Around The Web: Time Travel

NBC Sports: Matthew Pouliot has a great series of articles that aims to see which teams had the best collections of talent that started out with the organization. The Dodgers? Not surprisingly, they're ranked second.

Deadspin: Their "Why Your Stadium Sucks" series has finally come to Chavez Ravine. In all honesty, there's not much to argue here, and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. A couple of generic stereotypes here and there, a reference to the dubious way the stadium was built, and a few first hand accounts of fights, but nothing really new or horrid. Besides, i'm never going to waste my breath defending the people who act out in the pavilions. Most of the stuff said about the environment out there is true, and it's why I sit behind home plate or behind the 1st/3rd base dugout.

The Baseball Analysts: Statistically speaking, who has the best stuff in the league? To the surprise of many Dodger fans, Chad Billingsley ranks sixth in the majors among righties. On a per pitch basis, Jonathan Broxton finishes third among righties in the bigs. Not bad.

Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness: A recent recap of Brad Penny being a dick.

Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness: That Manny guy, he's doing pretty good again.

Sons Of Steve Garvey: "Steve Sax" addresses a hilarious quote about Manny Ramirez.

A rival talent evaluator told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney that he is not all that impressed with Manny Ramirez and the Dodgers could be a better team with Juan Pierre in the lineup instead.

Gee, I wonder why a rival talent evaluator wants the Dodgers to play Pierre more.

Reflections Of Blue: The Dodgers aren't necessarily blowing the division, the Rockies are just playing well. Now you know how everybody else felt when the Dodgers were running away with it, huh?

Twitter: Orlando Hudson is on Twitter!

L.A. Dodger Talk: Mark says Rafael Furcal needs to hit eighth, and then suggests his ideal lineup. I've agreed with removing Furcal for a while, and his lineup is pretty much what i've wanted for a couple weeks now. Seems like all the Dodger blogs are on the same page, so if only Joe Torre would actually do it...

L.A. Dodger Talk: Mark wants the Dodgers to trade for Hanley Ramirez.

9. Next, I’d trade Dee Gordon, Andrew Lambo, Scott Elbert, Chris Withrow, James Adkins, Ethan Martin and James McDonald (I’d overwhelm the Marlins) to Florida for Hanley Ramirez. All the Dodgers have to do is rename Mannywood to Hanleywood!

So basically everybody relevant in our farm system (minus James Adkins because he sucks) for Hanley Ramirez. Would I do it? Yup. It's a large price to pay, and it's probably more surplus value (statistically speaking) from the Dodger side of things, but Hanley is under an extremely reasonable contract and he's arguably the best player in baseball.

Of course, the problem with this is from the Marlins side. I don't see why they would do this. Surely they could extract more high level pieces or young major leaguers from other teams if they put him on the block. It's an idea, but I think if he was made available to trade, you'd see almost every team throwing their best at the Marlins.

Ump Bump: The 2003 Dodgers were almost great.

Baseball Prospectus: If you're a traditional right-handed pitcher, you better throw hard.

Nearly 92 percent of all right-handers have at least average velocity, 80 percent are above average, and well over half (55.7 percent) have true plus fastballs. If anything, it's a cruel reminder that you can have as much pitchability or command as you want, but unless you are really unique, if not downright special, it's just not going to matter unless you also throw one by a guy once in a while.

Should it be surprising? No. But it does make the point that while scouts and executives do miss on soft tossing righties (Greg Maddux), there is a reason that they do so. They are simply playing the odds, and I honestly can't blame them for it.