Quick Hits with Adam

Written by Adam Adkins
Friday, 11 April 2008
I don’t need to bore you with the details of Barry Zito’s Enormously Idiotic 7 Year/126 Million Dollar Contract (oops!). We all know about it, and nearly anyone with a brain realizes it was a very bad idea at the time. However, Brian Sabean, the Giants general manager (the man who drafted the contract and offered one tenth and change of a billion for Zito) thought it was a great idea. Enough people have done the year by year analysis showing Zito’s decline; I’m not going to do that. But what I am going to do is tell you that it’s very possible that Barry Zito could be the very worst pitcher in baseball for the next four or five years and be paid like a superstar for it. Someday, people will learn how to do “research” (BaseballReference.com!) and spend their millions wisely, but until then, I’ll make sure to point out the hideous mistakes MLB teams make! Hey! The Detroit Tigers (1000 Runs!) are 0-7 (through Tuesday)! A lot of people are defending their World Series picks by saying “The bullpen’s a lot better than this!”, but I’m not sure that’s true. Let’s just go down the list based off of Tigers.com (this would be on Monday), and to make things fun, we’ll label the pitchers as Good Arm, Bad Arm, or Who Knows, okay? Bobby Seay has a career 3.94 ERA in 118 innings, a not so sparkling 95 strikeout to 48 walk ratio. Not too bad, I reckon, for a middle reliever, and he is left handed, always a plus. Denny Bautista is the owner of a proud 6.88 ERA in 117.2 innings. In that time span, he’s allowed a modest 148 hits to go along with his 80 strikeout to 57 walk ratio. Self-explanatory. Bad Arm. Yorman Bazardo has thrown 26.1 innings at the big league level. He’s 23 years old, and made his debut at the age of 20. Could be good, who knows? Label Bazardo Who Knows. Francis Beltran is a big six foot six two-hundred and fifty pounder. He had Tommy John Surgery in 2005, then signed with the Washington Nationals. In 61.1 career innings, he has a 5.87 ERA. I’m betting Bad Arm. Jason Grilli is a little more known and established than his contemporaries in the Tigers ‘pen, but he still sucks anyway. 236 innings, 5.19 ERA. Low strikeout per nine rate, and a walk per nine rate that won’t make up for it (5.49/3.66). I’ll pass. Bad Arm. Todd Jones is a middle of the road relief pitcher, and by no means should he ever be considered a Relief Ace. He has a respectable 3.93 ERA in over a thousand innings, but a low strikeout rate intertwined with mediocre hit and walk rates makes me wonder how good Jones is (Not very). Good Arm, but really a lot closer to average. Aquilino Lopez is another question mark guy. 128 career big league innings, and a respectable 3.92 ERA. Uninspiring 7.41 strikeout per nine rate and a lot of walks—4.20 BB/9. Anything can happen, but I’m betting Bad Arm. Zach Miner is fringy, but I’d say he’s closer to Bad than Good (Lackluster strikeout to walk rate is a good reason). Just to total so far, the Tigers have 2 Good Arms, 6 Bad Arms and a Who Knows choice as well. Not too pretty, eh? * Johnny Cueto, welcome to the Big Leagues! He threw 7 innings, not a single walk allowed but a Hamilton full of strikeouts (Alexander Hamilton is on the $10 bill). He was perfect through five until Justin Upton pulled out his wicked power tool (he’s a freaking Home Depot!) and ended that dream, along with the shutout. Ah well. At least Dusty Baker pulled Cueto after a mere 92 pitches. Boy, wouldn’t it be nice if Cueto didn’t go the way of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood? Or is that too much to ask? * Okay, yeah, I’m a homer, but Chien-Ming Wang looked fantastic yesterday against a very good young offense. (That’s not a typo, either; the Rays can mash.) He went six innings, 96 pitches (I haven’t seen any reason to accuse General Girardi of being a pitcher abuser yet), gave up 4 hits and 2 walks while striking out 6. Oh, and he had 9 of his typical ground ball outs. Thank you sir, may I have another? And to think, I’d still take Phil Hughes over him. It’s great to be a Yankee fan. We want to hear your feedback. Feel free to comment on this article here or visit our message board. You can contact Adam Adkins via the writer's Profile or the AHP Staff via the contact form. Hype up this post at BallHype!

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