On Mark Hendrickson…

Mark Hendrickson will be back in Baltimore in 2010. He’s taking a small paycut and will likely join the team as a long reliever and spot-starter (especially in the team’s early April stretch of 16 straight games, which I’ll rant on later). I’m torn on the signing, but definitely see the value Hendrickson adds to this club. First and foremost, he adds a left arm to a staff that, before his signing, likely only had two lefties, total (Brian Matusz and Mike Gonzalez). Having Hendrickson around for long-relief – thereby giving the likes of Matt Albers and Koji Uehara a little more rest – certainly isn’t a bad thing. And if you look at Hendrickson’s numbers last season, they were far from awful (well, at least after May). In fact, despite my consistent joking last year that Hendrickson was the king of allowing inherited runners to score, that was hardly the case. It only felt that way. Hendrickson finished the season tied for 8th in the l...