Brian Lawrence

New Pirate rumor: Pirates interested in signing Brian Lawrence. Lawrence had surgery to repair multiple partial tears in his rotator cuff and labrum. A decent bit of surgery, but nothing unusual.

On one hand, this seems like a decent signing. Lawrence has put up solid, innings eater type numbers for most of his career with San Diego, which is just the kind of pitcher the Pirates could use. He also, due to the spook of surgery (and only being pursued by NL West teams not named LA or SF) could come noticeably cheaper than the equivalent Tomo Ohka (now being chased by the Mets).

Then I started researching, and the more I looked, the less I like this idea. Sure, it would be very reasonable to project Lawrence as a 10-15 win, 200 inning, 4.50 ERA type pitcher. Hooray. Except it typically takes a pitcher a full season to get back into form, so we could reasonably expect numbers worse than that, at least this season. On top of that, Lawrence's numbers against the NLCD are worse than his career averages*.

In 37 career starts against the NLCD, Lawrence is 10-22 with a 4.69 ERA, a 1.48 WHIP and 27 HR.
In 19 starts in NLCD parks, he is 5-13 with a 5.70 ERA, a 1.45 WHIP and 18HR.

Those don't strike me as great numbers, though I give him slight reprieve for a 2.5:1 K/BB ratio.

I dunno, maybe he'll be a very respectable pitcher. I just don't see it happening in 2007 - probably in 20008, by which time we will have traded him.
* For simplicity's sake, I am ignoring his two 1 inning relief appearances against the Pirates and Reds.