Blog Kiosk: 12/1/2015 - Dodger Links - Roberts, Greinke and Some Prospect Talk

Dave Roberts will make his first official appearance as the Dodgers manager later this morning as he'll be introduced during a press conference at 11:00 AM.  It'll be televised live on SportsNet LA, so those of you who have the channel can tune in.  Via Ken Gurnick at MLB.com, "Dodgers set to introduce new skipper Roberts."

"Don't mistake kindness for weakness," said Hoffman, who played with Roberts in San Diego, then watched from the front office as Roberts coached five years for the Padres.

"He's learned from a lot of people and I think he's ready for the opportunity. He's a great communicator and people gravitate to his energy. Being in the second biggest market will be a test, but nothing he hasn't seen. He won't be overmatched by anything."

Photo above via Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2004.  Below are more links to check out:

• Ben Badler at Baseball America answered a bunch of questions about the Dodgers Top-10 Prospects, here. 

Frank (Chicago, IL): Willie Calhoun a top 30 prospect for you? Is his destination to be the keystone, or can he play elsewhere?
Ben Badler: Definitely a Top 30 guy. I’m a huge fan of Willie Calhoun’s bat. When you watch his swing—wow. His hitting mechanics are outstanding. Short, compact swing, excellent rhythm and balance, with the barrel staying on plane with the ball for a long time. The crazy power numbers he posted as an amateur are going to come back down to earth, but for his size, he does have surprising power and could be a 15-20 HR guy. The way he raked in his brief taste of pro ball after signing this year is no fluke. Now the downside—he’s short, stocky, doesn’t have much physical projection left and his defense is poor. It doesn’t seem like he’s ever prioritized defense, so the hope is that with more emphasis on his fielding and the benefit of pro instruction, he can become at least a playable defender there, and I think he can do that. I love that pick by the Dodgers for where they got him.

Curtis (Nevada): Do you see the Dodgers trading Urias for a SP this offseason?
Ben Badler: I would be surprised if they traded Urias for anybody. He’s one of the truly elite pitching prospects in baseball.

• I really hate rumors on the hot stove.  More often than not they are baseless, unsubstantiated and totally made up.  That said, I figured this was something worth passing along.  Via Jerry Crasnick on twitter, the Zack Greinke market is red hot:

Zack Greinke's market is quietly heating up, says a source. #Dodgers, #SFGiants both looking for some clarity.

— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) November 30, 2015

• Dodgers adding more depth in outfield.  Via John Manuel on twitter, they are expected to sign Donavan Tate.  Mike Petriello at Dodger Insider writes about him here.

OF Donavan Tate, No. 3 pick in 2009 #mlbdraft, is expected to sign as a minor league free agent with the #Dodgers https://t.co/2hxGrAlzDC

— John Manuel (@johnmanuelba) November 30, 2015

• Jim Johnson, who the Dodgers acquired via a trade with the Braves, has signed a new deal with the Braves, via DJ Short at Hardball Talk.  As you'll recall, Johnson was absolutely horrible when he came to the Dodgers.
• Giovanni Balistreri at When Topps Had (Base) Balls creates a fantastic fantasy rookie card featuring Ron Cey.  Check it out here.
• Via Dylan Hernandez on twitter, the Dodgers avoid arbitration with Joe Wieland by agreeing to terms:

Source: Joe Wieland re-signs with #Dodgers for $590k. Wieland was a non-tender candidate.

— Dylan Hernandez (@dylanohernandez) December 1, 2015

• On Wieland, via Jeff Todd at MLB Trade Rumors:

Though the soon-to-be 26-year-old is hardly an established major leaguer, the Dodgers obviously didn’t want to risk losing him with a non-tender. Wieland has worked almost exclusively as a starter over his career but could conceivably factor in the major league pen this year. Last season at Triple-A, he tossed 113 2/3 innings of 4.59 ERA ball with 7.3 K/9 against 2.0 BB/9.

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Blog Kiosk: 10/8/2015 - Dodger Links - Seager, Porter and Bill Dahlen

"Lookin' pretty chill."

Staff aces Clayton Kershaw and Zach Greinke take a moment to rest their weary legs during yesterday's workout at Dodger Stadium in the photo above tweeted by Dodger photographer Jon SooHoo.  Go here to see more pics from yesterday's workout from Jon.

Below are more links to check out:

• Via Steve Dilbeck at The LA Times, "Dodgers call a halt to their Jim Johnson experiment."  He will not be in the postseason.

“I feel, out of respect, we didn’t feel like Camelback Ranch was a place for him as a veteran,” Mattingly said. “He just had a baby. We didn’t see him as the next guy up if somebody was hurt. Didn’t feel like it was fair to ask him to go Camelback.”

• Three Dodgers make Baseball America's 2015 Texas League Top 20 Prospects, here.  They are Julio Urias, Jose De Leon and Jharel Cotton.  (Hat Tip: Cary Osborne at Dodger Insider)
• Former Brooklyn Superbas/Dodgers shortstop Bill Dahlen is being considered for induction into the Hall by the 2016 Pre-Integration Committee at the Hall of Fame.  Ten folks are on the ballot.  Check out the story here.  Dahlen is often considered one of the best 19th century ballplayers not already in the Hall of Fame.  In fact, SABR selected him as the Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend for 2012, here.
• Eric Stephen at True Blue LA take an early look: "Dodgers 2016 salary arbitration preview."
• Via Bill Shaikin at the LA Times, "Rob Manfred Q&A: topics range from Dodgers TV debacle to Pete Rose."

Q: At the root of the dispute – and the Dodgers are not the first team to have their games blacked out in this way – is that cable and satellite distributors are reluctant to raise rates for fear that subscribers will cancel their service entirely. You don’t need a cable or satellite subscription to watch TV any more. How worrisome is that for you, given the substantial percentage of revenue clubs get from the local cable television contracts?
A: I think the market in L.A. has been particularly difficult, with the fragmentation of the RSNs [regional sports networks]. I think the ability to pass on additional costs to consumers is a concern. But I think the RSN business is a fundamentally sound business. Occasionally, there are going to be blips in terms of getting distribution. This is not the first one, and it probably will not be the last one. But the fundamentals of the RSN business, the strength of live sports programming, remains solid.

• Via Ken Gurnick at MLB.com, "Seager motors from NASCAR country to bigs."
  

  "I wore cleats until I went to kindergarten, and they wouldn't let me wear them anymore and apparently I bawled my eyes out for days just because they wouldn't let me wear cleats to school," Seager said. "I wore cleats everywhere, literally, but they wouldn't let me wear them. I don't even remember it, but I've seen pictures and they tell me. They said I bawled my eyes out."

• Via Paul Francis Sullivan at Sully Baseball, "VIC DAVALILLO – Sully Baseball Unsung Post Season Hero of October 7."  Vic is an often forgotten Dodger.
• I would just blame McCourt, and his penny pinching, lets fleece and squeeze the club for everything they're worth actions.  Via Houston Mitchell at The LA Times, "Former Dodgers announcer Ross Porter still doesn't know who fired him."

I was less than an hour away from guest-hosting a radio sports talk show. Asked if they planned to notify me before I went on the air, the Dodger executives not only said, "No," but reported they were releasing the story at the same time I was going on the air. My agent said, "So, Ross may learn about this from a caller to the show? This isn't right." He raced to his car and drove 30 minutes to reach me before airtime and give me the news.

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Blog Kiosk: 8/4/2015 - Dodger Links - Kershaw, Pederson and Jim Johnson

Congrats, Clayton!  Via Jon Weisman at Dodger Insider, "Clayton Kershaw named NL Pitcher of the Month."

Kershaw won the award even though his eight shutout innings on Saturday, July 32 weren’t counted. In the 31 previous days, the 27-year-old lefty pitched 33 innings and allowed one run for a 0.27 ERA (1.31 xFIP), walking two and striking out 45.

It was not an easy month to win the award. Among the competition was teammate Zack Greinke (38 innings, 0.95 ERA, 2.89 xFIP) and Chicago Cubs pitchers Jon Lester (43 1/3 innings, 1.66 ERA, 2.31 xFIP) and Jake Arrieta (42 2/3 innings, 1.90 ERA, 2.56 xFIP).

Graphic above via @Dodgers on twitter.  Below are some links to check out:

• Via Arash Markazi at ESPN, "How baseball trades hit home for players, their families."

"My son doesn't really get it," (Jim) Johnson said. "My daughter kind of understands it and took it pretty hard. So I send them some things to get them excited about the new team. I get them new jerseys and hats. My daughter loves notebooks, so I got couple of notebooks. It makes the transition easier for them I think."

• Joc has been struggling.  Matt Goldman at Beyond the Boxscore takes a look at why: "Hard hit balls have disappeared from Joc Pederson."

While the sample is much smaller in July, it's obvious that Pederson is not as disciplined as he was earlier in the season. It's also clear that he's not as aggressive on pitches in the zone. In the 3x3 quadrant that represents the strike zone, Pederson's swing rate has dropped in seven out of the nine boxes. Overall, he's letting pitches go by that he shouldn't and swinging at those that he should leave alone.

• Molly Knight, who wrote "The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse," answered a bunch of fan questions at Deadspin, here.
• Via Daniel Brim at Dodgers Digest, "Alex Wood’s Disappearing Strikeouts." 
• Via Molly Knight at Deadspin, "How The Dodgers Got Baseball's Last Buried Treasure."  This is an excerpt from Molly's book on the Dodgers and it focuses on Yasiel Puig.

Puig hailed from Cuba but he may as well have been from Mars. When he showed up to the Dodgers’ spring training complex in Glendale, Arizona, that February he didn’t speak a lick of English. On his first day in major-league camp he stood in front of a water cooler and shook his head in disbelief at the blue liquid spewing out of it. He didn’t know Gatorade existed in more than one color. As the season wore on, the rest of the baseball world looked at him in much the same way. No one had heard of Puig a year ago, but in 2013 he would be the game’s most talked-about player. 

• This is just banana's!  (I know, I should be beaten for this)  Via Kike Hernandez's twitter, he will apparently be a spokesman for Chiquita.

The #RALLYBANANA & I have partnered with @Chiquita! Stay tuned for news on special appearances in the LA area. pic.twitter.com/40U63d69sM

— Enrique Hernandez (@kikehndez) August 3, 2015

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Welcome to the Blue - Wood, Johnson, Peraza, Avilan and Arroyo! The Trades are Done!

It's done!  It is finally done!

As it turns out, it isn't a 3-way deal after all.  The Dodgers first put together a trade with the Marlins featuring Mat Matos and Michael Morse.  Go here to see my post from yesterday on that one; including some fantasy Baseball cards celebrating the transaction.  The three Dodger prospects going to Miami are Victor Araujo, Jeff Brigham and Kevin Guzman.

The Braves trade (and the purpose of this post) includes eight players changing teams - five of them to Los Angeles.  Per the Dodgers press release:

The Los Angeles Dodgers today acquired left-handed pitcher Alex Wood, right-handed reliever Jim Johnson, left-handed reliever Luis Avilan, minor league infielder Jose Peraza, right-handed pitcher Bronson Arroyo and cash considerations from Atlanta in exchange for infielder Hector Olivera, left-handed reliever Paco Rodriguez and minor league right-handed pitcher Zach Bird.

So, the rumored 2016 draft slot bandied about yesterday plays no part in either the Marlins or Braves trade.  (Apparently, the above is incorrect, or so I've read.  The Dodger press releases made no mention of a 2015 draft pick, and in fact they sent out two separate press releases for the trades - one dealing with Miami and another dealing with Atlanta.  But everyone seems to still be reporting that Atlanta did get Miami's draft pick, so I guess I'll just accept that?)  For some detailed analysis on both trades check out the links below:

• Via Chris Mitchell at FanGraphs, "Projecting All the Prospects in the Latos/Wood Trade."
• Chad Moriyama at Dodgers Digest, "Dodgers manage to upgrade rotation, bullpen, farm for cash in reported 3-team trade."
• Via Dave Cameron at FanGraphs, "Dodgers Upgrade Rotation in Unexpected, Intelligent Way."
• Steven Martano at Beyond the Boxscore, "Dodgers add depth to rotation trading for Alex Wood among others."

Overall, I like what the Dodger front office has done.  They basically traded some lower level prospects including a better than decent Zach Bird, an oft-injured lefty reliever in Paco and a 30-year old Cuban prospect in Olivera (highly touted, mind you, but old) for two starting pitchers who will slot in nicely into our rotation, a nice infield prospect, two relievers and a couple of high dollar'd has-been's.  Basically, we took in a bunch of unwanted contracts to solidify the rotation and bullpen.  Heck, we even got a prospect and a potential right-handed off-the-bench power bat in Morse (he was valuable for the Giants last year).  Although, it does appear likely that Morse and/or Arroyo will be released.

A negative is seeing Paco Rodriguez leave the franchise.  I really liked that kid.  It's also disappointing that we won't have a chance to see that Hector Olivera can do for us.  Nevertheless, we got a whole bunch for very little.  That's assuming you consider the Dodgers spending wads of cash no big deal.

As for not getting a top-line starter like Price or Hamels... Well, I'm a bit disappointed, but not angry.  We probably could've gotten Hamels (considering what they got), but Price ended up being way too expensive.  Detroit made out like a bandit in their trade with Toronto. 

In celebration of the Dodgers adding these five new players (some of whom may never actually wear Dodger Blue) I made the below fantasy Baseball cards in honor.  Check them out below.  I've also included some information about each of them, as well.

Alex Wood is probably the crown jewel of the trade for the Dodgers.  He was basically the staff ace for a bad Braves team, and will fit in nicely in the middle of our rotation.

From the Dodger press release:

Wood, 24, has gone 21-20 with a 3.10 ERA in 86 games (55 starts) in three big league seasons with the Braves, including a 7-6 mark with a 3.54 ERA in 20 starts this year. Since making his big league debut in 2013, Wood ranks among the NL leaders (min. 350.0 IP) in ERA (9th) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.12, 15th), while posting a 47.7 groundball percentage and forcing an average of 1.03 groundball double plays per 9.0 innings (4th). The North Carolina native was selected in the second round of the 2012 First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Georgia and quickly ascended to the Majors, while posting a 9-5 record with a 1.68 ERA in 26 minor league starts over three seasons.

Below are Woods's career stats, via Baseball-Reference:

Adding Jim Johnson to the bullpen can only be a good thing.  He's a right-handed reliever with plenty of experience and past success.

From the Dodger press release:

Johnson, 32, has gone 2-3 with nine saves and a 2.25 ERA in 49 games with Atlanta this year in his 10th big league season. The 2012 All-Star and Rolaids Relief Man Award winner has a 25-31 career record with 133 saves and a 3.45 ERA with the Orioles (2006-13), Athletics (2014), Tigers (2014) and Braves (2015). He was one of the American League’s top closers in 2012-13, topping the American League in saves in consecutive seasons and posting back-to-back 50-save seasons with the Orioles. He was originally selected by Baltimore in the fifth round of the 2001 First-Year Player Draft out of Union-Endicott (NY) High School.

Below are Johnson's career stats, via Baseball-Reference:

Luis Avilan is a lefty reliever.

From the Dodger press release:

Avilan, 26, has a 12-5 record with a 2.77 ERA in 218 career games in four big league seasons with Atlanta from 2012-15, limiting opponents to a .225 batting average and posting a 1.16 WHIP. He has appeared in a team-high 50 games this year, going 2-4 with a 3.58 ERA, while limiting opponents to a .245 average. Avilan was signed by the Braves as a free agent in 2005 out of Venezuela.

Below are Avilan's career stats, via Baseball-Reference:

Peraza is probably the best prospect that changed hands (not including the Cuban Hector Olivera).  He's fast and is basically a new version of a young Dee Gordon.  Per Chris Mitchell at FanGraphs:

Peraza excels in the speed and contact departments, but provides very little when it comes hitting for power and drawing walks.

From the Dodger press release:

Peraza, 21, has a .303 career batting average with 203 steals, eight home runs and 178 RBI in 439 games over seven seasons in the Braves’ minor league system, including a .294 mark with 26 stolen bases, three homers and 37 RBI in 96 games this year with Triple-A Gwinnett. Entering the 2015 season, he was rated by Baseball America as the No. 54 overall prospect in baseball after earning selections as a MiLB.com Atlanta organization All-Star in 2013-14 and to the MLB All-Star Futures Game in 2014, when he ranked third among all minor leaguers with 60 steals. He was originally signed by the Braves in 2010 as a free agent out of Venezuela.

Below are Peraza's career stats, via Baseball-Reference:

Not only has Arroyo not ever worn a Braves uniform (he came to them this past June in a salary-dump trade with the Diamondbacks), but he is unlikely to ever wear Dodger Blue either.  Bronson Arroyo is currently on the DL, and has a $4.5Mil buyout on his contract for next season. 

From the Dodger press release:

Arroyo, 38, last pitched on June 15, 2014 before undergoing Tommy John surgery on July 15, 2014. The 2006 All-Star has gone 145-131 with a 4.19 ERA in 405 games (369 starts) in 15 Major League seasons with the Pirates (2000-02), Red Sox (2003-05), Reds (2006-13) and D-backs (2014).

Below are Arroyo's career stats, via Baseball-Reference:

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