Yasiel Puig Badmouths Dodgers - Puig Fans Taking Sides

Aloha, everybody, 

Yasiel Puig is saying some harsh things about the Dodgers. Puig fans are caught in the middle and taking sides. 

Aloha!

Yasiel Puig Trade is Part of the Master Plan, but Not the Plan Fans Want

Aloha, everybody, 

The Dodgers traded away Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp, Alex Wood and Kyle Farmer in what many believe is the first step of a Master Plan toward acquiring a huge free agent, such as Bryce Harper or A.J. Pollack. 

Oh, it’s a Master Plan, alright. It’s just not the one you’re imagining.

Aloha, and Merry Christmas, everybody! 

It's a Friday Night Youtube Video and Beer Review

Aloha, everybody, 

It's Friday night, and I'm chilling here at home, so I put together a short and sweet Youtube video giving a few takes on the state of the Dodgers at this point in Spring Training. 

Stop on by and give a watch, if that kind of thing appeals. If that doesn't work for you, there's also a segment with a beer review. It's a very pleasant surprise - an IPA straight outta Belgium. 

Watch and enjoy! 

Aloha! 

It Only Took a Decade and a Friendly Enemy to Land my First One

Aloha, everybody, 

As far as rivalries go, sports rivalries are among the bitterest. Often for no other reason than being born into a family of fans from one team, we're raised to hate a different team, it's stadium, colors, and fans. 

If the rivalry is held deeply, just the sight of another person wearing a cap or jersey can set off a Pavlov-like reaction. We've seen it with the Yankees and Red Sox, Dodgers and Giants, the Orioles and...heck if I know who...but you get the idea. 

Some rivalries, like the Dodgers and Giants, go waaaaaay back, all the way to the days the teams shared bandbox stadiums in the boroughs of New York. Well, this isn't one of those. The timeline isn't as long - stretching back to 1988, but when it runs hot - baby, it runs red hot. 

Bulldog was the 1988 NLCS MVP vs the Mets

I'm talking about the Dodgers and the Mets. These two teams are far apart geographically, and sometimes in the standings, but when they meet, the fire from their playoff battles in 1988 and again, in 2016, burns bright. I remember heated Dodgers/Mets blogger battles after the Chase Utley slide controversy. 

I lay all of this groundwork because that's what makes the friendship between myself and Kaz all the more special. Kaz used to blog back in the day, but he's since moved on to other things. Luckily, Twitter is one of those things, so we've been able to keep channels open that way, and we continue to send each other cards from time to time. 

Topps Turkey Red 

Kaz recently sent a PWE to me, and that's why we're gathered here today. I showed off a couple of cards already, let's check out what I else found in that envelope...

Returning to the Hershiser card, we have the rear shot. I loved opening packs of 1993 Leaf because I couldn't get enough of these crazy shots of gigantic baseball players dwarfing their cities. 

Love this card tribute to Julio Urias' major league debut, when he was just 17 years old...

Kaz tossed in some minis from the 2011 MLB sticker album...

 This Jackie Robinson is high gloss and shiny (nice!)...

Finally, this baby. My first printing plate. By all weights and measures, rivals would never share with each other. But this is the card collecting community. We operate on a different level...

It seemed as though everyone in my collecting circles had at least one printing plate, but not me. Not until now. 

Sweet, right? My collection is continuously expanding, thanks to the usual suspects - and even from the occasional enemy (but an enemy only inside the chalk lines). THANKS, Kaz! 

Aloha! 

Wes' Big Ol' Cube o' Cardboard - Part 2

Aloha, everybody, 

Yesterday we saw the first part of highlights from the cardboard pummeling I received from good ol' Wes. We now commence with Part 2 - RELICS, SWATCHES and AUTOGRAPHS...


First up is a beautiful patch card numbered 1379/1430 (14-30?). I love everything about this card, including the no-name scrub who lends his likeness to it. 

This is because our scrub pitcher bookends two big trades that I remember as a Dodgers fan. First, he came to the Dodgers (along with Brian Jordan) in the trade that sent Gary Sheffield to the Braves. Second, he was quickly shipped off to Oakland for Milton Bradley. 

Speaking of ex-Dodgers who've been shipped off to obscurity...

Here's a very low edition, low numbered (7/36), well-designed, Triple Threads...

 In a bizarro reverse situation, here comes Carl Crawford, who came to LA, and THEN found obscurity...

And now, the big boys...

My first swatch from Yasiel Puig, and it's super low numbered 3/99...

I showed this one off on Twitter earlier. Number 52/99, World Series relief pitching hero, Kenta Maeda...

I absolutely love this next one. Gonzo's career may or not be over, and the haters are biting around the edges, still claiming his arrival from the Red Sox paid no dividends. Philistines! 

A-Gon was the iron man, with ironclad offensive numbers throughout most of his Dodgers career.

 Good stuff from Wes, and we're a long ways from done. Next time: Autographs. 

Aloha! 

A Cardboard Tribute To The Thin White Duke

Aloha, everybody, 

What a sad, sad day for music fans around the world. One of the most creative, innovative and beautiful rock voices went silent last night when David Bowie returned to the stars and left us all behind.  

I've been listening to Bowie's music all day, and I figured I'd put together this humble little tribute to some of my favorite Bowie songs, but blending them with cardboard - cuz that's the way we roll here at ATBATT. 

Three.....Two....One....Liftoff....

Joc Pederson holds out the hope and potential of a promising baseball career that we all (most of us?) dreamed of as Young Americans.  

The video itself has a sketchy sound on the high end, but what a thrill to see Bowie perform. I'll take it.

"Aint there one damn song...that can make me break down and cry?"

Maury Wills pretty much re-invented the game of modern day baseball by firmly establishing the stolen base as an offensive weapon. The kid ran Wild Like The Wind. 

The song itself isn't very fast paced, but damn, Bowie steals something from me every time I hear this song. 

 Steve Howe had a promising career that was unfortunately cut short by alcohol and drug addiction. He kept trying to come back, and kept stumbling back. He would revive his brilliance, only to succumb to the demons again - Ashes to Ashes.

"Time and again, I tell myself, I'll stay clean tonight." 

Good ol' Jackie brought some much needed Changes to all of MLB.  

"These children that you spit on, as they try to change their worlds...don't tell them to grow up and out of it."

Of course the big three get Heroes.  (An excellent live version here)

"We can beat them forever and ever." 

Dang, listening to this song is still bringing tears to my eyes tonight. Every time I hear it, I think Bowie is swimming with the dolphins now. 

What can be scarier than having big Don Drysdale reaching back and firing off a brush back pitch straight at your head? Oh, you're backing off that plate alright. 

"Keep me running. Running scared."

Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella and Carl Furillo

Dodger fans will always have the Golden Years of the Boys of Summer.  

"Nothing's gonna touch you in these golden years."

Of course, who else but the venerable Vin Scully should get this song? Vinnie has been the Sound and Vision of my baseball summers for my entire life. 

"I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and vision." 

Ol' Willie Davis was the Dodgers' Three Dog, so he gets Diamond Dogs, a song with some of the best rock lyrics ever. 

"This aint rock and roll, this is genociiiiiiiiiide!" 

So many teammates and LA fans complained about Jeff Kent when he was a Dodger. It wasn't because he was an ex-Giant, they said he was grumpy and always simmering. It seemed to me the only thing he wanted was for his team to give 100% every game, which is all I ever saw from him. 

Sometimes I think I was the only Kent fan in LA.  Kent gets Slow Burn. 

Man, that bass line cuts right to my gut and I love the way Bowie hits those notes - "Sloooow Buuurrrrrnnn."

I lived through Fernandomania, I knew Fernandomania. You "Manny bein Manny", are no Fernando. 

If you didn't live in LA or otherwise did not experience Fernandomania, check out the excellent 30 for 30 docu on it that's on Netflix. LA was bonkers for Fernando, and he deserved it all. 

Let's have some fun with that video of Bowie doing a bad lip sync job on Soul Train. Yup, Soul Train. 

Of course, the man who would be a Fashion model, Mr "The Gap" Kemp. 

"We are the goon squad and we're coming to town."  

Finally, the Dodgers' very own Starman, who hit home runs so high and so far, they were called "moonshots".  

Now Bowie is the Starman waiting in the sky.  

Aloha, David, wherever you may be. 

Reasons Padre Matt Kemp Doesn't Compare To Padre Steve Garvey

Aloha,

As every baseball fan knows by now, the Dodgers traded Matt Kemp to the Padres. 

Matt Kemp fans and detractors alike did a double take when photos of Matt Kemp in Padres gear started showing up. 

 When Kemp updated his Twitter photo to show himself in his new Padre digs, I'm sure a few Bison super-fans' heads exploded. Greg from Plashke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle is the biggest Matt Kemp fan I know. He's still blogging, so I'm presuming his head is still intact, thankfully.

 In a further reaction to Kemp as a Padre, Roberto from the Dodger-centric blog Vin Scully Is My Homeboy sent out this tweet: 

Seeing Matt Kemp in a Padres uniform feels weird. So this how you old folks felt when you saw Steve Garvey in a Padres uni?
— Roberto Baly (@rbaly79) December 19, 2014

 Since I lived through Steve Garvey's Dodger career, and I know first-hand the shock it was for Dodger fans of the day to see Garvey in (then) Padres brown and gold, I consider myself qualified to answer Roberto's question. 

The short answer is heck no, there is no comparison. 

That's like comparing my income to Donald Trump's, or the richness of my warmth and charm to Trump's. 

Garvey was THE Dodgers, where Kemp is The Bison. 

Heck, Garvey was Los Angeles, where Kemp is Rihanna and the Gap. 

Garvey still leads the NL in his iron-man 1,201 consecutive games streak. He won the NL, NLCS, and All-Star Game MVP awards. 
He hit .417 and led the Dodgers over the Yankees in the 1981 World Series. 

In 2012 and 2013 Kemp hardly played, and when he did play, he often led the team in strike outs. 

Garvey led the team in being a nice guy, where Kemp often came off as pouty and demanding he be treated appropriate to his "star status". 

It may seem like it, but I'm not trying to pull Kemp down. What I'm illustrating here is what Kemp and Garvey represented and meant to the team and the city, not just their hard core followers.

Sure, Matt Kemp should have won the MVP over cheater Ryan Braun, and he was in full Beast mode during the final few weeks of the 2014 season, but Garvey was a steady rock in the Dodger line up and a dominator over other teams for 15 years in LA! 

That's just shy of a generation's time.

The world flipped upside-down when Dodger fans saw Garvey's All-American smile beaming out from a Padre uniform. It still seems surreal even now.


If you'd like to read a bit more about why the impact of Kemp as a Padre pales in comparison to what LA fans felt with Garvey, I invite you to head over to Lasorda's Lair, and read my article Five Reasons Padre Matt Kemp Cannot Compare To Padre Steve Garvey .  Go on, indulge. 

Good night and aloha!

 

Dodgers Sweep The Giants! Trades From C.R. and K.B. Sweep ATBATT!

Aloha is an interesting word inasmuch that it can be used to express "Hello" as well as "Goodbye".  

Aloha was the word of  the weekend as the Dodgers swept into the Frisco Bay in second place, and then swept first place back to where it belongs, in beautiful Dodger Stadium. 

That epic sweepage calls for a big post with a whole buncha new Dodger cards to be shown. These came to me from two great bloggers and trading partners, Alex over at Chavez Ravining and Kerry who gives us the always entertaining and educational Cards on Cards.

Let's start off with these fine First Place Dodgers cards from Kerry. First up are two of this weekend's Sweeping Stars.

At times this season I've knocked Kemp when I thought he deserved it.  Now I gotta give credit where it's called for. Since he was moved out of center field, he has slowly but surely been reigniting his hitting.  This weekend he was a vital part of the offense, piling onto several Dodger rallies as they - SWEPT THE GIANTS! 

And how about this kid below? He's the new Dodgers center fielder and he feels fine.  Wild Horse Puig exploded during this weekend's SWEEP OF THE GIANTS hitting three triples and a double in one game, and making an over the shoulder,  Willie Mays catch look easy in the Giant's own CF during today's game. 

 Kerry completed the package with some 90's gold foil goodness from two of my past favorite Dodgers. The home whites look magnificent on these '95 Scores, and I dig the circle LA logo. 

Thanks for the great cards, Kerry. 

Next up is the first time Alex or I have sent anything out to each other. I'll be the first to admit I haven't sent anything in return yet, but Alex - and a few more of you out there - rest assured that I have cards set aside for y'all, and I'll get them to the post office as soon as I'm able to block out the time to prepare all of the packages in one mad flurry of blue tape and labels. 

On to the cards from Chavez Ravining. We'll start again with cards from members of the squad who just SWEPT THE GIANTS!

Hanley seems like he's always injured - or being injured by other teams, but when he's in the lineup, he is always a force to be reckoned with.  Hanley was feeling good this weekend, and it showed as he regularly bopped the ball around and ran the bases like we need him to do.  

Next up is odd man out Either.  He played briefly as a late inning sub or pinch hitter, and it appears he's a pine rider for the coming days (at least until the surprise midnight trade of Matt Kemp).

 Golden Bowman coolness brings up the leadoff batter for the First Place Dodgers. Gordon scored a heads up, kinda steal of home when Buster Posey hurriedly threw to first to get lumbering tank, A-Gon.  Giants, why hurry the throw when the guy running to first isn't exactly doing what we would call "running"? 

And then the great second ace who gets forgotten under all of Kershaw's acheivments, who pitched brilliantly to win the second game of the DODGERS SWEEPING THE GIANTS!

 

This package didn't have any Kershaw cards, but it contained plenty of cardboard goodness of the next best Dodger lefty ace to have cards from...

 Whats more - it's die-cut Koufax! BOO-YAH!

Airbrushed Koufax...

Hey Giants fans, what does Sandy's circle text say?

 Horizontal Koufax....

  
Sweet Dodger Blue No-Hitter Koufax...

 And finally, one with Koufax looking like everybody in the Dodger Nation felt after we SWEPT THE GIANTS and reclaimed First Place!

 Great, great cards Alex and Kerry. They really hit the spot after this weekend's....well, you know.  

The State Of The Dodgers - It Aint Purty!

 Ever since their glorious win in Australia on Opening Day, the Dodgers have been stuck in the mud, spinning their wheels, and sinking deeper into the muck. 

I'm of the belief that idiotic early-start in Australia ruined Spring Training and injured pitchers for both the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks.  

However, Australia is the past. It's not early in the season anymore, and we are beyond what can be laid at the feet of Bud Selig's horrible international marketing plan which forced both teams to open the season Down Under a full week before everyone else.  

We're a month in, and patterns are establishing themselves.  However, I'll indulge those who insist it's still early.  Fine.  We still can't afford to be losing this many games.  Somebody wiser than me once said something to the effect that pennants are not won, but they can certainly be lost early in the season.

Speaking of patterns, it seems these days every game is a 3-2 or 2-1 loss in 9 innings, or it'll be extra innings with an eventual loss.  Intellectually I know the boys aren't losing EVERY game - you can check the statscentric blogs for the exact numbers - but all I know is it FEELS like every game is like that.  Perception can quickly become reality.

So what's the problem? Is it the pitching or the hitting?  Not to ignore the defense, which is producing an average of an error every game, but I believe good hitting or pitching should be able to neutralize that.  

When Clayton Kershaw went on the DL immediately after the Australia series, most observers thought the Dodgers would really suffer.  Although the Dodgers are losing too often (it's the fans who are suffering), the remaining starting pitchers - and even some emergency AAA call ups -  have been very effective and have kept us competitive in most of the games.  

We've gotten to the 6th and 7th innings very often with the opposition scoring two runs or less.  The problem is, concurrently the Dodger bats have usually scored only one run or less. The pitching staff (as a whole) cannot realistically be expected to win 80 - 90% of the games by scores of 1- 0 or 2-1.  

When a team scores three runs, it's going to win most games. While Dodger relievers cannot be excused for issuing the second-highest walks (69) in baseball, they have no business being involved in extra inning marathons we would have won had we scored three runs.

The Dodgers have scored just two runs in their last 27 innings. Somebody should tell them we can't win by a score of 0 to -1.  No, the pitchers are not to blame.  It's those cold, cold Dodger bats.

www.zimbio.com

 Adrian Gonzalez was red hot a couple of weeks ago and Yasiel Puig's bat is pretty hot right now.  The Dodgers are very good at getting a lead off single or double and then not scoring the runner.  And that pretty much sums up the Dodger offensive attack in 2014. 

What are the Dodgers' chances of turning that around? 
There's almost zero offense coming from the three Dodger catchers we've tried.  Juan Uribe, with the second-highest RBI's is one bad cough away from the DL, and there is no real replacement for him on the bench or in the minors. Mattingly is forced to play lousy utility guys or broken down ex-Angels. Thanks, Ned Colletti!

What about the "good" problem of too many outfielders? 
Mattingly has taken a step forward in deciding what to do with that surplus, and in true Mattingly fashion, he's making the wrong decisions. His choice of Puig as the everyday right fielder is a no-brainer, but after that, Mattingly is simply showing no brain.  

He's made the Dodgers' Strikeout King, Matt Kemp (36 K's), the everyday center fielder. Mattingly has Andre Ethier and Carl Crawford battling for the remaining outfield spot. 

Ethier has16 RBI's  and he's fourth on the team behind Gonzalez, Puig and Uribe.  He's fourth while sitting out about one third of the season, while Gonzalez and Uribe have played just about every inning of every game. Kemp and Crawford are tied with 9 RBI's each.  Kemp has single-digit RBI's and leads the team in strike outs, but he's been gifted center field. 

Here's a thought - today's Giants pitcher is Matt Cain. Ethier is hitting .400 with 30 hits against the guy.  Would you play him?  Mattingly won't.  He's got Ethier sitting on the bench while Crawford, who has stunk at the plate all season except for last week, is out in the field.  Genius managing.  

The Giants come to town sitting in first place and they have pretty much owned the Dodgers up to this point.  This four game series could well set the tone for at least the next few weeks of the season, and perhaps all of it.

 The Dodgers just need a fire lit under them, right?   Damn Mattingly held a closed-door team meeting before the first game and did what he could.  The Dodgers went out and lost.

Last night Puig launched a massive home run against the Giants. He then had some loud and gruff words with the Giants pitcher and catcher when he came around third.  Both managers came on the field and tensions rose.  

www.timesunion.com

Everyone calmed down and the next batter came up. Mattingly was almost immediately ejected by the plate umpire.  Ejected from the dugout!  He went on the field and gave that minor league (yes, minor league) ump just about every curse word you would ever hear on a ballfield - or not.  Did all of those fireworks light up the Dodgers? Nope. 

Brandon League later came in for the Dodgers and got out of a bases loaded and no out jam to keep the game within one run.  Did that finally fire up the Dodgers? Nope. We lost again, 3-1.  There's that three run principle. 

Does any of this sound familiar? It should to Dodger fans.  This is pretty much the way last season started.  During the first half of the season the Dodgers absolutely stunk up the ballpark.  Sure we ended up almost in the World Series - but that was only after a historic, epic, never seen before, winning run that stunned everyone.  

At this point in the season, it looks like we're gonna need another one of those.

Dodgers Bullpen Flawed? Try Looking Inside The Dugout

 I've said it before and I'm gonna say it again, a smart manager will win 5 to 10 games for a team every season, while a bonehead manager will lose 5 to 10 games.  Last night the Dodgers lost to the Diamondbacks precisely because of Damn Mattingly's dopey handling of the Dodgers in the final innings of a tough, tied game.

Granted, the Dodgers had no business being in that situation in the first place, as their batting lineup looks like gangbusters on paper.  However, they just can't seem to hit their way out of a wet paper bag these days.

I keep reading bloggers and the L.A. Times sportswriters running headlines that declare "Dodgers Bullpen Fails Again".  Is every night supposed to be a shutout?  The bullpen is being blamed when we lose 2-1 and 3-2?  Really?

I've said this one before too - if a team scores three runs per game, they are going to win far more games than they'll lose.  Particularly if that team has a pitching staff as good as the Dodgers. If those anemic Dodger bats had scored three, we never would have been in a position of having to rely on Mattingly's "strategy".  But this game did come down to how Mattingly (mis)handles a batting order.

Cue the bottom of the eighth, and we're tied 1-1 with the Snakes. Yasiel Puig started off the inning with a walk. Everything looked good. With Puig at first, the Dodgers could have went with a sac bunt or play for a base hit because Puig's got the wheels to go to third on a single or steal at any time during the at bat.  That probably was a good time for a smart manager to make a smart move. But our manager is Damn Mattingly.

Justin Turner (BA .185) was due up.  Turner had started in place of Dee Gordon and had already struck out twice.  Gordon waited on the bench.  The same Dee Gordon of the .365 batting average, who can bunt and has the speed to possibly be safe giving us two rabbits on base, who has shown he can hit legitimate singles, has shown surprising power, AND can remain in the game at second base when he pinch hits for Justin Turner.  But Flash Gordon Jr. remained on the bench.  Result: Turner struck out for the third time.

Hanley advanced Puig to second, but was the second out on a close play. We needed an RBI and now had one sitting on second base, waiting to be driven home.  Next up was Matt Kemp.  I know most Dodger fans love Kemp unconditionally, and I'm not anti-Kemp by any means, but the Snake's pitcher at the time, Brad Zeigler, absolutely owns Kemp. 

We also had the guy who has the second most RBI's on the team, one of the Dodger's best situational hitters this season, and can replace Kemp in CF, sitting on the bench.  It would have set up a lefty hitter against a RH pitcher.  Andre Ethier sat, Kemp stayed in.  Result: Kemp hits into a puny force out.  Momentum gone, ownage continued.

Sure, Mattingly would have been crucified if he PH Ethier for Kemp and Ethier didn't succeed, but it was the kind of gutsy (and percentage) move that I believe the situation called for.

The Dodgers gifted a run to the Snakes in the top of the ninth, so they went ahead 2-1. 

Bottom of the ninth and the Dodgers needed a run just to tie and stay alive.  Scott Van Slyke had already smashed one home run in the game and maybe can catch lightning in the bottle again.....but wait....Mattingly Von Stengel decided to make a move.  A bonehead move. 

Van Slyke, the guy who just gets better with more at bats, the guy with the awesome momentum-producing Led Zeppelin walk up music, the guy who's bat still smells like the burnt wood of an earlier home run, is benched.  Mattingly replaces him with Carl "I forgot how to hit" Crawford.  *sigh*   Result: Lazy fly out.

Juan Uribe followed Crawford with a heroic home run blast to tie the game.  Who knows what the significance of Uribe's homer would have been if hot hitter Van Slyke had been allowed to bat?

Instead the game was only tied, we eventually lost in 12, and everyone wants to blame the bullpen.