Adam Kennedy will be 36 years old next year. It seems like it was only a few years ago that he was a promising St. Louis Cardinal that was traded to the Angels along with an overweight starting pitcher (Ken Bottenfield) for Jim Edmonds. That was almost 12 years ago. Now the Dodgers are zeroing in on him as a utility infielder. Honestly I’m fine with the signing as long as Aaron Miles is allowed to go elsewhere. Kennedy’s numbers suffered last year because at age 35 he moved to Safeco for a year. I think he’ll do much better playing back at home in SoCal.
Miles can walk as far as I’m concerned. “Walk,” now that’s something that he was unable to do on the playing field with his OBP about the same as his BA. As well as Miles played as a Dodger last season, the addition of Adam Kennedy over him is an improvement to me.
I would have preferred Wilson Betemit over Kennedy, but perhaps the price wouldn’t have been right. Kennedy has to be signing for somewhere in the neighborhood of $750,000 I would guess.
Now if Ned is planning on signing both Kennedy and Miles, I’ll throw my hands up in the air and give up. He couldn’t possibly be considering that? No, please don’t tell me that’ll happen.
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So Judge Gross extended the negotiation window another week between Fox and the McCourt owned Dodgers. Their Mediator, retired Judge Joseph Farnan, worked his magic between McCourt and MLB and other parties back in October. Can he possibly resolve the TV contract dilemma? I’m surprised that Fox is considering working with McCourt, they have an ironclad contract that doesn’t allow him to negotiate with others until Nov. 2012. I see no advantage in them tearing that up.
One thing seems certain though. The Dodgers purse strings are tight due to the uncertainty of the ownership situation and Colletti has let it be known that he really has very little more than can shell out on additional player acquisitions. It looks like Hiroki Kuroda’s Dodger career is a thing of the past.
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Congratulations to former Dodger Bobby Valentine who has reached an agreement to take over as manager of the Boston Red Sox. I always felt that Bobby would one day be the Dodgers skipper. Who knows what the future holds, but it doesn’t look like that’ll happen anytime in the near future.
It’ll be interesting who ESPN puts in the booth with Hershiser next season. It was refreshing this past season to have both Orel and Bobby in the booth as compared to Joe Morgan’s anti-Dodger bias that we had to endure for so many years.
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| Gilbert, King and McCourt...in happier times |
My favorite in the ownership sweepstakes is Dennis Gilbert, (with Peter O’Malley a close second). Tony Jackson at ESPNLA and Steve Dilbeck at the L.A. Times report that Larry King has joined the Gilbert group. His financial contribution will be small, but he brings some celebrity clout and Dodger fan bloodlines that date back a long way with him.
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