rsoriano to the natls

[stevethumb]

wow what a bullpen !!

according to rotoworld, rafael soriano signed a 2 yr 28 million dollar contract...

the natls will have to give up their #1 draft pick and the corresponding $

looks like that SP staff will only have to go 6 innings or so w/storen, clippard, stammen, matteus and garcia warming up

[Pogotheostrich]

I don't get it. That is a ton of money and a first rounder to spend when the bullpen is already pretty good.

[Skin Blues]

That is insaaaaane. Not saying it won't work out for them in terms of improving the team, but that is a huge expense for such a marginal benefit. Could quite possibly be the most overpaid relief pitcher of all time.

[MashinSpuds]

If they can't get an all-star lineup 1-9 (or close enough) like the Dodgers, they can try to get the all-star bullpen instead. I agree that if the starters can hold to 6-7 innings per game, then watch out.

[cordscords]

All it takes is one injury and one under-performer for the bullpen to look murky. You can never have too much pitching. I like the signing.

[Element]

Adding him to any pen is a good move. The cost seems a little outrageous though. Who exactly were they bidding against? I know that the Dodgers rumor started a couple of days ago, but that was likely Boras posturing. If you have the extra money laying around ... whatever.

[Skin Blues]

Sure, you can never have too much pitching. But that doesn't justify signing any pitcher to any amount of money. Soriano was 64th among relievers in SIERA last season, and 74th in xFIP. In 2011 he was considerably worse than that. I know, I know, those are all voodoo stats and all that matters are his save totals. But he's 33 years old and has major durability issues (has averaged 44 relief appearances since becoming a full-time MLBer). The list of relief pitchers that are better than him is staggering. Spending money like crazy isn't a bad thing if you don't care about a return on investment, but properly allocating that money is pretty important if you're in that situation. Having your second highest paid player being a 33 year old relief pitcher with durability issues...I don't know how smart that is. Would be a lot less terrible if it was only a one year deal.

[kab21]

Using xFIP as an argument against Soriano is silly. Over his career his ERA has been an entire run better than his xFIP. This is not unusual for RP'ers but I've never understood why. However it does mean that xFIP is not a good predictor for him.

It seems like too much money but if you have money available then you might as well spend it somewhere. At this point they already have 5 good starters, a pair of catchers and Morse doesn't have anywhere to play. The only place that they are really weak is MI but Espinosa and Desmond had pretty good years.

[Skin Blues]

Using xFIP as an argument against Soriano is silly. Over his career his ERA has been an entire run better than his xFIP. This is not unusual for RP'ers but I've never understood why. However it does mean that xFIP is not a good predictor for him.

Right, but other RPs also have that benefit. Another benefit of looking at xFIP/SIERA is that they stabilize much faster than ERA. Of course at this point there's not much else left to help their team. If they had this cash the whole time they had the entire offseason to find a better way to use it. Like adding all of Uehara, Adams and keeping Burnett whose combined 2013 salaries are the same as Soriano's. Or any other combination of moves that makes them significantly better than just adding Soriano. Uehara alone is probably more valuable than Soriano for this season.

[Ender]

Good RP almost always outperform their xFIP.

I won't comment on good or bad but this is a very interesting deal to say the least. A standard 2 year at $14 deal is just awful but the deferred money really is a game changer here considering this is the start of their competitive window.