Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Welcome to Clayton Kershaw day! The Dodgers start a three game set in San Diego tonight with their ace on the mound. Kershaw will be facing Odrisamer Despaigne of the Padres, who is also an extremely fun pitcher to watch, but for entirely different reasons. He isn’t very good, but he has a ton of different pitches and several different arm slots. It’s fascinating. Justin Turner is back in the lineup after missing a game due to a foul ball off his knee. A.J. Ellis will catch Kershaw tonight, but the rest of the lineup is pretty much business as usual.
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Dodgers
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Padres
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7:10 p.m.
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San Diego, Ca.
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CF
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Pederson
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1B
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Myers
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RF
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Puig
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C
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Norris
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1B
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Gonzalez
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LF
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Upton
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2B
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Kendrick
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RF
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Kemp
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3B
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Turner
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2B
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Solarte
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LF
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Ethier
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3B
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Middlebrooks
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SS
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Rollins
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CF
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Upton
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C
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Ellis
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SS
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Barmes
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P
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Kershaw (L)
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P
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Despaigne (L)
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Tonight’s pre-game also revealed some positive injury news. Brandon Beachy is now ready for a minor league rehab assignment. With the Dodgers struggling for major league starting pitcher depth, a healthy return by Beachy would be extremely helpful. Scott Van Slyke is on the mend as well, also starting a rehab assignment in the next few days. Carl Crawford is a bit further away, but he is now swinging a bat which is a step in the right direction. Paco Rodriguez is also healing and threw a bullpen session today.
The big (?) news today was yet another minor league/40 man roster transaction. It has been awhile since we’ve had one of those! The Dodgers purchased the contract of Ronald Torreyes from the Blue Jays, and designated Darwin Barney for assignment. So, who is Ronald Torreyes (don’t feel bad, I hadn’t heard of him before today either)? The good news is that he doesn’t strike out. In 5+ minor league seasons, Torreyes has struck out just 133 times (5.9%). He can also play okay defense, mostly at second, but Fangraphs’ Kiley McDaniel notes that he can also play short (and also that he’s about 5’7″, 150 pounds).
The problem is that other than not striking out, Torreyes really can’t hit. In 72 plate appearances for the Astros’ AAA affiliate (Fresno, in the hitter-friendly PCL) this year, he hit .200/.211/.214 (8 wRC+). The Astros then sold his contract to the Blue Jays, who assigned him to AA New Hampshire. In 54 plate appearances, he hit .140/.204/.180 (10 wRC+) there. Both of those samples are pretty small; Torreyes produced a 90 wRC+ in 519 plate appearances for AAA Oklahoma City (then an Astros affiliate) last year. However, he doesn’t take walks and he has absolutely no power (just four home runs since being promoted to AA in 2013), so it’s hard to see him hitting well enough to be a major league regular or much of a contributor at all. In that sense, it kind of sucks to lose Darwin Barney for that. However, Barney was having offensive issues at his own for Oklahoma City this year (.214/.273/.259 in 121 plate appearances) and his $2.5 million contract gives him a decent shot to clear waivers.
Overall, it’s hard to see why the Dodgers made this transaction, but it’s hard to see it backfiring. And if this is the end of Barney in Dodger blue, we’ll always have this:
— Daniel Brim (@DanielBrim) August 22, 2014
And this:
— TheConman (@akaTheConman) August 21, 2014
Thanks for the memories.
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