Vladimir Guerrero and Tori Hunter: Not shocking that two of the outfielders that the Dodgers coveted ended up with the Angels and no more shocking that they ended up on the overpaid list afterwards. The Dodgers are notorious for driving up the market value of mediocre talent (see Jason Schmitt, and Kevin Brown). In defense of the Dodgers however, they were pursuing Vlad Guerrero at one point who was the most feared hitter in baseball due to his ability to hit to all fields, hit for power and have nice speed. Their scouting was spot on with this one. Unfortunately instead of signing him when he was a free agent, and basically short changing him, the Dodgers decided they’d stick it out with his worthless older brother Wilton, who then ended up being more famous for corking his bat and then trying to grab it off of the field before an ump saw it. Much like his swing against a fastball, old “Corky” as he came to be known, was late again and the ump caught him. Is it any surprise that the Dodgers went after an aging outfielder who everyone know could not replicate the numbers from his contract year? The good news for Dodger fans is Arte Moreno (GM of the Angels) was dumb enough to fall for it. The bad news is he’s still better than Andruw Jones.
