Archive for Rafael Soriano

When the Yankees announced their signing of Rafael Soriano, General Manager Brian Cashman admitted that he wasn’t fully behind the move. Rarely has an announcement of a big-ticket signing come with such an admission from the team’s General Manager:

I’m charged with getting the payroll down, and this certainly will help us try to win a championship. There’s no doubt about that, so that’s in the plus column, but I didn’t recommend it, just because I didn’t think it was an efficient way to allocate the remaining resources we have, and we had a lot of debate about that … My plan would be patience and waiting. They obviously acted. And we are better, there’s no doubt about it.

That Cashman didn’t find the signing to be an efficient allocation of resources is particularly telling, as many around baseball have questioned spending so much on a bullpen. Our own Dave Cameron has often talked about overspending on relievers, but this is about spending on the team level. Have the Yankees spent too much on the bullpen for the upcoming season? How does their spending this year stack up against years’ past, and other teams?

Read the rest of this entry »

Frank Wren’s modus operandi to the 2010 offseason: Replace younger, healthier players with older, more injury prone players. He’s not a doctor, but he plays one in real life. Actually, I’m not here to pick on Wren. You can make arguments for all of his acquisitions this offseason. But seriously, this is getting weird.

Last week Wren traded Javier Vazquez and essentially replaced him with Tim Hudson. Hudson threw a grand total of 42 innings last season for the Braves, and it was enough to convince him to re-sign him to a 3-year/$28 million deal. That pretty much sealed Vazquez’s fate as a Brave, as no one was interested in picking up Derek Lowe’s ugly contract. Vazquez has thrown over 200 innings the past four seasons, averaging 5.3 WAR per season during that span. Hudson has been a 5+ WAR pitcher four different times over his career, and the success rate of Tommy John surgery is pretty good. This might work out just fine, and at least the Braves got a decent return for Vazquez.

The Braves also replaced 30-year-old Rafael Soriano with 38-year-old Billy Wagner, who is also is coming off of Tommy John surgery. Soriano was a 2 WAR reliever in 2009 but has a checkered injury history of his own. Still, he showed us last season what he is capable of. Soriano surprisingly accepted arbitration, but the Braves had no trouble finding a taker for his services, swapping him to Tampa Bay for Jesse Chavez.

Now the Braves are replacing Adam LaRoche with Troy Glaus. Glaus is reported to have signed for a $2 million deal, with incentives. The deal is pending a physical, but the well-respected Dr. Lewis Yocum has already given the thumbs up on Glaus’ surgically repaired shoulder to interested parties. It’s worth noting that it was more than just Troy’s shoulder that limited him to just 14 games last season; he also experienced troubles with his back.

Glaus will play first base with the Braves, which should help health-wise. When he’s right, he is plenty productive. Over his career, his wRC+ is 123, and in his last healthy season Glaus posted a 131 wRC+ with the Cardinals in 2008. For the money, this is a nice upside play in an iffy 1B market for Wren and Co. On the flip-side, they’re obviously showing that they are not counting on a whole lot from Glaus.

I’m seeing a lot of roster-churning going on, but I’m not sure I’m seeing a lot of progress. If anything, it looks like they’ve taken a step back. Jason Heyward could go Cameron Maybin on the Braves, Matt Diaz may not be able to handle regular duty, and Glaus, Wagner and Hudson are all too familiar with the disabled list.

The Braves were in shouting distance of the wild card last year. If they want to send Bobby Cox out a winner, filling their needs with a bunch of injury-risks in hopes of improving seems like an “interesting” way to go about accomplishing that task. Considering some of the alternatives, it might have been the best, but definitely not the safest approach. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

At the beginning of the season I posted here bashing a decision made by Bobby Cox in the Braves’ opening series with the Phillies. The decision involved using both Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano in the first two games when the late inning leads were large enough that the two relief aces did not need to appear. In the very next game, the Phillies overcame a 10-3 deficit in the seventh inning to win 12-11.

Neither Soriano nor Gonzalez were available due to their appearances in the prior two games. Of course, the Braves bullpen imploded in that third game and could not find the strike zone, an unforeseen circumstance, but the fact remains that aces like Gonzalez or Soriano could have stopped the bleeding if available.

Well, Cox has effectively redeemed himself in my eyes with his handling of the bullpen in the Braves recent weekend series with the very same Phillies. Most notably, the redemption stems from how he attacked the Phillies hitters in the late innings in Sunday’s 4-2 win.

The Phillies trailed, 3-2, but had a shot to come back in the bottom of the eighth with Ryan Howard, Raul Ibanez and the legen… wait for it… dary Matt Stairs due up. Normally at this juncture in a game, the setup man enters to hold the lead for the closer. Not in this particular game. No, instead of Rafael Soriano taking the hill for that eighth inning, Cox sent closer Mike Gonzalez to the mound.

Gonzalez is a power lefty and all three of the power hitters due up that inning were also lefthanded. Gonzalez turned the Phillies away save for a walk to Stairs, preserving the lead. Soriano completed the role reversal the next inning, closing out the win. Granted, Gonzalez is one of few southpaw closers throughout the league but this decision was a breath of fresh air.

It would not have been smart to bring in a righty to face three lefthanded power hitters in order to do nothing other than ensure that Gonzalez entered into a “save opportunity.” For all intents and purposes, Gonzo did record a save in this game because the game had more of a chance of being won or lost in that eighth frame rather than the following inning when Carlos Ruiz was due to leadoff. Yes, Miguel Cairo pinch-hit for Ruiz (what was the point?) and Werth hit for the pitcher, but the more crucial plate appearances took place the inning prior, when Gonzalez did everything he would normally be called on to do, only in an earlier inning.

This is efficient usage of the bullpen, bringing in the right guys at the appropriate times instead of following a dumb, predetermined set of rules. Perhaps Cox feels that both Gonzalez and Soriano are on equal footing and can be flip-flopped as the closer/setup man depending on matchups. If so, bravo, because that is a very sound strategy. This isn’t a closer by committee nor is it sticking to one guy strictly because he makes a lot of money. Instead, using both of these guys in each role plays to their strengths and the weaknesses of the opposition simultaneously rather than one or the other.

Cox arguably mismanaged his bullpen early in the season, but here is to hoping that he continues to use Gonzo and Soriano this way, spitting in the face of a “rule” that states only one pitcher can close out games and these games can only be closed out in the final frame.