Who are these Dodgers?

Like with every other season, the young 2012 baseball season has shown us a few surprises, while most can be written off by small sample sizes (see my last article) some need to stick around.  The Los Angeles Dodgers are one of these early surprises, and they certainly look like they are set to stay.  I'm sure nobody is going to interrupt me now to argue this point, but it is worth it to wonder why they can be considered a surprise at all.  How did the 2011 Dodgers, a team with the NL Cy Young award winner and man who finished second in the MVP balloting manage to win only 82 games and finish 11.5 games out of their division lead?  So lets investigate the changes in personnel from last year to this year.

I don't get the appeal.

Infield

       2011                                                                      2012

C:   Rod Barajas                                                            A.J. Ellis

1B: James Loney                                                          James Loney

2B: Jamey Carroll/ Aaron Miles                                      Mark Ellis

3B: Juan Uribe/ Aaron Miles                                           Juan Uribe

SS: Jamey Carroll/Dee Gordon/Rafael Furcal                   Dee Gordon

Taking a quick look there are two possibilities for inadequacies in the infield for the 2011 Dodgers, they either had injury problems or terribly defines roles.  At three of these positions there were multiple players with very similar games played at that position that I could not allow myself to keep from using the slashes.  But every team is bound to have their changes due to injury, slumps, trades or prospects coming into the league, so who are we to judge the 2011 Dodgers on their flexibility.  Lets look at the players.  Catching is neither team's strong suit trading out a 35 year old catcher who would be proud of a .250 average for a 31 year old who is playing his first full season in the pros, both are a far cry from the days of Mike Piazza (or even Russell Martin.)  James Loney has maintained his spot as the everyday first basemen despite having a good argument for being among the worst everyday first basemen in the league.  I'll give a slight edge to Mark Ellis over the Jamey Carroll/Aaron Miles collective, even though I am not completely sure why.  There is effectively no change at third other than Juan Uribe being a year older and slightly more rotund.  But before you think the Dodgers infield has gotten no better let me direct you to the shortstop position.  Rafael Furcal struggled last year before getting hurt then traded, and while Jamey Carroll held his own at the position for a while, but Dee Gordon (son of former Relief Pitcher Tom "Flash" Gordon) is a clear improvement.  Despite getting called up early in the season and struggling as the starting shortstop for all of June, Gordon was given the starting role again in September.  During that 26 game period Gordon hit .372 with a .398 OBP and scored 21 runs stealing 12 bases, not too shabby for a leadoff hitter.  He also helps me support my belief that a productive leadoff hitter is the most important thing in baseball as the Dodgers got a head-start on this season going 17-9 that month.

VROOOOM!

Outfield

       2011                                                                     2012

LF: Tony Gwynn Jr.                                                      Juan Rivera/Tony Gwynn Jr.

CF: Matt Kemp                                                            Matt Kemp

RF: Andre Ethier                                                          Andre Ethier

I think it is obvious to see that the only change in these two outfields is they are now platooning Juan Rivera and Tony Gwynn Jr.  Both of them seem to be playing to their norms even considering the fact they have only played two weeks worth of games so even there is seemingly no change.  Matt Kemp put up serious numbers last year after breaking it off with notorious career-inconveniencer Rihanna, and nearly won the MVP, his performance thus far has shown that he wants to finish the job this year and perhaps even have a 50 homer 50 steal season, but I am exercising my right to show a reasonable doubt for the latter.  Andre Ethier is a very talented hitter who slugged 60 points below his career mark last year, don't expect him to be so futile this year, but also don't expect him to maintain the .738 slugging percentage he has so far this year.  He will probably let it settle somewhere around the .500 mark, but continue to drive in a ton of runs with Gordon and Kemp ahead of him all season.  

Left: Bad for your career.  Right:Good for driving in runs.

Pitching

       2011                                                                    2012

SP: Clayton Kershaw                                                 Clayton Kershaw

       Chad Billingsley                                                    Chad Billingsley

       Ted Lilly                                                               Ted Lilly

       Hiroki Kuroda                                                      Chris Capuano

       Rubby De La Rosa                                               Aaron Harang

CL: Javy Guerra                                                          Javy Guerra

The relief corps isn't much different so don't blame me for not wanting to type out a bunch of names I'm not going to pay much attention to, just know they still have Matt Guerrier and Kenley Jansen, and are going to use them a lot it seems.  The starting rotation actually looks to have gotten worse after losing Hiroki Kuroda and his 3.07 ERA to the Yankees, but Chad Billingsley has picked up the slack by pitching incredibly well in his 3 starts this year, and living up to the possibilities people thought he had 2 years ago.  Clayton Kershaw has no record on the season, but he is pitching up to par with last year.  The rest of the guys are basically place fillers much like Billingsley, Lily and De La Rosa were last year, they go in there to hope things don't get too out of hand.  Javy Guerra has also started the season pretty well too.

He looks rather content with that pitch.

So actually on the whole, this Dodgers squad is a lot similar to the one from last year with some slight improvements and a few hot players.  So if you really want to pinpoint exactly what is making the Dodgers such a scary force this year you can dive really deep into the numbers or do what I'm gonna do, call it luck and enjoy it.

Patching this on your sleeve can't hurt.