It was fun
In April, we were all asked at the USSM feed how we thought the team would do. My “85 wins, contends for the division” prediction drew chuckles and scoffs from around the room. In May, when the team was scuffling, I continued to argue that the season was not lost, and I maintained my status as the most optimistic of our quartet of bloggers.
Tonight, I throw in the towel. 6.5 games back with just 52 games to play is a monumental hill to climb. It’s not impossible – the team’s mathmatical odds are probably around 3-5% – but this sweep crippled the team’s chances of making a real run. If this was a better team, making up 7 games in 7 weeks wouldn’t be unheard of. But this team is just too flawed for that kind of run to be expected. It’s hard to play .700 baseball for two months when you have a center fielder with a .450 OPS and don’t have a single hitter on the roster who doesn’t disdain the base on balls.
For four months, we were contenders. Now? We’re waiting til next year. Again.
Well, you’re right – it was fun.
At least we can say what you said in your post. It hurts to say it and it is a real letdown, but it’s a better feeling (even if more bittersweet) than 2004-2005.
Sad but true. Let’s hope ownership realizes that the problems start with Bavasi, and send him packing first. Then his successor can replace Hargrove. It’s time for management that recognizes the value of OBP over “veteran leadership.”
Uh huh. And you think the current ownership group is that management, and would choose as Bavasi’s replacement someone more to your tastes?
We are waiting for next year with a whole set of players in their early 20s with tremendous possibilities, both up the middle and in the bull pen. Throw in one starting pitcher, to boot.
What are the prospects for fixing the truly crippling flaws that remain in the next few years?
It must be very frustrating for the other guys on the team who probably look at the whole “let’s play Carl because he’s here” situation while it was going on and think “c’mon!”
I’m not sure how you can be Lincoln or Bavasi and look at a lineup featuring Willie and Carl and not pick up the phone and say “Grover, cut it out.” Whatever.
Think how much better off we would’ve been if Scott Hatteberg (and his .911ops) was signed. We wouldn’t guarantee him regular playing time, like we did Crazy Carl…sigh
Ah, it’s still an improvement over the last couple seasons at least.
Considering how few people thought the Mariners would be hovering around .500 and competing for the division into August, we should be pretty pleased with how the season’s gone. Now we just have to wait until winter, where hopefully we’ll sign Schmidt & DM, and somehow the starting nine will utilize their time off to reflect on the value of taking a pitch now and then.
I can see the ad campaign this winter… “We’re Back in the Hunt!” or “Man, That Was Close!”
If they do get Harold Reynolds, maybe he can come off the bench. I hear he’s great in the clubhouse.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, 1-12 against the chief rival in your division when if we were just .500 against them, we’d be in 1st place.
Bye, Bill!!
The big question is, will Hargrove leave too?
I’m thinking at this point it’s 50/50, really the only 2 sensible possibilities for this team right now at manager besides Hargrove are Dan Rohn who already is with the Major League staff and managed many of these Mariner players at one point or another in AAA Tacoma.
OR
The only man available right now that not only plays the game in a smart way every game, every pitch, but takes EVERY division game and game against the league’s elite teams seriously.
The only man that can make this team go from having a mere intolerance of losing to having a bitter dislike of it.
The only man who has access to 2 of the better hitting coaches in baseball, Gerald Perry and Lee Elia.
The only man that can convince Seattle fans, players (namely Ichiro), and upcoming free agents that Seattle is serious about being a winner again.
And the only man who has ever been successful as manager of the Seattle Mariners. . .
Louis Victor [Piniella]
I know it sounds crazy and far fetched but remember this, [Piniella]judging by what he said in the FOX telecast on Saturday, seems to like this team and sees that there can be room for improvement.
And of course as we all know, however confusing the Mariners economic system is, the Mariners do generate revenue, and do have money to keep talent and spend money for talent.
Call me crazy, but it’s obvious [Piniella]is not going to get a job with a team like the Yankees at this point, and if he wants to manage somewhere next year, I think Seattle could be the place for him.
There’s lots of good, young talent here like there was in ’93 when he first came here, and even Lou said that some of the young talent we have here could get even better.
And surely Howard Lincoln would like the extra season ticket sales that would be generated by the return of one Seattle’s greatest baseball heroes and characters for that matter.
And you can tell even though [Piniella]spends a lot of time on the East Coast and his home is in Tampa now, he has plenty of fond memories of Seattle, and mostly their good ones.
You would be amazed, I think if Howard Lincoln showed Lou that he really is committed to recreating the Mariners winning past, there would be a much better chance than you think that Lou would come back.
But again, it could very well be far fetched.
But then again, it seemed pretty far fetched back in 1995 that we would come back from 13 games down to beat California for the AL West title and beat the Yankees after being 0-2 in the Division Series, or that all of that mojo generated in ’95 would actually lead to getting SAFECO Field built.
Man, that was a mouthful.
I guess what I’m saying is, if he wants to get into managing again, I think talking to him is worth a shot.
It likely won’t work, but it’s worth a shot.
What are the prospects for fixing the truly crippling flaws that remain in the next few years?
The team’s gaping holes are pretty easily identified:
1. Starting Pitcher
2. Starting Pitcher
3. Center Fielder
4. Manager
5. Bench
There are other issues with the club that could use addressing, but these are the roster spots that really stand out.
How easy is it to find two good major league starting pitchers in an offseason? Not very. That’s going to be a challenge.
Long term, center field shouldn’t be a problem, but Adam Jones is just so clearly overmatched at the major league level that you have to bring in someone to fill the hole if he doesn’t take a big leap forward during the offseason.
I think the odds of Hargrove coming back are pretty slim, so number four should fix itself. And hopefully a new manager will be willing to understand how to use reserves, but the team has never shown an ability to evaluate end of roster talent well, so I’m not sure we’ll ever fix the bench.
The M’s have some terrific young players to build around. But going from 80 wins to 90 wins is a lot harder than going from 70 to 80. The team took a good step forward this year. It’s going to take some quality roster management this offseason to make next year’s team one who can contend even in years where the AL West doesn’t suck.
I’m optimistic about the future, but there’s still work to do.
Having corrected that comment in a rare moment of generosity, let me say that if you’re so obsessed with Sweet Lou, the least you could do is figure out how to spell his name.
As much as Lou Piniella means to me and Seattle’s fanbase, can we just stop talking about it? It’s getting to be the new “Bring back Griffey!”.
I admit, this was fun to watch. Now I just get to watch the games for the games instead of getting pissy at our lack of being able to gain in the standings.
Dave,
In order to full that shopping list properly, the M’s are going to have to spend some serious money. They do have a lot of cash coming off the books, with Moyer, Pineiro, Everett, Meche, and Guardado all potentially off the payroll. But can we expect them to go beyond their current payroll?
To really take that next step to 90 wins – and legit contention – I think that M’s might need to bump up their payroll near 100 million. There are 6 teams (NYY, NY Mets, Dodgers, BoSox, Angels, and ChiSox) over $100 million right now. There are another 5 above $90 million, and a total of 11 spending more than the M’s.
The M’s can no longer claim to be one of the big spenders in the league. They are still near the top 1/3, but with their revenue, you would think that they could bump that up a bit for a playoff run.
Since the M’s major rebuilding is behind them, and they can realistically expect a small spending spree to get them over the top, this would be a great time to get back into the top-5 spenders.
With the salaries coming off the books, plus another $10 million on top of that, the M’s could go into next season as big spenders. Similar to what Toronto did last year.
The AL West is wide open. If the M’s throw down some $$$, they could be a force in 2007.
Is this at all realistic? Or just more premature post-trade-deadline daydreaming?
I hope that Bavasi is not replaced, because, as DMZ notes, the management above Bavasi would not replace him with anyone better. At least it is unlikely that they would do so. And Bavasi has found good bench players. Hargrove has misused them, or not used them.
And in regards to glaring needs #s 1 and 2, Stone wrote a good piece on Matsuzaka (sp?) the other day. His take: if posted, the M’s and Yanks are the clear frontrunners to land him.
It’s unlikely that the M’s are going to raise payroll this offseason, especially considering how “well” the Beltre, Sexson, and Washburn signings have gone.
The M’s, as its stands, will probably have around $20-$25 million to spend on about 6 roster spots. The big decision will be Richie Sexson; they’ll be able to move him in the offseason if they want to, and removing his $14 million in salary would free up quite a bit of money. With Broussard/Perez around, they have options at first base.
If they move Richie, things could get very interesting, and they could spend a lot of money. If they don’t, probably not.
Whoever the GH is next year if the FO has any baseball savvy at all they will hire a manager who fits all the necessary managerial criteria as well as having a more intense personality, someone who has the respect of the players and can lead and will be able to rally them when needed. From what I’ve seen Grover doesn’t seem to have that.
Oops, meant to say GM–
Lou Piniella is not magic. In the third place, he wasn’t exactly golden with Tampa Bay. In the second place, he was awful with the pitching staff here until he finally gave control to Price. In the first place, hey, we never even got to the world series with Piniella at the helm, let alone won a championship, and the talent was certainly there.
I liked Piniella, but let it go already. We should be looking for the nextLou Piniella.
I have grown to like Bavasi, but I think that there are ideas he stubbornly holds to that are poor strategies for building a team, and he doesn’t seem inclined to learn. So long as we have the ownership we do, getting good management is going to be a random dartboard shot, but at least if we throw another dart we have a chance.
Man, if there’s one thing I could change about common baseball wisdom (okay, maybe if it was one of many), it would be that “intense” managers who yell, scream, get ejected, and “show passion” are better at their jobs than the composed, stoic, mature ones.
Seriously, there’s no correlation between having a temper and being good at managing a team. Joe Torre is about as stoic as it gets while Larry Bowa is a timebomb. Torre’s great, Bowa is not.
Mike Hargrove (and Bob Melvin before him) aren’t bad managers because they don’t yell. They’re bad managers because they lack real understanding of effective baseball strategies.
The M’s need someone who understands how to best optimize a roster, not someone who curses a lot.
#6: Scott Hatteberg (and his .911ops)…
Hmm, yes.
1. In a hitter’s park
2. In the JV league.
Hatteberg’s OPS in his last year in Oakland was .677. The last time it was over .800 in the AL was 2002. He’s already 6 years on the wrong side of 30. Scott Hatteberg was not a solution to any of the Mariners’ problems (unless the Kingdome were also rebuilt and the team relegated to the NL).
The team’s gaping holes are pretty easily identified:
1. Starting Pitcher
2. Starting Pitcher
3. Center Fielder
4. Manager
5. Bench
The best possible scenario would be:
1. Sign Schmidt/Zito ($12-$13M/yr)
2. Pay the transfer fee on Matsuzaka ($8-10M) and sign him ($6M/yr) OR sign Schmidt/Zito ($12-13M/yr)
3. Sign a CF to a one-year deal while Jones spends the first half of 2007 in Tacoma (Kenny Lofton?) ($3M/yr) OR sign Torii Hunter ($10m+/year)
4. Give the job to Rohn OR hire someone
5. Sign Frank Catalanotto ($3M) or Todd Walker ($3M), find someone who mashes lefties, play WFB one more year, and promote Snelling
So… that’s over $40M in new salary, and you’re not dumping that much in return. These signings would catapult the M’s to the top of the division and have Joe Sheehan spitting bile in Seattle’s direction all year long. But, honestly, you see Lincoln paying $40M to fix this team’s problems? Of course not.
So, I think it’s pretty clear Sexson or Beltre are going to be moved for salary space. The perfect move would be to swap him to Chicago for Carlos Zambrano… and then, pigs fly.
I can see the ad campaign this winter… “We’re Back in the Hunt!†or “Man, That Was Close!â€
I suggest “We like our chances.”
Whichever team gives Barry Zito his monster contract is going to be very angry with itself.
Dave, DMZ, et al…
Are there any plans to analyze Bavasi’s chances of sticking with the organization next year? I’m willing to (cheerfully) believe that Grover won’t be around, but Bavasi’s future seems less certain. I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts? (I know, I know… I’m from Alaska but I live in Texas; crazy, right?)
To really take that next step to 90 wins – and legit contention – I think that M’s might need to bump up their payroll near 100 million. There are 6 teams (NYY, NY Mets, Dodgers, BoSox, Angels, and ChiSox) over $100 million right now. There are another 5 above $90 million, and a total of 11 spending more than the M’s.
And there’s one team 800 miles to our south who’s embarrassing us just about every time we take the field against them, and doing it for well under $70m.
Committing to spend money on player payroll doesn’t mean the money gets spent wisely. $4m to Carl Everett? $5.5m to Scott Spiezio? $3m to Rich Aurilia? Yes, yes, I know, each bad contract is only a few lousy million, but when you add it up, it starts to look like real money to me.
I see Corco is pitching against the M’s tomorrow, they shouldn’t have trouble hitting him. Perhaps it’ll be the start of something good.
As in a long piece? Because I would say his chances are “pretty good”.
Seriously, there’s no correlation between having a temper and being good at managing a team. Joe Torre is about as stoic as it gets while Larry Bowa is a timebomb. Torre’s great, Bowa is not.
Torre hasn’t always been so. He was pretty cantankerous in Atlanta and St. Louis. But then, he wasn’t all that successful in Atlanta and LaRussa has done far better with the Cards.
Actually, I think now that the Mariners season is basically dead, I’m already looking forward to those “year in review” pieces. That might have been what I had in mind. *chuckles*
In which case, it probably makes sense to wait until the actual season finishes.
dw wrote:
The best possible scenario would be:
. . .
2. Pay the transfer fee on Matsuzaka ($8-10M) and sign him ($6M/yr) . . .
I don’t think either the amount you suggest for the posting fee or Matsuzaka’s salary are realistic. Larry Stone suggested, in the Sunday Times today, that it may take a $30 million posting fee to land the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka, who reportedly will be represented by Scott Boras. There’s no way he signs for an average of $6M a year.
Other than that, I like your thinking.
I should write up a big post on the theory behind putting together a posting bid for Mats. That’d be an interesting topic.
Larry Stone suggested, in the Sunday Times today, that it may take a $30 million posting fee to land the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka
If so, I think even the Yankees will pass. They are desperate for pitching, to be sure, but $30M will buy them Zito, Schmidt, and Lidle, and they can still fit Tony Armas Jr. in there with what’s left over.
And if the Lions want $30M, everyone will just wait for Matsuzaka to be a free agent after next year.
Tony Armas Jr.
Er, make that Pedro Astacio.
I have it to say it was fun…
But I am amazed by a few things,
1. How utterly jinxed and horrible you can play against one team that on paper isnt really that good.
2. How over one weekend you go from the thick of the race(3.5 games back)to being out of it completely(6.5 games)
3. That a team so close to making it over the hump to compete in the AL WEST totally collapses time after time and does not have the intestinal fortitude to make it through.
There are two words that will cheer up all depressed Seattle Fans.. GO SEAHAWKS!!!
I wasn’t really thinking of another Lou Piniella stomping out on the field and kicking bases when I suggested finding a new manager with intensity. Intensity is kind of hard to quantify sometimes – maybe leadership within the clubhouse – is more to the point. I just don’t see Grover motivating these guys.
Maybe. I don’t think it will take $30M, but it certainly will take more than it took to gain the right to negotiate with Ichiro (which was $13M). The fact that the Yankees are interested means there will certainly be a bidding war, and I would put money on the M’s blinking before the Yanks do.
The only leverage MLB teams have in this process is that Matsuzaka can become a free agent in another year, as you said, but that depends on all the interested teams passing on bidding more than, say $10-12M, and I think one of them (probably the Yankees) will risk more because they want to make sure they get him (which they won’t be able to do next year). Whether signing 2 or 3 other pitchers on the market is a viable alternative for interested teams depends on how they are perceived in relation to Matsuzka, no? A guy who is 25 or 26 and throws 100, with that nasty pitch? He’ll get paid.
This is total speculation, but I think that Stone is probably closer to the mark than we might like to think.
I would not be suprised to see teams offering ~$25-30 million for the posting rights. The contract is also tough to estimate. On the one hand, it would not be open to bidding from other clubs. On the other, Boras is involved, and he doesn’t seem to have any qualms about holding players out.
Matsuzaka is going to get a ton of cash. Japanese players are not nearly as mysterious anymore. More teams scout them, and enough of them have made the transition to MLB to get an idea about how the level of competition over there compares to the U.S. The WBC has also been a good opportunity for US clubs to see what the best talent in Japan can do. Add to that the fact that Matsuzaka is arguably the best Japanese pitcher ever, is still young, and that he has dominated international competition, and you have a recipe for big money.
If he is posted, and the M’s did win the bidding, I would imagine that the actual salary would not be that crazy. Maybe 4 years/35-40 million. The M’s would likely be able to backload it if necessary. But Boras is going to negotiate from the premise that Matsuzaka would be a legit ace pitcher in the US. And he is probably correct.
I have to admit how amazed I am that an MLB organization like the Mariners can continue to squander chances to earn (even) big(ger) money and be admired by millions of people in the region. Sure, there’s money in all their pockets now but it could be so much sweater and long-lived if they made fundamentally sound decisions.
In just the past 9 months, they sign Carl Everett and Jarrod Washburn to unbelieveable contracts. They fail to fire a manager that has been just awful in so many ways that’s not funny. They play “the 26th man” (Bloomquist) way too often and they trade Guardado for a lot less than they should have traded him for a year earlier. They even continue to tell us that Pineiro and Meche are just making small mistakes from time to time… And could someone explain why Mateo is even still wearing the uniform.
Then there was the story that Rafael Chavez had to (entirely on his own) fly to San Antonio on an off day to witness the apparent talent of Mark Lowe in AA. Lowe turns into one of the brightest spots of the farm system this year (much brighter than Adam Jones) and yet if Chavez didn’t take that trip, Lowe might just now be throwing in Tacoma.
The entire organization just seems like they are kids making up things on Monday because they blew off the weekend. The players are not focused and have zero discipline at the plate… The whole league knows they just go up and swing wildly but apparently the news can’t translate into instructions from the coaches.
This entire organization makes decisions that remind me of the way Dave Valle talks… Dazed and confused Rico, dazed and confused.
Remember, though, that posting is a sealed bid process. Teams put in their bids, and the team chooses the offer they like. That team then gets the rights to negotiate.
This isn’t an open auction. Offering $30M when he’s a free agent in a year only means you’re paying $40M for one year more than you would have gotten if you had waited for free agency.
Yes, the exclusivity means you can offer a smaller contract, but still, you better be good and happy with Matsuzaka’s potential in 2007 to pay tens of millions over what you’d pay in 2008.
When does Travis Hafner become a free agent? He’d probably brighten up the M’s DH spot a little.
they trade Guardado for a lot less than they should have traded him for a year earlier
Can we PLEEEEEEEZE put something in the FAQ about why the M’s didn’t trade Guardado in 2005?
Also, Travis Chick in SA: 2.23 ERA in six starts, 22/24 BB/SO. Clearly, he has to work on getting his control back, but so far he’s not exactly “a lot less.”
Offering $30M when he’s a free agent in a year only means you’re paying $40M for one year more than you would have gotten if you had waited for free agency.
True, but only if you are sure he’ll sign with you. It is because I believe the Yankees may consider the Mariners to be a real threat to sign him when he is a free agent that I think they will offer much more than you suggested. And, if the Mariners want to avoid that, they will offer more than you have suggested, too.
All speculation, of course. Either of us could be right, I suppose.
All speculation, of course. Either of us could be right, I suppose.
Yep. I know as much as you do. But honestly, I don’t see the marginal advantage to paying $30M in sunk costs for Matsuzaka when you can get two top-line starters on the free agent market for that much.
$15M seems the outer bounds of reason to me. At that price you’re paying $20-25M in 2007 for a guy with the potential to pitch like Roger Clemens.
Therefore, I think the Yankees will bid $20M, just because that’s how Steinbrenner works.
It’s particularly sad to me that it became obvious that the M’s aren’t contenders a week AFTER the non-waiver trade deadline … so not only did we not trade Gil Meche and get peak value in return (a mid-level prospect sounds reasonable), we’re stuck with him sucking the rest of the way.
Oh, the deals we could and would have made if only this sweep had come 10 days before.
I think you are about right, dw.
There are all sorts of angles to Matsuzaka posting, many of which go beyond cost/performance.
Matsuzaka is a very young pitcher who most expect to be a dominant starter in the US. Right now, that is the rarest commodity in the sport.
The posting fee is going to be ludicrous. However, the lack of bargaining leverage in contract negotiations will at least in part offset this. Just for the sake of argument, suppose that it does cost $25 million to win the negotiating rights. Then suppose that he signs for 4 years/35 million. 4 years/60 million is not completely out of line with the current market for an elite starter. That is $15 mil/season. I would say that these estimates are worst-cases. He could cost significantly less than this.
Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn’t Matsuzaka still be under team control for 6 years, like any other international or domestic prospect? If so, it would make kicking down that additional money that much more worthwhile.
Finally, getting a guy like Matsuzka is not just a baseball decision. Bringing in a Japanese player of that stature would create a media circus. It would at least be similar to when Matsui came over. The Japanese media would be following the M’s like a Dead concert. Even if the clubs ownership did not have strong Japanese ties, adding Matsuzaka to the roster would have obvious financial benefits. It would be a marketing and PR dream come true. The media would love it.
It would be tough to estimate the financial effects of Matsuzaka becoming a Mariner, but I would not be suprised if that $30 million investment didn’t pay itself off pretty quickly.
“Yep. I know as much as you do. But honestly, I don’t see the marginal advantage to paying $30M in sunk costs for Matsuzaka when you can get two top-line starters on the free agent market for that much.”
Perhaps for one year. But no top-line starters are going to sign one-year deals with the M’s next offseason.
If you compare Matsuzaka versus Barry Zito – who is going to cash in bigtime regardless of whether one considers him an elite starter – then the difference is not that big.
It is a one-time cost. With Ichiro, the M’s didn’t count the posting fee against the payroll. So from our perspective, that is sorta like free money. Obviously, the M’s are going to be accutely aware of the financial effects of adding a Japanese icon to the club, which may make them that much more likely to shell out the cash.
Again, I am not sure how MLB rules view veteran Japanese players, but I would not be suprised if whichever team gets Matsuzaka is able to control his rights for 6 years.
Gawd. According to the batting stats on ESPN.com, our highest OPS is Raul Ibanez, at .850. He’s *26th* in the AL (out of 86 qualified batters).
Then come Ichiro!, .808, 36th; Johjima, .800, 44th; Beltre, .747, 58th; Lopez, .745, 62nd; Sexson, .742, 67th; YuBet, .723, 70th; and the mercifully departed Everett, .658, 84th.
Ouch.
The M’s have some terrific young players to build around. But going from 80 wins to 90 wins is a lot harder than going from 70 to 80. The team took a good step forward this year. It’s going to take some quality roster management this offseason to make next year’s team one who can contend even in years where the AL West doesn’t suck.
The problem I see with that is that the guy who signed Carl Everett and Jarrod Washburn, and has a history of other questionable roster moves is likely to be GM next year.
So what’s the reason for optimism that we won’t end up with, say, Bernie Williams and Barry Zito as major offseason signees?
So honestly, what’s the point of talking about posting $30m or $20M or any amount. Even if we got Matsuzaka, having all the bone-headed leadership continuing on with the typical decision-making will be good for an extra 15-20 losses.
Someone on Rotoworld said that now that Torre has a payroll that is a full $100m more than any other team in baseball, will he be “brilliant” enough to win it all…. How pathetic is it that the A’s can dominate the Mariners with a huge payroll by comparison. This sport is not won on the back of $30m postings, it’s won with smart organizational processes… And the Mariners are not one of them.
re: Lou, if I may quote him from earlier in the year: “I’m not interested in managing a developing team,” the 62-year-old Piniella said. “I’m not interested in managing a team that isn’t interested in winning now … instead of in the future.
This sport is not won on the back of $30m postings, it’s won with smart organizational processes
hmm. White Sox, Red Sox, Marlins, Angels, D’backs, Yankees…
Hatteberg is singlehandedly wiping out my Hacking MASS team. Ugh. If I had Travis Lee or (ahem) Carl Everett, bizarrely slotted at 1B in the MASS, instead, I’d be two points away from the top ten. As it is, almost two hundred points below there. No more AL hitters moving to the NL!
Seriously though, the M’s prospects for the future are a lot better than they were a year ago. I was a big pessimistic buzz kill to Dave’s earlier high hopes, but now I think our positions are reversed. 2008 is the year we win it.
Ouch, Eponymous, Williams AND Zito? You really know how to hurt a guy.
re: center field for 2007… assuming Adam Jones continues to learn in Tacoma, I can’t believe no one’s mentioned this… what about keeping Jeremy Reed around? He sucked this year, but could there have been extraneous issues, or a la Jim Thome with the Phillies, just a bad year?
Also:
- Is it realistic to expect Hargrove to be gone after this season, even if the team finishes around .500? We know better, but the common impression would be negative if the M’s were to turf the manager after two straight seasons of record improvement.
- It’s quite puzzling to see Zito having an average season in his walk year. Of course, Washburn has had nothing but average seasons, and he hid successfully behind a 3.20 ERA and it bought him a $37 million contract here.
- Given rumored losses last season, I’m led to wonder if the Yankees have as much funny money as one would think for the pursuit of Matsuzaka, especially after the expensive acquisition of Bobby Abreu. Well, yeah, Bernie comes off the books but don’t other contracts on that team balloon next season?
- I wouldn’t count on Matsuzaka, though I HOPE HOPE HOPE he posts and the M’s land him. To wit, however, I didn’t think we’d land Johjima either.
- I don’t think either Matsuzaka or Schmidt are givens to end up in Mariner uniforms, even if conventional correlative evidence suggests it may be so. It COULD happen, but there are a lot of external factors at work.
- I wonder if the M’s will give someone an offseason call-up to step into the rotation, and who it would be. Given his arm trouble, I don’t think Soriano is going to take the shot next season. And despite some delusions to the contrary, all accounts indicate that Lowe is a bullpen exclusive arm. Is Sudden Francisco Cruceta worth a shot? Does the team give an uncertain shot to Livingston or Nageotte? Do they hold a full out audition in Arizona next Spring?
Here’s the problem with railing on the GM in baseball, and it’s more distinct in this sport than any other. Running an MLB team is so much more than just signing free agents and making trades. It’s so easy for the frustrated fan to point the finger at the top, and I’m not saying that Bill Bavasi hasn’t made some moves that haven’t worked out. But the #1 problem he inherited, and was tasked with fixing, was the minor league system. Since he and Bob Fountaine have taken over, I think most everyone agrees we have had some better drafts, and have added more quality young players to the lower levels of our system than we ever did under Free-Agents-No-Matter-What-The-Cost Pat Gillick. You can’t just dismiss that progress because you think Carl Everett was a bad signing.
Here’s the other side of my point. Who’s better? When there’s a discussion about managers, or football coaches, or point guards, and the argument is “That guy needs to go!” Most fans can offer up a number of tangible, realistic replacements. If and when Mike Hargrove is fired, I’m sure we’ll all be able to throw out 10 names off the tops of our heads that would be viable managerial candidates. But who here, other than the authors of this site and a select few posters who are connected and knowledgeable about these things, can target a replacement? I consider myself a more-knowledgeable-than-average sports fan, who once made a living in sports broadcasting, and for the life of me I couldn’t name any up-and-coming future GM’s that I think have some sort of track record that would lead me to believe they would be able to handle the hundreds of responsibilities that go along with running a major league baseball franchise. It’s not as simple as “Do we sign Carl Everett or Scott Hatteburg.” IT’s much, much more than that. Bill Bavasi and Bob Fountaine have given us hope that we can produce major league quality players out of our system on a regular basis for years to come. They deserve to be given more time to cultivate that. Changing the guard now will only set us back again in that regard. Doesn’t it make more sense to change the manager and let our young players grow, and see where that takes us? We need at LEAST one more year to make that evaluation fairly.
OK that’s it. Time to get back to inventory. Let the “But Dan, you don’t get it, if we could just get Billy Beane….” responses begin.
re: center field for 2007… assuming Adam Jones continues to learn in Tacoma, I can’t believe no one’s mentioned this… what about keeping Jeremy Reed around? He sucked this year, but could there have been extraneous issues, or a la Jim Thome with the Phillies, just a bad year?
Reed was not much better the year before, either. He’s simply not adjusted his game to major league pitching – whether that’s due to incapability or something else.
He had a bright month of September in 2004 after being traded to the Mariners. Honestly I think that put everyone far too high on him, although there was reason to believe he’d be much better than he’s shown during the past two years.
At this point in time, he’s simply not producing as a hitter against major league pitchers. His defense is okay but it’s overrated (seems to be common with Mariners for some reason).
When your power is far below league norms, pitchers won’t be too scared of throwing strikes to you. Moreover, when you can’t hit those strikes well enough to make consistent contact, and can’t even have a reasonable BABIP, you become Jeremy Reed.
Somebody could take Sexson off our hands? Certainly we’d have to pay a chunk of his salary.
As I recall the posting process, the winning team gets negotiating rights, but they get their bid $ back if they can’t reach an agreement. However, from there, I’ve heard a couple conflicting scenarios.
Version One: the player would then remain property of his Japanese team.
Version Two: the second highest bidder gets a shot.
Anyone know for sure which it is?
I believe he goes back to his original team. There’s way too much potential for cheating in the second one.
Hey Derek. Isn’t Adam Eaton scheduled to be a FA this offseason? I thought I read that last year, attached to statements he made similar to those of Jason Schmidt about how he’d love to pitch for his hometown team etc…..
Maybe with his health issues, we could get a discount on him, since he only had 9 good fingers.
#35: Clubhouse leadership from the manager? I think maybe what you’re trying to get at is that the players have to want to play for him. REALLY play. I’ve heard from fairly reliable sources that the Ms, almost to a man (if not each of them, damn near each) can’t stand Hargrove. Contrast that with what Buhner always used to say about Lou. That the players would run through a wall for him. I’m not a fan of bringing Lou back, and I agree that it’s not all about intensity as measured by outbursts caught by camera or microphone. But the kind of manager we DO need is one that players not only will, but want to run through walls for.
#57: Totally agreed that Bavasi has done good things with the farm system. Problem is, those good things are mostly playing on the big club now. It’s not that the cupboard is bare like it was; it’s more like we had a starving family and re-stocked the cupboard, but the family mowed through that food so quickly that now we have to re-stock again. It takes YEARS of consistent re-stocking before that family starts trusting and knowing that the food’s gonna be there. Replacing Bavasi now just sets us on a different course again, a different strategy that whoever the new guy is would come in and implement. And leave us with that whole ‘we could starve to death any second’ minute.
Why do I get the feeling that we will be having this same conversation next year at this time, or in 2008, 2009, etc…?
It’s like running on the hamster wheel that is Mariner baseball.
I always thought the notion that this was a playoff team was laughable, so I’m not disappointed. This is a .500 team, and they’ll end up around that. My big concern is that I don’t think the fundamental problem is Hargrove or Bavasi; yes, they’re both horrible, but the real problem is who’s hiring them. I’m afraid the prospects for a true World Series contender are slim-to-none as long as Lincoln/Armstrong are in charge. The team will get better as the young players mature, possibly to playoff level, but they won’t get the free agent reinforcements they’ll need, as L/A will again mouth their mantra “the playoffs are a crapshoot,” and refuse to spend money. Best hope for the M’s is if they eventually get sold to someone who’s serious about winning. Oh, and it would help if someone would realize that players who’ve made their reputations in the NL should be suspect as additions to AL teams (and yes, Sexson and Beltre, I’m looking at you).
Here’s the problem with railing on the GM in baseball, and it’s more distinct in this sport than any other. Running an MLB team is so much more than just signing free agents and making trades. It’s so easy for the frustrated fan to point the finger at the top, and I’m not saying that Bill Bavasi hasn’t made some moves that haven’t worked out. But the #1 problem he inherited, and was tasked with fixing, was the minor league system. Since he and Bob Fountaine have taken over, I think most everyone agrees we have had some better drafts, and have added more quality young players to the lower levels of our system than we ever did under Free-Agents-No-Matter-What-The-Cost Pat Gillick. You can’t just dismiss that progress because you think Carl Everett was a bad signing.
Right, but the thing is that Bavasi HAS a track record before his stint as the Mariner GM- and so far he’s 0-for-8 going on 0-for-9 for division titles in a four-team division where quite frankly, many of the division winners were flawed in one aspect or another (the late 90′s M’s had pitching deficits outside of RJ and Moyer, the late 90′s Rangers had BIG pitching deficits, whoever wins this year isn’t likely to be compared to the 1939 Yankees). The one feather in his cap everyone trots out in his defense (“Hey, he was the guy behind the core of the 2002 Angels! He must be good!”) speaks more to a strength of putting together a productive farm system, NOT a strength at assembling a championship-level roster year-in, year-out (consider that the Angels never won 90 games under Bavasi- the closest they got was a pace that would have won 88 in 1995).
Given that, why shouldn’t I expect the Mariners to muddle through a bunch more 75-85 win seasons under Bavasi as long as he’s GM, just like the Angels did when he was GM there?
Also, it’s not just Carl Everett. It’s Carl Everett, Jarrod Washburn, Pokey Reese with NO realistic backup plan for a guy who’s ALWAYS injured, Shiggy, Nellie, Jarvis, Spiezio, Aurilia, Sexson, Mo Vaughn, and so on. Bavasi has a history of very, very questionable signings that were easily second-guessable at the time they were made (this isn’t going into the ones which were arguable like Guardado or good gambles that didn’t pay off, like Reese by himself or Beltre).
Yes, the farm system had issues when Bill showed up. But consider- the Mariners, under Bavasi, have spent $250 million in payroll. That’s a lot of money to be spending to only end up with maybe ONE .500 team out of it (a .500 team that, if the wrong decisions get made in the offseason, could be a below-.500 team)- and a lot of those dollars are decisions Bavasi signed off on.
All that being said, I’m sensitive to the issue DMZ points out, that the guys who hired Bavasi will also hire his replacement…but perhaps the beating the M’s are taking at the box office will clue senior management in that “hmm, this isn’t working, maybe we need to try something different in our GMs”, and go for the Daniels/Ng new generation of GM.
Here goes EC again on his “let’s hang Bill Bavasi and all our problems will be solved” rant.
Can we put that in the FAQ, too?
Yes, because pointing out that your team’s GM has nearly a decade track record of not really being a superior GM, and maybe it’s not reasonable to expect him to turn into John Schuerholz = let’s tar and feather him.
But hey, fine, let’s take the troll bait. So let’s assume we give him a pass because, you know, you couldn’t really expect ANY GM to win in Seattle from 2004-2006, given what Bavasi had when he showed up in November 2003 (which I don’t automatically buy, obviously, but I’ll stipulate this point for the sake of you making your argument). At what point does “hey, he has no record of actually, you know, WINNING anything while being a general manager” become a legitimate criticism of Bavasi? 2007? 2008? 2010?
I wonder if Bavasi is on the phones right now saying, “Oops! I mean we’re SELLERS!”
Timely?
It is a good read.
Once again. EC, who would you hire to replace him? GM’s that are universally considered consistently great are a) so few you could count them on one hand and b) compensated so well by their current teams they will never become available. Which leaves us to “project” some assistant GM, or some guy that another organiazation didn’t deem worthy of a promotion, in hopes that he can somehow take on the mammoth job of being a GM and make better decisions than Bavasi has. I agree, his track record of putting together major league rosters is spotty, and maybe he’s better suited as a farm director, but for now, I think patience is the right choice. If I fired people as quickly as some of you want to fire Bavasi, half of my BEST employees never would have had a chance to reach that status. I see people become successes right in front of my eyes almost every day that at one point or another I thought were never going to make it. I’m just saying… if you are so certain that Bavasi is the root of all the M’s ills, then give me an alternative. And back it up with an argument. Simply saying that firing Bavasi is going to fix all the M’s problems is too easy. It would be one thing if we had some hot-shot young assitant GM that seemed like the savvy second-coming of Theo Epstein, but we don’t.
Final thought: Remember 2 years ago when EVERY Seahawks fan was fet up with Mike Holmgren and wanted him run out of town?
Sometimes.. patience DOES pay off.
I remember a LOY of frustration. A WHOLE DAMNED LOT! The utter stupidity that kept Everett in the lineup day after day after day; that has Bloomquist set as a regular, not utility, player; that has an absolute albatross of a manager like Hargrove (a man who has poisoned my ability to enjoy ANY Mariners game live, given his unique ability to undercut the team’s few-enough strengths while exaggerating its weaknesses in loss after unnecessary loss.)
I thank the core players (Ibanez, Joh, Ichiro, Lopez, Felix, Betancourt, Putz, Lowe, and even Beltre [I'm happy enough with the current version, may he make that final step up the team paid for!]and Moyer [harest luck I've seen!])and blame no player (even Mateo or Bloomquist – TRex doesn’t count) for a season in which hope was allowed to dawn when darkness seemed endless, and who STILL allow me to wonder whether a bit of luck coupled with Hargrove’s firing tomorrow might jump us back into the divisional playoffs, that Wonderland where anything might happen.
FIRE HARGROVE NOW!!!!!
Can we have a new GM this offseason? Please?? Seriously, the best tem Bil B. will ever build was the ’95 Angels. Our team disdains the BB? Who acquired these guys, hey? Three years, and the rotation isn’t fixed. Whose job is that, hey? I like him as a person, but he just can’t put together a team that plays smart and wins. There’s no way Bavasi is moving Richie Sexson, either. Part of it is not canny enough; part of it is not lucky enough; part of it is I don’t know what, but it’s time to part ways. I’ll miss you, Bob Fontaine, when you feel it necessary to commit seppuku after Bill’s head gets lopped, but here’s the deal: You’ve restocked our system (thanks very much), but there are other talented draft directors, and the Ms will just have to hire one of them. Do come back and visit. You too, Bill; but don’t hang around.
It seems highly probable given need on the Big League club and team history that they’ll throw a pile of dough at Jason Schmidt in the offseason to Come Home and Save Us. Just at the point his body and abilities are likely to fall of the trainer’s table. I am SO not looking forward to that.
I can say, point blank, that if Bavasi is back next year, I’m not. I _will_ not care about this team that’s incapable of winning, until they get some one who builds a different club. Period. This weekend was enough to make me think about becoming an As fan _again_, as I was when I lived in Oakland 20 years ago. I mean look at it: the toolsy guys got a new hole torn in their butt by the skillsy guys who then stole their dime to use the lavatory, too. I just can’t be bothered to watch failure like that.
Man, so angry this early in the morning!
hug?
Stuff like this REALLY irritates me… From the Chicago Tribune Sports section: “A Mariners fade could raise questions about Suzuki’s future in Seattle, however. He’s too competitive to stay on an also-ran team for long.” An “ALSO-RAN” team?!?!?! Those are fighting words in my book…especially from a team the beat in the Playoffs not too many years ago! I hate it when they think they can just pick over the players they want off of MY team!!! It’s quite possible that they feel they can out-deal Bavasi and get what they want. Maybe I want to trade Richie Sexson and a bag of peanuts for Jim Thome! How do they like that! I hope other Mariners fans feel the same way about this!
becyya57: I think you have a point about ownership, and personally I don’t think it matters one bit who IS the GM as long as Chuck and Howard won’t let them do their job. I don’t think it would require a new ownership group (and I think that is a highly unlikely thing to happen, so if you’re waiting for that….best to find another team to root for). It’s just that two, maybe even only just one, member of this ownership group has to learn to let go and let the GM just do his (or her) job.
Hard to know exactly how these interactions all work. Hard to know why Hargrove played Everett so long – was it Hargrove being an idiot? and if so, and Bavasi disagreed with that as he does with the 12 man pitching staff, well, at least Bavasi recognizes that it’s Hargrove’s job to deal with on the field day to day management decisions and he lets him do it – for better or worse (okay, really, only for worse apparently).
Or, maybe playing Everett as long as he did wasn’t solely Hargrove’s decision. Maybe it was Lincoln, telling both Bavasi and Hargrove ‘we sunk a lot of money into this guy and took a lot of heat on it, you’re not ditching him yet’. Or maybe it’s a combination of both (Hargrove being an idiot, Lincoln hamstringing GM and manager). Sadly, we really don’t have enough information to know, so trying to suggest solutions when you don’t have enough info to accurately diagnose the problem is, well, kinda pointless in the end.
Dan, read my post. There’s at least one name in there. I’m not as familiar with names as other USSM authors who actually talk to baseball people are, but I submit there are some out there.
You’re also kind of ignoring that this is Bavasi’s ninth year in a four team division, with zero titles and zero 90 win teams so far, so it’s not like this is a case where you don’t have some track record to judge him by. You might also note that the Seahawks’ success came AFTER Mike Holmgren was relieved of his GM duties, and returned to a position that he had some success in (solely as a coach), and the new GM made some roster decisions, many of which played critical roles in their Super Bowl run.
But I pose the same question to you as I did dw- OK, so when are we allowed to judge Bavasi based on results on the field if it’s not fair or productive to do so now, and what’s the standard you are using? 5 years as the Mariner GM? Longer? Read your own admission: “I agree, his track record of putting together major league rosters is spotty, and maybe he’s better suited as a farm director”- so why is patience the right choice when the Mariners attendance is drifting downwards, and we’re on pace for a third consecutive last place finish, in a division with three very good GMs (Beane, Daniels, Stoneman), and it’s VERY clear the Mariners need to make a series of correct decisions about augmenting the major league roster (as opposed to the farm system) to contend in 2007 and beyond?
I’d also point out that the sackcloth and ashes about Lincoln and Armstrong are possibly a little extreme. The Mariners won 4 division titles (and made 5 playoff appearances) with Armstrong as President, and 2 playoff appearances with Lincoln as CEO. So there is evidence that given a different GM, Armstrong and Lincoln aren’t doomed to screw the team up. The question is more one of “will they hire someone competent, or will they end up with Allard Baird”?
I’ll chip in quickly on the GM debate:
Billy Beane wasn’t exactly a household name when the A’s gave him the job. Organizations have to be willing to take some risk signing a young, bright executive. Sometimes it works (Beane) and sometimes it doesn’t (DePodesta, but maybe for non-baseball reasons?), but there has to be a culture of managed risk at the ownership level. Right now, a steady cashflow from the pretty new stadium and a non-hopeless team with a safe but known mediocrity at GM might be exactly what ownership is looking for.
I think you guys are putting too much emphasis on the importance of a front office, honestly. And I say this as a guy who has been lobbying for changes in the front office for years.
But look, Kenny Williams had a worse track record than Bavasi does (which, admittedly, isn’t great). He made some insane moves, rounded out his roster with bad players, and won a World Series.
The whole “we can’t win a World Series while Howard/Chuck/Bill/Mike/whoever is in charge” mentality is just wrong. There’s no reason to stop rooting for the organization just because they don’t do things the way we want them done.
Yes, we think our ways are better than their ways, and we’d rather they do things like we want them to. But to stop rooting for the team, or abandon all hope, just because they’re trying to do it a different way? That’s foolish. Minnesota does it far differently than I would as well, but you know what, they’re a good team, and I wouldn’t have any problem rooting for them if I lived in Minneapolis.
I think the chances are strong that this team regresses next year. Just looking at the job it will take to fix the starting rotation in the offseason, I am not confident that enough talent will even be available to help us improve. Plus you have to hope we’re savvy enough to actually get some of that talent, which I’m not convinced of either.
The arrival of Lopez, Betancourt and Kenji as reliable offensive and defensive players is very nice to see, but without significantly better pitching we’re on a road to nowhere with this team. And speaking of roads to nowhere, don’t even get me started about Hargrove. It amazes me how much he hurt the Mariners this year. It’s really quite an accomplishment, because you wouldn’t think a manager could make that much of a difference either way.
I want Bavasi to come back mainly because I don’t trust upper management to do any better the next time they hire a GM. At least Bavasi is a known quantity and he has shown he can rebuild the farm system, which in my mind, is the most important key to getting this organization back on track.
I hope next year they cut the payroll, not increase it. It’s like dealing with a person who can’t manage money – is giving them more really going to help? No. Take some away and make them accountable for managing it more wisely. The Mariners need to quit throwing money at their problems and start doing a better job of being a baseball organization. The people handling the money have demonstrated again and again they will not spend it wisely. Expecting a different outcome when doing the same thing over and over is the definition of insanity.
I really hope the beating they have taken from Oakland sets in with the M’s front office. Oakland couldn’t do things more differently than Seattle and look at which approach has been most successful. The A’s win year in and year out with considearbly less resources because they do a better job of evaluating talent, they have a solid organizational approach and acquire players who support that approach, and they trade guys at the right time to get maximum return for them. The Mariners simply do none of those things. There is no vision, no creativity and no accountability within the front office and boy, does it show.
I think EC is right about this. I frankly fear Bavasi with $24M to spend on free agents. He has a poor record of doing good with resources. Is probably best as a player development guy than GM. Also, as a fan from the beginning, I don’t support the concept that the current management is crap. Can they be better, sure, but they are all sweetness and light when compared to the ownership and management of the 70′s and 80′s. Total morons. I’ll take these guys all day long compared to some of their counterparts in the league today. Fire Grover now and let the new guy determine what he needs.
Back to work now…
Lou would be an awful choice for managing this team … too much youth and no good starting pitchers other than Felix who’s young himself.
Not to mention the bridge between Lou and upper mgmt was pretty well burned by the end of his last stint.
#79
I don’t see how you can say this team will regress next year while barely offering any evidence. Even with the problems in the rotation, a full year of not having Everett as DH, plus doing anything to address the lack of production from center field gives you 5 more wins, easy. Any improvement from the young guys, plus either Sexson not being craptastic or getting a new 1B would be another couple wins.
Yeh, hard to see how this team is worse next year. Ibanez is the only regular in the lineup who seems likely to fall off. We’ve been replacement level or worse at DH, 1B, and CF. We’ve already fixed the DH problem which might be worth 4 or 5 wins there.
The bullpen can’t be as good — no way Putz, Soriano, Sherill, and Lowe combine for an ERA of 2 — but they should still be pretty darn good. Felix should be better than a 4.50 ERA (or technically his ERA should better reflect his pitching as it has since June) and we ditch Pineiro and his ERA of 6. So all we need to do is replace Meche to tread water.
Oh almost forgot, we replace Hargrove and his stupid bunting, agressive outs on the bases and other bad moves.
Except for LF and setup relief pitching, the Mariners should be better at every position next year.
re: the Japanese system of posting a player, here is a nice history, including this paragraph: “If the player is available, the MLB Commissioner will post the players availability to all MLB teams. Interested MLB teams then bid, and the highest bid is disclosed to the Japanese Commission. The Japanese team then has the option to accept or refuse the bid. In case of a refusal, the player involved is taken off the posting, and cannot be posted until the next term for transactions. If the bid is accepted the MLB team is awarded the sole, exclusive, and non-assignable right to negotiate with and sign the player within 30 days.”
The season isn’t over just yet. The problem with stat-heads such as the USSM and the posters is that you guys are too damn negative all the time. In ’95 would have your analysis showed we had a prayer of a chance? No way! Both the A’s and Angels are perfectly capable of a collapse down the stretch. Let’s keep the hope alive!!!
Sigh.
Look, if you think I’m too negative all the time, you’re either an idiot or you haven’t been reading the blog this year.
Or maybe both.
For as much grief as Bavasi’s taking in this thread (much of it well deserved) I can’t help but wonder how much different things could have been without Hargrove. I believe his inept roster construction and brain dead in-game management has cost this team at least a dozen wins this year.
#86 – This isn’t a great team as presently constructed, but I feel they often look a lot worse simply because they’re not a smart ball club. They’re often a dumb ball club that occasionally sinks to the level of jaw wide open, drooling on the collar stupid. That gets up the dander of not only statheads, but fans.
Sure, there’s still a mathematical chance the Ms could make the playoffs … but is this team with its present manager even capable of playing intelligently enough to roll off a double digit winning streak? Nothing I’ve seen so far this year leads me to believe that can happen.
#86– um, if you don’t like stat-heads and their readers’ approach to the Mariners, why bother to post here?
I too would like to see what this team would do without Hargrove (and his enthusiatic minion at third). I still think some sort of exorcism ritual needs to be held to try & fix the baseball luck problem, too.
86: The M’s have 52 games left. Assuming they lose the remaining 6 with Oakland, they have to win 32 of 46 (approx 70%) of the games against everyone else to get to 85 wins, which still probably won’t be enough to win the division. I’m more confident in the success of the Lotto ticket I bought yesterday.
The difference between Bavasi and Hargrove for me is this:
Bavasi is a personable guy. I like listening to him talk about his job, even if I may disagree on player evaluations and the like. As a GM he gets to make a move once every few weeks maybe, and even if I hate it, then I have time to get over it. But really, apart from C-Rex I can live with most of his moves. I also see Bavasi’s time here as being very constrained, especially with the influence of Pat Gillick his first year.
Hargrove is not particularly personable. He mumbles and rambles and rarely says anything that isn’t straight out of the “baseball cliches for managers” handbook. He also has the opportunity several times a game to do something maddeningly infuriating, and he takes advantage of those opportunities most games. From season-long “strategies” like aggressive baserunning, bunting, (lack of) bench usage and a 12 man pitching staff, to in-game strategy like pitching changes and pinch-hitting, he makes M’s games hard to watch.
He also has the slowest mind of any baseball manager I can recall. He was weeks behind the consensus to move Beltre in the order (yet still got credit for it!?!), and he’s often an inning behind in his in-game strategy, getting outmaneuvered on a daily basis.
I’ve been a season ticket holder for 12 years now, and the one and only thing that will stop it from being 13 will be the continued presence of Mike F***ing Hargrove in the dugout next year.
Yes, we think our ways are better than their ways, and we’d rather they do things like we want them to. But to stop rooting for the team, or abandon all hope, just because they’re trying to do it a different way? That’s foolish. Minnesota does it far differently than I would as well, but you know what, they’re a good team, and I wouldn’t have any problem rooting for them if I lived in Minneapolis.
Yup.
I don’t plan on giving up my 16 game plan if Bavasi and Hargrove are still in their positions come 2007. It seems to me that “well, there are good and bad points about _blank_” is just as valid if you use Hargrove and Bavasi to fill in the blank, by the way.
As for Kenny Williams- despite the wacky decisions, he’s never had a sub-.500 record in his 5 years as a GM. Which is not something you can say about Bavasi during his first 5 years. Granted, some of that is playing in a division with some awful teams, but still…
#86 – the USSM’ers are not negative all the time. Do some folks who post and comment on this site rely heavily on the stats over intangibles? Yep. But you can’t quanitify and account for intangibles when trying to objectively look at a team. And objectively, this team is not set up to make a huge run.
From what I’ve seen the folks who run this site fully admit that intangibles and unexpected happenings do matter. I’ve seen them type as much. But Dave is simply pointing out that, at 6.5 games out of a lightweight division, with a limited number of games to play, the outlook is more dim than bright. In this position around the trade deadline, we’d have been sellers. It’s reality, and we are getting closer to “it’ll take a miracle” time. When looking at our chances, hoping for miracles is not the position you want to be in in August.
Is a ’95 run out of the question? no. Dave’s given you his take on the odds, and it’s above 0% for a reason. If you are putting the chances above that you are not being realistic, considering the performance of our starting pitchers in the most important 3-game series we’ve had all year.
This team is more interesting to watch than last year’s, and we have a shot to finish at .500, which is what we sort of expected. It’s an improvement that I would be happy to see. Maybe we see a few new guys testing the 5th spot in the starting rotation before season end. We better starting doing what it takes to figure out what we have for next year, or we’ll flounder around in the 2007 season too.
I didn’t see any commentary on the game thread yesterday but what seemed most questionable to me was when grover pinch hit perez for broussard. i don’t remember who was pitching for the a’s but he had just walked the last two batters and was nowhere near the zone against sexson. you knew that you were going to end up with a L/L or a R/R matchup, so why not stick with the pitcher who wasn’t looking very good?
As for Kenny Williams- despite the wacky decisions, he’s never had a sub-.500 record in his 5 years as a GM. Which is not something you can say about Bavasi during his first 5 years. Granted, some of that is playing in a division with some awful teams, but still…
This is the big problem I have with your repeated mantra of Bavasi’s record of failures – it ignores context.
Bavasi took over a team that was ready for a massive collapse that we all saw coming. We were writing about the impending disaster back in 2002 and 2003. Everybody saw the writing on the wall, including Pat Gillick, who jumped ship just in time, as always, before his precious record could be tarnished.
There’s not a GM in baseball who could have won with the ’04 and ’05 Mariners. They were screwed from the get go. Bavasi made some poor choices that exacerbated the issues, no doubt, but losing with those teams, to me, isn’t really a big mark against him.
Evidence they will regress? OK here’s some. Moyer’s age is evidence. Piniero and Meche’s suckiness is evidence. Further evidence is in Tacoma and San Antonio – do you see solid upgrades to our rotation there? No you do not. That means we have to rely on Bavasi and Co. to go make moves to get us a better rotation. When faced with a similar task last year, they ‘bolstered the rotation’ by adding Jarrod Washburn for 37 million dollars. Do you expect the same crew to suddenly figure it out now?
My point is that the rotation is much more likely to get worse than better. You can’t bank on Felix to carry the rotation next year with the rest of the group being Washburn, maybe Moyer, and then…oblivion, or whatever the FO comes up with in the offseason. Sure the offense might get better, esp. with Perez and Broussard instead of C-Rex. I just don’t see that overcoming the problems we’re going to have in the rotation.
I dunno. I delight in remaining a homer as long as possible. Sure it’s only 52 games, but 26 are in the division. It’s not that I expect that they’ll come back from 6.5, it’s that there’s enough hope that I will keep interested, and keep going to the games. That’s not all I ask for this time of year, but it’s enough.
and in other GM fun, the Cincy Post claims the Reds have acquired Ryan Franklin from the Phillies for a PTBNL…
#74: I hate it when they think they can just pick over the players they want off of MY team!!!
It’s called free agency. At the end of this contract, Ichiro gets to pick whose job offer he wants to take, just like you and I and about 200+ million other people in this country do.
Perhaps you’d prefer the bad old days of the reserve system? If so, you’re only about 30 years to late.
Just like they were in 2003, the Mariners staff is excited about something that means very little, that the team has only used 5 starters all seasons. All it means is that you’ve been lucky with injuries and your staff is too stupid to do anything about the guy or guys who haven’t doing their jobs — at least in ’03 they had 5 average to above average starters.
I can’t believe this quote (below) from Chavez. They’ve pitched well enough? Pineiro has an ERA of almost 6.00 (and it’s probably over 7.00 if you take out his two good starts in May). They haven’t even thought about taking anyone out of the rotation or skipping starts? Well, then they’re not doing their fucking jobs!
FROM THE MARINERS WEB SITE
“They (the Mariners starters) have pitched well enough where we haven’t had to think about taking anyone out of the rotation or skipping starts,” Chaves said. “We have been comfortable sending guys out there every fifth day. We know we’ll have a chance to be in every ballgame.”
Rafael Chavez’s Stupid Quote
99: It’ll be a bit hard for the rotation to be worse than this season. Pineiro can be replaced with almost anyone and it would be, at he very least, a push. Felix has to be better next season. I can’t see Washburn getting any worse. That leaves Moyer and Meche. If both don’t come back, one can (hopefully) be replaced by one of the premeier FA’s this season. The other can be replaced by one of the few options we have in AAA. You’re telling me that would be worse than this season?
^^^ Meant 96
Milton AND Franklin together in Cincy?
That’s funny.
re: bad GM’s… you want to see a bad GM? Mr. Littlefield over in Pittsburgh (Jeromy Burnitz and Joe Randa, anyone?). Or before his canning, Allan Baird in KC (I know what will help this team! Mark Redman, Doug Mientkiewicz and Scott Elarton!).
Bavasi has a thing for the Big Signing (Beltre, Sexson, Washburn, Johjima and to some extent, Everett), which, even though not all of them were bad signings, has put the team in some budget trouble… but the little moves he has made has by and large helped this team get better.
The Orioles are proof that signing the big stars doesn’t always make your team all that much better.
re #’s 55 & 58, Reed:
Jeremy Reed is still only 25 years old, and has played most of the last two seasons with a fairly serious wrist problem. The ONE good thing that may come of this extended DL stint is he may have a chance to get healthy – finally. Reed is not the nearly .400 hitter we saw in his initial September 2004 call-up, but I also think he is better (and likely to improve still) than his .254/.322/.352 “career” (it’s still a fairly small sample of just 758 ABs). His defense, too, is too much maligned this year. He probably got too much praise for it last year, but the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction this year. I would much rather run Reed out in CF again next year than sign Kenny Lofton, or some such crap. If you have to, platoon Reed and Jones for $700K, and have a decent fourth outfielder on your bench in the process. It’s better than the $2M or so (plus probably an option buyout) you’d need to give a guy like Lofton, WHO IS GOING TO BE 40 YEARS OLD NEXT YEAR.
#59, G-Man, wrote:
Somebody could take Sexson off our hands? Certainly we’d have to pay a chunk of his salary.
There were reports around the deadline that the Giants were willing to take Sexson and pay virtually all of his remaining salary. My guess is that there will be a market for Sexson this offseason, especially in the NL. Personally, if we control both Broussard (I’m certain of that) and Perez (not sure) for next year and beyond, I’d be in favor of dumping Richie in favor of that platoon, a
Just like they were in 2003, the Mariners staff is excited about something that means very little, that the team has only used 5 starters all season
Dear god, no; not this again. That will be the lead for the season ticket renewal letters this winter, you know it will, and it will be all Fairly et. al. talk about in the spring, just like in 2003. And it’s just as meaningful now as it was then.
I look forward to the day that the Mariners celebrate actual baseball accomplishments rather than meaningless endurance tests and bad managerial decisions.
Damn, sloppy fingers — premature post.
The end of the though was “as long as whomever we trade him to takes on at least 3/4 of his salarynext year and all beyond that.” While bowing to those who caution that freeing up Richie’s salary and putting it in the hands of the guy who signed him (and Speizio, Aurilia, blah, blah, blah), I’d rather take the chance than not.
#105: http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com says that the Perez contract has a club option for 2007, but does not disclose the amount. Since he made $1.7m in 2006, expect it to be close to $2m.
Perez will be 37 at the end of this season. You’d think the M’s could find a more cost-effective option, but then again this is the team that wrote $4m worth of check to Carl Everett.
#100– Jon, do you really expect Chavez would throw his rotation under the bus in the media? I can’t recall any pitching coach ever do that…
Chaves. Chaves. Chaves.
His last name is Chaves.
Guardado should’ve been traded.
Everett should never have been signed.
Washburn was the best the M’s could do?
The above is just the latest round of off-season moves (or non-moves), all of which didn’t pan out like almost everyone here predicted.
So looking to next off-season, how can anybody realistically believe the M’s rotation won’t be even more horrible next year? Where are the M’s going to find 800+ innings of mostly quality effort? Why should we believe the M’s will spend money and, if they do, will spend it wisely?
Assuming Hargrove is back (God forbid), the offense marginally improves, and the bullpen is nearly is good, the M’s will be lucky to win 70 games next season, given how bad their starting pitching will be.
Right now, we all hope the M’s finish above .500 (isn’t that a sad commentary that our hopes are now so low), but there is also the chance the M’s could lose 2/3 of their remaining games (maybe more likely than winning 2/3) and, with wheels off, the M’s braintrust would have nothing to show for this year, not even false promise.
As you can see, I’m so tired of losing to the A’s.
It’s a no-brainer that the M’s are not going to the play-offs this season. To reiterate what I’ve seen written here all season, if upper management were to fire Grover today, however – which I don’t see happening unfortunately – after the initial shock it would probably give the team a shot in the arm. Get Dan Rohn on board for the rest of the season and see what he can do for the next 50 games mixing and matching lineups. Then in the offseason make whatever changes can be made with pitching. If Dan can do the job, let him. Does he have leadership, or whatever the intangibles are required, as Oly Rainiers Fan suggests, to have the team run through walls?
Interesting when you think about the pitching in 2001: Garcia, Moyer, Abbott, I’m forgetting who else…how far they went in winning games, and they weren’t (as a team) what you call powerhouse pitchers but they won a few games, as I recall. Why is it in a pitcher’s ballpark the emphasis isn’t on putting $$$ into the best SP available. I agree with trading or selling Richie and whoever else they need to in order to acquire a couple SP, to start with to put the pieces together to make a run in ’07 from there.
There’s not a GM in baseball who could have won with the ‘04 and ‘05 Mariners. They were screwed from the get go. Bavasi made some poor choices that exacerbated the issues, no doubt, but losing with those teams, to me, isn’t really a big mark against him.
If they were screwed from the get-go so badly that anyone could have realized it, it should have been obvious enough to pursue alternate strategies, no? Why spend $150-175 million on bad teams when you can buy one for much cheaper? I’m not entirely certain you get a pass for overpaying THAT much for craptasticness.
But OK, I’ll stipulate that, since I did it already a while back: that takes care of two out of nine of his years as a GM. What else exists in his record to make you think he’ll be successful at something he’s never been successful at before: filling out the roster without the Carl Everetts, Jarrod Washburns and Mo Vaughns cluttering it up and taking the team out of contention by wasting money on overpriced contracts? Because that’s what this offseason really is: if the free agent/trade solutions to the gaping holes you mention are the wrong ones, this team could flounder around .500 for a while, which is better than being in the tank, certainly… but that’s what the Angels basically were from 1994-2001 as a product of Bavasi’s work as GM.
It seems that the argument for keeping Bavasi by comparing him to Kenny Williams, in a division with Oakland, Anaheim and Texas, 3 well managed competitors with ample resources of one sort or another, boils down to “well, even blind pigs find acorns”- that we might not like the strategy, but there are other strategies we can point to that seem to work. I just have a hard time finding anything you can point to in Bavasi’s record that does this: sure, Terry Ryan does things differently in Minnesota, but there’s an actual track record there that beats Bavasi’s. Ditto a lot of GMs. It also strikes me that if there are deep problems in the organizational outlook that need to be addressed, the odds that this happens while the front office stays static are next to nil- and a new GM brings new perspective.
I guess the way I see it is that Bavasi has DONE his job, essentially- shepherded some young talent into the lineup. Now it’s time for a GM with strengths in areas Bavasi is historically weak in (preferably, on who can do the walking part of accumulating talent in a productive farm system AND chew the gum of managing the 25 man roster)- and just going “hooray! we’re making progress” isn’t likely to pay off the way stepping back and critiquing the organization top to bottom would. God, I hope I’m wrong, though.
2001 rotation:
Freddy Garcia
Jamie Moyer
Aaron Sele
Paul Abbott
*John Halama / Joel Pineiro
Makes Felix/Wash/Moyer/Meche/Pinata look like world beaters, to be honest.
Assuming Hargrove is back (God forbid), the offense marginally improves, and the bullpen is nearly is good, the M’s will be lucky to win 70 games next season, given how bad their starting pitching will be.
This is the kind of ridiculous statement that gives rise to the whole “statheads are too negative” comment.
Right now, we all hope the M’s finish above .500 (isn’t that a sad commentary that our hopes are now so low), but there is also the chance the M’s could lose 2/3 of their remaining games (maybe more likely than winning 2/3) and, with wheels off, the M’s braintrust would have nothing to show for this year, not even false promise.
The chance that the M’s go 17-35 the rest of the way is about 2%.
Ridiculous pessimism isn’t any better than ridiculous optimism.
100 – Jeez. It makes you wonder how Chaves say that with a straight face.
Trading Sexson would be a good start. That allows Benuardo to take over at 1B, getting Ibanzez out of LF and to DH full-time.
A Reed/Jones platoon in CF is a bad idea, I think. I hate having a young player in a platoon, in general, but Jones only playing against lefties means he’s riding the pine way too often. He’d be much better off playing every day in Tacoma.
As for the guy who said there weren’t any rotation possibilities in Tacoma or San Antonio — check out Cruceta and Feierabend.
If they were screwed from the get-go so badly that anyone could have realized it, it should have been obvious enough to pursue alternate strategies, no? Why spend $150-175 million on bad teams when you can buy one for much cheaper? I’m not entirely certain you get a pass for overpaying THAT much for craptasticness.
Because there’s no way upper management would have allowed him to come in and say “hey, I know the team won 93 games last year, but I’m going to tear this thing down and rebuild, okay?”
It seems that the argument for keeping Bavasi by comparing him to Kenny Williams, in a division with Oakland, Anaheim and Texas, 3 well managed competitors with ample resources of one sort or another, boils down to “well, even blind pigs find acornsâ€- that we might not like the strategy, but there are other strategies we can point to that seem to work. I just have a hard time finding anything you can point to in Bavasi’s record that does this: sure, Terry Ryan does things differently in Minnesota, but there’s an actual track record there that beats Bavasi’s. Ditto a lot of GMs. It also strikes me that if there are deep problems in the organizational outlook that need to be addressed, the odds that this happens while the front office stays static are next to nil- and a new GM brings new perspective.
I guess I have a problem with evaluating a GM’s ability to make future good moves based on how the past 8-10 moves have worked out. This is classic small sample size analysis that would be thrown out if we were trying to evaluate a player.
Yes, the Mo Vaughn signing was a disaster. So was Jarrod Washburn, Carl Everett, Scott Spiezio, Rich Aurilia, etc… I’m not arguing that Bavasi’s track record in free agency is not poor. It clearly is.
I’m arguing that it’s not as predictive of future outcomes as you are theorizing.
Rather than saying “Bavasi’s 12 (or whatever) free agent signings in 9 years have failed, so clearly he’s unable to pick good free agents”, I’d rather look at the underlying ideas behind the signings and evaluate those concepts on their merits.
Rich Aurilia was an unmitigated disaster, but the idea wasn’t – sign a one year stopgap at short and see if the system can provide us with a long term solution. Not a bad idea, and not the kind of thinking that I mind from my general manager.
Beltre was, in mine and many other peoples opinions, the ideal free agent target for the Mariners in the ’04 offseason. He was entering his age 26 season, coming off an MVP caliber season, provided almost no health risks, filled an organizational hole, and almost every reasonable projection had him as an all-star caliber performer for the length of the contract. It hasn’t worked out as well as we had hoped, but again, not a bad concept.
Now, the Washburn signing, obviously, I was very critical of, and I’ll agree that the underlying concepts behind it were awful. And I have no problem holding that signing against Bavasi. Same with Everett. Awful idea, awful result.
I’m not arguing that Bavasi is a great GM. I’ve stated many disagreements with his philosophies and I do believe we’re short-handed when compared to the other GMs in the division.
But I don’t see him as a problem that can’t be overcome, especially in light of the strengths he brings to other parts of the organization. To me, Bavasi’s lack of appreciation for the base on balls is akin to Ozzie Guillen’s tendancy to piss off his players and get in petty fights – you wish he was different, but it’s not the end of the world, especially in light of his strengths.
Why is it that the blatently obvious reasoning of a slew of regular Mariners bloggers and readers seems to elude Bavasi, Lincoln, and Armstrong?
Eleven11: I couldn’t agree with you more that the current ownership is way, way better than Argyros and Smulyan. I just said the current ownership has consistently refused to take the risks necessary to get a team to the Series, and there’s no reason to think they’ll change. And yes, Oly, I do root for other teams, such as the Cardinals (I’m from Illinois).
JMB: 2 big reasons a Jones/Reed platoon in CF is a bad idea:
1, the one you said, you’ve got your 21-year-old outfielder with potentail 30hr power getting 150-200 ABs for the entire year.
2, Jones against lefties in Triple-A this year: .125/.278/.222. He’s a substantially better hitter against righties.
As long as we’re talking about getting pitching for next year, here’s an idea that would be aggressive or crazy (your choice):
What if we were to trade one of our marketable regulars for a solid young pitcher? Now I don’t have any ideas about who we’d try to get, nor will I try to be specific about who goes. It just seems that we have bigger holes in the rotation than we do on the field. A guy who’s shown he can play in this league, and is cheap or reasonably priced for multiple future years has to be worth a lot. When the alternative is another Washburn-like signing, maybe it’s time to take a look at the depth in the farm system and the postion players who are FA’s and see what’s possible.
Yes, I know that solid starters aren’t exactly a dime a dozen.
OK, rip that brainstorm to shreds if you wish.
My guess is that there will be a market for Sexson this offseason, especially in the NL.
I mentioned that waaaaay back up thread — the Cubs have Phil Nevin at first, and Wrigley is Sexson’s kind of park.
123
They also have Derrek Lee. San Francisco, Houston, and Baltimore seem like more likely targets.
I’ve stated many disagreements with his philosophies and I do believe we’re short-handed when compared to the other GMs in the division.
But I don’t see him as a problem that can’t be overcome, especially in light of the strengths he brings to other parts of the organization.
So why doesn’t that apply to Hargrove? Hargrove’s done some things well during his tenure here- the clubhouse is OK, he’s been willing to use young players in critical roles instead of sabotaging them in favor of veterans, and so on. Sure, he has weaknesses we all love to pick on, but I can probably make as clear an argument for him not being an impediment to going deep in the playoffs as you could for Bavasi- especially since we have firsthand evidence of this (the 1995 and 1997 Indians). Hell, Bob Brenly won a World Series doing utterly bizarre field decisions in front of a national audience.
My take is that this offseason Bavasi has to pull off what Pat Gillick did in the 1999-2000 offseason, and turn a team with flaws but a combination of some interesting young talent and good veterans into a playoff contender. I’d feel a lot more confident if he had any sort of track record at doing this, instead of a track record of, well what his track record is on free agent signings- because it’s a pretty high-risk strategy to do this with veteran free agents.
Chaves. I know. I’m sorry.
it has been interesting to read the quotes from folks outside the organization as to just how baffled they are about why this wierd domination by the A’s this season….
This is how I would rank my GM characteristics from a player personnel standpoint.
1. Farm system development
2. Trades
3. FA signings
4. Building a strong bench
Having a strong farm system allows you to be in position to stock your own team with young undervalued assets (the the Angels current group) and to be in position to take place in trades with teams looking to unload salary for prospects.
I’m fine if Bavasi sticks around simply because of the work he did with the farm system.
JMB, and JH:
Good point about not platooning Reed/Jones. I threw that out there as an “if you have to” kind of point, not really because I think it would be a good idea. The hit to Jones, developmentally, is reason enough not to consider it. And frankly, I have been a big critic of the non-platoon platoon of Reed and Bloomquist this year, for many of the same reasons. Though I think Reed’s batting struggles has much to do with the health of his wrist (or lack thereof) as anything, the platoon could well have been part of it as well.
My main point is I would rather throw Jeremy Reed making $400K back out there (or Jones, if he takes a step forward and beats out Reed in ST) than go after the likes of Kenny Lofton or his ilk for a year or two and an option.
One caveat to your point in #121, though, JH: Jones was pushed through the system, hard, and that line represents only 70 ABs. I don’t think it is very predictive of his ability to hit LHP going forward.
So why doesn’t that apply to Hargrove?
Hargrove is worse at his job than Bavasi is at his.
Hargrove’s done some things well during his tenure here- the clubhouse is OK, he’s been willing to use young players in critical roles instead of sabotaging them in favor of veterans, and so on.
No, the clubhosue isn’t okay. Most of the players can’t stand him. And I’d argue that his willingness to use young players instead of veterans is just not true, when he’s given an option.
Dave, Hargrove has used Mark Lowe in some high-leverage situations, which I wouldn’t have bet that he was willing to do. So, we have to give him credit for that.
#130 – Dave has (and argued with a few people in favor of Hargrove, I recall). I don’t have time to do the link thing . . .
In favor of that use. Not Hargrove in general, that is.
Dave, quick question, what do you think Bavasi should do re: the starting rotation. I am not excited about the FA market. I think a stronger Felix next year with the options the Japanese market may bring would change my mind about our in-house options, but I don’t know what else is a real possibility. Do the M’s go the trade route? Who to target there?
I liked Chaves well enough until I read that stupid comment he made regarding the rotation. No, he doesn’t need to throw the starting five under the bus, but plee-e-e-ease…does he really think we’re that stupid? Sure, I get it, it’s PR.
But if his opinion of us as Mariner fans is indicative of the Mariner FO mentality who have the opportunity this off-season to bring on board a new baseball-savvy GM and manager and to buy and sell and trade players, no wonder this team is again last place in the AL West this year. Kind of demoralizing, to say the least.
On the other hand, it can still be fun for the rest of the season if they bring up the AAA guys mentioned. But trade or dfa Piniero, and bring Cruceta up NOW!
Dave, Hargrove has used Mark Lowe in some high-leverage situations, which I wouldn’t have bet that he was willing to do.
Soriano was unavailable. Chalk that one up to desperation.
At what point does Doyle’s AAA rehab performance bring his entire future into question — after 215 at bats in Tacoma this year he’s 223/331/334 with only 4 homeruns. I ask because a lot of discussion here seems to assume (hope) that sometime before next April he’ll be available, healthy and effective. Granted he’s rehabbing, granted the sample’s not the biggest, granted all that but to me it’s not looking good. Am I missing somethign?
134 — Mateo wasn’t, though.
The biggest problem with this team is clearly the starting pitching. I’d say that at the moment we’ve got a solid #2 guy (Felix) and acceptable #4 (Washburn) and #5 (Moyer) guys. The challenge for making the playoffs, let alone winning playoff games, is to come up with the other two top of the rotation guys. Maybe we’d have a shot at Matsuzaka or Schmidt for one of those spots, but it seems like the other one will have to come from within. I’d sure like to see them try Soriano or Lowe for that other spot, with Brandon Morrow a possibility to emerge by 2008.
The other problem I see is that the M’s always seem content to get pretty average production from the LF, DH and 1B spots, whereas most other teams have their best hitters there. With the sole exception of Edgar, the M’s have lacked a single superstar hitter at the easiest positions there are to fill, instead settling for guys like Olerud and Ibanez—decent guys and decent players, but not guys who can carry a team on their backs. I’m not sure how to slove that problem, but there needs to be some recognition that when an impact hitter becomes available (like Guerrero or Tejada a few years ago), a team like the Mariners needs to spend the extra money to get that guy in here. We can debate the merits of Bavasi as GM, but the Beltre signing notwithstanding, I don’t really see the current management group as likely to do whatever it takes to make it happen, regardless of who is GM. As much as we all hate guys like Steinbrenner, the Mariners could use somebody at the top with the ego and lack of risk aversion to make some decisive and/or controversial moves. It just seems like the culture that’s in place isn’t going to do that.
Umm…
Olerud was a damn good hitter before his power disappeared.
Olerud had power?
2007 rotation: Felix, FA, Washburn, Moyer, Lowe.
Only requires signing one guy.
FA?
Quick question to which I do not know the answer:
Is there any GM’s protégé running around out there we might take a chance on? I honestly don’t know, but surely someone with promise has been working closely with a GM we can all agree takes some of the risks we’d like to see. Maybe not, but if we can’t raid the GM cupboard for the GM, why not take a promising pupil?
I have been soured on any notion that being an established GM or manager in baseball accounts for anything. There is too great a market for mediocre managers and GM’s that longevity for these jobs is more a function of having some decent seasons and then finding enough teams going downhill, that will hire you because your name recognition factor (to the average fan) covers over your lack of understanding of the game, and ability to do your job. Why do we need to limit ourselves to that market?
I’m a new poster here and not well versed in SABR scouting and analysis. Please forgive. I was hoping those more skilled could address this question: Can OBP be taught to hitters? I understand how it might be awkward or unproductive to try and get established vets to change their approach, but Lopez, Betancourt, and Reed would all seem to be young enough that this skill could be emphasisized to improve the team’s overall chances of scoring runs. Is this a skill hitter either have or don’t have?
POSTING – I don’t think that the posting process has ben correctly described, and the following description may be incorrect too: *
MLB teams may submit a bid (for exclusive negotiating rights) by a certain deadline to the Commissioner’s office. The Commissioner’s office then selects the highest bid, and sends it to the Japnese team.
he Japanese team accepts or rejects this bid. If it accepts, then the sucessful bidder has thirty days to negotiate a contract.
If the negotiations are unsuccessful, the player is still with the Japanese team; and the bid ($)is returned to the MLB team.
BTW, the Japanese player–like a junior in college–does have some leverage in the negotiations. (He can play another year in Japan.)
___________
*If this is incorrect, or needs amending, I trust that the USS MARINER staff will correct or amend this.
2007 rotation: Felix, FA, Washburn, Moyer, Lowe.
Only requires signing one guy.
Two, though Moyer’s not much of a sell job….
As people have noted, we have three holes in the rotation next year. I think it’s a mistake to count on filling two of them with minor leaugers and/or converted relievers (on the other hand, I think it’s a mistake not to leave one spot open for that).
2007 rotation (#1 – I hope)- Matsuzaka, Felix, Washburn, Moyer, Soriano/Lowe/Cruceta
2007 rotation (#2 – sadly more likely) – overpaid FA, Felix, Washburn, Moyer, marginal FA/surprise spring training standout.
Oh well.
Again, who is FA? It’s not ringing a bell…
On a more current note, the Seattle Mariners will lose tonight.
Why?
Well, there’s a simple reason for it, with that being the fact that Tim Corcoran — who, for whatever it’s worth, has the same surname as USSMariner legend David Corcoran — will be on the mound for the Tampa Devil Rays.
Although that’s not some sort of statistical analysis, it’s nevertheless an intuitive feeling—there’s no denyin’ it!
Dave, quick question, what do you think Bavasi should do re: the starting rotation. I am not excited about the FA market. I think a stronger Felix next year with the options the Japanese market may bring would change my mind about our in-house options, but I don’t know what else is a real possibility. Do the M’s go the trade route? Who to target there?
If he can get the club to fork over the posting fee for Matsuzaka and not have it count against payroll, like they did with Ichiro, that’s a no brainer. If the posting fee is “bonus money”, then you get to sign a guy who looks like an elite pitcher for less than market value. My feeling on this is that if the M’s Japanese contingent decides to put up any money for the posting fee, the M’s will get him – they’re not going to be outbid for a Japanese superstar.
I’d also suggest trolling the trade waters for a midlevel innings eater who is still in his arbitration years and won’t cost an arm and a leg. Claudio Vargas, or someone of his ilk, who would you cost about $2 million in salary, a B-/C+ prospect, and no long term commitment. Your rotation is Felix, Matsuzaka, Washburn, and then Vargas, Moyer, Cruceta, Lowe, Soriano, and Feierabend can come to camp and fight for the last two spots.
Is there any GM’s protégé running around out there we might take a chance on? I honestly don’t know, but surely someone with promise has been working closely with a GM we can all agree takes some of the risks we’d like to see. Maybe not, but if we can’t raid the GM cupboard for the GM, why not take a promising pupil?
Chris Antonetti, asst. GM of the Indians. I’ve been pimping him here for three years. He was my choice when the organization went with Bavasi. I’m not any less of a fan now.
FWIW, a list of potential 2007 FAs
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How ’bout this, if were going to nitpick:
Olerud was a great hitter and an all around undervalued player until his homerun totals dropped drastically after the 2002 season.
Too bad Rafael Palmiero isn’t in baseball anymore he’d be a good lefthanded bat who has done extremely well at Safeco.
“he’s been willing to use young players in critical roles instead of sabotaging them in favor of veterans”
And I’d argue that (Hargrove’s) willingness to use young players instead of veterans is just not true, when he’s given an option.
Of late, he’s used Lowe in key situations, but that’s the exception not the rule of his management. He let Borchard, Petagine (not young but not a veteran either), Dobbs, everyone else rot on the bench or AAA in favor of veteran Everett. He’s sabotaged Reed by platooning him in favor of a scrappy veteran. He’s left Pineiro in the rotation in favor of Woods and a bunch of guys at AAA.
OK, so he’s let Betancourt and Lopez play, but what choice does he have?
The most impressive thing about Hargrove is that he’s managed to keep his job through 2/3 of the season, despite many opportunities to be fired.
You don’t see it as much in baseball as you do in other sports with caps, but what is the possibillity of a sign and trade with the Giants in an exchange of Sexson for Schmidt? Does this happen in the MLB and would it be plausible?
As mentioned above it would allow Bendaurdo to move to first and Ibanez to the DH role. Having adressed one of the rotations two vacancies–this is assuming Moyer returns for one more year and we allow both Pineiro and Meche to move on–we can use some of the FA money on a bat for LF, like Carlos Lee or maybe Soriano. Lee being the prefered player. See if you can grab a Dellucci, D.Roberts or Cattalano type stop gap in CF/fourth OF with Reed, allowing Jones to move back to AAA.
Still allowing for a bid on Mats to round out the rotation.
Schimdt
Felix
Mats
Washburn
Moyer
Or if the FO can get creative and Moyer retires, going after another Japanese born pithcher I think pretty highly of and a good fifth option in Tomo Ohka. Probably wouldn’t cost that much and make for a pretty good battery mate for Johjima.
I’m a new poster here and not well versed in SABR scouting and analysis. Please forgive. I was hoping those more skilled could address this question: Can OBP be taught to hitters? I understand how it might be awkward or unproductive to try and get established vets to change their approach, but Lopez, Betancourt, and Reed would all seem to be young enough that this skill could be emphasisized to improve the team’s overall chances of scoring runs. Is this a skill hitter either have or don’t have?
In a sense, yes, “obp can be taught”, though that’s probably not the best way of phrasing it. OBP isn’t a skill, it’s a result. Results can’t be taught, but the skills that produce those results can be.
Pitch recognition is the main skill that goes into determining OBP. While it is certainly a born skill to some extent, it can also be improved. Think of it as a bone structure – some are born naturally larger than others, but everyone can hit the gym and work out.
There’s also what is commonly called plate discipline, but I usually refer to as “approach at the plate”. Some players go up with a plan, specifically looking for a certain pitch in a certain location, and have trained themselves to lay off anything that isn’t in that location until they have to swing. Others go up and react to what they see.
The react guys have to be ridiculously talented to overcome their “poor approach”, but often times, they are. Ichiro, Vlad, Nomar, these guys have an approach at the plate that would sink a lesser player, but they have the physical gifts to make it work for them. The approach was almost certainly developed as a reaction to the understanding of their special gift, and as such, is a good strategy for them personally.
A guy like Edgar Martinez, however, had an impeccable approach, and that can be taught. It’s not easy, but it is possible.
So yes, Betancourt, Lopez, and Jones could all raise their OBP’s as they age. History says its even likely – almost everyone increases their walk rates as they get older. Whether they make the dramatic leap to become more than average OBP guys remains to be seen. The nice thing is that their broad base of skills give them some wiggle room, where they can be valuable even with average OBPs.
Sorry Catalanotto. Whew, that’s a mouth full.
You don’t see it as much in baseball as you do in other sports with caps, but what is the possibillity of a sign and trade with the Giants in an exchange of Sexson for Schmidt? Does this happen in the MLB and would it be plausible?
Sign-and-trades are both against the rules and pointless in MLB.
If the M’s wanted Schmidt, they would sign him themselves. If Schmidt signs with another team, he cannot be traded without his consent until 60 days into the next season.
Hargrove is worse at his job than Bavasi is at his.
OK, so which is worse for your franchise: a D-grade manager or a C+ General Manager? Which is more important in terms of the quality of your franchise? The Indians made it to the World Series with Hargrove. Bavasi’s teams have never won 90. I think I can make a case you can survive a bad manager more than you can survive a mediocre GM.
That’s not to say you should pass up opportunities to improve- but there are multiple opportunities here.
-shurg- I guess we’ll see. Like I said, I dread a scenario like an announcement that Barry Zito is our Big Name Pitching Free Agent Signing for the offseason, and once again an AL West GM sticks us with the bill for past performance. Bavasi’s weird about pitchers (see: his non-sexual man crush on Carl Pavano).
On who becomes the 5th starter next year, I’m not convinced Lowe is going to the rotation immediately. We’re still waiting for Soriano to show up there, and if Fontaine and all say “don’t move him”, I’m not moving him. Now, maybe they can fix him in spring training and the offseason not to fade the 2nd/3rd time around a batting order, sure thing…
FA = Free Agent.
Does that apply to contract extensions as well? Schmidt isn’t a free agent until after the World Series. If they extend him for four years, can they trade him right away?
Of course, it’s the “pointless” part that’s really key. The Mariners can sign Schmidt and trade Sexson to SF independent of each other, though the trade does free up the $$$ in some sense. I don’t believe the Mariners would lose a draft pick for signing Schmidt and they get to set all of the terms of the contract.
#147 – FA stands for “free agent.” In our case it will probably be OFA – “overpaid free agent.”
#152 – Not to border on any USSM touchy subjects, but I’d be somewhat concerned about the reasons for any success he had towards the end of his career. There is some controversy surrounding him ya know . . .
#154 – “The most impressive thing about Hargrove is that he’s managed to keep his job through 2/3 of the season, despite many opportunities to be fired.”
Chalk that up to the team staying close to the division lead (inspite of Hargrove) for periods of the season. I don’t know of many teams (absent dislike from the FO/vice versa) that would send up the white flag (as the average fan would view it) by firing the manager with a chance to still win the division. Baseball is still a business and the team needs to sell season tickets for next year. If they thought the team would be contending for the better part of the year under Hargrove, why dump him and do damage control over the firing? (Answer that from the average fan’s perspective, because, from my view, there’s plenty of reasons why freeing Dan Rohn would be a good thing). I think we are a lot more critical of Hargrove because we take the time to examine the situation more closely than most around here.
The scariest name in the FA list would have to be:
CF Erstad
Could he be next seasons Washburn/Everett?
#160–good point on the extension. If that is a viable option, then the point of the “sign and trade”–or can we just say trade–is that you are removing an undesirable piece of the puzzle for something you wanted in the first place in a swap of salary. If we just signed Schmidt and then traded Sexson, what do we get in return of immediate value? Nothing that would be of the kind of help I was suggesting in Carlos Lee, if he could be signed.
I still like cheaper options in Roberts and Dellucci and Ohka for the rotation.
THERE ARE NO SIGN AND TRADE DEALS IN MLB.
C’mon, guys.
Yes, I know FA = free agent…chalk it up to a brain cramp. Switching back and forth between a manuscript I’m editing in another window and reading the comments. Very interesting opinings on ’07 SPs today, I always learn so much here.
Baseball is still a business and the team needs to sell season tickets for next year. If they thought the team would be contending for the better part of the year under Hargrove, why dump him and do damage control over the firing? (Answer that from the average fan’s perspective, because, from my view, there’s plenty of reasons why freeing Dan Rohn would be a good thing). I think we are a lot more critical of Hargrove because we take the time to examine the situation more closely than most around here.
Yeah, gotta remember that. The best damage control is not having to do it at all. Doing it when the team’s less than five games back is gonna have an immediate effect at the gate and ratings and a medium term effect–the front office HAS to take that into account.
That said, there’s a time to make a hard choice and doing this off season would be the best time–if this organization can make the tough choices. Not sure this group (from Bavasi on up…and most particularly on up) can do that…
If we just signed Schmidt and then traded Sexson, what do we get in return of immediate value?
Whatever we got for Sexson. Seriously, trading Sexson and signing Schmidt can happen as stand alone deals. There’s no reason to put them together. Sign and trades happen in the NBA to get around the salary cap. There is no salary cap in MLB, so there is no point to a sign and trade.
Nothing that would be of the kind of help I was suggesting in Carlos Lee, if he could be signed.
Carlos Lee is a terrible fit for the M’s.
Fair enough. Sorry to upset you. I will look into FA rules a little closer next time.
ok. Dick Fein has just announced that the Ms never bunt.
ok. Dick Fein has just announced that the Ms never bunt.
Never attempt to bunt? Or never do it successfully?
Oh, never mind. It’s mind numbingly stupid either way…
There is no salary cap in baseball, but the one enforced by your ownership. If we could go out and sign the top two pitchers available and trade Sexson for prospects while still getting a LF–but not Lee cause he’s not a good fit–that would make up for the loss of Richie’s power numbers–Cause while the avg is horrible he will still finish with at least 30 hr’s and 90+ RBIs, and that production needs to be replaced somehow–I say great, go do it. But with the M’s budget that’s not going to happen, is it? I was simply trying to think of some ways around that while addressing needs.
(see: his non-sexual man crush on Carl Pavano)
Y’know, despite his injury problems (which are legit reasons to stay away), Pavano isn’t that horrifying a pitcher who just had one “dumb luck” season. Paying attention to his numbers would actually help explain the man crush.
I said it before in another post that “walk rate is king”, which Dave agreed with. If you look at Pavano’s years leading up to his 2004, he was getting better and better, but he made a dramatic improvement in his walk rate in 2003. It carried over into 2004 and into 2005′s aborted season. He’s figured out his control, though perhaps not his command (I haven’t watched him pitch).
Furthur, he increased his groundball rate (decreasing his flyball / line drive rate), and maintained a solid 5.9 strikeouts every 9 innings. The most telling graph of all is that his BABIP drops down to league average, perhaps a little under, all the while maintaining his success. The only oddity in statistical variance is a 7.1% HR / flyball ratio. Yeah, that’s ridiculously low. His LOB% was also 76%, which was slightly above average.
Was he lucky with the flyballs? Yeah. But I look at Carl Pavano 2004 very similarly to the Gil Meche of this year. For a good portion of this year Meche was keeping walks down, K’s up, and flyballs from leaving the yard. As was discussed, if he kept his walks down when his HR rate went back to the mean, he would still be a good pitcher. Not an Ace, but a good pitcher and a much improved version of Gil Meche.
Does this mean that Carl Pavano = Gil Meche? No. Meche is still a worse pitcher then Pavano. Arm problems aside, Pavano wouldn’t have been a horrifying pickup for us. His contract was stupid, so I wouldn’t have done it either for that money, but he wasn’t a horrible idea.
#170– Never. They don’t move guys over, they don’t squeeze. Apparently it is all on par with their ‘stupidity’ on the basepaths; which somehow is the players fault and that of the manager calling for said running.
sorry– not the fault of the manager.
sigh. ok. Jeremy Reed was a bust, so now you have a 20 year old out in center. They got all their wins against the NL. The A’s are hungrier and full of bad-asses, and the M’s are non-competitive milquetoasts.
That’s it, back to NPR.
If there were any justice in the world, Howard Lincoln would listen to eponymous coward’s year-long broken record rant against Bavasi and fire him.
And then immediately hire Cam Bonifay.
Of course, then the M’s would have Cam Bonifay as its GM, and we would all suffer.
Bavasi gets skewered regularly for the Aurilia move. People seem to forget that he originally traded Guillen (who he was told to trade) for Omar Vizquel, who promptly failed his physical. Omar might possibly be still playing SS for the M’s had it not been for his “poor health”(dripping with sarcasm). Aurilia was probably his fifth choice if that after (1. Tejada 2. Keep Guillen 3. Omar 4. Grab your ankles). The point is that the hole at SS was not of his making. His hand was forced by his bosses and his medical staff. As with several of Bavasi’s moves, there was more than meets the eye.
I honestly feel that Bavasi works in a baseball-challenged environment in which there is greater value placed on building a fan-friendly image and incessantly marketing that image than there is on making difficult but necessary baseball decisions. This is why veterans repeatedly die on the vine here before they are traded. This is why “bad” guys like Freddy Garcia and Carlos Guillen are sent packing. This is why Pat Gillick bailed. I really don’t think there’s a GM that would have the autonomy under the current regime to have done what was really necessary to have averted 2004 and 2005.
This isn’t a ringing endorsement of Bavasi, but rather an acknowledgement that he inherited a lot of problems and works in a constraining environment baseball move-wise compared to many other GM’s.
176-
Yeah, it’s COMPLETELY unfair to judge people’s job performance on a nine-year record. I mean, sheesh, it’s not like you can expect a good GM’s teams to win a four-team division more than once in a decade of seasons, right? And 90 wins- man, that’s a rare and unique accomplishment for a team. We can’t possibly expect that a good GM would be able to hit that within nine years of becoming a GM. No, no- expecting excellence? Unreasonable. There’s extenuating circumstances.
OK, fine. What’s the reasonable expectation for Bavasi to be a successful Mariner GM, if we give him a pass for what’s gone on so far, since apparently I’m being totally unreasonable about thinking “Gee, this is a division where they grade on a curve, and we’ve got the guy at the bottom”? Let’s say we go about .500 the rest of the way and end up 78-84 (a not unreasonable proposition. OK, so what does Bavasi have to do in 2007 to make you continue to think “hey, he’s doing his job”? If we end up with 84-78 and third place, you happy? Or calling for heads?
And heck, I’ll even go so far as to say you might convince me my year-long screed is wrong, and Bavasi is a reasonably effective GM capable of making this team into a championship contender… but what I am curious to know is if that’s the case right now, what should I reasonably expect from him performance-wise going forward, if his past performance with the Angels and Mariners is not a reasonable guide to what he is capable of? Contention in 2007? 2008? What?
EC – The way I read the discussion is that: Bavasi isn’t that great, but the team can be successful despite some of his tendencies. Further, win-loss record or division titles or similar metrics are a blunt instrument for judging GM success given all the variables in play for both roster construction and team performance, and even if they canned him, the odds of bringing in somebody better are not good.
I’m not entirelly sure the organization is ready to hand CF to Adam Jones at the beginning of next year. Sure, we need Jones out there now with Reed hurt and the trade of Choo, but I feel they’ll sign a stopgap for at least the first few months of the season.
Trading Sexson to clear up money for pitching, maybe getting a lefty hitter with some punch to play left so Ibanez can DH makes a lot of sense. Broussard and Perez man 1B.
This gets rid of Sexson’s RH power, which doesn’t fit the homepark as much as a lefty bat would. We have a killer pitcher’s park, it’s about time we start utilizing it.
Sexson’s real problem this year is that he quit drawing walks. It’s crazy.
The scariest name in the FA list would have to be:
CF Erstad
What about:
CF Quinton McCracken
what are the odds they’d let Bavasi move Sexson? Local boy, centerpiece of the wacky ad campaign, the guy the average fan will cut some slack when they won’t for Beltre … would the generalized positives of Hometown Willie & Nice Guy Raul counteract the negativity of moving Mr. Brush Prarie?
182 – That is scary, but McCracken doesn’t have any history with Bavasi. Erstad would be the two-headed monster. Supposed left-handed pop (Everett) who is a gamer (Everett/Washburn) with a history with Bavasi (Washburn).
EC, you are more than justified in making your criticism. 9 years is more than enough time to judge someone’s abilities or lack of. Those 9 years show Bavasi is clearly good at certain things and not good at others. I think he will survive for at least another year because what he is good at is of greater importance to his bosses than what he isn’t good at. First and foremost, he is the quintessential company man who doesn’t question authority. And the perception at least, is that the future is in good hands with his re-tooling of the farm system. I’m sure the marketing department is salivating over the notion of marketing home-grown boys. His bad trades and free agent signings, however, can be covered by eating contracts, or trading problems for problems, which his bosses show a definite appetite for. In their minds, the good outweighs the bad. They’ll make Hargrove the scapegoat when the year is over.
can you be a scapegoat when you are at fault?
Sexson’s real problem this year is that he quit drawing walks. It’s crazy.
I wouldn’t say that Sexson has one real problem this year. From career averages, even adjusting some for park, his singles rate is down, his walk rate is down, and his isolated slugging is down. He’s having a plain old bad year.
EC – The way I read the discussion is that: Bavasi isn’t that great, but the team can be successful despite some of his tendencies. Further, win-loss record or division titles or similar metrics are a blunt instrument for judging GM success given all the variables in play for both roster construction and team performance, and even if they canned him, the odds of bringing in somebody better are not good.
OK, fine. So what are the standards for judging Bavasi’s performance and going “this is/isn’t what we want from our GM”? Because taken to the reductio ad absurdum extreme, you’ve just said Cam Bonifay = John Schuerholz (note that I’m not saying you are arguing that, but that’s what your argument distills down to if you COMPLETELY ignore those factors). Obviously no-one’s going to seriously argue that. So when does the blunt instrument become adequate? Or what other, more sophisticated measures should we be substituting?
Despite the dubious byline, leetinsleyfanclub is right on in comment 177. The front office is a “baseball-challenged environment” obsessed with marketing to the masses at the expense of making the right baseball decisions. They also place too much emphasis on a misguided belief that “team chemistry” will solve glaring problems; hence the decision to bring in Carl Everett instead of a young, inexpensive and improving hitter, of which there are many.
I would take issue with the comment in 185 implying that Hargrove is merely a scapegoat,however—to me Hargrove has earned whatever befalls him. If he survives the year, then I’ll agree that Bavasi (and everyone else involved in that decision) should leave town.
I wouldn’t say that Sexson has one real problem this year. From career averages, even adjusting some for park, his singles rate is down, his walk rate is down, and his isolated slugging is down. He’s having a plain old bad year.
It might be “old player’s skills disease”, where Sexson’s just not going to age well. Alvin Davis had this. Rob Deer wasn’t a great player deep into his 30′s, either. That would be pretty bad news, because we’d be looking at two years of paying big money for pretty poor performance.
so, would this be the epitome of small-sample size? from the Sacramento Bee last week:
“Should Brooks start slowly, coach Art Shell and his staff would have to decide: Do they turn to chief backup Tuiasosopo, a 2001 second-round pick who has yet to shine in two starts during five seasons?”
Chico,
I’m not saying Hargrove hasn’t earned his fate should he be fired. I’m saying the Mariners will spin it that Hargrove alone was the problem, not the Bavasi/Hargrove tandem.
And come on, Lee Tinsley never gets his pub on this site. When people mention the worst M’s left fielders ever, his name almost NEVER comes up.
What’s the reasonable expectation for Bavasi to be a successful Mariner GM, if we give him a pass for what’s gone on so far, since apparently I’m being totally unreasonable about thinking “Gee, this is a division where they grade on a curve, and we’ve got the guy at the bottom� Let’s say we go about .500 the rest of the way and end up 78-84 (a not unreasonable proposition. OK, so what does Bavasi have to do in 2007 to make you continue to think “hey, he’s doing his job� If we end up with 84-78 and third place, you happy? Or calling for heads?
Oh, you’re so easy to wind up. It’s like those people who want to fire college football coaches because the team was a “dismal failure” at 10-3.
At the start of the year, I looked at this team and thought it was an 80-win team, and if everything broke their way, 85. Anything below 75 wasn’t a step forward.
So, if this team ends up with 78 wins, a 9 game improvement over 2005, then yes, I’d consider it a step forward, especially considering that this team was on pace towards a
Tinsley didn’t play enough or last long enough for anybody to get worked up about him. Now if you used Russ Davis or Jim Presley it would be a different story…..
192
No love for Mike Felder?
Jim Presley used to be my favorite Mariner, back in the day before I looked at message boards or even kept track of stats at all. I must have seen him hit a home run on one of the rare occasions I could actually go the Kingdome. Was he terrible? Please don’t burst my bubble….
I think the question to ask regarding Bavasi being shown the door is not “how many wins should we expect next year” but rather “what will the M’s attendance be next year” because that’s the most important barometer to the M’s upper management.
188 – It seems to me that the only “sophisticated” measure you can really utilize is a case by case analysis of decision making, which is what Dave offers us in post 118.
The message I get from that post is that Bavasi has been, in a word: adequate. And when you weigh that against the long odds of upper management replacing Bavasi with an Antonetti or an Ng, you stand pat. And you hope your guy has learned from some of his mistakes.
What I think would be an interesting post from one of our hosts is an answer to the question: “How much does the GM really matter?” As you say, if you take my argument to its absurd but logical conclusions, it doesn’t matter who the GM is. But I assume there’s a lot of room for nuance in there.
Don’t forget that a GM is responsible for organizational tendencies. How many times does Hargrove put in Mateo before Bavasi says: “hey Mike, use Julio when were down 6 runs from now on”?
How many times does the line-up have to go up swinging early and often before Bavasi says: “Mike, Jeff, figure out how to instruct the players for a better approach at the plate”?
How many times did Everett and Bloomquist get at-bats that should not have happened?
Defending Bavasi for the mess that Gillick left him or the slim pickings in the FA market is one thing but the contstantly maddening debacle that shows up on the field is what turns me off. Just playing better baseball from the dugout would go a long way to making me believe but as it stands now, they have to solve basic stuff in addition to blowing up the starting pitchers for next year with a FA market that is pretty bad.
another general question– how often does a GM tell the field manager what to do?
#196–Presley was okay briefly, but he sucked the last couple of years and it took the team forever to get rid of him, while Edgar Martinez wasted the better part of two years hitting ridiculously well in the minors. I suppose that wasn’t Presley’s fault, but its hard to forgive and forget now that Edgar’s Hall of Fame case is on the line….
In my opinion, EC has a position that is defendable. It’s a position that is debatable, but it is not a position that merits any sort of ridicule. My two cents.
Personally, I have mixed emotions about Bavasi. I wish I knew with certainty what moves he’s made that he wanted to make. Better yet, what moves he would like to make given a completely free hand.
Over the last couple of weeks his critics have come out of the woodwork with angry nonsense like “He should’ve got a number one starter at the deadline!” Yeah? Who?
I am pretty neutral at this point. And I would have to know who was the alternative before I would root for Bavasi to get the boot.
Hargrove is another story. His failures are not really debatable. I’m comfortable rooting for his ouster because most anyone they are likely to hire would be better. Dusty Baker being the only exception that costs me sleep.
Bottom line is that I think it is a slam dunk decision that Hargrove has to go… a much more muddied one regarding Bavasi.
“Don’t forget that a GM is responsible for organizational tendencies.”
You say this like it’s certain. Is it? Is there something I don’t know here?
You think Gillick told Lou how to use his bullpen?
As far as I know Bavasi is responsible for the manager’s moves only in that he should have already fired the manager.
so if aggressive base running strategies aren’t working out, the GM would not have a place to say: “let’s try something else Mike”?
And, that book called “Money Ball” seemed to suggest the GM has quite a bit to say about working a pitcher deep in the count whenever possible. I’m not that much of a Billy Beane fan but posters on this site seem to give that GM a lot of credit for setting “organizational tendencies”.
Finding one that works for this organization is all I’m asking. So far, they players are doing “ok” on indvidual performances but the managing (general or just in the dugout) is falling short in my opinion.
Depends on the organization. The A’s, as you’re probably aware, do things like give their managers charts that say when it’s good to sacrifice a runner over, talk about it, and the manager carries out, more or less, what they want him to. They don’t call him up if he deviates from the direction, but generally, Macha’s there because he’s bought into that and is agreeable.
Most of the time that’s not the case. For almost every other club, the GM can talk to a manager if they think they’re doing something wrong, but that’s about it.
The M’s are like this. If Bavasi (as I’m pretty sure he has) meets with Hargrove and says “Hey look, I’ve been thinking you should stop using Mateo in close situations, especially late in the game..” and Hargrove says “Screw that, I love that kid” and pitches him in a tied game in the 8th that night, there’s really no recourse for Bavasi except to fire Hargrove, and he’d have to get the owners to sign off, and they’re going to say “You want to fire him over what?” and give him a hard time…
So, if this team ends up with 78 wins, a 9 game improvement over 2005, then yes, I’d consider it a step forward
OK, fine. That isn’t unreasonable; given your expectations, Bavasi’s met them. So what’s the next step forward they need to take for 2007, and do you have confidence Bavasi can do this given the track record so far?
It seems to me that the only “sophisticated†measure you can really utilize is a case by case analysis of decision making, which is what Dave offers us in post 118.
The message I get from that post is that Bavasi has been, in a word: adequate. And when you weigh that against the long odds of upper management replacing Bavasi with an Antonetti or an Ng, you stand pat. And you hope your guy has learned from some of his mistakes.
The problem is that I don’t think that list comes out very good. For example, Dave was ragging on the Sexson signing, and while it worked out OK in 2005, it’s looking VERY scary going forward- Sexson is doing what a lot of his comps did in their early 30s and starting to tank hard. I sure as hell hope the Broussard/Perez acquisitions mean we’re going to try trading him this offseason, because the alternative might be a .230/.300/.450 replacement-level 1B eating $26 million in payroll over the next two years. Ouch.
Basically, for every Johjima you end up with a Guardado or Everett, where you are eating the money. Maybe this happens that frequently among good GMs (certainly Gillick saddled us with a bunch of crap in 2004-2005)… but I suspect otherwise.
The tendancy of GM’s and managers to work against each other with roster makeup and usage would drive me crazy – but I’ve worked in corporate America, where crap like that is standard practice.
I wonder if the M’s put Sexson and waivers this season, and if anyone claimed him? I’d have happily let them have him to be rid of $14 million per season for 07 and 08. Sure, he might bounce back next season, but there is too much risk of two more mediocre seasons. Oh, that’s right, politics again – can’t make the signing look like a mistake.
G-Man: I suspect Richie’s salary is exactly why he won’t be claimed if he was ever put on waivers. In fact, I’d bet he has already been put on and passed through waivers for the purpose of making a post-deadline deal. Let’s hope the Giants (4 back in the NL WC) stay in the WC race….
And when you weigh that against the long odds of upper management replacing Bavasi with an Antonetti or an Ng, you stand pat.
Allow me to correct myself: I should have written ‘the Antonetti’ or ‘the Ng’, Chris and Kim for those of you scoring at home – can’t believe I violated my own pet peeve.
The Giants have Shea Hillenbrand. I don’t think they need to pick up Sexson at this point.
Well I certainly agree that if Bavasi wanted to fire Hargrove because he continues to use Mateo in close situations that he’d get resistance but when you take the two years and ALL the things that are going on, there is certainly a strong case (one that authors on this site have pointed out this season). Corporate America might seem unable to look at things closely but privately owned companies often get to the facts and make decisive moves.
The body of work is what Bavasi/Hargrove are being judged on and eventhough Dave points out that we can’t complain just because they choose to do things different but we can certainly complain when their way continues to be a liability on the team’s potential. This team should be better this year, given the talent on the field. Most of the predictions were for 85 or more wins and they won’t get there in 2006.
Assuming that the Mariners do not suddenly tail-dive and finish with one of the worst records in baseball, wouldn’t signing Matsuzaka make sense for another reason, that we wouldn’t have to fork over a draft pick to a team? I mean, if we were to sign Zito, we would owe the A’s our draft pick, right? Same with Schmidt.
The only thing worse than making a bad decision is making a bad decision that directly benefits our opponents.
So, CO, your argument is that Bavasi’s past performance is irrelevant, because it’s unlikely we’d replace him with an improved option at GM, thus we might as well keep him because he’s got his good points. Basically, it’s a “devil you know” strategy.
So, why should we judge him on FUTURE performance then? Is upper management going to be better at replacing him in 2007 or 2008 than today? Isn’t what you’re saying “it doesn’t mattter if he’s good, bad or mediocre, we probably can’t do any better, anyway”?
I would think that a business owner/CEO like Lincoln who’s noticed a third of his gate walk out the door MIGHT think “Gee, maybe we need to try something different as to how we run our team’s baseball operations. Maybe one of these newfangled GMs might have something interesting to add to my management team, after all”. Failure tends to focus you a lot more than success.
EC – The Giants had Hillenbrand – albeit they hadn’t had him for long – when they reportedly were willing to take Sexson (and pay most of his contract) at or in the days just preceding the deadline. Whether they need him or not, they apparently have some interest (and Hillenbrand can also play 3B – where he has more career starts than at 1B – for Pedro Feliz if they really want to keep Hillenbrand in the line-up). Plus, Hillenbrand has only a 1-year deal. If they like Richie, it may be as much about securing the next couple of years as it is about contending this year….
Can someone PLEASE assure me that we won’t get stuck with Barry Bonds next year? What ever happened to the rumor that he said he’d like to finish his career up in Seattle? Please tell me it was reporters trying to create a story where none existed…
In my opinion, EC has a position that is defendable. It’s a position that is debatable, but it is not a position that merits any sort of ridicule. My two cents.
I’m not mocking the position, though I don’t agree with it. It’s a perfectly reasonable position. I’m mocking EC hammering at this issue like Cato the Elder and Carthago delenda est.
OK, fine. That isn’t unreasonable; given your expectations, Bavasi’s met them. So what’s the next step forward they need to take for 2007,
Well, the problem is that the season isn’t over yet. But I expect that they will finish with between 80 and 90 wins in 2007, IF Lincoln and Co. do not ratchet down the budget and Bavasi makes fewer stupid mistakes. An 85 win team will compete in this division and probably start September 2007 with a shot at the wild card.
This team can compete with the formula Dave has already put forward — two starting pitchers, a CF who can play for Jones, and an improved bench. Trading Sexson would go a long way towards making those changes a reality. Ditto going all-out (though not too all-out) for Matsuzaka if he’s posted.
and do you have confidence Bavasi can do this given the track record so far?
Yes and no. He knows what we know. He sees the holes. The problem is that we don’t know how the team is going to handle their money. And having $20M to sign talent is infinitely better than having $10M to sign talent. And the thing we need (pitching) is going to cost a lot of money, and someone is going to overpay for Zito and Schmidt no matter what. So, no, I don’t have undying confidence in him. But I don’t think anyone else we can get would do any better, not without getting a lot more money out of the owners.
So, my floor for 2006 is 80. I think that’s attainable. And I don’t see Bavasi being GM of this club past 2007. But by then, I think he and Fontaine will have finished with rebuilding the sorry minor league system enough that this organization will be able to attract a young kid looking to make a name for himself.
2008: Division champs. That’s what I’m looking to. And once we’re in, we hope that Felix can pitch this team to a trophy.
Can someone PLEASE assure me that we won’t get stuck with Barry Bonds next year?
We won’t. He’s either going to re-sign with SF or retire. I’m guessing retirement.
This team should be better this year, given the talent on the field. Most of the predictions were for 85 or more wins and they won’t get there in 2006.
No, they shouldn’t have been, and no, they weren’t.
As you guys are talking about building a team, this seems like a good time to ask what kind of players the M’s should look for.
Everyone knows about Safeco, but do you think much emphasis should be placed on finding players who fit it? What kind of players are those? If I had to guess, I’d try to build heavily on left-handed players, particularly hitters that walk and pitcher who don’t give up walks.
Dave was ragging on the Sexson signing, and while it worked out OK in 2005, it’s looking VERY scary going forward-
Hey, I was totally ragging on that contract for being way expensive after the first year, too. What am I, chopped liver?
Dave is just so much more engaging in his position on things.
Ow.
not really
My take on Bavasi? His bosses may have told him to trade Guillen but I doubt they told him to give him away, free for nothing. His FA track record is bad. Beltre excepted, well maybe, the caveats on Beltre were always there. Do you really trust him to use $24M effectively this year? Next year? More Washburns, Sexons, Everetts? It is what he does and has done his entire career. Winning percentage here is not the metric so far because Gillick left a mess. Quality of decisions is the metric and he fails.
And what’s this crap about the Field Manager ignoring what his boss says. IF Home Office says this or that, you tend to to it. If you allow the subordinates to stick their finger up you lose control. Bavasi either runs the team or he doesn’t. If not, then what use is he.
Hey, I was totally ragging on that contract for being way expensive after the first year, too. What am I, chopped liver?
Perhaps this is like Nichols’ Law–a blogger’s perceived insight is inversely proportional to the number of humorous comments he posts?
It’s okay, though, DMZ. Brad Ausmus isn’t all that great behind the dish, and you’re not chopped liver, either.
#19: no….what the M’s need is someone who BOTH understands how to best optimize a roster AND also curses a lot. If he scratches himself alot on the way to the mound, even better….
And what’s this crap about the Field Manager ignoring what his boss says.
By that logic, why does any team need a GM? Howard Lincoln could phone down to the dugout during games to order a bench coach to make pitching changes, send in a pinch-hitter for Jones, get the infield to play in with a runner on 3rd and fewer than two outs, etc.
#41: yes and you should really also point out the the M’s failed to include Eddie’s left arm in the deal….he’s been available to pitch about 3 days in the last two weeks….
#228: In addition, of course, to signing free agents, making trades, running the draft, etc.
“And what’s this crap about the Field Manager ignoring what his boss says. IF Home Office says this or that, you tend to to it. If you allow the subordinates to stick their finger up you lose control. Bavasi either runs the team or he doesn’t. If not, then what use is he.”
I’m not understanding the certainty with which this keeps getting stated.
Do you know the terms of hire for Hargrove? Do you know the average situation in MLB for managerial autonomy in in-game matters?
If you do, I’d love to hear them. If not, assuming that MLB runs just like any other business is folly.
There are counter examples in any number of other jobs. DMZ seemed to answer my question about the specific situation the Mariners are in, I have no reason to think that GM’s tell managers the specifics of how to run their team. I do know that that wouldn’t fly in the NFL, and that alone seems enough to counter the blanket business assertions.
Let me put it this way, if Bavasi has to fire players to keep his Manager from playing them, he has lost control. The GM job is not to do the day to day game management but if he does chose to direct and gets ignored, he has mismanaged the franchise.
#50: i’d love to see the breakdown on 15-20 losses
And what’s this crap about the Field Manager ignoring what his boss says. IF Home Office says this or that, you tend to to it.
except if the corporate culture is that the field manager has autonomy over on-field decisions (thus making him liable at the end of the year for those decisions). The Mariner culture, the culture that Bavasi grew up in, and the culture Hargrove has always existed in (up to maybe Baltimore when you had the occasional ownership wild card thrown in the mix) is the one DMZ talked about in #205.
It may be that way but why? Who works for whom? I, GM trust you, Field Manager to run the team on the field. I am, however, the boss. My job is accountable as is yours because I hired you. Therefore, if a GM abidicates his authority to the FM, I have no sympathy. A good GM does not micro manange but at the same time, does not allow the ship to sink in the name of “that’s the way it’s always been”
#79: do you even know who’ll be a free agent after this year?
There will be plenty of arms to chose from this off season. Its more a question of whether its a smart way to spend your money.
Some independent film student in Seatlle should make a baseball parody movie about Mike Hargrove. That reminds me I am looking forward to seeing Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
Eleven, you keep repeating the same tough guy manager mantra, it’s been pointed out why you can’t assume things are the same in MLB as they are in your tight ship of a business.
Unless you have specific baseball management insight, you’re not making your point.
The manager is supposed to be the expert in in-game decisions, having a GM dictate strategy to him would probably A, not go over well and B, not really be a good idea. Assuming you have hired reasonably well.
It’s like a drug company with the CEO telling the scientists how to do their math.
Which brings me back to my point… if you have a dumb scientist, fire him, don’t try mix the chemicals yourself.
#86 and #87:
That sentiment has got to be my biggest pet peeve on baseball message boards/blogs……
translation: *you don’t agree with me so I will completely discount your argument (I really haven’t bothered to educate myself enough to understand it anyway or really to formulate an argument of mine own for that matter) by labeling it as negativity…in fact, I will try to nullify your voice with my drinking buddies by completely mischaracterizing everything youve posted by finding one negative post and continually repeating it….over and over and over. In fact, any use of stats is a sure sign of negativity and automatically invalidates your opinion. Finally actually having reasons for your opinion automatically invalidates it unless its my opinion (and since its my opinion and I trust myself, there is no need to fact check)*
pet peeve #2: you said I was wrong….therefore you’ve labled me as a liar and I’m offended by your obvious challenge to my integrity-my board of directors might read this blog too and will question my decisions by stating, “how can we trust you since you wrote that on the blog and some guy clearly challenged your integrity”. Then of course the whole thread becomes a one-sided whine about the slings and arrows of know-it-alls challenging others integrity and somehow by extension their right to post comments…
wow that was cathargic…. now if only the M’s can win tonight so I can take off my new jersey (4 days and counting)….people will think I’m weird if I wear it to the office again tomorrow….
So, in 205, DMZ says management’s response if Grover defied Bavasi’s advice not to start Mateo in high leverage situations would be: ‘ “You want to fire him over what?†and give him a hard time…’
By which we can only conclude management ain’t been watching Mateo pitch.
So, in 205, DMZ says management’s response if Grover defied Bavasi’s advice not to start Mateo in high leverage situations would be: ‘ “You want to fire him over what?†and give him a hard time…’
By which we can only conclude management ain’t been watching Mateo pitch.
Yes? And the sky’s blue. The point….?
Since long, early-morning busrides in the rural 4th world are conducive to hair-brained schemes, the following strategy for the final two months of the Mariners’ season occurred to me:
It is less likely that Hargrove or any other ‘major-league´manager would implement the following than the Mariners making up 7 games in the standings but…
Roster moves now: Demote Woods and call up Flaherty. Demote Green, call-up Beck, and let Beck start instead of Piñeiro. If possible, trade Sexson now.
Roster moves Sept. 1: With utter disregard for the standings and playoffs of minor-league affiliates, call up all pitchers capable of eating innings in the big leagues, and someone who can play short, someone who can play center, and anyone with extra-base power and some plate discipline.
In-game Stragegy: Deconstruct the idea of the ´starting pitcher´. For Washburn, Meche, and Beck, let them face the opposing team’s lineup exactly twice.
Sometime in the 4th or 5th inning, check the score. If the team is winning or losing by 3 or more runs, let Mateo or Piñeiro pitch. Otherwise, rotate Flaherty, Lowe, Sherril, Soriano, and Putz. Reduce WFB’s PA to zero, but let him run for the catcher and the first basemen in the 8th or 9th whenever he represents the tying run. Pinch hit in these situations for Betancourt and the center fielder.
ooops. hare-brained. and the threads dead anyway.
ndevale – do you live in McCall too??