Wally For Brad Miller? Another Bizarre Trade Rumor
December 23, 2008Cavaliers Preview Game #28
December 23, 2008As of right now, the Indians have a handful of guaranteed bullpen slots come opening day. The recently signed Kerry Wood will immediately assume the role of closer, with Rafael Perez, Jensen Lewis, Rafael Betancourt and Masa Kobayashi filling in where needed.
Then we have the deal that sent Franklin Gutierrez to Seattle, ultimately landing 24-year old Joe Smith from the New York Mets. He will serve predominantly as a right-handed specialist and will have little use anywhere outside of the one-to-two batters a night.
And now with rumors of Florida Marlins relieer Joe Nelson possibly heading to Cleveland, one has to wonder what exactly the team has in mind.
Given how dreadfully awful (yes, two words that mean the same thing – mostly for emphasis purposes) the Tribe’s bullpen was last season, fans have to appreciate the attention being paid to those that will take the hill in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. But with several other areas of need still lacking (second base, starting pitcher), you can’t help but think that one of these relievers will be packaged before the start of next season.
Nelson is coming off of a season that saw him toss 54 innings of 2.00 ERA ball. He went 3-1 and was pretty solid against both lefties and righties – so the interest in him is well-deserved. I can’t imagine too many squads looking on eBay for their very own Masa Kobayashi. And the team still considers Rafy Perez a possible closer of the future. All of this seems to be leaning towards one of the abovementioned playing elsewhere next season, and I cannot help but to think that guy is Rafy Betancourt.
Betancourt is due $2 million next season, representing a raise of 144 percent off of last season’s $840,000 that he took home last year. We obviously know that that raise wasn’t exactly earned, but it could be considered a reward for his entire body of work which was not all that bad before the 2008 campaign.
If we go back to 2007, we have a guy that threw nearly 80 innings of 1.48 ERA baseball. He fanned 80 batters while walking only nine. He held right-handed hitters to an average of .147 and gave up a total of four home runs. Of course, you then have to completely ignore that each number mentioned was nearly tripled for last year, but hey…there’s potential somewhere in there!
Now, this is all pure speculation on my part, and I have no clue what any other team would be willing to give us in return for a set-up man. It would be a very tough time to trade Betancourt, as his value is a very big unknown at this point. Do you trade him based on last season? I don’t see how the team would do that, as the only returning item they could possibly get would be some baseballs and possibly new shoes for Slider. But is any team in their right mind trading for a guy based solely on his stats two years ago? I doubt it.
So stay tuned to this. If anything, realize that this team is far from done making moves to prepare for 2009.
8 Comments
Good stuff, Scott. I still think we need to package Shoppach with somebody to get an infielder. And I wouldn’t be against that somebody being Raffy B. Not sure what that would get us: as you point out, Raffy’s resume has big hole in 2008. Shoppach’s has a big hole everywhere else.
Do you think those two might fetch us someone like Jed Lowrie, a guy it looks like Boston might be on the verge of giving up on?
Although they are paying him a ton, can’t Masa pitch for our AAA team? Is it the Clippers?
Wedge pitched the CRAP out of Betancourt in 2007. The guy went from 56 innings pitched in 06 to 78 innings pitched in 07. Sure he was on fire but the end of the season I think he started to show some wear, and then he was bad at the beginning of 08. Maybe his arm was a little dead?
This is doubly speculative…sure, if we land Nelson (a big “if”), we might have shipping Rafy B in mind. I don’t know, though. Let’s say we get Nelson. With Kerry and Smith, we’ve now added three relievers to our roster this offseason.
We’ve subtracted, however: Mastny, Mujica, Elarton. (Anybody else I’m forgetting?)
So, it seems that we’d still have room for everyone, and we’d have one of the most loaded bullpens around. Or am I missing something?
And seriously, I know it is a big raise and all, but why is it that we think of a $2 million reliever as an expensive player?
A guy with Raffy’s track record could easily be worth $2 million even with one bad season under his belt. I would go with all of them assuming that at least one will fail miserably.
Yeah lets wait till we have Nelson before we start thinking about trading anyone out of the bullpen. That being said, if he is signed, I am very optimistic about the whole pitching staff in general. Now if we could package Shoppach with someone else for an infielder, I would feel better about next season. And that is after the Yankees get Tex.
Oh yeah, we have subtracted Rincon, too.
Not really that it’s expensive, just that he’s now making twice what he was a year ago after pitching the way he did. That’s all.
And sure, we could definitely keep all of the players mentioned, but I think that we would see a move if we brought in Nelson. No way that this team only addresses the bullpen, and to me, Rafy seems like a prime target to be “he gone.”