if anyone has insider and is willing to share... Colletti has Dodgers on track By Buster Olney | ESPN.comSeptember, 2, 2013Ned Colletti's moves have positioned the Dodgers as a contender this season.WASHINGTON -- The postseason often comes down to bullpen and bench, as some managers will argue, so in that context, think about what Dodgers GM Ned Colletti has done in recent weeks:1. Added Carlos Marmol, a plus arm with a wipeout slider, in a salary dump by the Cubs. Look, Cubs fans may never forgive him for all of his blown saves, but while with the Dodgers, he’s thrived pitching in low-leverage spots. He hasn’t allowed a run in his past 11 outings for L.A., allowing just five hits in 11 innings. He costs the Dodgers $500,000 for this year. (In that deal, the Dodgers also acquired $200,000 in international-signing cap space.)2. Signed Brian Wilson, who threw in the 93 mph range in his first three appearances. The Dodgers are paying him $1 million.3. Signed Edinson Volquez. For $82,000, the Dodgers have somebody to compete with Chris Capuano for the No. 5 spot in the rotation who also gives them some fall-back in case they're hit by a series of injuries.4. Traded for Michael Young. The Dodgers really didn’t have anybody to step in at first base in the event that Adrian Gonzalez went down. Now they add a proven veteran hitter who can not only play first base, if needed, but could also play third or the two middle-infield positions, or pinch-hit. He’ll cost the Dodgers $810,000.> To continue reading this article you must be an Insider __
Zack Grienke is the NL August Pitcher of the Month. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130904&content_id=59549718&vkey=news_la&c_id=la
@dylanohernandez: Update: Hyun-Jin Ryu said he wasn't hurt on awkward slide at plate in last start. Expects to be able to pitch next week. Aka out for 2 months
Fucking BSPN... You must be an Insider (pay) to get the info that you can get for free on any other website??? East coast fucks!!!
Juan Uribe figures to hold on to the everyday job at third base, but Young’s presence will continue to push him -- and throughout the roster, there will be a lot of internal competition. Once Matt Kemp comes back, the four outfielders -- Yasiel Puig, Carl Crawford, Andre Ethier and Kemp -- will be battling for three spots. Nick Punto, Skip Schumaker, Jerry Hairston and Young are all available if Uribe struggles or if Mark Ellis gets hurt. Are you looking for experienced depth? Well, Young has played in the World Series twice, Schumaker has won two championship rings, Hairston was part of the Yankees’ championship team in 2009, Punto has played in the postseason three times and Wilson got the final out of the 2010 World Series. The Dodgers can do a lot of stuff because they have a big payroll, but a lot of these moves were done on the cheap -- Marmol, Young, Wilson and Volquez cost L.A. about $2.4 million altogether. The Dodgers won again Sunday, with a lot of help from Zack Greinke. From ESPN Stats & Info, how Greinke won: A. Greinke used his curveball to put Padres hitters away. He threw 10 two-strike curveballs and got eight outs, including four via strikeout. His four curveball strikeouts were his most in the past four seasons. B. Greinke changed speeds on his curveball, as it ranged from 65 to 78 mph. He had two strikeouts on curveballs as slow as 70 mph for the first time in the past five seasons. C. Greinke got Padres hitters to expand their strike zone with two strikes. Padres hitters chased only 18 percent of Greinke’s pitches before two strikes but upped that to 62 percent with strikes, Greinke’s second-highest percentage this season. Zach Greinke ERA by season since 2010 SeasonERA 2013 2.78* 2012 3.48 2011 3.83 2010 4.17 * 8-1, 1.47 ERA in past 11 starts Greinke also stole his second base of the season Sunday. He had one on July 13 against the Rockies. Before that, he had just one in his entire career (which started in 2004), although much of it was spent in the American League. The last pitcher for any team to have two stolen bases in a season was "El Duque," Orlando Hernandez, for the Mets in 2007. The last pitcher to do it for the Dodgers was our own Orel Hershiser in 1987. Puig is hitting .596 on the first pitch this season, and this is what he did when he got a first-pitch hanger on Sunday. Then a bunch of league wide shit that's not related to the Dodgers
This is soooooo key. Guys who have won championships are SO important and will help tremendously during a WS run. Don't discount this one bit. This is something WAR, OPS+ or any other stat, will never take into account during the playoffs.
Agreed completely but I would expand it to say "down the stretch and into the playoffs".guys who have been there,done that are HUGE in crunch time,especially off the bench
fwiw... Angels To Explore Trading Kendrick In OffseasonBy Jeff Todd [September 6 at 6:02pm CST]Over the coming offseason, the Angels will explore the possibility of adding young, starting pitching through a trade of 30-year-old second baseman Howie Kendrick, reports Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com. The club came close to dealing Kendrick to the cross-town Dodgers at the trade deadline, which reportedly would have netted a top pitching prospect in Zach Lee. Heyman adds that the club is less interested in shopping Mark Trumbo and Peter Bourjos, and Erick Aybar, each of whom is controlled through 2017.Kendrick inked a four-year, $33.5MM extension after a big 2011 campaign in which he posted a .285/.338/.464 triple-slash to go with fourteen steals and eighteen long balls. Depending upon whether his defense was viewed as excellent or merely average, he contributed between 4.5 WAR (Baseball-Reference) and 5.7 WAR (Fangraphs) that year. After a down 2012 saw his on-base and (especially) power numbers fall, leaving him with a roughly league-average line, Kendrick has rebounded at the plate in 2013 and is currently hitting .301/.341/.437. With his fielding and baserunning ticking slightly up and then back down, Kendrick has been valued as a three-win player over this year and last.The net is that Kendrick has demonstrated the capacity to be excellent and seems to have established a baseline as an above-average player. He does not turn 31 until next July, and has been resiliant over his career, though he is currently on the DL with a knee injury. With two years and $18.85MM left on his contract, he should be a reasonably attractive commodity on the trade market, although he is certainly not a bargain at this point.Also benefitting the Angels is the status of Kendrick's no-trade protection, which drops from twelve teams to just six next year (and four in 2015). That should make it easier for the Angels to find compatible trade partners, though one might expect Kendrick's agency (Reynolds Sports Management) to choose keystone-needy, ready-to-spend clubs for the list.For the Angels, the challenge in shopping Kendrick will be to get sufficient value while avoiding the creation of a new hole at second. To be sure, the Angels face an imbalance between their potent hitting and underwhelming pitching, which Fangraphs' Dave Cameron recently explored. As Cameron notes, however, the staff has not been so bad as to single-handedly keep the club from contending, and the defense shares in the blame for the Halos' inability to prevent runs. As for a replacement, the team seems to see a lot of promise in recent acquisition Grant Green, who has a 108 OPS+ in 95 plate appearances since taking over for the injured Kendrick. But Green has always been considered a project defensively and has been graded harshly by advanced metrics in his short stint thus far. __
when in doubt the dodgers always turn to their money. they are probably gonna let nolasco go unless he becomes a god in the playoffs so they will need 2 starters. they will probably want one spot for lee. its easier for them to keep lee and just sign the cuban. a more expensive option is to trade lee for kendrick and sign tanaka. problem is he could command a posting fee higher than darvish.
Kenley Jansen Like Rivera, Jansen is a closer. Like Rivera, Jansen throws one pitch 90 percent of the time. Like Rivera, Jansen's one pitch is the cutter. Is Jansen the heir-apparent to Rivera? He at least admits to emulating him. Whereas Rivera relies on superior command to allow him to singularly throw his cutter, Jansen, 25, relies more on movement and nastiness. As the graphics below show, Jansen throws the majority of his cutters in the strike zone (53.7 percent vs. 40.2 percent for Rivera in past three seasons). Courtesy of BrooksBaseball.netFrom the catcher's perspective: Rivera and Jansen use the cutter in different ways. Rivera, on the other hand, tends to work to his glove side. Pounding lefties in on the hands with the cutter while working righties away. Cutting loose From 2011-13, these five relievers threw the highest percentage of cutters. PitcherBall in Play% M. Rivera 36.4 K. Jansen 24.3 M. Melancon 39.6 B. Shaw 35.6 D. Robertson 35.1 Jansen is able to get away with the risky combination of letting hitters practically know what he is going to throw and where he is going to throw it due to the nature of how hard it is to hit his cutter. The data shows us that Jansen's cutter is downright filthy: Less than a quarter of the time batters swing at the pitch does it actually end up in play -- far less than for his accomplished cutter-throwing peers (see table). Batters have such a hard time squaring up the pitch due to its combination of movement in the vertical and horizontal directions, which also laps the field of his peer group (watch this gif if you still doubt me.) The scary part for Jansen's opponents is that he clearly has room to improve his command within the strike zone. If he manages to do that, he could very well be the heir to Mariano Rivera's single-pitch cutter crown
The Dodgers will not lack rotation options next offseason - they'll try to re-sign Ricky Nolasco and they'll eventually get Chad Billingsley and Josh Beckett back. The team also has three minor league prospects in Zach Lee, Ross Stripling, and Matt Magill, who figure to pitch at some point in 2014. The good news is that the Dodgers should be deep enough to give them time to develop. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/09/rosenthal-on.html __