M’s Extend Jack Z
Since this broke yesterday, we’re a little late to the party, but the Mariners announced that they’ve extended the contract of Jack Zduriencik for “multiple years” to keep him and his staff in place and continue the work that has been building since he was hired three years ago.
Plenty of other of people have weighed in on Jack’s extension and have talked about the focus on the farm system, development of talent through the draft, and how the M’s have begun to really build from within for the first time in 15-20 years. That’s all true, and is certainly one of the main reasons why the M’s decided to keep Jack around even though there hasn’t been a lot of winning going on since he took over. Everyone can see the ground work being laid for a bright future, and it was the right call to keep the current front office in place to continue the work they’ve been doing.
However, at some point, the front office is going to have to pivot, and my guess is that point is going to come within the next 12 months. While Jack got a “multi-year extension”, he didn’t get a lifetime extension, and I’m pretty sure that the ownership will eventually demand that all the ground work produce wins on the field at the Major League level. It’s one thing to see the fruit of guys like Dustin Ackley and Kyle Seager, but it’s another thing to have a competitive roster full of guys who can go toe to toe with the Texas Rangers.
The Mariners have a few guys who can do that. They have more coming. But there’s also still quite a bit of dreck on this roster. The team’s primary setup guy right now is Jamey Wright. The entire bullpen is really a bit of a disaster, if we’re being honest. After trading away Doug Fister and Erik Bedard, the rotation is no longer a strength – you could argue that the M’s really only have a couple of Major League starters right now. And, you know, the offense still isn’t great. Miguel Olivo hits fifth on most nights. Casper Wells isn’t yet showing that he’s an everyday left fielder in the big leagues. Franklin Gutierrez’s power is still completely MIA.
For all the good work that has been done on the farm, the big league team is still not very good. And yet, in the not too distant future, it needs to be good, and the M’s can’t count on all of the necessary talent coming from guys already in the organization. Danny Hultzen and James Paxton might help a lot, or they might be Gil Meche and Joel Pineiro. The M’s can’t depend entirely on the wave of talent coming to fill the holes.
For the last few years, the focus has been on the farm system. Sure, the M’s “pivoted” somewhat when they made the Cliff Lee trade and the Chone Figgins signing, but even while they were making those moves, the focus was more on giving the team a chance to be good rather than making themselves the favorites in the division. It didn’t work, so they pivoted back towards building for the future.
I don’t know that the point has to come this winter, but the time is going to come when the team has to go back to focusing more on adding to the big league roster than the farm system. They’re going to have to get more guys like Franklin Gutierrez, Russell Branyan, and David Aardmsa – useful, present Major Leaguers who just need a better chance to show what they can do – rather than just sit around waiting for the minor league kids to be ready for the show.
The farm system is now in good shape – certainly better shape than the big league roster. The groundwork has been laid for a strong future, and that work needs to continue. But, pretty soon, the M’s need to put together a roster that can win 90 games in a season. Even with his contract extension, the ownership isn’t going to give Jack a free pass on 90 loss seasons forever.
I’m glad Jack is sticking around, and I do believe in what they’ve been doing to lay a foundation for the future. Pretty soon, though, I believe that the front office’s priorities will have to shift to a degree, and the organization will have to focus on building out the Major League roster to compete with what the rest of the division has to offer. How Jack does at that kind of GM’ing will determine whether or not he’ll get another contract extension in a few years.
This off-season will be huge in determining how long Jack sticks around. That being said, if we can be an 80-win team next season, I think ownership will keep him on long enough for the farm system to start bearing fruit at the major league level.
I like the extension. JZ has done well, and I hate the idea of a GM feeling that he has to produce results quickly to keep his job (see “Bavasi, Bill”).
They could do a lot worse than being Meche and Pineiro. I just hope they’re not Ryan Anderson and Josh Fields.
Whoa. I loved Meche and Pineiro. They weren’t All-Stars [update: Meche somehow made an all-star team], but like G-Man said, you could do a LOT worse. Those guys were pitching 160+ innings with the M’s at at least league average level. Considering that for the most part of the past few seasons, 80% of the team is all anti-wobegone (everyone is below average), that’d be a welcome change, even though our pitching has been pretty good actually.
2012 is likely to be a frustrating betwixt and between year–Tacoma is bare and there isn’t an obvious way to get big bang for the ten million or so they’ll have to spend this offseason.
2013 had better be an 85+ win season, or I suspect Z doesn’t see 2014.
I don’t feel Figgins was foreseeable, and actually liked rolling the dice on Kotchman, Wright, etc. The Morrow trade is turning out better than I thought. Still a loss, but not one of catastrophic proportions. Hiring managers? That he’s been really bad at IMHO.
Maybe I am biased because of watching in person when Meche outpitched Greg Maddux at Safeco, but I recall him as one who would clearly be our #3 – and pretty good at it.
Having said that, I agree with the larger point that Hultzen and Paxton could develop into two piles of meh. You just never know.
Good players who have their place on a contending team, if they themselves happen to be having an “on” year. But shouldn’t the M’s set their sites higher than gambling on hidden gems who could produce a solid year here, a good half-season there?
The free agent market is thin, and the farm is only just developing again… it’d be nice to see the Ms spend money or trade prospects for consistently higher quality players than we’ve seen in the recent past.
It’d be nice to buy or import a guy and get more than a half season (Branyan, Olivo) or one good season (Aardsma, Guti) out of them.
That said, I’m impatient to get back to contending – 2012 was supposed to be the goal when 2010 went south, now people are already hedging 2013 or 2014?? – but I understand that this is a delicate time for the org, and so much could be undone and set back with just one or two bad trades or busted prospects…
It’s really hard to get a sense for what to expect for 2012 until we see what the front office does in the offseason. Which youngsters they bank on, which they flip or shed. And then how and where they spend free agent money. In other words, this winter should show if this front office knows when and how to do that pivot that Dave describes.
Good to see you posting, by the way, Dave. Best wishes and good health to you.
As I haven’t heard great things about this free agent class, I don’t know that pivoting that direction is what we want (Fielder only at reasonable contract length/price). I can see trading pitching (League and maybe a propect) for hitting…that may be a good move. But we may be stuck with a youth movement that hopefully gets us +/- 80 wins next year. I am enjoying this current group a lot.
Great to see you posting Dave. Best wishes.
Dave I hope you are well and the next round goes good. Sorry to disagree with your view a bit in that I appreciate what Z has done and what he will do in the future a bit more than you seem to. I have more faith in what we have in the pipeline than what’s available on the free agent shelf this off-season. I’d prefer the trade route as we seem to be overstocked in OFs and some arms. If after two more years we are losing 80+ games then I would hand Z his pink slip myself. I just don’t see that happening.
We’re mostly violently in agreement, but…
After trading away Doug Fister and Erik Bedard, the rotation is no longer a strength – you could argue that the M’s really only have a couple of Major League starters right now.
Vargas is what he is: a ~2 WAR MLB starter. A cheaper version of Jarrod Washburn, if you will. Given that the team isn’t locked into him on a multiyear deal, he’s fine as part of the indeterminate mass of 3/4/5 behind Pineda and King Felix.
Beavan doesn’t strike me as a lot different at this point.
That being said, sure, a veteran starter would be nice. Vasquez as the 6th starter makes it clear the organizational depth… eh.
However, at some point, the front office is going to have to pivot, and my guess is that point is going to come within the next 12 months.
Doesn’t that really mean “sometime in the next 6 months”?
Right now, the roster has to gear up to contend (bullpen, rotation, I’d argue a C. If they aren’t going to pivot and will just not do much of anything during the offseason, what would be the point of trading younger players for veterans in July 2012 when you’re 10 games out?
Given the ownership’s unwillingness to move on from the horrific contracts of Silva-Bradley, Wilson, Figgins, Ichiro and the overall level of their salary budget now, “pivoting” to acquire semi-drek in the next twelve months might be a reach. Should more space open up this fall, then sure. Junior’s numbers in 1989 while nice gave little measure as to how good they might get or when that would happen. None of the young guys appear that good, but they might be very good after another 700 plate appearances or so. Who knows next spring they might light it up and the seats fill up too. Then instead of dumpster diving for pearls, maybe they can acquire some actual quality veterans to slip into the mix.
I think we’re a year away from the ‘pivot’.
Next season is about seeing who belongs and who doesn’t…and watching the minor league pitching develop.
I have faith that Jack can reconstruct the bullpen again…and who knows?–maybe a lesser version of the Cliff Lee opportunity happens this winter.
But for the time being, I say continue to develop…hold your dollars…and wait for the class of free agents after next year to make the true ‘contention’ moves.
Next season is about seeing who belongs and who doesn’t…and watching the minor league pitching develop.
To paraphrase Through the Looking Glass, the rule for the Seattle Mariners seems to be: jam in 1995, jam in 2001, jam next year, but never jam today.
I’ve been hearing “oh, NEXT year’s free agents will save us and let us contend!111!!” for years. I’m sick of it. Maybe we need to realize that if a plan for contention involves the deus ex machina of a free agent spending orgy that never seems to materialize… that’s not really a good plan.
Awesome stuff, Dave.
Asides from bona fide grade A prospects like Ackley (and maybe Smoak), I think that the rest of the rookies up now (Wells, Robinson, Seager, and also Peguero, Sanders, Halman, etc.) are not an extremely high bet to turn into plus major leaguers who can “go toe to toe” with Texas’s starters.
Well Carp is not quite a rookie and it looks like he’s emerging which is a great thing.
I’ve been a little disturbed seeing some people get all giddy over beginner’s luck and go too far with “kids=good, veterans=bad!” mantra.
Especially when you look at a player like Ichiro who has managed to show 10 straight years of All Star level performance. He has a few bad months and some people, fortunately not many such posters here though, loudly advocate getting rid of him to make room for the shiny new toy of the day.
Hell, Bloomie hit .400+ his first time up. Jeremy Reed hit .400+ his first time up. We know how they turned out. I wish some people would wait and realise the steep odds against things panning out before going overboard with beginner’s luck and veteran hate.
I completely agree with Dave. The argument that you can’t do much this winter because there isn’t a lot of great free-agents, doesn’t really fly. You can still pull off trades. I’m more nervous about free-agent signings anyway (though I’m not opposed to them), as that’s one area Jack hasn’t had a lot of luck. His record with trades however, hasn’t been bad.
I thought Wedge made a great comment on KJR a few days ago reminding us that we have to replace Ichiro with something… you can’t just say, well he’s not hitting 200 hits and doing all this, but he’s still better than any other option by a long shot.
Of course if they don’t try to make fastball/curveball pitchers into sinker / slider nibblers it will help too. The FO was learning how to screw up pitchers then so could be ready for Brandon Morrow.
No, he should have been traded two-three years ago when his value was at it’s peak. Having a good but not great lead-off hitter occupy such a large percentage of your total salary budget is not very smart baseball. And the team clearly was not going to be rebuilt by the end of his peak years.
Highly foreseeable. Too many years guaranteed, and too much pressure on a guy who is a role player to become a star worthy of the huge deal he signed. His talent is speed, his backup talent is dedication to his defensive game; his speed will be abandoning him well before the contract is up, and one or two injuries can take him out of the realm of defensive excellence.
What wasn’t foreseeable (to me) was the bad attitude. Never saw that side of Figgy in SoCal.
Considering I haven’t really been able to check up on baseball news necessarily given I’m halfway across the world (kinda) in Japan for the last month (mostly watching Koushien aka HS baseball and a couple of NPB games) this is good news. Having one GM who is managing the rebuilding process is a good thing as we don’t lose time or ground doing so.
If you think about how you build a team, you can either (a) draft players, (b) trade for players, (c) sign free agents, you realize that 2 of those legs (a & b) require you to be able to draft players and home-grow them. The problem lies in that most fans don’t care about that part of the process. All they care about is the major league team.
So when it comes to rebuilding, that’s why people are so frustrated with the team because they don’t see any “progress”. They want us to sign free agents (c) which is the most expensive (and generally thus overpriced) form of building a team (see Yankees). Free agent signings done properly are to fill one or two spots that the team lacks to complete the process.
As for when I think the pivot will come, I’m not sold on next year. Perhaps one more year of treading water while things develop (farm players & free agents) and we might be able to contend once again.
As for when I think the pivot will come, I’m not sold on next year. Perhaps one more year of treading water while things develop (farm players & free agents) and we might be able to contend once again.
I think it’s crazy to have $85-90 million in salary commitments (which is around where the 2012 Mariners will be) to a team that can’t remotely contend in a division where, while there will be good teams, won’t likely have historically good teams. (And no, you can’t blame Bill Bavasi for that. Most of that roster will have nothing to do with him. We can officially retire the “It’s Bavasi’s fault” excuse now.)
Here’s the thing though, according to this we’re sitting at a shade under $60M.
Yes, we’re going to resign players etc, so the figure will obviously be higher, but here’s the thing…
Players in the minors don’t immediately get onto the major league team unless you’re Strasburg, or perhaps Mike Leake, etc. And it’s not like you draft 3-4 of those each year.
What I’ve been saying all along is that IT TAKES TIME.
Not just 2-3 years, but 4 or 5. Especially if you consider the Mariners’ case of where they started out.
Even with as many rounds as you do in the draft, I don’t really think you can expect more than 3 in any given year to make the majors. And you have to take into consideration the time it takes to get there. How long did it take Ackley, and remember he was a 1st rounder to boot? Z’s has only 3 draft classes if I’m not mistaken, and Ackley was in the 1st one.
Yes, next year about half the salary will be 3 players (Ichiro, King Felix and Figgins) and as of now only Felix is close to a sure thing. Ichiro may be finally showing signs of decline while Figgins fell off the face of the universe (whereever that is). But the year after, Ichiro’s salary will probably be gone so we’ll have money to use on FA while having cheap homegrown talent.
That’s the way it’s supposed to work anyways. Besides would the average person be happy seeing a team that has a shrinking salary with a horrible record? Wouldn’t you think they’d be wondering why they WEREN’T spending money on FA?
Besides would the average person be happy seeing a team that has a shrinking salary with a horrible record? Wouldn’t you think they’d be wondering why they WEREN’T spending money on FA?
As opposed to seeing a team lose 90-100 games with salary levels at $85-90 million a year both years?
What’s the practical difference? Bad team is bad. The Mariners have frittered away attendance from where they were, even in 2009. The fans do not care about the salary that gets spent, or whether the Mariner management makes or loses money in a season; all they care about is the result on the field. And “hey, we’re .500 again! wooo us!” does nothing to revive the attendance. Did fans come back in 2010 when we crawled back to .500? No. Season ticket sales still sucked. The only thing that’s going to bring the fans back is a pennant race, not “hey, we waited until August to collapse in the pennant race instead of May! We’re better!”
I’ve heard this “oh, we’re spending money, so it means we’re committed” for a decade now. How about seeing managment realize that we’re not that far away, so let’s stop making Jack look for players off the Large Item Pickup Day heap over and over again?
Also, the M’s payroll is not far away from Baltimore’s, in the $80 millions in payroll… very much like their collapsed attendance. And their record of futility in winning baseball games. And only $10 million in front of KC. So yeah, let’s have them not bother improving the team in 2012 by making any commitment to improving payroll. God forbid we should realize that we’re going to have to write checks to Ichiro and Figgins anyway, so heaven forfend spending an extra 5 million on top of last year’s salary making the roster better!
So eponymous coward, what exactly are you saying? That we’re close to contenting now in a weak division so let’s spend for a player? Or not spend at all so that we have money for later?
My argument has been (and I pull out my hair every time someone on the radio calls in and suggests to sign Prince Fielder, et al thinking that he/someone alone will magically solve all our problems) is that with the building being done in the farm system, and the unloading of the albatross contracts that we should be in a good position should everything fall the way it should to have homegrown talent or cheap talent we’ve traded for fill most of the ranks with FA signings filling the gaps.
That’s how I’ve always thought a team should be built for L/T success. Am I wrong? And we’re freeing up money in the next year or two, right?
And I’m not convinced that trying to win in 2012 by signing FA’s over the off-season will help our L/T efforts.
and the unloading of the albatross contracts
You mean like what happened after Sexson’s albatross contract got unloaded? Or Washburn’s? Oh, right, what happened was Jack Z having to do Large Item Pickup Day to fill roster needs.
I am SOOOOO tired of hearing this bull**** about “well, we can’t do anything with salary now, wait until next year, it will be SUPER AWESOME THEN”, year after year. I can’t wait until September 2012, and we hear how we can’t sign anyone other than waiver wire rejects like Jamey Wright until Figgins is off the books, so wait until 2014, we’ll be good then!
Let’s put this another way.
Ichiro’s salary dropping off the books is the major way we’re getting salary relief from 2012 to 2013. And that assumes that a) Ichiro doesn’t bounce back and b) management does not resign him at comparable money to his past deals. These are not safe assumptions: if Ichiro performs close to his historical performance in 2012 (which, by the way, is almost certainly a requirement for the 2012 Mariners to be worth a damn as a contender), it becomes a very tough problem- diss Mr. Face of the Franchise? This is the franchise that gave Griffey way too much rope- you think they’re going to blow Ichiro off if he goes back to a .330/.380/.430 season of looking like he always does?
Ichiro’s salary is also the approximate amount of salary relief we get from MIlton Bradley, Carlos Silva and Yuni dropping off the payroll from 2011 to 2012.
So, how is it that $20 million in salary relief is going to make the 2013 team SUPER AWESOME CONTENDERS1111!!!! but can’t help us contend in 2012? (And before you say “the free agents will be better”- what makes you think teams won’t lock up a lot of their young talent in the next 12 months?)
Also, keep in mind that by 2013, Felix is down to his last two years under contract. Realistically, if you are NOT going to resign him for $Texas, that’s the time to trade him, and by punting 2012, you are giving yourself a VERY narrow window in which to revive attendance/revenue enough that you can justify the very big contract you’ll have to tender him.
Bottom line: I think the Mariners treating 2012 as a “we don’t really care about wins and losses, we just want to look at the kids” year is a mistake. They need to be faster and better at making decisions about their talent, and more aggressive in building a competitive roster than that. Yeah, it’s a tall order, but Five Year Plans didn’t work for the Soviet Union, and they don’t work for baseball teams, either. I think Baltimore, Pittsburgh and KC are on combined year 30 of their 5 Year Plans.
So then, what’s your L/T strategy for a baseball club? Not the M’s, but a baseball club in general?
Acquire talent, win as many ballgames as possible with said talent.
I don’t think any of my posts said “redo the Erik Bedard trade and sign Jarrod Washburn, Richie Sexson and Carlos Silva, while we are at it”.
What I am saying is the Large Item Pickup Day/dumpster diving for critical team needs has to stop, but that doesn’t mean handing Prince Fielder a blank check, either. It means that the Mariners HAVE a good young core of talent going into 2012, and now is the time for the pivot. It means the team should be willing to make deals that add to the major league roster, even if it burns a kid or two or adds salary. It means smart FA acquisitions shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. It means that 2012 is winnable with a smart, talented GM- so it’s time for Jack Zduriencik to justify the high opinion we have of him.
So I think then we’re on the same page, though not necessarily on the pivot point.
I guess in my case I like to be more deliberate and know what my holes really are before going in the FA market.
But then again, my timing in life has always been a bit off so perhaps you’re right then.
Ideally, you could anticipate when players are going to be ready to fill in spots so you can make FA acquisitions the year before, so if we have enough core talent in 2012 to compete and just need to fill holes, then doing as you say would be correct.
And I’ve been gone halfway across the world for the last month & couple of days so I don’t know how Furbush or Robinson or etc. have been doing.
So if the talent we have acquired and the development of our young guys this year means that we just need to fill in say 2-3 holes perhaps then yes, let’s get players to fill those spots that are probably more than just fillers so we can compete going forward.
So if the talent we have acquired and the development of our young guys this year means that we just need to fill in say 2-3 holes perhaps then yes, let’s get players to fill those spots that are probably more than just fillers so we can compete going forward.
Well, let’s look at the roster. I’d say the major problems (as in “this isn’t very good, we don’t have anyone who’s really a quality ballplayer”) revolve around:
– C (basically, Olivo, a gimpy Moore and Josh Bard/anyone else on the Large Item Pickup Day pile isn’t a very solid plan. This needs a talent infusion unless Moore rakes in Arizona Fall League, and even then, it’s Arizona Fall League.)
– a veteran SP should probably be brought into the mix. That makes our rotation Felix/Pineda/???/Vargas/whoever survives the Furbush+Beavan+anyone else knife fight. It also means that instead of needing Paxson/Walker/whoevever to step into a rotation spot in spring training, having one of them take a strong step forward means we’re actually back to where we were pre-Fister trade; having reasonable depth at the position.
– bullpen help. Some of that might come from Aardsma and Kelley, but really, we should think about adding talent.
– OK, maybe an infield backup option for Ryan/3B, but this isn’t something that should cost much, should it? We’re getting down in the weeds here.
The thing that I see is that compared to last year, we’re no longer having to put ALL our eggs in one basket in LF (Saunders) or 1B (Smoak) when it comes to young players. We have 5 guys all on the right side of their baseball career for 1B/OF/DH positions: Carp, Robinson, Saunders (yes, I know, but he is still on the roster) Smoak, Wells.
Even at 3B, instead of “Figgins and huge sucking sound of talent vacuum”, we have Seager, Liddi, Martinez who’ll all be able to push at each other (plus the probably useless corpse of Chone Figgins’ career).
The thing I’ll admit is that the 2012 team is, to a large extent, reliant on Ichiro and Guti playing like they deserve to be making $25 million as opposed to, well, not deserving it. If you get 6-7 WAR out of these guys instead of 2, this is a big step to having a contending 2012 team.
And the nice thing is if Ichiro really IS done as an effective MLB ballplayer… OK, you’ve got his salary back in 2013, give him the gold watch and the retirement party, and move on.
So I think it’s reasonable to think about “the roster is closer than last year, what do we do to close the gap between us and the rest of the division that doesn’t completely raid the farm system?”