Wow, talk about a first bulletpoint in the blog TOS.  Look at my user icon - I miss the hell out of Andruw Jones, no matter how much he struggles.  I consider any Braves fans that had the audacity to boo him when y'all were over in Atlanta to be ungrateful and fair-weathered.

But that's not why I'm posting. I'm not here to troll, instigate, and/or pick fights.  As a baseball fan, I come to seek ideas, and pick the brains of the locals.

On my ongoing quest to tackle every Major League Ballpark in America, I am making the trip out to LA later this month (During the series against the Cardinals) to see Dodger Stadium.  I can google LA, look around on craigslist, and seek out generic things to do from the internet, but I think that I can get some better ideas of things to do from like-minded baseball/sports aficionados.

So that being said, what's there to do in LA for a die-hard sports fan?  Novelty/giant foods, cool places to see, best areas to see the Pacific, etc?

Any and all constructive suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I can't wait to see your beautiful park, and I sure hope that Andruw knocks one out "for old time's sake" when I'm there.

    For the past couple of weeks, I have been arguing with a friend of mine about the feasibility of this trade proposal. I insist it is equally beneficial, whereas he argues that it would never happen because each club will put too much value on what they are giving up (the Dodgers will give up too many young players under team control; the Pirates will put too much value on the face of a franchise and a young starter with ace-potential). With all the recent articles reminiscing about the LoDuca-Penny trade, it occurred to me that we may be missing out on an opportunity to acquire another 26 year old potential #2 or 3 starter with some of our superfluous assets.

      The Dodgers are a large market team that stands to shed 80 million from the payroll over the next two seasons (Lowe, Schmidt, Jones, Loiaza, Kent, Nomar, etc). Assembling the most economically efficient team might mean letting Hu take over for Furcal after this season. However, with a gaudy (for Hu) prospect ranking from publications like BP and BA, it might make sense to construct a package around Hu Loney, Ethier, McDonald and Kuo for Ian Snell and Jason Bay. The Dodgers don't always have to take the most economically conservative route,as long as they are making wise decisions, and can stand to add a couple of modestly priced players such as Snell and Bay.

     Admittedly, the Bucks don't receive a ton of prospects with soaring ceilings (although, as stated earlier, Baseball Prospectus is high on Hu and McDonald, and Loney, Ethier and Kuo will have had 2+ years of production time in the majors to gain some insight on their projectability) but there are probably enough young, team-controlled assets that blend in age-wise with the up-coming crop of Pirates prospects (Walker, McClouth) that likely make this trade worthwhile. Furthermore, Adam LaRoche becomes another trade trip to add more pitching.

    From the Dodger's side, the offer should be contingent on a couple of shrewd free-agent signings and re-signing Furcal. Unless Loney demonstrates that his spike in power from last year is sustainable for a whole season, he might have more value as a trade chip, and replaced with Texiera. Kent could be replaced in house, or with a player like Mark Ellis. The cost of these two would not likely eclipse 25 million annually, and coupled with the salaries of Snell and Bay (signed for the 2009 season at  around 8 million I think), would still be less than the money shed during the off-season.

Dodgers Lineup

SS: Furcal

C: Martin

LF: Bay

1B: Tex

RF: Kemp

3B: LaRoche

2B: Ellis (Abreu)

CF: Jones

SP: Penny

SP: Snell

SP: Bills

SP: Kuroda

SP: Kershaw

With it looking more and more each game they play that Texas is going to be sellers  at the deadline, if not sooner. What would you give up for Blalock?

 He would definately add some of the missing power to the Dodgers lineup.

He seems to have recovered from his  weird injury from last year (Thorasic Outlet Syndrome?)  and is signed for a reasonable 6mil this year with and option for 6.2 next...

LaRoach +?

I understand Joe Torre's frustration and I understand that he does not "know" his team yet. But riddle me this batman, why would you put a completely helter skelter lineup out there a day after the team broke out the whupping sticks. I thought his point of tweaking the roster was to find a line up that worked. Well it worked yesterday...not so much today.

I haven't really been impressed with anything Torre has done so far. I know it is early but come on. Find a line up and stick with it Joe. Baseball players are creatures of habit - they crave consistency. Give it to them and us.

I do have to admit that I liked the outfield he put out there today. I'm not sure if it was so much the players out there as much as the player that wasn't. I do want to give Torre the benefit of the doubt but I was not sold on him when he was with the Yankees and I was not excited when he came here.

I’ve always been very interested in Major League scouting. I’m not a scout myself, but I thought I’d take a stab at learning the art this season. So for the rest of the season, I’m going to cover some hitters and pitchers who I feel are primed for big seasons and cover what they do well and what they might need some work on as well as cover their careers leading up to this season a bit. If anyone is more familiar with scouting than I, I would appreciate any suggestions or feedback.

Today, I will scout Los Angeles Dodgers right hander Chad Billingsley on Baseball Mastermind.

Profile:

Chad Billingsley: RHP, listed as 6′1″ 245 lbs on MLB.com.

Background:

Chad Ryan Billingsley was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1st round (24th overall) in the 2003 amateur draft under scouting director Logan White out of Defiance High School, Ohio. In his senior year with Defiance, Billingsley pitched 56 innings with a 1.49 ERA striking out 113 batters and walking only 16, going 6-1. He was signed by Marty Lamb, withing the Dodger’s organization.

He also went 3-0 with a 2.45 ERA for Team USA in the 2002 IFBA World Junior Championships in Sherbrooke, Canada. Team USA wound up finishing with the bronze medal that year.

In Billingsley’s pro debut in rookie ball, he pitched 54 innings with a 2.83 ERA, striking out 62 and walking 16 with a 5-4 record as an 18 year old in 2003. In 2004, Billingsley split time between advanced A ball and AA, finishing with 134 innings with a 2.55 ERA, striking out 158 and walking 71, finishing with a 11-4 record. In 2005, Billingsley was Baseball America’s #19 prospect and the #2 prospect within the Dodgers organization behind Joel Guzman, the #5 prospect. He repeated AA and finished with 146 innings with a 3.51 ERA, striking out 162 and walking 50 with a 13-6 record. In 2006, Billingsley was Baseball America’s #7 prospect and pitched 70.2 innings for AAA Las Vegas with a 3.95 ERA, striking out 78 and walking 32 with a 6-3 record. Billingsley was then promoted to the Dodgers where he began in the bullpen, but by the end of the season, was a member of the Dodgers’ rotation, finishing with 90 innings with a 3.80 ERA, striking out 59 and walking 58. In 2007, Billingsley started the season in the bullpen again, to keep his innings totals down, and finished the season pitching 147 innings with a 3.31 ERA, striking out 141 and walking 64 with 12-5 record. Coming into the 2008 season, Billingsley, 23, is the best pitcher in the Dodgers organization including Clayton Kershaw and looks poised for a breakout season.

Scouting Report:

Delivery: Chad Billingsley has a deliberate wind-up, with a high leg-kick. He generates a lot of velocity from his leg-drive and from torquing his hips, which comes from his heavy-set build and excellent core strength. He throws from a three-quarters arm-slot, which allows him to get late life and tailing action on his fastball. From the stretch, he sets with his hands at chest level and has a less-dramatic leg kick.

Repertoire: Chad Billingsley throws a fastball that sits 92-94 mph that can touch 95 and a a cut-fastball that sits 86-88 mph that works for inducing ground balls. He also throws a curve ball that has a looping, downward break (2-7 action) that usually comes in around 77-79 mph and a slider that sits around 82-84 mph with a tight break. He also mixes in a change up but throws that pitch in far less than the other three pitches.

Demeanor: Billingsley has great mound presence, which he is noted for. Tommy Lasorta has dubbed Billingsley this generation’s "Bulldog," named after Orel Hershiser. Billingsley attacks hitters with his fastball on both the inner and outer-half of the strike zone and can throw his curve ball in just about any count.

Again, this is my first attempt at writing a scouting report, if anyone can offer any pointers of corrections, I’d appreciate the feedback 

Hey True Blue LA,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

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The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

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Hey guys, I think readers might be interested in this piece on Matt Kemp, which gives you a give idea of just how fast this guy's bat is:

http://www.baseball-intellect.com/Articles/matt-kemp-bat-speed.html

I'm actually an Oriole fan, but was rooting for Kemp to be the headline guy in a trade for Bedard.  Am I correct to assume he is assured a starting job because it would be ridiculously stupid to let Juan Pierre start over him and Either.

I guess this has been around for awhile, but I wasn't aware of it until it was mentioned in Dodgerblues a few weeks back.  And now I can't stop watching it.  I wish I was 10 years older, so I could recognize half the players in this clip.  Maybe ToyCannon can deliver some commentary on the '86 Dodgers, or at least this clip, since he was still a strapping young lad when this came out 22 years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW7q0JzWaoY

Baseball Prospectus listed the Dodgers Health Report, where he lists their health ratings (chances of getting hurt this season) since this one's a pay article, I'll list the ratings without commentary:

[editor's note, by Andrew] Sorry Rich, not comfortable having them released like this. General rule of thumb for BP is five players at a time.

 Hey, I write for http://baseballmastermind.com.  Today, I covered the LA Dodger and the Cincinnati Reds in my season preview as the leading darkhorse teams in the NL.  Here's the article in its entirety:

The National League, unlike the America league, lacks the superpower teams that are almost locks to make the playoffs beyond the New York Mets. After that, there are conceivably nine or ten teams vying for the final three spots. I doubt the San Diego Padres will be able to compete and it will take a lot going wrong for the Houston Astros to win the NL Central, leaving eight real, legitimate contenders.

Of those eight, the NL West will see major competition between the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers; the NL Central will likely see competition between the Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers and the Cincinnati Reds; and finally, from the NL East, barring something unforeseen happening to the Mets, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Atlanta Braves will compete with all the best losers for the Wild Card.

I was originally going to write this darkhorse article on the Reds and the Braves, who I saw as fringe competitors, where the Braves finished third and the Reds finished fifth in their respective divisions, but after consulting the futures odds at Vegas Insider, I thought I needed to sub in the Dodgers for the Braves as they are currently listed as 22/1 favorites to win the World Series and the Reds are listed as 55/1 favorites. The Braves are listed as 16/1, not bad, but I have the Dodgers as the #3 team in the NL, so this represents quite a gap between the talent I am confident they have and the betting public.

So without further ado, I will kick-off my preseason preview series with the two biggest "darkhorse" teams in the NL, the Reds and the Dodgers:

The Los Angeles Dodgers

The Dodgers were competitive for most of 2007, even leading their division for much of the season, before fading down the stretch and finishing in fourth in the NL West with a 82-80 record. Their Pythagorean record was 82-80 as well, so there isn't much luck or lack of luck figuring into their finish. Last season's team could pitch alright and couldn't hit a lick and their record reflected such. This off-season, the Dodgers changed managers, exchanging Grady Little for Joe Torre and made two major player acquisitions, signing Japanese RHP Hiroki Kuroda and CF-R Andruw Jones. I covered both the Kuroda and Jones signings in more detail this past off-season, so I won't rehash either transaction too much.

Strengths

   1. A lot of young talent. One of the big story-lines at the end of the 2007 season was the feud between the older players like Nomar Garciaparra, Luis Gonzalez, Derek Lowe and Jeff Kent and the younger players like Matt Kemp and Russell Martin. All of that was preposterous and blown out of proportion and will hopefully be behind the Dodgers because coming into 2008, the Dodgers expect to get major contributions from Martin, Kemp, James Loney, Andy LaRoche and Chad Billingsley (a major breakout candidate in 2008), all 25 and under. Projecting some of these players like Loney, Kemp and LaRoche is somewhat difficult, but you can't deny the talent there.

   2. All-Around Depth. One of the great things about having one of the best farm systems in the MLB is that it provides teams with great depth. The Dodgers have the best all-around depth in the NL. If any of their starting pitching goes down, they have Esteban Loiza, Hong-Chih Kuo, James McDonald and Scott Elbert ready to go and if all else fails, super-stud prospect Clayton Kershaw may even get a chance. In the infield, the Dodgers have both Chin-Lung Hu and Tony Abreu ready to contribute and in the outfield, Ethier will be waiting for a chance to play regularly, along with Delwyn Young. That's an impressive collection of talent that will be able to sustain the inevitable injury or two, particularly in the rotation, which is crucial for a long season. Injuries will happen and the Dodgers are prepared.

Weaknesses

1. Occasional lapses in judgment. Last season, the Dodgers misguidedly gave Garciaparra 431 at-bats to prove he couldn't hit. Same was true of Luis Gonzalez (now gone), who racked up 464 at-bats. This season, Andy LaRoche is ready to go, but every start that Nomar gets at third is a step away from the play-offs. The same is true of Juan Pierre. With his contract, he will play and he will start, but if the Dodgers somehow manage to get more time to Kemp and Ethier, they will benefit greatly.

X-Factor

   1. Kemp and Loney. Both of those guys had monster 2007 seasons, albeit in limited time. How they will hold up under a full season has yet to be seen. If Loney manages to hit around 15 home runs and Kemp on-bases less than .330, the Dodgers will be in trouble.

   2. Russell Martin. This is the only place on the team where the Dodgers are completely vulnerable. If Martin gets hurt, their already delicate offense will head south in a hurry. How Torre manages Martin will be closely monitored.

Out-There Predictions

   1. Closer Takashi Saito, after dominating big-league hitters for two seasons, better than he ever did in Japan, will finally fall off the face of the earth at age 38 (and by that, I mean he will have a 3.60 ERA), but big Johnathan Broxton will step in to close and no one will notice.

   2. Nomar Garciaparra will demand a trade after being relegated to a bench role. The Dodgers will try to oblige, but no one will return their phone calls.

2008 Outlook: I think the Dodgers have as good a chance of winning their division as the Diamondbacks, although officially, I'm picking the Diamondbacks to win the division. I will go ahead and put the Dodgers down for 90 wins.

-----------------------------

Cincinnati Reds

The Reds have the opportunity in 2008 to capitalize on a relatively weak division. Last season, the Cubs won the NL Central with 85 wins. The year before, the Cardinals won the division and the World series with 83 regular season wins. With contributions from a core of young talented players on the cusp, a little luck (maybe an injury or two to the Cubs or Brewers), the Reds will be in the hunt.

Strengths

   1. Prospects galore. Like the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2007, the Reds have a great deal of young players ready to contribute. Man-child Jay Bruce (BP's #1 prospect), Homer Bailey (#9), Joey Votto (#21), Johnny Cueto (#41) are all ready to go.

   2. Underrated Rotation. The Reds have the front end of the rotation well covered between Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo who are both underrated in large part due to the ballpark they pitch in. Harang has two consecutive 200 strikeout seasons in over 230 innings, with about a 4:1 K/BB ratio-those are dominating numbers. Same goes for Arroyo who has posted close to a 3:1 K/BB ratio these past two seasons, exceeding 210 innings each season. Beyond that, if newly acquired Edison Voquez, Homer Bailey or Johnny Cueto can provide meaningful innings, this rotation may win up every bit as good as the Cubs and better than the Brewers.

Weaknesses

   1. Defense. The Colorado Rockies demonstrated in 2007 that with a good defensive team, even in the lousiest ballpark, a team can thrive. The Reds pitching staff is solid, but their defense is poor. In the outfield, Adam Dunn will be a butcher and Bruce and Ken Griffey Jr. are average at their positions at best. Edwin Encarnacion is a horrific defender at third and rookie Joey Votto figures to be about average. Their middle infield is their only plus.

   2. Volatile bullpen. While the Francisco Cordero signing was bashed a lot this off-season for the duration and dollar value, it does make the Reds better in 2008. Cordero is a power pitcher-fastball slider combo-with decent control and he has demonstrated he can succeed in a tough ballpark when he was closing in Texas. Regardless, in Great American Ballpark, the rest of the bullpen is very vulnerable and we wouldn't count on David Weathers, Bill Bray or Todd Coffey to hold up for a full season.

X-Factor

   1. Young Guns. Baseball Prospectus's projection system PECOTA projects Jay Bruce for a massive season, .269/.336/.512 with 29 home runs and 45 doubles with a-get this-47% breakout rate. That basically means there's a chance he will exceed those numbers by a lot-you'd don't even want to know how ridiculous his 90% projection is. I like Jay Bruce, but I don't like him that much. I was very confident in Alex Gordon in 2007 and he collapsed. Sometimes young players excel right off the bat and sometimes they don't. The Reds are counting on performance from these guys.

   2. Dusty Baker. The injury-plagued careers of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior will be a sore spot in Cubs fans for years to come. How Baker manages his young rotation is going to be important. Also, the man famous for saying a player enters their prime around 35-36 is going to have to resist his temptation to play Scott Hatteberg over Joey Votto.

Out-There Predictions:

   1. Jay Bruce does not win the NL Rookie of the Year award. That's bold.

   2. Aaron Harang will hit .110. All the reports out of camp are that Harang has learned to hit lefty and is showing Dunn-like power now. I jest.

2008 Outlook: I certainly wouldn't pick the Reds to win their division, but I like their chances all the same. I predict 79 wins and a third place finish.