I think I’m just going to keep this post open for additions for the next week or so as new news (if any) appears. You might want to bookmark it.
Chad Moriyama has an interesting tidbit about the potential signing of a Japanese pitcher named Shohei Otani out of high school, which he thinks if it happens is the first time a Japanese player signed with an MLB team without playing professionally in Japan first. (Yu Darvish is only 26, but he pitched for seven years in Japan before signing with the Rangers.)
Chad also has a video of the young man.
Update: Otani has now decided to make himself eligible for the MLB draft rather than the Japanese league draft. MSTI has some thoughts, as does Moriyama.
Update: In his ongoing grading session, Mark Saxon gives the bullpen an A-minus. He identifies keeping League, Jensen, and Belisario as the most critical (and possibly easiest) jobs for Colletti in the offseason. League, a free agent, indicated he’d like to stay in LA since it’s near his San Diego home, and the other two are pre-arbitration eligible and under contract for next year. Long relief could involve re-signing Jamie Wright; Matt Guerrier is under contract for next year despite pitching only 16 innings in 2012 and arriving on the disabled list earlier in the year. Shawn Tolleson could continue as a middle-innings guy as well.
Update: Roberto at Vin Scully is my Homeboy has collected half-a-dozen Dodger stories, including one I’d not heard and didn’t want to hear: that somebody suggested the Dodgers solve their third-base problem by taking Alex Rodriguez off the Yankees’ hands. Shudder. If any idea should die a-borning, please let it be that one!
Update: Over at ESPN LA Mark Saxon asks whether the Dodgers should consider moving Matt Kemp to a corner outfield spot in order to save his body from itself.
You simply don’t see many center fielders who are 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds. When a body that big collides with a less-than-forgiving wall or flops awkwardly on the ground, the physics aren’t forgiving.
Saxon points out that, sabermetrically, Kemp has been a below-average centerfielder defensively since 2009 and implies that the team’s fielding wouldn’t be hurt if he did move. Of course, then you have to find another centerfielder, and Crawford’s arm may not be recovered enough in 2013 for him to play there. So Saxon suggests this should be something the Dodgers should think about for 2014. What do you think?
Update: Having fired Dave Hansen as hitting coach, who should take his place? Saxon at ESPN LA has some thoughts.
Update: Vin Scully is my Homeboy‘s Roberto Baly has the text of a press release from the Dodgers announcing the hiring of longtime baseball executive Gerry Hunsicker as Senior Advisor, Baseball Operations.
Hunsicker will assist Colletti and President and CEO Stan Kasten with the Dodgers’ big league club while also lending his expertise to international scouting and development, pro scouting and minor league development.
Ken Griffey Jr. once said he preferred center field because there were fewer walls to run into. He started to get injured around the time he turned 32, or a year after the trade to Cincinnati. That’s also around the same time he moved from center field to right. Cause or effect?
I like keeping Kemp in CF if for no other reason than the Dodgers don’t really have a capable replacement there. Crawford isn’t the answer, but given his salary, he has to play somewhere.
Griffey Jr. only played about 10% of his games in right field, though, according to B-Ref. Crawford, on the other hand, has played all but a few games of his career in left, so he’s not really a CF option. That surprises me; for some reason I’ve thought of him as a centerfielder. I wonder who I’m mistaking him with.
Those 10% came late in his career, when he was no longer fast enough for CF.
You’re confusing Crawford with Upton, who supplanted him in CF. OR Rocco Baldelli?
Doesn’t putting him in a corner increase his proximity to walls?
We have seen Andre slide into the one in right field a few times.
I wouldn’t mess with Kemp.
Pen does seem solid. Scotty is still there as well, as is Guerra, who he does mention in the article, and Ames and possibly Solano down in Chattanooga.
I agree, i think the pen is the least of our worries for next year and beyond. The offence should come good next year and the starting pitching looks solid if Bills and Lilly rebound and stay healthy
I’m getting tired of writing this.
Angel Pagan?!
That’s PEDs for ya.
A high school pitcher touching 100 mph with a fast ball certainly seems worth pursuing. I did find it interesting in the top video on Chad’s site, that though he was touching 100, the opposition did have runners are 1st and 3rd.
Maybe the high school catcher couldn’t catch the 100 mph ball after the hitters swung and missed the third strike.
From the stretch to boot.
Noticed that too. Live arm that’s for sure.