Monday, February 21, 2005

Lopez's comeback??

Headline from Dejan in today's PG:

Lopez's comeback taking shape

The first thing that hit me was, Lopez who? Reading the article, I found out it was Albie Lopez. If you only recently started following baseball or if you are unfamiliar with long relievers on last place teams, then this name is unfamiliar to you. Yet he is significant enough that Lloyd McClendon was quoted as saying the following about Lopez:

"He's an experienced pitcher, a power arm. I don't know if it's still there, but
I'd like to find out. It's no significant risk to our organization to find out
if he has anything left. The rewards are tremendous if he can."

Um...ok. Let me repeat that..."The rewards are tremendous if he can make a comeback. " Wow. Lopez must have been quite a pitcher. Let's take a look at his stats via baseballreference.com.

Career
W: 47
L: 58
ERA: 4.94

Well, that's not so good. Maybe he had a great peak before he had arm trouble. Let's take a look at his 3 best seasons.

1998:
W - L - G - GS - ERA - IP
7 - 4 - 54 - 0 - 2.60 - 79.2

2000:
W - L - G - GS - ERA - IP
11 - 13 - 45 - 24 - 4.13 - 185.1

2001:
W - L - G - GS - ERA - IP
9 - 19 - 33 - 33 - 4.81 - 205.2


Hmmm...so at his absolute best, Lopez was a #5 starter who had 1 pretty good season as a middle reliever. Exactly what kind of comeback are the Pirates hoping for?

Don't get me wrong. I find no fault in inviting a player like this to spring training. But if a guy like this warrants a feature article touting his comeback...well, let's just say the Pirates haven't quite arrived as a contender.

Now I gotta head off to church. We are having a prayer service for Ollie Perez's left shoulder.

posted by bkopec @ 10:19 AM   2 comments