Trib States Renteria Signing Possible
I hate articles like this. The Chicago Tribune “reports” (Bob Foltman, “Cards’ Renteria ‘total package’,” 10/7/2004) that Tony LaRussa “might” be watching Edgar Renteria’s last game in a Cardinals uniform soon, as Renteria will be a free agent, and Cubs GM Jim Hendry “might” be interested in signing Renteria if he doesn’t re-sign Nomar Garciaparra.
The “support” for Hendry’s interest is this one statement in the article: “General manager Jim Hendry was in the Florida organization when it signed Renteria in 1992, and he long has admired the Colombian-born shortstop.”
This a news article with no news. Something like this is much better written as a column by an opinion columnist who can argue why or why not the Cubs should sign Renteria. (I don’t mean to blame Mr. Foltman, the staff reporter who wrote the article. His writing is certainly fine enough—though in lauding Renteria’s abilities, he misses that Renteria was only a league average offensive shortstop this year (.251 EqA v. .249 for all shortstops), certainly not the stuff of $10M/yr—and he was likely assigned to write the article.)
In any event, Renteria is better than Neifi Perez. The Chicago Sun-Times reported yesterday (Mike Kiley, “No waiting till next year,” 10/5/2004) that “Glendon Rusch and backup shortstop/second baseman Neifi Perez, both pickups from the junkpile, are the top unsigned players that Hendry will seek to retain.” Kiley has Perez taking over Ramon Martinez’s backup role, but still, Hendry appears to be confused. An out-of-the-blue 948 OPS in a month’s worth of play for the Cubs cannot mask a career of Neifierrific-ness (he couldn’t even get on base on Colorado). Perez had a lifetime OPS 18.5% below league average coming into this year, and he promptly put up an OPS this year with the Giants (571) more than 100 points worse than his career average, prior to his acquisition by the Cubs.
Russ Johnson hit .294/.394/.496 for Iowa this year, and has a career .349 OBA. in the majors in over 900 career plate appearances. Could he fill the utility infielder role better than either Martinez or Perez? It would depend in large part on his ability to play a good defensive shortstop, a position he’s only played minimally in his career. If he can’t play shortstop well, there has to be a number of other Russ Johnsons in Triple-A that would be better options than either Martinez or Perez.