Welcome to the Mariners, your office overlooks a smoking crater
A partial list of challenges facing an incoming GM, and why whoever takes over needs be half-crazed with ambition and, preferably, backed by an equally insane staff.
As it stands right now, here’s what the team will look like in this offseason, moving around the diamond:
We have no DH.
We have a young, promising catcher and an older catcher who seems to have collapsed entirely after being given a three-year deal.
We have no first baseman.
The second baseman signed to a multi-year deal through 2010 has turned into a defensive sinkhole.
The shortstop signed to a multi-year extension through 2011 has turned into a defensive sinkhole who doesn’t hit either.
You have a year of a good third baseman in which to extend him or find the next one.
We have no left-fielder.
We potentially have a center fielder in Reed, but resolving his situation may depend on the GM’s evaluation of his play.
Then to the pitching:
The Felix dilemma.
Bedard’s around for another year, what do you do with him?
Batista’s signed through next year and stinks.
Silva’s signed through 2011 and stinks.
Washburn’s signed through next year and stinks.
Morrow: start or relieve?
Assembling the rest of the bullpen.
That’s a huge list of issues to be done in the rebuild. Feel free to assign them your own difficulty rating, but it’s clear that while some of these will have relatively easy fixes — finding a new DH may be asking Raul if he wants to hang out for another year, for instance, and first base and left — leaving a lot of that will require a lot of work, and possibly the rapid application of a lot of money.
When they interview GM candidates and ask them “What would you do with the team?” they’re going to need to schedule a lot longer than an hour to get reasonable answers.
Jeff Sullivan @ LL’s been doing some good articles on how to approach the scope of the problems. (one, two). I think any team with the current version of Betancourt/Lopez is doomed to suck horribly, so I wouldn’t rest until that’s resolved, but still– it’s good reading.
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Just reading that list puts the scope of issues in perspective. I honestly feel like an expansion team right now.
Maybe an easier way to articulate the list would be:
We have a right-fielder.
this morning, from the immortal Rod Simons, now working in Minnesota, re: the rumors of Twins interest in Beltre: “everyone know the Mariners are trying to get rid of this guy”
um, they do?
I’m going to try to cut down on my number of ill-thought-out or otherwise totally wrong posts today, but I can’t resist a little AM pity party. Seriously, what a mess. The saddest part to me is that the lineup is so freaking bad that the pitching situation actually looks decent in comparison, even though it sucks aside from a few bright spots, too.
It’d be interesting to know what you think the positives are for an incoming GM? What are the things that will help him (or her) get this franchise turned around?
Large budget. Good fan base. Exclusivity in region. Great international scouting. Lots of budget freeing up. Ichiro. Felix. One cool looking knuckleballer.
Don’t forget, a lot less $ coming next year from the new radio deal. But look on the bright side, there will be new bobbleheads and train cars and oh-so funny commercials to look forward to.
You guys should do a conclusive Bedard post. I keep hearing rumors of getting rid of him, of him being problematic, etc, and I don’t get it. Granted he’s not performed as everyone hoped, but why the seemingly imminent dismissal? I’m genuinely curious.
I see you guys have a plate full in the complaining department. There will be no shortage of subjects in the years to come. Looking forward …
I think it has mostly to do with that fact that signing him was seen as a potential final roster piece in making a serious run, then as this year has born out, obviously that couldn’t be further from the truth, so now you are looking at not really needing him next year as much as a contender could use him down the stretch this year and into next year. Add to that the fact that we don’t know if we even want to re-sign him after next year, or if he would even want to, so it makes some sense to move him now while we might recoup at least a little bit of the value we traded away to get him.
Basically I think his skill set is more valuable to a team that expects to contend down the stretch and into next year, whereas he will continue to pitch meaningless games in Seattle.
fixed
Are both Lopez and Betancourt unsalvageable? Admittedly, Betancourt is 26, so he’s passing out of the realm of potential to being what he looks like now (no defense, no bat). However, his defense wasn’t always terrible. Is it possible to turn him around?
Same for Lopez, plus he’s two years younger and has (potentially) more room to grow. Heck, he’s younger than Clement.
The way I see it, there are so many holes in this team that it’s better to take the rebuilding process slowly rather than scrap everything at once in a panic. I’d rather see the team shore up the rotation and the ‘pen, plug gaps as needed (DH, 1B) and give guys like Clement, Reed (though I’m really not sold on him), and Lopez a chance to improve.
The impulse to compete next year is exactly what got this team in its current situation in the first place. Look at the Rays, Twins, and A’s – slow and steady is a good approach. Even Boston relies heavily on home grown prospects (Lester, Pedroia, Youkillis) and bargain FAs (Ortiz was by no means a world beater when they signed him away from the Twins). For all their FA money, the Yankees haven’t won a series since 2000.
Along the same lines, I’ve adopted the shorthand: the M’s have 5 good players: Ichiro, Beltre, Morrow, Bedard and Clement. Everyone else is a problem, Ibanez included – he’s a DH rocking a .782 OPS and needs to be platooned.
Why wouldn’t you include Felix?
Or did you just forget?
Things have gotten so bad that I am actually now back on the Reed bandwagon. I know he’s not great, but at least he is a decent defender. Obviously you hope your starters are better hitters than he is, but at this point, he is a legit incremental upgrade over Wilkerson or Morse. Thank god we didn’t do something stupid like re-sign Guillen or take a flyer on Bradley, eh?
I totally disagree with this. The impulse to compete every year is fine when you have a big payroll like the M’s. It’s the total incompetence when it comes to actually making the moves necessary to do so that has killed the M’s.
I would agree that the current hole that the front office has dug is deep enough that competing next year might be difficult – However, I still predict that, when the offseason comes, there will be reasonable paths to competitiveness in ‘09. For example:
Bedard/Felix/Morrow in the rotation.
Reed, Ichiro and Free talent that plays good D in the OF.
Cut bait on Betancourt and/or Lopez and focus on defense at SS and/or 2B.
Pay $$$ to grab a masher for 1B.
Platoon Raul at DH with a lefty-killer (they’re cheap and easy to come by).
I forgot. Also forgot Putz. So… the M’s have 7 good players.
I think the outfield SHOULD be average next year if they run out:
Reed in LF
ICHIRO! in CF
and WLAD in RF
It won’t be the best outfield in the league but that should be above average defensively and average offensively…
You don’t need to pay $$$, and overspending on free agent first basemen is always a bad idea. After all, we just got rid of someone we did that with.
Jeff’s idea over at LL is a good one; Russ Branyan or even Broussard (who never really got much of a chance to succeed here with the terrible way he was used).
I’m not a proponent of the Ibanez to first base idea that some other people have suggested, myself; it’s just too late in his career to try to teach him a new position, if he’d even go for it.
DH, there’s nothing to teach, but honestly you can find a better DH than Ibanez on the scrap heap.
If the FO is serious about changing direction and not keeping players around based on past performance/PR value, then send that message; trade Ibanez to one of the many teams looking for left-handed bats at the trade deadline.
We have one of the most challenging hat tricks in baseball.
We have one of the coolest looking hydro races.
Sometimes, I can make it through a game without people doing the wave.
Really, though. After being to a couple other stadiums now… I wonder how much money we pump into the hat trick and hydro races.
Looking at the perspective of building a new team I don´t understand signing Joh for extension. I´d say trade him if.
Here’s a list of this years free agent 1st baseman. Teixeira will be overpriced. Giambi? He’s got a brick for a glove….
Rich Aurilia SF
Ben Broussard TEX
Carlos Delgado * NYM
Nomar Garciaparra LAD
Jason Giambi * NYY
Wes Helms PHI
Kevin Millar BAL
Richie Sexson SEA
Mark Teixeira ATL
Frank Thomas OAK
Jim Thome CWS
Daryle Ward CHC
“Pay $$$ to grab a masher for 1B.”
Good God, no. 1B is one of the easiest positions to fill … Didn’t you learn anything from the Sexson situation?
The Mariners could be a contender in the AL West next season.
Is that a blessing or a curse?
Before reading this thread and the two Lookout Landing links, I didn’t think they could be in the hunt without signings and trades even more absurd than Bavasi’s. I hoped that a new GM would quickly see that and plan on a rebuilding program that would set us up for, say, 2011. But remembering the rest of the AL West, I can see how the 2009 could be a possibility. We are also stuck with some guys who aren’t bad but aren’t terribly tradable, so let’s make the best of it.
I guess I’d go with taking a shot at the playoffs next year, but let’s do something smart like signing middling FA’s to short contracts. If 2009 is another flop, maybe then blow up the team.
Jeff’s lookout landing idea and my idea were essentially the same except he spent money on a starting pitcher and I spent it on a mashing first baseman. There is no right way to do this. I, like Jeff, was just making the point that things aren’t as bad is they seem right now. Whether you spend money on a mashing 1B or a starting pitcher, the key of course would be to spend it wisely. The fact that the M’s stupidly signed Sexson and than continued to ply him long after he was cooked is not evidence that signing a good-hitting first baseman is always a bad idea.
The number one question any GM candidate should ASK is “How much freedom do I have in player acquisition?”
I’m afraid that the answer to that is going to determine success in the future…
There are wrong ways to do it, though. I think spending $$ on the easier positions to fill does not classify as a right way. In fact, it’s the same strategy as signing Sexson…
Sad as it makes the pandas at my house, I can’t really agree with Jeff@LL. Jeff’s post is predicated on “this team was supposed to contend for a reason” but that hypothesis was not valid even at the start of the season before things blew up. Going back to the preseason WAR projections, Dave had the M’s as about an 83 win team. That’s not a contender. That’s a team that’s 10 wins out of contention, and that deficit wasn’t all due to Vidro and Sexson.
Yes, the preseason projections expected essentially replacement level performance from 4 out of the 9 regulars (Sexson, Ibanez, Wilkerson, Vidro). Replace all four with league-average guys at their positions and you’d have a 89 win team, still 4 wins away from contention.
If everything goes right. Which of course it.
Playing four regulars who are less than one win above replacemnt is bad, but I think it’s hiding the fact that we only have two regulars (Ichiro and Beltre) who are above average at their positions. That’s above league average. Only Ichiro is a legit above-contender-average at his position (and with the move to RF, maybe he’s closer to contender-average: Ichiro, Vlad, Jermaine Dye, JD Drew… not a bunch of slouches).
The M’s have recalibrated expectations way too low,and I think Jeff fell victim to that. You can’t call a .500 team a playoff contender, and if you want to be better than .500, you can’t settle for a bunch of average players. +2 WAR is league average. Playoff contender average is closer to +2.75 WAR. We need 15 or 16 guys who average +2.75 WAR to call ourselves a playoff contender. Right now, assuming Bedard, Putz and Felix get/stay healthy, we have five guys who qualify. That’s 10 slots for regulars that need to be upgraded. Two-thirds of the impact positions need to be upgraded if the M’s want to be contenders.
If they can get a good deal for Ibanez, fine, but I don’t have a problem sticking him in DH either. We’re going to be making a lot of trips to the scrap heap as it is. But I still believe we’re only a few players away from being a decent team. Being better than decent is of course the goal, but we aren’t starting from zero. The biggest holes we have are the easiest positions to fill.
I would think about telling Betancourt that he’s going to show up at training camp 20 pounds lighter next spring or he’s going to get cut the first day before he even gets a chance to suit up. But glove wizards are a dime a dozen; so are lummoxes. If we concentrate on defense we’ll make our pitching look a lot better than it does now without changing a thing, and if we start turning Morrow into a starter TODAY, in the middle of this wasted year, we have a chance to have something decent.
The message they need to send is: no more embarrassing dead weight. A mediocre starter like Silva is not dead weight; Miguel Cairo playing first base is. So is Vidro hitting fourth. I would cut Cairo and Vidro TODAY, and tell the rest of them they’re on notice: if you’re not even close to replacement value, to the point where people laugh when they see what job you’re being asked to do, work on that resume.
Then start combing the minors for defensive wizards, and money targets who can hit.
Ain’t going to happen, though.
I think the more important question, especially re Yuni, is ‘Does the team realize they need to be salvaged?’
We’ve all seen management unable to assess defense, and do things like leave Ibanez in left while inserting replacements for other, superior fielders.
I get the impression their reaction to Betancourt will be that he’s not part of the problem. Look! So many fewer throwing errors! All the while oblivious to the fact that that’s a byproduct of getting to so many fewer balls in the first place.
Oh, and trading Bedard is stupid. You won’t get anything worthwhile for him, and Adam Jones and George Sherrill are a SUNK COST — they’re not coming back. So’s his salary. Trading him now would be like buying high and selling low on the stock market — that’s how you make your assets disappear instead of grow.
It’s a lot like climbing out of the storm cellar and examining your property after a twister just made a direct hit.
Challenges are opportunities though. But man, ownership faces a decision of enormous magnitude so they had better choose wisely.
Choose poorly and this organization could face a decade plus of irrelevance.
MY OH MY!!! This is a grand salami of a mess! The worst team money can buy!
Yes, we were just “one piece” away from contenting for a title back in January so we traded away the farm for a 5 inning per game / 180 innings per year “Ace”. To summarize, we basically, we have Ichiro, Felix, Beltre, Morrow, Bedard, Clement, and a sunsetting Ibañez…oh and don’t forget Putz (albeit injured this year). All for only $110 Million. WOW! It’s even worse when you look at AAA and see there is no one there to call up.
Thanks Bill Bavasi and the Mariners Sr. Executives for allowing this to happen to my M’s.
But, for a smart, disciplined GM, this can be fixed just because of the payroll capabilities. But, it means a few more years like 2004-2006. A lot of losing ahead. I have to now conclude that 2007 may have been the WORST season ever for the M’s because of the “false hope” it gave and bad decisions that followed. It’s like signing a pitcher because he has a good ERA and not looking at anything else. The leadership fooled themselves by looking at the team record and falsely concluding this was a team on the rise and ready to contend.
Which is why I think the entire organization needs to be scrubbed clean, top to bottom.
If the new GM gets power to do this (uh, oh…a DePodesta in the making?), that may take a year in and of itself…
I agree with the Bedard assessment/analogy. Or as the old saying goes, that’s how you make a small fortune…out of a large one.
#30 – It depends if we are looking at next year being a rebuild year. At that point, what is the advantage of having him around? He’s got value and we can get return. As you stated, the cost is already sunk. Want to bet on what the chances are he’ll sign an extension? I’m figuring on Zero. If the team is gutted, why keep one of the most valuable trade chips? The FO would be trading not just a half of year of him, but a full year and a half. There is the possiblity to get a good return on him. Not what we gave up, because we gave up more than he was worth. But 1 good prospect and 2 mid-levels are all about rebuilding. If one of these prospects is a middle fielder ready for the big time, a left fielder, or a 3B that is almost there, its worth it.
This is a really good point, and one I think people miss a lot in just the general malaise that this team has created.
There are a lot of holes, yes, but just getting major league quality DH/1B/LF would be a HUGE upgrade for this team, and those are three very easy positions to find quality at.
There’s other places where it’d be nice to make some upgrades (starting pitching, middle infield) but those are harder and can be dealt with over time.
If we keep running Turbo out at DH and batting him fourth, no amount of moves will help, anyway.
I don’t think this is true, I think his suggestion is based on a pretty honest evaluation of the current roster. Look at who he gets rid of:
Glaring black hole at first base
Ibanez’s awful LF defense
Our beloved DH-0
Johjima’s suckfest goes to the bench
Then he adds AJ Burnett to the rotation.
That’s a pretty good team. Not a great team, no, but one that could be reasonably expected to be in the high 80s win-wise, which I think is enough to contend in the AL West.
Bedard would sign if it looked there was an organization in place that (a) valued him and (b) gave the appearance of knowing what the hell they were doing.
Also, the prospects you mention are unlikely to be forthcoming, especially under Pelekoudas. We’re more likely to get stiffs and rebuilding projects, not prospects. 30-year-old 1B, anyone?
We’ve got him now. Putting teams together is about assembling value, wherever you find it. Assembling value is about always trading (or signing) up. I don’t see any way to get more for Bedard than Bedard.
Unless Bavasi gets hired as a GM somewhere else!
Yeah, Jones and Sherrill are sunk costs but hanging on to Bedard still may be a bad idea. As long as we’re doing metaphors from the world of investment, we should also remember “cut your losses and let your winner’s run.”
I was struck that LL’s rotation plan involved doubling our stock of injury prone TOR guys by adding Burnett — which seems to me a very iffy plan, particularly if you keep the Betancourt/Lopez middle-infield. No plan is perfect, but the I wouldn’t bet even money on getting 300 innings total out of Bedard and Burnett in 2009 — and how much do you want to pay for that?
Look at it in terms of runs. We can improve something like 30 runs on Vidro WITHOUT EVEN HARDLY TRYING. Cairo, ditto. We can improve something like 20 runs simply by moving Ibanez to DH and running out practically any stiff with a good glove in left — Christ, put Bloomie there, anybody. You keep doing that, around the horn, and you’ll start to have something that at least looks like a baseball team pretty quickly.
That’s the thing about this team that’s so frustrating — there’s NO WAY you can get in a situation where Miguel Cairo is starting at first base. I’d rather be a Nationals fan than a Mariners fan, because although they don’t have a Felix, an Ichiro, a Beltre, they also LOOK LIKE A BASEBALL TEAM. A bad one, but still.
Remember the 60s Orioles? You can win with Mark Belanger at short. You can’t win with Mark Belanger at first.
I should state that, in an ideal world, Part 2 is not the kind of roster we want to build. But given certain constraints, it was the ~best we could do with little flexibility.
Yeah, that is the $100 million question.
Really, what we need more than anything else is a front office and management team that fans have faith in. A team can post a 70 win season, but that season feels a lot different if you know that the guys in charge have a plan.
There’s rebuilding bad, and then there’s terrible bad. I’d rather be rebuilding, and watching young players who may or may not grow into stars, than just sucking.
This team can afford to overpay, IN THE RIGHT PLACES.
Yeah, Bedard and Burnett are both fragile, but both can also be seriously awesome pitchers when they are healthy.
If Burnett spends the entire season on the DL, all you’re out is money, which this franchise has. Even if you only get 100 innings out of him, those are 100 innings that are better than we’ll get out of whoever internally we’d put in that spot.
You’re not going to see a Cleveland-style rebuilding here, and it’s not necessary with a $120 million payroll.
This team can be in contention if the money is spent wisely, while not mortgaging the future. Again to quote Jeff’s rebuild plan:
This is the strategy the Mariners need to take. Leverage their payroll to help cover the mistakes of the last few years, while limiting the potential damage of their moves to just wasting some money.
I think there’s a tendency to be pessimistic about the strategy this team will take in moving forward, and I think it’s reasonable for people to be pessimistic (although to be frank, seeing “this team is stupid, they’ll never do anything right” in every comment thread is starting to get a little old).
But the ONLY reason this team is bad right now is that they’ve spent their resources in what might be the worst fashion in baseball history; that doesn’t remove the fact that there are legitimate resources to work with here, and a smart, audacious GM could turn this team around in a hurry.
Well, actually SEEING this team act stupid and getting anything right is getting REAL old.
I don’t think it’s out of the question to get this team back to .500 next year. It won’t be without effort and bold moves, but it’s not unthinkable. And getting another 5-7 games the year after that isn’t improbable either.
But only if this team starts behaving intelligently.
Good grief. What are we doing acquiring a washed up first baseman, Craig Wilson?
Cairo and Vidro’s continued roles and the return of Batista to the rotation all lead me to believe that, despite Pelekoudas’ comments about wanting to try to win, the team is actively tanking 2008 in hopes of landing the #1 draft pick next June.
There are obvious ways to make this team better. That the team is actively refusing to do so indicates that making the team more competitive right now isn’t their goal.
Sure, I just don’t personally see why people feel the need to add the “yeah, but this team is stupid, they’ll never do that!” disclaimer to every discussion about ways the team could move forward.
Can’t we just take it as a given that this team needs to get smarter? Is there anyone who reads this site that isn’t aware of that?
Anyway, it’s just my personal feeling, and I can certainly understand why people feel the way they do.
He wouldn’t be starting from scratch. It has been a few years, but he has played 135 games at first in his career.
That said, the best place for him would be as a platoon DH.
He wouldn’t like that, so the M’s are probably better served by seeing if they could get any prospects for him in a trade.
Is that really enough to make him a plus defender at first though, on a team that desperately needs good infield defense to help their pitching rotation?
I don’t personally think so.
46. I’m also really tired of the ‘this team is stupid’ line. It’s a conversation killer, which isn’t productive when you’re trying to have a conversation about the team.
I think Ibanez will be dealt before the deadline…
That doesn’t mean he won’t re-sign with Seattle in the winter…
I wonder if we’ll be able to cultivate a 3B replacement for Beltre or if we’ll end up having to re-sign him after next year. I know he’s one of our best players, but I really do not look forward to having to give him 4-5 more years and a raise after he passes 30. I just don’t see him becoming better than he is now after rolling past 30.
That’s what Jeff said. Let me quote: “Here’s the thing: these guys were expected to contend for a reason. And while a lot has clearly gone wrong, I still think the roster has enough talent to fill out the bulk of a 2009 contender.”
High-80’s is not good enough to contend. That’s what I mean about recalibrating expectations too low. The AL West champ has averaged 94 wins over the last five years. The lowest win total was 92. The Wild Card is even toughter – the average WC team has won 95.4 games, and the lowest wins for a WC team was 94.
Jeff fixes four holes in our lineup, and that’s good, but he only upgrades them from horrible to average, and an average team doesn’t make the playoffs. Back to what I said, right now we have maybe five guys who would qualify as at least average at their positions on a playoff team. Only two of them (Bedard and Felix) could, if healthy, be significantly above average (Ichiro as a CF would join them). We can’t upgrade 1B/DH/C/LF/SP3 to league average and be a playoff team.
Maybe instead of WAR (Wins Above Replacement), we should do WBC (Wins Below Cotention). Assume a playoff team has to be a 90 win team on paper, so that an extra 2 to 5 wins from luck can carry them into the playoffs. There are 15.5 impact slots (9 lineup slots + 5 starters + 1.5 for the closer, bench and bullpen). That’s approximately 2.6 WAR per impact slot. Once you calculate a player’s WAR, subtract 2.6 from it to get his WBC (or actually, Wins Above Contention). Every regular who is negative needs to be made up for somehow. Taking the M’s preseason projections from Dave’s Feb post, we’d have:
Pos player WAC
C Johjima -0.35
1B Sexson -2.28
2B Lopez -1.35
SS Betancourt -0.98
3B Beltre +0.07
LF Ibanez -1.85
CF Ichiro +1.15
RF Wilkerson -1.84
DH Vidro -2.19
SP Bedard +1.83
SP Felix +1.36
SP Silva -0.40
SP Batista -0.75
SP Washburn -1.14
Those are the pre-season projections. No one from that list has ourperformed projections, and almost no one has even lived up to projections. In particular, Johjima, Silva and Batista have been significantly worse.
But take a look: lots of negative numbers, and large negative ones. Ten out of 14 that are negative, six out of 14 that are -1.0 or worse. Look, in particular, at Felix and Lopez. They cancel each other out. By having Lopez on the roster, even pre-season-projection Lopez, it cancels out Felix. Washburn cancels out Ichiro. And Washburn’s the #5 starter, and as #5 starters go, he isn’t terrible. But there you have it – he still cancels out Ichiro. Having a #5 starter who isn’t terrible by league standards means a playoff team needs an Ichiro (and that’s an Ichiro playing CF, not RF) to balance it out.
That’s the jist of it. If you expect to be a playoff team, you just can’t have very many below-average guys. You can’t. If you expect to be a .500 team, you can offset a below average guy with an above average guy, but if you expect to be a playoff team, you have to offset him with a superstar.
And when I say “below average” above, I’m not talking about Sexson and Vidro. That’s replacement level. Below average is what we expected from Lopez, what we expected from Betancourt, what we epxected from Silva. If you’re running replacement level guys out there, well, you need two superstars to make up for each one of those.
Unless we can add two or three +4 win superstars to the roster, we’re 10 impact position upgrades away from being a contender. And even if we do add the superstars, we still have to upgrade four of five positions (assuming Silva bounces back and Clement is a league average C).
Assuming that when they take the mound they really are ‘healthy’ or a reasonable facsimile thereof, sure. This year Bedard’s innings per appearance is 2nd worst in his career (not a quality measure per se but surely putting such additional pressure on the bull pen doesn’t add to his value) and his walk rate is way up — both of which I would interpret as indicating he’s been pitching at considerably less than 100% even when he goes out there. So there’s ‘healthy’ and there’s healthy.
If he gets back to 180 innings and 6+ innings per start next year he’s a keeper. 150 innings at barely over 5 innings per start, and with walk issues, I’m not so happy.
Those AL West champs, and to a lesser extent the AL Wild Card teams, have gotten wins against some truly terrible Mariners squads (and some bad Rangers teams also).
So I don’t think it’s quite as easy as just cutting and pasting win totals from prior years.
I’m not going to quibble about the premises of Jeff’s (Sullivan) proposed roster overhaul, he’s got the right idea with his trade Betancourt post. I may keep harping on this, because I think it’s one of the best routes to improving this team.
Oh, I hadn’t seen that post previously, thanks for pointing it out. I agree that leveraging Betancourt’s inflated perception around the league is a good idea.
JM, I think you underestimate the impact of going from a Johjima/Sexson/Vidro/Ibanez’s-defense level of awful to average. Over a full season we’re talking well over 100 runs. It’s huge. And then you throw in a shiny new starting pitcher, and yeah.
But then, the intent wasn’t to build a champion. My (and Graham’s, and Matthew’s) point was simply to show that this team isn’t hopeless, and is by no means in dire need of being blown up. A team with this much money and a fair bit of talent is just never that far away from being good again, given the right ideas. Ditch the trash and add a handful of free agents and all of a sudden you have a team playing meaningful games in September, the construction of which required little in the way of future sacrifice.
what to do, what to do.
the theme of the last few days on KJR has been the oft-repeated word ’soft’, and everyone was piling on.
Apparently, he should just pitch through it, whether it be mental or physical. Dammit.
Mike Snow,
From the ‘trade Yuni’ post:
Any idea which potential suitor teams this comment is referring to? Maybe two years ago, but who would be dumb enough to trade for him now? He isn’t worth much in return, if you ask me, and if I know that, and you know that, and the list of teams dumb enough to not know that actually includes the M’s, how many other rube suitors could there really be?
I don’t know, but he mentions the Dodgers as a possibility. I have no personal knowledge one way or the other about which front offices know Yuniesky has turned into a pumpkin (literally), and which don’t.
Thanks…yeah, the Dodgers are ripe for the picking…they signed Schmidt and Garciaparra in the recent past, so their talent valuation above the draft level seems somewhat lacking. I heard last night they were inquiring about Eckstein and some other potential fill-ins until they can get a better read on when Furcal will be back, so maybe the iron is hot with them right now. Betancourt and Lopez for Kershaw, Billingsley, Broxton, Kemp, and Loney. It’s a can’t miss!!
Oh, smb, you kidder.
But yes, I think you could probably get some talent out of the Dodgers for Betancourt.
And doesn’t this plan not encumber you too much with lead weights? That it can be upgraded the year AFTER with the +3, +4 win players—and you’re talking championships THEN?
We could be underestimating what it will take to get to respectability WITHOUT mortgaging long term chances.
62-
I’d trade The Double-Play Twins for any ONE of those Dodgers…
Jeff,
Ditch the trash, absolutely. I think we just disagree on where the line gets drawn between “useful part” and “trash”. Or rather, I’m just saying that too many “useful parts” eventually adds up to “trash” and that’s part of our problem now.
Holy Schmoly. Over a 100 runs from three positions? (I’m assuming you mean Vidro-as-1B and not Vidro-as-DH, since I think we can agree Jose Vidro is an average defensive DH(g)). Were Sexson, Ibanez and Johjima really -33 runs each defensively? I’d buy a 60 run improvement going from those guys to average defenders at their positions, but to get to 100, I think we’d have to sign significant plus defenders at all three positions, and plus defenders (especially at C) who aren’t offensive liabilities aren’t easy to find. I mean, absolutely I agree one of this team’s big problems has been terrible defense, but fixing that with average defense only gets us part of the way to the playoffs. If you’re right about the 100 run differential, then that’s about 10 wins, but that also means the 80-84 win projections at the start of the season were too high because the defense was worse than expected, so we’re adding 10 wins to something in the mid 70’s, and are still several wins away from contention. Upgrading Batista won’t get us there.
I guess my disagreement is that, if they’re going to spend that much money, they’d better be building a contender. Or let me just rephrase, if they want me to stick around as a season ticket holder, they’d better build a contender, because the only reasons to buy season tickets (seats at a sellout and playoff tickets) don’t apply to non-contenders.
I’m not saying they have to blow everything up or that there aren’t useful parts, but I am saying they have to blow part of it up and that a lot of what people think are useful parts are only useful parts to a .500 club and not to a serious playoff contender. At least not in large numbers. You can have one or two guys like Lopez or Betancourt, but you can’t have half your lineup filled with them unless the other half is made up of Mannys, Vlads and Ichiros.
An 88 win team is a contender.
Yep; even getting the 2009 squad to a point where they’re playing meaningful baseball in late September would be a big step.
People keep saying what a wonderful player Ichiro is… I wish there were statistics for “at bats resulting in the lead runner being out” and “total runners left unadvanced” kept for the season… Lately he has been doing better but for much of this year I would bet he either led the team or was close to it.
88 wins might be in contention, but there’s a good 88 wins and a bad 88 wins.
A bad 88 wins is the product of a few guys playing above their heads and some lucky breaks. It’s not something you can build on. The Mariners could repeat ‘07 next year, but that doesn’t build toward the big picture goal.
I think the M’s have to look at winning the World Series as the ultimate goal, and then work backward from that. The team does have a lot more money to spend than many clubs, and that’s a huge asset. It lets them pursue free agents, pay good players to stick around, and draft guys that other teams can’t sign.
But I think the real key is that, if you look at the teams that have won it all over the past few years, they’ve been built primarily through the draft and the long term stockpiling of assets.
The team does have to be blown up, because as others have pointed out, there aren’t many world championship caliber players on this roster. If you stacked this team up against the Angels, Chicago, Boston, and Tampa Bay, how many positional players do you think those teams would swap, one for one, with the M’s?
Do the same thing with starting rotations, assuming you could only swap based on position (their #3 for our #3).
Well, half the time, yes. The other half the time, they’re close to a .500 club (talking pre-season true talent level 88-win clubs anyway). Right now, I guess a 50% chance would look fantastic, but I think a team needs to aim a little higher to be a perennial contender (NYY have averaged 98 wins per season this decade, BOS and OAK 92). The Angles have averaged 88 wins, but that’s dragged down by two sub-.500 seasons where I don’t think they were legitimate 88+ win teams.
That’s why I think they have to set the bar at 90 or 92 wins going into the season. A true-talent level 92 win team on April 1 will be a contender 85% of the time come September. That’s what I expect from a payroll like the M’s have. An 88 win team is a contender every other year, but doesn’t actually go to the playoffs very often, maybe once or twice in a decade (unless we can move to the AL Central).
JM (66):
(1) This was the roster we constructed given certain constraints, like “stick to free agents” and “keep the roster as realistic as possible”. If we had our druthers Yuni and probably Lopez would get traded, but we wanted to keep things conservative, so we kept the ol’ sack of crap shortstop on the team. Obviously, this is not ideal, but.
(2) 100+ runs overall, not 100+ runs from defense. Over a full season, replacing Ibanez’s defense with average gets you ~25 runs, and replacing Johjima/Sexson/Vidro’s bats with average gets you ~90-110 more (ish. I’m approximating). That is most substantial. Sometimes upgrading from awful to average is every bit as good as upgrading from average to awesome. I feel like I’ve been saying that about this team for as long as I’ve been blogging, but once again it holds true for ‘08/’09.
(3) There’s that Billy Beane quote that gets thrown around all the time: “I’ve always said you’re either building something that’s special or you have something that’s special.” He’s absolutely right, and I can’t think of (m)any ways to make the 2009 Mariners look like something special, so that means they should be building for the future. BUT: this is a team that can build for the future while still fielding something pretty competitive. That team Matthew, Graham and I put together doesn’t cost us anything in terms of prospects, and it only costs us a little in terms of money. It in no way interferes with the organization’s development. So what’s the harm? If you can cobble together a reasonable team with a half-decent shot at the playoffs while not impeding your long-term progress, why not go for it?
Center field shouldn’t be included in the smoking crater discussion. Reed is here, he is hitting alright and he has the minor league track record that suggests he should continue to do so. He wasn’t a top prospect for no reason. He is entering the prime of his career and is affordable. He plays good center field defense. The only thing he hasn’t proven he can do is hit left handers. Addressing other, more severe problems should clearly come before replacing the spectacularly adequate Reed.
Does anyone know where minor league splits can be found? Has hitting left handers been a problem for Reed his entire career?
Oh, and Reed is “scrappy.” With him in the fold we won’t be completely devoid of tough-as-nails players who like to get dirty if Willy leaves via free agency.
Not to discount the whole discussion about what to do with the team, because that determines the team’s success (obvoiusly), and this has been mentioned before but…
…doesn’t this all depend on the hire Lincoln and Armstrong make at GM? And do we even trust them with making the right hire even if they know they have to change the team’s philosophy on players and they probably have no clue on the philosophy whatsoever?
And if that’s the case, do we hope that the rumors around Yamauchi-san selling is team are true, and he sells his interest in the team to Gillick, et al. who then cleans house in the FO?
I know that these discussions are out there to fill time so that we complain less and try to have productive discussion on what the team should do going forward, so please don’t hang me for the comment. But it does merit some thought about whether the best way the team changes is to get new “roots” that can help build a strong foundation for the team going forward.
*head in hands*
Exactly.
The reality is, this isn’t Cleveland (as evidenced by Ichiro not punching himself in the face on a daily basis).
There is zero chance that the team will go through a rebuild in the style that team did. The media won’t let them, if nothing else.
And even if they could…is that something you’d want to watch over the next few years? I know I don’t.
The LL plan (sorry for not crediting Matthew and Graham, didn’t realize you’d helped develop it) fields a reasonably competitive team while doing nothing that would impede further building of the team through the draft, international player acquistions, etc.
It doesn’t involve any ridiculous Soriano-for-HoRam style trades or locking up overpriced talent for long contracts.
There’s no downside, and possibly a pretty decent amount of upside. Why not go for it?
Jeff (Sullivan)
Ah, gotcha. I misread “Johjima/Sexson/Vidro/Ibanez’s-defense” to imply “defense” applied to all of them, and not just Ibanez. Sorry, thanks for clearing that up for me. 100+ runs from both bat and glove for those positions is more reasonable. But I’ll reiterate one point – that’s 100+ runs from what they did this year, not what we expected pre-season, so we’re still adding runs/wins to significantly sub-.500 club, and not the low-to-mid 80’s win club we thought we had pre-season.
I should back up a bit and first say I’m not arguing with the roster you constructed – given the constraints. And the one about being as realistic as possible is a major one! I feel like this team needs to add a Pujols and a Halliday, in addition to just patching the absolute sink holes, in order to be where they ought to be. And talking about adding Pujols and Halliday sort of blows through the realistic barrier pretty quickly.
Which takes me back to my main point – since we can’t realistically add a Pujols and a Halliday, we need to upgrade lots of positions a little bit.
No harm, I completely agree. I’m not so much worried about short-term efforts impeding the long-term progress (at least not intelligent short term efforts like the ones you guys proposed, as oppposed to boat-anchor deals like the ones that brought us Silva, Batista, Washburn, and to a degree, Bedard). What I’m really worried about is complacency impeding the long-term progress. Meaningful games in September would be fantastic, considering that meaningful games in early June have been hard to come by lately. But September is just a waypoint. Meaningful games in October has to be the goal, and this team is a long way from regularly playing meaningful games in October. With a few patches here and there, we could get lucky and make the playoffs a couple times a decade, but I want more than that.
I guess I’m greedy. I should think of the poor fans in Kansas City…
Okay, I’m chewing up enough bandwidth. Sorry for hogging the thread guys, I’ll shut up now.
A smoking crater is the perfect symbol for the Mariners. Either that or the USS Titanic as it is about to plunge to the bottom of the ocean.
you really think so? They seem to have all been on the ‘do something’ bandwagon for a while this year …
I’m not sure that I buy Baker’s notion that there might be a bidding war for Bedard this month, though.
blub blub blub
They’re on that bandwagon right now, but they’re not on the “win 60 games a year for the next three years” bandwagon, at all.
Nor will the fans be.
Cleveland had to do things the way they did primarily because of revenue constraints; even if they could get away with it, there’s no reason for the Mariners to follow the same model.
I think we get caught up in how bad this roster is and want to see the Mariners cut half the team because we’re frustrated with them; but it’s not necessary to do that in order for them to start building towards a World Series run in 2011.
Considering this smoking crater only reinforces my belief that, once time has passed and moves made sufficient to allow saving of face, Armstrong will be stepping down, and perhaps Lincoln retiring as well.
Of course that is predicated on my assumption that the board of directors has a keener sense of the obvious than may be acknowledged by others expressing opinions here.
Is Rich Dorman useless? He’s putting up good numbers at AA. However, he’s 30, and we have no shortage of back end starters/long relievers: Batista, RRS, Dickey, Washburn.
Does Michael Saunders have a future in the major leagues?
We’ve seen how burdening the contracts of Sexson, Washburn, Batista, and Silva have been. I’d be really hesitant to throw big bucks at free agents like Burnett, Sheets, or Teixeira.
The elimination of deadweights such as Sexson, Vidro, Cairo, Bloomquist, and the defense of Ibanez, Betancourt, and Lopez will improve the team far more than an addition of a high-priced, high reward, high risk free agent.
A team of Clement, 1B?, Punto (FA), Everett (FA), Beltre, Saunders?, Reed, Ichiro, Balentien or Ibanez–Felix, Bedard, Silva, Morrow, Washburn, wouldn’t hit very much, but then again do we now? The defense would be greatly improved, we wouldn’t be locking ourselves into any more big contracts, and we’d have a lot of average/mediocre talent that we could evaluate. And who knows, maybe we’ll stumble onto a (Nate McLouth, Carlos Quentin, Ryan Ludwick, Cody Ross, Jorge Cantu, David Murphy, Russ Branyan, Luke Scott, or some other surprise).
Really, this all hinges on the GM we hire, because the M’s player evaluation has made all of us fans believe that we could run the team better. If the M’s make a good choice and bring in any one of LaCava, Ng, Forst, Zduriencik, Hoyer, or DePodesta, the future will brighten immediately.
Dorman had his shot with the M’s a few years back. He was getting his sea legs in AAA after a promotion but left his last start due to being unable to get loose. Hopefully he’s fine and it was just a blip, but either way there’s not much expected of him and it isn’t known if he can be productive beyond the AAA level.
Saunders may be a year or two away at best, but his recent progress is quite encouraging.
Ultimately, any GM that doesn’t sell off good prospects for questionable veterans, while signing overpriced veterans, will be a huge improvement over Bavasi.
Not necessary; even though I might not agree with your premises, it’s productive discussion, and I can totally see your perspective.
Well, yeah, of course it’s an ugly situation. I’m reminded of a story attributed to various people:
Subordinate rushes into the boss’ office: “Sir, sir, we have a problem!”
“Hold up there,” the boss says, “There are no problems, just opportunities.”
“Ok, sir… we have an insurmountable opportunity!”
Actually, in some ways this has to be pretty liberating, assuming ownership doesn’t get stupidly parsimonious. As the incoming GM, you’d have about as close to a clean slate as you’re likely to find outside of an expansion team…and expansion teams don’t usually have a top-ten payroll to play with. So it’s a big job, but also a big — though not insurmountable — opportunity. Realistically I think you have to look at it as a two-year plan, because there’s just too much to do and while you’ll be plugging holes you don’t want to commit to long-term contracts based purely on what happens to be available this offseason. So for 2009 I think you give Lopez another year, and you sit on your starters unless you can trade them for some kind of value, and you throw some freely-available talent into the bullpen to see what sticks, and you focus on filling the biggest holes and improving the defense to make the starters look better (which may make it possible for you to trade them high next offseason).
It’s really unfortunate that there aren’t more interesting kids in the farm that they could bring up just to see if they can surprise us, because I think that could retain fan interest even when the team isn’t contending. Morrow fits into this category, if he’s moved to a starter, and 2009 may be an ideal year for him to go through his growing pains in that role. I’d be quite happy to see anybody (beyond the obvious 3 or 4 untouchables) get traded for interesting kids that we might hope to see in 2010.
It took Detroit 3 years to go from 100+ losses to the WS — and their payroll in all three of those years was below the league average. The M’s, with more payroll and the right GM, should be able to match that. But I’ll settle for contention in two.
Now, they just need to find the right GM.
Jeff, was this directed at me? And if so, I guess my comments aren’t welcome here then.
It’s a low bar. The Angels can’t hit.
Wait, what? You’re entitled to your opinion and I made a point of saying that I understand people’s skepticism about this team ever getting smarter.
I just think that it’s helpful to talk about ways that the team could get better if we can all start from the assumption that they WILL get smarter, because that’s what makes any subsequent improvement possible.
Disclaimering every possible roster fix suggestion with “assuming the Mariners learn how to evaluate talent better than a guy throwing darts at a dartboard” shouldn’t be necessary.
Uh oh, the LA Times is saying Colletti may not last out the season. Be afraid.
Ok, I get what you’re saying now, my apologies.
I guess I’m not as optimistic to think that the FO will get significantly smarter to make a subsequent improvement (although I hope they are).
I like the discussion, and the ways people are looking to improve the team. I also have become a beliver in SABR, but admit that I’m not as knowledgable in it as most of you. I guess it might have been off-topic for me to make those comments earlier, but I guess I wanted to look at another facet that could have a direct impact on how much the FO gets smarter. Perhaps since that is not a tangible thing to measure, it’s a bit harder to discuss.
Sure, it’s fine to be a skeptic considering the team’s history.
But we’re also seeing the strongest indications that we’ve ever seen from this team (well, aside from the puzzling Wilson trade, but whatever) that they recognize that their recent methods are putting them in a position where they might be the first team to lose 100 games with a $100 million plus payroll, and that that’s not something they’re OK with going forward.
We’ve seen:
-Bavasi gone mid-season
-McLaren gone mid-season
-Sexson gone mid-season
-Names being dropped as serious GM contenders that never would’ve been part of the discussion a year ago
So, maybe it’s naive of me, but I’m going to be hopeful about next year for as long as the team lets me.
Well, a signpost on whether to ease off or not is to see who will be given serious interviews by the higher ups. Lee P. is a given, but if the rest of them are sabre-friendly people, then I guess we can relax…
But the Salt Lake Bees can!
…
I know I’m late to the discussion (some of us work for a living
), but I look at it like this:
In addition to the initial comments, the M’s also have no bench whatsoever.
They do, however, have a pretty decent and relatively cheap bullpen. And if there is one thing they’ve done recently they should continue to do it is to understand that you can cobble together bullpens without paying free agent salaries for it. If Putz came back and threw effectively after the ASB, I’d love to trade him (even if Morrow were to go to the rotation in 2009), because he is unlikely to be better in 2009 and going forward.
The surfeit of catchers ought to create an opportunity, too. You’d think the Red Sox would be interested in having insurance for Varitek breaking down, just make sure you don’t send them Clement.
I’ve always been a Jeremy Reed fan, but he’s not a longterm solution in centerfield, and a team that gets no power at all from rightfield, shortstop, DH or first base needs more power from centerfield than Reed will ever be capable of.
Has anyone here done the math to determine what it’s going to take to get up to “contention” … It seems not.
I think to just get up to .500, we would have to win the next 45 and lose 24 … that just ain’t gonna happen. And EVEN IF IT DID, we’d be like what … 80+ wins … ???
Vidro needs to be purged IMMEDIATELY as we’ll save money on the buffet (not to mention he’s a worthless piece of [bad word]) … and we need to play the kids to see what they can do.