M’s Drop Dickey
Dave · December 5, 2008 at 4:49 pm · Filed Under Mariners
The M’s removed R.A. Dickey and Sean White from the 40 man roster today. Dickey has a week to decide if he wants to accept an outright assignment to Tacoma or become a free agent – bet on the latter.
The Rule 5 draft will take place at the end of the winter meetings next week – this clears room for them to bring in multiple players through that draft, so expect the M’s to be active with the 2nd pick in each round. There are some very intriguing relief prospects available, so the bullpen could get a nice little boost.
I’d make a case for Loek van Mil so we can bolster our ranks of absurdly tall players with good raw pitching ability, but it seems as though there are a number of interesting lefties available, like Veal, Lugo, and Figueroa. It would help compensate for the loss of O’Flaherty.
Do you think that relievers are all that the M’s are likely to target? The bats don’t seem to be particularly exciting.
[ot]
interesting speculation by Baker:
“Dickey has until Dec. 12 to accept the assignment, otherwise he becomes a free-agent. But it has to be disconcerting to him that 29 other teams passed on claiming him off waivers before he was outrighted. Teams like to keep free space on their rosters heading into the winter meetings …. This could be the end of the line for him in Seattle. The M’s are likely banking that it isn’t and that he’d accept an assignment to AAA, given how no other teams seem to have bitten. “
Just a word to the wise, try to keep your posts on topic in the comments section. Oh, and rosterbation is not a big favorite around here.
I haven’t posted here before.
Just wanting some feedback on our salary options
This move makes no sense to me. None at all.
Can someone explain why this is a good move?
To make room for the Rule 5 draftees? Let’s be honest, Dickey wasn’t very good last year.
He’s an innings eater with potential upside who can spot start if you need him to. Sure he’s not that great, but he’s interesting to watch and we already had 3 open slots on the 40 man.
there are a number of interesting lefties available, like Veal, Lugo, and Figueroa.
NELSON FIGUEROA–the first Brandeis University graduate to play MLB—is not available. He just signed an mlb contract with the Mets; with the usual ST invite.
John D.
I like the moves. Dickey’s no better or worse production-wise than you could probably expect out of Justin Thomas or Feierabend going forward and it gives them the opportunity to add a nice bench bat or two. Maybe Erik Lis or bringing back the Jesus (Guzman)?
Dickey’s production is easily replaceable, so there’s no loss to dropping him off of the roster to create flexibility.
In addition, to be outrighted, he had had to first clear waivers. That means 29 other teams looked at him and concluded they would rather leave a roster space open, thank you very much.
Not to mention extending our undisputed MLB lead in unpronounceble/unspellable names.
Aside from the upside part, let’s hope the roster improves enough so that Silva can fill that role out of the bullpen.
The moves totally make sense…White isn’t very good, and although Dickey is a nice story, he wasn’t very good either…it’s cool to have a knuckleballer and he seems like a nice guy, but if he decides to become a free-agent and goes elsewhere, it’s not that big of a loss…
Besides, they can probably find better players with the roster spots in FA, the Rule-5 or through trades…
If you’re going to talk about him with such pride, you ought to know that he’s a right-hander. I was talking about lefties specifically, and in this case, Pedro Figueroa, presently of the Athletics. You do raise a good point, however, in that when dealing with these common Spanish last names, one ought to have a first attached. So I’m talking about Jose Lugo of the Twins, not Ruddy Lugo.
I don’t think Lis is better than the in-house options. His year in Beloit, while impressive, was the best of his career and his plate discipline has been trending in the wrong direction for years now. Jesus Guzman, I’d get a kick out of seeing again because he’s one of those guys that sticks around and does some impressive things on work ethic alone. I think his winter league numbers will get him a long look and maybe even a pick by someone, but I doubt it will be the Mariners.
Don’t get me wrong when I say this. I love the R. A. Dickey story. A pitcher with no UCL? This is an amazing story. I would love as much as anyone for Dickey to become a successful long reliever.
However…
Dickey was a bad pitcher. I don’t care how many innings you eat, it doesn’t help if they’re eaten with a 5.21 ERA.
didn’t know where to post these questions so you would respond.
Best bet: use that “email the authors” link towards the upper left of the page. Since you’re new, please keep in mind this is not some fancy-schmancy commercial sports site. It’s a labor of love for the authors: they don’t get paid to do any of this (ads and donations go towards keeping the site up, but don’t even cover that), and they have real jobs and other commitments on their time — in addition to working, Dave’s newly married and working on a degree. He also writes daily for Fangraphs. So don’t get too upset if he doesn’t seem to respond, or doesn’t respond right away. What often happens is that those kinds of questions get banked until the FO does something related, or one of the newspapers carries something stupid/interesting about the same topic, and then Dave or Derek or Conor writes a post that, along the way, happens to respond to a bunch of questions they’ve been getting. But just posting random questions in a comment for a completely unrelated post will just get your comment deleted.
If only there were comment guidelines or some sort of orientation for new readers!
Well, I guess maybe we don’t have enough information to really know if this was a good move. Maybe they know (or strongly believe) Dickey will accept the assignment or maybe they have 5 guys they feel like they need to make room for.
To me Dickey seems like exactly the kind of pitcher we need to try to pick up. He was much more effective in relief (that BP fastball gets really easy to drill after 2 abs) and really had decent minor league stats in 07 and even better in 08 (4.36 FIP and 3.18 in 08).
Also probably one of the pitchers that could benefit most from the improved defense we’ll have (it will improve, right???)
Just doesn’t seem like a wasted spot on the 40 man for peanuts in pay. But I guess we’ll know that by the people they get to fill those spots.
I’m betting they’re betting that Dickey accepts the demotion; if he does, I’d even go so far as to say that he’ll probably find himself back in Seattle at some point next season. I wouldn’t have dropped him from the 40-man roster, but then, I have a thing for knuckleballers; baseball as a whole doesn’t, so it’s probably an intelligent gamble.
Kirby Arnold talks to Dickey
I take back what I said above about Dickey as far as being bad. He’s a good long reliever. He’s a terrible starter. He does have value and I hope that he comes back to pitch long relief next season.