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1.30.2004
Oliver signs with Florida
This was news about two days ago, but I didn't get to it then. Darren Oliver has been a very mediocre (or bad) pitcher over the course of his career, and is now 33. He's coming off a season in Colorado where he pitched 180.1 innings (33 appearances, 32 starts), allowing 201 hits (21 homers), walking 61 and striking out 88 while posting a 13-11 record with a 5.05 ERA. You'd expect improvement in some of those numbers as he moves from the pitchers' hell that is Coors Field to Miami, but he actually pitched pretty well - relative to his usual performance - in Denver last year. At Coors, he compiled a 7-3 record with a 4.50 ERA, allowing 89 hits (12 homers), walking 26 and striking out 40 over 78 innings (14 starts, 1 relief appearance). On the road, he was 6-8 with a 5.45 ERA, allowing 112 hits (9 homers), walking 35 and striking out 48 over 102.1 innings (18 starts). So while getting out of Colorado is likely to help Oliver as it would any pitcher, I don't know that we should expect him to post considerably better numbers than he did at Coors, even knowing that his new home park, Pro Player Stadium in Miami, has historically been a good pitcher's park. I just came across an article by Clark Spencer in the Miami Herald (here, if you want it) comparing this acquisition to that of Mark Redman before last season. I freely admit that I'm a bit of Redman lover, but there are some pretty significant differences between the two. Most notably, coming into last season, Redman had basically two full seasons (he made 11 starts between Minnesota and Detroit in 2001) under his belt, very much a work in progress. He was also only 29, while Oliver is four years older and has a much larger body of work for us to look at. Expecting Oliver to improve significantly as Redman did seems awfully foolhardy to me, but I tend to think it's mere wishful thinking on the part of Mr. Spencer and not necessarily what the organization is counting on. The Marlins have pared some salary this offseason and this is only a $750,000 contract, so they're not taking a huge risk here, though in this market I'd have expected that he'd end up with an incentive-laden minor league deal. The hope is that Oliver can be supplanted in the rotation when the injured A.J. Burnett returns (he's shooting for May, though I can't say I know how realistic that is). Either way, Oliver's only being counted on to be the team's fifth starter, and while certainly not your first choice, he shouldn't kill the team in that role. - |