Right field battle? Right field?!???? Anyways, TJ glad to hear Adkins is OK. He's our LOOGY of the future! Also, I thought McDonald was supposed to pitch today... is he pitching this afternoon?

Also I have to say I LIKE what Bowden has done lately. Milledge will end up being a huge steal. Kearns is undervalued. Everyone's numbers will go up now that they are out of RFK. They're building for the future and doing a decent job.

I had the same reaction as JL - by typing "right field" you must have meant "left field", right Tony? Please tell me the Dodgers aren't seriously considering the idea of having Kemp sit on the bench? What will it take for the team to actually put its best players on the field for once...

Good to hear Andre's okay, and Adkins, too. And I hope Kuo can stay healthy - if Schmidt can't start the season active Kuo would be the next best thing.

Thanks for keeping us posted.

Oh, and I don't think there should be a left field battle either. The Dodgers 3 best outfielders are - and everyone in baseball knows this - Kemp, Jones and Ethier. End of story.

I appreciate your keeping us posted Tony, but as has been observed elsewhere, this team already *has* a rightfielder. Whether it chooses to play the guy who hits for both average and power while offering strong defense or...the other guy, who shows up at the park a little early and would make an ideal pinch-runner, well, that's Joe Torre's decision. But please don't tell me two of our three best outfielders are fighting one another for a job. It's arguably the difference between this team's being competitive and continuing along its way towards being a laughing stock of baseball.

Come on people- he was obviously joking about the RF battle! Once again sarcasm doesn't come across on the web.

"This RF battle is starting to heat up."

Ha ha Tony. That's a mean way to generate blog traffic!

For the last time, Juan Pierre is GOING TO BE the Dodgers' regular LF. And if the rest of the lineup does what it is supposed to do (JP did what he was supposed to do last season, putting up the same numbers he always does), he WILL be a huge weapon in this lineup. If I'm wrong, you can all take your shots at me on this blog in the fall, and I will admit that I was wrong. But I don't think I'm going to be.

He's a weapon of destruction to the Dodgers playoff hopes. Sorry, had to.

WHEN you are WRONG about Pierre, you should take a BUYOUT from the suits.

Tony, I guess what isn't coming through is ... you're saying Juan will be a huge weapon "if the rest of the lineup does what it is supposed to do." But what we're not seeing is why, if the rest of the lineup performs, Pierre would be a *better* weapon than Ethier. However big a weapon Pierre would be, why wouldn't Ethier be bigger? Even including Juan's baserunning, Ethier is a stronger offensive player and defensive player. There's really no evidence that the Dodger offense won't function just as well if a guy gets to second base on a double as it does if he has a single+stolen base?

You yourself have railed at the Dodgers when they don't take pitches and draw walks. Pierre is the prototype for this problem. If you put the same Dodger lineup next to Ethier, you'll get more team offense and team defense. It's not clear why that's not wanted.

So, I guess what people are asking is, why don't Ethier's skills matter? Stolen bases are nice, but when stolen bases are the only selling point amid a host of flaws, why is that considered superior? What makes Pierre the better choice? How does speed outweigh everything else? (And by the way, if you platoon Ethier with Kemp, then you lose Kemp's speed when he sits.)

No one's saying Ethier is perfect, but Pierre won't cause the rest of the Dodger offense to perform better, and he won't yield the greatest benefit if the rest of the lineup performs better. It seems like it's tough to get around that.