Transaction Scorecard: Jarrett Martin (LHP) and Tyler Henson (OF) for Dana Eveland (LHP)

First, I’m not sold on Eveland’s turnaround. The majority of innings pitched last year were for the Dodgers’ AAA squad, in which innings he pitched at a level very similar to his numbers in his last few stints at AAA. When he came back to MLB, he pitched well sometimes and disasterous sometimes but in a sample size of 29.2 innings. I don’t think I need to tell anyone that a 29 IP sample is not particularly significant. Although one can argue that it is a glimmer of a turnaround, I would bet you can find a couple 29 inning stretches from Eveland’s career in which he pitched as well or better. I haven’t done the research so I don’t know.

Additionally, there are a number of signs that Eveland is in decline. His average fastball velocity has decreased from 90.9 mph in his MLB debut to 87.8 mph now. This seems especially important given that his other pitches have not experienced a similar decrease in velocity, which means there is less of a separation between his fastball and offspeed pitches. His K rate has decreased from a creer average of 5.85% to the 4% range. Consequently, hitters are making more contact with Eveland’s pitches as evidenced by his increasing contact percentage rates. I haven’t read anythign about Eveland that indicates a change in pitching approach or learning a new pitch since he learned a cutter in 2009 (or at least that’s when Pitch f/x started picking up that pitch). Moreover, all of Eveland’s fastball, slider, and cutter rank as below average pitches according to Pitch Value and those are the pitches he throws almost 90% of the time.

Anyway, there are a number of FA pitchers available that are as good or better than Eveland, including but not limited to E. Jackson, P. Maholm, J. Vazquez (if he doesn’t retire), B. Colon (esp. if we’re talking about evidence of a turnaround), R. Oswalt, H. Kuroda, and even J. Francis and J. Marquis (who are pretty much Dana Eveland).

I think that pretty much sums it up.