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Octavio Dotel will hit the free agent market in the offseason. (AP)
If the White Sox are serious about shedding salary in the offseason, one of the casualties will be Octavio Dotel, who is an impending free agent and made $6 million in 2009.
Whereas Scott Linebrink hasn't really come close to justifying the money the Sox spent on him after 2007, Dotel has nearly been worth his contract. He didn't come as a bargain, but I certainly wouldn't put his contract in the "bad" status.
So if the Dotel era indeed came to an end in October, it'll be characterized by two things: Lots of strikeouts and lots of walks.
Key stats
G: 62
IP: 62.1
W: 3
L: 3
ERA: 3.32
ERA+: 141
FIP: 3.88
BB: 36
BB/9: 5.20
SO: 75
K/9: 10.83
K/BB: 2.08
HR/9: 1.01
WHIP: 1.44
OPS: .764
GB/FB: 0.58
BABIP: .318
WAR: 0.8
Dotel took a step backward in 2009, going from a 12.36 K/9 and 3.90 BB/9 (3.17 K/BB) to a 10.83 K/9 and whopping 5.20 BB/9. Granted, his K/BB was still a tick above the MLB average of 2.02, but it could have been far better had Dotel had better control.
In 28 of his 62 outings, Dotel walked at least one batter. He walked two or more batters in seven of those 28 appearances, only two of which went longer than one inning. Obviously, when Dotel walked a batter he was more likely to allow a run—which he did in 10 of his 28 appearances with a walk.
The usual—but not absolute—barometer for how Dotel was going to pitch on any given was thus was the walk. In his 34 appearances without a walk, he only allowed one or more runs five times.
Going forward, I'd start to worry about Dotel's effectiveness. He'll be 36 on opening day next year and already has lost some velocity on his fastball—and as time goes on, he's going to lose even more. Given that he has a tendency to leave his fastball up, as he loses velocity he's going to get away with fewer of those high fastballs.
It's been those high fastballs that get him a good chunk of his strikeouts. And without strikeouts, Dotel is just a pitcher who gives up a lot of fly balls and walks.
Now, I don't expect Dotel to be back in 2010 and beyond. That's probably a good thing, unless the Sox could find a way to sign him to a bargain deal about in line with where FanGraphs has him pegged ($3.5 million in '09). Any team that signs him should try to front-load that deal, because if an age-related regression comes, paying $4 million or $5 million for a struggling reliever could hurt.
The question for the White Sox now becomes whether or not to offer him arbitration. In Eddie Bajek's reverse engineering of Elias rankings (found on MLB Trade Rumors), Dotel sits right on the line between A and B, with him projected as a type A. Should the Sox risk Dotel accepting arbitration and coming back to the Sox with a similar price tag, or should they decline to offer him arbitration and miss out on the compensatory draft picks (this is all assuming he's a type A, not B. If he's a type B, the Sox should not offer him arbitration).
Well, that all comes down to money. If the Sox can afford one more year of Dotel, then sure, they can risk offering him arbitration. But if they can't, then they're going to have to let him walk without any compensation.
While I'm not going look back on Dotel's time in Chicago in completely glowing terms, I think the general feeling I get is that Dotel was pretty good overall. However, I never really was comfortable with Dotel coming into games. The threat of a walk-aided implosion was always in the back of my mind, and although those weren't frequent, they always seemed to come out of nowhere. One day, Dotel's throwing strikes, the other, he can't hit the broad side of Mark Mangino.
But once Dotel had exited the game and struck out the side, all of a sudden it was easy to realize just how good Dotel could be. It was just a few bad apples that led to that apprehension every time Dotel came in to a game.
Links for the day (updated):
- The Arizona Fall League kicked off on Tuesday, and two Sox players made their debuts. Dayan Viciedo went 0-3 with a sacrifice fly and Sergio Santos threw two innings (with his fastball averaging 96 mph). Jordan Danks, C.J. Retherford, Justin Cassel, Jacob Rasner, and Matt Long are the other Sox representatives in the AFL.
- Jim says Bobby Jenks is the most likely player to be traded over the winter.
- Over at South Side Sox, U-God (not RZA, GZA, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, Method Man, Masta Killa, or ODB) has his top five Sox games of 2009.
- Driveline Mechanics took a stab at catcher defense.
- Jack Moore of FanGraphs talks Nick Punto.
- Royals Review has some insane trade ideas involving Jose Guillen, the second-worst player in baseball by WAR (the worst is also on the Royals—Yuniesky Betancourt).
- Not baseball related, but be sure to read this great article on a volleyball superfan by Lenny Goldman of the Columbia Missourian. You don't have to care about volleyball or Missouri to appreciate how well-written and engaging the story is.
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