Traded for scraps
So all that Sammy Sosa commanded in trade was Jerry Hairston Jr. and two B-grade prospects? That's pretty astonishing.
Most people who know me know I am no fan of Mr. Sosa, mostly because I think he's a whiny bitch but his gentle treatment of reporters made him everyone's darling. This is a guy who whined about his contract, his manager and his lineup protection. Can anyone see Barry Bonds, noted surly "bad guy" of baseball doing any of those things?
True to form, Sosa reverted to his natural whiny ways when things went badly for him in Chicago, skipping out early when the Cubs missed the playoffs and blaming everyone but himself. Putting the overrated media favorites Sosa and Dusty Baker together was bound to result in something relatively fun.
So now Sosa goes to Baltimore and out of the realm of relevance. I'll miss his big smile on WGN, because you know a guy that smiles like that just loves the game so much and is SO GREAT for the game.
Sheesh
(P.S. He really was unbelievably great from 1998 to 2002. During those five seasons he did basically everything - hit for a good average, drew walks, played defense and, of course, hit 292 home runs in five years. It was legitimately among the greatest five-year spans for any player, ever. I still hate him)
Does anyone else want to claw their own eyes out?
According to the AP, Magglio Ordonez has INSTRUCTED HIS AGENT to make an offer to the Tigers.
That's right. The Tigers. They won 72 games last year and honestly, that was a pretty good year for them. I lived in Southeast Michigan for three years and I watched a fair amount of Tigers baseball from 1998 to 2001. The team they fielded in 2004 was a pretty good Tigers team.
Huh. So let's imagine someone had given Ordonez a choice: Go to to the Tigers, where he'd have to battle ... Carlos Guillen? as the team's best player (to stifle the chorus of Pudge Rodriguez supporters, Guillen was better last year, posting a VORP of 70.5 to Pudge's 63.1. In fairness to Guillen, he was second among shortstops to Miguel Tejada, and in the top 5 in the AL (Melvin Mora, David Ortiz, Travis Hafner, Guillen, Manny Ramirez - interesting list, btw) or go to the Giants to be Barry Bonds' sidekick, hitting 5th behind him (yes, I've officially given up the dream of putting Bonds back in the 3-sport where he belongs) and playing for a team that has contended every year for about a decade.
Ah, but the chorus of outrage continues - we have Alou! And Maggs has a bad knee. He might miss time...
It's all true. If Ordonez didn't come with serious warts, he'd already have received a 5-year, $75M contract from Anaheim, Baltimore or one of the New York teams. So the real question is, which are the greater set of risks - Magglio's twice-operated knee or the combination of Alou's age, the likelihood of a park-related decline and the defensive disaster of playing an average left fielder (yes, I'm in a generous mood tonight) in a very difficult right field?
Alou's been a pretty great player at various times in his career. He was awesome in 2004, there's no denying it. He was nothing short of spectacular from 1998 to 2001 (not counting the entire 1999 season, which he missed due to an ACL tear). He has a lifetime career OPS of .880 and a lifetime batting average of .300.
Ordonez became a very good player in 1999, putting up his first .300 season in the majors (only his second full season), with a nice .349 / .510 line to go with it. He played in 157 games. Since then, he did nothing but get better before getting hurt in 2004.
1999: .300 / .349 / .510
2000: .315 / .371 / .546
2001: .305 / .382 / .533
2002: .320 / .381 / .597
2003: .317 / .380 / .549
Note that I'll still give 2003 the nod over 2002, since he played in 160 games that year, compared to 153 in 2002. His Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) went up every year from 1999 to 2003.
This is the development of a fantasic ballplayer. He hits for average, draws plenty of walks (although he'll never be Barry Bonds or even Jim Edmonds in this regard) and hits for power.
We'll have to see how many years Ordonez gets from the Tigers or whoever signs him. If it's five (it won't be), I'll be the first to say to that brave team - enjoy him. But if it's 4 or less (my guess is 3 with an option if he's lucky, 2 with an option if he's not), he's a better investment than Alou. It's not that he's better so much as it's more likely he's still as good as he was. Call me crazy, but I just can't get over how old Alou is. And that the Giants were the ones who decided to pay for his 2004 season.
At least he and his dad will have fun in the clubhouse.
I guess.
Even Mike Harmon gets it.
"Mike Harmon is a Yahoo! Fantasy Sports expert" according to Yahoo. He's one of the guys that has me contemplating starting up my own fantasy website just so that people will have something worth reading. If you read a lot of fantasy sports columns, his are the ones that involve the largest number of synonyms for "hit" when discussing home runs. In a Mike Harmon column, a hitter "bashed 20 taters" or "crushed 17 dongs". A hitter never "hit 25 homers" in his columns. He's not among the worst, btw, but regardless - generally doesn't get it.
And yet, in his review of right-fielders...
Moises Alou, SF
Alou leaves the North Side of Chicago to reunite with his father in San Francisco. The 38-year-old slugger established a new career-high with 39 home runs last season. He reached the 100-RBI mark for the fifth time in his career and topped 100 runs for the second time. Alou will miss Wrigley Field, where he launched 29 of his 39 home runs. Additionally, his batting average was 92 points higher at home than on the road.
When even mediocre fantasy sports columnists see things that a team's GM doesn't see, you know you have a problem...
So let's see...
The Giants needed a slugging right fielder. Michael Tucker clearly wasn't it. Even if you buy Dustan Mohr's 2004 breakout, he played as a plate-selective table-setter, not a traditional power guy. Alright, I think that as a baseline the need for a slugger in that position was pretty clear.
So what they did was sign an extra left fielder to play right field. Eh. He's old and he can't play defense. He was really good in 2004. He was halfway decent in 2003. And he stunk it up in 2002. They paid him about $13M for his age 39 and 40 seasons, hoping that his .900+ OPS would hold up for two more years (even though he had big home/road splits, is moving into a much tougher park and is at an age where dropoffs are usually sudden and swift). All in all, I'd say it was a pretty high-risk gamble with pretty good upside, because if Alou actually hits for a .293 / .361 / .557 line in 2005 the Giants are going to win the division and Barry Bonds is going to challenge Jeff Bagwell's record for runs scored (152, if memory serves).
But let's think about another way they could have gone. Remember this guy?
Player X; Age 30; Pos: RF
2001: .305 / .382 / .533 (160 games)
2002: .320 / .381 / .597 (153 games)
2003: .317 / .380 / .546 (160 games)
2004: .292 / .351 / .485 (52 games)
Player X is currently unsigned, because ... he's high-risk. The knee injury that caused him to miss most of 2004 is still a question mark. More of a question mark than a 39-year-old left fielder who has suffered through chronic injuries for most of his later career? Who knows. As of right now Player X (known to some as Magglio Ordonez) looks likely to sign with some irrelevant team like the Orioles or Tigers. Possibly to an incentive-laden one-year deal.
Score another one for Sabean's "sign 'em early and overpay 'em" approach.
