FIRE JOE MORGAN

KT said it already, and here's the link. It seems that rational thought has somehow insinuated itself back into Le Ravine Chavez (pronounced sha-vay). But wait -- here's Snakeskin Boots Colletti's quote on the matter:

"Is he [Pierre] a bench player or is he not starting tomorrow?" Colletti asked. "It's a long season. You've got to compete, you've got to play. I understand the build-up to Opening Day. But you look at a lot of Opening Day rosters and there are players you can't even recognize. It changes day by day."

Reading between the lines, I'd say it's fifty-fifty that Bootsy's going to DFA Ethier by the end of the week so Torre's forced to play a real man in left field. A man who can bunt. A man who can swunt. A man whose skills range from bunting okay to swunting acceptably well. A man who is constantly hailed as the consummate professional but was already complaining before the decision was made to replace him with a better player ("If they want to go a different route," Pierre said, "I can live with it and I have to understand it but it's something I don't get.")

Snakeskin has spoken. This story is far from over.

Labels: andre ethier, dodgers, joe torre, juan pierre, ned colletti

It doesn't matter that it was written two and half weeks ago. This column will live on through the ages. They will speak the name of this column and shudder in fear and awe. This is the ur-column.

Pierre and Plaschke, a pairing like prosciutto and melon, like mini-golf and beer, like Travolta and Cage. Behold.

Dodgers' Juan Pierre is right where he belongs

I would argue that Pierre would belong better in the cast of the movie Gosford Park than atop a major league lineup.

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- There's a boxer in the house.

There's a tiresome stylistic contrivance in the house.

"Yeah, last year, I got beat up pretty good," says Juan Pierre.

There's defiance in the house.

You see how he brought "in the house" back for another spin? You see that? That's what it takes to play in the writing big leagues, son. Take notes. Repetitive notes. Fragmented notes.

Poetic notes.

"If people really think the reason we lost last year was because my arm wasn't strong enough, or because I didn't get on base enough, hey, that's cool, I'll be the man, I'll take it," says Pierre.

Look, spare me the martyr shit, dude. A guy who loses his house to a tornado is a victim. You ain't no victim. The Dodgers lost for a bunch of reasons. It definitely did not help them that they gave the guy with the second-worst OBP on the team the most ABs.

There's resolve in the house.

"I'm coming into this season with a chip on my shoulder . . . just like every season," says Pierre.

Does that mean we can expect EqAs of .256, .253 and .255 (Pierre's last three chip-shouldered seasons)? Maybe you should try playing happy or somethin'. Mix it up.

Fans don't appreciate him. Statisticians can't calculate him.

No. No no no no no no no. They can. They really can. They did. They are. The fact that you, Bill Plaschke, for some reason believe that Juan Pierre plays an entirely different, incalculable, unknowable, ineffable, ethereal, spiritual, intangible, holy, effervescent, incorporeal, bioluminescent, antioncogenic game that is emphatically not baseball does not make it so.

They have run the numbers, and they are ugly.

Bloggers downright brutalize him.

This is akin to saying "Everyone who has written on a typewriter despises rabbits." Blogging is a medium, nothing more. It is not a religion. It is not a creed. We do not all think in lockstep. This is a motherfucking boring-ass recording.

I like him.



Boom! The Plaschke turn. You thought I was going one way and then I went the other -- Plaschke-style. Let me show you how it's done:

"Most people hate turtle shit. They say it's stinky. They say it's runny. They say it doesn't serve a purpose anymore in today's workaday world.

I like it."

Now that the Dodgers have added Rafael Furcal's health and Andruw Jones' pop, I think Juan Pierre's presence at the top of the lineup will be as oversized as his cap.

Um, is he going to get any better at, you know, hitting and stuff? He's turning 31 this year. He's been very bad, I don't know if you've been watching the Dodger baseball team or anything...

Now that the Dodgers have moved him to left field, I think Juan Pierre will fit as easily there as his bat fits on a bunt.

Because if at all possible, you want your left fielder to slug .353.

Now that Joe Torre is installing an aggressive running game, I think Pierre's ability on the basepaths will be as evident as the dirt streaks on his jersey.

Is he really going to steal more than the 64 bases he stole last year? That would be a terrible sign because it would mean he would be eating up like 700 plate appearances. Also: will baseball writers ever tire of mentioning dirt streaks as a proxy for baseball skill? Perhaps when we move to silicon-based fields, as I am proposing we do in 2011.

Now that it can be a complement instead of a cornerstone, I think the idea of Juan Pierre will work.

New euphemism for "shit player": "complement."

"My game is not pretty, it's just not pretty," Pierre says. "You have to be an old-school guy to appreciate it."

Your game is extremely pretty. It's exciting to watch guys take huge leads, play cat and mouse with the pitcher, kick up dirt when they slide. It invigorates the crowd. Kids love it. This is the best thing about your game -- its entertainment value. Casual fans probably love watching you play, and I don't blame them. You're f.u.n.!!!

Yours is a crowd-pleasing style all in all, Mr. Pierre -- so it stands to reason that if the crowd has turned on you, well, things probably aren't going well, are they?

That's one more reason this will be a good year for Juan Pierre.

Torre is one of those old-school guys who appreciates him.

"He does things the right way," Torre says.

If I were implausibly saintly The Wire Season 5 character Baltimore Sun City Editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes, I would slide my wise-person glasses down my wise, wise nose and pithily growl, "Cut that quote." Because it's the billionth time we've read that about the millionth different player, and it doesn't add anything. It detracts.

Contrary to the winter hopes of many Dodgers fans, Torre's lineups have indicated that Pierre will be the starting left fielder ahead of Andre Ethier.

It makes sense.

Sure it makes sense. Andre Ethier is a major-league caliber player who gets on base, hits for some power, plays good defense, has a decent throwing arm, and is currently 25 years old. Juan Pierre is a professional longshoreman who has convinced a baseball team to pay him tens of millions of dollars despite the fact that he cannot get on base, cannot hit for power, runs borderline-insane routes in the outfield, and has an arm so feeble he struggles to open jars of kalamata olive tapenade.

What's the issue here?

Pierre adds an irreplaceable speed component to the top of the Dodgers order. And, in left field, what Pierre lacks in arm, he can overcome with that speed.

That too. What Pierre lacks in OBP (twenty points to Ethier last year), he can overcome with speed. What Pierre lacks in EqA (eighteen points), he can overcome with speed. His zero homers -- well, he's fast. His 32 extra-base hits -- he's speedy. His team worst 75 OPS+ -- guy can motor.

"Johnny Damon never had much of an arm, we moved him to left field, it worked out fine," says Torre. "You can offset that kind of arm with your aggressive play. You can get good jumps, get to balls that other guys can't."

Johnny Damon is on the downslide. Johnny Damon is 34 years old. Johnny Damon was never a big power hitter. Johnny Damon has like fifty-nine different injuries. Last year Johnny Damon out-OPSed Juan Pierre by 62 points. It was Johnny's worst season in seven years.

Pierre also brings something that, during last season's doldrums, everyone seemed to forget.

You can find it in a locked box in his Fort Lauderdale home.

It is the severed finger of Angela Lansbury.

He's one of only three Dodgers with a World Series ring.

But the finger -- the finger is what will lead the Dodgers to victory. Well, it'll have about as much impact, anyway.

You know who else has a Florida Marlins 2003 World Series ring? Ugueth Urbina. The evidence is conclusive: World Series experience causes you to travel to Venezuela, pour gasoline on some men and commit attempted murder on them with a machete. Ugie Urbina: he's a winner™!

"The young guys know about it, they ask about it sometimes," Pierre says. "But I don't like wearing it. I'd rather lead with my actions."

"I'd rather lead off and finish third, first, second, second and first in outs in the league the last five years."

Those actions were uninspiring early last year, the first of a five-year, $44-million contract that was questioned before the ink was dry.

Trying too hard, he spent much of the early season surrounded by boos for a mediocre batting average, an awful on-base percentage and general ineffectiveness.

There you have it: when Juan Pierre sucks shit, it's because he's trying too hard. When some dickface like Pat Burrell or Adam Dunn posts a low batting average but a high OBP, he's a lazy fuckbutt. Plaschkevision.

"Yeah, I heard everybody," Pierre says. "It was like, 'Pierre, you stink' ... 'Pierre, go away' ... I heard it all."

I don't really advocate yelling insults at players, but hey: sort of perceptive work, there, Dodger Stadium crowd. I'll see you at the ballpark in person several times this year. I'll be the one in the Juan Pierre Laker jersey (Crossovers, trademark dak).

He batted .308 after the All-Star break, three points higher than his average during Florida's 2003 world championship year. He finished with 41 runs batted in, the same as in the championship year.

Batting average has never ever ever ever been Juan Pierre's problem. That's one of the like two and a half baseball things he's good at. The issues are twofold here, though: 1. Batting average is stupid and 2. Batting average is really, really stupid. Actually, I'll make another point here: in the second half of 2006, Juan Pierre improved (presumably from not trying too hard) and hit .311! He had found his stroke! He was bound for a roaring comeback! Sign this man to a $300 million deal!

Then in the first half of 2007, he batting averaged .282 and OBP-ed .311. :(

You can do a lot of fun things with pre- and post-All Star Break splits. Will Juan Pierre settle in and become the Juan Pierre of 2003-2004, when he was a valuable major league player? It's possible. Weird shit happens all the time. But after three execrable offensive years, it's hard to bet on a guy who's permanently out of his twenties.

He scored four fewer runs (96), stole one fewer base (64), and, with the exception of a lack of plate discipline amid a lousy offense, he performed just as he did in Florida.

With the exception of getting on base, the most important thing a hitter can do, he was fantastic. Damn Rafael Furcal's lousy year! He's to blame for Juan Pierre's lousy year. Thank god Furcal's ankle is healthy so Pierre's eyes will work again.

In the end, Juan Pierre did exactly what Juan Pierre does.

Embarrass everyone except Bill Plaschke.

While unfairly taking the fall for a team that crumbled around him.

What exactly is unfair about saying a player burned through a ton of at bats and didn't help the team? You know what's unfair? Andre Ethier, a better player in every aspect of the game except baserunning, is being denied playing time because of a bad contract. These are Ethier's prime baseball years. He's not going to be playing as much baseball as he should. He will never get these years back. He is not a kid anymore. He's played in 279 major league games, and he's played well in those games.

Juan Pierre hit zero home runs last year. Mythical fairy creature David Eckstein hit three, for Chrissakes, and he swings a three-inch bat carved out of a candy cane.

The truth is, the idea of Juan Pierre was a good one, and still is.

Plaschke has spoken. This is The Truth. They will carve this column on alabaster tablets and hang them in our most hallowed halls of justice. Wise men will memorize these words and teach them to our young to prepare them for the trials of life. This column is the new Torah.

Labels: andre ethier, bill plaschke, dodgers, juan pierre

It's been a while since I live-blogged one of Steve Phillips's patented "here's what they need to do" type segments on BBTN or SC. This one just blew my skirt up. I'm going to go ahead and type it out in full...

Now that the Los Angeles Dodgers have Joe Torre in place, it's time for them to address their roster for the 2008 season. Here's what they need to do to be a playoff and World Series-contending team.

They need power. There's two positions they're going to go to. First: third base. They need to be in the market for Miguel Cabrera. There's rumors that the Florida Marlins are willing to trade him. They have to check it out and see if a deal can be made. They also have to talk to Scott Boras and see if there's a deal to be made for Alex Rodriguez. They have to land one of those two guys to add power to a line-up that was ranked fifteenth in home runs in the National League.

Next, they have to go to centerfield -- Juan Pierre has to move. To improve the defense and offense, Pierre has to go to left field, and look for the Dodgers to make a play for Andruw Jones or Torii Hunter, and even if they have to settle for Mike Cameron or Aaron Rowand, they will upgrade defensively and add power to the line-up.

And finally, now that they've added some pieces through the free agent market, it allows them to put together some young pitchers with some young position players, and go to the Minnesota Twins and knock their socks off, and bring Johan Santana to the West Coast.

If they make those deals, they're going to the World Series.

See? Super easy. Just give ARod $350m. Let's just start there, at that no-brainer -- give the guy $35m/yr for ten years, and lock him up. Or, if you don't want to do that, trade every good young cost-controlled player you have to the Marlins for an awesome player who is under your control for two more years, but who made $7.4 in arbitration last year and guess what? He isn't going to make less this year, or next, nor is he going to sign a long-term deal for anything less than like $22+m/yr for eight years. Hell, maybe $25m/10 years. $40m/fifteen years, plus a $200 McDonald's per diem? Some huge deal.

So, just, like, do that, you know, and then there's an easy second thing to do, which is: move your terrible overpaid CF to LF, and sign either the 32 year-old Hunter or 30 year-old Jones, either of whom you can have for around $80-120m for some number of years, and both of whom are probably over the hill defensively and maybe also offensively, and both of whom you'll be paying like $18m a year when they're 36 or 37 and they'll just be miserable, out there, in Dodger Stadium.

And so that's great, you did those two things, and your payroll shouldn't be that bad. $108m last year, with about $14m coming off the books in dead money...depending on whether you pick up Kent's $9m option***...but you also have to re-sign Saito...let's call it $100m (wild conservative guess). So, $25m for Cabrera and say $18 for Torii/Andruw gets you to $143. Not terrible. Then you just put together all of the great young cost-controlled players that you somehow magically still have after the Cabrera deal -- and you have probably traded Kemp, Loney, Billingsley, and some minor leaguers for him -- and you trade for Santana, somehow, (maybe Scott Proctor straight-up? Would Minnesota do that?) and you give him his $13.25, so we're at maybe $156m+, and you have no young cost-controlled players at all, like fucking none, at all, anywhere, at any level, anywhere, and if you are lucky enough to re-sign Santana and not quickly lose him to free agency and somehow give him the contract he will demand ($210m over 8 years?) you have a $170-$180m payroll that has:

1B Nomar
2B Kent
SS Furcal
3B Cabrera
LF Pierre
CF Hunter/Jones
RF ???
C Martin

P Santana
P Penny
P Loaiza
P Schmidt
P Lowe

With, again, fucking no one waiting in the wings when Nomar, Kent, Furcal, Penny, Schmidt, and probably someone else all go down with injuries on like April 9. Maybe Torre can work some magic?

Anyway, this plan seems good to me. Thanks, Steve. Enjoy the World Series, L.A.!

Labels: dodgers, steve phillips

Because if they get eliminated, maybe, just maybe, Bill Plaschke will stop gushing purple prose?

I mean, seriously, does anyone like this nonsense?

SAN FRANCISCO — And so the gift has finally been unwrapped, torn open by a steely eyed team that could wait no longer, the wrappings of six months ripped apart to reveal something Los Angeles never expected.

Something in the most perfect shade of blue.

Dear L.A. Times sports section editor,

One of your opinion columns in the October 1st issue was mistakenly replaced by an embarrassing eighth grade short story.

Give me my dollar back,
Junior

Something that beats, and beats, and beats.

Goddammit. You are not a good writer. Listen, all you aspiring sportswriters out there: you can't just write a sentence fragment for every paragraph and expect that to create drama and impact for you. It's the oldest trick in the book. Bill Plashcke does it in every column, so you know it's bad.

Less than a year after collapsing under the weight of their own incompetence, the Dodgers are whole again.

A team that 11 months ago had no general manager, no manager and the third-worst record in its league has made the playoffs.

Kudos, BP. Those are complete sentences.

From national jokers to wild-card qualifier. From a winter of chaos to a summer of character.

AAARGH NO

Something tells me no one would be writing about what great guys the Dodgers are if they weren't also very good at playing baseball.

A collection of quiet veterans, anonymous role players and unknown rookies gathered as a single faceless force to shower their city with something cool and bubbly and totally unexpected.

Quiet veterans like notorious mustachioed asshole Jeff Kent. Anonymous role players like Gatorade pitchman and Hamm-boner Nomar Garciaparra. Unknown rookies like Andre Ethier, whom a long-dead Dodgers scout discovered while driving his phantom pickup truck in the afterworld.

"This hasn't just taken 25 guys, it has taken more than 25 guys, and we've known it, and we've won because of it," said pitcher Derek Lowe. "The best thing about this team is, it's a team."

Trust me, Derek: it was the guys playing. Maybe a few more than 25 because of AAA callups and such. But the reason you're in the playoffs is because the pitchers and hitters wearing your uniform performed well.

I like to take things literally.

Also, I'm nominating "The best thing about this team is, it's a team" for the Meaningless Tautological Cliche Hall of Fame.

That was the plan back when McCourt cleaned house last fall, firing former general manager Paul DePodesta just weeks after DePodesta fired former manager Jim Tracy.

In only his second full season as owner, McCourt realized he had blown it in some of his original hires DEPODESTA, and he wasn't afraid to DEPODESTA become nationally scorned by admitting it DEPODESTA.

I added the DEPODESTAs so you would get what Plaschke is talking about.

"I am not afraid to fail DEPODESTA in order to succeed," McCourt said Saturday.

That one was in the original article, I swear.

Standing a few feet away was another unmistakable presence, wearing a wet Dodger T-shirt and a starry stare.

And a galactic grin and a supernova-y stance and these awesome snakeskin boots that I might have written about before and did I mention how wet and sexy his T-shirt was? His name is Ned and I think we're friends. I hope (fingers crossed)!

The actual construction began with him, the man McCourt hired to fix things, the rookie general manager who was given a losing team and unwieldy contracts and little chance.

As a lifetime baseball man, he understood only one thing: that you win not with numbers but with humans.

Let's get serious here for a second. Of course you win with humans. You win with humans with numbers. Those numbers are nothing but a written record of what humans have done while playing baseball. Why is this so hard to understand? What's really up for debate here is how much character and intangibles matter when evaluating players. If Plaschke had a gun put to his head and had to put a percentage on it, what do you think he would say? 10%? 50%? 100%? The correct answer: he would weasel out and say "you can't put a number on things like heart and hustle" except he would phrase it in a sentence fragment paragraph.

And although the Dodgers may not have the best statistics among this year's playoff teams, they certainly lead the league in relentless humans.

The Dodgers are fourth in the NL in runs scored and fourth in ERA. That's why they're in the playoffs. The only team ranked above them in both categories are the Mets, who are third in each. In sum: the Dodgers are very close to having the "best statistics" in the National League because they are very close to being the best team. Statistics measure baseball performance. This is an irritating, repetitive recording that will not stop.

The Dodgers are not going to the playoffs because Brett Tomko is a more relentless human being than Jamie Moyer.

"You have to believe in the heart of the individual, you have to listen to that heart, that's all I've done here," he said. "I knew I had my hands full. But I also knew it was possible to find that heart."

Does Ned Colletti really believe this shit?

What a dumb question. Of course he does.

But Maddux' best number is this: The Dodgers are 37-19 since he joined them.

"The minute he walked into my office after I traded for him, I had this sense of calmness that I haven't lost since," Colletti said.

To me, that's Maddux' real best number. Number of minutes Ned Colletti hasn't been calm since Maddux walked into his office: zero.

It is a calmness that, finally, was cemented in the stone sculpture that is Grady Little's glare.

What? WHAT?! Is anyone else reading this? What?

It is a calmness that, finally, was cemented in the stone sculpture that is Grady Little's glare.

I had to see it again to make sure it was real.

I am so sick of Bill Plaschke's faux-etry. Bill Plaschke is Tim McCarver with a keyboard. Bill Plaschke is that annoying girl at the party who's somehow both dumb and pretentious and keeps complaining that "the mainstream media is too surface-y." Bill Plaschke sucks at metaphors. Otherwise, I think he's okay.

Labels: bill plaschke, dodgers, ned colletti, paul depodesta

I have a question for Michael Ventre, who, one would think, has actually watched sports in order to prepare for his job as a sportswriter.

His article is called "Dodgers Hope ‘Red Sox West’ Brings Success" and has the subtitle: "Nomar signing cements move to try and [sic] copy Boston’s winning formula."

You can probably figure out what the article is about: the Dodgers have named Grady Little their manager, and now signed Nomar, and Billy Mueller, and also have Derek Lowe. So, Ventre writes, they are trying to copy the Red Sox' blueprint for success.

Here's my question for Michael Ventre: you are wrong.

Fine. Not really a question. Who cares.

Grady Little was fired because he (a) made one of the worst and most memorable blunders in the history of managing, and (b) did not in any way fit into the Red Sox' modified-Moneyball blueprint for success (RSM-MBFS). So, hiring him is the opposite of copying the RSM-MBFS.

Nomar is a 32 year-old SS with no plate discipline who was traded because his diminishing bat speed and history of injuries made him a bad fit in the RSM-MBFS. Therefore, (see above).

Billy Mueller was a very important part of the RSM-MBFS. But he is 34 and his skills are declining, so the Sox let him go. Don't you think that if he were a viable candidate to continue contributing to the RSM-MBFS he would still be a part of the RSM-MBFS?

Derek Lowe is a head-case who doesn't strike anyone out and the Dodgers gave him a 14-year $214 million contract.

Read the article. It's really dumb and talks about Ned Colletti a lot -- a guy who is so completely the opposite of the kind of dude who would be the architect for the RSM-MBFS it's not even funny.

Labels: dodgers, michael ventre, ned colletti