Los Angeles Dodgers

The L.A. Dodgers won a solid 92 games last season, but all it got them was a third-place finish, the baseball equivalent of "This Lousy T-Shirt." They hope to improve by four or five games in 2003, which should be enough to win the N.L. West and get them into the postseason lotto sweepstakes.

The problem is, the residue of Kevin Malone still lingers, his awful stench sticking to the team like a roadkill skunk. GM Dan Evans must feel like John Getz in Blood Simple: no matter how diligently he scrubs, there’s no way he can wash away all the blood. Over the last two years only Jim Tracy’s remarkable alchemy has saved the Dodgers from an embarrassing fate. Kevin Brown and Darren Dreifort have been Morganna-sized busts, but Eric Gagne, Odalis Pérez, and Dave Roberts made up for it in 2002 by playing a hell of a lot of good baseball for a million dollars combined.

The Dodgers have one of the better catchers in baseball in Paul Lo Duca, whose true ability lies somewhere between his fantastic 2001 and his mildly disappointing 2002. Lo Duca tends to wear down as the season progresses; in his career he has a drastic 80-point difference between his batting average before the All-Star break (.335) and after it (.258). Last year, that gap was almost 100 points, in part due to a torn ligament in his groin that went undiagnosed until after the season.

Ideally, LoDuca should catch about 115 games a year, and start another 30 or so at DH or first base. With a capable backup catcher, that would be a fine plan. But instead of a capable backup catcher the Dodgers have Todd Hundley, who can’t hit, can’t throw, and supposedly drinks too much. It’s a shame the Dodgers have $12.5 million invested in Hundley, for they have an AAA kid, David Ross, who’s just about the perfect backup catcher – he won’t embarrass himself either at the plate or in the field. Last season, Evans showed a great deal of resolve in jettisoning Tom Goodwin at the end of spring training despite owing him several million guaranteed dollars. If Hundley proves to be a stick in the mud in the early days of 2003, the team would do well to just eat his contract and give Ross a chance.

At first base, Fred McGriff is a rent-a-player signed to a cheap one-year deal. It’s a good signing, but if L.A. is expecting a repeat of the 30 homers and 103 RBI the Crime Dog put up in Wrigley last year, they’ll be sorely disappointed. McGriff has been a much better hitter than Eric Karros the past two seasons (133 OPS+ vs. 91), but around 20 homers and 85 ribbies are about the best that can be expected from the 39-year-old at this point. He can’t hit lefties anymore (.620 OPS last year), so Tracy would do well to make sure Mike Kinkade starts every single game against southpaws. Defensively, McGriff will be a big comedown. Karros had no range, but he did contribute defensively by expertly scooping out virtually every bad throw in the dirt. The Dodgers had 51 combined errors by their 2B-3B-SS last year, eighth-best among the 30 major league teams. That’s quite impressive considering that the infielders throwing to Karros included two players in the usually error prone 23-and-under age bracket. The seven figures better than L.A.’s were

Orioles       Conine        43
Twins         Mientkiewicz  44
Astros        Bagwell       44
Rangers       Palmeiro      44
Mariners      Olerud        47
Diamondbacks  Grace         48
Giants        Snow          50

That’s a veritable who’s who of stellar defensive first basemen, which puts Karros in pretty good company. Taking everything on balance, the Dodgers have upgraded at first base, but not as much as they probably think they have.

The 2003 baseball season offers one refreshing change: there will be at least one black player in the National League constantly described by the media as "scrappy." That player is Joe Thurston, "Joey Ballgame," who is pretty much guaranteed to break camp as the starting second baseman despite struggling during Spring Training. He batted .332 with 39 doubles and 22 steals in AAA last year, leading the entire minor leagues in hits and total bases. Sure, it was at high-altitude Las Vegas, but those are impressive numbers nonetheless. Thurston should have no problems adjusting to big league pitching; he already has one major league four-hit game under his belt. For this year, expect him to be roughly the same kind of hitter as the man he’s replacing, Mark Grudzielanek: around .275 with plenty of doubles, few homers, and no walks. He does, however, have a lot more room for improvement than Grudz, plus he’s a lot cheaper. At worst, Thurston will be a stopgap solution at second base for a few years while the team concentrates on fixing bigger problems. At best, he’ll be a minor star in the Junior Spivey mold. The Rookie of the Year Award is not out of the realm of possibility.

César Izturis is the best defensive shortstop the Dodgers have had since leaving Brooklyn, and because of that it looks like he’ll get at least one more season to figure out whether he can hit. His glovework is something to behold, but his inability to bat even .200 against righties cost him his starting job two-thirds of the way through the season. He’s already figured out lefties (.292 average against them in two seasons), and his platoon splits are so vast that if things don’t work out this year, he may have to give up switch hitting in order to survive in the bigs. Only 23, Izturis still makes rookie mistakes on the basepaths, but if he can somehow learn to hit .275 he’ll be a capable major league player.

Dodger fans are about ready to have a necktie party for Adrian Beltre. Unfortunately for Beltre, he’ll continue to be Southern California’s favorite whipping boy until he lives up to the hype that accompanied him to the majors five years ago. In reality he’s pretty good right now – a guy with a 98 OPS+ and good defense at third base is not your team’s major problem. He looked good hitting .281/.319/.509 in the second half of 2002. However, Beltre has been consistently going backward in his development as a hitter, particularly in his walk totals, and there’s no botched appendectomy to blame anymore. Beltre showed more plate discipline as a 19-year-old big leaguer than he does now. Still, almost every player in baseball history who has been a major league regular at 19 has gone on to become a star, and I don’t expect Beltre to become the exception. Despite being in his sixth season in the majors, he’s still younger than seven of Baseball America’s Top 30 prospects, including guys like Joe Borchard and Hee Seop Choi. Beltre will do many good things in the major leagues; the only question is whether L.A. fans will run him out of town before he begins doing them.

Like a lot of recent Dodgers, Brian Jordan isn’t a bad player, exactly, just not a very good one. If you’re relying on him to be your cleanup hitter, as L.A. did last year, you’re in deep trouble. At least he’s consistent: He’ll be a so-so hitter for a left fielder, will play pretty good defense, and will miss a couple dozen games with various injuries. If Tracy has the good sense to start Daryle Ward about 40 games against righties, it’s possible for the team to get acceptable production out of the left field position.

Dave Roberts was quite a find, needless to say. He got on base at a good rate and was leading the National League in steals when he suffered a season-ending injury on a home-run swing. Of course, it doesn’t really take a genius to figure out that a minor leaguer with a .380 career on-base percentage and 280 steals is going to make a decent leadoff man. That said, Evans and Tracy do deserve credit for resisting the temptation to give the job to Marquis Grissom or Tom Goodwin, both of whom were already under contract and were Established Veterans™. According to Dave Studdenmund’s research, Roberts was the best player in baseball last year at getting himself into scoring position. In 2003, he enters camp with the centerfield job already sewn up. There’s only one reason to expect any change in his performance: The departure of platoon partner Grissom means Roberts will see more left-handed pitching this year, and it remains to be seen whether he can handle it. Roberts has only 81 career plate appearances against lefties, posting a .370 OBP against them.

Shawn Green is terrific, and there’s no reason to expect his performance to be any different than it’s been the last two years. Green is a great franchise player, exactly the kind of hitter you can structure a strong offense around. But the team has failed to do that, of course, meaning that Green is forced to carry a disproportionate offensive load. Even with Green in the lineup, the Dodgers have a barely competent offense. If he gets hurt for a long stretch, the Dodgers will be in more trouble than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

The extraordinary thing about the Dodgers’ pitching staff in 2002 was that not a single one of the five starters – Nomo, Pérez, Ashby, Ishii, and Daal – had been in the team’s starting rotation the year before. The 2001 and 2002 Dodgers had only thirteen starts in common – 10 by Kevin Brown, two by Ashby, and one by Giovanni Carrara. I haven’t combed the record books, but I would be shocked if there’s another team in baseball history that has finished over .500, turned over its entire starting rotation, and won even more games the next year. (Actually, I did find one – the 1876-77 Boston Red Caps, who basically used only one pitcher – but I double-dog dare you to find one after 1900.) Anyway, you’ve got to give the major part of the credit for that smooth transition to Evans and Tracy. This year the staff remains intact except that Brown, who appears to be healthy*, replaces Daal. Obviously it’s a rotation with some question marks, but it has one ace (Pérez), one potential ace (Brown), one other good pitcher (Nomo), and two guys (Ashby and Ishii) who should chew up plenty of league-average innings. If it holds up, it’s going to be good.

Depending on whether Leo Mazzone’s magic wand is still working in Atlanta, the Dodgers could have the National League’s best bullpen in 2003. The centerpiece, obviously, is Eric Gagne, who overcame his predilection for ill-timed gopherballs after being moved into the closer’s role, making N.L. batters shudder like a hot chick in a Scream sequel. He held opponents to a .535 OPS overall, and .331 with runners in scoring position. Yes, folks, that’s a .331 OPS. Be awed. Even though Evans gave up way too much for Paul Shuey last August – the only truly bad trade he’s made – Shuey will be a good setup man. The rest of the bullpen, with Paul Quantrill, Giovanni Carrara, and Guillermo Mota’s 101-mph heater, looks to be solid as well. The wild card is Dreifort, who will pitch out of the bullpen if Brown remains healthy. It’s far from a certainty, but don’t be surprised if Double D eventually settles nicely into middle relief and goes Dotel on the league. With no established lefty in the pen, training camp at Dodgertown has attracted the usual collection of crappy pitchers and guys who you thought were deceased, all auditioning to be this year’s LOOGY. The inability to get lefties out can hurt this team in a division with Barry Bonds, Todd Helton, Larry Walker, Luis González, and Ryan Klesko, but given the lack of options – and given the excess of good right-handed relievers on this team – it would be nice to see the Dodgers make a bold move and go without a lefty. Shuey does better against lefty batters anyway, so he could function as a right-handed LOOGY of sorts.

The six-man bench, in likely order of playing time, will be Alex Cora, Mike Kinkade, Daryle Ward, Todd Hundley, Jolbert Cabrera, and Calvin Murray. All but the last two spots are set in stone; when the final cuts are made Cabrera or Murray might lose out to Larry Barnes, Ron Coomer, Jason Romano, or Terry Shumpert. It’s a strong bench, with three right-handed bats and two left-handed (or three if you count Hundley as having a bat). The bench includes two guys, Kinkade and Ward, capable of having bust-out offensive seasons. Kinkade, in particular, is a good candidate to become baseball’s best bench player this year. Expect him to see action at first, third, the outfield, and even catcher, all while hitting the living crap out of the ball. Every position except right field and third base offers Tracy a platoon option of some sort, and he has shown an extraordinary knack for being able to put players in the situations where they are most likely to succeed. Unlike the starting lineup, the bench is one of this team’s strengths.

The off-season didn’t bring any drastic changes. Basically, the Dodgers are hoping that slight upgrades at first and second base, plus the alleged return of Kevin Brown, will be enough to push last year’s good team to the top of the heap. Evans did a smart thing in letting Marquis Grissom walk (reportedly the first walk Grissom’s taken since 1996), knowing some bumbling team would overpay him. He just got lucky when that bumbling team turned out to be the Giants. Letting Dave Hansen go wasn’t a good idea, but Evans made up for it by making an astute trade for Daryle Ward. If everything goes right – if Beltre busts out, if Thurston hits .300, if Lo Duca proves durable, if Kevin Brown becomes Kevin Brown again – this team will make a run at the pennant and the world championship. More likely, they’ll win about 90 games again, and will either barely miss the playoffs, or barely make it.

*Whenever the words "Kevin Brown" and "healthy" appear in the same sentence, take it with a grain of salt. But you knew that.

Name: James Edwin Tracy

Age: 48

Managers for whom played in majors:

In his brief major league career Tracy was managed by Preston Gomez and Joey Amalfitano. In the minor leagues he won a batting title playing for Randy Hundley, which hopefully won’t influence any playing time decisions in 2003. Tracy spent seven years managing in the minors, and was in charge of the 1994 Harrisburg Senators, one of the great minor league teams of the last 50 years. Tracy was Felipe Alou’s bench coach for four years; he shares Alou’s affinity for working with young players, but not, fortunately, his in-game strategic habits.

As a minor leaguer, Tracy was a lanky but slow outfielder who would hit over .300 with 15-20 homers in a good season, with phenomenal walk totals – in other words, he was basically John Olerud. During his 87 games in the majors Tracy was a singles hitter who couldn’t even hit singles very well, but his walk rate was good enough to make him semi-useful for a while.

Is he an intense manager, or more of an easy-to-get-along-with type?

Both, to the extent that that’s possible. Players love him and he gets along very well with the media, but he’s capable of erupting from time to time. He generally takes a laid-back attitude, trusting that his players are professional enough to focus on their jobs – but if they fail to do that, he won’t hesitate to whip some tail. He handles problems by discussing them with his players, never by complaining to the media. He picks his battles and doesn’t tilt at windmills.

A decision maker, although again, he’s capable of being both.

Is he more of an optimist, or more of a problem solver?

Tough to say for sure yet, but so far he looks like he might be more of an optimist. He stayed with the struggling Eric Karros too long in 2002 when he had better hitters on the bench, but Karros, as the team’s icon and career home run leader, was something of a unique case. Tracy is very patient with players if he has reason to believe they’ll improve, as with Adrian Beltre and César Izturis.

It’s more of a rotation system. He seems to rest one regular per game, usually based on who the other team’s starting pitcher is. Paul Lo Duca will get the day off one day, Eric Karros the next day, Brian Jordan the next day, etc. Adrian Beltre and Shawn Green are the only guys he plays every day.

Yes, very much so, and he’s quite good at it. He followed a strict platoon in center field in 2002, with Dave Roberts starting against righties and Marquis Grissom against lefties. Tracy also did extensive platooning at shortstop last year, which will continue in 2003. His current team was built specifically with platooning in mind, providing good platoon opportunities at every position except the aforementioned third base and right field.

He gets some veterans shoved down his throat, like Brian Jordan and Fred McGriff, but given a choice Tracy will almost always go with the young player. Actually, "unproven" would be more accurate than "young." As is discussed in another article, Tracy’s greatest strength as a manager so far has been his extraordinary ability to see the talent in minor league veterans who’ve never been given a chance to play in the majors. (Which makes perfect sense considering that Tracy himself was an outstanding minor league hitter who never got much of a shot.) In his two years managing a team with no farm system, he’s made regulars out of eight players: Giovanni Carrara, Eric Gagne, Kasuhiza Ishii, César Izturis, Paul Lo Duca, Odalis Pérez, Luke Prokopec, and Dave Roberts.

Tough to say, because he’s never really had to make a choice between the two. However, in 2002 the Dodgers did have their best defensive team in at least a decade.

Too early to pass judgment, but based on his faith in Paul Lo Duca and Dave Roberts, it would appear that he favors tough, scrappy, gamers who get on base a lot. How he uses Mike Kinkade and Daryle Ward off the bench this year will go a long way toward answering this question.

One of his strengths is that he makes intelligent use of the entire roster.

His benches have included old guys like Dave Hansen and Jeff Reboulet, but also young players like Alex Cora and Hiram Bocachica. He seems to like players around 28-30 years old who have proven their ability to hit in the minor leagues, like Kinkade, Ward, and Jolbert Cabrera. With the exception of Reboulet, he focuses on whether you can actually play, rather than name value.

GAME MANAGING AND USE OF STRATEGIES

The big inning. In Tracy’s two seasons the Dodgers have ranked in the bottom half of the league in sacrifices, and even then, almost all of the bunts are by the pitcher or by crappy hitters like Izturis. With the exception of Dave Roberts, who sometimes gets credit for a sacrifice when he’s actually bunting for a hit, none of the Dodgers’ real hitters ever sacrifice themselves.

He pinch hits an average amount, always to get the platoon advantage. He’ll go to great lengths to get the that advantage on offense, sending Marquis Grissom up to bat for Dave Roberts, or Mike Kinkade to hit for Dave Hansen. It’ll be interesting to see whether he uses Darren Dreifort as a pinch hitter this year; he’s one of the few managers who would have the cojones to do that.

Not really, other than the previously-mentioned affinity for 28-year-old guys who’ve proven that they can play in Triple-A. He’s not afraid to use a non-traditional lineup; he batted his catcher leadoff for a while in 2001.

No. See above.

Only with guys who are really good at it, like Dave Roberts. The Dodgers’ catcher, shortstop, third baseman, center fielder, and right fielder are all among the two or three fastest players in baseball at their position – yet the team was still was in the middle of the pack in stolen bases. Under Tracy’s watch, Shawn Green’s steals have dropped from 24 to 20 to 8; Beltre’s from 12 to 13 to 7; Grudzielanek’s from 12 to 4 to 4; Grissom’s from 10 to 5 to 1, and so on.

He issues very few intentional walks, usually to the Barry Bondses of the world.

Not really, although he has probably the best hit-and-run combo in baseball in Dave Roberts and Paul Lo Duca. The 2002 team was near the top of the league in GIDPs, despite having the second-fewest runners on base.

No, other than things already discussed.

So far he appears to favor power pitchers.

Depends on the pitcher. Odalis Pérez gets a fairly quick hook, while Hideo Nomo gets to stay out there a while. He does have a Torreesque set routine with his bullpen: Shuey in the seventh, Quantrill in the eighth, Gagne in the ninth.

The entire staff. If somebody isn’t going to be used, he gets sent to the minors or dumped altogether, á la José Núñez or Terry Mulholland.

Not particularly. He seems to be aware that it’s not a good idea to ride Odalis Pérez’s young, surgically repaired arm too hard, which probably makes him unusual. He seems to like experimenting with starters as relievers and vice versa.

Two things: the tremendous respect his players have for him, and his ability to see talent where others cannot.

He would be a high school teacher in Ohio, and a good one.

PO    Player       G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI BB  SO SB CS   BA  OBP  SLG
C     LoDuca     139 518  68 151 34  1 14  68 35  30  3  3 .292 .343 .442
1B    McGriff    144 513  59 130 25  1 25  88 65 106  1  2 .253 .341 .452
2B    Thurston   138 549  84 153 24  3  8  40 29  64 15  9 .279 .321 .377
3B    Beltre     151 559  72 153 24  4 21  78 41  89 10  4 .274 .328 .444
SS    Izturis    137 460  47 117 20  3  2  36 13  38 14  7 .254 .281 .324
LF    Jordan     134 499  64 132 32  2 18  76 33  86  3  3 .265 .318 .445
CF    Roberts    115 405  60 108 15  4  4  33 45  56 30 11 .267 .346 .353
RF    Green      161 605 110 174 35  2 41 114 88 112 14  5 .288 .383 .555
c     Hundley     87 265  31  57 11  0 16  40 33  79  0  0 .215 .308 .438
c     Ross        88 270  36  68 11  1 11  43 28  86  1  1 .252 .328 .422
1b-3b Kinkade     98 286  48  87 19  3  8  39 24  51  5  3 .304 .365 .476
if    Cora       131 370  42  94 18  5  5  34 31  52  5  2 .254 .318 .370
if    Dawkins    100 369  44  80 13  2  4  25 33  77  8  6 .217 .288 .295
ut    Cabrera    109 213  31  49  9  2  1  23 12  29  6  4 .230 .278 .305
of    Ruan       116 443  50 106 15  4  2  38 13  54 23  7 .239 .268 .305
of    Hermansen  125 392  52  83 15  3 13  40 31 133 11  5 .212 .276 .365
of    Ward       128 387  32 100 22  0 12  54 29  72  1  2 .258 .312 .408

PO Player      W  L  ERA  G GS  IP   H  ER HR BB  SO
SP Brown       8  6 3.61 26 24 157 143  63 15 41 138
SP Nomo       10 12 4.28 33 33 202 168  96 24 99 219
SP Ishii       7 13 5.08 28 27 163 148  92 23 92 155
SP Perez      14 10 3.39 31 29 186 171  70 17 35 149
SP Dreifort    8 12 4.75 27 27 161 152  85 22 71 139
SP Ashby       8 15 5.02 30 30 181 197 101 24 62 100
SP Alvarez W   2  4 5.12 19 10  65  64  37  9 33  52
SP Alvarez V   5  7 4.57 26 21 126 127  64 15 45  88
SP Maduro      4 10 5.38 26 18 112 119  67 18 47  70
RP Mallette    3  4 4.58 51  0  57  49  29  8 27  60
RP Mota        2  2 4.32 44  0  50  47  24  5 20  41
RP Carrara     3  5 4.55 46  6  87  86  44 12 29  68
RP Quantrill   6  4 3.29 79  0  82  80  30  4 14  52
RP Shuey       5  3 3.29 59  0  63  47  23  3 29  71
CL Gagne       5  4 3.47 51 14 122 102  47 15 31 132
ZiPS is not a playing time predictor and should not be added for team totals.