Colletti’s Answer Is Under His Nose
Los Angeles Dodgers GM Ned Colletti discussed some of his offseason priorities on the Dan Patrick show on Thursday (which can be heard here). Colletti discussed, among other things, addressing second base with offseason moves. After all, it is hardly surprising that any team starting Ron Belliard at 2B in the playoffs would look to improve at that position.
The free agent market at 2B is pretty bare. R.J. already discussed Felipe Lopez, who is a type A free agent who just completed a career year at age 30. Placido Polanco will be the only other type A free agent to hit the market, assuming San Francisco picks up Freddy Sanchez’s option. Akinori Iwamura is another interesting option. Iwamura is coming off of injury and his 4.25M option will likely be too expensive for the Rays to exercise, especially given Ben Zobrist’s rise.
Iwamura’s skills play as those of an average 2B, or a rough 2.25 win player. There is one other free agent who won’t cost the Dodgers any draft picks and plays at or above that level. That player, Orlando Hudson, was on the Dodgers roster this season. His one-year, incentive-laden contract expired, leaving him again in the undesirable position of a type-A free agent in a declining market. Hudson’s contract incentives earned him just under $8M overall. As a 3 win player, that’s roughly $4 million in surplus value.
Hudson is 32, but his type A status will allow the Dodgers to make a move for a team-favorable one-year deal. His .342 wOBA was his worst since 2005, but with park adjustment, his offensive contribution equaled his contribution in 2008, when he had a .358 wOBA with Arizona. His fielding in recent years doesn’t stand up to his time with the Blue Jays (+27 UZR in four years), and has slipped below average in recent years. Still, his hitting well outweighs any defensive shortcomings. He hasn’t been below 2 WAR since 2003. He gives you consistency at the plate and in the field, and most importantly, the Dodgers are in an excellent position to bargain with Hudson.
Unless the Dodgers are willing to give away draft picks and sign Placido Polanco or take a chance on a 30-year-old average player coming off injury in the form of Akinori Iwamura, there is really only one option for Los Angeles. Re-sign Orlando Hudson, and maybe play him this time if they make it back to the postseason.
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The Solution is actually Blake DeWitt.
Don’t you have to offer arbitration and have it be rejected to get a player tagged with type A status?
It seems to me that the Dodgers were in an ideal position to negotiate w/ Hudson before they benched him in favor of the vastly inferior Belliard during the season’s most important games. Why would Hudson, if he had any other options, want to resign w/ the Dodgers, knowing fully that they’re likely to put him on the bench during the playoffs? It seems to me that if the money’s close, he’ll go somewhere else where he feels more confident that the team actually wants his services on the field. It might be different had he been benched for Chase Utley but he’s bound to feel less-than-desired by the Dodgers since they played Belliard in his stead. I’d be stunned to see Hudson return to the Dodgers unless he’s Type-A-blacklisted as he was last offseason.
The only way for him to be Type-A is to be offered arbitration, and I’d imagine that if he was he’d probably try to stick it to the dodgers in the arb hearings, rather than decline and likely receive less money elsewhere.
Colletti seems very much in the mold of Sabean…which is to say, not good. Let’s hope he does everything in his power to screw up the Dodgers.
Also, I don’t see any situation where the Giants pick up Sanchez’s option. I fully expect Sanchez to be back (why wouldn’t Sabean go for a low OBP, .300 hitting 3-time All-star?!), but not on a 1 year, $8M option…
Type A is a designation, they are Type A no matter what.
Whether the team gets draft picks for him because of his Type A designation is where offering and accepting arbitration comes in.
The rumor is that Sabean is working on a 2-3 year deal with Franchez but would pick up the $8M option if forced to, at least according to what he said right after the season ended for the Giants. Given the poor market last off-season and how Hudson ended up not knowing where he’s going until spring training basically began, plus he’s in the same situation again this season, I think Franchez will sign some sort of multi-year deal with the Giants
I disagree with the analysis of Hudson. If you look at his years with Toronto and Arizona, you can see in his home/road splits that he benefited greatly from his home park, but no matter where he has played, his OPS was around the low 700’s on the road, even this year from what I last recall.
The only reason he was offensively valuable this season was because he inexplicably hit well in Dodger Stadium, a pitchers park, very early in the season. But as one can see with his monthly stats, he stopped hitting well at home and continued to suck on the road, which forced the Dodgers to go get Belliard.
I was happy the Dodgers got him, he should have sucked big time at home but his hot April/May allowed them to get their money’s worth out of him. I don’t see how he would want to re-sign with the Dodgers after getting dissed so badly like that, being benched in the middle of the pennant race, but I’m hoping that they decide to do that, because I don’t think he can do that two years in a row.
I would also be happy with Blake DeWitt at 2B too, he hasn’t really shown much in his time in the majors.
What exactly about the analysis of Hudson are you disagreeing with? You know road splits aren’t a good indicator of a players “true talent level”, right?
Home/road splits are especially misleading when a home park is a hitters park. It’s a mathematical requirement that home/road splits will average much wider for teams playing in hitters parks.
Oh, and Hudson’s OPS+ was almost identical this year to his last 3.
His mustache has to go.
I think the Dodgers burned their bridge with Hudson when they benched in favor of the inferior Belliard, also when you listen to his comments he does sound angry, “I guess I should have hit .490 the whole season. I did play good enough to make the All-star team.” It doesn’t seem likely he would want to come back.
Didn’t they sign him to an incentive-filled contract, like how he’d get $10,000 / PA at a certain point, so benching him for a month essentially cost him $1,000,000?
These guys make plenty, sure, but within about a decade they’ll never come close to that total. If I got jobbed out of 7 figures, I’d be pretty bitter, too.
Actually, he got $10,000 per plate appearance up to 632, and ended up with 631 – so Brad Ausmus (as acting manager) replacing him in the final game of the season cost him that last 10K, but no more. Still not the most politic move on the Dodgers part.
There’s no way he’s coming back to LA – they burned that bridge.
The dodgers need a leadoff hitter and a second base. The perfect fit for them should be Figgins. He played third base this past year but he can play second base. He is a free agent. The dodgers dont have a true leadoff hitter. Furcal is not a leadoff any more. We need a player that can steal bases and have a high on base percentage.
And Figgins stolen base percentage has steadily declined each of the last four years, his OBP has fluctuated from between .335 and .395 over the last 4 years, and he hasn’t played second in a while and when he did he wasn’t very good at it. Third is a much different position. It’s about reflexes and arm strength, where second base requires more “range.” Just cause Figgins is fast doesn’t mean he has “range.” Figgins is likely to be one of the most overvalued players on the free agent market, I would stay away from him.
Except that Polano won’t be a type A free agent. If the Tigers offer arbitration, he would be a fool to turn it down. Much more likely, the Tigers simply won’t offer arbitration because they can’t afford him.
Kelly Johnson could be an option as it looks like he will be a non tender candidate, he’d come cheap and is capable of being a 3 WAR player (even higher if he can put offense and defense together)
It looks like the Dodgers won’t be getting Sanchez – he just signed a two year deal with the Giants for 12 million.