So how about this?
What is it with great players at the end of their careers having to jump from one unmemorable stint with a wrong-seeming team to another rather than just leaving well enough alone?
Now, when I first heard this, I figured the Phillies must've looked at him really closely and determined that he was 100% healed from whatever was ailing him last year, when he was, um, horrible. So then what's the next thing that happens? They put him on the DL.
Incidentally, does that ever happen? I've never heard of anyone going from free agency straight to the DL before.
Anyway. It's not a big deal in the end; they're paying him $1 million (up to $2.5 with incentives). He might not even make an appearance with the big-league club. But here's the thing: you have to figure that however many appearances he does make with the Phillies, he'll hurt the team approximately that many times. He hasn't been a good pitcher since 2005, and he was awful when healthy last year.
Consider this: he gave up 19 HR (tied for the fourth-highest total in his career) in just 110 innings in 2008. Shea was a bad home run park; Citizens Bank is a good one. In 10 innings in the Phillies' home park last year, Pedro surrendered 4 home runs. Terribly small sample size and all that, but Pedro is 38, hasn't pitched competitively in nearly ten months, and obviously isn't healthy. Say he goes down to AAA for a couple starts and uses guile and the awe of facing Pedro freaking Martinez to go 12 innings and give up 3 runs and strike out 10. If you're a Phillies fan, do you really want him up and facing the Mets at CBP in August? Or do you kind of have to secretly hope he never makes it out of the minors? I know they're feeling pretty desperate, but it would almost be hard to find somebody that wouldn't figure to be better than Pedro right now.
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