LA Dodgers 2013 Ongoing Thread

[BigDDude]

Yeah, real bad sign for Donnie. He knows it's coming. It was thick in the air last night and I bet he was waiting for the phone to ring.

Interesting 4-0 lead. Is this confirmation that the team backs Donnie vs. Ethier?

Sadly,....., probably not. Their winning today probably has more to do with the fact that the guy they are facing, Wily Peralta, has an e.r.a close to 6.00.

 

[HammerDown]

Sadly,....., probably not. Their winning today probably has more to do with the fact that the guy they are facing, Wily Peralta, has an e.r.a close to 6.00.

He didn't have that ERA til today. I was surprised how long they rode that guy.

 

[HammerDown]

Okay, at least the Nats finally took one from the Giants.

 

[Silas]

Mattingly is still the Dodgers' manager, and the Front Office insists they have no plans to fire him. That usually means a firing is imminent, but these Dodger nobles don't do things by the book. Whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen.

As much as I believe Mattingly hasn't measured up to being a quality Big League Manager, I'd hate to see him fired because he ripped members of the team for not putting out a full effort. One of his short-comings has been his seeming acceptance of less than acceptable effort from various members of his team, and now he is, at last, calling some of these guys on the carpet.

Case in point is Andre Ethier who is, not surprisingly, angry that Mattingly doesn't seem to think that he is going all out to win. One thing that we should all agree about when it comes to Don Mattingly is that as a player he gave everything he had. I believe he is more than capable of recognizing when a player isn't putting forth what it takes to succeed. So, Ethier should spend more time dedicating himself to his craft and the goal of winning instead of whining.

Ethier is expendable. And right now might be a good time to swap him for someone who does have the "grit" Mattingly is talking about.

I can accept losing, but not when it comes as a result of not trying to win.

 

[bluepigpen]

Van Slyke already is starting for him!!!! Ethier isn't hurt, the writing is on the wall with the trading time coming and I don't think it matters if the Dodgers are in the hunt or not. SP and 3rd baseball on the horizon?

 

[Old1949]

I wonder if Mattingly woke up with a headache this morning. It's nice to have a day off to let the pandemonium settle a bit. I hope he and Ethier talk today and try to sort things out. In fact I hope he and the whole team talk.

 

[Silas]

I agree that Mattingly needs to talk to the team and let them know exactly what he expects.

He should meet privately with Ethier and apologize for speaking publicly in a way that brought Ethier's play into account, but in private he should let it be known that he wants Ethier to step things up, be a leader (at least on the field), and put forth a maximum effort all of the time.

Meanwhile, Colletti is at AA watching Puig and Pederson. I really don't think the Dodgers should bring either one of these guys up, yet, but, as we all know, the Dodgers don't go by the Book all of the time.

No Mattingly firing in sight for now. The important thing is to regroup, put on the War Paint, and go out tomorrow and beat the Cardinals. The Dodgers are only 6 games out and considering how out of sync they've been, and with the injuries, it just shows you what this team could do when fully healthy and committed.

 

[bluepigpen]

I agree with most of that Silas, Donnie does need to talk to Ethier but I think by the deadline, Andre is some where else. I said a 3 games ago that I thought that a 6-4 record would save his job in the 10 games, I am still in that camp, If the Dodgers just get stepped on by the Cardinals and Angels, he could still be gone but I look for the Dodgers to get the 6-4 or 5-5 and enough to stall the widow maker. Look, Lilly and Cap are not going to help the team, they are loses waiting to happen. I think someone in the minors either at AA or AAA needs to come up, and make it a FRESH FACE. Also almost every reliever on the staff must be given a pink slip starting tomorrow if they can't do the job. League and a couple of others should never be trusted with Kershaw's leads again. The team can turn it around, its not to late but that turn had better happen soon, they are lucky that the rest of the division is waiting. Don't expect that forever.

 

[HammerDown]

He should meet privately with Ethier and apologize for speaking publicly in a way that brought Ethier's play into account

He has nothing to apologize for. He's not accountable to Andre Ethier.

 

[Silas]

Mattingly isn't accountable to Ethier, or any other player, but dissension can only get worse if the manager is calling players out in public. It's a human nature thing.

If Ethier produces on the field, he won't have to worry about Public humiliation and Mattingly won't have to send negative ripples through the clubhouse.

 

[HammerDown]

Yeah, it's 100% up to Ethier. Play well and give a shit results in the fans loving you and not getting ripped by the manager. My response to Ethier would be "You're getting paid $Millions - produce or get the fuck out." No apologies, just do it. Now.

 

[BigDDude]

Yeah, it's 100% up to Ethier. Play well and give a shit results in the fans loving you and not getting ripped by the manager. My response to Ethier would be "You're getting paid $Millions - produce or get the fuck out." No apologies, just do it. Now.

I think, with Ethier, it is time to find a trade partner for him. It should not be all that hard, in that the Dodgers are going to have to eat a lot of contract to move him, regardless of for who or where.

So, act now, make that shake up change, and hope for better results going forward.

Too bad CBS is dead, or I could have shown all the times I said he needed to go before now.

 

[HammerDown]

But honestly, who wants this guy at this point in the season?

 

[BigDDude]

But honestly, who wants this guy at this point in the season?

The Mets have no OF depth. The Cubs could use the help.

 

[HammerDown]

Funny, the only team that instantly came to mind was the Cubs. He'd look totally natural in a Cubs uniform and I don't think many players would dread playing in the friendly confines.

 

[Old1949]

So, say we put Ethier and a package of prospects together and trade for a solid 3B, SS, or SP. Who is out there that may be available to help the team?

 

[BigDDude]

PHOENIX -- There is a very good reason why Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz are pending Hall of Famers, said Don Sutton, the 324-game winner and Hall of Fame inductee in the Class of 1998.
The trio of Braves was a group of self-starters and unique to this era.
"No doubt about it, but they were given the opportunity to be unique," said Sutton, who announces Braves games on the radio now and was part of Atlanta's TV broadcast team during the 1990s. "That won't happen now. I don't care how good they are. Pitchers today are working in an environment dictated for them, not dictated by them. The last person who has an opinion on how he feels is the pitcher."
The outspoken Sutton -- who came up with the Dodgers in 1966 and pitched with them for 16 of his 23 seasons -- has his own opinion about everything.
He said in an interview last week that he hates pitch counts.
"I say it with a laugh in my voice when I broadcast: 'That's 100 pitches. On the next one, he's going to turn into a troll.' At 101, you just disappear. Poof, you're gone," Sutton said.
The Nationals didn't ask him, but Sutton wouldn't have approved of the way they limited Stephen Strasburg's innings last season as that club was driving toward a pennant.
"I wouldn't have liked it if I had been Strasburg. I probably wouldn't have been as nice a guy as he is," said Sutton, a broadcaster for the Nats in 2007-08 in between Atlanta stints. "I think he did a good job of being the good company man in handling it well. But I think I would've objected to that. My thinking would have been, 'Here I am in the big leagues with a chance to win. I don't know if I'm ever going to have another chance to win.'"
Sutton was a member of the Hall of Fame's Pre-Integration Committee that late last year posthumously elected Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, umpire Hank O'Day and catcher Deacon White to the Hall's Class of 2013. They turned out to be the only members of the Class when the Baseball Writers Association of America declined to vote in anybody.
About that experience, Sutton said: "Well, you sit there and you think you know something about these guys and you really don't.
"You know what we did on the last one that I loved? We had two historians on the committee, who could put it all in the proper perspective. I loved our committee. What a cross section. It helped me to compare apples and oranges when we had the historians."
About the choice made by the voting writers (of which I am one), Sutton was equally succinct.
"I have no objection to it," he said. "I mean, I'm not a player in that poker game. But do I have thoughts on it? Yeah. I thought you guys did it right. I don't have any problem with it. My thoughts are, it's your responsibility, and I thought you thoughtfully handled it."
I met Sutton in 1976, during my rookie year as a sportswriter. He was kind and eloquent and has always been one of my favorites. Many years later, when he was pitching for the Angels, I approached his locker for a postgame chat and he told me to hold on. Turning into his cubicle, he popped the cork on a bottle of red wine and poured a glass for me. That was singular. A one-timer. Like a fine wine, we'll let the rest of this interview flow.
MLB.com: So, I'm guessing you're much happier having pitched in your era than this one.
Sutton: I just think my personality would have a tough time with having somebody who isn't in my body telling me how I feel and how I'm supposed to feel. I'd have a problem with that. My first pitching coach with the Dodgers was Red Adams. He used to say: "Wear the game around you like a jacket. Be immersed in the game."
I'm not sure many pitchers are immersed in the game now. Maddux was. Tim Hudson is. Glavine and those guys were immersed in the game. I wish we'd teach kids in the Minor Leagues how to sense the environment and to immerse themselves in the game.
MLB.com: It was a different era. They didn't count pitches back then.
Sutton: Gene Mauch with the Angels was the first guy who ever counted my pitches. I was 40 years old when he started counting my pitches. At that point, I'd have been counting them, too. I have no idea what the maximum amount of pitches was I ever threw in a game. No idea. Had no idea about a radar gun, either. Radar guns were used by traffic cops back then.
MLB.com: What was your favorite team?
Sutton: I enjoyed 1966 with the Dodgers, my first year in the big leagues, because what kid growing up and 21 years old wouldn't want to have played with Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Claude Osteen, with John Roseboro catching and Maury Wills at short and Jim Gilliam at third? That's a dream. We wouldn't be talking about the Hall of Fame if I hadn't landed in that spot at that time with Walter Alston as the manager. I'm convinced of it. I'm convinced that if I had landed anywhere else, I wouldn't be in the Hall of Fame.
I was as dumb as a box of rocks. But the lessons I learned there lasted a lifetime. Don Drysdale was the "Big D," so I started signing my name with a little D. If you didn't learn there … I saw young pitchers come up who didn't want to sit between Maddux and Glavine. What were they, idiots? You're going to learn from osmosis.
John Roseboro should have managed in the big leagues. Major League baseball missed an opportunity for a giant, not having him as a manager.
MLB.com: I guess it begs the question: Were Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux comparable to that Dodgers trio?
Sutton: I think so. Not sure on that Dodgers club we had that same day-to-day competition. It was a whole different era. In Atlanta, they competed at golf, they competed at tiddlywinks. They competed at who could get to the park first, but not to the detriment of each other, but to the benefit of each other.
Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux were a unique blend of personalities, much like Don, Sandy and Claude. I was the fourth-best pitcher on that staff, which tells you all you need to know.
MLB.com: And you sound like you admired Red Adams.
Sutton: He was the best. We could all learn from him. He had a personality that was able to deal differently with 10 people and their individual ways. He talked to me during a game one day and he said, "Buddy, are you cheatin'?" I go, "No," and he said, "Well, you might want to consider it, buddy."
He always called you "buddy." I think I was just getting crushed by the Cubs.
MLB.com: Did you cheat?
Sutton: No, I never got caught cheating.
MLB.com: About the Hall of Fame vote, what do you think about it as we move forward? Do you think that after a period of time some of these guys [who played in the "Steroid Era"] should get in? Or if you played in that era, it's going to be hard to get in.
Sutton: I think it's going to be hard to get in. I think you're going to be hit with fallout and I think you're going to be guilty by association. It's going to be interesting to see the opinion of some of your younger peers, who have not been so actively involved in it, how their opinion changes. But when you get down to it, what I think is irrelevant. It's like talking about clouds. I can do nothing to influence.
MLB.com: The upcoming writers' ballot should be very interesting with Maddux and Glavine on it. Smoltz comes on in 2015.
Sutton: Next year is one year when I wouldn't want to be in your shoes, because I wonder how you're going to get all the worthy ones in. If I'm on the Veterans Committee, think of who we've got. All the great managers -- Bobby Cox, Joe Torre, Tony La Russa, Lou Piniella, Cito Gaston, maybe even John Schuerholz. It's going to be a busy time. We may have to hold that thing in the Meadowlands next year, that ceremony, with the possibility of all the people who could go in.
It's one of those times when I think we'd agree on five and it could be unanimous on five. There might be some worthy guys left out because we just don't have room. Right now, I'm not sure if I'm on that committee again. I was asked after the last one if I'd serve again, and I said that I'd consider it to be a privilege.
MLB.com: So are Maddux and Glavine, in your mind, slam dunks for the Hall of Fame?
Sutton: If I had a vote on those guys, that's an opinion I will voice. I think they're a slam dunk.
MLB.com: So if you're on the Post-Expansion Committee, who else do you think should be considered?
Sutton: I think we need to address Tommy John and Jim Kaat before we lower the standards on the next generation of pitchers to get in the Hall.
MLB.com: They're going to be squeezed by just what we were talking about -- all the managers on that Post-Expansion Committee ballot.
Sutton: Oh my God. I don't want to be on the committee, then. I resign. I haven't even been asked and I resign.
MLB.com: Plus, you can only put 10 candidates on the ballot of all the eligible players, managers, umpires and executives.
Sutton: Geez, I haven't even thought about that. Don't ask me any more questions. It's getting harder.

 

[BigDDude]

Gotta Love Don Sutton. Did you see the part above I highlighted.

 

[HammerDown]

What a strange response. Not natural at all. An honest response if you weren't a cheater is "No."

 

[mutigers1fan]

2 walks and then a HBP. Why does Yadi swing first pitch?