Monthly Archives: February 2009

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

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…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.

 

And No, I Don’t Want Orlando Bloom or Orlando Jones, Either

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Hey, remember yesterday when I said that even though I think Orlando Hudson is a good player who might help the team, the cost of giving up the 1st round pick was too high of a price to play for one year, so let’s pass? What about giving up a 1st round pick for an older player who’s not as good? 

PHOENIX — The Dodgers, apparently uncertain they can work a deal for second baseman Orlando Hudson, have also begun talks with free-agent infielder Orlando Cabrera.

Cabrera, a two-time Gold Glove shortstop, told the club he would be willing to move to second base, where Blake DeWitt came to camp as the heir apparent to the retired Jeff Kent. Shortstop is locked up by Rafael Furcal, who signed a three-year deal, although Cabrera would provide insurance if Furcal was injured again.

orlandocabrera.jpgThis makes even less sense. While the 1st round price tag is what’s making me want to avoid Hudson, I at least admit that he’s a productive player who would be a short-term upgrade on the unproven Blake DeWitt at 2B – fine.

But Cabrera? Well, first of all, he’s not a second baseman. Oh sure, he says he’s willing to play it, but he’s only got 33 games of experience there, and no real time put in since 1998. Even worse, look at his bat. There’s no comparison between the Orlandos – while Hudson improved his OPS+ for the 4th straight year to 108, Cabrera declined to an 84 OPS+, making him 16% worse than the average AL hitter last year. In fact, he’s only been league average once in his career – way back in 2003 – and at 34, that’s unlikely to change now.

And that’s really the main point. Again, while he’s not worth a top pick, Hudson is likely to be better than DeWitt in 2009. Not only is Cabrera not better than Hudson, he’s not even better than DeWitt! Who’s more likely to produce in 2009? The 34 year old coming off an 84 OPS+ season, or the 23 year old coming off an 91 OPS+ season? Forget the salaries or the picks involved, DeWitt was a better player last year and he’s likely to be so this year. There’s an argument to be made for bumping him for Hudson; there is no such argument to do the same for Cabrera.

To recap, the second base rankings are as such: DeWitt + keeping 1st round pick + no additional salary > Hudson - 1st round pick > Mark Loretta + keeping 1st round pick + no additional salary > Tony Abreu + keeping 1st round pick + no additional salary > Ivan DeJesus Jr. + keeping 1st round pick + no additional salary > Orlando Cabera – 1st round pick.

I didn’t want to spend a 1st round pick on Hudson, and he’s clearly better than Cabrera. Why would we want to waste a 1st round pick on him?

Let’s Talk About Orlando Hudson

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We’ve mentioned this possibility in passing a few times, but now today there’s this from Ken Gurnick and his unfortunately-named blog:

The collapse of the free-agent market has dropped second baseman Orlando Hudson’s contract demands to a level that interests the Dodgers, and general manager Ned Colletti confirmed Wednesday that talks are ongoing.

Colletti said he has payroll “flexibility” unrelated to efforts to sign Manny Ramirez which Colletti said continue, He added that interest in Hudson does not mean he lacks confidence in Blake DeWitt, who came into Spring Training as the incumbent second baseman after the retirement of Jeff Kent.

“I’m big on inventory,” Colletti said.

orlando_hudson_1.jpgInventory’s nice, but is it worth it in this case? Hudson is probably looking for between $4-$5m on a one-year deal, which is a steal for a first-time free agent who made $6.25m last year, the fourth year in a row in which his OPS+ improved. Plus, while he’s no longer the defensive vaccuum he once was, he’d still be a huge improvement over Jeff Kent, and probably also over the mostly untested Blake DeWitt with the glove.

So hey, why not take advantage of the down economy like the women I saw ransacking Old Navy’s 75% off sale this weekend?

Well, the big problem would be that Hudson is a Type A free agent, which means that signing him would send the 17th pick in the first round of the 2009 draft directly to the division rival Diamondbacks. That may not seem like much, but keep in mind that other 17th overall picks in the last fifteen years have included Cole Hamels, David Murphy, LA’s own Scott Elbert, Brad Lidge, and Roy Halladay. Is that the kind of lottery ticket we want to be handing to the main competition in the division for just one year of Hudson?

Besides, while Hudson would most likely be an upgrade over DeWitt, what would the cost of displacing DeWitt be? Sure, Hudson will outperform DeWitt in 2009. But when both were 22, as DeWitt was last year, both players put up nearly identical OPS (.727 vs .730). The main difference, of course, is that while DeWitt was doing it in the bigs, Hudson was doing it in single and double A ball. I have no idea what kind of player DeWitt will turn out to be, but I do know that I’m very interested in finding out. 

Now, there is one other option in which both Hudson and DeWitt could stay on the field, and that’s to shift DeWitt back to third base and push Casey Blake out to left field. It’s certainly not an ideal situation, but swapping out Juan Pierre for Hudson in the lineup is without question a huge win. Of course, that presupposes that Manny Ramirez won’t be returning to town, and in that case, ending up with Hudson instead of Adam Dunn or Bobby Abreu (both superior hitters who wouldn’t cost a draft pick) would have to be seen as a huge failure.

So, sure, Hudson’s a good player. He’d probably even help the team in 2009. But I just can’t stomach sending a first round pick to a division rival for one year of (likely) impeding DeWitt’s development. Pass.

Ethier Avoids the Wrath of Ng

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87toppsandreethier.jpgMLBtraderumors directs us to a New York Post article with the details:

The Dodgers and Andre Ethier have agreed on a one-year, $3.1 million contract and will avoid arbitration, The Post has learned.

Ethier can earn an extra $100,000 in plate-appearance incentives.

The real question is, of course, how in the hell a New York paper is getting the scoop on a contract from a Los Angeles team that’s training in Arizona. This sounds about right, though – Ethier had asked for $3.75m, while the Dodgers had offered $2.65m. If Ethier nails the incentives, he’ll get the midpoint of the two deals, which is really how 90% of these situations work out anyway. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s work on a longer term deal, shall we?

On another topic, we can’t ever get enough old, washed-up veteran pitchers:

Isringhausen, 36, stands at 293 career saves, including a franchise record 217 in seven seasons with the Cardinals. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers also have expressed interest in bringing him into camp to audition for middle or set-up relief.

Actually, I’m kidding – I’d completely be in favor of this assuming it’s reasonably priced. Isringhausen was abysmal last year (5.70 ERA in 42 games, which is a 75 ERA+, along with a 1.641 WHIP), but was excellent in 2007 (2.48 ERA, 177 ERA+, 1.071 WHIP). Guys who’ve been as good as he has for as long as he has don’t generally fall off a cliff that hard without an underlying reason, and Isringhausen did indeed have tendon surgery on his arm in September. If, as he states, he’s recovered (though who doesn’t say that at this time of year), why not bring him in? Unlike Trevor Hoffman, this wouldn’t be to take over the closer’s role from Jonathan Broxton, just to add another arm to the relief corps. Works for me.

Update: Almost forgot to mention, I did a five questions segment about the Dodgers as part of the season preview at the most excellent Razzball. My number one prediction: this is the only Dodgers preview you’ll read this year that involves Wilmer Valderrama, STDs, and the corpse of Ricardo Montalbon.  

At Least It’s Better Than More ARod Talk…

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Just a quick and fun post while I shudder at the Jonas Brothers assaulting my ears on yet another aggressively awful SNL, but this jumped out at me from dodgers.com:

PHOENIX — Manny Ramirez stands out, even in absentia.

There are 70 nameplates above lockers in the Dodgers’ new clubhouse at Camelback Ranch-Glendale and one locker without a nameplate, in the corner next to Rafael Furcal.

Guess who they’re saving that one for.

I like to think this looks something like this:

mannylocker.jpg

Also, we’ve featured “Troy from West Virginia” before on this site (notably with his original video, “The Legend of Joe Beimel“, and when I sort of e-stalked him in Philadelphia), but this is by far his best work. I can’t imagine the effort it took to fit this all together, but trust me – it’s worth the listen.