By Steve Lyons
FOX Sports West and PRIME TICKET
LYONS ARCHIVE
Feb. 17
Pitchers and catchers have reported and baseball is officially back for 2011. Every spring brings hope, optimism and happiness, but also a lot of questions.
Here are five questions this spring for the LA Dodgers.
Can Don Mattingly manage?
You know my take on this already "I don't care who manages the team," it's all about how the players perform on the field. Having said that, I like Donnie Baseball. I think he has more fire than people give him credit for and he welcomes the chance to change this team, from the boring dud of a team they were under Joe Torre, to a team with a little life and bounce. But he will have nights where he's staring at the ceiling, sleepless and wondering why he made one move instead of another. He's never managed before, but he was the Yankees hitting coach from 2004-06, then a bench coach in 2007 before joining the Dodgers in 2008 as their hitting coach. He's candid about situations that will come up that he hasn't had to deal with before and how will he handle them? The division will be tight again, decided by fewer than five games. How many games will the media decide were lost because of the inexperience of the manager?
Will the real Dodger offense please swing the bat?
Most Dodger insiders think they have enough offense to go along with an improved and proven pitching staff, but those same people are talking about the first half Dodgers that hit .269, and averaged 4.8 runs per game, not the anemic offense the Dodgers showed after the All-Star break that plummeted to hitting .232 and scored just 3.3 runs per game. James Loney had a dramatic dropoff in the second half, watching his average fall from .309 to .211 as well as drastic drop in RBIs (63 to 25), while still showing no power increase at a power position (first base) with just 10 home runs on the season. Casey Blake had a similar second-half slump, watching his average fall from .259 before the break to .234 after, as did Rafael Furcal, who opened the season hitting .333 with 51 runs scored and 14 stolen bases to just .243, 28 runs and 8 SB in the second half. Even Andre Ethier, whose play in May was prompting triple crown talk, saw his average and power numbers fall from .324 and 14 HR and 54 RBIs in the first half to just .256/9/28 in the second half of 2010. Matt Kemp had a disappointing season with a .249 average, but still managed 28 home runs and 89 RBIs. His 19 stolen bases were somewhat overlooked by him being thrown out trying to steal 15 times. Last year the catching position was black hole (.259 10/56) with Brad Ausmus, Russell Martin and AJ Ellis getting close to 500 at bats before the acquisition of Rod Barajas (.302 5/12). How much has it improved in 2010? Barajas will be a 36-year-old starter with a backup in retread Dioner Navarro who barely hit .200 last season and then ditched his teammates when he was left off the playoff roster. So what happens if the offense that everybody knows is better than it showed last year, doesn't get better?
How will the left side of the Dodger ball club be?
And when I say left side, I mean the entire left side, infield and outfield, offensively and defensively. Age and uncertainty are my main issues. Blake and Furcal are both outstanding defensive players when they're healthy. But health concerns are a major issue with Raffy as he has missed so much time in his Dodger career with injuries limiting him to just 97 games last year and just 36 in 2008. When Furcal was healthy, he played All-Star caliber baseball when he was on the field, he just wasn't out there enough. And Blake is another year older at 37 and took a very noticeable step backward in his offensive numbers in 2010 as his average fell from .280 to .248 and his strikeouts increased to 138, the second-most of his career. Was it just an off year, or are the years catching up with the bearded one? And who's in left field? If there was one move that I wish GM Ned Colletti could have pulled off this winter, it would have been to find a way to sign Adam Dunn away from the White Sox. With the money the Dodgers spent on Marcus Thames, Jay Gibbons and Tony Gwynn Jr., they could have added about $8 million more to get Dunn. What we're left with is a platoon between Gibbons and Thames. Two guys that have had flashes of offensive firepower but practically no aptitude to play left field.
Will Jonathan Broxton bounce back?
There's no question big J.B. took a hit last season. He failed to save 30 games for the first time since being named the full time closer, blew a career-high seven opportunities, and his ERA fell north of 4.00. For me, the questions don't revolve around the numbers themselves, but when they happened. A team needs to be able to rely on their closer to close out big games, and Broxton didn't do that last year. He blew an opportunity to win the series against the Yankees with a getaway day loss on a Sunday afternoon that sent the team and their fans into a funk. The same thing happened against the Angels and it appears that Broxton lost something last season. He needs to find it soon to keep his job. Kenley Jansen, who fanned 41 in 27 innings, will either provide the motivation Broxton needs to keep his job, or present unbearable pressure that sends Broxton into a 7th inning or set-up role.
What will the lineup look like?
Last year, Torre switched his lineup virtually every day. Many times it dealt with the health of his club, but there was no continuity at all. Mattingly has already toyed with what he'll do, including the possibility of hitting Blake in the two hole, mainly because there is no clear-cut No. 2 hitter in the lineup. Torre used Kemp in the No. 2 spot a lot to take advantage of his speed. But if you check out the number of times he got caught stealing last season, there's no reason to start looking at his run-producing talents and stop worrying about the stolen bases.
Here is my projected Dodgers lineup:
SS Furcal - Never a prototypical leadoff guy, but no other options.
LF Gibbons - Yeah, he'll strike out 20% of the time but hits lefty and pulls the ball.
RF Ethier - Best pure hitter and I want him up in the first inning.
CF Kemp - Untamed power. Put him in a spot to drive in runs and he can run here without worrying about taking the bat out of anybody's hands.
1B Loney - Break up the right-handers Kemp and Uribe and he won't kill a rally with a strikeout.
2B Uribe - He's an all-or-nothing guy. May break an inning wide open with a big HR but strikes out too much and doesn't hit enough to warrant hitting him higher in the lineup.
3B Blake - Was last year an off year or a sign of things to come?
C Barajas - He's a catcher
P Pitcher - I'm not happy about being a typical National League team where the catcher and pitcher must hit 8th and 9th.
