Ned Colletti

I’ve suffered through the indignation if watching Andruw Jones strike out more times than the “Star Wars kid” ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU) at Pure nightclub ( www.purethenightclub.com), and I resigned myself to the idea that he would rather pile ribs on home plate than swing a bat over it. I am completely comfortable with this idea. He’s earned every piece of hate that has rained upon his head. Then what does he do? He smokes a single to actually drive in a run! Miracles can happen! So of course, due to having the “attention span of a boiled potato”, myself as well as thousands of drunkards at Doyer Stadium told ourselves, “This is when he’ll break out of his zero for infinity slump”. Never mind that he looked just as terrible swinging at that slider as he has swinging at every other pitch this year (i.e. belly swings first and then the bat), and if that pitch was anywhere but accidentally right down the middle, his whiff would be at epic proportions to the likes of Casey ( http://ops.tamu.edu/x075bb/poems/casey.html). We had hopes. Andruw was up in the 9th inning. The Doyers down by one. Time for the slump to end. Here’s the pitch…High drive, deep to right field…Wait, I was watching Kirk Gibson’s homerun again. Of course Andruw struck out with a chance to do some damage, and of course the Doyers lost with a chance to tie Arizona for first place in what is the saddest race since Steven Hawking challenged Christopher Reeve to a 3 yard dash.

Continue reading "IF THE SEASON ENDED TODAY 07.29.08: ..."

Granted this is all here-say, but it is a rumor for a reason, and the big problem here was not Ned Colletti (for once). It seems as if frank McCourt vetoed the trade for strictly financial reasons as the Dodger payroll would have increased by $7-9 million this year with the addition of Sabathia, Jamey Carroll and Casey Blake had the trade gone through. I don’t even know where to start with this. This is the same moron who tosses $19 million to Andruw Jones, $16 million to Jason Schmitt, $9.5 million to Nomar Garciaparra and he is terrified of a trade that would increase payroll by $9 million? Granted he would have tried to sign CC to an extension and what not (and that would be about $25 million/year), but this is for the best pitcher in the game, not to mention a platoon player (who can play short) and a 3rd basemen. Everything the Dodgers wanted all in a package, and he vetoes it. It’s go to mean something when other teams won’t take on any of your high paid players because all of your high paid players are broken down and useless. So instead of moving towards a winning franchise, McCourt seems to love to meddle in mediocrity because we are dumb enough to keep going to games and to watch a bunch of turds in Dodger Blue “play baseball”. The best part of this trade was that we would keep ALL The high end prospects and could unload all the crappy players (Schmitt, Lowe, Nomar, Andruw, Kent) after next season and it would all be good. We are not a small market team, but apparently that is how the owner sees it. He is ready to try and turn Dodger stadium into a revenue service year round with his renovations and he is willing to increase prices to watch crap on the field but unwilling to make any moves of consequence to make the team actually look professional.

Continue reading "IF THE SEASON ENDED TODAY 07.10.08: Dodgers Fail"

When Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti acquired Royals shortstop Angel Berroa from the Kansas City Royals for a prospect last week, the move was heralded as a risk at best, a boneheaded move at worst.  In his week wearing Dodger blue, Berroa has lived up (or down) to his expectations: Considered a replacement over the offensively challenged Chin-Lung Hu, Berroa is hitting a scorching .167 with two singles, a double, a walk and four strikeouts, with no RBIs. And, a bonus: it was acknowledged that acquiring Berroa’s, um, “offense,” the Dodgers would sacrifice defense at a premium infield position. Once again, Berroa did not disappoint, committing an error that led to three unearned runs. Hu, in case you were wondering, has yet to make an error in 22 games at shortstop.

Continue reading "The GM's Ten Commandments"