So I guess I was wrong.  I was wrong that McCourt would go back on his word.  I was even wrong about the guy he'd go after as a replacement manager.  I still can't believe it, and honestly don't know how I feel about it.  While I stopped liking Grady Little during the 2nd half of this past season, I never thought that we'd get a guy like Torre.  He has so much Yankee tradition, and it will be hard to accept that he bleeds Dodger blue.  However, he is a great manager, and I believe that he will bring the team together.  Overall, I think that Torre will be 100 times better than Grady, and I'm proud of Frank McCourt for finally taking some action to improve this struggling team.

On another note, however, I don't want the Dodgers to go out and sign a bunch of free agents.  I definitely do not want A-Rod, and I don't think that Tori Hunter or Andruw Jones deserve the money that they are asking.  Let Torre develop the young players on this team without committing hundreds of millions of dollars to free agents who only care about money.  Then, when the time comes to sign players like Martin, Kemp, and Loney to long term contracts, the Dodgers will be able to afford this genuine, home grown talent! 

So the talk the last few days has been the Dodgers relationship with Joe Girardi.  Will he be manager?  Will he be the bench coach?  Will the Dodgers fire Grady Little?  Well, here's what I think.  I think there is no way the Dodgers will fire Little, mainly because Frank McCourt has already come out and said that both Little and Colletti will be back next year.  If McCourt changes his mind and goes back on his word, he will think to himself "how will the fans ever trust me again?"  So basically, even though Girardi would be a better fit for this team, McCourt has already ruined the changes of that happening because of his premature announcement.  Why he said what he did before the season was over is beyond me, but now that it's been said, there is now way he will change his mind because he doesn't want to look like a liar.

So where does that leave the Dodgers and Girardi?  Well, if he doesn't get the Yankees' job, Girardi has two options.  Option one, he takes the job as the Dodgers' bench coach in hopes that the Dodgers will play poorly so he can take over as manager in 2009.   Option two, he takes one more year off, relaxes at home, does a little commentary, and sees what is open in 2009, knowing that teams will still want him then.  I think if I were him I'd rather take another year off rather than being a bench coach for a team that has underachieved during the past few years, but that's just my opinion. 

Winter League Update

In the Hawaii League, most of the Dodger prospects have not played well.  The West Oahu CaneFires have played 22 games, and in that time 3B Joshua Bell has hit only .207 with 1 HR, OF Jamie Hoffmann has struggled at .218 and 0 HR's, and OF Ryan Rogowski is at .230 with 1 HR.  The only hitter with respectable numbers is 1B Russell Mitchell who has a .283 average, 2 HR's, and 11 RBI's.  When looking at the pitchers, only Steven Johnson has done well.  Through 22 innings, he has a 2.78 ERA, a 0.88 WHIP, and 19 K's.  The Dodgers other two pitching prospects, Kyle Wilson and Garrett White, have ERA's of 10.66 and 7.88 respectively.

In the Arizona Fall League, Delwyn Young and Andy LaRoach have just starting playing with Team USA, and are off to hot starts.  Young already has 5 hits in his first 7 AB's for a .714 average, and LaRoach had the game winning RBI double in his first start (1 for 3 overall).  The other Dodger prospects, playing for the Peoria Saguaros, have had mixed results.  Chin-Lung Hu suffered a hamstring injury and hasn't played since early in the week, but it does not appear to be too serious.  He has a .273 average in 10 games with 1 HR.  3B Blake Dewitt has only appeared in 7 games, but has accumulated a .375 average.  OF Xavier Paul has really struggled, hitting only .234 with no HR's in 13 games.  For the pitchers, one Dodger has excelled; Justin Orenduff.  He has a 2.25 ERA with 7 K's in 8 innings.  Greg Miller is still trying to get it together while posting a 13.50 ERA, however he does have 9 K's in 6 innings.  Wesley Wright has a 5.59 ERA, and has 11 K's in 10 innings.

There is not much to talk about in the Caribbean Leagues as there has not been much change since my last post, although I am happy to report that Rafael Furcal has not played at all, which is a good thing sine he has a bad ankle.

So I did a little research on Dodgers who are playing in the Caribbean Winter Leagues (the Mexican, Venezuelan, and Dominican Leagues), and found a few players from our minor leagues.  I'll go league by league.

Mexican League

The Dodger players in the Mexican League are guys who are older and appear to be minor leaguers for life.  Nevertheless, I'll list their Mexican League team along with their stats and information from last season with the Dodgers.

Francisco Felix, P - Tomateros de Culiacan (played for Dodgers High A, 24 years old, 3.87 ERA, 93 K's in 102 innings)

Spike Lundberg, P - Algodoneros de Guasave (played for Dodgers AAA, 30 years old, 6.94 ERA, 80 K's in 120 innings)

Matt Riley, P - Algodoneros de Guasave (played for Dodgers AAA, 28 years old, 5.19 ERA, 83 K's in 69 innings)

John Lindsey, 1B - Naranjeros de Hermosillo (Split time between Dodgers AA and AAA, 30 years old, .317 average, 30 HR's)

Marshall McDougall 3B - Naranjeros de Hermosillo (Split time between Dodgers AA and AAA, 28 years old, .283 average, 22 HR's)

Sergio Garcia 2B - Venados de Mazatlan (Played for Dodgers AAA, 27 years old, .292 average, 8 HR's)

The most interesting player on this list is John Lindsey, who at 30 years old dominated AA and AAA last year and hit 30 HR's.  While he may be too old to factor into the Dodgers plans, he continues to show how good he is in the Mexican League as he's hitting .343 with 3 HR's and 12 RBI's in only 9 games.  I personally think he should be given a chance in spring training to claim a spot on our bench, but who knows what management will do.  The only other player who is playing well in the league is Francisco Felix.  He's the youngest out of these players at only 24, and while he is still stuck in the High A level, he had an OK year.  So far in the Mexican League, he's thrown 4 shutout innings with 2 K's.

Venezuelan League

This league also has a few Dodger prospects, but once again there are no big name players here.  They are:

Luis Maza 3B, - Tigres de Aragua (Split time between Dodgers AA and AAA, 27 years old, .302 average, 6 HR's)

Eduardo Perez 1B, - Leones del Caracas (Played for Dodgers low A, 23 years old, .311 average, 14 HR's)

Miguel Pinango, P - Navegantes del Magallanes (played for the Dodgers AAA this year, 24 years old, 4.21 ERA, 113 K's in 154 innings)

Juan Gonzalez 2B, - Aguilas de Zulia (Played for Dodgers AA, 25 years old, .287 average, 9 HR's)

Jonathan Figueroa, P - Aguilas de Zulia (played for the Dodgers Low A this year, 24 years old, 0.90 ERA, 17 K's in 10 innings)

The first player here I would like to highlight is Eduardo Perez.  Perez had a decent year for the Dodgers Low A team, but he is already 23 years old.  Therefore, he needs to step it up soon, but he is struggling so far in this league hitting only .200 with 1 RBI through 4 games.  The other player I want to talk about is Jonathan Figueroa.  He only pitched in 10 games last season for the Dodgers low A team, but as you can see above, in that time he compiled 17 K's in only 10 innings with a 0.90 ERA.  While he's already 24, he stands tall at 6'5" and is a lefty who can dominate.  So far in the Venezuelan League, he has not allowed a run is 4 innings, and has 4 K's.

Dominican League

This league is generally the most prestigious of the leagues, and while this league has the most Dodger prospects of the three, there are very few names I recognize.  Also, because this league has just started, some of the names I list may not be playing for a while, or maybe not at all (such as Rafael Furcal).  I was simply going off the team rosters that were provided on milb.com.

Ramon Troncoso, P - Azucareros del Este (played for the Dodgers AA this year, 24 years old, 2.42 ERA, 69 K's in 78 innings)

Marlon Aries, P - Leones del Escogido (played for the Dodgers High A this year, 23 years old, 5.32 ERA, 95 K's in 129 innings)

Carlos Santana C, - Leones del Escogido (played for Dodgers Low A, 21 years old, .223 average, 7 HR's)

Rafael Furcal, SS - Leones del Escogido (Played for Dodgers, 29 years old, .270, 6 HR's)

Arismendy Castillo, P - Estrellas de Oriente (played for the Dodgers Low A this year, 22 years old, 5.36 ERA, 67 K's in 91 innings)

Jose Diaz, P - Estrellas de Oriente (played for the Dodgers Low A this year, 23 years old, No stats due to Limited Action)

Yulkin German, P - Estrellas de Oriente (played for the Dodgers Low A this year, 24 years old,  17.44 ERA, 12 K's in 16 innings)

Wilkin Ruan, OF - Estrellas de Oriente (Split time between Dodgers AA and AAA, 29  years old, .285 average, 2 HR's)

Miguel Ramirez, P - Gigantes del Cibao (Split time between Dodgers Low A and High A this year, 24 years old, 2.39 ERA, 66 K's in 60 innings)

Wilson Valdez, SS - Gigantes del Cibao (Played for Dodgers AAA, 29 years old, .343 average, 4 HR's)

Honestly, besides the guys who played for the Dodgers this year (Furcal and Valdez), none of these guys seem to be destined to make the Major Leagues.  The only players whose stats from last year seem to stand out are those of Miguel Ramirez, but that's only because he had more K's than innings pitched.  He is already 24 years old and still played at Single A, so his time might also be passed.  For the record, he hasn't played yet this season.  Also, the rest of the Dodger players in this league haven't seen enough significant time to report their stats.

Lastly, if you know of any other players who may be playing in any of these leagues, let me know in a comment, and I'll have updates of the Arizona and Hawaii Leagues in my next post.

In the Arizona Fall League, the Peoria Saguaros have played 5 games, and so far the stats look like this for the Dodger prospects.  Chin-Lung Hu has a .467 average in 15 AB's, but thus far has not shown any power with 0 HR's and only 1 double.  Blake Dewitt has a .375 average in only 8 AB's, and also has shown no power.  Xavier Paul has struggled to a .133 average in 15 AB's, and unfortunately has 7 K's.  As for the Dodger pitchers, nobody has thrown over 4 innings, so the stats are minimal, although Wesley Wright has thrown 3 shutout innings with 4 K's, and Justin Orenduff has only allowed 1 ER in 4 innings.  Greg Miller, however, has already had a poor outing, allowing 4 ER's in 2 innings of work.

In the Hawaii League, the West Oahu CaneFires continue to struggle with a 2-10 record.  The Dodger's pitchers have also played poorly as of late, and Steven Johnson followed up a great performance with a game where he allowed 5 ER's in 4 innings.  For the year, he has a 4.15 ERA, and the other two Dodger pitchers, Kyle Wilson and Garrett White, have ERA's of 17.05 and 8.44 respectively.  The hitters are not doing too much better, with Russell Mitchell as the only Dodger hitter with an average over .300 (his is .333).  Ryan Rogowski has an average of .270, Jaime Hoffman is hitting .229, and Josh Bell is at .194, and none of these guys have more than 1 HR.

Finally, the winter leagues are starting up in the Caribbean, as the Mexican and Venezuelan Leagues have already begun, and the Dominican League will begin shortly.  Once the Dominican League starts, I will let you know who the notable Dodger players are, and give some updates on how they are playing.

So here is a quick update on the Dodger prospects in the Hawaii League through their first 8 games.  Pitcher Steven Johnson has performed very well so far picking up the win on Sunday for the CaneFires.  For the year, through 9 innings he has an ERA of 1.00 while allowing only 1 walk, and striking out 8.  The other two pitchers, however, have not performed well in limited action.  Garrett White has allowed 2 runs in 3.1 innings, for a 5.40 ERA, and Kyle Wilson has given up an astounding 12 runs in 4.1 innings, for an 24.92 ERA, although he does have 7 K's in that time. 

In looking at the hitters, none of the Dodger prospects are doing much of anything.  Ryan Rogowski has the highest average of the bunch at .269, but Josh Bell and Russell Mitchell are right behind him with .261 averages.  Also, both Bell and Mitchell have 1 HR in 23 AB's. 

So as you can see, it's been fairly disappointing so far, which is probably why the CaneFires are 2-6 on the year.  Hopefully in my next Hawaii update I'll have some better stats to post.

The Arizona Fall League begins tomorrow, so I wanted to give an update on all of the Dodger prospects who are playing this year.  They are on a team called the Peoria Saguaros, a team that also includes prospects from Detroit Tigers, Florida Marlins, Philadelphia Phillies, and San Diego Padres.  So here they are:

Pitchers:

Zach Hammes (played for the Dodgers AA this year, 23 years old, 5.23 ERA, 76 K's in 95 innings)

Greg Miller (split time between Dodgers AA and AAA, 22 years old, 5.87 ERA, 97 K's in 77 innings)

Justin Orenduff  (played for the Dodgers AA, 24 years old, 4.21 ERA, 113 K's in 109 innings)

Cory Wade (split time between Dodgers High A and AA, 24 years old, 2.09 ERA, 100 K's in 99 innings)

Wesley Wright (split time between Dodgers AA and AAA, 22 years old, 3.92 ERA, 86 K's in 78 innings)

Hitters:

Xavier Paul OF, (played for Dodgers AA, 22 years old, .291 average, 11 HR's)

Chin-Lung Hu, SS (split time between Dodgers AA, AAA, and MLB, 23 years old, .325 average, 14 HR's)

Blake Dewitt, 3B (split time between Dodgers High A and AA, 22 years old, .292 average, 14 HR's)

As you can see, most of these players are from the Dodgers AA team from last year.  The pitcher to watch this year is Greg Miller, who is trying to regain the form he had before his injury in 2006.  While his ERA was pretty bad in 2007, he did have a lot of stikeouts, which proves he can be an over-powering pitcher.

All three hitting prospects are doing well in the minors (and Hu even did well in the Majors), so it'll be interesting to see how well they perform this fall.  Not counting all the minor leaguers the Dodgers brought up at the end of the year, Xavier Paul is probably their best outfield prospect.  He's still young (although he was drafted all the way back in 2003), and is developing his power.  Dewitt was a Dodger first round pick in 2004, and is beginning to show signs of maturity.  He responded well to his promotion to AA in the middle of 2007, and has the average and power numbers to show for it.  With the Dodgers recent history at 3rd base, if he continues to improve, he may force the Dodgers to give him a shot there within a few years.  Chin-Lung Hu showed in 2007 that he does have some pop to go along with his defensive abilities, so we'll see if that power continues this fall.

I know I haven't written forever, but I think the main reason I didn't write was because of a lack of motivation.  The Dodgers were disappointing me, so I didn't write.  I know that's not an excuse, and I'll try to write more often next season, as well as this off season.  So, to start it off, since I'm a freak when it comes to knowing about the Dodger's prospects, I thought I'd give an update about Dodger players in the Hawaii Winter League, the only winter league that has already started.