Too Good to be True, Dept.
=== Shedding Chone, Dept. ===
Seems like just a few weeks ago that we all heard Figgins certified as completely untradeable. Music to our ears to hear .... even a rumor .... that Jack might have a taker for Figgins' $9M per.
SSI liked the Chone Figgins signing. But watching him for a year in Safeco, we officially unlike it.
Figgins is one of the most pepper-swinging little clubhouse wreckers Dr. D has seen in all his born days, and in Safeco his SLG is going to stay neatly in (or around) the .200's.
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I didn't care for the way Figgins was aging in 2010. It's not a done deal, but the age-arc looks vaguely suspect.
HQ's new SPD score assesses Chone Figgins as a step or three slower than he was with the Angels. SSI's crosscheck on that, you ask? Figgins is a very skilled basestealer, but he didn't look real fast to me, here to there.
Figgins' results against fastballs were wayyyyyyy off in 2010, as he turned 32. Visually, at the plate, he began to look like Julio Cruz or Harold Reynolds to me. Do any of you old guys remember the damning assessment "Second Division Ballplayer"?
Figgins' defense at second base looked un-explosive. The man just didn't look like somebody whose legs could earn a big paycheck.
He's quick, of course. But he needs to be blurry sudden. Doubt that he is at 33, and what about 35?
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Everything has to go right for a player to overcome a SLG of .299 and help his club, and at age 33, I don't want to bet on that over the next four years.
The day that the M's secure salary relief for Mr. .299 SLG would be a big one for Mr. Zduriencik.
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=== Pitcher To Be Named Later ===
Dr. D is not too skeptical that the Billy Beane would try to buy low on Figgins.
But the Jack we all know and love? If he were offered Kouzmanoff and, say, Michael Ynoa for the pleasure of shedding Figgins' salary, we have little doubt that Zduriencik would promptly bring up Michael Choice ... and Brett Anderson.
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Here is a Hardball Times prospect list for Oakland. The locals detest it. Here is John Sickels'. Neither give the A's credit for much pitching at all. HBT has one pitcher in their top 10; Sickels has three pitchers in their top 14. Sounds like the M's from last year.
The vaunted HQ list from 2010 didn't have much pitching in Oakland's org, either.
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If you can shed Figgins, sir, then whatever you are compensated for doing so, SSI will buy you a lemynade.
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Cheerio,
Dr D