Angels Sign Joe Blanton 2 Years/15 Million

[GA16Angels]

First off, :cry:

Second, if his ground ball rate is that high and he still allowed 29 HR's, does that mean every non-ground ball was a home run?

To be fair, he was pitching in Citizens Bank Park which is a big time hitters park.

[vladdy#27]

Best line I've heard at the meetings, when a club official heard about a questionable signing by a division rival:"Subtraction by addition."

**** you Rangers or A's

[BigGuy951]

I'm really hoping Dipoto has something up his sleeve here. Maybe Richards is on the move in a package for another top tier pitcher or something. Please... Please let me be right. ray: :cry:

[ciaban]

it isn't bad enough that were giving up on grienke, but were apparently giving up on anything decent, and overpaying at that...

[vladdy#27]

Blanton's averages over the last 3 years

IP 136 ERA 4.75 FIP 4.02 K/9 7.4 BB/9 1.9

2011 is the only season in his big league career that he didn't throw 175+ innings

If he can throw 200 innings and give us a 4.00 FIP hes basically what Santana was from 2009-2012 (a little better)

[BigGuy951]

I'm gonna need to see a Psychologist after this.. :cry:

[vladdy#27]

Our rotation with our current roster

1. Weaver
2. Wilson
3. Hanson
4. Blanton
5. Richards
6. Williams

I dont like having two of Blanton/Richards/Williams in our rotation

[vladdy#27]

I'm gonna need to see a Psychologist after this.. :cry:

Read my post above yours, it will help

Just call me Dr. Vladdy or Sir Vladdy, your choice

[lakerskbp24]

That's one of the least reputable sources I've ever seen in my life... I'm gonna move this into the offseason thread. Oh and..MY GOD PLEASE NO!

I usually will post legit sources. Trust me.

[VladTheImpaler]

Clearly I'm the only one, but I don't mind the signing. I really don't get why half the board's on suicide watch over signing Joe Blanton, he's a decent pitcher and IMO the price is fair. Getting out of Philly should reduce his home run rate by a lot, and that seems to inflate his numbers a bit. His K/BB rate is great and should be top 20 in the majors, definitely don't see why the nooses are out.

[vladdy#27]

Clearly I'm the only one, but I don't mind the signing. I really don't get why half the board's on suicide watch over signing Joe Blanton, he's a decent pitcher and IMO the price is fair. Getting out of Philly should reduce his home run rate by a lot, and that seems to inflate his numbers a bit. His K/BB rate is great and should be top 20 in the majors, definitely don't see why the nooses are out.

I've warmed up to the move a little, his FIP and IP pretty much match (or are better than) Santana over the last 3-4 years.

I still think that is a little bit too much money for him, I would have felt better at 2 years 10M or 1 year 7M with an option.

My main complaint is that he should have been option Z, once Greinke, Marcum, Sanchez, etc signed we should have came after him. But maybe that means we are still going to go after those guys, who knows

[BigGuy951]

I was looking at Advanced Stats on Blanton compared to last year's pitchers. Here's what I found:

SIERA (skill interactive earned run average) is designed to show how good pitchers are at limiting hits and preventing runs. It’s also a great stat for predictive analysis. Anything below a SIERA of 3.90 is considered above average.

Roy Halladay carries a lifetime SIERA of 3.25. (Just for comparison)

Joe Blanton's SIERA last year: 3.45.

CJ Wilson's SIERA last year: 4.19

Ervin Santana's SIERA last year: 4.35

Dan Haren's SIERA last year: 3.87

Garrett Richard's SIERA last year: 4.85

Jerome Williams' SIERA last year: 3.69

And surprisingly...

Jered Weaver's SIERA last year: 4.02

Apparently Blanton really is an extremely unlucky pitcher and, well, Weaver seems to be getting lucky a lot.

It doesn't validate the contract, but he's not as bad as I thought he was. Plus he's a work horse. Still a ****** contract though. I wouldn't mind him as the #5 and ONLY as the #5.

[Halo4life]

please no

(barf)

[BigGuy951]

Now, FIP. (Last year's)

Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) measures what a player’s ERA should have looked like over a given time period, assuming that performance on balls in play and timing were league average... A walk is not as harmful as a homerun and a strikeout has less impact than both. FIP accounts for these kinds of differences, presenting the results on the same scale as ERA. It has been shown to be more effective than ERA in terms of predicting future performance and has become a mainstay in sabermetric analysis.

Jered Weaver's: 3.75

CJ Wilson's: 4.04

Dan Haren's: 4.24

Ervin Santana's: 5.63

Garrett Richards': 4.62

Jerome Williams': 4.15

Joe Blanton's: 3.91

Better than all but Jered Weaver's.

[VladTheImpaler]

I've warmed up to the move a little, his FIP and IP pretty much match (or are better than) Santana over the last 3-4 years.

I still think that is a little bit too much money for him, I would have felt better at 2 years 10M or 1 year 7M with an option.

My main complaint is that he should have been option Z, once Greinke, Marcum, Sanchez, etc signed we should have came after him. But maybe that means we are still going to go after those guys, who knows

I actually like the idea of getting him now. If you swing and miss on all the top prizes, the other teams that did just that could scramble and possibly/probably overpay for Blanton. If the directive is to get two starting pitchers, and I think it is, then getting him now makes sense, when no one's really after him and his price might be cheap. It's not a great contract, but I think we'll see in the coming days and weeks that it lines up well with market values. Greinke's going to get a big payday, and guys like Sanchez and Jackson might have a lot of leverage after that.

If this is our last starting pitcher move, I too wouldn't like it, but I don't think it is. Blanton and his $7.5 million(give or take how it's structured) salary shouldn't affect much else, especially when we offered Haren about the same base amount and were still chasing others. I see him as a 4th/5th guy for us, potentially making Richards expendable, and even more importantly, being insurance in case Hanson is done and/or gets hurt.