The SP Depth Chart
With Washburn traded and Bedard rehabbing, people like to describe the M’s rotation as Felix and a bunch of question marks. Which is mostly true – the Mariners don’t really have anyone besides Felix who you feel totally comfortable handing the ball to every five days. But, what the Mariners do have is a pretty remarkable amount of depth. Here’s the current depth chart for starting pitching that will head to spring training next year looking for a spot in the rotation:
1. Felix Hernandez
2. Ryan Rowland-Smith
3. Ian Snell
4. Brandon Morrow
5. Carlos Silva
6. Doug Fister
7. Luke French
8. Jason Vargas
9. Garrett Olson
10. Chris Jakubauskas
That doesn’t count guys like Nick Hill or Ryan Feierabend who will probably begin next year in Tacoma but could push themselves into the picture with a strong spring. Toss them in, and you could potentially have 12 guys in Peoria next year who harbor some hope of breaking camp with a spot in the starting rotation. Twelve!
One of the old stat-head cliches is that the best way to find a good starting pitcher is to collect 10 of them and let them fight it out. That’s basically what the M’s have done, stockpiling arms over the last year to give them an inventory of guys to pick from. Besides Felix, each of them has a pretty obvious flaw, but the fact that the M’s don’t have to count on any one of these guys next year is a pretty big bonus. They have options, and while they may not be household names, it’s a big advantage to have a back-up plan for your back-up plan.
Ichiro and Ichiban
Courtesy of Ryan Divish, who got it off Twitter, a page of Ichiro beer videos, including:
Quick Thought
I didn’t see the game, but apparently Mark Lowe Evening is not as fun as Felix Day.
Game 119, Mariners at Tigers
Felix Day! Felix Day! Felix Felix Felix Dayyyyyyyyy!
4:05.
The Tigers, if you didn’t notice, picked up Huff from the Orioles for a song a week ago, so look out for that bat.
Quick Primer On Major League Contracts
Since I know this stuff can get confusing, and will probably be misreported by various places tomorrow, here’s a quick rundown of what happens if you give a draftee a major league contract, as the M’s did with Dustin Ackley.
1. He goes on the 40 man roster immediately. Since the M’s had an opening, this isn’t a big deal, and no one gets bumped to make room for him. It may prevent someone not on the 40 man who was on the bubble from getting a September call-up, though, as there’s now one less spot for them to use.
2. He does NOT accrue service time immediately. The only way to accrue service time (the vehicle to arbitration and free agency) is to physically be on the 25 man roster (or major league disabled list). Ackley will not accrue any service time while he is in the minor leagues.
3. He will have to be optioned if the M’s send him to a minor league team. If the M’s wanted to get him to Everett for a token appearance before the season ended, they would have to use an option to assign him to Everett’s roster. You get three option years (and in some cases, four), so the M’s will have limited years in which Ackley will be able to be sent to the minors. This may influence them to not send him out for the last few weeks of the minor league season.
4. The five year deal does not affect the team’s ability to control him for six full seasons. He will have pre-assigned salaries from 2010-2014 (I have confirmed this to be true). In 2015 (and any seasons beyond that in which he’s still with the organization), he’ll have his salaries determined by arbitration, just as any normal arbitration eligible player would. If he played a full season in the majors next year and stayed in the majors after that, he’d be free agent eligible after 2015. That’s extremely unlikely, so in all likelyhood, he’ll still be under club control in 2016 as well. In a case where he’s up with the team at the start of the 2011 season, the M’s would have essentially bought out his first year of arbitration with this deal.
5. A major league deal is a positive for Ackley because it gives the M’s a real incentive to get him to the big leagues in rapid order. Getting a major league deal right out of school pushes the cost/benefit needle for the team towards being aggressive in promoting him, whereas the needle goes conservative with a player who doesn’t already have predetermined salaries for future years.
Dustin Ackley Signs
As first reported by Jonathan Mayo, the Mariners have signed first round pick Dustin Ackley to a major league contract worth up to $9.5 million over five years (Added details from Jim Callis: $6 million signing bonus, $1.5 million in guaranteed salaries, $2.5 million in possible salaries depending on when he reaches the major leagues. The M’s got the deal done with the #2 pick in the draft just a few minutes before the deadline, which was expected when he was selected. This is just how Scott Boras operates – he knows that kids who sign at the last minute get more money than kids who sign early, so he just doesn’t even bother negotiating until the eleventh hour.
Ackley immediately becomes the Mariners best prospect, and he’s the kind of player who won’t need that much time in the minor leagues. He can fall out of bed and hit .300, so his development time will be focused on his defense in center field and the transition to hitting for power with a wood bat. I’d expect him to start next year at Double-A West Tennessee, and he could easily move up to Tacoma at some point.
Barring injury or some kind of unforeseen problem, Ackley’s going to come to spring training in 2011 looking for a job with the Mariners. He’s a legitimate All-Star talent, and you should expect to see him playing for the M’s in about 18 months or so.
This is a good day. Welcome the organization, Dustin.
Edit: For anyone worried about the fact that the deal is “only” for five years, this doesn’t change the amount of club controlled years the M’s have him for at all. Essentially, the M’s have pre-paid for Ackley’s first five seasons, buying out all of his pre-arb years and up to two years of arbitration, though more likely just one year of arbitration (assuming he spends 2010 in the minors). This is pretty standard stuff for premium draft picks. The M’s still control his rights for six full years. It’s a big contract, but it was still worth doing. He’s worth it.
Minor League Wrap (8/10-6/09)
I’m heading out early this morning and will be out until Saturday, so I won’t be able to answer anything nor provide any longer reflections on the draft deadline signings (9pm today!), which I’ll probably be oblivious to for the better part of five days. I’m hoping there’s enough time for me to get something together in what remaining time I have on that weekend. We’ll see.
To the jump!
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Mmm.. Kirin
Thanks to Ryan Divish, here’s Ichiro:
“It makes me think, ‘man, we lost a lot of games last year.’â€
“This year I am able to enjoy some Japanese beer, the right way,” he said.
And in a little plug he added,
“In particular, Kirin Ichiban.”
Trusting Your Changeup
Doug Fister doesn’t throw particularly hard. Today, his heater sat between 85 and 89, topping out at 90 a couple of times. The thing is, Fister knows he doesn’t have a very good fastball, so instead, he relies on a pitch he has a lot of confidence in – his change-up.
Here’s Fister’s pitch types via Dan Brooks’ Pitch F/x tool for today’s start:
See that big glob of yellow in the middle? That’s Fister’s change-up, and you’ll notice that the yellow glob is nearly as large as the green blob in the upper right hand corner (his fastball). That’s because he attacked the Yankees with a steady stream of change-ups, and he didn’t particularly care about the handedness of the opposing hitter.
For most pitchers, the change-up is used almost exclusively against opposite handed hitters. Felix, for instance, almost never throws a change to a right-handed batter. He goes after them with fastballs, sliders, and curves, saving the change for the lefties. Fister, though, realizes that the change-up is his best pitch, and that it was his best chance to get Yankee hitters out, regardless of which side of the plate they were standing on.
It worked, too. Of the 33 change-ups he threw (the Pitch F/x algorithm misidentified seven fastballs as change-ups, if you’re wondering why I’m quoting a lower number than what Brooks’ tool shows), he got six swinging strikes and four ground outs. He gave up two hits on the change, but one of them was A-Rod’s “single” to Josh Wilson where the throw pulled Branyan off the bag, and the other was Cano’s little bloop single to left.
Wondering how a guy got through the Yankees line-up with a Triple-A fastball? By not throwing it all that much. By relying heavily on his change-up, Fister was able to keep hitters off balance and get ahead in the count. It even worked as an out pitch a few times, due to some really good locations.
The fastball isn’t major league quality, and the curve is pretty blah, but that change-up is a weapon and Fister knows it. He’s not going to be a good major league pitcher with this repertoire, but when you command one good pitch as well as he does, you can survive with a big park and a good defense, which the M’s have.
He’s probably still best suited to relief work in the majors long term, but there are worse guys in major league rotations than Doug Fister. When we talk about how it really isn’t all that hard to find back-of-the-rotation starting pitchers, he’s what we’re talking about.
Game 118, Yankees at Mariners
Chamberlain v Fister.
1 o’clock.
Nice day for a win.