Monday, December 06, 2004
Loften for F-Rod
I had heard of the Loften-Rodriguez deal on Friday morning, but I decided not to comment on it until it was finalized and I had a chance to mull it over. My thoughts:
Brian Cashman may have assembled a flawed team for the 2004 season (as heavy as it was on hitting and weak on pitching), but the man is no dummy. This is a good deal for the Yankees. They got a good relief pitcher for a 37-year old outfielder who played just 83 games for them in 2004. Bravo.
But I'm not inclinded to bash the Phillies management. This isn’t a bad deal on their end either: with Madson, Cormier, Wagner, and Worrell the Phillies have a pretty darn good bullpen and I’m sure they can find a setup man out there to take Rodriguez’s place. They needed help in center and I’m sure they knew they didn’t have a shot of getting Finley or Beltran.
How did Rodriguez pitch?
w/ Phillies: 3.00 ERA / 2.60 FIP ERA / .660 DER / 1.24 G/F ratio / 2.8-to-1 K/BB ratio / 1.33 WHIP
w/ Giants: 3.43 ERA / 3.43 FIP ERA / .739 DER / 0.72 G/F ratio / 1.6-to-1 K/BB ratio / 1.39 WHIP
Not bad. He pitched better with the Phillies than the Giants, but he logged just 21 innings. He was hardly the indispensable man in the Phillies bullpen. I’m sure that he’ll pitch well in the Bronx though and upgrade the porous Yankee bullpen.
What of Loften? Well, he’s 37 and played only half of the year in 2004. I have no idea what his health situation is. He’s still a decent bat though: .346 OBP in 2004. Significantly to me, Loften had more walks (31) than strikeouts (27) last year. He’s still got some speed too: he had 7 triples in just 276 AB’s. What of Loften’s defense?
It is hard to say because he played only 83 games in 2004: his ZR was .895, but he didn’t log enough innings to be “qualified” on ESPN’s ZR page. If he had, he would have been third amongst AL centerfielders, ahead of even the A’s Mark Kotsay. He played a full year in 2003 for the Pirates and Cubs, where he was fifth among 12 NL centerfielders with an .873 ZR (just .001 behind Byrd). He was also fifth in fielding percentage at .991. Both marks, I would note, are better than what Finley did with the Diamondbacks that year. Oh, and Loften had 2.3 Fielding Win Shares in 2004.
This isn’t a bad deal for either team. The Yankees can now sign Carlos Beltran to a multi-year deal worth the GNP of a Latin American country, and the Phillies can have a solid platoon of Loften / Michaels and (maybe) Byrd in centerfield. And if Loften flops, the Phillies have lost little more than a relief pitcher. This is a good deal.
Probable lineup:
SS Rollins
CF Loften / Michaels
RF Abreu
1B Thome
LF Burrell
2B Utley
3B Bell
C Lieberthal
Pitcher
Not bad, but I'd prefer:
SS Rollins
2B Polanco
LF Burrell
1B Thome
RF Abreu
3B Utley
CF Loften
C Lieberthal
Pitcher
Odds ‘n Ends … I kinda football’d out thanks to this weekend. I watched way too much football. I had my best man over on Sunday to watch the Eagles game. First, we watched the Falcons get humiliated by the Bucs, then we watched the Eagles make the Packers look like a Pop Warner football team. It was humiliating stuff for a Packers fan. McNabb’s stats looked like something you’d see at the end of the game of Madden football. I was stunned that Andy Reid left the Eagles starters in as long as he did, and I was stunned to see the Eagles were still running their blitz schemes in garbage time: the play that got me was a double blind-sided blitz the Eagles ran on the Packers backup with the score 47-3. What was the deal? Were the Eagles just trying to make a statement by piling on like that? I think they laid any questions to rest as to who is the best team in the NFC and maybe the NFL … wondering why you are reading this on A Citizen’s Blog instead of the Bird Blog? The Bird Blog is finished. I made the decision about a week ago when I realized that I simply couldn’t continue to blog the Eagles and Phillies and try to start my legal career. I’m honestly worried that I won’t have time for A Citizen’s Blog, so how do I think I can adequately blog two teams? Ain’t happening … So from time-to-time I’ll be making comments about the Eagles here … I also watched my alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh, earn a trip to the Fiesta Bowl with a 43-14 whooping of South Florida. There was a lot of bitching that Pitt doesn’t deserve to play in a BCS bowl, but who says? Pitt went 8-3 and lost by seven points in two games. People concentrate on the fact that they nearly lost to I-AA Furman (and did lose to former I-AA Connecticut), but they did beat West Virginia, Boston College and Notre Dame. Tyler Palko is looking like a future #1 draft pick. I think they’ll give Utah a run for their money, and they could even win it. Wouldn’t that lay the nay-sayers to rest? … I wanted to watch Saturday’s SNL because it was the infamous Ashley Simpson episode, but I needed sleep. I did catch the opening, pre-election Hardball sketch, which is my favorite SNL sketch these days: Darrell Hammond does a perfect exaggeration of Chris Matthews (hilariously, I actually watched Matthews interview Hammond on Hardball back in February). I loved their parody of Sen. Zell Miller as a screaming lunatic (“Are you sassing me, boy? PISTOLS AT DAWN, CHRIS!”) because it wasn’t too far from the truth … I see that Aaron Gleeman has a bit of a thing for Eliza Cuthbert. I’m a big fan of 24 and I was thrilled to hear she wasn’t going to be a regular in season four. I’ve sat through too many episodes featuring her character, Kim, acting like a complete bonehead. She’s an attractive girl, but … I watched a little celebrity poker over the weekend featuring Friends Matthew Perry obliterating Alias' Michael Vartan. Who would have thought that Chandler was a card shark? He was as cool as a cucumber and dispatched Vartan with little difficulty at all.
Brian Cashman may have assembled a flawed team for the 2004 season (as heavy as it was on hitting and weak on pitching), but the man is no dummy. This is a good deal for the Yankees. They got a good relief pitcher for a 37-year old outfielder who played just 83 games for them in 2004. Bravo.
But I'm not inclinded to bash the Phillies management. This isn’t a bad deal on their end either: with Madson, Cormier, Wagner, and Worrell the Phillies have a pretty darn good bullpen and I’m sure they can find a setup man out there to take Rodriguez’s place. They needed help in center and I’m sure they knew they didn’t have a shot of getting Finley or Beltran.
How did Rodriguez pitch?
w/ Phillies: 3.00 ERA / 2.60 FIP ERA / .660 DER / 1.24 G/F ratio / 2.8-to-1 K/BB ratio / 1.33 WHIP
w/ Giants: 3.43 ERA / 3.43 FIP ERA / .739 DER / 0.72 G/F ratio / 1.6-to-1 K/BB ratio / 1.39 WHIP
Not bad. He pitched better with the Phillies than the Giants, but he logged just 21 innings. He was hardly the indispensable man in the Phillies bullpen. I’m sure that he’ll pitch well in the Bronx though and upgrade the porous Yankee bullpen.
What of Loften? Well, he’s 37 and played only half of the year in 2004. I have no idea what his health situation is. He’s still a decent bat though: .346 OBP in 2004. Significantly to me, Loften had more walks (31) than strikeouts (27) last year. He’s still got some speed too: he had 7 triples in just 276 AB’s. What of Loften’s defense?
It is hard to say because he played only 83 games in 2004: his ZR was .895, but he didn’t log enough innings to be “qualified” on ESPN’s ZR page. If he had, he would have been third amongst AL centerfielders, ahead of even the A’s Mark Kotsay. He played a full year in 2003 for the Pirates and Cubs, where he was fifth among 12 NL centerfielders with an .873 ZR (just .001 behind Byrd). He was also fifth in fielding percentage at .991. Both marks, I would note, are better than what Finley did with the Diamondbacks that year. Oh, and Loften had 2.3 Fielding Win Shares in 2004.
This isn’t a bad deal for either team. The Yankees can now sign Carlos Beltran to a multi-year deal worth the GNP of a Latin American country, and the Phillies can have a solid platoon of Loften / Michaels and (maybe) Byrd in centerfield. And if Loften flops, the Phillies have lost little more than a relief pitcher. This is a good deal.
Probable lineup:
SS Rollins
CF Loften / Michaels
RF Abreu
1B Thome
LF Burrell
2B Utley
3B Bell
C Lieberthal
Pitcher
Not bad, but I'd prefer:
SS Rollins
2B Polanco
LF Burrell
1B Thome
RF Abreu
3B Utley
CF Loften
C Lieberthal
Pitcher
Odds ‘n Ends … I kinda football’d out thanks to this weekend. I watched way too much football. I had my best man over on Sunday to watch the Eagles game. First, we watched the Falcons get humiliated by the Bucs, then we watched the Eagles make the Packers look like a Pop Warner football team. It was humiliating stuff for a Packers fan. McNabb’s stats looked like something you’d see at the end of the game of Madden football. I was stunned that Andy Reid left the Eagles starters in as long as he did, and I was stunned to see the Eagles were still running their blitz schemes in garbage time: the play that got me was a double blind-sided blitz the Eagles ran on the Packers backup with the score 47-3. What was the deal? Were the Eagles just trying to make a statement by piling on like that? I think they laid any questions to rest as to who is the best team in the NFC and maybe the NFL … wondering why you are reading this on A Citizen’s Blog instead of the Bird Blog? The Bird Blog is finished. I made the decision about a week ago when I realized that I simply couldn’t continue to blog the Eagles and Phillies and try to start my legal career. I’m honestly worried that I won’t have time for A Citizen’s Blog, so how do I think I can adequately blog two teams? Ain’t happening … So from time-to-time I’ll be making comments about the Eagles here … I also watched my alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh, earn a trip to the Fiesta Bowl with a 43-14 whooping of South Florida. There was a lot of bitching that Pitt doesn’t deserve to play in a BCS bowl, but who says? Pitt went 8-3 and lost by seven points in two games. People concentrate on the fact that they nearly lost to I-AA Furman (and did lose to former I-AA Connecticut), but they did beat West Virginia, Boston College and Notre Dame. Tyler Palko is looking like a future #1 draft pick. I think they’ll give Utah a run for their money, and they could even win it. Wouldn’t that lay the nay-sayers to rest? … I wanted to watch Saturday’s SNL because it was the infamous Ashley Simpson episode, but I needed sleep. I did catch the opening, pre-election Hardball sketch, which is my favorite SNL sketch these days: Darrell Hammond does a perfect exaggeration of Chris Matthews (hilariously, I actually watched Matthews interview Hammond on Hardball back in February). I loved their parody of Sen. Zell Miller as a screaming lunatic (“Are you sassing me, boy? PISTOLS AT DAWN, CHRIS!”) because it wasn’t too far from the truth … I see that Aaron Gleeman has a bit of a thing for Eliza Cuthbert. I’m a big fan of 24 and I was thrilled to hear she wasn’t going to be a regular in season four. I’ve sat through too many episodes featuring her character, Kim, acting like a complete bonehead. She’s an attractive girl, but … I watched a little celebrity poker over the weekend featuring Friends Matthew Perry obliterating Alias' Michael Vartan. Who would have thought that Chandler was a card shark? He was as cool as a cucumber and dispatched Vartan with little difficulty at all.
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