Cactus League Game 4, Mariners at Padres
We’re only three games in and already, we have our first game off radio. From the standpoint of needing to get some work done, I can appreciate it, sure, but it interrupts the flow of things. Of course, it could be worse. We could have a game shut down by bees.
Instead we had a different sort of “B” opening the day, a “B” game against Cincinnati. This one features a few things of interest like Franklin at second (he made two errors) and Catricala at third, along with a pitching lineup that was schedule to include Walker, Hultzen, Paxton, Robles, and Erasmo Ramirez. Walker pitched a couple of frames, allowing a hit and a walk while striking out a pair. The walk was caught stealing with Quiroz behind the plate. All told, it took him twenty-six pitches. Then Hultzen came on for two more innings with a hit, a walk, and four Ks. The Franklin errors happened to come during his stint, so the bases were loaded as Hultzen was striking dudes out to end the inning. Awesome. Erasmo then threw a perfect two innings with just sixteen pitches. That’s less than three pitches a batter. That’s what Erasmo can do when he’s on. The seventh inning brought in Paxton, but he was struggling a bit more than his chums. He got pulled after an inning and two-thirds, three runs given up on six hits and a K. That’s the line as of 11:30. Of course, there’s also video at the TNT of Paxton, Hultzen, and Walker talking about each other. It’s neat.
Other news? We extended the lease with the Peoria Sports Complex by twenty years, but apparently no new TV deal is imminent. Steve Kelley talked about Mike Carp a while. The minor league camp is opening for pitchers and catchers today, which may mean that we’ll see the camp shrink soon.
The actual lineup, for the A-game, for which we will only have Gameday and our own wild speculation to serve us, runs like this:
2B Ackley
SS Ryan
RF Ichiro!
1B Smoak
LF Wells
3B Seager
C Olivo
DH Peguero
CF Saunders
P Iwakuma
George Sherrill is also supposed to debut today. Anticipation.
Saunders or Seager
With Franklin Gutierrez set to miss all of April and potentially more time depending on his rehab, the working assumption has been that the main benefactor of the open roster spot will be Michael Saunders. He’s probably the best defensive outfielder on the team besides Guti, and as a left-handed bat, he’d form a pretty natural job-share partner with Casper Wells. And, despite his miserable Major League performances to date, he was still a pretty highly rated prospect, and the team maintains some hope that he can translate his minor league numbers to the big leagues and become a useful player.
However, going with Saunders/Wells in CF until Guti gets back is not the only option, and may not even be the team’s best option. Chone Figgins has been getting some time in center field early in camp, and while he hasn’t played out there since 2006, I think there’s a pretty compelling case to be made that he should get a decent amount of his early season playing time in center.
Essentially, the options break down like this:
Vs RHP: Figgins (3B) and Saunders (CF)
Vs LHP: Figgins (3B) and Wells (CF)
or
Vs RHP: Seager (3B) and Figgins (CF)
vs LHP: Figgins (3B) and Wells (CF)
If Figgins shows that he can play a half-decent center field during March, the team could essentially use his ability to move between CF and 3B to create a platoon of Seager and Wells, giving Seager the roster spot that Saunders is the presumed favorite for. There are several advantages to going that way instead.
For one, Seager is likely to be quite a bit better than Saunders this year, especially at the plate. ZIPS doesn’t love either player, but projects Seager for a .267/.323/.372 line compared to Saunders’ .220/.298/.339 mark. Neither is likely to be an offensive force, but Seager could be a competent hitter against RHPs, and help the team score more runs and win more games early in the season.
There’s also the fact that Seager is the more likely of the two to have a real future in Seattle. Even if Saunders shows some improvement at the plate, he’s probably still not going to be more than a fourth outfielder going forward, and he’ll have to prove more useful than Casper Wells to wrestle that job away going forward. Meanwhile, Seager has a real chance to be the team’s regular third baseman for the next couple of years, and even if the bat doesn’t prove up to the task for a starting job, he’s the best in-house candidate for a utility infielder/super-sub role. There’s an open spot on the roster for Seager going forward, which is not true of Saunders unless he shows remarkable improvement.
Finally, there’s also some potential added value for Figgins if he shows he can play center field. Right now, the Mariners are hoping that he has a nice start to the season so they can try to unload some of that contract this summer, but in reality, there aren’t many teams shopping for a third baseman with absolutely no power. Figgins’ skillset is much more commonly accepted in center field, and if he hits well while holding down CF at a respectable level, the team could expand the pool of clubs that would potentially be interested in his services. As strictly a third baseman, you might only have one or two teams that could be talked into taking some of Figgins’ remaining salary, but if he’s showing some positional versatility and could profile as either a 3B or an OF, you could have five or six clubs looking at him as an option for the second half of the year.
Seager and Wells are probably the two young guys on the team who aren’t currently slotted in as starters that the team should be most interested in looking at, and they’re the two most likely to produce at the plate in the early part of the season. Bouncing Figgins between third and center field could also help his trade value, and give the team a better chance of getting him off the books sooner than later. If Saunders shows some real improvement in his contact abilities during March, I’m not opposed to giving him a chance, but that’d probably be Plan B for me. I’d rather have Seager and Wells get that playing time rather than hoping Saunders has figured out how to hit something on the outer half of the plate over the winter.
Cactus League Game 3, Padres at Mariners
Good day to you and welcome again to baseball. This marks the first game of the Cactus League season against our rivals, the Padres. It feels like a return to normalcy. I know that for the past two days, I had felt as though something was “off” about this spring training that I couldn’t quite articulate. Now I know: we weren’t playing the Padres yet.
The news circuit is somewhat slow this morning. Rick Rizzs guest blogged an article about Griffey at the official Mariners blog. It’s formatted like a Steve Kelley article. The actual Steve Kelley talked to Jamie Moyer, who is attempting that comeback with the Rockies. Imagine for a moment if he ended up in the Springs instead to start the season. Oh my. Larry Stone talked about Trayvon Robinson and some of the struggles he experienced at the end of last season. Larry LaRue talked to Alex Liddi and apparently he’s a big deal back home. If none of these do it for you, re-read Marc’s piece on Noesi and/or be glad that no one on the team has Valley Fever.
As playing the regulars proved somewhat ineffective yesterday, we’re doing something weird again. Wedge wants to play the guys and so we will play the guys. With the way things look now, I can only imagine what it will be like this coming Saturday, when we get our first split squad.
CF Figgins
SS Kawasaki
3B Seager
1B Carp
DH Montero
C Jaso
2B Rodriguez
LF Robinson
RF Chiang
P Vargas
The bench today features fourteen guys. Pitchers we might see include Furbush, Henn, League, Snow, Marquez, Fox, Grube, Ruffin, and Patterson.
Hector Noesi Impressive – Rest of Team Less So
Back in January, Dave wrote about Hector Noesi and his surprising velocity. Dave’s article cited his scouting report of an 89-93 MPH fastball (a pretty big range, really) with the ability to touch 96 (making the range even bigger), and also mentioned that Noesi was able to sustain good velocity in his longer outings with the Yankees. Then came reports from the Dominican Winter League that Noesi was touching 98 MPH, despite working as a starting pitcher. Needless to say, I was looking forward to Hector Noesi’s first start this pre-season. In Peoria. With Pitch FX.
Let’s be clear – this was a two-inning start in early March. It’s tempting to over-analyze the 30-odd pitches because they’re all we’ve got so far and because it’s March and all the M’s have done is play pretend games against Oakland’s minor leaguers. This isn’t intended to settle the question about Noesi’s stuff – it’s just a snapshot. The fact that his outing was so short may inflate his velo, though to be fair, the fact that it’s his first spring training start might depress it. I have no idea. However, what Pitch FX showed was a guy averaging 94–95 on two different fastballs. In the first inning, he hit 96.6 MPH against Seth Smith.
He didn’t allow any hits, but he had poor command, which led to two walks. Many of his “misses” weren’t exactly borderline; he threw four consecutive balls- none of which were close – to Michael Taylor/Anthony Recker before straightening things out. Still, Noesi’s been a command guy in the minors, with walk rates under 5% until 2011. If he’s now got an above average fastball (and perhaps an above average sinker/two-seamer), then he really changes the nature of the trade. If they got an MLB-ready arm that tops out as a middle-reliever, then the loss of Jose Campos might sting a bit. But if Noesi can maintain this (or maintain this velocity without the command issues), he’s an intriguing starting pitching prospect who could begin the year with the big club. If he’s consistently 93-95 in the rotation, he’s not a swing-man/#5 starter, he’s got a shot to be the #3 starter by July.
Unfortunately, the rest of the game didn’t follow suit. Hong-Chih Kuo – trying to make the team as the second lefty in the bullpen behind George Sherrill – had a forgettable inning, throwing about 30 pitches with velocity below his career average and giving up three hits including a HR. The line-up. which many noted looks similar to what the M’s might roll out on opening day, managed just two hits in the first six innings (one of them, a HR, came off the one guy everyone agree will NOT be in the opening day line-up – Carlos Peguero). Michael Saunders didn’t do much, and Franklin Gutierrez is still going to miss a month or more.
Despite the poor hitting, Noesi’s performance offered something for optimists to grab on to. Despite the presence of Jesus Montero (who’s fine, despite being held out today – he should be in the line-up against San Diego tomorrow), the M’s don’t project as a league-average offense. They’re going to need to maintain their sterling runs-allowed if they want to avoid another run at 100 losses, and they’re going to need to do so without Michael Pineda. Noesi offers one of the best opportunities on the roster to blow the PECOTA/CAIRO/Gut-feeling projection out of the water.
Other stories today:
* In 2011, the M’s saw one of their best players, CF Franklin Gutierrez, felled by a mysterious illness that led to a horrific 2011 batting line. Well, the Mets may be in the same boat. Adam Rubin of ESPN is reporting that 1B Ike Davis of the Mets may have Valley Fever, the strange fungal infection that stopped Conor Jackson’s career in its tracks and, for the old-timers out there, basically ended Barry Bonnell’s career as soon as he joined the M’s. Jackson said it’s like “mono on steroids” and the Mets are trying to reduce Davis’ workload and make sure he’s well-rested. But this is a player who relied on power to excel, and the examples of Bonnell and Jackson aren’t exactly encouraging. Davis is a great talent, and having just seen Gutierrez attempt to play through IBS in 2011, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Here’s hoping Davis is able to make a full recovery. And, since I’m already discussing crappy luck, that Gutierrez’s musculature stops tearing so easily.
* Yoenis Cespedes’ deal with the Oakland Athletics became official after the Cuban CF passed a physical today. The A’s don’t have to think hard about a 40-man roster move, as the injury to starting 3B Scott Sizemore makes it easy – Sizemore will go to the 60-man and will likely miss the entirety of the 2012 season and Cespedes will take his spot on the roster.
Cactus League Game 2, A’s at Mariners
Welcome back for this, the second game of our Cactus League schedule. Feels easy slipping back into this routine, right? Like falling off a bicycle.
There were three big stories from this morning, I suppose. One is that Jesus Montero is A-OK, something that might surprise you as being an issue if you weren’t listening yesterday. The cool thing to come out of that game was that Montero hit one of those opposite field dingers we’re counting on him to hit this season. The uncool thing is that he was removed after getting smacked in the jaw twice by consecutive foul balls. The Mariners figured that after that, he had done his work and probably didn’t want to play anymore. It’s a common thing to not want to play a game anymore after being knocked in the jaw twice. Man, once I was locked in just this intense match of Guess Who? and… anyway…
The other bit of news was that Saunders hit dingers, which affords us the opportunity to talk a little about him. I think we also did that one of the last time I was posting links too. Shannon Drayer wrote a little piece on it yesterday, talking about the 60 oz bat in practice (we were always looking for those big bats!), the rubber bands that he used to stabilize himself, something involving a dog tennis ball tosser that I’m not quite sure I understand. He’s also trying to change his approach to the point where he’s less passive and now I have Wedge’s talk about aggressiveness ringing in my ears. But the important thing is that we’re talking about him in a positive light for things that he’s actually accomplished. In one game, I know. Still, he seems like he’ll have a good chance to pick up the center field job to open the season.
And Guti? It turns out that the tear in his pectoral muscle was partial and won’t require surgery, and that may mean he’ll get back a little sooner. He won’t be able to participate in any upper body work in the short-term and will be in a sling for a little while. Guti seems positive about his abilities to get back though, which is good because I know that more than a few of us were probably afraid he was cursed or something and looking at the third year of being somewhat broken.
Here’s a lineup. It looks more like an actual Mariners lineup. Take that however you will.
3B Figgins
2B Ackley
RF Ichiro!
1B Smoak
LF Carp
C Olivo
DH Peguero
CF Saunders
SS Ryan
P Noesi
Since they’re playing at home, today’s bench features everyone. Seriously, nineteen-man bench over here. After Noesi, Millwood and Kuo are supposed to pitch. Then other guys will pitch until there are enough innings.
Cactus League Game 1, Mariners at A’s
After four long and agonizing games of the Mariners beating themselves, we get the beginning of the Cactus League season and a return to baseball on the radio. Someone could argue that because the Mariners will be facing the A’s today and will also be facing the A’s to start the regular season in Japan, this is a preview of sorts for opening day. This better not be a preview of opening day. Oh man, if this ended up being a preview of opening day…
SS Kawasaki
3B Seager
LF Wells
C Montero
RF Peguero
DH Catricala
1B Liddi
CF Saunders
2B Rodriguez
P Beavan
What’s funny about this is that they’re carrying with them a sixteen-man bench. This was still the best that they could manage. If they are going to pull these shenanigans, it might as well be now, when we’re all hungry and bleary-eyed.
There are things that are going to be of some interest in this, of course. Saunders will be in center. There’s a decent chance that ends up being a real thing to start the season. Catricala gets an opportunity to do something other than try to hit Mariners pitchers. Though Ryan is not in so bad a shape, Rodriguez and Kawasaki are effectively competing for the backup infielder position. And, of course, there’s Montero, who will be catching Beavan, who will be throwing mostly fastballs.
Baseball?
“Considerable Concern” Regarding Gutierrez
Eric Wedge just gave a brief health update on Franklin Gutierrez, and while there’s no official report yet, it doesn’t sound great. Gutierrez has flown back to Seattle (bad sign #1) to get examined further, and Wedge mentioned that he has “considerable concern” about Gutierrez’s status going forward. This could turn out to be as minor as a strained pectoral or as serious as something more serious. Googling for “injuries more serious than a pectoral strain” didn’t help me out much, and I never went to med school. Anyway, I’d prepare for bad news.
So, right now, Casper Wells is probably the team’s starting center fielder, and Michael Saunders might find himself back in the mix for a big league roster spot. There will be talk about Trayvon Robinson competing for that spot too, but he’s not a good defender and an outfield with him and Carp side by side could be disastrous for a pitch to contact staff. Saunders still needs to show he can put the bat on the ball and occasionally hit something on the outer half of the plate, but at least he’s got a solid glove. Still, a Wells/Saunders job-share in CF is a pretty big step down from what the team hoped to get from Gutierrez.
If it turns out to be something that Gutierrez could come back from in April or May, maybe you live with Saunders/Wells for a few weeks. If he’s going to be out much past the start of the season, though, I’d strongly suggest looking outside the organization for help. Will Venable could probably still be extracted from San Diego for the right offer. There are guys the team could get that would keep the team from having another disaster in the outfield again.
If this is going to be a long term injury, the organization shouldn’t settle for Saunders or Robinson just because they’re young and already here. They can do better.
And we have news – torn pectoral, will be off the field for four weeks, at which time he’ll “resume baseball activities” and be re-evaluated. This basically means he’ll miss all of spring training (again), and probably won’t be back on the team before the beginning of May. And that’s assuming this thing heals on its own. If it lingers, we could be looking at another lost season for Guti.
Franklin Gutierrez Health Concerns Rise Again
We don’t really know much at this point, but reports from camp (including this one from Shannon Drayer) note that Franklin Gutierrez left camp with assistant trainer Rob Nodine this morning. Drayer adds that she was told that Gutierrez tried to make a few throws in from center field and couldn’t get anything on it, so the speculation is that the issue might have to do with his shoulder, not the IBS symptoms he had last year.
This could turn out to be nothing, but it’s not exactly good news that Guti’s hanging out with the trainers again. The team has basically no depth in the outfield, and if this turns out to be a real issue, they’ll have to consider bringing in someone from outside the organization.
Strike A Blow For Freedom, Or Something
So, the guys over at Brock and Salk are doing their annual media bracket tournament thing, pitting local sports folks against each in head to head contests to determine the most… I don’t know, most willing to promote their show in an effort to get votes? I figured I’d get slaughtered by Brad Adam and his amazing hair in round one, so I didn’t bother to put up much of a fight, but amazingly, I somehow overcame his locks of goodness and have moved on to round two.
And now, we have a real war on our hands, because Jeff Sullivan pulled off the dramatic 16 over 1 upset, and is now my opponent in round two. Yes, Jeff and I are “friends” – err, I just realized putting that in quotes might have some connotations that I didn’t intend, so just ignore the air quotes – but he’s also part of an evil blog conglomeration that is, I’ve heard, part of the illuminati. Also, he’s from California. We must stand up to his tyranny.
Vote for me. Not Jeff, me. Vote Me!
Note: Jeff and I will be slagging each other on the air at 10:10 am. Tune in to hear good friends tell the world how awful the other is.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
(Yes, I’m back. Vacation in Colorado was awesome, thanks for asking. I’m still traveling, but I’m working while I travel rather than last week’s enjoy-the-snow trip. We’ll resume normalcy next week, at least until I head down to Arizona on March 8th, at which point I might disappear for a few days again.)
So, we’ve known something like this was coming for a while, but yesterday, Eric Wedge made it official – Ichiro is not going to begin the season as the team’s leadoff hitter. In the current iteration of the plan, in fact, he’s being moved to the #3 spot in the batting order. This move has several ramifications, so let’s deal with each of them in order.
What This Means For Ichiro
He’s going to come up to bat less often. Seriously, that’s about the only thing we can really know right now. By dropping down two spots in the batting order, Ichiro will hit about 35 fewer times than he would have if he was still leading off. If we think that Ichiro is still one of the best hitters on the team, that’s bad, because now we’re giving fewer at-bats to one of the team’s better offensive players. If we think that 2011 was the beginning of the end of Ichiro as a good hitter, though, that’s good, as the team is now going to give fewer at-bats to a guy who is headed for the end of his career and was pretty lousy last year.
But, the Mariners aren’t making this move to give Ichiro fewer at-bats. That’s a byproduct of the decision, not the motivation behind it. The M’s are doing this for a couple of reasons – some that have nothing to do with Ichiro specifically – including the need for teams to make changes when things aren’t going well. And let’s be honest, the offense hasn’t gone very well the last few years. Two years ago, it was pretty easy to say that wasn’t Ichiro’s fault, as he was just playing with awful teammates. Last year, though, Ichiro was part of the problem, and the team is hoping that moving him from first to third in the order can help bring about some change that will improve his production.
Will it work? I have no idea, and neither does anyone else. Yes, the change has resulted in Ichiro adopting a new stance at the plate, in which he spreads his feet further apart and barely lifts his leg off the ground. It’s possible that he’s also going to take a new approach and attempt to drive the ball more to the outfield now, rather than relying on beating the ball into the ground as often as he has in the past. Maybe these changes will make him better. Maybe they’ll make him worse. There’s no way to know. Different doesn’t always mean better, and of course, there’s the very real possibility that Ichiro would have just performed better than he did last year even if the team sent him back out there to do the exact same thing he’s always done.
That’s the thing about baseball – the old cliche about the definition of insanity being an expectation of a different result from doing the same thing over and over again doesn’t apply. In baseball, you absolutely can do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. In fact, in many cases that’s exactly the right thing to do when you get bad results – just keep plugging away until the results change. Players regularly get themselves in trouble when they let a slump convince them that they need to tinker with the things that got them success in the first place. In baseball, randomness happens, and good processes won’t always lead to good results. The right approach is often to continue right along with the good process, knowing that the results that are out of your control will eventually change.
But, then, we dont’ know if Ichiro’s old process is still a good process. He’s older now, so it would make sense that the approach he took as a 27-year-old won’t be as effective now that he’s 38. He very may well need a new process in order to adapt to his new physical skills. If he’s not as capable of beating out grounders as he used to be, maybe he should look into hitting fewer ground balls. And maybe he will. And maybe it will work. But now we’re just down the speculative rabbit hole so far that we can’t even see facts anymore, and we’re just living in the land of guess work.
This is, for all intents and purposes, what the Mariners are doing with Ichiro. They’re guessing (and hoping) that by moving him down in the order, it will have some kind of positive impact on his results. It might, it might not. No one’s really seen Ichiro do things any differently than he’s always done them, so there’s no way to know if that Ichiro will actually be better or worse. He’ll be different, but whether that’s a positive or a negative, we’ll just have to wait and find out. For now, the Mariners are essentially just doing something because they had nothing to lose. If it doesn’t work, well, he’s a free agent at the end of the year and at least they can say they tried. If it does work, huzzah, they “fixed” Ichiro. This is why managers tinker with the line-up; you’re a genius if the results change, but it’s the player’s fault if they don’t. So, we’ll try Ichiro as the #3 hitter, at least for a while. Eric Wedge has nothing to lose by doing things this way.
What This Means For Chone Figgins
In reality, the bigger news isn’t that Ichiro is now the #3 hitter, it’s that the team was willing to proclaim Figgins the lead-off hitter – a role he can only fill if he’s playing everyday. And, really, the only spot for him to play everyday is at third base, so the de facto result of this announcement is that Chone Figgins has come to camp as the team’s starting third baseman. If he hits .150 during March, they’ll probably abandon the experiment, but right now, we should probably assume that third base belongs to Figgins, and Kyle Seager is going to head back to Triple-A to form the world’s biggest positional logjam.
This is the part of the news that you probably shouldn’t be thrilled with. The team tried to move Figgins all winter and couldn’t find any takers – not surprising, considering just how bad he’s been the last few years and that he’s still due $18 million over the next two seasons. So, rather than have him just serve as the team’s 25th man, they’re opting to give him the start of the 2012 season to try and rejuvenate himself as a leadoff hitter again, and hopefully convince a scout or two that he’s got something left in the tank so the Mariners can ship him somewhere else and save a few million dollars in the process.
Make no mistake about it – this move is more about Figgins than it is about Ichiro. He has no real chance of finishing his contract as a Mariner; the only question is whether he relocates because someone else decides they want him or the Mariners just get tired of him taking up a roster spot. By opening up the leadoff spot in the order again, the team is hoping to take advantage of the fact that people still believe that part of his struggles in Seattle are due to being moved to the #2 spot in the batting order after succeeding as a lead-off hitter in Anaheim.
Now, let’s be honest, there’s no real reason to believe this is true. Last year, Figgins led off an inning 55 times, and he hit .173/.218/.231. In 2010, he led off an inning 119 times, and he hit .233/.336/.272. Despite all the talk about different mindsets and approaches that come with hitting first rather than second, we’ve seen Figgins be the first guy to walk up to the plate in Seattle a lot, and he’s been just as terrible in those situations as in any other. The idea that just naming him the “leadoff hitter” will cause him to become good again is just wish-casting. It has no basis in fact. It’s just as likely that Figgins would benefit from rubbing Felix’s left toe in between at-bats. There’s just no real evidence that batting position has any real tangible effects on a player’s ability to hit a baseball.
But, from the Mariners perspective, that doesn’t really matter. What matters is what they can sell to other teams, and there are still enough people in decision making positions in Major League Baseball who do believe that batting position matters that the M’s can sell a good start to the season as being the result of having Figgins back at the top of the order. Actual causation here is irrelevant – if the team puts Figgins back in the first batting position and he hits better, there will be other teams who believe that A and B occurring simultaneously must mean that A caused B, and will believe that Figgins could continue to hit well for them as long as they let him hit leadoff for them too.
The Mariners don’t need to peddle the truth here. If May rolls along and Figgins is hitting .300 and drawing walks again, they are under no obligation to try and explain to potential suitors that correlation does not equal causation, and that Figgins may very well revert back to pumpkin form at any minute. The fact that other teams might make the causation leap themselves means that a good start to the season does present the M’s with some chance to actually trade him without assuming the entirety of the remainder of his deal.
They’re never going to get anyone to take the whole contract. But, if they just ate the contract now, they’d be out roughly $17 million of the remaining $18 million on the deal (someone would sign him as a free agent for the league minimum, and then they’d be on the hook for that part of his contract). If Figgins hits well in April and May, they’ll have paid down about $2.5 million of the contract already, and might be able to convince someone that taking $5 or $6 million of the remaining $15.5 million is an okay investment for a rejuvenated leadoff hitter.
Maybe you don’t care if the team lowers their 2013 expenses by $5 million, but if it gives them the budget room to bring in a player who better fits into the future of the team, then it’s a decent reward for pushing forward with this experiment. That’s essentially the best case scenario here – Figgins plays well enough to generate a modicum of trade value and the team dumps him in the early summer for some cash savings for 2013.
There’s also a pretty good chance that he’s still pretty lousy and spends the first few weeks of the season just making a ton of outs at the top of the batting order. In that scenario, he’s probably DFA’d by May 15th, and the team can say they gave him every opportunity to succeed here. They tried him at second base and he failed at that. They tried him at third base and he failed at that. They tried him at leadoff and he failed at that. At that point, Figgins will be out of excuses, and the team will just dump him and move on to Plan B.
Either way, I don’t see Chone Figgins on this team much past June. He’ll either be good and traded or bad and cut. No matter how you look at it, Figgins-as-Mariner-leadoff-hitter is a short term thing.
What This Means For Everyone Else
We mentioned this briefly, but the biggest ramification of this announcement is that Kyle Seager is probably ticketed for Tacoma. The team probably won’t want him sitting around not playing, and if Figgins is going to be the regular third baseman, then they’d likely rather give Carlos Guillen the backup 3B/1B job and let Seager play regularly in Triple-A. Of course, that creates a problem, because the working assumption before this news was that Francisco Martinez was going to be the Rainiers third baseman, a decision that had already pushed them to move Alex Liddi to first base for this year. Sending Seager down means that Martinez could be headed back to Double-A to repeat a level. They could also have Seager play second base down in Tacoma if they want Martinez to still be able to play third, but having Seager get reps at second with Dustin Ackley entrenched at the spot in Seattle isn’t all that useful to the team. As weird as it sounds, the team doesn’t really have room for Seager back in Tacoma. Sending him down creates some problems, and even if it’s just for 6-8 weeks, the sooner they can end the Figgins-as-starting-3B experiment, the better off the guys with an actual future in this organization will be.
In terms of the line-up, Figgins at #1 and Ichiro at #3 means that Ackley is almost guaranteed to be slotted into the #2 spot in the order, followed by some mix of Smoak-Montero-Carp as the 4/5/6, and then Olivo-Gutierrez-Ryan as the 7/8/9. It also means that the line-up isn’t likely to very much from day to day, as Wedge is opting for more “set roles” than “platoon advantages”. Rather than taking advantage of left-right match-ups, the team is putting their faith in the magical power of players knowing what they’re going to hit everyday, and hoping that brings them out of their multi-year doldrums. Wedge is an old-school guy and this is old school thinking. It’s something we’ll just have to deal with as long as he’s in charge.
What happens to the line-up once Figgins is traded/dumped? It depends a bit on everyone else, but my best guess is that Ackley will get bumped up from #1 to #2, and then his spot will be filled by either Franklin Gutierrez (if he’s hitting well) or Kyle Seager (if Guti’s not). They’re the guys who most fit the mold of a typical #2 hitter besides Ackley, and neither one runs well enough to convince a traditional manager like Wedge to hit them leadoff. So, my guess is that come June, the line-up is Ackley-Guti-Ichiro or Ackley-Seager-Ichiro, whether Figgins-as-leadoff-hitter was a success or not.
And that’s why, in the end, this Big News isn’t really big news. It’s one last chance for redemption for Figgins. It’s an experiment with Ichiro. And it’s a chance for the team to try and dump some portion of the money that Figgins is still due for 2013 on someone else. Given that the cost isn’t super high – yes, Seager’s probably a better player and the team is probably making themselves a bit worse with this move, but the gap between them over 200 PA is small and the team probably isn’t contending this year anyway – it’s not that hard to see why the Mariners are going in this direction. I don’t think it will work, but it’s a move without a ton of downside and at least a little bit of upside if you squint hard enough.
So, Figgins is the leadoff guy, Ichiro is the #3 guy, and Seager is the Triple-A guy. Don’t get too used to this arrangement – it won’t last long.