R.A. Dickey is the best, most recent example of this class of pitchers, veterans who have worked for a succession of teams and are available as free agents to anyone who needs pitching but who are nevertheless not hotly pursued.
Dickey, who was 35 years old and had pitched for three major league teams, was a free agent after the 2009 season when the New York Mets signed him because their general manager, Omar Minaya, knew him from their days in Texas.
In his third season with the Mets, the knuckleballing Dickey won 20 games and the National League Cy Young award.
Bartolo Colon, Jason Marquis, Francisco Liriano and Scott Feldman may not win a Cy Young award this year, but they are veteran pitchers, Colon and Marquis more veteran than Liriano and Feldman, and all qualify for the Dickey class. All were free agents this past off-season.
Colon was a free agent who had five games left on a 50-game suspension for a positive test for a high level of testosterone. A 35-year-old veteran of seven major league teams, the last being Oakland, he was not the most desirable pitcher on the market.
The Athletics, however, liked what they saw in Colon’s 24 starts for them last season (10-9, 3.43 earned run average) before his Aug. 22 suspension and opted to sign him to a new contract.
His first-half performance has exceeded the cost of his contract. The Athletics are paying Colon a $3 million salary, and he can earn another $2 million or so in performance bonuses. In 17 starts he has produced an 11-3 record and 2.78 e.r.a.
Marquis had played for eight major league teams when he became a free agent last October for the second time in five months. He signed with San Diego as a minor league free agent after Minnesota released him, then became a free agent after the season and signed a one-year major league contract with the Padres for $3 million.
He can become a free agent again after this season unless the Padres sign him to a contract extension. Off his first-half performance, he could be a more attractive free agent in the coming off-season than the last one. In 17 starts the right-hander has a 9-4 record and 3.74 e.r.a.
Liriano will not be a free agent after the season. He was a free agent after last season after having been traded by Minnesota to the Chicago White Sox. The Pirates signed him to a two-year contract Dec. 21, but he injured his right, or non-throwing, shoulder and failed his physical exam.
The contact was voided, but pitcher and team renegotiated and worked out a new deal, which provided a $1 million salary for this season plus bonuses up to $3.75 million in roster and performance bonuses. The contract also has a club option for 2014 at a salary of $8 million.
Liriano, 29, is on his way to earning the option year, staying healthy and building an 8-3 record and 2.20 e.r.a. in 11 starts.
Feldman joined Baltimore not as a free agent but in a trade early this month with the Chicago Cubs, who signed him as a free agent last November to a 1-year, $6 million contract.
Before he became a free agent, the 30-year-old right-hander spent the equivalent of six and a half years with Texas, starting 101 games and relieving in 103.
He can be a free agent at the end of the season and can enhance his value by helping the Orioles get to the playoffs. His record with the Cubs and the Orioles is 7-6 with a 3.43 e.r.a.
MISSING PAYBACK
The person who would most enjoy the Los Angeles Dodgers’ freewheeling, unabashed spending is not around to see it. George Steinbrenner, who died in 2010, was long an object of derision of other owners and executives of other clubs.
His critics resented the way the Yankees’ owner freely spent money to acquire players. It wasn’t just Steinbrenner’s wild expenditure on free agents but also his willingness to spend whatever it took to acquire a player to replace an injured player or to fortify a weakness.
The Dodgers, who opened the season with a National League record $216 million payroll, acquired pitcher Ricky Nolasco from Miami Saturday night. They will pay him the remaining $6,221,311 for the final year of his three-year contract and put them over the $220 million mark.
Stan Kasten, the Dodgers’ president, was a Steinbrenner critic when he was president of the Atlanta Braves. A major supporter of Commissioner Bud Selig and his labor policies, Kasten was an advocate of reducing payrolls.
That was then; this is now. The Guggenheim group, for which Kasten plays a major role, paid $2 billion for the Dodgers and told Kasten to produce a winner. Steinbrenner would have had fun ridiculing Kasten for his change in philosophy.
Two weeks ago the Dodgers were not in position to think about Nolasco making a difference. They were a season-high 9 ½ games from the top of the National League West and seemingly were not in position to challenge for the division lead.
But it has been a forgiving division. Ten wins in 11 games catapulted the Dodgers from 9 ½ out of first to 2 ½ behind, from a nearly two-month stay in last place to a tie for second.
Nolasco appeared on their radar; dollar signs did not. Somewhere Steinbrenner is mocking Kasten.
CHANGING TACTICS BUT NOT PURPOSELY
One of the major reasons the Baltimore Orioles were able to make a surprise appearance in the playoffs last season was their success in one-run games. They won 29 one-run games and lost only 9, the best record in the majors.
The Orioles are in position to win at least a wild-card spot again this season, but their achievement would not be linked to the outcome of one-run games in the first half of the season. They suffered one-run losses to the Yankees in the first two games of this weekend’s series, giving them a 12-14 record in one-run games for the season.
The Orioles were also one of five teams in the majors that through July 4 had swept only one series of three or more games. Three teams had not swept any series, which helps explain why the Mets, the Cubs and the Mariners are where they are.
Series sweeps also help explain why teams are as high in the standings as they are. Oakland and Atlanta, division leaders going into Sunday’s games, had each swept the most series, seven, according to Elias Sports Bureau, while Boson had swept five.
Lagging behind the leaders in their divisions, though, were Cincinnati, which had swept six series, and San Diego, with five. Countering the Padres’ series success, they have been swept five times. The easiest teams to sweep should come as no surprise: Houston eight series, Miami six.
Every team was swept at least once, with the Reds, the Red Sox, the Rangers, the Rays, the Blue Jays, the Cardinals and the Phillies sharing the lowmark.
There were 84 sweeps by July 4, Elias said, compared with 89 in the equivalent part of the schedule last season and 80 in 2011.
HOW TO MAKE FOUR GO INTO THREE
Just when the Dodgers were faced with fitting four outfielders into three outfield positions, one of the outfielders got hurt.
Last Friday night, when Carl Crawford returned from the disabled list to join Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, he found Yasiel Puig in his place. “Who’s been standing in my place,” Crawford might have asked but didn’t.
Instead Crawford took a seat on the bench as Ethier played left, Kemp center and Puig right. In Kemp’s first at-bat against Matt Cain of San Francisco, he swung at a pitch and immediately felt pain in his left shoulder. The ailment was diagnosed as shoulder irritation.
Crawford batted for Kemp in the third inning, then went to left field with Ethier moving to center. The outfield alignment remained the same for Saturday’s game. The Dodgers said Kemp would miss a few days.
That’s one way to solve a ticklish problem, but it’s probably not what manager Don Mattingly had in mind.
Except for the Cuban Puig, the Dodgers’ outfielders have not been terrific. Kemp is hitting .254 with 4 home runs and 24 r.b.i., Ethier .261 with 5 and 25, Crawford .289 with 5 and 13. Puig has played in only 31 games, 36 percent of the team’s games, and is hitting .407 with 8 homers and 19 r.b.i.
THE YANKEES’ MINOR LEAGUERS
As he had exclaimed the previous week much to the displeasure of general manager Brian Cashman, Alex Rodriguez played baseball last week – in some minor league rehab games – and Yankee Stadium did not collapse.
Cashman had blown a gasket when Rodriguez informed the world through Twitter that his hip surgeon had cleared him to play. But a few days later the Yankees made their own announcement and Rodriguez proceeded to play uneventfully.
Always more diplomatic than Rodriguez, Derek Jeter let the Yankees announce when he would play his own rehab games.
However, before his first game Saturday night for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, Jeter strayed slightly from his carefully crafted comments. When a reporter told him that Cashman and manager Joe Girardi had said they would probably decide on his return to the Yankees based on his and his doctors’ opinions, the shortstop said, “If they were basing it on what I told them, I’d be playing today.”
If Cashman was informed of Jeter’s remark, he did not react. Rodriguez, meanwhile, was much more diplomatic in his comments after his game in Florida Saturday night.
“Everything’s going to take time,” he told reporters. “Anything I tell you guys at this point, there’s really not much there. You’ve got to wait probably 10 games, and then I’ll be able to get into the flow of things. I’m literally just trying to step back into this thing and be smart about it.”