Angels - Signed Rodney
Los Angeles Angels - Signed P Fernando Rodney to a 2-year, $11 million contract.
This kind of reminds me of the climactic scene from the movie Spartacus. Unwilling to point out which GM is Ed Wade, Tony Reagins bravely stands up, shouts “I am Ed Wade!” and signs a significantly inferior pitcher to a similar contract.
Brendan Donnelly
Mike Fyrhie
Kevin Gregg
Alan Levine
Joel Peralta
Mark Petkovsek
Lou Pote
Francisco Rodriguez
Scot Shields
Ben Weber
Matt Wise
Remember when the Angels could assemble most of a bullpen for a couple of million a year through scrapheap pickups and in-house development?
When it comes down to it, Rodney’s essentially a serviceable reliever, whose impressive fastball is surpassed only by an impressive lack of command. I imagine there will be a lot of 8th innings in which Angel fans channel George Stallings. Given that Octavio Dotel, a superior pitcher to Rodney, is expected to sign a 1-year, $3 million contract with the Pirates, the former should think about hiring the latter’s agent.
ZiPS Projection - Fernando Rodney
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA ERA+
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2010 4 3 56 0 57.2 53 28 6 34 56 4.37 105
2011 3 3 53 0 54.2 50 27 6 31 53 4.45 103
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Dan Szymborski
Posted: December 23, 2009 at 11:03 PM |
13 comment(s)
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1. you got a STEAGLES? you're gonna need a STEAGLES. Posted: December 24, 2009 at 12:13 AM (#3421261)They would have been right. One year of Cliff Lee is worth a decade of Fernando Rodney.
In save situations batters hit .658 against him, in non-save situations in was .802 (160 versus 170 plate appearances). What does this mean for next year? Hard to tell, because now the guy has been paid and he won't be the closer. However Fuentes didn't exactly make Angels fans forget Krod last year, and maybe Scosia will figure out that Rodney is a different guy when he's "on".
Obviously this is a big chunk of change for a pitcher projecting a 4.37 ERA next year, but I wouldn't be surprised if he is a closer again by the end of the contract.
Why would we expect this to be anything except random luck?
I can't imagine he was pitching multiple innings with really big leads; that's what "pitching to the score" would imply.
Is he not trying to get guys out when the game is tied, or he has a three or four run lead?
Save situations OPS against - .731
Non-save situations OPS against - .696
Last year was really the only time he was "anointed" as the closer, and so my argument is that it is our only real sample. I'd bet that Rodney's better ERA years would correspond to lower leverage situations, as one would expect, but this is also slanting the data to show (incorrectly in my opinion) that he is merely the same pitcher in a save vs non-save situation.
For #5 - I used the quotation marks around "pitching to the score" because he wasn't doing that in the sense a starter would with a really big lead, but there were multiple occasions where Rodney would come in in a non-save situation and let the ball be put in play or get overly careless with his walks. It was pretty plain to see, and I'd bet some Tiger fans would back me up on this. He just did not challenge hitters the same way as when he had a lead to hold. I do not know what goes through a pitcher's mind in these scenarios, if they want to minimize injury risk, be more selective of the hitters they show anything to, or save themselves for the next day but routinely last year Rodney would make a habit of this. Therefore I don't think it is random luck - my belief is that there is various levels of either effort or strategy he would put forth.
No, he wasn't. However, he was the main setup guy, I'd say, starting part-way through the 2006 season until 2008. You run that fellow out in a save situation in the 7th or 8th. And Leyland was following Rodney with 'Todd Tums®'.
Late innings' pressure situations were a time when Tigers' fans suffered serious acid indigestion.
2009 was also the first time in his career that Rodney pitched exceptionally poorly in low leverage situations (leverage index 0.5 or below). It is not uncommon for a closer to do his worst work in low-leverage situations, BTW.
-- MWE
Every hour, every minute seemed to last eternity.
I was so afraid, Fernando...
We were young and full of life and none of us prepared to die.
..and I'm not ashamed to say the Yanks and Fuentes almost made me cry.
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