Dodgers in '11 ... Melsh's Take

Standing barefoot in the public restroom, I knew I’d hit rock bottom.

Oh, wait, wrong blog. But it’s still an excellent segway into the land of the Los Angeles Dodgers, or the evil enemy for the perspective of this blog. I’ve got to admit, that over the past season, there has been so much back-and-forth in the Frank & Jamie McCourt divorce drama, I’ve lost track of who has won which battle, but it’s apparent that the continuing battle is holding back the Dodgers, so let’s just let this thing get ugly quickly, so it can end quickly. Too much about the owners’ personal finances have been made public, and no team or their owners want their finances made public. Just ask any NFL owner. Frank spending a few hundred thousand on a Russian dude in Boston to think positive thoughts for the team instead of spending it on a long reliever just doesn’t sit well with the fans. So, getting this fiasco over will inevitably and hopefully leave the owner(s) in ruins and force them to sell the team. Sheesh. Second largest market in America, you’d think the boys in blue could muster more help for the offense than Juan Uribe.

Anyway, from a fan’s perspective, it’s easy to gripe about why the team hasn’t been made a lot better. Truth be told, few teams are usually in the market for the big names, and they’re usually the subject of a ridiculous bidding war, so it’s hard to get too worked up over not landing top-level help. If my team had just paid what the Nationals paid for (former Dodger) Jayson Werth, I’d be questioning that decision as much as I’m questioning their inactivity.

So, what’s going to come of the Dodgers for 2011? My gut says they’re in the right division. Even though the San Francisco Giants (it kills me linking that picture there, but gotta give props ... they earned it) are the reigning league champs, they didn’t exactly win the division running away. They got hot at the right time, and they have the strong pitching that wins a playoff series by shutting down a strong lineup. Their lineup keeps them from looking like a 95+ win team, so that keeps the door open for other contenders. Yet with their strong core of pitching, I wouldn’t count on a step backward, either. The Colorado Rockies appear to be only other serious threat in the division, but they have defined “split personality” over the past few years. I think everyone can agree that the Arizona D’Backs and the San Diego Padres will be non-factors. Given the records in the division over the past several years, it looks like 90 wins could take the division, so the door looks open for these three teams.

The Dodgers, to me, look like a team where their ceiling is about what they’d need to win the division. Their star power looks limited. On offense, Matt Kemp looked like he’d be in that discussion now, but had a sophomore slump in his junior year. Andre Ethier is clearly an upper-echelon player, but given that he’s pushing 30, it’s looking more and more unlikely he’ll hit the ultimate tier. The rest of their lineup looks average at best. Rafael Furcal’s best days are behind him. James Loney is miscast as an efficient, yet unspectacular slap-hitter playing first base. 37-year old Casey Blake, who’s starting the season injured, can’t have much left in the tank. Rod Barajas and Juan Uribe are those nice players that have been in the league for years, but unless you’re a true fantasy geek or they didn’t play for your team, you don’t know them outside of their rare SportsCenter moment. And left field looks like a wasteland of a platoon of a has-been (Jay Gibbons), a never-quite-was (Marcus Thames) and isn’t-close-to-being-as-good-as-dad (Tony Gwynn, Jr.). Being “average” looks like a best-case scenario for this bunch. Obviously, if you're looking at a three headed monster like that in left field, bench depth isn't a strength. When you're lead backup is Jamey Carroll (a player with the rare distinction of being a 37-year old major leaguer and having been in the league long enough to have been a Montreal Expo, yet is still obscure enough to be familiar to but a precious few fans).

The pitching staff has one player who has the potential to be the biggest star on the 25-man roster, Clayton Kershaw. His numbers are on the upswing and it seems like he’s been on the brink of being the ace for ages, so it’s easy to forget that he’s only 22 years old. If he makes that next step, not only does he become the presumptive ace of the staff, he becomes the game changer that makes this team look that much better when it comes to a playoff series. He’d be vital in that role, because the rest of their starting pitching is filled with those nice pitchers that fill out a rotation, but not the guys you’d want to count on as a #2 in a playoff series. Hiroka Kuroda, Chad Billingsley (not to be confused with Peter Billingsley), Jon Garland, Ted Lilly, Vincente Padilla … all guys you envision as #3 or #4 starters. Not guys you want going up against the #2 starters of the Giants, Philadelphia Phillies or St. Louis Cardinals in a five game series.

Breaking down a bullpen, outside of the closer, is probably one of the most difficult feats in the world of prognostication. Bullpens are baseball’s equivalent of offensive linemen in football. You really only hear names called when they come in and give up the big inning. Quick: outside of your favorite team or two (or the New York Yankees, because they just threw all kinds of cash at Rafael Soriano), name another team’s 7^th or 8^th inning guy. And most of these guys fall from grace just as quickly. One year, you hear about a team having an amazing bullpen, two years later, you’re hearing these same names as spring training non-roster invitees. But the big name here is Jonathan Broxton. His career path seems to be following Matt Kemp’s with a sophomore slump in his junior year. However, being a pitcher … hell, especially being a closer, a loss in velocity is far more concerning than a fielder having mental blunders or a lack of focus, which appears to be Matt Kemp’s issue. A bounce-back from Broxton looks critical, as anyone else in the pen stepping in would be a serious step back from the Broxton the Dodgers had in ’09 or the first half of ’10.

Long story short, if the Dodgers catch lightning in a bottle with this bunch, 90 wins seems plausible. And depending how the chips fall, that may be enough to win the NL West. 92 wins would win half the seasons in the NL West in the past decade. If spring training injuries to Casey Blake and Jon Garland are a harbinger of things to come, it looks like it’ll be a long year with glimpses of Ivan DeJesus, Jr. or Dee Gordon.

Somewhere, Rupert Murdoch is laughing. So is Darren Dreifort, but for other, yet completely legitimate reasons.

Oh, and thanks to Daniel for inviting me to be the voice of the enemy for the sake of this blog. Yup, I'm an avid Dodger fan. One that most readers here probably cannot fathom how someone could have such a point of view, and I for one, am still stinging from the day that Orel Hersheiser signed a free agent deal with the Gints. Somehow, getting Juan Uribe this year doesn't seem like it'll be an equal and opposite reaction.