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It Sure Beats The Clap

Sure, for every Felix Hernandez there's a Dan Meyer, for every Cole Hamels a Chad Billingsley and for every Tim Lincecum a Homer Bailey, but Scherzer's unflinching composure and otherworldly stuff will take fantasy owners "Beyond Thunderdome" sometime this year.

--Brad Evans,  4/28/08

Cole Hamels  - 7.72 K/9, 3.13 K/BB, 1.10 HR/9, 136 ERA+, 3.64 FIP

Chad Billingsley - 9.75 K/9, 2.22 K/BB, .75 HR/9, 123 ERA+, 3.47 FIP

This would have more impact if Bills were dominating Hamels statistically, but that's almost impossible, Hamels is an elite pitcher, there's no arguing that. However, there's certainly a case for Billingsley, who is performing better than Hamels in all the peripheral stats except control, and that shows in his superior FIP. Granted, the case isn't that clear cut since Hamels plays in one of the most hitter friendly parks in baseball. At the very least Billingsley is in the same class as Hamels, a class that includes all of the elite pitchers under 25 including Felix Hernandez, Scott Kazmir, and Tim Lincecum.

Billingsley is off to one of the best starts to a career ever for a Dodger pitcher, and seemingly no one has noticed. Bills career 128 ERA+ beats out what Fernando did in his first two full seasons (127), and he's striking out batters at a higher rate. Even so, Los Angeles hasn't exactly caught Billingsley fever, reacting with at best indifference and at worst wanting to send him to the pen. I don't get it. Considering the history we have with overhyped prospects coming up here and doing nothing, we'd should making Billingsley one of the faces of this franchise, but he gets less hype than Andre Ethier does. Chad Billingsley is, at worst, the second best player we have right now but he gets zero recognition for this, even from the Dodgers own PR machine.

No matter what you think of Bills, we can agree he deserved a bobble head before Joe Beimel. 

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Bills

The cited quotation at the top is nothing more than an uninformed opinion. Bills is quickly becoming my favorite player on the team. A hard-throwing strikeout righthander, to me, is the most exciting archetypical player you can have on a team. (Moreso than the pithy gap-hitting second baseman, or the scrappy, hardworking speedster.)

Call me crazy, but I’ll take Billingsley’s next 10 years ahead of any of the pitchers mentioned by Mr. Evans above. Watching him pitch now, he can go through such dominant stretches, but you get the sense that he still has miles to go.

by jumanjifan01 on Jun 18, 2008 10:43 AM PDT reply actions   0 recs

Oh it totally was uninformed, but it was just so offbase comparing Bills to Dan Meyer that it needed further mockery.

Right now, I would probably rank Bills below all the guys I mentioned (all of whom I called top 35 players before the year started), but that’s not exactly a bad thing.

Co-Author Of The Fourth Most Popular NL West Based Blog On SBN

by Andrew on Jun 18, 2008 11:17 AM PDT up reply actions   0 recs

This might be my Mariner fan bias

but I don’t think I’d take Bills over King Felix for the next 10 years.That being said he’s still developing quite nicely and I think its only a matter of time before Dodger fans and the baseball public realize how awesome he is.

The poster formerly known as Matt.

by bluemax on Jun 18, 2008 5:14 PM PDT up reply actions   0 recs

Even

among the Roto crowd they don’t quite understand how elite he has become. Nice stuff Andrew, we have focused so much on how Kemp is the whipping boy that we haven’t noticed how unmarketed Billingsley has been by the Dodgers.

When it comes to the all-star selection I would think he’d have to be our guy. Russ has some stiff competition this year at his position. I wonder what Carrol has to say about our boy right now. His big butt seems to be holding up just fine.

by Phil Gurnee on Jun 18, 2008 12:10 PM PDT reply actions   0 recs

RE:

Sporky’s co-worker is not on the all-star committee:)

by Phil Gurnee on Jun 18, 2008 1:44 PM PDT reply actions   0 recs

Not that we'll get two...

But Kuofax and Billingsdale are both deserving

by jumanjifan01 on Jun 18, 2008 1:50 PM PDT reply actions   0 recs

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2010 Dodger Payroll

Pos No Player 2010 Salary
C 55 Martin $5,050,000
1B 7 Loney $3,100,000
2B 33 DeWitt $410,000*
3B 23 Blake $6,000,000
SS 15 Furcal $8,500,000
LF 99 Manny $7,267,760
CF 27 Kemp $4,000,000
RF 16 Ethier $6,000,000

2B/3B 14
Carroll $1,350,000
2B/3B/1B 3 Belliard $825,000
C 12
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OF 5 Johnson $800,000
SS 60
Hu $405,000*

SP 22 Kershaw $425,000*
SP 58 Billingsley $3,850,000
SP 18 Kuroda $14,100,000
SP 44 Padilla $4,025,000
SP 57 Elbert $405,000*

CL 51 Broxton $4,000,000
LHP 52 Sherrill $4,500,000
LHP 56 Kuo $950,000
RHP 67 Troncoso $425,000*
RHP 54 Belisario $425,000*
RHP 31 McDonald $425,000*
RHP 68 Monasterios $460,000*

Pierre $4,000,000
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Schmidt $2,000,000
Wolf $2,000,000
Hudson $1,440,000
Nomar $1,250,000
Ohman $200,000
Hoffmann ($50,000)

Others on 40-man roster (total: 40)
LHP 65 Zerpa $60,000*
RHP 64 Guerra  
RHP 37 Haeger  
RHP 74 Jansen  
LHP 59 Leach
RHP 73 Link  
RHP 49 Schlichting  
LHP 50 Stults  
RHP 47 Wade
C 9
Ellis  
C 71 May  
SS 87 DeJesus  
OF 75 Paul
OF 17 Repko $500,000
OF 62 Robinson  

Totals $93,547,760
 
Red = arbitration
Asterisk (*) = estimated
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