AFAIK, Weber did an emergency fill-in and was promptly DFA'd.
A lot of these middle-of-the-road pitchers have ups and downs that are hard to predict.
Bloom's acquisitions of Pivetta and Wacha are looking pretty damn good right now.
Let's do 2018-2021 and throw in Ottavino, who is about the same age:
Diekman 197.1 IP 2.0 fWAR got 2 years $8 mill
McHugh 211.0 IP 3.7 fWAR 2 years $10 mill
Ottavino 224.1 IP 3.9 fWAR 1 year $4 mill
McHugh and Ottavino were both more than 50% better.
I just don't see what Bloom actually liked about Diekman.
This tangent started with moon asking why Curry gets gushed over.
LeBron is a huge star and one of the best ever to play. But I think his image has been tarnished in recent years by all his team-jumping and a pretty bad case of foot in mouth disease.
I have no answers on Houck/Whitlock. It does seem pretty obvious they were making it up on the fly.
It wouldn't be such an issue if guys like Barnes and Robles hadn't been so bad, of course.
As I said, it was off-the-cuff.
I disagree about Bird and Duncan though. Bird had the image of being Mr. Cool and Mr. Clutch, a guy you did not want to have the last shot against you. And he was the best 3 point shooter in the game for a while there.
To me the Diekman contract might be the most confounding move Bloom has made. Especially when it was reported we were in talks with McHugh and then McHugh ended up signing for only a million a year more.
Yes, he gave up 2 hits, one to a .287 hitter and one to a .338 hitter. That's gonna happen.
Then he struck out a .344 hitter.
He wasn't going up against any chumps.
Papelbon and Kimbrel had their share of heart attack saves.
The only relaxing closer we've ever had was Koji in 2013, and that was a short-lived phenomenon.
Jordan was gushed over, I think, and Bird and Magic before him. What they all have in common is the "c" word-charisma.
Lebron doesn't have it as much, nor did Kobe or Tim Duncan.
That's a very off-the-cuff assessment!