Alexander: Rethinking our snap judgements at the trading deadline
Maybe the Dodgers didn't need that marquee move after all – but we'll know for sure in October.
The world according to JIm:
• Should we apologize to Andrew Friedman now? Or is it better to hold off until, say, late October? …
• The Dodgers’ president of baseball operations heard it from a lot of different sources – including this one, kind of – when the trading deadline passed August 1 without that marquee pitcher headed to Los Angeles. Then again, maybe it didn’t occur to us that Lance Lynn might be that missing piece of the rotation, or that Kiké Hernández and Amed Rosario would be more than adequate in lengthening the lineup against left-handers, or that Ryan Yarbrough might be a dependable arm and innings eater. …
• But, again, small sample sizes are deceptive. The Dodgers have put the division out of reach, as they usually do thanks to their annual hot streak in August. The true test, and the organization’s entire raison d’etre, is to win the World Series. If they don’t, the instant critics would have been right after all.
That’s baseball, no? …
• A reminder: Dave Roberts is fourth on the all-time managerial win percentage list (729-428, .630 through Saturday’s doubleheader sweep of Miami), and the men ahead of him were Negro League managers Bullet Rogan, Vic Harris and Rube Foster, with Rogan and Foster currently in the Hall of Fame. …
• August has been kind to the Dodgers in Roberts’ eight seasons: 144-68, including 81-21 the last four years and a crazy 17-2 this year.
October? Not so much. One World Series title in the first seven seasons, though Dodger fans generally agree it should have been two, as evidenced by those “cheater, cheater” chants every time an opponent who played for the 2017 Astros shows up at Dodger Stadium. But consider: In the last seven seasons six different teams won the World Series, and until last fall each winner had to beat L.A. along the way. …
• And remember that in 2020 the Dodgers spent most of October in a COVID bubble two time zones away from home. So don’t say the short season made it a cheap championship. …
• While mulling the deals leading up to the deadline, consider the contrast between Noah Syndergaard – who was convinced he could get back to throwing in the high 90s and seemed to resist changing his approach to suit his current velocity – and Lynn, who quickly bought into the staff’s suggestions and is 3-0 with a 1.44 ERA, 0.88 WHIP and four quality starts as a Dodger, compared to 6-9, 6.47, 1.462 and six quality starts in 21 tries with the White Sox. …
• And let’s have one more tip of the cap to John Lowe, SoCal resident (and Press-Telegram reader) and the newest recipient of the BBWAA’s career excellence award, celebrated last month in Cooperstown. As we’ve written before, he invented the quality start statistic (minimum of six innings and three earned runs). They laughed when he came up with it in the ’80s, but in today’s relief-dominant game it’s become absolutely relevant.
It’s listed in MLB’s stats, too. The current leaders going into Sunday: Gerrit Cole and Logan Webb with 18 apiece. …
• Today’s Captain Obvious moment: The Knight Commission, which positions itself as the conscience of college sports but has little traction with those who actually run it and have no conscience, issued a statement this week under the name of Amy Privette Perko, its CEO, that began with this sentence: “College sports at most FBS-affiliated programs are driven today by one all-consuming pursuit: The money chase.” …
• But the Knight Commission did suggest three years ago that football, or at least the Football Bowl Subdivision schools, should have their own governing structure separate from that of the NCAA. That’s the first step. Again, the ideal would be promotion and relegation among the FBS programs (as well as returning to regionally-sensible conferences for other sports, though that ship seems to have already sailed).
We reiterate: When Chip Kelly suggested a couple of weeks ago that every football program should follow Notre Dame’s lead and go independent, he was right. And how many times do you see that said in This Space? …
• More to the point, as our former colleague Mark Whicker noted on his Substack column Sunday morning, if the networks want marquee matchups every Saturday, it’s way past time for the top teams to get rid of the breathers and the guarantee games on their schedules. …
• Remember when Sports Illustrated had a feature in their Notes on a Scorecard called “Sign of the Apocalypse?” This would qualify: Online betting service sportsbetting.ag posted futures odds on the Little League World Series and announced its intention to post daily lines, too. Is any further comment really necessary? …
• An “only in Texas high school football” moment: Melissa High School, 40 miles or so north of Dallas, is opening a 10,000-seat, $35 million football stadium and indoor practice facility. The school had 1,500 students in the last academic year. …
• SoCal’s 12 major league sports organizations announced this week they would make a combined donation to the American Red Cross to help those affected by last week’s wildfires in Maui. The total – total – amount donated by the 12 organizations: $450,000.
Is that all you can part with? Do better. …
jalexander@scng.com