Saturday, March 22, 2008

No Silva lining here

Oh, to be an innings-eater.

Exibit A: Carlos Silva.

The 28-year-old former Twins pitcher signed a 4-year, $48 million offseason deal with the Mariners with a lifetime ERA of 4.31 and career 1.37 WHIP.

Holy Safeco.

In theory, going from the hitter-friendly Metrodome to spaceous Safeco Park, not to mention moving from the AL Central to the AL West should make Silva a perfect late-round draft choice, as the 6th or 7th pitcher on your staff.

But, I'm telling you, he doesn't pass the eye test. Listed generously at 246-pounds, the burly righty nearly suffered whiplash in a preseason game against the Cubs two weeks ago. Second-stringers Mike Fontenot, Matt Murton and Henry Blanco were teeing off so many times on Silva's offerings, they may have canceled their afternoon tee times at the local desert course.

But what if he can improve on last year's 4.19 ERA and 1.31 WHIP?

If so, he's got a funny way of showing it.

So far, he's sporting a 9.20 ERA this spring after giving up 9 ER and 13 hits in 4 1/3 innings in his last outing earlier this week.

And even if he can somehow get that ERA and WHIP under control, he only struck out 89 last year in 202 innings, which was 13 more than his previous career-high of 76 (2004). That strikeout rate makes Mark Buerhle look like Nolan Ryan.

Do yourself a favor and practice not saying Silva's name. Regardless of the format or round. There's plenty of Carlos' to go around: Beltran. Pena. Delgado. And if by chance, you start saying Silva's name, do a quick change to Marmol.

Innings-eater? Sure.

But ERA- and WHIP-eater is more like it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey man, i know pitchers on the plus side of 246 pounds who can flat out bring it (see c.c. sabathia).

take it easy on silva! a mid-4 era and 1.30 whip is better than anything those dolts jason marquis or ryan 'dump truck' dempster'll give ya.

by the way, in your blog photo, what the heck type of pitch are you trying to throw there? do you need me to call up fred martin to teach you the proper split finger?

Anonymous said...

Freeze,

Dascenzo's an idiot. You're right on this one. Silva sucks. He may eat innings but he's never gonna be a good play in any fantasy league. The only way he'll win is through good run support or a once-in-a-while strong performance.

I won't even consider his name on draft day (and that's in a league that I have 30 players on my team)

Anonymous said...

T: Nice line on the golf course but be weary of Arizona averages and ERAs. In fact, with the high sky and the difficulty breaking balls have, I don't know why anybody trains there. Stats there can be way overrated, good and bad.
Irish Jimbo