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Smoltz to Sox?
January 7th, 2009, 8:57 pm · 3 Comments · posted by sammiller
The AL East is apparently growing so dense that all of Major League Baseball’s matter is being sucked into it by force of gravity. Because now John Smoltz is said to be on the verge of a deal with the Red Sox.
I’m very strongly of the opinion that once the postseason starts anything can happen. But somehow or another, there are going to be two serious powerhouses coming out of the AL East this year, so it might not be the best year to be the AL West or AL Central champion. And woe be to the AL East team that doesn’t make the postseason; there is a decent chance they’ll be about 10 wins better than the other six playoff teams.
Key stats for Smoltz: He’s old, but he struck out a man per inning the past two seasons. He strikes out four batters for every walk, and led the National League in that category in 2007. He averaged 220 innings per year the three seasons before 2008, when he missed most of the season with a shoulder injury. Yeah, he’s probably a good bet to pitch fewer than 100 innings, but at $5 million base salary, what do the Sox have to lose? They now will cull a fourth and fifth starter out of this group: Smoltz, Clay Buchholz, Tim Wakefield and Brad Penny. And they return the second best offense in the American League. And the fourth-best defense. And a good bullpen. And they might only be the third best team in their division.
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The AL East teams play each other 19 times each, so their records get skewed even more. Toronto’s pitching will be up there with anyone else’s in the league. How would you like to be the Orioles? There will be some months when they face an outstanding starting pitcher every night. They could be pretty good and lose 100 games.
What I like is Joe Maddon’s attitude, never complaining but saying, hey, you play the best, it makes you better.
I’m interested in seeing Smoltz’s contract details. They supposedly are going to get him for $5.5 million base and $5M in incentives. What if he’s back to normal? Then he’s better than Burnett and maybe even better than Sabathia, who, remember, was 6-8 with CLE before the trade. Smoltz struck out 36 in 25 innings last year, in five starts, with a 2.57 ERA. This is the type of chance the Angels never feel like taking.
[...] Cop, Bad Cop Jump to Comments Darn, Mark Whicker seems to agree with Sam Miller that the imminent signing of John Smoltz by the Red Sox is a good [...]
Toronto just signed the Cubs.