6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Tony Reagins Signs 3-Year Deal

Per MLB.com, Tony Reagins has signed a new three-year deal. Let's hope for more ninja deals...

Dodgers Purge More Jamie McCourt Hires

In the Times:

Six front-office employees who were hired by former Dodgers vice president Charles Steinberg were fired. They were public relations officers Mark Rogoff and Drew Merle, vice president of creative services Tom Catlin, graphics manager Courtney Cowsill, fan services and hospitality director Jahaan Blake and supervisor of the Ambassadors program Alyssa Shuman.

Steinberg, who was hired by Jamie McCourt, was essentially fired by the team last month by her estranged husband, owner Frank McCourt.

Interesting anonymous comment in the DT thread where I first heard about this:

The people mentioned got hired for the same reason they got fired. They came over from Boston with Dr. Steinberg, they were given elaborate titles, they were promoted over other worthy candidates for no better reason than they were "Dr. Charles' people". Once Dr. Charles left the building, everyone knew who was next.

Fact is the Boston contingent that came over with Dr. Steinberg caused a rift in the Dodger front office. The aura of superiority they had, didn't appeal to many of the Dodger staffers that have been there and had put in their time. Many refused to assimilate with Dodger staffers and instead formed cliques.

A lot of good people left the organization when this group came in prior to the 2008 season. I am sure most will land on their feet wherever Dr. Steinberg lands, as they are often referred to as his entourage.

Bottom line is most of these "Boston" staffers failed to pull their weight.

Problem with Dr. Steinberg is that he tried to make the Dodgers into the Boston Dodgers. He was full of hot gas and empty promises, and he absolutely killed anything resembling a budget.

There are a couple of good people in that group, and they will be missed. However, can't say the same for all of them.

Good Luck to them.

Frank, is that you?

Rangers Hire Ex-Rockies Skipper Clint Hurdle As Hitting Coach

Per the same LAT piece above.

Randy Wolf, Five Others File For Free Agency; Manny Returns In 2010

MLB.com shows Randy Wolf, Jon Garland, Orlando Hudson, Ronnie Belliard, Doug Mientkiewicz, and Eric Milton as the six. Manny Ramirez has yet to inform the club whether he will exercise a $20M player option for 2010. Not having contacted the club but still eligible for free agency: Brad Ausmus, C; Juan Castro, SS; Mark Loretta, INF; Guillermo Mota, RHP; Will Ohman, LHP; Vicente Padilla, RHP; Jason Schmidt, RHP; Jim Thome, PH and Jeff Weaver, RHP.

Wolf and Hudson are both Type A free agents. Type B free agents are Belliard, Padilla, Garland, Mota and Ohman.

Update: True Blue LA passes on a Tweet (oh, God, not another) from Dylan Hernandez saying that Manny Ramirez' return has been confirmed by Scott Boras.

Update 2: Dylan Hernandez at the Times:

"Obviously, he enjoys L.A.," Boras said. "If he went into the marketplace, the real negative was that he could end up playing in a place he wasn't comfortable playing."

*cough*bullshit*cough

The Yankees' Payroll Sucks

Joe Posnanski says so:

But the Yankees are a whole different argument. They are their own argument. The Yankees are not a big market team. They DWARF big market teams. They are quantitatively different from every other team in baseball and every other team in American sports. They don’t just spend more money than every other team. They spend A LOT more money than every other team. The Boston Red Sox spend $50 million more than the Kansas City Royals? Who cares? The Yankees spend $80 million more than the Boston Red Sox.

Via Dodger Divorce.

Slightly OT: Angels Fan Volunteers To Be Lieutenant Gov

In the Times:

Your other question probably is this: Why is it in your political interest to pick me? Here are four reasons:

I'll never upstage you. Remember how, during your first term, Cruz Bustamante made his own speeches right before your State of the State address each January? I'll never do that. I'll show up -- if I must -- wearing my usual writing attire: shorts, T-shirt and Angels cap. I will introduce you ("And now, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger"), and then I'll retire to a quiet corner of the Capitol where I can open up my laptop and get some writing done.

Actually pretty funny.

Labels: angels, dodgers, firings, front office, funny, transactions, yankees

Insert War On Some Drugs rant here.

Labels: giants, stupid ideas

Anywhere but the American League West, Gary.

Labels: angels, good riddance

... and that line is over her head according to the judge in the divorce case, Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon. (And yes, "Commissioner Gordon" is funny, as is the fact that his office has an unobstructed view of Dodger Stadium.)

Jamie "won" ("this was really like one of those mid-September Royals/Orioles games...yeah, there's a box score, but is there really a story?"), though the bigger story might be the tone-deaf nonsense coming out of the attorneys' mouths. On the other hand, the pratfall-prone pair have been doing this since before they were introduced as the new owners of the Dodgers, and has it made one iota of difference?

The next hearing will be on December 15. Fasten your seatbelts. Jamie McCourt's attorney thinks Dodger ownership arguments won't even be heard until next year.

Labels: dodgers, stupid ideas

Letting Jon Garland's 2010 option expire unexercised, the Dodgers have cut ties with their fourth-most-used fifth starter (measured by games started). It's hard to say goodbye when you didn't really care that much; mediocre as an Angel, Diamondback, and Dodger (despite the 153 ERA+ with the Dodgers, one month doesn't qualify as a good test, especially against the cake schedule the Dodgers had in September/October), he'll likely find someone else willing to give him a one or two year deal for around $10M per.

Via True Blue LA, MLB Trade Rumors reckons Garland is a Type B free agent, who is worth something nominally; the risk is that he might accept arbitration if the Dodgers offered it. Given the shape of their pitching staff at the moment, that might actually be a risk worth taking, either way.

Labels: dodgers, transactions

Per ESPN. A mite pricey, but I think a good deal for both sides. If nothing else, the Angels will finally have an effective hitting coach.

Labels: angels, transactions

And now we'll never hear the end of it from the bandwagoners, who will endlessly repeat what great fans they are while they're drunk at our park yowling "twenty-seven riiiiings" and loutishly starting fights.

Best I can hope for is that all of Posada, Jeter, Pettitte, Matsui, Rivera, and a bunch besides turn into a pumpkin next year. That is one mighty old team out there. The supporting cast up the middle is good but not great.

And now, to the offseason.

ESPN Box

Labels: phillies, postseason, recaps, suck, yankees

Jon's got the links, but I also found this insane long look at The Real Estalker of their holdings, including an estimate that they own something like $167M worth of high-end residential property.

Labels: dodgers, mccourts, stupid ideas

I have been taking a bit of a break from the blog of late, but I wanted to return briefly and review the situation with the McCourt divorce, and how it's affecting the Dodgers. Jon today links to a Bill Shaikin piece in the Times that ultimately shows what's perilously wrong with the Dodgers, and in particular, the McCourts' stewardship of that team: they're busy accumulating mansions while the Dodgers' talent pipeline languishes.

The Dodgers have paid $8.5 million in signing bonuses for draft picks over the last two years -- the lowest figure among all major league teams, according to Baseball America.

The Dodgers, so proud of their heritage in Asia and Latin America, today are a non-factor in bidding for top amateur players abroad. In 2008, according to Baseball America, major league clubs combined to sign 115 such players for bonuses of more than $100,000. The Dodgers did not sign one.

"They're definitely not the pioneering team they were," Baseball America editor John Manuel said. "They've squandered that advantage."

When I started this blog in 2004, the question before the house was whether the McCourts would prove sufficiently solvent to put a good team on the field. The results there have been surprisingly strong to date, but the direction they're headed now appears to be a huge question mark. With the Moores divorce in San Diego wrecking the Padres franchise for the past season and the immediate future, the results there can only serve as a warning. Part of me feels like saying "told you so" about the McCourts, who have, in the end, proven as selfish, vain, and brittle as they appeared in their first press conference. But the story has proven to take a different turn than I forecast, and I expect this next episode will do the same.

Labels: blogs, dodgers, minors

Vin Scully Is My Homeboy passes on a La Prensa (Managua, Nicaragua) report that Vicente Padilla has been shot by his bodyguard; he was treated and released at Hospital Metropolitano.

Jon passes on a Diamond Leung piece indicating that the injury was to his right leg, and was "not serious".

Labels: dodgers, injuries

Why, yes, Joe Girardi does look like the cartoon icon. Why do you ask?

Labels: funny, managers, postseason, yankees

Since this was the worst-case scenario World Series (two east coast teams? Bleh), I've been in hibernation more-or-less this postseason after both the Dodgers and Angels have been eliminated. But thanks to Jon for pointing out the latest in Dodger blogging, Dodger Divorce. Early on, blogger Joshua Fisher takes a peek at how the McCourts came to own the Dodgers and why this is going to be such a terrible mess to unwind. Excerpt:

So, if you're counting at home, the above adds up to $421 million in financing...for a $371 million purchase. That, friends, is a little scary. And there's more. In May 2005, McCourt announced a new, $250 million 25-year note which took out B of A and what remained of the debt to Fox (after the foreclosure on the Boston property). This increased the debt load to $521 million on a $371 million purchase. This financing, known as a private placement, was provided by an unidentified group of institutional investors, such as pension funds and insurance companies. The terms of the loan--5.66% fixed for 25 years--are relatively favorable to McCourt. The collateral for this new loan was reportedly the 300 acres of real estate surrounding Dodger Stadium--not the club itself. Importantly, one of the provisions of the private placement was that control of the Dodgers would not change hands.

Fisher suggests that the McCourts' controlled assets are closer to $750M (not Jamie's claimed $1.2 billion), and might have a net worth of less than $600M.

Labels: blogs, dodgers, mccourts

Huh?

Jamie McCourt argued in a motion Monday that the Dodgers should not be a party in a divorce hearing, asking the court to throw out papers filed in the team's name that "unnecessarily and gratuitously attack" her.

The motion is expected to be considered Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court as part of a hearing to determine the validity of McCourt's demand for immediate reinstatement as the Dodgers' chief executive.

Labels: dodgers, mccourts, stupid ideas

A piece in the Los Angeles Business Journal says the Dodgers are about to delay renovations to Dodger Stadium, ostensibly because of the recession.

The team's goal was to begin construction after the 2009 season and complete all three phases by 2012. With the credit markets drying up during the past 18 months, it has been difficult for the Dodgers to obtain financing for refurbishing the 47-year-old facility, team VP/PR & Broadcasting Josh Rawitch told SportsBusiness Daily.

That's kind of a funny thing to say considering the the team just came off the second-highest attendance year in its history. I don't say this as anything like an absolute certainty, but isn't it at least possible that this could be the first casualty of Frank-n-Jamie's crackup?

Labels: dodger stadium, dodgers

Leading the list is catcher J.T. Wise and OF Brian Cavazos-Galvez.

Labels: dodgers, draft, minors

Meow:

The day started with a new and salacious twist, with Frank McCourt claiming in a 664-page court filing that he fired Jamie McCourt as the club's chief executive in part for having an affair with her driver, who was employed by the Dodgers. His attorneys also allege the two spent 2 1/2 weeks in France this summer and billed the team for the trip.

...

Frank McCourt has asked the court for an expedited ruling validating that he is the sole owner [of the Dodgers], calling her claims of co-ownership "false and baseless" and damaging to the team.

Good luck with that in a community property state, Frank.

Dodgers President Dennis Mannion said in the court documents that Jamie McCourt did not show up for work more than half the time, put her own image ahead of the team's and "exhibited an almost disdainful disregard for the fundamental requirements of her job and workplace etiquette."

...

Dodgers President Dennis Mannion said in the court documents that Jamie McCourt did not show up for work more than half the time, put her own image ahead of the team's and "exhibited an almost disdainful disregard for the fundamental requirements of her job and workplace etiquette."

...

Upon his promotion to team president in March, the same day Jamie McCourt was promoted to chief executive, Mannion reported directly to Frank McCourt. In Jamie McCourt's court papers, she alleged that Mannion and Frank McCourt worked together to ensure she was "systematically excluded from business or management decisions."

Was she locked out of her office the whole time? Or was she just too interested in other things? Welcome to the law firm of That's Mine and This Is Yours!

Lawyers for Frank McCourt not only alleged that Jamie McCourt had an affair with her driver -- his grounds for firing her included "an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate employee" -- but also that she charged the Dodgers for the cost of a European trip with him, in the middle of baseball season.

Fields admitted that Jamie McCourt is in a romantic relationship with Jeff Fuller, her driver, but said the relationship started after she separated from Frank McCourt on July 6. Fields said she did not bill the team for the trip.

Oops.

But one sports executive put the chances of the team eventually being sold to a third party as high as 50-50, saying the financial partners that might be required to sustain either of the McCourts as the Dodgers' owner could be turned off by the harsh public spectacle of this divorce.

How about, 100%? Community property rules plus the McCourts' incredible leverage would, it seems to me, make this inevitable. And if it forces the team to be sold at something of a fire sale to a competent owner (hello, Mark Cuban?), so much the better.

Also — here's a week-old Daily Breeze story about Jamie McCourt's chances in the court of public opinion.

Labels: dodgers, mccourts, stupid ideas

Fascinating reading (PDF); page 4, for instance, Jamie doesn't select "incurable insanity" as the reason for requesting the dissolution. Then of course there's the insane demands that have MSTI in apoplexy.

Labels: dodgers, mccourts, stupid ideas