Time for Dodgers to Step Up or Break Up

The Dodgers are in San Fran facing the NL West leading Giants for a three game set. The Dodgers currently trail the G-Men by 12.5 games. We’ve heard all kinds of rhetoric from the Dodgers brass, namely the Manager and GM, how the team is still in the race. Simply a 10 game winning streak from being right in in. Never-mind that the Rangers, who just won their 11th straight, became the first team in all of MLB to have a streak that long all season. Forget that the Dodgers have a season best 5 game streak. According to those in the know, there just a 10 game streak from getting back in the playoff race. As if.

Well if this team, that is currently 11 games under .500, is going to do anything this year in the NL West, then they need to start by sweeping the 3 games in SF. If not they are done. No offense but we are talking about a team with glaring problems throughout the roster. Namely their highest paid offensive player, Rafael Furcal who has been awful.

Fukey as he is known to his teammates was recently the subject of an interview of Don Mattingly who came to the beleaguered Short-Stops defense.

"“He may not be the player he was five or six years ago, but that doesn’t mean he can’t play, said Mattingly. Why get on Fukey? I know this is about the bottom line, but I get upset with Fukey-beating. I believe in the guy and what he’s capable of doing. I see bat speed. He’s just trying too hard. You love that, it’s better than not trying. You can’t defend the no production, it’s right in front of you, but I can defend effort.”"

Mattingly went on to use the term bat speed about a dozen more times in the interview. Okay it’s great that Fukey has bat speed but it doesn’t mean squat if he can’t produce. Brett Butler didn’t exactly have bat speed but at least he hit. So while I appreciate Mattingly’s support of his player isn’t it about time someone said something that is somewhat frank and honest about the state of this team? Am I the only one who thinks some folks in the organization are in denial?

I typically don’t agree with anything T.J. Seimers of the L.A. Times has to say but he had a really good piece about Dodger GM Ned Colletti and the schmoozer as he is called being in complete denial. Here’s a few solid questions posed, oh and by the way the Dodgers just fell behind 1-0 on a Panda solo HR.

"From day one there was always the feeling here you couldn’t trust a thing Frank McCourt had to say.The McCourts placed an inordinate emphasis on image, their own image, and hired some of the top PR experts in the business to make them appear more appealing.So, here we are with most everyone disgusted by what we’ve come to learn about the deceptive pair of owners. But General Manager Ned Colletti is apparently the exception.I would guess the last thing Dodgers fans would want to hear from someone in authority now is more spin designed to mislead them.This is the time for Colletti to be honest, if for no other reason than to separate himself from the McCourts.But so far Colletti is following McCourt’s lead and telling Dodgers fans what he thinks they want to hear.He says he’s not sure what to make of this Dodgers team, a scary declaration when the top baseball guy in the Dodgers’ organization is the last to know his team stinks.Colletti says he doesn’t know if the Dodgers will be buyers or sellers at the trading deadline, as if McCourt has enough money these days to buy a Dodger Dog.I asked Colletti how he could possibly say the Dodgers might be buyers given Frank’s court filings a day earlier seeking relief from spousal support.Colletti said he was unaware of such a development, and do you believe that?"

There’s more, but to me he makes some very valid points. How could Ned seriously say he’s not sure what to make of this team, the team he himself built? He also discusses free agent busts Juan Uribe and Ted Lilly and the lack of anyone being willing to hold them accountable. Again I typically don’t give what Seimers says much credence, but to hear just how completely in denial the GM seems to be in is just sad.

This is what it’s like to be a Dodger fan. The owner spends $40,000 a month to live in a hotel, but their player development system has had less invested in it than any other team in all of MLB. The Dodgers have some assets they can offer teams, if they can’t step up and sweep the Giants, they need to turn those assets into young players and rebuild a minor league system that has been largely ignored.

Finally check out Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness, he recently posted a list of the ‘Collected Sins of Frank McCourt’ it is fantastic and completely disturbing reading at the same time. Oh and if you needed more quality McCourt reading apparently the next edition of ‘Vanity Fair’ magazine has an in-depth article about the McCourts. And according to a Tweet sent by Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated “In summary Frank is a greedy pig.”

Really as if him spending 40K a month to live the high-life while the whole team suffers wasn’t proof of that.