Not Sure If You’ve Heard
Dave · January 20, 2010 at 12:00 am · Filed Under Mariners
But Felix signed a five year deal. He’s going to be in Seattle for five more years. He’s sticking around. He’s not going to Boston. Or New York. Or anywhere else.
I thought that was worth mentioning again.
Oh, and we’re paying him $6.5 million this year, presumably quite a bit less than he would’ve earned in arbitration. In case you hadn’t heard.
The degree of backloading in his deal would thus appear to leave more room than previously anticipated in the 2010 budget. Which is exciting.
Isn’t it 3:00am where you are?
You must be pretty excited
The only way he’s going to those cities is to pitch a shutout vs. them in the World Series! WHEEEEE!
Such a promising young writer struck down in his prime with Jeff Sullivan’s disease.
What is perhaps most insane about this is that at the END of this contract he could very likely still be improving. (Knocking on wood, obviously.)
Tee hee hee…
The ESPN teams can go suck it.
Also, as a side benefit, the Mariners now have an addition ~3M to play with this off-season.
This is, wonderfull.
I’m left wondering about the next move. I don’t believe for a second that Z is done.
I just love Baker looks like an idiot yet again, after his “trade Felix” campaign earlier in the year….. Guess Felix didn’t mind being here after all. I don’t think it occurred to Geoff that the playoff caliber team he can play for is US!!! LOL!!!
To be fair to Baker, both Dave and Mathew at LL considered the “trade Felix” scenario as a reasonable course of action if they couldn’t work out a deal. Of course, once they picked up Lee and made the other moves that signaled there was clearly a plan to win sooner rather than later, they pretty much had to sign Felix for any of this to make any sense.
Heyman is tweeting this salary brkdwn:
$3.5M signing bonus
$6.5M in ‘10
$10M in ‘11
$18.5. in ‘12
$19.5M in ‘13
$20M in ‘14
That would seem to give Jack Z some extra flexibility over the next 2 years.
Let’s see….King Felix for five years at $78 million OR Jarrod Washburn and Carlos Silva for nine years at $84 million. Decisions, decisions. What a difference a few years makes.
OK, now we can start this discussion. Generally, unless you’re Randy Johnson and still throwing gas at 46 you must win your first 200 games to have any shot at 300. Since King Felix started racking up wins at 19, a homegrown M’s pitcher reaching 300 wins is possible, yes?
The only way he’s going to those cities is to pitch a shutout vs. them in the World Series! WHEEEEE!
Um, traditionally American League teams play teams from the National League in the World Series. But good thought though. I’d love him to see him pitch a shutout or two in the ALCS.
Mention it as many times as you like. Go nuts!
I absolutely agree. You must win 200 if you are to have any chance of winning 300.
I can’t wait to watch him pitch in person again…it’s just going to be electric anytime you’re headed to the park and you know he’s on the mound that night. Almost like 1995 Randy…maybe even better in some unforeseen way.
So…now we have $3mil more to spend in addition to whatever money we had before that. Who are players that might fit into that budget? I know we could use another RH bat or a back of the rotation SP… I can’t imagine Z would want to sink money into a high injury risk SP like Sheets…but is he in our price range now and could u get him on a 1-year or 2-year deal?
Happy Felix Quinquennium!!!!
I absolutely agree. You must win 200 if you are to have any chance of winning 300.
The five-minute editing function obviously didn’t take. You must win your first 200 by age 30.
Those year-by-year contract details blow my mind. Are they trying to set it up so that they can spend a bunch of money over the next 3 years? Or are they thinking that they are going to be able to spend much, much more 4 years down the line? And isn’t the time that the Felix contract explodes the same time at which Ichiro’s contract ends?
The breakdown is very curious, and I’m wondering if someone has a really good explaination for it.
Folks, look at the numbers: we’re paying Felix el Rey $10 million this season. The fact that we give him the first $3.5 million up front, and thus only $6.5 million as salary, doesn’t change that.
I don’t know if this is a really good explanation, but two things to keep in mind:
Felix is worth more as a free agent than he is worth in arbitration.
A dollar in the future is worth less than a dollar today.
Not necessarily. They could have just gone year-to-year for two years with Felix, expecting to contend those two years, and then see where they sat. Not the best plan, but not doomed to failure, either.
Also, and please take this in the most cerebral way possible, because after 36 hours, it’s just now sinking in,
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
WE GOT FELIX!
Nana-nana-booboo!!
Dave, you can mention King’s Felix’s signing everyday, it sounds so awesome. Always had a feeling i would see him in another american league uniform.It seems player’s know whats going on here and want to be part of it…credit the Z man.
On the topic of Felix getting 300 wins. I think it is possible but your projection that he would need to be at 200 by the age of 30 is a but far fetched. He is 23 now so would need to average a fraction over 20 wins a season for the next 7 seasons to get to that number. 200 wins at age 30. He is currently at 58. He still hasn’t had a 20 win season in his career. I think he could get to 300 if he stays healthy for the majority of his career but I doubt he will be at 200 by the age of 30.
Jack Z has really turned the ship around and it is a great time to be an M’s fan
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I wonder what the King’s signing will do with Cliff Lee in the future. I wish there was a way to keep them both but that might not be feasible.. Any thoughts?
True, but not THAT much less.
Unless you know something we don’t…
(Note to self: Start buying Euros. Jack Z. seems to have little faith in the dollar.)
Baker’s been on my shit-list since his non-HOF vote for Edgar. And the bass-ackwards rationale that he used to defend it only cemented his standing on such.
Choosing to concentrate on the “yippee”, though- our management has just about gotten through a VERY challenging Offseason #2- with flying colors.
Felix. Hee hee. Cliff Lee. Double hee hee.
I am honestly not sure if we’re better than the Angels yet, but I’ve got to believe that we’ve closed the gap. And I’ve no doubt the Mariners will be the chic, sexy pick in pre-season analysis.
I’m at least grateful that our management is far more effective at their job than a certain Toronto-native baseball beat writer is at his.
Actually, Baker’s a native of Montreal.
No, now you’re confusing him with this guy.
Matthew at Lookout Landing did a quick and dirty look at win values in the AL West and determined that yes, we have closed the gap, and are equivalently prepared for next season. Unfortunately, Texas has done exactly the same thing. In his quick analysis, Anaheim, Seattle, and Texas appear to be within a couple of wins of each other in terms to true talent level. So next year should be interesting.
Actually it does, or at least it might, for accounting purposes. That’s what Jeff at LL seems to think. If the “signing bonus” is actually accounted for over the life of the contract, rather than in the year it is awarded, then they push some of the cost out a couple of years and make the contract cheaper right now, giving them more salary room this year and next.
Otherwise, why else structure it that way? Why not just say he gets $10M this year? I mean, I guess it’s nice to drop a lump of cash on Felix up front rather than in his monthly paycheck, but it makes a lot more sense if the accounting works that way. It gives them some breathing room in 2010 and 2011.
And those two years are pretty interesting, because they’re the years they’re committed to pay Bradley (aka getting Silva off the books). It’s hard to project out past two years, but clearly they’ll have a fair bit of financial flexibility in 2012 even with $35M+ committed to Ichiro! and Felix (they’ll also be done with the Lopez and Wilson contracts by then). And one of those two years — this year — they have Cliff Lee (remember? Cliff Lee! Woo!) If structuring the Felix contract this way means they still have some money left to spend this offseason then… double woo!
Soooo, any word on whether or not they are going to be able to sign Felix?
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Hee, hee, hee, heeeee!!! Pitchers and catchers in 29 days!! YEEHAAAA!
I can’t wait to read something like this soon: “Cliff Lee throws 74 pitch, 2 hit shutout, immediately signs 4 year extension.”
Now THAT may be fantasy baseball, but still….
Of course a lot of things can go wrong (or right) to distort what true talent level actually gives you, as we saw in ‘07 and ‘08. As much as I’d love another 2001 with the M’s racking up wins and running away with the division (and crushing the Angels), a three-way pennant race late in the summer would be pretty damn exciting too. Especially if all three teams put up winning records against the AL East (heh)… just like they did last year (though hardly anybody noticed).
Best division in baseball? Maybe. Most exciting division? Definitely
Felix and Lee, Lee and Felix Yahoo-there’s a party going on in my pants right now.
In regards to $$ left to spend, LL has Ichiro! listed at $18 mil. I found this on wikipidia, “The Associated Press reported that Ichiro’s contract extension defers $25 million of the $90 million at 5.5% interest until after his retirement, with payments through 2032.” I think Jack might have more $$ to play with if Ichiro! counts as $13 mil vice $18 mil against the 2010 budget.
It’s nice to see I’m not the only, ahem, adult who is feeling and acting like a little kid on X-mas morning today.
I’ve heard rumors that Chuck Norris is deferring all future accolades to Jack Z.
It does make a difference, though, in explaining why a team would be willing to backload a contract. Even if inflation and interest rates are low, with multi millions of dollars a percent here or there and pretty soon you are talking about real money.
I remember a year ago we were amazed on what was happening with very little wiggle room in the budget. And we were wondering what would happen when the dead weight in the budget was cleared out, would Jack be as good at getting costly talent as he was at finding useful freely available talent?
That question has been answered this winter.
And the season starts extra early for M’s fans: we get the very first game of the season, against the Giants in SF at noon on April 4 (ahead of even the tediously inevitable Yanks-Sox “opening night”). How cool is that? It’s almost like the scheduling folks at MLB know something special is afoot.
And on a related note… what’s the deal with FanFest? I’ve never gone, but this year I find Zdruiencik-engendered enthusiasm overcoming any reluctance to spend a January day at Safeco. So, what’s the skinny? Is it worth doing?
Well, if we’re going to do fantasies:
NEW YORK (AP) June 30, 2010 -- Cliff Lee pitched a perfect game today, following the perfect game by Felix Hernandez yesterday, the first time back-to-back perfect games have been thrown in major league history. Remarkably, yesterday's game was already the second perfect game thrown by Hernandez this season (another major-league record). The back-to-back perfection against the reigning World Champion Yankees dropped the combined ERAs of Seattle's top two starters to a astoundingly low 0.72, and the team's overall ERA to 1.96.
Prior to the start of the season there was some concern that the Mariners' weak offense would make it difficult for the team to win games, but phenomenal pitching performances have rendered that worry largely moot. Ian Snell, acquired last year at the trade deadline from the Pirates, and Australian journeyman Ryan Roland-Smith have emerged from the anonymity of "Felix and Lee and the other three" to take their place in arguably the strongest rotation in the American League. What little run support the Mariners need has been supplied by strong offensive performances by new acquisitions Chone Figgins and Milton Bradley and a breakout offensive season by centerfielder Franklin Gutierrez. Right fielder Ichiro Suzuki, well on his way to yet another 200 hit season, has become almost an afterthought on a team brimming with young stars.
The outstanding pitching by Lee today -- he struck out the first seven batters he faced -- following yesterday's tour-de-force by Hernandez left fans at Yankee stadium uncharacteristically quiet. However, sensing history in the late innings they switched from booing some of their own players to cheering Lee. When he recorded the final out he left the mound to a standing ovation, just as Hernandez had done the day before.
Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu joked after the game, "I've asked them to stop doing this because it leaves seven guys in the bullpen with nothing to do."
Yeah, there’s no way Felix is at 200 wins at age 30. My own projections have him at 233 by then.
Baker: come sit at Joser’s knee and learn, son. THAT is how you write a baseball game report !
Actually, that’s the very last Spring Training game before the regular season opener that night.
By the way, Bill James’ favorite toy projects Felix with 183 career wins and a 2% chance of 300. It’s really hard to make those projections at age 23.
Just for laughs, Ichiro has a 32% chance of reaching 3000 hits and a projected total of 2826.
You know, I wondered that (being an interleague game and all) but it was on the ‘regular season’ page so I just took it at face value. It does make more sense as a last exhibition game, and kind of a cool one at that.
joser, it should be the first regular season game anyway. A special one-game series. Lincecum v. Felix! MLB is missing the boat!
If you go to the M’s schedule instead of the MLB schedule, it’s in the pre-season color, which is the only way that I knew… I understood why you thought otherwise.
With all the rosterbatory love heating up our hard drives, I wondered if the Mariners had shown any interest in the much-publicized Ben Sheets throwing session yesterday.
Apparently, the answer is yes.
Resume flogging.
great link Briggstar! If 10mil is going to be what it takes to get him here, i’m not sure they M’s are going to pay that…but a guy can dream and hope…that would be a SICK rotation if he stayed healthy and resumed his workhorse status!
best news of 2010 thus far.
Very nice link indeed. I’ve been looking at the possibility of a Sheets signing since at least December and it is a nice dream thinking about Felix, Cliff Freakin’ Lee and Mr. Sheets as our 1, 2, 3. But that’s increasingly becoming less likely and less delicious for me. First of all he doesn’t seem like the Zduriencik kind of player, and second really looking at it 8 to 10+ mill is a lot of money that I think could be spent towards many other, higher value, possible acquisitions considering Jack Z’s uncanny ability to surprise us with cheap and out-of-nowhere players.
According to that Bill James tool, this was Randy Johnsons projection just after his age 29 season.
Based on his age, your player can be expected to play for 6.5 more years, at an average of 14.2 per year. At that rate, he will finish at 136 for his career. He has a 0 percent chance to reach 300.
Yay Felix! But as for that #3 slot…
This just in: The Angels got Pineiro.
I’ve got bad news and I’ve got bad news:
The bad news: A division rival just snagged a quality pitcher.
The bad news: If we want Sheets, we’ll have to outbid a lot of potentially desperate teams (read: Mets).
If we could convince Sheets to bolster his value with a very pitcher-friendly team and ballpark for one year at a reasonable price, then maybe it would be crazy enough to work. But if teams are going to throw money at him just to see if it sticks this year even without health assurances, then there’s really no reason for him to want to do that.
So, we might just have to make do with Felix, Lee, and the other three. Oh wah.
Someone smack me with some knowledge regarding the risk of waiting a few more weeks and bottom feeding on what’s left of the pitching market? If the Value of Pineiro (puke!), Sheets, Smoltz, Pedro, Wang, etc.. are all relatively similar….Is it logical to expect at least two of these top 5 or 6 may get a little desperate as we get into mid February? Is Ben Sheets at 10 or whatever his number ends up being of better value to the 2010 M’s that say pedro and wang at close to the same number? Am i way off base on what these players will be expecting in terms of 2010 salaries?
I’ve got good news and more good news: The Angels signed Pineiro. The Mariners didn’t sign Pineiro.
He is terrible. Batting practice. I’m so glad we didn’t sign him.
Joel Piniero might find the AL West as unhospitable as it was when he left it. Perhaps he should have stayed in the NL with the pitcher hitting?
Hmmm, Piniero, did he not already have his career derailed by the AL? Welcome back to hell for Mediocre pitchers Joel. I am sure you remember the nightmares. I give him 6 starts max before he hits the wall.
Just fishing, but does it appear that noone wants to sign with the Mets?
Haha! That’s fantastic news! I’m guessing he won’t be welcomed back to his old American League home very well.
I couldn’t agree more. 6 starts seems fair, probably less but hey. Well see how he fares soon
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First of all, the main point was that Sheets will be harder to sign now.
And yes, of course I remember Pineiro’s decline as a Mariner. And he might suck again. But to be fair to the guy, his recent success can’t be entirely discredited as an NL fluke. He has had a veritable fastball renaissance ever since he put some sink into it. Compare his fastball over the last two years, both with the Cards:
2008 — FB%: 58.4; wFB: -20.1
2009 — FB%: 71.0; wFB: +23.1
To compare, the highest Runs Above Average Sheets has ever had on his fastball was 19.2. Felix? 19.0. Was this a one-season spike for Pineiro? Probably. But a total fluke? I doubt it.
Pineiro is a very different pitcher than he was when he left Seattle. Last year he was the groundballingest pitcher in all of baseball… and it wasn’t even close. Over his five seasons with the M’s he had a GB% around 45%; with the Cards last year it was over 60%. That’s a huge change in his pitching profile, and as Jeremariner notes it seems to be mostly due to a fastball he now throws far more often (and effectively). Judging Pineiro based on your memories of his time here is misleading.
However, that was with the Cards, in the NL, and it was just one year. Will he be able to do it again, this time in the AL and (perhaps most importantly) no longer under Dave Duncan’s miraculous tutelage? The Angels clearly think he can, and they (unfortunately) aren’t a stupid organization; they also have a decent infield defense to leverage. It’s a gamble, but it’s not a bad one.
I wouldn’t chortle overmuch about this move. I look forward to seeing the M’s play against Pineiro, but it’s not without some trepidation.
favorite Hernandez moment?
heres a good one:
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200806232991136
Did y’all see the freaking adorable picture of Felix in his fancy suit?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2010857214_mari22.html
Speaking of adorable pictures, remember this hair-and-hat combo, or more frequently non-combo?
What I most distinctly remember about that version of Felix Hernandez — aside from all the times I saw him in Tacoma looking bored at the non-challenge AAA batters were giving him — was him challenging Vlad Guerrero in that ST game… and blowing him away.