Phillies sign Bell

[nyy26wc]

1) The Phillies signed free agent 3B David Bell to a 4 year, $17 million contract.

The Phillies are paying Bell almost twice the major league average. Yet, he's never had a single season above average. He had 0 RCAA in 2002. That's not much, but by the standards of his career, that's the best he's ever done. He had an OPS .001 below the league average. Nothing good there. But, in the context of his career, that's a lot more than he should be expected to do (.058 below average).

Bell brings one single talent to the team. In the past couple of years, he's had outstanding taste in teammates. In 2001, he was able to associate himself with 116 win teammates. In 2002, he was able to associate himself with come a few outs away from winning the World Series teammates.

But, unless he's planning on staging a coup de tat in major league front offices and will use that coup to bring enough talent to Philadelphia to raise them up to the level of the 2001 Mariners or 2002 Giants, he's not going to be capable of earning that money.

Due to the unpredictability of human events, we really can't say to a 100% certainty that he can't do that. But, over a $4 million a year is a terrible gamble on the odds that he's going to pull that off.

2) The Redsox will name Theo Epstein as their new GM.

3) Larry Walker says he's willing to consider waiving his no trade clause to go to the Cubs, Yankees, Cardinals or Mariners.

Rockies assistant GM Josh Byrnes says the Rockies have had "preliminary" talks with the Yankees and talks with the Mets, there is no truth to last week's 3 team trade rumor and there's been no discussion about trading Walker to the Yankees.

4) According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Tigers are about to complete a trade that would send Randall Simon to the Pirates for 3 minor leaguers.

5) The Rockies signed 1B Kit Pellow, and Ps Matt Miller, Chris Michalak and Tom Stepka (re-signed him) to minor league contracts.

Pellow hit .302 SLG, .324 OBA, .644 OPS, -5 RCAA in 29 games as a 28 year old rookie.

After a 4.41 ERA/6 RSAA as a 30 year old rookie with the 2001 BlueJays and Rangers (he also had 5 games with the 1998 Diamondbacks), Michalak had a 4.40 ERA/1 RSAA in 13 games with the Rangers.

[KCBOOMER]

Originally posted by nyy26wc
1) The Phillies signed free agent 3B David Bell to a 4 year, $17 million contract.

5) The Rockies signed 1B Kit Pellow, and Ps Matt Miller, Chris Michalak and Tom Stepka (re-signed him) to minor league contracts.

1) Well the Royals are going to pay Joe Randa $4.5M this year and he and Bell have had very similar careers and Randa is three years older.

5) I can't believe the Royals let Pellow get away with giving him a chance. I think he could have produced at the Randa-level for about a tenth the price.