[PhxRam]

Resign Hill and start the year with a rotation of Kershaw, Maeda, Hill, Urias and DeLeon.

Hell no to Hill.

I am DONE with ex A's and Marlins..

Please for the love of god, no mas.

[Rams Dominate]

Resign Hill and start the year with a rotation of Kershaw, Maeda, Hill, Urias and DeLeon.

Hell no to Hill.

I am DONE with ex A's and Marlins..

Please for the love of god, no mas.

Obviously you haven't watched Hill pitch lately, I don't think OldSchool wants to sign Hill to an 8 year contract, but I sure wouldn't mind signing him to a 2 year contract, the guys given up 1 run in 2 games & he was pitching for the A's like he's pitching for us...

[PhxRam]

Resign Hill and start the year with a rotation of Kershaw, Maeda, Hill, Urias and DeLeon.

Hell no to Hill.

I am DONE with ex A's and Marlins..

Please for the love of god, no mas.

Obviously you haven't watched Hill pitch lately, I don't think OldSchool wants to sign Hill to an 8 year contract, but I sure wouldn't mind signing him to a 2 year contract, the guys given up 1 run in 2 games & he was pitching for the A's like he's pitching for us...

How many starts has he NOT given us?

[OldSchool]

Hell no to Hill.

I am DONE with ex A's and Marlins..

Please for the love of god, no mas.

Obviously you haven't watched Hill pitch lately, I don't think OldSchool wants to sign Hill to an 8 year contract, but I sure wouldn't mind signing him to a 2 year contract, the guys given up 1 run in 2 games & he was pitching for the A's like he's pitching for us...

How many starts has he NOT given us?

I'm far from a Hill fan! But I think I've gotten the pulse of this front office. We're going to roll the dice on injury upside pitchers at a decent price. We're going to sign utility players and have a good balance normally of lefties and righties at the plate. And we're going to develop our farm and not sell our top prospects because those are the focal points they build the roster around.

[PhxRam]

Obviously you haven't watched Hill pitch lately, I don't think OldSchool wants to sign Hill to an 8 year contract, but I sure wouldn't mind signing him to a 2 year contract, the guys given up 1 run in 2 games & he was pitching for the A's like he's pitching for us...

How many starts has he NOT given us?

I'm far from a Hill fan! But I think I've gotten the pulse of this front office. We're going to roll the dice on injury upside pitchers at a decent price. We're going to sign utility players and have a good balance normally of lefties and righties at the plate. And we're going to develop our farm and not sell our top prospects because those are the focal points they build the roster around.

You just described Friedman in a nutshell.

[Rams Dominate]

PhxRam I apologize if I've come across as a know it all, that wasn't my intent, but as OldSchool said in his last post you described Friedman in a nutshell...The Dodgers lost their complete pitching staff, including the best pitcher in baseball Clayton Kershaw, AND we've caught the Giants that at one point had an 8 game lead on us & now we've caught the Giants & passed them by 5 games & the team is on a roll, also our farm system is loaded from top to bottom with pitchers & position players that's the envy, so I read, of just about every team in baseball, Urias & Deleon have filled in nicely, so has Hill, our bullpen has been fortified big time, if you watched Thursdays game we paraded 8 pitchers out there & stopped every threat the Snakes mounted...I really like what our front office is doing...

[PhxRam]

PhxRam I apologize if I've come across as a know it all, that wasn't my intent, but as OldSchool said in his last post you described Friedman in a nutshell...The Dodgers lost their complete pitching staff, including the best pitcher in baseball Clayton Kershaw, AND we've caught the Giants that at one point had an 8 game lead on us & now we've caught the Giants & passed them by 5 games & the team is on a roll, also our farm system is loaded from top to bottom with pitchers & position players that's the envy, so I read, of just about every team in baseball, Urias & Deleon have filled in nicely, so has Hill, our bullpen has been fortified big time, if you watched Thursdays game we paraded 8 pitchers out there & stopped every threat the Snakes mounted...I really like what our front office is doing...

No offense taken.

Hey I am all on board with where the team currently stands. The Dodgers have been playing good ball but also have been aided by a complete giants meltdown.

The Dodgers current rotation has also been helped by alot of timely hitting and have gotten some run support where guys like Kershaw never seemed to get. I am not trying to diminish what the staff has done because they have thrown alot of 1-2 run games lately, but how many times have we seen Kershaw throw a shut out only to see him get zero support. I just hope the hitting continues.

[Hacksaw_64]

[Hacksaw_64]

Josh Reddick’s struggles with Dodgers tied to plate discipline

Dustin Nosler September 7, 2016

Stacie wrote about Josh Reddick‘s struggles a couple weeks ago, and she did a good job covering all the bases. With Yasiel Puig getting demoted in favor of bringing in Reddick, his struggles were magnified a bit more.

“The question that remains is what is going on with Reddick and how can he snap out this in order to contribute to the Dodgers down the stretch? It’s a bit unfair to judge him entirely on his first three weeks with a new team. An overall assessment can’t really be made until the conclusion of the season. Yet if he does only pan out to be a rental whom the Dodgers don’t bring back next year, then this shockingly unlucky streak will no doubt be costly in hindsight.”

That’s the big question. I’m going to try to answer it.

Reddick is hitting just .212/.264/.263 with a 47 wRC+ with the Dodgers. That includes his recent hot streak, which is also reason for a little optimism. But first, let’s examine Reddick’s career arc and how it has varied.

Reddick’s career has been interesting. Four years ago, he launched 32 home runs for the A’s while striking out 151 times. After an injury-riddled 2013 and ’14, he got back on track with a solid 2015 — 20 home runs, 25 doubles, seven triples, while striking out just 65 times. This season, even before coming to the Dodgers, Reddick’s offensive game had completely changed. He had just 20 extra base hits in 272 plate appearances. It was still good for an above-average .153 isolated power, but the power he showed in 2012 (.221 ISO), ’14 (.182) and ’15 (.177) wasn’t there.

His offensive profile had shifted from that of a power-hitting corner outfielder with swing-and-miss (but not an alarming rate) to more of a contact-oriented guy who didn’t swing-and-miss as much but also didn’t hit for as much power.

His career contact rate is 82.6 percent, but this is how his Contact% increased over the last four seasons:

2012: 80.4
2013: 80.9
2014: 82.6
2015: 85.6
2016: 85.9

He has been consistent with the Dodgers, posting an 85.6 percent contact rate after having it at 86 percent with Oakland this season. But for a guy who doesn’t thrive in the batting average on balls in play department, Reddick had also benefited from a higher-than-normal BABIP for him this season. He had a .317 BABIP with the A’s, which would have been the second-highest of his MLB career (,318 in 2011, 87 games). Reddick isn’t a high BABIP guy, so some of his success with the A’s, coupled with the diminished power, was a bit of a red flag. He hasn’t been lucky with the Dodgers (.244 BABIP), but he also hasn’t done a lot at the plate to warrant being lucky.

Often times when a player comes to a new team and struggles, people say he is “pressing.” With Reddick brought in to replace Puig in right field, that may have been the case — and the numbers back it up.

Stat 2016 W/ OAK 2016 W/ LAD
O-Swing% 26.1 31.8
Z-Swing% 62.9 69.0
Swing% 42.0 48.5
SwStr% 5.8 7.0
Launch Angle 12.1 16.3

He’s swinging a lot more than he did with the A’s. He’s also swinging at lot more pitches outside the strike zone. And while he isn’t striking out at a high rate, he is missing pitches with more frequency since joining the Dodgers. His launch angle is also up which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but he has virtually the same average exit velocity (88.9 MPH) as he did with the Athletics (88.8 MPH).

But it isn’t all doom and gloom. Reddick has been a solid ball player since really breaking in with the Red Sox in 2011, and his 5-week slump with the Dodgers is not indicative of his true talent level. The same goes for any quality player who has slumped for an extended period of time. He isn’t a game-changer or guy you can build a team around. He’s a solid supporting player who has proven to be slightly above-average throughout his career.

Reddick has been much better lately — 9-for-17 in his last five games — but that’s an extremely small sample size. Just as he isn’t a .563 hitter, he also isn’t the .145 hitter he was in his first 24 games with the Dodgers. Like most everything in life, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

http://dodgersdigest.com/2016/09/07/jos ... iscipline/

[Hacksaw_64]

About that Dodgers’ postseason rotation…

Dustin Nosler September 8, 2016

The Dodgers have a 99.6 percent chance of making the playoffs. They have a 93.4 percent chance of winning the division. It’s a fair time to talk about the postseason rotation.

Five-plus weeks ago, the season itself was looking somewhat bleak, and the rotation was in shambles. Clayton Kershaw‘s rehab had been shut down, Rich Hill was still in Oakland and Scott Kazmir and Kenta Maeda were spearheading the rotation. Now Kershaw is set to make his return tomorrow, Hill is scheduled to start the day after, and Kenta will get the ball to close the series.

But what about the fourth starter?

Well, Kazmir came out of his Triple-A rehab start (ironically, a playoff game) after allowing three runs and retiring just two hitters.

Not that Kazmir was the best option to be the No. 4 starter in the playoffs, but I doubt he sees the mound the rest of the season and postseason. The injury doesn’t sound good and, quite frankly, the Dodgers have more productive pitchers than Kazmir already on the roster.

This also doesn’t mean Julio Urias will be in contention for a postseason rotation spot, either. He’s on an innings limit and will be shut down soon, as well he should be. It’s unfortunate, though, as he’s probably the Dodgers’ third- or fourth-best starting pitcher at present.

Despite Kazmir’s injury and Urias’ pending unavailability, things look solid up front.

Kershaw is set to pitch for the first time on Friday in Miami against Jose Fernandez. His rehab outing with Rancho Cucamonga was really good: 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K. He said he felt good, and if he’s anything close to what he was before he hurt his back, the Dodgers are in good shape there.

While Hill has only made a couple starts for the Dodgers, they’ve been really good outings. He has yet to give up a run, allowed eight baserunners in 12 innings and struck out 11 hitters. Much Internet ink has been spilled by folks smarter than myself about Hill and his elite-level of pitching, which makes him a great No. 2 starter come October.

Maeda has been quite good in 2016 — underrated, even. Kenta actually leads the club in innings pitched, is striking out a quarter of the hitters he faces and has limited the damage that comes with issuing walks, so he makes sense to be the No. 3 starter.

After that, it’s anyone’s guess who would get the ball in a playoff game. With Kazmir and Urias ruled out, who’s next? My choice would be for a healthy Brandon McCarthy, but there’s no guarantee he’ll be healthy and more like the pitcher he was in his first four outings rather than the pitcher he was in his last four. Ross Stripling has pitched admirably this season after being forced into the rotation, but this is his first full season since Tommy John surgery and he’s already at 107 innings on the season. He’s probably running on fumes, as evidenced by his sub-91 MPH average fastball velocity in his last two starts. That’s … concerning.

After McCarthy and Stripling, there is a veteran journeyman, a younger pitcher who was coming into his own before he — wait for it — got hurt, and a couple rookies.

Bud Norris has the Veteran Presents that managers like when it comes to postseason pitching, but aside from solid strikeout rate, he has been quite bad. He should be ruled out for the rotation, if not the entire postseason roster.

Alex Wood would be a great addition to the rotation. He was pitching more like his Atlanta days before getting hurt, but it has already been stated he’s coming back as a relief option, which is good news for the bullpen, but not so much for the rotation.

Brock Stewart and Jose De Leon are on opposite ends of this. Stewart, who has pitched well in his last two starts, is at 143 innings overall on the season. Despite being an older prospect at 24, he probably doesn’t have a ton of innings left in the tank (although, he averaged 93.2 MPH on his fastball Wednesday night).

De Leon is an interesting case. Since he missed so much time early on, his innings count is down. However, he has made just one start and it’d be crazy to count on him to be anything in the playoffs, right? Not so fast.

Sure, his start was against the Padres and he threw four non-fastballs/changeups, but this comes down to the numbers (innings) and the quality of pitcher available. He’s the best pitching prospect in the system, has the confidence and poise to handle such an assignment, and teams might be caught off guard in terms of scouting. Yes, there are scouting reports on De Leon, but actually seeing a pitcher for the first time — especially in October — can be beneficial to the young pitcher and team. Of course, with any proposition like this, it also has the potential to blow up in the Dodgers face, but this is the reality this team is faced with right now.

=====

We’ve reached the point when De Leon is a legitimate postseason rotation option in a 7-game series. That is almost unbelievable. I didn’t think he’d debut this season, mostly because of the roster crunch, but the Dodgers found a way to get him on the roster and it might end up paying off. Then again, it remains to be seen how he handles any future starts before declaring whether he’s postseason-rotation worthy.

Much like the last three seasons, it’s Kershaw, his “1B” and everyone else. Here’s hoping Clayton is the pitcher he’s capable of being and Hill’s blister doesn’t flare up again this season, because if those two don’t perform up to their abilities, it doesn’t matter who the No. 3 or 4 starter is in the postseason.

http://dodgersdigest.com/2016/09/08/abo ... lio-urias/