The Morning After

One day after the successful revelry of SoSG Fest 2010, I woke up with a bit of a hangover. And this hangover was not derivative of the Dos Equis Amber to which I was formally introduced by Dusty Baker; no, this hangover was brought on by none other than Ned Colletti.

I'm less disappointed with the pieces we gave away. Like most of our guests at SoSG Fest 2010, I am disappointed to see Blake DeWitt go, but even more disappointed that DeWitt--even with plenty of opportunities--never broke out at the plate like I had hoped he would. My personal sample size of watching DeWitt seemed to be fraught with strikeouts and even the occasional defensive error, and I missed his one home run this year as well. DeWitt had 69 hits for the Dodgers this year in 82 games. Odds are, I was going to see more 0-fers than multi-hit nights.

James McDonald was sort of the same story as DeWitt for me, albeit with far fewer chances, but I still saw enough evidence that made me think his ship wasn't going to sail very far. And I know Andrew "First Blood" Lambo had outfielder promise; however in talking with Colletti numerous times, I know that he likes "character" guys in the clubhouse, and maybe a 50-game drug abuse suspension was enough to give Colletti pause for reflection.

What I don't understand, though, is why Colletti made two mid-sized trades at the deadline that keeps the talent level treading water, failing to achieve a significant step up (a la his Manny Ramirez maneuver years ago). The Dodgers are seven games back in the NL West and 5 1/2 games back in the wild card. In either scenario we have to vault at least four other teams to make the playoffs.

We needed a big, game-changing checkmate play if we were going to make a run for the postseason. Instead, we got an exchange of pawns.

Our automobile is running on fumes down the stretch, and we bring it into the repair shop, but get back the same old jalopy with some refurbished engine parts.

We needed a full exterior paint job, and all we got was touch-up paint around the edges of the canvas.

But enough Plaschkizing. I'm not paid by the column inch, anyway.

It did, however, strike me as odd that Plaschke's column today and I actually agree; the addition of Ted Lilly, a 3-8 pitcher, and Ryan Theriot, a never-hit-potential second baseman, doesn't give me tons of confidence that we've upgraded. Given the deal was with the Cubs, I'm especially wary (as we all know how the last deal we did with the Cubs, for two (and almost more) years of Juan Pierre, worked out).

And I know we needed middle relief, but "Dr. Otto" Octavius Dotel strikes as much fear in the hearts of men as Alfred Molina himself.

So maybe Colletti deserves appause for trying something, anything, even if it's clearly not enough. Perhaps his hands were tied as the purse strings were caught in the McCourt tug of war. Maybe this is all we can expect to get, under the circumstances.

Good luck putting butts in seats for the last two months of the season, though. It's going to be a long last third of the season. With an offense that has as much potency as our trade deadline moves this year.