Mariners Trade Jose Lopez To Colorado
We had speculated about the Rockies being a landing spot for Lopez if he was non-tendered, but they decided they’d rather not take the chance that he signs elsewhere, so they sent the Mariners 24-year-old right-hander Chaz Roe to acquire him before the non-tender deadline.
Roe is basically what you’d expect in return for a guy the team was going to release in a few hours – a former first round pick, he’s got a curveball that flashes potential but is inconsistent at best and not a lot else. Without the curve working every time out, he doesn’t have a true out-pitch, and he lacks the great command needed to succeed without one. He’s probably more Triple-A depth than anything else, though he is on the 40 man roster.
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39 Responses to “Mariners Trade Jose Lopez To Colorado”
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Chaz Roe, great name…
Better than nothing I guess, which is what I expected. Lopez should do better in the thin air.
I wish Jose the best. I really like him (not as a baseball player), and you have to feel for him for all the loss he has gone through in the last 3 years.
I hope he succeeds in Colorado, and perhaps the thin air and slightly less gravity will allow his baby steps to become slightly bigger.
Farethewell, babysteps!
Couldn’t we at least have gotten some batting equipment back…or seeds? Wait, the M’s will gain some seeds in Loafie’s departure.
Although, I won’t be surprised if he hits 30 HR in Colorado and 75 GIDP (on the first pitch/2-0 counts)
Man, his counting stats are going to look fantastic in Colorado.
NBarnes
Except for BB’s…
The good news is, if you google Chaz Roe he doesn’t appear to have a police record…
And though he’s a pitcher, his batting average would have been 2nd highest on the M’s in 2010 (.296).
Plus he’s gotta be faster than Lopey, so he can pinch run for us.
There’s a lot of upside if you look for it.
On a serious note, I did find this little writeup on him mid-season last year (from the Denver Post, July 2010):
Minor-league spotlight
Chaz Roe, P, Colorado Springs Sky Sox
“Right-hander Roe was cruising along toward a rough landing in his first season in Triple-A with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox.
He was 1-7 and not living up to his draft selection by the Rockies between the first and second rounds of the 2005 June draft.
“It was frustrating, but I knew I had to keep my head up and work hard and it would turn around,” Roe said.
It turned around in a big way. Roe has won his last four starts to reach 5-7, the key being six walks and 18 strikeouts over 28 2/3 innings. He pitched a complete game in one of the victories and eight innings in another.
“Triple-A was a little different for me at first,” Roe said. “The hitters are more selective. I wasn’t pitching ahead in the count. When I was struggling, I was ahead in the count under 50 percent of the time. The last four starts, I’ve been ahead in the count well above 50 percent of the time.”
Marc Gustafson, Rockies director of player development, sees the difference.
“He’s pitching as if he’s not scared,” Gustafson said. “He has pitched right up there with our best starting pitchers over his last four starts.”
(After the 1-7 start in his first season at AAA, he went 8-6 the rest of the way…)
It’ll be easier rooting for Lopez to turn it around since he’s in the NL. I’m very happy he’s not a Mariner now, in any case.
Good luck, Jose.
Echoes of previous posts. Good luck to Lopez, Colorado is a promising destination, but it’ll be nice not having his black hole in the lineup.
Who wants to bet he’ll hit .300 with 30 homers and 100 RBIs next year? There’s something about leaving the M’s that greatly improves players hitting… that Colorado air won’t hurt, but I’d think the same thing no matter where he ended up. Just look at Beltre.
*sigh*
Not this again.
Beltre? In Boston? With the Green Monster?
I think this is a good move for Lopez. He is only a year removed from hitting .272 with 24 HR and 96 RBI playing half his games at Safeco. If he gets his stroke back I could easily see 30 HR and 100 RBI in the Rockies lineup and playing half his games in Colorado.
This is demonstrably false – we’ve shot this one down several times before. Some players do better after leaving the Mariners, and some do worse – just like players leaving any other team. But if you haven’t figured that one out by now you probably won’t.
At a minimum you should read about confirmation bias sometime.
Jeeze… sorry. Can’t I be a little bitter about the worst offensive team of the modern age?
There has got to be something offensively draining about playing for the M’s. Beltre puts up his best two years, the year before he gets here and the year after he leaves. He’s the most obvious, but here are a few more… Cirillo hits around .320 the few years before, joins the M’s and can barely stay above .200. Figgins immediately drops 50 points. Scott Spiezo, Richie Sexson, Rich Aurilia all got markedly worse. Carlos Guillen left and hit 50 points higher, with a lot more power. Shin-Soo Choo didn’t get much of a chance while he was here, but he never looked that good, now he’s practically an All-Star.
What hitter in the last decade has come here and gotten better?
I expected nothing for Lopez so getting a AAA pitcher is practically a windfall. I wish him luck in Colorado but I won’t miss him.
I was listening to Mike & Mike on ESPN and they said the AAA player plus a first round pick?????
I thought you couldnt do that and dont see it mentioned above so was wondering if they were blowing it out their shorts.
Off the top of my head, Mark McLemore and Bret Boone — that goes back away, granted, but it still fits your definition of the last decade (how Boonie did may be another matter…)
Mike Cameron accomplished more in a Mariners uniform than he ever did as a White Sox or a Red (though his last season in Cincy was good). Richie Sexson tailed off in the last half of his contract but was precisely what we should have expected the first two years. And has been noted here before, anyone who was paying attention (including Bavasi) never expected Beltre to duplicate 2004 here or anywhere else. FWIW, Beltre’s OPS by season from 1999 on:
1999 LAD .780
2000 LAD .835
2001 LAD .720
2002 LAD .729
2003 LAD .714
2004 LAD 1.017 (!)
2005 SEA .716
2006 SEA .792
2007 SEA .802
2008 SEA .784
2009 SEA .683 (and banged up all year)
In other words: six seasons with the Dodgers, three of them with an OPS of .780 or higher
Five seasons with the Mariners, three of them with an OPS of .780 or higher.
Confirmation bias, indeed.
Oops. I was wrong about the AAA and a 1st round choice. What they must of meant was Roe was a AAA player and a 1st round selection!! Pays to listen closer!!
If Mariners dont bring up Ackley next year to start season then I think Figgins should stay at 2nd for continuity plus it is easier to fill 3rd from within the organization or maybe find a 3rd baseman/bench player on the market who has some pop.
Speaking of pop. I see Dunn got about 16.5 million a year for 4 yrs. Looks like the market isnt going to be very cheap at the top so Mariners will have to settle for the reclamation projects AGAIN to fill holes for one more year!!
Cirillo was mentioned earlier as an example of a player that flopped at SAFECO. I dont understand how the ballfield could affect someone like him. He wasnt a homerun hitter so fences shouldnt matter. In fact. the larger gaps in the outfield should have benefited him. He just looked uncomfortable at the plate the whole time he was here.
While I think psychological issues are more pertinent to Cirillo’s performance than anything else, there ARE things like the batting backdrop that can affect individual batter’s perception of pitches, which can affect batting.
True, Cameron kind of hit his stride here and kept it up in the years following. Boone had a few great years, but I think he’s one of the biggest benefiters of steroids in history… so I’m not sure if I’d count him. Mark McLemore, looking at his numbers, hit about the same here as he did in Texas. He was a great role player, but I don’t know if he improved at all. They all played for that magical 2001 team.
Since that team I can’t remember a single guy coming here either via Trade or Free Agency and even living up to expectations, let alone hitting better. Sexson maybe comes the closest, he hit a ton of Home Runs his first two years, but overnight became a washout.
Since 2001, besides Ichiro, how many .300 every-day hitters have they had? As far as I can see, Olerud hit exactly .300 in 2002. Ibanez hit .305 in 2004. Vidro hit .314 in 2007. 3 guys in 9 years! That can’t be considered normal.
Well, some of it are the types of players they bring in…I don’t think Bavasi ever got it in his head to emphasize left handed hitting in getting players.
I’m sure I’m just jaded and seeing it with my “fan’s eyes” and fans of other teams could see the same kind of numbers for their own.
But just as a general feeling, in recent history, it seems like decent hitters come in and regress greatly while they’re here, then they go off to another team and start hitting their usual numbers again. Am I the only one that feels this way?
Since the majority of hitters are righties, and since Safeco depresses the offense of righties, why would anyone expect differently?
Hey, that park turned Dante Bichette into a superstar years ago, so you never know…
That said, J-Lo always struck me as being a quality guy, and I wish him the best in Colorado.
Mark McLemore, looking at his numbers, hit about the same here as he did in Texas. He was a great role player, but I don’t know if he improved at all.
If you actually believe what you wrote here, you have absolutely no idea how to read a stat line. McLemore’s 2001 and 2002 seasons were huge outliers in his career; an extremely unlikely turn for a 36 year old mediocrity.
Take any advanced batting statistic you like to make this point: OPS+? His career was an 82, his third best season was a 92. 2001 and 2002 were 115 and 110 respectively. wOBA? .362 and .345, career .315. In what should have been the twilight of his career, he turned it around completely and became a well above average player for two years, in his late 30’s. That’s a rare and remarkable event.
FRIDAY, 12:25pm: Lopez already signed a $3.6MM deal for 2011, according to Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports (Twitter link). That’s a $1.3MM raise from the $2.3MM salary he earned in 2010.
“…go on, take the money and run…”
Here’s three that came to mind immediately – they either did better here or met expectations (offensively speaking, since that’s what we’re talking about):
Raul Ibañez
Russell Branyan
Franklin Guttierez
And don’t forget Ichiro – a lot of people thought he’d fail (HA! Take THAT, Tommy Lasorda!), and I don’t remember anyone thinking he’d be as good as he is.
I’m sure we can come up with more, and if you search you can find lists I and others have made regarding flops who’ve left and continued to flop. Point is, it was easy to find people who have come here and succeeded.
It’s sad for me to think that 4-5 years ago I was really hoping that Lopez and Betancourt would make up a pretty decent middle infield. I’m still not sure if I was buying the hype, or just wanted the M’s to have some success in thier postion players from the minors.
To that end. This is a good move on both sides. Hopefully Lopez will do fine, and hopefully the M’s got something worth taking a look at out of the deal.
I missed this until I saw it quoted a few posts above this one… when I read it, I inexplicably thought about Lopez running the bases in Colorado in the style of Neil Armstrong’s two-legged skip-hop when he was on the moon. 😀
I think the case of everyone noticing the M’s players that succeeded elsewhere is simply a familiarity with the names.
I’m just as guilty as anyone else. You grow up with the names, so you see them elsewhere and you are more likely to follow them.
I also think part of that familiarity is because we simply continue to hear the successful players’ names over the years, while the guys who don’t make it obviously don’t get mentioned much – so we forget them. Will many people remember Bucky Jacobsen 3-4 years from now? Probably not; but they will remember Shin-Soo Choo because he’s regularly mentioned in the papers and on TV.
The Rocks may have just found their latest Vinny Castilla.
Good luck Jose, always liked you, but you never became the player I was hoping for.
Yes, Why Do They Always Get Better after they leave? Hey, look — they don’t!
You know, I think Chaz Roe is an optional garnish on an Ichiroll, is it not? (Ugh, that just made think of Shirako, must move on…)
Interesting read. Thanks joser. There were a number of guys on there who just fell off the face of the earth.
Makes me feel pretty good about tings. I’d like to see that list updated after a few years of Z moves just to have a basis of his talent evaluating. I’d be especially interested in the guys coming to the M’s from elsewhere, but I’m sure that is way too much data to compile.
Okay, so just to clarify what the infield’ll look like next year – what will the infield look like? Figgins at 3B, I guess, and DA at 2B? To start with? Smoak at 1B and some Wilson at SS?
I think by the end of next season that will be the configuration (baring some more moves this offseason or at the trade deadline next year). But I don’t think it’s a given that Ackley will break camp with the team, for a couple of reasons:
– he will have to “earn” that spot in spring training, and
– they may want to game his service time a bit.
There’s a new regime in the dugout, afterall, and while Wedge does have a pretty good rep for accepting/handling youngsters (unlike, say, Lou) he’s already got one at 1B in Smoak. He also has (AFAIK) zero familiarity with Ackley, though that’s what spring training is for. But the team could easily leave DA in Tacoma for April and then — in a fortuitous coincidence, honest! — bring him up just in time to not blow a year of service time in 2011.
Of course he could tear the cover off the ball and force his way into the lineup; but it’s also possible he’ll simply have a cold spring and not impress anyone. This is probably why the M’s picked up a cheap middle-infielding placeholder.
Whatever the case, it seems likely that the Figgins-at-second experiment is over, and he’s going back to 3B. And now he won’t have an excuse for not hitting — though even if he returns to his Angels form, he’s going to be hitting like a 2B playing 3B (which I guess is still better than hitting like a pitcher playing 2B, as he did through most of 2010).
The real question is who is going to be playing SS for the hundred or more games when Wilson is on the DL?
You guys enjoy your logical perspective and I’ll remain pissed at having to root for an incredibly crappy offensive team. I get bitter when I see guys go off and have good seasons for other teams. I just know in my bones that Lopez is going to have a great 2011 and the M’s will be out of the playoff race by mid-may. I was trying let off a little steam now, so I wouldn’t be so mad later…
Lopez is going to do better in Colorado. Pretty much every hitter does better in Colorado, at least as far as raw stats are concerned. So you’ll have plenty of venom to stew in; no reason to use it all up now.
Meanwhile, Shannon reports Mangini might be a possibility at 3B coming out of camp, at least temporarily. Seems like an outside shot to me, given his injuries and talent (if it wasn’t for the service time issue, I’d saw Ackley has a far better chance of breaking camp with the team), but I guess it’s a good reminder that the team doesn’t have to always look outside the org for filler. (Or even better than filler, sometimes.)