Los Angeles Dodgers

Juan Pierre is baseball’s best fourth outfielder.

The problem is that Juan Pierre plays like—and is being paid like—a starting outfielder.

Pierre, 32, has two more years and $18.5 million remaining on the five-year, $44 million pact he signed with Los Angeles prior to the 2007 season.

While literally millions of New Yorkers (including myself) were busy celebrating the 27th New York Yankee World Championship up and down downtown New York's Canyon of Heroes, the rest of Major League Baseball began offseason business as usual.

The National League Champion Phillies moved quickly in picking up the 2010 club-option on their lefty ace Cliff Lee.

Lee, who went 7-4 with a 3.39 ERA in 12 starts for Philadelphia during the latter half of 2009, will be owed $9 million in the final year of his contract.

A Superior Court Commissioner ruled that there is no state law to give back Jamie McCourt her role as CEO of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“From an employment analysis, there’s no law that would support the court reinstating an employee,” said court commissioner Scott Gordon on Thursday morning.

Her husband, Frank McCourt, fired Jamie last month on the grounds that she was having an inappropriate relationship with an employee and was also doing a poor job as CEO.

No, that would have been that of Paul DePodesta, in 2005. As a Moneyball fan, I was sorry to see DePodesta go. And in fact, it may have cost the Dodgers the 2009 World Series, as discussed below.

Shortly after taking the reins, DePodesta angered Dodgers fans with a trade that at its heart was Paul Lo Duca for a pitcher, Brad Penny.

Despite being a catcher, Lo Duca was a "league average" hitter, that is to say, one of the better batters on a light-hitting Dodgers team.

Amidst a court struggle that will decide if Frank McCourt owns the entirety of the Los Angeles Dodgers, his soon-to-be ex-wife Jamie McCourt alleges that she owns a share of the ballclub.

Frank, owner of the franchise, fired Jamie from her post as CEO last week for reasons he cited as “insubordination.”

Like not wanting to be married to you anymore, Frank?

In a move that should come as a surprise to nobody, SI.com’s Jon Heyman is reporting that Manny Ramirez will exercise his $20 million player option for 2010.

Nobody in the Los Angeles Dodger organization should be surprised by this. This was a no-brainer decision for Ramirez. At the end of the day, Ramirez didn’t have any other options.

What was he going to do? Back out of his contract and test the free agent market?

Sometimes, all a manager can do is sit back and shake his head.

Joe Torre was forced to sit and watch a high-caliber team under perform and make too many mistakes in a forgetful 4-1 NLCS series loss to the Philadelphia Phillies.

In their four losses, the Dodgers actually outhit the Phillies 35-34.

Considering that they went 79-15 during the regular season when outhitting an opponent, that’s a pitiful result for the Dodgers.

Is there a better fit out there for the Dodgers than Dan Uggla?

There is no reason to believe that the Marlins will not be shopping him around over the winter. He got into a well publicised argument with the teams star Hanley Ramirez during the regular season, so guess who is leaving town?

Much has been made of Manny Ramirez' location during the National League Championship Series Game Four rally that essentially killed the Los Angeles Dodgers' 2009 season. The Bums' year didn't officially end until Brad Lidge pulled the curtain on Game Five, but—if any baseball game were ever a formality—the clincher qualified in the wake of the devastation wrought on Monday night.

Given all that rode on Jonathan Broxton preserving the win that evaporated with Jimmy Rollins' scalding line drive, one would think Man-Ram could've troubled himself to stick around in the dugout.

What happens to a team when its strongest attribute goes south? Although the Dodgers' hitting was nothing to write home about, what really ruined them was their pitching.

A 5.30 ERA in the postseason. A 7.30 ERA in the NLCS.  Starters like Kershaw, Wolf, and Kuroda fell apart against the Phillies.

Who would have thought it? Would the Dodgers have won their division if their pitchers had pitched like this in the regular season? Probably not.

By contrast, the Phillies had ERAs of 3.04 in the postseason, and 3.07 in the NLCS, basically Dodgers type numbers.