Second and almost certainly last USSM event question thread
DMZ · January 7, 2010 at 10:05 am · Filed Under Mariners
We’re going to compile questions tomorrow, so post ‘em (or email ‘em) if you’ve got em.
Comments
62 Responses to “Second and almost certainly last USSM event question thread”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Can you guys ask them what the organizational philosophy is as far as scouting and developing Homegrown talent here in the northwest?
How would you judge the results of the Heilman for Cedeno/Olson trade? Was the trade primarily for short term backup in case Yuni didn’t work out, or did you believe you were getting back long-term pieces for the team?
What is your take on including performance bonuses in a player’s contract? (The implication being that they would not normally play to the best of their ability without it)
This probably falls out of the scope of the event, but I’d love to hear a discussion relating to team salaries, specifically the disparities, and how smaller market teams can realistically compete against teams with 2-3 times the spending power.
Some of the conversations of late have made me examine this issue. There’s been a lot of talk on USSM about whether we should pick up a LF or SP. Yet, there are teams in the league who are never faced with decisions such as this.
In other words, as a fan, how can I watch this sport and not feel like the fix is in?
Who are the power prospects in our minor league system and how far away are they from possibly making it to the show? If we lack power in the minors, what is being done to stock up on any considerable threat down there? I understand we have needed to trade some guys to build the team we currently have, but I am just wondering if there is anything down there that will rock our socks?
Ever heard the name Ryan Strieby in the Tigers org? Hometown guy that is stacked and stuck behind Cabrera and plays 1st and LF…
What transaction do you think was the most significant that you made this offseason? Was it Gutierrez’s contract extension, the trade for Cliff Lee, the signing of Chone Figgins, or the trade for Milton Bradley?
Z has consistently stated that he needs to replenish quality in the minors. Please ask him to define whether the farm system is being re-stocked to develop and trade, or just to develop. Is the development designed to use these pieces to maximize trades, or to use on the Mariners, or both.
Last year the Mariner’s spent their #1 draft pick on a college relief pitcher in Josh Fields. This FO has shown how easy it is to come by above average to good relief pitching. Is Fields seen to be more valuable then the compensatory pick he was worth if an agreement was not reached?
Tony Blengino might be the best person to answer this one if he’s there:
How do you value relief pitching? That is: Do you use a “leverage index”-type method? Would you regard a good closer (like Aardsma last year) as worth one “win above replacement,” or two, or more than that? At what point in the accumulation of good hard-throwing RHRPs (Aardsma, League, Lowe, etc.) do you start worrying about diminishing returns?
I’d love to hear them address the “Mariners need more offense to contend” meme. I’m totally on board with the “run saved = run earned” calculus and improving OBP as the highest-leverage way to boost offense, but I think it would be interesting to get the perspective from the horse’s mouth.
Solo home run or rbi single???
I’m curious as to what Z believes is the biggest challenge in populating the minor leagues with the type of players he believes should be in the Mariners’ system.
Considering Safeco Field, should the Mariners favor average bat/great glove players over great bat/poor glove players? Especially in regard to how much a poor fielding player can hurt the team in a low scoring environment? (Ibanez, Guillen, Betancourt, etc.)
I’d like to know if they reasonably expect either Bradley or Kotchman to get 500 ABs in 2010.
One thing I would like to know is if they are planning any HOF efforts for Edgar? Seems like something around the time of the next winter meetings would catch all the voters just before the next ballot.
Also, are there any new innovative analysis or training tools that they are investigating or looking into? For example video and TV are going 3D is that something that they might be thinking about adding?
Would you please describe your attitude and process towards media and fan responses to your player transactions? Are you eager to read the evaluations of bloggers and reporters to your deals? Do you learn from them or do they mostly cover angles you have already considered? Does commentary from reporters or bloggers evaluating the winners and losers in a pending trade or free agent deal ever affect ongoing negotiations?
When looking for undervalued assets, how do you weigh the following factors: 1. Underutilized talent you think you can “coach up.” (Snell, maybe) 2. Market inefficiency. (defense) 3. Park/team fit. (lefties abound, tickling Bradley makes him nice etc.)
What other inefficiencies do you look to exploit? How does this change in free agency versus trades?
Do you foresee any increased display(scoreboard/Diamond Vision) or audio(broadcast booth) presence and discussion of more advanced metrics during games? Is it something you would like to have, but don’t have control over?
Is the entertainment business component of MLB an enjoyable aspect of your job(s) and a “stimulating” challenge or an impediment to putting together deals and a winning team?
1) What’s the realistic goal this year: more wins, win division, win AL, win World Series?
2) What’s the realistic goal for team OBP this year (compared to last year’s .314)?
What is your take on including performance bonuses in a player’s contract? (The implication being that they would not normally play to the best of their ability without it)
There’s no such thing as performance bonuses in MLB. Bonuses can be tied to the amount of time a player plays, but cannot be tied to metrics based on quality of play.
can you move this event next year to the Moore Theatre or a similarly sized venue so more people can attend?
Ernest Hemingway’s great work, in his opinion, was a 6 word story he once wrote.
Here’s my attempt:
Drayer says we acquire Kotchman. Woooo?
Comments?
I was thinking of the award bonuses like Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, MVP, All-Star, where there can be some relationship tied to performance. You can also throw in those bonuses related to physical assessments like Jose Lopez has.
Since I wont be there, my proxy question:
The Plan has been to make the Mariners competitive for now and for a long time. The team looks to be competitive now, but has changed so much these last couple of years and the long term strength is still in doubt. The extension of Gutierrez is a good start, but what other long term goals do you have to keep the Mariners competitive after 2010, especially with a Texas team on the rise and an Athletics team a couple of years off?
How is Endie Chavez doing on his rehab, and are we going to resign him?
Okay, so this may be too late, but having just watched the YouTube of Beltre that Divish has in the News Tribune blog, I’d like to know if the fact that Beltre has clearly been to the crossroads to be a crazy good as he is factored into how they bid for him?
Man.
Paul Covert, joser and firecap81 have asked the questions I most would love to see answered. Thanks.
Do you believe the current system for acquiring amateur players is fair? Do you think incorporating international players in the draft or draft pick trading would make it more fair or unfair?
- Will there be press conferences to introduce Lee and Bradley to Seattle?
- According to the Mariners guidelines, a player’s number can be retired on the first year of eligibility for the HOF. Any plans to formally retire #11?
- Where are you seeing surprises, good trends or undervalued commodities in international scouting, and has the World Baseball Classic helped highlight any players we might want to target?
Is there any way you can get rid of Geoff Baker?
I think this is better expressed as “When will you formally retire #11?” The chances another player will wear #11 are probably less than the chances another player will wear #24. And those are essentially zero.
I was reading Jeff’s post on “A Note To Boston, To Us, And To Everyone” yesterday, and was struck by the hard problem of measuring “intangibles”. Yet team makeup – as we saw last year – does make for happier players, and presumably happier players perform better. Certainly they’re all pros, but how does Z and his staff ponder team makeup when making personnel decisions?
With the average vision of an MLB hitter at about 20/12.5, how often do you test the eyes of players in the organization to detect changes in vision as soon as possible. And, as a related question, how important is vision when looking at amateur players? How much of a concern is it when an amateur player already wears contact lenses?
What skills are currently undervalued in MLB? What’s the next skill to be undervalued?
I also like these questions:
Also, there was a question in the other thread I’m interested in, about the implications regarding Washington state lacking a personal income tax and whether that helps us in negotiating salaries.
Thanks!
See you Saturday.
What did you see in Casey Kotchman that you acquired him over other free agent first basemen (or the briefly talked about Overbay trade)?
Has Dustin Ackley been working on his second base skills yet? If so how is the experiment going? How long before you either commit fully to his transition to second, put him back in the outfield or decide on a multi-position development path?
One of your player acquisition trends has been trading or signing players who have underperformed for a year or two. Are there cases where scouts or coaches have identified a fixable flaw or tendency and said hey we can fix this guy? Perhaps this is true of everyone you look at. When does this get elevated to the point where you think you are seeing something his existing team is overlooking a correctable issue that could lead to getting a player back on his true potential track? Can you talk about some past examples where this played out?
How do you quantify catcher defense? Beyond CS% and wild pitches/passed balls, what do you look for? Is there a way to quantify a catcher’s effect on a pitcher’s performance?
Dave, any other moderators –
one of the great things I liked about last year’s Q+A session was how the conversation evolved as the session progressed. I think we’re at risk of losing that by having a set list of questions prior to the event. Would you consider taking questions via twitter during the event? This would permit people to ask follow-up questions to subjects, without the hassle of passing a microphone in the crowd.
Ask this question:
“Everyone hates Skip Bayless. What do you hate most about Skip Bayless?”
Do the Lee acquisition and Figgins signing indicate that the M’s feel that Felix Hernandez will leave the team through free agency? The M’s might see their best opportunity for postseason success as the 2010-2011 seasons while they still have Felix, while Anaheim is weakening and while Texas isn’t quite ready to dominate the division.
So here’s my question:
What advanced tools do the M’s use to evaluate defense? Is it still mostly qualitative evaluation by scouts or is there some quantitative (i.e. sabermetric) methodology in there as well? With the Sportvision cameras coming to parks this year, are the M’s looking for ways to use the data to improve defensive evaluation (or have you even considered it?)
<blockquoteWith the average vision of an MLB hitter at about 20/12.5, how often do you test the eyes of players in the organization to detect changes in vision as soon as possible. And, as a related question, how important is vision when looking at amateur players? How much of a concern is it when an amateur player already wears contact lenses?
Conor,
Where did you get that info? I’m an optometry student currently doing clinicals, so it’s of interest to me.
How come interesting replays are almost never shown on the big screen even though some seats in the stadium are able to view replays from the live tv feed? What are you afraid of, a riot?
I believe that’s an MLB wide rule.
It’s well known that publicly available forecasting systems are terrible at forecasting Ichiro. But you guys have better forecasting systems in-house that you keep secret. Are they any good at forecasting Ichiro?
Does anybody participate in Fantasy Baseball leagues or would that just be overkill?
If you do do what projection methods/systems do you use? Do you “borrow” information from work?
I would ask them if there was any thought of brining back the 1995 M’s for a reunion. That’s the team that saved baseball in Seattle and with Griffey already here and the big unit, Edgar and Buhner retired, they could have it on a day the Yankees return so that all members, including A-Rod would be present. Just a thought.
I wont be able to make this so here would be my question:
I’ve always heard the Mariners front office say they want to “be competitive”, as opposed to organizations like the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox or even the Angles that say “we want to win”. Can you reconcile those two? I.E., does “be competitive” mean economic ala loosing is okay as long as we make a profit, or does it mean our goal is to win it all?
Were there any discussions with Randy Johnson this winter about him coming back to Seattle for one last year?
What is the deal with players-to-be-named-later?
–In what circumstances do GMs use this?
–Is it merely a trick to manipulate the 40 man roster?
–Is it already narrowed down to 2 or 3 players?
–Who has the final say–the giving or receiving team?
etc. etc.
PTBNL are not taken off of the 40 man roster. Usually one GM will give the other GM a list of 2 or 3 players to chose from (this list is already agreed upon). The other GM then will pick the one they want. Sometimes they release the name right away other times they may wait a week or two so that the receiving GM has time to analyze his needs. I think that’s how it goes.
Anyone disagree?
Yes. This is not at all how it works.
With only two years left on his contract, if the Mariners can’t reach an agreement with their All-Star manager, will they look to deal him for a “Lou Piniella” type package?
I have an extra ticket for tomorrow. Leave contact info if you are interested.
Thanks
i could use an extra. thanks! plz email thetacomaaroma@yahoo.com with your phone number.
I have a ticket that I can’t use, and it’s too late to refund. I’ll give it away, free, if anyone is nearby and has time to get it and get downtown. I live in Kenmore (north end of Lake Washington), so email westfried@yahoo.com soon if you are interested.
Is it possible to Webcast this in the future?
Even just the audio for it would be great…
We’ve answered that about 30000 times. No.
Please stop asking.
Twas awesome. I was almost expecting Jack to jump into the crowd like a mosh pit. We would have held him up. Somehow.
Gaaaaah! Were you guys all sworn to secrecy? I’m sure it was fantastic, especially if Jack showed up. So jealous. I hope both USSM and LL have threads tomorrow about it.
Jack was there. I got my picture with him and the rest of the crew!
I’m sure we’ll have some sort of recap tomorrow.