Dodgers: We're better! Us: We're not buying it!
Five things to know about the Dodgers
VERO BEACH, Fla. -- This is going to be great, newly acquired starter Derek Lowe says.Better than last year, star closer Eric Gagne promises.
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| The Dodgers need Jose Valentin to acclimate quickly at third. (AP) |
So you can see how the Los Angeles Dodgers spent their winter. Drinking lots of the company Kool-Aid and locking their eyes on the swinging pendulum. You are getting very sleeeepy....
"It will be a different team, totally different, but I think we're better," Gagne says. "Pitching is the name of the game, and we have the best pitching staff in the West."
Yes they will ... if the nerve problem in Brad Penny's arm vanishes and if they signed the Lowe of October rather than the Lowe of August and if they can count on Jeff Weaver, Odalis Perez and Kaz Ishii or Edwin Jackson.
But even then, the Dodgers infield defense is significantly worse than it was last year following general manager Paul DePodesta's winter ice sculpture.
"I don't agree," Tracy says. "Second base is a perfect example of someone who knows how to play the game correctly. Jeff Kent knows how to position himself. And the situation at third, we're asking Jose Valentin to play somewhere where he hasn't played a lot of. But from what I've seen this spring, he's a pro. I'm very confident that he will do an adequate job."
So at one position, at least, where Adrian Beltre bloomed into one of the game's best players in 2004, the Dodgers will settle for adequate defensively.
Oh boy, is this going to be fun.
Nobody this side of Michael Jackson, their neighbor to the north, had as controversial and unsettling an offseason as the Dodgers. Coming off of the NL West championship and their first postseason victory since 1988, DePodesta this winter finished the job he started in July: sticking dynamite under the roster and lighting the fuse.
Most of the moves made about as much sense as Tommy Lasorda in a vegetarian restaurant.
What we know, indisputably, is this:
