Late Innings

Before kicking off this little rant (it’s obviously about Bill Bavasi in case anyone wants to stop reading), the Angels inked Ervin Santana to a four year extension worth 30MM. Just like that, the team wiped out any arbitration hearings this year, since they signed Macier Izturis earlier today. This deal also wipes out any more changes that Santana has to go to arbitration. He’s still getting paid well though. On an aside, I really wish Baltimore would have grabbed him, since the Angels were after Miguel Tejada. Santana’s 2007 numbers were clearly flukish. However Tony Reagins is a relatively intelligent general manager…

… unlike Bill Bavasi. Granted he’s not in office anymore, the Mariners axed him last summer. However his legacy looms on now. The one interesting move that happened yesterday was with the Mariners signing (their future closer) Josh Fields. Fields didn’t have to be signed by last August’s deadline, however they finally got this done. It seems that after Bavasi drafted the closer of his dreams, the team simply had enough and let him go a week later…

Any ways when this move first happened, people poked at them for drafting a closer. However now after the fact that Fields has signed, people are starting to wonder if Fields will be closing in 2009 for the Mariners… WOW.

Over the years, even with Bavasi in charge the Mariners still managed to accrue a good amount of young talent. Granted he dealt a lot of it away, but a good portion still remains. Regular readers to this blog know that I think they have a potential star in Phillipe Aumont, their 2007 pick. However I wasn’t too thrilled over the Fields pick.

Closers are the most overrated players in professional sports. Thankfully the demand for closers has come down, however they shouldn’t be paid more than 5MM a year, mainly since they only pitch in a third of the innings a front-line starter will pitch. Drafting a closer in fantasy baseball is a good strategy (you need three of them, with 90 saves in the process), however drafting a closer during the amateur draft is not. I’m not sure what Fields will bring to the table. Yes he has good stuff, but without control he isn’t going anywhere. Or as Sickels so wonderfully put it:

Stuff is here, but what about command?

QED. In other words, Fields will most likely end up becoming the next Dennis Sarfate. That is he’ll be a reliever who will end up striking out over a batter per inning, however a 6 K/9 ratio isn’t promising. A pitcher with a WHIP around 1.50 can’t be used as a starter or as a closer, as the Orioles saw last year when they tried to move Sarfate around.