Hello,
Updated May 10th, 2014. After the Dodgers had 5 hits and 1 run on Thursday, they followed that dud with an even worse game Friday. LA only had 4 hits and 1 run on Friday. And again guess who it was that provided the Dodgers lone run, yep it was Yasiel Puig. He was 1-4, which slightly decreased his batting average to .308. However he did hit his 5th homer and notched his 23rd RBI, both stats he leads Matt Kemp in. However Kemp showed some signs of life in this game, he was 2-3 and raised his woeful batting average to .262. Although both hits were only singles, I love that he even had two hits in one game. Sadly Dee Gordon (.328), Adrian Gonzalez (.265), Hanley Ramirez (.254), and Scott Van Slyke (.250) were 0-16 in this game. The only other Dodger with a hit was Justin Turner, he was 1-3 and is hitting .182.
LA slips to 19-18 and now trail their arch rivals by 4.5 games. LA has only won 2 of 8 games against the Giants this season. They play each other again in early games Saturday and Sunday.
May 9th, 2014:
I'm not sure if it's just my Youtube account, or if it's affecting everyone, but I haven't been able to add Youtube videos to my blog the last several days. Without being able to add these great songs, writing music blogs just isn't as fun. I'd love to share new songs from Imaginary Cities ("Bells of Cologne"), a cool song by Sky Ferreira ("24 Hours") and many other songs. Hopefully whatever is going on will be resolved soon.
All stats for this blog are current through May 8th, 2014 and I get them straight from ESPN.com. Thanks to them. My apologies and responsibility if I messed up on any of the math.
On to the overpaid, under performing Dodgers, just what does $235,295,219 get you? (Thanks to Deadspin.com for this figure.) Well what it's getting the Dodgers and their fans is a team barely above .500 and in third place in the NL West. The Dodgers are 3.5 games behind the Giants, who are paying $81 million dollars less. Even the high scoring Rockies are paying considerably less than the Dodgers. LA is paying $139.5 million more than the Rockies, the Rockies have scored 67 more runs than LA. Just for fun the Rockies are paying $445,730 per run, while LA is paying $1,589,832 per run.
Who are the worst offenders on the Dodgers? First, I want to offer up a comparison and contrast. Although the Dodgers are tied for 8th place in runs scored, too many times they score very few runs. Last night LA was playing at home! against their long-time hated rival Giants! and were only able to score 1 run. Fittingly that one run was scored on a sacrifice fly by Drew Butera. Here's the comparison and contrast, that RBI was Butera's 5th RBI of the season. In only 12 games he's tied for 9th place for the Dodgers RBI lead. Meanwhile highly paid, but wildly under performing Matt Kemp, has played 18 more games. Guess how many more RBIs Kemp has than Butera? He has all of 4 more RBIs. Kemp, by the way, is making $20.5 million more than Butera.
Sadly, unlike the NFL, MLB contracts are fully guaranteed. If the Dodgers could release players, there are at least 3 players I wish they'd be able to cut. Those players would include Josh Beckett, he's making $17 million. I'll admit he's pitching much better than I expected this season (0-1, 2.80 ERA), but he's not "worth" $17,000,000 for this season. (Of course the caveat is that very few professional athletes are worth what they are paid.) I also wish the Dodgers could cut Brandon League. Again he's pitching much better than I expected, (1-1, 1.96 ERA, O saves for the player the Dodgers signed to be the closer), but in no way is he worth $8,500,000. The Dodgers, or anyone else frankly, probably can get similar performance for much less money.
I already mentioned Kemp, who clearly is on the downhill side of his career. Kemp is hitting only .250, has 4 homers and 9 RBIs. Coming over in that 2012 trade with the Red Sox is Carl Crawford, a trade haunting the Dodgers more and more each season. Crawford is paid $21,107,143, for that he's hitting all of .257. Then the last of the overpaid outfield is Andre Ethier, who I also wish LA could cut. If LA could cut Beckett, League and Ethier that would save the Dodgers $40 million this season alone. The Dodgers are paying out so much money than everyone else, that $40 million would only drop them to second place in payroll. Once Hyun-Jin Ryu gets back from the DL, the Dodgers will have plenty of pitching. If the Dodgers could dump Ethier that would give them 3 outfielders, only 3 outfielders can play at once. And if needed Joc Pederson is in Albuquerque seemingly ready to go. Ethier, who is being paid $15,500,000, is only hitting .248, with 2 homers, but at least he has 16 RBIs.
Of course the best Dodgers outfielder is the least paid of the 4 mentioned, that's Yasiel Puig. He's a relative bargain at $3,714, 286 for this season. He's hitting .310, has 4 homers and 22 RBIs. He also has 4 stolen bases. Of course the 23 year old Puig is a bit of a head case, but he'll probably grow out of that.
The Dodgers also need to get more out of the highly paid, but I'm glad they are Dodgers, Hanley Ramirez and Adrian Gonzalez. Gonzalez, the Dodgers Mr. Consistent last season, is only hitting .273. Ramirez, who was also very valuable for the Dodgers last season, is only hitting .261 in 2014.
Thank goodness for the 3 Dodgers hitting over .300. Those players are the surprising Dee Gordon, he's hitting .338. Jose Uribe is hitting .306 and I already mentioned Puig's .310 batting average.
It's hard to believe when the Dodgers have the highest payroll in MLB history, they desperately need another bat to give this Dodgers team more offense. Just because you have the money doesn't mean you should spend it. The Dodgers need to get better at finding and developing talented players.
thefrustratedmusicaddict
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