Nick Johnson To Sign With Yankees
Multiple reports have the Yankees on the verge of signing Nick Johnson to a one year contract for $5 to $6 million. This is, essentially, Rich Harden 2.0 – a player the M’s could have used signing a good value contract with another AL club. On the surface, it’s disappointing.
But, you know what, the M’s have earned the benefit of the doubt. If they didn’t bid up Nick Johnson, they are probably pretty confident in the alternatives. I think we all are enjoying the guy we got instead of Harden, after all.
So, yeah, I would have liked to have Nick Johnson, but this doesn’t change my expectation that the team will find a quality first baseman this winter.
Announcing The Next USSM Event
Update: And we’re sold out. I’m sorry to anyone who was not able to get tickets – we’ll look for a bigger venue for future events. Also, there are always people who buy tickets and can’t make it, so we’ll do a thread the week before the event to match up people who can’t go with those who want to.
We’ve done enough of these now where I think you guys have a pretty good idea of what they are. So, here are the details.
When: Saturday, January 9th, 1-5 pm
Where: Seattle Central Library, Microsoft Auditorium
What: Q&A with local bloggers and members of the Mariners front office.
How much: $10
We have 275 seats available in the auditorium, but I’m sure this is going to sell out, so you probably want to buy your tickets sooner than later. And, this time around, I’ve decided to make life easier on everyone and get out of the registration process, so I’m outsourcing the ticketing/payment to Brown Paper Tickets. You can purchase your tickets to the event from BPT, and they will mail you a ticket that gets you access to the Q&A.
This event was a smashing success last year, and I think this one will be even better. I’m flying out for it, for one, but more importantly, it’s on Jack Zduriencik’s calendar as well. We are not promising that any specific member of the front office will be there, as something could always come up that would require their attention, but we’re hopeful that Jack will be able to join his crew for the meeting. We’ll plan a 15 minute standing ovation into the schedule.
Logistical stuff: The library will provide a $5 parking rate for anyone who wants to park in their garage that day. Also, because the library will be open during the event, if you plan to arrive early, just enjoy the library itself and do not gather outside the auditorium waiting to get in – they don’t have room to accommodate a big line of people waiting for the doors to open.
Water will be provided, but no food. Eat before you come.
Questions can be left in the comments below.
Your current depth chart for the 2010 M’s they have Cliff Lee now
Pitching
SP-R Felix Hernandez
SP-L Cliff Lee. That’s not a typo. They really traded for Cliff Lee.
SP-L Ryan Rowland-Smith
SP-R Brandon Morrow
(one of:
SP-R Ian Snell
SP-R Carlos Silva
SP-R Doug Fister
SP-R Yusmeiro Petit)
RP-R David Aardsma
RP-R Mark Lowe
RP-R Shawn Kelley
RP-R Sean White
RP-L Jason Vargas
RP-L Garrett Olson
RP-L Luke French (?)
RP-R Kanekoa Texeira
It looks like Carlos Silva’s moving into the vacated Miguel Batista vastly overpaid mop-up guy. Unfortunately, the team’s still looking for a guy to call “Doc” and “Prof” now that their distinguished author is gone.
There’s also been a little talk about going with an 11-man pitching staff. I’m with Dave on this: I’ll believe it when they start the season with one.
Position players
C-R Rob Johnson
C-R Adam Moore
1B-L Mike Carp
2B-R Jose Lopez
SS-R Jack Wilson
3B-B Chone Figgins
LF-L Michael Saunders
CF-R Franklin Gutierrez
RF-L Ichiro!
DH-L Ken Griffey Jr.
UT-R Bill Hall (IF/OF-R? OF-R?)
IF-L Jack Hannahan
.. and then they’re still looking for someone else.
Now I’d like to think that right now they’re calling the agents of the ninety 1B/DH guys left on the market and trying to get someone to jump early (Nick Johnson, if you could just wander by Seattle and hang out for a week, we’ll pay for the airfare and promise you’ll like the city). But the front office is probably looking at the roster right now and thinking “We should go snag another ace starter while everyone’s still shaken up, and there’ll be bats to play off against each other when we’re back.” Or something even more surprising.
M’s Sign Int’l SS Pedro Okuda
You may have heard recently that the Mariners have traded for some guy, former Cy Young winner or something. I don’t know, Dave seems to be pretty stoked though, and I take this as a good sign. Speaking from the perspective of the resident prospect guy, we dealt spare parts from our depth and lost little that’s likely to haunt us, and from that standpoint alone the deal is awesome. I really am excited too, but I leave the analysis to the professionals.
Another smaller deal that went down today was that the Mariners signed nineteen-year-old shortstop Pedro Okuda to a minor league contract. He’ll report to the Mariners’ Venezuelan academy come spring.
Pedro Okuda… it’s quite a name isn’t it? There’s a story behind that though. There were waves of Japanese immigration to South America in the early part of the century, and one of the things they brought with them was baseball. For the longest time, it was a niche game, as the locals were more interested in futbol, but it gradually gained in popularity to the point where the nation’s youth got a hold of it. In Brazil, the academies that pop up will require that players learn both Japanese and Portuguese in order to adequately communicate on the field. I imagine it’s the same with Spanish elsewhere. It’s still a market that’s opening up, but as you get out of Venezuela, Ecuador, and Colombia, and into places like Argentina and Brazil, the players that get signed usually have some Japanese ties.
The book on Okuda is this: Read more
What This Trade Does
The weird thing about the internet age is that by the time big moves are announced, they’ve been analyzed to death and there’s not much more to say. We got one of the best pitchers in baseball without giving up any real significant pieces of the franchises future. This is amazing, but you know this already.
So, at the risk of moving on from celebration prematurely, I’d like to spend a few minutes and talk about what this trade does to the team and the rest of the off-season.
Lee’s addition is a huge lift to the team’s true talent level, as the M’s have essentially swapped out (for now) one of Doug Fister/Jason Vargas/Carlos Silva for an all-star. They added about 4 to 5 wins to their expected total for 2010, depending on how much you like the collection of 5th starters the M’s currently have. This move, combined with the Figgins signing, gives the Mariners a true talent level of about 84 wins. And that’s with Saunders in left, Carp at first, and Griffey DH’ing.
The Mariners are now contenders. This vaults them into a similar arena of ability with the Angels and ahead of the Rangers and A’s. This team now has a legitimate chance to win the division in 2010, and because they’ve gotten bargains on Figgins and Lee, they still have the resources to go add a couple more pieces to fill out the roster and really give themselves a chance to play in October next year.
So now, the calculations change a bit. 2010 just got more important relative to the future than it was last week. The M’s have now put themselves into a position where the value obtained from upgrading the roster has a far more dramatic effect on the team’s chances of making the playoffs. In terms of the risk/reward balance of transactions, the reward for any move that improves the 2010 team just went up.
I talked about this a bit on FanGraphs last week, but the Mariners have just put themselves in a situation where the marginal value of each additional added win just went way up. The wins that push the team from 84 to 85 wins, 85 to 86, 86 to 87, and so forth have a much higher rate of return. The price the M’s should be willing to pay, both in acquisition costs and in the long-term/short-term trade-off, needs to reflect that. And I think you will see the team be aggressive in landing two more quality position players and perhaps a reliever, reflecting the reality that adding 4 to 5 more wins to this roster would make the M’s the best team in the AL West.
Before this trade, picking up a solid left fielder might not have been such a great idea, as the short term addition of a win or so over what Saunders could be expected to produce wouldn’t be worth the long term cost of not letting the youngster develop. Now, that win is important, and you can justify getting a guy like Luke Scott to take Saunders job. You can justify trading Brandon Morrow while his value is still lower than it could be if you get a significant upgrade at another position. You can justify putting together a huge package to try to convince the Padres to move Adrian Gonzalez (though that is still very unlikely).
This move changes everything. The M’s are contenders.
Trade Official
The Mariners got Cliff Lee for Phillippe Aumont, Tyson Gillies, and J.C. Ramirez.
I still can’t believe it. Amazing. Just ridiculous. There’s still more work to be done, but right now, the M’s and Angels are about equals in terms of talent. Given a couple more good moves, the team could easily be considered the favorites to win the AL West next year.
Hot rumor is somebody flunked their physical
Yup. Good times. I blame myself for posting about my glee.
Matsui to Angels
One year, $6m. It’s a nice enough pickup — Hideki will almost certainly hit well enough, and if he’s fine with DHing all the time, so be it. But it’s no Cliff Lee pickup WA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA CLIFF LEE HOLY CRAP WE TRADED FOR CLIFF LEE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Dave on Brock and Salk
This is probably the most fun I’ve ever had doing a radio gig. We cover a bunch of stuff, too.
The Deal As We Know It
The trade has had moving parts all day long, but as we understand it currently, it looks something like this from the M’s perspective:
Phillippe Aumont, Tyson Gillies, and a third player rumored to be J.C. Ramirez for Cliff Lee.
There’s a bunch of other stuff going back and forth from the Blue Jays and Phillies, but this is the relevant portion of the trade to M’s fans. And, to that, I just have to say that this is so amazingly awesome, I’m still trying to figure out how on earth this is actually happening.
Aumont is a good relief prospect. He could be in the majors this year, and he’s got all-star closer upside. Gillies is a potential high OBP center fielder with speed. Ramirez has the best arm in the system. They’re all prospects. And the whole lot of them aren’t worth three months of Cliff Lee, much less an entire season. Breaking it down numerically, since that’s what we do here.
Lee projects as roughly a +5 win pitcher for 2010. Given the expected cost of wins on the market, that makes him worth about $20 to $25 million for the upcoming season. However, the dollar per win values for high end players are usually based on multi-year contracts, as players of this caliber trade a little bit of cash for long term security. Since the Mariners are assuming no long term risk, his value is probably more like $25 to $30 million.
If the M’s can’t sign Lee to an extension, it’s almost a mortal lock that he’ll be a Type A free agent, which means that the team will get two draft picks if he leaves via free agency. The combined value of the two compensation picks is another $5 to $10 million, depending on what specific picks the M’s would receive.
So, the asset that is Lee for 2010 plus potential draft picks is worth somewhere between $30 and $40 million. His 2010 salary? $8 million. He’s a $22 to $32 million net asset. That’s enormous – he’s one of the most valuable properties in baseball.
The three prospects the M’s gave up? None of them are top notch, elite guys. They all have potential, but their risk-reward profiles do not put them in the top tier of minor leaguers. Based on the work of Victor Wang, we can quantify the present value of Aumont and Ramirez at about $5 million each and Gillies at about $3 million. That’s $13 million in total, or about half of what Lee is worth.
This is, quite frankly, a heist. The Mariners are getting a Cy Young caliber pitcher for some decent-but-not-great prospects. They aren’t giving up Morrow. They aren’t giving up Saunders. They aren’t even giving up Triunfel. And yet, they walk away with one of the five or six best pitchers in baseball.
Forget that we probably only have Lee for a year. We’re paying for about two months worth of his services and getting four months for free.
Seriously, dance in the streets. Build a bust of Zduriencik and place it on your mantle. Name your first born son Jack and your daughter Jackie. When this becomes official, hug someone. This trade is that good.