Five For Fighting

Something amazing happened today: Kenny Williams made a solid baseball move. First, let's address the negatives. Orlando Hernandez is old, he is injury prone, and $4 million dollars is a large sum of money for a "fifth starter". Rumors have persisted for years now that El Duque may be closer to 45 than his listed age of 35. Clearly, we are looking at a pitcher on the downside of his career capable of missing quite a few starts the next two seasons despite a salary which would have netted Miguel Bautista or Mark Redman last offseason. However, it has become evident over the last few weeks that this is not last offseason. Contracts for starting pitchers in particular have spiraled out of control and at some point one simply has to accept that the only alternative to overpaying for pitching is working out a trade or perhaps forgoing pitcher in favor of adding more offense. With the club's sights set on adding more pitching, acquiring a fifth starter via free agency was clearly the White Sox best option as Jason Grilli is a tremendous liability in the starting rotation and Williams is a tremendous liability in trade negotiations, especially with one of the game's top pitching prospects down on the farm.

The good news is that Hernandez is still a very good pitcher. After returning from rotator cuff surgery last season, El Duque posted healthy strikeout and walk rates for a better than 2:1 strikeout to walk ratio. Perhaps more imporantly, he was stingy with the long ball for the second consecutive season after surrendering nearly 45 home runs in just 300 innings in '00 and '01. When healthy, Hernandez will easily be the team's third best starter behind Mark Buehrle and Freddy Garcia. Based on reports of fatigue late last season, using the fifth starter's spot to give Hernandez the occasional extra day or two of rest and ensuring Ozzie Guillen understands that Duque cannot go 110 pitches every game at this point in his career would be a good start towards preserving the pitcher's health.