2016 Regular Season Thread

[Neddy]

jeez... after rushing him on a short rest a couple of times, Bud has officially broken his arm down... lasting 13 pitches and 2 hitters and Dave pulled him for whatever the reason. I'm thinking he is out for season... smfh.

[Neddy]

who are the remaining healthy starters?

McCarty
Kazmir
Maeda

is that it? we are gonna need Ross Strinpling and recently healthy(?) Brett Anderson to come right in and start throwing for us from here on.

I really hope Kershaw and Ryu can return 100% before the playoffs, but seeing how Anderson's back surgery went about, I can't stop thinking that Kershaw should have gotten the surgery instead of the steroid epi as soon as he was diagnosed with hernia. I don't see him back, at least healthy, without it and now it is already too late to have the surgery and try to come back and pitch this season. at least from what I've been reading, Ryu's eldow tendititis is rather expected. after nearly 2 years of inactivity from shoulder surgery, it would take a bit of more stregthening of his elbow to throw up in the 90s consistently. I know people are more worried about Ryu than Kershaw but I feel the very opposite right now.

[Neddy]

glad so far it reports only of a back tightness for Bud Norris. hopefully it is not a propaganda statement of something much worse.

[Quake Griffin]

Happy to see Seager eat on some LHP and go deep today.

Sucks that it looks like the Giants might have found themselves this weekend but hey, thats why we have 9 more head to head.

[Neddy]

so... now with Puig being sent down to the principal's office, what's our lineup and bench?

1 2B L Utley
2 SS L Seager
3 3B R Turner
4 1B L Gonzo
5 RF L Reddick
6 LF R Kendrick
7 C S Grandal
8 CF L Pederson

C R AJ Ellis
OF/1B R SVS
OF L Toles
IF/OF R ****
IF R Taylor

so... after all this we have 1 bench lefty bat and he is a kid who needs to play everyday to keep his rhythm and he is gonna sit... so when Trayce Thompson returns, go goes? ****? or are we gonna have all right handed bench?

[Neddy]

projecting the 25 men roster tomorrow...

Grandal
Gonzo
Utley
Seager
Turner
Kendrick
Pederson
Reddick

Ellis
SVS
****
Toles
Taylor

Maeda
Kazmir
McCarthy

Stripling

Jensen
Blanton
Liberatore
Baez
Chavez
Howell
Coleman
Avilan


DL-

Hills
Anderson
Thompson
Kershaw
Garcia
Ryu

Purgatory -

Puig

[Quake Griffin]

Ryu 60 Day so I hear.

If Kershaw comes back.

Kershaw
Hill
Maeda
McCarthy
Norris

[Quake Griffin]

#Dodgers 8/2 Lineup
C Utley 2B
C Seager SS
J Turner 3B
J Reddick RF
A Gonzalez 1B
Y Grandal C
J Pederson CF
H Kendrick LF
B McCarthy P

[Neddy]

after listening to today's game ( on the Oregon coast with the family for a vacation) I am convinced that we need to restructure the lineup. Utley's overall performance and especially in the department of OBP have nose dived, and we are too left handed through out the line up if we keep up with today's lineup. I think we need to stop looking at the names and strictly go by what the numbers say they are.

1. L RF Reddick ; he has sported .368 OBP this season. he is better than everyone on our team.
2. L SS Seager ; obviously our best overall hitter, who also sports .365 OBP
3. R 3B Turner ; our best hitter of the last 30 days. need a righty here too.
4. L 1B Gonzo ; I know he has been less than his usual but still brings a decent bat with 50 RBIs this season.
5. S C Grandal ; he is showing a great swing and his numbers prove it. looks healthy for the first time in a long while.
6. L CF Joc ; need his recent power surge to protect the heart of the order.
7. R LF Howie ; need this right handed bat to split the lefty heaviness in back of the order
8. L 2B Utley ; with .257 BA and quickly declining .335 OPB, plus pedestrian .720 OPS, his selectiveness would benefit this spot the most. fully expect him to bring up his OBP to higher than .360 by the end of the season if batting here for the rest of the season.

two guys with the least HRs fill in the back end, 4 guys with the best OBP leads the lineup. HR power is spread out through the leadoff to 6th but the last two guys are still expected to get a double digit HRs at the pace they are on, so to me, this lineup makes the most sense.

[Neddy]

I also would not mind shuffling Kendrick forward in the lineup.

1 R LF Kendrick
2 L SS Seager
3 R 3B Turner
4 L RF Reddick
5 L 1B Gonzo
6 S C Grandal
7 L CF Joc
8 L 2B Utley

or

1 R LF Kendrick
2 L RF Reddick
3 L SS Seager
4 R 3B Turner
5 L 1B Gonzo
6 S C Grandal
7 L CF Joc
8 L 2B Utley

but all my proposals start with a high OBP guys with righty-lefty mix at top with Utley dropping down to the 8th hole right before the pitcher's spot.

[Quake Griffin]

Gonzo doesn't have good lefty splits anymore, so I like the Turner-Grandal combo book ending his AB.

My primary fear is setting the table for teams to just call a lefty in the game and let him work for more than one inning and possibly two inning to get lefties.

I don't want teams facing 2 lefties...then pitching around Turner...then facing Gonzo then Grandal from his weaker right side. That allows their lefties to stay in longer and makes the game easier to manage against us. I at least want Howie to get on in front of Turner if they are going to bring a lefty in.

Reddick
Howie
Seager
Turner
Gonzo
Grandal
Joc
Utley

I'm going to closely watch Seager against lefties until the end of the year. If he bounces back and his splits against them get better, I'll switch my opinion.

For now, I expect this lineup to kill RHP...even though it didnt last night...
smfh.

[Neddy]

Gonzo doesn't have good lefty splits anymore, so I like the Turner-Grandal combo book ending his AB.

My primary fear is setting the table for teams to just call a lefty in the game and let him work for more than one inning and possibly two inning to get lefties.

I don't want teams facing 2 lefties...then pitching around Turner...then facing Gonzo then Grandal from his weaker right side. That allows their lefties to stay in longer and makes the game easier to manage against us. I at least want Howie to get on in front of Turner if they are going to bring a lefty in.

Reddick
Howie
Seager
Turner
Gonzo
Grandal
Joc
Utley

I'm going to closely watch Seager against lefties until the end of the year. If he bounces back and his splits against them get better, I'll switch my opinion.

For now, I expect this lineup to kill RHP...even though it didnt last night...
smfh.

yeah I agree about Gonzo, and I would have added what I was also thinking about, which is keeping SVS as Gonzo's platoon mate. SVS has not shown it this season coming back from his injury, but I am sure you remember my last season rant about SVS' HR per 19 at bats.
we are gonna have to keep the righties in case of lefty relievers so SVS and **** beomes a very valuable bench assets as both are flexible in field positions and they both can hit lefties.

the real truth which should be obvious tho, is that we don't have enough right handed regular caliber players. Seager's split against lefty arms are at least respecful as his OPS against them still is close to the league average, but we do have a few guys with real ugly numbers. Gonzo's .640 OPS is one of them.

but yeah as of now, I am glad to see that you are not insisting on keeping Reddick in the heart of the order. his OBP is simply too good to pass up for us. and when Trayce is back healhty and gets his groove back on, it would be great to have him and Micah Johnson be added for Sept call ups then leading into the playoffs when we can go with 10 pitchers.

I know some people would not like the idea of 10 men staff for the playoffs, but I do for at least for the first round, but say, Kershaw is back healthy and we can trott Kershaw-Hill-McCarthy-Maeda as starters with one of Kazmir/Norris/Chavez as our long man ( I am not sold on Jesse at all; I also prefer Kazmir here. he could be a very good starter if needed due to say, one of the starters being called upon for a long stint on 18 inning fiasco, and also to keep a second lefty in the pen) we can have Jensen/Liberatore/Baez/Coleman/Blanton as our single inning or less relief corp. this will give us a bench of SVS/****/ as primary right handed pinch hitters when facing right handed starters, with Toles as a LHP. AJ is obviously the backup C and I like Taylor as a potential defensive sub. this leaves us with Trayce being another weapon off the bench or starting CF against a left handed starter, plus we get to have a guy who is stealing 80 plus SB in the minors as the designated baserunner in Micah. I don't think he has a place on our team as a lead off, at least not yet but his feet we can surely use from September on.


PS- and one more thing, the reason why I did not have Kendrick batting second anywhere in my proposals is because I still believe the second in order is the most important spot in the lineup and would rather have one of our top two-three hitters to be there and those are Seager/Turner/Reddick. but if Kendrick is hitting the way he has been in the last month for the rest of the season, I dno't think it is a stretch for him to be in the 2 hole.

[Neddy]

not that I believe in any sort of dogma as all knowledge is only as good as the understanding of which informations are available today with available methods to test them, but the rule of thumb in SABR lineup is to have the best OBP guy among the top 3 hitters to lead off, as long as he is not the best player, then the best overall player to lineup second, and the third guy who is a top 3 bats man and not the best nor the OBP leading man, is the clean up with the forth best taking up the 3rd.

for us, regardless of the left or right handed, is

Reddick
Seager
Joc
Turner

with Grandal being the 5th best.

I am sure we are gonna have math challenged folks with pitchforks in the parking lots of dodger stadium if our own FO proposed this lineup...

[Quake Griffin]

Why are we forced to watch Brock when DeLeon is healthy and being stretched out at this point?

Smfh.

[Neddy]

Why are we forced to watch Brock when DeLeon is healthy and being stretched out at this point?

Smfh.

probably Brock is expandable and we don"t want to start De Leon's clock.

also it does not hurt Stewart's case that he led all minors in K/9 with miniscule ERA.

I would still expect Jose up by Sept 1st tho.

[Quake Griffin]

one RH bat would make all the difference.

we added a LH bat that couldn't play tonight.
2 runs in Coors.

[Neddy]

I missed Puig tonight

[Quake Griffin]

Stripling starts Saturday.

We continue to wonder when we will see the more decorated prospect, DeLeon.

[Neddy]

probably for the sept call up. I did read somewhere that the FO wants at least one more start in the AAA for De Leon before he is called up, but I am sure it is all about not starting his clock prematurely and if Ross Stripling gives a strong performance, he will lock up the 5th spot for the next 2-3 starts more and with two more day offs in the next 10 days, that is about the entire month of August for the 5th starter.

[Neddy]

WTF Josh Reddick, throwing that ball to the 3rd where you had no chance but letting the batter advance to second with one out, it should have been an easy fundamental play to get the ball to the second and leave a chance for a double play. I can't imagine if that was Puig just what kind of BS criticism he would have taken for that mistake.