The Figgins Rumor Passes
The newest rumor makes a lot more sense, and this one I’d believe. If the M’s are going to spend big on a hitter this winter, Chone Figgins makes the most sense of any free agent.
Remember how we talked about the team needing options, not solutions, at multiple positions? That’s Figgins. He’s a good glove at third, a solid glove at second, and decent in the outfield. Which infield spot he played could be determined after they figure out what the trade market for Jose Lopez looks like, and even after they see Tui take groundballs at both 2B and 3B in spring training. Or, if they keep Lopez and Tui has a monster spring, easily outplaying Saunders, he could shift to left field for a while.
He would give the team a tremendous amount of flexibility in developing their young players without having to count on any one of them. That type of multi-position availability is a real positive given the construction of the roster. Where a player like Bay would get in the way of the development of the youngsters, Figgins would give the team the ability to let the kids compete against each other.
Figgins isn’t going to repeat his 2009 season again, but he’s probably a +3 win player for 2010, about as valuable as either Beltre or Bay in production. The added value of his positional flexibility and his ability to switch-hit makes him the best fit for this roster, assuming the price isn’t exorbitant. At something like 4/40, Figgins makes a lot of sense for this team.
Don’t buy into the Jason Bay rumors. Do buy into the Chone Figgins rumors. This one passes all the logic tests.
Making Rumors Pass The Smell Test
Geoff Baker has a new post up today, which reinforces what we’ve already heard – the M’s are going after a pitcher, and specifically Rich Harden – but also resuscitates some speculation that had died down involving the M’s going after Jason Bay.
Geoff’s a good reporter, and I’m sure he trusts the source who gave him the information. However, I’d like to suggest that for every rumor, there should be a minimum logic test that gets applied before we give it any credibility. This rumor fails that test.
First, there’s the financial logistics. Everything we’ve heard, including in this same report, has a starting pitcher at the top of the M’s shopping list, with various reports linking them to John Lackey and Rich Harden. Those guys aren’t going to sign cheap. Baker even states outright that “pitching is a priority for the M’s” and that nothing will happen at other positions until they get that role wrapped up. Lackey would command somewhere in the $15 to $20 million per year range, while Harden will require somewhere in the $8 to $12 million range. By our calculations, the team has approximately $25 million to spend this winter.
Jason Bay has already turned down a 4 year, $60 million deal from the Red Sox. Suffice it to say that he wants at least $15 million a year in annual salary. If the Mariners are serious about signing either Lackey or Harden, they do not have the room in the budget to also sign Jason Bay and still fill out the rest of the roster. They just don’t have the available cash to make two big ticket signings this winter.
So, even if we believed that the M’s liked what Bay offers, there’s a real problem. And I don’t believe that the M’s are particularly interested in what Bay brings to the table.
Let’s look at what we know about the front office. They place as much value on defense as any team in baseball. This isn’t to say that they won’t put a mediocre defender on the field (Branyan is no gold glover), but they will discount a player’s value heavily if he doesn’t offer value in the field. Bay is a bad defensive player, and at 31 years old, he’s not getting better.
They also have put a premium on acquiring hitters who are left handed, due to the nature of Safeco Field. Since taking over, they’ve brought in guys like Branyan, Griffey, Hannahan, Carp, and Langerhans, all left-handed. They gave away Wladimir Balentien, a right-handed outfielder with power. They’re known to be considering trading Jose Lopez, and they’re letting Adrian Beltre walk away. There is a clear pattern of preferring left-handed bats to right-handed bats.
They value building through the draft, which is how Zduriencik made a name for himself in Milwaukee. Bay, a Type A free agent who was offered arbitration, would cost them the #17 pick in the draft next summer.
They also value young, cost-controlled players. They made moves for Gutierrez and Aardsma because they offered unproven upside at a low cost, and wouldn’t be expensive even with a breakout performance. They have a young, cost-controlled left fielder in Michael Saunders, who they spoke glowingly of when they brought him to the majors last summer. Saunders, by the way, is left-handed and a good defender, making him the kind of player that we know management values.
The argument against Saunders is essentially that he struggled badly in the first 100 plate appearances of his career. However, we know that these guys get the power of sample size. They didn’t care about Russ Branyan’s platoon split, because they believed he had never really gotten a fair shot at proving what he could do. They didn’t care that Bill Hall wasn’t hitting in Milwaukee, because they believed there was some talent not shining through that they may have a chance to bring out. They didn’t care about Gutierrez’s offensive struggles in Cleveland, because he’d been a part-time player, and they felt he could make adjustments if he was in the line-up regularly.
We know that the organization values young, low cost, left-handed, good defenders with upside even if they don’t have a proven track record. That describes Saunders to a tee. But yet, we’re supposed to believe that the M’s are going to spend a huge chunk of their budget on an aging right-handed bad defender who would require a long term contract and end any chance Saunders had of a career in Seattle?
It doesn’t pass the logic test. It goes against everything the organization has spent the last year building.
I just don’t buy it. The M’s aren’t going to spend $15 million a year on a right-handed DH who would block their best prospect from playing regularly. This time of year, almost every source has an agenda, and there are certainly people in Jason Bay’s camp who would benefit from a widespread belief that the Mariners were bidding up Bay’s value. Bay can tell anyone he wants that he’s optimistic about signing here, but it’s a statement made in self-interest, and one that I dismiss as lacking credibility.
For a rumor to be considered legitimate, it has to pass some minimum standards of logic. This one does not. Don’t believe it.
I Have A Complaint
For most of USSM’s existence, we served as the voice of why everything the Mariners were doing was wrong. Not that we wanted to, but the organization made so many bad decisions that we wrote millions of words explaining why they just screwed up. We pointed out why Horacio Ramirez wasn’t any good, that signing mediocre pitchers to big contracts was a recipe for disaster, that making the offense marginally better while destroying the defense wasn’t actually improving the team, that right-handed power hitters were a bad fit for the ballpark, and the list goes on. Every winter, the team gave us new transactions to rant about, and while it was miserable, it was also really easy to cover. M’s announce move – head to the blog to explain why they shouldn’t have done that.
Yesterday, reports broke that the Mariners were interested in Gregg Zaun, a switch-hitting catcher with some power who would fill the experience gap behind the plate and give the team an option beyond Adam Moore and Rob Johnson. Today, the rumors have the M’s strongly pursuing Rich Harden to slide into the rotation spot behind Felix and give the pitching staff a bit more upside. What am I supposed to write about when they’re doing exactly what we suggest, targeting players we’ve already advocated for because they make a lot of sense?
I mean, yeah, the team is getting better, but I’m running out of material. I don’t know how many different ways to write “woohoo! good move!” I feel like I should just write a script that fills in the blanks when transactions are announced.
Today, the Mariners (signed/traded for/stole) Player X, giving up Worthless Thing Y in exchange. Once again, the team has exploited an inefficiency in the market, adding an asset at a fraction of what he should have cost. This (trade/signing) continues to show how well run the organization is, and how they’re making every dollar count. They are building a team that will win and soon. This is a great organization to root for. Welcome to Seattle, Undervalued Player X.
Sure, it’s nice to win, but blogging about this team is no longer easy. Thanks for making my job harder, Jack. Could you screw up once in a while so that I don’t have to think so hard about things to write about?
M’s Offer Beltre Arbitration
Good news. The M’s took the plunge on an arbitration offer to Adrian Beltre, which will net them something like the 45th pick in the draft next year if he signs elsewhere. The odds of him accepting are very low.
Around the league, the Dodgers declined to offer arbitration to anyone, underscoring just how severely the McCourt divorce is going to hamper their ability to function. Really, the odds of Randy Wolf accepting were none and none, but they punt the draft picks anyway.
All three of the interesting type A second baseman were not offered – Orlando Hudson, Placido Polanco, and Felipe Lopez. If the M’s deal Jose Lopez, expect them to be in on one of those three. Marco Scutaro was offered, which almost certainly takes him off the M’s list. They won’t be giving up the 17th pick in the draft to sign him.