The world according to Jim:
• Would it drive fans in other cities even further out of their minds if the Dodgers wound up three-peating despite minimal contributions from their two big free-agent signings of last winter? …
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• Kyle Tucker (four years, $240 million all told, $55 million in 2026 including a $54 million signing bonus according to Cot’s Contracts), might be starting to wake up at the plate after struggling to justify that contract for the first six-plus months. In the past eight games going into Friday night’s series opener against the Giants, he has a slash line of .310/.566/.586 with five homers, 11 RBIs and 14 runs scored in 29 at-bats.
Then again, that has come exclusively against the Cincinnati and Miami pitching staffs. But Tucker’s contract hasn’t been totally sunk money in this first year. …
• Edwin Díaz, on the other hand, signed for three years, $69 million total, and $23 million this season including a $9 million signing bonus. As of now, that comes to $3.285 million per save. In fairness, he got the win in two of his four blown saves – three of which came in August, two in back-to-back appearances in Arizona – but he has hardly been what the Dodgers envisioned when they signed him.
And he has been active 45 of a possible 178 days this season. He spent all of May, June and most of July on the injured list after a procedure to remove “loose bodies” from his elbow, and went back on the IL on Aug. 18 with neck inflammation. He’s set to be activated Friday, but barring some absolutely lights-out performances over the next two weeks, it’ll be a stretch to imagine him being on the Dodgers’ initial postseason roster. …
• I’d like to be snarky here and suggest that this proves big free-agent signings by themselves don’t automatically lead to championships – but the Mets have already proven that. …
• It became official this week and probably shouldn’t be a surprise: The Kings appointed Drew Doughty as captain, succeeding the retired Anze Kopitar. Given what Doughty has devoted to this franchise in 18 seasons and 1,279 games, including L.A.’s first Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014, it’s appropriate.
And, yes, we’re already speculating who will ultimately succeed Doughty, who turns 37 in December. Adrian Kempe, Artemi Panarin and Mikey Anderson will be the assistant captains this season … and my money’s on Mikey to eventually inherit the C on his sweater. …
• This week’s quiz: Doughty will be the Kings’ 15th captain dating to the franchise’s inception in 1967. How many of the other 14 can you name? Answer below.
• The Kings, incidentally, begin their preseason Saturday night at Ontario’s Toyota Arena against Las Vegas. Their farm club, the Ontario Reign, will be wearing purple and gold along with black this coming season. (And in an apparent nod to original Kings owner Jack Kent Cooke, who loved the color purple but hated the word and thus decreed that it officially be called Forum Blue, the Reign will label theirs as Inland Blue.)
Can we convince the big club to add those colors, too? …
• Quiz answer: Bob Wall, Larry Cahan, Bob Pulford (one season before he was named head coach in 1972), Terry Harper, Mike Murphy, Dave Lewis, Terry Ruskowski, Dave Taylor, Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille (as an interim captain early in the 1992-93 season while Gretzky was laid up with a back injury), Rob Blake (who succeeded Gretzky after the Great One was traded to St. Louis Feb. 27, 1996), Mattias Norstrom, Dustin Brown and Kopitar. …
• Meanwhile, across the county line, Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek got Cutter Gauthier’s signature on the dotted line of a six-year, $81 million deal just three hours before a more restrictive collective bargaining agreement took effect at 9 p.m. Pacific time Wednesday night.
You think Verbeek is like many of us were in school – and as, indeed, some of us still are? It takes a hard deadline to get anything done. …
• No need to rehash what happened last weekend, but this needs to be said: ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe handled herself with far more grace than those misogynist creeps who felt compelled to weigh in, as well as the idiot who generated the disgusting fake video of Steve Sarkisian slapping Rowe (and all of those who laughed about it). May that cretin have his AI toys taken away.
I’m with Team Holly. And this is yet another reminder of the garbage that women in sports media generally have to endure for no reason other than their gender. …
• UCLA’s new athletics CEO, Tim Harris, posted a large, blue W this week when he announced students now can attend football and men’s and women’s basketball games for free. This is how you (a) amp up the atmosphere at home games and (b) promote the loyalty that turns alumni into supporters and donors.
Next suggestion: Convince a corporate donor to sponsor those rooter buses from Westwood to the Rose Bowl and make them free as well. …
• The Pro Football Hall of Fame is cutting the size of its voting panel by almost half, from 50 to 28. Meanwhile, 428 ballots were cast in baseball’s Hall of Fame election last year by voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (and yes, I am one). Additionally, football Hall of Fame selectors are sworn to secrecy while BBWAA voters are encouraged to show their work, and most of us do.
Is it any wonder, then, that the general public seems far more invested in who gets to Cooperstown every year than in who gets selected for the shrine in Canton? …
• The Awful Announcing platform had this headline the other day: “Has sports on streaming failed?” The reaction (overreaction?) was to the opening week NFL ratings, with NBC’s New England-Seattle game Wednesday drawing far better national ratings than Netflix’s Rams-49ers game from Melbourne the following night.
Hidden in those numbers is a simple truth: A network over-the-air broadcast will always do better because it is more accessible – especially for those who can’t or won’t pay for all the streaming services that televise sports.
And maybe this is the pertinent question: Is the league working for the streaming service, and if so shouldn’t it be the other way around? At the very least, teams and leagues should insist that the streamer’s telecast be shown in the competing teams’ markets on either their regular TV outlets or, as the NFL does, an over-the-air channel.