As If Frank McCourt Hasn't Flushed Away Enough Money...

By The Common Man

It’s official. With Jamey Carroll on his way to Minnesota, the Dodgers have reached out and signed Mark Ellis to handle the keystone for the next two years. For the privilege of employing his services, Dylan Hernandez reports they will pay him $8.75 million, but just $2.5 million of which is for 2012. There is team option for a third year, in which the Dodgers can pay Ellis $5.75 million, or let him walk for $1 million.


That’s a pretty remarkable payday for a player who is coming off of a .288 OPB and is so often injured he has only played in 150 games twice in nine seasons. Even at 34, Ellis is still a plus defender at second base, but his offense has taken a hit. Not even a second half in the friendly confines of Colorado could make him look good. He was terrible in his most extensive action since 2007.

Random Thursday: The 1936 Bees and the 2011 Dodgers

Back in the bad old days before we joined ESPN, and The Common Man was blogging solo, he used to do a thing called Random Thursday, where he fired up the random button on BaseballReference.com, and let it take him wherever it wanted. TCM felt like dusting off the old feature today, and got some pretty surprising results. Jumping from his last stop, a random 2010 contest between the Phillies and D-Backs, TCM leapt backwards almost 75 years to the 1936 Boston Bees (Braves). And, appropriately enough, he found a MLB owner leveraged to the hilt, unable to cover his debts, and a league that had to step in and assume control of a financially troubled franchise.

Missing the Grade

By The Common Man

The Common Man really didn’t want to write today, at least not about this. He’s getting ready for his big gig on the SweetSpot blog next Monday. But he just couldn’t let Jayson Stark’s offseason grades for the NL West go by without saying something. After all, Jayson gave the Padres a C and the Dodgers a B+ for their efforts this Winter, while TCM ranked the Padres #1 overall in their offseason execution, while Los Angeles fell to #17.


The Common Man knew lots of students in high school and college who never really applied themselves like they could have to their studies. They were smart, they knew it, and they got by on acceptable marks while biding their time until bigger and better opportunities came around. Meanwhile, TCM also knew classmates who would turn in a flurry of paper, assignments and extra credit, pandering to the teacher and reciting back what they had just been told, verbatim. They didn’t learn anything, but they looked like good students. Most of those guys and women are in middle management now. The other guys, the underenthused, tend to be running non-profits, getting PhDs, working for think tanks, and advising US Senators. Jayson doesn’t seem to know the difference.

3 Questions: Los Angeles Dodgers

By The Common Man

The National League has 16 teams to the AL’s 14, so rather than waiting for Bill to post the next installment of 3 Questions, TCM’s going to jump ahead of him here to look at the LA Dodgers (as always, click here to see other entries in the 3 Questions series). Of course, the danger of rolling these out over several weeks is that your initial questions may get answered, such as whether the divorce between Frank and Jamie McCourt will hamper the Dodgers’ ability to spend. Indeed, Frank has opened up his wallet this winter to re-sign Hiroki Koruda, and pick up free agents Juan Uribe and Jon Garland, amongst others. So here are the new and improved questions while we wait to see what the long term ramifications will be of the Dodger Divorce.