San Diego Adds Jon Garland
The Jon Garland deal makes sense financially. For the cost of a little more than a win, the Padres get, well, a pitcher who will produce more than a win. I’m just not sure it’s the best usage of money given their roster construction.
First, Garland. He’s a rubber-armed back-of-the-rotation arm through and through. His career xFIP is 4.61 and in every season since 2002 he’s amassed at least 190 innings. Nothing is wowing or awe-inspiring about his game. Rarely will he strike a batter out and even rarer is a walk. He works the zone with a low-90s fastball and has a garden variety of secondary pitches to choose from.
The problem is that the Padres really don’t need another back-end starter. If the season started tomorrow, they would have Chris Young, Mat Latos, Clayton Richard, and Kevin Correia guaranteed rotation slots with a whole host of arms fighting for the fifth spot including Sean Gallagher, Cesar Carrillo, Wade LeBlanc, and even Aaron Poreda. Is Garland better than those options? Probably. Is he worth $4M more to a team that doesn’t figure to have playoff aspirations? It wouldn’t seem so.
Obviously the Padres could cash him in at the deadline to a team looking for a stretch-run starter with ultra-valuable and rare post-season experience. That would be exactly what Arizona did last season with Garland, who wound up being traded in late August to the Dodgers for a player to be named later. Petco should deflate some of his metrics and I guess that could help with the return, although it’s not like the other general managers are going to be hoodwinked here.
The Padres add a league average starter at a league average price. It’s just not a sexy move and maybe even an unnecessary one.
I think he becomes their 2nd best starter (behind Correia). The Padres need Garland’s best skillset and that is that of an innings eater. With the likes of Chris Young in the rotation, the Padres could find themselves throwing out a lot of innings of “sucktitude” like they did last year. If you look at the Padres 2009 roster on Fangraphs, and click on the “Value” tab of their pitching staff – you will see that they had negative 6.9 WAR. The Padres will improve by not only securing around 200 innings of league average innings, but will also improve by cutting back on “sucktitude” with the Garland signing.
vr, Xei
A lot of those “suckitude” innings can be attributed to players like Josh Geer, Chad Gaudin, and Walter Silva. Eliminate those, replace them with league average innings thrown by Garland, and I don’t think their staff will be as bad.
Yeah, that was my point. Thinks for reiterating it though. 🙂
vr, Xei
if i recall, at the time Gaudin was traded, he had a pretty decent FIP.