Saturday, January 15, 2005

A lot more rumors on various message boards that the Redding / Cruz Jr. trade is all but done. This is a good trade for us, and will be the first good move Purpura has made. He could make a 2nd one by signing Darrell May, who was cut by the Royals today. May had a rough year last year, putting up a 5.61 ERA in 186 innings, but he was excellent the year before (3.77 ERA in 210 innings), and made half his starts in the hitter's park of Kaufmann Stadium. The main reason his ERA ballooned up so much was he suddenly became much more hittable, allowing 234 hits in 186 innings compared to 197 in 210 innings in '03. One of the main discoveries in recent years is that pitchers have surprisingly little control over batting average allowed. In other words, May likely just had poor luck in '04.

I don't think May will dominate, but 175 innings of a 4.50 ERA sounds reasonable, and in a rotation with as many question marks as ours, an inning-eater like May would be an excellent cheap pickup. How about a 1 year / 2 million dollar deal?

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