39-year-old Jamey Wright will start against the Cubs tomorrow for the Dodgers, with Dan Haren taking the ball Monday as the Dodgers scramble to find starters in the wake of Hyun-Jin Ryu’s injury. Wright will presumably pitch a few innings, then be followed by a succession of relievers. As ESPN Los Angeles’ Mark Saxon tweets, Sunday will be only the second start for Wright in the past seven seasons. Wright has had a long second act as a reliever, and with reasonable numbers and the ability to pitch multiple innings, he’ll probably get another shot to pitch out of some team’s bullpen next season. It’s not as likely that he’ll get another chance as a starter, however. The Dodgers will be the eighth team for which he’s started, with his first start coming all the way back in 1996 as a 21-year-old with the Rockies. Here’s more from around the game.
- At the end of his career, Derek Jeter is a “diminished product,” and a number of other franchises could soon watch their icons throughout long periods of decline, Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes. For example, the Mets still owe David Wright $107MM, and he’s in his early thirties and in the midst of a mediocre season. Sherman notes that Dustin Pedroia could turn out the same way for the Red Sox. That’s might not be such an obvious case, however — Pedroia’s offense is down this season, at .278/.337/.376, but he’s still produced a healthy 4.3 fWAR thanks to his strong defense. He is, however, signed through 2021.
- Dan Duquette was the right choice to lead the Orioles, Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald writes. Duquette wasn’t the Orioles’ top choice when they hired him in 2011 — other candidates were wary of working with owner Peter Angelos. Since then, though, they’ve been successful, easily winning the AL East title this season despite injuries to key players like Manny Machado and Matt Wieters. “What Duquette brought to the table was he was a magician … in terms of getting players who have been sent down from other organizations, fallen out of favor, maybe they’re not the prospects anymore, so they have that chip on their shoulder to succeed,” says outfielder Adam Jones.
neither Duquette nor Showalter were the Orioles first choice. Either way, they’ve done a great job with the Orioles. Its hard to believe they were the doormat of MLB only 4 years ago.
Yes. I’m very glad that Bobby Valentine decided he was too good to be the manager of the O’s.
Can star players also decline? Sherman has the inside scoop.
Well seeing as many defied the aging curve earlier in this century do to PED use, I guess it’s not out of the rheum of possibility that sports writers are expecting everyone to hit into their late 30’s like David Ortiz.
Sherman is stating the obvious. Of course, the 40 year-old Jeter is diminished. It’s going to be the very rare player who isn’t, but we should also understand that in the era of free agency, a top talent is going to have the leverage to get a multi-year deal that is going to take them into their athletic dotage. In an odd sort of way, this where the smaller revenue teams have an advantage. They can’t commit to the giant deals, and, for “icon” players, if they are still retaining them, they can cite their own financial strictures in offering affordable contracts (or none).
Ok, Pedroia had a bad offensive year. But according to fangraphs he still had the 5th highest WAR among second basemen and had the best UZR among all MLB infielders. On top of that the guy is a leader and is acknowledged as one of the hardest working players in the game.
If he keeps all that up, I’m willing to bet the Red Sox are fine with his bat regressing.
He’s had hand injury related problems for two years now, no doubt those are the culprits in his offensive decline.
It doesn’t get talked about as much as some of the others, but who would have guessed Ryan Zimmerman’s contract would ultimately end up looking to have as much or more dead money than Jayson Werth’s?
Zimmerman’s production is still there, a 120OPS+ is hardly considered dead weight compared to that of Pedrioa and or Wright’s production falloffs. Zimmerman just needs to stay healthy.