Veteran Arms on the Move, Again

Neither quite deserves their own piece.

Adam Eaton designated for assignment by Colorado

He’s bad. I mean really, really bad. I will be shocked if he gets another shot in the majors heading forward. His 7.14 combined tRA (6.77 and 6.63 the past two seasons) and 5.95 FIP tell the story. He’s not good at preventing walks, striking batters out, or missing bats. With a laundry list of concerns like that, it’s not much of a surprise that Eaton was unable to reach the 50 inning plateau on the season despite starting eight games and appearing as a reliever in four.

Of course the sample size is small this year, but we know from previous history that he’s simply a poor pitcher. At this point I wonder if he just gets gigs because general managers remember his name from a few years ago.

Rodrigo Lopez released by Philadelphia

Lopez appeared in seven games for the Phillies, starting five of those. FIP and tRA lock horns on degrees of success thanks to a line drive percentage just shy of 26%. That’s an unsustainable number, but Lopez has always had some issues with being unable to strand runners and a move back to the American League in a starting role is less than ideal.

The bigger story here is not that Lopez was released, but that Oakland is looking at him. It’s a logic fit, mostly because Lopez is cheap, available, and able to eat pitches so that Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill won’t have to. Anderson is nearing 2,500 and Cahill may reach 3,000. Much like Brett Tomko, Lopez isn’t going to set the world on fire or cause good vibrations. Best case for him is to pitch well enough to earn a shot at the pen in spring training.