David Ortiz (.070, 1 HR, 3 RBI) “I’m just trying to figure things out for a minute so I can go back to being Big Papi again. You see this in baseball, where a guy will have a hard time, go home, chill out and come back with a fresh mind. It happens to everybody. I always do what Terry tells me to do. I’m an employee.”

Jason Giambi (.107, 2 HR, 4 RBI) “If I’ve been frustrated by anything, it’s that I feel so good and I’m hitting the ball hard and I had nothing to show for it.”

C.C. Sabathia (0-2, 11.57 ERA) “Of course people are going to say that — what else could be the reason?” he said. “It can’t just be that I’m pitching bad. It’s got to be something bigger; why not that? I don’t really care how it looks or seems. I can’t control what people think. I’m just trying to get it right and win baseball games.” — on whether his struggles are caused by contract-year pressure.

Jose Reyes (.225, 0 HR, 6 RBI) “I’m gonna get there. I want to finish my career here.”

Prince Fielder (.222 AVG, 0 HR, 6 RBI) “This game is all mental, anyway. It’s never physical” (so don’t even think about blaming this on my weight or my new vegetarian diet, asshole).

Miguel Cabrera (.175 AVG, 1 HR, 2 RBI) “It’s bad. I’m playing bad. … I feel bad. I feel like everybody’s behind me, laughing.”

Kenny Rogers (0-3, 6.75 ERA) “I’m supposed to be consistent and I was very uncomfortable out there and inconsistent.”

Andruw “The Tubbo” Jones (.100 AVG, 0 HR, 1 RBI) “Do I have to be sad all the time? My mom is still living, my dad is still living, and my mom thinks I’m fine and that’s what matters.”

This is one of a series of posts in which we rip each team for their offseason blunders and praise them for their wily moves.

If the Dodgers had done absolutely nothing at all this whole offseason, I would have given them an “A” grade, because given this year’s free agent class and the incredible amount of talent already in the Dodgers system, I honestly feel that would have been the best course of action. Indeed, the Dodgers failed to contend last season, not because they didn’t have the right players, but because they had the right players and refused to play them until it was too late.

Just think: even if the Dodgers had not signed a single free agent, they could have put this team on the field (2008 ages in parentheses):

C Russell Martin (25)
1B James Loney (24)
2B Jeff Kent (40)
3B Andy LaRoche (24)
SS Rafael Furcal (30)
LF Delwyn Young (26)
CF Matt Kempt (23)
RF Andre Ethier (26)

Outside of Kent, that is an incredibly young, incredibly talented team with lots of upside and would have had no real holes anywhere in the lineup. The Dodgers would also have had an already set bullpen and rotation, and even if someone went down with an injury, they would have already had reasonable in-house replacements - Nomar Garciaparra at 1B and 3B, Juan Pierre and Jason Repko in the outfield, Chin-Lung Hu and Tony Abreu in the middle infield, and Hong-Chih Kuo, Eric Stults, and Johnathan Meloan in the rotation and bullpen.

Of course, we all knew that there was no way in hell that Ned Colletti would stand pat and run that lineup I have proposed out there, given his completely lack of trust in anyone younger than 30 and his deep, abiding love of the big name. And sure enough, Colletti ran out and splashed around in a pool of Frank McCourt’s money, signing new manager Joe Torre, centerfielder Andruw Jones, and Japanese starting pitcher Hiroki Kuroda. These moves drew a lot of positive press, but did they really help the team for 2008? Let’s have a look…

Joe Torre is one of the most respected managers in the game, and if the Dodgers had one spot they could have upgraded after last season, it was at the end of the bench, where Grady Little showed a disturbing lack of ability to keep control over his clubhouse, which fell into backbiting and bickering as the Dodgers fell out of contention. So it seems pretty hard to take issue with the Dodgers signing a manager who is widely regarded as one of the best around at handling a major league clubhouse.

But I am going to take some issue nonetheless. As I have argued previously in this space, I think that Torre’s in-game managerial skills are overrated at best, and downright suspect at worst. Also, as right as he may have been for the Yankees in the late 1990s, I am not at all convinced that Joe Torre is the right manager for this Dodgers team, now, in 2008, ie a team whose chances of contending absolutely depend on a manger who is willing to play largely untested but supremely talented kids over proven but inferior veterans, a manager I am not at all sure Torre is capable of becoming.

For example, Torre has already gone on the record as saying he is likely to view Juan Pierre as a starter:

“I’ve always been one to favor experience….Juan Pierre brings so many things. He plays all the time, he gets 200 hits, steals 60 bases. We know he has no power, but he’s a gamer. He’s the type of player that fits into a winning situation.”

Ouch. That is not a good sign.

Meanwhile, Torre remains the highest-paid manager in the game, and I am not sure that money wouldn’t have been better spent elsewhere - say signing a top-flight middle reliever or something.

Similarly, the press also rained praise upon Ned Colletti for signing Andruw Jones, despite the high price tag, hailing it as a case of buying low and minimizing risk by not locking the team in to Jones’s mid-30s decline years. But Andruw Jones was pretty helpless at the plate last year, and while he is extremely unlikely to repeat last year’s showing, and certainly represents a big upgrade from Juan Pierre in center, both offensively and defensively, it is not at all clear that the Dodgers have made themselves a better team by giving Jones Manny Ramirez money for the next two years, unless Colletti and Torre are committed to forcing Pierre into a bench role, which there is no sign that they are. If, as seems to be the plan, Juan Pierre is shifted to left field, the Dodgers may actually be a worse team for having signed Jones, because if Juan Pierre is allowed to take away even 200 at-bats that would otherwise have gone to Matt Kemp or Andre Ethier, the Jones signing becomes worse than a wash.

The third big offseason move the Dodgers made was to sign highly sought after Japanese starter Hiroki Kuroda to a 3-year $35.3 million deal. While Kuroda definitely pitched like an ace in Japan, most projections have him pitching more like a 4th starter in the major leagues, which means that at $12 million per year, he would be one of the most expensive 4th starters around. Evaluating the Kuroda deal comes down to the question of whether Kuroda would outpitch Esteban Loiza this year (the man he is bumping from the rotation), and even though he probably could, it is very questionable whether the difference in their performance would be worth all that money.

The only other move the Dodgers have made all offseason at the major-league level was to sign veteran Gary Bennett to be their backup catcher. While this deal didn’t make big headlines, I think it was another questionable move by Ned Colletti, signing a veteran where a rookie or a no-namer would do. I can’t help asking myself the question, “Is Gary Bennett even replacement level?” We are talking about a guy who has had an OBP under .300 for the last five seasons in a row, and has never walked more than 24 times in a season. And given that everyone recognizes that star catcher Russell Martin was probably overused last year and will need to be rested more often this season, it would have behooved Colletti to have come up with a backup catcher who could at least achieve replacement level output when he plays.

Sill, when all is said and done, the Dodgers’ offseason has to be accounted a success this year, because Colletti somehow resisted the temptation to trade away Matt Kemp, James Loney, and Clayton Kershaw, and didn’t make any truly terrible deals as he has done in past years with Juan Pierre and Jason Schmidt. Assuming Colletti can show similar restraint going forward, Dodgers fans have reason to be cautiously optimistic about this coming season, and especially the next few years after that.

Offseason Grade: B

Additions: Joe Torre, Andrew Jones, Hiroki Kuroda, Gary Bennett

Losses: Luis Gonzalez, Randy Wolf, David Wells, Mark Hendrickson, Mike Lieberthal, Olmedo Saenz

Projected Lineup, Rotation, and Closer:

SS Rafael Furcal - .270/.333/.355, 25 SB
LF Juan Pierre - .293/.331/.353, 64 SB
1B James Loney - .331/.381/.538
CF Andruw Jones - .222/.311/.413, 26 HR
RF Matt Kemp - .342/.373/.521
2B Jeff Kent - .302/.375/.500, 20 HR
C Russell Martin - .293/.374/.469, 21 SB
3B Andy LaRoche - .226/.365/.312

RHP Brad Penny - 16-4, 3.03
RHP Derek Lowe - 12-14, 3.88
RHP Chad Billingsley - 12-5, 3.31
RHP Hiroki Kuroda - 12-8, 3.56 (Japanese stats)
RHP Jason Schmidt - 1-4, 6.31

CL Takashi Saito - 1.40, 39 SV

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

Most Dodger fans have been hoping and praying that the Dodgers would just stand pat and do nothing this offseason. Why? Because the Dodgers are so stocked with young talent, and the free agent market this year is so bad, that the Boys in Blue would probably have a better chance of winning the division next season if they just turned things over to kids than if they blocked them with pricey, overrated, veterans of declining ability. In fact, this author feels the Dodgers probably could have won the division last year if they had let guys like Matt Kemp, James Loney, and Andy LaRoche play from the start, instead of blocking them for most of the season with “big name” veterans like Luis Gonzalez, Nomar Garciaparra, and Juan Pierre.

So when day after day of the Winter Meetings went by without the Dodgers doing anything at all, hope began,slowly but surely, to well up in the hearts of Dodger fans. Hope that maybe Colletti had finally learned his lesson and was finally going to give all that young talent, talent every team in baseball had been chasing after all fall, a chance to prove itself on the field.

We should have known better.

We should have known that there was simply no way in hell that one Ned Louis Colletti Jr. was going to leave Nashville without signing at least one “experienced veteran” to an overpriced contract which would block at least one of his hot young prospects for at least a few more years.

And so, Andruw Jones is now a Dodger.

What bothers me most about this deal is that the Dodgers could have one of the best young outfields in baseball virtually for free if they went with a lineup of Kemp, Andre Ethier, and Delwyn Young.  But instead at least two of those guys are now going to be blocked by Pierre and Jones at an annual cost of nearly $30 million (it had been my secret hope that the Dodgers would take advantage of the incredible demand for centerfielders this offseason by trading Pierre).

And what bothers me almost as much about this deal are the specifics of the contract that is reportedly being given to Andruw Jones. $19 million per year??? For a player who just came off a season in which he batted .222 and had an OBP of .311??

I mean, Jones is still a pretty talented player, who may well have simply had an off year, so it would have been one thing if Colletti had shrewdly leveraged Jones’s weak performance last season to sign a decent player at a below-market price. But to make said player the fifth-highest paid player in all of baseball, behind only Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Derek Jeter, and Carlos Zambrano, especially when you don’t really have any pressing need for a centerfielder, and are now going to have to find someplace for the $45 million centerfielder you signed last year to play, is just stupidity.

The only people to whom this deal can make any sense are those who live on Planet Scott Boras, or those who let Boras take them for a ride there. My question is, why is it always the Dodgers who have to have the gullible GM who will believe whatever Boras says and hand out the most ridiculous contracts in Boras’s storied career?

When Rob Neyer chronicled the stupidest contracts given to Boras clients last month, he cited the contracts the Dodgers gave to Darren Dreifort and Kevin Brown as the two worst. This one may not be quite as bad as those two since it is only two years, but given the ridiculousness of the annual value and the fact that the Dodgers had no real need to do this, it needs to be added to Neyer’s list.

• Today the AJC does a “Where are they now?” feature on former Braves CF Otis Nixon. It seems Otis is sober again and he’s writing a book. Did you know that Nixon has twin sons named Travian and Travion?
• The AJC also has a feature that talks about how Tom Glavine’s pay has paralelled the gains made by the players union. If you missed the press conference, Glavine has decided to earn $11 million this year, rather than $13 million, because $13 million was just too much pressure.
• Crashburn Alley, which recently brought you Bill Conlin uncensored, today takes a look at why Andruw Jones is the most valuable free-agent CF on the market, despite what Jayson Stark might think.  This is pretty much a debunking of Stark’s argument that Andruw is in steep decline. Crashburn relies on fancy modern stats, like Revised Zone Rating, rather than just regular Zone Rating. Classy.

Antlanta Journal-Constitution baseball writer Dave O’Brien says he doesn’t know where Andruw Jones will end up, but it won’t be Atlanta:

I can tell you, everything I’ve heard is that the Braves will not be, that he’s not coming back, regardless of speculation by many who wonder if Jones might go around the lightning-rod agent Scott Boras’ back again and come back for a reduced one-year contract.

No, I’m told. Not gonna happen. Period.

If you’ll remember back, the Braves told Jones at the end of the season that they couldn’t or wouldn’t bring him back, because his agent, Scott Boras, was asking for too much money.

And that made sense at the time, because we were still used to thinking about the Braves as a team with limited resources. But since then the Braves’ new owner, Liberty Media, has announced that the organization is flush with cash and will spend “many millions more” this offseason.

And so we have to conclude that the Braves are choosing not to sign Andruw not because they can’t afford him, but simply because they think there are better ways to spend their many millions.

It’s hard to disagree.

As Jayson Stark will tell you, Andruw is overrated, both at the plate and in the field. He’s had the lowest (or near lowest) Zone Rating in the league for a couple of years now. And last year, well, we don’t have to remind you how he struggled at the plate.

Before this season there was talk that Andruw might land a deal for $20 million per. After a pretty lackluster 2007 season, one would have to think he’ll land something closer to $18 million per.

Who will sign Andruw? The White Sox still need a CF. So do the Rangers. Both teams missed out on Torii Hunter.

But my guess is still the Nationals. Washington President Stan Kasten used to run the Braves. And he is serious about making the team competitive this season, so fans have something to enjoy besides the new ballpark.

If the Nationals signed Andruw, that would leave them with an outfield of Jones, Austin Kearns and Ryan Church. That’s not awful. Plus, rumor is the team is chasing Tampa nutcase Elijah Dukes, which would probably make Church expendable.

Add that outfield to a solid bullpen and an infield that includes Ryan Zimmerman and Dmitri Young, and you’ve got something. You’re still a few starting pitchers and a middle infield short of a playoff team, but you’re on your way.

Hector Lavoe, the great Puerto Rican salsa crooner once sang “your love is like yesterday’s news,” (Tu amor es como un periódico de ayer) and in this day and age, yesterday’s news (actually, this past monday’s news) should seem like a teenage fling to the middle-aged White Sox GM, Kenny Williams.

You see, right after trading for Orlando Cabrera, Williams was on the verge of landing Torri Hunter. The Sun-Times “broke” a story last Monday that reported:

Sources both in the Sox organization and the camp of free-agent outfielder Torii Hunter have told the Sun-Times that the two sides could be signing a contract within the week.

In other words, while it appeared Williams was playing checkers in the Garland for Cabrera deal, he was actually playing chess, staying moves ahead of the game.

Before I try to offer my opinion on the “reporter” with some dry, witty, sarcastic remark, lets remember that the reporter in question is Joe Cowley, who once famously voted Derek Jeter 6th in his MVP ballot, contributing to Morneau getting the trophy, with Jeter not far back in the polls.

Let’s just say I will think twice next time I read something penned by Cowley.

We now know, of course, that the Angels had their finger on the dial right after hanging up the trade-talk phone with the ChiSox. And were that much quicker. And those chess moves that Williams was so erroneously praised for, might actually have him in check.

Without Hunter, Williams’ center field options in the free agent market are reduced to Andruw Jones and former South-sider Aaron Rowand – and Sox fans are torn.

Personally, I can’t ignore Jones’ horrendous season this year and I cannot possibly imagine Rowand commanding less than $75 million over 4 years. However legendary his status among Sox fans is, I doubt Rowand is really worth that much.

Let’s think about this for a minute. It’s rumored that the Angels beat out Williams by $20 mill. Which means he had offered a 4-year/$70 deal. I doubt he offered a 5th year; Williams favorite flavor in contracts is of the 3-year-kind. And now that the Sox shelled $19 mil per 4 years for Scott Linebrink, I can only assume Williams decided to spend some his CF money on relief pitching.

In reality Williams has a few more options. There’s always Kosuke Fukudome, who, according to UmpBump’s very own Paul Moro, will command around $10 mill over 4 years. (Considering Hunter’s inflated price tag, Fuku’s price tag suddenly jumped to about $30mill/4years.

And then there are the prospects. For the past four years, the White Sox have had promising outfield prospects that fizzled once they made it to the majors.

Consider this: Last time the White Sox signed a Japanese player (Iguchi in ‘05), they won the World Series. Last time they failed to move their underachieving outfielders and/or upgrade via free-agency, well, this season happened.

Williams has already released World Series hero Scott Podsednik. Can I pull a Joe Cowley and say he’ll go after Fukudome instead of Jones/Rowand?

Only time can tell.

I think now this is going to get interesting. Now that teams can make offers to free agents from other teams, we’re going to see some fun things happen.

Here are some of the more interesting plot points:

1. Mike Lowell is still unsigned. The Yankees still need a 3B. The Yankees still have more money than God.

2. Mark Prior will become a free agent if the Chicago Cubs don’t tender him a contract. Who’s gonna roll the dice on Prior?

3. Andruw Jones had a terrible season. But Scott Boras still thinks he’s worth $7.2 billion a year. Is he right?

4. Barry Bonds says he still wants to play. Logic says he’ll be a DH. But where? And will the impending Mitchell report scare teams away?

5. A-hole.

6. The Nationals have been mentioned as possible destinations for Andruw Jones and Aaron Rowand. Clearly, somebody went and convinced Washington that it’s a real team. But will anybody want to play for the ex-Expos?

7. Kosuke Fukodome is gonna need a nickname. Kofu anyone?

If you’re a Braves fan, or you own Andruw Jones on your fantasy team, or you’re somebody that just hates to see players slump, this has not been a good summer for you.

Andruw Jones has been struggling. Up to this point the concensus was that he’d snap out of it. But it’s June 19 and Adruw Jones is batting .205. So far this month, he’s hitting  .147.

So maybe it’s time to wave the white flag:

From the AJC:

The Braves are playing the Red Sox again, and Andruw Jones is back down hitting in the sixth hole.

Jones was struggling the last time these teams met in mid-May, and manager Bobby Cox dropped him from cleanup to the sixth hole for the third game of that series in Boston. Jones responded by striking out five times.In the two weeks after that, Jones showed signs of digging himself out of his season-long rut, and Cox bumped him back up to fourth and fifth in the order.

But Monday night, Jones was back hitting sixth for the first time since May 27. He was coming off a road trip in which he went 2-for-24 (.083). Going 0-for-4 Monday dropped his batting average to .205.

USA Today points out that lots of folks are concerned that Jones, a career .265 hitter, hit only .249 in the second half last year.

Jones seems resigned to the fact that 2007 isn’t going to be his year. He didn’t complain when Cox bumped him to sixth in the order. On the contrary, he thought it was a good idea:

“If it makes the lineup better, especially if you have Kelly Johnson and Willie Harris going back-to-back [at Nos. 1-2 in the order] — that’s a great lineup right there,” said Jones.

Even my buddy Zvee, who is an avid defender of all the Braves (even Chipper), has been quick to point out that “Andruw’s swing just looks awful right now.”

So if you own Andruw on your fantasy team, maybe it’s time to suck it up and just get what you can get for him. And if you’re a Braves fan, well, maybe it’s not such a bad thing that  Andruw’s days in Atlanta are (probably) numbered.

And if you’re somebody that just hates to see players slump, well, don’t worry about Andruw. He’s gonna be just fine:

“Everybody is going to struggle in their life, but it’s not a big deal,” he said. “I’m not thinking about it. I’m too strong a person to let that stuff bother me.”

See? He’s gonna be just fine.

Yesterday, Andruw Jones hit a game-winning home run. But that was a blip on the radar. Otherwise, this season Jones has been terrible. His swing is a mess. In a game against the Red Sox recently he struck out five times.

In his Saturday column, AJC sports writer Mark Bradley suggests Andruw’s prolonged slump might hurt his chances at a big contract.

Of course, as Bradley suggests, the more affordable Jones gets, the better the chances that the Braves will keep him.

If they still want him.

Braves hitting coach Terry Pendelton says it’s possible Andruw is worrying about his contract status.

Andruw says that’s not true. But contract or no, there’s one more thing for Andruw to worry about. ESPN stat-head Jason Stark has a new book coming out, The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players in Baseball History, and in it he calls Jones “the most overrated center fielder of all time.”

Ouch.

A few days ago, ESPN.com ran an excerpt from Stark’s book, the part where he describes Jones as the most overrated center fielder of all-time. Jones quotes scouts. But the best quote comes from an anonymous player:

“It’s all perception,” said one player who has played against Jones for years. “Perception is like muscle memory. People have a memory of you doing something. So you have to do something dramatically different to undo that memory.”

But, this being a Jayson Stark book, it all comes down to stats. Stark uses some complicated ones, relying heavily on zone rating. I won’t go into here. But check it out. And then make sure you read the counterpoint from JC Bradbury over at Sabernomics. That guy is a nerd, in the best sense of the word.

I was always under the impression that Jones was the most UNDERRATED center fielder of all time. That’s what my Braves-fan friends were always telling me, anyway.

Until a couple of years ago I always thought that Andruw was a good defensive outfielder who brought little offense. Then he started putting up steroid numbers and my perception of him changed. He went from “good but incomplete” to “wow” status overnight.

Now, two months into the season, Jones isn’t hitting his weight. And speaking of his weight…well, he’s fat. And he doesn’t play center field the way he used to.

Jones has put up some respectable numbers over his 12 year career: 350 HR, 1056 RBI, .265 AVG., .344 OBP. Most impressive of all, of course, is his nine consecutive gold glove awards, a streak that he hopes to continue this season.

If you listen to the Braves announcers talk, Jones is a Hall of Fame candidate. I’m not so sure. What do you think?

PS. Stark solicits book jacket quotes from Mike Greenberg and Peter Gammons, but the best quote comes from former Pirates CF Andy Van Slyke, who says, “if this book doesn’t end up in Oprah’s Book Club, then Oprah’s list is overrated.”

Classic.

Is it opening day yet? Because there’s only so much that one can write about games that don’t count. Thank god for Mia and Nomar popping out those babies and Steinbrenner excommunicating his son-in-law, or else this blog might have gone out of business entirely.

And if you think I’m the only person stretching for storylines in this last weekend of spring training, check this out.

Yesterday, the Boston Globe’s story stealing Dan Shaughnessy wrote an entire column about a media lunch with Daisuke Matsuzaka. What did we learn?

When the waitress came around, Matsuzaka said, “Iced tea, please,” in English, then “crunchy chicken wrap, cole slaw,” again in English.

He has great posture and perfect manners. He kept his napkin on his lap at all times and did not start eating until everyone at the table was served. He drank his iced tea through a straw.

Thanks Dan. That’s info I couldn’t have lived without.

Then there’s the LA Times’ Steve Springer and Bill Shaikin, who today bring us the story of new Dodger Luis Gonzalez, who apparently got lost on his way to the ballpark.

Outfielder Luis Gonzalez, signed as a free agent in the off-season, was shaking his head as he stood as his locker stall Thursday evening after his drive to Dodger Stadium.

“I don’t know how many interstates I was on,” he said. “I’m glad I have a navigation system.”

Interstates? Where had Gonzalez come from?

“Manhattan Beach.

Maybe that story is funnier if you’re from L.A. But I doubt it.

Finally, we’ve got the biggest ink waster of them all, the guy who prints song lyrics at the end of his blog posts, Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter David O’Brien, who brings us not one, but TWO crazy stories about Andruw Jones. The first one involves a clever batting practice jersey:

By the way, Andruw took batting practice wearing a jersey with “Dos Cinco” instead of his name above his No. 25. I’ll be stunned if he’s wearing it when they come back on the field for the game.

That won’t fly with Bobby, who doesn’t even let players wear their sunglasses on top of their hats when they’re taking batting practice. But for B.P., on the last day of spring in Florida, and with Andruw, the manager let it slide.

Wow. That would almost be cool if it hadn’t already been done.

Then there’s this story of an exchange between Jones and Braves manager Bobby Cox that had O’Brien “just about on the floor, laughing so hard”:

A few of us are talking to Bobby Cox in the dugout and Andruw comes off the field during batting practice to get a drink of water.

“Play short today?” he asks Cox, the 1,000th or so time that Andruw has asked the manager about the possibility of the Gold Glove center fielder getting to play shortstop, where Andruw often takes ground balls in batting practice.

“Free agent year, I don’t think I should,” Cox says, laughing.

“[Bleep] free agent,” Jones answers, and spits out a mouthful of water. “It don’t mean nothing.”

Cox laughs and says, “That’s what I say. We’re on the same page, Andruw.”

I guess you had to be there.

Seriously, is it time for real baseball yet?