Thursday, August 7, 2008

The Ex-Files

Dennis Manoloff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer takes a look at how former Indians' players are doing. Stuff like this:

Ryan Ludwick, rf, Cardinals -- .303/28/80/.615 SLG in 105 games.

The skinny: The Indians would love to have a corner outfielder with these numbers. Ludwick's time in Indians system (2003-2005) was plagued by injuries and ineffectiveness. Signed by Detroit as a minor-league free agent in December 2005 and by St. Louis in December 2006.
I'm guilty of playing this game from time to time, and I can tell you, it's a decidedly unfulfilling exercise. And that's doing it the Braves who haven't made a ton of bad deals in the past 15 or 20 years. I can't imagine doing it with teams who regularly give up talent only to see it thrive elsewhere.

9 comments:

Daniel said...

This was the Angels MO for years. Dante Bichette, JT Snow, Jim Edmonds...

But at least the Angels balanced it out by taking other teams' washed up vets who looked good at one point. Kent Bottenfield, Lee Smith, Ismael Valdes...

At least they're making up for it now.

Anonymous said...

Here in Arizona, we call this the "Carlos Quentin Game". 'Scuse me, I think I need to go lie down.

Anonymous said...

It's tougher for Mets and Yanks fans to ignore the issue, since they so often seem to pick up each others' players, and you can't help but notice them since they're in your hometown. I guess the same might go for the ChiSox/Cubbies, and maybe the Giants/A's, but I know for sure I noticed it in NYC.

Anonymous said...

Dude - can't you write about anything but baseball? :)

scatterbrian said...

weird, I was just doing this last night with the A's:
C - Ramon Hernandez, Jason Kendall
1B - Carlos Pena, Nick Swisher
2B - Ray Durham
SS - Miguel Tejada
3B - Marco Scutaro? Esteban German?
OF - Jermaine Dye, Johnny Damon, Milton Bradley, Eric Byrnes, Mark Kotsay, Jose Guillen, Jay Payton
DH - Jason Giambi, Matt Stairs
SP - Dan Haren, Rich Harden, Tim Hudson, Ted Lilly, Aaron Harang,
RP - Octavio Dotel, Ron Mahay, Chad Gaudin, Kenny Rogers, Joe Blanton, Chad Bradford, Jason Isringhausen

Dennis said...

Thanks. I was THIS CLOSE to finally being over the Nathan/Liriano/Bonser for Pierzynski trade, and you had to go and bring it up again. I need a drink...

Craig Calcaterra said...

Megan -- give me a topic, and I'll write whatever you want.

Wookster: sorry, dude. If it makes you feel any better, Braves fans still pine for Brett Butler, and your Giants got the benefit of him for years.

Anonymous said...

Astros...

Johan Santana, Kenny Lofton, Curt Schilling, Carlos Guillen, Luis Gonzalez, Steve Finley...

Every team has a bunch.

dtro said...

Kazmir, Kent, Isringhausen, Bay, KAZMIR KAZMIR