A couple hours ago, I stumbled upon a Mike and Mike podcast w/Tim Kierkjen. While Kierkjen thinks that we will be competitive this season, he says "a lot needs to go right for the Dodgers" or else the Dbacks and Gnats will be ahead of us like last season. I wanted to get your guys' take on what you think will happen with us and when it will happen. Will we contend? Will we be able to make a huge splash at the trade deadline? Or is this year just coasting along until we can sign a few FA's and be favorites in the NL next year? I'm thinking that we'll be a pretty decent team the first half of the season and we'll definitely be in the race. At the deadline I'm predicting us to get a power hitting corner infielder, another solid starting pitcher, and maybe a left fielder. You never know when or which players are going to be available, but those areas are our biggest concerns.
Playing in the NL West, we can certainly make the playoffs. But our pitching isn't anything to brag about. Behind Clayton, we are average (Bills) and below average (everyone else). If we can get a bat by the deadline, we can make a big push, but unless we don't get a better pitcher than what we have this year, I don't trust out rotation behind Clayton. I'd say next year at the latest.
I'd think that's dead on what he said, we could contend, but we'd need a lot to go right. It's possible though, most everything went right for the Diamondbacks last year.
i could see us -- under best case scenario -- winning the nl west or the wildcard but unless we acquire a bat and a sp at the deadline we wont do much we need someone like a hanley ramirez or miggy cabrera to demand a trade and/or the gnats or phils to be out of contention and look to unload cain/hamels that's a lot of hypothetical ifs then again no one picked us in 1988...
Big money and a new GM should make an immediate impact. A 3Bman and a power OF'er are obvious moves. Should set the tone. They will also need to spray some "Scrub-be-gone" in the clubhouse and let the place air out. Then they can work in some rookies into those vacant positions and see how they develop in the majors. There's a van load of old pitching to be hauled off, too. Must upgrade starting pitching to get anywhere in post season. It'll be expensive with all the DFA's and trades, but I suspect new management will relish the challenge.
With lots of luck and a renewed sense of confidence from the ownership situation being "solved" and a decent Dre and Loney...with the overall mediocre pitching (I agree with MZA's opinion on the rotation) and glaring holes in the lineup, possible the wild, wild card...or whatever it's called. I don't think anything else is too possible, but stranger things have happened. The wild card on the team I still think is Mattingly himself, and some support from the bottom of the lineup-like, Uribe and AJ. The top seems pretty damn good on paper, and Dee will give us a dimension we were supposed to have with Furcal, but never came to fruition. I didn't think it was possible, but I already hate the Giants more than I ever did.
If Loney plays like the second half and Bills can be a 3.50 ERA pitcher, we likely contend for the NLW this year. However, I think the best case for us is that we fall out of it by the trade deadline and become sellers. In this case, we need Harang, MacDougal, Capuano, Rivera and even Uribe to be having very good years so we can ship their asses off and get ready for the FA class next year while getting good prospects/players in return.
if that's the case, i don't see us being out of contention... unless everyone else on the team was tanking
"2nd half Loney" hit .330, that's not going to happen. .295/.350/.430 would be nice, below average but nice.
I'd like to imagine Kemp repeats his MVP tear (not gonna happen), Ethier stays healthy and has a career year (hasn't really happened yet), Loney hits well above .300 (not gonna happen), Gordon ignites the offense (we'll see), and Kershaw repeats (gonna happen). Also Bills will have to sack up (won't happen). But even our biggest strengths are huge question marks. We also have some serious scrubs signed beyond this year. The division sucks, but we simply won't score runs. I say we are in for a rude awakening this season.
Nope-- namely the Rockies offense or the Jints pitching will decide what happens. But we did end the season hot though, who knows?
We can contend next year and by 2014 we should be legitimate world series contenders. Unless a miracle season happens for us we shouldn't be able to even get out of the 1st round.
