Ben and Sam slum it with a bunch of bad teams from baseball’s underclass and speculate about which has the least hope of going all the way before 2022, then discuss Jimmy Rollins’ benching and how much running out a popup really matters.

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Shane Victorino was recently asked if he would return to the Dodgers in a part-time role next season. One of the many pieces the Dodgers added near the trade deadline, the former all-star centerfielder was adamant that he’ll seek regular playing time in his next deal. Given Victorino’s sentiments and the crowded Dodgers outfield, his return likely isn’t in the cards. However, the Dodgers may need someone like him over the next year or two as an insurance policy on Carl Crawford or a stopgap until Yasiel Puig is ready.

When the Dodgers acquired Crawford, along with Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez …and Nick Punto in last week’s megadeal, they put the finishing touches on a very expensive outfield for the foreseeable future.

The move didn’t come without consequences. In addition to the hefty contracts now on the books, the Dodgers created a positional logjam that may prove difficult to solve without eating salary or making subsequent trades.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Daily Notes Programming Message
2. Notable Weekend Games
3. Complete Weekend Schedule (Including MLB.TV Free Game)

Daily Notes Programming Message
Programming Note
At the risk of disappointing the otherwise entirely cheerful reader, both the Saturday and Sunday editions of the Daily Notes will be omitted from these electronic pages as the author attends a wedding this weekend.

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Anthony Gose has seen his big-league career get off to a slow start. The Toronto Blue Jays outfielder has hit just .183/.256/.244 in 92 plate appearances since debuting in mid-July. He promises to get much better as he matures, though. As one of the top prospects in Toronto’s organization, the 22-year-old (as of Aug. 10) left-handed hitter has both a sprinter’s speed and emerging power (70 stolen bases and 16 home runs last year in Double-A). He also has excellent defensive chops, including good instincts and a well-above-average arm. What he lacks is experience, which he should gain a lot more of this coming month.

Gose came to Toronto in 2010 from the Phillies, via the Astros, in a three-team deal. He talked about his development path — as well as his first week as a big- leaguer — when the Blue Jays visited Fenway Park last month.

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Gose on developing as a hitter: “A tremendous amount has changed since I was in the Florida State League [in 2010]. There’s been the whole transformation of my swing — my mechanics. That’s been a gradual thing ever since I was traded over here, and even throughout this season. There have also been, at times, more drastic changes. Now it’s more just fine-tuning things; it’s more on the smaller end of changes.

“When I got traded over, it became more of being able to swing the bat for a little bit more power — trying to drive the ball. I’ve been focusing on making two-strike adjustments and barreling the ball more consistently, as well as just getting on base.

“I went through a number of different stances when I first got over. Read the rest of this entry »

Overlord Dave and I exchange a lot of emails, and earlier Thursday he sent me an email declaring that everybody’s talking about the Padres. I chuckled heartily to myself, as Dave is one of the funniest people I know. The Padres are about as forgettable a franchise as any in the major professional sports. They could win seven consecutive World Series and still people would only talk about them in order to complain about the camouflage uniforms. But while everybody most certainly is not talking about the Padres right now, more people are talking about the Padres right now than were talking about the Padres some months ago. That’s because the Padres have been playing some outstanding baseball.

By their standards, at least. Maybe “outstanding” is too strong a term, but since June 10 — an endpoint carefully selected to make the Padres look as good as possible — the Padres have gone 41-30 and they’ve outscored the opposition by 23 runs. Overall, they’ve drawn to within a game and a half of the Red Sox, and while the Red Sox clearly aren’t what they were supposed to be, that’s a psychologically significant fun fact. The Padres and the Red Sox aren’t too different. The Padres now might well be better than the Red Sox now. What a game, baseball.

The Padres are nowhere close to a playoff race, because before they caught fire, they played baseball as if they were literally on fire. Yet their stretch of success has people wondering if the playoffs might be in the Padres’ near-term future. Let’s examine how this stretch has happened, and what the Padres’ outlook looks like.

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Because he is a man who hates joy, Walt Jocketty said yesterday that Billy Hamilton would “probably not” be called up to the majors in September, as the Reds put the finishing touches on a first-place campaign. (Hamilton has been assigned to the Peoria Javelinas of the Arizona Fall League.) But you never know — as Lloyd Christmas might say, there’s a chance — so I think it’s still worth writing about Sliding Billy, the man who could reach the century mark in steals for the first time in a quarter-century.
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Dustin Ackley has a strikeout problem. It’s not a problem new to him at this level. Last season in the American League, average hitters struck out on 18% of his trips to the plate. Dustin Ackley did so in 21%. However, it was new to him overall. In the minors, Ackley was terrific at avoiding strikeouts. With Tacoma in 2011, Ackley struck out on 12% of his PAs whilst the average PCL hitter would strike out 18% of the time.

The low strikeouts in the minors made sense. Ackley was billed as a polished hitter with good contact skills and a good eye for the strike zone. And indeed, Ackley has had fewer swinging strikeouts than average at every level, even including his two years now in the Majors.

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Tentative rosters for the Arizona Fall League were released on Aug. 29. The fall developmental league is designed to help prospects received extra seasoning and coaching at the conclusion of the minor league season. Each organization contributes players to the six-team league. The league typically shifts in favor of the hitters because teams are generally reluctant to assign top arms to the league – unless they’re attempting to make up for lost innings due to injuries.

The Mesa Solar Sox club consists of players from five organizations – Baltimore, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles NL, and Chicago NL. Below are some interesting names set to appear on the roster. Full rosters can be found here.

Mike Belfiore, LHP, Baltimore: A former supplemental first round draft pick, Belfiore doesn’t have the same stuff he once did but he was a great addition to the organization when Arizona asked for Josh Bell. He pitched well in double-A and held left-handed hitters to a .170 batting average. He could provide same-handed match-ups at the big league level as a loogy or work as a long reliever. Belfiore, 23, is eligible for the Rule 5 draft this off-season so the organization will have to decide if its going to add him to the 40-man roster by the November deadline; his fall performance could help sway the decision.

Nick Castellanos, 3B/OF: Detroit: One of the top prospects on the squad – along with Chicago’s Javier Baez and Houston’s Jonathan Singleton – Castellanos could use the AFL as a spring board to a big-league assignment in 2013. A natural third baseman, Castellanos has seen time in the outfield in 2012 as the big league club tries to find a way to fit his bat into a lineup that already features third baseman Miguel Cabrera. The young prospect probably needs another half season of seasoning in the minors after posting a 96 wRC+ in 72 double-A games after a promotion from high-A ball (186 wRC+).

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The Cardinals must be glad they won’t be seeing the Pirates again this season. Not because the Pirates were a particular thorn in the Cardinals’ side — the Pirates won the season series 8-7, but the Cardinals have had greater struggles against the Braves (1-5) and, oddly enough, the Phillies (2-5). No, the Cardinals must be glad because they’ve seen the last of Pedro Alvarez, at least until a potential playoff matchup.

Alvarez closed the season series with a home run, a double and three RBI as part of a 2-for-4 night, bringing his line for the series up to 23-for-58 with four doubles, seven home runs and seven walks. All-in-all, Alvarez compiled a .534 wOBA throughout the assault. More importantly, with the Cardinals and Pirates separated by just one game in the standings, Alvarez made the damage count — in just 15 games, Alvarez produced a massive 1.7 WPA.

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