Wednesday, January 03, 2007 |
Pickoff Moves
Today's Birthdays
Frenchy Bordagaray BRO b. 1910, played 1935-1936, 1942-1945, d. 2001-04-13
Adrian Garrett CAL b. 1943, played 1975-1976. Brother of the far more effective Wayne, the starting third baseman for the Miracle Mets of the late 60's through mid-70's, Adrian in contrast was a career minor leaguer who scratched out one good major league season with the Angels, in which he had a .262/.344/.477 line over 107 at bats. He collapsed the next year, and moved to Japan, where he hit 102 homers over three years for the Hiroshima Carp. He later returned to the U.S., and has served as a minor league coach for several organizations, most recently the Cincinnati Reds' AAA hitting coach.
Archie Reynolds CAL b. 1946, played 1971
Luis Sojo CAL b. 1965, played 1991-1992. A utility infielder who was the Angels' starting second baseman on the mediocre-then-awful '91 and '92 teams; he later had a long career as a sub, mostly for the Yankees on their very good late-90's and early 2000's squads.
Zach Sorensen LAA b. 1977, played 2005. Presently with the Brewers at their AAA Nashville affiliate.
Chris Van Cuyk BRO b. 1927, played 1950-1952, d. 1992-11-03
How Greed Backfires
An interesting tidbit from Mike Berardino:Although some top agents--foremost Scott Boras--believe it's foolhardy to allow teams to buy out their clients' arbitration years, one agent from a leading firm believes the opposite. His research shows close to 80 percent of all pitchers break down before reaching the free-agent market. "It's different with position players," the agent says, "but if you have a chance to set up your client for life, you have to do it."
More Randy Johnson Bloviating
The Yanks and Snakes will have that deal to send Randy Johnson back to Arizona done real soon, something we've been hearing a lot lately. Heck, I even heard it from someone who knows a source high up in the Diamondbacks organization. Not that it's particularly newsworthy, but Rotoworld speculates on the return: "The reliever the Yankees are getting is probably Brandon Medders, though Luis Vizcaino has also been mentioned. Dustin Nippert, Ross Ohlendorf and Micah Owings were the prospects most frequently coming up in talks."Keith Law On The Best And Worst Offseason Moves
Normally I really don't care too much for these kinds of reviews, since in the wrong hands, they're just a collection of irrational prejudices and rampant fanboyism, but it so happens that I largely agree with Keith Law's assessment of the Angels' offseason:The Angels gave five years and $50 million to Gary Matthews Jr. -- more on that in a moment -- and then signed Shea Hillenbrand to play first base. Neither one does anything to improve the team for '07; the Angels need to add power, and have an acute need for hitters who get on base. They also added Justin Speier to their bullpen, giving him one of the longest deals (four years) ever for a relief pitcher. There is enough core talent here to win the AL West in 2007, with some potential frontline talent at the top of the farm. But GM Bill Stoneman didn't make his team better, just more expensive.Matthews, Jr. was the albatross contract of the offseason at the time it was signed, and may still be; much depends on what happens to Barry Zito during his seven-year deal. But as already pointed out, he's old, he's getting older, he's signed to an absurd deal, and the Angels have apparently learned nothing about aging centerfielders (c.f. Steve "Are You Experienced" Finley). When even the Angels front office's biggest fan can only offer up a howling non-sequitur about "premier centerfielders" being more expensive in the future as an argument for this deal, you know there's something profoundly wrong with it.
As for the Dodgers, Law likes two of their deals...
The Wolf deal is a good one, no doubt, and so is the Schmidt deal, mostly because of their brevity. That's fine as far as it goes, but plaudits for good resource allocation don't win ballgames; you've got to have actual pitchers who can get the other guys out. That is, the real problem here is that the Dodgers' rotation still looks awfully rickety. The aging Schmidt has been an injury risk before, and Wolf is coming off injury, too. Brad Penny has been Bad Penny far too often, and he, too, has a crush on the DL. One of the reasons Hong-Chih Kuo was forced into relief was his injury problems as a starter in the lower minors; neither has Chad Billingsley been the model of health. ZiPS projects Kuo as a sometime starter pushed into frequent relief, while Billingsley ends up with 150 IP (due to injuries?) as an essentially league-average starter.
1. Randy Wolf, Dodgers: This is the sort of deal you'd like to see teams stick to when dealing with pitchers coming off injuries or down years: one year plus a club option. Of course, it takes only one idiot GM to offer a three-year deal and blow your one-plus-option offer out of the water, but in Wolf's case, he wanted to go back to Southern California and left at least one two-year offer on the table. Wolf's upside is as a mid-rotation lefty with a significant ability to miss bats; the risk is that his command might not come back (or doesn't come back quickly) as he recovers from 2005 Tommy John surgery. It's a good gamble for the Dodgers, who have starting pitching depth....
3. Jason Schmidt, Dodgers: Arguably the best starter available outside of Matsuzaka, Schmidt signed one of the shorter deals given to any starting pitcher -- fewer years than Ted Lilly, Jeff Suppan or Gil Meche received, and the same number of years that Jason Marquis received. And if you're wondering how the Dodgers could have two of the three best contracts of the offseason but not be named one of the offseason's winners, I have two words for you: Juan Pierre.
That is, the most charitable adjective I can think of for the next couple years' worth of Dodger rotations is "adequate"; without looking at any PECOTA projections (because they haven't been made public yet), there's the real possibility that this is something like the third best staff in the division, behind the Padres, and even the Giants. It's the kind of thing that makes me think the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog's forecast of a 77-85 fourth-place finish for the 2007 Dodgers isn't the mere hallucination of some stathead on crystal math.
As a Dodger fan, I won't be forgetting the Juan Pierre deal anytime soon. That said, the Matthews deal is worse because you're right--you know what you are getting with Pierre. I like the Angels just fine and I hope for the best but I wouldn't be surprised if Matthews was released before the end of his contract. I can't say the same thing about Pierre.
And I also take your larger point--we are arguing about which contract is uglier. We can both agree that neither signing was necessary.
: 1/03/2007 12:41:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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