January 23, 2007
Reds Trade for Saarloos
By
Amanda
Posted at 5:33 pm
The Reds have traded for a pitcher:
The Reds traded for RHP Kirk Saarloos and a player to be named later from Oakland for RHP David Shafer and a player to be named later. The team also signed IF Mark Bellhorn to a minor league contract.
Crack Technical Staff likes the idea, thanks to the fact that Saarloos is from Oakland, which you have to admit, is an organization that knows a thing or two about pitching. By that same reasoning, though, you could argue that if they were willing to give him up for Shafer, that's something to be suspicious of.
I like the deal just because of Saarloos's name. Now that Schoeneweis is gone, typing all these names just seemed a little too easy.
And they signed former Yankee Mark Bellhorn, too.
Part of me is surprised Bellhorn agreed to a minor league deal. Part of me is amazed he was signed at all.
I have heard good things about Saarloos.. he’s pitched numerous quality games at just 27 years of age… of course Oakland’s park is very pitcher friendly.. nontheless you have to like this move to get some with major league experience for a guy in AA.
You’ve got to admit that the last time the Reds got a pitcher from the A’s that it worked in the Reds favor. Maybe it will this time, too.
Belhorn is a .231 career hitter. This late in his career I would doubt he would post numbers any better than his career average. I guess it doesn’t hurt to sign him, but it seems like wasted time and effort.
Wow, cool! Kriv-Dawg finally did something to give us some solid material to chew on while we wait out the next four weeks.
Fast Tidbit from the CHFS on our new pitcher, along with a spelling mnemonic of sorts for our lovely and talented hostess, RHM: Saarloos (rhymes with Carlos…and Vanna must be getting desperate because vowels are two for the price of one this week) was one of the six Astros pitchers who combined to no-hit the Yankees in The House That Ruth Built on June 11, 2003. The other five were Roy Oswalt, Pete Munro, Brad Lidge, Octavio Dotel, and Billy Wagner.
Saarloos throws a 4-seam fastball, a curve, a slider, and a change, but his best pitch is his sinker, which I’m told is generally mid-to-high 80’s on the radar gun.
So the Reds may have their fifth starter for 2007, and the A’s may have their closer for 2010. The teams also swapped PTBNLs. Good. I always find it interesting to keep track of who owes who a player.
Idle Speculation Department (Saarloos Division): Someone in ASBCR suggested that maybe Kriv-Dawg just got his closer. I balked at that notion initially because Saarloos’ ratio of strikeouts to innings pitched was third to last in all of MLB in 2005. Since then, though, I’ve done some more research and discovered that as a sophomore and junior at Cal State Fullerton, Saarloos was one of the best closers in college baseball. He became a starter as a senior, and Chad Cordero took over as the closer. Cordero, of course, is now Bowden’s closer in Washington.
So yeah, maybe Wayne did just slip his closer in under everybody’s noses.
Zeldink: I assume you’re referring to the Guillen trade, and that you mean Harang and not Joe Valentine or Jeff Bruksch (who we also got in that deal)?
Fast Tidbit from the CHFS on Bellhorn: Mark was the first NL player to ever homer from both sides of the plate in the same inning. He did it against the Brewers in the fourth inning on August 29, 2002. As a member of the Cubs.
Idle Speculation Department (Bellhorn Division): Not only does our newest candidate to replace Rich Aurilia as a jack-of-all-trades arrive at GABP already pre-smeared with the stench of Cubdom, but…not content with having the perennial NL strikeout leader in Adam Dunn, the Reds have now added the guy who led the AL in strikeouts with 177 whiffs in 2004. But I guess it doesn’t hurt to stash an emergency spare part like Bellhorn in Louisville just in case.
HMZ
The Jays [url=http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2007/25/c9519.html]outrighted Ray Olmedo[/url] to Triple-A Syracuse. They needed the roster spot for Ohka.
Poor Ray Ray: jerked around everywhere he goes.
That is VERY interesting about Saarloos’ closing experience in College… Certainly he might get consideration if the old men can’t get it done and Bray/Coffey aren’t ready for that role. It never hurts to have major league arms, and at an age where improvement is still very much expected out of him.
I used to be all about K:BB ratio, but after 3 seasons of fantasy baseball in which virtually all my pitchers ended up on the DL (Prior, Sheets, Kazmir, Sabathia to name a few) I realized the guys with the eat are a major risk to breakdown at any given moment. Look how Harang and Arroyo just log all those innings so effortlessly (it seems) and Harang truly defies logic as he mows em down with a low 90s fastball.
So anyhow, this was a good trade IMO.
But if you do want to talk about K:BB ratio, Elizardo is your man… the guy has pinpoint control when he is on: he hardly ever walks a guy and he gets some decent K totals to compare that against. I still like him as our #4 or #5 pitcher. Should be interesting how it shakes out in spring training.