In a bit of old news, Ken Rosenthal reports that the Dodgers have claimed Esteban Loaiza off waivers from the A’s. As Rosenthal rightly puts it, no trade was made. The A’s basically gave Loaiza to the Dodgers, with the latter assuming the remainder of Loaiza’s contract.

All of the people who tout Beane as a great GM should remember the Loaiza move for years to come. When Billy Beane first signed Loaiza, I thought it was a bad move for the A’s, and a particularly bad move for a low budget team. A 3-year $21.4 million deal for an average pitcher? Sure Loaiza was coming off a great year, but he played in the NL with the Nationals- a team that didn’t really have any goals, thus it was a no-pressure situation.

Beane redeems himself with this “move” to an extent. Why are the Dodgers accumulating average pitchers? I don’t know. Whoever said you can’t have too much starting pitching was hopefully talking about good pitchers.