Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Ausmus to back-up Martin

MLB.com is reporting that the Dodgers have signed Brad Ausmus to a 1 year deal worth $1 million. Cross back-up catcher off the list...

3 comments:

Brandon said...

FINALLY!

We finally have a real back up catcher.

Seriously, for awhile (or is that AH-while) last season we were stuck with Gary Bennett, who had to rainbow his throws back to the mound because HE WAS AFRAID TO THROW THE BALL BACK TO THE PITCHER. Only the Dodgers would sign such a wuss.

Read the report that appeared in the paper the next day...

"But the play that will dominate "SportsCenter" was the three-base throwing error by catcher Gary Bennett. Bennett smothered Kuroda's splitter in the dirt as Aybar swung and missed, then airmailed his throw five feet over first baseman James Loney. By the time Ethier retrieved the ball on the warning track, Casey Kotchman had scored from second base.

It brought out of the shadows Bennett's obvious but unspoken throwing problem. Although he can fire throws to the bases, he seems to have a mental block about return throws to pitchers, taking three steps toward the pitcher, then making an exaggerated lob to the mound."

Brandon said...

Yikes, in reading some of the other bloggers thoughts on Ausmus you'd have thought the Dodgers just brought back Todd Hundley.

I'm still cool with it. Its a backup catcher for goodness sakes.

The backup catcher is the last guy off the bench. I mean how much harm can he do this season? Catch the ball, throw it back. Simple.

Doc said...

Ausmus is a pretty good backup catcher in my opinion.

It's hard to replace Russell with anyone, and Ausmus might only start 20-25 games. But his role will clearly be as a clubhouse guy. Ausmus has a good reputation and he knows a thing or two about catching.

Last year, we all saw Mark Sweeney as a waste of space but during the celebrations we were able to see that Sweeney kept guys loose and helped some of the young kids transition. I think Ausmus will take over that role this year.

Really, this move is similar to the Lieberthal signing 2 seasons ago...but hopefully the Dodgers won't be forced to play Martin 150 games in 2009. When a team can't score runs and is in the thick of a pennant race it's hard to sit one of your best hitters. So let's hope they score lots of runs and run away with the division.