Attention: Blue Notes is moving!

Hey folks. There are some things afoot regarding Blue Notes in which (we hope) you'll be interested.  The first is some excellent news for LAT.com baseball readers:

Jon Weisman's Dodger Thoughts is joining our ever growing blog family.  (It can now be found here!) Many/most of you who read Blue Notes also read DT, and know the outstanding work Jon does over there. He's an outstanding writer with a passion for the Blue, an appreciation of the team's history, and a fantastic core audience that knows and loves the game. 

We (meaning Andy and I) are not disappearing, though.  Blue Notes- or at least the guys who once hosted it- will now become part of The Fabulous Forum, and we'll continue to write about baseball and the LAD.  To be perfectly honest, neither one of us knows exactly how this is going to shake out (Will there be a "Blue Notes" tab?  Can people click on "Kamenetzky, and Bam! there we are?  Will there be a secret handshake required?), but our hope is that those of you who enjoyed our work for Blue Notes will continue to read us on the Forum, and will at the same time take advantage of Dodger Thoughts as the LAT's newest resource for fans o' the Blue. 

Andy and I look forward to working with Jon, and welcome him to the LAT. 

BK

Manny G?

Interesting stuff today from ESPN.com's Buster Olney on The Manny Situation, and how the Giants might still fit into the equation:

"...Lo and behold, the Giants have emerged as a player in this bidding. But it remains to be seen whether they are going to be shoving big chips at Ramirez, or if they're just hanging in the thing to position themselves in the event Ramirez gets so frustrated with the Dodgers that he'll walk away from L.A., at any price. It's possible the Giants are not really bidding up Ramirez, but just hoping that a Hall of Fame bargain with a chip on his shoulder drops in their lap.

"We're still talking to him," Giants president Larry Baer said on Friday, "and we have interest. But it's one of those things where it's got to fit. "Manny fits in one respect -- most obvious respect and probably the most important respect. He's a great cleanup hitter. But you have to look at the rest of it, how the contract fits, how the defense fits … On one hand, we'd like to do it, but we believe we've improved the team considerably..."

Things have reached the point where we've all started talking about the possibility of a team causing itself trouble by underbidding (didn't see that coming a few months back, I admit) on Manny, something Olney touches on as well:

"...Some rival executives believe that the Dodgers could offer a two-year, $30 million deal to Ramirez and still have the highest bid on the table -- and of course, two years and $30 million would represent less money than Ramirez would've made had he just stayed with the Red Sox. But part of the discussion, within the L.A. front office, has been about what number would completely embarrass Ramirez to the point that he would roll over on his team, in the way that he did in Boston..."

It certainly adds a level of intrigue, no doubt. As Spring Training approaches, those players still left on the market- and there are some useful ones- will begin to suck it up and sign. Where, I have no idea. I've never been good at predicting the markets. But there will definitely be short term bargains, like the Cardinals had last season with Kyle Lohse.  Could be the marquee names like Adam Dunn, could be Bobby Abreu, or Manny, or Braden Looper, or Ben Sheets, or dudes lower down the ladder, but at some point, the remaining dominoes will fall.

Rob Neyer has some interesting thoughts as well about where Manny should go.  LA... south.

BK

Hopefully, Dodger fans didn't have their hearts set on Jon Garland

Because he not only ain't pitching for the Blue anytime soon, he'll be part of a divisional rival's rotation.  Garland and the D-Backs have agreed to terms after some on-again, off-again banter.  Garland was on the Dodger radar, but talk has always seemed to swirl more around SoCal son (and former Ravine dweller) Randy Wolf, who may not get the cash and years he's seeking.  Spring training is fast approaching, so he, along with the Dodgers, will need to decide soon enough.

Garland's move to Arizona becomes even more interesting upon a report from MLB.com's Ken Gurnick that James McDonald will begin the season in the pen, a blueprint used in 2007 with Chad Billingsley.  That a team would hold off on putting an inexperienced hurler in the rotation is anything but unusual.  But McDonald had been penciled in -- mentally, if nothing else -- by many (including me) as a fourth or fifth starter.  If Young McDonald isn't in the mix, who will be, beyond Chad Billingsley, Hiroki Kuroda and Clayton Kershaw?  Jason Schmidt?  If that's the plan, I admire the brass' optimism, if not their realism.  Wolf?  Braden Looper?  Eric Stults?  An arm obtained via trade?  Jason Repko?  (He's inexperienced but the kids love him.)  Or will the "Bills, Part Deux" game plan run considerably shorter than the original version? 

Stay tuned.

AK

Crickets

Scott Boras says Manny will be signed by someone before spring training.  Good to know ... but I was sort of working under that assumption anyway. The continuing Manny Watch! is especially interesting in light of Buster Olney's column this morning on ESPN.com regarding Adam Dunn and Bobby Abreu, two big names that could be forced to take one-year deals.  If those guys are reduced to a single season, there's absolutely no chance a team will give Manny a four-plus-option.  The door is wide open, and if a team was willing to step through, it would have happened by now. 

I'm very much looking forward to how Boras spins things when Manny eventually signs.  It seems we both misread the market coming into Hot Stove season, except he's a SuperAgent! and I write a blog. 

Meanwhile, if you're looking for a fun way to get a jump on the '09 season, I recommend hitting DodgerSims.  Cool fun with projections.

BK

Joe Torre: Pulitzer Prize winner?

"The Yankee Years," co-written by Joe Torre and longtime SI scribe Tom Verducci, will hit stands Feb. 3.  In those pages are details involving team-wide disdain for A-Rod and a strained relationship between Torre and the pinstripe brass that began long before the manager left town. Only excerpts have been made available but a media frenzy has ensued, particularly in New York, which is shocking since it's a journalistic base that tends not to jump all over items of a potentially sensational nature before every detail is known. 

And assuming it's not abundantly clear, yes, that description of Big Apple writers was indeed sarcastic.

Before I form an opinion of the book there are a few things I'd like to do ...

Carlos Santana: He's quite a prospect

ESPN.com's Keith Law released his list of the top 100 prospects in baseball.  Given how many of their high-end talents have arrived at the big league level, it's not terribly shocking to see that the Blue aren't well represented.  With the natural cycles of restocking and trades made by a contending team, the cupboard isn't bare, but it's not overflowing in the way it was a few seasons back. 

One guy who is high on the prospect list?  Carlos Santana.  The same catcher traded away in the Casey Blake deal, added in with reliever Jon Meloan to encourage the Indians to pick up the remainder of Blake's salary.  He's listed as the third best catcher and the 13th best overall. 

It was asked at the time but is worth revisiting: Was $2 million in the bank a good use of Santana's value?

BK

Jeff Kent to officially retire

Just got word from the Dodgers media relations department that the crusty veteran and Hall of Fame lock has made up his mind to hang up the cleats.  There will be a formal announcement tomorrow at Dodger Stadium, and I'll try to swing by.  Until then, a few thoughts on my mixed feelings about Kent.

The Lakers sign Blake DeWitt!!

Oh, wait.  He was just attending Lakers practice yesterday, along with several young players (Chin-lung Hu and Ramon Troncoso among the more notable names) in the Dodger organization.  I got a little face time with the incumbent second baseman to talk about his offseason work, the Memphis Grizzlies (the adopted team of the Sikeston, Mo., native) and how well teammate and former hoops phenom Matt Kemp would have fared scrimmaging with the Lakers.  In terms of the first item, DeWitt says he's not really overwhelmed at the notion of entering the season as the incumbent second baseman for the Dodgers -- a notable jump from last season's projection of AA Jacksonville -- outside of simply growing more comfortable playing out of his natural position (third).  Along those lines, he's just working on mechanics, getting stronger and applying the knowledge soaked up during an eye-opening rookie campaign.  "As a player, you can't let up for a second.  You've got to work even harder.  There's no guarantees and there's always somebody fighting for your job or you're fighting for their job.  It's a never-ending process."

Also, if DeWitt's vote matters to the McCourt family, he's down for "Man Ram era, Part Deux."

When Don Newcombe speaks, Blue Notes listens

Listening to Petros and Money on AM 570 on Monday, they had a great interview with Dodgers great Don Newcombe, a man who experienced the sort of bigotry presented by segregated baseball and a segregated America.  On a day dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., Newcombe lamented that for many young people in this country, there's less awareness of the impact Jackie Robinson had on race relations and civil rights. 

You can, he reminded the audience, draw a line from the integration of baseball to the inauguration of the first African American president.  A day for honoring this sort of history is incomplete without praise for Jackie Robinson. 

Well, who are we to defy Don Newcombe?

BK

Russell Martin and Jonathon Broxton avoid arbitration with one-year deals

Just got a brief text confirming the news.  More details as they surface, but for now, the ninth-inning battery remains in place.  This leaves Andre Ethier as the only arbitration-eligible player with an unresolved status.

AK