has started doing a rundown of the top 200 Dodgers prospects using fanposts to post the countdown.

180 - 171

190 - 181

200 - 191

This is our Dodger top 30 in steroid mode. Coolguy_88888888 also did also did this last year, so take a look at his 200 from last year. This is quite a prodigious undertaking and I just want to thank him for taking the time to post his list this year on TBLA. It's members like this who help make our content richer then it would be if we only relied on the writers.

Trayvon Robinson, batting here, was one of three players added to the 40-man roster by the Dodgers today.

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The Dodgers today added three players to their 40-man roster, protecting them from next month's Rule 5 draft.  Ivan DeJesus, Jr., Trayvon Robinson, and Kenley Jansen were added to the roster, bringing the Dodgers' total to 32 players on the 40-man roster, heading into the free agent signing period that begins Friday.

Here's a look at each of the new roster additions:

Ivan DeJesus, Jr., ss

True Blue LA 2010 Prospect Rank:  4th

2010 Age:  23

Acquired:  2nd round (51st overall) 2005 draft, as compensation for Adrian Beltre

Info: Baseball Reference

DeJesus broke his leg sliding into home plate in spring training and missed most of the season, playing just four games in the Arizona Rookie League at the end of the year.  DeJesus is known for his plate discipline (11.5% walk rate in the minors) and defense at shortstop.  With Rafael Furcal under contract through at least 2011, DeJesus's best bet to make the Dodgers in the immediate future figures to be at second base.  His father, Ivan DeJesus, Sr., was signed by the Dodgers as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic in 1973, and played with the club from 1974 to 1976, before getting traded with Bill Buckner and Jeff Albert to the Cubs for Rick Monday and Rick Garman.  DeJesus, Sr. hit .183 in his Dodger career, the 17th lowest batting average by a non-pitcher in Dodger history (minimum 100 plate appearances).

Trayvon Robinson, of

True Blue LA 2010 Prospect Rank:  9th

2010 Age:  22

Acquired:  10th round (316th overall) 2005 draft

Info: Baseball Reference | First Inning

In addition to being a world class mascot fighter, Robinson had a breakout season in 2009.  He hit .306/.375/.500 while manning center field for the 66ers in the offensively friendly Cal League, but also performed well after his promotion to Double A Chattanooga.  As a Lookout, Robinson hit .246/.358/.439 in 19 games.  Robinson is a local boy, from Crenshaw High.  There have been three players from Crenshaw High School make the major leagues:  Chris Brown, Darryl Strawberry, and Ellis Valentine.  Here's an interview with Robinson from July:

Kenley Jansen, rhp

True Blue LA 2010 Prospect Rank:  not in top 15

2010 Age:  22

Acquired:  signed as undrafted free agent in 2005

Info: Baseball Reference | First Inning

Jansen gained a bit of notoriety as a laser-armed catcher on the upset-minded Netherlands team in the 2009 World Baseball Classic, throwing out runners from his knees.  Unfortunately for Jansen, he has never hit much in the minors (.221/.311/.337 in his minor league career).  However, he still has that arm, and the Dodgers converted him to a pitcher late in 2009.  He is still raw, obviously, but still managed to strike out 19 batters in 11.2 innings with the 66ers.  He is pitching in the Arizona Fall League currently with Peoria.  If he ever makes it to the majors, I'd put even money that he ends up with the highest batting average of any Dodger ever from Curacao.

**********

The Rule 5 draft will be held on December 10, during the Winter Metings in Indianapolis.

More photos » by Gus Ruelas - AP

"Dude, we're so alike! Our career similarity score is 934, which is my seventh-best comparison and your tenth-best!" - Matt Kemp on discovering Similarity Scores (AP Photo/Gus Ruelas)

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Before there were such things as CHONE, Pecota, and Bill James' annual projection for players, there was a charming little thing called Similarity Scores, also created by Bill James.  If you look at baseball-reference.com, you will find a description of the formula used for similarity scores and a credit to James' book The Politics of Glory; however, I first read about them in The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1986, in which he introduced the concept, having worked on it over the past year.  This was also the book that introduced me to the term sabermetrics, among other things.

I stumbled across The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1986 while looking in a book store for a book that contained all the major league statistics for the 1985 season (no baseball-reference.com in those days), which I needed to prepare for a Strat-O-Matic baseball draft.  (I went with a HR friendly ballpark and loaded up on power, defense be damned, and drafted Pedro Guerrero #1 at 3B/1B.)  The book was an eye-opener in many ways and made me aware that there were a lot of ways to look at baseball and baseball statistics than just the traditional versions.  I wonder if I would have even gravitated toward the baseball blogs that I enjoy so much today had I never crossed paths with James' Abstract. By the way, in the Dodgers chapter, James defends Lasorda's decision to pitch to Jack Clark.

If you didn't read the formula in the link, the brief version is that 1000 is a perfect match between two players.  Points are then deducted from there based on differences in position, a bunch of counting statistics (e.g., hits) and a few ratios (e.g., batting average, ERA).  Obviously, the higher the number, the better the match.

At baseball-reference.com, they calcluate the similarity scores on each player's page, giving the top-10 career similarities, plus the top-10 at each age of the player's career, near the bottom of the page.  For example, if you scroll toward the bottom of ex-Dodger Shawn Green's player page, you'll find that his number one match in career similarity score is ex-Dodger Reggie Smith at 945.  This is what similarity scores (using this formula) seem to work best for, evaluating player production over an entire career, which is good for things like Hall of Fame arguments.  You'll also see that at age 29, after his last great season (2002), the 29-year old he was most similar to was Dale Murphy with a similarity score of 942.

Similarity scores don't make for a particularly great projection system, because, among other things, the stats used aren't the best for that purpose and the similarities don't account for trends (i.e., improving or not), but I'd bet that Bill James used similarity studies with different stats in play to fine tune his projection system.  However, that doesn't stop the age-based similarity score summaries at baseball-reference.com from being a lot of fun to peruse and to compare current players to players throughout baseball history and see how that current player might turn out.  This turns out to be a fine time to do such a thing because a) the season is over and the hot stove is still thawing out, and b) baseball-reference.com just updated them all to include the 2009 season data.

After the jump are similarity score summaries for the selected returning Dodger players at their 2009-season age.  These show the top ten similar players at the same age - some of the names may surprise you:

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Joe Torre relaxes as he realizes the Rockies will finally beat the Dodgers at something in 2009

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The Baseball Writers Association of America will announce the managers of the year today at 11am, and former Dodger manager Jim Tracy is the heavy favorite to walk away with NL honors.  The manager of the year award has been awarded in each league since 1983.  Tommy Lasorda is the only Dodger skipper to take home the hardware, winning in both 1983 and 1988.  Here is a review of how the Dodgers have finished in the 26-year history of the award:

*Award Share is the total points as a percentage of possible points.  In 1983, each ballot just named one manager.  From 1984 to present, each ballot (two per team in league) is three deep, with points awarded on a 5-3-1 basis.

**Bill Russell took over for Tommy Lasorda on June 25, 1996 after Lasorda had a heart attack the previous day.

Joe Torre is expected to get some second and/or third place votes, which would make this just the third time that the Dodgers have had a manager appear on two straight ballots (Lasorda in 1990-1991, and Tracy in 2001-2002 -- four years which produced zero playoff appearances).

UPDATE:  Torre finished 3rd, behind Tracy and Tony LaRussa.  Torre received one first place vote, seven second place votes, and seven third place votes.

Tracy, who took over Rockies' managerial duties after Clint Hurdle's 18-28 start, guided Colorado to a 74-42 record and a berth in the playoffs by winning the wild card.  Only the Yankees, at 76-39, had a better record than the Rockies since Tracy assumed the position.

Would this be Tracy's first manager of the year award?  Yes, yes it would.  He finished 2nd, 4th and 3rd in 2001, 2002, and 2004 respectively, while with the Dodgers.

Thanks as always to the amazing Baseball-Reference.com for this information.

More photos » by PAUL WARNER - ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ernie Harwell called games for the Dodgers in 1948 and 1949.

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I managed to catch Studio 42 with Bob Costas tonight, as Ernie Harwell was interviewed.  Harwell, the long time announcer for the Detroit Tigers, has incurable cancer, and doctors have given him mere months to live.  His interview with Costas is a must see, and was very compelling and engaging hour.

Hearing anyone who has been around baseball for more than six decades is always a treat, but this interview with Harwell was especially rewarding.  The man once got Babe Ruth's autograph, played cards with Jackie Robinson, and interviewed fellow Georgian "Tyrus Raymond Cobb," as Harwell referred to him.  The 91-year old Harwell even recited from memory his "This is Baseball," from his Hall of Fame induction speech from over 28 years ago.

In 1948, Harwell was broadcasting games for the minor league Atlanta Crackers.  Meanwhile, legendary Dodger announcer Red Barber was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer and the club needed another announcer to fill in.  Branch Rickey wanted to hire Harwell, but he was under contract with the Crackers, so in exchange for Harwell the Dodgers sent minor league catcher Cliff Dapper to the Crackers, making Harwell the first and only broadcaster ever to be traded for a player.  It should be noted that Dapper has the highest batting average (.471) among Dodgers with 12 or more career plate appearances.  Harwell announced games for the Dodgers through the 1949 season.

Among the many highlights of the interview:

• Harwell recalled a story of an exhibition series between the Dodgers and the Atlanta Crackers, before which the Ku Klux Klan threatened to shoot Jackie Robinson if he took the field.  It was said that Gene Hermanski quipped that all the Dodger players wear number 42, so the gunmen wouldn't know whom to shoot.
  
• One of Harwell's famous called third strike calls: "He's out for excessive window shopping.  He looked at one too many."
• Harwell recalling the old time broadcasting tradition of recreations, which meant announcers weren't at the game, but would call the game based on telegraph reports, embellishing and sometimes making up facts to fill the time.
• There were an astonishing five radio calls of Bobby Thomson's home run, "The Shot Heard 'Round The World," but Harwell was the lone television announcer.  Sadly, there are no tapes of that 1951 NBC broadcast.
• Here is a clip from the interview, of Harwell remembering Jackie Robinson
• Here is a clip of Harwell reciting from memory his HOF speech

As a Dodger fan, I have been spoiled by having Vin Scully announce games for my favorite team for my entire life.  I am understandably biased when I state that Scully is the greatest baseball announcer of all time.  However, Harwell belongs in the discussion as well.  Before the advent of the MLB Extra Innings package, I never had much opportunity to hear Harwell, but my introduction to him came as he called some playoff games for ESPN Radio roughly a decade ago.  His conversational style, enthusiasm, and friendly nature really stood out to me at the time, and I made it a point to listen to Harwell as often as possible through the years. 

I'm glad I had the opportunity to listen to Harwell broadcast games, and I'm glad I had the chance to watch this interview.  Harwell was a great announcer, and he will be missed.

More photos » by Matt Slocum - AP

Andre Ethier and Manny Ramirez join fellow outfielder Matt Kemp as the only Dodgers projected by CHONE to have an OPS of .800 or above in 2010.

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Last month we looked at the projections from the 2010 Bill James Handbook.  Now, the second set of projections are in, from Sean Smith of the wonderful blog Anaheim Angels All The Way.  His full list of CHONE projections can be found here.

I added these projections to the previous Bill James projections, and also took a look back to 2009 to see how accurate last year's set of predictions were. The 2009 and 2010 CHONE projections are highlighted below.

I also threw in prOPS from The Hardball Times, short for "predicted OPS," which is "a formula for predicting what a player's OPS is likely to be in the future based on his batted balls, strikeouts, home runs and walks," to see if there was any luck based on batted balls.

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Dodger Offensive Predictions for 2010 from CHONE by Sean Smith

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Josh Rawitch set up a Q&A session with Dodger Assistant GM, Player Development,  DeJon Watson. For those unfamiliar with DeJon he's a local boy who starred in baseball and football at Santa Monica High School and was drafted in the 3rd round of the 1985 draft by the Royals. He never advanced above A ball and turned to a career in scouting.  He quickly moved up the scouting ranks and was the Cincinnati Reds Director of Scouting when he did this interview.   In October of 2006, Ned Colletti hired him away from the Indians and brought him back home. Just one year later he was promoted to Assistant GM, Player Development.  A busy man he took a few minutes out of his time to talk with TBLA about the Dodger prospects.  Below is a summary of that conversation. Originally I had 50 questions but was told to cut it down to 10-12. I'm sure many questions you or I had were cut and in retrospect I wish I had asked a few of my other questions then the one's I did ask.

I did not have a phone recorder  so unless you see a quote, the answers I've written down are summaries

 Ivan DeJesus lost a year to injury. Other then a brief appearance in Arizona we have not heard how he's doing. Has he made a full recovery without any loss in athletic skills and can we expect him to be playing winter ball in Puerto Rico?  He's going to play winter ball in Puerto Rico, has a slight limp, still little trouble doing the turns, straight a head is fine, expectations are for him to be 100% by spring training. Little worried about the pounding his leg will take on the winter league astro turf.

Josh Lindblom started most of the time in AA but once promoted to AAA he pitched only in relief. Is the belief going forward that he's a bullpen guy instead of getting a shot in the rotation? He pitched in relief for the Isotopes just in case the Dodgers needed him in the bullpen. The expectation is that if he does not make the major league roster he will be pitching in the Isotope rotation.

Lucas May made some big strides with the bat this year, having a solid year in AA, World Cup, and the AFL. The one question many of us have is how is he progressing as a catcher? We have heard many a rumor that pitchers do not like pitching to him, has trouble with passed balls, and just does not appear to have the skills to be a major league catcher. Are these unfounded? Is he progressing as a catcher?  Defense is improving, has made "drastic improvement" based on his play in the AFL. Was the main catcher for the World Cup team which won the World Cup.

 Andrew Lambo had a pedestrian season in AA but is doing quite well in the AFL, where will he be playing in 2010? Still needs to prove himself in AA, very happy with his performance in the AFL as he's still one of the youngest players in the league but is one of the best hitters in the league.

Why did Kyle Russell spend the whole season with the Loons and how worried are you about the K's? - he stayed with the Loons all year because they liked the group of players they had there and wanted to keep them together as a unit for the complete season. Pitch recognition is his biggest problem and they hoped they made some big strides in the instructional league this Sept by adjusting his setup. They don't want to reduce his aggressiveness and realize that a hitter like that will strike out.

Tony Delmonico followed the Russ Martin, Carlos Santana, Lucas May playbook and was converted to a catcher. How did you and your scouts feel that worked out and is that going to stick? - Tony will stay at catcher and we felt he was making excellent progress when he was hurt and had to move from behind the plate.

Gerald Sands struggled in the MWL, was sent to Ogden where he destroyed the league playing CF, came back to the Loons and finished strong while playing 1st base. What position will he be playing in 2010 and do you see him making it to the California League?  "blue collar kid" , "Brings it every game" , going forward he will play both 1^st and the outfield, he has the foot speed to play the outfield but they are not ruling out 1^st base.

Ethan Martin and Nate Eovaldi became an interesting tag team during the 2nd half; can you elaborate on the thinking behind using them in the same game in the 2nd half for about three innings each? Since Ethan was coming off the injury last year and Nathan had the history of the TJ, they wanted to keep the innings down so they put them together. Next year the gloves will come off and they will both be in the rotation.

Is Austin Gallagher a 1st baseman going forward and is his shoulder healthy?  - Still looking at both sides of the diamond for Austin. His shoulder is coming along and he's making progress, taking dry swings at the moment. They love the bat and his internal desire.

Aaron Miller was dynamite for the Loons during the regular and post season. Are the Dodgers going to be aggressive with him and move him to AA to start the season? - To be determined this spring but he's impressed everyone in the organization with not only his stuff but his poise.

Allen Webster had a big year, was that the biggest surprise of the season or did your scouting staff know what you had? - When drafted he was throwing 88-90 but after making some adjustments to his pitching mechanics and natural physical maturation he was touching 95 this year. "added five feet to his fastball".  Other players of note who he thought made big strides were  Buddy DeLaRosa - "touching 98 - 99 " this summer after some tweaks to his mechanics. Carlos Frias big arm.

One of the Dodger prospects we traded away a few years ago was Chuck Tiffany. He then suffered an arm injury and wasn't able to come back with the Rays. This summer we signed him to a contract but I've never heard a word about his progress? Is he still with the organization? If so what are the expectations? - arm never bounced back, he was released at the end of the year

What happened to College World Series hero Clayton Allison? - shoulder surgery (would not reveal what kind), expected to be 100% by spring.

More photos » by Gus Ruelas - AP

The dynamic duo each picked up a Silver Slugger award today

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Coming into 2009, it was not unheard of to expect a Dodger outfielder to win a Silver Slugger award.  In April, I would have pegged Manny Ramirez as the favorite, but instead his two outfield mates, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, each captured the honor today, which recognizes the top offensive performances at each position.

Each Silver Slugger captured his second award this season:  Kemp won a Gold Glove yesterday; Andre Ethier won the Pepsi Clutch Player of the Year award last week.

Kemp hit .297/.352/.490 with 26 home runs, 97 runs scored, and 101 runs batted in.   Ethier hit .272/.361/.508 with 31 homers, 91 runs, and 106 RBI.  Kemp & Ethier were the first Dodger teammates to knock in 100 runs since 2001 (Shawn Green & Gary Sheffield).

Kemp and Ethier become the fourth and fifth Dodger outfielders to win the award, which began in 1980, joining Dusty Baker (1980, 1981), Pedro Guerrero (1982), and Kirk Gibson (1988).

The last Dodger to win a Silver Slugger was Russell Martin in 2007.  The last pair of Dodger teammates to win a Silver Slugger were Mike Piazza and Eric Karros in 1995.

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The Dodgers announced their 2010 spring training schedule yesterday.  Among other things, they open Dodger Stadium with an exhibition against Cleveland on Friday, April 1, followed by a home-and-home with the Angels.  Here is the full schedule (games at Camelback Ranch in blue):

The Dodgers play 15 games at Camelback Ranch.  All times are 1:05pm local time unless otherwise noted.  Tickets and more information can be found here.