Four years ago teams played a game of musical shortstops, and they are playing it again this year. For one of the shortstops, Edgar Renteria, the music has never stopped.
Renteria (33 years old), Orlando Cabrera (34) and David Eckstein (34) are free agents, just as they were following the 2004 season. That winter Renteria moved from St. Louis to Boston, Cabrera went from Boston to Anaheim and David Eckstein moved from Anaheim to St. Louis.
They are not the only shortstops who are free agents now. There are about a dozen others, including Rafael Furcal, Omar Vizquel, Cesar Izturis and Adam Everett. But Renteria is the shortstop I want to look at most closely.
As the Florida shortstop his first three years in the majors, the Colombia native won the 1997 World Series for the Marlins, driving in the winning run in the 11th inning of Game 7 against Cleveland with a single. After the next season the Marlins traded him to St. Louis, where he played for six seasons.
Then he began his odyssey. Becoming a free agent after the 2004 season, he signed a four-year, $40 million contract with an option for a fifth year with the Red Sox, who less than two months earlier had won their first World Series title since 1918 with Cabrera at short.
Renteria, however, played only one season for the Red Sox because they traded him to the Braves for a young infielder, Andy Marte.
“We believed it was in the best interests of the ballclub,” Theo Epstein the Boston general manager, said of the decision to trade Renteria. “He didn’t play as well as we thought we would.”
Why did the Red Sox sign Renteria instead of retaining Cabrera? “We got two first-round picks,” Epstein said, “and used one for Jacoby Ellsbury.”
Renteria stayed with the Braves for two years before they, too, sent him on his way, trading him to Detroit for two players, including Jair Jurrjens, who was Atlanta’s best pitcher this year.
“We traded for him because we were looking for an experienced shortstop, a cornerstone kind of player,” said John Schuerholz, the Braves’ general manager, who made the trade for Renteria. “Edgar had always performed so well in the National League. We saw a lot of him in Florida.”
In addition, Frank Wren, Schuerholz’s assistant, was with the Marlins when Renteria played for them, and Terry Pendleton, a Braves coach, played with Renteria.
“Everything was double plus for us,” Schuerholz said. “He was exactly the right guy for us.”
And how did Renteria fare for the Braves? “He was absolutely everything we had hoped for and more,” Schuerholz said. “A rock steady player. His fielding was very bizarre in Boston. He was always so silky smooth. It got worse as the year unfolded. He was not loved by fans in Boston because of that. But we looked at him as the player we had seen in the National League and he was that.”
So why did the Braves trade him to the Tigers last year?
“We had Yunel Escobar shooting through our system, a young player from Cuba,” Schuerholz said. “He was a mature player mentally and physically. We felt he could play for us and he has demonstrated that. We had to get some pitching and we were able to get Jurrjens and this year he was our best pitcher.”
Just to make sure there was no misunderstanding about Renteria and his contribution to the team, Schuerholz added, “Edgar did everything and he was everything we needed and had hoped for in terms of player, leader, character, all the things you wanted when he’s your player. As often and as far as he’s traveled, the players he’s played with will say the same thing. He’s the best teammate he ever played with. Our players and players in St. Louis and Florida said it. That’s how he’s viewed.”
And then it was the Tigers’ turn. In Boston Renteria batted .276 and drove in 70 runs. In two years with the Braves he batted .310 and knocked in 127 runs. For the Tigers he slipped to .270 with 55 runs batted in. The guaranteed portion of his contract was up, and the Tigers declined to pick up his $11 million option, buying it out for $3 million.
“It doesn’t preclude that we won’t bring him back, but we’ll explore other options,” Dave Dombrowski, the Tigers’ general manager, said. “We think the world of him. He’s a good player. He just didn’t have a good defensive season for us. He did not have a good offensive season to start the season, the first couple months.”
Like Schuerholz, Dombrowsk talked about the quality individual Renteria is. But personality goes only so far.
“We knew when we acquired him that he was an adequate defensive shortstop,” Dombrowski said. “Now we’ll see if we can improve in that area. We don’t know if it was us and the expectations. He’s been through pressure situations and played well. I don’t know if he put too much pressure on himself with the option, but he didn’t have a good season.”
Cabrera began his own odyssey on the day of the trading deadline in 2004 when the Expos traded him to the Cubs, who passed him onto the Red Sox, who needed a sound defensive shortstop to stabilize the infield.
After the season he signed a four-year contract with the Angels for $32 million. He played for the Angels for three years until they traded him a year ago to the White Sox for Jon Garland.
The Angels’ decision to sign Cabrera left Eckstein without a job so he signed with the Cardinals, three years for $10.25 million. He played out the contract, then signed a one-year contract for $4.5 million last winter with the Blue Jays, who traded him to Arizona with a month left in the season.
Like Renteria and Cabrera, Eckstein is now a free agent seeking a job,
Older and Richer
Theo Epstein has become older and wealthier since he became Red Sox general manager six years ago. One month shy of his 29th birthday when he got the job in November 2002, Epstein was the youngest major league general manager ever. He is no longer the youngest, but he may be the wealthiest, in terms of salary, that is.
Epstein and the Red Sox agreed to a new contract recently, negotiating it in a far friendlier way than the expiring contract. Talk among other general managers is that Epstein’s salary in what is believed to be his third three-year contract is $3 million a year.
That would make him the highest salaried general manager, eclipsing Dave Dombrowski of Detroit, who is believed to earn about $2.5 million a year. Dombrowski, however, also has ownership points.
Epstein is the only general manager who has built one World Series championship team, let alone two, in the last 90 years of Red Sox history. He is also the first Red Sox general manager to oversee six post-season teams in any period. That also makes him the first Red Sox general manager to produce four losing post-season teams, but in Boston no one is counting.
$40 Million Later He Can Pitch
Never has any pitcher earned so much for doing so little as Carl Pavano has the past four years with the Yankees. For $39.95 million, Pavano pitched 26 games in four years, including none in 2006, two in 2007 and seven this year.
The right-hander, who will turn 33 years old in January, has survived the contract he signed Dec. 22, 2004, and is a free agent. But not only is he free to sign with anyone; he is also healthy enough to sign with someone.
With pitching so much in demand, Pavano is a viable candidate for another good contract. That’s because he was able to pitch enough toward this past season to demonstrate that he was healthy and ready to go forward.
He had an ugly 5.77 earned run average in his seven starts, but he won four of six decisions while averaging just under five innings a start. The Yankees obviously exercised caution in their use of him, not asking him to pitch too many innings and put too much strain on his seldom used arm.
Presumably with a full spring training next year, Pavano will be ready to pitch normally for someone, if anything can ever be normal with Pavano. Interested teams will most likely want to sign him to a one-year contract to see if he can really get through a full season healthy. Pavano himself may also want to sign a one-year contract, demonstrate that he is healthy and then sign a longer, more lucrative contract as a free agent a year from now.
His age should not be a factor. He hasn’t used his arm enough the past four years to have it wear out prematurely.
A Tough Man to Fan
A recent item about the strikeout race between Ryan Howard and Mark Reynolds (Reynolds won with a major league-record 204 to 199) prompted a reader to ask if Joe DiMaggio had more home runs than strikeouts in his career. He did not, but it was close.
Entering his final season, DiMaggio had hit 349 home runs and had struck out 333 times. In that last season, 1951, however, DiMaggio hit 12 home runs and struck out 36 times, giving him career totals of 361 homers and 369 strikeouts.
Research by Elias Sports Bureau shows that no player who hit 100 homers or more had fewer strikeouts than home runs.
A Dubious Double
Mark Reynolds of Arizona not only led the majors in strikeouts, but he also made the most errors in the majors. His 34 errors this year were 11 more than the next highest total, 23, by Edwin Encarnacion of Cincinnati, also a third baseman.
Reynolds, however, wasn’t the worst fielder historically among third basemen. His .904 fielding percentage was not as low as the .895 percentage compiled last year by Ryan Braun of Milwaukee, who committed 26 errors in fewer games.
The Brewers understandably moved Braun to left field this year. It’s too early to determine where Reynolds might wind up next year, but the Diamondbacks would dearly like him to repair the holes in his glove and his bat.
Hi Ho Silver
Nate Silver and I have never met, never uttered a word to each other, at least not directly. I was told once that he had written a column in response to my disdain for new-fangled statistics. That was all right. I never saw it.
But just because I don’t care for the baseball statistics he touts doesn’t mean I can’t respect what he does in another area. From what I read, Silver has become the wizard of political punditry.
Using his obvious brilliance with statistical analysis, Silver has expanded his numbers game to Presidential politics and has become an instant superstar in his first time at bat. He correctly forecast the outcome of the Obama-McCain race in 49 of the 50 states, called the total popular vote within a percentage point and was closer on the electoral college voting than anyone else.
That’s a performance that is more impressive and more worthwhile than anything he has done with VORP and WHIP.