The Dodgers have announced their plans regarding how Cesar Izturis and Rafael Furcal will share the infield. I'll put this as clearly as possible: this is a remarkably bad baseball decision. Using Izturis at third and Furcal at short, rather than the other way around, is as clear an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face as I can imagine. Only a team committed to something other than winning—both in the short and in the long term—would make such a choice. We can't yet know if this is coming from Little, Colletti or McCourt (or some unholy combination), but it is a shifty, political move designed to keep an overpaid "star" happy at the expense of winning baseball games. If they think showing off Izturis at another position will increase his trade value, they're wrong; Izturis's trade value is as a defensive genius, and if they want to get any value for him, they have to show him off as such.
Just in case my affection for Izturis's defense was causing me to be biased, I checked in with J.T., the ne plus ultra of unflinchingly loyal and, more ot the point, clear-eyed and unsentimental Dodger fans. Here is his comment:
"I had the exact same thought. Completely baffling. If you’re going to get stuck with Izturis’ offense in your lineup, you’d sure as heck better get a good defensive shortstop out of it. Aybar is twice the offensive player Izturis is. This is just a really, really bad move, the worst that Coletti’s made so far (yes, even worse than Sanchez for Seo)."
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4 comments:
On the bright side, at least Adrian Beltre is somebody else's problem right now.
Also...let's not sell Izzy as such an offensive negative.
CI's career AVG is .261 (RF is batting .252 this year)
CI's AVG from 2004 (his last full) was .288. (RF's career is .281)
CI's OBP was .330 in 2004 (RF's is the same now)
Only slugging is the significant difference. But CI in 2004 was .381 (RF's career is .403 but is .343 in 2006) And I'd argue slugging is an easy price to pay for a career .980 SS over a .964 career SS (.950 in 2006).
PS == I sat next to Adrian Beltre's family last night in the luxury boxes of Dodgie Stadium.
My friend Jer--he of the Red Sox nation--offers this response:
"Do I need to be the one to break the news to you that Grady Little is a fucking idiot? He's as dumb as he sounds when he talks."
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