I’ve been reading just about everyone’s thoughts on the Ubaldo Jimenez deal with the Orioles. A slow offseason leaves me hungry for opinions actual moves — and I really like this one.
Over on Cleveland.com, beat writer Paul Hoynes writes that despite the Indians extending a qualifying offer to Jimenez, they really didn’t want him back in 2014.
Late last season, when Jimenez and the Indians were at their best, it was clear inside the organization that the 6-5 right-hander would not be back. The front office enjoyed watching Jimenez pitch them into the postseason for the first time since 2007, but they did not think that outweighed his inconsistent body of work since arriving in Cleveland in July of 2011 in a trade with Colorado.
Jimenez drove the Tribe’s powers that be to distraction with his wild performance swings. Jimenez went 13-21 with 5.30 ERA in his first one and a half seasons with the Tribe. He threw 18 wild pitches, issued 102 walks and allowed 143 earned runs in 243 innings.
After losing both Jimenez and Scott Kazmir, the Indians rotation consists of Justin Masterson, Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar, Zach McAllister and Carlos Carrasco.
PECOTA projects the Tribe to finish 79-83 in the AL Central this season.
Every free agent signing is a gamble. The Orioles invested LESS in this guy OVERALL than the Yankees invested in RIGHTS TO NEGOTIATE with Tanaka. And oh by the way, Jimemez has 82 more MLB wins than Tanaka and had a season in which he won 19 games.
Is it a gamble? Yes, no one is questioning that, but at least they didn’t spend $50 m just to “talk to” a guy who’d never thrown a pitch in the U.S.
Sorry, $20 M…
$20 million to negotiate with Tanaka seems like chump change when considering Boston once spent $50 million to talk to Dice-K. Yeah, I’ll take the Jimenez deal.
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