Dodgers Waste 10 Million Dollars on Chris Capuano

Just as I was about to enjoy the rest of my day, and after I had just posted up my Kuroda piece, we get this news in….The Dodgers are close to signing a starting pitcher. The word is in, it’s Chris Capuano. The former Mets lefty reportedly will get 2 years and 10 million dollars from the Dodgers. The deal isn’t final just yet, but is very close, and almost complete.

This sad signing could signify the end of Hiroki Kuroda’s days with the Dodgers. I think i’m going to be sick. It’s not that Capuano is terrible, because he is not. Mediocre, yes. terrible no…definitely not even close to Kuroda’s level though. Capuano was 11-12 last year for the Mets, posting a 4.55 ERA and whiffing 168 batters. He has good strikeout numbers whiffing 8.1 per nine and a low walk rate of 2.6 per nine innings. However he allows a lot of home runs, serving up a Lilly-like 27 homers last season. Although advanced stats show he pitched better than his traditional stats showed. Most likely he won’t be that bad, but he’s no Kuroda.

What this means, is that we have three lefties in the rotation now. That gives us a rotation of Kershaw, Bills, Lilly, Capuano, and the number five spot will likely be occupied by Nathan Eovaldi until Rubby De La Rosa returns from Tommy John surgery sometime next summer.

Where Hiroki Kuroda will end up for 2012 is still unknown. More than likely he will return to Japan, but he could still return to the Dodgers on some kind of backloaded deal. There is another option, and that is another major league team. That seems extremely unlikely for Kuroda, but the Angels have shown interest. Can you imagine Kuroda pitching for the Angels against us next year? The thought makes me want to vomit.

I don’t understand why we couldn’t have given the ten million to Kuroda instead? Did the Dodgers even make Kuroda an offer? Or did they just immediately assume he was too far out of their price range and give up? All this does now is water down the starting rotation. With Capuano likely to serve up lots of homers next year, lets get used to hearing back..back..back..back…….gone! next season.  sigh….go blue

(writing back..back..back..back.. makes me think of ESPN’s Chris Berman)