Ryan Ludwick
If I told you that a 26-year-old right-handed outfielder, who makes the league minimum, and is slugging .512 on the strength of 4 home runs in 41 at-bats so far this year got designated for assignment this morning, would you be interested?
Say hello to Ryan Ludwick. The Indians removed him from their roster to make room for Juan Gonzalez, meaning they have 10 days to trade him or put him through waivers. Now, Ludwick’s not a spectacular player. He’s got holes in his swing, a mediocre approach at the plate, and his defense isn’t great after knee surgery, but he’s got legitimate power as a right-handed bat off the bench and reserve outfielder. His .812 OPS would rank fourth on the team, if he was added to the roster. His slugging percentage is higher than the OPS for Willie Bloomquist, Greg Dobbs, or Wilson Valdez.
At this point, he could be had for something resembling a song. He won’t be a starter on the M’s next championship team, but he could be a very nifty fourth outfielder and a useful pinch hitter, something the organization simply doesn’t have at the moment. If the front office really wants to improve the team, they’ll inquire about guys like Ryan Ludwick, a great example of the freely available talent philosophy that has eluded the organization for a long time.
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58 Responses to “Ryan Ludwick”
Interesting, but the M’s probably won’t even take a gamble on him because of his high strikouts.
The team’s willing to ignore that for players they like. See: Greg Dobbs.
Unfortunately, they seemingly have to fall in love with the player first, after which the strikeout issue is excused.
I dunno, does Ludwick LOOK good striking out like Dobbs does? With a classic stance and stroke as he hits like garbage?
If not, forget it…
Trade him straight up for Dobbs. Dobbs and Hansen are redundant.
Unfortunately, if he’s really worthwhile as a bench player, someone else will offer something decent for him. I don’t want to give away anyone resembling a prospect just to put lipstick on this pig of a season.
Oh wait, wait …. can he squat and catch?
I have been pimping Ludwick for two years now. I have always liked hiom. I even wrote to Gillick recommending they get him. His problem is he has a bad knee. He came up as a CF, and has good range when he can run. They need RH bang off the bench and this is the guy IMO.
But the Mariners’ front office is too fucking dumb to do it.
There’s nothing wrong with aquiring Ryan Ludwick, but he doesn’t do anything that Justin Leone can’t and Leone can play the infield as well. So I would much rather Leone get a chance as the right handed power bat off the bench, especially since he’s deserved the chance for a couple of years now.
Why would the Indians trade Ludwick for Dobbs? It doesn’t solve their roster crunch or offer them anything they want.
Things Ludwick can do that Leone can’t do? Play the outfield, for one.
Ludwick can play all three outfield spots and be competant in the corners. Leone has next to no experience in the outfield.
And, this shouldn’t be an either/or thing. Ludwick is a player who can help the M’s this year, next year, and the year after for peanuts. He’d be under club control through 2007. This is a chance to bring a guy with some semblance of offensive talent who can play the outfield and swings from the right side into the organization for next to nothing. Considering the current major league outfielders in the system are Ichiro (lefty), Reed (lefty), Winn (switch), Ibanez (lefty), Doyle (lefty), and Choo (lefty), that’s something the organization badly needs.
My argument for beinging Ludwick in would be if we send Valdez to AAA, Bloomquist could be splitting time with Morse, and we’d have an OF backup.
The fact that we’re 2-456 against lefties (OK, maybe a bit better) so far might also attract someone’s attention.
How often would Ludwick play the outfield? I don’t think enough for the difference in Ludwick’s and Leone’s outfield defense to matter. It doesn’t sound like Ludwick’s a great defender, and the Mariners have survived with guys like Al Martin and Ruben Sierra in left.
How often would Ludwick play the outfield?
Next year’s outfield will probably look something like this:
RF-Ichiro
CF-Reed
LF-Choo/Doyle
That’s four lefties, and Choo has serious problems hitting southpaws right now. He’s hitting .235 against Triple-A lefthanders, and almost certainly will need to be platooned.
Randy Winn is the only major league right-handed hitting outfielder in the organization, and he’s probably the most likely guy they have to be traded. You can’t have an organization devoid of right-handed outfielders.
This season, he probably would play in the outfield at least as much as Ibanez and Bloomquist have played so far — probably more, as the starting outfielders’ days off should increase as the schedule’s off days decrease, plus at some point, one of the starters is likely to miss a few games due to injury.
On-the-fly position changes in the majors don’t often work well- and espcially when you’re talking about someone who’s not playing every day. Note that Willie Bloomquist’s had plenty of spring training time to be useless at a number of positions, unlike Leone.
That’s basically the reason. Oh yeah, Ludwick’s also younger than Leone.
In an ideal world, the M’s would quit screwing around with the Dobbs and Bloomquists of the world, and Leone AND Ludwick would get time on the roster, but now we’re back at the “philosophy that has eluded the organization for a long time”- where you make player promotion and bench pickup decisions with some statistical context, as opposed to using scouting as your north star because (paraphrasing Bavasi) “minor league statistics aren’t reliable”- along with “intangibles”.
I’ve always like Ludwick. The timing for this move is great too, since Valdez will likely be taken off the 40 man to be sent down. Dobbs can be demoted to make room for him. Or Hansen can be DFA’d too.
And did anyone see Eric Valent get cut last week? Sure he’s had a rough start, but the gu was a solid lefty bat last season. A huge upgrade over Hansen and Dobbs.
I’d love to see a Valent/Ludwick/Bloomquist bench. For now, anyway.
Dave, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to get Ludwick, we absolutely should. I’m simply saying that I’d prefer to give our own talented guys a chance before someone from outside of the organization. If the M’s traded for Ludwick and never gave Leone another chance, I would be happy because the team would still be better off than they are today. I just think that Leone can fill role the role of pinch hitter/part time DH/part time left fielder as well as Ludwick can, at least for the remainder of this year.
There’s no evidence that Leone can even play left field, much less as well as Ludwick can. He certainly can’t play center field, which Ludwick could in a pinch.
The benefit of a player like Ludwick is that he fills a position that we have plenty of, making someone like Winn or Ibanez more attractive to trade for pitching. Pitching is something that I’d like to see the Mariners considering having. I’m thinking that if we actually had a pitcher, we may win some more games.
Fair enough, although the difference between the two this year just won’t be very big, and that’s what I was talking about. After this year, Ludwick would definately be an improvement, especially if we do trade Winn. Of course, as it’s been pointed out, the M’s don’t have to choose between the two, and ideally they’d utilize both.
Didn’t Leone play quite a bit of LF last year in Tacoma once Dobbs got called to Tacoma?
Exactly, Cool Papa.
We could have D’Angelo Jiminez, Leone, Ludwick on the roster, no problem.
Which would be LIGHT YEARS more useful than Dobbs, Bloomquist and Valdez, and probably Morse too, when you get down to it- a OPS in the .700′s for the PCL is no big shakes. I’m not convinced he’s getting a callup for any other reason than the team’s decided it’s time to start shuffling through the kids again to see who comes up aces, and Morse is the AAA SS.
But the 3 guys I mentioned above would be helpful; you could semi-platoon with Ibanez and Reed and give yourself a LH bench PH who isn’t Dave Hansen, have decent options for late-inning subs and days off, and so on. (That is, if the manager actually BELIEVED in using late-inning subs or giving days off.)
Not to defend Hargrove because his bench usage bugs me too, but if YOU had the current bench, would you want to use those guys very often?
Its too bad that the roster is so weak because if any regular needs a day off, it is Boone, and Bloomquist’s actual “position” is second base. That’s where he should be getting a bit of utility time here and there, not starting at shortstop.
Hm. Our current roster construction is a mystery to me.
At least in previous years, favoring the veterean for the bench could be justified to me…an older player can handle part time play better than a youngster….you know what you’re getting…part time play can actually retard the development of a player.
But the infatuation with Bloomquist and Dobbs just does not seem justified to me…and I can tell they aren’t going to send either down just to pick up a measly 100-200 points of OPS….
No, but we’ve seen Hargrove let Wilson Valdez make the last out of a game. That’s pretty indefensible.
Not to mention that, hello, the manager usually DOES get to have impact on who makes the 25 man roster. So he doesn’t get off the hook for further misusing a horrible bench. Lou had his faults as a manager, but he could usually figure out a way to get at least one or two semi-useful players on the bench to be playing semi-regularly (Reggie Jefferson, Luis Sojo, Stan Javier, Desi Relaford). Managers and front offices who can’t figure out a way to do this really irritate me, because it’s not rocket science.
Lou actually went with quite a few different lineups and batting orders in playoff series, not just in the regular season. It reflected the overall strength of the roster, true, but go back and look at the playoff boxscores; he did not make a fetish out of a “set lineup”, a concept Hargrove has asserted on several occasions as a preference but hardly defended. (Of course, the hardy journalists would have to actually ask him to defend the concept, but that is another matter.)
How about Eli Marrero for backup catcher/bench bat?
I think this is part of Hargrove’s managerial profile that was posted here before the season started. I believe it stated that he would keep one person on the roster that was inexplicable. Maybe that is Dobbs or Valdez. ‘shrug’
Sobbs or Valdez? But why both?
We could live with one inexplicable player. We have like seven.
#29
I’m astonished at how profound and true your statement is. We really do have several players who simply are incapable of playing major league ball.
Boone has become one of these. He is batting .080 in the last 7 days…
We are two months into the season, I think it’s fair to say the wheels are off the bus and the lugnuts have been long lost.
While Boone may suck, at least there is a cogent explanation for having him: the M’s owe him alot of money AND his heir apparent, Jose Lopez, is injured.
Sele, Nelson, Bloomquist, Valdez, Thornton and Dobbs are most definitely inexplicable. Each of those players can be replaced without costing the team much money.
Situations like this are a litmus test of how much influence Mat Olkin has in the FO. Either he’s so incompetent that he doesn’t see how such a pickup might help the team, or Bavasi (et al.) pay him no heed…
Jeez, that’s a black/white reduction.
It’s official, Wilson Valdez has been DFA’d:
http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20050531&content_id=1069710&vkey=pr_sea&fext=.jsp&c_id=sea
Cutting your team leader in ERA (that is, among ERA title qualifiers) and quality starts (Sele) doesn’t exactly send a very comforting message to your team, now, does it? “We don’t care about actual results on the field- what we care about is peripheral statistics that make you look bad or good in our eyes, like BB/K ratio and BABIP”.
I don’t see a point in cutting Sele loose at this point- especially if a few more weeks of success means you can flip him for a 25 year old some other team gave up on , and who’ll think “Hey, a cheap veteran starter!”.
OTOH, if Sele ends up 0-4 with an 8.15 ERA the next few weeks…well, cutting him will be understandable, now, won’t it?
The same sort of goes with Nelson, as well, to some extent.
I don’t really take issue with trying to win the Jose Lima sweepstakes with a veteran every now and then, as long as you don’t make a fetish out of it. Granted, with Campillo at Tacoma, Sele’s sort of redundant, and when he was sucktastic a few weeks ago I thought he was done- but it makes no great sense to 86 him now while Meche and Piniero look like crap. They are the ones who arguably need fixing more than Sele.
Oh, and DFA’in the Opening Day SS you picked up the last day of Spring Training? Priceless.
Sele/Nelson were “inexplicable” when they were signed.
Sele is an interesting case … was his injury the primary reason for three years of general suckiness?
There’s like next to no chance Valdez gets claimed on waivers, so he’s probably headed to Tacoma.
Seriously, anyone have a reason Greg Dobbs is still on this team? Anyone?
I’ll be chuckling for a couple of days …. thanks!
So now that we’ve dumped Valdez, we have two guys who can arguably play SS. Willie, and Morse.
Does that mean Willie is now our starting SS? Willie’s terrible, but the team loves him. Morse might be terrible, but the team doesn’t like him (remember his suspension last year).
Dobbs must have pictures of Bavasi naked or something…
Hey, he’s got that beautiful and all.
I’m baffled. They could’ve just sent Dobbs down and kept Valdez, since Morse is already on the 40-man. There’s got to be more to the story…
beautiful swing that is…
Of course, I hear his wife is quite beautiful too.
Oh no. Now that I’ve given Corco admin rights on my blog, I’ve assimilated and am morphing into Corco…
Dobbs is an organizational soldier. Dobbs is a real prospect. Valdez is waiver garbage. That’s why Dobbs is still around.
Dobbs is a real prospect.
You’re joking, right?
Yes. I was hoping that would be obvious.
I dislike Sele’s periferal numbers as much as the next guy. And his signing was inexplicable. But #35 is pretty spot on, IMHO. There’s just no reason to dump Sele at the moment. He may even have some trade value, especially if he turns in another quality start or two (small sample size, it could happen). Nothing’s stopping us from seeing if he can build on the (limited) success he’s had this season and then flipping him for some C-grade prospect. If he bombs, what have we lost?
There are players on the roster who need to be recycled much more badly and much more quickly than Sele; I’ll join the Greek chorus on Dobbs, and that’s just for starters.
The FO must think Dobbs > Valdez.
They are essentially the same age, both get paid the same.
Coin flip?
Valdez can play shortstop. He is more valuable. Plus, his OPS was about 50 points higher.
#50 … yes WV’s OPS > GD’s OPS, but they are both so low (and Dobbs’ sample size is tiny) that I doubt the FO would even look at that.
When you joked earlier …
… this is probably closer to the FO belief than anyone would want to admit.
This is from the AP story. I swear I’m not making this up. I wish I could write humor this good.
“The Mariners have 10 days to trade, assign to the minors or release Valdez. Hargrove said he loved what Valdez, who committed five errors, gave to the Mariners defensively.”
Stan Javier. I dream of Stan Javier.
I sometimes even dream of Desi Relaford.
How low has my team fallen?
Hm. Where’s this organizational myopia coming from? Not just from Bavasi, is it? I got the feeling there’s been stuff like this pre-dating him…
There’s a cancer in the front office. What we are seeing is simply the results of a management team whose first and last priority is running a financially profitable ballclub. Their commitment to winning only extends as far as it contributes to keeping fans coming to the games and the TV deals going. They will never do what it takes to actually (instead of giving the appearance of) make a legitimate run for the World Series, because it doesn’t make business sense — too risky.
This is why Lou left. His first and last priority is winning, and it was made clear to him that management didn’t and wouldn’t support that.
Howard Lincoln has turned this baseball team into one that is not only bad, but also boring as hell to watch. This stuff trickles down, folks – for a great illustration, you only have to look as far as our hometown football team during the Holmgren era. Despite a Superbowl-caliber coach and enough talent to excel, the front office managed to poison the punch enough to ensure mediocrity. At least they had the sense to identify the root of the problem (Whitsitt) and replace him with someone whose priorities are centered around winning, rather than consolidation of power or profit-grubbing.
Sad to say, I don’t see that happening with the M’s anytime soon.
I think it’s facile to say top management’s sole concern is being a profitable business….mainly because, after doing research on the individual owners, they aren’t cut throat enough to emphasize that above all else.
I think it’d be better to say that they have no clue as to what makes up a winning tradition (up to and including the World Series) and what the risks involved are with them. Their inexperience with building a team leads them to misvalue the moves needed to make an extended run of excellence.
Too, some of the problems are do to persistent failure at talent management and evaluation. With the years of poor pitcher development and the bare cupboard for everyday players, there’s someone to blame there besides the CEO spot…
While I don’t agree with your first paragraph, your second point is an excellent one. A combination of not having the ultimate on-field success as your #1 goal, plus years of organization-wide cluelessness and ineptitude, brings about the results we see today.
True, the CEO is not the only person to blame, but if the CEO doesn’t get it, it’s pretty much impossible for success to flourish at the lower levels. And if the primary focus isn’t on winning, that attitude pervades throughout the organization and eventually has an impact on the on-field performance.
Ludwick cleared waivers and was sent to AAA.