Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
November 29, 2005
Why Loaiza?

What do the Oakland Athletics see in Esteban Loaiza? I understand the Giants' need to sign over the hill players, but he Oakland Athletics are supposed to be smarter than that. A lot of Loaiza's success last year came from his excellent work at RFK Stadium. If you compare his home and road numbers from 2005, it's pretty clear that Esteban was pitching in a home park with a lousy hitting background. I don't think that will be true in Oakland.

Loaiza does have very good control, walking just 2.6 batters per 9 over his career. This, however, has not translated into a good ERA (4.60 career). Athletics Nation likes the deal because it gives Beane a strong position to deal going into the winter meetings. He has plenty of pitching and teams need pitching. I'm not sure we can really evaluate this move until we see what else happens. On the face of it, I'd bet Loaiza does worse with the A's than he did with the Nationals.

The people who should be happiest with this deal are the 4th and 5th starters of the world. They're now worth $7 million a year.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:08 AM | Free Agents | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Yep, Brett Tomko and his playmate wife should be jumping for joy over this deal.

I don't know what Beane was thinking in doing this other than it will probably look like a bargain when the feeding frenzy happens over the rest of the poor crop of remaining free agent starters.

Posted by: biasedgiantsfanatic at November 29, 2005 12:56 PM

Loaiza was hurt by his defense last year, posting a 3.32 FIP, and I believe a 3.48 DIPS . His translated stats from BP from last year:
Loaiza- .8 HR/9, 1.8 BB/9, 6.8 K/9

(on a side note)

Hudson- 1.0 HR/9, 2.7 BB/9, 4.9 K/9

I'd say he's probably going to be a solid #3 for Oakland, and being his normal durable 200+ inning self.

Posted by: Mike at November 29, 2005 01:33 PM

It seems like the A's would have been better off spending less money on Paul Byrd, Joe Mays, Jamie Moyer, Kenny Rogers, Pedro Astacio, Ramon Ortiz, Vicente Padilla, or perhaps even Woody Williams. Any of these pitchers offers the potential for success roughly equal to the crapshoot that is Esteban Loaiza, and I'm guessing most of them would be considerably cheaper.

(A few of these may have been re-signed already, I'm working off the information on this not-very-up-to-date website: http://kmbumb.people.wm.edu/roster/06agency.html)

Posted by: michael at November 29, 2005 01:35 PM

Loaiza will never return to his 2003 form, I think it might have been best for Billy Beane to take that $21M and beg Zito to stay for 2 more years.

Posted by: Mike at November 29, 2005 01:58 PM

The A's lose their 2006 first-round pick with this signing, right? Last time I checked, Loaiza was a type-B free agent, so as I understand the rules, they just lost a first-round draft pick for the pleasure of giving Esteban Loaiza $21M. Now, I think Loaiza is a solid middle-of-the-rotation guy, but this sure smells like a Sabean move to me.

Posted by: JeffW at November 29, 2005 03:02 PM

The 2005 home and away stats prove that Loaiza can be effective in Oakland. He gave up the same amount of homers on the road as he did at cavernous RFK (.76HR/9 compared to .74HR/9). With Oakland's expansive foul territories and with fences that are similar to RFKs, there is no reason to believe that Loaiza can't be successful.

What I don't get is the dramatic difference in the home and road K-BB ratio.

Posted by: Rusty at November 29, 2005 04:11 PM

I just don't know why Oakland would give up a first rounder...

Posted by: Mike at November 29, 2005 05:44 PM

Perhaps they aren't very fond of the upcoming draft class?

Posted by: Mike Lafser at November 29, 2005 07:07 PM

oakland always gets some good out of trash. maybe playing in that dump of stadium they will find some more leftovers.

Posted by: colin at December 1, 2005 11:42 PM
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