Michael usually writes the Fab Five story in February and since it has been about a year, we thought it might be a good time to display last years results.

Based upon hand counting so numbers may be off by one or two, about 63 ballots were cast. Might have been more but what we do know is that Kershaw was on 63 ballots and all numbers are based on that starting point. If you want to get more scientific feel free to peruse the above thread and do the count yourself.

Kershaw received 39 1st place votes

Billingsley received 13 top spot votes and was on 46 ballots

Matt Kemp received 8 1st place votes and was on 46 ballots

Kuo received 5 1st place votes and was on 45 ballots

Andre Ethier received 3 number one votes and was 34 ballots

Hiroki Kuroda received four 2nd place votes and was on 24 ballots

Rafy Furcal received three 2nd place votes and was on 18 ballots

Kenley Jansen received one 1st place vote, two 2nd place votes and was on 17 ballots

Big Jon Broxton received one 1st place vote, and was on 14 ballots

James Loney received one 1st place vote, and was on 13 ballots

Jamey Carrol was on seven ballots

Casey Blake was on six ballots

Mr. Padilla received one 1st place vote on five ballots

Jerry Sands was on three ballots

Gibbons, Guerrier, and Hoffman all managed to make one ballot.

Should be big changes this year, with long time Fab Five members Kuo, Kuroda, and Broxton saying good bye. Also gone are Furcal, Carroll, Blake, Padilla, Hoffman, and Gibbons.

Of the 17 players who received a vote nine of them are gone. Can't imagine any of the new members of the team cracking the list. I'd expect the average Fab Five this year will be Kershaw, Kemp, Andre, Jansen, and an assortment of whackjobs as players like Sands, Gordon, Rubby, Rivera, Ellis & Ellis, Uribe, TGJ, Guerra, Lilly, and Capang try to weasel their way into your hearts.

Eric Stephen did the preview:

The experts did not see the huge command gains or the ERA drop that goes with it.

TBLA members expected great things from Clayton but only a few took it to the level Clayton took it.

I think Josie wins this:

Dodgerblue looks good

Mammoth nails Cy Young

Musicfan did offer much but just about nailed the win / loss

Yours Truly

Michael and David both had Clayton posting plus 3.00 ERA's. Punks

I first heard this song from Ray Charles when I was nine. It never strays far from my mind.

My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I'm busted
Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I'm busted
I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay
A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day
The county's gonna haul my belongings away cause I'm busted.

As much as I try to find something to latch onto as we head into the new year with a MVP and Cy Young in tow, I can't feel it. My spider senses are all tingling disaster disaster, and try as I might, I can't shake it.

The optimism I felt at the end of the year has dissipated like the early snow, replaced with a pit of despair. Ned had a bad winter in 2010, he has compounded that with another bad winter in 2011. A team could handle one, but two bad winters leads to things like the 2009 Met's and that my friends is where I fear we are headed.

Ned has frittered away millions once again, with little to show for the effort other then the extension of Matt Kemp. He should have stopped there because everything he did after that simply makes it harder for his ultimate successor to clean up the mess.

I can see the optimist view if I look real hard. We have a legitimate MVP. We have a real Cy Young. We have an exciting young SS. We had the best 1st baseman in baseball in the last two months of 2011. We have a slugging right fielder coming back from an injury plagued season. We have the holder of the best K/9 ratio in the history of baseball. In the history of baseball.

The Dodger rotation has been solid since Ned took over but never great. It won't be very good in 2012. It won't be bad but it won't be good. I think the best case scenario is a 6th - 7th placement. Once upon a time I always felt the Kershaw/Kuroda/Billingsley trio could match up with any other trio. No longer do I feel this way.

Our true number two is gone, replaced with soft tossing oldies who put up some decent numbers in pitching parks. Some still hold out hope for Chad Billingsley to become the Don' to Kershaw's Sandy's. We are past that point. On the surface a nice veteran staff, headed by the best left hander to hit this town since FernandoMania. And he may be getting better. However no one else is, they have all seen their best days, including Chad. The bullpen will be extremely taxed by this rotation every fourth day.

This was a below average team for four months last year even with Kemp and Kershaw hitting on every single cylinder. So many things have to go right for this team to be competitive:

1. James Loney simply has to be 33% better then he has upto this point in his career. For two months he gave us a glimpse of what he can do. Can he really break out at age 28 and produce for a full season like a six million first baseman should? Betting on that happening is probably a fools bet.

2. Mark Ellis has to not only stay healthy since we have nothing behind him but Adam Kennedy, but he has to do more then play defense. He has to get on base. He has to have his 2010 season because if he gives us his 2011 season it will be a black hole reminiscent of Juan Uribe. Betting on a 35 year old second baseman rebounding is probably a fools bet.

3. Dee Gordon was everything you'd have hoped for the second time around. Defensive wizardry, killing speed, and even got on base at a functional clip. Yet we know that Dee is just as likely to make the great play as throw the next groundball away. We know that Dee has to get on base to utilize his game changing speed. Can this wisp of a man be the catalyst for the offense? I can hope for it, I can't bet on it.

4. Juan Uribe may bounce back. He had two skills coming into 2011. Above average power for a middle infielder and some defensive ability. He's now a full time 3rd baseman so the power is now average. The defensive skills seemed to remain intact. At his best he was middling, good bet that he'll never see middling again.

5. AJ Ellis has impressed enough to become the starting catcher. Yikes

6. Was Andre's power shortage all related to injuries? From May 31st, 2010 - Oct 1st, 2011 Andre accumulated 996 plate appearances and hit 23 home runs. Basically what James Loney would do in the same number of plate appearances. What has kept Andre relevant during this time is his ability to get on base. If he's going to become Bobby Abreu, that would be cool. I'd bet on Andre recovering some power, I would not bet on Andre staying healthy.

7. If Matt Kemp is not Willie Mays he's going to regress. As long as it not greater then 20% he will still have a great year. The last thing Matt Kemp has to prove is that he is not an odd/even baseball player. This is the year to prove it.
His ODD OPS years - .894 / .842 / .986
His EVEN OPS years - .737 / .799 / .760

If Matt Kemp comes close to his historical OPS in an even year, this team can have everything else go right and still stumble. During his historic 2011 season, he still couldn't keep this team above .500 until the reinforcements showed up in Jim Loney, Gordon, Sands, and Rivera.

8. Juan Rivera drove in a bunch of runs in a very small amount of time. It was impressive, much more impressive then the .666 OPS he put up in even more at bats with the Blue Jays. Juan is done, his act in Aug/Sept was his last curtain call. He will follow Jose Cruz Junior right out the door into oblivion.

I think the long term future is bright, who knows what new ownership will do once they get a handle on things, and with Rubby, Eovaldi, Lee and folk getting ready for 2013 I can get excited about that future. I can't get excited by our current future.

This current incarnation of the Dodgers has to have so many things go right simply to compete that I think we have more of a chance of being the 2009 Mets then anything else. Everything could jell, the veterans could have what it takes, the rookies could come faster, the core could fuse together into a coalition of greatness one time before they are scattered to the winds.

I'd love for that to happen, I'm not betting on it.

What were we drinking thread. The unbridled optimism from the TBLA community had no bounds for Mr. Left Field.

The experts were wrong, the community was wrong. At some point Michael White confused Marcus Thames with Craig Monroe but little did he know that he was being prophetic. I'm not even going to post some of the projections, safe to say everyone thought he'd at least hit against LHP.

The thread itself was one of our better spring threads, so while I'm not going to give you anything to read here, if you are bored take a look at what we were discussing on March 24, 2011.

Eric Stephen did the Juan Uribe preview in 2011

His most telling quote:

But what if Uribe isn't an upgrade, or a marginal one at best? Remember, Uribe spent his age 25-28 years hitting .241/.284/.409, a 77 OPS+ with the White Sox. He does have a career on-base percentage of .2998, after all. There is the fear that Uribe could revert to his almost-out-of-baseball status at any time.

We all know Uribe suffered through an injury plagued season of under Hollywood Bridge urine proportion. Did anyone see that coming? Not the experts, shockingly they expected the same production in 2011 as he delivered in 2012 with slight dips in OB and Slug.

How did our community do?

Continue reading this post »

This was Brandon's preview

All the experts nailed the projection. Looks like Marcel was the best of the excellent projection. We all know that 2011 was a tail of two seasons for James, fascinating that at the end of the day, his awful four months, combined with his brilliant two months resulted in your basic James Loney season.

I expect many community members to have nailed this projection. Brandon was a tad too optimistic, let's find out how the members did.

Continue reading this post »

This was Michael White's Preview:

None of the experts expected an increase in walks per nine innings, a decrease in strikeouts per nine innings, and the corresponding jump in all the various ERA metrics. They basically expected Chad in 2011 to be Chad in 2010 which is basically why some forecasts are as useful as Luke Walton.

How did the TBLA Members do?

First off we always look to SilverWidow for guidance.

214 IP
3.23 ERA
197 K
Arguably #1 starter on the team this year.

Hmmm, if only that had been true.

Taylor was even more optimistic:

I say he finally goes sub-3.00
ERA: 2.90
IP: 210
K/9: 8.50
Bam.

It was a bad thread for forecasting. The game thread came quickly so very few projections and every one was optimistic. That was to be expected given his success in 2010. No winners for this projection.

Two members did express concern about the declining K Rate:

3.90 ERA in 210 innings. FIP 3.50 with a 1.25 WHIP.
Is Billingsley’s declining K/9 rate reason for concern? 8K/9 is still excellent of course and his BB/9 has also declined.
by guy clinch on Mar 27, 2011 10:50 AM PDT actions

If it continues to decline this year
Then it could be of some concern, but typically its a declining K rate combined with an increasing walk rate that raises real red flags. As it is its plenty high.
by EMDarrow on Mar 27, 2011 11:39 AM PDT up actions

Based on the comment by EMDarrow, red flags have been raised after Chad's 2011 season.

Looking at Fangraphs, they say he stopped using his slider in 2011. In the past he would throw it about 3% of the time. He used his change up more then ever, going up to .6.5% from 2.9% the year before. Everything else stayed the same, so according to Fangraphs he discarded the slider for the change up. Baseball HQ has this to say:

Dramatic skills dips raise specter of a hidden injury but that's just speculation. Bet on some partial recovery from regression alone.

and this:

8/22/2011 - Chad Billingsley (RHP, LA) has looked like an elite pitcher the first time through lineups: 8.2 Dom, 2.4 Ctl, 43% GB%, 104 BPV. His control escapes him after that. He has a 4.2 Ctl the second time through lineups and a 4.5 Ctl the third time through lineups. He sustains a 7.0+ Dom during both situations, so if he can solve his middle and late-game control woes, he could re-emerge as an impact SP.

This is what Eric had to say coming into the season.

Probably no one destroyed the experts more then Matt Kemp this season. Matt Kemp did not simply beat every single projection, he stomped on them, lit them on fire, and kicked them into the gutter.

The question here is, did any TBLA members see this MVP season coming?

Continue reading this post »