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Pearly Gates: An Angels Blog
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Tuesday, December 21, 2004

I hate it

A lot of folks are asking how this happened. Well, I think it's pretty clear - Bill Stoneman fell in love with Cabrera when he was in the Expos front office, and he's had a hard-on for the guy ever since. This wasn't the first time the Angels had been linked to Cabrera. So when Stoneman found himself with a little extra spendin' cash (after not signing Beltran, not signing Clement, and not signing Kline), he turned to a familiar object of lust.

Rob and Chronicles have already done it, so let me give you a few of the many reasons why this deal is almost enough to drive me to Harry Caray:

  • Cabrera can't hit. Of course, neither could Eckstein. Cabrera is probably going to be an ever-so-slight improvement over Eckstein with the bat, but that doesn't mean he won't be well below league average. Gaze:


    Keep in mind that somebody like, let's say, Nomar Garciaparra (who the Angels could have had for one year at a very reasonable price) would be off this particular chart. Literally off the chart - with a .284 GPA last season, Nomar falls outside of the data range. Another guy the Angels could have had (though a somewhat less than reasonable price) was Edgar Renteria, who's .247 GPA last season was also better than Cabrera and Eckstein (and it was a down-year for Renteria). Perhaps the best available option was Placido Polanco, who's .266 GPA was Ruthian by contrast, and who ended up accepting arbitration from the Phillies. So don't go thinking for a second that Cabrera is any good just because he's better than Eckstein.

  • Cabrera's glove is overrated. "Hey, this guy can't hit. He must be good defensively!" Yes, Orlando Cabrera won a gold glove in 2001, and he might of even deserved it. But since then his defense has fallen off a cliff, and is now to the point where he's below-average at the position. Defensively speaking, the Angels would be far better off with Eckstein at short.

  • The money. Having established that Cabrera is only a slight improvement over what the Angels already had (if an improvement at all), how can you justify spending four times as much as you would have otherwise? And how in God's name can you justify giving him a contract equal to the one Garciaparra got from the Cubs? (on a per year basis) Ick!

  • The years. Four years? Four years!? Are you shitting me? Keep this in mind - Cabrera is 30 years old, and with the deal structured like it is, the Angels will owe him $9 million when he's 34 years old. Can you say "dead money"?

  • The repercussions. Needed any more evidence that Bill Stoneman is operating without a clear plan for the future? Here he's managed to successfully block four different promising middle-infield prospects (Izturis, Wood, Collaspo, and Aybar) for four years. Lovely. Not to mention that a lot of people are going to be up-in-arms over the departure of David Eckstein (my mom called me last night to inform me she will not be renewing her season tickets, and I'm willing to bet she's not the only one).
I'm this close to re-inventing this blog as "Fire Stoneman"...

BTW: "Nomar Garciaparra" comes out as "Mammary Grasshopper" in the blogger spell check. He-he!

UPDATE: After a conversation about GPA with Joe (in the comments below), I decided to figure out the park-adjusted GPA of Eckstein and Cabrera. I did it like OPS+, so 100 is league average.
Player         GPA+
D Eckstein       89
O. Cabrera       90
V. Guererro     125
G. Anderson     103
T. Glaus        116
J. DaVanon      107
Low and behold, the numbers show Cabrera is just slightly better than Eckstein, but both pretty much suck. I like this - I'm going to do this more often. Maybe I'll go back and look at the Finley/Beltran/DaVanon/Figgins thing later.

Comments:


Cabrera's glove is overrated...?

sure he had 1 bad game against the Nationals, but outside of that he's made 2 errors all year, 40% of the way through the season.

the only infielder with fewer errors or better fielding % is Erstad, big surprise there. no kidding he doesn't put up numbers, but as you pointed out neither does Eckstein, who was a cute kid but couldn't even throw across the infield.

but at least Cabrera will get a few knocks this season -- maybe even squeak into double digits.

go Halos! :-)
bri

posted by Anonymous Anonymous @ 11:29 PM
p.s. he's 29

posted by Anonymous Anonymous @ 11:41 PM
or so I thought, nevermind.

posted by Anonymous Anonymous @ 11:45 PM