A's Brand Baseball: Esteban!
Just like we said at the end of the 2005 season: the A's need pitching in '06. On Monday, Billy Beane surprised baseball insiders by putting on shoes with laces and signing free agent starter Esteban Loaiza (whose last name we're going to have to learn to spell, like the whole Harden-Haren thing wasn't bad enough) to a 3-year, $21 million contract. Though Loaiza's agent, Joe Boggs, expected the A's to get out of the deep end when other teams got involved, the A's outbid, among others, your San Francisco Giants. That just doesn't happen.
Now, there's been some ugly speculation about what this signing means: Barry Zito could be on his way out of Oakland. At A's Brand Baseball, we believe that we've made our position on this issue perfectly clear, and Beane is saying all the right things, for now, about how you don't get rid of a 27 year-old lefty who's won a Cy Young award and throws one of baseball's least hittable pitches and is just so awesome (stop . . . breathe . . . ) just because you've added Esteban Loaiza. "You can never have enough pitching," says Billy. That sounds about right, and it really does seem to be a different world these days over on Hegenberger, so for now we'll focus instead on what Esteban Loaiza brings to the team.
Loaiza is 33 years old, and in 2003 he finished second in the American League Cy Young balloting. In 2005 he pitched 217 innings (23rd in the majors and exactly as many as Danny Haren and Pedro Martinez), struck out 173 batters (18th; 3 more than Dontrelle Willis), and had an ERA of 3.77 (36th; 0.1 better than Freddy Garcia). Those are cherry-picked stats, of course, and we're not suggesting that Loaiza is better than all those guys, especially not Dontrelle. The stats don't lie, either: He's a very good major league pitcher. It's always nice to see another team's blog pissed that they didn't resign him. Assuming no subtractions from the front of the rotation, the A's will have one of baseball's two or three best starting rotations in 2005.
Whatever happens next, the hot stove is, well, hot. We trust our GM--how many baseball fans can say that?--and it's nice to see him throwing a little bit of money around. We can expect the A's to make some moves at the winter meetings, and to go into the 2006 season with a shot at the Series. Go A's.