Angels Ink Justin Speier

Four years, $18MM. My gut instinct is to criticize multi-year, multi-million dollar deals for relief pitchers, especially relief pitchers that aren't closers. The Angels have made a habit of getting pretty good performances from scrap-heap guys over the last six or seven years, then letting them loose on other teams just before they ran out of good pitches (Mark Petkovsek is the poster boy for this, but they got good seasons out of Ben Weber, Al Levine, and Lou Pote before they fell off the map as well). But the Angels bucked this trend last year with the signing of Hector Carrasco (tempered somewhat by the original plan to start him before signing Jeff Weaver, and before the emergence of Jered Weaver). So for the second year in a row, the Angels move to shore up their bullpen via free agency, signing the best free agent middle reliever on the market.

Speier is the son of former major leaguer Chris Speier, which pretty much means absolutely nothing, but I had his baseball card as a kid, so I thought I'd throw that out there. Basically this move drops JC Romero completely out of the picture (mercifully), as Speier has killed lefties the last couple of years, and drops Carrasco and Donnelly back a spot in the bullpen, assuming Donnelly returns (Stoneman has said he likely will). That won't make Donnelly very happy, but it does give the Angels the top bullpen in the AL heading into the season. As we all know, bullpens aren't built on paper, so that guarantees the Angels absolutely nothing but peace of mind for the first couple weeks of April.

It also increases the possibility that the Angels could include Scot Shields in a deal for a big bat this off-season. He's been in the mind of every team that has tried to deal with Stoneman the last few seasons, and now that the Angels have another guy capable of pitching the 8th, Shields could be used to sweeten the pot for a potential slugger, especially in light of the fact that they just removed the other best alternative from the market. Shields hits free agency next season (I think), and if this deal is an indication of his value, he'll probably command a deal of similar length at something closer to $6MM per. That may be more than Stoneman is willing to shell out.

As the Rev pointed out, this could be a case of Stoneman taking into account where the budget is going for the next couple of years and spending accordingly. At the beginning of the 2005 season, the Angels had expensive players at every infield position except for third base while employing a fairly cheap bullpen. Catcher, First, and Second just got a lot cheaper in the last year, and Stoneman probably feels like he has money to spend on a part of the roster that a) needs help, and b) saved them money over the last few years. That's fairly astute analysis, and I wish I'd thought of it.

Against my prior judgment, I like this deal. It gives the Angels options heading into the season, and should they choose not to exercise them, they're going to have an excellent bullpen yet again. This has been Bud Black's forte, so it make Mike Butcher's job a little easier as well. And if they make a move including Shields, they just paid a couple million to enhance his value.