It’s been rumored for a while and talked about for days, but it looks like the Yankees have finally done it. Tino Martinez is returning to the Bronx. I love the opening of the article:

The Yankees won four titles with Tino Martinez manning first base from 1996-2001. They haven’t won a ring, however, since Martinez left the Bronx after the 2001 season.

Interestingly enough, Tino’s best year was 1997, the year the Yankees got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. He was a solid player for NY, but he hasn’t had a 20 win share season since he left the big apple. He’s also showing the classic sign of aging; his walks are going up as he tries to compensate for lack of bat speed by being more selective. It won’t be long before pitchers realize what’s going on and start taking advantage of it.
If the Yankees are hiring him as a late inning defensive replacement/part time first baseman, that’s fine. If they believe he can contribute a lot as an everyday player, I doubt it. For the life of me, I can’t understand why every team in the majors doesn’t have a young big bopper at first in AAA just for these situations. I’d much rather pay a 22-year-old $300,000 to be below average than $2 million to an old vet.
Oh, and by the way, it looks like the Randy Johnson deal will get done, also. 🙂

The Talk Arena links with news that the Cardinals have reached an agreement with Robbie Alomar. As reported earlier, Robbie’s back has been bothering him so much he couldn’t play winter ball. Still, Jeff Gordon thinks it’s a good signing. He lists Alomar’s problems, then compares him to Larry Walker.

On the other hand, we heard that Walker was on the decline before his arrival in St. Louis. We heard he could no longer get around on the fastball.
We heard that Walker was incapable or unwilling to stay in the lineup. We saw how eager Colorado was to unload him, eating a big chunk of his remaining contract to finalize a trade with the Cards.
The Rockies just didn?t give Walker away, they paid the Cards to take Larry off their hands.
And you saw what happened. Given a happy home ahead of Albert Pujols in the batting order, Walker regained his All-Star form.

Last year, I thought the DBacks got a steal signing him for $1 million. But Avkash in the comments got it right.

Having seen him up close the past two seasons, its clear to me that he is absolutely overmatched at the plate. He can no longer turn anything over 90 MPH into a basehit, and he can’t turn anything into an extra base hit. If he’s hitting right handed, be happy he only makes one out, and doesn’t ground into a double play or something.

There are better ways to spend $500,000.

I had a long post written on Eric Milton and the Reds, but my browser crashed. I’ll try to do a shorter version of the same post.
Milton chose the Reds because of the player moves they’ve made. They obviously want to win.

The Reds traded for starter Ramon Ortiz Dec. 14, signed right-handed relievers Ben Weber and David Weathers the next day, signed left-handed reliever Kent Mercker Dec. 20 and third baseman Joe Randa Dec. 21.
If that flurry of activity hadn’t happened, Milton wouldn’t have considered the Reds.
“Obviously that’s what you want to see,” he said. “They were in first place a lot of last year. Then they tried to improve.”

So the moves that impressed him were four old guys and Ramon Ortiz, who isn’t young. Only Mercker has been great recently, and that’s after a long stretch of poor pitching. Ortiz gives up too many HR, Randa doesn’t hit enough of them. Weber was demoted to triple A last season, and Weathers has had one good three-year stretch in an otherwise long and uneventful career.
Signing Carlos Beltran is wanting to win. Signing these aging players is hoping for a good year on the cheap. Both Ortiz and Milton have a tendancy to allow HR, and so far Great American Ballpark has favored HR hitters. My guess is that the Reds didn’t have as much competition for Milton as they thought. They gave him a good deal and he took it. The Reds moves are a nice excuse, but if Milton really wanted to win, he would have taken less money from the Yankees.

In yesterday’s post about the Puerto Rican Winter Leagues, I noticed this item (emphasis added).

Bithorn Stadium, just 10 minutes south of San Juan, has struggled to draw even nominal attendance despite a renovated stadium and the presence of Crabbers infielders Alomar and Carlos Baerga (who doubles as team president). A recent injury to Alomar has helped curtail interest, but ardent fans say the team’s problems ? as well as the league’s and, by extension, Puerto Rico’s ? run much deeper.

I couldn’t find anything about it on the web, so I contacted Edwin Rodriguez who runs the web page for the winter league. He filled in some details:

Alomar started the season in Puerto Rico already under treatment for his lower back. At least once a week he was flying to the states (don’t know where) to get treatment. After the second week of the season it was too much for him, his back wasn’t in good shape.
That much I can tell you, I was asking the same when he left but nobody knew the specifics.

This is the same back injury that kept him out of action most of September. I was wondering why there’s been so little interest in him, and I guess this was the reason. Could his career be over?
It would be sad if that were so, with Robbie only 276 hits from 3000. That’s just two decent seasons. But his production has been way off from his career averages the last three seasons, and now he seems to have a bad back on top of it all. If a team does sign him, he’ll have to play cheap.
If his career is over, does he go into the Hall of Fame? His baseball reference web page shows 2 of the 4 HOF indicators having him elected. It also shows him most comparable to Craig Biggio and Lou Whitaker, very good players who arent’ going to make the Hall.
The other question worth asking; is he the greatest player from Puerto Rico? He compares very favorable to Clemente; Roberto C. had 377 win shares in 18 seasons; Robbie A. had 375 in 17 seasons, about 1 more win share per season. It’s hard to believe that Alomar could replace Clemente in the Island’s heart, due to Clemente’s heroic and tragic death. But he may very well be the best player the island has produced.
If anyone has more information on Alomar’s back, please let me know.
Update: Fixed broken link.

A rather humerous 10 top list was written in the comments to this post.

One of my commentors had David Eckstein fitting in with the Cardinals, and he was right. The little engine who could signed a three year deal with St. Louis for a couple of million more than OC is getting in the OC. The ESPN article has David playing shortstop; I tend to think he would be better playing 2nd base because his arm is simply not that strong. But his real value will be as a table setter for the Cardinals power lineup. However, he’s had two years in a row of sub-par performance at getting on base. At age 30, I don’t believe his best years are ahead of him. The Cardinals haven’t spent much money, but they may not be getting much of a table setter either.

It looks like Moises Alou will be reuntied with his dad as there are reports the younger Alou will sign with the Giants. Younger is a relative term, as it appears the Giants will be chasing fly balls with these:

Bonds’ seasonal age will be 40 for 2005, Grissom 38 and Alou 38. I’m sorry, that’s an old outfield. Slow grounders in the gap are going for doubles next year. 🙂 On top of that, the Giants signed Vizquel (38 in 2005) and Mike Matheny (34 in 2005). The youngest projected position player is Alfonzo at 31! The Giants are really testing the theory that veterans play better than youngsters. 🙂 There’s a real possibility that a number of these players hit the wall at the same time and this ends up the worst team in the NL West.
As for Alou, I wouldn’t expect him to help Bonds IBB total go down much. Pacific Bell Park has a huge negative impact on right-handed home runs. Over the last three seasons, right-handers have hit 218 HR in Pac Bell, but 291 in Giants road games. According to The Bill James Handbook 2005, it’s the worst park for home runs by right-handed hitters in the NL. With a right-hander on the mound, given a choice between Bonds and Alou, most managers are going to pitch to Moises. The only thing that will bring Barry’s IBB totals down is a decline in Barry’s ability to hit.

MLB.com is reporting that the Dodgers have reached an agreement with J.D. Drew.

Drew was the ultimate prize the Dodgers were pursuing with the money that would have been freed by the aborted trade, which would have moved Shawn Green, Brad Penny, Kazuhisa Ishii and Yhency Brazoban off the payroll.
Dodgers general manager Paul DePodesta was so far along with the Drew negotiations he apparently felt the club could handle that acquisition and still fill the two remaining holes in the starting rotation.

Drew brings the ability to get on base and good power to the Dodgers. He has a career .391 OBA and a .513 slugging percentage. He’s also a good base stealer to boot, swiping at a 76.3% clip for his career. Drew’s main problem has been injuries. He’ll take the field as a 29 year-old in 2005, but he’s never played 150 games in a season. His 145 games in 2004 was a career high, and before that J.D. had never played more than 135 games.
The give the Dodgers an outfield of walk machine Jayson Werth in left, Milton “Boy, Did I Blow My Endorsement Opportunities” Bradley in cneter and J.D. Drew in right. Not bad.

Paul Oberjuerge of the SB Sun doesn’t like the way David Eckstein was replaced in Anaheim.

David Eckstein, guttiest, grittiest little gamer in modern baseball history … nicest, politest guy in any major-league clubhouse … kid who helped the Angels win the 2002 World Series and the 2004 American League West title …

Dumped by the Angels.

Tossed out like a piece of rotten meat.

Kicked to the side of the road like a dead dog. And just in time for Christmas. Thanks for the memories, Eck, and the unemployment office is in Santa Ana.

And why? So the Angels could commit $32 million over four years to a guy whose career batting average is .268 to Eckstein’s .278.

Whose career on-base percentage is .316 to Eckstein’s .347.

Who in the past four seasons has hit into 65 double plays to Eckstein’s 38.

Who is older than Eckstein and who hasn’t made a single contribution to the Angels’ breakthrough success of the past three seasons.

Good luck, Orlando Cabrera. You’re going to be as popular in Anaheim as Georgia Frontiere.

Paul goes on to point out that the Angels could have kept David for a couple of million dollars. Is this a good deal? Let’s look at the win shares.

Both SS were poor in 2004. Over the previous three seasons, Orlando put up five more win shares in 70 more games. Oberjuerge is right; there’s nothing you’re getting from Cabrerra that you wouldn’t get from Eckstein. And now the Angels are paying a whole lot more money for it.

This deal also makes clear why the Red Sox spent the money on Renteria. The market was such that they couldn’t sign Cabrerra cheaply; now they have someone who is better, and they have to hope 2004 was just a random bad year.

As for David Eckstein, I bet there are a few teams that could use a player with a .347 OBA. Don’t the Twins need a shortstop?