Well here it is the first official day of spring training, as pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp. Despite how the roster looks, as Tony Jackson stated in his new Dodger blog at ESPN, there's always hope, and things could look worse.
For the good news from Mattingly today,
1. Dee Gordon will bat leadoff. While many are worried about his ability to take walks, I believe that his patience will grow as he sees more major league pitching (remember Dee is still fairly new to playing baseball), plus his plus plus speed makes even routine grounders possible infield hits. If he can learn to add bunting to his batting approach expect him to have a great season.
2. Matt Kemp will bat third. This is also good news as Matt Kemp (hard to believe with the season he had) actually preformed better hitting in the three hole, using Either for protection. At 3 Kemp hit 331/418/647 (BA/OBP/SLG), vs 322/394/569 in the 4 hole. While he hits great in both places, the protection of Ethier helps Kemp recieve a more steady diet of fastballs and pitches in the zone. Also with Ethier behind Kemp, it leaves more room for Kemp to run wild on the bases. (With Ethier healthy expect this to be billed like the Braun and Fielder duo of last season.
3. Blake Hawksworth will be starting the season on the DL. It seems weird to take this as good news, but Hawksworth while being satisfactory, he was far from being excellent out of the pen. According to Baseball Reference the Hawk appeared in a high leverage situation in 17 games. In those games batters hit 375 with an OPS of 932. For comparison Jansen appeared in 20 games and held batters to a 116 batting average. In fact by the end of the season he had been relagated mostly to cleanup duty. So the silver lining of this is that depsite Ned's best efforts to block any changes Mattingly may want to make to the roster, Donnie Baseball will get the chance to go fishing in his large, but shallow pool of pitching talent invited to camp. (My bet is on Jamey Wright)
So team positives going into 2012, despite a lack of a proven #2 starter, the starting rotation is deep and decent as all five are established starters. The bullpen looks to be solid with Jansen, Guerra, Elbert, Coffey, and good backup arms in the minors with Eovaldi and Lindblom. Matt Kemp will be coming back, and Andre should be healthy. And Kemp's work ethic from last season seems to have paid off, as a number of Dodger's decided to show up early to camp (Kemp, Gordon, Ellis, Kershaw, Sellers)
Now even though the Dodger infield should be very slick with a glove, we can all agree that their offensive production is going to be equivilent to the amount of wind produced by a butterfly flapping it's wings. Plus with Ned "head up my a**" Colletti at the helm there has only been one spot left on the roster for a non roster invitee, or a minor league player to make the squad. Essentialy there is one spot and fifteen players trying out for it.
So barring injury who gets the spot. Seems to me, despite Sands massive numbers when coming back up for his second drink of coffee with the big team (342 BA and 908 OPS) Dodger management thinks he doesn't have enough seasoning. Since Sands projects to be an everyday, he will most likly start the season in AAA so he doesn't have to sit on a bench. Also with Ned's signings, there is a clear lack of a backup SS in case Dee goes down with an injury. As none of the NRI's strike me as a good backup infielder, my guess is that Sellers will find himself on the major league roster leaving camp.
Now for the wishful thinking aspect. With Kennedy's nearly minimal 800k contract we could all hope that he preforms pitifully enough that they DFA him before camp is over. That opens up one more roster spot. Currently I'm torn between NRI's Jeff Baisley and Josh Fields. Both men are over the hill in prospect terms at 29 (in fact Fields is just 4 days older than Baisley), however, at under 30 and playing the hot corners, both could add value for the Dodgers. Baisley has spent the last 8 years in the A's farm system. He hits for good average and hits for decent power as he hit 20 HR's in the minors last year, but has only played 14 games at the major league level. Baisley also has a good glove at first and third as well. Fields, does not have good fielding (despite his last name), but has shown great power, as he was onced ranked a top 50 prospect in 2007, and hit 23 HR's in the majors the same year. He has an OBP problem, but could have melowed out in his last couple of years floating back and forth between the majors and minors. If there were ever a Quad A player it might be Fields as he enjoyed a 350+ BA his last two seasons in the minors, but has yet to fully translate that in the majors. He could be a very interesting risk, and truthfully, could he be worse than Uribe was last year...?
The rest of my wishes depend on players getting injured in Spring training so that some prospects can play, and since it involves people getting hurt, I'm not gonna say it out loud. In conclusion I will leave you with a slight positive note about Colletti. Despite his major league signing's being aweful this year (minus the Kemp extension), at least he's getting some interesting NRI to camp.
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