Thursday, September 08, 2005 |
The Machine With The Monkeywrench In It
Such stuff now seems to happen to the Angels, whose quartet of Weber, Donnelly, Shields, and Rodriguez have been eaten up at the rate of one player per year since 2003. Weber collapsed in 2003 and has barely been heard from since; Donnelly got injured last year and hardly pitched, and now can't hold a tough lead; and neither of Shields nor Frankie have been solid since the All Star break. All of which is why I read with some trepidation today's James Click column on relief pitchers. Did you know, for instance, that rated by WXRL (expected wins over replacement), castoff Derrick Turnbow is worth double Francisco Rodriguez? Or that tradebait Kyle Farnsworth (comments about his incendiary pitching duly noted) leads not one, but two clubs by that same metric? In fact, Farnsworth still leads the Tigers pen in every category save one even despite the fact that he was traded July 31. I find myself increasingly annoyed with Stoneman for failing to do something good -- not just do something -- about the team's most obvious failing at the trade deadline. Unless there's near-term help available from the farm -- and with the two most obvious guys, Bobby Jenks and Derrick Turnbow, plying their trades for other teams -- I'm scared that the Angels will pick up another high-price, low-return guy like Esteban Yan in the offseason.
I'm amazed by the number of solid arms (many of which could have taken a place at the back end of the Angels' pen) that changed hands this season, all the while people keep saying there was nothing available and patting Bill Stoneman on the back for standing still. This bullpen could have been vastly improved, and on the cheap. The Braves acquired Farnsworth for not much more than the Angels gave up for Christensen.
: 9/08/2005 06:42:00 PMYou are right about Donnelly and Weber, of course.
Shields likewise came up through the system. I don't think much was expected of him (and I distinctly recall BP saying he was at best marginal even after his first year with the Angels). But his career path was rather more like Rodriguez's than the other two.
The point here really buttresses yours: Being able to get a quality reliever like Donnelly and Weber out of other organizations' rejects is not something you can count on regularly. Nor can you count on them sustaining their performance for long. So if you don't have a supply of talent coming up through the system, you need to be ready to make trades. Which Stoneman is not. (And just to compound things, he tossed aside two good arms coming up through the system, as you note.)
: 9/09/2005 12:57:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
 |
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.