If I Post About Orlando Three Times in a Row, Maybe He’ll Appear

February 20, 2009 at 11:47 am | Posted in Orlando Hudson | 18 Comments

…and according to MLBtraderumors, he has.

According to XM Home Plate, the Dodgers signed Orlando Hudson.

No salary details yet, obviously. I think I made myself pretty clear yesterday on this. He’s a good player, I’ll be happy to cheer for him… but handing Arizona the 17th overall pick is an absolute killer. I can’t stand the idea of tossing away picks like that. And the fact that the front office is apparently okay with that continues to sadden me.

The Diamondbacks must be thrilled, and that alone is enough to know that this was a mistake.

And you know what? I didn’t mention this yesterday, but I should have. If you really really needed a second baseman, Ray Durham could have been had for half the price, zero draft pick compensation… and coming off a superior offensive year. He’s not the defender that Hudson is, granted, but is that worth giving away a first round pick to our biggest rival? It’s mind blowing.

I suppose it remains to be seen whether this benches/demotes DeWitt, or pushes him to third base, with Blake to left and Pierre to the bench. That would be the most efficient use of the pieces involved, but if that’s the case it’s still a problem, because if you’ve got a left fielder that’s not named Manny Ramirez, it really needed to be Adam Dunn or Bobby Abreu.

On the plus side, I suppose, now today’s earlier post about Orlando Cabrera was much ado about nothing.

Update: We now have salary numbers from MLB.com:

The deal is worth $3.4 million with another $4.6 million in possible incentives.

So if he hits all his incentives, that’s eight million dollars? How is that cheap? Wasn’t half the point that we were going to be able to get a decent player at a great discount? Granted, we don’t know what the incentives are yet or how easily obtained they’ll be, but some of them had better be “win Cy Young Award” or “land on the moon”. Oh, and by the way, let’s enjoy the Hudson that no longer calls Arizona home: his 2008 home/road splits were a .939 OPS at home… .718 OPS on the road. Fantastic. This keeps getting better and better.

18 Comments »

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I think the sentence referring to his salary is poorly written, meaning it should’ve read that with incentives, he could earn 4.6 million.
That’s the only thing that would make sense to me, ’cause why would Hudson earn way more than Abreu this upcoming season.
Also, later on in the article, it says that Hudson will earn a hefty paycut from his 6.2 million salary of last year, so it makes sense that his overall salary this year with all the incentives will be under 5 mil.

Comment by Hamlet— February 20, 2009 #

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No, I think you’re mistaken. It clearly says an “additional $4.6 million”, and when they say he’s taking a paycut, they mean just in guaranteed funds – which he is.

Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— February 20, 2009 #

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I hate my life.

Comment by kensai— February 20, 2009 #

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So now at second, there’s Hudson, DeWitt, Loretta, and Delwyn Young. That ought to be enough depth.

Comment by b.rock— February 20, 2009 #

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First, I’m pretty sure ARI was going to get a draft pick no matter who signed Hudson. If so, it doesn’t matter who we’re giving the pick to. Losing the pick (no matter where it goes) is the only draft concern to consider in this deal.

Comment by Kbrooks2— February 20, 2009 #

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But Arizona wasn’t guaranteed a first round pick. If a team picking in the top 15 (say, Kansas City) signed him, their #1 pick was protected, so Arizona would only get a #2. If a team that had already lost their #1 pick (say, the Mets) had signed him, Arizona would still only get a #2.
The fact that it was US that did it directly helps our divison rival.

Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— February 20, 2009 #

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Also, he has hit pretty well in The Ravine although its a small sample size. Here are his OBP/SLG/AVG splits at The Ravine:
2006 — .361 .629 .343
2007 — .481 .364 .364
2008 — .280 .304 .217

Comment by Kbrooks2— February 20, 2009 #

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A Loretta/Durham combo would have done the job.
A Grundy/Durham combo would have done the job.
I like Hudson but so many options were available if you didn’t trust DeWitt.
For a switch hitter, Durham’s splits are fairly close. You don’t usually see that. Hudson has about 100 point OPS split favoring the left side. That will come in handy against RHP but it looks like Lorreta should be facing the LHP. Will Torre do it?

Comment by TrueBlue— February 20, 2009 #

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Ya…that’s why I wasn’t sure. I knew the first 15 were protected in some manner.
As an aside, I sometimes think 1st round draft choices, although important, are overrated. Many picks are complete wiffs. MLB talent is just so hard to project.

Comment by Kbrooks2— February 20, 2009 #

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I understand why everybody is concerned about giving Arizona the 17th pick, but arn’t we forgeting somthing? LA will get a pick if we offer him arbitration next year and he signs with another team. There is no guarantee we will recoup our draft pick, but it is not a total loss.

Comment by Table— February 20, 2009 #

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10 – True, but that means we’d have to offer arbitration first, and with the way the market looks, he’d be silly not to accept it.

Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— February 20, 2009 #

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Well, this could turn out very good for us. Although i am not happy about losing the pick. So i am interested at what the dodgers do next. i think the best move is to have Dewitt play 2b in AAA that would give him a year at 2B and good to go next year. I think it only makes sense to move him the 3rd if that is were we want to keep him. Also, the Blake in left field thing is OK but since i still feel that eventually we will get Manny it is really almost a moot point. Thoughts?

Comment by gillbert— February 20, 2009 #

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Nothing is going to change with this franchise until Ned is gone. And preferably Mark Cuban buys the team or something. :o

Comment by kensai— February 20, 2009 #

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13 – If by nothing changing you mean advancing to the NLCS each year and being at the top of the National League West, then I think that’s a pretty good fate for our franchise. The wasted money and bad contracts I could do without, but being in the playoffs two out of the last three years is a pretty good deal in my opinion.

Comment by Vollhardt— February 20, 2009 #

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12 — I don’t like the idea of DeWitt wasting away in Albequerque. He could be a good option off the bench and could start some games against righties for both Casey Blake and Orlando Hudson. Losing the pick–especially to Arizona–sucks badly, but I’m loving the depth on this team. If our left fielder, second baseman or third baseman gets injured, we have Blake DeWitt. It also opens up trade opportunities. I do think that we need to FINALLY spend above slot in the upcoming draft to make up for the loss of the pick. Remember letting David Price, Alex White and Kyle Blair go because they wanted too much? Time to give in on one of those types of picks.

Comment by TheSleaze— February 21, 2009 #

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With the possibility of Repko playing some outfield there are going to need 4 shortstops and at a minimum 6 second basemen.

Comment by olddodger— February 21, 2009 #

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14 – I think the fact that the NL West has been so lousy recently has a lot to do with that, too. If the Dodgers had been in the NL Central last year they’d have been out of the race by July.

Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— February 21, 2009 #

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So you’re saying that the Dodger teams over the last 3 years have been good teams?
88-82-84
~115 million plus in payroll buys barely above .500 with the current regime. I’m thrilled.
Can you imagine if Ned didn’t have the best farm system in the major leagues contributing to his squads at minimum wage?
GOOD GOD.

Comment by kensai— February 21, 2009 #

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Mike Scioscia's tragic illness