The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.
Jered Weaver gave the Angels a much-needed respite Tuesday night. Weaver, along with left-hander Joe Saunders, is one of the last men standing in a Los Angeles rotation ravaged by injuries and, of course, the tragic death of Nick Adenhart.
He pitched seven innings and allowed three runs as the Angels beat the Tigers, providing a quality start and taking some of the pressure off of a bullpen which entered the night with a major league-worst 8.31 ERA.
Unfortunately, it was only one night, and Los Angeles has many ahead.
John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, Ervin Santana and Dustin Moseley are still on the disabled list. Even if you count Shane Loux -- who at 29 has nine career starts -- the Angels still have two empty rotation slots at the moment, which explains why general manager Tony Reagins is suddenly looking outside the organization for pitching help, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
Reagins admitted he has contacted the player representatives for free agents Pedro Martinez, Mark Mulder and Paul Byrd. So let's play one of America's favorite parlor games -- armchair GM -- and try and figure out who the Halos should sign.
Pedro Martinez
Pros: Martinez has far and away the best track record of the three pitchers the Angels are looking at. He pitched for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic in March and seemed to be throwing free and easy. Even over his last three injury-plagued seasons with the Mets, he maintained an excellent strikeout rate, whiffing 8.5 batters per nine innings.
Cons: He just hasn't been able to stay healthy, averaging 16 starts and 89 innings pitched the last three seasons, far from the type of innings-eater the Angels need given the state of their rotation. His stuff clearly isn't what it was back in his prime and a switch back to the tougher American League could be tough on Martinez. He is also likely to be the most expensive of the three options.
Mark Mulder
Pros: He's left-handed, and once upon a time (aka 2001) he won 21 games and finished second in Cy Young voting.
Cons: Mulder has battled shoulder problems since 2006, making just 21 starts and pitching just 106 innings with a 7.73 ERA. The odds seem long that he'll ever be an effective pitcher again, and even if he is he hasn't thrown for any scouts yet, meaning he won't be able to help right away or even soon. The Angels' problems are in the present and they figure to diminish over time as the list of hurlers on the DL shrinks.
Paul Byrd
Pros: Though hardly the pitcher the other two were at their respective heights, Byrd has been durable and consistent over the last few seasons, going 48-40 with a 4.43 ERA since 2005 and averaging 188 innings per year during that span. Byrd has no known physical issues and has experience pitching in Anaheim -- he spent all of 2005 there.
Cons: The ceiling is low. The Angels wouldn't be getting anything more than a league-average pitcher. Byrd also expressed a desire this winter to pitch only half of the season in 2009, so Los Angeles might have to wait until he's ready or pay a premium to lure him back to the pitcher's mound earlier than he planned.
If it doesn't seem obvious by now, the Angels should probably steer well clear of Mulder, unless they want to take a very risky flyer on a pitcher who could provide rotation depth way down the road.
That leaves Martinez and Byrd, and while the heart says Pedro -- he is one of the most entertaining pitchers of this generation -- the head so clearly says Byrd.
His baseline performance sits below Martinez's, but he provides league-average innings, and plenty of them, something we can't say about Pedro at this stage in his career. The Angels need a warm body more than anything else, and in the soft AL West they don't need to gamble on a higher-ceiling, higher-risk option because the division isn't going to run away from them before Lackey, Santana and their other injured arms return.
