Deviation in Dodger Direction

For the first time in 8 years, the Dodgers seem to be making the right moves. Since dismembering a respectable team built around Gary Sheffield and Shawn Green, the Dodgers were stuck in a cycle of questionable and disappointing signings. They brought in the ever-underachieving Jeromy Burnitz. They took a chance on two talented but injury-prone players, Milton Bradley and J.D. Drew. They wheelchaired in two has-beens clearly on the decline, Jeff Kent and Nomar Garciaparra. They grossly overpaid Rafael Furcal and Juan Pierre. They took a swing at a no-longer-on-steroids-and-thus-no-longer-effective Luis Gonzalez. And who can forget the most recent blunder, Andruw Jones. Andruw Jones...what more needs to be said? These mind-numbing acquisitions would result in almost a decade of the Blue Crew struggling just to make the post-season.

For some reason, this year is different. With a handful of young talent keeping the Dodgers neck and neck with the Diamondbacks for the NL West lead, Ned Colletti seems to have realized that a few safe additions might just push the Dodgers over the edge.

With youngster Blake DeWitt slightly lagging in big-league development, Colletti took a gamble on Casey Blake (not really a gamble, Blake is a solid bet for 20 home runs and 80 RBI every year). Then came the surprise acquisition of Manny Ramirez, who's slugging .746 in 17 games thus far with the Dodgers LOL (LOL = laughing out loud), really a no-risk no-brainer for Colletti when you consider that Manny is in the last year of his contract, and that Boston, not LA, will be responsible for the majority of Manny's remaining salary this year. Even with the Arizona acquisition of Adam Dunn, the Dodgers seemed poised to take over the NL West.

But Colletti still wasn't satisfied. In fact, he was determined to make the Dodgers 4 sizes better ('sizes,' in this sense, is spelled Cy's). Deviating away from the time-tested (time-tested for failure) strategy of gambling on injury-prone stars, Colletti decided to invest in a tank. I use the word tank reluctantly, because even tanks experience more technical and mechanical problems than Greg Maddux. In his 23-year career (let me write that out for those of you who may have misread that: TWENTY-THREE YEARS) and 22 years as a full-time starter, Maddux has notched less than 30 starts just twice, and has not ONCE notched less than 20 starts.

Even at age 43, Greg Maddux gets the job done. In his last 5 starts before coming back to the Dodgers, Maddux is 3-1 with 4 quality starts, and a 17:1 K:BB ratio. In his prime, Maddux was the greatest. At age 43, Maddux is still better than most. If only for this year, the Dodgers are destined for glory.