Room for Improvement? Part 1 - Offense

How will the Dodgers improve over last season, besides a full season of Manny Ramirez? Well, let's look position by position, but just at offense for now.

Team

6194 PA, 264/.333/.399, 126 SB/43 CS, 137 HR/543BB/1032K

Catcher

Russell Martin - 650 PA, .280/.385/.396, 18 SB/6 CS, 13 HR/90BB/83K

Others - 80 PA, .213/.263/.320, 0 SB/0 CS, 2 HR/4BB/12K

Martin can have a better season by having a better backup catcher and batting 6th, where he'll have a few less PAs. The bar is low enough any replacement level player should beat it. Brad Ausmus needs to look a bit more alive, but maybe Torre will like him enough to give him some PT.

First Base

James Loney - 651 PA, .289/.338/.434, 7 SB/4 CS, 13 HR/45BB/85K

Loney was in his first season as a full time first baseman, and came up an averagish hitter overall. He hit fewer homers in a little more than half the plate appearances, reflecting that fewer of his fly balls were going long. Loney is also a much better hitter away from Dodger Stadium, so one idea would be to give him his off days at home. Still, he should rebound to about an .800-.820 OPS, particularly as his LD% stays over 20%, and he just turns 25 this coming season. One item of note: Loney's platoon splits in 2008 appeared quite dreadful, while in 2007 they looked more favorable. Loney's BABIP vs lefties was .273 this year, compared to a .311 mark for his ML career and a .323 mark overall, so one would expect some improvement.

Second Base and Third Base

Jeff Kent - 474 PA, 280/.327/.418, 0 SB/1 CS, 12HR/25BB/52K

Blake DeWitt - 421 PA, 264/.344/.383, 3SB/0CS, 9HR/45BB/68K

Casey Blake - 233 PA, 251/.313/.460, 1 SB/0 CS, 10 HR/16BB/52K

To understand the situation, Casey Blake will play a full year and Jeff Kent will retire. Casey tends to have one or two months with ridiculous BABIP which carry his season, and the rest of the time he'll have like a .240 average on balls in play. The Dodgers never got any of his high BABIP stuff, but fortunately he showed he could still hit a long ball here and there. In a full season one would expect his average and OBP to be up by about .20, although his slugging likely won't go up.

Shortstop

Angel Berroa - 256 PA, .230/.304/.310, 0 SB/0 CS, 1 HR/20BB/41K
Nomar Garciaparra - 181 PA, 264/.326/.466, 1 SB/1CS, 8 HR/15 BB/11 K
Rafael Furcal - 164 PA, .357/.439/.573, 8 SB/3 CS, 5 HR/20 BB/17 K
Chin-Lung Hu - 129 PA, .181/.252/.233, 2 SB/0 CS, 0 HR/11BB/23K
OVERALL - .258/.331/.394

Nomar looks like he still has something left as a bench player, but he might retire rather than realize what he has left. Meanwhile, Berroa and Hu stunk up the joint more than Nomar or Furcal could make it look good, reducing the performance to something resembling Furcal's 2007 season. A return to 2006 form would be what the Dodgers would hope for, but it remains to be seen what will happen with his health. It also remains to be seen what DeJesus/Hu/Abreu can do for the middle infield, particularly after Hu fixes his eyes.

Outfield
Kemp - 657, .290/.340/.459, 35/11, 18/46/153
Ethier - 596, .305/.375/.510, 6/3, 20/59/88
Pierre - 406, .283/.327/.328. 40/12, 1/22/24
Jones - 238, .158/.256/.249, 0/1, 3/27/76
Ramirez - 229, .396/.489/.743, 2/0, 17/35/38
Young - 143, .246/.321/.341, 0/0, 1/14/34

The good news is Andruw Jones will be gone. The bad news is that Manny Ramirez is not under contract yet. The Dodgers would improve immensely with an outfield of Manny-Kemp-Ethier, but without Manny, they would need to sign Abreu or Griffey just to break even. Dunn would improve them. Ethier might drop off a bit, but seems to be dependable for something around .300/.360/.490. Matt Kemp could take off this year with newly improved plate patience and begin racking up home run totals. Juan Pierre as the left fielder will cause a slight decrease in offense unless Kemp makes up the difference.

Current Lineup:

Furcal - ss
Martin - c
Kemp - cf
Ethier - rf
Blake - 3b
Loney - 1b
DeWitt - 2b
Pierre - lf