It is hard to find players that will far outperform their salaries in free agency and trades. It is much easier to get solid production for little money out of players from the farm system. Players like Hank Blalock, Miguel Cabrera, Mark Prior, Justin Morneau, Francisco Rodriguez, and other cheap, productive players are just not available in free agency or trades without giving up quality in return. The M’s have the financial resources to have 4-5 players with high salaries (> $10 million), but they need to get production out of guys on minimum contracts in order to field an all-around solid team. The draft is the best way to do this. If Bavasi can turn around the teams horrible track-record in the amateur draft, and continue to utilize the infrastructure of foreign scouting that the team has built, the M’s can build a team that will be good for years.

The M’s will likely add at least 2-3 star players in free agency. But even if these guys perform to expectations, the key to the team’s success is the development of the young players on minimum salaries. If Reed, Olivo, Bucky, Madritsch, Nageotte, Blackley, and Lopez can contribute significantly to the team, the M’s will be surprisingly good. If one or two of these guys plays at a very high level and develop into elite players, the M’s will be much much closer to contention. This is what the M’s should be trying to do. Building a foundation of talent in the farm system, and getting consistent production from 1 or 2 guys on minimum salaries, will allow the M’s to build a good team while investing in a few big contracts.

You just can’t rely on signing mediocre free agent veteran players who will far exceed expectations, like Boone and Shiggy. The best way to get cheap production are young players. Reed, Olivo, Bucky, Madritsch, Nageotte, Blackley, and Lopez will play just as important a role in the success of the M’s in 2005 as the free agents that we are all so excited about. If the M’s can get solid production from both the expensive and the inexpensive players, they will be set. But the team does need to change its approach to the draft if they are going to have sustained success.

This offseason, we have a really unprecedented opportunity to evaluate Bavasi. I think that everyone would be wise to suspend judgment on his qualities as a GM until next May (or perhaps the 2005 trade dealine). I really believe that the previous regime was making more of the decisions than Bavasi was up until this point. Now, it is Bavasi’s team to either improve or ruin.

Very rarely does a GM have such a clean slate to deal with. Bavasi basically has a club that is at rock bottom:

-only 10 players signed to contracts
-no locks to return in the coaching staff
-a $95 million payroll
-tons of financial flexibility in an offseason with good depth of talent in free agency
-another $25 million coming off the books after 2005

Very rarely does a new GM have this combination of opportunities. Most rebuilding teams have very limited payrolls. Most high-payroll teams have less flexibility and money to spend. Regardless of what you all think about Bavasi right now, we will get a very good opportunity to evaluate him over the course of the next year.

I think that the most important differences between Bavasi and Gillick are the broader philosophical issues. Any single free agent acquisition is really just a crap-shoot. It is the big-picture perspectives on how to run a franchise that is the most important thing. The key points in Dave’s excellent post above is how Gillick and Bavasi differ regarding the traits that the front office will value in free agents, and how the team approaches the draft.

It is nice to hear that Bavasi was not as involved in some of the bad moves of the last offseason as we might have thought. However, the things in Dave’s post that are the most encouraging for me is his approach to the draft. The M’s have really limited their options by their inability to use the draft to bring in talent. Think about how much better this wasted season would have been if the M’s had not pissed away their top picks on dumb moves in free agency (2004 and 2000), bad picks (like Garciaparra), or unwillingness or inability to sign picks (2002). The draft is crucial in maintaining a winning team. One of the greatest failings of the ‘old regime’ is an inability to use the draft to bring in young talented players. The M’s have had a great deal of success in scouting foreign players and in picking out solid players from the independent leagues. Just think about where this team would be if they had half as much success as teams like the Braves, Twins, Rangers, and Angels have had in the amateur draft.

The M’s will lose a few picks by signing free agents this offseason. But since the M’s have the financial resources to go after and sign top players in the draft, they need to do so. Tuiasosopo was a good pick in this regard, and I am glad that the M’s did everything they could to sign him. He was a steal in the 3rd round.

If the M’s are going to build a team that will be good for the long-term, they need to develop young players to replace old players. The Braves are a perfect model to follow. They are not afraid to let players leave, or to trade veterans before they are washed up, because they are consistently able to replace veterans with good prospects from their farm system. Because the Braves seem to always have a high-level prospect waiting in the wings, they can afford to trade guys like Andruw Jones (who is still very attractive to other teams) for a package of prospects or an established player to fill needs. This allows teams to continue to bring in prospects through trades, while keeping their payroll down. If the M’s can build a solid farm system to infuse the team with cheap talent, they can afford to trade expensive players for prospects, like they did in the Garcia trade. Good teams make trades like that even when they are not out of contention.

I would like to see the M’s use the draft better. This will help them replace older players with young, cheap talent, instead of relying on free agent signings like Spiezio. Even if Spiezio had produced at his career averages, that same level of production could have been achieved by a top prospect. I hope that the M’s can acquire a player like Justin Upton with the #3 overall pick in 2005, regardless of how much it will cost them to sign him. In 2-3 years, a player like Upton will be ready to come up and replace some higher-priced player on the team. Then, the M’s will hopefully be able to trade a guy with value for more prospects. This is the formula for building a strong team. The M’s have good pitching depth in their farm system. Hopefully they will be able to trade someone like Pineiro or Meche in a few years, when they still have value, and replace them with someone like Felix, Blackley, or Nageotte.

I like that Bavasi will be shifting emphasis to athletic young players. In the draft, I hope that they focus on toolsy, athletic position players and college pitchers. The M’s can hedge their bets with continued success in signing foreign prospects from Asia, Latin America (particularly Venezuela), and Australia. This offseason is going to be all about free agents, but I hope that the team can shift to filling needs internally in a few years.

I wasn’t focused on any one individual’s remarks per the S-and-s strategy as there were multiple comments, so nothing personal, and furthermore I agree with one statement in #78, that our arguments are not, as posed, convergent.

I’ve _never_ argued, here or anywhere, for signing medium-priced free agents, nor do I think it’s anything but foolish to sign at-or-near league-average talent to 3+ year contracts no matter what the $ value involved. In those respects I’m sure that we agree. I definitely think it’s better to develop good, young players who give a team comparable value, sure. And 3-year, $12M deals to league average guys isn’t a ‘foolish concession’ in my book: it’s cause for termination for the FO person who does it, or should be. And I’m sure that most organizations, regardless of philosophy agree with two main points which I understand you to be making here: 1) sign your genuine stars long-term, and 2) don’t give league average guys more than 2 years. Personally, while I’ve never argued _against_ signing Star players at face value I’m not a believer in signing even Stars for longer than 4 years, and for a smart organization with a good player development pipeline, I’d be willing to let a Star player walk if they want more—but pay them top dollar plus a premium for those years as necessary; but that’s me. The problems with this last are: 1) in the market of the last 7-8 years you can’t sign _Star_ free agents for 4 or under unless they’ve been injured, and 2) sometimes your homegrown talents don’t bloom until right on top of their walk year so you haven’t gotten them locked in before they are, in effect -pre-free agents, like Beltre. Oh well.

The problems with the S-and-s which you advocate, as expressed again in #78 if I follow you, Jim, are: 1) you are _totally_ hostage to the fat, long-term deals to your 2-3 stars. If they go down like Griffey or Jermaine Dye, you are just, plain screwed, ’cause the money is gone, and worse _NO ONE_ will take the player, so you can’t refocus your team around a new roster mix. In the end, you often just have to eat the contract and live poor for a couple of years, like Tampa did with Greg Vaughn, and like Cincinatti would have to do except that Kenny is going to be out of OB a year from now, and so the Reds should hold on and collect whatever insurance they can, seems to me. And what do you do if your ‘Star’ simply takes his attitude south, like Garciaparra, even while the community is still in love with him. (Do like Epstein tried to do with Ramirez and succeeded in doing with Nomar: give ‘em away. And get a guy who wants to play, like Cabrera and Millar. Great moves, Theo, yo da man. Those loveable Cubs are welcome to wrap their big soft hearts around Nomar and clutch him to their big soft heads. Cuddled up in front of the telly each and every October, yup, lovebirds.)

2) Behind your stars, you have constant roster churn, like in SF, because outside of your stars you have either short-term, high $ deals (half of which give you zero, BTW, so the gamble is only worth making if you’re going for it _this_ year), or replacement level guys who are offereing you so little you have to make a move on 3-4 of them anyway.

No one has the perfect strategy, Jim, and I’m no genius here, either. Here, for the record, is what I think _in general_ is the optimal approach. 1) Always, _always_, assemble a 25-man team. Every roster spot is precious: it can be held by a guy who can do something to help you win, preferrably by a guy who does at least _two_ things well, or fills a single, but absolutely useful role (pinch hitter in the NL; neutralizes lefties out of the pen; etc.). There are PLENTY of guys in the high minors or non-tendered who can fill out _your_ roster; give ‘em the shot, keep the one or two who make it, and bring in the next couple just as fast.

2) Have the best player development program that money and brains can put together. Think about it: running a high-end farm system each year costs less (or about the same) as a paying a single Star player with a blown out back. There is absolutely no excuse, none, period, for having a mediocre player development program. I thought this thirty years ago; every stat oriented approach I’ve ever seen leans this way; fiscally this is the most rational line of approach. Whether you keep your own young ‘uns or deal ‘em is a function of the present skill mix of your big league roster, but you have options this way.

3) Mix of skills on the roster is more important than absolute talent levels as long as the team is above an effective threshold. If you are looking for D, you may take a guy with some pop but few walks if he’s at a key position; alternatively, your superhigh OBP guy may not matter as much if you have no power in the roster. Your fantastic set up guy may be better off dealt if he’s 35 no matter how good he is if you’ve got a couple of sound guys behind him and want to keep your options open. That innings-eater #5 starter looks like a dog on both the superstar World Series team and the 99 loss rope-a-dope one, but he’s just the guy you need for your high-on-base offense with a killer bull pen: bingo, 17 wins. Baseball is a _matchup_ game, and your MINIMUM job at GM is to get a team that has few weaknesses and many ways of matching up for a win. I have very little respect for GMs whose team always has a glaring hole, like John Hart’s inability to build a starting rotation (never has, and so I’ll say never will until he does it).

4) The team is more important than the Stars. Never, ever be unwilling to dump, trade, or wave bye-bye to your biggest names if you can be a better team with different guys in their place. Now, a GM can blow it big time here (think Rocky Colavito for Harvey Kuenn), and I’m not advocating dumping great players willfully or even readily. But. But never mortgage yourself to a few players who, at this moment, are great. Star players can most definitely help you win, are sometimes a joy to watch, and most certainly help to ‘sell’ the team to the community, this last being their real, no. 1 value to an organization. (Although the absolute worst decision of the last fifteen years in MLB in my view was the owners’ decision to adopt a marketing strategy built aroung ‘Star recognition’ per the advisory of a PR flak as a way of repairing the public disaffection from the first strike. The owners’ completely handed over the community identity of their organizations to a handful of players, who of course said ‘Double my salary or I’ll take your identity with me;’ might as well have handed they guys your wallet, bank account #s, and wife, and said, Please give them back to me when you’re done with them.) One cannot replace Stars with mid-tier free agents, I agree (although one _can_ replace them with high-value, homegrown talent). But as soon as you’ve locked in a Big Guy for six at $$$, you’ve just bet your next five years on his health and state of mind. I, personally would rather TRADE him for a roughly comparable guy signed for four at $$ and spend the remaining $/2 for Bucky Jacobsen and Matt Clement. Even if only one of the latter two comes through along with the four at $$ guy, I’ve got two guys to help me win now rather than one. Never let yourself be owned by your stars; keep the community identified with the _team_ and its history. This is another way of saying, I don’t care if it’s Drew or Beltran as long as the overall context of talent meshes well and is superior over all. The Ms front office cares—because this team now has only one star who declines to speak English (he can) and doesn’t ‘work the community’ for them, and they are planning on buying off the open market the ‘team identity’ they’ll be selling to the public in ’05: This is the primo reason Three Big(gish) names are at the top of Bill’s To-do List.

I, personally, don’t go to a ballpark to watch a Star play, but I’m different, I know; I go to watch a team execute. I’m perfectly happy to see A-Rod launch a 3-run jack, but as happy and more to see McLemore start a DP which kills the other team, and JJ Putz come out of the pen to hammer in his sinker for two key outs. It’s a match-up, execution game, and A-Rod only plays one position and bats one-among-nine. It didn’t bother me at all, here in Seattle, to see Randy or Junior moved—they deserved it, ’cause they’d quit on the team, the organization, and the community, rightly or wrongly, but it was their move, and they’d made it. A-Rod wanted more $$$$-and-years than was rational to sign him for: bye bug, Big Guy. Bone and Edgar never quit, and were productive in the line-up to the very end of their careers—but that is the point, they were productive as well as loyal.

So why do owners always get Stars in their eyes, hey?? ‘Cause it’s the Rich Man’s way of collecting baseball cards, they buy the players behind the pictures. But that isn’t to say it’s an optimal approach to building a winning team, only a feasible approach of building a high-recognition team.

Like Bush, Bavasi is justified in laying some – some but not that much – blame on his predecessor. Gillick did have some strengths to go with his weaknesses. Other than the Garcia trade, are there successes in Bavasi’s approach or record we should be shouting about? Not in Seattle so far, nor that I can recall with the Angels previously.
Not scowling can only take one so far as a qualification to be leader in these troubled baseball times.

Frank

To Bela Txadux in #75: I think you’ve made an extensive counterargument against something I never argued. When I say “stars-and-scrubs”, I’m talking about a salary strategy not a quality strategy. Yes, great teams with few weaknesses win championships, that is obvious; the question is how to get there. Signing deals of 3+ years with medium-priced free agents who play at or near league-average quality kills the team, because risks are enhanced without being offset by greater rewards. When those players suck the team is forced to play them anyway for long periods of time, unlike a cheap player. When they perform as expected it’s still a problem because, unlike a cheap player, it’s then difficult to upgrade at that position. If they do outperform expectations, that’s great but good organizations get that in the low price range by developing good young players rather than paying $4 million a season for them. Consistently acquiring many middle-tier players means that if they don’t all coincidentally overperform at the same time the club locks up lots of roster space and money at a sub-championship level of quality, until the team *can’t* improve further. What the s-and-s strategy seeks at each position is either (a) an elite player signed long-term (b) an expensive short-term signing or (c) one or more cheap players who can be playing elsewhere tomorrow if necessary. It views the 3-year $12m contract to a league-average player as a foolish concession of flexibility, not worth the gain in cost and performance certainty.