Some Guys Get No Respect

I read on mlbtraderumors.com today that the Mariners just re-signed 33 year old veteran right-hander Mike Koplove to a minor league deal.  Koplove spent 2009 pitching for three different organizations’ AAA teams.  He finished the season with a 1.87 ERA, and he didn’t even get a September call-up.  That stinks!

In fairness, Koplove’s run average was a not particularly impressive 3.11.  However, his ratios were excellent.

Here’s his ‘09 pitching line:  55 appearances, 72.1 IP, 56 hits and 28 walks allowed, and 69 Ks.  That looks an awful lot like a pitcher who could have helped at least a couple of major league teams last year.  Yet he never got a chance.

Koplove hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2007.  His career major league line is as follows:  222 appearances, 254.2 IP, 231 hits and 103 walks allowed, and 175 Ks.  He has a career major league ERA of 3.82.

How many bottom of the bullpen relievers like Koplove have career major league ERAs below 4.00?  Not many.  Yet no one wants to give Koplove another major league shot.  It’s just not right.

It’s possible that Koplove is a real jerk and a cancer in the clubhouse, but I doubt it.  Instead, I think he’s another victim of the the long-standing prejudice in MLB against small right-handers who don’t throw well over 90 mph.

Koplove is listed at 6′0″ and 160 lbs, which is small for a right-hander in today’s game.  He throws side-arm, and according to wikipedia, uses a lot of different arm angles to confuse hitters and get movement on his pitchers.  It’s almost a sure bet that he doesn’t throw hard but knows how to pitch.  This kind of right-handed pitcher never gets enough respect from major league teams.

For what it’s worth, small lefties don’t face the same discrimination.  Teams have always been so desperate to find left-handed pitchers who can get left-handed hitters out, that they’ll take anyone who can do just that.  Baseball history is full of small left-handed pitchers like Whitey Ford and Bobby Shantz, who probably wouldn’t have gotten the same opportunities if they’d been right-handers.

Back to Koplove.  One thing that strongly suggests that he is not a problem player is that he was selected to the 2008 United States Olympic team.  He was the only American pitcher not to allow a hit in that competition, pitching 5.1 innings and registering six strikeouts.  Ya think he can pitch a little?

Koplove finished the 2009 season for the Mariners’ AAA team in Tacoma but didn’t get a call-up.  The M’s have spent a lot of money on players this off-season and look to be a top team in the AL West in 2010, along with the Angels.  It remains to be seen if the M’s will have use for a 33 year old relief pitcher, who didn’t even get a call-up last season.

It bothers me when teams are too cheap to call up in September veteran minor leaguers who had great seasons at AAA.  Those call-ups only cost teams the major league minimum (about $400,000) pro-rated for one month (about $70,000), and they give hope to every player in the organization over age 27 that if they continue to slug it out in the minor leagues and have a good season at AAA, they’ll get a chance to play in the majors (and make a little money) even if only briefly.  It sends a message that if you play well, you’ll be rewarded.

In 2007 and 2008, the Giants had a veteran 4-A player playing first base for them at AAA Fresno named Scott McClain.  McClain was too old to have any kind of major league career — he was age 35 and 36 those two seasons — but he had two fine seasons for Fresno, hitting a combined 60 HRs over the two years.  The Giants gave him September call-ups both seasons, and in September of 2008, he hit the only two homeruns of his major league career.  That limited major league playing time was probably also the reason that McClain was able to return to Japan in 2009 and make some real money playing for the Hiroshima Carp.

It was the right thing for the Giants to do.  Rewarding guys like McClain keeps them playing in the minors for years even when they don’t have a realistic chance of having much of a major league career.  These players are valuable, because they teach young players by example how veteran players go about their business and prepare themselves for a 140+ game season.

Players like these are also necessary to maintain AAA as a league just a notch below the majors, so that young players actually get real preparation for playing in MLB.  Finally, if you have a rash of injuries, having a player like Scott McClain to call up can hold down the fort and save your season, until the real major leaguers are ready to return.  Isn’t that worth the occasional $70,000?

One’s Cool, One’s Not

The White Sox have announced that they will unretire No. 11, which was HOFer Luis Aparicio’s number, so that Omar Vizquel can wear it in 2010.  Vizquel’s number has traditionally been No. 13, but Ozzie Guillen wears that number and won’t give it up.  Aparicio is cool with the whole deal, because he likes Omar and thinks he’s a good person.  How cool is that?

Aparicio is the first (and at present) the only Venzuelan in the Hall of Fame.  When the time comes, Vizquel will certainly be the second Venezuelan shortstop in the Hall of Fame.  Of course, Ozzie Guillen was also a great Venezuelan shortstop who played (and managed for the White Sox), and, in case you’d forgotten, Aparicio wasn’t even the first great Venezuelan shortstop to play for the ChiSox.  That was Chico Carrasquel, who played short for the Sox from 1950 until 1955 and whose job Aparicio took in 1956.

Great Venezuelan shortstops on the White Sox are a tradition.  How cool is that?

This isn’t the first time the White Sox have unretired a number.  They also unretired Harold Baines’ number when he came back to the team for a third stint as a White Stocking in 2000.  How cool is that?

On the other side of the spectrum is the Brewers’ decision to build a seven foot tall bronze statue of Bud Selig to be placed in front of their stadium.  There he’ll join statues of Hank Aaron and Robin Yount.

That is so lame!  Selig is the definition of a tool.  He’s the first Commissioner to be taken directly from the ranks of ownership, and that’s exactly what the Commissioner of Baseball is: a management stooge, who has a grandiose title in the hopes that the average fan won’t be smart enough to see that an officer paid and selected solely by the owners is nothing but the owners’ stooge and/or mouthpiece.  At least with Selig the public gets to see that there isn’t any daylight between the Commissioner and the owners, but does anyone really think this guy needs to be commemorated with a statue outside a ballpark?

Cecil Cooper, you have to wait!  You too, Paul Molitor!  Ben Oglivie, get to the end of the line!  Gorman Thomas, are you kidding!  We have to build a statue to that all-time great Bud Selig!

Could anything be more asinine? I won’t support building statues for owners until it’s the owners that put cans in the seats.  How many people ever went to a game because George Steinbrenner or Walter O’Malley owned the team?

Can you even name half of the current owners of the thirty major league teams?  I can’t, even though the owners change a lot less than the players do.

In the meantime, the only good that can come of this is if the Giants adopt a new tradition in which the team’s rookies are forced out on a night-time venture from their luxury hotel to paint Selig’s balls orange on the team’s first trip to Milwaukee each season.  Long live General Sheridan and his horse!

A Few More Thoughts

The Twins dodged a .22 caliber bullet when Jarrod Washburn refused their $5 million offer a few weeks back.  Washburn has been a pretty consistent fourth starter the last few seasons, but at age 35 in 2010, he’s definitely a risk, even at $5 million.

That being said, Washburn is still on the market, and the  Twins should still be paying attention.  Unless Scott Boras can pull a rabbit out of a hat, someone’s going to end up signing Washburn for a lot less than $5 million.  At about $3 million, he’d fit in nicely as an option at the bottom of a team’s rotation.  Even the Twins could afford one more $2-3 million contract for a player they really want.

Washburn has been remarkably consistent the last few seasons, even if he hasn’t been especially good.  He’s a strike-thrower, which is the kind of pitcher the Twins like.  For what it’s worth, Washburn has also been a much more effective pitcher on the road than at home throughout his career.  According to SI.com, his career road ERA is 3.71, compared to 4.50 at home.  According to espn.com, his road ERA the last three seasons has been 3.82, compared to 4.63 at home.

This is a great off-season for teams that traditionally bargain-hunt.  There are certainly a lot of useful players left out there, and now that we’re in February, they’ll end up signing relatively cheap, or they won’t sign at all.  It’s time for the bottom feeders to find a few lost pieces of gold that have sunk down to their level.

Here’s a list of the best players still available.  Aside from Washburn and Johnny Damon, Felipe Lopez, Russell Branyon, Kiko Calero, Jonny Gomes, Carlos Delgado and even Joe Beimel should all be able to help somebody in the right role.  Felipe Lopez, in particular, could easily turn out to be the best off-season sign of the 2010 season, at least in terms of what it’s now likely to cost to sign him.

Even the Yankees Know How to Pinch Pennies

I read today that the Yankees only guaranteed Randy Winn $1.1 million in 2010.  He can earn another $900,000 in performance incentives.

The Yankees also signed Marcus Thames today to a minor league deal that pays him $900,000 if he makes the team.  Thames is a good, low-risk choice for the Yankees.  I suggested the Yankees should consider Thames as a platoon player back in late December, so I’ll take the opportunity to pat myself on the back for calling this one.  Lord knows, there will be plenty of times when I get it wrong.

Sometimes, I wonder how closely the sportswriters even cover the sports they write about.  In this article, the New York Post’s Joel Sherman states as the second sentence of the article that “Thames … will compete for playing time with in left field with Randy Winn and Brett Gardner.”  Does anyone really believe that the Yankees will play Winn primarily in left field so they can leave Nick Swisher in right field?  It seems highly unlikely.

Winn was the best defensive rightfielder in all of MLB in 2009 according to fangraphs’ UZR/150.  I don’t think UZR is the be-all and end-all as far as defensive stats are concerned, but one number of Nick Swisher’s really jumps out at me: as the Yankees’ starting rightfielder in 2009, Swisher registered two outfield assists.  That ranks 19th out of 19 for the “qualifying” right fielders according to fangraphs, and was tied for 41st among all rightfielders regardless of playing time, according to espn.com.

In fairness, Winn only had 5 outfield assists himself in 2009, and his value is greatest in whichever corner position has the most room to run, since his talents lie mainly in his ability to track balls down.  Still, it’s hard to imagine the Yankees would decide that Swisher is the guy they want to go with in right field next year.

It’s a little like those reports out of Boston when the Sox first signed Mike Cameron — i.e. Cameron will play left and Jacoby Ellsbury will remain in center.  It was crazy on the face of it — Cameron’s one of the best defensive centerfielders of the last twenty years, and Ellsbury was terrible in 2009 (at least according to fangraphs).  Needless to say, it didn’t take the Red Sox long to put to rest that highly unfounded report.

Although I’m not a Yankees’ fan (it’s hard for me to root for a team that outspends every other team by several basis points), I have to admit that I like the fact that the Yankees are going with a low-cost platoon to fill their last outfield spot.  The Yankees of the 1950’s spent more than any other team in baseball, just as they do today; however, they were also extremely good at filling holes in their admittedly powerhouse line-ups with reasonably priced platoon players.

When you’ve laid out as much money as the Yankees have for a core of the highest priced talent, it makes a lot of sense to fill in the holes with a few wisely selected, inexpensive platoon players.  With Winn, Thames and Gardner as their third through fifth outfielders, they get a nice combination of defense, power and veteran presence.

The Worst Hitting Position Player Ever

The extreme offensive ineptitude of the free agent catchers (as a group) available this year has got me to thinking about the catcher who was almost certainly the worst hitting position player ever to have a significant major league career.  That player is catcher Bill Bergen, who played semi-regularly for eleven seasons for the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Superbas/Trolley Dodgers between 1901 and 1911.

This was during major league baseball’s greatest pitchers’ era, even better for hurlers than the years from 1963 through 1968.  Even so, Bergen’s batting totals were just astoundingly bad.  Bergen had a career .170 batting average, a career .201 slugging percentage, and (according to Baseball Almanac) a career .395 OPS.  Wow!

What’s even more amazing is how regularly Bergen played.  His hitting was so poor that he was never a true starter.  However, except for 1907 when he was limited to 138 at-bats (was he injured that year?), he accumulated between 207 and 353 at-bats in ten different seasons.

To give Bergen his due, in 1903 he hit a lusty .227.  It was the only season in his career in which he hit better than .190.

It goes without saying that Bergen must have been one of the three or four best defensive catchers anywhere is organized (white professional) baseball.  While the period from 1901 through 1911 seems early in major league baseball’s history today, at that point even the worst major teams didn’t have to put up with a catcher who hit like Bergen unless he brought a lot to the table defensively.

Needless to say, however, the teams on which Bergen played were not good teams.  In his eleven seasons his teams finished with a record above .500 exactly once and finished at .500 one more time.  No matter how good his defense was, it’s hard to win when you are giving hundreds of plate appearances each season to player who hits as poorly as Bergen did, even in the dead-ball era.

To give you an more accurate idea of just how bad Bergen was as a hitter, even in his own era, I decided to compare him to every National League pitcher (Bergen played exclusively in the NL) who played at least semi-regularly (roughly 100 IP) for eight or more seasons between 1900 and 1919.  (Please note my selection criteria is not perfectly exact: I may have missed a couple of pitchers who should have qualified and was perhaps a bit too lenient in allowing in others.  However, it will give you a general idea of what the longer lasting National League pitchers of that era hit.  Also, I excluded players like Walter “The Big Train” Johnson, who met the ten year criteria, but got a lot of at-bats in the lively-ball era beginning with the 1920 season, at least if it seemed obvious they hit better in the lively ball era. I also excluded pitchers who played significantly before 1898, which was about the time the batting numbers really started to drop.)

Here’s what I found (players are rated in terms of career OPS):

1. Claude Hendrix .640   2. Jack Taylor .564   3. Lefty Tyler .557   4.  Christy Mathewson .544   5. Hooks Wiltse .521   6. “Long” Bob Ewing .485   7. Larry Cheney .484   8. Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown .483   9. Dick Rudolf .482   10. “Hickory” Bob Harmon .470   11. Deacon Phillippe .469   12. Sam Leever .463   13. Chick Fraser .461   14.  Hippo Vaughn .454   15. “Iron Man” Joe McGinnity .446   16. Nap Rucker .443   17. Slim Sallee .412   18. Rube Marquard .410   19. Vic Willis .399   20. Bill Bergen .395 21. Ed Ruelbach .387   22. Red Ames .363   23. Dummy Taylor .362   24. Tully Sparks .315   25. Togie Pittinger .280

As you can see, there weren’t a lot of good hitting pitchers in the NL during this era.  The AL appears to have had better hitting pitchers at this time, particularly because Al Orth (.663 career OPS) and Jesse Tannehill (.650) jumped to the new league in 1902 and 1903, respectively.  Also, some of the big stars who split their careers between the deadball era and the lively ball era, were pretty good hitters even before clean baseballs were always in play.  Walter Johnson (.616 career OPS), Babe Adams (.532) and Grover Cleveland “Pete” Alexander (.517) got left out of my list, because, while their hitting did not improve tremendously in the lively ball era beginning in 1920, their hitting definitely did improve.  I most notably left in Rube Marquard among pitchers whose careers spanned both eras, because his hitting didn’t improve significantly, unlike most pitchers and position players in the 1920’s.

Just how bad is finishing 20th out of 25 in my list above.  Pretty bad.  Pitchers as a group were much better hitters than they are today, both because starters got a lot more plate appearances than they do today and also because the overall quality of major league play is much higher now than it was then, no matter what the old-timers will have you believe.

Nevertheless, by at least 1885, professional baseball teams had realized pitchers who could get hitters out were a lot more valuable than pitchers who could hit.  By 1900, pitchers were expected to be able to pitch, and if they could hit a little too, well, that was gravy.  If a pitcher was good on the hill but couldn’t hit a lick, that was O.K., so long as he was at least capable of laying down the sacrifice bunt to push the runners up a base.  In short, by 1900 no teams were choosing their pitching staffs based on which pitchers could best swing the stick.

Another thing to note is that while pitchers got a lot more plate appearances per season than they do now, Bill Bergen still got between 100 and 200 more plate appearances per season than any of the pitchers he played with or against.  You have to figure that if even the worst hitting pitchers of that era got as many plate appearances as Bergen got, they would have come close to his numbers.

It would be interesting to read what the Reach Guides of that era thought of Bill Bergen’s defense.  Because of all the bunting and chop hitting that took place in the deadball era, the best catchers had to be very mobile, and third base and particularly first base were much more important defensive positions than they are today.

Old Dogs And New Tricks

Here’s a post from mlbtraderumors.com which takes agent Scott Boras to task for misreading the current market and apparently costing his players a lot of money based on offers rejected earlier this off-season.  The post makes a good point, and what strikes me about it is that Boras’ mistake is, in a way, the same one Giants GM Brian Sabean made last year.

Boras’ and Sabean’s methods work well in years when the economy is doing well and the market for free agent players and players’ salaries in general are up.

Sabean’s method was to hone in on the players he liked most and sign them as quickly as possible before the market went through the roof later in the off-season.  He got burned big-time with this strategy last off-season, when he signed Edgar Renteria for probably $10 million more for two seasons, than he would have paid if he’d waited a month or two longer to make the signing.

I thought Sabean’s sticking to the old model was a big mistake last year, because the banks crashed (or very nearly so) in September 2008, before the season was even over.  It wasn’t hard to see that the 08/09 off-season wasn’t going to be a good one for any but the very best free agents.  In fact, if the Yankees hadn’t been eager to fill some pressing needs in a way they didn’t need or weren’t willing to do this off-season, 08/09 would have been a horrible year for free agents.

However, Sabean seems to have learned something from last year’s fiasco, because he was much more patient this off-season and has been rewarded by having Bengie Molina fall back into the Giants’ lap at a salary and for a term (one year only) the Giants wanted.

Meanwhile, Scott Boras worked his usual magic with Matt Holliday, one of the best available free agents this off-season, getting the Cardinals to make Holliday an offer reportedly much higher than any other team made.  Holliday’s deal was down-right excessive compared to the amount for which the Mets signed Jason Bay, the most similar free agent to Holliday.

Boras’ strategy is always to make utterly outrageous salary requests for his free agents early in the off-season and work the bidding up to a frenzy before signing deals late in the off-season.  This strategy has worked fantastically well for Boras when the market is up or when he is dealing with the very best available players.

For Johnny Damon, Jarrod Washburn and Felipe Lopez, Boras’ usual strategy looks like a big mistake, absent Boras’ famed ability to get somebody to bid against himself this February.  It sure doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

The thing about Boras’ clients is that this is why they select Boras in the first place.  Most of the time, his strategy works, and even this year, I suspect that the failure of the strategy has as much to do with the players’ unreasonable expectations in this time of steep recession as it does Boras’ failure to adjust to the current market realities.

I don’t know what kind of advice Boras gave these players when they received the offers they’ve since rejected, but I’d bet that no matter what he told them they weren’t yet ready to accept how bad the market for free agents really is this off-season.  I also note that a few of Boras’ clients have signed short deals, like Adrian Beltre, with the idea that the economy will be better and the teams less stingy next off-season.

As mentioned in the mlbtraderumors.com post above, Boras has signed a number of his player-clients to solid deals this off-season.  Here’s a current list of his clients, also from mlbtraderumors.com.

One thing worth noting is that when you have an agent with this many clients, some players are going to get burned because the strategies that may work best for the group of players as a whole (and thus makes Boras the most commissions), will end up burning a few players.  With his usual strategy, Boras obtained a great contract for Matt Holiday and a very large commission.  It obviously hasn’t worked as well for the mid-tier free agents.

I wish I could feel sorrier for the more unfortunate Boras clients.  However, they all have to know what they’re getting by choosing Boras as their agent, and they have plenty of other good choices out there.  I, for one, won’t shed a lot of tears if any of Damon, Washburn or Lopez has to play baseball for only $2 or $3 million in 2010.

Minor Signings

Kevin Gregg just signed a one-year deal with the Blue Jays for $2.75 million with team options for 2010 and 2011.  It’s a pretty good contract for Gregg, given the fact that he had a 4.72 ERA for the Cubs last year, the current state of the free agent market and the fact that we’re late in the off-season when teams generally don’t have a lot of money left to spend.

I’ve been rooting for Gregg since January 2007, when I felt he got burned in arbitration.  He asked for $700,000 and the Marlins offered $575,000, and the arbitrator chose the team’s number.  I felt that it was unfair, because while Gregg had been a garbage-time reliever for the Angels the prior three seasons, he was a particularly good one, eating up a lot of innings and pitching very well for a guy at the bottom of the bullpen.  In my mind, he deserved the $700,000.

Needless to say, the Marlins had taken note of his great ratios with the Angels, and they made him their closer in 2007.  He ended up saving 61 games them over two seasons, at an extremely reasonable price, because after his strong 2007 season, he signed for very close to what the Marlins offered him, probably because he’d been burned in arbitration the year before.

Gregg made $4.2 million with the Cubs last season and now he’s received $2.75 million which is good money for a guy who’s basically good enough to be a top set up man in this market, so I guess it’s starting to even out.

Gregg still has fine ratios with more than a strikeout per inning pitched in 2009.  His biggest weakness is the long-ball, and Wrigley is generally a bad home park for guys who give up long fly balls.  If Toronto is tougher place to hit homeruns, then signing Gregg will probably turn out to be a good move.

If espn.com’s numbers are right, however, Wrigley and the Sky Dome were roughly equal and neutral places to hit homeruns in 2009.  The Cubs and their opponents hit 160 HRs in Wrigley, and when the Cubs were on the road, they and their opponents hit 161 HRs.  In Toronto, the Jays and their opponents hit 194 HRs, and when the Jays were on the road, they and their opponents hit 196 HRs.

Meanwhile, almost as soon as Orlando Hudson’s signing with the Twins for $5 million was announced, the Nationals’ signing of Adam Kennedy for $1.25 million was announced.  It’s a good move for the Nationals because of the price, but I doubt Kennedy will make the Nats that much better.  Kennedy hit well for Oakland last year, posting a .758 OPS.  However, he actually played more games at third than at second for the A’s, and according to fangraphs, didn’t play good defense at either position.

Kennedy has had solid batting numbers in the past, but given that he will be 34 in 2010, I don’t expect his batting numbers to be as good in 2010 as they were in ‘09.  Still, if he should should fill some holes for the Nats at a very reasonable price.

The Nats have made some good moves this off-season, and I think they have a real chance to be a .500 team in 2010, which is good in comparison to how bad they’ve been the last couple of seasons.

Finally, Kevin Millar lives to play another day, or at least he’ll get a shot to play another day, the Cubs having just signed him to a minor league contract.  He hasn’t really been a major league hitter for the position he plays (1B) for the last two seasons, but he might be able to help the Cubs as a right-handed pinch hitter.

Millar is almost certainly the best player ever to get his professional start in an Independent A league.  J. D. Drew doesn’t count, because he played for the St. Paul Saints only because he couldn’t squeeze enough millions out of the team that drafted him when he first came out of college.

Millar, on the other hand, was undrafted out of college and got a chance with the Marlins organization only because he had a solid season for the St. Paul Saints in 1993 at age 21.  He’s now got 1,200+ major league hits and a World Series ring.  Not bad considering his humble beginnings.

Twins Sign Slow Dog

The Twins just signed Orlando Hudson to a one-year $5 million deal which includes an agreement not to offer him arbitration if he is rated as a Type-A free agent next off-season.  Despite the title of this post, I think it’s a good move for the Twins, because it addresses a pressing need.  Nevertheless, there are some risks, given Hudson’s age (32) and his no longer particularly good defense at second.

In terms of the pressing need, while I am not entirely willing to give up on Alexi Casilla, because he’s still only 25 years old and had a fine major league season in 2008, he really was pretty awful last season.  You can’t blame the Twins, who are looking to go deep into the post-season this coming year, for wanting to go with more of a sure thing.

In fact, there may now be a good chance that Casilla starts 2010 back at AAA Rochester.  Nick Punto, unless he gets a lot a playing time at third (not a good idea given how little Punto hits), has the back-up middle infield slot locked up now that the Twins have acquired Hudson and J. J. Hardy.

However, none of the other 2Bmen listed on the Twins roster look capable of contributing much at that position in 2010.  Matt Tolbert got substantial playing time for the Twins last year, but at age 28 this year, he doesn’t look like he’ll ever be a major league hitter.

Brian Dinkelman had a fine season at AA New Britain in 2009, hitting .296 with a .383 on-base percentage and an .823 OPS.  However, he will be 26 in 2010, and hasn’t had even one plate appearance yet above the AA level.

Luke Hughes had a solid year split between AA and AAA in 2009 at age 24, but he’s played mostly at third, which makes you question his ability to play second at the major league level.  Trevor Plouffe had a solid year at AAA Rochester last year at age 23, and it appears he can play 2B, 3B and SS.  However, he appears to need at least another half-season at AAA before he’ll be ready to face major league pitching.

The Twins still look weak at third going into 2010.  Brendan Harris is reported to be the favorite to start there come April, but I have doubts whether he’ll hit enough to hold the job.  If Danny Valencia plays well the first couple of months at Rochester, there’s a good chance he could the starting job by the 2010 All-Star Break.

Dave Cameron of fangraphs thinks the Twins have had one of the half dozen best off-seasons in all of MLB this off-season.  I’m not quite as impressed as Cameron at the resigning of Carl Pavano or the signing of Jim Thome, and I’m not going to give the Twins any credit for resigning Joe Mauer until his signature is actually affixed on the dotted line.

However, by acquiring J. J. Hardy and Orlando Hudson, the Twins have addressed their two most pressing needs at the end of 2009.  At this moment, one would have to think of them as the favorites in the AL Central entering the 2010 season.  Don’t be surprised, though, if the Twins add a couple more bargain-bin players before the start of Spring Training.

Small Potatoes

Here’s some news that is probably only interesting to me.

In what appears to be a case of better-the-devil-you-don’t-know, the Giant and Dodgers have effectively worked a trade of middle reliever Guillermo Mota for middle reliever Justin Miller.  Not really, but it might as well have been.

You may recall that Miller pitched fairly well for the Giants last year (3.18 ERA in 44 relief appearances), but apparently couldn’t get even a small guaranteed deal from the Giants in 2010, so he signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers.

Now, the Giants have signed former Dodger reliever Mota to a minor league deal for 2010.  Mota’s 2010 is almost indistinguishable for Miller’s.  Mota also had a low ERA (3.44), but like Miller, his ratios weren’t good.

In my opinion, Miller is a slightly better bet for 2010 than Mota, although there really isn’t a lot of day light between the two.  Miller is four years younger (32 to 36 in 2010), and his 3.18 ERA pitching at home at AT&T Park is probably a little better than Mota’s 3.44 ERA pitching his home games at Dodger Stadium.  Reports have it, though, that Mota was still throwing a 94 mph fastball last year.

Seems kind of strange they couldn’t get the same minor league deals to stay in the cities they pitched in last year.  It kind of reminds me of those trades that second-division teams used to make back in the days before free agency, when they’d trade a couple of back-up players, as much to generate a little interest as anything else.

In a case of a guy getting more chances than he deserves, the Nationals just signed Kevin Mench to a minor league deal.  Around this time last year, when Mench signed a deal to play for the Hanshin Tigers in the Japanese leagues, I wrote a post on japanesebaseball.com about why I thought this was a terrible move for Hanshin.  The Japanese leagues are too good for players who are no longer even good AAA players, and Mench hadn’t been in 2008.

Turns out I was right on that prediction.  Mench was so incredibly bad in Japan, he only lasted 56  plate appearances before Hanshin gave him his walking papers.  Mench hit .148 with a .438 OPS.

Anything’s possible, but the odds that Mench is ever going to be a major league player again are so slim that no major league organization should waste its time.  If Mench still thinks he has something left, that’s what the Independent A Atlantic League is for.

For what it’s worth, one of the top ten hitters in the Atlantic League in 2009 was former Twin Lew Ford.  This is relevant only because Ford was the overpriced, too old and no longer any good American player who bombed for the Hanshin Tigers in 2008 and whose foreign player roster spot Mench took in 2009.  Ford hit .225 with a .656 OPS in 47 games for Hanshin in 2008.

After his fine play in the Atlantic League, the Reds signed Ford to play for their AAA team at Louisville late in the year.  Back in AAA, he hit a feeble .158 with a .572 OPS in 46 plate appearances.

Ford then played winter league ball in Venezuela this off-season.  However, after hitting .262 with a mediocre .711 OPS in 52 games there, it’s really time for Ford, now age 33, to consider getting a real job and getting on with his life.  Otherwise, it’s back to making $3,000 a month for a five-month season in the Atlantic League or the Mexican leagues.

Also, the Dodgers just signed their own mediocre 33 year old outfielder, Reed Johnson, to a one-year deal for $800,000.  This is a paltry sum by current standards, but it still galls me that Johnson can get a guaranteed deal, and Jonny Gomes apparently cannot.

Unlike Gomes, Johnson can play all three outfield positions, although according to fangraphs, he doesn’t play any of them well except for left field.  The thing that really bothers me, though, is that Johnson is four years older than Gomes, has a career OPS almost fifty points lower than Gomes, and is coming off a year when he had a .742 OPS playing his home games in Wrigley Field.  Playing in Dodger Stadium at age 33 in 2010, it will be a surprise if his OPS reaches .700.

Reed’s probably a good guy to have in the clubhouse, but I’d rather have Jonny Gomes for the same money.

Local News

The A’s and Giants were busy today, especially the A’s.

In the biggest move, the A’s traded 2Bman Aaron Miles and a player to be named later for centerfielder Willy Taveras and back-up middle infielder Adam Rosales.  Apparently, Rosales is the player the A’s really want, based on his strong minor league numbers last year.  However, since he’s already 27 in 2010, he isn’t expected to be much more than a good back-up middle infielder.

Not sure why the A’s accepted Willy Taveras, except possibly to balance out the contract obligations the Reds assumed in taking Miles.  Willy’s hitting reached new lows in 2009 (a stunningly bad .560 OPS), but fangraphs says he played good defense in centerfield last year.

On that subject, I’ve been meaning to write a post regarding UZR and UZR/150, but I still haven’t gotten around to it.  The thing that bothers me most about the stat is that it appears to change radically from season to season for quite a few players.  Using UZR/150, Taveras is rated to have been a terrific centerfielder for the Astros in 2005 and 2006 (12.6 and 22.6), but a terrible centerfielder for the Rockies in 2007 and below average in 2008 (-7.1 and -3.0), but back to being great again in Cincinnati in 2009 (14.1).  Numbers like these more strongly suggest that there is a bug in the UZR ratings formula that needs to be addressed, than that Taveras suddenly and temporarily lost the ability to play centerfield his two years in Colorado.

Taveras is now 28 years old, so it looks doubtful that he’ll ever be a major league hitter.  However, he has some value as a pinch runner and late-inning defensive centerfield.  However, the A’s already have a better version of the same player in Rajai Davis, and having signed Coco Crisp also this off-season, the A’s don’t need any more light hitting, defensive outfielders.

One would have to think that the A’s will look to trade someone.  In fact, the A’s have reportedly already designated Taveras for assignment.  Unless they find a trading partner, they’ll likely be spending a lot of money to have Taveras be their starting centerfielder in AAA Sacramento in 2010.

The A’s also just added another outfielder in former Ray Gabe Gross to a one-year $750,000 deal.  Gross is strictly a left-handed hitting platoon player.  The A’s likely appreciate his career .337 on-base percentage, which is pretty good for a bench player.  Again, he adds to the crowd in the A’s outfield.

The A’s also designated left-handed starter Dana Eveland for assignment.  He had a strong rookie year for the A’s in 2008, but regressed significantly in 2009, pitching very poorly for the A’s and spending most of the year back at AAA Sacramento, where his ERA as a starter was a mediocre 4.94.  He’s only 26 in 2010, however, so I’d be surprised if another team doesn’t claim him.

In yet another move, the A’s claimed 26 year old minor leaguer Steve Tolleson on waivers out of the Twins’ system.  Tolleson looks like a potentially useful bench player at the major league level, since he can play at short, second and third and has a career minor league on-base percentage of .368.  He’ll be 26 in 2010, and appears to need at least one more year in AAA.

On the other side of the Bay, the Giants signed former major leaguer Byung Hyun Kim to a minor league deal.  Kim hasn’t pitched in the Show since 2007, and he’s now 31 years old after pitching the last two seasons in Korea’s KBO.

Looking at Kim’s major league career to date, it sure looks like the decision to convert him from a reliever into a starter ruined his career.  He improved steadily as a reliever at the beginning of his career until 2002, when posted a 2.04 ERA and 36 saves as the Diamondbacks’ closer.

Arizona converted him into a starter in 2003, and accept for the back end of that season, when he was traded to Boston and saved 16 games for the Sox, he was used primarily as a starter for the next four seasons.  He wasn’t horrendous as a starter, but he wasn’t good at it either.

In hindsight moving him out of the bullpen looks like a big mistake.  Of course, he also had some injury problems after heavy use early in his career.

I assume the Giants intend to use Kim as a relief pitcher, if he has anything left.  Maybe he will be another pleasant surprise at the back end of the Giants’ bullpen in 2010.  If nothing else, I’m sure Kim would enjoy playing in the Bay Area, where there is a fairly substantial Korean American population.

The Giants have also signed 30 year old lefty Horacio Ramirez to a minor league deal today.  Most likely he’ll end up giving pitching depth to the 2010 Fresno Grizzlies, rather than the Giants.

Ramirez has had some major league success, but he’s been wildly inconsistent the last few seasons, and his career numbers suggest he lacks the command to ever be a consistently successful major league pitcher.

In one final note, former Giant and Indian Ryan Garko just signed a one-year deal with the Mariners for only $550,000.  Yet another sign that the free agent market is terrible for players.  Garko’s no great shakes, but the contract he signed is pretty much as low as a team will go for a player with his major league experience and relative success.

In short, it’s definitely a good move for the M’s because it costs them very little and gives them a useful right-handed bat off the bench, who can hit for a little power and get on base.