The Dodgers today announced that they’ve selected the contract of catcher Miguel Olivo and promoted him to the big league club, optioning Tim Federowicz to Triple-A to clear room on the 25-man roster. To make room on the 40-man roster, Chad Billinglsey was placed on the 60-day DL. Olivo hit well in a very small sample at Triple-A after signing a minor league deal with the Dodgers this offseason, slashing .390/.438/.661 in 64 PAs. Here are a couple more Dodgers notes as the team hopes to squeeze in a three-game set with the Twins despite some poor weather in Minneapolis…
- In an ESPN Insider piece, Jim Bowden writes the Dodgers must trade one of their outfielders prior to the trade deadline and another in the offseason to clear room for Joc Pederson, who is ready for big league action. Bowden goes through each player’s contract before concluding that he’d first look to move Andre Ethier and then Carl Crawford, noting that a trade of either would require the Dodgers to eat significant amounts of salary. Pederson is batting .393/.491/.628 through his first 114 plate appearances.
- Though he’s been a whipping boy for the better part of the past year, Brandon League has started off the season very well, writes Steve Dilbeck of the L.A. Times. The immediate disaster of League’s $22.5MM contract made him the subject of plenty of ire, but Dilbeck points out that Juan Uribe also went from a perceived sunk cost to a surprising value for Dodgers recently. League has a 2.84 ERA in his first 12 2/3 innings on the young season.
People have been trying to have Ethier traded for several years now.
Lots of people, but none of them working for the Dodgers.
Sounds like ‘lots of people’ are sharper than those working for the Dodgers.
Not in my experience.
Is Bowden ignoring the fact that Pederson isn’t likely to be called up unless there’s an injury and that impressive April minors numbers doesn’t mean you have to eat tens of millions to send another player away?
None of their outfielders are hitting particularly well. Unless one of them goes on a tear for the rest of the season, trading them doesn’t look like a great idea.
Exactly. Always amusing when a sports writer says a team “must” do something.
Sending both Ethier and Crawford away could cost 100 million with the way both are playing now. At that rate, they’re better off trading Pederson for something else of value.
The old baseball truism fits here: in any season, a team has two months to evaluate, two months to make adjustments, and two months to win. I wouldn’t judge anything about the Dodgers’ outfield until the first week of July at the earliest.
I agree. I still don’t think any of them are going anywhere until the offseason at the earliest. None of them particularly offer the immediate boost a team would want in order to take on the any substantial amount of their salaries.
I could see a move in July, but it would take a couple of things falling into place, not the least of which is having all four of them healthy and productive. They could then take the risk of having only Pederson as depth. Right now they just can’t, and few trades are made in this part of the season anyway.
Cute saying. Lets check your “truism” and the “two months to win” scenario.
Standings on Aug 1st, 2013:
ALEast: Red Sox 65-44, Rays 64-44
ALCent: Tigers 61-45, Indians 59-48
ALWest: Athletics 63-45
NLEast: Braves 63-45
NLCent: Pirates 65-42, Cards 62-44, Reds 60-49
NLWest: Dodgers 57-49
Those leaders are all the exact same teams to make the playoffs last year. I’m not saying team can’t climb into the picture. But, by Aug 1st, the good teams are well known, and adjustments have to be made a lot sooner than by the end of July.
That doesn’t happen every year though. 2012 only 4 of the 8 playoff spots were leading at the trade deadline. You have many teams that are out of it, but many that are still within striking distance.
Thank you for getting it.
get what?
hehe
I don’t remember anymore.
Lazertown’s number count was wrong. The first telltale sign was when he claimed there were “8” teams to make the playoffs in ’12. 10 teams make they playoffs now. After spotting that I figured I’d check his overall numbers, and surprise they were wrong too. I’m not sure you guys “get it” at all. Considering neither one of you know how many teams make the playoffs.
18 out 20 in 2 years. I guess that cute saying is what losing teams must say, to give their fans hope.
First off, 10 teams made the playoffs in 2012. Not 8.
In the AL:
NY, Balt, Oak and Tex would’ve made the playoffs. The only change would be CWS instead of Det.
In the NL:
Wash, Atl, Cin and SF would’ve made the playoffs. The only change would be Pitt instead of StL.
Thats 8 out 10. You need to check your numbers.
So in last two years 18 out of 20 teams who would’ve made the playoffs on August 1st, did in Oct. Notice I did say earlier, that it does happen. But, I’m definitely calling that expression ‘bullish*t’.
It wasn’t meant to be cute. Baseball people use it, and that’s how I heard it.
Baseball people, who’s team isn’t playing very good in April, maybe.
Keep in mind those Pederson numbers are PCL inflated. No doubt the kid can hit, but not like that. I don’t know if he’s better than any of the four they have right now.
We’ll have to see how it shakes out over the rest of the season, but right now Pederson is looking like the only real CF the Dodgers have, regardless of the bat.
Trading Crawford and eating salary would just make the entire Red Sox bailout even worse. It was a mistake at the outset, but this won’t help.
Depends on what they get in return. In sight of the fans, yeah, it was bad. In sight of the front office.. it was a win. They wanted Agon, thats all they wanted. They got him and hes producing now. Its still a win-win for both sides.
I agree the Dodgers objective was AGon, but this was gross overpay. They took on Crawford, even though they knew they’d have a crowded OF, Beckett’s contract and two quality minor leaguers. Good thing they didn’t want Trout, they would’ve had to given them their entire minor leagues, plus Beverly Hills.
Eh, no. For one thing, the Dodgers’ outfield was hardly crowded when they acquired Crawford. In fact LF was a steady platoon of bit players, none of whom came close to working out. Crawford was on a tear at the end of last season, it is also worth keeping in mind. The fact is nobody but Puig is producing in the Dodgers’ OF, at the moment.
So noone in LA saw, that after giving Puig 42mil, and he was tearing up the minor league, he’d soon need a position in their OF. Wow thats short-sighted.
Nice spin there, Doc. When the Dodgers made the trade with Boston, Puig had played only a handful of games in low A-ball. If anyone thinks that Puig was ready for the bigs at that time, they really need to watch him play more often. Lots of questions remain about his readiness two years later.
At no time did I say “at that time”. The “short-sighted” I speak of is in ‘the future’. Puig was signed to a 42mil major league deal, so, yes, he was expected to be in the majors quickly. You don’t pay a guy 42mil with his big league clock to Free Agency already running, and leave him in A-Ball.
Its simple when you have 3 OFers signed to contracts of 8/160, 5/85 and 7/42, you don’t take on the majority of a 7/142 contract. Thats how you make a “crowded OF”. Although, it wasn’t an immediate problem (I never said it was), it should’ve been quite apparent. Alas, Short-Sighted and a Poor Decision.
I think what you are lacking is an appreciation of how depleted the Dodgers’ farm organization had become under the mismanagement of two successive ownerships. We’ve seen the new owners rebuild depth by aggressively working player markets outside of MLB, which has allowed rebuilding to occur much more quickly than if they’d relied entirely on the domestic draft. You also apparently don’t fully appreciate that ownership has the financial flexibility to take risky fliers on players who may not yet be MLB ready. So, alas, they, have done what they needed to do to restore the franchise on the fastest track possible. The only people who seem to worry about the Dodgers’ “crowded OF” are sports writers and the fans of other teams.
“The only people who seem to worry about the Dodgers’ “crowded OF” are sports writers and the fans of other teams.” . . . and a couple of the OFers themselves. Both Kemp and Ethier have voiced displeasure over the situation.
No, they have not “voiced displeasure.” And it would not matter one iota if they did. Your arguments are becoming more vague and irrelevant.
The fact that not only did the Sox win the WS, but that Napoli produced an almost identical 2013 WAR to Agon basically prevents that from being a win-win. The Dodgers took two bad contracts to get the good one that the Sox ended up being able to replace for less money.
The way this article is worded, you might get the impression that Dilbeck doesn’t know that Uribe was never a “sunk cost” for the 2014 season. He really does, since he doesn’t refer to him that way in the linked piece.
They need to trade Kemp
Crawford’s WAR since signing that mega-deal.
’11 —– 0.4
’12 —– 0.5
’13 —– 1.7
’14 —– (-0.3)
– Injury Plagued: 298 games played out of possible 512 (58%)
– Bad Attitude
ARod has a better chance of being traded. And trust me, thats not happening either.
Did he learn the attitude from BJ Upton, or was it the other way around?
They left out something trendy regarding League.. It’s contract season again.. He needs to put up some numbers again before anyone is going to think of a multi year deal, if even a guaranteed contract at all.. Just ask another guy like him in Kevin Gregg, still among the unemployed while spending all winter trying to secure a guaranteed deal after putting up decent numbers for a change.
League is signed through 2015 with an option for 2016. Anyhow, League remains an enigma. Pitchers usually aren’t streaky, but he is, apparently.
Thanks.. Looked at it wrong..
First and foremost you have to see if the kid can hit at the major level before talking about trades.