Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Milton @ $25 Million

Massive debates are raging over the Eric Milton signing. Many Reds fans feel the contract is too large and too long. We'll see. $25 million is a lot. Uncle Carl has opened the purse a little, if for no reason other than good business. Another year of poor teams and attendance is going to suffer. A baseball game costs too much money for "casual, entertainment fans" to come back often enough to build a good gate.

Milton is a fly ball pitcher. On the plus side, ESPN says that the homers in GABP are about 4% over normal, while in Philly they are 13% over normal, so his numbers should get a little better.

In 2004, the Reds had only three pitchers pitch anything close to significant innings who had a GO/FO ratio near Milton's. One was Gabe White who gave up 6 HR's in 21 innings at home...near 3/ 9 IP. On the other hand, Joe Valentine, who had an ERA of 4.40, gave up 2 in 14.1 innings at home, for a ratio of about 1.3--or above league average. Finally, Luke Hudson gave up 2 in twenty five innings pitched at home with a 4.26 ERA. This should demonstrate that you can pitch with fly balls in the ballpark--if only in short duration.

Hudson is more of a power pitcher than Milton, so that helps. Still, I think Milton can bring down his HR numbers in GABP.

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