Well it’s that time of year again, when General Managers across baseball fail to take into account things like fluke seasons, age and replaceability. Jim Hendry and the Chicago Cubs have thus far been 2005′s worst offenders, committing significant resources to both Neifi Perez and Scott Eyre. Perez isn’t the least handy guy to have around on your roster because he can field. Problem is, when you start handing him a lot of plate appearances, he’ll hurt your offense badly. When you give him six-hundred plate appearances and bat him second as Dusty Baker almost surely will, he’ll submerge any and all contention hopes you might have. There’s just no need to be handing out serious resources to a guy whose main skill-set you can take advantage of simply by taking a good hard look around your minor league rosters. The Washington Nationals’ current, and Red Sox prospective General Manager Jim Bowen made one such move yesterday as well. The Nats inked Marlon Anderson to a 2-year deal worth a little less than $2 million. Anderson’s pretty much useless at this point. He is not much of a hitter and though he can play multiple positions, he doesn’t play any of them particularly well. $2 million isn’t a ton of money, but there is just no need to be seeking these types of players out.

Eyre provides a different case. On the one hand, he had a very good year in 2005, and assuming he can replicate 2005 in each of the next three seasons, the $11.5 million the Cubs committed to Eyre might make a little sense. But if you even for one second try and actually analyze whether or not Eyre would be worth it, there’s just no way around concluding that this move just smacks of lunacy. For starters, Eyre will be 34 years old next season. Further, even though he had a 157 ERA+ in 2005, his career numbers are far less impressive. Here’s an excerpt from the story in the San Francisco Gate…

Eyre led the league with 86 appearances pitching for San Francisco last season, going 2-2 with a career best 2.63 ERA. He struck out 65 batters and walked 26 in 68 1-3 innings, holding opponents to a .200 batting average.

I can’t wait for the day when a story like this one says something like this…

“The Cubs inked Scott Eyre yesterday to a three-year, $11.5 million dollar deal. Eyre is 34 years-old and sports a career 4.52 ERA.”

What’s worse for the Cubs, Eyre doesn’t really fit all that well on their roster. Wil Ohman is a perfectly fine LOOGY, and Glendon Rusch has proven to be useful over the last few seasons. Committing finite resources to guys like Perez and Eyre will almost certainly limit their ability to add an additional hitter or two to a lineup that is in desperate need of another impact bat.

I guess I am not surprised but it never ceases to amaze me that GM’s don’t learn from their past mistakes. I mean the Cubs are just now getting out of their crippling, three-year obligation to Mike Remlinger, whom they signed after he had his very best year in his mid-thirties. If General Managers could understand three things about roster construction, they would do a lot to avoid the pitfalls of a bad acquisition. First, that there are a lot of minor leaguers that could do just as well as the lower tier of Major League players and effectively rewarding players for service time is a mistake. Second, players have excellent seasons sometimes that do not necessarily portend the replication of that season. A player’s full record is more instrutive than his most recent season. And finally, guys regress as they age.

Replaceability, fluke seasons and regression due to age. Just keep those things in mind and you’ll be ok.

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