Earlier today the Phillies agreed to a one year $4.5 million deal with pitcher Roberto Hernandez. Hernandez, 33, spent last year with the Tampa Bay Rays, and although he wasn't stellar, he gave the Rays 151 innings. Since coming into the league in 2006, Hernandez has been a below average pitcher, and if you take away his stellar 2007 year (6.2 WAR), his career WAR would be an unsightly -1.5 over a period of 7 years. An interesting side note is that Hernandez's K/9 did actually increase this past year to a level that it hadn't been to since his rookie year in which he worked mostly out of the bullpen, although 6.7 is still not great. His BB/9 also went down to 2.3 which could mean he was a little unlucky with his 4.89 ERA. Either way, I don't like this signing for Philadelphia. I get that they wanted to take a cheap 1 year flier on a pitcher in their rotation, but Roberto Hernandez is not the guy to sign here. He's aging and now out of his prime, and its not like he was even all that good in his prime either. He's not going to improve much if he does at all. He's been a consistently below average to average pitcher over the course of his career and that's not just going to change. The Phillies just paid $4.5 million, possibly more, for a WAR somewhere in the range of -1.0 to 0.0, and when I say 0 I mean 0 if their lucky. There are still plenty of options left on the pitching market, and ones that have much more upside then Hernandez. This deal is a mistake for the Phillies, should've looked elsewhere if they want to compete for the division this next year.