DODGERS NEWS/RUMORS Thread

The Twins have Rich Hill and Kenta Maeda.
The Blue Jays have Ryu and now Stripling.

 

Some things to watch down the stretch with our young starting pitchers

May: Watch his usage of his secondaries. The last 3 starts for May have seen his changeup usage jump from basically 0 to 15%, 10% and 9%. His last start saw his highest use of the change and curve combined which in turn led to one of his most productive outings of the year a week after another decent outing against the Rockies. He is always going to be a high contact pitcher, but landing those pitches will likely lead to a few more swing and misses in time and could go a long way into making him a viable #3 in as soon as this year. He also saw a bit more movement in his curve in his last outing. The team also needs to stop being so damn protective of him and see if they can let him get a bit deeper in starts.

Gonsolin: I missed his last start, but it seems that he was really struggling to find the strike zone. Some important factors for him going forward will continue to be if he can maintain this mid-90's velo. I am not going to go into a deep dive on this one just yet since I watched none of his start the other day and he got roughed up a bit in the Alt site game before that. His slider use was way up from anything he has done this year so that will be interesting to watch.

Urias: Good lord does he just need to find the strike zone again. He has been all over the map in the first innings and last couple of starts. If he could settle down and just throw the way he is capable of, that would be great. Saw his best velo of the season in his last start and he busted out a new curve that looks to be pretty decent if he can get to locating it. Strikeouts have returned in his last two outings which was something missing in the early going. He used that new curve a ton in his last outing and dropped pretty much all of his other secondaries so it will be interesting to see if they balance it out, or try go the Rich Hill route.

Stripling:

 

I don't know. Stripling seemed pretty upset during the offseason when he was almost traded to the Angels even though that would have been a great opportunity for him professionally.

 

Not easy being the swing man and Stripling did it pretty well for the most part. Nothing but good wishes for him. Seemed like a good guy.

 

Probably more that they trust May, Gonsolin and Urias at this point than Strip. Kinda weird since the org even said that Wood's rehab start was unimpressive.

 

One thing to add. The Dodgers rotation is EXTREMELY thin. For them to trade one of their starters that has shown he could move to the pen is incredibly intriguing. Your ace is batting a blister and on the IL, your #4 and 5 starters are coming off of multiple bad outings and your #6 is on the injured list where he too is coming off of an unimpressive rehab start. Unless there is some random deal not announced yet, something tells me that there is a guy or two down at the alt site that may be turning some heads.

 

May's start Friday night was about the only highlight of an otherwise dismal game.

Gonsolin was all over the place yesterday. Really liked how he fanned both Gallo (with some help from the umpire) and Frazier (with a wicked slider) with the bases loaded. Great learning experience.

It is me or Urias' change not nearly as effective as it's been in the past?

 

Yeah, it's a little sad, I think. Even though he was getting hard to watch, he was damn good for us once. I hope his All Star year isn't the zenith of his career, and he has success at Toronto.
May the Force be with him...and his young Stripling wife.

 

Some things to look at with it, he is throwing it much harder than in years past, the horizontal movement is the same, but the vertical movement is WAY down. He is using it more than in years past, seeing less swings on the pitch than normal while maintaining relatively par for the course on swing and misses. Giving up way more line drives which yes is resulting in a significantly higher BAA than in years past. In terms of SLG Against it has been his best pitch. He is not getting killed with it, but it has not been as helpful to his arsenal as in years past, but ALL of his pitches have got to get better. Guys are teeing off on his slider and his FB is not far behind.

 

• Friedman saying that the trade was more out of respect to Ross than anything. Gonsolin is moving full time to the rotation and they did not feel that Ross deserved to move back to the pen. Wanted to give him the shot elsewhere.

• Said the team was in on some of the impact players, but never actually got close to a deal.

 

I’d guess the depth at this point is Wood, White, and Gray. It will have to do

 

I agree, but man does Wood need to be a lot better than he was early on. Another name to look out for is Michael Grove. Word is that he looked very impressive to the point that some scouts felt he could be our #1 prospect by seasons end.

 

yeah mom was saying as much as she loves Ross its time for Zappa to rock and roll

 

I thought his reaction to the Angels trade was a little short-sighted. He basically talked about the Dodgers as being the only organization he had played for, and wanting to stay because he was comfortable here. I got the feeling he could benefit from getting kicked out of the nest.

Best wishes to him. I've never heard anything bad about him personally, and he has the talent to carve a spot somewhere in this league.

 

Wow!
If we could sign Bud Black, Vida Blue and Kevin Brown, our starting rotation could be White, Black , Blue, Grey and Brown. Unless those guys are dead.
I'd be OK with trading everyone to have that.
Dallas Green for manager.
Some things are worth having...we can't win shit anyway. Let's face it.

 

His commissions just went up.