On Lohse: Mozeliak’s patience is a virtue
We recall the first time we met John Mozeliak: He was calmly relating how the team was close to a deal with Miguel Batista, when his agent started driving up the price in the wake of Gil Meche’s signing. Mozeliak was miffed, but it was clear that he wasn’t going to be played. Ditto Jeff Weaver at the time. Our impression was the Mozeliak was level-headed and understood the business, even as assistant GM, and had the patience to take the long view.
We wrote at the outset of the offseason that one of Mozeliak’s Winter Meetings priorities should be “Nothing stupid.” We explained:
That means two things: Not trading away players with more value than what they bring (e.g., Anthony Reyes), and not acquiring players who won’t live up to their contract (e.g., Carlos Silva). Our impression of Mozeliak is that he is patient and unlikely to be moved by irrationality in the market, so he probably won’t force anything that’s not there.
Well, Mozeliak’s calm and unshakeable approach paid off yesterday when the Cardinals signed Kyle Lohse for a one-year, $4.25 million deal, with potential to reach $4.65. It’s not that Lohse is some kind of bargain — four and a half million is still a decent amount of money, even for a starting pitcher who figures to have around an 11.9 VORP this season (which should silence the shrill voices of those who spent the offseason decrying ownership “tight-fistedness”). But Mozeliak proved that he didn’t have to pay a price for waiting out the market; quite the opposite, actually: He and the Cardinals got the better end of it, after seeing veterans like Livan Hernandez (-3.1 projected VORP), Tom Glavine (3.4) and Carlos Silva (10.6) — each offering less production — all sign for more money, Lohse’s contract is easily the best of the bunch.
One note of caution to any fans hoping to see a significant ballpark boost from Lohse moving from the homer-happy parks in Cincinnati and Philly to pitcher-friendly Busch: Lohse’s HR/F rates weren’t affected by those home bandboxes, with a 12.1% HR/F rate for the Reds in 2006, 9.3% for the Reds in the first half of 2007 and 10.0% for the Phillies in the second half. Typically, pitchers surrender home runs at a rate around 11%, so, if anything, Lohse got a little lucky the last couple of years with the long ball.
Other than that, it was a fairly textbook move. The Cardinals have a lot of risk and lack of depth among starting pitchers (though we thought Joe Strauss’s claim that “four-fifths of their projected season-ending rotation would be unavailable opening day” was a bit disingenuous and sensational) and Lohse is a healthy (as far as we know) groundball pitcher (a projected 45% GB rate), which meant a pretty natural fit. What’s more, the Cardinals paid the “blue book” rate — $4,450,000 MORP — so the price was on-target. Certainly, Lohse, whom some have compared to Jeff Suppan but who also has Hernandez and Jeff Weaver among his BPro comps — isn’t going to guarantee the division for the Cardinals. But he’ll improve the team’s ability to compete — his 11.9 projected VORP is second only to Wainwright’s 22.8 among the pitchers who figure to break camp with the big club. Sometimes good things come to those who wait.