Someone Needs to Save (The) O'Day

[Note by R.J. Anderson, 11/03/08 6:53 PM EST ] Oops, apparently I missed the news that O'Day suffered a torn labrum. My apologies.

So I was scoping the transactions wire, and ran across a week old line that read something like this:

"Angels outright RP Darren O'Day..."

I was, and still am, a bit perturbed. I'll admit that I'm a rather big fan of O'Day -- perhaps the biggest, because hey, who in the heck is Darren O'Day anyways? -- but the move seems to be made in order to place Rafael Rodriguez on the 40-man. I'm not intimate in knowledge of the Angels 40-man yet wouldn't Terry Evans or Freddy Sandoval make more sense to dump instead of O'Day?

I don't see the logic in getting rid of O'Day, and here's why. O'Day nets nearly 60% groundballs, had an unlucky BABIP, and finished with a 3.36 tRA and 3.64 FIP. O'Day was no Chad Bradford either, he actually got six strikeouts per nine and only walked three. What in the world are the Angels looking at to send him down? Well, I think I found it: a 4.57 ERA.

I'm unsure how O'Day went unclaimed through waivers either, considering he ranked 32nd in reliever tRA. In fact, I did a quick search of teams where his tRA would be the best in the bullpen:

BAL
DET
ANA
SEA
ATL
FLA
NYM
WAS
STL
CIN
MIL
PIT
ARZ
SF

That's 14 teams, just under half the league, that would've befitted from O'Day, and yet, instead of spending this winter cozy in a major league bullpen, O'Day will be looking at the possibility of starting 2009 in Triple-A.