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| (Photo of tournament bracket via Eric Stephen on twitter) |
And from the left bracket is Chris Anderson and Justin Turner (tweet link here):Ping pong Championship! @Brandon_Beachy & @ScottVanSlick #DodgersSt #PingPong pic.twitter.com/4i42njTXQs— Adrian Gonzalez (@Adrian_ElTitan) March 10, 2016
— Adrian Gonzalez (@Adrian_ElTitan) March 10, 2016Unfortunately, gameplay of the entire match isn't available, but we do have a video of the winning point. Check it out below, via another AGon tweet:
Congrats!Your 2016 Ping Pong Champions!! @Brandon_Beachy & @ScottVanSlick #DodgersST pic.twitter.com/r0ejF1LsMh— Adrian Gonzalez (@Adrian_ElTitan) March 10, 2016
Despite everything that has happened this offseason, the Dodgers are in a better position than ever to compete in 2016 and beyond as a result of some of the moves made by Andrew Friedman and company over the last year. Looking ahead to 2016, the Dodgers are in an excellent position to win the NL West title for the fourth year in a row. At this point in time, FanGraphs depth charts have the Dodgers at 47.6 WAR, which roughly equates to a 95-win team. This total is the second-best in all of baseball behind only the Cubs (51.8 WAR), and it puts them eight games in front of the Giants and 16 games in front of the Diamondbacks.
The waiters who had been hustling to set tables for dinner on the patio a few feet away suddenly stopped and looked out at the lawn, then back at one another, completely confused. The guy was throwing heat.
A hotel guest ran over and asked in disbelief, “Is that … Clayton Kershaw?”
It’s possible that Anderson has more value in trade for the Dodgers, but 2015 was a step back and he could use next season to rebuild value or repackage himself as a reliever. He could return to Tulsa to start next season if the Dodgers wish to continue his development as a starter, but I most likely see his 2016 role in the Oklahoma City bullpen. He’s ranked as high as he is because the potential is still there for late relief, but next season is a make or break season for Anderson’s prospect value. If Anderson’s best stuff shows itself more frequently in relief, it’s possible that he could make his Dodgers’ debut at the end of the 2016 season.
“I think early on in the year, I sat there and overanalyzed what I was doing,” he said. “But at the end of the year, it was more, ‘Give me that ball. I’ll move on. If I give up one, give it to me tomorrow.'”
The jersey was purchased at the game’s silent auction and generously donated back to the Quakes by the 501st Legion – Southern California Garrison (501st.com) and Cory Leeper (IG: @coryvader).Below are more links to check out:
"I have no reason to believe I won't be ready for Spring Training," Ryu said.
"Other than throwing off a mound and going all out, I pretty much can do everything I want to do. I'm on a great program and everything is going great. No discomfort, absolutely nothing."
Greg Maddux is expected to join a West Coast team — likely the Dodgers — as a part-time special assistant. Maddux said he doesn’t want a full-time coaching career. His son, Chase, is a freshman pitcher at UNLV and Maddux wants to spend time watching his games. He also enjoys traveling with his family.
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“I enjoy working with pitchers,” Greg Maddux said. “If there’s something I can do to help a young guy think about the game more and what he’s throwing and why he’s throwing it, I can help like that.”
“It was a lot fun. It’s obvious they love baseball,” commented the Dodgers' ace, who took part in all the events during the three-day tour. “They asked me to name an ideal U.S. lineup, and I mentioned a few players, but they kept telling me the Cuban team would crush them. I missed quite a few, so now I’ve really got to think about that lineup.”
"Look at me when I talk to you," he says. "The Dodgers are the greatest team in history of baseball, and the Dodgers will be world champions again before I leave this earth."
Then when it became clear that McCourt was going to be forced to sell the team, I basically moved in with my sister in West Hollywood and continued reporting. I got tired of paying New York rent when I wasn’t there—and I needed a change of scenery for a variety of personal reasons. So in March, 2011 I basically sent for my stuff and continued covering all the craziness around McCourt. Then when he sold the team for $2 billion to this really interesting guy from Chicago, I became even more intrigued. But it wasn’t until the Dodgers signed Zack Greinke, honestly, that I thought about writing a book. And it was because a few Dodger players who knew me texted and said “Shit. We were bankrupt and now we have Greinke and Kershaw and we’re going to win a title. You should write a book.” That’s what happened.
"I was probably throwing around 85 or so when I got to college, but then it started to bump up to 87-88 my freshman year, then 89-90 after my sophomore year and in the 90s after my junior year," Bergjans said. "All of a sudden, I'm starting to think that maybe baseball won't be done after four years."
"It's fun to be home, see your friends and family," Kershaw said. "Usually you don't get to do this until the offseason, so it's a little bit weird, but it's fun for 24 hours or so."
Ethier isn’t being fooled by off-speed stuff this year, and he’s shortened his stroke enough to capitalize on pitches inside that may have jammed him in the past. His ability to recognize strikes more efficiently has the lefty making more contact and allowing him to be more aggressive at the dish without swinging recklessly at pitches out of the zone.
in keeping with baseball tradition, a Houston exec should walk into the STL offices and hit their best front office guy with a fastball
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) June 16, 2015
Clearly, swinging and missing has been a problem for Pederson, even when he tore through Pacific Coast League pitching throughout the 2014 minor league season. His 13.5% swinging strike rate — calculated as whiffs divided by pitches seen — is nearly identical to that which he’s posted thus far in his big league career. He’s swinging about five percent less often and seeing more pitches since his promotion, which at the very least shows us he’s been selective, even sans chase rate in those minor league scoreboards I sifted through. But even so, while Pederson seems to be a patient hitter, he’s making less contact when he does swing, which is particularly concerning by my estimation.
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| (Yasiel Puig, pic via @Dodgers on twitter) |
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| (Joc Pederson, pic via Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2015) |
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| (Bat and helmet, pic via @Dodgers on twitter) |
Here’s your lineup for today’s game against the Cubs. Oh and Julio Urias is expected to pitch, too. Is it 1:05 yet? pic.twitter.com/BxlEtpadHc
— SportsNet LA (@SportsNetLA) March 11, 2015
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| (Ryu, Guerrero & Uribe, pic via Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2015) |
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| (Ferrell & Jeong, via Jon SooHoo) |
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| (Clayton Kershaw, pic via Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2015) |
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| (Tommy Lasorda signing, pic via Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2015) |
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| (Gimme five, Donnie! Pic via Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2015) |
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| (Do some video work, pic via Jon SoHoo/LA Dodgers 2015) |
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| (Joc Pederson, pic via Jon SooHoo/La Dodgers 2015) |
As a starter, Anderson has one of the livelier fastballs in the system. He typically sits at 92-94 with heavy armside run. Anderson doesn’t generate as many ground balls as you’d expect with this life, most likely because he tends to pitch up in the zone. Anderson has the potential to throw in the upper 90’s in relief stints and should maintain enough of the life on the pitch to miss plenty of bats.
Anderson called Kershaw one of “the nicest guys you could be around,” and that fondness remained long after their high school days were over. Anderson was with the opposing Colorado Rockies when Kershaw threw his no-hitter this past June 18, and couldn’t help praising the lefty.
"I feel good and hope, with no setback, I should be good to go for Spring Training," he said.
Baseball’s fattest payroll commands the most attention when it comes to the Dodgers, but the organization has built one of the game’s better farm systems, especially at the top. Aside from the Cubs, the Dodgers’ top three prospects are as strong as any other organization’s in baseball.
Of course, the chances that the Dodgers will bring up Urias are roughly equivalent to the odds that the franchise will move back to Brooklyn. The reasons are many: he's barely 18, he's three levels away from the Majors, they don't want to add more stress on his arm, he doesn't have to be protected on the 40-man roster until after the 2016 season. If he did get the call, Urias would be the youngest player in the big leagues since Willie Montanez in 1966 and the youngest pitcher since Larry Dierker in '64.
Even with the scary corresponding timing between the hip injury and the power loss, we should be cautious about assigning the injury as the only cause for Puig’s struggles. There’s the whole “correlation does not mean causation” thing, and as Chad noted in the excerpt above, Puig’s mean fly ball distance almost matches last season. A few of the longer hits have been classified as line drives, too. This could just be regression to the mean, using arbitrary endpoints to describe a story. In other words, it could be a coincidence. Puig hasn’t been visually impacted by his hip in some time.
In The Modern Baseball Card Investor, we used the term multiple expansion to describe the widening spread in values between premium-grade (PSA or BGS Gem Mint+ in modern issues) and ungraded cards, and also the spread between premium limited print, serialized parallels and base cards in Chrome Era modern issues (1993/1996-present), generally as a function of some combination of increasing demand due to growing star power; the card removal effect; and/or grade scarcity. Multiple expansion is not hypothetical conjecture, but a very real concept, with the clearest evidence of its existence present in the values of vintage issues.
So premium graded modern scarcities can and have already experienced multiple expansion in values with the added caveat that beta (to borrow a financial term for risk) is significantly higher due to the players standing in the hobby. In other words, as long as a player is deemed to be a legitimate Hall of Fame-caliber player the values for their scarce issues should continue to be strong.
A great example of this are the prices for scarce and high-graded Michael Jordan cards. I am constantly amazed at the values certain low-numbered cards regularly receive. So, ten to twenty years from now can you imagine the kind of values a Mike Trout scarce rookie card might achieve if he continues being a monster at the plate, or a Clayton Kershaw? I'm not saying you should run out and become a card investor, I just think it's interesting to think about.
On a side note, if I had the discretionary funds to spend significant dollars on cards I would focus my attention on vintage (in particular pre-war cards). As the article intimates, there is less risk involved with those issues. Modern scarcities may represent a potential higher return, but they also represent the greatest risk.
The Dodgers made some mechanical changes with Anderson’s delivery a couple months ago, which could account for the improvement. One thing that hasn’t changed is his velocity. When I saw him in person, he was sitting at 93-96 MPH and topped out at 99 MPH. Friday night, Anderson hit 97 MPH a few times. As a pitcher who will live off his fastball, this is encouraging. He also has improved his off-speed pitches as the season has progressed. His slider will always be his go-to secondary offering, but his changeup has improved to the point where it could be a usable third pitch.
Campbell joined the Loons on June 20th and soon made his mark with the Dodgers affiliate. In his first five games, he had six scoreless innings giving up three hits while walking one and striking out five. On the season he has now pitched 29 innings over 22 appearances with an ERA of 1.55 and a WHIP of 1.00. He has struck out 36 and walked 8. He has yet to serve up a home run.
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| (pic via Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2014) |
