Point/Counterpoint: Signing Bronson Arroyo

Let me don my Captain Obvious apparel for my first point: we need pitching.  More to the point, we need good pitching.  Is Arroyo good?  Over the last five years his average ERA is 4.06 and his WHIP is 1.23.  Definitely not great but certainly good, and both have trended downward since a bad 2011.  I work (in a certain unnamed capacity) for the government and we have a saying: good enough is good enough.  Bronson Arroyo is the civil service worker of available starting pitchers, and that slots perfectly for us as a #3 starter for the next two years while we frantically till the soil of our barren farm system in the hopes that a quality arm will somehow sprout.  You could even say Arroyo is the lady still at the bar at closing time – hey, ya gotta fill that rotation spot with somebody and she’s the best option out there.  If we don’t get Arroyo then we’re gonna be scouting outside the bar at 2AM, and really…we’re better than that. 

What?  I haven’t convinced you yet?  Maybe you like the post-closing-time options out there, or prefer to go with someone already on our team.  We got a few young arms for Trumbo (great move, Jerry!) but we’re not sure how they’re gonna turn out.  Normally I like the “throw the kid in the deep end and see if he can swim” approach but we’re counting on Skaggs and Santiago (I will always weep for Santiago because I have that luxury) to solidify the rotation well into the future, and we don’t want to mess them up by starting them too soon.  Arroyo gives us the option of holding at least one of them back a bit for development; he’s the ultimate back-up plan.  We need that back-up and he’s the best risk out there.  Capuano?  Capu no-no is more like it.  He’s more risky than giving Pujols the green light to steal.  Scott Baker?  We already have Mark Mulder filling the “hope a pitcher that is coming back from injury returns to previous form” slot, otherwise known as the Madson Move.  There’s only one of those slots on the team.
   
Still not convinced?  Well then, I give you this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkXv7s9JSv0  And this:

That is magic waiting to happen.  They’d be the Ryan and Tanana of annoying back-to-back pitchers, and the sum of those two would be much greater than the parts.  I can’t find the exact statistic but I’m sure that is like an automatic +6 WAR with them combined like that.   

It’s a no-brainer.  Sign Arroyo now.

Counterpoint – Don’t sign this dude! 

Glen you ignorant slut!

Déjà vu!  We need pitching, but Bronson Blanton?  Besides those hideous dreads and utter desecration of an awesome song, he had an over 4 ERA in the NL!  We see what happens when these guys come over to the AL … they suck.

The only good thing about Arroyo is his leg kick.  But after seeing it I have to wonder if he even has a left knee.  How does one get their leg that straight?  And holy cow!  The douche factor is through the roof!  Look at this picture; he looks like a douchier version of Nick Swisher!  Amazing, right?

That definitely looks like a man that would complain to the media about not receiving an offer yet.  He also used Andro and Amphetamines, and admitted that he may have taken a banned substance since he didn’t take the care to get his supplements from approved MLB sources.  That sort of laziness and carelessness is not the kind of trait you want for a MLB player.

Why bother with these washed up vets?  There is a reason he hasn’t received an offer yet … he sucks!  I know we need pitching but bringing in vets just means that Scioscia will pitch them even when they are terrible.  We seem to go through this every season, durable steady NL pitchers, there was Piniero, then Blanton, please don’t add Arroyo to this list.  I am not sure I can suffer through any more “the ball was coming out of his hand well” and “Butchy has been working with him” or my favorite;  “Bronnie is just going through a dead arm period.”

There really aren’t any good options out there.  We should just stand pat and go into the season with what we have.  I don’t believe that throwing the kids into the fire will hurt their development, besides; both Skaggs and Santiago have decent MLB experience.