Friday Notes

Odds and ends as we continue mourning the end of the season and waiting for the playoffs to start:

Excellent piece from LA Times' Bill Dwyre yesterday on the 161st game of the season:

Like any great novel or any great baseball game, the ending is fittingly heart-rending. This time, as is often the case, fiction is outdone by fact and the baseball gods. Mark Ellis is the batter, the final hope with two out and Gordon in scoring position at second base.

It is cruel, dramatic, spellbinding. Perhaps even a bit evil. Or, as Scully says, "Well, it figures."

When Ellis' soft line drive settles into the glove of the center fielder, and playoff baseball leaves Southern California without a dog in the fight again, Scully neither belabors it nor deflects it. His team has failed to win, but has succeeded in giving him yet one more canvas for one more Picasso.

Also at the LA Times, Steve Dilbeck reports that ticket prices will not increase for the 2013 season:

So do the Dodgers anticipate raising prices for 2013?

“I do not,” said team CEO Stan Kasten. “We’re going to be tweaking, just for reasons of seat classifications.

“But in general prices aren’t going up. Some may, while others go down, but in general they will stay the same.”

Kasten said the increase in attendance this season was actually greater than announced.

“For reasons I don’t want to get into, it’s a brighter picture than you all realize, because of the way the arithmetic was done this year vs. how arithmetic was done in the past,” he said.

At Dodger Blogger Night, Kasten talked about how screwy the seat nomenclature and pricing tiers are, and that he couldn't understand them, so I expect he's referring to sorting that out so one doesn't have to appeal to a Cal Tech professor to figure out where to buy the right tickets. But overall, it seems ticket pricing will remain status quo. A good fan-friendly move, Stan.

Elsewhere, glad to hear that Colletti is focusing on starting pitching:

"I would say starting pitching is an area that we're going to have to seriously look at," Colletti said.

This spring, Ted Lilly will be coming off arthroscopic shoulder surgery and the Dodgers are preparing themselves for the possibility that Chad Billingsley will undergo Tommy John surgery that will cost him all of 2013. That means they enter the off-season with four starters: Clayton Kershaw, Chris Capuano, Josh Beckett and Aaron Harang. Joe Blanton is a free agent and unlikely to return.

It's not a particularly deep free agent market, but expect the Dodgers to be heavily engaged. They also could be in position to make a trade if another team is willing to move a top-flight starter for salary relief.

Finally, let's all join in wishing Matt Kemp well in his shoulder surgery today. Think cleanup, not repair!