IF THE SEASON ENDED TODAY 07.29.08: Casey Blake, and more Issues

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 9^th 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.

So Andruw is one of the larger problems, both in a literal and a figurative sense, although there is some major contrasts with him. His contract is big, but is production is small. His bulbous head is big, but is hat is small. His smile is big, while is respect for the fans is small. His waist is big, but is will to improve is small. Quite an enigma this man. All of this blame cannot be placed on the jiggling biceps of Andruw however. Much of this blame should be shoved squarely on the mustached, plumber face of Ned “Mario and Luigi” Colletti and the Doyer front office. From rumors to their disorganization, to their own private goals, to their downright insane moves, the front office reminds me of everything BAD in the Lakers front office, except without ANY of the good, or the eye candy (does Kim Ng count?). Their recent move of adding Casey Blake can either go one of two ways. The more likely way (aka the Dodger way): They regret it every second once Jonathan Meloan is blowing people away as the new hot closer and Carlos Santana is playing guitar for the crowd in Cleveland, much like Nancy Bea here in LA. The less likely (and best case scenario): This is a complete wash. Meloan becomes a marginal middle reliever and Santana breaks his hand, limiting him to ukulele duty while Casey Blake has the best season a 35 year old can have and give the Doyers a decent boost like Steve Finley did a few years back.

Was this trade really needed though? It strikes me quite often that the Doyers are doing whatever possible to hold Andy LaRoche down and verbally kicking him in the nuts whenever possible through not so subtle jabs. You have to remember that Torre is almost 70 years old. When he was a kid, subtle sarcasm was not en vogue (neither was fire), so when he bashes a player, he does a really poor job hiding it. The irony in all of this is that Colletti and Torre are clamoring for “veteran leadership” or “people who know how to play the game”, which basically says to Matt Kemp and James Loney, “We know that you lead the team in homeruns and RBI respectively, but if there is someone over 30, who can play half as well as you can, he’ll probably take away your playing time because while he may get half as many hits/homeruns/RBI, he does that like a professional. When he strikes out, he takes it to a 2-2 count FIRST, and then strikes out like a gamer. When he is thrown out at home, or trying to stretch a single to a double, or is picked off, he does it like a professional. So to summarize my points, we just traded you for Jack Wilson and Ruben Sierra. Pack your bags.” Torre and Colletti spend their entire time openly coddling the veteran players by making excuses for their poor play, while bashing the younger players for not doing that much worse, or in some cases better, than their veteran counterparts. Would Andy LaRoche be worse than Mark Sweeny in the pinch hitting role? It is statistically impossible for that to happen. So too bad LaRoche, your 59 at bats (in 27 games mind you) and .200 average is back to AAA because you couldn’t hang up here because we let you get one at bat every 4 days. Meanwhile, Mark Sweeny, and his crappy play stays because he’s a veteran.

I always wonder if this has to do more with money than anything else because if LaRoche stayed on the big league club, he would have had to have major league salary, so they did what they could to get him back to AAA, twisting his stats to make him look worse. The coddling of Jeff Kent, Andruw, Nomar, Pierre and Sweeney is what the Dodgers should be doing for their younger guys, but absolutely refuse to. I know Torre has been known for being more of a Veterans coach, but at least on the Yankees, his veterans were actually good. If Andruw was on any other team, and was a younger fella, he would have been sent down faster than a hooker in Vietnam. So many of the veteran players who are actually having better seasons than Andruw have been DFA’d released or platooned. At least the Doyers are going the platoon/benching route. Progress, slow yes, but progress nonetheless.

I should actually answer my own question. Do I like the trade? In a short answer, no. The odds of Meloan being awesome is high, and the chance of Santana continuing to be awesome at the guitar (while still making irritating music) is astronimical. Blake is already batting .400 with no RBI and no homers, so at least he has the spirit of the Dodgers: hit well, but not when it counts.