Thursday, June 7, 2007

Success! (Sort of.)

Starting in center field for your Los Angeles Dodgers... Brady Clark! Mr. 200 outs, grab some pine. It is good to see Pierre being used in his natural role as a pinch hitter. I bet he'll be a very good one.

Obviously, this is not exactly what we wanted. Brady Clark is not a long-term answer in center field. We want Matt Kemp*.... but this is a start and worth applauding. The first step to recovery is recognizing that you have a problem.

*We would also accept, for shits and giggles, Mitch Jones, though we recognize that he probably does not have enough talent or skill to start every day in the major leagues. Of course, neither does Pierre, and Jones's skill set (power and lots of it) is more in line with what the Dodgers require. Also: it would be fun to see a 29-year-old journeyman minor leaguer get his first crack at the majors. That said, if the Dodgers are serious, their next position player callup will be Kemp.

2 comments:

jimbilly4 said...

This is just a day off to shake things up for Juan, maybe reboot him. I don't know if this actually works, but managers do it all the time. Sometimes it does work... Probably about as often as it does not, i.e. it has no effect, except you remove an under-performing player from your line-up, which is never a bad idea.

The bottom line is Juan is was underperforming all previous Pierre metrics. Maybe he has fallen off the cliff at at age 29, but more likely he really is in a slump. I predict he returns to .300/.330/.350
and everyone (i.e. Colletti) is happy with their medicore CF for five years. If he continues at .270/.300/.315, well that guy is likely to hit the pine.

I think Juan is a better player than Clark, although perhaps Clark has the edge defensively... We really do need Kemp up here at the minimum being mixed into a 4 outfielder rotation. As much as I have a desire to see Mitch given a shot, it really has to be after Kemp. If all the outfielders and Nomar stay healthy, Mitch will never see the bigs as a Dodger.

Humma Kavula said...

I know it's just an off day for Pierre... but a man can dream. The Dodgers are fielding a better lineup today than yesterday, and if Kemp gets called up after the game, the team can field a better lineup tomorrow than today.

Furcal
Abreu
Martin
Kent
Kemp
Gonzalez
Garciaparra
Ethier

Lieberthal
Pierre
Betemit
Saenz
Clark

Penny
Lowe
Schmidt
Wolf
Kuo

Billingsley
Broxton
Saito
Beimel
Seanez
Meloan
Tomko, I guess...