Time to vote for the worst sports owner in L.A. Maybe you can vote multiple times. Maybe you can only vote once, but like the MLB All Star Game, this one doesn't really count.

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You know Dave Cameron, writer of Fangraphs, U.S.S. Mariner, and now of ESPN insider apparently. There is an infamous baseball meme called #6org because he wrote a flowery and fanboyish article and ranking in the 2010 Organization reports at Fangraphs, and tried to defend it when fangraphs commenters and others around  the web pointed out the flaws in the analysis. Then the Mariners proceeded to lose 101 games. 

That was then. Now, Dave Cameron is back and saying that the NL West is going to be boring because the Rockies already are on their way to win the division.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/news/story?id=6448873

Not only have the Rockies survived despite tremendous struggles from key players, but they actually own baseball’s best record, having won 16 of their first 23 contests. In fact, their early season success has given them a 4½-game lead over both the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers. It’s not even May, but the National League West race is shaping up to be fairly boring.

It’s too early to say for certain that any team has a division title wrapped up. Troy Tulowitzki could break his leg tomorrow and the entire division could change in an instant, and that is just one possible option out of a myriad of other unpredictable events that could significantly alter the landscape. However, given the Rockies’ talent level and their newfound cushion, it might take an event of that magnitude to give the Giants a chance to defend their title.

Eric Stephen of this famed site got in trouble with Purple Row for famously declaring the NL West race to be over in favor of the Dodgers in 2009, but that was in freaking June. Dave Cameron wrote this on April 29th. Will Purple Row pat themselves on the back for this possible Nostradamus like prediction, or will they cringe when they realized that THERE IS 5 MONTHS OF BASEBALL LEFT TO PLAY. We'll find out at the end of Sept.

Hey everyone, If you like History (and I'm capitalizing History because History is awesome), the National History Day program is getting underway for this year. If you're in Orange County, it is going to be held this Saturday at the Orange County Department of Education from 7:30 to 3:30.

If you're wondering what the NHD program is, students compete in age groups ranging from elementary (K-6), junior (6-8) and senior levels (9-12) in categories ranging from Historical documentaries, Historical websites, Historical posters, and other numerous categories.

If you're interested in being a judge, please come on Sat, and I'm sure a place will be found for you. This is the best and brightest of the OC competing using Historical analysis, which is sorely missing in everyday discourse.

Recently, there was an avid discussion on what the misconceptions of Los Angeles by a person apprently living in San Diego.

I don't really care what a guy from San Diego doesn't get about Los Angeles, but it did get me to think about the city I grew up and lived in. L.A. is a lot of things, its all and perhaps none of things, its a set of contradictions, and yet can be simplistic. L.A. is:

- A region that engulfs multiple counties ranging from Los Angeles to Orange County.

- Its a large city that sprawls across the landscapes, with little sense of planning or sense.

- Its not a city at all. It's just a series of communities for one reason or another decide to identify to a concept.

- Many of us don't actually live in the city, don't work in the city, rarely visit the city.

- But we still identify with Los Angeles.

- Nine million people live in 'Los Angeles'.

- Beverly Hills is L.A., so is Echo Park, so is Anahiem. So is Laguna Hills.

- You can drive through five different cities ranging from Torrance, to Carson, to Compton, to El Segundo , to South L.A. and still be a part of L.A.

- L.A. is horribly segregated. There is a reason why the cities surrounding the 710 freeways are mostly Hispanic, while Palos Verdes is lily white. 

- L.A. is a melting pot that is incredibly diverse, where you can likely meet any person from around the globe.

- L.A. has so much wealth on display.

- L.A. has crushing poverty.

- L.A. is every single one of these and more.

- L.A. isn't these things at all, and I'm full of it.

Well, the season is over. In past years, we had something else to look forward to. The Dodgers in the playoffs, the pitching match ups, who might start, the surrounding controversy over starting Ronnie Belliard over Orlando Hudson, will Chad Billingsley make a start in 09? What was Clayton Kershaw's role in 08? FREAKING MANNYWOOD (Which seems so long ago. Strange that Manny was only traded a month ago.)

But not this year. This year, the Dodgers have a record of 80-82, not good enough to make the playoffs.Trying to do a quick glimpse of the past season. Here are things I know now:

- I thought  the Dodgers were good enough, that they needed only a tweak instead of an overhaul. Nope, without a healthy Manny to carry the team offensively, the offense would just sputter most nights.

- I thought the pitching was going to be fine, especially the bullpen.The bullpen was overworked, and ineffective for most of the years, starting with Sherrill claiming though out Spring Training that he never felt right, and the Dodgers choosing to let him work it out on the ML. Which helped put a heavier workload for Broxton. Then the injury to Kuo on the trip to Taiwan, and Belisario's inability to acquire a Visa to work in the United States (Which may happen again next year, too many odd things happen to that guy, some of it is of his own making.) Put the bullpen on the wrong foot for much of the year. Weaver was ineffective in his new role as 6th inning set up man, Ramon Troncoso either from overuse over the past year or the fact relievers will crap out on you eventually finally did crap out. 

- We never did find the 5th starter we wanted or liked. Torre wanted Charlie Heager to win the job. He did. For one start, his knuckler worked right, but after that, he had a series of starts where he would relieve inbetween starts due to other issues on the team, or would make starts on short rest due to the (perhaps mistaken) belief that Knucklers  don't need the full rest that other Starting pitchers on the team did. Heager, outside of his first start was horrible. So bad, that the Dodgers created an injury for him to phantom-DL him, give him a 'rehab' start that served as a demotion, and called him up for one start because the Dodgers were again desperate for starting pitching. He lasted one start, and then DFA and sent to the ABQ. Is he even in the Org any more? Will he ever get another chance? Should we give him that chance? That, I do not know.

- John Ely. To be honest, I never got the love for John Ely when he came up. But the man got his own personal hash tag, and one even better, people were not using it to mock him. #Elymania lived for approximately 6 weeks. Partly because people really hated Charlie Heager, and partly because he was the God of Command for those 6 weeks. But Ely flown too close to the sun and started walking people like any mortal would do. Even worse, he didn't have a fastball to rely on to fight back the pits of Tatarus, or even worse, the Astros and was optioned back to Triple-A. He was called up again in Sept, and was not the same pitcher. John Ely shown that #Elymania is dead.

- Matt Kemp. Uh, yeah. I thought Matt Kemp going to have a  MVP type of season. I was wrong, even with his hot streak to end the season, Matt Kemp is going to have a bad season for him as he regressed offensively and defensively. That said, its unlikely the Dodgers trade him unless they get can a good center fielder and other players that can help the 2011 Dodgers, and his offensive run at the end of the year gives up.

There's a bunch of other stuff I could comment on, but it feels like I should end it here. Much like the 2010 Dodgers season, I'm going to end this season run short.

But after watching this season unfold. What things do you know now?

Tom Krasovic, former Padres beat writer, and now current AOL fanhouse Senior baseball writer wrote this about Mark Attansio:

• Without leaving Milwaukee, Bud Selig may have a chance to assist West Coast baseball.

Heard this from a major league executive: Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio has interest in becoming owner of the Dodgers, who could end up on the market after the McCourt ownership dispute is resolved. I was unable to reach Attanasio at his Los Angeles office, and I know Attanasio is still energetic about building the Brewers. But if commissioner Selig placed Attanasio in Los Angeles, advantage, Dodgers. It would also be a measure of redemption for Selig, who steered the McKooks into ownership of the Dodgers in 2004 The Brewers became relevant after Attanasio bought them from the Selig family for $180 million in late 2004.

Would Bud Selig do this? Could he?

Yes, that title hurt me. As a Dodgers fan, how can I admit that the Giants will basically win multiple division titles over the rest of the NL West, including the Dodgers? But some jumbled facts in bullet point form.

- The Giants have new ownership who is willing to spend money to improve the team, or rather, their ownership group is willing to invest what they considered needed into the team. Only the Rockies could be considered to have just a stable relationship between its owners. Its not as if the Giants or Rockies owners are sleeping with each other like in other cases.

- The Padres, Dodgers, and D'Backs have recently, or currently gone though upheaval in ownership due to financial or marriage problems. 

- The Dodgers, and D'backs still are paying tens of millions to players no longer on the team. Say what you will about players like Zito or Rowand. At least they are still contributing to the Giants in some form.

- The Padres, the other team realistically over have a two year window, this year and next year because Adrian Gonzales and Heath Bell can be free agents after 2011.

- The Rockies, who may be a formidable team at times are still managed by Jim Tracy. Fuck him.

-  Each week, brings another article about how the McCourts are horrible people. This isn't really related to how the team on the field is doing but I just want to say. Fuck the McCourts.

- The Giants control Lincecum until 2013, Ztio until 2013, Cain until 2012, Sandoval until 2015, and Posey until 2016.

The world can be saved by bunting. I truly believe that.

That war in Iraq? If our soldiers just bunted more, then the war would have been won already years ago.

Global warming? Bunting against the heat would induce global cooling.

The $13 trillion debt the U.S. currently has? If we just bunted more, we'd have a surplus.

The current immigration debate? If illegal immigrants just bunted more, than conservative politicians will applaud their bunting skills.

The current job market? If more people seeking jobs put bunting down as one of their skills on their resume, they'd be hired by now.

Really, its the Dodgers fault for not bunting more, how dare they.

Many people have expressed disappointment with Matt Kemp this season. They say he heavily regressed defensively and offensively, they even might claim that he's at replacement level and there have been calls for his replacement both in and out of the organization. A lot of it I believe is fueled by fangraphs and UZR which helps feed into the perception bias that Kemp has regressed to a replacement level player in 2010. I decided to check out two systems that use WAR to see if there agreement or disagreement on Kemp.

Fangraphs:

2006: -0.4
2007: 1.7
2008: 3.2
2009: 5.1
2010: 0.5

B-Ref(WAR uses baseballprojection.com and Sean Smith as their source)

2006: -0.6
2007: 1.3
2008: 3.0
2009: 5.8
2010: 2.0

The biggest difference is that Sean Smith’s system still sees Kemp’s defense as a positive, ranking him +2 for this year compared that to fangraphs who thinks that Kemp is the worst CF in the majors this year at -15.3 UZR.

One system ranks Kemp has having an average year, while the other thinks he’s near replacement level. Just goes to shows you the disagreements between systems, and putting too much stock into one set of numbers.

I personally am inclined to Sean Smith’s system since it doesn’t show the heavy defensive regression that fangraphs and UZR shows. Nobody goes from average to the worst fielder in the league with no tangible explanation.

Obviously Matt Kemp isn't having as good of a year in 2009. But he's still pretty damn valuable in the sense that he's been an average player for the Dodgers, and in essence not replaceable by any normal means.

The non-wavier trade has come and gone and the Dodgers made several trades. Do they improve the team? As a whole, its probably a net positive. However, Ned Colletti traded a bunch of prospects from the farm system and traded Blake DeWitt in order for teams to pay for salary. I expressed anger at the moves in the main threads at True Blue L.A.  because I believe this team isn't good enough to warrant these moves, the division is too competitive, and the wild card is the largest crap shoot every year.

Dodgers are 7.5 game behind the Padres for the NL West lead and 3rd in the division standings, and 5.5 behind the Giants and 5th in the standards, (After the Dodgers lost on 07/31/10). Can the Dodgers win the NL West and Wild Card? Yes, its possible. Do I think they can do it? Honestly, no.

However, maybe Colletti and the organization think they can, and they made the trades to go all in and think they can make up 5 games in two months. I don't agree with them, and I think the gap is too large to improve on because if the Dodgers needed guys like Lilly and Dotel (Forget about Theriot, its' my opinion the guy is useless and will be whenever or where ever he plays.), it was going to be two months ago when the Dodgers were playing better and the division winner was less clear.

In the end, the Padres are for real, the Giants are as well, and the Dodgers? Well, I have to lean closer that the ground can't be made up. I hope I'm wrong, I really do. Hopefully I am.

There have been many fanposts recently about replacing certain Dodger players from the line up or the closer role. I say we need to change something much more important. God Bless America.

First off check these lyrics out:

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.

Never seen or heard the first part of the song have you? For a song that is supposed to be patriotic we never mention the part that its supposed to make us patriotic. Its also the part where the song makes the most sense since its an actual prayer to God. The Dodgers are actually being anti-God by not singing the first verse! How dare they!?!?!?!?! I AM SO MAD ABOUT THIS. BTW, don't use stats to argue against me. I hate it when we use our brains to make points. Points are shiny and they make me bleed.

Actually, I don't care about this really. Just want to point out that we as a community, (and I'm no expectation, I wrote two fanposts slamming Rafael Furcal, and Blake DeWitt.) The Furcal one was so bad that Phil went out of his way to claim that it was that kind of crap that he tries to avoid.

But if we are going to use a new GBA, let me recommend the old school version by Robert Montgomery Bird and published in 1834 for a more thematically connected GBA.

God bless the land that gave us birth!
No pray'r but this know we.
God bless the land, of all the earth,
The happy and the free.
And where's the land like ours can brave
The splendor of the day.
And find no son of hers a slave?
God bless America!
God bless the land, the land beloved
Forever and for aye!
God bless the land that gave us birth.
God bless America!

P.S.

I have no point.

Here's a bunch of quotes taken from the Daily Reville, a Louisiana newspaper. 

Bobby Reyes, Lee’s football coach at McKinney, said he predicts his former quarterback will choose to play at LSU.

“He’s told me all along ... he wanted to go to school, and he wanted to play both [football and baseball],” Reyes said.

Reyes said he talked to Lee about the potential of having to decide between LSU and an MLB team.

“It’s a decision him and his family will have to make,” Reyes said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it — that’s what he always told me.”

“Coach Mainieri(LSU baseball coach) usually asks his guys to give him some sort of heads up,” Dixon said. “I’m guessing it won’t come down to the last hour.”

“At first the numbers were $2 and 3 [million],” Dixon said. “Then I heard the Dodgers people were saying anywhere from $4 to 6 [million].”

The intersting thing to take that it seems that the Dodgers are the ones floating it'll take 6 million to sign Lee.

C: Carlos Ruiz, Brian Schneider, Paul Hoover

1B: Ryan Howard, Greg Dobbs

2B: Chase Utley, Wilson Valdez

SS: Jimmy Rollins, Juan Castro

3B: Placido Polanco,

OF: Jayson Werth, Raul Ibanez, Shane Victorino, Ben Francisco, Ross Gload

P: Roy Halladay, Jamie Moyer, Cole Hamels, Kyle Kendrick, Joe Blanton, J.A. Happ, Brad Lidge, Chad Durbin, Ryan Madson, Nelson Figueroua, Jose Contreras, J.C. Romero, Antonio Bastardo, David Herndo

Manager: Charlie Manuel

Coaches: Larry Bowa, Tony LaRussa,

The trade that brought our lord and savior Andre Ethier to the Dodgers. Obviously nobody knew that Ethier would morph into one of the elite hitters of the game in 2005, but it is still a bit jarring in hindsight that the A's, who were known to be looking for cheap young talent to build around decided to trade for the older, more expensive player in Bradley instead of using younger, inexpensive player in Ethier for the A's. It worked out for them that year in 2006 despite Milton Bradley only playing 96 games. However in 2007, Bradley was traded amidst injuries, crunch time between the many outfielders the A's carried and a disagreement with Billy Beane. 

Not to say that Andre Ethier didn't have his disagreements with his teammates on the Dodger, but this is very much Ethier's team to carry.

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/oracle/discussion/as_acquire_bradley/

Here's what Dan Szymborski has to say about the trade in 2005.

Losing Ethier definitely stings a bit. However, the A's were in a tight place as they absolutely have to upgrade the offense and most of the good options are gone now. Ethier has a lot of potential, but the need is now and even though Bradley's a complete pain, he's also a complete pain who can hit and play defense in center. Kotsay's obviously the current centerfielder but almost certainly ends up in left after a disappointing defensive season in '05.

Again, nobody can question the A's for making this move, but at least for one trade, the Dodgers were able to snooker another team.

We all know of the recent criticism Ned Colletti has garnered over the last couple of days due to his comments on Matt Kemp and the team in general. Phil wrote a great article on whether this event is just being used by those who are naturally bent to criticize Colletti and take out their knives to stab him in the chest. Which may be true, but I still think the current criticism is legitimate. This is a man who claimed that not offering Randy Wolf, and Orlando Hudson arbitration was a 'baseball' decision. Deciding that Jamey Carroll, Garret Anderson and Reed Johnson would make great bench players, deciding that Padilla and Charlie Heager would be the 4th and 5th starter. Decided that the Ortizes were pitchers the Dodgers could count on.

You could argue that Torre and the coaching staff wanted these moves as well, and you would be correct, but Ned Colletti is still the GM, and he clearly thought these were quality moves that should be made because he did make them. Ned Colletti is a big believer in the 'process' such as men as Brian Seabean, and Dayton Moore is. Whatever his thinking was, he thought the current 2010 Dodgers was the best team he could assemble under the circumstances he had. 

This is a man who got an extension with a significant part of his resume being that the teams he created went to the playoffs 4 of out 5 years. So for him to criticize the team he created for 2010 in the manner he did speaks of his own hypocrisy.He is the GM of the Dodgers, if he truly thinks the current 2010 Dodgers isn't good enough to win the NL West, then he should do all what he can to move and add players. Not take a shot at one of its best players and then claim he really was calling out the whole team. There is no need for Colletti to say the team is playing badly. He should just try to fix it.

This is only a month into the season and DeWitt may eventually improve, even when he has a year .400 OBP. But he should still be demoted to Triple-A. Blake DeWitt is not a 2nd baseman, he doesn't make reads like a 2nd baseman has, he doesn't have the footwork for the position, by not being able to start the double play and his range is lacking at 2nd.

If the Dodgers think DeWitt can play 2nd, fine. But let him work everything out at Triple-A where his errors will be part of the growing process of learning the position, instead of putting the Dodgers in a disvantage of having to tay for her class.