The question: How long can the Dodgers go with underperforming hitters dotting their lineup and guys hitting under .240 in the three-hole?

The answer: until right about now.

This weekend, the Dodgers made two personnel moves and a few lineup shifts that completed the chapter on a few players and pointed toward rewarding early-season success and moving on from players who no longer could contribute — even in providing depth.

Alex Guerrero got straight DFA’d. The Dodgers swallowed almost $50 million over the past week, and it was totally the right choice. By Owen Main

Last week, the team announced it was designating Alex Guerrero for assignment. Guerrero, whose bat showed some promise at the beginning of 2015, could never find a defensive position. Guerrero’s contract guaranteed him $28 million, of which probably less than half is still owed. At this point, the team essentially would rather have him out of their organization than to try to help him continue to improve. In 16 games in the minors this season, the 29 year-old hit just .136 with a single home run, 14 strikeouts and two walks in 68 plate appearances spread between three levels.

The remaining financial commitment to Carl Crawford, who they designated today for assignment, is more substantial. A 14 year veteran, Crawford is still owed about $35 million. But this season has been tough for the 35 year-old. He his just .185 in 30 games and his OPS+ stands at 30. To contextualize that, a 100 is average and anything below 75 is considered poor. Again, Crawford’s was 30 this season with the Dodgers. It’s hard to say a guy who is almost exactly my age is over the hill, but it was time for CC to move on.

On the same day the team made the Crawford move, Trayce Thompson batted third and played right field. I don’t believe Thompson is likely to be a long-term option at that lineup spot, but finally — FINALLY — the Dodgers didn’t have somebody hitting under .225 in that role. Finally, Dave Roberts and co. seem to be placing some import on what players have done so far this year. After all, we are about a third of the way through the 2016 season.

Guys who were struggling also had a nice weekend feasting on Braves pitching. Yasmani Grandal hit a home run, Howie Kendrick’s bat looks good, and Justin Turner had a few hits on Saturday night before he got a day off on Sunday — a proven recipe to keep him on-track. Scott Van Slyke is off the DL, and there’s hope that Yasiel Puig can find some semblance of his stroke while on the 15 day disabled list. Cal Poly grad Casey Fien has done a fine job in Dodger blue so far. Maybe he can be a long-term solution in middle relief.

As if that weren’t enough, Brett Anderson is well into his rehab… .

Day 2: Throwing went well again and my ability to perspire a lot hasn't subsided any.

— Brett Anderson (@BrettAnderson35) June 4, 2016

Stay sweaty, Brett.

Any way you look at it, this season is starting to look up. It’s nice to have enough depth to replace an outfielder you hoped could help. It’s nice to be able to swallow almost $50 million for two guys who aren’t helping you. Letting things play out with Crawford and Guerrero won’t hurt the Dodgers’ chances this season. They’re 3 1/2  or 4 games behind the Giants with over 100 games to play. Sounds doable.

Whether it’s Carl Crawford, Scott Van Slyke, or Andre Ethier who spends the most time in left field, that person will be better than Gregor Blanco. By Adam_sk (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I thought it would be fun to, over the next few weeks, go position by position and compare what personnel the two teams have in preparation for the 2015 season. Technically, we’re not done with the infield, but I wanted to talk about Carl Crawford, so we’re going to go out to left field today.

Position by Position: Catcher

Position by Position: First Base

Position by Position: Second Base

Position by Position: Third Base

Carl Crawford and co.

The Dodgers outfield is kind of a ridiculous log-jam. Despite trading away Matt Kemp, there are at least four, and perhaps five players who are good enough to start regularly. The problem is that only one of those five is really a center fielder. All five are probably best served in corner outfield spots.

So when we start to talk about left field, the log-jam is really between four players and two spots.

Carl Crawford is the presumed starting left fielder — as long as his body will hold up. When he’s played over the past two seasons, the 33 year-old Crawford has posted good numbers.

Crawford has played about 110 games per year in his two seasons in Los Angeles. The farther he gets away from his 2012 Tommy John surgery, the closer to his former numbers he seems to get. Last year he hit .300/.339/.429 and was a solid part of the lineup for about 2/3 of the season.

At this point in his career, having Crawford on the roster almost necessitates other readily available and prepared options. To back Crawford up, the Dodgers currently have both Scott Van Slyke and Andre Ethier. If Crawford were to get hurt, a Van Slyke-Ethier platoon could be one of the best platoon situations in baseball.

If Crawford manages to stay healthy enough to play 120-130 games, he will need consistent days off anyway, and this is where Van Slyke can really make an impact this year.

Van Slyke kills left-handed pitching, posting an OPS of 1.045 in 108 at-bats last year. With Adrian Gonzalez and Crawford in their mid-30’s and left-handed, Van Slyke figures to get some playing time against lefties.

Gregor Blanco and Nori Aoki

Looking at stats from players like Gregor Blanco really makes me question just how the Giants did it last season. Blanco racked-up almsot 400 at-bats last season, hitting .260 and slugging just .374. He did walk 41 times, so maybe he’s an ideal number-eight hitter. Blanco is projected by ZiPS to put up just over a single Win Above Replacement (WAR).

Blanco’s presumed backup, Juan Perez, isn’t burning-up the projections either. Juan Perez hit .170 in 100 at-bats for the Giants last season. Overall, the Giants’ left-field group is going to be pretty light-hitting, it seems.

Nori Aoki, also a left-handed hitter, was going to also factor into the comparison in left field. As the season goes on, he actually may, but with Hunter Pence out of the lineup indefinitely, Aoki will be included in the right-field comparison.

The verdict

The question for the Dodgers is whether having so many capable big leaguers is a good thing. Even though guys like Crawford and Andre Ethier are overpaid for what their production is likely to be, the question of this series is not one of value, but rather one of production. If Giants left fielders are more productive than whoever plays there for the Dodgers, it would be maybe the biggest upset of this whole position-by-position comparison.

Left Field Advantage: Dodgers

The new ownership couldn’t wait to make a splash.

The day was August 25, 2012 and nobody knew the kind of storm that was about to rock Major League Baseball. The Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers agreed on a trade that sent Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, Nick Punto and their combined $260 million-plus contracts to Los Angeles. It was one of the biggest deals in sports history just because of the money involved, not to mention the players.

In exchange for Gonzalez, Beckett, Punto, and Cawford, the Dodgers traded long-time first baseman James Loney and minor leaguers. From a skill standpoint, the Dodgers got a steal but the deal helped the Red Sox shed a ton of salary to put them in a more flexible financial position.

Could Dodger Stadium host a World Series game in 2013 for the first time since 1988? By Frederick Dennstedt, via Wikimedia Commons

The Red Sox started off the 2013 season hot and haven’t looked back.

The Dodgers, on the other hand, were 9.5 games back of the division lead in June. Injuries and a lack of excitement in the clubhouse made things pretty glum for the bums and their fans.

With injuries to multiple outfielders, Yasiel Puig was called-up. Since he and Hanley Ramirez started playing together, the Dodgers have been on a hot streak and don’t seem to be looking back. The Dodgers now hold a 9.5 game lead of their own in a miraculous and historic turnaround. Before a few recent losses, they had gone 42-8 over a 50 game stretch, something that hadn’t been done in the past 100 years.

Could it be possible for the Dodgers and Red Sox to meet up in the fall classic just a year after the huge trade? Yes, it is very possible and many people would love to watch that matchup. But for now, all we as fans can do is sit back and watch because both of these teams in their own way are fun to watch.

We haven’t done a “What if Wednesday” in a while. It’s time to bring it back.

Can you imagine what would have happened if Carl Crawford hadn’t have gotten hurt? By Owen Main

What if?

It’s a question that more successful people than me don’t ask themselves very often. For me though, the question of what could have been can be quite cathartic at worst and super interesting at best.

During spring training, Dodgers brass continually gave the same answer. It didn’t matter how well the young Cuban phenom was playing, they weren’t going to put him into the big leagues to start the season. And if they weren’t going to pull the trigger after a spring during which he batted .526, then Dodger fans would likely have to wait another year to see Puig grace the hollowed grounds of Chavez Ravine.

Fate, though, works in interesting ways. In the midst of a hugely disappointing start to the season, team leader Matt Kemp landed himself on the disabled list. The Dodgers decided to stand pat on Puig and use Skip Schumaker and Jerry Hairston Jr. instead. Then Carl Crawford went down. With Kemp already on the disabled list, the Dodgers had reached their threshold of need and decided to call Puig up. At the time, the team was 23-32.

Now, the Dodgers are 69-50. They gave the kid a shot and it’s worked out pretty nicely. With Puig on the major league roster, the team is 46-18, including winning 39 of their last 47 games.

When Puig was called up for the game on June 3, the Dodgers stood 7.5 games back and in last place in the division. Today, they are clearly the division’s best team, 7.5 games ahead of second place Arizona.

I find myself asking today, “What if”?

What if Matt Kemp and Carl Crawford had not been hurt at the same time? It was somewhat predictable that one or both of them would have been on the disabled list at some point during the season, but the Dodgers obviously felt that one of them being hurt was no reason to bring up the precocious and raw Puig. (ed. note — You can see why they were hesitant to bring him up this year. He makes stupid baserunning and defensive decisions and is a lightning rod for controversy. His batflip, while magestic, is sure to continue to enrage pitchers and opponents).

If the Dodgers had chosen to keep Puig down on the farm, we might have seen Joc Peterson — the team’s next best outfield prospect. He might have done all right, but he’s no Puig.

Had the Dodgers chosen to let Kemp and Crawford come back, they would have. It’s doubtful though, that the Dodgers would have even maintained striking distance at all with any of their division rivals in the mean time.

Had the team continued to wallow, the Dodgers would have lost so much of the momentum their new ownership and “Whole New Blue” campaign gave them. Being irrelevant in Los Angeles is worse than being in last place, though. So the team did the only thing they could have done — they picked up the phone, called Chattanooga, and brought Puig up to the big club.

Winning or losing, the team was instantly relevant once again. That meant that when they did finally go on their current winning streak, everyone was already watching.

Everyone still is.

______________________

It’s a mild October evening in Los Angeles. The Dodgers are in the midst of a division series, or NLCS, or World Series. It’s a crucial moment in a post-season that the Dodgers would never have gotten to without the spectacular play of a young rookie.

That young rookie steps to the plate. What if he delivers the big hit? What if he goes from nice story, to Fernando-like legend. Will you be watching?

Carl Crawford’s hard work has paid off big for the Dodgers so far this year. by Owen Main

I hate to be the “I told you so” guy.

Wait, no I don’t. It’s one of my favorite things.

During the beginning of the year, when the focus has been on the raw talent of a minor league outfielder or the struggles of a team leader, Carl Crawford has quietly had a really good start.

Going into today’s game, during which he was the only Dodger to get past first base (Crawford hit two solo home runs and the Dodgers won 2-0), Crawford’s line was .298/.385/.452. Not bad for a guy who Dodger fans thought they were “saddled” with after last year’s monster trade that included Adrian Gonzalez, Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Nick Punto. Instead of being just a salary albatross, Crawford has gone about his business, worked hard, and gotten his arm and body back in shape. It seems a change of scenery can be a really good thing.

I lived in Florida for two years at the beginning of Crawford’s career. He was one of the most dynamic and electrifying players I had ever seen — especially on the artificial surface of Tropicana Field. His nickname, according to Baseball-Reference.com, is “The Perfect Storm,” alluding to his ability to cover ground in the outfield, his speed on the bases, and the pop in his bat. Crawford was a fan favorite in Tampa Bay and I told people that I thought he, not Josh Beckett, could be the part of the trade that made the Dodgers’ deal last year really look good in retrospect.

Today is April 28, so I don’t want to get too excited. We are only 24 games into a 162 game season, so I’m all for more perspective before being too excited. But if things keep up for Crawford, Dodger fans will be talking more about how their team fleeced two superstars from Boston in a once-in-a-generation trade. For the Dodgers, it really could be a perfect storm.

My prediction is that the Dodgers will probably sign Blanco for 8 years, $80 million during the off-season — because we know how much the Dodgers like those recycled Giants. Speaking of the Dodgers, we talked about them as well. In case you are wondering, Adrian Gonzalez is actually only 30 years old, a full year younger than me. That makes him almost a year and a half younger than Matt. Carl Crawford is 31, but younger than me. Josh Beckett was the old man in the trade. He is 32. One year older than me. That settles that.

Matt used the word “Machiavellian,” which is notable. He will hopefully be a regular contributor to the podcast to give some Bay-Area perspective to our Central Coast and Southern California-biased blog. Hope you enjoy.

THAT is a happy Giants fan aka Matt Dale.

The Benchmark for winning: Jerry Buss’ Lakers

I’m turning thirty this year. Two years before I was born, Dr. Jerry Buss purchased the Lakers. All I’ve known my whole life is the winning tradition of the team. I have early memories of Magic’s sky-hook to beat the Celtics and when Kobe threw the Game 7 alley-oop to Shaq to beat Portland I jumped through the roof of my first college apartment. With the exception of a middling few years in the 90’s, and another set of interesting, if not victorious seasons during the last decade, the Lakers have always been championship contenders.

When the Lakers traded Shaq in 2004, it was the first time I had ever openly-questioned the Lakers’ decision-making. At the time Shaq was flirting with being my favorite Laker. Ever. He still might be.

I prognosticated to anyone who would listen: “If they don’t win another champi0nship within five years, they will decline, Kobe will asked to be traded, and we’ll be back to a time worse than the mid 90’s.”

It took Kobe less than 5 years to demand a trade, but the Lakers ignored his plea, got back to the NBA Finals in 2008 and won title each of the past two seasons. The Lakers did what it took to win with savvy trades and a willingness to go over the salary cap when necessary to ensure a complete roster. Dr. Buss’ team didn’t just quietly develop a culture over 30-plus years that espoused a winning mentality. When it came time to make roster decisions, or make their product better, their actions matched their rhetoric despite a collective team salary that put them consistently over the cap.

Frank McCourt and the Dodgers

I hate to say it, but the McCourts have become a punchline. The “joke” might go something like this:

“How do you take over 50 years of solid ownership-fan relations, and in just a few years make one of the most beloved franchises in modern professional sports a laughing-stock?”

The answer/punchline, of course, is to follow the McCourt road map.

After winning with low-priced, young talent and benefiting from being at or near the top of Major League Baseball’s attendance for nearly a decade, the Dodgers fell-off dramatically last season. When young players didn’t produce, there were no solid stars for them to lean on. The icon they had come to rely on failed like a used car that ran great for a short while and then became a lemon. Of course, “Man-Ram” did come to the team “on-sale,” and proved the “you get what you pay for” adage when he missed much of the past two seasons due to injury and suspension.

Without their star to lean on, the entire house of cards collapsed like, well, a house of cards.

So what do Dodgers fans have to look forward to? If you listen to the general manager, they could be just like the Giants this year (more on why the Giants are enablers as the baseball season goes on).

Our rose colored-glasses would have us ask the following questions: Why couldn’t the Dodgers, with newly acquired Juan Uribe and John Garland, rely on their pitching and scrappy play to win the division this year? Why can’t they stay in contention for the entire season? Maybe they can even make the playoffs again, and wouldn’t that be good enough make everyone in “Dodger-land” really super-duper happy?

My sarcastic tone comes for a few reasons:

1) For a team from Los Angeles to be out-spent by a team from San Francisco is the baseball economic blasphemy. Dodger Stadium is one of the best-attended stadiums in all of baseball, in the second-largest media market in the country, and the Dodgers are constantly operating under a budget tighter than (you fill in the blank). They tried to win “on the cheap” with the genius from the A’s and when even he couldn’t win under McCourt’s budget, he became a scapegoat and was let go.

2) For the Dodgers to try to “imitate” the Giants, as they have been seemingly for the past decade, is embarrassing. I’m sick of it. And I’m sick of Giant retreads. Schmidt, Kent, and now Uribe. Bleh. ENABLERS!

3) Also embarrassing: The Giants won the World Series last year. Maybe I am not, in fact, really over it. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get. Anyway, moving on…

Finally, in a city that supports the Lakers with the condition of success demanded from them (the sky was falling in Laker-land before the All-Star break), fans seem to support the Dodgers unconditionally.

Whether or not the ownership makes sound decisions, we will go to games and make ourselves believe that the Dodgers have a real shot. In baseball, this may be a reality, as the Giants proved. But it shouldn’t have to be the reality in a strong market like Los Angeles.

In the spirit of being a Dodgers fan with a new season approaching, here are my baseball season predictions. As you’ll see, my rose-colored glasses are shattered as soon as I look at the Phillies’ roster (why can’t the Dodgers just be more like the Phillies!?).

Before my prediction, I’ll leave Dodgers fans with an image of a different owner. Picture this. Mark Cuban in the owner’s box. Oscar De La Hoya doing real outreach to fans in Los Angeles. Magic Johnson’s genuine smile as the new face of the Dodgers. Somebody with a LOT more money and a LOT more stable of a situation than is currently present. Doesn’t that sound nice?

Owen’s 2011 MLB Predictions –

NL West Champ: Dodgers

NL Central Champ – Cubs

NL East – Phillies

NL Wild Card – Braves

AL West – Angels

AL Central – Twins

AL East – Red Sox

AL Wild Card – Yankees

Phillies over Dodgers, Cubs over Braves, Phillies over Cubs

Red Sox over Twins, Angels over Yankees, Red Sox over Angels

Red Sox beat Phillies in 6 games. Halladay is great, but Lee and Hamels get roughed up.

AL Cy Young – John Lester

NL Cy Young – Roy Halladay

AL MVP – Carl Crawford

NL MVP – Matt Kemp (Had to do it and he’ll have to have an MVP year for the Dodgers to win the West…)

Yep. My rose-colored glasses are intact.

owen@fansmanship.com

It is news that means rather little to your life, that is, unless you believe Susan Lucci to be the greatest actress since Faye Dunaway.

According to Manny Ramirez, he and past teammate Johnny Damon, “are back.”

Back from what? Last I checked both had become irrelevant, and overpaid. Back in Beantown? Not a chance. Back together? Absolutely. Do I hear the making of a Brokeback sequel?

Today Johnny Damon knotted a one year, 5.25 million dollar contract, and Ramirez, a one year, 2 million dollar deal with the crumbling Devil Rays.  They join a solid pitching rotation, boasting the likes of David Price, and do it all third basemen in Evan Longoria.

Any other off-season, signing two veterans like Ramirez and Damon would only strengthen your team. Both have won World Series’, and know what it takes to get there.  But this off-season, is not your normal off-season for the Rays. They’ve watched many of their central components go elsewhere. The biggest of these, Center fielder Carl Crawford, a rare breed of both speed, defensive prowess, and occasional power. Last year the star hit .307, with 19 homers, and 90 runs batted in, and over the last 8 years,  has averaged 50 stolen bases, making him the most sought after base stealer in the league. He was the set-up for a team in the top five in every major offensive category. Not to mention, a fan favorite, a guy who had built a name for himself in the Rays small market. Crawford’s positive locker room presence will be sorely missed for a team with a long list of young players. His nine seasons with the Rays, made him the longest tenured player on the club. Drafted in 1999, in the 2nd round, Crawford had stayed true blue to the organization that believed in him first; so losing him, is like losing your heart.

Another missing piece this season, will be first baseman Carlos Pena. Pena, who inked a one year deal with the Cubs, is best known as a defensive-minded first baseman, but also, a guy who can hit the long ball. Over the last four years, Pena has belted 144 homers, giving the Rays legitimate pop in the middle part of their lineup. He and Longoria were the pieces looked at to drive in runs, and create pitching problems for the opponents in the later innings. Now that Pena is gone, Longoria will have to pick up more of the slack–which  can lend itself to burn-out, then a few poor years, and ultimately a young player who never fully blossoms into the kind of player he could have become.

The burden is not only felt in the lineup. It is also felt on the pitching side of things. Losing Middle-reliever Juaquin Benoit to the Tigers, may not sound as serious as it is. But Benoit was the go to middle guy, who held opponents to a .147 batting average. He was the guy who kept things close if Price, Davis, Garza, or Shields had an off-night.

So let the Soap Opera begin.

Whether we want to admit it or not, Ramirez can still hit. The problem has never been getting one of the greatest hitters this league has ever seen to hit the ball out of the park, or drive in runs. It has always been his focus, his wayfarer attitude, his incessant need to spout ridiculous comments in the media; comments like “we’re back.”

Since being dealt to the Dodgers in 2008, Ramirez legacy has been severely tainted. After an incredible second half with L.A. in 2008, when the future Hall of Fame out-fielder hit .396, with 17 homers and 56 RBI, Ramirez spent a quarter of 09′ on the bench with both a league suspension, and a quandary of random injuries.  His sudden decline was not physical, rather a mental paradigm made of a growing disconnect between Manny, the man with 555 career home runs, and little “m” manny: the hippie, off-beat, Ricky Williams of Baseball.

The funniest thing about Manny Ramirez is the dude could hit the ball with one eye, high on cocaine. The last 100 games of 09′, the star hit .290, with 19 home runs, and 63 RBIs. He then came into training camp in 2010, with a bad attitude and a misery of peculiar injuries. Despite playing only 63 games with the Dodgers the first half of 2010, he hit .311. But when is enough, enough? When the Dodgers grew tired of little “m” manny, they gave him away to the Chicago Whitesox, where he played the most uninspired baseball of his life. It was like watching Bob Marley swing a bat with his dreads, then as he whiffed, do an Irish jig in a mini skirt.

Now that we are primed for 2011, to watch the high-on-self Ramirez, play his former team the Red Sox, 25-30 times, it will be an intriguing process to wait for Ramirez’s self-destruction, and his flammable comments in the media. I wonder what the small-town Rays will think of a figure like Ramirez, a man who finds little value in anything but to bother others with his naturally-lazy- ability to hit the baseball.

I hate saying it, but Ramirez is arguably the best hitter on the Rays. Yet as always, it will be a waiting game, as we determine which Manny will show. If big “M” decides to rear his mysterious head, another 40 homer, 125 RBI season, could be in the making. And sadly for a guy like the hardworking Longoria, he will probably be swallowed by the belly of a man who has always been able to steal the show from the just about everyone he comes in contact with.  But even if he does, it does not mean we will see a repeat of the 2010 Rays, a team of role guys, willing to sacrifice for every bit of their American league best 96 wins. With a pick-up like Manny, you know for every loss of a ‘w’, a willing television agency will be knocking on your door, asking to create a T.V. show based upon your life.

And sadly, in today’s sports world, money talks.

*Note that I am aware I did not talk about Johnny Damon in this article. And let me ask you, considering the brittle, overrated, thirty seven year old “has been”… do I really have to?

—Luke Johnson