Rockies righty Jon Gray has an abdominal strain, writes Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. “He felt something,” said manager Walt Weiss after the Rockies’ Cactus League game Tuesday. “We don’t know the extent of it. … We are always going to use caution in a situation like that.” The team does not know when Gray will return. Gray, the Rockies’ top pick in 2013, was ticketed for a spot in the rotation. David Hale, Christian Bergman or Chris Rusin could take his place, although Rusin hasn’t yet pitched this spring due to inflammation in his finger. Here’s more from the National League.
- By setting their sights on the future, the Dodgers stand to waste what could be their last three years with Clayton Kershaw, Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times writes. Kershaw is signed through 2020 but can opt out of his deal after 2018. This offseason, the Dodgers allowed Zack Greinke to depart for Arizona via a similar opt-out clause, and their rotation is now a jumble due to a variety of injuries to pitchers like Brett Anderson, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Brandon McCarthy and Mike Bolsinger. (The Dodgers say they are planning on improving this season by getting better performances from players they already controlled, like Yasiel Puig.) If the Dodgers don’t build contending teams around Kershaw, Hernandez warns, he could depart just as Greinke did. Kershaw’s own take on this issue is less heated than Hernandez’s, however. “I can only speak for what’s happened since I’ve been here, and every single year I feel we’ve had the chance to win,” he says. “That’s really, as a player, all you can ask for.”
- With less than two weeks to go before Opening Day, the Reds still have plenty of open spots in their bullpen, MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon writes. J.J. Hoover will serve as the team’s closer, but what happens after that is unknown. Tony Cingrani, Caleb Cotham, Dayan Diaz, Jumbo Diaz, Drew Hayes, Ryan Mattheus, Chris O’Grady, J.C. Ramirez, Keyvius Sampson, Pedro Villarreal and Blake Wood are all battling for spots. (One would think, though, that some of those, like Cingrani and Jumbo Diaz, would be more likely than others.) From that group, O’Grady is worth watching, since he’s a Rule 5 draftee who the Reds are likely to lose if he doesn’t make the team. Another Rule 5 pick, outfielder Jake Cave, is battling for a spot on the bench, and one of his competitors is Yorman Rodriguez, who’s out of options.
If the Dodgers can’t put a strong team on the field without 2 legit aces, there is a problem.
They’re good enough to be a great team with Kershaw, Ryu, Kazmir, Wood and some mixture of Maeda, Anderson, Bolsinger, McCarthy and Montas.
They should of better addressed the bullpen and looked for a stable outfielder.
I love Pederson and Puig’s talent, but the Dodgers don’t have an outfielder that is a sure thing.
The odds of both Pederson and Puig being busts this year are incredibly slim.
How so? I’m not trying to be condescending, I’m just curious in your take.
With the roster the Dodgers have had they should have been won a world series. Do they not have enough spirit like the days when Gibson was there. Dodgers need to believe in the players they have and stop buyig so mnay. Have a club leader, some one who will step up. Kershaw cant do it alone.
Time to call in the shamans. A little dancing and incense might do the trick.
Why didn’t anyone think of that before?
wish they bought greinke or price maybe cueto too
That premise by the dumb LAT writer is an insult to Felix Hernandez, who has actually had his prime wasted by bad Mariners teams.
I have a hard time believing the Dodgers would ever let Kershaw leave if he is good enough still to opt out in 2018.
Also, what an uninspiring list of names for the Red’s bullpen. At least Cingrani has looked good this spring.
I think Dylan Hernandez forgot that over the next few years, Urias and DeLeon will be called up…..the Dodgers let Greinke walk because he was absurdly overpaid…they will have a ton of money coming off the books…..and have an 8 billion dollar TV deal.
It’s very debatable if Greinke was overpaid let alone absurdly overpaid, projection systems are far from everything but they like the deal for the Diamondbacks and it isn’t something people should ignore. Dodgers have good prospects in system for sure and are building up more and more prospect depth, Urias and De Leon have a good shot but are far from sure things.
That’s not to say I agree with premise of the article. And think the comparison has quite a few flaws, that being said dodgers built a team of starting pitching depth this year with pitchers that have big injury risks, and the early returns are not great. I still see them easily making the playoffs, we will see from there.
Yeah, Kershaw is pretty much a Dodger for life… LA fans will riot but I do understand what he is trying to say. Kershaw’s legacy would’ve been better if he had at least one World Series victories… Even a desperate one like the Yankees would do in the past.
You are assuming this FO cares about what the fans think. Where’s the evidence to back that up?
It’s obvious it’s all about profits but compared to McCheap it could be worse. We always needed that big power bat or two and now it’s like they want to win but not make full on win now moves.
Or win ever, if it costs too much. I agree the situation was worse in the McCourt years but that was like historic bad. Current ownership spent money where it was needed and they get at least a B+ for rebuilding the farm system. So now what? Will they ever go all-in for the fans if that’s what it takes to win? That’s the real question. I kind of doubt it. I think they brought in this new FO to create a modestly competitive, and highly profitable team.
What in your mind is “All in?” The Dodgers now have the best farm system in baseball. That is far better than grabbing up every free agent that burdens you with onerous contracts.
It means, when a team is a #3 starter and a setup man away from competing in the postseason, that the team goes and gets those players. Faced with that situation, this FO went for bad, worse, and payroll reduction. That is far from grabbing up every free agent. A deep farm system is a great asset but they rarely win championships all on their own. Teams have to be prepared to spend some of those assets to fill holes and put teams over the top when the opportunity is presented.
Your shtick is getting tiring.. You offer your opinion and analysis all the time. Yet, whenever anyone else states their opinion you use words like “crystal ball” and “shamans”. Discussions like these are what makes baseball a fun sport to follow in the offseason and your negativity does nothing but show everyone else how close minded and shallow you are..
Nice. I was responding to someone who claims the Dodgers’ problem is they’ve lacked “spirit” — for what, the last 28 years? Is it something in the water? Seriously, is somebody making magical thinking arguments what you call open-minded?
I cite the evidence that they have put a winning product on the field for the past few years and have little regard to a budget in doing so.
That’s a lot more than most teams can say.
If fans ran teams there would be a lot more Ryan Howard’s out there.
Do you think Kershaw should be a dodger for life? By 2018 he could be on his second tommy john.
As a fan who has suffered through two of the worst franchise ownerships in recent baseball history (consecutively), I was immediately an enthusiastic supporter of the new ownership. For a time they were saying and doing all the right things. They performed CPR on the Dodgers and made some long-overdue improvements to the stadium. So far so good — then they hired Friedman and Zaidi. Right away it became clear that their mission was to field a far less expensive team that probably could not win championships but would not totally alienate the fan base. In interview after interview Friedman proves himself to be maddeningly disconnected from the pent-up frustration of the LA fans.
More than most teams can say? Only if you forget that they are guaranteed around $300M a year from their media contract alone, and they just raised our ticket prices.
A lot of things could happen by 2018, but one of them does not seem to be a world championship for the Dodgers.
Kershaw will be 30 after the 2018 season with a ton of innings on his left arm. It is very possible the next three years are the last of his prime. This isn’t a knock on Kershaw, the guy is one of the top pitchers in the game. The Dodgers are not likely to win this year. Their pitching after Kershaw is questionable and their offense has a long way to go to be consistent. Not to mention, they still have a lot of prima donnas that Roberts may have trouble dealing with. They’ll be lucky to finish 3rd in their division.
I think you hit the nail on the head southpaw. They have always have had a good team on paper but to their own admission they have lacked chemistry. Roberts is a team guy so it will be interesting to see if he can correct that.
I’ve played on (lower level) teams with guys like Puig and it’s frustrating and a distraction. Behind the scenes guys are saying “let’s just get rid of this guy, I’ll take someone with half his talent but better attitude”. It breeds resentment with everyone on the team. I’m sure the majors are no different.
They are a team I think has scary potential. Eithier goes down and his replacement is Crawford? Wow. Think about the Giants. Pence goes down and it’s over. The Dodgers depth is scary except maybe in the pen.
I don’t see any outstanding prima donna issues on the Dodgers. Puig needs to grow up for sure, but even so, he deserves to be cut a little slack, when you consider his age and where he came from. Other than that, nobody on this team seems to be a special care and feeding problem. This team’s issues are elsewhere.
“Lucky to finish 3rd in their division” means lucky to outperform the Padres and Rockies. I think that opinion reflects a failure to properly assess the talent in the National League West.
That’s a silly statement. The Dodgers may not be World Series contenders every year but that’s certainly not from a lack of trying. They have far and away the highest payroll in the mlb for years since new management. Their SP health is a mess. They’re all talented when healthy.
All they would accomplish by signing pitchers on the wrong side of 30 to 9 figure deals like Greinke would be blocking Urias and DeLeon and Montas with expensive, declining talent. I’d rather see them spend moderately on FA pitching, as they have with guys like Kazmir and McCarthy. Free agency should be used to supplement a core of players, not to build a core of players. This is why teams like the Marlins and Mariners don’t win championships but teams like the Cardinals and Giants do.
The Dodgers have won the west three years in a row while also building up the farm system to what many believe is the best in baseball. That’s a tough thing to do. The postseason is a crapshoot, a tournament of randomness. I want a World Championship, but I don’t think throwing $200 million at Cueto and Samardzija is the clear answer. The Dodgers have been in the market for top free agents ever since free agency was invented (Stanhouse, Goltz, anyone?) We have fewer championships in that era than the Giants do in the last seven. The fans may want big, bold, aggressive moves, but that doesn’t mean they’ll like the results.
The randomness of the postseason is a given, but knowing what a team needs to have any chance to perform well in it, not so much. The truth is, a lot of the moves this FO made were big, bold and aggressive. Some of them were also just plain bad. So high marks on rebuilding the farm, but no grading on a curve on the other part of the exam.