The Futility Infielder

For the first six weeks of the baseball season, I was living in Dodger denial. But Alex Cora got my attention on Wednesday night. If you haven't watched the Dodger shortstop's epic at-bat from May 12, head over to MLB.com to do so. Cora battled Chicago Cubs pitcher Matt "Pubic Beard" Clement for 18 pitches, fouling off 14 straight before launching a home run over rightfielder Sammy Sosa. It was only the light-hitting (.241/.301/.344 career) Dodger shortstop's second home run of the season, but as Jon Weisman reminds us, it really was something to get excited about, with the Chavez Ravine crowd roaring after every foul ball.

Cora hasn't been quite the cipher he usually is thus far this season; he's now hitting .284/.370/.421 in 109 plate appearances, which is pretty damn useful coming from a middle infielder, particularly one playing half the time in Dodger Stadium for an offensively challenged team. At 22-13 and atop the NL West, the Dodgers have been one of the season's biggest surprises thus far, and the only reasons I haven't written about them are that I neither wanted to jinx what was happening out in Chavez Ravine nor get my expectations up too early. But now that we're in the middle of May, and even though they're riding a three-game losing streak entering Sunday, I officially have Hope for them. To paraphrase a line from the most tired rock song since the dawn of time, we haven't had that sprit here since nineteen ninety-...seven.

Superficially, it's no mystery as to how the Dodgers are doing it; they're actually hitting the ball and scoring runs, even while their pitching hasn't been nearly as stingy (last year's team had the fewest combined runs scored and runs allowed compared to the league average of any major league team ever): Here's a comparison between the two teams, including their Pythagorean and actual winning percentages:

       AVG   OBP   SLG  RS/G  RA/G   PYWP   WP

2003  .243  .303  .368  3.54  3.43  .515  .525

2004  .271  .329  .427	4.66  4.11  .556  .629

The offense has added about 30 points of batting average and about 30 points of isolated power (SLG - AVG), increasing their slugging percentage by about 60 points and adding over a run per game to the scoreboard. As a team, the Dodgers are scoring 32% more runs than last year, even while allowing 20% more. But they're far outstripping their expected (Pythagorean) winning percentage, adding to manager Jim Tracy's smoke-and-mirrors legend. The biggest reason for that magic is that the team won its first ten one-run games (they lost to the Reds 2-1 on Friday to end that string), one short of the 1972 New York Mets' record for consecutive one-run wins at the start of the season.

Viewed from afar, an offhand assumption would be that the addition of centerfielder Milton Bradley and the return to form of a healthy Shawn Green are what's powering the O. But neither of those two is exactly tearing the cover off of the ball. Bradley's at .254/.324/.444, while Green is at .236/.345/.465. Instead, the Dodgers' most valuable hitter has been Adrian Beltre, who's finally delivering on some of that much-heralded promise by hitting .357/.366/.629 with 10 homers. Even though he's a free-agent of his contract, you can't call this his walk year, as he's gotten just TWO bases on balls thus far, a curious anomaly even for such a notorious free swinger (one walk for every 13.6 plate appearances in his major-league career). On the other side of the free-swinging coin, catcher Paul Lo Duca has accompanied an eye-popping line (.369/.410/.467) by only striking out three times in 134 plate appearances. In keeping with the up-the middle strength, perennial HACKING MASS All-Star Cesar Izturis has joined Cora by doing a remarkable imitation of a semi-useful hitter -- .281/.319/.363, which is positively Ruthian by his career .246/.270/.319 standards.

To examine the Dodger hitters' performance a bit more closely, I decided to compare they've done over the course of the season with Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA weighted mean projections for all Dodgers with over 100 plate appearances. Just for kicks, I've tacked on each player's 90th percentile (pipe dream) and 10th percentile (pulse-free undead) projections for EQA, which normalizes the player's park- and league-adjusted OBP and SLG into a batting average scale number where .260 is average and .300 is outstanding.

             ----- ACTUAL -----    --- PECOTA WM ----

             AVG  OBP  SLG  EQA    AVG  OBP  SLG  EQA  90th  10th

Beltre      .357 .366 .629 .332   .259 .312 .447 .265  .291  .234 

Lo Duca     .369 .410 .467 .309   .271 .331 .400 .262  .286  .223

Roberts     .265 .382 .386 .309   .257 .326 .334 .248  .281  .196

Green       .236 .345 .465 .284   .286 .369 .529 .309  .337  .276

Cora        .284 .370 .429 .285   .252 .311 .361 .242  .266  .202

Bradley     .254 .324 .444 .265   .265 .350 .418 .284  .310  .251

Izturis     .281 .319 .363 .248   .247 .281 .328 .219  .244  .189

Encarnacion .231 .265 .408 .233   .263 .318 .447 .269  .294  .238

Five of the players (Beltre, Lo Duca, Roberts, Cora, and Izturis) are outstripping even the rosiest projections thus far, while two of them (Green and Encarnacion) are very close to their worst nightmares, and a third (Bradley) is well below expectations. Green and Bradley represent the only two players of the above bunch who projected as significantly above average (that is, with an EQA better than .260) coming into the season. Overall the team has put up a .269 EQA, compared to 2003's dead stinking last in the NL mark of .244.

I was under the impression that manager Jim Tracy was making an effort to limit Lo Duca's time behind the plate so that the catcher doesn't suffer the same kind of late-season burnout as he has in the past -- .323/.380/.489 before the All-Star break over the past three seasons, .252/.306/.374 after the break. But Lo Duca has started 27 out of the team's first 35 games (77%), a pace which would put him at 125 games on the season, right around last year's level. It hasn't helped that capable backup Dave Ross is off to a slow start at .152/.171/.364. A couple of other situations that bear watchign are Dave Roberts' injury and Shawn Green's position. Roberts went on the DL with a hamstring problem on May 8; his presence in the lineup would allow the team to forego their most disappointing hitter, Juan Encarnacion in favor of a Roberts-Bradley-Green trio... if only they could find a suitably warm body to fill in for Green at first base. Robin Ventura with a .653 OPS in 34 at bats, has apparently passed his sell date, and it's doubtful 20-year-old hot prospect James Loney will be ready for The Show this eason. If I'm Jim Tracy, I'd give hot-hitting utilityman Jose Hernandez (.356/.420/.667 in 50 PA) a shot until his bat grows cold, spot Lo Duca there instead of in the outfield on days when he's not catching, and hope that DePodesta can pry somebody useful loose from another team (paging Justin Morneau...).

Turning to the pitching, as mentioned before, it hasn't been up to the high standards the Dodgers set last season, but it's been an interesting mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Overall, the starters have put up a very unspectacular 4.59 ERA, while the bullpen has posted a stellar 2.62 mark:

          IP   ERA  WMERA    90     10

Nomo      40  7.14   4.13   2.99   5.53

Weaver    45  4.84   4.10   3.09   5.31

Perez     53  3.59   3.60   2.59   4.98

Ishii     42  3.83   5.17   3.11   7.30

Alvarez   31  1.15   3.83   2.40   5.46 

Lima      25  6.12   6.77   4.17  10.12



Gagne     16  1.69   2.32   0.34   3.88

Mota      20  1.37   3.30   2.15   6.16

Dreifort  17  3.71   3.79   2.36   5.37

Sanchez   17  2.70   5.64   3.22   9.55

Coming into the season, the Dodgers projected to have three solid starters based on their weighted mean ERA projections, four if they'd actually put last year's injury comeback surprise, Wilson Alvarez, in the loop from the get-go. But the contributions they've gotten thus far have been all over the map. Putative ace Nomo has been Hideous, particularly in his last start, when the Cubs bombed him for six runs in 1.1 innings. He's lost three straight decisions after being an improbable 3-1 despite a 6.55 ERA in his first four starts. Nomo's always been an extreme hit-or-miss type of pitcher in that when he's good, he's great and when he's bad, he's awful. Coming off of October shoulder surgery, his velocity is down and his ERA is in airplane territory, which should cause some concern. Odalis Perez has been dead-on with his projected performance. Alvarez hasn't allowed an earned run in two starts since returning to the rotation nine days ago, when he replaced Jose Lima, whose PECOTA projections are as certifiably insane as the pitcher himself (at least he found a new way to contribute). Jeff Weaver hasn't been very good, but the move out of pinstripes has at least stopped the hemorrhaging. Kaz Ishii has a tidy ERA, but he's walked 27 men in 42.1 innings, compared to only 18 strikeouts, a recipe for disaster if there ever was one. Take away his shutout of the anemic Giants , and he's got a 4.86 ERA. In his most recent start, he lasted only four innings, allowing one hit but walking SEVEN.

In the bullpen, Eric Gagne has continued the dominance which earned him lst year's NL Cy Young award and has now converted 73 consecutive save opportunities. Setup man Guillermo Mota has been extremely good as well. Alvarez was extremely good (2.16 ERA in 16.2 innings) out of the pen, and Lima (4.50 in 12 innings) has been useful. Rookie Duaner Sanchez, who had only 18 innings of major-league experience over three cup-of-coffee seasons, has been very good, striking out nearly a man per inning. But the most pleasant surprise has been the contribution of Darren Dreifort, earning $11.4 million in the fourth year of a massive 5-year, $55 million contract. After making only 26 starts and pitching 155 below-average innings in the first three years of that albatross of a contract, the Dodgers have sensibly shifted the fragile Dreifort to the pen, making him the most expensive setup man in history but a reliable contributor thus far. Looking at Baseball Prospectus' Reliever Run Expectation charts, the Dodger relievers are tied for second in the majors, having allowed 21.3 runs less than expected based on the base-out situations they've inherited. With the exception of Brad Falkenborg, who's pitched only 6.2 innings, every member of the pen is on the positive side of the ledger, headed by Gagne (6.0), Mota (5.0), Alvarez (4.5) and Sanchez (3.6).

The Dodgers' outperformance of their Pythagorean projection, success in one-run games, and off-the-charts boost from some of the hitters all suggest that they may return to earth before too long, and indeed, the current losing streak may represent the beginning of the elevator ride down. But in a weak division, with last year's champs reeling, the Dodgers actually have a fighting chance, particularly if a pair of highly touted rookies deliver on their promise. Twenty-year-old starter Edwin Jackson, who went 2-1 with a 2.45 ERA in 22 late-season innings last year, has needed some seasoning at Las Vegas, but even his his 10th percentile PECOTA projection of a 4.17 ERA looks mighty tasty next to the likes of Nomo and Weaver, and he may be back in the majors by mid-summer. If new GM Paul DePodesta can provide the kind of in-season upgrades that helped make his mentor in Oakland famous, this team has a real shot at going to the postseason for the first time since 1996. With my MLB.tv package, I'll be keeping an eye on them.