Friday, January 26, 2007

Dodgers Have More Than Enough Pitching

From "Dodgers wind up with pitching glut" (ha ha, get it?) at USATODAY.com:

"When you can add somebody to your top half, be it your order, your staff, your bullpen, you can have everybody else slide down one spot and give them a better chance to succeed," [Ned] Colletti says in explaining his pursuit of [Jason] Schmidt. "One of the quotes yet to be said in the history of baseball is, 'We've got more than enough pitching.' "

Done! SoSG has just made baseball history!

The article also features some quotes from Kim Ng, notable because she doesn't often seem to be interviewed:

Dodgers assistant general manager Kim Ng said if [Matt] Kemp doesn't earn a regular job in spring training, the club would prefer he play every day at Triple-A rather than come off the bench in the majors. When he returns next time, the Dodgers expect it will be for good....

[Chad] Billingsley, 22, went 7-4 with a 3.80 ERA in 18 games (16 starts) with the Dodgers after posting a 6-3 mark and a 3.95 ERA at Triple-A Las Vegas. As with most young pitchers, he needs to improve his command and his secondary pitches. But he already handles himself with aplomb.

"He's got great poise on the mound and dealt very well with the pressure of late-season games," Ng said.

Billingsley projects as the Dodgers' fourth or fifth starter in 2007, though the team has so much pitching depth that Ng said it's not certain he'll start the season in the majors....

[Hong-Chih] Kuo, 25, opened the season in the bullpen, went down to the minors to get stretched out and came back as a starter, doing some of his best work out of the rotation. The native of Taiwan pitched in 46 minor league games before making his big-league debut in 2005 and "needs to trust his stuff," according to Ng, but the club is high on his potential.

Good: Next time the Dodgers promote Kemp to the majors, they want to keep him there.

Possibly not so good: Billingsley might start the season in the minors? Does this mean the Dodgers are considering Mark Hendrickson in the starting rotation? Hope he has that noted sports psychologist on speed-dial.

UPDATE: Here's an article about Matt Kemp's Dominican Winter League postseason heroics.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Billingsley in the minors wouldn't mean Hendrickson's in the rotation. It'd mean the 5 would be Schmidt/Lowe/Penny/Wolf/Kuo. If that's the case, then Billingsley gets the call as soon as either Wolf or Kuo has their left arm land in the third row.

Steve Sax said...

Can't we just put Mark Hendrickson in the third row instead?

Sucks for the guy in the fourth row, but that's another issue.

Orel said...

Whoever catches the left arm, do they get to keep it?

Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness. Awesome name.

Anonymous said...

Maybe they could donate it to the drummer from Def Leppard.

And hey, as long as Hendrickson can average 6 points a game and pull down 3-4 boards, I'm okay with him.

He plays for the Lakers, right?

Steve Sax said...

He plays for the 51's, right?