Midnight Sports Report - Dodgers Spending Like Crazy

Every night around midnight LAist will tell you what went down the day before in the world of LA sports

Since both the Lakers and Clippers are off today, as they prepare to square off against each other tomorrow night, let's turn our attention on the Blue Crew.

Today the Dodgers signed Nomar to $18.5 million for two years of fun. They are also close to signing Juan Pierre to $45 million for four years of lead-off excitement.

Dodger Thoughts isn't very happy with spending $45 mil on Pierre, claiming that despite getting more hits than anyone in the NL last year, he isn't that kickass of a hitter. And he's even worse in the field. And despite stealing 50 bags a year he gets caught 20 times.

LAist thinks both of these signings are unfortunate. Sure Nomar was clutch in some pretty exciting games last year, but bro's always hurt, and for our tastes he doesn't provide enough pop to be a Dodger first baseman.

With Jason Repko and Matt Kemp chomping at the bit for a regular gig in the bigs, and Kemp showing all signs of earning it, we don't understand why teams are falling over themselves to keep Pierre. According to ESPN, the Dodgers are about to spend $10 million more than the Giants for the lead-off hitter. Do you really have to pay that much to persuade someone to stay out of Frisco and off that miserable team?

On a Dodger team that already has a perfectly good lead-off hitter in Rafael Furcal, who hit .300 and swiped 37 bases, why break the bank on a second one?

AP photo by Francis Specker