WWWD

[M2d]

What would Walter (O'Malley) Do?

as a Dodger fan, I'm so pissed right now, I can hardly think straight. you trade away the best set up man in the league (Mota) and the heart and soul of your first place team (Loduca) for a .500 pitcher, a underpowered first baseman and a chance (unfullfilled, it seems) at an over the hill starter (the Unit's still good, but he's way past his prime) and Steve Finley.

Now, DePodesta claims that the Florida trade was stand alone, but even my mother knows that he did it to set himself up for Johnson. Now they're not getting him. Add in the fact that they did it with the inkling that they could get Charles Johnson to catch, but that they didn't have that deal nailed down, and you have a major fiasco in blue.
Bring back the O'malleys. please. Hell, even Fox looks good now.

[Boris]

sorry bro. DePodesta got abused. There are many billy beane proteges but there is only one billy beane.

[ThaSaltCracka]

well they got finley today, so thats not bad. Penny is acutally a pretty good pitcher, not Johnson good, but good nonetheless.

[M2d]

is Finley confirmed? I was looking and didn't see it. I'd still rather have LoDuca, though, and I think I'd prefer the status quo even to them getting Johnson.

[M2d]

y'all want him back?

[ThaSaltCracka]

yeah, saw it on ESPN.com, its confirmed.

[andyfox]

Gone are Mota, Lo Duca, Encarnacion, Roberts and Martin. In are Penny, Choi, Finley and Mayne.

Strange goings-on for a 1st place team.

[M2d]

I think Boris may have touched on a good point. I'm thinking that DePodesta pulled the trigger here just to make a move. Probably fallout from having worked under Billy Bean(e)(forget which one has the "e" at the end of the name).
The Dodgers were in a nice groove and ahead in the division. They were getting good starts from some unlikely sources (thanks to LoDuca calling a good game?), had better team chemistry than anytime in the past decade (Loduca was a team leader), and a shut the door and turn out the lights relief staff (mostly Gagne, but you can't discount what Mota did to set it all up). Now? adios muchachos.

The real bad thing for us Dodger fans is that the traditional Dodger cry of "wait till next year" won't even apply to us. Not only does this move not improve the team (makes 'em weaker, to me, but what do I know?), but it destroys a core that they've been building and takes away a team leader who was still relatively young.
Maybe they got an agreement from the rest of the NL west that Choi will never see a pitch that breaks. that might make it better.

Now I hear that Charles Johnson nixed the trade to LA. blech

[andyfox]

Hard to believe they're going to go with Mayne and Ross as their catching staff, but I guess they will.

When the Dodgers went from having Piazza to having Charles Johnson to having Todd Hundley, I said it was the only time a team had a catcher hit .360, then traded for a catcher who hit .260, then traded him for a catcher that hit .160.

[M2d]

at the time, I liked the original Johnson move. Not that I liked giving up Piazza, but I thought that CJ was a heck of a backstop and that any offense he gave you was just a bonus. He was, at the time, as good a defensive catcher as there was in the game, bar none (even pudge). Hard to believe this is the same franchise that set the record for longevity for an infield lineup.

[M2d]

looks like Dreifort gave up two runs, both earned, on three hits and two walks in one inning pitched. the eighth. came in with the Dodgers leading by one. You do the math.

looks like the deal's already biting them in the @$$

[Six_of_One]

Come on. Bring back Fox? Surely you must be joking. As a Dodger fan I have mixed feelings about the trades, but you make it sound like it's the end of the world.

Loduca is a solid player, with a history of slumping badly towards the end of the season. The intangibles will be missed more than his actual production...I think his OBP this season is .351, nothing spectacular at all. Choi is at .388, and he's only 25. The pitcher they got has an excellent ERA, 3.15 I think. Don't pay attention to win-loss records, they really aren't relevant for starting pitchers. They needed another starting pitcher badly, though losing Mota sucks. Finley has been putting up good stats this year, hopefully he can keep that up.

Like I said, mixed feelings. I'm not going to claim that they were great trades, because I think he was trying to get Randy Johnson, as you said. I don't think it's all bad, though.

[M2d]

Um, sarcasm?
as for LoDuca, I definately think that the intangibles far outweigh his stats. Thus far, the Dodger starting core has made it on band aids and ace bandages. No small part of this has to be attributed to the way LoDuca called games and handled his staff. I'm also disappointed in the way the trades were carried out. It's one thing if they were made in the hopes of getting the Unit (although I'd still feel that they got the short end of it). In this case, though, it looks like they either made the trade with no intention of getting him, but intending to make it seem like they were trying to get him to placate the fans/ownership/team, or they had an inkling that they had a chance to get him, so they pulled the trigger early and their big plan blew up in their faces. I'm not sure which option is a worse indication of poor management.

[andyfox]

"The intangibles will be missed more than his actual production"

And intangibles are overrated.

[Boris]

Hey Andy,
Speaking of production, have you checked out Tejada's production this year. Man, can that guy play baseball or what?

[M2d]

[ QUOTE ]
"The intangibles will be missed more than his actual production"

And intangibles are overrated.

[/ QUOTE ]

much less overrated (does this make sense?) wrt catchers.

[Six_of_One]

I agree with you. That's why I think it's overblown for people to be complaining about losing "the heart of the team" and all that.

[andyfox]

Probably so. I note that Tracy said he felt the Dodgers now have a stronger catching contingent with Mayne and Ross than with Lo Duca and Ross. On paper, this is nonsense (except in the sense that it's the politic thing to say). While the "heart of the team" stuff, as another poster pointed out, is nonsense, perhaps the things we don't see on paper about Lo Duca (for example, the way he calls a game, or the way he gets or doesn't get calls from the ump depending on how he catches the ball) have something to do with what Tracy said.

Stengel said the secret to his success with the Yankees was Berra. While Yogi was a 30-100-.300 guy, there was, to Stengel, then, more than just that involved. Nobody's ever said that about Piazza.

[andyfox]

.912 OPS, 12th in the league (just below IRod and just above ARod), second best among shortstops.

Jeter is ranked 6th in the AL among shortstops in OPS, having an off-year offensively. Interestingly, he would be 2nd in the NL.

[M2d]

I may be a little biased on this one, due to the fact that I used to pitch a little. my best years as a pitcher (and the best staffs i've been on) were my senior year in high school and my sophmore year in college. coincidentally or not, our catchers those years both called good games, and had all the "intagibles". the other years in high school and college, the catchers were good stat guys, but couldn't call a game to save their lives, and inspired very little confidence in their staffs.

another good example of this is Pudge (I'm a big fan of his, btw). supposedly, his ranger staffs hated throwing to him because he was more interested in his stats than in making sure his pitchers got people out. he (supposedly) called way too many fastballs on running counts to make sure his CS numbers were top notch.