Paul from yesterday’s article fills us in on quite a bit…
Not that you guys want advice from a Dodgers fan, but, yes, you ought to risk Gagne. If he returns 100% then he won’t be one of the best but THE best. Even at 80% he’ll still be a top closer. The only reason why we didn’t make some better offer to Gagne [$5mil guaranteed with incentives that could push his take to $10mil] was that we expected to resign Saito for substantially less [which we did; $1mil for 1 year] and we also have the young guy, Broxton, that you guys wanted in trade for Wells last year [so if for some reason Saito’s last year proves a fluke, then Broxton assumes the role of closer]. So we didn’t need risk all that much and so we didn’t. But you guys ought to shell out the money and take your chances. If you sign him, tell Theo not to overwork him and to please otherwise understand that he’s primarily a one-inning guy [though every now again you can bring him for an out or two in the 8th].
I also don’t understand the word from your neck of the woods that you guys want Drew to bat 5th. If he doesn’t hit 3rd for you guys, well, that will be a crime. Let me it put this way, Ortiz had 54 homers last year. Would you rather have those 54 homers following 3 guys likely to have OBPs of .370+, or following the OBPs of your 1, 2, and 9 hitters [i.e., what is the expected OBP of your no. 9 guy]? Drew otherwise, well, let me put it this way. Excepting that one free agent year with the Braves just before he came to the Dodgers, he’s never shown great power. He also draws a lot of walks and he does so, well, he’s not adverse to taking four that are about, oh, say 1/3 of inch off the outside edge of the plate. I don’t know that walks protect Manny, and that seems to be the stated reason for getting him to hit 5th, so, again, I just don’t understand. Lastly re Drew, cut him some slack. He doesn’t show a lot of emotion as he doesn’t want his own emotion to affect his play. More than a few who claim to be loyal Dodgers fans dogged him very nearly all of last year, yet when the dust settled, he led the team in homers with 20, his OPB was above .390, and he lead the team with 100 RBIs. I’d call that one hell of season, but hey, that’s just me.
Oh, sorry, one more. If you want increased power numbers from him, with no substantial decrease in his BBs, then do hit him 3rd. He will have to be pitched to hitting before Ortiz and Ramirez [with all of the HRs that Ortiz and Ramirez hit, say 100 between them, there’s just that many time that they won’t be on base and so Drew won’t necessarily need to be pitched to; so, you guys have someone else to protect Manny?].
Now on to Lugo. Some guy going by the name “seano” posts on at least two Red Sox blogs and, well, let’s just say that he’s not Lugo’s biggest fan. He thinks that Lugo’s last year’s numbers with L.A. were a “reversion” to form. Hardly. You guys may not be all that fond of Grady Little, but he is right, as Lugo was simply put into a situation that he was not psychologically prepared to deal with [I’m giving you the “fancy” version of what Grady said recently when asked]. And so we saw the result. He tried to steal home on game, call it his cry of distress. Since he’ll be hitting lead-off for you and playing everyday at his preferred position, I would instead expect a “reversion” to his DRays numbers. He otherwise seems to hit well in your park, .330 or so in 30 games.
Of course, that’s one of the dangers, since we traded for Wilson Betemit and probably did so less because of our need at 3rd than the fact, well, look at his game logs, as he simply crushed us while playing for Braves, and so we remembered what we saw happen to us and forgot to look at this numbers against others and, well, he can’t hit left-handers, so he’s a liablity against lefty-starters and he gets removed from the game in late innnings when the other side brings in the lefty to face him. Anyway, you should love Lugo. Some moron fan on one Dodgers blog said something about, well, Lugo misjudged a grounder, and you how it goes when for that moment there you feel a little lost, so he didn’t dive for the ball and the one soul reported that he didn’t dive in order to prevent an injury from dampening his free agent prospects [as it were]. Of course, what we found out later was that he was alredy playing injured [finger] and ever since that one game, well, his was always the dirtiest uniform when the game ended. That reminds me, give Theo slack too. At least he’s making reasonable moves, unlike us, since we just signed Juan Pierre for 5 for 44/45. There I was thinking that we’d resign Lugo, have him play CF for one year, and then take over at 2nd for Kemp the following year.
But, no, we’ve got Juan Pierre in center [yes, he did have 200+ hits last year, but he had them in 699 ABs, so he made 490+ outs as well, and he otherwise doesn’t walk much, and his arm is a spaghetti noodle that’s been left to sit in water for weeks, but I digress, call it my therapy, and so…] we’ve got Juan Pierre in CF and no likely prospect to bring in to replace an aging very rapidly Jeff Kent [and never mind the also aging and prone to injury Nomar Garciaparra, and, again, our 3rd baseman who can’t hit lefties].
So consider yourselves lucky and know that at least one Dodgers fan will continue to root for the success of one Julio Lugo, one J.D. Drew, and should Theo do the right, one Eric Gagne.
