NL west is no joke

Ranma · Post #21 » by **Ranma** » Mon Jul 17, 2017 2:04 am

Ranma · Post #22 » by **Ranma** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 7:57 pm

Richard Justice, MLB.com (7/18/17)

1. The Dodgers do not have one NL Most Valuable Player candidate. They have three of them: shortstop Corey Seager, Turner and Bellinger. Turner is batting .374 and seemingly on his way to a batting title. Bellinger has 26 home runs in 73 games and appears to be a slam dunk for NL Rookie of the Year, if not more.

Seager established himself has one of the NL's five best players last season when he was named NL Rookie of the Year and finished third in the NL Most Valuable Player Award voting. Some of his toughest competition for MVP votes this year may come from inside his own clubhouse.
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8. Roberts sometimes gets overshadowed by the star power. He shouldn't. He has that magical touch that the best managers have. His players respect him, but they also like him and know everything he does is what he believes is in the best interests of the team.

8 Reasons Why 2017 is Dodgers' Year

Ranma · Post #23 » by **Ranma** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 3:50 am

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Ranma · Post #24 » by **Ranma** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 5:15 pm

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Neddy · Post #25 » by **Neddy** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 5:54 pm

Ranma wrote:

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I gotta tell ya, I did not see this coming, at all.

I pictured Alex as a reclamation project who will eventually settle as a middle of the rotation guy at best, and most likely as a very effective setup man for his career. but here he is, out pitching the arguably the best pitcher ever in the history of the game, who happens to be on the same team, and to do what Alex is doing this year... and he isn't even eligible for free agency until 2020? un-effing-believable. KUDOS to Andrew Friedman and his group. what a shame on the Braves' front office. to have dumped Hector Olivera and others for this kid?

Ranma · Post #26 » by **Ranma** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 8:02 pm

Neddy wrote:I gotta tell ya, I did not see this coming, at all.

I pictured Alex as a reclamation project who will eventually settle as a middle of the rotation guy at best, and most likely as a very effective setup man for his career. but here he is, out pitching the arguably the best pitcher ever in the history of the game, who happens to be on the same team, and to do what Alex is doing this year... and he isn't even eligible for free agency until 2020? un-effing-believable. KUDOS to Andrew Friedman and his group. what a shame on the Braves' front office. to have dumped Hector Olivera and others for this kid?

Neddy, I have to join you in pleading some ignorance on how good Alex Wood would become. I knew he had the potential to be a good starter but didn't anticipate that he would be an ace either. I recall both you and I being proponents of him moving to the bullpen mostly because of his injury issues coupled with his funky delivery as well as his trouble with going through the opposing lineup more than twice. This was further exacerabated because he injured his foot (toe?) right before being traded to the Dodgers and didn't tell anyone.

Then Rick Honeycutt noticed the flaws in his mechanics and Alex kept reviewing video tape of himself as he was finally fully healthy and was able to stick the same landing spot for his foot, which allowed for the release point of all his pitches to revert back to the same spot. It's a remarkable turnaround and job by both Wood and the pitching coaches.

The first time I had a glimpse of his full potential was when Wood was actually striking out batters at a higher rate than Max Scherzer last season before he went down with another injury. With that in mind, I was building cautious optimism with each of his excellent starts.

I also remember Quake questioning the organization's usage of Wood in the bullpen as a waste of a valuable asset. In hindsight, he certainly had a point, but I would argue that the bullpen helped get him back on track much like it has done with Maeda's more aggressive approach this season. At the same time, I always figured other teams would still see Wood as a starter regardless of our usage of him as long as we could keep him healthy.

It's absolutely amazing to look back at the beginning of the season and think that Wood was an afterthought for the starting rotation because we had Kershaw, Hill, a healthy Urias, and Maeda along with McCarthy, Ryu, Stewart, and Kazmir as possibilities.

Neddy · Post #27 » by **Neddy** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 1:23 am

... and as we speak, Maeda is quietly throwing a very good game and if you negate his HR given up, he has been impressive once again.

what we need out of Maeda isn't mechanical, or more pitch types. it is his mental approach to the game.

and **** just hit another HR!

Ranma · Post #28 » by **Ranma** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 4:06 am

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Ranma · Post #29 » by **Ranma** » Fri Jul 21, 2017 9:02 pm

Neil Paine, FiveThirtyEight.com (7/21/17)

Baseball’s Best Teams are Too Damn Good

Ranma · Post #30 » by **Ranma** » Wed Jul 26, 2017 6:01 am

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Ranma · Post #31 » by **Ranma** » Thu Jul 27, 2017 5:46 pm

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Ranma · Post #32 » by **Ranma** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 1:39 am

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Ranma · Post #33 » by **Ranma** » Sat Jul 29, 2017 5:35 am

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Ranma · Post #34 » by **Ranma** » Sun Jul 30, 2017 5:13 pm

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Ranma · Post #35 » by **Ranma** » Sun Jul 30, 2017 7:28 pm

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Quake Griffin · Post #36 » by **Quake Griffin** » Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:06 am

Lost in this thread and amongst the Dodgers running away with the division is the fact that both WC spots are occupied by AZ and CO with a pretty decent gap between them and the Brewers/STL.

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Quake Griffin · Post #37 » by **Quake Griffin** » Mon Jul 31, 2017 1:24 am

Rockies just acquired Jonathan Lucroy.

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Ranma · Post #38 » by **Ranma** » Wed Aug 2, 2017 4:09 pm

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Ranma · Post #39 » by **Ranma** » Wed Aug 2, 2017 6:18 pm

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Jayson Stark, Facebook.com (8/2/17)

How hot are the Dodgers? Hey, thanks for asking. The Dodgers are so hot, they’re doing things almost no living humans have ever seen any baseball team do. That’s how hot.

Yep, they’re so hot that . . .

• Over their last 46 games, they’re an unfathomable 40-6. Forty and six! Babe Ruth never played on a team that went 40-6. Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra never played on a team that went 40-6. The Big Red Machine never went 40-6. Only TWO teams since 1900 ever have – Joe DiMaggio’s 1941 Yankees and Wildfire Schulte’s 1906 Cubs, the last National League team to do it. And that’s it, ladies and gentlemen.

• But there’s more. The Dodgers have had three winning streaks of nine games or longer – just in the last 39 games! Is that even possible? I went back 100 years. The only team that even came close was Henry Aaron’s 1954 Braves, with three in 44 games. And only three other teams in the division-play era even had three streaks that long in one season – the 2001 Cardinals, 1975 Reds and 1969 Mets.

• If the Dodgers win again Wednesday night, that would be 10 in a row. Yeah, again. And it would give them three DOUBLE-DIGIT winning streaks in the last 40 games. The only other teams in the last 105 seasons with three double-digit win streaks in one SEASON were those ’54 Braves and Fred Merkle’s 1916 Giants.

• And finally, there’s this: A mere 106 games into this season, the Dodgers already have won 75 games. You know how many other National League teams have won 75 games that fast in the last 108 years? How about one! That was Marty Marion’s 1944 Cardinals. Who did that 73 years ago.

So how hot are the Dodgers? Don’t touch this team without a potholder!

Facebook Post: Jayson Stark

Ranma · Post #40 » by **Ranma** » Wed Aug 2, 2017 8:52 pm

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