I haven't looked it up but I can't remember the Dodgers ever picking up this many good Major League players at the trade deadline.
OK, you can argue who qualifies as a good Major Leaguer. But compared to most everyone else the Dodgers have traded for over the years I'm going with it. Of course there's the point of view that they also had a lot of deep, dark holes to fill. Whatever.
In my opinion these players are all upgrades of the 25-man roster and certainly better than the minor leaguers people clamor for when things aren't going well. Brandon League? Hey, the dude has got some nasty, nasty stuff. It is a shame that at this point in time he has no idea where it's going when he throws it. And if he doesn't throw the nasty stuff he gets hit hard. But hey, he's got potential.
Not as much as Hanley of course. That guy looks like a player. Unfortunately, he's getting dangerously close to the end of the honeymoon period and everyone expects more than 1 home run every 50 at bats or so and a less-than-700 OPS.
The Colorado announcers were speculating last night that Hanley's swing has gotten longer since his heyday a few years ago. They said now he starts his swing holding his hands near his face. Then he goes back and then forward making for a long swing. When he hits it goes bang but he's not squaring the ball up regularly. I was surprised when I saw that he's only struck out 8 times in 46 at bats. With that big swing and his willingness to hack outside the zone I thought it would be more.
The boss at Miami took another swipe at Hanley yesterday. When asked about Hanley and the salary dump the guy said his team made zero salary dumps. "Every trade we made was to better the club." Oooh. Man the Fish brass really hate the kid.
There was a standing ovation around Dodgerdom yesterday as Jerry Sands was called up. Jerry the Savior. Or the Jerry that's better than Loney or Rivera. Or the Jerry that should have been playing all along.
In the first Jerry story the kid talks about how his recent success in New Mexico was due to him going back to his old stance. The one where he starts with the bat sitting or near sitting on his shoulder. Good luck with that kid. That makes for a slow bat. And your first at bats last night didn't look a lot better than a couple months ago when you struck out 8 out of 20 visits to the plate.
I hope he knows what he's doing. The coaches are probably saying WTF-ever Jerry just do it because you're running out of chances. I hope he succeeds.
I had really hoped that last night would be the start of a big run to the division title. I should just keep my thoughts to myself. What a depressing effort. C Cap didn't pitch good but he pitched good enough. The problem was where you didn't expect it to be and if that doesn't change things aren't going to progress well.
Matt Kemp, the Dodger's best player, and Hanley, the Dodger's best new acquisition left men on first and second with no outs TWICE. They didn't get the ball out of the infield. The Rockies pitcher shut them down. That just can't happen. Once, maybe, but not twice.
That's the season right there in a nutshell. If the Dodgers best players execute when they're suppose to the team will go far. If not, more depressing disappointment is on the program.
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