When I heard that the Dodgers were going to sign David Wells, I figured there was no real harm in it. Odds are he's going to be a disaster. The Padres only picked him up because he could throw strikes and Petco would keep the ball in the park. To Kevin Towers' credit, that's exactly what happened. At home, Wells had a 3.91 ERA and allowed seven home runs in 71 innings. On the road, Wells had a 7.99 ERA in 47.1 innings and served up 10 delicious tacos. Seeing as Dodger Stadium is not Petco, Wells will probably get shelled during his stay with the Dodgers.
Still when the alternatives are Brett Tomko, Mark Hendrickson and Eric Stults, beggars can't be choosers. Maybe Wells will catch lightning in a bottle and he'll help the Dodgers. For about 85 thousand dollars, why not? D.J. Houlton clearly isn't going to get a chance with the Dodgers, so there's nothing wrong with adding a lame veteran to the staff at the expense of the other dreck. However, what could be a problem is the Dodgers couldn't just pay the league minimum to get Wells. No, they have to pay him around $175,000 per start to pitch for the Dodgers. Now, this is where I start to get annoyed. Wells will almost assuredly be absolutely terrible for the Dodgers, and they'll pay him more than what it would have taken to make Kyle Blair a Dodger.
I'm all for picking up cheap pitchers when you're having a roster crisis, but when you start paying those pitchers real money, and they're almost guaranteed to be terrible, you turn an "eh, why not?" move into one that makes you wonder about the things the money would be better spent on.
Update>>Brett Tomko gets DFA'd to make room for Wells. I feel like I should be happy, but I also feel like it's poor roster management to DFA people a week before rosters expand. Shouldn't Roberto Hernandez, who has proved to be particularly worthless, get the boot first? Couldn't we just invent an injury for someone?