Kris Benson's long road back from injury took a detour today, as the veteran right-hander missed a scheduled start with an unspecified ailment he self-diagnosed as biceps tendinitis. Meanwhile, Kyle Lohse slips on his Cardinals uniform after signing a one-year deal with St. Louis for a bit over $4 million plus incentives. ESPN analyst Keith Law praises the Cards for the move:
Over at BackSheGoes.com, TGP poster MattS suggests that the Phillies were "afraid of having 6 starters." I think this is correct, with the slight modification that their real fear was "paying for six starters." Once they made their deal for Benson, the door closed on a Lohse return.
The problem is that Lohse projects for about 2.5 Wins Above Replacement Player (see here for the definition of WARP) in 2008, according to Baseball Prospectus; by comparison, Adam Eaton comes in at 1.7 (and BP is more optimistic about him than anyone else), Travis Blackley is under 1, Chad Durbin a bit over 1, and Benson himself at 0.6.
But at least the owners won't be out that $4 million and change for the ingrate Lohse. They sure showed him.