Matt,
You missed my point. Lopez clearly stunk it up last year. But the other guys didn't really suck. They simply performed within expected level....perhaps at the low end of that...but not below the normal season to season variation. That's the point. Even if they had all performed at their "norm" we still would have been a terrible team.
BTW...you left out the Jr. signing, too. That doesn't count?
Bradley didn't stink it up any more than tons of people would have predicted. but I'll even give Capt. Jack the Bradley signing and not hold it against him. Well maybe.
Kotchman performed at a fairly predictable level. Sheesh. It was a 3.5 million dollar waste even if he hit "normally." A Safeco normal for Kotchman was never going to be any better than Mike Carp, for goodness sake. And we had that guy for nothing.
Figgins hit just like a "normed" figgins during the last 1/2 of the year....he was still terrible. You can't hit in the .280's and OPB in the 340's IF you slug .339! (unless you play SS or Catcher).
If Figgins duplicates that this year we will still think he was a terrible addition.
I like guti...but he din't perform at a level WAY below his established norm.
Those guys were 10-15 OPS+ points below their career avg.
Ryan Howard had an OPS+ of 128 last year. His career average is 140. Did he stink it up?
Jack built a line up that was never going to score runs...unless Ichiro hit .375, Figgins walked 100 times, Kotchman suddenly became Ibanez, and Guti improved even more. Oh...Jr. needed to find the fountain of youth, too. Oh...Bradley needed to be stable and a model happy citizen. Right....
Fister...nice find. Lee, great trade. Ackley..nice signing (which almost every other team in baseball would have done...no bonus points here).
But offensively...Z flunked. I am not convinced that his philosoply isn't to steal cheap defense and hope "your guys" career it on offense. For building a year to year winner...that's a bad strategy. '09 was a comlete aberation. Z may have been deluded in thinking we were THAT good even with THAT terrible offense. We weren't. '09 was fun....but freakish. GM's are paid to understand that stuff.
There is a M's trade going to occur soon. When it does..we will know more about Z's GM philosophy.
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