Inking Lefties: Noel Arguelles and John Parrish

Three days ago we learned that LHP-John Parrish signed a minor league contract with the Royals.  Today we got word that LHP-Noel Arguelles has officially signed with the team.

I don’t have much to add on Arguelles signing since I devoted a fair number of words to the news back on December 7th, but I am glad that it is finally official.  Noel is now on the 40-man roster, and will be invited to spring training though he has no shot to make the major league roster according to Dayton Moore.

"There’s no chance for him to make our Major League team out of Spring Training. We don’t expect that, we don’t anticipate that. He’ll start somewhere in our system — he’s 19 years old, so it’ll be like getting a sophomore in college basically."

Click here for Dick Kaegel’s post on MLB.com and here for Sam Mellinger’s post on Kansas City.com.  Kaegel reports that the deal is for $6.9 million, while Mellinger reports that the deal is for $7 million with $2 million in incentives.  Either way it is money well spent by the organization.  Both speculate that Noel will likely start the season in High-A with Wilmington which seems about right since Danny Duffy, Mike Montgomery, and Aaron Crow should open in Double-A.

~~~~~

Parrish is now 32-years old and joins the Royals organization after missing the entire 2009 season after having surgery to repair a torn labrum.  He was a 25th round pick of the Orioles in the 1996 draft.  In addition to Baltimore, Parrish has also pitched in the Mariners and Blue Jays organizations.  He has logged 751.2 innings in the minors with a 3.54 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, and 9.0 SO/9.  In 207 games in the minors he has started 101, but also has 10 saves to his credit.

In addition to his time in the minors, Parrish has also spent parts of seven seasons in the majors.  His time in the bigs has been spent in the pen, and he has only 16 starts spread out among the 174 games he has pitched in.  The career stats in the majors are mediocre:  4.54 ERA, 1.69 WHIP, 7.3 SO/9, and 99 ERA+.  From 2003-2005 he had a 3.10 ERA in 119 IP which was his best stretch.  His ERA+ during that run was 236 in 2003, 133 in 2004, and 136 in 2005.

Parrish last pitched in the majors in 2008 as a part of the Blue Jays and finished that season with a 4.04 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, and 105 ERA+ in 42.1 IP.  Those innings came as a result of 6 starts and 7 relief appearances.  A pretty respectable showing, but that was before his shoulder surgery.

Like Arguelles, he was invited to spring training, but apparently he actually has a chance to make the team according to Jin Wong.

"He’ll be tried as a starter but could make the club in any role."

Instead of making the opening day roster, Parrish will find his way to Omaha.  Assuming he can bounce back from shoulder surgery, which is far from a sure thing, he’ll be fortunate to make a brief appearance in Kansas City later in the year.  The Royals have assembled a fair amount of Triple-A pitching depth through a slew of minor league contracts this offseason, and competition to pick up any available ML innings figures to be fierce.  He is a lefty so he has an advantage, but I anticipate that Hughes and Osuna will hold their own if they stay healthy.

In addition to his spring 2009 shoulder surgery, he also missed part of 2005 and the entire 2006 season recovering from Tommy John surgery.  He also missed the entire 2002 season but I was unable to track down why he missed that season.  Parrish is the type of guy you root for, but I don’t anticipate that he will make any contribution to the Kansas City Royals.  Hopefully he can recapture some success in Triple-A and parlay that success into an opportunity to make a big league team in 2011.

~~~~~

Two lefties.  One 19, one 32.  One is part of the future, one is just trying to extend his career and make it back from another injury.  Neither figures to contribute to the major league team in 2010.

(Wally Fish is the lead blogger for Kings of Kauffman and FanSided’s MLB Director.  Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)