Blogging About Baseball

Poor John McDonald.

Just when it looked like the 35-year-old may have finally locked down the Toronto Blue Jays’ starting shortstop gig, the club announced the signing of Alex Gonzalez to a one-year, $2.75 million contract.

Sayonara, starts.

McDonald has been a fan favorite in Toronto since his incredible defensive campaign in 2007. Fans have clamored for the light-hitting veteran to receive an extended audition, but McDonald has been used strictly as a defensive reserve on the Canadian ball club. In five seasons with the team, he’s yet to receive more than 350 at-bats.

And with age 36 approaching fast, McDonald is just a few years away from the proverbial pasture. A starting gig, at this point, is tremendously unlikely.

Still, it’s hard to argue with the Blue Jay’s logic; McDonald just does not have a playable bat at the Major League level.

In parts of 11 seasons, McDonald has stroked just 13 homeruns to go along with a .238 career batting average. That kind of production is acceptable if you’re a terror on the basepaths or an on-base machine, but that’s not the case with McDonald.

McDonald’s offense is so behind his dazzling glove work, that he’s consistently mentioned among the worst hitting position players in the American League, a dubious distinction to say the least. According to Fangraphs, McDonald isn’t helping the Jays win any more: his Ultimate Zone Rating of plus-9.1 at shortstop is just enough to offset what he’s costing the team with his bat.

McDonald owns a career on-base percentage of .276 and his slugging percentage is a paltry .317, 55 points lower than the notoriously meek hitting Juan Pierre (who has the same number of career homeruns over one less season). Caesar Izturis, a similar shortstop, has an on-base plus slugging percentage of .623, a mere 30 points lower than McDonald’s, but has earned almost double the plate appearances as McDonald.

That’s telling.

Last year, McDonald posted a career high with a .384 slugging percentage. That marked improvement clearly did very little to ease the mind of the Jay’s front office.

Jay’s General Manager Alex Anthopoulos signed McDonald to a 2-year, $3 million deal just one day before effectively replacing him with Gonzalez. For a player who profiles as nothing more than a late-inning defensive replacement and who will be 38-years-old by the time the contract expires, that’s quite a payday.

Only time will tell if it’s money well spent.

And they’re definitely going to need it.

With third baseman Eric Chavez not expected to return to the field because of lingering effects from a second microdiscetomy surgery, the Athletics signed the 29-year-old McPherson to a minor league contract, complete with an invitation to Spring Training.

Ironically McPherson, once a heralded prospect in the Anaheim Angels’ organization, missed both the 2007 and 2009 seasons because of lower back injuries.

McPherson burst onto the prospect landscape in 2000 after a dominating college campaign at South Carolina’s Citadel. Anaheim drafted him in the second round of the 2001 draft (57th overall) and immediately sent him to the short season Pioneer League. McPherson obliterated the competition, hitting .395 with a .605 slugging percentage in just 31 games.

McPherson took off from there, excelling at each step of the organizational ladder. By 2004, he was one of the game’s best third base prospects and the logical successor to Anaheim’s Troy Glaus.

In 2005, McPherson was given the chance to win the third base job when Glaus opted for free agency and signed a one-year deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks. McPherson stumbled and was never able to replicate his prodigious minor league power. His season was truncated because of a hip injury, the first notice of a disturbing trend that has earmarked McPherson’s career thus far.

With the dynamic Chone Figgins forcing his way into the lineup at third base, McPherson found himself out of the Angel’s plans in 2006. He spent most of the season toiling in Triple A and played in just 40 games with Angels, where he once again struggled to make consistent contact.

Because of a bulging disc in his lower back, McPherson underwent vertebrae fusion surgery at the end of the season.

He missed all of 2007. He was released by the club eight days before Christmas.

In 2008, a 27-year-old McPherson signed a minor league deal with the Florida Marlins worth $500,000. The power that had tantalized big league scouts returned, and a shot at the team’s major league roster seemed imminent. In 127 games with the Albuquerque Isotopes, McPherson led the Pacific Coast League with 42 homeruns and batted .275, drove in 98 runs, and scored 94 more.

It seemed like McPherson had gone from big-time prospect, to nothing, to big-time (albeit, highly suspicious) prospect once again.

But just like that, McPherson was nonchalantly released.

And after another year lost to injuries, we, the baseball consuming public, find ourselves talking about Dallas McPherson once again.

There’s no denying that McPherson is a special player when he’s healthy: twice in his prolonged minor league career he’s clubbed 40 homeruns in a season; four times he’s posted slugging percentages over .600.

But the truth is, McPherson’s rarely healthy. To honestly promote him as an insurance policy for Eric Chavez…well, it’s like saying, “In 2010, the Oakland Athletics will be replacing egg shells with balsa wood.”

It’s hard to figure out exactly what the Oakland Athletics are hoping to get from this signing. Whatever it is, it’s almost certain to be an even mixture of promise and disappointment with a splash of unreliable.

The Athletics need an insurance policy for their insurance policy.

Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. None.

That’s the likelihood that John Lackey, 2010′s blue chip free agent, ends up with the Washington National’s ball club.

But that’s not what some would have us believe. Today MLB.com’s Nationals beat writer Bill Ladson announced that the Nationals will be bidding for the services of the 31-year-old righthander.

Well, duh. I have $3,000 in my savings account and I’m in the damn bidding.

The Washington Nationals can certainly afford to sign John Lackey, don’t get me wrong. Earlier this offseason, Austin Kearns’ shouldn’t-have-done-that salary came off the books and catcher Josh Bard and hurler Livan Hernandez followed him into the free agent pool shortly thereafter. Dmitri “Da Meathook” Young also departed and reliever Ron “Suitcase” Villone packed his bags once again, too.

All in all, it’s expected that the team will free up nearly one-quarter of its $62 million payroll from 2009. For around $15 million per season, it is hypothetically possible they could lock Lackey down to a five or six year deal, which is inline with what he’s supposedly demanding.

Still, General Manager Mike Rizzo will have to outbid the deep pockets of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and New York Mets, all of which own payrolls at least twice as large as the Nationals.

But there’s other factors too. The main one being: the Washington Nationals are a terrible team.

Lackey has played for a World Championship contender for the past eight seasons. He has pitched in five different playoffs; 60 percent of the time he’s been a member of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, he’s reached the postseason. Hell, the guy has even won Game 7 of the World Series.

Now, it would be really cute to imagine a world where John Lackey signs with the Washington Nationals and they immediately reach the postseason. But unfortunately, we live in the real world and that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

Mr. Rizzo stated that Lackey might want to become a Washington Natinal (intentional) because :

We think with the additions of an Adam Dunn, a Josh Willingham and Nyjer Morgan, it’s going to attract some veteran players. These guys know what we are doing here. It’s all over the league where we are at and what we are trying to do. I think they can see this is the beginning of a good, exciting ballclub.

Yeah, a good, exciting ballclub that has lost 100 games in consecutive seasons. Yeah, a good, exciting ballclub that cites Josh Willingham and Nyjer Morgan as reasons to come join a perennial loser. I’m sorry, Mr. Rizzo, but you lost me at “Adam Dunn.”

The only way John Lackey suits up as a National in 2010 is if he decides to perform charity and “mentor” the likes of Jordan Zimmermann, Ross Detwiler, and Stephen Strasburg. It’s certainly going to take something or someone drastic to improve a team pitching staff that ranked 16th in wins, ERA, shutouts, hits allowed, earned runs allowed, and base-on-balls.

But once again, it’s really just sweet dreams to imagine a sport where ace pitchers doom themselves to perpetual loser-dom.

If John Lackey touches Washington with a 10-foot pole, I’d be surprised.

Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. None.

No chance.