02 April 2006

Building the Rangers Starting Staff

The Phillies seem to be in the business of supplying starting pitchers to the Texas Rangers these days. After giving away Vicente Padilla (Ricardo Rodriquez has been released if you haven't heard), Pat Gillick has completed the trade of Robinson Tejeda and Jake Blalock for outfielder David Dellucci.

It's a shame to see the talented arm of Tejeda go, but his value may have peaked last year. He has never projected to a solid major league pitcher, mostly due to his inability to find the strike zone. Last year his stuff was electric, but he threw a large number of balls out of the strike zone and seemed to live on the edge in every game he pitched. The ability to move Tejeda so easily seems to point to how deep the Phillies young pitching goes, as I've discussed in a previous post.

As for Dellucci, the Phillies are getting a pretty solid outfielder that can serve as the left handed power that Gillick has wanted available from the bench. In fact, Delucci was the starting left fielder for the Texas Rangers last year and put up some pretty impressive numbers.

David Dellucci (2005) - 29 HR / 65 RBI / .251 BA
(2006 Pre-Trade Projections) - 21 HR / 57 RBI / .244 BA

With this signing, the question has to be asked...Is there another shoe ready to drop? Dellucci could be a starting outfielder on many major league teams with the potential for 30 home runs in 500 plus at bats. Is he really just going to serve as the 4th or 5th outfielder for the Phillies? Perhaps, but it makes you wonder if Gillick has another deal in the making. Perhaps a Burrell or Abreu deal for that elusive top-of-the-rotation starter. Hopefully this isn't a signal that Burrell's injury is more severe than has been let on.

The bottom-line, for now, is that the Phillies get the bench depth they have been searching for, and Dellucci should provide plenty of home runs in his at bats as a starter or a pinch hitter. Over his career, mostly in part-time service, he has averaged a home run for every 28 at bats, but in the last 2 years he has averaged a home run every 16.6 at bats. Which means if he gets 200 at bats in part time duty, we could see 12 home runs from Dellucci, and that's pretty good news.

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