Wednesday, September 28, 2005 |
Clinch Mob, Part 2: On Marginal Dollars, And Playing Out The String
Part of the resentment of the Angels by fans of other teams is the perception that the Angels are buying their way to a title. The Mets spent a lot of money in the offseason, too; those incremental wins are the hardest to acquire, and the easiest to misspend on. After his brilliant 2004 postseason, Carlos Beltran was the class of that free agent group, yet what has he done for New York? The Finley contract may be a bad one, as Mike might be tempted to play him at inopportune moments, but we ought to at least be giving a momentary hat tip to Bill Stoneman for not getting sucked into a Boras bidding war. Seven years of Beltran is at least four too many, especially at those prices; if you're going to overspend, make it a short contract. Stoneman's far from perfect: both Anderson's and Cabrera's contracts are also bad, but for different reasons, Anderson because he's aged much faster than anyone thought possible, and Cabrera because he's blocking all the infield prospects in the minors (update: not to mention he stunk it up at the plate for half the year at least). But Stoneman should get credit for what he's accomplished; with this division win, I think it's pretty safe to raise him to the elite class of major league GMs.
So now that the Angels are done with the division race, they can stop the chitter-chat about moving Bart up for Thursday's start, and position their rotation. We may expect to get another look at Joe Saunders. I, for one, expect to see extra starts by Anderson and Finley, both, and for the same reason, namely that both of them claim to need the at bats to stay in practice. Fair enough; the losses can't hurt us, save when it comes to deciding home field advantage, and I doubt that will make a difference anyway. Erstad -- we hope -- will lose playing time to Kotchman, and Figgy should get a little less playing time at third as Quinlan mans the hot corner.
Ironically, I think the Angels will become an offensively-minded club by 2007 with serious pitching problems; the farm just isn't producing quality pitchers (the TINSTAAP principle applies WRT Weaver, Saunders, etc.), especially starters. You can see the problems that the departures of Byrd and Washburn will cause.
Kelvim Escobar may come back quickly from his bone-spur problem, yet if we take a closer look, the news is not good. Escobar has twice had surgery for bone chips in his pitching elbow ('97 and '02). A bone spur is just a chip that's attached, so it's possible that it was on its normal five-year cycle when it began rubbing against the tendon. That swelling was more of notice than the real damage. The treatment was simply to get the swelling out, not to remove the initial osseous irritant. This is likely to recur and Escobar has not shown a great tolerance for pitching with this condition. Caveat Escobar.
In other words, this is going to happen again. Five years from now? Two? I don't know, but that might be a problem. Nonetheless, I'm inclined to take a flyer on Escobar and extend his contract. He's got teriffic stuff when healthy, and he should be that over a three- or four-year deal.
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