Onward to blog 1500, this is themusicaddict blog # 1478.
This is my 5th of 5 previews of the MLB teams that I follow. Previously I blogged about the Red Sox, Braves, Cubs and Pirates. One year ago today I wrote a blog where part of the title was "Dodgers Excitement". That was a relatively long blog even by my standards. The thing is although "Dodgers Excitement" is in the title I only wrote a paragraph in the whole blog about the Dodgers. And honestly looking back at that blog now, it's a complete mess. I actually cleaned it up a bit today and also changed the title to "Dodgers 2012 Excitement". I hate stumbling across someone else's blog or article thinking that it's current, but realize that it was written months or even years ago. If you look at that blog entry from one year ago today, you'll notice at least one big change. Last June my brother, a semi-frequent reader of my blog suggested that I blog by subject only. In other words an all sports blog or an all music blog. I thought that was a good idea, so now my blogs usually stick with one theme. For instance, this blog will be a Dodgers/baseball blog.
Before I get to the Dodgers part of this blog, I wanted to point out an amazing thing that ESPN.com shared yesterday. By himself Alex Rodriguez, of the Yankees, will be paid more than the entire roster of the Houston Astros. ARod will be paid $29 million this year, meanwhile the entire Astros roster will only be paid about $25 million. And the funny thing is that ARod might not be able to play the entire season. I love when karma strikes the teams that I despise. Sarcasm alert, yeah the MLB payroll system is just a bit unfair. Thankfully MLB is making changes to fix that.
The above is this week's cover of Sports Illustrated. For the record SI predicts that the Dodgers will win one of the two NL Wild Card playoff spots. They then predict that the Dodgers will beat Atlanta in the one game Wild Card playoff. They predict that will be followed by the Dodgers losing to the eventual World Series champ Nationals in the Divisional round. Again it's SI that predicts that the Nationals will win the World Series. (Honestly I think their Dodger prediction is a bit too optimistic.)
Before I even start I just want to acknowledge the debt I owe to ESPN.com for much of the information in this blog. Anything in quotes is verbatim from ESPN.com. Facts and figures are ESPNs, the whining, moaning and opinions are all mine.
The last I heard the Dodgers have approximately a payroll of $230 million for this season. (I'm just a bit nervous that some of the bad karma that has hit the Yankees will also hit the Dodgers.) What does LA get for that money? They get some of the best names currently in the MLB. Unfortunately many of those "names" are oft injured and or on the downside of their careers.
The season doesn't even start until Monday and the Dodgers already have injury concerns. On March 11th Zack Greinke had inflammation in the back of his right elbow. As of March 26th he was pitching for the Dodgers. On that day he gave up 5 runs on 6 hits, but said his elbow felt "fine". I have a feeling that the Greinke deal is going to end up being a disaster for the Dodgers. Greinke is being paid $13,500,000 this season. This is one of those deals that the Dodgers can make because they have so much money. However I question if they should make this kind of deal. Just because they can isn't a good enough reason.
Josh Beckett, who's making $17 million, is only a small pull or twist away from being injured and going to the DL. It seems like he's had a good Spring Training, but there's no way he'll live up to his salary.
Next up is the seemingly perpetually injured Carl Crawford, he's making $20,357,143 million this year. (No, that's not a misprint. I don't know about you, but these numbers are mind boggling to me.) It seems he's healthy now and will be the Dodgers leadoff hitter to start the season. That's all well and good, but I think it will only be a short time until he's injured again. Before playing in Spring Training this year, the last time he played was August 19th, 2012.
Looking at his player page on ESPN.com Crawford has a big smile on his face. He's still owed $107.7 million for the next 5 years. Well who can blame him for being happy for getting paid so much for doing so little? I wish MLB contracts were like NFL contracts and only so much money is guaranteed.
Oh yeah and don't forget Hanley Ramirez, making $15,000,000 this season, will miss the first 8 weeks of the season due to "a torn right thumb ligament".
So all the injuries alone make me have muted excitement for this season. Even if healthy both Crawford and Beckett are on the downsides of their careers. I also don't think that Greinke or Ramirez will ever perform to a level to actually come close to living up to their contracts.
For the Dodgers to have a great season there's just too many things that have to happen. For instance, the above players have to live up at least to half of their contracts. Good luck on that. Also Adrian Gonzalez has to re find his form from his last year in San Diego, honestly I don't think that's going to happen. The big stars have to perform, but also one or two of the unheralded players have to have break out seasons. That would be a Mark Ellis, Luiz Cruz, Dee Gordon or Yasiel Puig type of player. I think we already know what we are going to get from the first 3, Puig is the wildcard.
I predict the Dodgers will finish above .500, but not make the playoffs. As much as any fan I love when my teams spend a lot of money to have the best chance to win. However I'm convinced the Dodgers didn't use their money as wisely as they could have. Instead of spending a lot of money to acquire injury prone and expensive players, I wish they would went with a youth movement. Maybe have a couple of big name free agents sprinkled in with young players. I'd rather have sustained success, not the Marlins winning the World Series followed by having a fire sale.
The Dodgers start off the season by playing one of their traditional rivals, the San Francisco Giants. The Giants are the defending World Series champions and also locked up catcher Buster Posey to a long term contract today. On April 1st Clayton Kershaw will take the ball for the Dodgers against the Giants. LA's first 6 games will be in Chavez Ravine, they'll play 3 games against the Giants and then 3 games against the Pirates.
Then on April 9th they go to San Diego to play a 3 game series with the Padres. What kind of reaction will Adrian Gonzalez get? From April 12th to April 14th the Dodgers will be in Arizona for a 3 game tilt with the Diamondbacks.
Also tentatively I hope to blog about the Dodgers nearly every game day. The blogs probably won't be long. I just think it will be fun to follow my favorite MLB team that closely all season long. I have no idea how long this will last though.
I realize in several months when someone stumbles across this blog the following won't make sense, but that's okay. GO FGCU & MICHIGAN STATE!
themusicaddict
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