Resource Allocation
When looking at the Mariners roster and their performance to date, there are two aspects of the team that need significant improvement; scoring runs and defense.
The Mariners are scoring 4.02 runs per game (compared to a league average of 4.4 runs per game), and even after adjusting for Safeco Field, the offense is a pretty big problem. Their .687 OPS is better only than Kansas City and Cleveland, ranking them 12th out of 14 American League clubs.
Defensively, they’re the worst team in baseball. The Hardball Times +/- metric has them at 30 plays (or about 24 runs) below average for the season so far, with only the Royals and Pirates even within shouting distance of that futility. They don’t cover much ground, regularly put two guys on the field who have no business ever wearing a glove, and even their more talented defenders have issues with misplays and errors.
The common link between the offense and the defense, of course, is that they’re the same players. The pitchers haven’t been as good as expected, but the position players… well, they suck. The Royals are the only team in baseball that have a worse starting nine than the Mariners, and they aren’t running a $117 million payroll while trying to contend for the playoffs.
We know that run scoring and run prevention are both really close to 50% of winning baseball (despite what you hear about pitching winning championships – it’s good teams that can do both that win titles). We also know that defense is about 25 to 30% of run prevention, with pitchers making up the rest of that total. So, we could say that a breakdown of win importance would look something like this:
Offense: 50%
Pitching: 35%
Defense: 15%
You can fiddle with the numbers a bit if you want, but you can’t stray too far from that general guideline. And, when you look at it, you’ll notice one obvious conclusion – position players are responsible for something like sixty-five percent of winning. Position players matter almost twice as much as their pitching brethren. Pitchers simply don’t have the same impact on wins and losses, because they only impact part of the half, while the position players impact the whole of one half and part of the other. Good teams have good position players, because they matter a lot more than pitchers.
The Mariners even admit this is true in their actions, even if they won’t do it with words. Of the $117 million they are spending on payroll this year, $72.3 million of that (62%) is dedicated to the team’s position players. Think about that for a second – the position players that are responsible for third worst in AL offense and worst in baseball defense are collecting $72 million this year. That figure is higher than the total team payrolls for the Rockies, Rangers, Orioles, Diamondbacks, Royals, Twins, Nationals, Pirates, A’s, Rays, and Marlins.
If the Mariners entire pitching staff was working for free, and the team’s salary was strictly based on what they’re giving to the position players, the Mariners payroll would still rank 19th in baseball. The kicker – The Diamondbacks, Rays, and Marlins are all currently in first place, while the A’s and Twins are both playing like wild card contenders. Out of the eleven teams whose total payroll is less than that of just the Mariners position players (the ones killing this team), two to four of them will make the playoffs.
There’s been a lot of talk about accountability lately, so to the upper management of the Seattle Mariners, I ask a simple question – how on earth are the people responsible for paying $72.5 million for a group of position players rivaled only by the Kansas City Royals for ineptitude part of the solution and not part of the problem?
Great stuff Dave. Pretty much sums it up.
I’d never thought of it quite that way. I knew a few of their position players were grossly overpaid for what they were producing, but on an overall level, that is just sad.
My question is:
How soon do they allocate some resources to something worthwhile, like for example, locking up Felix?
I can see the answer somewhere along the lines of:
“How were we supposed to know, all the talking heads thought we had a good defense. I blame the players.” – Bill Bavasi
I wish the F.O. would show some Fu**ing accountability by giving answers other than complete denial. They need to sack up, admit failure, then take PROPER steps to fix the problem.
You are right, the mere fact we are pumping 72.5 mm into our position players is a travesty – especially after reading some of those facts.
Part of it is over-reliance on vets–they tend to be more expensive. And when you’re not good at telling when vets fall off the cliff (as they inevitably do…), well, then….
We’re never going to hear Chuck or Bill admit personal failure here. I mean for God’s sake, Steve Phillips picked the M’s to win the West. Steve Phillips! With an endorsement of your roster construction by an out-of-work and similarly inept GM, all executive blame is permanently and inarguably eliminated.
The first thing that comes to mind is that teams carry more postion players than pitchers on their roster. But temper that with the M’s always having a large bullpen and a small bench (although that makes little difference since the last person on the bench and the last person in the bullpen usually make the lowest salaries on a team, so trading one for the other makes little difference to the overall picture).
So the question is, should we look at average salary per player and compare that to average salary per pitcher rather than looking at the overall percent of the team’s salary that goes to position players?
Yet another reason why trading Jones for Bedard was a stupid move.
I liked the Bedard pickup, when he’s healthy, he just might be the best pitcher in all of baseball. I know I’m in the minority, but I love Bedard.
The Mariners can still right the ship this year, they just need to play like they’re capable and go on a winning streak.
To me, a critical measure of the effectiveness of a team’s management, and particularly the GM, is the ability to accurately identify and improve the team’s weaknesses.
Consider the TB Rays. A year ago they had what was generally acknowledged to be the worst defense in MLB and their bullpen’s performance was one of the all-time worst. This year, through a variety of moves, they are near the best in both categories, going by Defensive Efficiency and various bullpen metrics. That’s a large reason for the team’s success.
Now consider the Mariners. A year ago their defense was 27th in Defensive Efficiency and their bench was unproductive. This year, 28th in DE and the bench is worse after exchanging Broussard for Cairo. It is true that they worked on the starting pitching but they totally neglected the other areas and made risky decisions with regards to their marginal hitting.
A weak bench has been a trait of the team ever since Bavasi took over. I feel that has a lot to do with the collapses in 2004 and this year because when starters have failed to produce they have had no reasonably productive bench players to take over. Sexson is the most glaring case of that. I can understand why they would take a chance on him bouncing back this season but that decision demanded that they have somebody ready to take over if that didn’t work out. Instead, we have Cairo at 1B.
When I am asked what makes me think that I could do better than the M’s management, my ready answer is that I could hardly do worse.
Almost half of that total goes to Ichiro and Beltre, and the general consensus here has been that those are good contracts. That leaves the other $39M or so tied up in the other 7 players. Seems like that should be the portion of the budget that’s the focus of our ire.
The Mariners think that Sexson is an OUTSTANDING first basemen — seriously, one of the best in the game. The Mariners think Ibanez is a GREAT left fielder. They think that Yuni is the best SS in the league. When they say “we thought our defense would be good, we dunno what happened” they are referring ONLY to errors, not to range. They are TRAGICALLY DELUDED, and there is ZERO CHANCE that this will EVER CHANGE.
Thanks Dave for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.
This organization pays for past performance — the numbers on the back of the baseball cards. They seem baffled when players can’t duplicate that performance and, with few exceptions, seem bound to playing them in order to justify the contracts. This comes at the expense of player development, of course. It’s one reason why there are no viable replacements at almost every position on the field and the Mariners are almost doomed to repeat the cycle in 2009.
I liked the Bedard pickup, when he’s healthy, he just might be the best pitcher in all of baseball. I know I’m in the minority, but I love Bedard.
The Mariners can still right the ship this year, they just need to play like they’re capable and go on a winning streak.
The Bedard trade was horrible, there’s no way he’s the best pitcher in baseball, the Mariners ship is sunk for 2008, and that winning streak you want them to go on would require them to play .680 baseball for the rest of the year. No one’s that good, especially not this sorry bunch.
I agree with #13, Turbopotamus. Bavasi and the two managers he has hired, Grover and Mac, both value what a vet has done and simply believe that those vets will duplicate those performances. This is why they believed Sexson and Vidro would play as they did in 2002 in the NL.
If memory serves me right, Dave has written about how the Beane and the A’s look at repeatable skillsets and project those forward to find useful, serviceable players and bargain basement prices. The M’s, on the other hand, pay top dollar for what a player did three to four years ago. (Everett, Vidro, Sexson, Wilkerson, etc.). Until the M’s correct this fundamental flaw, their odds of winning are slim.
McLaren, is that you?
This is true if by “right the ship” you mean “finish above .500″… it’s a longshot, but it’s possible.
Good thing we got rid of Bob Melvin! He sure doesn’t know how to manage a team. If McLaren got the boot, who is around that could fill in? (Aside from a tag team of Edgar’s mustache and Joey Cora’s giant hat.)
This is a nice argument. However, your argument would be strengthened by including a mention of the 2007 Fielding +/- as well as the 2007 run production metrics. I wonder if the results would be significantly different. At the least, the bias toward 2008 results should be mentioned, and how a decision should be tempered with the knowledge that it’s just two months of data.
Is two months really enough?
“The Mariners can still right the ship this year…”
I’m not sure you realize what that would take.
right the ship ‘08
wouldn’t be surprised if that was on a commercial knowing this FO
Well, yeah, if you mean get back to .500. Sure, I think that can happen.
No way? Really? What do you look for in a pitcher?
From May through the end of year in 2007:
2.43 ERA 0.98 WHIP K/BB ratio 4.06
Those numbers destroyed Johan’s, who some believe is the best. And Bedard had to face significantly tougher hitters in the AL East, regularly facing the Yanks and Red Sox.
Any starter with better numbers over that stretch?
FWIW, Cora is considered a future MLB managerial candidate; he interviewed with Pittsburgh & the Nats after coaching in the majors, as well as managing several minor league teams, a Venezuelan team, and GM-ing Caguas.
“Good thing we got rid of Bob Melvin! He sure doesn’t know how to manage a team.”
I think it’s proof positive that managers are to a large extent irrelevant (or at best contribute very little) to their team’s success.
Melvin + Bavasi’s crappy roster: perceived to be terrible
Melvin + some actual young talent and a pitching staff: perceived to be a genius.
I doubt Melvin has changed fundamentally.
Bedard being a good pitcher doesn’t make that a good trade, it just makes it less bad. It was still monumentally bad. 6 (?… can’t find club control numbers so guessing) years of club control over Jones and Sherrill for 2 years of Bedard? Um, no.
Also…
There is an evaluating pitcher talent article linked on the left. Note especially that “WHIP and ERA tell you there is no difference in an inning where three batters drive the ball to the fence and end up with three long flyouts or an inning where a pitcher strikes out the side.”
Bedard is great by more accurate measures of pitching, but not the best in baseball.
No way? Really? What do you look for in a pitcher?
If only I had written an article on evaluating pitching talent that could be linked to – say, in the upper left hand corner – for easy reading.
From May through the end of year in 2007:
This is remarkable news. I didn’t realize that everything that happened before last May didn’t count, or that the world ended last September.
Bedard is a good pitcher, just like C.C. Sabathia, Josh Beckett, and Scott Kazmir are good pitchers. And calling any of them the best pitcher in baseball is ridiculous.
Not only do the M’s over value past performance, they also believe in the fallacy of “the rebound”.
“Richie will rebound from his abysmal 2007 season and return to his previous performance.”
“Wilkerson will rebound from his past 2 injury plagued seasons and return to his 2005 numbers”
“Rich Aurelia will rebound from blah, blah, blah”
Smart teams don’t spend big money hoping for a rebound. Smart teams invest a little cash in guys with previous proven performance and known injuries and sign them to minor league deals (See Boston and Colon).
The M’s don’t see the previous year as an indicator that a player has reached the end of their useful baseball career, and the clear warning sign of an aging skill set, they see it as a single aberration that is willfully ignored.
That’s why they get stuck with a bunch of sucky veterans, that cost a lot of money and a team that will be lucky to avoid 100 losses.
quote=dave “how on earth are the people responsible for paying $72.5 million for a group of position players rivaled only by the Kansas City Royals for ineptitude part of the solution and not part of the problem?”
Yes!!!!! That is THE QUESTION, isn’t it? The only one that really matters anymore. Those goofs need to go!!!!!!!
I don’t regret that the M’s ditched Bob Melvin – other than the fact that he was essentially a scapegoat for broader failure that allowed the organization to ignore those failures for several more seasons.
I make no comment about his performance with Arizona, becuase I haven’t watched any of their games, but Melvin with the Mariners was a tactically limited, reactive manager who seemed to be following the “Big Baseball Book of Conventional Wisdom”. He wasn’t an arrogant dunderhead of Mike Hargrove proportions, but he utterly lost the respect of his team in 2004.
McLaren’s problem seems to be that he shares both the hapless milquetoast persona of Bob Melvin circe 2004, and the boneheaded tactical ignorance of Mike Hargrove.
5 months is a pretty good sample size, and I did say ‘when healthy’ so, if trying to objectively analyze a pitcher when healthy, in my humble opinion, you should only look at his stats when healthy. Bedard wasn’t healthy in April of 2007. He also wasn’t healthy for his last start in 2007, but I still included it so as to not ‘cherry pick’ data for my position.
Also, a case can be made for others, that’s why I said ‘just might be’, he’s certainly in that conversation.
How? By moving the deck chairs around?
5 months is a pretty good sample size
No it’s not.
Bedard wasn’t healthy in April of 2007
We know he’s hurt because he pitched badly, and he pitched badly because he’s hurt. And around and around we go. This is the kind of crap that leads to “Jose Vidro will do well at DH because his knees won’t hurt him anymore” or “Richie Sexson’s ready to hit again because he had a nagging knee injury that no one knew about”.
but I still included it so as to not ‘cherry pick’ data for my position.
But you omitted 2004 to 2006 and the start of 2008 because…?
Also, a case can be made for others, that’s why I said ‘just might be’, he’s certainly in that conversation.
There’s no conversation. If you say 2 + 2 = 5, you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter that 5 is next to 4 and closer than 9. Erik Bedard is obviously inferior to Johan Santana and Brandon Webb. If you want to play the “when healthy” card, Jake Peavy shuts you down very quickly. There’s no argument to be had. You’re just wrong.
Link to evaluating pitchers….
Sorry Dave. I’m new to the site and didn’t know you were the content provider here, just thought it was some message board patron named Dave, I’ll check out the Evaluating Pitching Talent article.
Ahhh, another way to describe Mariners management’s ineptitude… There are just so many ways!
Another excellent post Dave. It is just one more way of evaluating and describing the incompetent and moronic management of the M’s front office.
I think the recent “crtical” articles in the local rags are too restrained and kind to the M’s front office. If they cribbed some of the posts from this blog the entire fan base would have access to the incompetence of the M’s front office.
Even on this blog there are a few true believers who think the M’s can “right the ship”, but then again, [nope, don't go there]
Best pitcher in baseball? That would be Brandon Webb.
Jeremy Bonderman
39 – Joe C
I’m hoping that is a joke?
To (slightly mis-)quote a luminary:
“Some say this team is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. But this team isn’t sinking… it’s soaring! If anything, they’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!”
Safe to say the M’s allocate most of their resources into a sinkhole.
Samson -
I am laughing and crying at the same time.
It was pretty easy to tell that you’re new here by your comments, but please allow me to offer offer a few pieces of unsolicited advice that might help with your transition into USSM-dom…
1) Read Dave’s article about evaluating pitcher talent.
2) Then read these comment guidelines.
3) Take a gander at this USSM Orientation (gives a good feel for how things work here).
4) Read a few threads and get the feel of things some before posting.
5) Never… EVER… refer to ERA, WHIP, cherry pick data, or (God forbid) refer to this as a “message board”.
6) Check your spelling.
The only things you can do at this point to dig a deeper hole would be to comment on what a great writer Steve Kelly is, lament the loss of Bob Finnegan as the M’s beat guy, or opine as to how Veteran Grittiness is well worth paying top dollar.
The natives are somewhat restless around here these days. It’s been a difficult season with many months to go, and almost every single problem on the table was foretold and discussed thoroughly last offseason.
Tread carefully. And welcome!
I like this Samson a million times more than the other one.
It’s been almost 11 months since the M’s locked up Ichiro to an extension. Now that was some good ass resource allocating.
Wow – best description of McLaren, ever…
[expletive] Dave Samson.
#43, Steve Kelly is way better than Jerry Brewer. Actually I’m not sure about that, they’re both really bad.
This was a really depressing post, Dave, although it’s nothing we don’t already know.
Kelley.
Thanks msb. I stand corrected.
Samson – see what I mean?
The Mariners can still right the ship this year, they just need to play like they’re capable and go on a winning streak.
Not to pile on, but Vegas loves guys like you. It’s their bread and butter. They take you in, take you for everything you have, and all the time you’re thinking you just need the dice to roll the way they’re capable and you’ll go on a winning streak and get it all back and more.
Now, if by “right the ship” you mean get back to .500, you might have something to talk about. I was pretty adamant this offseason that this could be a .500 team if everything went right (and was considered an optimist by a lot of people here, though clearly we — and all the other stat-oriented estimates — were crazily pessimistic according to the received wisdom amongst the traditional sports media and the baseball establishment). Everything has to go even righter (ahem) at this point, but to salvage a .500 season they have to go 61-47, which is just .565. That’s doable, I think, though not especially likely (Oakland and Texas have to come back to earth, among other things). But having had our pessimism proved right, we have to take optimism wherever we can find it.
The Mariners need to pony up and pay a true #3 or
#4 hitter top dollar. The only hitter available next year who fits the bill is Teixeira. The M’s had three such players in 1999, Alex-Edgar-Junior, and none since 2003. Edgar’s last good year.
Interesting post, thanks…… And another thank you to you Mr. Samson….. I literally spit cereal across my kitchen counter When you realized you just spit in the eye of the great dragon. Hilarity. Where’s the “Buy a beer” button? Churchill has one up after like every other post…
No, they don’t.
That’s the kind of thinking that got them into this mess.
53-Yes they do. How many teams in the history of baseball have won a world series without at least one legitimate middle of the order bat. Right now the Mariners have zero.
53-If they had signed Carlos Beltran the year they got Beltre and Sexson or if they had signed Alfonso Soriano before last season that is what I am talking about. The Mariners pay out lots of money but they never give the big 100 million+ contracts that it takes to get a truly great slugger.
There’s a nugget of truth in what you’re saying – that the M’s would be better off paying 2 or 3 genuine stars $12M+ per year, rather than a slew of mediocre veterans $8M a year. But your player evaluation is badly amiss. And poor player evaluation is what got us Richie Sexson earning $15.5M this year.
Beltran is going to look sorely overpaid before the end of his contract – remember he’s not even halfway into his seven year deal – and Alfonso Soriano is already starting to look a bit albatrossy. The Cubs will owe him about $19M when he’s limping around left field at the age of 38.
And seriously? Soriano? At least Beltran can play center field pretty well. Soriano is another impatient, defensively-limted righthander, who would look dreadful playing half his games in Safeco Field. Soriano is a seriously overpaid veteran – exactly what this team has too much of.
Sorry mw3 – your post is just the sort of slightly knowledgeable, bar-room wisdom that sounds okay on the morning show on sports radio, but doesn’t over any real analysis.
It all goes back to front office stupidity and panic. 88 wins + Bedard = Playoffs. Well, no it doesn’t in oh too many ways. How can the front office not see that we were not an 88 win team last year. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Way to take some pitches, guys. You had them worried about Verlander’s pitch count last inning, but not so much anymore.
Pitchers also defend and hit. If the position players get credit for their hitting and defense, then you have to give pitchers the same treatment when weighing their impact.
Actually, I think the whole argument falls apart with equating the value of “run scoring” and “run prevention.” Run scoring can be measured in runs scored. Run prevention cannot be measured; it’s an idea. If Seattle beats the Yankees 2-1, how many runs did the M’s prevent the Yankees from scoring?
Really? You can’t think of an answer to that question?
I can think of a whole lot of answers to that question. My Top 5 would be one, two, three, four and five. If I had more time, I could continue.
I apologize, I’m acting a dicktellectual here. I’m a recovering academic.
It’s just that something doesn’t look right to me. I come from the sports betting world, where we love and respect your work, and where we happen to value pitching very strongly.
I think my issue has to do with trying to value pitching and defense as “runs prevented,” which you can only measure by the failure to do so. Which is by necessity the same as the other guy’s “runs scored.” That’s not computing for me, and if I’m wrong, I hope you can set me straight.