» Los Angeles Dodgers

So is this Manny Being Manny? Manny Ramirez is yet another PED user in the long line of “greats” to be caught up in this on going and depressing scandal…It’s not the news of it happening now that angers me, its knowing that this is definitely not the first time he has used these substances….much like the others being targetted, it is quite clear that this is more than likely not the first time they used PED’s…unless by some strange impulse they opted to try it at this stage of the game…even after all of the accusations taking place around baseball…

So the Dodgers will certainly have to step it up in his absence as well, he is not at all an easy bat to replace in the lineup. Who’s next? I hope against all hope each day that the name Albert Pujols is never, ever mentioned in these talks…that would be a tough pill to swallow…pun intended..

Well, let Manny be Manny off the field for a few months.

So, there really hasn’t been any real news to talk of as of late, so may as well talk a little about the biggest question most Dodger fans have about this offseason, what’s going to happen with Manny.

As reported on dodgers.com, Colletti has been talking with Manny more frequently and for longer durations as of late.  There’s still no word as to if we’re getting any closer to signing him, though I really think we’ll be signing him soon.

As most probably know, Manny has already been offered 2 deals, 2 years $45 mil and 1 year $25 mil and he rejected both.  He reportedly wants a 4 year deal in the range of A-Roid money, like $27 mil a year.  The problem with giving him that kind of money is his age.  As great of a player as Manny may be, its unlikely he’ll be playing at this level in 4 years, and no team really wants to give him $30+ million during a season he’s not still at an elite level.

Manny seemed to be counting on interest from other teams, like the Yankees, to cause a bidding war for his services, but that never happened.  At this point, I think Manny knows he isn’t going to get his 4 year deal.  At the moment its almost like a game of chicken, who’s more desperate, Colletti to get Manny back or Manny to get a contract so he isn’t sitting out one of the few productive years he has left.  I think Manny has more to lose than the Dodgers do, so I think he’ll soon cave and take the deal.  Manny has never been known as a workhorse, and, in my opinion, he’s using these contract discussions to get out of the harder spring workouts, and will sign in time for spring training games to start.

First of all, before I get into today’s topic, the deal reported yesterday became official today, as the Dodgers signed Orlando Hudson to a 1 year 3.4 million dollar deal.  Hudson, who made $6.2 last year, was looking for a deal in the $10 million range, but settled for a significant pay cut from last season.

Now, on to todays topic, the Dodger rotation.  I’ve heard a lot of talks about how the Dodgers may have the hitting this season (especially if we resign Manny) but with the losses of Lowe and Penny, our rotation would be significantly diminished.  While losing those 2 arms won’t help, but they mght not hurt us as much as most may think.

We’ll start with our new ace, well not necessarily new to us, but new to the “ace” role, Chad Billingsley.   This will be his first season as our #1 pitcher and the 24 year old righty is coming off his best season and I think he’ll only get better.  He does have some control problems at times, but he strikes out more than a batter per inning.  The main concern for Billingsley this season will be how well he’s healed from the broken leg he suffered in the offseason.  He reported no pain when throwing off the mound recently, and hopefully he’s at 100% by opening day.

Our likely #2 will be Hiroki Kuroda.  Last year was his “rookie” year in the majors after playing in Japan and it took him a little bit to get used to MLB hitting, but he closed the season out well, which bodes well for this season.  During the months of August and September he posted ERAs of 2.29 and 2.96, and had two good starts in the playoffs, both wins, including 6 1/3 shutout innings against the Cubs.  The only knocks on him are his age, 33, and the fact that he usually only goes about 6 innings, but I look for him to be a solid #2.

Our #3 is likely to be Clayton Kershaw.  While his numbers don’t necessarily stand out in any way, he’s only 20 years old, and will be turning 21 before the season.  If you compare him to other young lefties, his rookie year was very similar to Tim Lincecum’s rookie year, and we all know Lincecum won the Cy in his 2nd season.  The thing about Kershaw is that he was 3 years younger than Lincecum in his rookie season, and could quite possibly have more upside.  Now, I’m not guarenteeing a Cy for Kershaw this season, but seeing a jump like we saw with Lincecum last season wouldn’t surprise me, especially from a guy who’s been compared to Sandy Koufax while in the minors.  Expect huge things from Kershaw.

1-3 we’re solid, but #4 we’ll turn to vet Randy Wolf.  I don’t really know what to expect from Wolf this season.  He’s an average pitcher who can hopefully eat up some innings and hopefully post a .500 record for us.  He did close out 2008 on fire, going 4-1 with a 2.23 ERA in September, and who knows, maybe he figured something out that he can use this season, but I’m just hoping for decent outings.

Finally, our #5 will have a lot of competition.  Leading the way will most likley be Jason Schmidt, if he’s healthy.  Would be nice if he was, seeing as we’ve been paying him top dollar for 6 starts over 2 seasons.  If he comes back healthy and to the form he was in SF, he could be the best #5 in the league.  If not, we might be stuck with Eric Milton or Jeff Weaver.  Milton is coming off Tommy John surgery and wasn’t really good the last 3 seasons he played.  Weaver hasn’t been much better, but the last time he was a Dodger in 2005, he was actually respectable. 

Overall, we actually may have a better rotation than we did last year, when you consider that we didn’t really have Penny long last year anyway, so we”re really only losing Lowe, and improvements to Billingsley, Kuroda, and Kershaw may make up for the loss.  We definitely have question marks in the 4 and 5, but we have 4, maybe 5 pitchers competing for 2 spots and hopefully they’ll step up.  I’m really looking forward to this season and seeing what our young pitchers can do, especially Kershaw.