Game 62, Twins at Mariners
Johan The Great vs Joel The SubStandard. 1:35 pm. No tv.
M’s go for the sweep of the meager Twins, but have to go up against the best pitcher in baseball to get it. They hit him okay in the Metrodome, but the Small Sample Size Police will arrest you if you try to take any meaning from that.
Last 7 Days
In the last week, the Mariners have played six games – four against KC, and two against Minnesota. The Mariners are 5-1 in those six games. Now, both of the opponents stink, to be kind, so beating the Royals and Twins isn’t exactly cause for celebration. But man, it’s been fun to watch, at least. Some performances over the last week:
Ichiro! – .571/.586/.821
Ibanez – .444/.522/.889
Sexson – .320/.308/.720
Hello, power. It’s amazing what driving the ball consistently can do for an offense. Those three have combined for six of the team’s 11 home runs in the past week. Hard to have an offensive slump when you have a third of your line-up just whacking the baseball.
Now, for the weird lines:
Beltre – .231/.286/.538
Lopez – .190/.357/.476
Neither one is hitting for average, but they’ve both shown enough power to be useful despite that.
Oh, and Betancourt is hitting .350/.409/.550 for good measure. They’ve averaged 6.3 runs per game while playing all the games in Safeco Field. Not bad.
On the pitching side:
Jamie Moyer: 14 IP, 1.93 ERA, 3 BB, 3 K (don’t ask how, just enjoy)
Meche/Pineiro/Hernandez: 7 IP, 1.29 ERA
Moyer was awesome and then just okay, while the rest of the rotation (minus Washburn) has been equally excellent. Literally. All three even walked two guys in their start. The bullpen hasn’t been great (besides Putz, who really should be an all-star this year), but the rotation pitched really well. As a team, they allowed 3.7 runs per game. Even in Safeco, against those offenses, that’s not shabby.
Yes, the competition has been terrible. But, you know what, they’re wins. They count in the standings too. So hooray.
Game 61, Twins at Mariners
RHP Boof Bonser v LHP Jamie Moyer. 7:05.
At the request of several of our valued readers (including Laurie’s birthday request), supervision returns for this thread. Since the inception of comments, we often wrestle with how to encourage quality discussion and not tamper too much. Insult posts, off-topic stuff like people dropping by to remind Dave he wasn’t enthusiastic enough about Papelbon in a Beltre discussion… most of the choices are pretty easy.
But what about grammar, and spelling, and people who always type “Mariner’s”? We (and I’m probably more guilty of this than anyone) arbitrarily will reach into threads to nuke comments, and you get to see the dreaded []s. The reaction by the commenter is almost always immediate and strongly negative, and often means their follow-up comment gets [deleted, namecalling]. However, not working to maintain a decent signal/noise ratio and halfway worthwhile tone means chaos and horrible comment threads, and the people who contribute the most to the level of conversation are quickly turned off and leave.
What to do? Well, if no one out there is willing to, say, make an extremely generous cash donation to the “Hire a USSM Author to work on this full time” fund, it’s going to remain arbitrary and unfair. Sometimes making two errors that catch someone’s eye will get someone to swoop down, and sometimes you might get away with it. A comment that contributes substantially will almost certainly get a lot more leeway than PINIERO IS TEH SUX0R!!!oneone!! In general, game threads have much looser standards than normal comment threads.
Anyway. Boof’s his real name. I bet that gets mentioned on the broadcast.
The wider view on the draft and economics
There’s been a lot of good discussion around here about the economic and competitive implications of the draft, and what it means for baseball. Arguing against the draft, it’s seemed at times, creates the perception you’re arguing that small-market teams should wither up and die.
So I’ve given a long-simmering article I’ve been working on a quick polish and pushed it out. This is where I am on the baseball economics issues, so that my arguments against the draft can have a little context.
I support revenue sharing done well.
I oppose public funding of stadiums.
I support allowing teams to build their teams any way they wish.
I support a free market for baseball talent in general (so no drafts) and understand that’s not going to happen.
Teams should work without a net.
From the top:
Unless baseball allows teams to move freely, it needs to do revenue sharing, because its messed up territorial rules means some teams have massive economic advantages that are for all intents unsurmountable for even the best owners of other teams.
Read more
Why not Miller?
At the risk of inundating the blog with yet another Andrew Miller thread, I think it important to take a look at what really happened yesterday, now that I’ve detached myself from the fanboy disappointment of the first pick. There’s been a lot of speculation on why the team went for Morrow over Miller, ranging from Howard Lincoln calling the shots to Frank Mattox tying up Fontaine and stuffing him in a closet. Thankfully, none of that happened. So what did?
First, you have to understand how MLB is attempting to deflate signing bonuses for draft picks. While there is no official cap, the commissioner’s office sends every team a list of “recommended” signing bonus’ for each pick in advance of the draft. Bud Selig and Bob Dupuy regularly remind the owners that they are part of a team attempting to hold down the costs of doing business, and every time that one owner exceeds that recommended slot bonus, they make it harder for the league to institute its defacto salary cap on the draft.
For the #5 pick, the recommended slot bonus is about $2.5 million. Last year’s #5, Ryan Braun, signed for $2.45 million. MLB has a strong interest in seeing to it that this year’s #5 signs for somewhere in the same neighborhood.
Now, going along with the commissioner’s recommendation is not mandatory, and they have no legal authority to do anything to a team that exceeds the slot recommendations, but if you want to know how much power these slot recommendations hold, look back to last year’s draft. Among the first 300 picks (or, essentially, the top 10 rounds), you know how many players signed for significantly more than the slot recommendation?
Four. Justin Upton, the #1 pick, got $6.1 million when slot was $4.5 million. Mike Pelfrey, the #9 pick, got a major league deal worth about $6 million when the slot was about $2.2 million. Cameron Maybin, the #10 pick, got $2.68 million when slot was about $1.9 million. Finally, Taylor Teagardan, the 99th pick, got $725K on a slot of about $400K.
That’s it. Four times out of 300, the team decided to go against the MLB recommendation and give a player what it took to sign him. The D’Backs, the Mets, the Brewers, and the Rangers all took the trade off of experiencing the wrath of Bud in exchange for getting the player they wanted.
The Mariners, as an organization, were not willing to make that exchange this year. Now, I know everyone loves to blame Howard Lincoln or Chuck Armstrong for anything dealing with money, but this really was an organizational decision. It didn’t happen in the draft room yesterday. Going into the draft, the club made a decision that they were going to pay slot money for the fifth pick. Period.
Due to his contract demands, Andrew Miller was not an option once that decision had been made. The club wasn’t going to fight Bud Selig on this issue. While we might all despise Seligula, the owners love him. He’s made them huge amounts of money and turned the public reaction against the players in almost every labor dispute. When Bud tells the ownership of every club to do the right thing to hold down costs, they listen, whether we like it or not.
The M’s didn’t look at Andrew Miller and Brandon Morrow and say “you know, we think Morrow is almost as good and we can save a few million bucks here.” The club looked at Miller’s contract demands, realized there was no way in hell he was signing for anything close to the $2.5 million they wanted to offer that selection, and chose to draft the best player remaining on the board who would fit into the recommended slot.
There was no war between the scouts and the front office. Fontaine didn’t have the rug pulled out from under him, though I guarantee you he’d trade Morrow for Miller once both players have been signed and their bonuses paid out. This wasn’t a case where the organization “went cheap” to save money. The Rockies went cheap, getting a far inferior talent for below slot. If you want a fan base who has a right to be pissed at their front office, it’s those people in Colorado.
But the M’s just bowed to pressure from the commissioner, just like pretty much every other team does. They did the “solidarity, brother” thing with most of their fellow owners, refusing to shake the boat and cross the commissioner’s office. And so they took the best player they knew they could sign within those constraints.
Is it frustrating? Yea, it is. But it’s not worth torching Safeco Field over. I’ll have a post on Brandon Morrow in a little bit, and guess what, I actually like him as a pitcher. I’d rather have Andrew Miller, but I understand why the club passed on him, even if I wish they had given Bud the finger anyways.
Draft aftermath
Larry Stone’s writes a nice draft piece focusing on Morrow:
the reaction in Seattle’s war room when the Mariners made the fifth overall pick  California junior right-hander Brandon Morrow  made it clear that this was the college arm they were targeting.
Again, I have no idea, but if the people in the war room had already been told by ownership they couldn’t go get Miller, and Morrow was the guy they wanted next, that’s going to be their reaction. During the draft, they’re not going to be calling up Lincoln and asking if he’s got an extra $3m hanging around and if he’s in the mood to spend it because they’re shocked Miller was still available.
There’s actually some support for this in David Andriesen’s PI piece:
The Mariners had a chance to take Andrew Miller, the North Carolina left-hander who was once considered a lock to be the top overall pick but dropped amid fears about his asking price. But in the conference room, packed with two dozen Mariners officials, there was not a word of discussion after the early picks. Morrow was Plan A. The Mariners passed on Miller, who went to Detroit with the next pick.
Not a word of discussion? That seems like – at least – they had the same idea others did, that Miller might be dropping, and had already considered it.
I’ll stop flogging that angle. We’ll probably never know unless somone like Fontaine or Bavasi spills, and that’s not the kind of thing that leaks if you want there to be a next year (or a next job) in your baseball future.
Andriesen also has a short description of what the draft room is like.
Art Thiel has a weird bit on Morrow and the M’s pitching injuries.
Andrew Miller and today’s draft
So, you may have noticed, but I was hoping against hope that Miller would be there for the M’s. The team has a ton of money to sign him, he’s as much a stellar prospect as anyone about to be drafted is (though, yes, maybe not on the Griffey-Rodriguez level), and while I’m not in favor of drafting for need, the system could really use a pitcher of his talent.
I read the news after I got out of a meeting today, having read Dave’s post, and my reaction as I went down the list was
1) The Royals are fools, I can’t believe it’s true they’re not–
2) oh my gosh, Dave’s right
3) no way, it’s happening
4) this is so awesome
5) yup, that’s my team
Now, here’s the other thing. You’ve also read us heap praise on scouting director Bob Fontaine. I think we all have an enormous amount of respect for him, and if he really wanted to take someone else over Miller, well, he’s better at this stuff than I am. But the quotes supporting the pick are really irrelevant for determining whether that’s what happened, or whether he and Bavasi went to ownership and said “We want to draft Miller, he’s an outstanding pick, but it’s going to take at least $6m to get him and there’s a risk he won’t sign at all”. The team would say the same thing in either case.
And really, we don’t know if Miller’s going to turn out better. He may get injured, or not sign, or take up addictive drug abuse… so I’m not going to spend a lot of energy grinding my teeth and complaining about this.
But if I had to bet, I would bet on two things:
– Andrew Miller will prove to be the superior pick, even if he signs for $6m or $8m
– Ownership, in the same way that the four teams ahead of them did, figured that draft picks are risky anyway, so better to gamble on getting 80% of the player for 50% of the cost than wager more and potentially win big
And it’s that second one, more than anything else, that has me down, because beyond the loss of the pick and its implications for how they want their baseball people to go about putting a team together, it means they’re not learning from their mistakes.
Game 60, Twins at Mariners
At last, a major league ballgame. I’m not going to say anything about missing out on Andrew Miller, instead I’m just going to enjoy tonight’s game.
LHP Francisco Liriano v LHP Felix Hernandez. 7:05 etc etc.
A Reason To Listen To The Game on Radio
Depressed that Andrew Miller wasn’t the pick this morning? Console yourself with a bit of humor from the M’s radio broadcast last night. Despite the quotation marks, this is paraphrased, not verbatim, but I assure you, it’s accurate.
Fairly to Rizzs: “Do you keep in touch with any of your high school friends?”
Rizzs: “Sure, we see them when we’re out on the south side of Chicago. We have a wonderful time. Do you keep in touch with yours?”
Fairly: “I’ve got four in jail, and three out on parole.”
Rizzs (stunned): “… you hung with a good crowd. Aaaand there’s the pitch …”
I love the radio broadcast: it’s so much looser than the telecast, it seems. You learn something new every day.
Draft Day Rumblings
So here’s the deal – in about 100 minutes or so, the Mariners are going to announce their selection with the fifth pick in the first round. Andrew Miller is probably going to be available when they select, and if you don’t know how I feel about Miller, read this.
However, it’s now becoming quite possible that the Mariners will not only have the chance to select Miller, but pass that chance up in favor of another player. The sound you will hear, if that happens, will be me throwing things around the room.
Andrew Miller is, by far, the best prospect in this draft. It’s not even close. Circumstances have conspired to make it likely that the M’s will have a chance to add the best prospect in the draft, one who is absolutely a perfect fit for the organization, and there’s a chance they might screw it up.
If you work in a high rise, you might want to have someone put a mattress outside your window, because in just under two hours, we’re either going to be really, really thrilled, or really, really pissed.