Brian Lawrence probably won’t matter
Whether or not he signs here. Really.
He had shoulder surgery and didn’t pitch last year.
Almost no one comes back from shoulder surgery to retain their former glory.
Fewer still return to be that effective the year after a layoff.
The glory of Brian Lawrence was the perfectly good 2002 in San Diego where he went 12-12, threw 210 innings, didn’t give up many home runs, and put up a pretty nice K and walk numbers. From 2003-2004, he was pretty much the same low-walk, low-K every year, even though his W-L bounced around a lot.
If you get the perfectly healthy and rehabilitated Lawrence-in-decline, he’s overwhelmingly likely to be a below-average starter in the same general vein that Batista/Ramirez are. Healthy, he’d be an upgrade over the current candidates for the 5th starter slot… but probably not.
Of course, standard caveats apply: I’m not a doctor, I haven’t looked in his shoulder, I don’t know how he’s throwing, and so on and so forth. But the odds that he’ll be a significant contributor to any team next year are pretty slim.
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That’s where his grit and hussle would really pay off!
Looks like we’re losing out on Lawrence.
Word out of the Rockies camp is he’s about to sign a 1 year deal with the Rockies even though the M’s offered him more.
Onto the next reclamation project.
What’s wrong with Tomo Ohka?