The Template
With the Figgins signing basically done, the M’s have made their direction pretty clear, I think. Despite calls for a big power bat from sections of the fan base, the Mariners have gone the other way entirely, signing a guy who has hit nine home runs in the last three years combined. This continues the trend from a year ago, when they replaced Raul Ibanez with Endy Chavez, despite cries that left field was a position where you had to have a power hitter.
The Mariners clearly do not subscribe to the traditional model of needing power at the corners. They have a different template for building a team – the 1985 St. Louis Cardinals. That team is the model for what the organization hopes the 2010 Mariners can become.
They hit 87 home runs, fewer than every other National League team besides the Pirates. Their left fielder hit one home run. Their third baseman hit five (and had a .591 OPS). Jack Clark led the team with 22 home runs, Andy Van Slyke was second with 13, and two other players hit 10. Everyone else was in the single digits. In terms of home run power, they didn’t really have much. Or any.
But they led the league in singles, triples, walks, and stolen bases, all while hitting into the fewest amount of double plays. They were great at all the things that didn’t involve hitting for power, and they ended up leading the league in wOBA. Which, naturally, led to them leading the league in runs scored.
That speed paid off in the field as well, providing the best defensive team in the league. They held opponents to just a .272 batting average on balls in play, allowing a decent but unspectacular pitching staff to allow fewer runs than every other team in the NL besides the Dodgers (who bested them by a grand total of four runs). Having a bunch of elite defenders made life easy for John Tudor and Joaquin Andujar, who finished second and fourth in the league in innings pitched respectively. Danny Cox, the #3 starter, finished 9th.
Minimal power, a ton of speed, patient hitters who get on base, an elite defense, and a few starting pitchers who carry the load for the pitching staff. That formula added up to 101 wins and a trip to the World Series.
You do not have to hit for power to win baseball games. It helps, certainly, but good players are good players. Chone Figgins is a good player. Do not get wrapped up in worrying if the M’s have the type of team you’ve been told is the right kind. You can win with a whole bunch of slap hitters who get on base and run like the wind. The 1985 Cardinals did.
Comments
156 Responses to “The Template”
Amen! THAT is my kind of team. Manufacture runs; don’t wait for the long ball to happen (which is rarely often enough). Welcome to the M’s, Chone!
I admit, last year at this time I would have argued that Figgins did not provide enough power at 3B. That was before I discovered this site, or paid any attention to new tools for evaluating performance.
But I have since changed my mind, and I would add that as long as the rest of baseball puts a premium on power, it means they are undervaluing everything else, so the Mariners will find the best value in players such as Figgins.
Great post on this, Dave. I remember that Cards team from ’85 as well…if you were a fan who enjoyed watching the fundamentals of the game, you couldn’t help but like the way that team played in those days.
The KC Royals in the late-70′s, too, were another example of a solid team which won a lot of games without necessarily always hitting a ton of home runs.
It’s going to be kind of strange next year when Figgins gets a base hit, does his signature lift one leg and then pounds his fists together twice after turning the corner and not feel pissed off.
Figgins has a pretty wide platoon split, hitting quite a bit better when batting left handed (both career and in 2009, I just checked).
I wonder if anyone has ever suggested that he become a pure left handed hitter?
As a lefty, he has an OPS+ that tends to be north of 110. As a righty, somewhere in the 60 to 80 range.
Does Chone become the number 2? Or with all those walks does someone raise the idea of batting him lead off and Ichiro hitting 2 or 3? (The metrics are still a mystery to me so I’m not sure if everything I said is instantly laughable.)
The ’85 Cards are a great model, but we need some better starting pitching to be like them. I think that now we have 3B filled, we need to really focus on some solid starting pitching.
Can’t agree more about power being overrated.
OBP is so underrated by the casual fan as to be ridiculous. When you have ICHIRO! and Figgins on base a double scores two and keeps innings going. I can’t wait to watch those two on base at the same time next year. Pitchers are going to be on suicide watch. The other teams, not ours. Hopefully.
Great stuff as ever Dave!
Real baseball fans love real baseball. Real baseball involves much much more than hitting for power. We have a real stadium now. We have a real big outfield and real nice grass. We have a really great GM in Jack Zduriencik and a really smart manager in Don Wakamatsu. My gut tells me that this is the beginning of a great era, but the skeptics are still out in full force.
The “big bat” crowd is a fan base that seems to be made up of three distinct groups:
1. Old schoolers who rocked the Kingdome and drank on the cheap thanks to Dave Valle’s average. They still think that mashers in bandboxes are the greatest thing in the world. No team hosted a World Series in that park, but that fact is superseded by the everlasting magic of 1995. These guys love Jack Cust now and crowed about Dave Kingman back in the day too.
2. Kids who love to read about the good old days and impress folks with statistical regurgitation. Instead of analyzing things like park effect, or delving into sabermetrics, they are content to believe that the Mariners of the 90s should have been champions at least twice as often as the Jays. They believe our lack of sustainable success was all a conspiracy by Bud Selig and the Freemasons.
3. Folks with intense attention deficit disorder that can only handle the concept of scoring through home runs. Advancing runners on base hits makes them vexed and confused. Plays like sacrifice flies leave them perplexed and uncomfortable in their own skin. A successful suicide squeeze sends them to the ledge weeping. They are far better suited to games where you put a ball into a net and the scoreboard changes.
Old fashioned ways of winning are just as valuable and exciting as ever. Though advantages can be found using new ways of analysis, playing the game the right way is at the heart of long term success. Ichiro! understands the fundamentals, complexities and traditions. He would have succeeded in any era. I love the idea of having a whole team that has that spirit. The Kingdome was fun, but it is long gone folks. It is time to play some real baseball out in the sunshine.
This winter meetings are going to be very interesting. Godspeed and good luck Jack!
Let’s just hope we don’t have a Don Denkinger get in our way.
The Seahawks already have gotten screwed that way in a sense during their only shot in the Super Bowl. . .
There is no “playing the game the right way”. There are many ways to play the game, and none of them are right or wrong.
This is not about speed and defense being better than hitting the ball over the wall. This is about it being an alternative to the same goal. You can win in many ways. You can win with big sluggers. You can with with fast slap hitters. You can win with strikeout pitchers. You can win with strike throwers.
You win with good players, who come all in shapes and forms. Focusing on what the guy does, rather than how well he does it, is a great way to get stuff wrong.
Well, there’s hitting the ball and running to third base instead of first. I think that would qualify as playing the game the wrong way.
I agree with you. It just strikes me as odd that after witnessing the contrast of these past two seasons, some people still cannot grasp the concept of a fundamentally sound team that uses more than the “two bloops and a blast” formula to win ballgames. Your example of the ’85 Cards was perfect.
Dave, great column, but I am troubled by the composition of the M’s offense. Signing Figgins seems like adding more of the same when the Ms should diversify. A great defensive team or a bad batting average year could cost players like Figgins (assuming his bb% is a one year spike), Ichiro, Jack Wilson, Rob Johnson, or Gutierrez a lot of their value with the bat (thankful four of those guys have great gloves). Maybe someone like Branyan (or a Nick Johnson or Carlos Delgado) would be useful when the lineup can’t string together some singles.
If the M’s dont sign Branyan then your theory falls apart. Jack Clark was a beast in his day. He was a known power threat in the league and their number 1 salary obligation. In fact, when the Cards acquired him that year they were searching for power in the middle of their lineup and they thought that his pop would put them into contention. They were right. It worked.
Nice work on digging this up Dave and making this comparison. I loved this team! Though it should be noted they were the perennial contenders and Coleman and Pendleton never had their tickertape parade .
(yes, i know they won it all in 82 but that was a totally different team, although not much power there either. In fact, is jackz channeling whiteyherzogball? Go read wikipedia entry on whiteyherzog)
Or the 2001 Mariners. Nobody remembers that team had only 69 home runs. That’s it. They also had a stupid RISP BA (remember “Two Outs? So What?”) and doubles hitters (Edgar hadn’t regressed to long singles yet) and a great defense and bullpen and passable starting pitching. It’s deja vu all over. The 2010 season could be a LOT of fun.
I wonder if this move indicates what positional players the Ms will go after next. Nick Johnson?
With how Z has approached this off season within the last couple of weeks, i’m pretty sure it’ s just about impossible to predict what he is going to do next. He wasn’t lying when he said that he would look anywhere and everywhere for talent to improve this ball club.
Wabbles, 69 is a nice number…but the M’s had a lot more HR’s than that in ’01. Boone had 37, while Edgar, Olerud and Cameron each hit more than 20 apiece.
I LOVE the Figgins signing for the speed, defense and walks. Seems like a perfect fit.
I would be ecstatic with a Nick Johnson signing. Ichiro, Figgins, and Johnson would drive the opposing pitcher mad. Ichiro can get on base by swinging at anything he would like, and Figgins can battle the hell out of the pitcher just to end up getting the walk anyway. We all know how high of a OBP Johnson had last year which would also drive the opposing pitchers mad.
The 2001 team had 169 home runs.
With 89 career HRs our next “slap hitter who gets on base”:
Nick Johnson
Granted, he doesn’t have the speed Dave mentioned. But he’s as filthy as Figgins in terms of OBP
Considering I became a Cardinals fan in 1973 (at the age of 7), maintained my Cardinal fanhood through years of living in Chicago surrounded by Cubs fans, and only accidentally became a Mariners fan in (yes, yes, sorry) 1995, when I realized that I knew more about the team than everyone sitting in the bar around me… this comparison pleases the hell out of me. I loved that ’85 team (although I could do without the Andujar melt-down in the WS).
And, as the talking heads always remind us, the home run is bad because it’s a “rally/momentum killer”.
Sorry, couldn’t resist throwing that out.
I may hate the name, but I’m looking forward to the player. Another good move or two and the team could actually end up with a good offense to add to their real weapons.
Ya know, I wondered about that after I posted it. OK, 169 is still not a lot, or was I spoiled by those 240-ish teams of the 90s?
So is this the kind of approach they’ll take, like forever? Or do you see this as a front office that will build a different team every year based on the FA market and their prospects? Will they only look for guys with these skill sets for the next 5 years or will they add power bats if/when they become available for the right price?
The ‘85 Cards are a great model, but we need some better starting pitching to be like them.
The pitching for the Cards was really not all that special. The defense made them look good. Tudor, for example, walked pretty much nobody, but also was pretty average striking guys out. Get the ball in play, let Ozzie and company take care of it.
The 2001 team also ranked 4th in the AL in slugging percentage – and that’s without adjusting for park effects.
So while the offense in 2001 was built around on-base percentage, that club still had quite a bit of power.
They’ll adjust to what they have and what is available, looking for value wherever they can.
What is so interesting – actually, more like encouraging – is that this is the exact opposite approach to team building that Jack had when he was drafting for the Brewers. He’s the guy that selected Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Ryan Braun, Matt LaPorta, and Brett Lawrie with first round picks in a six year span.
Those guys are all bat-first players who make up for their defensive deficiencies by mashing. Clearly, Jack values guys who can hit the crap out of the ball, and will pursue them when they are available for the right price.
This M’s front office is not rigid. They’re not going to do the speed and defense thing forever. But that is what the market undervalues at the moment, so that’s what they’re exploiting. When it shifts, so will they.
So why is a team that needs and wants to build through the draft willing to give up a first-round pick for an older player? I’m not saying I dislike Figgins, but I’d love to see them picking up good draft choices every season. Is the threat of a hold-out from first rounders going to make the team shy away from higher picks?
Thanks for the good baseball convo Dave!
Because the value of Figgins at this contract is greater than the value of the pick and some other player.
Everything is a trade-off. You don’t want to have a policy so rigid that you can’t make a good move simply because you have a nebulous rule about “building through the draft” and “old players”. This is a good player, and the lost pick isn’t enough to outweigh the value the M’s will get from having him around.
Even high first round draft picks are a huge risk, and you never know how the talent will develop. Mid-round picks have value, but can easily end up being spent on say…Steve Baron. Which player would you pick to move the team forward, Baron or Figgins?
Fair enough, seen too many mid-rounders who didn’t amount to much. Just 5 years of frustrating minor league reports and a wave goodbye in the Rule 5. I’m a huge football fan so I get glued to the NFL draft. I know player/pick values are WAY different in that draft.
If it helps, think of it as trading down instead of forfeiting the pick. The compensation pick they’ll get for Beltre will be ~45th or so, so they moved down 30 spots in the draft to get a player they feel is a better fit at third base.
Dave, that is exactly what is so exciting about this new leadership. The open-minded approach to improving a team with the best possible available pieces. To me, this is very reminiscent of the time I lived in Boston when Theo took over the reigns. Can’t wait for the next move!
In the spirit of Dave’s post of going after wins in different ways, I’d like to dial the Way Back Machine a full half century to 1959. This was the era of maybe unprecedented (non-juiced) power: Aaron, Mays, Mantle, Williams, Musial, Banks, Matthews, Killebrew, etc.
But the teams that played in the world series that year were the White Sox and the Dodgers. No player on either team hit more than 25 homers.
What’s interesting is how those teams were composed–both built on pitching and defense, the Dodgers maybe a little bit more on pitching, and the White Sox a lot more on defense.
Here are some representative team statistics and league ranks for those teams, compared to the Mariners last year:
ERA+
White Sox 115 (1)
Dodgers 111 (1)
Mariners 112 (tied 1)
DEFENSIVE RUNS
White Sox 79.3 (1)
Dodgers -1.5 (5–out of 8 teams)
Mariners 90.9 (1)
OPS+
White Sox 91 (6th out of 8)
Dodgers 89 (6th out of 8)
Mariners 90 (last)
ON BASE %
White Sox 327 (3rd)
Dodgers 334 (2nd)
Mariners 314 (last)
While OPS+ is a great statistic, the clear difference here is simply getting people on base. To that end, Figgins is a perfect choice.
To repeat, there’s more than one way to win a game. I believe our defense will actually be better next year. To repeat the pitching performance, Felix will have to be just as good, and we’ll need someone to repeat those innings that Washburn and Bedard threw.
But the obvious weakness is having players who can get on base…not those who can hit the ball off or over the wall. (And it occurs to me I should add that the Dodgers were sixth out of eight in slugging, and the White Sox next to last).
Is this signing really done?
I like Figgins for this team, but don’t get carried away in the euphoria. They are not the 1985 Cardinals yet. There are still a lot of low OBP players – Wilson, Lopez, current C, LF. I trust in Z but that’s a lot of empty plate appearances to fix. Those Cardinals led the league in wOBA and the Mariners still have a long way to go yet to match that offense.
Sorry…didn’t realize that 8 + ) would equal 8)
Dave: I know you don’t like to speculate, but what would your reaction to the M’s stealing another Angels player, John Lackey, be?
Also if the M’s sign 2 Type A free agents from the same team, how does draft compensation work? Do the Angels get the 18th and three sandwich picks?
Thanks
If the Mariners signed another type A player, then they would lose both their first and second round draft picks. Which team gets the higher pick depends on that player’s elias ranking.
The Angels would get our 2nd round pick as well as another sandwich.
Oh, I didn’t see that you wrote from the same team.
You might also look at the team that WON the World Series in 1985 against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Kansas City Royals, who won their division despite being 13th out of 14 teams in the AL in runs scored, and also had some players who could pick it, plus great pitching (5 starters who went on to win around 700 games as a group, all of them 100+ game winners- which is pretty outstanding depth in your rotation, having your worst starter having a career comparable to Jarrod Washburn, and Bret Saberhagen’s probably a HOFer if he doesn’t have 425345 arm injuries). If anything, I think they are closer to what the 2010 M’s will have to be to make the playoffs than the Cardinals (I just don’t see this group of hitters leading a league in runs scored), as the Royals were a bit lucky in the regular season (+5 wins on Pythag), and they beat two better teams to win it all (the Blue Jays and the Cardinals).
The Mariners have all the power they need to win, as mentioned above the 2001 Mariners had 169 home runs, this years squad had 160. Assuming that the nine fewer HR cost the M’s 9 games, all other things equal the M’s would have won 106 games this year. Of course that’s the problem all other things were not equal such as .314obp vs 360obp. And while the 2001 M’s had a much higher slugging % the ISO’s are much closer, .144 vs .157, so it wasn’t raw power that fueled the higher slugging, it was mostly just higher batting average.
The pitching on the two teams wasn’t that much different either. And while the defensive metrics aren’t there for comparing the two teams, I think its fair to say that as good as the 2001 team was with a glove, last years team was better.
Obviously the 2010 M’s can’t raise their OBP by 46 points just by being more selective at the plate, the 2001 M’s hit 30 points higher too. But if you take the difference in OBP between the 2 teams, and subtract the difference in BA, that comes out to .016, and that would translate into about 50 runs, or about 5 wins.
I was a big Cardinal fan back in the eighties, and I like to see the M’s move in that direction.
That 1985 team was a great team, and I always think of the Whitey Herzog era Cardinals when People act like you can’t win without power.
The 1982 World Champion Cardinal team only had 67 home runs, George Hendrick led the team with 19 and the late Darrel Porter had 12, and that was it, nobody else attained double-digits. They beat a Millwauke Brewers team that led the Majors in Home runs by a wide margin with 218. The Cardinals won on athletic ability and fundamental skills. But you got to have the right guys, and they had Ozzie Smith, Keith Hernandez, Willie McGhee, Lonnie Smith and Tommy Herr. But it can be done. Hopefully, the M’s will add enough power to more than double those Cardinal team totals, but I would rather have a Figgins than a Jason Bay.
Somebody mentioned to me that the 2001 had a high slugging percentage, but that much of it came from OBP (and that it had a relatively low isolated power).
The Mariners clearly do not subscribe to the traditional model of needing power at the corners.
Dave, this makes no sense. Clearly, they had no money to pursue a bat last season, and they do now.
When they sign a defensive first baseman, I’ll give this theory credence. Until then, this statement, like the one two posts ago (“Smell Test”), is not credible.
(Re: “Smell Test,” you have no idea what the M’s 2010 payroll will be. For all you or I know, the M’s’ ownership has OK’ed up to $125,000,000, or even more. Why not, given the $117,000,000 limit for a clearly inferior GM in 2008? A playoff appearance would quickly solve all payroll-related difficulties. I’d be much happier with Bay at DH than Delgado. But hey, that’s me.)
Don’t mean to be a dick, because I do read every one of your posts even if I never comment here. You’re on my “favorites” list and I open ya up first thing every day, along with Baker, Stone, LaRue/Divish, Arnold, and Drayer.
Be well, everyone.
Gwangung, I think you may be confusing SLG with OPS.
Just a thought.
PS, re: my last post: I agree completely that the mid-’80s Cards were great, great teams. I just think that Z was hamstrung by bad Bavasi contracts last year, that he won’t overexaggerate ballpark factors because he’s smarter and more knowledgeable than you or I, and that he won’t limit his options when it comes to improving this team. So far, I have no reason to disbelieve him when he said that power is good and the team needs more power bats.
Bay hit just fine at PNC:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor
PPS: I think Bay should be the DH, not the LF. Saunders is the LF of the future, IMO. Personally, I don’t mind paying market price for some bop, even if it is overvalued. Again–that’s just me.
Compare Bay’s OBP at Fenway vs. PNC:
http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=424726
Fenway is ranked 8th (favoring hitters) on the site listed above, PNC 14th, Safeco 21st. There was no significant rise in his numbers moving nearly as far in the opposite direction (from PNC to Fenway); similarly, I posit there is no real reason to believe his numbers at the Safe will fall significantly–or even measurably–below his PNC numbers. His career OBP and AVG make him the perfect #3 guy behind Ichi and Figgins. (4-Branyan, 5-Guti, 6-Lopez–if he’s still there–7-Saunders, 8-Moore/Johnson, 9-Wilson.
Get it done, Z!
(by the by, I am ecstatic with this signing…)
I always considered Figgins an annoying little pest who gave the M’s fits at the plate and on the basepaths. I’m just glad that he’s going to be OUR annoying little pest now. I love the idea of Ichiro and Figgins creating havoc together at the top of the lineup.
Top 5 basestealers from 1985 Cardinals
V. Coleman – 110
W. McGee – 56
A. Van Slyke – 34
O. Smith – 31
T. Herr – 31
Top 5 from players projected to be on 2010 M’s (based on 2009 stats)
C. Figgins – 42
I. Suzuki – 26
F. Gutierrez – 16
M. Saunders – 4 (limited ABs)
J. Lopez – 3
Just because we sign a guy who would have been the 3rd most prolific stealer on the ’85 Cards, doesn’t make us close to that kind of team.
I like Figgins, but this lineup needs a presence or two in the middle before I’ll feel like it’s competitive.
Merril-
Bay rejected a 4 year, 60 million dollar deal with the Red Sox. There’s no way a DH (which is all he should be with his horrific defense) should be paid north of $15 million per year. To suggest as such proves you don’t understand this team’s needs, limitations, and direction.
Signing Bay would be something Bavasi would have done. Offering a 36 year old, one-dimensional hitter a massive contract would hamstring the organization for the entire length of the contract, and we’ve all seen how right handed hitters fare at Safeco.
No, he should not be signed in Seattle. No, he would be a horrible signing. No, no, no!
Runs are runs. I think most of us think that if a player is 44 RAR (current fan projection for Figgins on fangraphs is 44.7 RAR) it doesn’t matter if that player is a slugger or not. He’s 44 RAR. You don’t get extra bonus points for having a “balanced” lineup (whatever that means). You don’t overpay for “bop”, because if you do then you end up winning fewer games because you could have used that money more efficiently elsewhere.
What matters more is whether he’s a good fit on the roster and how he would do in Safeco. As Dave has pointed out, Figgins excels in both of those areas.
Exactly.
Top 5 basestealers from 1985 Cardinals
V. Coleman – 110
W. McGee – 56
A. Van Slyke – 34
O. Smith – 31
T. Herr – 31
Top 5 from players projected to be on 2010 M’s (based on 2009 stats)
C. Figgins – 42
I. Suzuki – 26
F. Gutierrez – 16
M. Saunders – 4 (limited ABs)
J. Lopez – 3
Just because we sign a guy who would have been the 3rd most prolific stealer on the ‘85 Cards, doesn’t make us close to that kind of team.
I like Figgins, but this lineup needs a presence or two in the middle before I’ll feel like it’s competitive.
It was a different game back then. If I recall Tommy Herr batted 3rd behind Coleman and McGee and knocked in over 100 runs with less then 10 Hrs.
The first two Cards would work the count get on base and then harrass the other team. I think Tommy Herr got a lot of fastballs back then, because if you threw off-speed you would leave yourself open to stolen bases.
It was just a different philosophy. I like the signing of Figgins.
Figgins reminds me of a younger/better Stan Javier from the 2001 team: Plus defense, patient hitter, smart, game-in-motion type player. I see our static, frustrating offense of recent years starting to get more interesting.
Jayson Stark reports a 5th year is vested. Does anyone know what that means?
Someone please explain why it would not be a better lineup if Figgens lead off and Ichiro second.
Because Figgins is better at moving the runner over. As good as Ichiro is he’s not going to change his game and he’s not going to sacrifice at bats just to move the runner to second or third.
There was no significant rise in his numbers moving nearly as far in the opposite direction (from PNC to Fenway); similarly, I posit there is no real reason to believe his numbers at the Safe will fall significantly–or even measurably–below his PNC numbers.
You accounted for difficulty in league, right? (The AL is better than the NL.)
Also, Safeco is much tougher on RHB than LHB. I sort of doubt Fenway and PNC have similar platoon splits as a park.
Why are we assuming anything about batting order changes before the ink is even dry on the deal?
God I hated that team as a kid. I think I still have Tom Niedenfuer nightmares nearly a quarter century later.
Assuming that the nine fewer HR cost the M’s 9 games,
Kazinski, whatever process led you to conclude additional HR are worth a win a piece, abandon it, burn it down, salt the earth, etc.
It takes about 10 runs to add a win. There are no 10 run homers.
Bay would be affected by Safeco (the left foul pole shots would make it, but that cluster in left center around the 400′ line would be going into gloves, or maybe bouncing off the wall if he gets lucky), and it wouldn’t help his fielding either. Even if the M’s have a Yankeesque $200M payroll, Bay is a bad use of that money. Regardless of what he costs, he still ties up a roster spot that could be better used by another player. But anyway, we’ve already had this discussion. More than once, in fact, and it’s hardly on-topic here. Let’s move on.
Because it’s easier to speculate about things you don’t have to research and that are easy to see on the field, even if they make little difference in the game? Think of it as kind of second-order rosterbation: not plugging random names into the lineup, but shuffling the ones that are already there.
[low quality]
You do realize that Paul Allen doesn’t own the Mariners, right?
[rrrr]
[this is not a board]
I wasn’t assuming that, I was just pointing out that the difference between the 2001 M’s and the 2009 M’s was not the +9HRs. The fact that the two teams were pretty similar in pitching and defense, and HR’s. With the 2001 team being marginally better in 2/3, really leaves
onetwo very stark differences between the two clubs: OBP and wins. Oh, and I guess also luck, the 2001 team caught just about every break all season long.Ah, I see that now. Sorry.
Geoff Baker jumps on the M’s need “slugging power even if it isn’t home run power” train.
I have acknowledged the fact that GMZ has said that he will look into every option available. There is a difference between the media reporting the Mariners are “interested” and the Mariners are “pushing hard” or “actively pursuing” a certain player though. I was simply wondering if the suddenly heavy interest in many free agents had anything to do with the increase of payroll.
No. SLG includes total bases; a high OBP gotten through high BA will increase total bases, which increases SLG (which is why I mentioned isolated power).
The ’85 Cardinals plus Felix Hernandez.
Well that comment certainly did not go as planned.
Is Willie McGee available?? God I loved watching that guy play. Awesome analogy on the ’85 Cards–makes tons of sense and makes me excited to see how the rest of the roster rounds out.
I feel good that he knows enough to use OPS instead of something stupid like RBIs. On the other hand I feel bad he doesn’t realize that there’s a significant difference in value between OBP and SLG, so a .350/.450 line is not as good as .400/.400.
I’m going to respectfully disagree. 1 point of OBP is more valuable than 1 point of SLG. Otherwise, carried to the logical extreme, you’d load up on Mike Jacobs-types.
I look forward to watching them play small ball like last year. IMO it is a lot more exciting to watch.
Oh my. I completely mis-read your post. My apologies. I shall now wear the duncecap and sit in the corner and think about what I’ve done.
The average NL OPS in 1985 was .692. No team had an SLG above .390 (Cubs), and the Cards’ .714 team OPS actually tied for the NL lead with the Cubs. You didn’t need power to win in the NL back then because NL teams didn’t have a lot of it in general.
The average AL team OPS was .764 last season. The M’s were close to their 1985 Card counterparts at .712, but unlike the Cards their OPS was well below the league average and their .402 SLG was 2nd lowest behind Oakland.
No one’s arguing that the 2009 M’s were anything like the ’85 Cardinals.
Geoff’s rebuttal was fine. We don’t even really disagree. The team would certainly be better if they had another good hitter or two.
Every team that has indicated it has any money to spend has been linked to every top tier free agent (and most of the less-than top ones too). That’s the way it is every year. Every agent is out there spreading the word that team X and Y are “linked” to their clients so that team Z might move quicker or offer more. But this particular “team Z” has been very disciplined with what it lets slip: the only time we hear anything is when a deal is imminent. Everything else is rumors at best.
No there isn’t. If Geoff neighbor’s dog says the M’s are “interested” or Geoff neighbor’s dog says they’re “pushing hard” or “actively pursuing” it’s still Geoff neighbor’s dog. Unless somebody in the M’s org actually comes out and says it, the actual language doesn’t matter.
And if you look with “heavy interest” at ten different flat screen TVs at Best Buy, that doesn’t mean you’re in the market for ten flat screen TVs.
Yes, and that’s not the idea behind posting those stats. The template that produced an above average offense in 1985 faced a different offensive climate than the M’s do in 2010. You didn’t need power in 1985 because no one had much of it compared to what teams have today as we approach 2010.
Even with a top defense aiding the pitching staff in preventing runs, the Mariners’ OBP would have to be well above average to offset a dearth of power and produce enough to allow the team to compete for a division title. What is that level and is GMZ’s template feasible for getting a lineup that can produce at that level?
When did I say that the Mariners were going to acquire everyone of those free agents. You guys are making my comment out to be more then it is. It was a simple question that was blown WAY out of proportion.
You didn’t need power in 1985 because no one had much of it compared to what teams have today as we approach 2010.
Not true. The Cardinals didn’t need power in 1985 because they were so good at everything that wasn’t power, they overwhelmed a weakness with a strength.
How much power other teams have doesn’t affect how many runs you score when you’re at the plate.
This is a great move, and I think it’s probably the best free agent signing this team has made in a long, long while.
My question is, does this basically guarantee that there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Beltre comes back?
I mean, and infield of Beltre, Wilson, Figgins, and Johnson/Branyan makes my heart flutter, but I just don’t think it can happen… Can it? I mean, put these 4 out there, it more than makes up for the fact that we’re basically getting a 0.5 WAR from our catchers.
Some links on the Angels perspective.
LA Times
Halos Heaven blog
Two more thoughts about this signing.
One: “First to third”
Two: Figgins swings at 16% of the pitches out of the strike zone. That’s nuts.
Assuming that the Mariners trade Lopez, Morrow. and 1 or 2 of Vargas, Olson, French, and Fister) it looks like we are lokking at the following 2010 M’s
C Johnson/Moore
1B TBD
2B Tui
SS Wilson
3B Figgins
LF Saunders
CF Gutierrez
RF Ichiro
DH TBD
Comment: If the M’s can bring in two decent hitters at 1B and DH, this lineup looks pretty strong.
Pitchers
1. Felix
2. TBD
3. Hyphen
4. TBD
5. One (or maybe more throughout the course of the year) of Silva, Vargas, Olson, French, and Fister
Comment: The pitching seems to need a little more work.
Dave
Do you think that it would be to unrealistic to think that Jack Z would approach the Rays during the winter meetings with a serious offer for Carl Crawford?
This is probably a really dumb question, but who is GMZ? I’ve seen it in two of the replies here today.
General Manager Zduriencik I believe
It means “please delete my comment”
As Dave noted, other teams’ power has no effect on your run-scoring, but since it could effect how many runs you need to score to win…
2009 runs per game: 4.61
1985 runs per game: 4.33
Oh, it doesn’t.
Basically a quarter of a run a game difference in the offensive environment, or about 45 runs over the course of the year.
Good players are good players whether they have power or not.
While conscious of the fact that the M’s only play half their games at the Safe, it sure doesn’t suck to see this front office filling some roster spots with athletes capable of covering all that grass (and dirt i suppose). Anyone recall a mothers day game in Anaheim about two years ago… Felix vs. Joe Saunders i believe… I can remember Chone making Felix sweat bullets. It will be nice to see him on the good guys team How fun has it been watching this thing unfold… And Jack still has some bullets in his gun, pardon the analogy. Next week should be fun. One question……how will the lack of power in the lineup effect St. David Niehaus? Manufacturing runs in the most efficient way for your $ is one thing, but the unadulterated joy of a “my-oh-my” call is another:) Throw the old standby a bone Jackie Z!
Gwangung, the formula for OPS uses PAs, whereas the formula for SLG uses ABs. I.E., SLG does not use BBs; OBP does. High-OBP guys are usually driven by their high walk totals, and thus, other than BA and XBH, a high OBP really shouldn’t affect SLG.
Please correct me if I’ve misunderstood your comment.
Uhhhhhhh wow.
Axtell, there is a possibility he may have been offered 5, 60, rather than 4, 60. (I don’t know whether that rumor is credible.) Further, it is arrogant to assume you know his reasons for turning down the contract. Sure, most people would want more money. Not all. He lives in Kirkland.
No way he gets Holliday money. No way Holliday gets much more than 16. No way the M’s sign him for more than 12.
If the M’s have the money in the budget (again, the budget for player payroll hasn’t been published), why not overpay (the market price) for power to improve the team? Why not have great defense, speed, pitching, AND power? Why not have it all? Dave himself said above there are far more than one way to win in baseball. Even in Safeco.
Dave, on December 5th, 2009 2:07 pm
The team would certainly be better if they had another good hitter or two
Even the argument about right-handed pull hitters is a non-starter, in my view. Beltre’s and Sexson’s woes had nothing–nothing–to do with Safeco. Beltre hit just as well at the Safe as he did nearly everywhere else (look it up, party-line).
To suggest as such proves you don’t understand this team’s needs, limitations, and direction.
What in the world do you know about the team’s “limitations”? When, exactly, did they provide a payroll blueprint for 2010? Why in the world would they provide a proven failure like Bavasi $117,000,000 for a last-gasp effort at success and not open the strings up more than last year’s $98,000,000, after Z’s spectacular first year, with the economy (slowly) picking up? (Z should get the Nobel Prize for Dumping Unbelievably Bad Players for the Yuni deal alone. Adding Wilson?? Good God, I thought I died and went to GM heaven.)
Signing Bay would be something Bavasi would have done. Offering a 36 year old, one-dimensional hitter a massive contract would hamstring the organization for the entire length of the contract, and we’ve all seen how right handed hitters fare at Safeco.
Bay is 31, Axtell, and as a hitter for high average, SLG, and OBP, Bay is hardly “one-dimensional.” I would want him at DH, not in LF, primarily, so that’s a non-issue, and we’ll see how it plays out for the Z. For every 33-year-old Sexson falloff (he signed at 31, had two top-end years–although his production generally came too late to help the M’s, and fell off the map at 33), there are two Jeters, a Posada, and an A-Rod. If Z signs him, I will conclude that better, more knowledgeable baseball minds than mine did their due diligence and decided age was a non-issue. Why would you conclude any differently? This isn’t Bavasi we’re talking about, here. I think we can all presume Z knows his business better than you or I, after this first year on the job.
[link]
Bay’s lifetime OBP is .376. As I showed above, in my previous post, if you even bothered to follow my links, his hitting at PNC and at Fenway were largely equivalent. There is no reason, other than non-thinking, following, swallowing rote party-line dogma, to believe there will be any significant dropoff from his PNC numbers to his possible Safeco numbers.
Sexson hit 73 homers for the M’s in ’05 and ’06. His post-’06 suckage had nothing to do with Safeco. Beltre had three of his best four homer-hitting years at the Safe.
Here are links showing Beltre’s and Sexson’s numbers at the Safe, et. al.:
[link]
[link]
No hit charts on Sexson, from MLB.com anyway, which sucks, but Beltre hit 10 of his 25 homers and 14 of his 29 doubles at Safeco Field in 2008 (not a statistically significant variation from 50%), 11 of 26 and 13 of 41 in 2007 (not significant for homers, pretty significant for doubles), 16 of 25 and 13 of 39 in 2006 (again, showing the opposite of predicted home-field-suppressant trending in homers, but not in doubles), and 7 of 19 and 13 of 36 in 2005.
[link]
(Note the left-field cluster. Although, sorry, but you’ll have to manipulate the year/park tabs to get the correct data. No separate link addresses for each year, etc.)
In the injury-marred 2009 season, Beltre hit, in Safeco, 4 of his total 8 home runs, and 13 of his total 27 doubles–as close to 50% as can be gotten, even though he played three more away games (57 away, 54 at home).
[link]
So, while it looks as though there is a point there on doubles vis-a-vis homers, overall, I’d say that you guys are overexaggerating the home vs. away ballpark effects.
Beltre in Dodger Stadium (not exactly a bandbox, either), first doubles, then homers, in home/total format:
’99: 15/27; 6/15
’00: 11/30; 7/20
’01: 11/22; 4/13
’02: 14/26; 7/21
’03: 10/30; 13/23
’04: 13/32; 23/48
No significant variation for either doubles or homers in three of six years–’99, ’01, and ’02 for doubles; ’99, ’03, and ’04 for homers.
In short, I don’t deny there are ballpark effects. Even significant ones. But expecting a player’s power output to significantly reduce is a serious exaggeration. It’s not logical or rational given actual evidence rather than confident declarations.
Joser, sorry if I tried to highjack the thread. I was primarily concerned with engaging Dave to see his response. I probably should have e-mailed him, since I wanted to comment on the Bay thread and had no time. I figured he wouldn’t see a late post on that thread.
I must say, however, since you responded, that I strongly disagree with your contention that balls to left field “will get caught.” Since most teams hide their poorest defenders in LF, and since, if you look at the info I linked to above, you can see that most of Beltre’s doubles and homers–which exceeded or matched career highs in three of five years, and were not slouchy in the other two (OK, homers were pretty slouchy last year, but even injured, he still managed to crank out doubles at a career-high pace) went to, um, left field–even in the Safe–I contend that this is another example of Groupthink.
Further, your silly, arrogant, and ignorant comments about Geoff Baker’s sourcing–he was an investigative reporter–for what, nine years?–before becoming a baseball writer–is, um, silly, arrogant, and ignorant. Should he reveal his sources for your approval?
eponymous coward on December 5th, 2009 9:33 am, said:
There was no significant rise in his numbers moving nearly as far in the opposite direction (from PNC to Fenway); similarly, I posit there is no real reason to believe his numbers at the Safe will fall significantly–or even measurably–below his PNC numbers.
You accounted for difficulty in league, right? (The AL is better than the NL.)
Also, Safeco is much tougher on RHB than LHB. I sort of doubt Fenway and PNC have similar platoon splits as a park
Good points, both, EC, and I appreciate the non-derisional engagement.
(I mean, what the hell does “ummm.. wow” mean, Derek? Are you talking to me? Not to be defensive or anything, but if you are, to explain my point further: Because, of course, high-OBP guys usually also have high BAs, but they almost ALWAYS also have high BB totals, which do not, of course, figure in the SLG equation. So, no, except as a function of BA, high OBP does not, in fact, drive SLG higher. Sorry if I was unclear. But if you were responding to me, don’t you think something a little deeper than derision might be more communicatively useful? And perhaps–less arrogant?)
Anyway, eponymous, (and thanks for making me look that up, by the way. Seriously. Learning is good, even if I haven’t had time to properly educate myself, baseball-wise.) as I said, I am sure those are good points, but I wouldn’t overemphasize them. Beltre, a classic right-handed pull hitter, had fine seasons, compared to his career averages, at the Safe, as did Sexson his first two years. His shortcomings the final two seasons of his contract came from palying through numerous injuries far more than from hitting at the Safe.
Further, EP, Bay did just fine in the AL at Fenway. Even if we try to attribute some of that success to hitting at Fenway, we can look a little more closely at his splits and see that he pretty much got the same results home and away.
[link]
Although his OBP and BA went down away from home, if we look even more closely, we can see that this downward trend was largely driven by the 20-game terrible turf split. I think we can safely conclude that not playing several series a year in Toronto and Tampa will help his away splits somewhat.
Even given that, his away numbers are OBP.362/SLG.542/BA.262. Highly DH-acceptable.
Someone above made the point that overspending on power means the team doesn’t then have the resources to spend efficiently in other areas and therefore improve the team more.
I reiterate, we don’t know exactly what the teams’ resources will be/are. There are only 25 roster spots, and the team needs significant offensive improvement in both SLG and OBP. The SLG doesn’t have to come as HRs, but Bay provides all three–HRs, OBP, and SLG.
Finally, my larger point is, if the M’s are indeed “going hard” after Bay, then I think we can justly conclude, given the evidence of the past year, that GMZ’s team has, as I said in my post above, done its due diligence and decided those factors mitigating Bay’s value are not as great as you all think, no offense. I think the management team has proven its excellence, and we can safely say they know what they’re doing better than you or I.
I repeat–This isn’t Bavasi we’re talking about, here.
Yes, it’s true, I don’t love everyone equally, and sometimes do not reply with comments that gently and politely point out their errors and guide them to the truth. I am frequently glib and sarcastic, and this is often read as arrogance. And I’m sure if I went through your post and offered further reading and advice on each point, you might be a better-educated person for it.
Wait, that’s arrogant, isn’t it.
Derek–Har…
And perhaps the reverse might be true as well?
[link]
Note the about-100-percentage-point difference between BA and OBP for Olerud, Cameron, Martinez, and McClemore. Even Martin, Guillen, and Javier were in the 80-point range.
What’s the point of saying SLG is driven higher by a higher OBP when it’s really BA doing the driving?
Although, yes, Gwangung, I finally realized I did misread your initial point. Sorry. But the above point still holds true. That, in fact, is why I misread it. But you clearly stated “BA” in your followup, so I will follow the example above and put on the dunce cap, sit in the corner, and ponder my erroneous ways for a bit. Are you in Korea?
And Derek, glib and sarcastic dismissal of people’s points sans engagement is “read as arrogance” because it is:
[awesome link to the MW arrogance definition]
I certainly don’t need your help with explanations or guidance to the truth, ha ha…. please be gentle with me, Derek!
Point is, your casual assumption of superior knowledge and understanding gets in the way of your thinking–or, often, lack thereof. As it does with anyone who’s arrogant. It’s a character flaw, not something to trumpet. Heaven knows I have plenty of character flaws, too….
And when it comes to arrogance, Derek, I speak from eerily similar experience. I am now in my post-arrogant phase of arrogance. It’s liberating!
Gosh, thanks for pointing me to the Merriam-Webster definition of arrogance. That’s not at all condescending or annoying.
I think I’m going to pass on further discussion of the arrogance issue, though, if that’s okay with everyone. Please don’t take this as an opportunity to tell me I’m passing up a valuable opportunity for self-examination. You don’t know me. If you’d like to take on the task of discussing the personality or lack thereof of authors, email’s a great place to take the discussion off the comment threads. Thanks.
Also, Merrill, please learn to use the link button. Long links can screw up page formatting for users with older browsers. It’s courteous to others. Otherwise, I or one of the other mods have to go through and fix it for you (as in your epic comment in moderation)
[doing the thing just specifically asked not to do]
But it does affect the likelihood that the number of runs you score will be enough to win the game, right? For this reason, it does seem like power would be more important in today’s scoring environment than it was in 1985. Also defense is less important now, since you can’t defend a home run. That being said, I agree with Dave’s premise that power is overvalued and defense is undervalued.
Not to change the subject, but I have a baseball related question. What are the M’s going to do with all the excess starting pitching? Who has the best chance of sticking? Who’s the best trade candidate?
Ah, but the ’85 Cards had some power, at least relative to the rest of the NL.
Sixth in SLG, First in 3B, Third in 2B, First in RS–that latter by a hefty margin. Also, of course, first in walks, BA, OBP, and tied for first in OPS.
(Figured it out. Leave the cookie on the end table, please.)
And sorry for the epic comment, Derek et. al., and the other long one, too. I’m 15 hours ahead of you folks (most, anyway; 12 for East Coasters), and there’s a lot to respond to when I wake up. I just wanted to try post some somewhat alternative analysis angles, and that takes some ‘splainin’. (I’m not as ignorant as I might appear at first blush to you folks, although I must admit I have a lot of reading to do. I can tell you now I’m not the “fall in line” type.) Thankfully, I won’t be available most days to comment. Three-day vacation here just north of Bangkok, Thailand. No time, usually.
Boy, you’re lucky that Derek got to your comments before I did.
And spare us the “I’m not really ignorant, I just have different opinions” crap. We get one or two of you a week, although your posts are long in addition to annoying. You are Nothing Special.
If you want to take the time to do some research and figure out why people are telling you that you are wrong (hint: stop using metrics like batting average and runs scored, and not claiming you’re “in your post-arrogance phase of arrogance” while smugly linking to a dictionary definition of arrogance when talking to one of the guys who runs the place wouldn’t hurt either). Your “analysis” isn’t in any way, shape, or form “alternative”, it’s just flat-out wrong, because it’s based on crappy data.
Nobody’s asking you to be the “fall in line” type, but there’s a reason that most people here agree with Dave and Derek and Jay. It’s because they know what the hell they’re talking about; they research what they write and use non-Stone-Age metrics to arrive at their conclusions. If your posts are going to continue to be page-long versions of “NUH UH!” then we frankly don’t need you.
I’d recommend considering your next post very, very carefully.
ISO is a better measure of power than SLG and they ranked third to last. Triples are more about speed and luck. RS, BA, OBP, walks, not sure what these have to do with power…
It’s a small point, but another significant difference in the makeup of the teams was that Busch Stadium was turf. They would have played, under the NL schedule then in effect, nine games each in Montreal, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on turf, and six games in Houston and Cincinnati. That’s a huge percentage of your games on turf and it really enhances the team’s particular skill set.
Note that I am not saying that this negates the wisdom of acquiring Figgins (who is far more than his speed).
Hey Jeff (or Dave or Derek, or whoever else knows more than me and cares to answer), I have two questions. Neither is meant to be confrontational in the slightest–I am asking purely out of ignorance and/or curiosity (and pardon any typos–I’m typing on my iPhone).
First question: After reading Merrill’s epistle and cringing each time he directly challenged/tried to call out/condescended to you guys, and yet appreciating the time and effort he put into researching the things he did, I was a bit surprised at your response. Not hardly at you taking offense to his talk about arrogance and such, especially the link to MW’s definition of arrogance as proof that he’s not. That didn’t shock me at all, hence the cringing. I was shocked at the fact that you blew off the research as crappy. Like I said, I’m saying this out of ignorance and a desire to be corrected. I thought his research seemed decently solid, but that his method of communicatig it left something to be desired. Please explain to me (in brief, if necessary) where he was wrong. You mentioned BA and RS, but it seemed to me like he spent the majority of his time talking about OBP and SLG. I didn’t think those were useless stats, so if I’m wrong, I really want to know so I can do better analysis of my own in the future. Is it that those stats are useless? Or did he just misuse them in doing his analysis?
Second question, again entirely nonconfrontationally: Is there more to Jason Bay’s lack of value to the Mariners then just his price (or perhaps the fear of a “Sexson-esque” cliff-jumping in production)? What I mean is, if his skill-set were to be had in someone 2/3 his likely asking price or less, would they be valuable to the Mariners as a DH? In asking this, I’m not considering him for DH at all because I think the M’s need another person to split time at 1st with Branyan (provided he returns) to releive his aging back, so I think the DH should be a 1at-baseman. I’m just curious if the “hate on M’s signing Bay” is entirely based on price. If the M’s had (a lot) more than $25M to spend, would you guys change your tune about him at all?
Anyways, thanks a bunch for this site you guys! Thanks for all your research and the time you put into it. I thought I was a baseball fan until I was introduced to USSM–now I can say I’m becoming a better baseball fan every day.
mattlock
Everything you need to know about this site’s stance on Jason Bay is literally right here. And that’s not even getting into the discussion of price.
Jason Bay is our free agent land mine. He’s not good at defense, right-handed, and not getting any younger. This is not like a Russell Branyan pickup off the scrap-heap. Jason Bay is a major free-agent that teams are trying to haul in, which means to bring him in the fold, not only are we going to have to pay through the ringer, we’re going to have to commit to multiple years as well.
I would wager that most people wanting Jason Bay on the team are thinking too much about the short term. Remember, Richie Sexson was great in the first year of his contract. Sexson was nice to have around after two years. By the fourth year, however, he was an anchor that people couldn’t wait to get rid of. Perhaps Bay won’t fall of the cliff as dramatically but why take the chance? Because people want to see the team with “power”?
I don’t think it makes much sense to talk about a hypothetical “Jason Bay” since chances are we’re talking about someone else altogether anyway but since we’re talking about Jason Bay himself I can’t see how trying to sign him is a good idea.
A few further thoughts in response to Merrill’s refusal to accept that Jason Bay is a bad fit for this team:
One, yes, Bay’s a one-dimensional player. Yes, he’s a good hitter (though no, he’s not as good a hitter as people seem to think he is); but every other part of his game detracts from his value.
Two, it’s not enough to say “well, that doesn’t matter because I only want him to DH,” for two reasons. The lesser one is that even for DHs, baserunning still counts. The larger one is that, as Dave/Derek have pointed out, we can’t afford another DH-only player after blowing $2 mil and a roster spot (barring injury) on Junior. This is especially true if we re-sign Branyan, since as various people have pointed out, his back is probably going to mean we want him at DH as muc as possible.
And three, Merrill’s arguments that Bay’s home/road splits in PNC/Fenway mean he’d hit just as well in Safeco sound uncomfortably reminiscent of the arguments many of us used to convince ourselves that Jeff Cirillo really would do just fine in Seattle . . . and we all know how that turned out.
and I’ll take another swing at this chestnut:
The short answer is that you end up winning fewer games than you could have if the money was spent efficiently.
Giving big multiyear contracts to aging slow sluggers generally turns out to be a bad idea. And providing a handful of examples of players who aged well, but are neither slow nor poor defenders nor one dimensional, do not tell us much about how Bay will age.
Check out the similarly constructed but weaker 1982 Cardinals as well. They were actually dead last in HRs, rather than 2nd-lowest, and beat “Harvey’s Wallbangers” from Milwaukee for the title. Overall, the team’s shape is less distinctively extreme in its emphasis on speed over power, but the seeds are there.
One of my favorite team/position/periods of all time is Cardinals/CF/1980s-1990s. For several years St. Louis tended to have a Winn/Cameron/Ichiro-type outfield, because they actually developed two complete sets during that period. Here are the center fielders they brought to the majors from 1982-1990:
Player (debut yr./yrs. started at CF)
Willie McGee (’82/’82-’93)
Andy Van Slyke (’85/’87-’94)
Lance Johnson (’87/’90-’96)
Ray Lankford (’90/’91-’98)
They also debuted two players who fit the offensive mold but were plus fielders in left rather than center:
Vince Coleman (’85)
Bernard Gilkey (’90)
…and Brian Jordan debuted in ’92. I see no truly outstanding players there (though Lankford had an impressive and underrated career), but it’s still a remarkable haul of useful outfielders.
Hey all, thanks for the responses, particularly the reasonable nature of them. That Bay vs. Sexson article was the first clue that I had that he would be a bad idea. I’ve learned a lot in the month and a half or so that I’ve been following this site. î•
So what I am gathering that you guys are saying is that its primarily the combination of his age and price with the fact that he wants a several year contract. What I haven’t figured out yet is if the M’s shouldn’t want just him specifically, or of it’s the entirety of what he brings to the table. Would he be desirable if he was younger/cheaper/lefty/better defensively/happier with a shorter contract etc etc etc? Which of the above? Or all?
Sorry for my ignorance. I’m new to the sabermetric (intelligent) point of view. î…
Younger, yes. Player’s primes are considered somewhere between 26-32. Getting certain players might not be as bad of an idea because different player types age differently.
Cheaper, I think this is obvious. Your budget constraint is one of the most important parts of building your team.
Lefty, yes. Safeco field has proven to be harsh on right handed power hitters. The ball just doesn’t carry well to left field. Obviously we’d love to get Albert Pujols, but Chase Utley would probably be a better fit at Safeco.
Better defensively, yes. If Bay was better defensively he’d be a lot closer to Matt Holliday. Most of the arguments here about defense vs. offense, with the assumption that you’re getting one and not the other. If you make him better defensively, you make him a better player.
Shorter contract, not necessarily. Long term contracts are riskier, but they’re riskier for both parties. If you improve as a player but are signed to a long contract you’re probably going to be underpaid. The same thing happens from a teams perspective if a player regresses. At this point it is very unlikely Bay improves.
Hopefully that helps a little.
Beltre has declined arbitration per Jim Bowden on Twitter. Take that with a toolsy grain of salt.
I have an issue with the idea the using the 1985 Cards as a template for building the Mariners is a good idea, for a number of reasons – foremost – the 1986 and the 1988 Cardinals. This team had one great year, a good year in 1987, and were unremarkable before and after. Also, there really hasn’t been many teams built in this mold that have been successful since 1985 – I am not aware of any…but I could be wrong. But there have been many successful teams built on a more balanced model- like how about every other WS winner since 1985? The other issue is the 1985 was right in the heart of the urban multi-sport artificial turf era of baseball, and building teams that took advantage of the fast fields of that era’s stadiums made sense not only in St. Louis, but also in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Houston, and others I am sure I am forgetting. But those other cities had champions built on a balance of speed, fielding, pitching and power. So, unless we are installing Astro turf at Safeco, I think this is not a model to be emulated if we would like to see a good team for a few years yet.
It was a lighting in a jar type of team – other more sustainable and consistent models would seem a better choice.
Actually, the NL average was 4.05, and the Cards were well above average there.
1985 NL Average: 4.05
1985 Cards: 4.61
The 2009 AL average runs scored per game is 4.75 runs and the M’s averaged 4.27 (and don’t forget the Cards had to bat their pitcher).
If the M’s scored at a similar clip to the Cards, which would be a significant improvement over their 2009 total… it would still be good for slightly below the AL average if the AL’s average was roughly the same in 2010. And keep in mind that, with their defense and pitching last year, they still allowed 4.27 runs per game.
They could still win 95 games with that offensive output in 2010, but they’d have to shatter some records in their run prevention and go far above and beyond the already high level they put forth on defense last season. They’d probably have to allow fewer than 4 runs a game. How many runs does the defense have to save with this pitching staff to do so?
Excuse me, those first two lines should have been in quote tags.
wschroer,
I agree that ballpark characteristics are important to team construction, but don’t forget to apply the same logic to the Mariners in Safeco. Acquiring more power for the Mariners, especially right-handed power, is not rewarded by the home park as much as other things, like outfield defense. It’s not useless–the M’s do play road games–but sort of like buying a convertible if you live in Hoquiam. You will sometimes get to put the top down, but it’s overcast 240 days a year.
I disagree that most or all of the last twenty-odd championships have been won by relatively balanced teams. There have been some notably below-average teams in every one of the areas you mentioned, though especially in fielding and speed. I’ll go further and say that it’s been typical for the champions to be below average in at least one of those areas. Even if you start thinking about, say, the 20 greatest teams of all time, those teams are not usually balanced either. Some are very skewed.
Usually when people say a team should try to be more “balanced,” it’s really just lazy thinking. It’s natural to wish that your team, in addition to its strengths, did something else well instead of poorly. But that’s not really how it works, resources are finite…to add something, you must give up something else.
â– ferocious_gentleman said “Usually when people say a team should try to be more “balanced,†it’s really just lazy thinking”
I would say that what is lazy thinking is to claim that one team, the 1985 Cardinals who were so skewed towards speed and away from power as to be a freak. In fact the 1987 Cardinal team was far more conventional, and they almost went as far.
Can you name another team which was a successful with such a paucity of power? Let me help you try.
Any analysis will sow that balanced teams do better generally, though they might not be as exceptionally good in all catagories as they are those they are noted for, they do not drag far behind the rest of the league. In my limited study, that certainly does seem to bare out when measuring power via the good old fashioned stat – team home runs. I looked at league average team homers vs. eventual WS champion from 1980 onward. Only the 1980 Phillies, (117 vs. 118 year average, 1982 Cardinals (67 vs. 130 league average), 1988 LA Dodgers(99 vs league average 122), 1990 Reds (125 vs. 127 league average), 1996 New York Yankees (162 vs. 177 league average),1997 Florida Marlins (136 vs. 165), 2002 Angels (152 vs. 168 league average), 2003 Florida Marlins (157 vs. 173 league average). By my count, that means there were 21 teams which won the WS who hit the league average or better of homers, and 8 that hit something less than league average. Of those, only the 1982 Cardinals were last in the league, and only the 82 Cards, the 88 Dodgers and the 1997 Marlins could be called significantly off the pace of the rest of the league.
So does this mean a team can be successfully built with below average power? Of course it can be done. But….the odds are that if you have a team that cannot hit something close to the league average in homers, it is a pretty good indication that you are not going to be a serious contender.
In conclusion – in the last 30 years, 21 teams have who won the WS hit the league average number of homer or better, 8 hit something lower than the league average, and of those, only 3 hit significantly lower than the league average (remember, no WS champ in 1994, so only 29 data points in the last 30 years). And only one, the 1982 Cards, were lowest in the league in HRs. The 1982 Cards are the weird exception.
I am for the Figgens signing. But if it isn’t backed up with something done to make the middle of the line-up more meatier, we are likely just going to watch some interesting new records for runners left on base.
p.s. The teams which played for the WS this year were Number 1 in the majors for homers (Yanks with 244) and tied for number 2 in homers in the majors (Phillies and Rangers tied at 224 each.)
Yeah, power doesn’t really matter….
[go away]
Oops. Looks like I might be suffering from a Kumbaya deficiency.
Isn’t that true of anything, though? You could say that if you’re not close to the league average in pitcher strikeouts, or defense, or hits, or your metric of choice, that the odds are that you are not going to be a serious contender.
Because generally speaking, the odds are that you’re not a serious contender. And if you’re already in the hole somewhere, the odds are even lower.
The question isn’t one of the M’s not wanting to add power, or even players with questionable defensive skills who are primarily mashers. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have bothered with Russ Branyan or Griffey.
The question is if they’re willing to pay a market premium for ONE skill (power) among many players can have to be good baseball players, and all signs point to “No”.
Yes, DMZ and eponymous, I guess that is exactly my point, that is, the team needs to be balanced, and ignoring the need for pure raw HR power does not look like a good path to go down. Balance means you have to have a bit of that, and my point is that the 1980′s decade teams from St. Louis are probably not the best template to follow. That is all.
See other post on open discussion on that. There’s no evidence so far that any team needs to be balanced, or that there’s increasing returns from balance.
Well, the point we’re trying to make (to steal the line from Dave) is that the only thing you NEED is good players.
What makes them good, whether it’s power, speed, on-base ability, defense, doesn’t matter. To win consistently, you just need good players.
When you start making moves because you feel like you NEED one specific skillset, that’s when you start bringing in flawed players like Richie Sexson or Carl Everett.
Everett was a flawed player brought in because of a fixation on a specific skillset, but I’d argue that Sexson was more a flawed contract. He was a perfectly good player to start out, but his talent was coupled to the same skillset, such that the fixation made his compensation out of line with a reasonable understanding of his career life cycle.
I won’t disagree that you need good players, but certainly it is not all you need. Baseball is a team sport, with players evaluated as individuals. Why was Joe Morgan so good? Because he had Johnny Bench and Tony Perez and George Foster hitting behind him. Getting Morgan out was something you really wanted to do because you didn’t want to face those other guys with him on base. So people pitched to him, and he hit. Someone to avoid in the middle of the lineup makes everyone else better. Bunch of slap hitters might be useful for setting the table, but a whole line up of them? Give a decent pitcher a 2 run lead in the late innings – he will pitch around those slap hitters without much fear.
Heeeeere we go again…
he will pitch around those slap hitters without much fear.
You do realise walks are not a bad thing for the hitting team, right?
Apparently there’s a new rule in MLB that 3 runs scored by HR in an inning are scored as more than 3 runs scored by singles, doubles, stolen bases and walks in an inning…
I think the idea that because Zduriencik prefers Chone Figgins over Jason Bay as a potential FA signing that somehow the Mariners don’t value power at all is just kind of silly. Again, hello, Russ Branyan (plus all the players he was involved with on the Brewers).
Heck, why don’t we hope that Jack builds a team that excels at beating out dropped third strikes, errors by infielders, and squeeze plays? After all, 3 runs scored via dropped third strikes, errors and squeeze plays count just as much as 3 runs scored via singles, doubles, stolen bases and walks. Or homers, for that matter.
There are many paths to a World Series Championship, but most of those who have arrived there have a couple or three big bruisers sitting at number 3, 4, and/or 5 in the batting order. That is just the facts.
Yeah, because those things you mention are repeatable skills in the exact same way and have the exact same potential to score runs as getting lots of base runners and advancing them with hits or walks.
Stop being ridiculous.
What is ridiculous is to ignore history of championship teams and create a new theory of what a successful team is likely to look like.
To ignore the need for power is to fundementally misunderstand baseball. You only have 3 outs. The beauty of the HR is that it compresses scoring into one swing of the bat by one player. All the good work of singles, stolen bases, etc. becomes moot if your teammates make 3 outs before you can score. And power batters in the middle of the lineup influence how others, including those place setters early in the lineup, are pitched to.
Once more – the Yankees were number 1 in HRs, and the Phillies were tied at number 2. But ignoring success in preference to pet theories seems to be the coin of the realm here.
To ignore the need for power is to fundementally misunderstand baseball.
There is no need for power. Power has value. Value is discreet. You can make up for a lack of power by concentrating value elsewhere. To ignore this fact is to fundamentally misunderstand logic and by extension all rational thought.
I don’t think you’re using that correctly.
Also… look, if you’re unhappy and think everyone here is dumb, that’s fine. But there are greener pastures for you to graze. There’s no need to hang around and be unhappy and snipe at us because you think we’re being dumb for holding different opinions.
It seems like he’d rather continue to hang around, be incredibly condescending for no valid reason, and continue to not understand the difference between correlation and causation.
I don’t mind the last one as much. And this goes beyond this particular thread… I just never understand why you would come by thinking (say) that clutch hitting was the most important thing in the world, the USSM community is full of morons, and then instead of tilting at windmills you stand there and tell them how dumb they are and how unhappy they must be to live in ignorance (see: that other thread particularly).
Neither here nor there though.
What is ridiculous is to ignore history of championship teams and create a new theory of what a successful team is likely to look like.
If we’re going to argue from history, history tells us we should be Yankee fans, as one team (3% of MLB) has something close to 20% of ALL championships (and, by the by, have done so largely by being big bruisers).
The Yankees play in an environment where they CAN overpay for power and offensive prowess, as well as for superior players, because $50 million in dead salary is nothing for them. If you are suggesting that the Mariners need to push the payroll over $100 million and try to sign Bay, Holliday, Lackey and Harden, that’s great, but you’re bound to be disappointed.
The point you seem to be missing is player value comes from many sources, not just power. Right now, the market values lead-footed sluggers who can crank 30 HRs and draw 100 walks over guys with some steals and baserunning, who also draw walks, hit for decent average, and play good defense- but in many cases, these players can have comparable value- and when you’re building a team and you do NOT have the luxury of just signing as many checks as you would like, things like positional flexibility and looking for players with undervalued skills becomes important.
I am not missing any point whatsoever about player value. Power is not the only source for the value of a player, certainly. I am in favor of the Figgens signing – it is a good move for a team with terrible OBP. My comments have been about this particular thread – entitled “The Template” and the assumption that some version of the 1980′s Cardinals would be a great path to go down. All of my comments are within the context of that being a very bad idea, and why I think that. In summary, ignoring power in favor of OBP would just leave us with different kind of problem.
Wow, this must be one kool-aid drinking bunch.
“Oh no!!! He is a heretic!!! Make him go away!! It hurts my ears to listen to a different opinion.”
Sorry, if eponyous, DMZ and Jeff Nye are not really representative of the community – I don’t know who is who here yet, but you three seem to have rather fragile egos when it comes to having your pet theories challenged. That is not a personal attack, just simply an observation of how personal your attacks on me became when I didn’t kowtow.
You state that power in itself has no intrinsic value. You are right – power must take place during a game, and not during batting practice in order to have intrinsic value. Sorry I didn’t clarify that.
And history does not tell us to all be Yankee fans, but to not learn from the Yankees about what a winning team needs to look like is foolhardy. Sure, the M’s cannot spend like the Yankees, so they have to be smarter with their money and be good enough to get to the post season. In a short series, anything can happen. This year the Nats led their series with Yankees 2-1, but were 3-15 with the Phillies.
I quite literally don’t know how to respond to that comment. I’ve tried three or four times and keep erasing them.
It’s not that you have a different opinion, wschroer. It’s that your opinion is idiotic, you are misinformed, and to top if off you’re being a smug little bastard about your complete lack of ability to understand baseball at any level beyond cliche.
That is not a personal attack, just simply an observation of how personal your attacks on me became when I didn’t kowtow.
No, what I posted isn’t a personal attack. What Graham posted was a personal attack.
My comments have been about this particular thread – entitled “The Template†and the assumption that some version of the 1980’s Cardinals would be a great path to go down.
Yes, it would be terrible if the Mariners of the 2010′s won 4 division titles, two pennants and a World Series during a decade, similar to the 1980′s Cardinals.
My goodness, I have apparently touched a nerve here and the only reason I can surmise is because I simply do not agree with your premises nor your conclusions. My opinions are well thought out and supported by facts, and they might be wrong, but I guess your argument is that they are wrong because they are “idiotic”, not because the facts don’t support them.
I am one smug little bastard who thought this was a discussion board, not the baseball thought police.
And if there is a cliche that is appropriate for the shape of this thread, it would be “even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes” since most opinions stated here seem to be mostly supported with that one, rare occasional fact.
Alright, I’ve had enough. Comments closed.