Rotation comparison
The rotation that started 2008, with salaries:
Erik Bedard $7,000,000
Felix Hernandez $540,000
Carlos Silva $12,000,000
Jarrod Washburn $9,850,000
Miguel Batista, $9,000,000
I’m counting Silva’s signing bonus in the year he signed, if you’re wondering, since the three free agents all had contracts with a low(er) first-year salary number, then mostly level for the remaining years.
The current rotation, with salaries:
Felix Hernandez $3,800,000
Ian Snell $3,000,000
Ryan Rowland-Smith $420,000
Luke French $400,000
Jason Vargas $405,000
In case you need another illustration of why spending money on free agent pitchers is generally a bad idea – yes, the rotation now costs less combined than any of Silva, Batista, or Washburn did individually, and will perform just as well if not better. You wouldn’t equal any of their salaries even if you tack on Garrett Olson and Brandon Morrow to make fill-in starts as necessary. That’s a lot of money left over that can go toward (another bat/Ackley’s signing bonus/a long-term contract for Felix/resigning Beltre) whatever good use Zduriencik finds for it. Unfortunately, we’re still paying Silva and Batista. No, we shouldn’t try to sign Washburn again after the season.
The sad thing is that Felix and Wash’s contracts that year combined were less than Silva’s. Wash just got us two quality young guys and Felix is just Felix. You’d thnk silva would have gotten us a kings ransom, now he’s just MIA, probably gorging himself
in shame.The point is to win, not save money. I think some of you forget that sometimes.
Take a look at the salaries of the starting pitchers of the Yankees, Angels, Phillies, etc.
Low payroll teams don’t win championships. The Mariners have $$$. They just need to spend it wisely. It appears we now have a GM who gets it.
You might want to mention this to the Florida Marlins. They will be sure to return their championship trophies.
If this was the NBA, we could package Bedard, Beltre and Batista’s expiring contracts for a super star, what with the salary cap and what not.
Spend it wisely, Front Office. We need not see the mistakes of the decade past.
Yes, but the original point is still generally true. Higher budgets are a strong correlary to winning.
But the argument consistently made by USSM authors is that starters are typically overvalued and tend to be a bad deal. And, actually, the Yankees are a great example of how free agent starters can hurt you – over the years, they have typically paid top dollar for “top” guys who go on to injure themselves or underperform.
So… Is the new rotation not better than the old one? Felix is still Felix, only better. None of the other four are currently as good as Bedard was when healthy. They are all better than Silva and Batista and most are as good if not better than Washburn.
The M’s have a fixed budget, would you rather they have a good and inexpensive pitching staff or a cripplingly expensive one? With the money saved on pitching, the team can improve itself in other ways.
Do you watch baseball at all? Rays in 08, Cleveland and Colorado in 07, etc. Plenty of low market teams have gone deep into the playoffs and others have won it all.
See, now you’re just contradicting yourself. Either we understand that saving money on players where possible in order to spend it wisely is good or we don’t.
What is the deal with Silva now anyway? Is he really still hurt or are they just eating his salary to keep him from getting anywhere near a pitchers mound?
How cheap would Washburn have to sign for him to be worth it?
If he only cost $5 million, I would think he would be at least the ~1.5 WAR to make that worth it, probably a bit more. Or are all our starters good enough and cheap enough that its still bad?
I can’t believe that signing Washburn again is even a question…. People are even sillier than bubble baths sometimes…
Alex-
Someone is going to overpay quite a bit for his sparkling ERA (unless he flops with the Tigers). Just hope it’s not the Mariners.
Also, it’s not like we need another flyball lefty in the rotation.
At what point is Silva treated as a sunk cost and just flat released?
You can take a risk of contributing to more losing for a while, showcasing him to other teams, then hoping you can find a
suckertrade partner while probably eating a lot of salary anyway.Or, you can reason that you’re going to have to pay most of that salary anyway, through the argument above, so you might as well just set aside the money for him, and free up the roster space to get a look at that one extra guy who might actually be able to help the team. And take the odds of losing you have while evaluating him for about 2 month’s worth of starts, and turn them into better odds while looking at a new guy. And I know this is a stretch, but perhaps if this is part of a larger overhaul, then the eventual extra money from tickets/concessions/ads for a winning and ascendant team helps offset the money paying for Bavasi’s mistake.
Silva’s roster spot and his rotation spot become more valuable to the business, at a certain point, than just the real-world dollars. Just earmark that 12 million per as “Bavasi” or “whoopsadoodle!” in the budget, and be done with it.
This topic would be easier to opine on if we all had access to the payroll and exactly how that budget is created…
It’s fixable, I think with the Silva contract if the team wants him gone and wants some money for the next year or year after, take the Andruw Jones Approach. Buy him out, defer some of the money owed with a certain interest percentage and call it good. Any reason why that wouldnt work? I cant think Silva wants to be here, so maybe thatd be best for everyone.
Looking at the starting pitching listed above, I’d still take the first list. Hate to pay so much for pitchers not performing (Silva, Bedard, Bautista)but the alternative is iffy. That second list will produce a sub par 500 team, at best. At some point you have to pay dollars and trust that players will perform. Saving lots of money normally leads to dismal results-and stuck-in-the-mud-type of seasons. I keep reading about how the M’s are piling up talent and getting ready to make a run at the pennant 2011-12. Are you kidding me? You don’t make runs at pennants 2 or 3 years in advance. It’s season by season as player performance is never predictable. For example, the M’s wasted a pretty solid collective pitching effort this year by not getting some offense to support them. Never know when it will come around again. Felix could tank next year, Bedard could be Bedard again, and RRS is unproven talent in the long run, and the rest of the bunch of pitchers certainly provide enthusiasm and hope, but not much on certainty of performance.
I usually see a few more games at Safeco every year, but I’ve cut back as the organization is not serious about fielding a competitive team. I like Z and Wak, and we’ll see how they do, but in a lot ways they are unproven talent too. I hope they prove my gut feeling wrong, but I want to witness some good baseball.
blockquote>That second list will produce a sub par 500 team, at best.
Prove it. Give some objective measurements to back up your assertion. If you can’t then don’t make sweeping statements like that.
And ERA, Win/Loss, etc. are not objective measurements.
Go read Dave’s <Evaluating Pitcher Talent post (link on the left sidebar) and let us all know how the first rotation is significantly better. Because at the price, it had better be significantly better. If it’s just slightly better, even, or worse than the current staff, then you should be thrilled.
Curveballee is wrong. We all know that. No point responding to him. He’ll learn or go away.
Opportunity cost.
Wow, and to think that so many thought that the 2008 rotation would lead the Mariners to the AL West title.
I am glad to know that Zduriencik is wiling to go with the current rotation now, and probably next season, rather than overpaying for the likes of Silva, Wash, Batista, Bedard.
To put it in perspective, add up the dollars and players/prospects that Bavasi used to acquire Wash, Batista, Silva, Bedard, and HoRam. it is sad and astonishing.
[ot]
Will DMZ still put up crazy rumormonerging posts for comments like the one from LINK22?
I was looking at the Mariners’ 40-man roster last night, as constructed just before spring training began. It’s just stunning how much turnover there’s been, and how much more there will be when contracts run out this winter.
To watch how beautifully Z played his Washburn card…allowing the ‘Washburn will stay put’ rumors to grow while hanging up on the Yankees…it seems pretty obvious we’ve got a master at work.
What a great week this has been. Waiting to see Snell and French pitch in Mariner uniforms is great–saying goodbye to Silva and Batista will be priceless.
Stating the obvious, Bill Bavasi is arguably responsible for four of the five pitchers on Mike’s list. Therein lies the problem.
There is an enormous difference in having a competent, skilled GM like Zduriencik making such decisions. I have no doubt that given the opportunity, Z would wisely spend the money necessary to sign a talent like Halladay and/or resign Felix. At present, he cannot do so because he is hamstrung by the contracts of Silva and Johjima.
I am encouraged by the trade of Peavey. Perhaps another miracle will occur, Bedard will magically get healthy, and Z can get something for him in August.
I think that we need to set our expectations for Zduriencik and Wakamatsu. We give them, let’s say, until 2013 to make the playoffs. If they haven’t made the playoffs until then, no matter how great the processes behind them have been, would we still want to keep them employed at that time? I am really curious what you all think. We should set our expectations for them in my opinion.
Why not? If he gets people out like he has and has success like he has this season — for whatever reason: better outfield defense, better mechanics, the dolphin — and if money isn’t part of the discussion, why would it be a bad idea to have “another flyball lefty” in the rotation. Certainly Washburn in his current iteration is an upgrade over Vargas. It just seems silly to throw him under the bus in such generalized commentary.
Oh, the irony.
That was the point.
Bremerton guy: because “getting people out like he has and having success like he has this season” is not sustainable. You say “for whatever reason” and forget that one very significant reason for that is luck — and luck changes.
In case you weren’t paying attention, that first list produced a .377 team.
So Vargas is better than Washburn? Let’s be polite and just say I disagree.
The new staff will save us $8.25 per ticket for the season… one more beer for The Dreeze!
At this point in the season is it worth letting Silva pitch and hope he can sparkle like Washburn did? We are out of the running, and he can’t hurt his value anymore than he has. Maybe before the waiver deadline, he gives us two-three quality starts, someone comes calling for him, gives us a baseball and eats 30% of his contract. Any likely hood to that? French or Vargas could probably use the starts, but their oportunity’s are only a spring away. Gambling at letting Batista/Silva pitch seems like a good option for the team so save some of that money they are burning.
Silva’s still on the DL, so I’ll go ahead and say that until he’s activated, probably not worth letting him pitch to see if he can sparkle. And if he’s not ready before the waiver deadline, then that’s that.
So Vargas is better than Washburn? Let’s be polite and just say I disagree.
Did I say that? Or do you just have reading comprehension problems?
I would hate to be the fan at the game where Silva was put out there to “sparkle”.
Luck wasn’t the only reason Wash did better this season.
My original point was that if you could upgrade the staff, it wouldn’t matter if the upgrade was another left-handed flyball pitcher. I said that Washburn would be an upgrade over Vargas. You said Washburn’s success wasn’t sustainable. You said what you said, and I certainly don’t have reading comprehension problems. And in the end, I didn’t and won’t insult you.
Curveballlee,
The first rotation is suppposedly better?
I may not have the sabermetric understanding that most of the posters have (though it’s improving). But just look at Silva and Bedard’s time on the disabled list. The team is paying a large chunk of money for neither of them to start.
I ask, how many wins can a player help a team amass if he never plays? How does he help? But yet, that older, more expensive rotation will start more games, stay healthy longer because all of that scar tissue helps them pitch, and show the young players how to throw four seamers down the middle if the plate?
Maybe you should change your fan affiliation to the Reds, they share your ignorance. That way you can whatch the older, injury prone Scott Rolen eat up payroll without playing much. Plus you get the added benefit of the genius who configured yor preferred starting rotation helping to run the front office.
There’s gambling and there’s assured failure. That suggestion is an example of the latter. You’re suggesting we take valuable starting experience away from RRS, Snell, and possibly Morrow in September to try to save money? No team in their right mind would give Silva a shot for anything more than league minimum regardless of what he does for one month at the end of a lost season. We’re going to eat his salary one way or the other, and we’re just going to have to deal with that.
For 2010, you’d expect Washburn to be something like 0 to 0.5 wins better than any one of the Vargas/French/Rowland-Smith trifecta.
The cost difference between them will be north of $6 million at the minimum, and would come with a multi-year commitment.
Paying $6+ million for half a win is crazy. The M’s did a great job of identifying the fact that they can build a pitching staff on undervalued “unproven” guys and spend money on position players, which is how good teams win baseball games.
You shouldn’t want Jarrod Washburn back in any way, shape, or form. We’re better off without him.
Give Silva his walking papers and a year pass to “Old Country buffet” and be done with him. I would rather watch Olson pitch, than see Silva do what he does.
My guess would be Silva coming back and getting a shot at the expense of French, Vargas, or even RRS, depending on how they’re pitching. If he goes back to being Carlos Silva the strike throwing sub-average but above replacement 4th/5th type, fine, no harm done. If he continues to be a stinking rotten pumpkin that makes the rest of the team puke from the smell, he’ll get the Miguel Batista mop-up guy position and Batista will get DFA’d.
Well said Dave.
Pitching is not the issue for 2010, hitting is. And in order for the Mariners to imprive their hitting, they may have to sacrifice some defensive ability.
When you look at the current roster, 2B and 1B are the only real places where defense is lacking. Assuming that the Mariners want to get multiple hitters instead of “one big bat”, it looks to me like they may have to sacrifice defense in a few areas, 3B most probably with Beltre leaving, to imprive teh hitting.
I’m wondering how well that will be received by people that have been begging for better defense for years.
Sorry about the typos. I’m holding my 2 year old and it makes typing an adventure.
Getting good value with the pitching staff should enable them to afford one guy like the Orlando Hudson this winter if they so choose.
Would you rather have Staff #1 with Lopez at 2nd and Hannahan at 3rd, or Staff #2 with Orlando Hudson at 2nd and Lopez at 3rd?
I’ll take option 2.
“Give Silva his walking papers and a year pass to “Old Country buffet†and be done with him. I would rather watch Olson pitch, than see Silva do what he does.”
I understand your thinking but remember… Silva has put togeather a few decent seasons. He’s never going to be worth what he’s being paid but we should be hoping he pitches like he did in 04,05,and 07. It might be unlikely but we’re stuck with him lets hope for the best.
Scenario #1 for Silva is we can use him as a junk, long-relief guy (exactly how we’re using Batista now) until his contract expires. Scenario #2, we release him outright and hope that somebody absorbs $400K/year (Royals, I’m looking in your direction) for the remaining term of his contract. I would be shocked if he ever started a game for the M’s again.
That’s how few people would show up to watch Silva pitch.
No you can thank the outfield defense for that as well. He’s been K-ing people at almost the same rate his walk rate has improve but point is when batters hit the ball they usually find gloves and he’s running a career low on HR/FB.
Watching either of those guys start games is painful, though at least Olson probably only costs $400k for a whole season…
As opposed to $400k per start for Silva.
So how are we going to evaluate Wakamatsu and Zduriencik going forward? Would any of our evaluation be results based in terms of making the playoffs or not and until when do they give them? Let’s call it now.
Evaluating Wak the rest of this year is going to be a little tricky, since it’s likely the M’s will be experimenting with things and giving guys extended looks for next year.
Nah, let’s not.
More like:
$3.5 million per start *
$900k per inning pitched *
$50k per strike thrown *
* Cost estimates from memory. Didn’t look it up. If somebody would like to do the real math on that it might be
entertainingdepressing.This is only slightly less ridiculous than judging a front office or manager on their abilities to win World Series. The players still have to play, and since the situation is perpetually dynamic, does it really make sense to predict or control what rival front offices and players are going to do? If you want to work in the realm of results-based analysis–particularly forward looking–have fun.
Z has said repeatedly that his job is to look for ways to make the Mariners better every day. So far, I don’t see how you can give him less than an ‘A’.
My hope for Silva is that we can sign Beltre and Nick Johnson, trade Jose Lopez to a team like KC that might overvalue his skillset and find a top defender for 2b. Then, with an all world defense behind him and hopefully some lucky results we could dump him like we did Washburn (even though I’m sure we’d probably have to eat half of his remaining salary). One can dream . . .
Nevermind, did it myself. Silva will receive $12.25M this year according to ESPN. So, that means we will have paid him:
$2.04M per game started
$435K per inning pitched
$12.25M per win
$24K per pitch thrown
Let me guess, $12.25 mil is per win as in the pitching stat not WAR type wins . . . Now there’s a scary thought.
@Luc -
I was just kind of basing that initial figure on $12 mil/30 starts…or, at least trying to give Silva a little of the benefit of the doubt had he been able to make 30 scheduled starts this year at last year’s level of suckitude.
In any event, you’re right…the costs of his roster spot have been staggering — and Zduriencik has already gotten more value out of the alternatives at a much lower cost.
I am very interested in finding out what kind of a pitcher this Ian snell is. What kind of command and Velocity does he possess. Dave, you seem to feel he is a middle of the rotation man? A #2 guy like a Meche? Or a #3 like Garza? If Z actually got a true 2-3 out of Pit I will dance in the street! All of the lefties Z has beem stock piling seem like thew same old loogies. Better suited for long relief and mop up..
PLEASE GOD, RE-SIGN FELIX!
Amen, brother, amen!
From Dave’s Fangraphs post about the deal:
“He’s not an ace – he’s a guy with good stuff and average to below average command and some well documented issues with his prior organization. I don’t like the word headcase, but when you’re talking about a guy who would rather pitch in Triple-A than the majors, it’s hard to argue with.”
That’s what you’re getting with Snell. He’s got the upside of being a #2 guy based on his actual physical skills; his value to the team rests on whether his mental issues are fixable.
I think Wakamatsu might very well be the kind of skipper Snell could use in his career.
Wak’s line-ups are sometimes on the curious side, but he seems to be a pretty good communicator on the whole…and I’ve no doubt that he’s had to deal with “problematic” pitchers aplenty (yay, alliteration!) as a player and coach already.
With Snell, if it don’t work, hey…on to other things. But if Snell has an ounce of career sense going on, he’s got to look at this time in Seattle the way a drowning man would look at a rope attached to a ship.
“Salvation is here, baby doll! Pull yourself up! Up, up, UP!”
Perusing Snell’s fangraph’s pages it appears thet the big wildcard is his control. In 2007 he was able to keep his bb/9 below 3 and he was a 3.4 WAR player. In his other years his peripherals seemed pretty steady with the exception of his control. So hopefully our pitching coaches will be able to find what he was doing in 2007 and revive it.
We wouldn’t want to overpay for Felix either, would we? What’s the max we would pay felix? Maybe 5 years – $60 million?
If only someone had written an article on that topic recently.
I’m not worried about Snell, he’s in the best situation possible for his career.
As long as his situation isn’t like Ryan Leaf’s situation, I’m not too worried.
I wouldn’t want to feel like I’m doomed to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates forever either.
And as for French, he is what he is, he’s a #5 starter and he can help bridge the gap between the time when Aumont, Morales and Morrow move into the rotation (assuming all of them aren’t traded).
The only thing is we are still missing a legitimate #2 starter behind Felix.
If we had a legitimate #2, you could put Ian Snell at #3 or #4 in the rotation where he belongs and take some pressure off him in his new situation.
between now and the time*
Back on June 29th, before the deadline trading season got underway, Dave wrote of Snell:
Snell in his interview with Calebro wasn’t especially forthcoming about a lot of things (perhaps understandably) but he seemed to emphasize the support he felt he got in Indy with his triple A team, vs how “alone” he felt with the Pirates, mentioning that he felt like he took all the blame for the losses in his starts. Not having seen any of those games, or having a good sense of how the Pirates team operates on a daily level, it’s hard to say if that was an accurate depiction of a dysfunctional team or just the distorted perception of overly-sensitive kid. But given the Pirates record year after year a certain amount of frustration and anger has to be baked into that team, and its hard to believe a certain amount of blame passing hasn’t become institutionalized. Just look at what repeatedly leaked out of the M’s clubhouse last year. And the M’s clubhouse this year, by all accounts, is a very different place (both from last year and from what Snell seemed to see in Pittsburgh). Clubhouse chemistry may not have the strong causal connection with winning that its proponents think (at least in that direction), but it could have a strong effect on one individual. Even if it was all in Snell’s head, a good coaching staff should be able to correct that perception. I have no idea if Wakamatsu / Adair / Wetteland have the necessary psychological acumen to give Snell what he needs (or if anybody does) but I’m willing to bet they have a better shot than most, and the potential upside means it’s certainly worth a shot to find out.
Based on the comments in this thread…
DMZ, Dave, Jeff, Mike & Co., have you guys considered adding a comment rating to each comment, with a certain threshold either hiding a comment or highlighting it (e.g. Digg)?
I have no idea how much of a pain that would be, but maybe it would keep the threads on topic a bit more. That way people wouldn’t feel the need to respond to subpar comments and they could simply be temporarily ‘rated’ out of the thread.
Just an idea.
Btw, the reason I didn’t email the above is because the mailer daemon kept kicking it back to me.
They cut Shelton for french. Those old guys are really going to do us good in 2010…
As for Felix, try and get him to sign a 6-90 million contract.
By the end of spring training next year, Morrow could be knocking on that door. Bedard may decide to stick around on a reasonable one year deal to try to prove he can last a full season to really cash in on free agency. (No, I don’t think there’s much chance of that either — as fallow as this free agent pitching class looks, somebody will take a chance on offering him a deal). RRS could build on his last start and look like a legit MOR starter by the end of the season (who needs a #2 if you have three #3s?) Snell could respond to his new situation to the point where the “pressure” of being a #2 is irrelevant. Or Zduriencik could pull off another spectacular trade this offseason. While this is a worry, it’s a worry for, say, January.
If you both know of a WordPress mod for this and have the technical ability to help install it, I’m sure they’d be happy to entertain the idea.
From what I’ve seen, people would rather respond with cutting comments than miss the fun due to cut-out posts.
I’m starting to think Curveballlee is joking. My friends who don’t understand baseball usually know they don’t understand baseball and tend to ask questions instead of telling me why I’m wrong. It doesn’t seem like anybody could actually be that far off the mark and that confident at the same time. Maybe he’s the same guy that posts as Attractive Nuisance on Lookout Landing.
I think what is fundamentally learned, and blatantly obvious is that money is far better spent on defense and hitting than aging mid-level free agent pitchers.
But, now, we have a inexpensive group of starters that is gaining MLB experience, and we’re getting to test them, and see if they can pitch at this level.
Now we can spend the money to get a big free agent worth the money, especially a big left handed DH, or a certain 3B who should be resigned to a 2 year deal, perhaps.
Given the alternatives, I find that very disappointing.
about Snell being a ‘headcase’: If I was in the Pirates starting rotation, I’d probably ask to be demoted,too.
I think with Wak, Adair, and Wettland coaching him, he can become a pretty decent pitcher. Not an ace by any means, but that’s not what we need. We already have a good one. We just need someone who more often than not goes out there and puts his team in a position to win, and I think he can do that.
This made me laugh for quite a while.
I suppose a choice between Pittsburgh and Indy is probably not a tough choice.
Suppose its one of those “pretend to be crazy to get out of jury duty” things.
If he is, then it’s not “joking.” The accurate term for it is “trolling.” I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, as clueless and confident are not mutually exclusive (unfortunately, as everything from talk radio to foreign policy often demonstrate), but someone asserting that last year’s rotation offers more potential for the dollar than next year’s, or that this year’s team is less worthy of time spent at the ballpark than last year’s, has wandered down the spectrum from clueless to delusional.
And, appropriately, the Indianapolis Indians are in the same division with the Toledo Mud Hens, beloved team of one Corporal Max Klinger.
However, I would love to be the fan at the game where Silva was put out there to “be set on fire.”
Ok, that’s mean. But perhaps the Moose can chase him around the infield with the ATV? I’d buy a ticket to watch that.
Such a spectacle might indeed be entertaining…though as hot and dry as it’s been around here lately, perhaps inadvisable.
Snell does have a very unique bio. It seems he was once known as Ian Oquendom, when he decided to apopt his wife’s last name, as well as Ian Davila-Snell during the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Thanks, wikisnell.
That being said, I am very excited to watch him pitch. I think he has the physical tools to be a legit #3, should he be able to keep his mental deck of cards in order.
Lou Brown used to coach the Mudhens.
BTW, for all the folks out there (not mentioning any names) that still think the M’s need to have an “experienced” (i.e. OLD) starting rotation to “succeed”, NY Vinnie just mentioned on tonight’s post-game show how young the starting rotations of the 1969 & 1986 NY Mets were.
None were over 30 years old…
The Mets won the World Series in both of those seasons.
I know a young and cheap rotation option that was just called up. Anybody else want to puke when chris tillman started for the o’s yesterday…and he is under club control for 6 years