D-Backs: Innocent or Gilkey?

Dave Paisley

While the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have done the least tinkering of any major league club, their expansion brothers have gone entirely the other way. Not satisfied with throwing wheelbarrow loads of cash at Matt Williams, Jay Bell, Devon White and inexplicably, Willie Blair last year, Colangelo made like Auric Goldfinger* this off-season, breaking into Fort Knox to sign Randy Johnson and Todd Stottlemyre. And Armando Reynoso, and inexplicably, Steve Finley.

For all the cash thrown around last year, the Diamondbacks were really pretty awful, outscoring only those powerhouses in Montreal and Pittsburgh. Worse still, they were third-worst in giving up runs, staying ahead of only Colorado and Florida, and Colorado is hardly a fair comparison. So it was no big surprise that they finished last in the NL West and had a better record (65-97) than only Florida, and we all know that story.

The patrons with more money than sense frolicking in the BOB pool probably don't care how the team is doing, but surely most of those Arizona fans do, so the moves to acquire some real starting pitching, instead of the facsimiles they used last year, must be very welcome. How much difference will it make, though?

Like Tampa, the Diamondbacks are making do with a makeshift catching squad, but both Stinnett and Miller are better than the Rays' desperate duo. Not exactly Mike Piazza, though. Working our way around the infield, Travis Lee at 1B promises to develop a little, but he has a long way to go to fulfill the expectations heaped on him. Tony Batista is definitely the real deal at SS, and should excel in a full season of work, taking over at short for Jay Bell.

The signing of Bell last year was derided by some, but he turned in a very nice season with the bat, and that $5M price tag looks cheap now, despite the late-season shift to second to make way for Batista. Matt Williams, on the other hand, has always been vastly overrated, and he turned in a sub-par year even for him. So much for the tear-jerking deal that sent him to Arizona.

In the outfield, Devon White was another signing that wasn't exactly greeted with cheers, but he turned in a very workmanlike .791 OPS -- better than any regular except Batista. With his departure, the Diamondbacks sprung a ton of cash for Steve Finley. With a career OPS of .748 and a .702 in '98, Finley is vastly overrated. Signing him was in the same stratosphere of mistakes as the Williams signing. Now they have two overpriced, overrated, aging, underachieving schmoes that will be impossible to unload. Bad, bad mistakes.

But what of the remainder of the outfield? We have Luis Gonzalez, obtained from Detroit, a decent enough pickup with a chance at another .800 OPS season this year. Filling the remaining spot is, you guessed it, yet another aging underachiever, Bernard Gilkey. Obtained mid-season from the Mets in the grand "swap o' mediocrity" for Jorge Fabregas and Willie Blair, Gilkey is a shadow of his former self. And let's remember that his former self wasn't that great to start with.

With a stunning '98 OPS of .635, including a spectacularly bad .604 with Arizona, Gilkey's career is plummeting off the face of the earth. Putting him out there is like playing Rey Ordonez at DH. It's a shame he nixed the deal with Pittsburgh, because he could have been the first player to be involved in trades for a complete hacking mass team in twelve months. Gilkey, Womack, Martin, Fabregas and Blair, a veritable constellation of despair.

But wait, there's more... Arizona finally was able to land Womack, the "leadoff hitter" they always wanted, for a minor leaguer and a good old PTBNL. At least he'll play in the outfield, rather than displace Bell or Batista. This wouldn't be a good thing for most teams, but with the lousy D-Back outfield, this will actually be an improvement. It looks like Womack will play right, displacing Gilkey, but that only makes Gilkey into the most expensive spare part in the universe. With his less than stellar .325 career OBP, Womack is a horrible leadoff guy, but apparently that's not common knowledge in GM circles.

So you may have gathered I'm not high on the D-backs' offense. But what of their pitching? The rotation looks like Johnson, Benes, Stottlemyre, Reynoso and Anderson, with Olson closing, Swindell the lefty setup guy and the remainder a mix of guys like Daal, Small and Telemaco. Overall, pretty decent, unlike last year.

During Johnson's whiny period in Seattle, he blathered on endlessly about how important it was to him to be on a winner, but it appears that the opportunity to play near his home along with suitcases full of Benjamins is all he really wanted. He may have fooled himself into thinking that his mere presence on a team makes them a contender, but he'd be wrong. Look at Curt Schilling, Kevin Appier, Roger Clemens. None of those guys mean squat if you surround them with the likes of, say, Gilkey, Finley and Williams to name but three.

If Johnson has a good year and keeps his ERA around 3.00, the team will probably score just over 4 runs a game. If Johnson could pitch complete games, he could win around 18. However, he won't be able to finish them all, and he'll end up having the pen blow a few, leaving him maybe 15-10. Not bad, but that's the price he'll pay for signing with Arizona.

Overall, the team should score about 680 runs and give up around 715, leaving them with 77 wins or so. Not bad, but probably not as good as they hoped. So it looks like our two expansion teams will improve slightly, but not anywhere near enough to contend.

* -- Evil villain of the James Bond movie Goldfinger. Not to be confused with Dr. Evil, the villain of Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery.

about the author

Dave Paisley had hoped to pursue his dream of catching on with a big-league club this year, but his hopes were dashed when he was told that the Phanatic was keeping his job. Tell him that having a costume surgically grafted was a bad idea at drdjp@strikethree.com.