December 20, 2003
Rhodes Show
The Oakland A's are finalizing a contract to bring Arthur Rhodes to town to replace Keith Foulke. At first glance, it seems like Beane's streak of finding cheap closers is coming to an end. After all, he lost a pitcher who posted 21 win shares and is replacing him with someone who only had 4 last year. But let it be noted that in 2002, Foulke had only 9 win shares, that's why Beane was able to get him cheap.
Rhodes certainly had an off year in 2003. But if you look at his career as a reliever, what stands out is his great strikeout and walk numbers. As a reliever, he's struck out 615 in 561 1/3 innings while walking only 215. That's good for a .289 OBA allowed. His K's did fall off a bit last year (48 in 54 innings); he's 34 years old, and you wonder if he's lost a little bit of his stuff. But it's a good gamble for Beane. Rhodes has the tools to be a good closer, and he comes in at half the price of Foulke.
Update: An alert reader points out that Rhodes had an ankle injury last season, which may have contributed to his poor season.
As you know, David, relievers' Win Shares are not the best stat for juding a reliever's ability -- they're used to judge a reliever's contribution. That's because a reliever's contribution is very dependent on how his manager uses him.
Essentially, I'm saying that your comments are right on, though I'm VERY surprised they're giving a 34 y.o. reliever a three-year contract.
Well, given that the A's have had closer problems in the playoffs the last two years (Koch giving up Pierzynski's 9th inning HR in Game 5; Foulke giving up Ortiz's go-ahead double in Game 4) when both closers were in the last year of their contracts, maybe Beane wants to alleviate some of the pressure, which presumably feels like, "If I don't retire this guy and win this game, I'm out of the playoffs and off the team!"
Has anyone checked the numbers on the A's walk-year stars and seen if they're performing noticeably worse in the playoffs than the rest of the team? I mean, Tejada has an abysmal series this year, but so did Chavez.
If you look at the April-June splits for Arthur Rhodes, you'll see his typical dominance. A slightly lower K-rate, good OAVG. From July on he wasn't himself, owing to the ankle injury I presume.
Actually when looking more closely at the splits and noting that Rhodes injured his ankle on July 24, I'm not so sure you can blame his down year entirely on the ankle:
Through July 24: 4.20 era, 3.1 bb/9, 7.52 k/9, 1.20 whip
After July 24: 4.05 era, 4.1 bb/9, 9.45 k/9, 1.65 whip
While it is true that his hits and walks allowed may very well have been affected by the ankle, his stuff sure doesn't look like it was (9.45 k/9) and he had a lower era. I personally think he is going to be a solid to very good closer next year, but I did find it interesting when I did the splits and think that even his numbers before the injury may signify an older player (34) whose numbers may be beginning to slip.
