OK, maybe it wasn’t exactly a heist, but it was a great signing by the LA club. After watching the Angels drop $90 mil on Torii Hunter, the Dodgers spent about a third the price on Andruw Jones, who is a superior player. Just when I thought they would do something dumb like throw $60 million at Aaron Rowand, they sign one of the better center fielders in the game for proper-market value. Even in his worst year, Andruw still managed 26 homers and over 90 RBI. If he duplicates his ‘06 stinker, he’ll still be the Dodgers best power hitter. I’m not sure if that’s more of a commentary on the Dodgers, or Andruw, but it’s still a significant piece of info.
Not only is the Jones contract a short-term commitment for a relatively little amount of money all things considered, but the signing gives the Dodgers flexibility to make a deal. They move Juan Pierre over to left field, and now Andre Ethier or Matt Kemp become expendable in right. Don’t be surprised if the Dodgers re-enter the Johan Santana sweepstakes. One problem for the Dodgers though, say they acquire the likes of Johan, they would be hard-pressed to sign him to a long-term deal. No matter what they do next, you can’t knock this signing — it was short term, at good value, and it fills two needs (power hitter and center fielder). Ned Colletti is on his way to redeeming himself (and Scott Boras cannot be pleased).
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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Stole? What are you smoking? The Dodgers just made a .222 hitter the fifth highest paid player in the game. Granted, it wasn’t what Bora$ was looking for, but I wouldn’t call it a steal. See if it is a steal at the end of the season when you count up his number of 4 strikeout nights.
George Mitchell will be public enemy #1 in Dodgertown for sure.
pay attention to what Larry said. They got him in a short term contract, yes they are paying him alot per year, but most players of his caliber would want a 4 or 5 year deal minimum. When you look at a players deal, you cant just look at the annual salary, you have to look at the overall salary for the life of the contract. Most teams lose out because they sign a guy who ends up stinking up the joint, and they are stuck with his salary for 5 or 6 years. If Andrew sucks, which I don’t think he will they will be rid of him in a few quick years.
It really doesn’t matter if they got Andruw for free. He is sand-poundingly bad at baseball now. The Dodgers should make a play for Eckstein, too. Maybe they can 30-132 this year.
-If- he sucks??
Lets come back here in August, and you guys will be praising him, and we’ll remind you what you said on this post.
im a braves fan watching andruw bat last year was like watching aman completely lost in his own world to pay that much for someone that looked that awful at the plate shows how crazy the salaries are in baseball they need to change the whole structure of the sport they need a salary cap so more teams can compete smallermarkets have no chance at getting certain players
[...] Now, (finally) I’m beginning to come around and admit it was a horrendous signing even though I was originally for it. This guy is more clueless than Raul Mondesi at the plate. He doesn’t even look like a major [...]