With only two starters under contract at the end of the 2010 season, the Dodgers knew they had a lot of work to do to strengthen their rotation.
Not even a month later, they already completed their Christmas shopping.
First it was Ted Lilly, then Hiroki Kuroda, and now Jon Garland has returned to the Dodgers with a one-year, $5 million deal to be the fifth starter. The signing gives the Dodgers five starters who won at least 10 games this past season.
Garland is coming of a fine season for the Padres in which he went 14-12 with a 3.47 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, and 136 strikeouts in exactly 200 innings pitched. He was a big reason they spent most of the season in first place of the NL West before losing it at the end to the Giants.
He'll be entering his 12th big league season in which he sports a career 4.32 ERA. Keep in mind that he pitched for the Dodgers in '09 after being traded for Tony Abreu at the trade deadline. He pitched very well, going 3-2 with a 2.72 ERA, but was a victim of the numbers game and got left off the postseason roster under Joe Torre.
The Dodgers obviously had many needs going into the season, but the starting rotation was the one that arguably struck out the most. Just like that, it's been taken care of, and Ned Colletti deserves plenty of credit for this.
Don't get me wrong, Garland isn't Cy Young material, and I would expect his ERA to be closer to 4.00 than the mid-3's he had last season. But, for an end-of-rotation guy, he fits the mold very well. He routinely pitches 200 innings and has only been on the DL once in his career.
With the Winter Meetings a week away, Colletti can now concentrate on getting his offense some more thump. He's got the horses to start the game, now he needs guys to give them run support. Stay tuned.
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