Tag Archives: Don Mattingly

Daily Distractions: Contemplating Kershaw contracts; Dodgers-Yankees; Yasiel Puig.

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Clayton Kershaw

Clayton Kershaw is looking for a lot of money in his contract extension. But we knew that already, right? (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers are talking about a contract extension. One side or both might be getting antsy.

At least, that’s often the case when the terms of a deal are leaked to the media: To achieve something that negotiation cannot.

Kershaw said the leak came from the Dodgers’ camp, not his. Regardless, there’s not a whole lot we can read into the reports on CBSsports.com and FoxSports.com, mainly because the two stories differ on the dollar amounts being discussed and the likelihood of a deal happening in the near future.

If — and this is a fairly big if — Kershaw is seeking “about $225 million,” as CBSsports.com reports, he probably wouldn’t prefer the 10-year or 12-year contract structures mentioned on FoxSports.com, which would almost certainly lock in Kershaw to a longer term than he’s seeking. Those terms were more likely to have been proposed by the Dodgers. Again, this assumes the two reports are both drawing their separate information from reliable sources.

Is it wise to invest 12 years in a 25-year-old pitcher who has already thrown more than 1,000 major-league innings? In any player?

These are legitimate questions here. The Dodgers have probably asked them internally. At some point, we might discover what conclusion they reach. Does Kershaw think he’s worth 12 years and $300 million? Ask him yourself in about an hour.

Some bullet points for an Autistic Pride Day:

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Daily Distractions: Debating Don Mattingly’s future.

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Don Mattingly

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly is on the hot seat in the public eye. (Getty Images)

If you woke up today and read anything about the Dodgers, you might have noticed that one question sits on many lips: Will Don Mattingly be fired?

“Convinced,” writes one.

“I have swung to the side that thinks he will,” writes another.

There was also the more nuanced “it seems very unlikely that Mattingly will make it through the entire season at the helm though, but my prediction here is that he survives another seven days.”

We also had our choice this morning of “I don’t care” and “I do care.” Having options is nice.

Some even believe that the pitching matchups for the Dodgers’ three-game series in Milwaukee (Kershaw-Gallardo tonight; Greinke-Burgos on Tuesday and Ryu-Peralta on Wednesday) have something to do with this debate. Then again, as Baseball Prospectus notes on its daily podcast, “the idea that ‘we’ll give him one more series and see if he turns things around’ – either he’s the right guy or he isn’t! How much new information does that give you about whether he’s the guy that you want for the rest of the season?”

All we know is that it’s too late for the old cliché of “I don’t want it to become a distraction.” It’s become a distraction – if not inside the clubhouse, certainly outside the clubhouse – and acknowledging distractions is what we do every morning.

Some bullet points for a Monday:
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Daily Distractions: Why Zack Greinke probably won’t dive tonight.

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Zack Greinke

Maybe the only way Zack Greinke hits the turf is if he’s pulled down. (Associated Press photo)

Zack Greinke can recall diving exactly once on a baseball field. All he remembered Tuesday was that it was on a bunt attempt by Gerald Laird, maybe in 2009, and it didn’t end well for him or the Kansas City Royals.

After some digging, we believe the play occurred in the second inning of a game between the Royals and Detroit Tigers on July 8, 2009. Josh Anderson was on second base, having hit a ground-rule double. Laird attempted to bunt Anderson to third base but popped the ball up toward the pitcher’s mound.

Greinke dove for the ball and missed. He tried throwing to first base to retire Laird, but Laird wound up with a single. Since there’s no video on YouTube or MLB.com, we’ll rely on this descriptive quote from Greinke, courtesy of that night’s Associated Press game story: “That was a stupid play, because it was a terrible bunt. If I catch that, it is a double play, and even then, I made a five-hop throw to first.”

On Tuesday, Greinke said that he could have caught the ball, and turned the double play, if he didn’t dive.

“I feel at least 90 percent of all dives are unneeded,” he added.

Why is all this relevant? Well, Greinke is under strict orders not to dive tonight when he returns from a fractured clavicle to start against the Washington Nationals. The pitcher assured Dodgers manager Don Mattingly that this wouldn’t be a problem, and the play from four years ago is a large reason why.

Also, it was satisfying to uncover the dive Greinke was referring to, like the guy who figured out what day Ice Cube was rapping about in the song “It Was a Good Day.”

Some Hump Day bullet points:
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Daily Distractions: Is Josh Beckett headed to the disabled list?

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Josh Beckett

Josh Beckett is 0-5, and the Dodgers are 1-7 in games that he starts. Maybe it’s a good time for the DL. (Associated Press photo)


Josh Beckett really didn’t want to talk about his injuries after yesterday’s game.

We know that he tweaked his groin covering first base on an Adam LaRoche ground ball in the third inning. We know that he’s dealing with other injuries. We don’t know what part of his body they’re affecting, how serious they are, or when he started feeling them — we just know that Beckett isn’t right.

But we knew that already.

“I’m in one of those ruts where if they hit the ball soft it’s a hit, if they hit the ball hard, it’s a hit,” Beckett said after the Dodgers’ 6-2 loss to the Washington Nationals.

Will he need to go on the disabled list?

“I’m healthy enough to pitch,” he said.

That might not stop the Dodgers from putting Beckett on the DL as a “precaution.” Sometimes that’s baseball code for, “even though you can pitch, we’d rather you not,” and being 0-5 with a 5.19 earned-run average constitutes just cause.

More injury-related bullet points:
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Daily Distractions: Zack Greinke on mano-a-mano death matches; is Don Mattingly safe?

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Zack Greinke Carlos Quentin

Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke is not in favor of mano-a-mano fights to the death. (Getty Images)

The beautiful thing about interviewing Zack Greinke is you never know what he’ll say next. Clichés are not his forte.

Tuesday, Greinke was asked for his thoughts on eliminating benches-clearing brawls, like the one that led him to fracture his collarbone in San Diego, by banning players from leaving the bench/bullpen during a fight on the field. His response:

“That’s above me, for one. I think it’s part of the game, or it has been forever. Any rule changes, there’s going to be something that could backfire in a different way. Say we’re not allowed to do anything, is there a different way you could go about it? So you get into a fight and it’s just one-on-one until one person dies? The umpires aren’t going to do much.

“It’s not like these brawls where people are coming off the benches are bringing weapons out. Most of the people coming out of the dugout are there to calm things down, not encourage it.”

Greinke, for the record, is not in favor of one-on-one fights to the death.

Some bullet points for a Wednesday morning:
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Don Mattingly addresses the possibility of an openly gay Dodger.

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On Monday morning, NBA player Jason Collins became the first active professional athlete for a major North American team sport to come out as gay. That prompted a few questions with manager Don Mattingly before the Dodgers’ game against the Colorado Rockies.

“I’ve just seen a tick of it,” Mattingly said. “What I’ve seen, it seems like a Jackie Robinson type thing for one, crossing some barriers. It’ll be interesting to follow.”

Asked about how an openly gay player would be received on his team, Mattingly said, “I don’t know. I think it would be OK. The first time it happens, you’re in uncharted waters. A lot like Jackie, he would be making it easier for anyone else to step forward.”

But might that actually happen in Major League Baseball soon? “I don’t know,” Mattingly said. “I don’t know why not.”

The manager went on to describe how black players during Robinson’s era still had to sleep and eat in segregated facilities from their teammates, among other hardships. If Collins has a hard time gaining acceptance inside and outside the clubhouse, maybe other athletes will be discouraged from coming out.

“It’s not like the floodgates opened” for black players in Robinson’s time, Mattingly said, “but I think (Collins’ coming out) is a step in the right direction that’s going to create change.”

Daily Distractions: On expiring contracts, Ryu, Ramirez and Robinson.

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Matt Kemp Don Mattingly

Don Mattingly’s contract is up at the end of the year, but does it really matter? (Keith Birmingham/Pasadena Star-News)

What do Don Mattingly, Charlie Manuel, Jim Leyland and Ron Gardenhire have in common?

Answer: Mr. Burns would disapprove of their sideburns.

We also would have accepted that each has a contract that expires at the end of the season, as do six other managers, per ESPN’s Jayson Stark. That’s one-third of the league.

Writes Stark:

It does reflect a change in what once passed for conventional thinking: We can’t hang our manager out there on the last year of his deal. The players will walk all over him.

That may have been the theory once upon a time. But nowadays, says Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, “I think it’s something from out of the past that doesn’t exist in the present anymore. It’s one of those old things that was widely accepted — and then a lot of smart people said, ‘Why?’”

Truth is, many fans haven’t wrapped their heads around this concept yet. The intellectually lazy belief is that a cold seat becomes warm, a warm seat becomes hot, and a hot seat becomes scorching if the manager’s contract is up at the end of the year.

The relationship between each manager and his team is different, but many of the same hypotheses about Mattingly’s job security are probably being applied to Leyland, whose team won the American League pennant a year ago and whose plaque in Cooperstown may have been minted already (hopefully with a cigarette in Leyland’s mouth and missing only the logo on his hat).

After all the Tigers are only 10-10, or one fewer loss than the Dodgers.

Some bullet points to tide you through a Sierra Leone independence day weekend:

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Daily Distractions: Charting Matt Kemp’s struggles.

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ESPN Stats and Info gives Matt Kemp the Hot Zone treatment on its blog today.

Author Mark Simon highlights several things that have ailed Kemp this season; here’s one more: Kemp is getting behind in the count a lot and not making pitchers pay when he gets ahead. According to ESPN’s chart, Kemp is 10 for 37 (.270) when he’s behind in the count and 4 for 17 (.235) when he’s ahead.

Here is ESPN’s “heat map” for balls in play/strikeouts when Kemp was ahead in the count last season:

Matt Kemp 2012 heat map

That’s how you make a pitcher pay.

Onto some bullet points:

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Postgame thoughts: San Diego 7, Dodgers 2.

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Matt Kemp Don Mattingly

Matt Kemp was benched to start Wednesday’s game yet still came to bat with a total of six runners on base against the San Diego Padres. He drove in one. (Keith Birmingham/Pasadena Star-News)

“We had 10 hits today?” Adrian Gonzalez asked in an otherwise silent Dodgers clubhouse.

Yes.

“Same old story,” he said.

The Dodgers are no mystery after 15 games. They are putting runners on base (their .337 on-base percentage is fourth in the National League) but not driving them in (their 39 runs scored are second-fewest in the NL, ahead of only the Miami Marlins). They’ve won seven games because their pitching staff is generally excellent. When it’s not excellent, as was the case Wednesday with Clayton Kershaw, they’re in trouble.

Maybe one person at the ballpark knew the Dodgers were in trouble from the outset Wednesday, and that was Kershaw himself.

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Dodgers’ Carl Crawford is on track to play Opening Day. What does that mean for Yasiel Puig?

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Yasiel Puig
Carl Crawford is playing his third straight game in left field tonight as the Dodgers visit the Kansas City Royals in Surprise.

The Dodgers didn’t want to pencil in Crawford as their Opening Day left fielder until he passed a threshhold for throwing distance, mentioned previously at 125 feet. He has passed that threshhold “and he’s still got five days of throwing,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly noted Monday. That’s great news for Crawford, who underwent Tommy John surgery just last August and was initially speculated to be out until May.

That’s not great news if you were hoping to see Yasiel Puig in left field come Opening Day.

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