Brandon Webb signs with the Texas Rangers

I would like to apologize for not writing this yesterday but I was stuck in New York for the day and did not have access to internet.

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Earlier yesterday morning, former Arizona Diamondbacks ace and 2006 Cy Young award winner Brandon Webb snagged a 1-year, $8 million with the reigning American League Champion Texas Rangers. Webb will be added to an already fortifiable starting rotation that consists of Tommy Hunter, Colby Lewis, CJ Wilson, and Scott Feldman (whose looking to earn his spot in the rotation again). They lost Cliff Lee to the Phillies so they needed to make a move to counter the loss. They could have gone after Carl Pavano, but just like everyone else, the Rangers do not think that the 35 year old can pitch as dominant as he did in 2010.

Here's the big catch with Brandon Webb, he had surgery on August 3rd, 2009. But since then, he has had shoulder problems that have been acting up and has thrown a total of 4.1 innings since his surgery. The Diamondbacks had a club option going into the 2010 season that would pay Webb $8.5 million or they could have paid $2 million for a buyout but opted to stick with Webb. Obviously that was a unlucky decision.

In the past six years, Webb has recorded an 87-62 record with a great 3.27 earned run average. In his career, he has averaged 3.60 pitches thrown in an opponent plate appearance so he knows how to keep his pitch count down. He has a 1.89 career G/F ratio so although he does not strike a crazy amount of batters out (career 7.26 K/9), he just gets them to ground out with his deadly sinker.

It seems that it is safe to bet that he will turn a great comeback year so expect somewhere around 3.80-4.15 ERA. His velocity will be way down and it's hard to guess at this point how his sinker will end up. I guess we'll find out when the season starts. Webb is 31 and will be turning 32 on May 9th. He should be a good veteran to have in the rotation. Expect manager Ron Washington to limit his innings this year. I think he should get in about 130-150 innings of work in 2011.

(Statistics in courtesy of: espn.com)