Wednesday, February 13, 2013

After All That Offseason Noise, The Dodgers Only Get A B+ From ESPN Pundit

Clearly, David Schoenfield isn't awarding partial credit on the word problem answers, as the Dodgers' offseason spending spree only resulted in a B+ grade from the pundit:

Few teams have as much upside as the Dodgers if everything goes their way. With the depth of their rotation, they should be a lock to win 85 games. It's also necessary to point out that they won 86 games last year without Greinke and without full seasons from Gonzalez, Beckett, Crawford, Ramirez and Kemp (who played 106 games) and thus they should easily win 90-plus games.

I'm not so sure; just take the example of Greinke joining the rotation. Say the Dodgers eventually trade Capuano, so Greinke is essentially filling his spot. Well, Capuano was pretty good last year. The upgrade to Greinke would actually be relatively minor, unless he has a monster season.

I see a team that can win 90, but I don't see a powerhouse that you may otherwise expect from a team with the highest payroll in baseball.

I see a guy who isn't grading on a curve! But I guess that's beside the point.

Schoenfield cites the Dodgers' defense, age, injury concerns, inability to hit lefties, and Luis Cruz as the main achilles. Which is brutal, since Carl Crawford factors into three of the four non-Luis-Cruz detracting factors. It's all up to you, Carl!

Over/under on how many times we see "team with the highest payroll in baseball" in a Dodgers article: 264,361

4 comments:

Hideo Nomo said...

I'll take the over.

Also, not seeing Greinke as an upgrade over Cap is just nuts.

Fred's Brim said...

Cap seemed to overperform last season. I think Grienke would have to underperform to match Cap's 2012. That could definitely happen but if we are saying that Grienke will pitch like Grienke, then the over should be attainable

Wicks said...

This guy can't be anymore wrong in saying Greinke is only a slight upgrade on Capuano.

Greinke 2012 WAR 5.1 2013 Proj 4.8

Capuano 2012 WAR 2.2 2013 Proj 2.2

Greinke is worth about 3 more wins and that estmate is low considering he is switching back to the NL and will be playing in a pitchers park.

Wicks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.