Kuzul

If you had to name the three players in Major League Baseball who have been associated with the term “contract extension” over the past three or four seasons, who would you name? I would name Albert Pujols, Adrian Gonzalez and Dan Uggla.

The first two I can understand. Pujols and Gonzalez are elite players. But Uggla?

Uggla is a very good player, but it seemed like ever since he came onto the baseball scene in the 2006 season, he has been mentioned for either a contract extension or a trade candidate. I guess that is the nature of the beast when you play for the Florida Marlins.

What’s funny is after spending almost four years talking about an Uggla trade or extension, he got both in a span of three months. Uggla was traded from the Marlins to the Atlanta Braves in November, and now he gets his extension.

The Braves officially signed Uggla to a five-year, $62 million contract on Thursday. Uggla will earn $9 million in salary and a $1 million signing bonus in 2011, and he’ll earn $13 million annually from 2012-15, according to Dave O’Brien.

Over his career, Uggla has averaged a .263/.349/.488 hitting line with 31 HRs. Over the last three seasons, only Chase Utley and Dustin Pedroia have had a total WAR as a second baseman higher than Uggla (12.5). He is a legit All-Star second baseman.

The question with Uggla has always been whether or not he will stay at second base for the rest of his career. Over the last three seasons, only Skip Schumaker has a worse UZR than Uggla at second base. Roberto Alomar he is not.

There is a good chance Uggla could move to third or even the outfield in the later years of this contract. However, Uggla doesn’t strike me as a guy who will be willing to move so easily.

Even at 31 years old and with his poor defensive numbers, Uggla should outperform the $62 million he is going to get from the Braves over the next five years. Looking at his peripherals such as K Percentage, BB Percentage or wOBA, nothing stands out that would suggest he is due for a steep decline over the next couple of years.

Uggla’s extension is the highest average annual salary for a second baseman in baseball history.

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Did Boston Red Sox GM Theo Epstein have a coupon to buy one underachieving Texas Rangers catcher and get one free?

Last year, the Red Sox traded for Jarrod Saltalamacchia at the July 31 trade deadline and now they have claimed Max Ramirez off of waivers from the Rangers. I wonder if they are going to target Taylor Teagarden next?

The Red Sox have been infatuated with Ramirez for some time now. They tried to trade for him last season, but that fell through when Mike Lowell became untradeable because of injury.

I guess Boston is obsessed with Ramirez’s ability to get on base like Saltalamacchia and are hoping he is a late bloomer.

Despite hitting just .217 in 140 Major League plate appearances, Ramirez does have a .343 OBP. In seven minor league seasons, he has a .396 OBP.

Look for Ramirez to start the year in Triple-A for Boston.

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I really have liked the moves the Baltimore Orioles have made in the offseason so far. This last move they made? Well, not so much.

The Orioles signed RHP Kevin Gregg to a two-year, $10 million contract. The deal also includes a vesting option for 2013 which can bring the total value of the contract to $16 – $20 million according to SI.com’s Jon Heyman.

Gregg stays in the AL East

Look, Gregg had a decent season with the Toronto Blue Jays last season. He had a 3.51 ERA, averaged 8.85 K’s/9, he held batters to a .238 average and had a 42.3 Groundball Percentage in 59 innings. There’s nothing really wrong with those numbers.

But here is my issue with this signing. The Orioles already invested $12 million in Mike Gonzalez ($6 million in 2011) and $3 million in Koji Uehara. Why invest potentially another $16 – $20 million in a mediocre relief pitcher? Especially when you don’t expect to compete for a division title of Wild Card for at least another two years.

I could think of 20 other ways the Orioles could spend that $10 million other than on Gregg. I think it’s a universal rule that a bad-to-mediocre team shouldn’t spend a ton of money on their bullpen. The Orioles figure to have a payroll of around $65 million in 2011. Twenty-two percent of that payroll will be spent on Gonzalez, Gregg and Uehara.

That’s way, way, way too much.

I get what the Orioles are attempting to do with this signing. There is nothing more demoralizing to a young team than fighting to grab a lead for eight innings and then having your closer implode in the ninth to lose the game.

The Orioles figure if they can build a solid bullpen, it will help their starting pitchers develop. While that may be true, I just think they have the wrong guys in the pen to pull that off. Having two mediocre relievers in Gonzalez and Gregg doesn’t equal one solid reliever.

The Blue Jays will receive a draft pick for losing Gregg. The Orioles will not lose a draft pick for signing Gregg.

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Do you realize that Billy Koch was the last pitcher to lead the Toronto Blue Jays in saves in back-to-back seasons? That was all the way back during the 2000 and 2001 seasons.

Since then, the Blue Jays have had a different pitcher lead the team in saves each year. That’s nine years and eight different closers. Only B.J. Ryan lead the team in saves twice during that stretch.

And with last year’s closer, Kevin Gregg, departing via free agency, the Blue Jays will have their ninth closer in 10 years.

That ninth closer will be Octavio Dotel. The Blue Jays signed Dotel last week to a one-year, $3.5 million contract with a club option for 2012. The club option is worth $3.75 million or they can buyout Dotel for $750,000, according to Enrique Rojas.

Dotel has been well traveled throughout his 12-year career. He has played on 10 teams during that span and last year, he played on three different teams. Dotel pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Colorado Rockies last season and had a 4.08 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 10.5 K’s/9, and 4.5 BB’s/9 in 64 total innings.

Dotel is far removed from the guy who used to throw in the mid-to-upper-90s with the Houston Astros. He can still strike guys out, but his velocity on his fastball dropped to 91.7 mph, which was the lowest of his career and he is more a Maalox Moment for a manager than anything else these days.

Dotel is the type of closer these days that will walk two, strike out one, give up an infield single, but yet will somehow find a way to get out of the inning. And if he comes into the game with a three-run lead, he is sure to give up two and make it interesting.

He is like John Franco at the end of his career or Fernando Rodney now.

He will certainly get his opportunities in Toronto to close games. The Blue Jays won 85 games last year and are expected to be just as good in 2011.

My guess is Dotel will finish the year with 30 to 35 saves and an ERA around 4.15.

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We promised some new features on New Year’s Day, and we didn’t waste any time in delivering. Today we have introduced Fan Confidence Graphs to The Ghost of Moonlight Graham. 

All you need to do is click on Confidence (working on fixing that) at the upper-right hand corner of the site. There you will see the Fan Confidence Graphs for all 30 Major League teams sorted by division.

The point of the graphs is to see how much confidence each fanbase has in their team making the postseason in 2011. Right now, Boston Red Sox fans should have the most confidence in their team making the playoffs, as they scored a 9-out-of-10 on the confidence scale. Coincidentally, Kansas City Royals fans should have the least confidence, as they scored a 2-out-of-10 on the confidence scale.

We will be updating the graphs for each team at the end of every month throughout the year. Hope you enjoy.

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When searching for a veteran left-handed reliever, Boston Red Sox GM Theo Epstein had two options. He could have spent $15 million on three years of Brian Fuentes or he could have brought back Hideki Okajima for one-year at a minimal salary.

Like when Indiana Jones was deciding which Grail would him eternal life in The Last Crusade, Epstein chose wisely.

After non-tendering Okajima a contract in December, the Red Sox brought him back on a one-year contract according to Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Yes, Fuentes is a better overall pitcher than Okajima, but paying a guy who is a good closer on a small market team $15 to $18 million over three years would have been ridiculous. I know the Red Sox are going all in this year, but that would have been just silly.

The Red Sox will hope that Okajima can reverse this four-year trend of going backward. Since bursting onto the scene in 2006, Okajima has seen his ERA increase each year, H/9 increase each year, WHIP increase each year, and his K/9 decrease each of the last three seasons.

Okajima really bottomed out by his standards in 2010 when he posted a 3.44 ERA, 1.71 WHIP, 6.5 K/9, and 3.9 BB/9 in 46 innings of work. He really struggled against right-handed batters as they crushed him to the tune of a .340/.396/.540 slash line. He didn’t fare much better against left-handed batters either as they hit him around to a .284/.357/.375 slash line.

With the addition of Bobby Jenks, Okajima will have a different role for the Red Sox in 2011 than he has had in years past. He won’t face as many right-handed batters as in years past and if Okajima can pitch to left-handed batters as well as his career line indicates in can (.214 batting average against), then he will have value to the Boston bullpen in 2011.

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Outside of the Milwaukee Brewers improving their starting rotation, I don’t think there is a team in baseball that improved one aspect of their team more than the Baltimore Orioles improved their infield. They went from having one of the most mediocre infields in 2010 to potentially having one of the best in 2011.

The Orioles went from Miguel Tejada/Josh Bell at third, Cesar Izturis at short and an injured Brian Roberts at second to Mark Reynolds at third, J.J. Hardy at short and a healthy Roberts at second. The last piece of the infield puzzle was to find an improvement over Ty Wigginton at first.

On New Year’s Eve, the Orioles found their replacement for Wigginton.

The Orioles signed first baseman Derrek Lee to a one-year contract. Official terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed yet, but according to Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports, Lee’s deal with the Orioles includes incentives and could be worth as much as $10 million.

This signing is just another example of why the Orioles are on the right track and why their neighbors, the Washington Nationals, are a clown show. Instead of going out and signing veterans to albatross contracts like the Nationals are doing, the Orioles are bringing in veterans to short-term contracts, so just in case they don’t pan out, they are not saddled with a poor contract that will hinder their organization’s development.

Signing Lee is a solid move by the Orioles.

There is zero risk to this signing. If he doesn’t work out, then the one-year contract won’t kill the Orioles long-term. If Lee does work out, then they could potentially flip him at the trade deadline for some prospects or maybe even get a draft pick for him if they let him walk next offseason.

Lee hit .260/.347/.428 with 19 home runs in 148 total games with the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves in 2010. At times, Lee’s bat looked slow and his strikeout percentage of 24.5 was his highest since his 2002 season (28.2 percent) with the Florida Marlins.

However, Lee was bothered by a bad thumb all year. He is fully healthy now, and if you couple that with a solid lineup around him and a hitter’s ballpark, then Lee could have a bounce-back season in 2011. Do I expect him to have a season like he did in 2009, when he hit .306/.393/.579 with 35 homers? No, I don’t. But a season in which he hits .280 with 25 bombs isn’t out of the question.

The Orioles have vastly improved their offense in 2011. Some people are even comparing them to the San Diego Padres of last season.

I don’t want to burst Oriole fans’ bubble here, but that is just not going to happen. And there is one simple reason why. The Orioles don’t play in the very average National League West. They play in the American League East, with the likes of the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays. Even the Toronto Blue Jays won 85 games last season and are expected to be just as good in 2011.

The Orioles will win more than the 66 games they won in 2010 and could even be a .500 team in 2011 if everything breaks right and guys like Brian Matusz and Chris Tillman continue to show improvement. However, just because the Orioles won’t compete for a playoff spot in 2011 doesn’t mean they aren’t moving in the right direction.

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Life is pretty funny sometimes. I was sitting in my office late in the afternoon thinking about what I was going to write about tonight.

I kid you not, I was really going to write a “David Aardsma: What’s His Trade Market?” post. It seemed pretty logical considering that the Seattle Mariners aren’t going anywhere in 2011 and Aardsma, coming off a year where he had 31 saves and a respectable 3.44 ERA, has some trade value.

That idea went up in smoke in about 10 minutes because it was reported earlier today that Aardsma will undergo left hip surgery to repair a torn labrum.

This news really came out of nowhere and really put an end to any trade rumor or value Aardsma had this offseason.

According to the Seattle Times, Aardsma been bothered by pain in his left hip area since the end of the season. Aardsma and the Mariners originally thought it was an oblique injury, but when the injury didn’t go away this offseason, Aardsma knew something was wrong.

That’s when he went to went to see Dr. Mark Phillipon and Dr. Phillipon recommended the surgery. Aardsma will go under the knife on Monday.

Happy New Year Mr. Aardsma!

Aardsma will be sidelined four-to-eight weeks. If that estimate is correct, then he should be ready for Opening Day.

Whether Aardsma is ready or not for Opening Day is not the issue here; the issue for the Mariners is that they can’t trade a guy who’s value now has appeared to peak in the last two seasons.

Now if the Mariners want to trade Aardsma during the season, they are going to have to let him re-establish his value. Considering that he saw his K/9 drop from 10.1 in 2009 to 8.9 in 2010 and his ERA rise from 2.52 to 3.44, that might be a tall task.

If Aardsma isn’t ready for Opening Day, look for Brandon League to get the first crack at closing games for the Mariners in 2011.

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Earlier in the week, I filled out my Hall of Fame ballot here at The Ghost of Moonlight Graham. If I had a vote, I would put Bert Blyleven, Roberto Alomar, Edgar Martinez and Tim Raines in the 2011 class of the HOF.

One guy I left out was Cincinnati Reds’ shortstop Barry Larkin and I have been getting asked why since that post came out. So let me take this time to explain why.

Larkin is on the ballot for his second year and received 51.6 percent of the vote his first time around. Getting over 50 percent of the vote on his first try probably means that Larkin will get into the Hall within the next five-to-10 years.

I must be in the severe minority when it comes to Larkin, but I just never saw him as a HOF type player. Yes, Larkin had a .295/.371/.444 slash line with 198 HR’s, 441 doubles and 379 SB’s in his 19-year career. He also won the NL MVP award in 1995, won nine Silver Slugger awards and was always considered one of the top shortstops in the National League.

While this might be great, the first thing I think of when I think of Larkin is a solid SS, who was hurt all the time. The guy played 19 years in the Major Leagues and played in over 150 games just four times. Cal Ripken he was not.

I also don’t put much stock into the whole “best shortstops in the NL” argument. Saying you were better than the likes of Jay Bell, Jeff Blauser, Royce Clayton, Walt Weiss, Ozzie Smith (severe back end of his career) and Jose Offerman doesn’t impress me.

By the way, those were just some of the legendary shortstops that made All-Star Games in the 90′s.

When it comes to the HOF, here is my other issue with voting for Larkin. Was he even better than Alan Trammell?

Trammell has been on the ballot for nine years now and he has only received 22.4 percent of the vote. Why the love for Larkin and no love for Trammell? I can’t figure it out.

Trammell hit .285/.352/.415 with 185 HR’s, 412 doubles and 236 SB’s in his 20-year career. And while Trammell never won an MVP award like Larkin did, his 1987 season trumps any season Larkin had. Trammell hit .343/402/.551 with 28 HR’s and 21 SB’s. He finished second in the MVP voting to George Bell that season.

Like Larkin, Trammell was a player who spent a lot of days on the disabled list. In his 20-year career, Trammell played in over 150 games only three times.

Now, I am sure you are saying to yourself that everything I have written so far says that Larkin had a more productive career than Trammell. Before you make that call, take a look at this comparison courtesy of WARGraphs (Fangraphs’ new WAR comparison graphs).

So after looking that this graph, I don’t see how one guy can well be on his way to the HOF and one guy be a non-factor when it comes to the HOF. Trammell’s cumulative WAR by age was higher than Larkin’s throughout both of their careers. That’s a big plus for Trammell in the Trammell vs. Larkin debate.

Maybe both players deserve to get in and maybe they don’t. But remember, if you are going to be one of those people who vote for Larkin, then you need to vote for Trammell as well.

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The Milwaukee Brewers are leaving no stone unturned as they head into the 2011 baseball season. They already addressed their starting rotation in a major way when they acquired both Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke via trades.

Now, they are addressing their bullpen.

Saito will help the Brewer bullpen

The Brewers signed RHP Takashi Saito to a one-year contract on Tuesday. Saito can earn $3.2 million in 2011 based on roster and appearance bonuses.

This is yet another good acquisition by GM Doug Melvin.

Since Saito arrived from Japan in 2006, he has been one of the top relievers in baseball. In his five years in the Major Leagues, Saito has a 2.19 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 11 K/9, and 2.8 BB/9 in 299.1. The guy just knows how to pitch.

Saito will be 41 in February and shows no signs of slowing down. Last year with the Atlanta Braves, Saito had a 2.83 ERA and struck out 11.5 batters per nine innings in 54 innings.

The former Brave, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodger will join John Axford and Zach Braddock in the back end of the Brewers’ bullpen. Saito will certainly help a bullpen that was one of the worst in baseball last season.

If there is one issue with Saito, it’s that he battled some shoulder tendinitis at the end of last season. However, Saito did pass his physical with the Brewers, so I will assume those issues are behind him.

As for the Brewer fan already dreaming about April, picture this scenario. Greinke for seven, Saito for the eighth and Axford comes in to close things out.

Brewers win and George Webb frozen cheese curds for everyone!!!

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