Exploring some trade ideas involving the Dodgers and their outfielders

The Dodgers outfield situation has gotten a lot clearer. There's Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp and everybody else. Scott Van Slyke is proving he can hit Major League pitching (really well) and is surprising everyone with his above-average defense. Joc Pederson continues to be the best-performing player in the minor leagues - he has a 1.125 OPS after 38 games in Triple-A, 11 stolen bases and numerous highlight catches. What more do you want the guy to do? Well, hit lefties, but that's what Van Slyke is for.

Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier are each doing about what you might expect, given their age. They're unfortunately similar right now. Neither can hit lefties at all, but are OK 400 plate-appearance/year outfielders getting paid a lot of money through 2017 ($66 million for Ethier, $77 million for Crawford). Ethier offers positional versatility and a little more on-base percentage. Crawford has way more speed, and that's about it. While Ethier is perceived as having more power, that's from people having a looooong memory. Their isolated slugging (ISO) has been about identical the last five years. Both are now firmly below the average Major League position player in ISO and they're unlikely to reverse the trend at age 32. With performance-enhancing drug testing in place, the vast majority of 32-year-olds are firmly on the downside of their MLB careers.

The Dodgers should feel comfortable now moving one (or both) of Ethier and Crawford for whatever they can get. Kemp's defense has been atrocious in center field, although maybe improving lately as he gets confidence in his health back. So I'd line up (LF-CF-RF) vs righties: Kemp/Pederson/Yasiel Puig and Van Slyke/Kemp/Puig vs. lefties.

So, what could they get for Crawford or Ethier?  Well, nothing, given the contracts. Either one could go on waivers and not be claimed. But if the Dodgers ate some money or threw in some other pieces, what could they get? Still not much, but that's more fun to think about than nothing.

Would the Dodgers be a better team just by getting rid of one? It's debatable. It opens a spot for Pederson, which is the only positive. But consider Miguel Olivo also had an 1.100 OPS at Albuquerque this year, which translated to .544 in the bigs. Ethier and Crawford are both serviceable role players on a first-division team, or the Dodgers would be tempted to just cut them.

Someone else's problem is what you could get. Best case, that's a small-market team with a good player due for a big payday. For example, Baltimore decides not to re-sign Matt Wieters ($12M-$15M in arbitration next year, then free agency). They need an outfielder and a starting pitcher (hey, the Dodgers have extra of those too!). But Wieters' elbow issue would likely preclude any deal this season, as he's already on the disabled list, but won't likely need Tommy John surgery.

Houston (Crawford's hometown team) could decide they have enough catching prospects that they can let Jason Castro go before his bill comes due. If the Dodgers pay basically all of Carl's salary, and throw in a prospect of our own, they'd oblige.

I focus on catchers because A.J. Ellis is getting old too, and given the starting point for his skills, a little decline makes him a backup pretty quick.

But more likely, it's just some other overpaid, not-very-good-anymore guy. That can work out just because the Dodgers have too many outfielders and someone else needs an outfield but has too many relief pitchers or something. Rafael Soriano, Jonathan Papelbon, Heath Bell, Jonathan Broxton all fit that bill.

What do the Dodgers need besides more overpaid ex-closers or young catchers? Backup infielders.

Wouldn't you know it, an expensive backup infielder got designated for assignment on Wednesday. Jeff Keppinger is a decent second baseman/not very good third baseman/emergency everything else who is owed about $7.5M this year and next, and might be expected to get on base at a .310 clip and slug .360. Not much of a fit. The White Sox also have reliever Matt Lindstrom earning $4M, and they'd probably like to get rid of him too. That's the kind of "why bother" package the Dodgers could probably get in trade. You have to really believe in Pederson to go down that road.

The Diamondbacks probably want to get rid of Didi Gregorius and probably want hometown, high-grit Ethier, if they can get over their seething resentment of all things Dodger. The Dodgers do not have a credible MLB-ready replacement shortstop right now, so that's a need they could fill.

It's hard to make a match, but the Dodgers have shown a willingness to get creative. If they give up on re-signing Hanley Ramirez, for example, there's some blockbusters to be put together. The Tigers and Yankees would very much like to have that conversation with us and that's a situation where you can make them take an albatross contract if they want to get the deal done (poor Crawford, shuffled as an unwanted throw-in from one rich team to another!). Of course, that gets back to the Dodgers not having a credible MLB-ready replacement SS right now and neither do those teams. So, even in this sad fantasy world where Ramirez doesn't see us anymore, it's still hard to get a match without a third team.

Photo credit: File photo

Dodgers 3, Diamondbacks 1: Scott Van Smash and Kid K wrangle Snakes

The 2014 "Season Opener" is officially in the books as the Dodgers took down the Diamondbacks 3-1 in Sydney, Australia. Behind Scott Van Slyke and Clayton Kershaw, the Blue Crew got the season started with a bang. Here are some notes from the opener, of which I saw four innings live before entrusting my DVR with the rest and knocking out at 3 a.m. PST.

• Today's game only further emphasizes why Scott Van Slyke should have been a part of the bench from day one in 2013. He's the only true power bat on the bench, can play three of the four corner spots, and crushes lefties. If a guy who posts a .342 OBP, .465 SLG, .353 wOBA, and 129 wRC+ can't find a permanent bench spot, what kind of bench are you building? Thankfully, SVS will have that permanent spot this season. A two-run bomb, double off the base of the wall, and walk is just the kind of start he needed.
• Kershaw was his usual dominant self in the end, although there was clearly a bit of rust and working out of early season kinks. He allowed six baserunners over six and two-thirds innings, whiffing seven while issuing a lone walk (102 pitches, 73 for strikes). He also singled before being thrown out trying to stretch it into a double.
• I'm no pitching expert by any means, but it did seem to me like Kersh was a bit too reliant on his fastball at times, particularly in a long at-bat against fellow pitcher Wade Miley.
• Hanley Ramirez pulled up lame as he headed back to the dugout late in the game, but did finish out the contest in the field. Hopefully it's nothing major, but I wouldn't play him today under any circumstances and would sit him until the real regular season stateside gets underway. He's far too important to risk, especially with the hammy injury last season.
• Kenley Jansen was Kenley Jansen, fanning one D-Back in a scoreless ninth.
• I'm surprised they sent Clayton back out for the seventh considering it's the opening game of the series; the quirkiness of playing it overseas; and Clayton running the bases hard in the top half of the inning.
• That being said, if you are going to send him out for that frame, let him get the final out in it when the batter is not Paul Goldschmidt, who had hit Clayton well. Clayton was obviously tired, but in no circumstance is Chris Perez a better option.
• Don Mattingly is truly like his mentor Joe Torre when it comes to bullpen management, which is to say I don't get it.
• A better defensive center fielder with more range probably catches Goldschmidt's double in the sixth inning.
• Yasiel Puig struck out three times while going 0-for-5, but he did lace a ball in his final at-bat.
• Alex Guerrero, who I would argue should be starting at second, technically made his debut as he was announced as a pinch-hitter before being pulled back for Mike Baxter.
• Mark Trumbo is such a bad defender that he fooled the cameras and SVS into thinking Scott's clear double off of the wall was a homer.
• A fan behind home plate wearing Red Sox garb attempted to start the Joseph Gordon-Levitt "Angels in the Outfield wings-wave" during the sixth inning. It failed. I would prefer that to the wave itself though.

Photo Credit: Dustin Nosler, Dodgers Digest

New fielding metrics provide surprising, positive results for Dodgers' fielders

Fielding metrics have advanced a lot in the last few years. Beyond simple fielding percentage and range factor, today's metrics are based on comparing how many plays a fielder made to how many an average fielder would have made given the same exact chances.

Based on the speed, angle and trajectory of the ball, they can say, for example, 75 percent of Major League second basemen make a particular play. So if you make it, you get credit for an extra quarter play, but if you don't, you get docked three quarters. That's the basic idea and then systems enhance it in different ways.

But most of the low-level play-by-play data has not been available, just a high level summaries (like the annual total per player per position). Well now, at FanGraphs, you can get Inside Edge data with just enough bucketing of results to actually be helpful.

The data say per player, per position, per year, how many chances did they convert on each level of play difficulty. So you can see if a player excels at making the routine play consistently or has trouble with that but can make some athletic plays that few players would make. The caveat is, 80 percent of plays are routine. That not only dominates any overall evaluation, it means you have few legitimate chances to make amazing plays.

For example, if you only get 10 chances a year at web gem-type stuff, can we really say anything meaningful based on the fact that you converted two instead of one of those 10 chances? But it's kind of like field goal kickers -- you can see one is 20-for-20 inside 30 yards, 8-for-10 between 30 and 50, and 1-for-4 at 50-plus yards, you get a sense of what kind of kicker you have.

Anyway, it's fun to look at and gives you some kind of insight, so let's look at how this year's Dodgers did last year. I rate each player's performance at the position for the type of play compared to the rest of the league at that position for that type of play, via the color coding.

Name	Pos	Inn	Remote	Unlikely	Even	Likely	Certain
Scott Van Slyke	LF	211	0/0	0/3	1/1	2/2	37/37
Matt Kemp	CF	576	1/3	0/5	3/4	3/5	126/126
Andre Ethier	CF	645	0/3	0/2	1/3	3/4	128/128
Andre Ethier	RF	443	0/3	0/2	1/3	3/3	101/101
Carl Crawford	LF	835	1/4	2/6	4/5	3/4	155/156
Yasiel Puig	RF	773	0/3	5/10	3/4	3/3	137/138
Juan Uribe	3B	900	0/7	3/5	9/12	17/19	249/254
Adrian Gonzalez	1B	1291	0/6	1/3	3/9	13/15	222/230
Hanley Ramirez	SS	651	0/2	1/6	4/9	20/23	221/231
A.J. Ellis	C	972	0/6	12/30	1/2	6/6	27/29
Dee Gordon	SS	206	0/5	1/3	1/1	3/5	74/80
Tim Federowicz	C	374	1/3	4/14	1/2	3/4	11/12

Dee Gordon has not done a good job at SS. A really bad job, actually. Juan Uribe and Yasiel Puig are legitimate plus defenders. Scott Van Slyke is actually quite reliable, although he will not make the highlight reel. Adrian Gonzalez does surprisingly poor here (compared to his reputation) while Hanley Ramirez does profile as just a tick below-average (certainly not bad). As most suspected, Andre Ethier was a serviceable backup CF in a pinch and OK in right. Carl Crawford can still go get 'em. Catchers don't get to make that many plays (outside of catching the pitch) but A.J. Ellis and Tim Federowicz are both OK or a tick below. Matt Kemp is not killing you out there, although he should have made a couple more plays than he did.

By the way, you know who's really good? Nick Punto, that's who.  Here's how he looked at shortstop at age 35 last year:

Nick Punto

SS

309

0/2

0/3

3/4

5/5

103/105

It's a cool new data stream, and will actually be updated nightly during the season. Although given the paucity of legitimate opportunities to do something spectacular over a full season, I don't know how much I'll look at in-season numbers. But at least it starts to shine a bit of a light in the black box of modern fielding metrics, which is always a good thing.

Photo credit: SD Dirk, Flickr