OFFICIAL 2009 DODGERS SEASON THREAD : Season Over. Congratulations Phillies.

[cincoseisdos]

Colorado Rockies at Los Angeles Dodgers Tickets 7/1

7-1-2009 Wednesday 12:10 PM

Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, CA

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[h2]Andruw Jones Update[/h2]

by Eric Stephen on May 16, 2009 12:07 PM PDT in News

1 comment


More photos » by Paul Sancya - AP

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Last night, Andruw Jones took Joe Saunders deep to centerfield for his fourth home run of the season. It was his 79th plate appearance of the season. Last season, Jones hit three home runs in 238 plate appearances as a Dodger.

Last year, Jones was five for 58 with runners in scoring position, with all five hits singles. This season, with runners in scoring position, Andruw is seven for 15, with a double and a home run.

Here's a look at Andruw's 2008 vs. 2009:

Year	PA	2B	HR	RBI	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS+
2008	238	8	3	14	.158	.256	.249	34
2009	82	7	4	11	.297	.439	.594	167

It's not as if Andruw is only killing lefties this season. He has a 1.015 OPS against RHP, and a 1.052 OPS against LHP, with 41 plate appearances against each side.

The one bright spot for the Dodgers is that they get half of whatever Andruw makes this season, and he has an incentive laden contract. He is already guaranteed $500,000, so the Dodgers get $250,000 of salary relief. He is on pace for 380 plate apperances, which would net him another $150,000 in incentives. He has many more PA incentives, essentially every 40 additional PA, The other reachable incentive (assuming of course Andruw doesn't win AL MVP or any postseason MVP awards) is $200,000 for comeback player of the year.

The Dodgers best bet is to root for Andruw to hit so well that he racks up 620 plate appearances, so they can take half of his extra $1 million.

[h1]Minor League Baseball ready to sign lease for Dodgertown[/h1]
By Henry A. Stephens (Contact)
Friday, May 15, 2009

VERO BEACH - After months of private negotiations, leading to public discussions last month, Minor League Baseball officials are ready to sign a five-year lease to Dodgertown.

Indian River County Administrator Joe Baird is scheduled Tuesday to present the lease to the county commission for approval. It takes effect the same day.

But MiLB of Vero Beach LLC won't be ready quite yet to announce its arrival to the community, organization President Pat O'Conner said.

"We'll take possession of the facility as soon as the lease documents are signed," he said. "But there's going to be very little if any change immediately. So there won't be any banners going up or anything until we work through our rebranding plan."

That means changing the name from "Dodgertown" to something like "Historic Dodgertown," depending on the outcome of O'Conner's next round of negotiations, with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who held spring training there for 61 years until last year.

The team owns the trademark to the name "Dodgertown," and has built a new spring-training facility by that name in Glendale, Ariz. But Dodgers officials have said they are honored by O'Conner's interest in keeping the name here and would explore it.

According to the lease, the county will provide up to $100,000 to help MiLB rebrand the facility, such as new signs.

O'Conner said he doesn't know when that will be concluded so he can move on booking college and youth teams to use the facility.

The deal between the county and MiLB is similar to the deal the county had with the Dodgers, where the Dodgers paid $1 a year for the use of the facility and picked up all operation and maintenance costs which run about $100,000 a month.

MiLB will start picking up these maintenance and operation costs in January.

The lease tasks MiLB with doing its best "to attract Major League Baseball" for spring training, in addition to its own training events.

Similar to the Dodgers agreement, the MiLB lease provides the county with 10 days a year to use the facility, in addition to the Harvest Festival, an annual fundraising event for St. Helen Catholic School.

"We're very pleased," festival spokesman J.B. Egan said. "We think (the new relationship) is something the community can all look forward to."

The lease charges MiLB a token rent of $1 a year and allows it to keep the proceeds from ticket and concession sales. But that's no giveaway, County Commissioner Peter O'Bryan said.

"They get all the revenue, but they also get all the expenses," he said.

The big plus for the county, however, is when MiLB brings in college and youth teams and even non-baseball groups to train, he said.

O'Conner has said those team members and their parents and other supporters would need more lodging than the facility's 89-unit hotel. He said they would be staying and eating at other hotels and restaurants and spending money at local merchants.

• MiLB will have restricted access to a $2 million capital reserve account for improvements to the facility.

• MiLB will include Vero Beach and the county in its advertising of sporting events and receive at least $50,000 annually from tourist tax revenue for this.

• Field lights will be added to two existing playing fields this year and two additional playing fields in 2010. Vero Beach will provide up to $126,000 in tourist tax or local optional sales tax money toward the project



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[h1]Milton isn't the problem -- Mota ishttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dodgerthoughts/2009/05/may-15.html[/h1]
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dodgerthoughts/2009/05/may-15.html
When a team makes a multimillion-dollar, multiyear commitment to a player who seems to offer experience and nothing else, that's something to get upset about.

When a team makes a bare-minimum commitment to a player whose main asset is experience but might be pitching the best he has in years, I mostly shrug.

Some might say that calling up Eric Milton to replace Jeff Weaver (3.60 ERA in May) in the starting rotation and James McDonald (2.08 ERA in May) on the active roster fixes a problem that isn't broken. I'm not disagreeing.


But that doesn't change the fact that this is a low-risk move, plus there could be a long-term benefit in giving McDonald steady work in AAA. And statistically, Milton has had an outstanding run with Albuquerque.


If anything, the arrival of Milton and Weaver underscores the folly of the Dodgers committing more than $2 million this year to Guillermo Mota. No, good pitchers don't grow on trees, but pitchers of a certain level do, and there was little reason in January to believe Mota, at this stage of his career, would be worth much more than the non-roster contracts that numerous guys got in spring training.


If Milton performs well, the Dodgers will have quite a nice problem on their hands in terms of a roster crunch when Hiroki Kuroda returns (except perhaps for the part Mota plays in it). If Milton doesn't perform, they can always bring back McDonald. Either way, I'm confident we haven't seen the last of McDonald this year.

• If Milton isn't enough to make you wonder, note that the Albuquerque ERA of Shawn Estes sits at 2.75. Estes started and won for the Isotopes on Thursday without striking out any batters.
• When Jonathan Broxton gave up the game-tying double to Carlos Ruiz on Thursday, David Pinto of Baseball Musings was watching closely: "After a couple of fouls," Pinto wrote, "I'm looking at Ruiz's stance and thought, 'There's no way he can hit a low, inside pitch.' (Russell) Martin sets up outside, however, and Ruiz takes the pitch the other way, driving it between the center and rightfielders for a two-run double."
• I enjoyed Rob McMillin's theory at 6-4-2 that my sedative posts (here's the most recent example) bring out the dramatics in the Dodgers. It also led me to reread McMillin's really nice post following the 4+1 game.
• Thursday, I linked to Tim Malcolm of Phillies Nation. Here's another post from Malcolm today -- I really think it's interesting how the followers of a team that many Dodgers fans fear need their own sedative.
• The 3:10 Pacific starting time for the Dodgers-Marlins game Saturday means the first 50 minutes won't be televised. Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness has a lot to say about that.
• The Mets signed 38-year-old former Dodger reliever Tom Martin to a minor-league contract, reports of the New York Daily News (link via Tim Dierkes of MLBTradeRumors, who points out that Martin pitched in the Atlantic League in 200.
• http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dodgerthoughts/2009/05/may-15.html
• Like Diamond Leung, former Daily News beat writer Tony Jackson isn't ready to hang up writing about the Dodgers just yet. Jackson will contribute to L.A. Dodger Talk. A coup for Mark Timmons, who traveled from Indiana to meet everyone at the Dodgers blogger night earlier last month, and Miguel Salcido. "We plan to help him make it his full-time gig," Timmons said.

 

[p mac one]

I'm up in the bay for my cousins graduation from UCB

Went to the Giants/Mets game last night. Perfect ending

 

[cincoseisdos]

DAMMIT GIMME MY GAME!!!!!!!!!

Why is the game NOT being shown until 4? FREAKING FAMILY FEUD?!?!?!

 

[cincoseisdos]

WHAAT THE %*#@

THEY ARENT JOINING IN PROGRESS?!?!?!

 

[bigmike23]

!+%!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT:

what the hell why is this $!+# on a tape delay?

 

[jrdnkiks213]

I can't believe the programming was delayed. They were in the 2nd inning and the game was actually in the bottom of the 5th. Smh.

 

[sinser13]

just a reminder that tomorrows game is at 10am

 

[Los Angeles]

damn the dodger blog was saying something about a delay, but i didnt wanna believe it.

that #+!+ brought me back to the laker games last year on kcal

how does that happen? broadcasting rights?

i caught the game but was constantly checking espn.com for an updated score, milton was ok - dodgers missed plenty of oppertunities to come back in the game.

juan pierre is on fire, and i expect: ethier, blake, furcal and martin to get a rest tomorrow.

luckily, the giants lost and we're still 6 games up, we could have been 7 though.

 

[sinser13]

The game was delayed cause no baseball games can be on tv from 1-4 cause of fox games. Only Fox games can be aired on saturdays afternoon.

 

[Los Angeles]

wake up fellas, early game

 

[cincoseisdos]

supppppppppp

 

[sinser13]

it's to early

 

[Los Angeles]

2 leadoff singles, and odog flies out

drive em in matty

 

[cincoseisdos]

little poopdick hit ends up in 2runs

 

[jrdnkiks213]

Loretta's slide

 

[pdouly33]

The D is great early....O-Dog then Pierre

 

[cincoseisdos]

Castro

 

[pdouly33]

Castro doin' it to 'em

 

[cincoseisdos]

Originally Posted by jrdnkiks213

Loretta's slide

he just wanted to get a little dirty. Takin advantage of the rare start

 

[sinser13]

Juan castro

 

[Los Angeles]

juan tryin to get more playing time

 

[Los Angeles]

damn pierre almost got a hold of that one

 

[pdouly33]

Damn I wanted to see Pierre get a HR there.

 

[Los Angeles]

gotta get more runs on the board before koronka gets the hook.

this lineup is pretty nice