Comments on: M’s sign Chris Reitsma

By: gk91

gk91 — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 22:35:02 +0000

His name sounds like a disease and I think it could describe the whole Ms offseason so far…a bad case of Reitsma.

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:19:59 +0000

Perhaps my lack of excitement is to be blamed on the weather or something. Really. It was dreary all day, and raining and windy all evening. My power went out (again) briefly around midnight. We need something like... oh wait, even the record high for today's date is only 56.

Observed at Beautiful Downtown Lacey

Yeah, sure.

By: F-Rod

F-Rod — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 14:15:02 +0000

Not a bad pick up, not a great pick up. Seams worth the risk, especially with the relatively cheap club option. If he has a full healthy, productive year he could be a valuable piece to deal the following year. I would much rather have him than Joel at twice the price. This team is slowly picking up 1.5 wins with each off-season move. Pretty soon we will be at 86 games. I would bet that we don’t get last in the West now.

By: Mat

Mat — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 12:39:44 +0000

Sorry if you canâ€™t be excited about that.

No need to be sorry, you made some good points. Perhaps my lack of excitement is to be blamed on the weather or something.

By: matthew

matthew — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:56:57 +0000

63, if A includes Lincoln, then I'd say B is worse.

By: ChrisK

ChrisK — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:21:11 +0000

Bavasi on Reitsma’s ability to close if needed:

“He’s got the stuff, and his makeup as a closer is off the charts,” Bavasi said.

Yeah, his makeup is so “off the charts” that he has blown 36% of his save opps the last 2 years.

Also – does that mean Mariano Rivera’s makeup is “off Reitsma’s charts”?

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:19:06 +0000

It would really depend on what steps were taken after the FO was fired. Who would be brought in? Would they share the same philosophies?. Likewise, if they made the playoffs, what would follow? Would they think they had the magic formula and go on to trade Adam Jones for the broken down remains of Javy Lopez? Toss in Jeff Clement if that’s what it takes?

Unfortunately, making the playoffs and then axing the FO probably isn’t an option, because it would be nice. I miss October baseball in Seattle. I also miss competence in the FO (well, I suppose that means it had to have been there…).

Either end could be something nice, or it could finish up with the same old problems.

By: minnesotamariner

minnesotamariner — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 10:44:40 +0000

Here is a question. What would be worse, the Mariners winning 75 games and the whole F.O is fired, or the M’s winning 90, making the playoffs and losing in the Divisional series

By: Matthew Carruth

Matthew Carruth — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 10:07:14 +0000

If you think 2006, when Reitsma was hurt and Lehr was not, is a legit comparison to make, then you’d be right, Lehr and Reitsma would be interchangable. I think differently.

I would agree that Lehr looks like a 4.5-5.0 RP. I disagree that Reitsma is a 4.0-4.5. He’s been 3.5-4.0 when healthy. Even a half-run of ERA is “significantly better”, a full run is markedly better.

Picking up a win, even just one, for the cost of 0.9-1.6M is a good investment. Sorry if you can’t be excited about that.

By: Mat

Mat — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 09:42:35 +0000

If you want to talk about FIP, then fine, use FIP.
If you want to talk about PECOTA, then fine, use PECOTA.
Donâ€™t cross the two and cherry pick which to use in order to try and pass your argument off as legit. Itâ€™s not.

Fine, then we’ll use Reitsma’s actual 2006 performance against Lehr’s actual 2006 performance and Lehr beats the pants off Reitsma.

I wanted to compare 2006 performances. I was giving Reitsma the benefit of the doubt that his performance this year was a fluke and the best way to estimate his performance would have been using his PECOTA forecast. We don’t need to do that for Lehr because we have his actual performance in hand and his actual performance is more valuable information than his year-old PECOTA forecast.

Call it twisting the numbers if you like, but in my view, considering all of the information Lehr looks like a 4.50-5.00 FIP/ERA/whatever pitcher going into next year and Reitsma looks like a 4.00-4.50 pitcher going into next year. That’s something like a 4-5 run difference over 80 IP, and safely smaller than the margin of error on whatever projection we’re making on either player.

Over the course of a season, heâ€™s worth about 8 runs, or 1 win more than Lehr.

At the top, Dave claimed:

The Mariners are hoping he returns to his â€˜04/â€™05 form when he was simply decent, but heâ€™s not significantly better than guys like Justin Lehr.

Even if the difference is as much as 8 runs, that’s not a significant difference. No one–not me, not you, not Dave, not the Mariners–is good enough to accurately project player performance to single-digit run precision.

Anyway, like I said before, you could do worse for $2M, but it’s nothing to get excited about. I’m not really against the acquisition, but I think Dave’s point about Reitsma v Lehr stands.