The Diamondbacks have released right-hander Juan Gutierrez, the club announced via its official Twitter page. Gutierrez only pitched in 20 games for the Snakes this season (posting a 5.40 ERA but an impressive 23 strikeouts in 18 1/3 innings) due to elbow and shoulder injuries that eventually required Tommy John surgery in September.
Gutierrez, 28, was part of the trade package that came from Houston to Arizona in December 2009 in exchange for Jose Valverde. In three years with the D'Backs, Gutierrez appeared in 143 games and posted a 4.62 ERA and an 8.4 K/4 rate, though his effectiveness was undermined by his inability to avoid hits (a 8.9 H/9 rate) and the long ball (a 1.1 HR/9 rate). Given the long recovery time associated with Tommy John surgery, we might not hear of Gutierrez signing with a new team until the 2012-13 offseason.
Gutierrez would have been eligible for arbitration for the first time this winter. The righty earned $430.5K with the Diamondbacks last season.
Unfortunate loss. He was one of the only successful parts of the ’10 AZ pen, shame that we won’t be seeing him again for a while.
*he had a successful stretch in 2010. he was not a successful part of the pen
He was injured in the same game as Jorge De La Rosa
That Valverde trade sure is paying off. Good thing the dbacks got rid of him. How many blown saves did he have this year?
They didn’t trade him to the tigers
Great detective work.
After Valverde led the majors in saves in 2007, Josh Byrnes traded him to HOU for a trio of nobodys (burke, qualls, gut) so he wouldn’t have to pay him more money in a couple years. That trade sent the dbacks bullpen into a tail-spin that they didn’t pull out of until 2011.
Yeah they didn’t trade him to the tigers, but they did trade him and now the pieces that came back are all gone after not being very effective. Dbacks could’ve kept him if they wanted to. That’s all I’m saying. Now please go back to posting massive amounts of comments.
That trade looks worse and worse every season. Dbacks traded Papa Grande because of an interview he gave in the 07 offseason in which he indicated he had hoped to make Francisco Cordero (his neighbor) money in arbitration. Josh Byrnes and Ken Kendrick thought you could have the best bullpen in the majors in 07, but not resign or keep ANY of those players and still maintain the same bullpen excellence in 08…wrong. They were too cheap to pay Verde 5-8 million for his pitching services and larger than life personality…now here we are 3, 4 years later, finally paying a guy (Putz) 8 million a year to close games, and magically the bullpen has improved under his leadership. Amazing.
Of all the guys we mortgaged the future on/with in 08, Valverde’s the one that stings me the most…
He’s saying that you can’t look at this year (or last year, for that matter) because he wouldn’t be with the D’Backs anyways. Do you think we would sign him, coming off a last place finish in ’09? No way.
For the two years Valverde was in Houston, he and Qualls were similar players. Almost the exact same IP, Qualls with an xFIP quite a bit lower than Valverde (by a whole run), although Valverde had a slight edge in ERA. Don’t look at the saves. They were due to the D’Backs being in tons of close games. Anything the D’Backs got from Gutierrez was just a bonus. And they weren’t nobodies. Qualls was a very good setup man and Guti was a solid SP prospect.
I’d say the collapse of the bullpen was more due to Brandon Lyon, Tony Pena, and Doug Slaten (especially Lyon) becoming terrible all of a sudden.
finall¡¡¡¡¡¡¡…. i´m sorry for him, but 14 bsv in a season??? come´on
when exactly did he did do that?
Juan Gutierrez has 4 blown saves in his career…
Is there a blown save conversion rate between the USA and wherever you’re from?
Thank God
The Valverde trade was a disaster for the 2008 dbacks that essentially cost them a repeat in the playoffs. For all the doubters, they had 20 something blown saves in 2008 and finished five games back do the math and then determine if that was a good trade. There is a huge difference in being a successful set-up man and a successful closer. I credit poor team management with those penny pinching moves, and the one remaining component of that team is still imposing those penny pinching guidelines.