Dodgers still project to win NL West comfortably, despite slow start

Preseason, I felt confident the Dodgers would run away with the National League West. Partially because they have so much talent, and partially because nobody else does. But the Giants and Rockies are off to great starts, the Dodgers are showing some holes and the Dodgers are in (gasp!) third place as of the morning of May 5. Do we expect a real race from either of these teams?

Well, first suppose the preseason projections stand unchanged, and I still expect each team to win the percentage of their remaining roughly 130 games that I originally expected them to win of 162. Add that to their current win total and where would things sit?

	Preseason	To-date	To-date + preseason
LA	98	18-15	96
SF	82	21-11	87
COL	78	20-14	82

The Dodgers have such a talent advantage (ignoring any information learned this season about all the respective players), they would still run away with it. But of course, everything is not going exactly as expected -- we should incorporate the information from this season into the forward projections. Some guys are doing much better than expected (Dee Gordon, Charlie Blackmon, Brandon Crawford) while others are doing much worse (Carl Crawford, Pablo Sandoval, Carlos Gonzalez). Some players are injured and not expected back until a certain time. Playing time is being allocated differently than expected, etc. So, I want to update the projections for these three teams, and see what to expect.

	Dodgers	Giants	Rockies
Adjusted Up	Adrian Gonzalez, Dan Haren, Dee Gordon  (offense & defense), Zack Greinke, Brandon League	Michael Morse, Tim Hudson	Justin Morneau, Troy Tulowitzki  (Offense & Defense), Charlie Blackmon
Adjusted Down	Hanley Ramirez  (offense & defense), Matt Kemp  (offense & defense), Carl Crawford, Andre Ethier, Kenley Jansen, Brian Wilson.	Pablo Sandoval, Ryan Vogelsong, Marco Scutaro

So if I knew then what I "know" now about all the players' performance, I would take two games each from the Dodgers and Giants while giving two to the Rockies. Bottom line, counting the performance to date and the updated projections, I still see the Dodgers comfortably advantaged although with only half the lead I once thought they'd have.

	Going Forward	To-date	To-date + Forward
LA	95	18-15	93
SF	80	21-11	85
COL	80	20-14	83

Why have the first 33 games or so not played out entirely like expected? Basically, the Dodgers are doing all the right things, just not at all the right times. Some research by Dave Cameron revealed the Dodgers could have reasonably been expected to score 15 more runs and allow seven fewer had the number of each event (home run, walk, stolen base, great catch, etc.) been the same but the order been shuffled. This 22-run deficit due to sequencing is the largest in the majors. The Giants, conversely, have nine more runs than their context-free play would suggest. The Rockies are just getting a bit lucky with balls falling in for them. Baseball's a funny game in short time; there's a reason the season is so long.

Photo credit: File photo

Dodgers April in review: Not bad despite injuries and underperformers

One month in to the 2014 season, the Dodgers are doing fairly well, but not as good as might have been hoped. Some health/regression things that could very well have gone wrong have not. A few things are even going much better than expected. A 15-12 record is OK, that's a 90-win pace, but it's been against a weaker stretch of the schedule.

The under-performance is explainable by a little bit of bad luck/hits not falling at the right time, and a few guys performing like they do not belong in the major leagues at all.

Let's start with some things going great:

• Adrian Gonzalez has opposite field power again! Dude is crushing. .300 with 30 HR looks very possible. 
• Dee Gordon not only doesn't suck, he's been one of the best players in baseball. There's some luck in there, but he is a different player at the plate and in the field this year. He is playing the game on his terms instead of being overwhelmed. A lot of his errors at shortstop came from not setting his feet properly and making a rushed throw. At second base, he makes as many fielding errors, but the extra time for the shorter throw let's him not rush, and he's cut down the throwing errors (to zero, actually). I don't know that his footwork is any better, but he looks like he might be good enough to play second base in the majors if he keeps hitting enough.  His BABIP is about .400, so he's not keeping that up, but what he is doing well is hitting the ball on the ground, and not popping up.  Also, he's 4-for-7 on bunting for hits.
• Zack Greinke is one of the best pitchers in baseball.  Every time he goes out there, the Dodgers are very likely to win. He's supposed to be really good, but he's been great.

Things that could have been a lot worse:

• Josh Beckett is healthy and contributing, although he's gotten pretty lucky, with opposing hitters only having a BABIP of .173.
• Dan Haren is looking very good. The steal of the winter for sure. There were two stories about why his second half was strong last year after the horrid first half. One was homesickness in the first half, the other was leaning on his splitter more.  Well, he's at home, and he's not really throwing the splitter that much (he's actually gone to the curve a bit more). 
• Matt Kemp is healthy and contributing at the plate. He's striking out too much, but otherwise right back where he was a couple years ago.
• Hanley Ramirez's 2013 was not a total mirage, although last year's monster home runs have turned into doubles this year.
• Juan Uribe's 2013 was not a total mirage. He's another one of the best players in the league right now.
• Yasiel Puig has continued to make counter-adjustments to the book on him, and is hitting in line with last year (once you discount some of the magic/luck from his 2013) while playing great defense (even accounting for the occasional missed cut-off man replayed on SportsCenter 30 times).  
• Brandon League just could have been a lot worse. He actually looks like mediocre again, which is a huge step up.

Complete disasters:

• The Dodgers' catchers have a triple slash line of .156/.236/.177 and we head into May with Miguel Olivo
• Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier have combined for .211 / .263 / .299 
• Ramirez and Kemp look terrible in the field. Unacceptably terrible. 
• Clayton Kershaw has been on the DL, replaced by Paul Maholm, who's managed to underperform even the low expectations placed on him. 
• Brian Wilson is a hot mess

Kershaw is coming back next week. A.J. Ellis hopefully is back soon. Crawford and Ethier cannot possibly have both turned so bad so fast. And if they have, hey Joc Pederson has an 1.167 OPS in AAA. And Scott Van Slyke might even deserve a mention up above for things going great. Come to think of it, a Pederson/Van Slyke platoon might be the best team we could put on the field right now, if any kind of trades were out there for Crawford and Ethier.

Photo credit: File photo

Alex Guerrero, Joc Pederson might force Dodgers' hand for promotion

Los Angeles Dodger history is littered with the dried-out husks of never-beens who dominated Albuquerque, but in principle you get to the bigs by putting up video game numbers in Triple-A. If you're a AAA all-star, that's nice. You've got a solid little .900 OPS in AAA, good for you. Unless your team has a need at your spot, that doesn't get you anywhere.

Well, the Dodgers have a couple guys off to a screaming hot start in AAA. Furthermore they're not Cinderella stories where you're not sure if the performance is a mirage. These are guys you expected to see this from at some point, who are just saying "The time is now."

One is Alex Guerrero. After nine games in AAA, he's just got a triple slash line of .467/.568/.900. He has struck out ONCE in 37 plate appearances. Not only is that incredibly impressive in and of itself, it indicates that the top line results are not BABIP-driven or lucky. I haven't seen his fielding or heard detailed reports, but the numbers look good; just one error, and he's getting a lot of chances.

The Dodgers are already paying the guy major league money, have him signed for four years, and his arbitration clock is not an issue at all, so there is no financial reason to keep him down. Chone Figgins has already been demoted and Justin Turner is not hitting, so the time very much seems ripe to let Guerrero at least get the starts against lefties, be a frequent pinch-hitter, and maybe even get some time at shortstop when Turner is needed elsewhere. Sure, it's just nine  games, but he had a pretty solid spring and has years of experience in Cuba. He was expected to just need a little time to acclimate, but it looks to me like that job is done.

Dee Gordon is doing great, and a lot of it is legit improvement. But his performance is pretty luck driven. Yes, he's at .355/.397/.468 but that's with a .404 BABIP. Even giving him a ton of credit for being able to leg out some grounders and choppers, you can't expect more than maybe a .330 BABIP from him. Just to be simple about it, take away .075 from each of his numbers and you get a more realistic .280/.324/.393. Doing that and stealing a base every other game and playing halfway-competent defense (which is all he's doing) makes you a pretty OK player; a borderline regular. Guerrero looks like he might be more than that, and start to take the job back against most right-handed starters too. 

The Dodgers sent Figgins down and called up Jose Dominguez since they had worked the bullpen a bit harder than they'd like and needed an extra arm short-term. When the bullpen is rested again, and a position player can be brought back in, look for the callup to be Guerrero, not Figgins.

The word on Guerrero is that his defense "looks stiff." I don't really care how it looks; he's making a good number of the plays. Gordon, on the other hand, is not.  He was a terrible shortstop and now he is a bad second baseman. He's made a couple tough plays but on the other hand he's botched more than a couple easy ones. Net-Net, he's not doing that well in the field compared to other major-league second basemen. Guerrero shouldn't need to be perfect to get the job, he should just need to be the best option. Right now (or really in a week or two from right now if he keeps it up) it looks to me like he should at least get a chance at the major league level to show that he is.

The other farmhand demanding attention is Joc Pederson, who after 19 games in AAA at age-22, is slashing .417/.522/.736 with six steals. Joc's case for immediate promotion is much harder to make. In his case, a promotion does start the arbitration clock, plus there is no real place for him to play even though Andre Ethier and Carl Crawford are both off to lousy starts, and Matt Kemp and Yasiel Puig are off to mediocre starts. If Ned could work a trade of an outfielder for a catcher, say Nick Hundley, that might be what it takes for Joc to get a chance.

Photo credit: Dustin Nosler, Dodgers Digest

Jansen vs. Cabrera showdown sparks memory of Gagne vs. Bonds

In the top of the ninth, with a 2-1 lead, a man on second, and one out, the Dodgers on Tuesday night elected to have Kenley Jansen pitch to Miguel Cabrera instead of walking him. I don't know about you, but Victor Martinez with men on first and second sounds like a more survivable situation than Cabrera with man on second.

Jansen is about the best there is right now, but so is Cabrera. He just pumped his 98 and 99 MPH fastball/cutter in there a half dozen times and struck him out. He did end up giving up a hit to Martinez to lose the lead, but the confidence boost from going after the world's best hitter in that situation, and getting him, should last a long time.

It reminded me right away of a game I was at 10 years ago in San Francisco.  The moment is captured here.

Eric Gagne and Barry Bonds were both 'roided up to superhero proportions, which we all kind of knew at the time, but it didn't really matter. Gagne knew he could give up a home run and still have the lead, so he just went at Bonds with 99-101 MPH fastballs. Bonds just laughed at that and pulled it foul into the Bay before taking the next one and depositing it in the center field bleachers.

Best thing about these memories -- the Dodgers won both games.

Photo credit: File photo