Category: Dailies
We interrupt this holiday break…
Over at DodgerThoughts, Jon Weisman offers an incredible look at Dodger blogging through the years and it’s fascinating to see the way the blogosphere has evolved this decade when it comes to our favorite team. It’s hard to believe ITD was the 19th blog on the scene, according to Jon’s list, but far more incredible to think that 26 others have popped up in cyberspace in the four years that this site has been live.
Quite obviously, this blog is different from all the rest…it’s unabashedly pro-Dodgers because it’s written by people who work in the front office and we have an added benefit of seeing the inner workings of the organization. But the truth is, it’s no better than the rest of the sites out there, all of which are run by Dodger fans who have second (some would say “real”) jobs. Each provides a view of the team from a different perspective and every one of them has the potential of a global readership, which is a huge reason why the Dodgers became the first big league team this year to extend media credentials to some of the bloggers who cover the team.
Over the next decade, I have little doubt that many sites out there will become profitable ventures for the people who run them and even more valuable resources for information about the team. They’ll also change in the way in which they create a place for fans to gather, which is really what this is all about.
So from one of the humble hosts of ITD and behalf of all of us at the organization, Happy New Year and Happy New Decade (by the way, fellow blogger Tony Jackson had a great piece on ESPNLosAngeles.com about the Top 10 Dodgers of the decade). I’ll probably put up one last post on Thursday recapping the 2009 season, much like we did for 2008.
Taking a break…
Our front offices are closing between now and Jan. 4 so the posts might be less frequent but here’s to a happy and healthy holiday season to everyone who visits Inside the Dodgers and those who read these posts on Facebook. I hope you are all as excited as I am about the 2010 season and of course, the rest of the hot stove league that will lead up to pitchers and catchers reporting to Camelback Ranch.
See you all next year and thanks for another great season…
Happy Birthday
Two key members of the 1981 World Champion Dodgers are celebrating birthdays today.
Best wishes go out to Steve Garvey and Kenny Landreaux! Also Al Ferrara, who came back to Dodger Stadium for the first time in nearly two decades earlier this season and has been back in the mix with the team ever since. In fact, he even came out to our company holiday party last week, as did Kenny.
Best and worst Dodger trades
Here’s a news release that came into inbox today…an interesting read that doesn’t even touch on the Pedro Martinez/Delino Deshields deal, which most of the Dodger legions believe is the worst one in our team’s history.
If nothing else, it’s a new thread to discuss your thoughts on the good trades and bad ones over the years…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 10, 2009
Los Angeles Dodgers rank twenty-sixth in lopsided trades in the twentieth century
Dodgers lost a net -297 games due to lopsided trading
In Traded: Inside the Most Lopsided Trades in Baseball History, statistical consultant Doug Decatur uses Win Shares, a statistic developed by baseball guru Bill James to determine how many wins a player contributes to his team, to objectively rank the 306 most lopsided trades of the twentieth century. (Lopsided trades are those in which the trade produced a net value of 111 future Win Shares, or 37 wins, by the players involved after the trade was made.)
Here are the top five positive lopsided trades for the Los Angeles Dodgers:
Season Principal Acquired Principal Traded Net Future Wins
1939 Pee Wee Reese Red Evans 105
1974 Pedro Guerrero Bruce Ellingsen 82
1918 Burleigh Grimes Casey Stengel 65
1938 Dolph Camilli Eddie Morgan 51
1900 Lave Cross $3,000 43
The Dodgers won their last five World Championships not because of trades and not because of free agency. Their formula has been simple: Put a good, home-grown team on the field as a result of a very good farm system, and then wait for a dominant pitcher to put them over the top, such as Don Drysdale in 1959, Sandy Koufax in 1963 and 1965, Fernando Valenzuela in 1981, and Orel Hershiser in 1988.
Here are the five worst lopsided trades for the Los Angeles Dodgers:
Season Principal Acquired Principal Traded Net Future Loses
1965 Claude Osteen Frank Howard 103
1936 Tom Winsett Dutch Leonard 82
1983 Rafael Landestoy John Franco 61
1977 Rick Monday Bill Buckner 60
1940 Joe Gallagher Roy Cullenbine 57
More than just a ranking of trades, Traded provides a team-by-team overview of the best trades in each team’s history and the human side of the story behind those trades, as well as a listing of the worst trades for each team. Author Doug Decatur also explores the GM who made the best trade for each of the thirty MLB teams.
More importantly, however, in Traded Decatur identifies thirteen red flags to look out for when evaluating future trades that could indicate a lopsided deal is about to take place. These include secondary average for hitters, strikeout-to-walk ratio for pitchers, and the under-valuation of minor league statistics that often occurs in the majors.
Jamey Carroll officially on board
Jamey Carroll took his physical today and has passed, making official his signing to a two-year contract. At the winter meetings, several people told me what an amazing guy this is and what a great addition he’d be to the team. It seems he’ll share time with Blake DeWitt at second base, so our next item on the list is clearly starting pitching.
Also on the pitching front, the two players to be named later from the White Sox “arrived” today and they are John Ely and Jon Link. Ely was 14-2 with a 2.82 ERA at Double-A and Link will be on the 40-man roster.
Keep an eye out for Ken Gurnick’s coverage at dodgers.com, as I’m sure he’ll be speaking to Ned later today and can fill you in on the latest thoughts from the GM’s office.
Holiday spirits…
I know that many of us who are fortunate enough to work for the Dodgers spend a lot of time thinking about how lucky we are to work for an organization of this stature, but there are certain days that are just better than others.
Most days, as I pull into the parking lot, I try to remember what an amazing job I have. But much like all of you, there’s also an office culture and office life and with that, comes an office holiday party. Ours starts in about 30 minutes when the offices will close for the afternoon and the games begin. There’s lunch in the Dugout Club, a softball tournament down on the field, some sort of Olympic games (not sure what it will entail) and then dinner before we head home. Office camaraderie is important anywhere you work, even more so when you log the kind of hours that are required of these sorts of jobs.
I certainly don’t write this to brag…just to give a little insight into a great day like this for the organization. We get hammered plenty publicly but it’s days like this that it’s hard to deny how fortunate we are to be associated with the Los Angeles Dodgers…there are very few teams in baseball that can say they’ve been in the playoffs four out of the last six years and three out of the last four, not to mention back-to-back NLCS for the first time in three decades. I’ve worked with a lot of people through the 90s and early 2000s who spent a lot of years here and never got to witness the sort of success we’ve had on the field in recent years. We still have the ultimate goal in mind – a World Series – but we also have to know that only one team can win it each year and hopefully our time is coming soon. And off the field, I think we all know that there are several million people who would trade jobs with us in a heartbeat. I’m just hoping I don’t pull any muscles in advance of tomorrow night’s front office basketball tournament…yet another cool thing organized by the accounting department.
Anyway, changing subjects, one more cool thing happened today…Camelback Ranch won an award from Ballpark Digest and I’d imagine that any of you who got to visit understand why. Those who didn’t should start making their plans now because it really is a very cool experience.
Pierre to the Sox
“Juan always put the Dodgers first, even when it wasn’t in his personal best interest. In this day, that is a rare attribute. When he and I spoke at the end of the season, we agreed that if an opportunity presented itself in which his change to play would be enhanced, we would pursue it and that’s what we’ve done. He deserved the chance to play more.”
Those are the words of Ned Colletti in a release that will go out momentarily. From a personal and professional standpoint, all of us at the Dodgers truly wish Juan well. He really handled himself in an unbelievable manner over the last year and a half when circumstances changed beyond his control and you have to respect that, regardless of what you feel about his play on the field.
Last year, when we needed him most, he stepped up to help the team and the fans really seemed to appreciate it. I’m sure their standing ovation for Juan upon Manny’s return ranks up their with his best moments in a Dodger uniform…plus, he got to play in two postseasons (and NLCS) with us during his three years.
Here’s wishing him the best…
Winter Meetings Recap from a team travel perspective
What Do Traveling Secretaries Do At The Winter Meetings?
If you did not know, the Winter Meetings are not just about trades, free agents, GMs, team meetings, and news conferences. There is actually a whole lot more from medical meetings with physicians and trainers, job seekers/interviews, a huge baseball goods trade show, club publicity meetings, and also a host of activities for the traveling secretaries. In essence, everything that is baseball happens here. For my counterparts and I, it’s meeting-after-meeting and reception-after-reception.
Here is a brief look at our agenda:
Sunday night – All-Traveling Secretaries dinner hosted by MLB
Monday morning/afternoon – Marriott Luncheon and Traveling Secretary of the Year Presentation
Monday afternoon – All-Traveling Secretaries Meeting
Monday pre-dinner – Enterprise Rental Car Reception
Monday pre-dinner – Four Seasons Reception
Monday evening – Ritz-Carlton Reception
Tuesday morning/afternoon – Traveling Secretaries Trade Show (Air charter providers, hotels, bus companies, rental car companies, travel agents, etc.)
Tuesday pre-dinner – Parc 55/Westin San Francisco Reception
Tuesday pre-dinner – Hilton Reception
Tuesday dinner – Dodgers Minor League Affiliates Reception
Tuesday evening – Starwood Worldwide Reception
Coupled with that, the traveling secretaries are the point people for our own staff’s travel and hotel accomodations. In truth, it was a little more complicated here in Indianapolis due to the cold weather and snow.
On Wednesday, I spent virtually the entire day in my hotel room working. I had missed some time in the office recently and I tried to play catch-up with all of my work. In a few hours, I will be boarding a plane back to Los Angeles while keeping tabs on our staff’s travel out of Indianapolis back to Los Angeles, Phoenix, Newark, Baltimore, Tampa, and San Diego.
Traveling secretaries meet a lot of people during these meetings and we collect a lot of business cards. It’s a chance for us to say thank you to those vendors who have helped us over the years and also an opportunity to make new contacts to help our respective teams. The meetings are enjoyable yet hectic and I look forward to them every year.
Sidebar: Ellen Harrigan is our Winter Meetings MVP because she keeps all of our team events and meetings organized/on-time — she is a huge help to all of us and did a great job of putting together our minor league affiliates reception on Tuesday night. She is our Director of Baseball Administration and has spent time with Baltimore and Toronto with over 20+ years of baseball experience.
— Scott Akasaki
Rule Five Draft and Holiday spirit
The meetings come to a close today and the news out of Indy is that the Nationals took Jamie Hoffmann in the Rule Five draft. Ned told the media today that he’d be comfortable with a healthy Jason Repko as the fourth or fifth outfielder and I know there are a lot of Repko fans in LA, myself included. He’s a great kid with a lot of talent and hopefully he’ll be healthy in 2010.
Back in Los Angeles today, Matt Kemp and Ramon Troncoso are attending our holiday party for local underserved youth, which is a tradition that goes back about a quarter century. I’m bummed to be missing it, as it’s always a very cool thing to see these kids’ faces light up when they might not otherwise get to experience the holidays in this fashion.
My next post will be back when I get to Los Angeles but I wouldn’t worry too much that no moves got made at the meetings. I know how much everyone loves to see their team make moves at this time of year, but in general, it was pretty quiet for many teams. But, a lot of groundwork gets laid here and acted upon in the coming weeks. The important thing to remember, as far as I’m concerned, is that we’re not re-creating a whole team. We’re trying to add a pitcher or two and perhaps a second baseman and we’ll be right back to where we were last season – competing for the division title and hopefully, taking the next step to advance past the NLCS and into the World Series. And as you recall, the second baseman and pitcher that we’re trying to replace were signed in February/March last year, so there’s still plenty of time before the Opening Day roster will be complete.
Tweeting from the meetings
Indeed, if you’re not already following the club on twitter, that might be the quickest way to get news because it’s so easy to post. Ken Gurnick has his usual great coverage on dodgers.com, but obviously he has to take the time to write it, whereas we’re posting stuff as it comes out of Ned’s mouth. Last night, he talked about George Sherrill, Juan Pierre, Joe Torre, Josh Lindblom, Scott Elbert, James McDonald and Brad Ausmus, so be sure to follow the team on twitter.
Mark Timmons from LADodgertalk.com is fortunate in that the Winter Meetings invaded his hometown, so he’s been writing about the experience.
Otherwise, not a heck of a lot to report. We spent the morning in PR meetings which we do each year, and go over various issues that come up during the season. Last night, Chris Haydock in player development and myself talked to about 100 students from our alma mater, Indiana University, and we brought in Tommy to wow them with stories at the end. It was a pretty cool event for those who came.
Tonight, we’ll have a dinner/meeting with all our minor league partners, as this is the best time to get everyone in the same place.
Hope to most more tonight when Ned speaks to the media again…
Inside the Dodgers 