Piazza is a Padre!

by Dex on Jan 29, 2006 4:01 PM PST in News

Oh so decrees Fox Sports (which I stole off Lone Star Ball, I'm so slow on this stuff). Congratulations to us!

Free-agent catcher Mike Piazza has agreed to a one-year, $2 million contract with the Padres, FOXSports.com has learned.

The contract includes an $8 million mutual option for 2007.

Piazza will be the number one catcher and when he starts he'll be a cleanup hitter.

How you like us now? Do we look OK? I'm more comfortable with Piazza than Doug Mirabelli (no offense to Doug), but I think I would've been more comfortable with Ramon again. Though you can't beat the price. Excellent to know that the two million we saved on Loretta went towards something.

Update [2006-1-29 19:17:33 by Dex]: So some proper commentary. If we have no more moves, here's what I'm guessing the lineup looks like:

Dave Roberts LF
Mike Cameron CF
Brian Giles RF
Mike Piazza C
Ryan Klesko 1B
Vinny Castilla 3B
Khalil Greene SS
Josh Barfield 2B

Honestly? I feel pretty comfortable with that lineup. It's still a relatively weak division. We have some good young depth. If we were to pick up another proper starter and shore up the bullpen a little bit, I'm just about ready to be extremely psyched for the season.

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AARPitchers

Now we need to Wells, or Oil-Can Boyd. Some old guy to fatten our pitching staff up a bit.

by mato on Jan 30, 2006 12:59 PM PST reply actions

Lineup

I put up a lineup on my white board at work and have updated it with ever signing. Mine looks like yours, but swap Greene and Castilla. I think with the exception of Giles, I value every hitter in the lineup about the same (10-15 VORP players, if you're into the Baseball Prospectus thing), which means that there are no easy outs in the lineup (see Burroughs, Sean. Payton, Jay. Bennett, Gary. Mendez, Donaldo.)

by Wonko on Jan 30, 2006 1:21 PM PST reply actions

Swap

I could see swapping Greene and Castilla. One thing that got pointed out to me is that Barfield likely wouldn't end up in the 8 spot as it's relatively important with the pitcher. Likely Greene or Castilla would round out the lineup with Barfield 7th.

by Dex on Jan 30, 2006 6:08 PM PST up reply actions