the post-Vin, we will KershYu 2017 DODGERS juggernaut

I presume Yu is going to pitch in the current Atlanta series, tho I am seeing them in NY vs deGrom on Friday night.

Should I feel bad for Vin if the Dodgers win the World Series the year after he retired? If they'd won the WS earlier in the decade, would he have retired instead of coming back each year (i.e. hoping they'd win).

Nah, he did what he wanted I think.

It is Yu vs deGrom on Friday.

I'll be there morbs

i'll be in Sec 512!

Can they win 117?

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/dodgers-pursue-all-time-win-record/

i have seen them a few times this year. call me an iconoclast but they are playing well

dodger stadium is good

Third-oldest in MLB now! I've enjoyed my three games there. It resembles the Shea Stadium of my youth, albeit built into a hill.

it's also < $10 by cab from my house and i can see their friday night fireworks from our kitchen window

i'll be comin' out for the World Series! j/k

Lost a game where they had a lead!

Former Dodgers co-owner Jamie McCourt to be named ambassador to France https://t.co/wU8iXIEJUg

— HardballTalk (@HardballTalk) August 3, 2017

i was gonna take my kid to his first Cubs game at the end of May but couldn't get it together. pretty the game we would have gone to was a 1-0 loss anyway.

i really hate dealing with the parking there. not sure if it's worse than other ballparks but it feels worse. then again i was spoiled by Wrigley Field; just hop the El and get off at the Wrigley stop.

Why do the Dodgers have such a low team BABIP allowed? Part of it, sure, is good team defense, but maybe a bigger part is just that the pitchers have stayed away from the barrels. Nearly all of them, for that matter, even in a year where Kershaw has developed a home-run problem. It’s gone beyond just Kershaw. Most of the Dodgers have limited hard hits. The staff as a whole checks off the three main boxes, and you can consider this among the many reasons why the Dodgers are the clear World Series favorite.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-dodgers-have-a-hidden-strength/

Some basic stuff, some esoterica:

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/246026746/15-numbers-to-explain-dodgers-historic-season/

"13.4 percent of batters faced third time through order, third-fewest in MLB"--for some reason, this made me think of a player (Yastrzemski?) who was considered something of a statistical savant in 1970 because he could calculate his batting average on the way down to first base.

First team to reach 50 games over .500 since the 2004 Cardinals. Cardinals did it in game #154 (and then finished up 3-5); Dodgers in game #118.

one can now bet: Will the Dodgers break the Single Season win record of 116?

yes +400
no -800

would have to go 33-11 rest of the way to hit 'yes' i believe

Seems like a sucker's bet for a team that will be setting up their rotation, not overworking Kershaw (although they must be playing .750 since he went down) or Jensen, maybe trying out different lineups, etc.

(Tweaking, just to be clear--I don't think they're going to suddenly move Bellinger to leadoff or anything.)

Phil:
Apparently Adrian Gonzalez is ready to return to the Dodgers, and there isn’t an obvious spot for him. With Pederson struggling, do you think they put Bellinger in LF, Taylor in CF and Gonzalez at 1st? Or maybe with Forsythe struggling, they put Taylor at 2nd and Bellinger in LF? Or do they just have him as a bat off the bench and a late inning replacement when they have large leads?

Dave Cameron:
They are 50 games over .500. They don’t really need a set lineup at this point. They can afford to rest everyone, and give lots of guys a few starts per week.

Most wins in a 60-game stretch since 1913:

2017 LAD: 51
1938 NYY, 1944 STL, 1953 BRO, 1954 CLE, 1998 NYY, 2001 OAK, 2001 SEA: 48

— Rany Jazayerli (@jazayerli) August 19, 2017

FUCK THE DODGERS!

reasons why. for me it has little to do with the rivalry, as i'm more of a late bloomer:

1. spending more than 100 million more than any other club
2. in Los Angeles and can't watch the games as they are not on my DirecTV or anything else besides Dodger channel and less than 20% of Los Angeles can watch
3. some of their fans but this is probably true for most fan bases
4. scary good this year
5. no Vin

salary for their current 25-man roster is . . . $50m less than the giants'

http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll

(they can afford an insane disabled list payroll that others cannot, but the giants shouldn't really be complaining about payroll anyway)

I know this sounds crazy, but I'm serious: if I were a Dodgers fan, I'd be hoping that they hit a bad stretch at some point in the next month, an 8-12 block of games or something like that. If it doesn't happen in the regular season, I would expect it to happen in the playoffs; the idea that they'll keep this up right through to winning the World Series seems inconceivable.

oh, totally

salary for their current 25-man roster is . . . $50m less than the giants'

lol

did the '98 Yankees have a bad stretch?

Looks like they had a month of around .500 baseball from mid-August to mid-Sept.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/1998.shtml

Seattle's worst was a 4 game losing streak in 2001.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SEA/2001.shtml

Their second worst was when they lost four out of five in mid-October.

Heh. It happened before and could happen again. I think the old 5 game divisional series led to some upsets.

salary for their current 25-man roster is . . . $50m less than the giants'

http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll

256,500 - 188,300 is more like 70 millions less.

they have 111 million on the DL. the Giants have 31m. smh.

i'm also not talking about just the Giants, i'm talking about all of baseball.

i live in the Los Angeles area and it is annoying to listen to bandwagoners who cannot even watch the games.

i see i read that wrong, the Giants are spending 70 million less than the Dodgers overall. ;you can't just count the bits and pieces that you choose.

"a month of around .500 baseball" is NOT a *bad* stretch, but almost a statistical certainty even from a .700 team.

If they go .500 the rest of the way they'll win "only" 108 games.

every game that they do not win is a failure

51-14 at home

btw Joc Pederson sent to AAA

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OVspyFSjawZt7HMyTo2cn8LcfQU=/410x0/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/56315611/dodgers-best-team-ever-sports-illustrated-cover-jonsoohoo.0.0.jpeg

STOP THAT SHIT!

Rich Hill 6 outs away from perfect game and Maddux.

that Utley dive catch holy shitballs.

Not past a diving Utley.

xpost

the la dodgers: a complete lock to win the NLDS?!!?

here comes the blister

yeah have we discussed those here?

it's really dave roberts' fault for getting a reliever up

of course my Dodgers friends text me about this game but i'm blacked out. so i turning on my MLB app and watched the live feed. again, they in turn also black out the app. just happened to turn on MLB Network and the ball in going over the fence.

why i love this game and would have been watching if it was on. there is no better game though i do love the NFL.

j0rdan fed me info about this while we were at the Mets game, and I told him about Harvey Haddix.

Harvey's Revenge!

i just saw the utley snag, that was impressive

grandy into the allegheny

Ben Carsley, BP:

"Why not just leave Clayton Kershaw in Carbonite until the playoffs?"

They've lost 3 in a row now
Dodgers suck

wins record likely out of reach (wd have to go 26-6)

welp looks like the dodgers are bad now

dbacks>>>

^^apparently

No, you guys don't understand, they've "had their bad stretch" now. Got Arizona right where they want 'em.

1-10 in their last 11; the last four World Series winners went on 2-9 streaks.

they're bad now. if they won every game the rest of the way they'd win 115.

kershaw had a hilarious 12 pitch at bat

as a batter

so if Arizona sweeps the Padres this weekend (certainly imaginable) and Colorado sweeps in Chavez (ya never know), would whispers about the Dodgers blowing this be allowed? The lead would be 7.

Slew: Tell us about the Dodgers. Given their run differential fall from grace, have they been usurped as the best team in baseball?

Jeff Sullivan: I never really believed that the Dodgers were *that* much better than the rest of the competition. Just doesn’t make sense in this day and age. They weren’t that good and they aren’t this bad. I think they’re a top-three team, and I doubt there’s much true separation.
Between the Indians, Dodgers, and Astros, I couldn’t pick a favorite.

Top 3 seems a bit of a stretch now, they're looking like complete trash.

now might be the time to lay $100 on the dodgers winning the WS tbh (as in, best odds you're gonna get)

my new pastime is talking about what i would bet $100 on and then not doing it, it is awesome

note that i haven't watched a single dodgers game in the last 2 weeks (like a pro betster)

Soon as they got that late August SI cover w/"Best Team Ever?" plastered on the front I knew their run was over.

this isn't mayweather/mcgregor, even when the dodgers looked like gods they weren't guaranteed a WS win

Top 3 seems a bit of a stretch now, they're looking like complete trash.

but that doesn't make it a stretch, you see.

Top 1st
COL 1-0 Nolan Arenado singled to center, Charlie Blackmon scored, DJ LeMahieu to second

Top 3rd
COL 2-0 Nolan Arenado homered (377 ft.) to deep left

Top 8th
COL 6-0 Mark Reynolds homered (403 ft.) to deep left center, DJ LeMahieu, Nolan Arenado and Carlos González scored

Cameron sees some "real problems"

This is one of the strangest seasons in baseball history. We don’t really have data points that can tell us what a struggle like this might mean for the team going forward. The fact that they were nearly unbeatable until they were nearly incapable of winning should tell us something about how fickle trends can be, but even if we don’t know what losing 15 of 16 means on a grander scale, this skid has created some very legitimate concerns as the Dodgers head towards October.

Obviously, the offense has been a big problem, and the team can’t feel good about their recent production. A lot of the team’s early success was built on most everyone in the lineup dramatically outperforming their projections, and no longer can the team just assume that they’re going to get production from every spot in the order. But right now, the more worrying performances are probably coming on the mound.

For instance, I don’t know that Dave Roberts can really trust Alex Wood in the postseason, barring some significant late-season turnaround. Saturday night’s clunker was just the latest in his own six-week funk. Over his last eight starts, dating back to July 21st, Wood has struck out just 17% of the hitters he’s faced, and he’s running a 123 ERA-/131 FIP-/102 xFIP-. He’s allowed a .346 xwOBA during that stretch, putting him in the same tier as James Shields and Ubaldo Jimenez.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-dodgers-look-beyond-terrible-right-now/

that rotation is not really intimidating. not sure what's up with Darvish but for all the ace #2 talk about him, he's always been more of a Kerry Wood type for me, and his single "ace" season was in 2013. i don't see him getting much better. Alex Wood is coming back to earth, and i love Rich Hill's comeback but he's still a giant question mark for me, at least health-wise (and also turning into a pumpkin wise)

and there are a lot of holes in that lineup right now, not sure they can reliably count on Taylor, Forsythe, Bellinger, Puig, Pederson, etc...

I'd take the Nationals in the NL now, no doubt.

lost 11 in a row now

best.
team. ever?

The Dodgers are the first team in history to both win 15 of 16 games and lose 15 of 16 games in the same season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

I'd take the Nationals in the NL now, no doubt.

I'm not gonna violently disagree, but y'know, the Dodgers can still turn around and go 5-2 in the next week, at which point this panic will look silly. "Momentum" or lack thereof coming down the stretch has meant doodlysquat in the postseason; we all know this.

All the usual arguments about sample sizes are out the window here -- nothing even remotely like this has ever happened before. Even truly horrible teams won't lose 16 of 17 games at any point in a season. There were a ton of blowout losses in there too, so it can't be brushed off as bad luck. And only historically great teams play .850 baseball over a two month period. But this team did both! I have no idea what to make of any of it.

Dodgers now 3.5 games ahead of Nats for best NL record, play in DC this weekend.

When you get bodied by the Giants prior to the playoffs, panic mode is engaged.

I'm not gonna violently disagree, but y'know, the Dodgers can still turn around and go 5-2 in the next week, at which point this panic will look silly. "Momentum" or lack thereof coming down the stretch has meant doodlysquat in the postseason; we all know this.

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, September 12, 2017 4:01 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not panicking, i'm a cubs fan. :) so actually i am panicking, but not over the dodgers.

it was hard to consider this team as anything other than the favorites back when they were at a 120 win pace but i mean i just don't think they were nearly as good as that pace indicated (that goes without saying, so many guys were playing over their heads), but i think the past couple of weeks have revealed a lot of deficiencies that go beyond those of your usual 105-ish win team. though i won't be surprised when (or if....?) they go on another good run to close out the season, and if they win the world series.

One mitigating factor in this 17-game stretch is that six of them were against Arizona, a team almost as hot at the time as Cleveland. When I suggested a bump in the road would be good for them ("an 8-12 block of games or something like that"), I hardly envisioned this, but I'd still put much more faith in the 70-20 stretch than the current 17-game nightmare. As soon as they manage to win back-to-back games before the playoffs, I'd say they'll be past this.

(Their troubles have helped me tremendously in my pool; I'm back in second, and have moved ahead of the guy who has the Dodgers.)

When you get bodied by the Giants prior to the playoffs, panic mode is engaged.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Tuesday, September 12, 2017 4:35 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this losing streak has a thousand fathers but holy shit playing a game in the middle of the night after a four hour delay when youre desperate for a win is some bullshit. not blaming anyone in particular other than fate.

was pretty sure this team wasn't going to win 115 but I was also pretty sure they weren't going to pay .050 baseball in september. I blame the SI cover.

the guy who worries me the most is darvish. if he can't be more than the 4.5 era guy he's been for us so far it doesn't matter how we line up for the playoffs. kershaw, hill and a diminished alex wood aint getting it done. plus theyre all lefties.

Folks. This has been wild. I think I'm going back to cricket.

Don't apostasize, caek!

See above; what you've just seen very possibly meant nothing.

3 wins in a row, now 6 up on Washington

One of those things lodged in my brain, so I knew both names before finishing the sentence: Bellinger tied Frank Robinson and Wally Berger for the NL rookie HR record today.

judge still within striking distance of the ML record (iirc mcgwire had 49)

Jerry Crasnick
ESPN

As if losing 20 times in a 25-game span weren't bad enough, the Dodgers are now suffering some dings to their lineup mainstays. Corey Seager, who is already dealing with a sore right elbow, has fouled balls off his calf and ankle this week and sat out today's series finale in Philadelphia. And Justin Turner had to leave today's game after being struck in the hand by a Mark Leiter Jr. pitch in the first inning. This is not the way manager Dave Roberts envisioned gearing up for the playoffs.

Gotta admire Curtis Granderson. If he's not quite Hall of Very Good, he's in the Hall of Pretty Damn Good Almost Every Year.

Rich Hill, the legend

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2017/10/6/16435180/rich-hill-fastball-curveball-change-los-angeles-dodgers

Jonah Keri:

Much of the Dodgers' sky-high payroll, though, comes from players making minimal contributions in the playoffs -- or less. Andre Ethier saw just 34 at-bats all season, and made $17.5 million. Injuries turned Adrian Gonzalez into a non-factor this year, he wasn't healthy enough to make the playoff roster, and he made $22.4 million. Scott Kazmir didn't throw a pitch all season, and he made $17.7 million. Injuries limited Brandon McCarthy to 92 ⅔ innings pitched (and kept him off the playoff roster), yet he banked $11.5 million.

Think those are bad? The Dodgers cut Sergio Romo, and were left to cover the $1.8 million left on his deal as he played for the Rays. Matt Kemp collected $3.75 million in Dodgers checks this year, and he's a Brave. The Dodgers dumped Cuban import Hector Olivera on Atlanta too; two years later he'd been suspended for domestic violence and washed out of the league, landing with the independent Sugar Land Skeeters... and somehow the Dodgers owed him $4.7 million too. And while Carl Crawford was by all accounts a good citizen and well-liked teammate, his legs failed him, so the Dodgers paid him $21.9 million this season while he enjoyed retirement.

Make no mistake: It's a damn fine luxury to be able to spend $92 million in basically dead money, then roll to the best record in baseball and a spot in the Fall Classic. But check out the origin stories of many other Dodger players, and you can see how the team's plan of attack worked so well when it came to building a winner. The Dodgers wouldn't have gotten here because of Kershaw and some other lavishly-paid stars...but they also wouldn't have made it without youth, data, and depth.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/if-you-think-dodgers-are-in-world-series-due-to-payroll-you-arent-paying-attention/

Dave Roberts is half Japanese, is he the first manager of Asian descent to manage in the World Series?

apparently he's only the 2nd Asian American manager in MLB, period. (preceded by Don Wakamatsu in Seattle)

We’re here to bring the Dodgers back to Brooklyn. pic.twitter.com/V5Zrqir9cw

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 11, 2018