Ok so here I'm going to evaluate whether the big acquisition of the three teams has made a contribution worth what they signed him for during the offseason so far, starting with the Cardinals and their signing of shortstop Jhonny Peralta. Alright so some, including myself were a bit confused when the Cardinals signed Jhonny Peralta to a 4 year deal over the offseason, mainly because of all the controversy surrounding him and PED allegations, though I guess the Orioles did the same thing with Nelson Cruz so let's take a look at what he's done so far.
Well the shortstop position has been a bit confusing for the Cardinals this year, first they shell $53 million over 4 years to Peralta, then they sign Aldemys Diaz to a 4 year deal worth $8 million but he's holding up in AAA. Well Peralta is who has the starting job so lets look at his stats. Well as of now he is sitting with a .063 AVG, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 2 H, 3 R, 0 SB and .189 OBP, now those are some very terrible stats. While I understand that it's early in the season he hasn't been facing a lot of elite level pitching the whole time, as well his fielding has been pretty bad as well since he has already made 2 errors, which is 50% of the errors he made last year. This just seems more and more like a case of can't play without the PEDs, which it may very well turn out to be, now there isn't much to focus in on thats positive but I suppose the fact that he hasn't raised his strikeouts a whole lot is a good indication that it's not likely to get any worse as thats usually an indication of lost ability in a hitter (and with Arencibia as the Jays catcher last year I know that all too well). Overall it seems that Peralta is not what the Cardinals were hoping for and he is certainly not pulling his weight on the 4 year deal he signed.
Next up are the Orioles and their big spending addition Ubaldo Jimenez. Now I once said if I were an exec or fantasy owner I wouldn't touch Jimenez with a 10 foot pole, and guess what? That still stands. So when I saw Baltimore sign him to a 4 year $50 million deal I nearly threw up a lung. And as expected through his first 2 starts Jimenez has been awful, sitting with an ERA of 6.75, 10K, 1.97 WHIP, 8BB, 13H and a W-L record of 0-2. Now the issue for him was coming to the AL East, he was coming from the AL Central, the weakest of the AL divisions (and don't give me any crap about the AL West being light, just look at who they have pitching wise and not to mention Beltre, Trout, Pujols, Hamilton, Cano, Hart and even Castro to a lesser extent). So it was expected to be a rough transition, however the 2 games he has pitched have been against division rivals in both the home park and on the road, and he seemed to have the same issues as before, problems commanding his pitches, which lead to the total 8 walks he currently has and the 2 home runs he gave up in the first game. Due to this he has thrown more pitches and worn himself out in these outings (ie. 106 pitches in 4.2 innings in his last outing). Again just like Peralta, Jimenez is sure not pulling along the $50 million the Orioles are paying him.
Now the Toronto Blue Jays only had one real acquisition this offseason and that would be Dioner Navarro, now plenty of people looked at this signing with confusion since Navarro wasn't a starting catcher and his numbers weren't phenomenal if you stretched them to a full season. However Navarro has been earning the 2 year $8 million deal he got, now the first thing Navarro has been doing is taking control of the pitching staff, this is a big deal because a smart catcher can play pitches often better than the pitcher can and it's been showing in the outings the McGowan, Hutchison and Buehrle have put up so far this season. In addition Navarro hasn't driven himself to a huge number of stats (.269 AVG, 4R, 11H, 0HR, 7RBI, 2BB, and 1SB). What Navarro has been able to do is act as a quality bat, which was a problem with the 'strikeout alley' we had in our 6-9 batting order positions, this year even though Navarro doesn't often get the pitch to drive out of the stadium he more often can make quality sacrifice plays that move the runner along, which is part of why the Jays hitting game has been weak for a while. Additionally other members of the team seem to like the chemistry between Navarro and the starting rotation and I'd say thats a good thing if the other players think highly of what he is doing. Unlike the previous signings Navarro was kind of a gamble as he was a part time player and even though his stats were good there was no guarantee he could replicate his part time numbers into a full time catching position. So far however Navarro has been pulling his weight and then some on his contract.
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