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Per Rosenthal: Balfour (FINALLY) to Orioles...


xian4

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Most of the remaining free agents. I thik a couple signed today or late yesterday. I think about 118 left but some are retiring . Who do you want?

AMERICAN LEAGUE

BALTIMORE (7) ? Alexi Casilla, 2b; Jason Hammel, rhp; Brian Roberts, 2b; Francisco Rodriguez, rhp; Chris Snyder, c; Tsuyoshi Wada, lhp.

BOSTON (4) ? Stephen Drew, ss; Joel Hanrahan, rhp; John McDonald, ss; Matt Thornton, lhp.

CHICAGO (1) ? Gavin Floyd, rhp.

CLEVELAND (5) ? Matt Albers, rhp; Rich Hill, lhp; Ubaldo Jimenez, rhp; Jason Kubel, of; Kelly Shoppach, c.

DETROIT (6) ? Joaquin Benoit, rhp; Jeremy Bonderman, rhp; Octavio Dotel, rhp; Omar Infante, 2b; Ramon Santiago, 2b; Jose Veras, rhp.

HOUSTON (1) ? Erik Bedard, lhp.

KANSAS CITY (4) ? Bruce Chen, lhp; Carlos Pena, 1b; Ervin Santana, rhp; Miguel Tejada, 2b.

MINNESOTA (1) ? Mike Pelfrey, rhp.

NEW YORK (8) ? Travis Hafner, dh; Boone Logan, lhp; Lyle Overbay, 1b; Andy Pettitte, lhp; Mark Reynolds, 1b-3b; Mariano Rivera, rhp; Kevin Youkilis, 3b.

OAKLAND (3) ? Grant Balfour, rhp; Bartolo Colon, rhp; Kurt Suzuki, c.

SEATTLE (7) ? Endy Chavez, of; Franklin Gutierrez, of; Raul Ibanez, of; Kendrys Morales, dh; Oliver Perez, lhp; Humberto Quintero, c; Joe Saunders, lhp.

TAMPA BAY (7) ? Jesse Crain, rhp; James Loney, 1b; Fernando Rodney, rhp; Luke Scott, dh; Jamey Wright, rhp; Delmon Young, of.

TEXAS (4) ? Lance Berkman, dh; Nelson Cruz, of; Matt Garza, rhp.

TORONTO (3) ? Munenori Kawasaki, ss-2b; Darren Oliver, lhp; Ramon Ortiz, rhp.

___

NATIONAL LEAGUE

ARIZONA (2) ? Eric Chavez, 3b; Will Nieves, c.

ATLANTA (7) ? Luis Ayala; rhp; Scott Downs, lhp; Freddy Garcia, rhp; Reed Johnson, of; Kameron Loe, rhp; Paul Maholm, lhp; Eric O'Flaherty, lhp.

CHICAGO (3) ? Scott Baker, rhp; Kevin Gregg, rhp; Matt Guerrier, rhp.

CINCINNATI (6) ? Bronson Arroyo, rhp; Shin-Soo Choo, of; Zach Duke, lhp; Cesar Izturis, ss; Nick Masset, rhp; Manny Parra, lhp.

COLORADO (5) ? Rafael Betancourt, rhp; Jeff Francis, lhp; Todd Helton, 1b; Roy Oswalt, rhp; Yorvit Torrealba, c.

LOS ANGELES (8) ? Chris Capuano, lhp; Mark Ellis, 2b; Jerry Hairston Jr., 3b; J.P. Howell, lhp; Carlos Marmol, rhp; Juan Uribe, 3b; Edinson Volquez, rhp; Michael Young, 3b.

MIAMI (4) ? Matt Diaz, of; Austin Kearns, of; Juan Pierre, of; Placido Polanco, 3b.

MILWAUKEE (3) ? Yuniesky Betancourt, 1b; Mike Gonzalez, lhp; Corey Hart, of-1b.

NEW YORK (7) ? David Aardsma, rhp; Tim Byrdak, lhp; Pedro Feliciano, lhp; Frank Francisco, rhp; Aaron Harang, rhp; Daisuke Matsuzaka, rhp; Johan Santana, lhp.

PHILADELPHIA (1) ? Roy Halladay, rhp.

PITTSBURGH (6) ? Clint Barmes, ss; John Buck, c; A.J. Burnett, rhp; Kyle Farnsworth, rhp; Jeff Karstens, rhp; Justin Morneau, 1b.

ST. LOUIS (3) ? Carlos Beltran, of; Chris Carpenter, rhp; Jake Westbrook, rhp.

SAN DIEGO (3) ? Ronny Cedeno, ss; Mark Kotsay, of; Jason Marquis, rhp.

SAN FRANCISCO (3) ? Chad Gaudin, rhp; Andres Torres, of; Barry Zito, lhp.

WASHINGTON (1) ? Chad Tracy, 3b-1b.

Of these guys, Bruce Chen, Brian Roberts, Miguel Tejada, Mark Reynolds, Erik Bedard, Luke Scott, and Kevin Gregg are all pretty appealing. ;)

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I'm not crazy about the Balfour signing, particularly seeing as how he's supposed to be an upgrade over Johnson. Balfour's numbers superficially look nice because he's a fly ball pitcher in a very forgiving pitcher's park. I'm skeptical he'll have that kind of success here. Some interesting stats:

Between 2011-2013 as a member of the Athletics:

Home splits: 113.2 IP, 1.58 ERA, 33 BB, 9 HR, .178 AVG, .237 OBP, .278 SLG

Away splits: 85.2 IP, 3.78 ERA, 42 BB, 10 HR, .201 AVG, .297 OBP, .333 SLG

Some of this is probably slightly aberrational, the rather noteworthy jump in his walk rate is kinda unusual, but the numbers uniformly suggest that Balfour has been thriving in large part due to the park he's playing in. Balfour's home ERA each of the last three seasons was below 2, and was above 3 away. It says something that his career ERA across 100 innings in the Oakland Colosseum is 1.55 and his career ERA across 100 innings in Tropicana Field was 2.98. Johnson's splits aren't even worth duplicating, as there isn't a noteworthy difference between his home and away splits. Camden Yards is a tough place to pitch, but being a groundball pitcher he's been a rather good fit here all things considered.

If this goes through we have traded Johnson, a known quantity who, while not truly a consistently upper echelon player, was pretty good at what he did, for two longshot minor leaguers and a reinvestment of the saved Johnson money to get a pitcher whose numbers and career profile suggest he's just not going to perform nearly as well in Camden Yards as he did elsewhere, likely not even as well as Johnson did. I've been behind a lot of the moves Duquette & co have made, but this is just idiotic stuff. There's no way this team cracks .500 in 2014 if this is the big move of the offseason, trying to get cute with your payroll so you can downgrade at closer and make some inconsequential minor league depth pickups. This is a deplorable off-season for a team that was realistically close to being contenders.

PS I'm sure I'm not the first person to point all this out, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to see somebody else note that this transaction sequence is an indicator that the front office isn't really doing their homework and someone up there is doing a particularly bad job managing this ballclub.

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