Dayn Dubs Dodgers' Depth

Dayn Perry over at foxsports.com may be crazy, but at least he's covering the Dodgers. In his top 10 spring training battles, the Dodgers' right field battle slots in at #6 (no other NL or AL West team is mentioned):

6. Dodgers right fielder
The Contenders: Andre Ethier, Marlon Anderson, Matt Kemp
The Favorite: Ethier
The departure of J.D. Drew has, of course, left a void in right field. Andre Ethier enters camp as the favorite, but his second-half slump in 2006 means that he'll be on a reasonably short leash. In all likelihood, the Dodgers will wind up platooning Ethier, the lefty, with Matt Kemp, who bats right-handed. Should Ethier struggle badly in Florida, then Marlon Anderson will likely step in as the left-handed half of the platoon.

Hey, as long as any of the three of those candidates dives for a ball every once in a while, it will be an improvement over Drew and Shawn Green. And let's not forget Marlon Anderson's incredible performance after joining the Dodgers late last season.

The Homosexual Strikes Back

Sulu - 1. Tim Hardaway - Negative Thirty Million

Garciaparra Article Conceals Yet Another Fat Joke

Steve Henson's latest post from Vero Beach headlined Nomar Garciaparra, who is feeling good physically despite being distraught about being away from his pregnant wife. As Nomar and Mia's twins are due in April, being apart must suck, but at least it will give him a chance to bank up on that sleep now.

"We're blessed and fortunate," Garciaparra said. "But not being there with her the last month and a half of her pregnancy is going to be tough."

Garciaparra said the injuries that plagued him last season have healed, pointing to his rigorous off-season workout regimen as proof.

"I judge myself by the way I can work out in the off-season, and I didn't have to hold back," he said. "That's a good sign."

But wait, that's not the fun part! The last part of the article segment has this gem:

The only factor that could change Garciaparra's position [from first base] is the development of top prospect James Loney. But even if Loney makes the team, he would back up at first base and the corner outfield spots. Little plans to give Garciaparra a significant amount of rest in an effort to keep him from experiencing another late-season tailspin. That would be the case even if Loney begins the season at triple A. "We have Olmedo Saenz to play first, Jeff Kent can slide over once in a while, and you might see Marlon Anderson there sometimes," Little said.

So even Grady Little has to acknowledge that if Saenz plays first, Jeff Kent's gotta slide to his right just to accommodate his hefty teammate. And poor Marlon Anderson--so obscured by Saenz, that Anderson might even disappear from view during the eclipse.

Man, I can't even write quotes this perfect. Thanks, Grady!

Bonds: Go Ahead, Investigate Me. Grand Jury: Okay, We Will

From "Bonds reports for first spring workout" (AP/ESPN.com):

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Barry Bonds had a pointed message for the grand jury: Go ahead, investigate me.

After arriving at spring training Tuesday, more fit than in recent years following a productive winter of conditioning, the slugger insisted he's unfazed by all his off-the-field issues and is ready to resume his pursuit of the home run record.

"Let them investigate. Let them, they've been doing it this long," Bonds said Tuesday after his first workout this year with the San Francisco Giants. "It doesn't weigh on me at all -- at all. It's just you guys talking. It's just media conversation."

Bonds also said we were wrong about this and this, and that it was all our fault:

"I did not blame Mark Sweeney," Bonds said Tuesday, noting he apologized only "because you guys just started talking about it and I just thought it was unfair for him to be accused of something that wasn't true."

Asked if he had failed an amphetamines test, Bonds declined to comment. Also, he denied reports that he wasn't always available to pinch-hit last season.

"That's not true at all," said Bonds, who has language about behavior in his new contract. "I'm always available. I'm in uniform, so I'm always available."

As far as Bonds is concerned, all that is over with.

"I don't need to say anything to anybody," he said.

...as he ended his 12-minute interview.

But I need more Barry! Say, when does Season Two of Bonds on Bonds start?

Lakers Looking at You, Kidd?

From "Report: Lakers are front-runners to land Kidd" at FOXSports.com:

[The New York Times] has reported that the Lakers are the best bet to acquire [Jason] Kidd, but that L.A.'s offer of young players, expiring contracts and a draft pick probably is not enough to complete a deal that would effectively put Kidd and Kobe Bryant in the same uniform.

But three Eastern Conference officials, who spoke with The Times on the condition of anonymity, reportedly said that New Jersey is attempting to involve a third team in a potential trade.

Kidd and Kobe "in the same uniform"? That could get a bit awkward. "This jersey isn't big enough for the two of us!"

Hey Zito, Stay Away from Our Koufax

From "Zito wrestles with mental toughness" by Jerry Crasnick at ESPN.com:

Before his new team, the San Francisco Giants, worked out Monday at Scottsdale Stadium, [Barry] Zito thumbed through Jane Leavy's biography of Sandy Koufax for inspiration. The two lefties met at a New York baseball writers dinner four years ago and forged such a bond that Koufax gave Zito his phone number and, later, a collectible Sandy Koufax portrait painted by acclaimed sports artist Stephen Holland.

"I have it in my bedroom," Zito said. "You know how some people sleep under the cross? I sleep under the Koufax."

Okay, what is it about Barry Zito that inspires creepiness? And would Sandy have been so giving if he had known he were bonding with a future Giant?

Penny Is the Fulcrum

...and not just due to his girth. SI.com's Tom Verducci calls Penny the key Dodger to watch this year:

As spring training begins this week, every camp has the potential for at least one breakout player who, as far as the contenders are concerned, just might make the difference toward playing or golfing in October -- be they rookies, late-blooming journeymen or veterans trying to bounce back from injuries or poor seasons.

Dodgers: Brad Penny, P. The last we saw of Penny he was contributing only one inning out of the bullpen (and losing the game) in the Division Series loss to New York, this after posting his worst ERA (4.33) since '02. At 28, he ought to be better than that, hitting his prime just about now. Penny still flashes No. 1 stuff and will make the Dodger rotation formidable if he pitches to his ability.

I found Verducci's comment interesting as I would have thought that the rotation would have other options should Penny not come through. Our batting lineup, on the other hand, needs everyone to play beyond expectations, or we're never going to score any runs. Maybe the importance of Penny is in his trade value?

"How Times Change" Dept.

From a MLB.com profile of Hall of Fame nominee Buzzie Bavasi, on his pre-free agency dealings:

But those different times placed the hammer in management's hands, and Bavasi wielded his wisely -- and wittily, often. Such as when Maury Wills tried to negotiate a little icing atop the $80,000 contract he was offered following his 104-steal 1962 season.

"Maury asked if there was any way he could get $5,000 more, and suggested if he made the All-Star team, I would give him a $5,000 bonus," Bavasi recalled. "I thought about it for a second and said, 'That's a good idea, Maury. But if you don't make the All-Star team, I'll take $5,000 back.' Maury signed for $80,000."

Consequently, Bavasi naturally has been aghast at the shift in the game's finances. When Alex Rodriguez signed his landmark contract in 2000, Bavasi scoffed, "The guy makes $25 million a year and he gets another $100,000 for making the All Star team? If I was paying a guy $25 million a year, he sure as hell better make the All-Star team."

A Portrait of a Saito as a Young(ish) Man

Dodgers.com posted an interesting piece about Dodger closer Takashi Saito, who uses a steno pad to sketch hitters' strengths and weaknesses. Apparently this exercise helps him commit to memory the hitters' tendencies as he can visualize his sketches.

Before every series, Dodgers pitchers meet to review the advance scouting report of the new opponent. With traveling secretary Scott Akasaki translating, Saito sketches out a nine-section hitting zone for each hitter and marks areas of strength and weakness.

"For the most part, hitters don't like it up and in or down and away, but there are some exceptions and this helps me remember the exceptions so I don't throw it into their strength," said Saito. "It's easier for me to remember when I think about how it looked on paper."

As a public service, we wanted to help Sammy with his preparation for the Friday April 6 game against the Giants. When Barry Bonds comes to the plate (assuming he isn't on the DL by then), please visualize this:

Lowe Expectations for Opening Day

Grady Little won't mention which starting pitcher is the 1, 2, or 3. But as Ken Gurnick hinted yesterday, Derek Lowe is indeed the Opening Day pitcher for the Dodgers, according to ESPN.com. (MLB.com posts the same news.)

Also interesting about this piece is that Randy Wolf gets mentioned right after Brad Penny and Jason Schmidt as not-yet-determined-in-the-rotation. Guess Grady better not name the "4" pitcher, either.

Neyer Chat Wrap: Schmidt and Kemp=Good, Zito=Enigmatic

Rob Neyer's chat over at ESPN.com today offered up praise for Dodgers Jason Schmidt and Matt Kemp:

Craig (PA): Schmidt in Dodger Stadium isn't one of your [Cy Young] candidates?

Rob Neyer: Sure. He's another one. But I'm not sure what Dodger Stadium has to do with it, as PacBell's the better pitcher's park.

Silv (NY, NY): PECOTA loves Matt Kemp. I love Matt Kemp. Why doesn't Ned love Matt Kemp or, more accurately, why does he love Luis Gonzalez and wasting millions of dollars more?

Rob Neyer: Colletti seems to have adopted the guiding philosophy of Brian Sabean (his old boss): "Never go young when you can go old." Matt Kemp's going to be a star, and if the Dodgers miss the pennant because Gonzalez got 200 of the ups that should have gone to Kemp, Colletti should be held accountable.

Ian (DC): Can someone tell Silv from NY that PECOTA isn't a living being and therefore cannot "love" something? People are taking projections and stats a little too seriously these days...

Rob Neyer: I'm guilty of the same phraseology, especially when engaged in my fantasy draft. What's striking about the projections is how wildly they're different for some players. And there's no one system that's *particularly* trustworthy, as they all average out to roughly the same.

Moneyball fans just fell out of their chairs.

Getting back to the chat, Neyer was strange when it came to commenting on that pitcher for which the Giants paid almost three times the amount as the Dodgers did for Schmidt:

Mike (Denver, CO): Don't you think Zito will fourish at Pac Bell?

Rob Neyer: I think fourish is just about right, though we shouldn't be surprised by a 3.5ish.

If Neyer is taking advantage of a typo to refer to Zito's ERA, 3.55 is indeed Zito's career average, so it is reasonable that he will attain this level in the pitcher-friendly BigPhone Park. However, it should be noted that his ERA over the last three seasons was 4.48, 3.86, and 3.83. Keep tinkering with that delivery, Barry Z!

Oh yeah, for those of you scoring at home, that's 36 questions total, 3.5 questions (I'm only taking partial credit for Ian from DC's question) regarding the NL West. The NL West has 17% of MLB's teams, yet garners <10% of the coverage. We'll see if Keith Law this afternoon remembers the left coast any more than Neyer did.

Comment of the Week

After skipping a week—and you should see how many of you noticed (zero)—Comment of the Week returns with another contribution from our very own Alex Cora:

I think I finshed God of War before Karros rounded first on a double to the gap.

We await your rebuttal, Mr. Karros.

Dodgers : Dogs :: Lakers : Ice

From "Radmanovic to miss two months: Lakers' forward injures shoulder after falling on ice" (Reuters/SI.com):

Los Angeles Lakers forward Vladimir Radmanovic is expected to be out of action for two months with a shoulder injury, the NBA team said on Monday.

Radmanovic, acquired by the Lakers as a free agent last July, separated his right shoulder after falling on a patch of ice in Park City, Utah on Saturday.

Los Angeles athletes are going down like flies!

Dodger Pitchers: Please Stay Away from the Dogs

I love my dog. I try to walk and play with him every day. Sure, sometimes we get attacked by other dogs, or I bump my noggin during the occasional roughhousing.

But I can definitely say that during the thousands of hours I've spent with the pup, I've never suffered a leg injury. Which is more than some members of the Dodgers' pitching staff can claim.

From "Notes: New trainer changes things up: Dodgers players to do conditioning before drills this spring" at Dodgers.com:

Brad Penny did throw off a mound with some of the other starters. Penny did his conditioning on indoor machines, which isn't unusual for him, but the club revealed he suffered a slight knee sprain during the Christmas break. Penny said he was tripped up by his retriever on the grounds of his California home, but he had no discomfort Saturday.

And the L.A. Times reports:

[Brett] Tomko had a minor setback Sunday, stepping in a hole in his front yard and spraining his right ankle while walking his dog. He skipped conditioning exercises and might not throw in bullpen today.

They're dogs, for crying out loud, not African leg-climbing snakes*! And aren't you professional athletes supposed to be, like, not clumsy?

* not an actual animal

Gurnick Sweet on Lowe as ODP

From "Notes: Signs point to Lowe for openers: Dodgers have yet to formally announce their first starter" by Ken Gurnick at Dodgers.com:

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- It sounds like Derek Lowe will again be the Dodgers' Opening Day starter, even if it sounds like Lowe might choose someone else.

"You do what's best for the team, and when you have two hard throwers, you might want the sinkerball pitcher between them," he said. "I'm just throwing it out there."

Grady Little, who will make the decision, threw it back.

"I don't think that's all that important," he said. "It doesn't make much difference to me. You could have [hard throwers] back to back and they might be facing different teams."

Little chose Lowe for the opener last year, and he'll probably do it again, even with the addition of Jason Schmidt and Randy Wolf to the rotation. Little might follow Lowe with Brad Penny because it would put Penny in line to pitch April 19 at Coors Field. Penny was 5-0 against the Rockies last year and 2-0 in Denver.

Monday Recap from Vero Beach

Good news, Steve Henson is posting earlier!
And Leon's getting LAAAAAAAAAAAAARGER!

I suppose one of the benefits of the LA Times' recent emphasis on their online site is that we will get earlier posts from Dodgers beat writer Steve Henson. In today's post from Vero Beach, we get the following points:

Dodger legend Maury Wills is pro-Juan Pierre, and thinks he can help Pierre get caught stealing fewer times in 2007. Let's hope he's right, as Pierre has led the league in CS for the last four years.

Derek Lowe thinks he can play a mean cornerback.

Grady Little won't assign win, place, or show status to his pitching corps of Jason Schmidt, Derek Lowe, or Brad Penny, instead constructing his rotation based on matchups. "We aren't going to categorize any pitcher as our No. 1, 2 or 3," he said. "They are all starting pitchers." This seems to reek of the ill-fated "bullpen by committee" idea that the Red Sox had a couple of years back. Perhaps Grady thinks the egos of those three players are too fragile? On this end, let me say that if Penny pitches as he did in the second half of 2006, SoSG will think of him as #2 all right.

In all seriousness, it's nice to get these updates earlier from Vero Beach. Bring on the position players (who report tomorrow)!

John Donovan Pulls A Dayn Perry (Sort Of)

Somewhere today over at the SI.com offices, John Donovan must have read Dayn Perry's "burning questions" articles and decided to swipe the idea for himself. So today, we are treated to John Donovan's 11 Burning Questions column, highlighting "11 potholes on 10 different teams that need urgent attention."

We at SoSG would like to mention all of Donovan's references to either the NL and AL West:

(this space intentionally left blank)

The East Coast bias is back, my friends. Thanks, John, for that insightful West-division insight! Maybe Donovan is looking to transfer to ESPN?

Quote of the Week: Pavano's Heavy Legs

From the New York Post's coverage of Pavano's efforts to remake his body this past offseason.

"Ten weeks in the desert rehabilitating his body didn't prepare Carl Pavano's legs for the early part of spring training. So, when the Yankees rotation participated in fielding drills yesterday, Pavano was sidelined due to heavy legs caused by three days of running on grass.

Mike Mussina...stayed away from Pavano's heavy legs by refusing to comment on them."

Two BIG Reasons to See the 66ers

Single A is not unlike watching Professional Wrestling at a VA Hall in Peoria. You might be seeing the next Jimmy Snuka. Or you might be seeing the real 62-year-old Jimmy Snuka (who grappled as recently as last fall). With that in mind, I offer two BIG reasons for attending the Dodgers minor league affiliate, The Inland Empire 66ers (see Pic).

That's right. A dude in a bird costume, and $9 Executive Box Seats.

Minor League Ball's a scrappy good time. I, Delino, have attended several Wilmington Blue Rocks games. These guys are out there every day hustling, running out pop flies, trying their best to make it to the Big Show that is the KANSAS CITY ROYALS.

And the 66ers look poised to EXPLODE. After winning the first half of last season (with an under .500 recored), the 66ers faced some stiff battles with Modesto, Bakersfield, and the always feared Rancho Cucamonga. Dodgers might have the glory, but the Inland empire has one mall per person and a David Lynch movie. And keep in mind that major market teams usually have their minor league programs on the other side of the globe, while the 66ers are just off the 215 (wherever that is). So take me out to the reasonably priced 66ers ball game.

A-Rod to Jeter: You Don't Bring Me Flowers

In the wake of Valentine's Day, it fills me with much sadness to have to report to you that Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter have seen their relationship hit a new nadir. Get out your kleenex, folks, 'cause this one is going to bring a tear to your eye like the forest fire scene in Bambi.

Consider some of the quotes from the foxsports.com article:

After insisting for three years that they remained close, Rodriguez said it was "important" to him to publicly confirm what others have said since he joined the team.

"People start assuming that things are a lot worse than what they are, which they're not. But they're obviously not as great as they used to be. We were like blood brothers," Rodriguez said Monday. "You don't have to go to dinner with a guy four, five times a week to do what you're doing. It's actually much better than all you guys expect, but I just want to let the truth be known."...

The reality is there's been a change in the relationship over 14 years and, hopefully, we can just put it behind us," Rodriguez said. "You go from sleeping over at somebody's house five days a week, and now you don't sleep over. It's just not that big of a deal."...

During the offseason, former Yankee Darryl Strawberry said Jeter needs to "embrace" Rodriguez....

I understand my options. I understand the interest," [Rodriguez] said.

It used to be so natural. (Used to be!) To talk about forever. (Used to be.) But "used-to-be's" don't count anymore. They just lay on the floor 'til we sweep them away. (Sniff!)