Dodgers fans can’t handle the truth! (web links)

Well, maybe they can, but The Times’ T.J. Simers argues they won’t like it much.

Simers writes despite the typical spring-training optimism, the Dodgers are essentially the same team as last season, minus Jamey Carroll.

“I know this, the Dodgers were not a good team,” Simers writes. “They were terrible.

“And it really doesn’t matter what this year’s team is going to be like because in a few weeks a new owner will begin making plans to start over.”

-- Simers gets support from Grant Brisbee at SB Nation, who isn’t impressed with the Dodgers’ off-season. In his team preview, he thinks they could be worse this year.

-- Simers also isn’t sold on Don Mattingly, though the Dodgers manager got a rave review from Ken Rosenthal at Fox Sports and from his players in a piece from Ken Gurnick at Dodgers.com.

-- Jon Weisman, here writing as a special correspondent at ESPN/LA, asks and answers 12 questions the Dodgers will face this season.

-- Henry Schulman at the San Francisco Chronicle has a copy of ESPN The Magazine’s cover shot of Tim Lincecum giving Clayton Kershaw a noogie.

Here’s video of the ESPN shoot:

-- Joe Torre may return to his old job at Major League Baseball, but Jon Heyman at CBS Sports writes Torre is first going to wait and see how the Dodgers’ new ownership plays out.

-- J.P. Hoornstra of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin looks at the Dodgers new head trainer, Sue Falsone.

-- Mike Petriello at Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness is trying real hard to talk himself into liking the potential ownership of Steve Cohen, which he fears is becoming inevitable.

-- General manager Ned Colletti gives a positive spin to the Dodgers spring training thus far to Gurnick at Dodgers.com.

-- In an MLB.com vidieo, Chad Billingsley explains the adjustment in his delivery this season.