Rob McMillan has been a great resource for those of us covering the Dodger sale lately, and I’ve quoted him here recently. Now he’s taking it one step further in the form of his own blog: 6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers Double Play Blog. Note to self: “You see what happens when you encourage these people?”
About the odd name, Rob has this to say:
Really, it had nothing to do with being clever, and a lot more to do with being up at 3:00 am with stomach flu. There is such a thing as a 6-4-2 double play, but they’re damn rare. I wanted this to be 6-4-3 but mistyped a key and didn’t catch it until this morning. By that time, I realized there already was a cobwebbed blog here with that name. Anyway, Jon Weisman figured it works at two levels: first, 6-4-2, given that the coverage is of two teams, and a 6-4-2 double play — rare but very exciting. Whether “rare but very exciting” ever describes this blog remains to be seen, but here I am, world.
Score a point for originality, and another for chutzpah; it’s not every fan who feels comfortable talking about both teams in the same town without complete disdain for one. But Rob’s story is one to which yours truly can relate: he grew up on the Dodgers of Tommy Lasorda and the Longest Running Infield, but lost interest at some point (for him it was before the ’88 miracle) and then watched them sink into the mediorcrity of the Fox era. Meanwhile, he was re-energized by the Angels’ championship run in 2002, bought a ticket package, and voilà — now he’s got a pair of teams to keep tabs on.
He’s not just keeping tabs, he’s running up the tab; Rob’s racked up 15 entries in two days, apparently without sleeping: he’s got posts at 2:36 AM, 3:10, 3:44, 4:16… Either he’s an insomniac or he hasn’t fixed the time setting in Blogger (or maybe he’s just pretty sly and doesn’t want his boss to catch him posting on company time, wink wink). Most of the entries are short, but he’s got some interesting notes on Dodger GM Dan Evans’ plight as Frank McCourt takes over the team, including his ill-fated pursuit of Vlad Guerrero. Under the gracious McCourt, Evans is now interviewing to keep his own job, which is patently ridiculous given how well he’s rebuilt the Dodger farm system and operated with at least two limbs tied behind his back in the form of predecessor Kevin Malone’s biggest mistakes.
On the replacment front, the A’s aren’t letting presumptive favorite Billy Beane interview for the job, and ex-Mariners’ GM Pat Gillick is content to counsel former Angel and Dodger exec Bill Bavasi as he undoes what good Stand Pat did in Seattle. Other names surfacing are ex-Red GM Jim Bowden, Expo GM Omar Minaya (who can’t get permission to interview), Texas assistant GM Grady Fuson, (ditto) and A’s assistant GM Paul DePodesta, often hailed as the next Beane. Rob fears the latter’s candidacy: “I would be nervous about a Beane disciple in the Dodgers henhouse as it gives Beane another dumping ground for his failures.”
Scanning the Dodger-related headlines, there’s been news the past couple of days that the team is in the mix for Greg Maddux, which would probably be a huge enough coup for Evans that he might save his job. Maddux isn’t the same pitcher he once was — his 3.96 ERA last season is almost dead-on with his DIPS ERA of 4.00, but in Dodger Stadium that would probably shrink back down to its normal size. Just as importantly, it would give Evans some depth from which to deal a pitcher — perhaps Odalis Perez — for a live bat.
A few more things to mention…
• Speaking of Dodger fans of my generation who lost the plot and now find their loyalties dispersed elsewhere, Michael Hirota’s got a new blog called The Sports Retort which covers (as you would guess) more than just baseball. Mike’s on the other side of The Great East Coast Rivalry now, but we had a nice long email exchange, and he’s awright too. It’s nice to know my work can connect across that rivarly, because right now, I’m spoiling for a fight over this.
Mike’s got an interesting perspective on the Sox pickup of Ellis Burks — who was drafted by them 21 years ago and played his first six seasons in Beantown — as a bat off of the bench or for platoon play. The guy can surely hit. But there’s another angle, too, one that Alex Belth astutely picks up on: Boston’s notoriously sordid legacy of dealing with black players vis-à-vis Howard Bryant’s book Shut Out. For what it’s worth, my take is that the move is more numbers-oriented — Theo Epstein doesn’t strike me as a crusader — but I think the story behind Burks’ treatment in Boston is one worth re-examining.
• Another new blog comes from Tom Gorman, who I met at the Winter Meetings in N’awlins. Fog Ball is actually a joint effort of Gorman and three other diehard Giants fans. Right now they’re raging against out-machine Neifi Perez while lauding his defensive efficiency and using Win Shares to sort it all out. Check it out if you swing from that side of the plate.
• Last night I had the pleasure of my second appearance on Baseball Prospectus Radio, hosted by my man Will Carroll. This time the topic was a roundtable on New York baseball, though the slate was decidedly Yankee-themed: Joe Sheehan of B-Pro, Steven Goldman, who writes Pinstriped Bible for YES, Alex Belth of Bronx Banter and myself. One of the other guys commented that our twenty-minute conversation could have gone on for eight hours, and I quite agree; it’s hella fun picking brains with those guys. The spot will air this weekend and hopefully I’ll have better luck getting a link to it than I did my first segment.