Wow, when will it end? Today Pat Gillick announced the signing of Julio Santana, a right-handed reliever from Milwaukee, to a one year $800,000 deal. In 42.0 innings last season, Santana allowed 34 hits, walked 19 and struck out 49; opponents batted .221 against him. Santana has played for 5 major league teams, as well as one in Japan and in the minors for the Fightins’ in Scranton. It appears he will be playing some sort of middle reliever role, nothing too crucial at the moment.
Going back a day to a whole ‘nother signing, we’ve received a scouting report on Abraham Nunez. This comes from our friends over at Viva el Birdos: A St. Louis Cardinals Blog:
He had never produced offensively before last season – a strongly net-negative offensive player, but he was a godsend for stl when Rolen went out. Outstanding in the field and much better than expected with the bat. Another card blogger showed that Nunez significantly increased his walks and cut down on his strikeouts last year, as opposed to prior years. So he either has improved his strike-zone discipline, or he had a fluky year. One caveat — he cooled down considerably in August / September; I don’t have the splits in front of me, but you can find ’em at ESPN if you want [It’s true]. But he hit very well in the playoffs. Another caveat: La Russa has a sterling record with players of this type: utility guys with poor hitting records who inexplicably have career years under his management. but many of them revert once they leave the Cards — examples include Tom Paquette, Joe McEwing, Tony Womack. Last year, Eckstein and Nunez both had career years.
I hope he plays well for the Phils — likeable player, great in the field, good smarts, etc.
Well, sounds good enough for me as long as he avoids that post-St. Louis drop off.
In other news, nothing new on the Bobby Abreu trade front – it may have all been a hoax. Not likely, though, the way Pat Gillick’s been moving. He might blow out a hip before Spring Training even gets here. That’d be fine with me, who else can hardly wait to see how this team performs? I’m afraid there will be even more pressure on the 2006 Phils than the past couple years. But hey, that’s why they get paid the big bucks, right?
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