Hollywood Blvd. News – Los Angeles Dodgers Edition
- Updated: November 18, 2014
Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press
Is moving Andre Ethier the answer for the Los Angeles Dodgers?v
We like to start our day searching the web and reading articles about our beloved LA sports teams. It’s easy to get lost in the depth of the inter web, but luckily for you we have compiled a list of the most interesting and pertinent news stories for your morning reading pleasure. For this edition, let’s dive into the news surrounding the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In the words of team president Stan Kasten, the Dodgers have entered the second phase of the ownership group’s plans when it bought the team.
“The first phase involved restoring the credibility of the franchise after years of neglect under previous owner Frank McCourt and ramping up excitement for the launch of the team’s TV channel. That phase was amazingly expensive. The Dodgers signed some of the biggest contracts in sports history and pulled the trigger on the priciest trade baseball had ever seen.
If you read between the lines, it certainly looks like this new phase involves some clean-up work. The only major moves the Dodgers have made this offseason so far are to the front office, bringing in perhaps the two smartest people in baseball when it comes to making efficient decisions on players and contracts. They hired Andrew Friedman, who never worked with a payroll as high as $80 million in Tampa Bay, to be president of baseball operations. They brought in Farhan Zaidi — who also worked for a highly competitive team in a bad stadium, the Oakland A’s, and has a Ph.D. in behavioral economics — to be the general manager.
They have their work cut out for them, but Zaidi disputes the notion that they are being brought in simply to shed the team of bad contracts and lower the payroll.
“It sounds overly simplistic, but we’re just going to try to make good baseball decisions,” Zaidi said. “Sometimes, those good baseball decisions are going to increase our payroll, sometimes they’re going to decrease our payroll and I think over time it will come down because that’s what the accumulation of smart baseball moves will just do to the roster.”
To read more of this article, click here.
It’s no secret the Los Angeles Dodgers have more quality outfielders on the roster than any one club needs.
“Between Matt Kemp, Yasiel Puig, Andre Ethier and Carl Crawford, the group has nine All-Star appearances, four Gold Glove awards and four Silver Slugger awards. And that’s not taking the considerable talents of Scott Van Slyke and Joc Pederson into account.
With the excess, unfortunately, comes the reality that the combined weight of their contracts are cumbersome, and there isn’t enough playing time to keep each of them satiated. Simply put, the Dodgers have too much of a good thing, and it’s becoming problematic.
The issues are not lost on the front office.
To that effect, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has stated that he plans on trading one of them between the general managers meetings that recently ended and the beginning of spring training. “I think it’s most likely the best course of action to move one of those players,” Friedman said, via Mark Saxon from ESPNLosAngeles.com.
Logically, we can assume that Puig is off the table. He is under team control through 2019, earns a moderate salary and is not part of the problem. Moreover, Dylan Hernandez from the Los Angeles Times recently noted that there is a “mandate to not trade” him from up top.”
To read more on this story, click here.
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