March 20, 2006
Welcome Arroyo; Fare Thee Well Peña
By
Amanda
Posted at 6:28 pm
I was sitting in my seat on the first base line when one of the ushers came over to a woman in the row in front of me and said:
“Did you see the news? Wily Mo is gone?”
The woman had seen the news, and after the usher left, I asked what was up. She said he'd gone to Boston. For whom? She had to ask her husband:
“Some guy named Arroya or something?” he responded. A few minutes later a guy in our row got an instant message confirming the news. Later, I would be the first to tell Raquel Aurilia about it.
Anyway, I have to run to FinDaddy's. It's probably getting packed. But welcome Bronson Arroyo. May you have a heck of a year. And good luck Wily Mo.
The lack of Wily Mo makes me a sad panda. Especially for Arroyo. I’m pretty sure the only qualities he brings are massive balls and questionable singing ability, because he can’t pitch.
Arroyo’s ERA+ for each of the last two seasons is actually better than Harang’s or Claussen’s.
There’s also the fact that he’s survived pitching at Fenway, so he’s not going to be intimidated by GABP’s growing reputation as a hitter-friendly park.
He’s pitched in big games, knows how to compete, goes deep into games…and has a World Series ring. As one of the other guys in ASBCR put it, there’s a lot to like there.
The Reds got this without taking on salary, and all it cost them was a guy whose defense in left field was going to be Kal Daniels-class awful and who figured to strike out more often than Dunn given a similar number of plate appearances. He’s never shown he can hit a curve and never even shown he wanted to learn to. He chose to be a bench ornament in the WBC rather than go to ST with the Reds and improve his play in left field. This after refusing to report to Arizona last fall, and the ultimatium to play him or trade him this winter. Well, he asked for it and he got it. I wish him luck, but he contributed plenty to his own demise as a Red.
HMZ
Yeah, and Arroyo’s OPS+ for his career is also the definition of average. He can’t strike anyone out, and unlike Harang and Claussen, he’s 29, and any improvement is very unlikely. This was a trade made to compete now, and this isn’t a team capable of competing now. Our offense will fall back to middle of the pack with Hatteberg and Womack or Aurilia playing pretty much every day, and our pitching is still going to be among the worst in the majors. Stupid, shortsighted trade. Yes, he has playoff experience. Guess what? The Reds aren’t even going tos niff the playoffs. That “knows how to compete” comment is something I’d expect Narron to say.
Oooooh, this is going to be fun. Nothing’s funnier than cornrows on a white boy.
Arroyo can’t strike anybody out? I guess that’s why he lists at number 40 in strikeouts out of the 292 American League pitchers listed in the sortable player stats for 2005 on mlb.com – placing him above such notable AL hurlers as Orlando Hernandez, Kenny Rogers, Curt Shilling, Carl Pavano, Al Leiter, Jared Wright, and Ryan Drese.
I suppose it’s possible none of those guys can pitch either. Or maybe there are other ways to pitch effectively besides just striking guys out. After all, there are 9 guys on the field and not just one.
HMZ
Arroyo also struck out 4.38 batters per nine innings last year. That’s considerably less than anyone even trying out for a job in our rotation. Let’s look at the guys you listed for last year. El Duque, Schilling, Pavano, Leiter, and Wright were all hurt or inactive for significant periods of time last year. Kenny Rogers is an extreme groundball pitcher, which Arroyo is not. Drese spent half of last year in the NL, and is also an extreme groundball pitcher. Arroyo lets far too many flyballs into play. If he returns to his 2004 form and is able to actually strike people out, then he might be okay, but our defense sucks and the ballpark is conducive to homers, meaning we don’t want balls in play.