Just in, the Dodgers have signed reliever Will Ohman, which is something we’ve been hoping for for months around here. But that’s not the eye-catching part here, because look at this detail from the official release:
The Los Angeles Dodgers announced today that they have signed left-handed pitcher Will Ohman to a one-year minor league contract with Major League terms, including a club option for 2010.
A minor-league deal?! With a club option?! Holy hell, that price drop might even be more shocking than Orlando Hudson’s. Man, did Ohman’s agent screw this up or what? And yes, I was thinking that even before I read this quote from an anonymous AL talent evaluator in Buster Olney’s blog today:
“No. 2: What precisely was Will Ohman‘s agent thinking? He has said for a month that he had $1 million-plus on the table and just wanted performance bonuses to get to $2.50 million. Now, it is a week before Opening Day and the word out from his tryout for the Dodgers is that he isn’t close to ready to go. He should have just given up the ghost for ’09 and signed two weeks ago like Beimel.
Can’t argue that – this is simply a brutal downturn for Ohman. But hey, his loss is our gain, because adding a solid veteran arm to a bullpen that sorely needed is a huge win.
On another note, anyone over at Rotoworld want to wake up and pay attention?
Eric Milton… or Eric Stults… or…
[...] So when he became another victim of the lousy free agent market and signed with the Dodgers late in spring training, I was thrilled (and had only mentioned it about eleven times in March during the whole song-and-dance). [...]