Winter Meetings, Day 1 (Updated)
December 6, 2010 at 10:15 am | Posted in James Loney, Jeremy Accardo, Jonathan Broxton, Matt Diaz, Matt Guerrier, Winter Meetings | 63 CommentsHow can you not love the Winter Meetings? It’s that special time of year where rumors fly like crazy (99% of which are proven false) and everyone in baseball gets together to wait around in lobbies for bits of news, yet still finds out about them via Twitter at the same time we do.
Anyway, rumors are half the fun of having a blog and they’re flying fast and furious about the Dodgers, so let’s do a round-up. I’ll update this as more come in today.
Update, 2:23pm PST:
Steve Henson, buzzkill:
Source: dodgers have zero interest in prince fielder.
Have to love the winter meetings, right? Where nothing is true, unless it is, but even then it isn’t!
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Update, 2:08pm PST:
Tony Jackson with our first “HOLY CRAP!” moment:
Multiple sources told ESPNLosAngeles.com’s Tony Jackson on Monday that the Brewers are talking to the Dodgers about a deal that would send Prince Fielder from Milwaukee to Los Angeles for Loney and embattled closer Jonathan Broxton.
Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes.
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Update, 1:51pm PST:
Knight checks in again with a post full of WIN:
Heard the Dodgers are unlikely to bring back Podsesnik to play left, as they’re looking for (even modest amounts of) pop.
WHOO!
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Update, 1:32pm PST:
Molly Knight checks in with some outfield talk in a series of tweets:
Heard this: Matt Diaz is the Dodgers first choice to fill the hole in left field.
But I think everyone recognizes how thin the available talent is at LF.. Sands should get a decent look next summer.
Feeling is Diaz could get a two-year-deal while the team waits (and hopes) for prospect Jerry Sands to hit. Option B would be Austin Kearns
Glad to hear Matt Diaz is popular, though I know other teams are into him as well. Kearns, not so much.
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Update, 12:05pm PST:
Steve Henson clarifies his earlier tweet to confirm that his $95m figure does not include deferred salaries. If that’s true, then we’re looking at a $112m cap with them included, which means the Dodgers have about $5-$7m left to spend.
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Update, 11:13am PST:
Hated the Rod Barajas deal? How would you have felt about this, via Tony Jackson?
Los Angeles Dodgers came tantalizingly close to signing free-agent catcher A.J. Pierzynski to a one-year contract before the Chicago White Sox added a second year to their offer, resulting in Pierzynski accepting a two-year, $8 million deal to remain with the White Sox.
A source with knowledge of the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Dodgers were close to a deal last week that would have paid Pierzynski in excess of $4 million to join the Dodgers as the deadline neared for offering a contract to catcher Russell Martin.
Pierzynski confirmed to ESPNChicago.com’s Bruce Levine that people had no idea how close he was to bolting the White Sox before they offered two years.
Pierzynski would have cost more than Barajas; though he had a similarly poor .300 OBP last year, his career mark is at least .324, higher than Barajas’ .284.
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Update, 10:26am PST:
Dodgers source: loney won’t be traded because he’d be too expensive to replace on free agent market
Boooo. There’s a logjam of decentish 1B out there. Loney’s going to get at least $4m in arbitration and possibly more. That doesn’t seem to fly.
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Update, 10:21am PST:
RT @washingnats: #Dodgers want #Nats SS Ian Desmond and RHP Jordan Zimmermann for James Loney
HAHAHAHA. Um, and I want a pony.
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Original post:
#Dodgers hope to add 2 relievers. Working on Padilla as one of 2. Other clubs wondering if they add right arms whether they’ll move Broxton
Sounds as if Matt Guerrier is another reliever on #Dodgers radar screen.
We’ve heard about Padilla before, and I’ll admit it’s an interesting possibility to have him back as a relief ace/starter insurance type. I’m just not sure I see Padilla accepting that role when he could certainly get a gig as a fulltime starter elsewhere.
Guerrier’s a useful enough arm – 70+ games four years in a row, WHIP below 1.100 in three of the last four years – but you know how I feel about spending big money on non-elite relief arms. They almost never pay off, and Guerrier’s 32 coming off a year in which he made $3.1m. He’s probably going to get something like a 3/$13m contract, and I don’t think that’s what the Dodgers should be spending their remaining money on.
As for Broxton, I’ve been over that before. I have no problem with trading him if the deal is right; I just think it’ll be hard to find that as his value is lower than ever, and you can’t just give him away.
While both the Cubs and Nationals are focused on free agent Carlos Pena, Loney is available, according to major-league sources.
The Dodgers would need to find a replacement for Loney if they traded him, but that should not be a problem in a free-agent market deep in first basemen.
Interest from the Nationals in Loney makes sense — the team recently hired Bob Schaefer as a special assistant in its front office. Schaefer previously was Joe Torre’s bench coach with the Dodgers.
The Cubs and Brewers also have inquired on Loney, sources said.
Similar to Broxton, I’ve been through this one before. I’d be happy to trade Loney, I just don’t see the demand. If he’s not likely to out-produce a FA 1B you could get for 1 year (say, a Derrek Lee type), then why would the other team want to give up pieces for Loney when they could just sign that guy?
The Dodgers have expressed interest in Matt Diaz, the outfielder non-tendered by the Braves last week. Diaz hit .250 with seven homers and 31 RBIs in 2010, but missed two months with an infected thumb. He would give the Dodgers a right-handed hitting complement to lefty Jay Gibbons for a platoon in left field. Diaz received $2.55 million from the Braves this year. He has an .806 career OPS.
Another non-tender, pitcher Jeremy Accardo from Toronto, also has hit the Dodgers’ radar. The right-hander has battled through three seasons of injuries, but in 2007 had 30 saves for the Blue Jays.
Love the idea of adding Diaz, as I’ve mentioned a few times over the last few days.
Adrian Beltre‘s agent Scott Boras is seeking five years and north of $70MM, tweets ESPN’s Buster Olney.
And that ought to be the end of any faint-hearted hope you were getting Beltre back in blue.
Source: dodgers payroll will be $95M.
As I already mentioned, this is only possible if the Dodgers stop signing and start trading (unlikely) or if Henson is counting only the players on the roster in 2011, neglecting the $17m in deferrals still on the books.
So What Now? (Updated)
December 6, 2010 at 6:46 am | Posted in Matt Diaz | 20 Comments
Hey, remember when the Dodgers were just being cheap? Uh, yeah, about that. After initially signing three free agent starting pitchers, last week’s $21m commitment to Juan Uribe and $3.25m deal with Rod Barajas have surprisingly put the Dodgers among the big spenders of the offseason so far. We haven’t liked every deal, but credit where credit is due – as each starting pitcher falls off the board and as the market quickly skyrockets (I’m looking at you, Jayson Werth), moving quickly to re-up Hiroki Kuroda, Ted Lilly, & Jon Garland is looking smarter by the day (sure, I wasn’t thrilled with Lilly’s deal, but I’m not arguing that he won’t be an asset in 2011).
Yet despite all of the spending, they still have holes to fill. So it’s a fair question to ask: what’s left?
Well, before we can get to that, let’s try to figure out what’s been spent. In my 2011 plan, I gauged that the team had $60m in hard money already spoken for this year. That’s $43m in guaranteed contracts to Rafael Furcal, Casey Blake, Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, Jonathan Broxton, and Jamey Carroll, and $17m in dead money owed to ghosts of Dodgers past like Juan Pierre, Manny Ramirez, and Andruw Jones.
The Dodgers have now added approximately $28m in 2011 salary in signing Kuroda ($8m), Lilly ($7.5m), Garland ($3.5m), Uribe ($5m), Barajas ($3.25m) and Jay Gibbons ($0.650m). Garland’s also got $3.5m in 2011 incentives, which he can max out by hitting 190 IP. I usually wouldn’t include incentives, but since 190 IP is a mark he’s made for the last nine years, I’m going to include it here, and that makes $31.5m for 2011. (Trying to save the “but they could have had Adam Dunn for less than that!” comments for now). That’s $91.5m spoken for without even considering arbitration cases and filling out the roster with 0-3 players.
As we know, Chad Billingsley, Hong-Chih Kuo, and James Loney were tendered contracts and all are headed to arbitration unless they reach contract agreements first. You can expect the three of them to make about $12.5m unless they strike longer deals.
That puts the club at about $104m before considering 0-3 players making at or near the minimum like Clayton Kershaw, Ronald Belisario, A.J. Ellis, and Kenley Jansen. Let’s say that about $3m will go to the collection of guys like that, and so the rough estimate here is that the 2011 payroll is at around $107m today.
$107m is far above where any of us thought the team would go this year, and that’s a nice surprise. But that’s a team with a subpar catcher, a hole in left field, and underperforming incumbents at first and third base. It’s a team that is absolutely dependent on their bullpen returnees to look more like 2009 and less like 2010, and it’s a team that has several young players who still need longterm deals. Now that’s a team which is probably better than last year (less Ryan Theriot, less Garret Anderson, more Kenley Jansen and less George Sherrill, less #5 starter confusion, hoped-for improvements from Kemp and Kershaw), but not one which you can honestly say is among the favorites to win it all.
Since the signings we’ve seen are obviously “win-now” moves, the question is, what’s left above $107m in the coffers to fill in the blanks? One would think, “not much”. Yet Colletti hasn’t given up on Russell Martin, may yet bring back Vicente Padilla, and was rumored to be in on relievers Jesse Crain and Matt Guerrier. On top of that, they’re going to need to sign at least one righty outfielder (preferably two), and decide if they can really live at the infield corners without upgrading from Casey Blake and James Loney.
All of that costs money, and I just cannot imagine the Dodgers can extend themselves much further than $107m, especially if Padilla and/or Martin do get a few million to come back. That means that you shouldn’t be expecting Adrian Beltre to come in to play 3B, you probably shouldn’t be expecting a big-money addition in the bullpen (which I find to be a positive development), and sadly, you probably won’t see a long-term deal for Clayton Kershaw this winter, given that they can ride out one more year of him at the minimum salary before arbitration.
I think all you might be likely to see is one cheap veteran outfielder brought in for the LF mix, unless they surprise us all with a Loney deal. As I’ve said before, I’d love for that to be a right-handed lefty masher like Matt Diaz, Lastings Milledge, or Jeff Francoeur (or even two of them, given that neither Gibbons nor Ethier can hit lefties), but I’m mostly terrified that it’s going to be an over-the-hill lefty like Johnny Damon or Scott Podsednik, which would not only be a poor fit for the team’s needs, but which would then almost certainly be the end of Xavier Paul‘s Dodger career.
Now, I’ll admit that we’ve been surprised more than once by the Dodgers this offseason, and it could certainly happen again. It just seems as though the bulk of their shopping is done, and I just can’t see them going above $110m at the absolute most. Is that going to be enough to win? We’ll have to see. Let me hear it – what other moves do you think they could still make?
Update: Well, here’s a possibility. Ken Gurnick reports…
The Dodgers have expressed interest in Matt Diaz, the outfielder non-tendered by the Braves last week. Diaz hit .250 with seven homers and 31 RBIs in 2010, but missed two months with an infected thumb. He would give the Dodgers a right-handed hitting complement to lefty Jay Gibbons for a platoon in left field. Diaz received $2.55 million from the Braves this year. He has an .806 career OPS.
Another non-tender, pitcher Jeremy Accardo from Toronto, also has hit the Dodgers’ radar. The right-hander has battled through three seasons of injuries, but in 2007 had 30 saves for the Blue Jays.
If you’ve been reading me at all over the last few days, you know that going after Diaz is a huge YES from me. Accardo I’m less sure on, but if it’s on a minor-league contract with a spring training invite, then sure, what’s the harm.
Update #2: Steve Henson is reporting that “sources” claim that the payroll will be $95m this year. Obviously, that’s not possible unless he’s not counting the $17m in deferred payments, so the more realistic number is $112m – if true.
Rod Barajas Turned One Good Week Into $3.8m (Updated: $3.25m)
December 3, 2010 at 5:27 pm | Posted in Rod Barajas | 78 CommentsUpdate: Hernandez clarifies that his source was mistaken and it’s actually $3.25m, not $3.8m. That’s slightly better, but still not good – and even if $3.25m was the first number reported I probably would have had the exact same reaction anyway. The original post, unedited, is below.
Today in “something I won’t believe isn’t a typo even if the contract was deposited on my desk” news, Dylan Hernandez not only confirms that Rod Barajas‘ signing is official, but fills in the financial blanks:
Barajas’ one-year deal with #Dodgers is worth $3.8 million.
There is just no way that can be accurate.
Barajas signed for $500k with the Mets last year, waiting until just before camp opened in February to even get that. He was then so bad that the woeful Mets, you know, let him go to the Dodgers on waivers for absolutely nothing. Granted, he had a great first week or so in Dodger blue – 4 homers, 1.458 OPS in his first 8 games. Yet in his remaining 17 games, he had just 1 homer and a .612 OPS, also known as “Rod Barajas being Rod Barajas“. On the season, he had a .284 OBP, which exactly matches his career mark, because he’s not very good.
Look at it this way – Barajas had never made more than $3.2m, which is what he got from Texas in 2006. He’s now five years older, coming off several lousy seasons bouncing from team to team – making less than $1m in two of them – yet somehow, coming off a year in which he was dumped on waivers and will be 35, he’s all of a sudden worth $3.8m. Seriously? In my 2011 plan, when I said he could come back I said that I thought he could be had for $800k. Is this all because of his one good week as a Dodger? I’ve had to deal with a lot of casual fans who got taken in by that, but I never expected the front office to do so.
I refuse to believe that Rod Barajas required that much money to sign. And if I’m wrong, and he did? THEN YOU MOVE ON. He’s not nearly good enough to lose any sleep over.
Beyond the initial shock of “holy crap, they paid Rod Barajas what?!”, this brings up a raft of questions. Questions like, “wait, they let Russell Martin walk over $800k but still had $3.8m for Rod F’ing Barajas?”, “hey, let’s pay Barajas, Juan Uribe, and Jon Garland $17m this year rather than give less than that to Adam Dunn,” and “the payroll’s at nearly $110m and you still don’t have a LF or a good C, and what can possibly be left?”
Remember back in July when one of the main complaints about the three awful trades was that the team gave up nearly ten prospects and got back only Ted Lilly and a pile of junk, when for that outlay (or less) you probably could have had Roy Oswalt or Dan Haren? Yeah, this is that. Again.
Other Teams Non-Tendered Players Too
December 3, 2010 at 4:05 pm | Posted in Lastings Milledge, Matt Diaz | 14 CommentsWith all the hoopla around the Dodgers and Russell Martin, it’s easy to forget that other teams had to make some tough decisions as well. In a lot of cases, players were non-tendered not because they don’t have any baseball value, but just because they weren’t going to be worth what they’d make in arbitration.
There’s not a lot of star power on the list – Martin is probably the biggest name alongside Bobby Jenks - but there’s definitely some players who could be useful in the right situation. Just remember, even though it sounds bad that a player was non-tendered, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to come for the minimum salary. It just means the team didn’t want to go to arbitration, and in some cases the player may actually end up making more because he can now negotiate with all 30 teams, not just his own.
Let’s take a look at a few of these new free agents who could fit in on a Dodger club which is likely close to its payroll limit, yet still has a few holes.
Players we should be into:
Matt Diaz, OF, and Lastings Milledge, OF. Back when I laid out my 2011 plan, one of my top priorities was getting at least one (if not two) righty outfielders who could mash lefties, since Andre Ethier and Jay Gibbons are both poor against southpaws. At the time, I settled upon Ryan Raburn and Jeff Francoeur. Frenchy’s still an option – Raburn’s likely not – but let’s toss Diaz and Milledge into the same conversation.
Diaz is older than you think – 33 in March – but he’s shown excellent on-base skills with Atlanta. His career mark is .350, and in the three seasons in which he’s received at least 290 PA, he’s put up OBPs of .364, .368, and .390. The Braves let him go because he slumped to .302 OBP this year, he’s regarded as a poor outfielder, and they didn’t want to pay him the $3-$4m he might make in arbitration. He’s also all-but-unplayable against RH pitching, with a .633 OPS this year and .710 career. But good lord, can he hit LH pitching, because he was at .830 this year and .907 in his career. It may not be sexy, but you could do far worse than a Diaz/Gibbons LF platoon – and you could probably do it for about $3m total.
Milledge is a bit different, because he’s still young (26 in April) and still has time to reach the potential so many saw in him. Like Diaz, Milledge has a pronounced platoon split, though never bigger than in 2010 – .926 vs LHP, .602 vs RHP. He also spent 2008 as Washington’s center fielder, so while he may not be a plus glove there, he’s at least an acceptable backup for Matt Kemp – something which this team doesn’t have right now.
Honestly, they could sign both Diaz and Milledge to play the corners against lefties, and I’d be okay with that.
Players who I’d like on the team, but don’t want to see a lot of money poured into:
Bobby Jenks, RP. I think Jenks is actually pretty underrated, because of his lousy ERA. He also dealt with some injuries, and had to fight off an excellent Chicago bullpen full of vultures like Matt Thornton, Chris Sale, and J.J. Putz. But his fastball velocity was higher than it’d been in years, and his K rate was the highest since his rookie season of 2005. His ERA is inflated by a few bad outings (I won’t go through again why ERA for relievers is silly), and he was victimized by a career-high .368 BABIP, which is why his FIP was only 2.59. I’d actually quite like Jenks in the bullpen, but he’s not going to come cheaply and the pen is the last place the Dodgers ought to be spending money in right now.
Players who may be interesting if the Dodgers didn’t already have nine starting pitchers:
John Maine, SP, and Chien-Ming Wang, SP. Each have been injured for most of the last two years, and Wang never did make it back last year. They’ve had past success, so I’d be willing to toss them a minor-league deal with a spring invite, but they’ll likely prefer a team where they have a better chance of making the cut.
Players who people are asking me about, except, hell no:
Edwin Encarnacion, 3B, Hideki Okajima, RP, Dioner Navarro, C, Lance Cormier, RP, Jack Cust, OF. Encarnacion has power (five double-digit HR seasons) but that’s about it. He’s a poor third baseman who doesn’t really play anywhere else, and while he’s got a strong platoon split, it’s exactly the same as Casey Blake‘s so it makes no sense on this team.
Okajima had some nice moments on the Red Sox, and the Dodgers do still need another lefty in the pen. But he’s old (35 on Xmas Day), his velocity is failing, he’s declined in each of his seasons in the bigs… well, just read Mike Axisa at River Ave Blues about him. I’d rather just bring back George Sherrill, or hope Scott Elbert is ready. PASS.
Navarro gets mentioned because he’s a former Dodger and the team has zero catching depth, but I’m not seeing it. His OPS+ the last two years came in at 54 and 48, and he left the team after being left off the playoff roster this year. PASS.
Cormier comes up because he had a 3.92 ERA this year. He also had a 1.648 WHIP and walked four more guys than he struck out. Uh, no thanks. PASS.
Believe it or not, someone really did ask me about Cust. He’s basically only a DH, and even if you did want to stick him in the field, he’s a LH outfielder, which the Dodgers don’t need. PASS.
And two bonus names…
Andy LaRoche, 3B, and Delwyn Young, IF/OF. These don’t technically count as non-tenders, as they were DFA’d last month, but they’re free agents all the same. I’ll freely admit that half the reason they’re even mentioned here is my affinity for ex-Dodger farmhands, and let me be clear that I’m not advocating signing either to a guaranteed major league deal. Neither one did all that much in Pittsburgh, particularly LaRoche, whose career has spiraled at an alarming rate. I’m just saying, ABQ needs players too, and LaRoche has only just turned 27. His 2010 was horrendous, but he was almost league-average in 2009, and the Dodgers have no one coming up in the minors to play 3B, other than Russ Mitchell, who I consider a bench guy. Why not stick Andy in ABQ and see if he can get back on track?
On Russell Martin, Rod Barajas, and the Catching Situation
December 3, 2010 at 7:38 am | Posted in Rod Barajas, Russell Martin | 46 Comments
So I stayed up late last night to see how the Russell Martin situation would play out, and as we all know he ended up getting non-tendered. I made my feelings on that choice clear yesterday; basically, since he’s not even running yet it’s hard to bash the team for not wanting to commit ~$6m to him.
But that was hardly the end of it, because three interesting pieces of news came down later in the night, and all pertained to who we might see donning the catching gear next year.
1) The Dodgers and Yankees almost came together to trade Martin to New York for Francisco Cervelli. This is from Michael Schmidt of the New York Times (via River Ave Blues) who suggests that it got quite far along, but that it fell apart before completion. We don’t know which side backed out, but this isn’t a deal you should be upset about missing out on. On the surface, sure, Cervelli will be just 25 next season, and had a decent OBP this year, but the RAB guys don’t rag on him for no reason. He has zero power, his 2010 stats were skewed by a great small sample size start (1.012 OPS on May 14; .616 over the rest of the year), and Beyond the Box Score ranked him as the next-to-worst defensive catcher in baseball. Acquiring Cervelli is certainly not worth extinguishing the chance you still have to retain Martin now that he’s a free agent.
2) Rod Barajas has officially re-signed, per the Los Angeles Times. I alluded to this last night when I first heard it, and suggested that I don’t mind him as a backup catcher, because he can at least provide power and he’s not awful behind the plate, but his terrible OBP would be a disaster if he was the everyday starter. I don’t think it’s set in stone yet, but these comments from Ned Colletti just before Barajas was signed don’t fill me with hope:
“I think we are on the cusp of getting something done in a different direction,” Colletti said. “I wasn’t going to go to sleep tonight without a big league catcher here besides [backup] A.J. [Ellis]. We’re pretty far down the road with something, and it should come to fruition in a short period of time. This is somebody who, if the season were to start today, would take the lion’s share of [playing time], with A.J. in a backup role.”
One of the more difficult obstacles we’ve had to face this offseason is convincing people that Barajas just isn’t very good – that one hot week as a Dodger doesn’t overcome more than a decade of sustained mediocrity. The .284 OBP he put up last year exactly matches his career mark, and on a team which just signed Juan Uribe (.300 career OBP) and has Casey Blake, James Loney, and Matt Kemp all coming off years with OBP below .330, that’s going to be a serious issue as far as run-scoring goes.
3) Martin could still be back, but not neccessarily as an every-day catcher. From Tony Jackson’s story, Colletti dropped this bomb:
Colletti said that even with a primary catcher in the fold, he intends to continue discussions with Matt Colleran, the agent for Martin.
“Matt and I have talked, and Russell and I talked about it a month or so ago when he was in town to get checked out, about being more versatile and playing other positions,” Colletti said. “We do think that with his athleticism, if he returns, he can do more than just catch.”
Martin originally was drafted as a third baseman, but Colletti also said left field was “something you would have to think about” for Martin.
This bit of news dismayed me more than anything else, because I’ve been hearing fans suggest that Martin should play 2B or 3B for months, and I’ve come really close to writing a post about why that’s silly several times. His mediocre offensive output is acceptable only because he’s a catcher; I don’t even have to bust out the stats to confirm that he’d be one of the weakest-hitting players in the league at almost any other position. “But if he catches less, he’ll be less worn-down and his offense will come back!”, people claim. Will it, though? He’d have to basically return to his peak 2007 level for him to be valuable in other positions, and it’s pretty unfair to expect that a guy coming off a serious injury and who would have to learn other positions is going to do that.
Now I suppose this is a little different, in that he wouldn’t be an every-day player elsewhere and would be a utility guy who would still do some catching, so that could be interesting. I’m just not sure I see the point; you can get guys who aren’t coming off major injuries, aren’t coming off back-to-back terrible seasons, and won’t be making a major positional change for a lot less than Martin’s going to want. SI’s Jon Heyman is reporting that Martin’s already received calls from six other teams.
Look, I get non-tendering Martin because of the uncertainty around his injury. I really do. You just can’t go into a season with Rod Barajas and A.J. Ellis as your primary catchers. You just can’t, so there better be some sort of other plan in place here. (And before anyone points out that I did just that in my 2011 plan, note that my hypothetical team had also picked up Adam Dunn, among others.)
So Long, Russell Martin
December 2, 2010 at 9:14 pm | Posted in Russell Martin, Vicente Padilla | 33 Comments
It came down to the wire, but the Dodgers have decided not to tender Russell Martin a contract for 2011 and risk paying him an increase on his $5.05m 2010 salary. While I thought they may have been attempting to negotiate a more palatable contract, SI’s Jon Heyman reported that the club also spent time trying to trade him.
This doesn’t necessarily spell the end of Martin in Dodger blue, of course. They can still attempt to sign him, and my guess is that that they will try (Ned Colletti confirmed this after the decision was made), particularly since the already poor catching market has largely dried up now that John Buck‘s in Florida, Yorvit Torrealba‘s in Texas and A.J. Pierzynski stayed in Chicago. (Fine, fine, and Jason Varitek returned to Boston.) But there’s sure to be interest in Martin’s services, so there’s a real risk that he’s playing elsewhere next year.
Really, I wasn’t going to be able to argue this decision either way. If they’ve decided that risking $6m to a declining catcher coming off a serious hip injury isn’t a wise choice, that makes total sense. On the other hand, the catching market is so poor – really, is anyone excited about Rod Barajas and Miguel Olivo? – that locking up a young catcher with above-average on-base skills is a more than defensible decision as well. Earlier this offseason, I’d been leaning towards letting him go, though as the market proved to be more expensive than we’d thought and as low-OBP Juan Uribe was signed, I’d been waffling on that in recent days. If Martin is replaced by someone like Olivo or Barajas, this could be a team with a serious OBP problem. On the other hand, maybe there’s a happy ending and they can re-sign him at a lower price later this winter. Either way, it’ll be an interesting story that’s far from over. (Update: Dylan Hernandez reports the team is “close” to re-signing Barajas. You could do worse for a backup, so okay – but you couldn’t do much worse for a starter. That still doesn’t preclude Martin’s return.)
As expected, Chad Billingsley, Hong-Chih Kuo, and James Loney were tendered contracts, and George Sherrill (and Trent Oeltjen, who I completely forgot was involved in this) was not.
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But wait! There’s more! There’s unconfirmed reports saying that Vicente Padilla signed tonight to return for 2011. I’ll have more to say on that if it ends up being official in the morning, but Ken Gurnick explains how it’d work, since the club already has five starters:
Padilla could serve multiple purposes for the Dodgers. Colletti has talked about adding a veteran swingman capable of pitching multiple innings of relief with the durability to slide into the starting rotation if needed.
Padilla could do that, and his stuff is still nasty enough (especially against left-handed hitters) to close games. The Dodgers have All-Star Jonathan Broxton for that role, but there is concern over his late-season fade. There’s Hong-Chih Kuo, but his injury history is well documented. Kenley Jansen made a spectacular debut, but he remains unproven as a pitcher.
So the 33-year-old Padilla could be a staff utility man.
On the surface, that sounds great. How could you ever have too much pitching? There’s no question that Padilla has talent, and if pitching in shorter bursts helps preserve his health, that could be very useful. The two questions here are, #1) is he really okay with doing that, and #2) how much can you spend on pitching before you realize that the lousy offense is what sunk you last year?
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Not that I really expected that Loney was ever in danger of being non-tendered, but any thought of that probably went away when Adam Dunn agreed to a $56m contract with the White Sox today. I was actually pretty happy to see that, because he both waived his “no-DH” stance and was offered far more money than anyone expected. The Dodgers weren’t going to offer him $60m, nor would I have expected them to, so it’s not like watching him sign for $33m with an NL team while the Dodgers spent money on Juan Uribe.
Place Your Non-Tender Votes Now
December 2, 2010 at 7:49 am | Posted in Chad Billingsley, George Sherrill, Hong-Chih Kuo, James Loney, Russell Martin | 32 CommentsThe Dodgers have until 12am EST / 9pm PST tonight to decide whether to tender a 2011 contract to their five arbitration-eligible players – Chad Billingsley, Hong-Chih Kuo, James Loney, Russell Martin, and George Sherrill. For those not familiar, if the player is tendered a contract, then they may not talk to any other team about a contract, and are on the path to an arbitration hearing early next year. The player and the club are free to discuss a contract agreement before that happens, and that’s usually the case – Jonathan Broxton, Andre Ethier, and Matt Kemp are among the notables to agree to contracts before the arbitration hearing arrived in recent years. The level of difficulty here is that the team may not offer a contract that represents more than a 20% cut from the previous season, so you can’t, for example, try to give Sherrill a $500k deal.
If the player is non-tendered, he then becomes a free agent, and able to negotiate with any team. The Dodgers could still talk to any of the players they non-tender and would no longer be bound by the 20% rule, though of course they would no longer have exclusivity in discussions and would be competing with other teams.
With Ryan Theriot mercifully out of the way now that he’s St. Louis’ problem, let’s quickly look at the five remaining cases. You can cast your vote at the bottom.
Chad Billingsley. He’s 26. He bounced back from a rough end to 2009 to have one of the better seasons of his career. Uh, yeah, you better believe he’s getting an offer. I’d rather see him agree to a long-term deal before arbitration, though I have to say he’s second in the pecking order to Clayton Kershaw in my book. He’s likely to make about $5.5m in arbitration if he gets that far.
Hong-Chih Kuo. Only had one of the most dominating seasons in history by a reliever last year, so I’d say he’s getting an offer as well. I’m more hesitant to sign him long-term because of his injury history; the $2.5m or so he’d likely pick up in arbitration seems fair to me.
Russell Martin. Where do you start? We’ve talked about this ad nauseum. He’s not nearly what he was, yet that’s still better than most catchers. He’s coming off a serious injury and stands to get about $6m in arbitration, yet the options to replace him are terrible. I don’t know if there’s a right answer here; I’d probably try to sign him to a two-year deal at less per year than he’d get in arbitration, but there’s probably not enough time left to do that today.
James Loney. He’s sub-par among his first base peers, and as he gets older and his salary increases the promise of his potential gets dimmer, especially when there’s a decent crop of veterans who could be had for one year and offer similar production. I said months ago that I’d like to trade him for pitching and get a better option at 1B; still, I don’t think you’ll see him non-tendered.
George Sherrill. Well, he made $4.5m last year, and I can’t imagine they’ll risk paying him anything like that. Still, he was effective vs. LHP and with his record, he’s got a better chance of a bounce-back year than anyone else, so I’d be interested in bringing him back cheaply.
At the time of this writing, the Dodgers have just about 13 hours to make their choices. Check out the poll below, and let me know – which guys are getting contract offers? You can vote for as many as you like.
(Update: the percentages here are kind of misleading, since it’s trying to make all of the figures add up to 100% on the whole, rather than individually. I tried to turn off the percentages and show hard votes only, but it doesn’t appear to be an option. So ignore the percentages and focus on total votes.)
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Unrelated, but fun: we’ve started up the hot stove talk at the Baseball Prospectus Fantasy outlet. My first article of the winter about relief pitchers went up today.
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