Monthly Archives: November 2010

Ryan Theriot Traded For Living, Breathing, Human Being

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The news keeps coming fast and furious:

The #Dodgers have traded Ryan Theriot to the #Cardinals in exchange for RHP Blake Hawksworth

Hawksworth is… well, he’s not Ryan Theriot, and that makes this a big win. Seriously, though, he’s a 27-year-old (28 in March) righty who’s pitched in 75 games for the Cards over the last two years, with all 8 of his starts coming in 2010. One of those starts came against the Dodgers on June 7, and it didn’t go well, as he allowed six ER in 4 IP.

He’s got a career FIP of 4.76, and he’s a fastball/change-up type with heat that averages about 93 MPH, so he’s certainly not great, but he’s not without his uses, and he’s not even arbitration-eligible until 2013. So maybe he’s a bullpen swingman, maybe he’s in the ABQ rotation (okay, perhaps not; I’ve been told he’s out of options). But most of all, he’s not Ryan Theriot – and that’s a win.

As for the Cardinals, is Theriot a perfect fit for a team that employs Brendan Ryan and Aaron Miles or what? Yeesh.

Let’s Get Older!

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Before you look at this, it’s really important to note that it’s just a rumor from a “source”. 99% of these never turn into anything at all, and that’s why I don’t always want to post them. But then I realize that people are going to want to discuss them, so I might as well provide a forum for that. I just ask that you not completely destroy the front office over this until it, you know, actually happens.

Ken Rosenthal:

Two older free agents – outfielder Johnny Damon, 37, and catcher Jason Varitek, 38 – are among the players on the Dodgers’ radar, according to major-league sources. 

In fact, the Dodgers are in contact with virtually every free-agent catcher – Rod Barajas, A.J. Pierzynski, Miguel Olivo – as they try to determine their next step with Russell Martin.

Martin, 27, is at least a week away from running, sources say, and perhaps six weeks away from resuming baseball activities. He would be returning to the most physically demanding position on the field. And his offensive performance is in decline – he posted on-base slugging percentages of .680 and .679 the past two seasons, though he did not play after Aug. 3 last season due to his injury.

Damon seemingly would be a better fit in the American League – more than 75 percent of his plate appearances for the Tigers last season were as a DH. But with the Dodgers, he could replace free agent Scott Podsednik and hit second behind Rafael Furcal.

The Dodgers likely would want assurances that Damon was in good enough shape to play the outfield. But the team’s current left fielder, Jay Gibbon, also is below-average defensively, and Damon would carry added value as a positive influence for the club’s younger players.

Damon is all but unplayable in the outfield and had a .756 OPS last year. Varitek hasn’t been worth more than 1.0 fWAR since 2007.

How Do You Feel About Juan Uribe in 2013? (Updated)

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I didn’t really want to talk about Juan Uribe again, especially bumping Vin’s birthday down the page, but with Jon Heyman reporting that the club is close to finalizing a 3/$21m deal with him, I suppose people are going to want to discuss it.

Before we get into the epic freakout that giving a mediocre player a three-year committment is sure to kick off, let’s at least note the positives here – and yes, there are some. Such as…

1) Signing Uribe would almost certainly mean that Ryan Theriot gets non-tendered. That doesn’t make giving Uribe three years okay, of course, but any solution that ends with Theriot leaving town has at least some merit.

2) It does improve the team somewhat  in 2011. Unfortunately, that’s more because Theriot is awful and not because Uribe is all that great. He’s got far more power and he’s a better defender, and he was worth 2.8 and 3.2 fWAR over the last two years. I’m on record as saying that I don’t think Ivan DeJesus is ready in 2010, and Uribe is near the top of a bad list of options to fill the role. The Dodgers were a team short on power and fielding last year, and this helps with both for 2011.

3) It gives the club flexibility going forward. I hate giving Uribe three guaranteed years – more on that in a second – but don’t forget how in flux the Dodger infield is. Besides for the big hole at 2B, Rafael Furcal and Casey Blake are each entering the final guaranteed years of their contracts. There’s no obvious successor at 3B coming from within, and while we all hope Dee Gordon is ready to take over SS in 2012, he’s very raw and it’s not guaranteed. So Uribe’s flexibility could help the team in years to come.

Now that we’ve got the positives out of the way… what in the hell is this team doing giving three years* and $22m to Juan Uribe?! (*standard caveat of “it’s just a report, and not an official deal yet” applies.) Uribe’s never had even a two-year deal in his life. He was quite good in 2005 with the White Sox (111 OPS+, 23 HR), but after four consecutive years of not having an OBP over .301, he was cut loose after 2008. The Giants got him for 1 year, $1m in 2009, and he was quite good again – 112 OPS+ – so they resigned him for 1 year, $3.2m in 2010. Other than increasing his HR, he completely regressed  at he plate. His OPS fell from .824 to .749, and his wOBA fell from .351 to .322.

That doesn’t make him useless, but as I’ve said every other time I’ve talked about him, I like him for one year and I’d accept an option for a second. But now we’re taking a guy whose age 25-28 seasons were all basically a waste, had one good year at 29 and couldn’t quite keep it up at 30 three guaranteed years? Why? Because he was a Giant? Because he hit a homer in the World Series (despite doing little else in October)?

Look at it this way. I didn’t like giving Casey Blake a third guaranteed year after 2008, and Blake was at least coming off of seven consecutive years of solid average-to-above-average play. Uribe gets credit for playing the middle infield where Blake cannot, but he’s coming off of.. well, you know. Yet he also gets three years, more money, and Uribe has his share of questions about his weight and work ethic which Blake did not. Besides, we all know the Dodgers like to backload their contracts, so it won’t be an even 7/7/7 (ish) split. Look forward to paying Uribe $10m in 2013!

And the question must be asked: what now? The Dodgers have already spent far more than any of us expected they would this offseason, but there’s still a lot of holes. They still don’t have a catcher or a left fielder, and they still have mediocre production from first base and third base. Now I’ll reserve my judgement on that until I see what shakes out in the rest of the offseason, but if Juan Uribe is your big acquisition to fix an offense that was awful last year, that’s just not good enough.

I suppose it all comes down to this. In a vacuum, I like Jon Garland‘s one-plus-one deal. For 2011 only, I like Juan Uribe. But you’ve just committed (assuming Garland hits his 190 IP to trigger his option, which is very likely) $35-$38m (Garland has $3m in 2011 incentives) to two guys who are useful pieces, but hardly gamechangers. If you had $38m to spend over the next three years… well, that’s pretty damn close to buying Adam Dunn, isn’t it?

For over a year now, we’ve complained that the McCourt divorce case is hindering the baseball operations team from making the moves they needed. Perhaps we were shortsighted; the big downside of having money to spend is that this team now has money to spend.

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Update, 1:45pm PST: Hey, today just keeps getting better and better! Jon Garland was just on Jim Bowden’s XM radio show. Bowden tweets:

Jon Garland just told us that teams wouldn’t offer him a multi-year deal because of MRI’s and Physicians opinions that he would break-down

I didn’t hear this live, so it’s possible something was lost in the translation, but it’s an eye-opener. On one hand, this seems highly unlikely, because Garland is known for his durability – and because what player would admit that?! On the other hand, it’s not like Ned Colletti’s never knowingly signed an injured pitcher before.

I Suppose It’s Time to Discuss Juan Uribe

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As I was riding the train home today, I came upon a Ken Rosenthal blog post outlining why he thinks that Juan Uribe would be a perfect fit for the Dodgers, who have a big hole at 2B, a declining 3B, and an injury-prone SS. Minutes later, Ken Gurnick posted at dodgers.com that the club is actually “targeting” Uribe.

I’m not sure if Gurnick was just parroting Rosenthal, since the two posts appeared so quickly after each other, but in Gurnick’s version the club was showing interest in Uribe, which is a notable point absent from Rosenthal’s story. Either way, this is about to become a thing, so now is as good a time as any to look into whether the Dodgers should be going after Uribe.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because I proposed the exact same thing in my 2011 plan back in early October:

5) Sign Juan Uribe to a 1-year, $5m deal to play 2B with an option for 2012.

Yes, he’s a Giant, and one with a .310 OBP at that. But the Dodgers are probably going to pay Theriot $3.5m to play decentish defense while being a black hole at the plate. If you’re going to pay that much for a 2B without much of an OBP, why not pay just a bit more for better defense and more power?

Theriot has 16 homers in his big-league career. Uribe has hit at least 16 in six of the last seven seasons; his .440 SLG this year and .431 SLG career is nearly 100 points better than Theriot’s ever had. On defense, Uribe (10.9 UZR/150 at 2B) is better than Theriot is (4.3 UZR/150 at 2B), plus he’s above average at SS and 3B – and provides excellent insurance for another Rafael Furcal injury, as he started 96 games at SS this year with Edgar Renteria ailing.

Uribe’s not perfect. But for $4-5m, would you rather a low-OBP guy with zero power and decent defense, or a low-OBP guy with good power and plus defense? Now, it’s possible I’m short-changing the contract Uribe would get here, but he was horrendous in 2007 and ’08, to the point where he had to take a minor-league deal before 2009. That, plus the fact he’s turning 32 next summer and that he entered 2010 as a backup to Renteria and Freddy Sanchez, means I can’t see anyone investing a bunch of years.

Now, it should be noted that I wrote that before the Giants made the bulk of their playoff run. Uribe was actually kind of lousy in the playoffs (he got on base just 10 times in 51 plate appearances) but he gained notoriety by hitting the game-winning homer in Game 6 of the NLCS, which he followed up with a three-run shot in Game 1 of the World Series. So if that inflated his market value to the point where he’s getting guaranteed big money 2- or 3- year deals, then count me out. I’d like to think that two big homers in the midst of a terrible postseason wouldn’t fool teams into giving him more than he’s really worth, but you can never count on logic too much with some teams.

Still, if he can be had for one year (and I’m willing to include an option for another), it’s a deal worth making. It’s clear with the signings of Ted Lilly, Hiroki Kuroda, and Jon Garland that the Dodgers plan on going for it in 2011, and you can’t do that with Ryan Theriot at second base. Uribe’s not the ideal solution – low-OBP guys who were sub-replacement in their age 26-28 seasons rarely are – but middle infielders with pop and above-average gloves are valuable, particularly on a team that was short on both power and defense last year. You could sign him and install him immediately as the 2011 second baseman, knowing you have another option if/when Rafael Furcal gets injured. Then, assuming he had an option or a second year, he could stay at 2B in 2011, slide over to 3B once Casey Blake is gone, or ideally even become an infield super sub if you managed to get superior options at all three spots. And if the side benefit of that is weakening the Giants, all the better.

In an odd way, however, signing Uribe might almost make me more apt to want to bring back Russell Martin. Rod Barajas is, in a way, similar to Uribe in that he’s got decent power and poor OBP skills. The Dodgers weren’t great at OBP last year, and Uribe wouldn’t help that; bringing back Barajas as well would be a killer in that category. Martin may not have power anymore, but he is one of the better OBP catchers around. Ken Gurnick also noted that Ned Colletti wanted to re-sign Barajas quickly, but that Barajas chose to test the market. For all the platitudes about how happy Barajas was to play for his hometown team last year, I find that decision surprising. I didn’t really want him back anyway, and even if he did I’d only like it at a big hometown discount.

Back on topic, Uribe would indeed be a good fit for the 2011 Dodgers – at the right price. One year? One with an option? Sure. Count me in.

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Unrelated, but Peter Gammons is reporting that the Dodgers (and eight other teams!) are sniffing around Twins reliever Jesse Crain. I like Crain just fine, and he’d be a nice addition to any team’s bullpen, but I don’t think the Dodgers should really be putting a lot of money into signing free agent relievers. Bullpen arms are notoriously inconsistent from year to year, making most of them poor investments at the inflated prices of the free market, and since we don’t know how much money the Dodgers have left after rebuilding the rotation, the offense really needs to be the top priority.