TUESDAY, 8:01am: Sherrill cleared waivers, reports MLB.com's Evan Drellich. If the Dodgers attempt to send him to the minors, he can consent, reject the assignment, or declare free agency. Said manager Joe Torre recently, "Sherrill doesn't have a situation. He's still in our bullpen. I think he's throwing the ball better."
WEDNESDAY, 5:01pm: The Dodgers put George Sherrill on outright waivers, according to Ed Price of AOL FanHouse. Price suggests Sherrill, who makes $4.5MM this season, will clear waivers, which would enable the Dodgers to option the reliever to the minor leagues. The 33-year-old lefty has a 7.32 ERA and nearly as many walks (16 BB) as innings (19.2 IP) so far in 2010.
Outright waivers are not revocable, so the Dodgers won't be able to pull Sherrill back if a rival team claims him. A claim seems unlikely, given his salary, performance so far in 2010 and early-season back tightness. If Sherrill clears waivers, the Dodgers will have an open 40-man roster spot.
Sherrill pitched well for the Dodgers after they acquired him from Baltimore last summer, though not quite as well as his 0.65 Dodgers ERA suggests. Sherrill did strike out twice as many batters as he walked and allowed less than one hit per inning pitched last year. The Dodgers paid a steep price for two quality months of Sherrill: Josh Bell and Steve Johnson.
Johnson is struggling with command at AA, but Bell, who entered the season as Baseball America's second-ranked Orioles prospect, was just called up to the majors. The 23-year-old posted a .765 OPS this year in his first stint at Triple A.
Cardinals Go!
god i hope not. thats 2million ish that can be spent much more wisely.
Wow, how the mighty have fallen
I was thinking the exact same thing…how many years ago was it he was a pennant race pickup???
… less than 1 year ago?
Thank you!
Thanks for Josh Bell!
I don’t get how Sherrill fell apart in a year. Maybe it was the Charlie Manson goatee.
Probably because he started to look like David Wells with that big gut. Definitely seemed to resort to the Yancey Brazoban way of being a baseball player. Have some success then balloon to the point you can barely see your own feet.
He was so good last year. And so bad this year. I feel bad for him but glad the Dodgers have made this move. I demand the call-up of Kenley Jansen if/when Duckbill clears waivers.
He will clear, but Jansen is on the 40 man roster already so Sherrill isn’t holding him back. I would be really surprised to Kenley up before September
I bet Jansen is already on his way to StL, and they’ll announce it pre-game. Just a hunch.
JMac and Troncoso will be called up before Jansen.
Troncoso? I highly doubt he got his issues worked out in 2 weeks in AAA after sucking for a full year. (His ERA is over 5.50 dating back to July 2009.)
Well considering they actually need to have another starter, you may be dead on with JMac (interchangeable with CMon in swing/5th spots), until the trade deadline comes and we all wind up disappointed anyway =)
The corresponding roster move would be activating Manny. They had an extra reliever because Ely was replaced with Link. Want to keep Paul up since Johnson is hurting and they need a defensive replacement/ late inning runner for Manny. Jansen may very well get called up before Sept, but it won’t be until mid-August.
Bye-bye Sherrill!
In reality, he’s probably not going anywhere. Nobody is going to pick up a $4 million reliever with an ERA near 8 and he can refuse a minor league assignment. Since the Dodgers said they won’t outright release him, this is likely just buying a few days for a roster move so Manny can be activated. In 48 hours, Sherrill will replace Paul on the roster, notwithstanding the Dodgers hope someone actually claims him.
He can refuse a minor league assignment? Well, good for him. But at least he’s not gonna be stinking it up in a Dodger uniform.
unfortunately he will be. the dodgers said they won’t release him. It’s a good move, if you are gonna pay him, might as well keep him in the back of the pen another month and hope he turns it around.
WHITESOX!!! PLEASE….then we can have sherril, putz, santos, thornton, jenks…5 closer types…and another lefty so we can send scott”i forgot how to do anything” linerbink one his way to the holy land
There is no way they will waive Linebrink with all the money left on his contract
Just so you know man, Scott Linebrink is at least 2-3 x better than Sherrill. His ERA, a high 4.91, is more than 2 runs better than Sherrill’s.
Im going to respectfully disagree with you, I have seen way too many games over the past 3 years where linebrink blew it, or came into a game with a huge lead and blew that as well, i would rather see a lefty who is on par with linebrink then see linebrink in a sox uni ever again
hmm could the redsox try to get him? hes a lefty with good history + according to cots contracts its his third year of arbitration (which means hes a fa after this season right?) and is a type b according to elias within striking distance of type a.
what do you think?
Trust me people, you don’t want this guy. As good as he was last year, he has been absolutley GOD-AWFUL this year. I honestly cannot remember an outing in which he didn’t give up a hit/run.
sorry repost
there are times when waiving a player and eating his money works for the benifit of the team, there really isnt that much money left it should be right around 4-5 mill…and trust me the team will benifit from it
Paying Sherrill 4.5 MIL and having him not play is a helluva lot better than paying him 4.5 MIL and play.
Hes always been nothing more than a LOOGY, to be perfectly honest.
Career vs RH: .781 OPS against, 1.10 K/BB
Career vs LH: .505 OPS against, 4.23 K/BB
A shame. I bet a few teams give him a hard look despite the salary.
LMFAO
What happened to this guy? Troncoso, too? With Broxton and Kou the Dodgers still have a solid pen, but just goes to show how unpredictable bullpens can be.
In Troncoso’s case Joe Torre the Bullpen Destroyer happened to him. Im not sure if Sherrill was also Joe Torre’d but when I saw him pitch last his velocity looked down
George just got way too fat and lost his body control. I bet if he loses some weight and starts looking more like an athlete, he’d be able to control his body and throw more strikes. His biggest problem was not being able to throw strikes this year.
Cory Wade, yes. Troncoso, I’m not so sure. Troncoso was just never that great to begin with. He had 3 good months early 2009, has been mediocre since.
But I really hope someone DOES claim him. That’d be about $2 million the Dodgers can spend towards a deadline trade.
Yeah, but the $2 million will go towards divorce lawyers, not players.
Bell’s back in AAA now. I’m looking forward to watching him strike out more while pretending to be a switch hitter.
I don’t blame it on him though. If Bell was still with the Dodgers, he’d be well on his way to replacing Casey Blake.
As of right now Blake is the better player. For this season hes better, next year we will see.
If Bell were still with the Dodgers, he would still be in AAA and still be trade bait. If Blake moves on, DeWitt moves to third, and that still would have been the case with Bell in the organization. People should stop having love affairs with any player who shows up on a top 10 prospect list.
I bet theo’s working out something with the Dodgers right now where we split the cost rather than pay the remainder of his contract without sending even a fringe prospect out!
he was out righted there is no trade here…ala alex rios….a team will claim him and he will change uni’s and the team taking him will take the remainder of his contract, not a trade this is not teh same as a DFA, in a DFA a trade can be worked out because they are not outright waivers. Once another GM says they want sherril they are thier unless another team with a higher waiver claim takes him first the dodgers cant get anything but salary relief back from this
Split the cost? You cannot be serious. Doesn’t he have like $2 million left this year? You really think someone is going to pay $1 mil for a reliever with an ERA of 7? Really?
His ERA doesn’t even tell you everything.
George Sherrill has allowed 17 of 30 (57% of) inherited runners to score.
not that I like the fact that he’s allowed all those runs but I’m just liking the fact someone pointed out that he’s been worse than his basic stats suggest.
The Dodgers have really sacrificed some young talent recently at the deadline in order to acquire some middling major leaguers and not pay much of their salary. Giving up better prospects for deadline rentals that the other team pays for works out well for the 2-3 months that the player was acquired for but then guys like Carlos Santana and Josh Bell start playing for their new teams and you have to wonder if George Sherrill and Casey Blake were really worth it. Given Colletti’s affection for mediocre veterans I’d guess he believes it is worth it. With the way Russell Martin is hitting these days I would think they’d like to have a do-over on that one, and now Sherrill gets outrighted. Keep up the good work Ned and Frank, the rest of the NL is rooting for you!
Santana/Blake and Bell/Sherrill were both horrible trades for the Dodgers, the former likely due to ownership’s unwillingness to add Casey Blake’s salary (the Indians paid it). I think most Dodger fans, at least those knowledgeable of the farm system, knew it at the times those trades were made. The Casey Blake trade was worse in the sense that he probably could’ve been had for the Dodgers other catching prospect – Lucas May – had the Dodgers been willing to take on his salary.
It looks even worse if you consider the Dodgers probably could’ve used Carlos Santana and Josh Bell (if they still had them) as part of a package at last year’s trade deadline to acquire Cliff Lee. That, in turn, would’ve forced the Phillies to overpay for Halladay. And who knows how the NLCS would’ve turned out in that case… and, either way, the Dodgers would have had Cliff Lee all season this year as well.
Boneheaded moves by McCourt and Colletti. They really haven’t made a good trade in their entire reign aside from LaRoche for Manny, which they lucked into.
Perfect pick up for the Rays who desperately need a lefty and Sherril, despite having terrible numbers, is getting lefties out. Only having to pay him the minimum would fit their budget, if they can claim him.
Sherrill is by definition NOT a perfect pickup for any team in the playoff hunt. His ERA is 8. He inspires zero confidence. For a situational lefty – and i mean a situational lefty…rights hitting damn near .500 – a .211 avg (not to mention that most of this is in the 5th or 6th inning and not the 8th inning against Adrian Gonzalez with runners on in a close game) against will not get it done (last year it was closer to .100). On any other contender, this guy is mop up duty, like with the Dodgers.
Odds are no one picks him up with that contract. Thus, he gets sent down to the minors by the Dodgers who can either release him or pick up a large portion of Sherrils remaining contract and TRADE him to a team like the Red Sox. With the McCourts divorce, every penny saved is a penny earned! So yes, he can be traded!
They can’t send him down. He has a right to refuse and has said he will exercise that right.
Where does it say that he can refuse a minor league assignment? He’s got less than 6 years service time and options remaining so, unless he retires and doesn’t want to get paid, he’ll go wherever the Dodgers tell him to go!
“As a player with more than five years service Sherrill has the choice to consent to a Minor League assignment, reject a Minor League assignment or declare free agency, which would nullify the remainder of his $4.5 million salary. If Sherrill rejected such an assignment, the club must either release him to become a free agent (and pay him) or keep him on the active roster.” – MLB.com
the guy at mlb was asserting it
Ken Gurnick
A bit surprised the guy who wrote this post asserted he didn’t pitch quite as well as his ERA indicated. Granted 0.65 is insanely low, but he only allowed 1 regular season earned run. Don’t really care how many K’s he had, bottom line is the ball didn’t get hit and runs didn’t cross the plate. He was so good, people wondered if he and Broxton would switch rolls. Fortunately, that did not happen. Given his success, he surely had off season trade value as a closer – at least a bit more than he did before his trade to the Dodgers. Colletti should have sold high, saved $4.5 mil and got a better prospect than we had in Bell or a starting pitcher.
That’s easy to say with perfect hindsight. Did anyone really expect him to fall completely apart after pitching well in Baltimore and superbly in LA last season?
yeah you or right, but I was talking about his 2009 performance only, which was objectively pretty stellar after the trade (and before the playoffs of course).
Not to nitpick, but he did allow 4 inherited runners to score during his time with the Dodgers last season, so ERA isn’t the best stat to judge his performance. He was really good – but not 0.65 ERA good.
Easy to say with hindsight they should’ve traded him in the off-season. If anyone had any clue he’d implode, they would have said the same…
i just hope any team picks this guy up!
Yankees should kick boone logan to the curb and add george sherrill. Logan has allowed a run in every appereance…. Sherrill is a upgrade, not the best but better than Logan…
The Dodgers would take anything for Sherrill-heck, you can just have him if you want him.
Nobody would have to give up anything for Sherrill as hes on outright waivers. Claim him and hes yours, no trade. They’d just need to pay him whatever hes owed for the rest of this year (something a little north of $2M or so).
hence placed on outright waivers
chances of that? 5%?