Last WTF Moment of 2008 For Dodgers: Signing Claudio Vargas

I was going to write a long diatribe about this, but seeing that our friends over at Sons of Steve Garvey covered this atrocity already, I’ll let a brief snippet from them speak for me:

Dodger fans worldwide could hardly contain their unbridled elation following the blockbuster news that Dodger GM Ned Colletti, having missed out on signing CC Sabathia, today signed 30-year old Claudio Vargas, “in a move that could help [the Dodgers] restock their starting rotation.” (I kid you not, this clause is taken straight from the dodgers.com article; I had to check the date to make sure it wasn’t April 1 after I read the implausible text.)

The Dodgers, of course, are down two starting pitchers following the loss of Brad Penny and the imminent loss of Derek Lowe. Bring on the Vargas, says Ned!

What? You’ve never heard of Claudio Vargas? Well then maybe you’ve heard of his statistical peers, Paul Abbott, Jeff Robinson, and Steve Parris (the latter of which is not to be confused with the lead singer of Journey). Oh, Sherrie! But hey, let’s welcome journeyman Vargas and his mediocre 4.62 ERA with the Mets last year, spanning a whopping 37 total innings pitched

Huh? Someone tell me why the Dodgers are even wasting time with Vargas in the first place – please! Is signing a guy that will get the league minimum (albeit with incentives attached) even noteworthy when you see 16 guys enter free agency that were on the Dodgers roster last season?

OK – it’s too early to get frustrated yet…we haven’t even finished a complete day of 2009. I’m not thrilled with Uncle Ned’s work to round out the year, however, and hope he has a New Year’s resolution to actually acquire some talent and be ready to pay some money for it.

Oh yeah, and unload Andruw Jones- that would settle me down until spring training