As a Sox fan, I think Lowe is overvalued by this deal, but maybe leaving that small Fenway foul ground and a new willingness to throw those “playoff tested” secondary pitches will turn Lowe into the pitcher that the contract is paying for. In terms of the other offense acquisitions, they are all guys with 2/3 at least of the key LA park factors (D, walks, HR power). Slap hitters and even XBH type hitters are usually hurt in LA, so I think they are playing a solid, park factor is key, off season.

I do wonder about Lowe vs Millwood, but if Lowe can succeed anywhere, I’d think it’d be in Dodger Stadium with that defense. Bavasi has had a nice offseason, but we have to give some credit to the Dodgers for making the playoffs (and being the favorites to win the NL West next year, I think), even if it is a weak division.

Oh, and unless the Diamondbacks were contracted while I wasn’t looking, they’ve clearly had the worst offseason this year.

Now DePodesta’s getting hammered again for his offseason moves. He’s been criticized for not acquiring Hudson or Mulder when the fact is he didn’t have the players to trade for them! He had Edwin Jackson and a AAA infielder that made everyone wonder if what happens in Vegas was going to stay in Vegas. Consider Jackson/Werth/Perez vs the deals Beane ultimately got from St. Louis and Atlanta. LA was clearly the 3rd best offer on the table, and maybe not even that high when you consider what Baltimore was supposedly offering in a trade. A lot of people say he over-paid for Perez and potentially for Lowe. He did. It’s not like he set the market. The Benson, Wright and Pavano contracts all did that… thanks again New York. The Jeff Kent deal isn’t long enough to cause too much damage if he goes south and Valentin is a one year band-aid. It looks like Green is still going to end up in Arizona (or maybe not) but Depo has completed his end of the deal. Now it’s up to the D’Backs and Green’s agent.

So the biggest criticism left is Drew vs Beltre. I don’t like either player because Drew can’t stay healthy and Beltre had lousy seasons in 2001, 2002 ans 2003 before having an outstanding contract year. I’m not saying this to talk trash about the Mariners, again, I don’t like either player and neither one is worth the contracts they’re getting, but at least you’ve got a good idea what kind of hitter you have when Drew is on the field and I just can’t say the same about Beltre. It’s a gamble either way and I don’t think it right that Depo gets admonished while Bavasi gets praised, there should be a middle ground were both men get worried applause.

Kent and Drew project to be amongst the best hitters at their positions in the coming year. In addition, both score very highly on defensive metrics like UZR. Valentin also receives high marks for his defensive ability. Beltre, for all the love he gets here, does not project to be as good a hitter as Drew next year.

I appreciate that many people feel that the framework that DePo is working from is somewhat flawed, but I would not mistake that for no idea/plan that he is following.

What makes you think that he will post a 5.20 ERA? His DERA the past three years has been above average, and he’s an extreme groundball pitcher playing in a good park and with a great IF defense behind him(if you trust UZR). More on the park from MGL:

“Hmmm, I did some quick research. I compiled 2 groups of pitchers from all pitchers who pitched in 2001 to 2004. High FB and high GB. I arbitrarily took the 135 highest and lowest ground ball pitchers, or about 13% off each end (1000 pitchers total). A pitcher’s G/F ratio was his sample G/F ratio for 01-04 regressed towards league average (around 1.20), so the groups were presumably based on each pitcher’s approx. “true” G/F ratio.

I then looked at only LA pitchers for those years. I compared their ERC’s (component ERA’s) at home and on the road. I did thos for both groups, the FB and the GB pitchers. The results were amazing:

For gound ball pitchers, their composite NERC (weighted by the lesser of the 2 TBF’s) on the road was 3.78 and at home their composite ERC was 2.67, for a ratio of .71. The .71 corresponds to normal home field advantage plus park effects. Total PA’s were around 3600 at home and 3600 on the road.

For fly ball pitchers, their composite ERC on the road was 3.97, but at home, it was only 3.82 for a ratio of .96. Total PA’s at home and on the road were around 2000 each.

That is an amazing difference! A few things I did not like in the methodology (as I said, it was quick):

1) small samples
2) using in-sample testing (I should calculate the G/F ratios in separate years as the testing).
3) using only Dodger pitchers. Should also use visiting pitchers.
4) I did this quickly and there could be programming errors.”

Believe it or not, though I’m very happy that he’s no longer on the Sox and wouldn’t want them to give Lowe this same offer under any circumstances, I think this might work out okay for the Dodgers. Seriously.

There really are some pluses. Lowe seems like he has zero risk for injury. Almost no one throws a sinker that moves like his. Other guys throw power sinkers but Lowe’s is a bit slower with much more movement. He has a good curve that used to be his strikeout pitch. He gave up a couple game winners on rolling curves in 2001 (One to Jermaine Dye of KC at a game I attended. Not good times) and got away from throwing the curve. He can actually throw 90 mph albeit straight as a string when lefties, especially, are leaning over the plate looking to slap his sinker to left. He’s got a pretty good changeup, too.

He also said, in articles in the Boston papers at the time of the World Series that he had seen the benefits of preparing himself for starts in a different way than he had been preparing. There were no more specifics than that. Was he going to become a Schilling clone with notebooks galore? Was he at least going to dispel the rumors that he was fond of throwing back a few, or several? We don’t know. But there’s at least some chance that the Dodgers are getting a guy who is rededicated to his craft.

Another possible plus is that Lowe is going from perhaps the highest intensity market to one of the least intensity markets. Fan and media scrutiny will be a lot less. This may seem insignificant, but Lowe had an apparent weakness of falling apart once rallies started (Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster lists his percentage of runners allowed who are stranded as a league average 75% in 2002 followed by 69% then 67% the last two years).