majors with the Expos from 1983-85 and 1987, and has coached since his playing career ended in 1993, last serving on the Mets’ Major League staff as a base coach in 2009 and 2010. Shines has compiled a 572-546 record in eight seasons as a minor league manager and is the father of 22-year-old Devin, who is an outfielder in Dodgers’ minor league system.

Damon Berryhill will return for a fourth season as manager for Rookie-advanced Ogden after leading the club to its third-straight playoff berth in 2011. Pitching Coach Bill Simas returns for a second season alongside Hitting Coach Doug Mientkiewicz, who will make his coaching debut after an 11-year big league career. Mientkiewicz earned a Rawlings Gold Glove at first base in 2001 with Minnesota, won a World Series ring with Boston in 2004 and batted .333 in 20 games with the Dodgers in 2009, his final season in the Majors.

After serving the previous five seasons as the Dodgers’ Minor League Infield Coordinator, Matt Martin will take over as Coordinator of Arizona Instruction and manager of the Rookie-level Arizona League Dodgers. Martin, 42, previously managed the Tigers’ affiliate in the New York-Penn League in 1997 and the Gulf Coast League Yankees in 2006. Leo Garcia returns for a fourth season as the AZL Dodgers’ hitting coach and Kremlin Martinez will be the club’s pitching coach after serving in the same position with Great Lakes last season.

Henry Cruz will return as Campo Las Palmas Director and Antonio Bautista will again serve as the Dodgers’ Field Coordinator at Campo Las Palmas. Pedro Mega returns for his sixth season as manager of the Dominican Summer League Dodgers with Pitching Coach Alejandro Pena, Catching Coach Jose D. Hernandez and Assistant Coach Rafael Ozuna. After eight minor league seasons in the Dodger organization as a player, Keyter Collado will make his coaching debut as the hitting coach for the DSL Dodgers. Collado, 25, retired following the 2011 season after compiling a .282 career batting average as a catcher and first baseman.

Jim Slaton returns for a second season as the pitching coach at Camelback Ranch – Glendale and will also serve as the facility’s rehab coach in 2012. Johnny Washington and Esteban Lopez will be coaches at Camelback Ranch – Glendale after serving as the hitting coaches last season for the Ogden Raptors and the DSL Dodgers, respectively.

 

yeah
he must be one of those guys who can see what to do but just can't execute it
as his .232 lifetime average would indicate
like walt hriniak or rudy jaramillo
i do remember him hitting two big doubles in the '88 world series


Stubbs helped the Lookouts tie for the Southern League lead with 705 runs scored and lead the circuit with a .444 team slugging percentage last season.

 

2011 Payrolls By Division

American League: $104.7MM per team

• AL East: $119.6MM per team
• AL Central: $90.5MM per team
• AL West: $103.9MM per team

National League: $95.8MM per team

• NL East: $105.9MM per team
• NL Central: $90.8MM per team
• NL West: $88.5MM per team

 

Stars, rookies emerge in trying year for Dodgers
By Ken Gurnick / MLB.com | 12/26/11 10:00 AM EST

LOS ANGELES -- There's nothing good when baseball and bankruptcy are in the same sentence, and that's the bottom line looking back on the Dodgers' 2011 season.

They were already 9 1/2 games out of first place in late June when the papers were filed, but the distressing lead-up to the legal distraction played out in an obvious cash crunch that at times overshadowed the play of National League Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw and MVP runner-up Matt Kemp.

The Dodgers knew coming in that things had to go just right. Instead, first-half injuries decimated the roster, held down a marginal offense and required a rebuilding of the bullpen on the fly.

New manager Don Mattingly knew there would be challenges, but through it all he never whined and his players never quit. In fact, with an injection of youthful energy and the veteran bat of Juan Rivera, the Dodgers turned into one of the winningest second-half teams in the league when they could have packed it in.

After spending only four days alone in first place in 2010, the Dodgers were in first only three days in 2011 and never after April 4. They fell below .500 on April 29 and didn't break through that benchmark again until Sept. 20, when Kershaw won his 20th, and weren't as high as second place after early May.

Injuries forced the promotions from the Minor Leagues of closer Javy Guerra, shortstop Dee Gordon, reliever Josh Lindblom, starter Nathan Eovaldi, infielder Justin Sellers, outfielder Jerry Sands and catcher A.J. Ellis.

Each used the opportunity to audition impressively for 2012 roles. Rivera, cast off by the Blue Jays, stepped into the middle of the batting order and became the run producer that was sorely missing. Kenley Jansen turned into a record-breaking strikeout machine. James Loney jump-started his flagging career with a second-half offensive revival.

In Juan Uribe, Casey Blake and Rafael Furcal, three-quarters of the starting infield accounted for eight stints on the disabled list, two season-ending operations and a trade. Their injuries, and the resulting lack of production, mirrored what happened throughout the roster, resulting in more than 1,000 games missed by injury.

Closer Jonathan Broxton didn't pitch after May 4 because of a bruised elbow, but it wasn't until mid-September that surgery was performed to fix it.

By the All-Star break, the Dodgers had abandoned both halves of their left-field platoon of Marcus Thames and Jay Gibbons, and catcher Dioner Navarro wasn't far behind. Hong-Chih Kuo, an All-Star a year earlier, suffered anxiety disorder, while Jansen had an irregular heartbeat. Andre Ethier had a 30-game hitting streak and an All-Star berth, but knee surgery cut short his season.

Even Rubby De La Rosa, who stepped into the rotation after Jon Garland went down with season-ending shoulder surgery, blew out his elbow after showing flashes of brilliance. Vicente Padilla also was lost for most of the year with arm and neck surgeries.

Here are the Dodgers' top five story lines of 2011:

1. Owner Frank McCourt files for bankruptcy protection.
Next year, the No. 1 story line will be the sale to a new owner, if not the complete turnaround on the field that followed. Unfortunately, the 2011 season was overshadowed by the bankruptcy filing of one of baseball's most storied franchises. With general manager Ned Colletti's payroll restricted, on the field the Dodgers finished third and had to rally just to have a winning record.

2. Kershaw wins the Cy Young Award.
Living up to comparisons with Sandy Koufax, 23-year-old Clayton Kershaw won the Dodgers' 10th Cy Young Award by capturing the pitching Triple Crown in only his third full Major League season. Among other achievements, he was the club's first 20-game winner since 1990, he went 12-2 against the NL West, 5-0 against the Giants and 4-0 against Tim Lincecum.

3. Kemp bounces back into franchise-player status.
At the end of a disappointing 2010 season, Kemp predicted he would go 40/40 in 2011 and he missed by only one home run. Kemp finished second for the MVP Award (Ryan Braun won) and nearly won the batting Triple Crown. After calling him out last year, Colletti didn't trade Kemp but motivated him and then rewarded one of the game's best young players with an eight-year, $160 million contract.

4. Mattingly survives rookie season as manager.
Following Joe Torre, one of the most accomplished managers in the history of the game, Mattingly had never managed anywhere but the Arizona Fall League until taking the helm of the Dodgers. Despite encountering all kinds of owner-caused distractions and playing with a limited hand, Mattingly kept his club afloat through a slow start, and the Dodgers rallied by going 40-24 over the final 64 games.

5. The pipeline delivers.
The player development system, which has had uneven results in recent years, promoted a handful of prospects that Colletti wouldn't trade, and they made an impact. Gordon took over shortstop and triggered the trade of Rafael Furcal. Guerra, Jansen and Lindblom made expendable an injured Broxton and erratic Kuo. De La Rosa moved into the starting rotation, and when his elbow blew out, Eovaldi stepped in to replace him.

Ken Gurnick is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

 

Texas, Analheim

 

Fixed.

 

this heyman assclown is beginning to reach rosendouche levels making up rumors
hey jon, you do know we're broke, right?


Which Team Will Sign Ryan Madson?
By Ben Nicholson-Smith [December 29 at 2:47pm CST]
Ryan Madson probably lost another potential suitor when the Red Sox traded for Andrew Bailey. The Rangers, Blue Jays, Marlins, Mets and Padres are among the other possible Madson suitors that have acquired other closers this offseason. However, the Angels, Reds, Rays, White Sox, Astros and Dodgers could be in the market for closers, according to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (on Twitter) and I’ll add the Orioles to the list of potentially interested clubs.

Madson won't come cheap, of course. He appeared to be close to signing a $44MM contract with the Phillies early in the offseason, and the non-deal gives us a sense of agent Scott Boras’ asking price. Though the market for closers doesn’t currently seem strong, we shouldn't forget that Boras found a three-year deal for Rafael Soriano last offseason, after demand for closers appeared to have diminished.

Madson’s the best free agent reliever remaining; where will he sign?