2008 October | Dodgers Baseball Talk

Archive for October, 2008

LA Dodgers Season Over And Now The Fun Begins…

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

The LA Dodgers season was over after the first at bat of last nights game in which Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins hit a lead off home run off of Chad Billingsley and the best pitching prospect the dodgers have seen in quite some time lasted only 2 2/3 innings in the biggest game of his life.

And for everybody that wants to say that Chad Billingsley is young and he has a big future in front of him let me remind you that the guy he pitched against is the same age he is.

Billingsley got out pitched and the LA Dodgers got out played.

And now the real questions and fun begin...

Up for free agency or elgible to retire/leave are: Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, Rafael Furcal, Casey Blake, Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Kent, Takashi Saito and Manny Ramirez.

Obviously the big free agent is Manny Ramirez and the consensus is that the LA Dodgers are going to be competitive but they won't be the highest bidder. Frank MacCourt has already been quoted as saying things like:

"It takes two to tango"

and

"It'll be up to Manny if he wants to come back to LA or not."

It's even worse for them then that I think...

The Dodgers have to compete with teams that play in the AL and can afford to give Manny an additional year or two on his contract and use him as a DH for the last couple of years of his career.

You don't think the Yankees, Mets, Rangers and Angels are going to come strong after Ramirez?
And oh yeah Manny is being represented by Scott Boras...

THANKS Manny it was nice having you here for a couple of months so sorry to see you go...

This Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team is going to dramatically change this off season. I think you have a good core of young players but let's not forget that most of these young guys who are the supposed future of the Dodgers didn't do squat in the playoffs - Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, Chad Biilingsley, Broxton and to an extent but not as bad as the before mentioned Russell Martin and Blake Dewitt.

Frank McCourt and Ned Colletti have to decide whether or not they want to bring back ace Derek Lowe and if you don't bring him back you need to sign an ace. C.C. Sabathia is out there. But he's going to cost some cash and if you're going to sign him you might as well spend that money on Manny instead right?

Like I said the LA Dodgers have a lot of decisions to make...