Offseason Recap

But I still think Durham/Grudzie are Busch-bound before the start of the season. If they pick up one of those two I’ll be quietly happy with the off-season, I think. Really, we’re crying out for a right-handed 2B who can platoon a bit with Skip and take all the starts vs LHP. This also leaves Skippy free to play a bit of LF and, with Mather at 3B, means we only need to carry one backup OF (Rasmus, providing Duncan, Lud and Ank are the starters more often than not), and leaves us free to add a corner infield/pinch-hitter with a strong bat on the bench (my preference would be Craig at this point, although I think Freese should get his chance).

I think we really missed a trick on Orlando Hudson – the Dodgers got him on an absolute steal; I don’t think he’s worth the 4/40m people were quoting before the economy went tits-up, but on a one year contract, anything less than 10m for the guy looks good value. I reckon he’s probably 2 wins better than Kennedy is likely to be in 09, and that’s worth ponying up the cash for when we’re likely only a few wins behind the Cubs’ projection this year. Heck, I’d even have gone 2 years on him.

I’d have rather ponied up a bit more than we paid Reyes and got Will Ohman but really, Reyes is as good a pure LOOGY as there is anywhere so I think that was a pretty sharp deal. I like the fact we tried cheaper options (Ostlund, who I liked the look of before he started getting shelled, Ring who might’ve been a Duncan project, and Manning, who was a deeply mediocre worst-case fallback) before admitting defeat and signing reyes – good procedure all-round I think. The Miller signing was obviously all upside, so I reckon we solved our lefty problems well. B+ on that front.

We probably missed a trick not adding a cheap mid-rotation pitching option. We really are putting all our eggs in Carp’s basket and, if he fails (with the possibility of Lohse & Wellemeyer not being quite as effective in 09 as they were in 08) our rotation looks mediocre. My preference would’ve been a trade with Minnesota or San Francisco (I think Jonathan Sanchez and Nick Blackburn would’ve been the options we could legitimately afford without giving up Rasmus, Ludwick or Wallace) but perhaps that wasn’t possible.

Failing that, there were a number of decent pitchers not asking for a whole lot of money on the FA market – I know it’s not a popular choice, but I’d have liked us to be looking at John Garland this year. He’s been oft-referred to in knowledgeable circles as “being on the way down” or “becoming ineffective” but I think a lot of that is heresay and word-of-mouth; if you actually look at his peripherals, he didn’t deteriorate much (if at all) in 2009. His K rate was up slightly down again, but his walkrate also fell below his career numbers, and he hardly offers ANY free passes. He creates more groundballs than his career average, and fewer flyballs, but suffered his career-worst BABIP despite this. Moving to LA obviously didn’t work out for him but he’s still young and durable enough to pitch 200 solid innings, and could probably be #3-starter quality in the NL (weaker hitters who haven’t seen him before, no DH, better fielding behind him, excluding Skip); I suspect he’ll put up numbers similar to what Kyle Lohse’ll do in 2009, and could’ve been had for 3 fewer years and a little bit less cash. He was still a 2-win player last year, even in a severe down year when he got quite unlucky.

That said, IF (and it’s a big if) all our starters pan out, the rotation looks fine. There’s just a lack of depth.

The other way I’d have liked to see us address the depth problem is by adding a good reliever. That way, KMac could stretch out as long man/5th starter, and our new reliever could’ve taken his spot in the pen, so we didn’t lose anything in the higher-leverage innings. I’m not necessarily sure that player was out there, though – I tend to agree that Springer’s due a bit of a regression (although he’ll still be solid), Hoffman’s not worth the money he’s getting, and the high-end options (Fuentes, KRod, Wood) are all way too expensive for my tastes.

Finally, I think we missed out on some of the better freely available talent out there. My two favourite hobby horses this year are RJ Swindles (AAAA reliever) who’s never been given a chance at MLB level because he throws in the low 80s but he’s been absolute murder on AAA hitters with his deceptive stuff and excellent control for a couple of years (Philadelphia got him for a song) and Odalis Perez, who would’ve cost us maybe 1m and who could’ve been used as a 6th starter for the inevitable injuries and to put a bit of pressure on Pineiro. He’s not very good but is cheap, left-handed, and can still pitch to major league hitters.

it’s hard for me to describe that one as a steal when Joe Beimel just signed a 1 year deal w/ the Nats. They’re basically the same pitcher, as I pointed out here and a 1 year deal is better than a 2 year deal from our perspective. You’d have to think that Mo could’ve either leveraged Reyes down to a 1 year deal based on Beimel’s demands or just signed Beimel. Compared to Affeldt, it is a good deal. Compared to Beimel, not so much.

And as for Greene, it’s still impossible to evaluate this deal until we know who the PTBNL is. I’ve read and spoken to a number of people who don’t seem to care who he is, but I do. It matters. It also matters whether or not the Greene who shows up is the one who played in 2007 or the one who played last year. If he’s as bad as he was last year, and the PTBNL is a pretty good prospect, we may as well have resigned Izturis.

I am standing by the BS thing. Make it a mid to late summer signing please.

They seem to be the one team willing to do out of the ordinary things. Batting pitcher 8th and converting Skip to second. Not sure if either of those are good things, but it’s nice to know that they don’t constantly submit to convention. Gotta give TLR credit for that.