Brooklyn Dodgers
Overview
In allowing 300 fewer runs compared to the season before, the Dodgers dropped from the truly horrible to the mediocre. They're still a far cry from the team that won the World Series in 1927 and were NL runners-up the next two seasons, but these Brooklynites look like they're on the upswing. They've been very active in the offseason as well.
One issue they will need to overcome is the effect of the Ebbets Field boo-birds. Last year the Dodgers actually had a winning record on the road: 39 wins, 38 losses. That means they weren't just worse at home but just plain terrible. One thing that may help with that situation is if the team gets out of the gate better. Last year they were 11 games under .500 after the season's first 50 games; although they were close to even the rest of the way, the damage had been done: the front-runners began to commute to the other boroughs to watch good, winning baseball, and those who stayed behind heckled their own men as much as the opposition.
Ed Sunderland returns to the Bums for his 4th season. It would seem that he would be on the hot seat after 3 losing seasons with a high of 70 victories, but he's also one of the few members of this club that the community enjoys. The former Cincinnati Reds great is still occasionally talked of when looking at people to place in the Hall of Fame. His tenure as manager of those Reds was less than heroic but compared to what he's done with the Dodgers it looks mighty fine indeed.
Pitching
As hitting-oriented as the Dodgers are, and also taking into account the fact that in 1932 this team just missed recording a 6 ERA (5.96), it's a bit surprising to note that their pitching actually isn't that bad. Nobody's going to compare their rotation with the New York Yankees but there are definite points to grow on. First and foremost,
Cristobal Rodriguez, who began his minor league career with those Yanks, was very unlucky last year but just missed being one of seven people in the game to strike out twice as many men as they walked. He finished 5th in the league in strikeouts as well even though some men in the league started 17 more games than he did.
Behind him, you've got
Justin Mason,
Bert Dawkins, and
Tom Koehler. Manson led the team in wins and dropped his ERA by a run and a half from the season before. A flyball guy who pitches to contact, he had some issues last year with the longball. Dawkins had a similar single-season turnaround; his ERA dropped from 6.20 in 1932 to 3.79 last year. Koehler's record belies a similar drop in ERA. A control artist, Koehler's walks per 9 innings rate was 8th best in the NL.
Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
Justin Manson 25 13 10 0.565 28 28 0 198 204 87 19 63 62 3.95
*Bert Dawkins 30 11 11 0.500 26 26 0 197 218 83 9 49 67 3.79
Tom Koehler 27 7 14 0.333 31 30 0 190 240 87 19 54 49 4.12
Cristóbal Rodríguez 28 8 13 0.381 25 25 0 189.1 206 72 13 52 101 3.42
Terry Cole 29 6 8 0.429 27 14 0 127.1 144 67 9 35 37 4.74
Damon Boulanger 23 6 4 0.600 47 7 0 122.2 110 42 3 40 35 3.08
Anastasio Pérez 26 4 6 0.400 48 0 12 78.2 91 24 8 15 19 2.75
Alvin Caviness 22 3 4 0.429 21 8 0 67.1 94 49 5 44 17 6.55
Rehor Bacurik 28 2 6 0.250 27 5 0 58.2 75 37 8 21 12 5.68
*Brett Adkisson 22 3 3 0.500 11 6 0 53.1 84 38 10 18 15 6.41
Alarico Hein 40 4 2 0.667 23 0 5 39.1 43 10 2 9 15 2.29
*Joe DeBerry 34 1 1 0.500 9 3 0 28.2 40 17 0 17 5 5.34
*David Días 35 1 0 1.000 9 0 0 11.1 16 9 2 1 3 7.15
Julian Wolfgang 22 0 2 0.000 2 2 0 9.2 18 10 3 8 2 9.31
Matt Wayman 23 0 1 0.000 3 0 0 5 14 10 1 4 3 18.00
*Matt Corwin 34 0 0 0.000 3 0 0 4.2 3 0 0 1 0 0.00
Team Totals 28 69 85 0.448 340 154 17 1381 1600 642 111 431 442 4.18
Catchers
The Dodgers have a bit of a logjam at catcher. Their two 25-year-old studs
Rusty McEachern and
Tom Hardy present a "problem" most major league managers would love to have. In the long run, one of those guys is going to need to either get traded or find another spot in the field. Hardy has the much better arm of the two and as such is most likely to remain at the position. McEachern also has a less, shall we say, catcher-like body. How a player looks in a baseball uniform isn't a really good predictor of how they'll actually play, of course, but Rusty doesn't look like a guy who will have problems with a corner outfield position.
Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
C Rusty McEachern 25 100 90 336 35 92 12 0 5 37 0 0 37 43 0.274 0.348 0.354
C Tom Hardy 25 83 53 223 26 65 15 0 1 37 0 0 25 19 0.291 0.363 0.372
C Ronnie Sather 28 32 11 53 6 9 3 0 1 7 0 0 5 5 0.170 0.241 0.283
C #Jorge Moreno 27 3 0 3 2 2 0 0 1 3 0 0 1 1 0.667 0.750 1.667
Infield
Allen Vice was just plain awful to start the year. He hit just .229 through April and as late as late as May 21 was hitting just .234 with a solitary homerun. However, Ed Sunderland never gave up hope in him and over the second half of the year his faith was rewarded. Vice hit .357 in July and .346 in September, adding 61 of his 105 RBIs (2nd in the NL) in the second half of the season.
Duane Ferrari has to be looking over his shoulder. The Goodlettsville, Tennessee native was good enough when he was healthy but had never been a full-time starter before coming to Brooklyn and, while he suffered setback after setback from recovering from a broken shoulder originally suffered in mid-May, was forced to just watch while
Gary Lewis tore things up in his absence. Lewis isn't a world-class defender but he's certainly better at it than Ferrari. In fact, if it wasn't for his relatively weak arm, Lewis would undoubtedly be in the talks for future shortstop.
Adam Kirkham added 70 points to his batting average and in the process went from replacement-level prospect to the 3-hole hitter for Brooklyn. They need him to stay healthy, as his backup
Masafumi Kojima is the kind of player better suited for the minor leagues... or selling real estate.
Reed Leasure is listed as the starting shortstop but that's not really accurate. Leasure played 29 games at short, 19 at second, 18 at third, and another 13 in left field. Overall, the utility is nice, but was a lot nicer in the previous 2 seasons, when he hit .325, .313, and .308. Really,
Steve Jordan was the starter, although even he only put in 54 games at the position. Jordan hit .305 starting at the position in 1932 for the Braves but couldn't replicate the performance after coming to the Dodgers in an early trade.
Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
1B #Allen Vice 26 152 152 597 82 177 32 5 11 105 0 0 62 50 0.296 0.364 0.422
2B Duane Ferrari 29 79 79 315 44 94 25 5 0 29 4 3 24 27 0.298 0.354 0.410
2B Gary Lewis 21 56 36 176 23 57 13 3 0 31 6 1 7 11 0.324 0.344 0.432
2B #Roldão Fies 23 21 10 50 6 13 2 1 0 5 1 1 4 1 0.260 0.304 0.340
3B *Adam Kirkham 24 99 96 419 61 140 22 6 2 49 9 10 16 29 0.334 0.363 0.430
3B Masafumi Kojima 31 49 36 148 15 36 8 3 0 19 3 0 13 16 0.243 0.304 0.338
SS Reed Leasure 29 88 76 283 25 65 8 2 2 31 2 2 23 30 0.230 0.290 0.293
SS Steve Jordan 28 61 54 206 14 49 6 4 1 24 1 5 6 27 0.238 0.257 0.320
SS *Vincente Núñez 24 37 36 150 25 36 8 3 2 23 3 0 7 9 0.240 0.278 0.373
SS Bill Sorensen 27 43 29 103 9 22 5 0 1 10 0 0 9 8 0.214 0.278 0.291
SS Ed Fee 29 29 27 101 14 17 3 1 1 20 4 1 7 16 0.168 0.219 0.248
Outfield
Losing
Dave Macy was a real blow. He was really starting to look like a guy whom the Dodgers could count on in the heart of the order. What he lacked in power, he made up for in the ability to hit the ball in between fielders. At this point, it's tough to say who's going to replace him.
Barry Davis played 4th outfielder last year but really didn't hit well enough to carry a corner outfield job. He did get 8 homeruns in half-time duty last year; perhaps if whatever caused the ball to deaden last year goes away, he'll have that value.
The other positions are quite a bit better entrenched.
Tod Johnson slumped badly in 1933 after having a near-MVP level campaign the year before. He still gets the job done in center, which is not something that can be said about many other people in the Dodgers organization; in fact, he won his first Gold Glove of his career. It also should be said that much of his poor season was based on his .250/.357/.306 performance in September, a month he played through with a sore knee.
In right,
Ken Lefebvre was Brooklyn's most valuable player. Although he finished 2nd on the team to Allen Vice in RBI, the Brooklyn cleanup hitter finished in the NL top 10 in plate appearances (9th), hits (8th), triples (6th), home runs (7th), steals (8th), runs (5th), walks (3rd), batting average (8th), on base percentage (7th), and slugging (7th). He's still only 25 and just entering the prime of his career.
Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Dave Macy 29 114 89 402 59 129 22 9 0 43 11 5 28 21 0.321 0.364 0.420
LF Eric Cole 24 13 8 36 3 7 1 0 1 2 1 0 1 6 0.194 0.211 0.306
LF *King Reid 26 11 7 36 5 8 0 1 1 5 0 0 1 6 0.222 0.243 0.361
CF Tod Johnson 26 123 116 502 73 135 26 4 4 33 7 4 61 62 0.269 0.348 0.361
CF Barry Davis 25 95 72 309 37 80 10 2 8 41 0 0 18 32 0.259 0.299 0.382
RF *Ken Lefebvre 25 145 143 544 99 170 20 11 16 97 11 7 96 43 0.313 0.415 0.478
RF Bret McGriff 24 49 12 90 12 21 2 1 2 11 3 1 8 9 0.233 0.296 0.344
- Greg Homer 28 7 0 7 2 3 1 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0.429 0.429 0.571
Team Totals 26.9 1830 1386 5538 704 1485 253 62 60 683 69 40 468 535 0.268 0.326 0.369