Daily Archives: March 22, 2010

Crisis Averted!

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Normally the release of a non-roster middle infielder wouldn’t warrant its own blog post. But Angel Berroa is no normal player, which is why the news from Dodger Thoughts is so welcome:

Gurnick also notes that the Dodgers released shortstop Angel Berroa.

I have neither the time nor the space to recount my entire blogging history regarding Angel Berroa, but I encourage you to look through the archives and enjoy such gems as…

“Berroa is so bad that he might actually open a hole in the goddamn space-time continuum.”

and

“the so-bad-I-may-renounce-my-fandom-if-he-sticks Angel Berroa.”

and

“and Berroa, well, he’s basically the worst major leaguer in baseball history.”

And that’s only since he was signed this winter, much less when he played every day in 2008.  If you’re a real masochist, I’d start from the day he was acquired. Even better, he wasn’t just sent to minor-league camp, he was flat-out released. Hooray!

Jamie Hoffmann Returns From His Semester in NYC

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And by “NYC”, I suppose I really just mean “Tampa”, don’t I? Via the wonderful world of Twitter we find out that OF Jamie Hoffmann, a Rule 5 pick by the Yankees, has cleared waivers and is on his way back to the Dodgers.

Not that this comes as any surprise, of course, since when he was lost in December I did note it in a post titled “Prediction: This is Not the Last We’ll See of Jamie Hoffmann“:

So, good for Hoffmann, I suppose, because he’ll get more of a shot to make the roster in New York than he would with the Dodgers in 2010. Kind of a confounding move from the Yankees, but five will get you ten that he gets offered back to the Dodgers at some point this year.

I’m guessing the .130/.259/.174 he put up in 11 spring games as a Yankee didn’t really help his case of sticking there. He’s got no shot of making the Dodgers, of course, as he’s yet another righty, but he’ll provide good depth as part of a decent AAA outfield with Xavier Paul and Jason Repko.

Eric Gagne Free to Tear Up the Can-Am League…

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…because the Dodgers have released him.

Former Cy Young Award winner Eric Gagne asked for and was given his release by the Dodgers on Sunday night, ending a brief attempt to restart his career with his original team.

“Both sides thought at this juncture it was in Eric’s best interest to see if he can find another opportunity, rather than wait until later in spring or into April if he wants to continue to pitch,” said general manager Ned Colletti. “It’s better that he has a couple weeks to go.”

Gagne, 34, had accepted a Minor League assignment earlier this month, acknowledging that he needed more work to bring his game back to the Major League level after two years of shoulder problems that included spending last year in independent ball.

If there’s a surprise here, its that Gagne had agreed to go to the minors last week, and had pitched in just one (intrasquad!) game since then. Despite Colletti’s comments, I can’t imagine that word got to him that any other team was interested in giving him a shot, so it’s more than likely that Gagne realized his chances of making it back to the bigs were miniscule at best, and decided he had better things to do than ride buses around the southwest all summer.

I didn’t mind giving him a shot in camp, but personally I’m glad this is over before the season starts. We’ll always have 2003*, Eric.

(Hey, hopefully Ramon Troncoso can get #38 back!)