By Jon Weisman
Scott Kazmir began tonight’s Freeway Series opener against the Angels with his two-seam fastball running between 88 and 90 mph in the first inning.
Then, with two outs and two strikes on C.J. Cron, Kazmir hit 92 with a fastball that Cron fouled into A.J. Ellis’ glove for strike three.
The speed bump wasn’t a coincidence.
Ross Stripling in February (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
By Jon Weisman
Ross Stripling had an interesting day today — not as interesting as the 11-9 final score of the Dodgers’ loss to the Padres would suggest — but interesting nonetheless.
Yahoo baseball columnist Jeff Passan’s new book, “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports,” was excerpted at his home site today, and among other things it offers a rare peek into the kinds of steps the Dodgers have taken to grow and target their research and development department in baseball operations. Start reading, and take special note when Dr. James Buffi first appears.
— Jon Weisman
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By Jon Weisman
We recapped Kenta Maeda’s latest outing Tuesday, but I saw some more comments this morning worth passing along.
The bulk of them centered on how much it will help Maeda simply to put more mileage on his American odometer. For example, here’s what Maeda said to the Japan Times …
… “I’m still throwing some fat pitches, but I was able to get some strikeouts, so it was a learning experience,” he said. “Next time I want to do a good job while increasing my innings and pitch count and not walking batters.
“There were times when I threw pitches on the corner that I wanted strikes on but were called balls. Had I got them, I would have had more strikeouts. I think I’m going to have to establish my reputation among the umpires as a pitcher with good control.” …
Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers
By Jon Weisman
The first four times this year that the Dodgers faced their opponents’ starting No. 3 hitter — Jose Abreu on Thursday, Prince Fielder today — they got four strikeouts, by four different pitchers.
The fourth came today from Mike Bolsinger, whose fate for the second spring in a row has become much more interesting, in the wake of injuries to more established starting pitchers.
Through his first 16 starts in 2015, Bolsinger had a 2.83 ERA with 78 strikeouts in 89 innings. He didn’t pitch in the Majors in August, after the Dodgers’ big trade deadline moves, and by the time he returned in September, things weren’t the same. In his final five starts, he lasted 20 1/3 innings and allowed 20 runs (16 earned).
Some say that the August disruption to his routine did him in, but Bolsinger does admit that by the time September came around, he was worn down.
“I think it was just wear on my body,” he said after throwing two shutout innings against Texas today. “If you look at what my curveball was at the beginning of the year to what my curveball was at the end of the year, it didn’t have that life in it and that tumble. I don’t think my arm had that life in it.
Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers
By Jon Weisman
In his two-inning Cactus League debut for the Dodgers, Scott Kazmir hit the highs (two strikeouts, two double-play grounders) and the lows (six hits, two runs) — and predictably found a middle ground in his analysis.
By Jon Weisman
In the hours since Brett Anderson’s second disc injury in three years was announced, it was easy to say how easy this was to predict.
But according to Dodger general manager Farhan Zaidi, the people who actually do this kind of prediction said it was highly unlikely.
“Going through the diagnosis yesterday, we were told the chance of recurrence of something like this was pretty low, something around 10 percent of the time,” Zaidi said. “It’s obviously an unfortunate thing to happen. He had a healthy season last year, (and) he came in this year in great shape, was doing a lot of preventative stuff to keep something like this from happening.
“In (asking) the doctors, ‘Was this a single traumatic thing, was it something that happened over time?’ — it really could be either. But it was obviously a very quick thing from throwing live BP and looking great, to feeling something, to having some tests done and realizing that he needed surgery. … The fortunate part of it is we’re still hopeful we see him at some point this season, most likely in the second half. But just to get back, the actuarial chances of recurrence are really low in this case, so it was just a bit of bad luck.”
Speaking shortly after striking out two in his two-inning Spring Training debut today, Clayton Kershaw didn’t downplay the significance of what Anderson’s injury meant.
Kenta Maeda brings a 2.39 career ERA from Japan to MLB. (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
By Jon Weisman
Almost notoriously, the Dodgers used 16 starting pitchers in 2015. But in one sense, that’s a little misleading.
You could organize them this way:
Overall, this is a reasonable way to look at the five slots of the 2015 rotation, though I’m taking some small liberties here.
With those caveats, here’s the performance of each slot of the rotation last year:
By Jon Weisman
With the signing of Kenta Maeda, 11 of the 13 Dodgers on the active roster with MLB experience as starting pitchers will be under 30 when Spring Training begins.
The names of the youth brigade: Brett Anderson (28), Brandon Beachy (29), Mike Bolsinger (28), Carlos Frias (26), Clayton Kershaw (28 in March), Zach Lee (24), Maeda (28 in April), Frankie Montas (23 in March), Hyun-Jin Ryu (29 in March), Ian Thomas (29 in April) and Alex Wood (25).
The only starting pitcher over age 30 on the 40-man roster scheduled to take the mound this spring is Scott Kazmir, and he will be only 32, the same age as Brandon McCarthy, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery and won’t pitch until the summer at the earliest.
While these Dodgers could have one of the highest percentages of under-30 starters since the franchise moved to Los Angeles in 1958, they won’t set a record.
In 1962 — a season that went to 165 games because of the three-game tiebreaker playoff with the Giants — every single game the Dodgers played was started by an under-30 pitcher except the 165th, which came three days after Johnny Podres’ 30th birthday.
(Click on the chart below for more detail.)
https://twitter.com/Dodgers/status/685209880018329601
By Jon Weisman
Twice during his introductory press conference today, speaking through a translator, new Dodger righty Kenta Maeda said he really looked forward to being in a “champagne fight” at the end of the season.
That Maeda acknowledged reported “irregularities” in the physical that was submitted to Major League teams pursuing the Japanese baseball star certainly affected the structure of the eight-year, incentive-laden deal he signed, but did not diminish the confidence that he or the Dodgers have that he’ll be in the thick of the championship bubbly.
“Obviously, we spent a lot of time evaluating and scouting Kenta over his very successful career in Japan,” Dodger president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “We feel like the pitch mix will play here — obviously the fastball, slider is kind of his out pitch, his changeup has really come on, very good feel for a curveball. The ability to show so many different pitches and command them, coupled with the kind of athlete he is — he’s a tremendous athlete, fields his position well, holds runners well, can hit — obviously helps in the National League.”
No one today would talk in specifics about what cropped up in Maeda’s physical, but Friedman said that he is “totally asymptomatic.”
Scott Kazmir is joining his sixth MLB team. Above are three of them. (Getty Images)
By Jon Weisman
Though Scott Kazmir potentially gives the Dodgers an all-lefty starting rotation, the newest Dodger isn’t your usual southpaw.
Over the past two seasons, right-handed batters have a .643 OPS against Kazmir. That’s the seventh-best figure in baseball for lefties, just ahead of Madison Bumgarner. (Clayton Kershaw, not surprisingly, is No. 1, while Alex Wood and Brett Anderson are in the top 15.)
“Kaz is a guy who’s got a very balanced split,” Dodger general manager Farhan Zaidi said in a conference call with reporters today, shortly after the Dodgers announced the acquisition of the soon-to-be 32-year-old. “His best pitch is his changeup, which really neutralizes righties. He’s not a lefty in the conventional sense.”
Joc Pederson, Hyun-jin Ryu and Justin Turner at Adrian Gonzalez’s Bat4Hope Softball Game on November 7 at Dodger Stadium.
By Jon Weisman
It’s true that as of now, it’s uncertain who will fill out the Dodger starting rotation when the 2016 season begins April 4. Behind established veterans Clayton Kershaw, Brett Anderson and Alex Wood — all lefties — the next healthy pitchers in line are Mike Bolsinger, Carlos Frias, Joe Wieland, Zach Lee and Ian Thomas, as well as newly acquired Frankie Montas.
Then there are those who haven’t even made their big-league debuts, such as Jose De Leon, Jharel Cotton, Ross Stripling and 19-year-old Julio Urias. But any of those, along with any barely experienced veterans, would have to make quite an all-around impression by April to begin the season in the Majors.
Back in Spring Training, with the scar of the previous October only beginning to heal, I asked A.J. Ellis to join Vin Scully, Rick Honeycutt and Orel Hershiser in a package of bylined stories about Clayton Kershaw for the April edition of Dodger Insider magazine. With a new October upon us, I thought this would be a good time to revisit Ellis’ remarkable insights about Kershaw and his relationship with the Dodger ace. Click the image above to enlarge.
— Jon Weisman
One of Clayton Kershaw’s MLB-leading 127 pickoff throws. (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
By Jon Weisman
As if the guy didn’t have enough weapons …
Clayton Kershaw is baseball’s top pickoff artist, and it isn’t even close.
Kershaw picked off nine baserunners this year, three more than the two next-closest pitchers, teammate Brett Anderson and former teammate Joe Beimel, now with Seattle.
This isn’t a new skill. Kershaw led the National League in pickoffs for three consecutive seasons (2010-12) and has been in the top 10 every year since 2009.
“He’s always had that in the back of his pocket,” said Dodger coach and baserunning guru Davey Lopes. “He’s utilized it quite a bit — guys trying to stretch their leads, and he’s been picking them off.
In the past seven seasons, Kershaw has been credited with 55 pickoffs. Next on the list among big-league pitchers are Mark Buehrle (42) and James Shields (28).
No other MLB pitcher since 2009 has even half as many pickoffs as Kershaw.
Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers
By Jon Weisman
Jake Arrieta pitched six more shutout innings tonight for the Cubs, lowering his ERA this season to 1.77. Zack Greinke is still in the driver’s seat to lock up the Major League ERA title when he starts Saturday for the Dodgers, but there is suspense.
If Greinke …
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