Astros get little value for Lidge
posted: Wednesday, November 7, 2007 | Feedback | Print Entry
Ed Wade's reputation as a GM in Philadelphia was as a man who overvalued relief pitching, but in his first deal as the Houston GM, he gave away one of the better relievers in the National League for three spare parts.
Lidge's struggles in 2006 may or may not have had anything to do with the infamous home run
Albert Pujols hit during the 2005 NLCS, but in 2007 he looked a lot more like his old self, working with a plus fastball and plus slider, but with some of the control issues he had in 2006 carrying over.
He's been more homer-prone the last two years, and he's moving to a great home run park, but in general he marks a huge upgrade in the Phillies' bullpen, reducing their reliance on 40-year-old
Tom Gordon (who works mostly off two-seamers now, pitching away from contact) and allowing them to return
Brett Myers to the rotation. If you believe Lidge's problems in 2006 and even his tendency to give up longballs in 2007 were all or partly mental, then you could argue that the change of scenery will help him in that department even while the ballpark hurts him. The Phillies still need to add at least one arm to their 'pen, but Lidge could easily end up as the best reliever to change teams this offseason.
Wade's announcement of the deal focused on
Michael Bourn's speed, pegging him as a good leadoff player and plus defender in center field. He is correct that Bourn is fast and can play center field, but he's stretched as an everyday player, with a fringe-average bat, no power, and fringe-average plate discipline. He has a slap-and-run approach you often see in left-handed-hitting speedsters. While it would have made him a star in the 1970s or 1980s, only
Ichiro Suzuki employs it to that degree of success now. His acquisition makes
Luke Scott, who has hit .273/.366/.516 in over a full season's worth of major league at-bats, expendable. That's good news for anyone looking for a cheap left-handed bat to serve as the strong side of a platoon in an outfield corner or as a DH.
The Astros also acquired
Michael Costanzo, the second-round pick in the last Phillies draft under Wade. Costanzo should get a cup of coffee in the big leagues, but he's not a regular and probably not a bench player. He's a big, slow hacker with a complex swing and difficulty hitting anything but fastballs and hanging offspeed pitches, and right now he's well below average at third base. Wade did acquire one middle reliever,
Geoff Geary, who has marginal stuff and is an 11th or 12th man on a major league staff.
It's interesting that Wade thought this was the best he could get for Lidge, or he felt using Lidge (perhaps their most tradeable commodity, with one year left until free agency) to fill their center-field role was a good strategy. The closers on the free agent market are all worse than Lidge; only
Francisco Cordero is close, and he'll probably get a four-year deal. There had to be other teams interested in Lidge, and by acting quickly and dealing with his former club to acquire three players drafted while he was the Phillies' GM, it looks like Wade completely misread the market for relievers. At the same time he put filling a specific hole ahead of maximizing his return on one of his best assets. It's an inauspicious beginning to his tenure in Houston.
