Bruce Chen

I was entertaining an offer of Freddie Garica $16 for Mike Sweeney $16. The counteroffer was Sweeney/something for Garcia because Sweeney is frequently injured.

Before pursing this any further, I wanted to check stats of the players involved. As often happens, players full-season stats are not immediatley displayed due to trades, and I am unaware of how good or bad the player did over the entire season.

1st, Sweeny hit .300/21/83 in 470 ABs - very good numbers. If he were to stay healthy (150+ games), then he'd be a part of the wiinning Roto team. (Recently, he said he'd be OK DHing more.)

Next I checked Garcia. I thought he had done better than I thought he would prior to the start of the year due to the SEA/CHI splits from 2004.

He did do better - 14 W, 3.87 ERA, 1.25 WHIP in 228 IP. These were good, but not sure I liked that ERA so close to 4.00 for $16.

With these in hand, I noticed Bruce Chen ($10), who is already on my team. He had 13 W, 3.83 ERA and 1.27 WHIP in 197.1 innings.

Garcia's numbers were better, but I had to ask myslef whether dealing Sweeney for essentially the same player was wise.

I think not, but then embarked on finding a reason why and alit upon Leo Mazzone, Chen's new pitching coach in Baltimore. By my reckoning, Chen has some room to get better under Mazzone (this time!) while I do not see Garcia improving on his ratios. (maybe worsening if his defense is worst next year. See Bronson Arroyo.)