A Final Word on The Offseason Infield Acquisitions
February 28, 2010 at 1:43 pm | Posted in Felipe Lopez, Jamey Carroll | 8 CommentsIt’s no secret around here that I think the Dodgers made a mistake by giving Jamey Carroll two guaranteed years; my post titled “So Everyone Agrees the Dodgers Moved Too Quickly on Jamey Carroll, Right?” saw one of the largest comment totals I’ve seen all season. It’s not that I have any particular problem with Carroll, it’s just that he seems like a poor fit for this club; if you wanted insurance for Blake DeWitt at second base, you could have signed a lefty hitter who can play shortstop as well.
I won’t continue harping on it, since what’s done is done and either way, this decision (hopefully) won’t be what makes or breaks the season. So to put a bow on this topic, let’s quickly discuss the two bits of news regarding this we’ve seen in the last two days…
Felipe Lopez signs with the Cardinals for 1 year, $1m. As I detailed extensively in the post about Carroll linked above, Lopez was a much better choice for this team. He’s a switch hitter; Carroll is righty. He can play shortstop; Carroll really can’t. He’s a far better hitter, and as far as fielding, well, just catch this tidbit from Buster Olney’s blog:
While Lopez likely will be an offensive upgrade over the Cardinals’ second basemen from 2009 — he had an .810 OPS last season versus a .747 OPS for Cardinals second basemen — he also should improve the infield defense. According to fangraphs.com, Lopez had the fifth-highest UZR among MLB second basemen, and he really excelled in his range, where he ranked second among second basemen.
In my earlier article, I said the only reason to not sign Lopez was if you weren’t sure that he’d be okay with possibly accepting a backup or utility role. Judging by his comments in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, it doesn’t sound like that’ll be an issue…
“I can play anywhere. That’s the right answer, right?” Lopez offered after completing a team physical. “I’ll play anywhere. I know this team … is a really good team, so wherever they need me.”
At the time of the Carroll article, we didn’t know how much Lopez would eventually sign for, but it seemed certain that the longer he was out there, the less he would get. In addition to his $1m guaranteed, he’s eligible for $1.2m in incentives, which he can’t fully max out unless he gets 600 plate appearances (which not even Albert Pujols did in St. Louis last year). Yet the Dodgers guaranteed Carroll nearly four times as much what Lopez is guaranteed, over an extra year, for a player who’s older, not as versatile, and a lesser player. Fantastic.
Was the Carroll deal the worst move of the offseason? I don’t think I would go quite that far – I’m still dying over the Brandon Lyon deal – but the fact is, MLBtraderumors asked the question, and he’s in the conversation. This is a deal that seemed okay at best at the time, and just keeps looking worse considering how the market (and the Dodger roster composition) has played out.
Anyway, I’ve said my piece on this more than once, so we’ll consider this case file closed and move on tomorrow.
8 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a Reply
How Many McCourt Sins?
MSTI on the web
MSTI Library
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
Well there’s the Carrol deal, the fact that we still do not have a power lefty bat off the bench while Russell Branyon sat out there for quite awhile and the fact that Reed Johnson really doesn’t impress as a defensive outfielder, which is mostly what this team will need from that 4th outfielder. All in all, this has really been a hellacious off season for Ned. I know he didn’t have a lot of money but he has done very poorly with the little he did.
Comment by Doug Harris— March 1, 2010 #
I thought Ned has done okay. Not great, but okay. Mark from ladodgertalk.com just abandoned his blog because of all the negativity… interesting.
Russell Branyan is going to be starting at first base for the Indians.. he would never settle for a bench job for us. He hit 31 homers last year. Reed Johnson is decent and I believe he’ll be fine.
As far as Lopez goes, if any of you saw that contract coming, you’re crazy. He batted .300 and had a really great year. And until he fired Scott Boras as his agent he was asking for 6 or 7 million a year. It’s his fault, he got paid that little. He misread the market. He only got that little because he waited to long to sign and there was really only one team left that wanted him, the Cardinals…. see Orlando Hudson next year… if the Dodgers had not signed Carroll or Belliard and waited, who knows what would’ve happened. We could have gotten into a bidding war…which would’ve raised the price and you all would’ve complained about us paying too much for him.
We’re fine…. this is a good team and we’ll have a good year.
Go Dodgers
Comment by A Shot of Haeger— March 1, 2010 #
You’re not wrong, but what’s the worst that could have happened by waiting on Carroll in hopes of a better player at similar or less money? He signs with another team? Not getting Jamey Carroll wasn’t going to break the season apart, not when there’s plenty of guys just like him.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— March 1, 2010 #
“Yet the Dodgers guaranteed Carroll nearly four times as much what Lopez is guaranteed, over an extra year, for a player who’s older, not as versatile, and a lesser player. Fantastic.”
This is why they pay Ned the big bucks! not to mention a 5 year extension :(
Comment by bluetrain— March 1, 2010 #
While I agree there was no hurry to sign Carrol and no need for two years, he isn’t totally useless. A couple of points here, Carrol and Johnson both hit LHP better than RHP, so while they’re not power bats, they help with the lefty bat off the bench in situational hitting. Also, Carrol has a lifetime .348 BA as a PH. For the last two years the PH has been a black hole for the Dodgers.
Comment by carolinabluedodger— March 1, 2010 #
Last winter, Colletti read the market well and got some bargains. I like to think that he was figuring out this GM thing. This winter, aside from Carroll was also a good one. Yeah, he got Padilla for what looks like a bargain (compared to Garland, Pineiro, etc…) and he got something good for Slap (he best hope that Link or Ely become something special to totally remove the memory of that signing). Plus, the signings of Johnson, Weaver and the deals that Broxton, Kemp, Ethier were good moves by Ned.
The Carroll signing is not awful, in and of itself (I can think of four or five other signings that are worse – including all the moves by the Giants and the Astros) and if Furcal stays healthy, it will be a moot point that Carroll is a poor option at short. My biggest issue is with the length of the contract and not the money. If this is our biggest complaint of the season, then it is going to be one helluva good year.
Comment by grabarkewitz— March 1, 2010 #
The Carroll signing was bad enough BEFORE the Cardinals picked up a quality starting second baseman who can also play SS for $1M plus incentives. Felipe Lopez has more power, more speed, plays much better at more positons defensively, and is six years younger. To me, we should have just eaten the contracts of either Belliard or Carroll and toped St. Louis’ offer to Lopez. Once he shed Boras, Ned should have been admitting his error(s) and gone after Lopez.
Comment by SamAdams— March 1, 2010 #
[...] coming off of a great 2009), especially when Lopez signed for barely a third of what Carroll got, which made the Carroll deal look so bad that it made it’s way onto MLBtraderumors’ list of “worst offseason [...]
Pingback by MSTI’s 2010 in Review: Shortstop « Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— October 25, 2010 #