Joel Alberto Pinero.
Yesterday, 3:31 pm: I wrote a post exploring the Angels starting 5, including trying to figure out who would be the #5 starter. I picked Matt Palmer.
Yesterday, 6:59 pm: I received a text message from Andrew (my main source of breaking sports news) that the Angels signed Joel Pinero (sorry, no tilde on blogger) to a 2 year contract to start as our #5 man, thus making my post from 3 hours prior totally worthless.
So, now we have signed a 31 year old Puerto Rican native to our staff to fill the hole. The Angels official website is reporting that the Halos somehow landed the "market's top pitcher." By the way, they signed him for 2 years and $16 million, thus making Tony Reagins' statement about Ben Sheets being too expensive at 1 year/$8 million totally BS. You may remember, though, that I promised to be completely behind every single player on the roster now and until the end of time, which means that it is time to figure out why I should love our new #5 starter.
Last season, with the NL Central Champion St. Louis Cardinals, Pinero went 15-12 with a 3.49 ERA in 32 starts. He turned his career around by developing a new one seam sinker with crazy mad control, and that led him back to being a stud in the STL rotation. He led the majors in ground ball/fly ball ratio (which I really enjoy) and walked just 27 batters in 214 innings. That's awesome as well, because I hate giving up the free pass. Of course, we know JAP (a better nickname to follow, once he gets a couple of games under his belt) fairly well due to his career in Seattle. He was 6-2 with a 2.07 ERA at just 22 years of age with the Mariners, baffling the Angels and everyone else he faced. He started to get crappy toward the end of his tenure with the M's and the hated Red Sox, but totally turned things around once with the Cardinals, learning a new pitch that would help him regain his dominance. With a career ERA of 4.39, and hopes and dreams that he can keep it around 4 even in 2010, I'm thinking he's a solid choice to move into the five hole in our once again solid rotation. Unfortunately, Matt Palmer will now be relegated to starting the season in the bullpen, but at least we'll have a solid hopeful in case we face an injury (which we've been known to do lately).
So, all in all, I'm happy with the Joe-El signing, and look forward to his contributions on the mound for the Red Hats of the West Coast. He's not going to be the piece of the puzzle that gets us through the ALCS and onto the World Series, but if he stays healthy, he's going to keep us in the majority of the games he pitches in, and that ain't not bad.
Also, this story came along with the fact that the Angels "stole" Pinero from the Doyers. No matter what the Angels do, I'll be completely happy if it somehow ruined the plans of the Dodgers in any way. In response, LAD resigned Vicente Padilla to a 1 year $5.025 million contract. The problem with the Dodgers is that they signed the overrated (because of his playoff performance) V-Pad as the #4 starter. They still have a fifth spot to fill. According to ESPN, the candidates to complete the rotation already including Billingsley, Kuroda, Kershaw, and Padilla include Eric Stults, Scott Elbert, Charlie Haeger, Carlos Monasterios, and former SF Giant Russ Ortiz. I can smell the problems now. Hopefully that Blue Crew offense can still carry you guys to the top of the perennial subpar NL West.
I leave you with the timeless "Nerd Baseball."
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