Good Old Bill Plaschke

So I wanted to find something stupid.  I don't know if I am just off my game, but it's harder to find outright stupid on ESPN.com these days, so I decided to read some of Bill Plaschke's latest screed. Here's a recent puff piece about a grindy old  white middle infielder!  I'll bet you didn't realize the greatness of a truly unsung Dodger hero: Mark Ellis.

As the sports world is learning with every jaw-dropping win, these suddenly delightful Dodgers are a team of many faces.

As opposed to the crosstown Angels, who are a team of ONE FACE.  And it's the face of Ernesto Frieri.

They include Yasiel Puig's giant look of wonder, Juan Uribe's impish grin, A.J. Ellis' grimace,Clayton Kershaw's scowl, and occasionally even Don Mattingly's smile.

That is a lot of faces.  The Dodgers sound like a bunch of manic depressives.  And if there's any word that describes Juan Uribe, a 33 year old man, it's impish.

Then there is The Stare. It's solid, expressionless, powerful in its confident calm, a constant in the Dodgers' dizzying array of emotion.

"Solid, expressionless, powerful in its confident calm". Woah!  That's a lot of adjectives. "Dizzying array".  I'm getting vertigo just reading this stuff. It sure sounds like these Dodgers need Mark Ellis to calm things down. He's the Zoloft of baseball players.

Dodgers fans know The Stare. They see it on Ellis from the moment he steps on to the field, as endemic to his appearance as the blue lettering across his chest.

Uniforms are endemic to players... until they take them off at the end of the game.  Unless maybe Mark Ellis has a Dodgers tattoo on his chest. It's all part of his confident calm.

 He stares at the hitter from the field, the pitcher from the plate, the game from the dugout, the giant season from his small spot.

Bill, thanks for illustrating for us readers.  It makes the baseball game come alive in our minds.  We can imagine where Mark Ellis stands!   Except for that last one: where exactly is this "small spot" that Mark Ellis is staring at the giant season?

Is Mark Ellis's spot any smaller than other players' spots?

It's also apparently really cute when Mark Ellis' 6-year-old son, Briggs, imitates it while playing tee ball in the middle of his living room.

"Yeah, he taps the bat on the ground and then goes into that look,'' said Ellis with a laugh. "I'm thinking, you know, he's really got it down."

"Oh, c'mon, sometimes I laugh at Puig and Uribe; the cameras just don't catch that,'' he said.

Guess not.

Even Mark seems to understand basic sampling.  If only Bill would learn that lesson.  

You could see The Stare in high definition Wednesday night in Toronto when Ellis calmly strolled to the plate in the 10th inning with no hits in his previous four at-bats to face a pitcher he had never seen.

Stare. Strike one. Stare. Strike two. Stare. Boom.

Bill is varying his sentence length, folks. That's a tip for you young writers out there!  The short sentences really heighten the drama.

Ellis launched a rocket off Juan Perez into the Rogers Centre second deck for a two-run, tiebreaking home run, then quickly rounded the bases as if hurrying back to work after a long lunch break. His teammates surrounded him in giddiness, but The Stare remained for another half-inning until the Dodgers had finished off an improbable 8-3 victory.

An excellent story. Except that Mark Ellis would never take a long lunch break, since he is busy working and staring and grinding.

"We still had work to do," Ellis said. "I have always been taught, this is only three hours of your life, and if you can't give it your full concentration for three hours, then maybe you should do something else."

I like the "maybe" in here, as though Ellis didn't want to offend anyone, like the guy with the fifth-most home runs in major league history, who doesn't have to give his full concentration even in the ninth inning of playoff games when there are bikini models in the stands.  He probably doesn't want to earn that guy's enmity.  Maybe he should do something else.  Actually, maybe he will!

Ellis, who is the oldest member of the regular lineup at age 36, did not start in Thursday's homecoming loss to the Cincinnati Reds at Dodger Stadium because he was batting a career .091 against Reds starter Mat Latos.

Too bad, because the Dodgers are 37-23 when he starts, and that doesn't begin to measure his solid-as-South-Dakota impact on this year's team.

Oh man.  I don't even know where to start here.  Rather than recognizing that Ellis's .091 average is only 11 ABs, he mentions that the Dodgers have won a lot of games when he started.  It's the worst stat ever, and even major news outlets occasionally misuse it to a staggering extent.  

Also, what makes South Dakota more solid than any other state?  Mount Rushmore or something?  Is Mount Rushmore solider than the other mountains?  I bet Alaska is pretty darn solid.  Is he just looking for alliteration?  I guess South Dakota is a lot more solid than South Carolina.  Or the Susquehanna river.  Or San Francisco. 

Oh yeah, he learned The Stare while growing up in Rapid City, S.D., a place where the good people wear their stoicism like overcoats, a place where he didn't play high school baseball because it was too cold for a high school baseball season.

Oh, ok.  Mark Ellis is from South Dakota, where people are more morally solid than in South Carolina.  Well, I guess South Dakota's only institutional racism was against Native Americans, so that's half as many institutional racisms as South Carolina. And in South Carolina people can't wear their stoicism like overcoats, because they don't even need overcoats.

"That's the way we are up there, we never get too high or low,'' Ellis said. "Like those NFL players and those touchdown dances? We're not too high on that.''

Good old fashioned grinders. 

It is this attitude that helped Ellis endure an injury last season that nearly cost him his leg after he was hit by the St. Louis Cardinals' Tyler Greene while attempting to turn a double play. It is also an attitude that has helped him thrive this year in connecting when it counts.

Two bold stats: With a runner on third and fewer than two out, he is hitting .727 with 19 RBIs in 17 plate appearance. In tie games, he is .329 with three of his five home runs.

Last year, in 14 PA with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs, Mark Ellis scored a measly 36% of the runners.  His career number is 50%.  Sure makes his 2013 numbers seem like random variation rather than the results of The Stare.  Ostensibly, Mark Ellis has had The Stare since his boyhood in solid-old-South Dakota.  Maybe it only really takes effect and makes him clutch when  he is surrounded by a hysterical bunch of manic depressives.

"This game takes all kinds, and Mark is one of those kinds," said Mattingly, the Dodgers' manager. "He's solid … bread and butter … nothing flashy, just gets it done."

While the hitting stars such as Puig and Hanley Ramirez get the headlines, it is the guys paddling furiously below who have fueled this Dodgers uprising, guys such as the Ellis duo, Skip Schumaker,Nick Punto and Jerry Hairston Jr.

Mark Ellis WAR: 1.9, AJ Ellis  WAR: 2.2, Skip Schumaker WAR: -0.4, Nick Punto WAR: 0.8, Jerry Hairston Jr. WAR 0.0.  I bet the "Ellis duo" feels like the just citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah who got lumped in with all the assholes and everyone went down together in a flaming destruction. 

OK, that analogy doesn't make a lot of sense.

The Stare symbolizes those guys. The Stare is what makes you think this hot streak can endure.

The Stare.  The Stare.  The Stare.  The Stare.  That's what makes you think the Dodgers will keep winning, not Clayton Kershaw's 1.87 ERA or Hanley Ramirez and Yasiel Puig OPSing over 1 in over 200 PA.

Ellis eventually played Thursday, batting in the ninth inning, knocking a pinch single into right field against a zillion-mile-a-hour fastball from Aroldis Chapman. He was stranded on third base as the game ended, but at least he was there. He's pretty much always there.

Mark Ellis: always there.

"This is what we do, this is our job," Ellis said. "You just get it done."

That was a very meaningful insight, Mark Ellis.

Three hours, and one stare, at a time.

Two examples of Mark Ellis's late-game hits and a couple of misplaced stats and a facial expression.  BOOM.  Plaschke gold.  

MVP This, MVP That

One of the toughest arguments to settle in baseball is that of the Most Valuable Player award. Does it go to the absolute best player in the league, or does it go to the best player on a team that makes it to the postseason (i.e., the player created the most value by being the biggest reason Team X made the playoffs as opposed to missing them). It's incredibly subjective, and despite being a major advocate of the former, I've little choice but to accept the latter's point of view as....somewhat valid. After all, they're right in the sense that being awesome and pushing your team to .500 and still nowhere close to the playoffs as opposed to like .450 doesn't do all that much for your team except morale and jersey sales. Stuff like this kind of makes that argument look really stupid though.

Anyway, for this year's NL MVP, the argument is simple. If you wanted to pick the player that generated the most wins, it's Kemp. If you wanted to pick the guy who did the best job of leading his team to the postseason, it's....Roy Halladay, or something? And if you want to pick the guy that did the best job of leading his team to the postseason and come from the planet Tardulon where "pitchers" are not "players", it's Braun. Fine. Argue that last point if you want. But don't do it like Tracy Ringolsby. You see, even though you would think a guy wearing an obnoxious cowboy hat in his profile picture would act like he's way smarter than you and have a my-way-or-the-highway attitude towards his own opinions, well.....heh....stereotype's right on I guess.

Thank goodness Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun was able to claim the National League MVP.

That's the way it is supposed to be.

Says you, my friend. Says you. Why don't you go ahead and tell me why?

Braun was No. 1 on 20 ballots and No. 2 on 12 ballots. Runner-up Matt Kemp of the Los Angeles Dodgers was voted No. 1 on 10 ballots. One ballot had Braun's teammate, Prince Fielder, and one had Justin Upton of the Arizona Diamondbacks in the No. 1 slot.

There is no argument over the worthiness of Braun.

Really. None huh? Matt Kemp was the best individual player in the National League. That seems like it's a decent argument!

There's also no argument about the wonderful season that Kemp put together, but it's hard to buy the claim that he was the NL MVP.

Why?

He was the Player of the Year, honored by the Major League Baseball Players Association and by voters for the Hank Aaron Award, which goes to the best position player in each league.

Oh, because he won an award that says he is the best player in Major League Baseball, a set of players that contains the subset of National League players, and an award that says he is the best position player in the National League, a set of players that includes National League Most Valuable Player, Ryan Braun.

BUT THERE'S NO ARGUMENT OVER THE WORTHINESS OF RYAN BRAUN WITH RESPECT TO HIS DESERVITUDE OF THAT AWARD.

He also was honored by the Dodgers, who signed him to an eight-year, $160 million contract extension just a year removed from when members of their front office and previous coaching staff questioned his attitude and wondered whether he could be a part of an eventual contending team.

Could not be less relevant. But at least this sentence didn't contradict your premise.

Braun had a sparkling season. But MVP stands for Most Valuable Player. Put an emphasis on the term "valuable." Why is that so hard for anyone to understand?

I picture Tracy Ringolsby beating his peers senseless with a baseball bat while reading that last sentence.

For all the newfangled forms of statistical analysis that have been developed, there is still one stat that has the ultimate value in baseball, and pretty much any other sport: victories.

And those newfangled statistics say that Kemp was worth more victories than anyone in the National League. That's why they invented things like WAR and WARP and DERRRRP and NERDVAR, to translate player performance into victories.

The Dodgers didn't win. They finished third in the NL West. Players on third-place teams don't even get postseason shares anymore. That's how much value a third-place finish has.

THEY DIDN'T WIN, PEOPLE!!!!!! HOW HARD IS THIS FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND!?!??!?!?!? I AM ASSUMING YOU HAVE NEVER WATCHED A FULL MAJOR LEAGUE SEASON, AND THAT IS WHY I AM HALF-JOKINGLY INFORMING YOU THAT MATT KEMP DIDN'T GET ANY POSTSEASON SHARES!!!!!!!!

[At this point in writing the article, Mr. Ringolsby stopped writing to smash several expensive items in his living room with a baseball bat]

Anyway, back to reading about what place the 2011 Los Angeles Dodgers finished in. I mean, uh, the NL MVP.

There is the claim that without Kemp, the Dodgers would have finished somewhere in Baja California.

Ah. Addressing the opposition's argument. This is good. Now, Tracy, how would you go about arguing against this claim? How do you assert Ryan Braun's superior value?

This begs the question of how poorly are the Dodgers run that a team with the Cy Young Award winner, Clayton Kershaw, and the Hank Aaron Award winner, Kemp, couldn't even find itself in a pennant race.

Of course. By going off on a weird tangent about how Ned Colletti is a dunderfuck.

The Dodgers were out of the NL West race before Memorial Day. They didn't spend a day in first place after April 4. They were 14 games below .500 by July 6, and never were more than three games above .500.

The Dodgers were a "meh" team that finished in third place.

The Dodgers had to paddle upstream just to inch above .500, finishing 82-79.

The Dodgers were a "meh" team that finished in third place.

The Dodgers were never closer to first place than 10 games after Aug. 6.

The Dodgers were a "meh" team that finished in third place.

They finished 11-1/2 games out.

The Dodgers were a "meh" team that finished in third place.

They had a winning record against only three teams with winning records: Atlanta (5-2), St. Louis (4-3) and Detroit (2-1).

The Dodgers were a "meh" team that finished in third place.

Have you ever heard of being succinct?

Anyone out there think that whether the Dodgers had a winning record against the Phillies or Giants has anything to do with whether Ryan Braun or Matt Kemp should win the fucking MVP???

Good.

(This "stat" of his is even stupider than it sounds. The Dodgers only had 6 NL opponents with records above .500. They were even with the Giants and had the upper hand against Atlanta and St. Louis. In the AL, they only played 2 teams with a winning record and won the season series against one of them. What exactly does this prove, even external to the MVP argument?)

Braun and the Brewers, meanwhile, won the NL Central. They faced the pressure of being a preseason favorite, and Braun and his teammates handled it well.

You know what, Tracy, you can have this point if you want. One can certainly argue that there's more value in performing well in a high-pressure pennant race than performing well on a middle-of-the-pack team. Like I said, I don't agree it should be a criteria for winning the award, but it's a legit argument that's tough to absolutely disprove given the subjectivity. Fine. That's pretty much all you need to say about the Brewers....

They knocked off the NL West-champion Arizona Diamondbacks in the Division Series before being upset by eventual world champion St. Louis in the Championship Series.

....but what would this column be without a bunch of superfluous sentences?

As Braun was quick to point out, it was an award that was about more than him. It was his teammates, his manager and coaches, and even the Brewers ownership who played a role in his claiming the MVP award for the Brewers for the fourth time, joining Rollie Fingers in 1981, and Robin Yount in 1982 and 1989.

"A reason I won is they put a better team around me," he said.

Ryan Braun's response to the media's questions about him winning the award, in no way, argue that he, not Matt Kemp, is the MVP. If anything, putting this comment here only adds fuel to the fire that people besides Braun were responsible for him winning the award.

Kemp put up strong numbers, hitting .324 with 39 home runs and 126 RBI, but Braun's numbers compared quite nicely. Braun did, after all, lead the NL with a .597 slugging percentage, .994 OPS, and 77 extra-base hits. He was second with a .332 batting average, drove in 111 runs, hit 33 home runs and stole 33 bases.

The two were pretty similar at the plate (with probably a slight edge to Braun). Ryan Braun plays left field. Matt Kemp plays center field. That is a very important difference that tips the scales in the favor of Kemp. So don't go the stat route. You won't win that one.

And he was nervous while he wait at home in Malibu, Calif., for the announcement Tuesday .

"I woke up early and went for a drive," Braun said. "From about 9:30 a.m., on I sat outside my home with my cell phone and home phone, hoping I would get a call from a number I didn't recognize."

He got the call.

Uh huh, great.

Kemp didn't, although he did receive 10 first-place votes, 16 second-place votes and six third-place votes to finish second ahead of Fielder, and Upton. Braun, Kemp, Fielder and Upton were the only players who were included on the ballots of all 32 voters from the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Fittingly, Braun won.

"Fittingly, Braun won?" Really? Well, here's what I took away from this article. Go ahead and stop me if I oversimplified.

1) Kemp is the best player in the National League
2) The Dodgers were kind of mediocre and finished in third
3) The Brewers won their division
4) Braun is excited to be the MVP
5) Braun attributes much of the award to his teammates and other members of the Brewers organization
6) Statistically, the two players were pretty similar, however "newfangled" statistics also exist.

And THAT is why it's so fitting Braun won.

The Meaning of "Swag"

Yikes, this is stupid.

Ryan Fagan becomes the latest dumbass to invent nonsense to explain winning.

Comeback? Never a doubt in Phillies' minds
Defending champions have swag to go along with roster full of talent

Oh yeah? Well the Dodgers have flog. Boatloads of flog. It is my hypothesis that....

Dodger flog > Phillies swag.

Go ahead, prove me wrong.

PHILADELPHIA - A baseball lifetime ago, Jimmy Rollins was sitting in the visitors' clubhouse in St. Louis talking about what his Phillies needed.

I'm guessing it doesn't have anything to do with starting pitching. Cause hey! Guess which problem got fixed?

This was long before Rollins delivered the two-out, game-winning double Monday night, the extra-base hit that lifted his Phillies to a 5-4 victory over the Dodgers and put them a win away from the opportunity to defend their World Series championship. No, the Jimmy Rollins in the visitors' clubhouse on that sweltering August day in St. Louis had just three playoff games under his belt — all losses, to the Rockies the year before — but a firm grasp of what he considered the essential element to winning in the postseason.

Flog?

Swag.

Jimmy, you had it all wrong. That's why you hadn't won any playoff games yet.

Yep, swag. Confidence. A belief in yourself and your teammates.

At least you finally defined it.

Rollins knew his team had the talent. They needed swag.

"Rollins knew his team had talent" is "a belief in himself and his teammates." You're strongly implying that they had Thing A, but not Thing B. THING A IMPLIES THING B. FFFLLLLLOOOOOOOGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!

At that point in their development as a unit, they needed to eliminate the excuses.

Scene (hypothetical): April 2008, bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. Phightin' Phils down by 2 to the New York Metropolitans. Chase Utley at the plate.

Utley: ::smokes a Billy Wagner pitch....it's going back, back, back, and Carlos Beltran leaps and makes a gamesaving catch over the fence, game over, Phils lose::

Rollins: Ummmm...what the fuck was that?

Utley: I murdered that ball! He just...he just made the catch is all!

Rollins: That sounds an awful lot like an....

Utley: Excuse?

Rollins Precisely. (Disclaimer: Jimmy Rollins has never said that word in his life)

Utley: I know but....

Rollins: Listen here Chase, I didn't win the MVP award last year with bullshit excuses. That's what lost us the game today. You've got to believe and cut this crap out. NO EXCUSES ON THIS TEAM! How do you think Matt Tolbert hit that game-tying bouncer up the middle for the Twins one and a half years from now?

Utley: MATT TOLBERT IS THE WORST PLAYER IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL AND RON DARLING SHOULD BE FIRED!

Fin

"When you've got swag, it's ‘They got away from us today’ or ‘They pulled it out just in time’ or 'We just missed a couple of pitches' or 'If we could have just found the hole here,'" he said with an earnest look in his eye. "But without swag, it's 'We couldn't hold them here' or 'We couldn't get a big hit' ... you see that? It's the same thing, but your mindset is different, the way you think about that."

You're at the plate and it's a big situation. Clayton Kershaw can either bring the heat, or "Public Enemy Number 1", the knee-buckling curveball. How the hell does any of this help you?

Well, these Phillies have swag. No doubt about that.

Hoomagawha?

And thanks to that swag, they also have a commanding 3-1 lead in the NLCS.

You were always that child on 3rd grade standardized tests who matched the cause "The ice melted" to the effect "The sun was shining brightly", weren't you Ryan?

Now keep in mind, this is an opinion column. Here is the remainder of the column.

Johnathan Broxton, who throws 523 MPH, pitched baseballs, but Phillies NEVER SAY DIE! The Phillies were on the bench, believing in themselves, and that energy flowed 150 feet away to Johnathan Broxton, who walked Matt Stairs on four pitches, and Broxton was SO UNCOMFORTABLE, beaned Ruiz, Dobbs lined out (no excuses, Dobbs!), and the Phillies were already halfway to the clubhouse knowing they had won the game, and willed Jimmy Rollins to hit a baseball into the gap. Brad Lidge is a Phillie. Rollins had a really uninteresting track record both against Broxton and in the game, 1-4, but I'm going to write it anyway. Jimmy Rollins was 1-4 in the game and against Broxton in his career. That's a .250 batting averaeg. (he actually spelled it like that) Carlos Ruiz eats 27 tacos per day, but Jayson Werth thought the Phillies would win, so a jetpack magically appeared on Carlos Ruiz's back! Andre Ethier, busy trying to grasp why the umpire would allow a clearly illegal device in play, forgot how to throw, and the Phillies scored! Phillies win! Phillies win! Phillies! Ryan Howard has a sense of humor, and knows how many more games the Phillies need to win to go to the World Series!

I may have edited that a little. With the power of FLOG!

I Don't Particularly Like Manny But......

As it is written, he whom Jay Mariotti attacketh like a man who hath no intelligence, pnoles defendeth.

Fans Glorifying Manny Need to Get a Life

Hear that all you baseball fans who like baseball? Get a new hobby, losers!

Here comes the standard Jay Mariotti "shit-for-brains-audience" recap....the one that he gives in every article to take up space that consists of news everyone already knows. It really is a lack of respect for the readers to do this every time.

Just to refresh your memory, Manny Ramirez is a shamed steroid cheat. He used a female fertility drug that produced artificial testosterone, making him the latest in a pathetic line of high-profile players who have done performance-enhancers and contaminated an entire baseball era. He also is a petty quitter, having stopped running out groundballs in a hissy-fit ploy that forced the Red Sox to trade him to the Dodgers.

How's everyone doing so far. Still with us? Or are we moving too fast?

So why were people cheering him when he returned last weekend after a 50-game suspension?

Because Manny Ramirez arrived last year, swung the Dodgers over his shoulder, and carried them 21341923423.23 miles to the postseason. A role-model? No. A great baseball player? Absolutely.

And giving him long, robust standing ovations?

Good players that cause you to get to the playoffs when you otherwise wouldn't tend to get those.

And proudly wearing $22 concession-stand dreadlocks and No. 99 jerseys?

Because baseball fans do these kinds of things.

And waving signs that said "We Still Love You, Manny" and "It's all about the dreads, not the Meds" -- stadium greeting cards that made him feel good when he should be feeling like, well, a convicted scumbag?

I'm sure he felt like a convicted scumbag over the last two months. He got caught, admitted it, and served his penalty. What the hell are the fans supposed to do? If I'm a Dodgers fan, I cheer Manny. If I'm a Yankees fan, I cheer A-Rod. If I'm a Giants fan a couple of years ago, I probably don't boo Bonds (after much deliberation). It's that simple.

Why oh why would anyone with a soul, a conscience and working brain cells glorify a cheater?

Yeah, especially after he murdered all those puppies and killed people while driving drunk.

Manny Ramirez does not equal Hitler.

Because most of these goofs were Dodgers fans who made the short drive from Los Angeles to San Diego, where they bought up 60 percent of the seats and turned Petco Park into Mannywood South. As we saw in San Francisco with the local fawning over Barry Bonds, some cities simply lack the sophistication to hold an appropriate grudge against a cheater.

Holding grudges: A trait commonly found in sophisticated people

All they seem to care about is whether the player produces and the ballclub wins.

What terrible Dodger fans.

And right now, with the Dodgers holding the best record in the major leagues and surviving just fine in their time without Ramirez, fans are checking their morals at the turnstiles and dreaming about a dreadlocked World Series in Chavez Ravine.

Checking their morals at the turnstiles. Wow. Everyone who cheers for Manny is going to hell.

In New York, Ramirez will be peppered with questions about why he used steroids. His reluctance to address the issue so far has been as big a disgrace as the drug bust itself. With stunning arrogance, his defining quote to date on the topic was this June 9 gem: "I didn't kill nobody, I didn't rape nobody, so that's it, I'm just going to come and play the game." Actually, I might argue that he and the other superstar cheats have raped the game.

Baseball, coincidentally, is not a person.

Until he specifically answers the steroids questions, which Dodgers owner Frank McCourt says won't happen, Ramirez will face media heat nationally. This could lead to a breakdown in performance and attitude, if his meltdown in Boston last July is any indication.

Once Manny left for L.A., however, the media heat just disappeared completely, right? How'd he play there?

Also, 2008 Boston Manny: .299/.398/.529. Fuck you, Jay.

But when he was away, the likes of Andre Ethier and Juan Pierre excelled. A brooding Manny is a Manny who can distract the finest of clubs, as the Red Sox can attest.

OK, don't play Manny. Play Juan Pierre, and see how that works out. I hear he's close to his career norms this year!

And might I remind you, Ethier's breakout in the first place occurred last year, and coincided with Manny's arrival. I'm not saying one caused the other, but you can't say that Ethier has just magically started to be a good player without Manny around.

So when Mannywood officially reopens next week, fans can spend $99 for two seats in left field and two blue "Mannywood" t-shirts. My guess is, the place will be packed for the rest of the season.

Know what else the Dodgers should include in the package?

A vomit bag.

Hilarious.

Dodgers' Honorary Batboy Sprouts Chest Hair, Supports Manny's Case for MVP

This article is old. Close to a month old. I can't believe we didn't see it before. Some dude must have shut our radar thingy off or something. Good ol' Gerry Fraley, this one's all you.

Juan Pierre hit a home run.

For that reason alone, Dodgers left fielder Manny Ramirez merits strong consideration in the National League MVP race.

There is absolutely no way the best lawyer in the universe can reconcile these two things as cause and effect.

Pierre was hitting in the happy spot — ahead of Ramirez — when he homered on Monday at Pittsburgh. Pierre had gone 1,070 at-bats without a homer.

And this is somehow Manny's doing, right? Newsflash: Juan Pierre has about .00134 times the power of Marco Scutaro. Pitchers are always giving him things to hit because he has almost zero chance of hitting the baseball out of the park. They don't care whether Manny Ramirez or Alfredo Amezaga is hitting behind him.

Ramirez makes everyone in the Dodgers' lineup better, even the lighter-than-light-hitting, toothpick-swinging Pierre.

You know what, I think that out of nowhere, I'm going to credit Ryan Ludwick's breakout season to how awesome a hitter Albert Pujols is.

No player has won an MVP Award in a season in which he was traded.

There is a very, VERY good reason for this.

St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols would be a conventional choice for the award. He goes into tonight's game at Cincinnati ranking no lower than seventh in any of the Triple Crown categories in the N.L., in addition to leading slugging percentage and being second in on-base percentage.

God I wish he was the conventional choice. There's a decent chance that Pujols won't win. But you're right. He has been the best player in the National League this season. The player who has provided the most value. The Most Valuable Pla-

Player of the year for Pujols? Sure. But not MVP.

Gah-whaaaaaaaa???

Pujols was unable to keep the bullpen-poor Cardinals from sinking in the N.L. Central.

2001 Barry Bonds couldn't have done that.

Let's just say that when Pujols doesn't win the award, Jason Isringhausen and Ron Villone are going to find something extra special on their front porches, courtesy of good ol' number five.

In less than two months since being obtained from Boston, Ramirez has had the opposite effect on the Dodgers.

He.....made their bullpen better? Gerry....Gerry you just can't say that!

Los Angeles goes into tonight's game against Pittsburgh with a 25-18 record since Ramirez joined the club.

That's .581, for the non-math whizzes in the world.

That includes a 12-2 mark in September.

A month in which games count the same as they do in August.

By the way, that leaves them at 13-16 in August. Why didn't Manny's awesome presence instantly supercharge these guys?

Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti should get general manager of the year honors, too.

No. No. HELL NO. He spent $118.5M and Andy LaRoche to go 6 games over .500. All the Ramirez trade did was undo all the crap he'd already done to the team.

Jeff Kent - $9M
Andruw Jones - $14.1M in signing bonus and salary
Nomar Garciaparra - $7.5M
Juan Pierre - $8M

Ladies and gentlemen, the most expensive bench in history!

Oh yeah, and for some reason he traded for Angel Berroa, who might be the worst player ever, and whom Coletti will have to pay $500,000 just to show him the door before next season. MOTHERFUCKING GM OF THE YEAR.

He managed to acquire an MVP-level player for some inconsequential prospects and without taking on any salary obligation.

Isn't it fun to call prospects inconsequential before we know if they'll pan out or not? Damn, that Clay Buchholz sure is inconsequential.....

Oh yeah. Dog shit. It was dog shit on Isringhausen and Villone's porches. Yeah. Real mature, Albert.

LiveBlog!

Good evening folks! Larry B will be over shortly, and we'll be liveblogging Sunday Night Baseball. I know it's already the middle of the 3rd inning, but we've gotta start somewhere. Nothing just yet, so enjoy Jack M's post below while we supplement this intro with loads of stupidity that we'll surely hear over the next 6-6.5 innings. Get excited!

All these quotes are obviously as close as possible.

EDIT: Top of the 4th

Jon Miller: (on the Diamondbacks) Well they'd be 12 games behind the Cubs if they had that record in the Central Division

Joe Morgan: (laughing) Well maybe that record would be even better because they wouldn't have to play all the tough teams in the West so much!

...

You know what? Everyone reading this blog already knows exactly why this is such a stupid thing to say. But you know what? I don't fucking care! This is happening anyway.

NL West Winning Percentages, non-Diamondbacks:

.504
.462
.446
.369

AL Central Winning Percentages

.615
.580
.553
.508
.438
.435

Fine. Get out of the insanely tough NL West as soon as possible, DBacks. Must be tough seeing things like Kevin Correia and Cha Seung Baek more than other teams.

(I did not mistype. Kevin Correia and Cha Seung Baek are not pitchers. They are things.)

EDIT, still top of 4th

Jon Miller: It would be hard to imagine Jeff Kent not making the Hall of Fame.

Really Jon? That's your idea of a slam-dunk Hall of Famer?

He has the 2nd best projected career of all the 2nd basemen playing in this game.

EDIT: Bottom of the 5th

Emmy Award Winning Analysis:

Joe Morgan: Good piece of hitting by Utley, who is certainly a good hitter.

EDIT: Bottom of the 5th

(On Geovany Soto's dark-horse MVP candidacy)

Joe Morgan: People are going to toss his name around because he plays for the Cubs, who don't have any one outstanding player.....that's why they're such a good team

Reason Yankees suck: Too much Alex Rodriguez
Reason Indians suck: Too much Cliff Lee
Reason Cardinals suck: Too much Albert Pujols

I've gotta say, Joey. This is holding water.

So far this season, Evan Longoria has been the most valuable Ray. But the Rays need to be careful that he doesn't get toooooo much better than everyone else on that team....else they're gonna plummet in the standings.

EDIT: Bottom of the 6th

We're in and out of the bottom of the 6th inning, and Joe didn't say a word. Larry and I are positive that he's in the can.....

EDIT: Top of the 7th

(J.C. Romero tries a pretty deceptive pickoff throw to nab Juan Pierre at 1st base)

Joe Morgan: And that's useful, because it prevents the runner from getting a big lead

larry b: Most pickoff moves are there strictly to entertain the umpires and paid attendance. Romero's, however, is there to limit a baserunner's lead.

EDIT: Top of the 7th

J.C. Romero has just picked Juan Pierre off of 1st base. I guess we should just dismantle this blog.

EDIT: Top of the 7th

Jeff Kent just knocked in the go-ahead run. We're actually going to sell our URL to some carpet salesmen from Morocco.

EDIT: Bottom of the 7th

From the Dept. of "Really??"

Jon Miller: Both teams have an incentive to win this game.

Ya don't say, Gramps.

Joe Morgan: It kind of seems like we have a long way to go, but we do not. It kinda goes quickly here at the end

larry b: Everybody knows that September is a much shorter month than April.

pnoles: Shut up Larry. You're a mean, sarcastic meanie.

EDIT: Top of the 8th inning

Ryan Howard makes a routine catch in foul territory (he made a much better one in the 6th).

Joe Morgan: Not many first basemen have that kind of range.

Oh boy. A compliment to Ryan Howard's defense. This is playing with hot coals, Joe, so careful with how you proceed.

Joe Morgan: He's never been a Gold Glover, but he can help you out in other ways,

larry b: Like hitting 40+ HR and just being an awesome hitter?

like chasing those balls down the right field line.

Oh.

"Ryan Howard has never been the best fielder at his position, but he can help you out in other ways, like fielding."

There's only so much Joe you can listen to in one night. Larry and I are calling it quits here after the 10th. We'll see you next Sunday.

So Like, Andruw Jones Puts the Dodgers in Good Shape, Right?

Michael Ventre doesn't think so.

[The] Dodgers overpaid for [Andruw Jones], although it’s only for two years, and besides, it’s not my money.

Right off the bat, I'll clarify my standpoint on this. Yes, Jones was overpaid for. He's not worth $18M/season even in this market. It is only two years, however, and the Dodgers are in a spot such that a major improvement at one position could easily be the difference between winning the division and losing.

The Jones move is also beneficial because it gives the team some options. Besides adding another much-needed stick to their odd assemblage of geezers and punks, it creates a positive logjam in the outfield. Jones will play center field, which will move Juan Pierre to left, leaving youngsters Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier to fight it out for right field.

How is that positive? Explain to me how moving Juan Pierre to left field is in any way beneficial for your team. Pierre was a dismal CF, won't be an awesome LF or anything (speed doesn't equal good left-fielder....see also: Podsednik, Scott). In a perfect world, the Dodgers swallow their pride, bench/trade Pierre, and allow younger, better, non-awful Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier to start every day.

Or alternatively, slop that .331 OBP and .353 SLG in left. Those are good numbers at a key offensive position (especially in the NL) right?

It may not be much of a bout. The Dodgers’ most pressing need, even beyond a bat, is starting pitching.

Wrong. Go ahead and prove to me why you're wrong by mentioning good people who start games for the Dodgers.

Their rotation of Brad Penny

The very good pitcher who allowed 9 HR in 208 IP last year.

Derek Lowe

The very good pitcher whose season ERA has not been higher than 3.9 for the last 3 years.

Chad Billingsley

The 3rd year 23-year old who posted a 3.31 ERA and struck out 141 guys in 147 IP last year.

Jason Schmidt

The veteran who prior to last year's injury-destroyed season put up consecutive WHIPs of 1.19, 0.95 (!!!), 1.08, 1.42, and 1.26. This is your 4th starter.

plus whatever retread, fill-in or promising kid they decide to toss into the fray

Apparently you've never heard of Esteban Loaiza, who the Dodgers have, and is a perfectly capable 5th starter on a contending team. And just think, this is who the Dodgers start if no "promising kid" breaks out in the spring.

is not good enough to get them to the World Series. It may not be good enough to win the division.

Holy shit. Be more blatantly wrong please.

Let me get this straight. That rotation might not be good enough to win the division. Only teams with rotations like Brandon Webb, Doug Davis, Livan Hernandez, Micah Owings, and some combination of Yusmeiro Petit, Edgar Gonzalez and the ghost of Randy Johnson, can win the division (with a much, MUCH worse supporting offense than the Dodgers).

That rotation can't go to the World Series, you need one of the great all-time staffs to do something like that! A staff like Jeff Francis, Aaron Cook, Josh Fogg, Jason Hirsh, and some combination of Ubdalo Jimenez, Rodrigo Lopez, and Franklin Morales. The Dodgers don't have a fucking chance!

(Before the pro-Rockies faction of FireJay jumps down my throat, I'm not bashing the Rockies, just illustrating how ridiculous it is for Ventre to rule out the Dodgers from the WS with their rotation.)

Even though the $18.1 mil is a lot of dough per season to pay a guy who is coming off a disappointing year, Jones has the talent to rebound, and more significantly, he has the incentive to do so.

Why is incentive more significant than talent? Every fucking major league baseball player has the incentive to rebound from a bad season. It could be for money, for personal pride, or desire to win the World Series, but every fucking player has the incentive to rebound from a bad year. Don't feed people this bullshit.

From the moment he puts his Jown Hancock on his new contract, Jones will be working hard in preparation for the next one.

1) The "W" is nowhere near the "H" on the keyboard. I have no idea how you fucked that up.

2) This point is totally unique to Andruw Jones, and no other player in baseball is faced with this situation.

More likely, though, given the tendency of major league players to bear down and produce when they know there’s a pot of gold waiting for them

Like Andruw Jones, the very guy you're talking about, did in 2007.

2008 and 2009 could turn out to be career years for Jones.

For completely dissimilar reasons to those you stated, yes.

He’s never been a great hitter for average. He has only hit over .300 once; that was in the 2000 season, when he hit .303.

You don’t get Andruw Jones to hit for average. You get him to patrol center field and to drive in runs.

You forgot walking. He's very good at walking, and it's a very important difference between him and this guy, known for his negative VORP in 2006 despite driving in 100+ runs. Did I mention driving in runs is a stupid way to evaluate Andruw Jones?

With the Dodgers, he’ll be batting behind Rafael Furcal and Pierre, who presumably will do their parts and get on base.

Our friend Michael has turned delusional and is now presuming that Juan Pierre, the perpetual MVP of the MLB Out-Star Game, is going to contribute by ::gasp:: getting on base!

Does the signing of Jones make up for the lack of desire in pursuit of Alex Rodriguez? Serious Dodger watchers knew that A-Rod was more likely to sign with the Kansas City Royals than he was to don the Blue.

The Kansas City Royals wear an equal amount of blue as the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It was a plausible scenario only if you were a fantasy league geek living in your parents’ basement.

Nice. While Ventre goes ahead and alienates the basement-dwelling, Pop-Tart-chomping, Sega Genesis-playing faction of his readers, I'm going to ask legitimate questions.

1) When was there some sort of stereotype that fantasy league geeks, people who presumably have no life but to study up on facts/numbers and understand how baseball works, believe in wild and crazy places for big-ticket stars like A-Rod to land?

2) No professional writer or "baseball man" thought that A-Rod had a shot at going to the Dodgers? Really? There wasn't anything written about him going there and following in Torre's footsteps? There was never a fucking week in which people didn't talk about anything but "A-Rod to the Dodgers?"

Nah, must just be some fantasy geek pipe dream. I have never seen such an out-of-context and unnecessary geek/parents' basement reference.

Anyone else notice how super-personally I'm taking this? My mom even came downstairs because of the noise from how ferociously I was typing! I really hope she brings Teddy Grahams next time.....

And does it help them keep pace with their area rivals to the south, the Los Angeles Angels, who also nabbed a high-profile center fielder in Torii Hunter?

Doesn't matter. The Angels do not play in the same league as the Dodgers.

But if the Dodgers don’t use Jones as a first step in the process of building a World Series contender, it’ll be a waste of money.

For crissake Ventre, Jones works perfectly fine as the last step in the process of building a World Series contender. The Dodgers as-is are well poised to compete and win the division. There's no magic formula for a "World Series team", you just have to get fucking lucky in the playoffs. Thinking the Dodgers can win the division = thinking the Dodgers can make it to the World Series. And I don't think there's an idiot out there that doesn't think that this Dodgers team has a legitimate shot at the NL West title.