Wednesday, May 16, 2007 |
Stretching The Seventh Inning: Dustin Moseley Vs. Scot Shields
The Rays need major-league-ready pitching as well as a shortstop, and they would consider other possibilities as well. Here's a thought: Crawford to the Angels for Class AAA left-hander Joe Saunders, infielder Erick Aybar and a lower-level Grade A prospect (no, not Class AA righty Nick Adenhart).The question then came up, well, since Saunders must needs stick around because the Halos will let Bartolo Colon will walk as a free agent next year, who else do you send? One name that immediately came to mind is Dustin Moseley.
Moseley has actually pitched to tougher batters than Scot Shields this year ($) and has better than half Shields' ERA. Now, Moseley isn't striking out nearly as many batters; his paltry 3.74 K/9 almost certainly points to a much higher ERA in the future. This should not have been much of a surprise considering Moseley also had an appreciably spottier minor league strikeout record, most years posting K/9 rates well below the 8.00+ Shields achieved with good regularity.
That isn't to say that Moseley won't have his uses. The speculation in the HH thread above is that Moseley will become Kevin Gregg, but I have a different player in mind: the long-lost Ben Weber, a paripatetic sinker-throwing junkballer who made most of his outs on the ground. Moseley could outdo Weber, of course; Moseley was a first-round draft pick, but injuries slowed him down. Nevertheless, Moseley's still young enough (26) that he'll be valuable for several years. I'm not sure I'd trust him very much in high-leverage situations all year, but he could be stretched into Scot Shields territory with the occaisional kaboom. On the other hand, I'm not sure I trust Scot Shields in Scot Shields territory much these days, either.
Labels: angels
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