Transaction Analysis, February 9-15, 2002
by Chris Kahrl
Signed LF-R Rickey Henderson to a minor-league contract with a spring-training NRI. [2/13]
Signed SS-R Gary DiSarcina to a minor-league contract with a spring-training NRI. [2/15]
This is about as interesting a pair of contrasts as you could get from a pair of players, and worthwhile for what each signing says
about player value.
On the one hand, you have Rickey Henderson, the greatest leadoff hitter of all time, but now an older man with negligible defensive
value, a trick hamstring, and the discipline to draw a walk in one out of every five or six plate appearances. He could have value
as a pinch-walker for as long as he wants to play, especially if the crazed roster-expansion scheme ever sees the light of game
action. As a spot starter in the outfield, playing for Trot Nixon or Brian Daubach against tough left-handers or taking the field
whenever Manny Ramirez wants to DH, and
hopefully passing on some wisdom to Johnny Damon,
Jose Offerman, and maybe even Quilvio Veras, Henderson is a great pickup.
On the other hand, there's Gary DiSarcina, the latest in the Tim Foli line of shortstops known for their nifty defensive skills and
boastful ignorance of what it takes to make a good hitter. Like Foli, a healthy DiSarcina had some line-drive power that would
generate as many as 30 doubles in a great year, and like Foli, both had real trouble topping 20 walks in a season. Neither of them
ran especially well, and both were relatively good bunters. (For the curious, they don't show up on each other's Similarity Scores,
but that only reflects how badly Similarity Scores work--or don't work--in comparing players from different eras. The point isn't
whether or not Similarity Scores are fun, because they are. They just don't convey information.)
While DiSarcina isn't a stathead's vision of a good player, a guy with this skill set isn't worthless; he just needs to be hitting
ninth on an American League team with seven or eight worthwhile hitters. DiSarcina isn't the worst guy to have knocking around in
Pawtucket as shortstop insurance should anything bad happen to Nomar Garciaparra this year. The real question is whether he's good
enough to push past Lou Merloni, assuming Merloni isn't in Boston this summer. Since DiSarcina has missed most of the last two years
to injury in a career already spattered with injuries, the Red Sox would be better off with him proving in Pawtucket that he can
still phycially handle baseball.
Announced the retirement of RHP Kevin Tapani. [2/15]
This is one of those sad announcements made all the more sad for a couple of reasons. First, I'll miss Tap because I really enjoyed
watching him pitch, and second, as an A's fan, I still have some regrets about Tapani being included in the Bob Welch deal after the
1987 season. Wally Whitehurst, Alfredo Griffin, Jay Howell...those guys you could take or leave, but at the time, I wasn't happy to
see Tapani included. (Of course, I was also cranky that winter because the A's didn't consummate an offer of Griffin to the Yankees
for Danny Pasqua, so what do I know?)
We all remember Jack Morris's Game Seven performance in 1991, but we should also remember Tapani's tremendous Game Two duel with Tom
Glavine. Sitting behind the Cubs' dugout and watching Tap throw harder than I'd ever remembered seeing him throw very early on in
his comeback in 1997 (I want to say it was his first start, against the Braves, but I'd have to dig out the scorecards to be sure)
was one of my favorite Wrigley afternoons, in no small part because everyone, from the batters to his teammates, seemed
surprised and a little charged up by it.
Some guys end up retiring because they just want to retire. Unlike Steve Carlton or Bobby Witt, Kevin Tapani is
leaving the game when he wants to, and not when Doc Jobe or Doc Andrews tells him it might be a good idea. He was still a useful
big-league pitcher in 2001, and I mean that in more than just the Pat Rapp sense of the word. Fourteen quality starts in 29 outings
sounds pretty run of the mill, and roto(non)-thinkers might complain that he won only one game after June 2, but Tapani didn't
really fall apart until September. During August, when just about everything else was melting down for the Cubs, Tap gave them five
quality starts in six trips to the mound. While there aren't enough off-days in a season any more to carry a "Sunday
starter," Tapani would have still been valuable as a fourth starter on a team with three workhorses and the ability to spot him
a day off now and again. I'll miss him.
Signed RHP Jose Mercedes to a minor-league contract with a spring-training NRI. [2/9]
If you give me a choice among Jose Mercedes, Charles Nagy, or eating mushrooms, I'd have to think on it a bit, because I really
don't like eating mushrooms. At the end of the day, I'd probably pick Mercedes. To give Mercedes his due, his strikeout rate
improved in 2001 and his walk and home run rates dropped. Given that he was backed by an Orioles team that wasn't known for its
scintillating defensive prowess, it isn't too hard to believe that Mercedes could still be a worthwhile fifth starter, posting an
ERA around 5.00. That's better than anything Nagy is going to do from here on out.
Ryan Drese should get a long look in the fourth slot, and while the Tribe is going into camp claiming that Danys Baez will turn into
an effective starter and that Tim Drew will finally be ready, signing Mercedes seems like a sensible precaution. When all of the
smack finally smacks them back, they'll have a reasonable fallback position.
Signed RHP Pete Harnisch to a one-year contract. [2/12]
Well, if the choice is between Pete Harnisch
and Chris Holt, and you play at altitude, and you can count on a large percentage of
balls in play falling in for hits, well, then I guess Harnisch makes sense. Considering his now-considerable list of surgeries and
his many joints in less than full working order, he shouldn't get too much consideration ahead of John Thomson, Shawn Chacon, or
Scott Elarton for the three slots behind Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle. On the other hand, the Rockies are looking to haul Garth
Brooks into camp, so how serious about being a baseball team can they be?
Signed 1B/Whatever-B Dmitri Young to a four-year contract with two club options. [2/14]
I like Dmitri Young a lot, more than I should, in no small part because it's entertaining to see a big guy swing a bat like it's a
toothpick and lance pitches all over the place, but four years for over $7 million per? Sure, it's a bargain compared to Kevin
Young, and sure, it might be a nice propaganda move to convince free agents to consider the amenities of the Motor City. Young is
28, and he's not exactly anybody's idea of a player who will age gracefully. As much as it might be a good thing to have him right
now, this is a deal with all of the markings of a vaguely unsatisfying decision, as opposed to a disappointment.
Named Jeff Torborg manager, Larry Beinfest general manager, and David Samson president. [2/12]
A few years ago, when Steve Stone was part of a group trying to buy the A's, one of the aspects of the bid that bugged me was that
Stone was already talking about setting himself up as general manager, or basically putting himself in a place to take credit for
everything that people like Billy Beane and Grady Fuson and J.P. Ricciardi and Paul DePodesta and many others had already done in
their active effort to recover from the Tony LaRussa Decline Phase. That was obnoxious at the time, and thankfully it never came to
pass.
The Marlins of 2002 aren't quite as well off as the Athletics of 1999 were, but this still stinks, and for the same basic reason.
Let's get this straight: the guys who finished last in the division get job security, and the dozens of staffers who finished ahead
of les Expos, who were part of the years of recovery from the Huizenganator, they get the shaft? The idea that Jeff Torborg
and his boy and Ozzie Guillen can get jobs for being the willing slack-jawed meat puppets of Jeff Loria is, in a word, offensive, on
the same level that letting Tom Werner back into baseball was offensive. Torborg and Beinfest haven't earned the right to run the
Marlins. For the sake of Marlins fans, here's hoping they don't screw up.
Signed RHP Hipolito Pichardo to a one-year contract; designated LHP Wayne Franklin for assignment. [2/11]
Hipolito Pichardo retired last August, and considering the various injuries he's had over the years, can you even consider him to be
as reliable as Rudy Seanez? Coming on the heels of
a guaranteed contract for T.J. Mathews and the invitations to C.J. Nitkowski
and Chuck McElroy,
the Astros' bullpen in front of Billy Wagner and Octavio Dotel is starting to resemble a who's who of itinerant
relievers of moderate circumstances.
Agreed to a one-year contract with 2B-R Carlos Febles, avoiding arbitration. [2/11]
This is it, you'd have to think. Either Carlos Febles is finally going to turn the corner, or he'll cement his status as the next
Brent Gates, an injury-prone second baseman who might have come into the game with the talent to be an All-Star, but saw things
start to go wrong early on, and had his career slip away from him.
Signed RHP Tim Crabtree to a minor-league contract with a spring-training NRI; announced that Slugger-R Phil Hiatt has
cleared waivers and been designated for assignment to Las Vegas. [2/12]
Considering his rotator cuff just got repaired last July, I wouldn't hold out much hope that Tim Crabtree will be ready to join the
Dodgers bullpen and contribute in any meaningful way before the All-Star break. However, the Dodgers are short-handed in the bullpen
this spring. Matt Herges looks like a guy whose bubble is about to burst, and the rest of the pen features Paul Quantrill, Mike
Trombley, Giovanni Carrara, Terry Mulholland and Jeff Williams. In other words, some very functional and--unfortunately--relatively
hittable guys, which is another reason why
Craig House might have a good shot.
However, because of the crowd in the rotation,
there's a good chance that one of the losers in the fight for a rotation spot (Eric Gagne or Odalis Perez, for example) might end up
in the pen because they're out of options.
Named Frank Robinson manager, Omar Minaya vice president and general manager, Tony Tavares president. [2/12]
Tony Tavares's time in the game really wore him out, didn't it? Sheesh, these MLB types can't even be honest about how they feel,
let alone fudging the state of the industry. I hope all of you in the audience are as excited as the BP staff is about the Rally
Beaver's debut this spring.
Omar Minaya? He's done less for the Expos than Fred Ferreira, but leave it to baseball to not even select the right non-white guy. I
suppose one had to be picked to prevent Dave Stewart from squawking again, but why Minaya? If a Latin, why not Ferreira, the man
most responsible for inking so much of the talent in the organization? Why hire someone unfamiliar with the organization, and
with a future in the game, as Minaya clearly has, when he might not subsequently be a good fit for whoever buys the Expos? If you
wanted an experienced placeholder to oversee the organization until it is sold, why not dig up Bob Watson to hold down the fort for
a year or two?
The fun news is the return of Frank Robinson to the dugout. F. Robby isn't the volcano of his youth, but there are things about him
which should make you happy if you care a whit about any of the young talent on the roster. Robinson gave guys like Chili Davis,
Jeff Leonard, Randy Milligan, and Craig Worthington real opportunities. Sam Horn got his only real shot at big-league playing time
under Robby's watch.
The pitching was always a bit more dicey; Robby was prone to in-season tinkering with his rotation (the '82 Giants and '89 Orioles,
Robby's two great almosts as a manager, both fell short for want of a third starter), and he seemed far too willing to settle for
playing some of the most inoffensive middle infielders of his times, people like Brad Wellman or Billy Ripken or Johnny LeMaster or
Duane Kuiper or Frank Duffy. The notable exceptions were Joe Morgan and Cal Ripken. With the Expos, I'm hoping that translates into
a turnaround for Peter Bergeron and a breakthrough for Brad Wilkerson, but I'd probably be relentlessly hopeful about them both with
anybody other than Jeff Torborg running the show.
Signed OF-L Jalal Leach to a minor-league contract. [2/11]
Formalized their one-year major-league contract with CF-R Ruben Rivera; designated RHP Brian Rogers for assignment.
[2/14]
Brian Rogers isn't a superior prospect by any means, but he's a big right-hander with a great curveball, he just turned 25, and he
has two years of Double-A experience posting ERAs under 4.00 both years. While that makes as strong a case for him as you could make
(he gave up a ton of unearned runs in 2001), why risk losing him on waivers? Now is a relatively good time to try and run that risk,
considering most 40-man rosters are full, but there's plenty of talent less notable than Rogers on those rosters, and you shouldn't
have to make room for Ruben Rivera until the end of March. There's next to no chance that the Yankees have the roster space to carry
both Rivera and Gerald Williams, and even less chance that somebody else would want to claim Ice Williams on waivers if the Yankees
elected to outright him. And what are the chances that Williams would want to go play some place besides the Yankees organization?
Agreed to terms with LHP Shawn Estes on a one-year contract, avoiding arbitration. [2/10]
Shawn Estes for $6.2 million. That doesn't seem too unreasonable if you think of Estes as a guy who made 16 quality starts in 27
tries. If he's able to stay healthy enough to crank out 18 to 20 quality starts this year, the Mets will think it money well spent.
Signed LHP Sang-Hoon Lee to a minor-league contract. [2/15]
Yet another of Dan Duquette's not-so successful foreign imports, Sang-Hoon Lee's upside is that he'll eventually make it as a second
lefty. In the A's organization, he's at best the fourth lefty, behind the trinity of Mikes: Venafro, Magnante, and Holtz.
Signed LHP Ron Villone to a minor-league contract with a spring-training NRI. [2/12]
Signed C-R Mike Figga to a minor-league contract with a spring-training NRI. [2/14]
Ron Villone isn't a great pitcher, but he has his uses. He gives the Pirates a potentially outstanding long reliever, but that's
going to depend on Lloyd McClendon being the first manager since (briefly) Jack McKeon to move him back into that role. The
conventional temptation to shoe-horn Villone into the LaRussian tactical left-hander role is doomed to failure; Villone is a big guy
who throws hard, and he needs a modest workload to have value. Given that the Bucs are going to have a lot of middle-relief innings
to assign, this is probably the ideal situation for Villone to break out and show that a lefty can handle a 100-inning relief role,
the same way that Paul Assenmacher did as recently as 1991.
Agreed to terms with IF-R Placido Polanco, avoiding arbitration. [2/13]
I like Placido Polanco well enough as a utility infielder, but at the moment the plan seems to be that Polanco, Kerry Robinson, and
So Taguchi will be manning left field and the Craig Paquette utility roster spot. This is a good thing how, exactly? To prove how
irreplaceable Craig Paquette might be, at least to the Cardinals in particular?
Announced the retirement of RHP Mark Gardner. [2/13]
How many times was Mark Gardner counted out? In the early '90s, coming up in an Expos organization that had pitching talent coming
out of its ears, his amazing curveball was enough to elicit comparisons to Mike Krukow, back when that meant something. He flipped
through the Royals (always a waystation of last resort) and the Marlins before finally being resurrected by the Giants.
It's to the credit of Brian Sabean and Dusty Baker that they essentially gave Gardner the bulk of his career, as he made 147 of his
275 career starts (and picked up 58 of his 99 career wins) with the Giants, all after his 34th birthday. To think of it another way,
Gardner made almost $9 million after his 34th birthday. So the next time you wonder why a guy's still battling to make it as a NRI
in spring training after he's 30, or why he might still be willing to pitch in Triple-A after his fifth season at the level, keep in
mind that there's a payoff for some of them.
Here's hoping that Gardner and his wife Lori can win her struggle with a liver transplant and the subsequent complications that have
arisen. If you or anyone you know has dealt with the issues involved with getting an organ transplant and living with it, you might
be interested in an organization called the National Transplant Assistance Fund. The prayers and
hopes of the BP team extend beyond one man's baseball career.
Agreed to terms with RHP Paul Abbott on a one-year contract, avoiding arbitration. [2/12]
As previously mentioned, there are some pretty significant warning signs here,
although Paul Abbott is one of those guys I'm happy
to see make good money in the game, given the amount of time he put in to get to this point. One of the sillier elements of the
arbitration process is that Abbott was considered to be in the same "class" of pitchers as Kerry Wood, based on big-league
experience. Never mind that one of them is 34 and the other is 24, and that each comes with a unique set of risks and rewards for
their respective employers.
Signed DH-R Ed Sprague to a minor-league contract with a spring-training NRI. [2/11]
Waived RHP Mark Petkovsek for the purpose of giving him his unconditional release. [2/13]
Agreed to terms with UT-L Frank Catalanotto one a one-year contract, avoiding arbitration. [2/15]
Kudos to the Rangers for demonstrating an understanding of sunk costs. Now John Hart and company only have to pay for Doug Melvin's
decision
to hand Mark Petkovsek a silly/big contract,
and while that's close to $3 million out the window, that's better than having
him pitch if he's going to match last year's "contributions" to the Rangers' bullpen. That's not the same thing as saying
that Petkovsek is useless. Some teams--the Dodgers come to mind--ought to take a flyer on him, but that's all Petkovsek was worth,
and was ever going to be worth.
Ed Sprague? Well, the nice thing to say in this situation is that if Hank Blalock isn't ready at any point this year, and if Herbert
Perry reinjures his balky knees, and if Mike Lamb just continues to resemble Roy Howell Lite, and if Frank Catalanotto refuses to
play third for religious reasons, and if Buddy Bell hasn't been fired by then and isn't willing to resume his playing career, and
the state of Texas declares an embargo against the importation of ballplayers within a baseball season, well then I just might see a
way in which Ed Sprague has value. And even that's assuming that Texas doesn't guard the border against dustbacks sneaking in from
Okie City to steal Texan jobs.
Agreed to terms with RHP Chris Carpenter on a one-year contract, avoiding arbitration. [2/13]
Signed OF-B Pedro Swann to a minor-league contract. [2/15]
Where is the arbitration process in 2002 A.D.? Going into arbitration with (or some might say against) Chris Carpenter, the Blue
Jays were interested in introducing an exciting new piece of technology to the process...PowerPoint. A tech-driven presentation like
this, the bane of military and medical seminars for at least the last 15 years, has apparently escaped two important potential
consumers. Montgomery Burns's segment of the nuclear power industry is still insisting on the use of the
stereoscope for all AV presentations,
while Major League Baseball was apparently last impressed
by Cap Anson's use of the magic lantern
during a salary dispute during the Player's War.
That's right: nobody, not the owners, not the lawyers getting gobs of cash for their "presentations," and not the vaunted
agents, have ever used PowerPoint in an arbitration presentation. We've seen a lot of progress made in baseball as an industry over
the last 20 or 30 years, but even so, the industry might well be 20 years behind the rest of the country. Who's really stuck in a
Cold War mindset, Vladi Putin or Bud Selig? I'm willing to bet just about every Eastern European country has had a PowerPoint
presentation in the last ten years.
One of the more interesting aspects of Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities was the argument that media convey images
about self-identity and shape worldviews beyond the messages they overtly display. What does it say about baseball if you're dealing
with a group of people who haven't even made a fundamental jump to using an idiot-simple piece of tech like this? What sort of
vision of their surroundings, of their industry, of their jobs, or their responsibilities to their employers or their clients does
this convey about the men and women involved in the baseball industry?
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