You're reading it wrong -- they have eight or nine options, but it starts getting very thin before they even get to five.

Billingsley -- we're waiting to see. With P/C reporting, we'll know soon about a lot of guys!

I see this is on EPSN.com today, as well. I didn't realize that BP was once again working with ESPN. That's how I found y'all in the first place. Congrats on that and the BBWAA. - Denis

The Dodgers also have Jeff Weaver and Eric Milton as options. Whatever that is worth.

Will, I feel like you've always been very hard on Billingsley. You have commented for years that he won't make it through the season, and in fact last year insinuated that he was already injured going into spring training. I'm sure it is nothing personal, but suffice it to say, you have been badly wrong on him from the beginning.

Carroll has been sniping at Billingsley for years, making one absurd statement about the fellow after another. Let's go through this step by step:

(1). Billingley's conditioning has always been excellent; nobody but Carroll has ever questioned it. People who have stood close to Billingsley when he has been in tighter-fitting civilian clothing, rather than a baggy uniform, have noted that his body is firm, his belly is completely flat, and his physique overall is very muscular. Mass doesn't mean flab.

(2). "Sir Mix-A-Lot." Oh, it is so funny every time Carroll makes that reference when writing about Billingsley. I have laughed all twelve or so times. The point I made above is relevant here too. Some people are big in the caboose without being fat. Like Jennifer Lopez, just to name one famous person (just watch now: Carroll's new nick-name for Billingsley will be "J-Lo"). Since Billingsley's big butt isn't related to any health concerns and is just a cosmetic peculiarity, maybe Carroll can continue in the realm of talking about "who's hot and who's not" among today's baseball players by telling us which players' hair style's need work.

(3). "...and to add to the risk, a lot of miles on his young arm already." Despite Carroll having predicted every year now for quite a while that Billingsley is about to fall apart, here's the thing: Billingsley has pitched six consecutive pro seasons since being drafted out of high school, and in all that time he has never had an arm injury, has never missed a single game because of "arm soreness," even. He has only had one injury in six years that made him miss action, and that was an oblique strain three years. Thus, Billingsley has more innings on his arm than most pitchers his age because he has been a lot more durable than pitchers his age have usually been. What this fact reduces Carroll's claim to is the idea that Billingsley is a health risk because he has been just TOO healthy. I bet missing a year or two because of arm surgery would have kept those innings-pitched levels from getting so worryingly high.

If Carroll wants to try, one of these days, to write something useful related to Billingsley, here is an angle to explore: why has Billingsley's arm been so healthy, for so long? I will even help him with a starting point for such an inquiry. After the Dodgers drafted Billingsley, the MLB.com reporter who still covers the Dodgers to this day, Ken Gurnick, published an article about Billingsley, dated June 3, 2003. I quote from that article: "Billingsley was trained as a youth by his father, Jim, who read in a Nolan Ryan book that young pitchers should throw before, during, and after games to build strength. 'I'm a student of baseball, but I was a lab supervisor and I focused on the technical, little things,' said Jim Billingsley. 'We approached it from the simplest things. We never let anything mechanical slip by. That's why he's had a very healthy, strong arm.'" Later in the article, Billingsley's high-school baseball coach, Tom Held, is quoted saying of Billingsley, "His arm strength and resiliency is amazing. In four years he's never had a sore arm." So four amateur seasons plus six pro seasons equals 10 consecutive seasons now without an arm injury of even the most trivial kind. It sounds to me like there just may be some wisdom in that Nolan Ryan book Billingsley's dad read.

Unless Billingsley is living in my little corner of Canada, there's not much chance that I'm him. But I am a fan of his, which is why the nonsense you keep writing about Chad bugs me in a way it wouldn't if you were trashing, without basis, a player I couldn't give two hoots about. I would let a fan of THAT player stick up for him.

Come now Will, every Dodger Thought reader knows you have been crying wolf about Billingsley for at least the last three years.

Just curious what wall did Kuroda hit at the end of the season? Did you even look at his numbers before making such a silly claim about the best pitcher in the Dodger postseason. The guy got stronger in Aug/Sept not weaker. Maybe you are confusing June/July with being the end of the season but here in LA we play baseball into October.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=kurodhi01

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"Kershaw threw 160 innings as a 20-year-old. If he lasts the season and makes 30-plus starts, he'll push past 200 IP unless the organization places draconian limits on his workload. Find me a recent pitcher who did that at those ages and lasted."

CC Sabathia

How many pitchers threw 160 innings as a 20 year old and 200 as a 21 year old period?

Why would it take draconian limits to keep him from hitting 200 innings? 30 starts at 60 innings seems about right to me. BP doesn't expect the Dodgers to make the postseason so no October innings either. Is missing a start once a month considered draconian?

It's no surprise to see Will taking gratuitous, unsupported potshots at Billingsley again. It's almost become comical at this point, Will. It's like there's some rogue section of your brain which loses all capacity for rational thought whenever the word "Billingsley" is mentioned. Either that or there's some motivation for it we're not aware of.

Either way, your nonsensical rantings about Billingsley over a period of many years have (at least for me) served to detract significantly from your overall credibility, even though you do otherwise fine work.

Vargas gets a green light? Isn't he the one member of the rotation who missed time last year with a sore elbow?
From The Baseball Forecaster:
3-2, 4.62 ERA in 37 IP at NYM. Another step back. Pitched poorly with NYM, even worse in minors, then went down with a sore elbow in Aug. 30-year-old journeyman with marginal skills AND a bad arm? Sign me up!

Over the last 20 years there has been only one major league pitcher who met Will's criteria for comparison to Kershaw (160 IP at age 20; 200 IP at age 21), and that is noted injury sufferer C.C. Sabathia.

(Of course, this is incomplete information - I don't have a database to search for pitchers who had Kershawesque IP totals in the majors/minors combined.)

I'm just wondering what the numbers mean.