Free agent moves: Renteria, Howry, Branyan, Everett...seriously

Giants signed Edgar Renteria to a 2 year, $18.5 million deal
The Giants signed Edgar Renteria, continuing to build Brian Sabean's bridge to the past. Next week, I'm laying even odds that the Giants sign John McCain -- though in defense of that move, McCain would probably be a more adequate offensive first baseman than Travis Ishikawa and all indications are that McCain can be bought for considerably less than Edgar Renteria. Zing.

Renteria is a serviceable player who has rarely been more than that and regressed defensively to be considerably below average in 2008. Renteria's not going to add signicant home run pop to the lineup, but adds another Aaron Roward, Fred Lewis 15-20 home-run ceiling guy to the lineup. He's likely to be an offensive upgrade from Emmanuel Burriss, sure, but he's not worth the alarming price they paid for a shortstop that no one seemed too gung ho on adding. Renteria is and almost always has been a league average guy. Since he plays shortstop, league average isn't a bad thing, but he adds only marginally more than a Mark Grudzialanek (if any). Renteria has fared better in the National League, but don't get confused into thinking 2007 shows what he'll do, 2007 showed only what BABIP can do when all luck breaks in someone's favor, because Renteria's was nearly .400 in 2007. When it returned to league average in 2008, so did he.

Renteria's speed has decayed as well, limiting him to 6 steals in 2008, and his extra base potential was negligible, mustering only 22 doubles and 2 triples in cavernous Comerica (National) Park. So despite the Giants having a dearth of power (Bengie Molina led the team with 16 home runs last year, the team mustered a whopping .382 SLG), it's not clear that Renteria is going to add much there. Certainly $9.25 million a year could have bought more on this market -- rather than a guy who slugged the same as Nick Punto, but with a considerably lower OBP and worse glove. Punto (.284/.344/.382) and Grudzialanek (.299/.345/.399) could probably have both been had for $9.25 million, and even if Renteria's 2008 was an aberration, it's unlikely it was much of one.

Giants sign Bobby Howry to a 1 year, $2.75 million contract
The Giants signed Bobby Howry, a move that helps add unnecessary age to the Giants' roster, but adds a potentially serviceable right-handed reliever. At 2.75 million, he's a reasonable gamble, but it's hard to see him being a great pitcher in 2008. Howry is 35 now, and has been worked hard over his last few seasons (73, 76 2/3, 81 1/3, 70 2/3) for a reliever. Howry hasn't seen an uptick in his walk rate that would presage decline, but his strikeouts were down in 2008 after being up in 2006 and 2007. And a 1.46 WHIP and 90 hits in 70 2/3 innings don't encourage anyone except opposing hitters.

Atlanta signs C David Ross to a two-year, $3 million contract
Huh? $3 million for a backup catcher to Brian McCann? 2 years to David Ross? Frank Wren has lost his mind. If you want to find out how John Schuerholz got so much from the Braves for so long, it was by avoiding throwing real money at the players who were there to not play. His heir apparent hasn't learned this. Instead of going with Clint Sammons, Brayan Pena, or any of the other backup catchers that have dotted a 40-man roster in recent years, the Braves sign a catcher to a $3 million deal when it's not certain he could have gotten a major league contract elsewhere. He lost his job in Cincinnati to Paul Bako and Javier Valentin in the last two years. Moreover, Ross has enough power that he might be a useful pinch hitter -- but you can't use him as a pinch hitter unless you're carrying three catchers.

I'm of the opinion that backup catcher is one of the places where a low-budget team can and should cut costs. (I originally typed that as costes...which I think is a Freudian slip, since I think another great option for the Braves is to wait until March and pick up Chris Coste after the Phillies cut him loose to make room for Lou Marson.) David Ross is a waste of money for a team that's a long way from filling all their holes. Billy Traber signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox for considerably less, and would have filled a far greater need for the Braves -- someone who might be able to pitch.

Seattle Mariners sign Russell Branyan to a one year, $1.4 million contract
The Mariners first move in the offseason was to sign Russell Branyan. No need to print those playoff tickets now, Mariners fans. Branyan is king of the small sample size -- he can make for one pretty stat sheet so long as he doesn't face right-handed pitchers, so long as you don't look at defensive statistics and so long as you don't give random chance an opportunity to start evening things out. He has prodigious power, he draws a good number of walks, and he strikes out nearly every other time he's at the plate. In 2000 career at bats, he's struck out 797 times. Branyan has had three years of below average BABIP, but he's also the kind of player you don't expect to fare well in BABIP because if he puts it in play (remember: BABIP excludes home runs), it's an out. He's a three true outcomes hitter -- home runs, walks, strikeouts.

Branyan will probably see a lot of time at 1B and DH for the Mariners, who are currently slated to fill those slots with Bryan LaHair and...oh lord. It's astonishing to think that Erik Bedard was on the Mariners' radar a year ago and they were supposed to contend for the AL West title. Look what a load of lousy free agent signings (Richie Sexson, Jarrod Washburn, Carlos Silva) and idiotic trades with the Cleveland Indians for platoon players (Asdrubal Cabrera for Eduardo Perez; Shin-Soo Choo for Ben Broussard) can do to an organization. Then subtract top-level prospects like Chris Tillman and Adam Jones and this team is stripped down to Ichiro, Adrian Beltre, and a middle infield that had a COMBINED +46 OBP. (Betancourt adding 21 points, Lopez a much more patient 25). To emphasize how awful that combined +46 OBP is...keep in mind, through no virtue of "patience", Chase Utley added 38 points to his OBP by being HIT WITH PITCHES. Lean in next year, Yuniesky/Jose.

Mariners projected lineup as of this move:
RF Suzuki
CF Reed
2B Lopez
3B Beltre
DH Branyan/Johjima (yeah, seriously)
LF Balantien
C Clement
1B LaHair
SS Betancourt

Detroit Tigers sign Adam Everett to a one year, $1 million deal
So much for the lineup of nine intimidating bats, the Tigers are now down to signing punchless defensive wizards to fill the holes in their lineup. Adam Everett will split time with Ramon Santiago at shortstop, neither of them will hit the ball. Everett can field (range factor about 1/2 a play per nine innings over league average for his career), but can't hit, hit for power, draw a whole lot of walks, or steal many bases. If Everett could summon his 2004 numbers (.273/.317/.385) and muster an OPS over .700, he might be worth playing even on a half-decent team. It's not likely to happen. Even on a defense-first team in Minnesota last year, they decided there was more to life than fielding grounders and he lost his job to the mighty Nick Punto/Brendan Harris combination that will some day be remembered alongside Honus Wagner as shortstops who did not appear on tobacco companies' baseball cards (Wagner because he insisted to be removed, Punto and Harris because tobacco sales are lagging enough as is).

Tigers projected lineup as of this move:
CF Granderson
2B Polanco
LF Guillen
RF Ordonez
1B Cabrera
DH Sheffield
C Laird
3B Inge
SS Everett

Boston Red Sox sign Junichi Tazawa
I don't know anything about Tazawa, I know that he's not major league ready, considering the contract he landed from the Red Sox. Japanese pitchers are spotty at best and tend to burn out quickly. Hideki Irabu, Hideo Nomo, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Kasuhiro Sasaki, Tomo Ohka, Masahide Kobayashi, and Kei Igawa are all names that were supposed to be impacts, but aside from Daisuke (who is fine as a 6-inning pitcher, but hasn't done anything beyond that), the others had fleeting impacts and burned out quickly. He'll have a couple mentors in Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima, but will not probably play a major role for this team this year.

Milwaukee Brewers sign Jorge Julio
Jorge Julio is a player that's never worth signing in November, but can prove useful if you're the second team in a season to end up with him. For three straight years, he's been ineffective with the team he began the year with (Mets, Marlins, Indians) and found himself released or traded to a new team (Diamondbacks, Rockies, Braves). Then he puts up better numbers with his new team and finds himself a free agent yet again. After six seasons of 60+ appearances, 2008 brought him a bad run with the Indians as a mop-up man who never found himself worthy of anything better and then sent him to the out-of-contention Braves where he dazzled with a 0.73 ERA without really earning it -- his WHIP (1.38) was nearly twice his ERA. Julio walks a ton of batters with a career rate of nearly .5 BB/IP that has increased as his career has continued. But he's only two seasons removed from a year where he struck out 88 batters in 67 IP, so it's not hard to see why teams keep considering him a minor option. For a team as bullpen-needy as the Brewers, it makes sense. He is another failed closer to dump into the closer-by-committee role that seems to be developing with Todd Coffey and David Riske as the "anchors" to the back end of the Brewers' pen.

Cleveland Indians sign Toma Ohka
If I weren't a Tribe fan, there's no way this would be worthy of mention. It still isn't. If he stays healthy, he could be a fifth starter. But that's a big if, and the Indians don't need a fifth starter, they already have a few in their rotation with Aaron Laffey, Jeremy Sowers, and Zach Jackson. I refuse to provide any additional analysis, I regard Ohka making a major league appearance as astonishingly unlikely -- Scott Elarton may yet return.

I'm way behind on trades, so I hope to get to those tomorrow.