Can The M’s Fix Charlie Furbush?
As Jeff Sullivan’s explained, Charlie Furbush is an intriguing talent – a better strikeout rate than new-Nat Edwin Jackson, a better than average contact rate, and a solidly above-average fastball velocity from the left side. Coupled with a deceptive delivery and three off-speed pitches (curve, slider, change) and you’d have a guy you’d feel comfortable entrusting the 4th or 5th rotation spot to. Or, you would, if it wasn’t for the home run problem.
Matthew Carruth speculated that Furbush allows more pulled contact than most pitchers; when hitters pull the ball, it tends to go a lot further. Is there anything in Furbush’s pitch mix or location that might explain why hitters square the ball up so well?
Well, no, not really. I don’t want to deceive you, reader: I don’t have any answers here. A closer look at the pitch FX data show a number of moderately interesting things, but I’m not going to sell them as explanations for Charlie’s elevated HR rate. What I take away from the following is pretty much what I believed going in, which is basically the dictionary definition of confirmation bias – so you tell me: what should the M’s do with Furbush?
First off, I’m using the new pitch FX cards from BrooksBaseball, which include manual categorization of every pitch in 2011 thanks to the tireless work of Harry Pavlidis and Lucas Apostoleris. We’ve known for a long time that the MLB Advanced Media/Pitch Fx pitch categorization algorithm is good, but has its flaws. We discussed this last April, but Furbush has a change-up that he throws fairly often that’s mislabeled a slider or a two-seam fastball. Not only does this give an improper view of Furbush’s arsenal, it also drags down his average fastball velocity. Thanks to the new data, we now see that Furbush used five pitches pretty often – each of them more accounted for more than 10% of his total pitches.
Looking at Furbush’s 2011, three things stand out following his arrival in Seattle. First, his HR rate went up significantly. It was fairly high in the Detroit system, but it was remarkably high with the M’s. The sample size is quite small, but hey, it stands out. His HR rate was 3.6% with Detroit and 3.3% with Toledo, but jumped to 4.7% with the M’s. Second, the M’s apparently altered his release point, moving it more towards the first-base bag. Take a look at this graph of his horizontal release point over the course of the 2011 season (up=more towards first base):
Theoretically, this might help him against lefties, but leave him vulnerable to righties; moving his release point further from straight-over-the-top and more towards LOOGY-Sidearmer should increase his platoon splits. Indeed, he gave up 10 HRs to righties with the M’s and only 1 to a lefty (to Robinson Cano). Third, his pitch mix changed markedly. With the Tigers, he mainly threw a four-seamer, with a curve and a slider as his breaking balls. He mixed in change-ups and two-seamers, but was, by and large, a three-pitch pitcher. He threw 34 two-seamers, in total, in a Tigers uniform. With the M’s, he almost immediately began throwing more sinkers/two-seamers – in the month of September, he threw 138 of them. With Detroit, he used the pitch 5-7% of the time, but with the M’s it was around 27%. This isn’t a bad idea in theory – a sinker/two-seamer generally gets ground-balls, and grounders don’t generally go for home runs. The downside is that it’s got the highest platoon splits of any pitch.
With samples this small, we can’t say *anything* definitively. 100% of Furbush’s HR problem could be terrible luck. However, the M’s made two moves that seem perfectly reasonable, but which might make Furbush more vulnerable to righties, and his FIP against righties was nearly 6. On the other hand, his xFIP improved over the course of the season as he trimmed his walk rate while maintaining a respectable K rate in a starting role. The two-seamer did get more grounders than his four-seamer, and his change-up (which he used more with the M’s as well) had a GB% just a step behind his sinker.
So, to sum up (this is probably more than you wanted to read about Charlie Furbush):
– He moved his release and changed his pitch mix upon joining the M’s. The release point and the use of a sinker hurt him against righties*, but using more – change-ups instead of sliders helped him a bit against righties.
– Right-handed hitters hit 10 HRs off of him in a vanishingly short sample.
– Furbush’s K:BB ratio with the Mariners was 41:15.
– Furbush’s fastball velocity dipped a bit at the end of the year, but still stood at 91-92 MPH – below the Sabathia/Price/Lester level, but similar to that of John Danks/Cole Hamels/Madison Bumgarner/Cliff Lee/CJ Wilson.
– The sample’s small, but Furbush was mighty tough against lefties – holding them to a 3.3 FIP/3.2 xFIP amidst a flurry of ground balls.
I said at the beginning that I don’t have an answer here. It’s not as simple as ditching the two-seamer or moving his release point. He gave up HRs like it was 1999 in Colorado, but his other peripherals improved. So: what would YOU do? If you’re the M’s pitching coach or a player development staffer, what would your recommendation be?
1: Change nothing and wait for his HR rate to regress to the mean?
2: Move the release point back to where it was in Detroit and limit two-seamers to righties; keep it against lefties, and go four-seamer/change against righties?
3: Move Furbush to the bullpen, ready to assume the situational lefty role if Hong-Chih Kuo falters/gets hurt?
4: Attempt to cut bait and trade Furbush to San Diego or another team that might be able to manage the kind of contact he yields?
As for me, I’m somewhere between 1 and 2. His numbers against righties will regress, but it’s doubtful that they should regress towards the overall population mean. A part of his struggles can be chalked up to his delivery/arsenal, too. I’m not certain that it’s the two-seamers that “caused” this problem, and it’s not clear that his change is good enough (at least right now) to be a primary weapon against righties. But I think it’s worth exploring, and I think Furbush is talented enough to warrant a second, third and fourth chance. What this means is that I wouldn’t have him as the long man/7th arm in the M’s bullpen – I’d have him start in Tacoma. That way he can work on a number of changes to release or pitch-mix in the only minor league that yields HRs at equivalent (or more than equivalent) rates to MLB. The M’s shouldn’t need a lefty long reliever, especially if they carry Rule 5 guy Lucas Luetge, and Furbush may hit upon a formula that allows him to maintain his more-than-solid K:BB ratio while limiting mistakes.
But what do you think? Was this all luck? Or is the only way he can avoid gopherballs nibbling at the corners, resulting in a slightly different form of bad pitching?
* – This is the most Furbush plate-appearance ever. In his last start, 9/25/11 in Arlington, Furbush started Ian Kinsler with a two-seamer away. Here’s a graph of the pitch’s location. Kinsler’s a righty. Take a wild guess as to where this pitch ended up. OK, got it? Here’s where it actually went. Yes, it was “only” 89.5 MPH, but it was reasonably close to the outside edge. And Kinsler pulled it 408 feet.
Projections, Prospects and Assorted Links
1: Today saw the release of Baseball Prospectus’ 2012 PECOTA forecasts, which followed close on the heels of an update to the CAIRO forecast I mentioned earlier (hat tip: Matthew Carruth). As you’d suspect, both are pretty much as bleak as the ZiPS forecast that preceded them. If you use any projection system based on past performance, the M’s are going to look fairly bad. With a stiff upper lip and a dogged optimism, any fan can probably fill in the reasons to expect the team to best these forecasts – Gutierrez is healthy again! Smoak’s hand has healed! Dustin Ackley is better than these systems think! But the cold gruel of stats and regression (it’s basically only M’s fans that actively root for regression to the mean) make for some depressing reading – CAIRO’s playoff odds have the M’s at 2.4% assuming 2 wild cards (1.4% with 1), or about half what it was before the M’s pulled the trigger on the Montero/Pineda trade.
It’s interesting to look at the guys the systems disagree on, as one vote of confidence is better than none (sorry, Carlos Peguero). PECOTA thinks a tiny bit more of Mike Carp, Wily Mo Pena, Caspar Wells, Jesus Montero and the recently DFAd Mike Wilson, whereas CAIRO’s slightly better for Dustin Ackley, Brendan Ryan and Ichiro. Justin Smoak and Chone Figgins – two of the more difficult M’s to project – look just about identical under both systems, which is a bit surprising given the methodology changes in PECOTA. There really aren’t any cases where the forecasts are wildly different; no one foresees a breakout season from anyone, because, fundamentally, that’s not what these systems do. If the M’s are going to be average-y, let alone compete, they’re going to have to blow their projections out of the water. That’s not news to anyone reading this. While it’s ridiculous to expect that 10-15 guys blow past their projections, the line-up does look quite a bit different if 2 – say, Smoak and Ackley – put up wOBAs in the .350-.380 range. It’s not enough to catch the Rangers/Angels, but it would be a welcome sign that the M’s have something to build on.
2: Fangraphs’ Marc Hulet released his list of the top 15 M’s prospects today, featuring the same top 5 (in a slightly different order) as Conor’s list for Baseball America and John Sickels list at MinorLeagueBall. Kevin Goldstein undoubtedly would’ve had the same top 5 if he knew that Jesus Montero would one day play for Seattle. The only contrarion in Prospect Land is Jason Parks, who slots Guillermo Pimentel ahead of Nick Franklin at #5.
Each list shows a bit more variation in the 5th-10th spots, as the differing weight each analyst puts on tools versus polish, ceiling versus risk come into play. My initial reactions – these lists are probably a bit bearish on:
i) Erasmo Ramirez, who’s young, has good command, and has more velo/stuff than I’d been lead to believe. I’d suspect that lists like these undervalue guys who are both close to the majors and have a mid- to back-of-the-rotation ceiling, but I could be wrong. No, he doesn’t throw as hard as Chance Ruffin, but he doesn’t need to in order to add more overall value. This may be a case where fantasy value spills over into prospect lists, which would explain Ruffin’s placement on virtually every list.
ii) Alex Liddi, who’s only 23 and put up an above average wOBA for his league/park while playing better than advertised defense at the hot corner (though that’s probably not a very high bar). He’s got huge contact issues, he’s not a gold glover, and it’s not clear he’ll start at 3B for Tacoma in 2012, so I’d listen to an argument that has Francisco Martinez higher. But he wasn’t included in Hulet’s top 15, and didn’t crack the top 10 for BA or BP. Sickels has him 8th which seems fair.
3: Keith Law’s ranking of each MLB’s teams farm system came out today on ESPN insider. The M’s came in at #11, while the Padres finished 1st (which isn’t a bad consolation prize after losing Jed Hoyer to the Cubs and Chris Gwynn to the M’s – two guys who helped make the Pads system what it is). The M’s grade a bit lower than the Rangers and the newly-restocked Athletics, but higher than the Angels.
John Sickels’ rankings have the M’s at #4 overall, still below the Rangers, but ahead of the A’s. Any way you look at it, the Rangers are still probably the class of the AL West thanks to SS Jurickson Profar, RHP Miguel De Los Santos, LHP Martin Perez and, depending on how you want to treat him, Yu Darvish. That the M’s are just a step behind (and could eliminate the gap entirely this year) says a lot about how strong the M’s system is. The team’s that’s probably the hardest to get a handle on is the A’s. What does Jarrod Parker’s injury do to your estimation of his ceiling? Can Tom Milone get MLB hitters out, or is this another Yusmeiro Petit situation, where a guy can put up video-game numbers without plus stuff in the minors only to struggle at the major league level? Is Robbie Cowgill a starting CF or a fourth outfielder pressed into duty on a bad club?
4: I’ve technically already linked it in this sprawling post, but Mike Curto’s got a great post up on the corner IF possibilities in Seattle and Tacoma here.
5: Our fearless leader breaks down the 10 worst moves of the offseason at Fangraphs. Sure, I’ve got my share of issues with the current front office, but it says something that I no longer fear articles like this. I’m looking for schadenfreude, and this piece delivers.
Running For Cancer Research
As many of you know, last July I got diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. I spent a good chunk of summer in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy, and most of the end of 2011 was spent either getting treatment or recovering from said treatment. It wasn’t much fun, but after four rounds of chemo and an overwhelming amount of support from friends and the amazing online baseball community, I was given a clean bill of health in January and am now happily living in remission. We’re only a month out from my last biopsy, but the leukemia has yet to return, and my odds of beating this thing get better every day.
So, now that I’m back to living something that resembles a normal life, my wife and I have decided to fight back against the scourge of blood cancers. She’s a physician assistant in oncology and sees the effects of these diseases are on a daily basis, and so we’ve teamed up with four of her co-workers (and one husband of a co-worker) and are running in The Flying Pig half-marathon in Cincinnati on May 6th.
Our group is part of a larger organization under the umbrella of Team In Training, a fundraising arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. LLS is the leading organization in the fight against blood cancers, and provide support (financial, informational, and emotional) to patients and families of these diseases, as well as funding critical research that is on the cutting edge of the fight against leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s Disease, and myeloma. The advances made in these fields are one of the reasons I’m not dead, and the LLS is a vital organization for those who have been touched by these types of cancer.
The seven of us have an official team fundraising goal of just over $16,000. I fully expect to blow that mark out of the water. This is where you guys come in.
If you’d like to donate to the LLS through our team page, you can simply follow this link and use the donate button on the right hand side to give directly to the group. All donations are tax deductible, and you will get a receipt from LLS for your contribution. Plus, you’ll know that you did something awesome, and those who fight these diseases in the future may very well beat death because of your support.
Additionally, I’ve decided to un-retire from fantasy baseball to help raise money for the cause. As an incentive to donate, we’re going to be giving away 11 spots in an Ottoneu League to the highest donors who want to take their shot at embarrassing me on a national stage. I haven’t played any kind of roto baseball in quite some time, but I still have my pride, and I’ll be doing my best to retain some dignity against the 11 heros who gave generously to help stamp out the curse of blood cancers.
If you want to be part of this “Cancer Sucks” Ottoneu League, simply go to our group page and make a (large) donation using your real name. Then, send an email to dave.cameron@fangraphs.com stating that you’re interested in being part of the Ottoneu League. At the end of February, we’ll go through the donation logs and find the 10 people who gave the most money and expressed interest, and they’ll be offered a team in the league. As an incentive to not wait until the last minute, we’ll be giving away the first spot in the league to the person who donates the most money by this Friday. If you give more than anyone else in the next three days, you’re in.
The LLS is rated as a three star charity and is a fantastic organization that is more than worthy of your support. Only eight percent of the money raised goes to administrative costs, and they’ve given more than $600 million to cancer research since being founded. Help us raise money for this great organization and simultaneously tell cancer that it can go pound sand.
Thanks to each of you for your support over the last six months. You guys are great, and I’m honored to be part of such a fantastic community.
Historical Relationship Between Money And Wins
I’m not going to say too much about this article by Dave Studeman, mostly because the information in it stands on its own. Just go read the thing, especially if you’ve become convinced that the answer to all the Mariners problems is “raise payroll”.
For those who prefer summaries, though, here’s the conclusion:
So here’s the point: Wins and salaries are closely tied, but the relationship between the two has changed over time. There is no doubt that some of the change has been random, or the simple result of individual team successes and failures, but some of it also seems to be related to structural changes in the game. The current state of the game? Despite the outrageous spending ways of the Yankees, it’s settled into a pattern that is more competitive than any previous time period, other than the years of collusion.
Once you factor in the extra playoff spots that have been added, it becomes clear that lower profile teams now have a better chance of walking away with a World Series title than at any point in recent history. When people complain about the lack of parity in baseball, or talk about how the game is rigged to reward those teams who simply outspend their opponents, they’re just speaking from a position of ignorance.
Are Lefty Relievers the New Market Inefficiency?
With the signing of Hong-Chih Kuo and the DFA of Mike Wilson, you can credibly claim that left-handed relievers make up a full 15% of the M’s 40-man roster. The M’s bullpen will see plenty of competition for innings amongst its lefty specialists, with George Sherrill and Kuo battling it out for the high-leverage innings, with Lucas Luetge around to face lefties in low-leverage situations (that a manager might actually bring in a situational reliever in low-leverage situations is exactly the problem Dave was talking about here), and Charlie Furbush to face lefty-heavy line-ups as the long man/swing starter. Cesar Jimenez may be there too, lamenting the fact that he learned a change-up and not a slider.
The addition of Shawn Camp is perhaps more baffling – a 36 year-old righty who’s seen his Ks drop in each of the past three seasons. There’s no question that he can get grounders, but without some luck in his HR prevention, he would’ve been replacement level last year. Now, Camp may be the latest journeyman to sinkerball his way to success in the M’s bullpen, following Roy Corcoran, Jamey Wright and David Pauley, but middle-relief wasn’t a problem last year. Not only did the M’s post a respectable bullpen ERA/FIP in 2011, they had one of the best ground-ball rates in the league.
Ultimately, I’m not concerned with these specific moves – Kuo was unbelievably, historically awesome in 2010, and Camp’s been a reliable, durable guy in the Blue Jays bullpen for years. I’m also sure it’s not a matter of consciously focusing on acquiring relievers, and that the team would say that Kuo/Camp just sort of fell into their laps. But ultimately, I’ve got two problems with that. First, it’s a horrible metaphor. Aside from the improbability of it all, what on earth would compel you to offer an employment contract to the interloper if it DID happen? Second, all of this welcome competition in the ‘pen means less competition amongst the position players. You know, where the M’s could seriously use some competence competition.
Mike Wilson is probably a AAAA player, but there’s a chance he could be useful as a bench bat versus lefties. You’re absolutely right that “questionable left fielders” was the one spot more oversubscribed than “LOOGY” on the M’s roster, but frankly I’d rather see more debate and argument at that position. Sure, Wilson is something like a poor man’s Caspar Wells, but given the latter’s balance issues, maybe it’s handy to have one or two of those around. Ultimately, this is really an argument about two things. First, the automatic assumption that a team that’s not scored 600 runs since 2009 needs a seven-man bullpen. Second, that the M’s aren’t focused on wringing every run they can out of the current roster. The team correctly identified 3B as a position of weakness, and instead of picking up a Russ Canzler (who suddenly became one of the most talked about players of the off-season), they signed Carlos Guillen – someone not medically cleared to push paper, let alone Kyle Seager. Canzler may not offer much of an upgrade over Vinnie Catricala, the M’s corner-something (LF? 3B? 1B?) prospect, and if that’s the reasoning, so be it. I’m all for the M’s using guys like Catricala this year. He’s on the 40-man and Guillen isn’t. So why do I feel like the M’s might go with Guillen over Catricala and/or Luis Rodriguez?
If any team is in a position to buck the trend and go with a bigger bench, it’s the M’s. They’ve got depth in the back of the rotation, with guys like Erasmo Ramirez and Forrest Snow on hand if Hisashi Iwakuma re-injures his shoulder or if Hector Noesi/Blake Beavan falters. They have 5 very solid relievers in Sherrill, League, Kelley, Wilhelmsen and Ruffin, which doesn’t even count the electric but troubled Kuo. They also have relief prospects in the high minors with Stephen Pryor and Snow, and they’ve got some talent in SP roles who could help out if need be – Carter Capps, Charlie Furbush, Brandon Maurer, etc. The M’s don’t need to carry so much of that depth on the active roster, though. Instead, they could focus on match-ups at the plate – they could put some of the youngsters in a position to succeed by getting them PAs against opposite-handed pitchers, and they could deploy John Jaso, Caspar Wells, or Vinnie Catricala for a late-game pinch hitting role. Mike Wilson doesn’t seem like much, but right now the M’s have Chih-Hsien Chang, Johermyn Chavez, Carlos Peguero, Trayvon Robinson and Michael Saunders on the 40-man. I’m all for quality over quantity, but in the absence of bankable quality, can we at least have a decent quantity of hitters and not relievers?
M’s Sign Shawn Camp Too
The M’s just officially announced the signing of both Hong Chih-Kuo and Shawn Camp to Major League contracts, and DFA’d Mike Wilson and Chris Gimenez to make room for them on the 40-man roster. Kuo, we talked about this morning, so here’s a brief summary of Camp – he’s the new Jamey Wright, or Sean Green if you prefer to go back a few more years.
Sinker/slider/change right-hander who is pretty good against RHBs and should probably never face an LHB in a meaningful situation. His career K/BB vs RHBs is 3.15, but is just 1.48 against LHBs. His numbers last year kind of suck because the Blue Jays kept asking him to get LHBs out – 47% of the batters he faced last year were left-handed.
Used more as a specialist, he could be pretty decent. He was a pretty solid rubber-arm type for the Jays in both 2009 and 2010, and he’ll probably be the veteran RH setup guy if the team decides they don’t want to thrust Tom Wilhelmsen right into that role. Not a ton of upside here, but he provides some depth in the bullpen that wasn’t there previously.
As of right now, the bullpen looks to shake out something like this:
Closer – Brandon League
RH – Shawn Camp
LH – George Sherrill
RH – Tom Wilhelmsen
LH – Hong-Chih Kuo
RH – Shawn Kelley
Long – Charlie Furbush
Four spots are basically guaranteed, barring injury or spring training implosion – League/Camp/Sherrill/Kuo. Wilhelmsen would probably have to be pretty terrible in spring training to not make the club. Kelley and Ruffin both have options left and both could start the season in the minors if the team decided they wanted to keep an out-of-options guy like Cesar Jimenez or Rule 5 pick Lucas Luetge. Aaron Heilman could be in the mix for one of those spots too. Blake Beavan will probably battle Furbush for the long reliever role, with the loser headed for Tacoma.
M’s Expected To Sign Hong-Chih Kuo
According to Jayson Stark, other teams that have expressed interest in signing LH reliever Hong-Chih Kuo have been notified that he’s joining the Mariners instead. The M’s are usually pretty slow to announce stuff like this – Jack Z talked about Kevin Millwood as part of the rotation plans on the Montero-Pineda conference call, even though that signing wasn’t announced until the next day – but I’d expect this to become official at some point in the next few days. It will almost certainly be a minor league contract with an invite to spring training and a bunch of incentives tied to innings pitched if he makes the big league roster.
In terms of what he could provide, no one’s a bigger question mark in the sport. In 2010, he was probably the best reliever in baseball – last year, he was one of the worst. He has a long history of arm problems, including having Tommy John surgery twice, and again lost his ability to throw strikes during the first half of last season – he had initially missed three months in the 2009 season with the same inability to throw the ball over the plate. On May 11th of last year, he was placed on the DL with “anxiety disorder”, and during one rehab stint in Arizona, he “once misfired a pitch during a bullpen session and hit a trainer in the neck. The trainer was walking across an adjacent practice field.”
He showed signs of overcoming the issues during the second half of last season, however, and during the final two months of the season, he only walked seven batters in 14 innings – a big improvement over the 16 walks in 13 innings in the first four months of the year. That would be encouraging, except there’s also the small matter of his velocity disappearing down the stretch. In 2010, Kuo regularly sat at 95 and reached the upper-90s with his fastball, but he ended the year topping out at 93. If he figured out how to throw strikes by simply throwing the ball softer, that might not be as positive as if he regained his prior form.
So, you name the red flag and it’s probably raised with Kuo. He’s forgotten how to throw strikes twice. He’s had five surgeries, including major arm problems twice. His velocity was down at the end of the year. Of course, there’s also the upside – he’s come back from the yips before, he finished the year without any reported arm problems, and there’s that 2010 season that is pretty tantalizing sitting on his resume.
If Kuo comes to camp throwing 95 and putting the ball over the plate, he’ll make this team, and could potentially be the best reliever in the bullpen. If he’s throwing 92 or hitting trainers on other fields, then the M’s will likely have just agreed to pick up the tab for further rehab of a pitcher who isn’t quite right. It could easily go either way, or be a mixture of both. Kuo might be worthless, or he might be amazing. Good luck trying to figure out which result the team should expect.
But, this is why NRIs were invented. The M’s basically just bought a lottery ticket, and if it pays off, they’ll come out with a greatly improved bullpen. If it doesn’t, well, it didn’t really cost them much to begin with.
Update: Dylan Hernandez reports that the deal is done, but is actually a one year Major League contract. So, Kuo will go right on the 40 man roster, and unless he implodes in spring training, he’s going to make the club.
On Clubhouse Confidential
I’m back on CC today, and Jack Z will also be a guest on the show. It airs on MLB Network at 2:30 and then replays throughout the night.
M’s Sign Carlos Guillen
Hey, look, the Mariners weren’t done after all! Okay, so, this doesn’t really count, and this deal has been in the works and kicking around the rumor mill for a while. Today, the M’s announced that they’ve signed Carlos Guillen to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training.
From 2004 (the year the Mariners traded him for Ramon Santiago…) to 2008, Guillen was one of the better players in baseball. He hit .308/.377/.493, good for a 127 wRC+, while spending most of his time at shortstop, though he also played some third, some first, and even a few games in left field. He made a lot of contact, hit for power, drew some walks, ran the bases, and was a pretty terrific all-around infielder. He was never a great glove guy, but he wouldn’t kill you defensively either, and all told, he was worth +19.4 WAR over those five seasons, an average of nearly +4 wins per season.
Then his body broke down. In 2009, he missed two months with shoulder problems and was limited to just 322 plate appearances, where his offense was okay but significantly down from prior seasons. He played mostly left field and DH, and he was a liability in the field that his bat didn’t really make up for.
In 2010, the Tigers tried him at second base, but he missed a month with a hamstring issue, a few weeks with a strained calf, and then finished the year on the DL after having microfracture surgery on his knee. He only got 275 plate appearances that year and was basically the same guy as the year before.
He started last year on the DL while still recovering from surgery and didn’t play in the big leagues until July. He managed to last for about a month before a sore wrist landed him on the DL, and then he ended the season unable to play due to another calf strain. During the month that he did play, he was lousy.
Over the last three years, Guillen has accumulated about 700 PA and been worth +0.2 WAR, landing on the DL four different times for four different injuries. He turned 36 in September. You can probably figure out about what you should expect him to be able to give the 2012 Mariners.
So, why’s he coming to camp? As we’ve talked about, the team needs some third base depth, and Guillen is essentially going to give them an alternative option for the roster spot currently held by Chone Figgins. It’s pretty likely that the M’s would move Figgins if anyone wanted to pick up even a moderate amount of his remaining contract, and having Guillen around means that they would have someone to platoon with Seager at third base if they dumped Figgins before the season starts.
Guillen’s an insurance policy – a guy who could fill a part-time bench role if someone gets hurt in spring training or they make a trade. As it stands now, he wouldn’t make the club, but there’s time for that to change. Bringing Guillen to camp gives the team the ability to make a move with Figgins if they want to without having to scramble to fill his roster spot by making a trade or pushing a kid up from Tacoma prematurely. Unlike with Millwood, who is probably going to make the team, Guillen probably can’t win a job in spring training. He’s going to need someone else to get out of the way if he’s going to make this club. That guy is almost certainly Figgins, but given that the team is only carrying four outfielders (including Mike Carp) right now, Figgins versatility is almost certainly more helpful to the team than Guillen’s potential for a little more offense from the platoon third baseman.
The Mariners Off-Season Should Not Be Over
After talking with Jack Zduriencik at the media luncheon last week, Greg Johns reported that the team “may still add a little chip” but noted that “the club is close to being set” as they head towards spring training. More and more, it’s beginning to sound like the Mariners off-season shopping is essentially over with, and the roster the team has now is essentially the one the team will go into the season with. And, to be honest, this annoys the crap out of me.
Right now, the Mariners project as about a 75 win team – maybe a bit higher if you have big expectations for what Ackley, Montero, and Smoak can do next year, maybe a bit lower if you think they’re all going to take some time before they turn into high quality players (or you don’t think they ever will). But, a reasonable accounting for the talent on the team at the moment should put them somewhere in the range of 75 wins. For example, the boys at RLYW used the 2012 Marcel projections and a simulation engine to come up with a current set of projected standings on Saturday, and the M’s came out as a 76 win team, last in the AL West. Because there are two teams that are significantly better, and one team that is arguably better, the Mariners only won the AL West 3.2% of the time and captured the wild card 0.7% of the time. The only AL teams with worse playoff odds were the Orioles and Twins. (Note – we’re ignoring the possibility of a second wild card here, as it’s unlikely to be in play for 2012, but its existence would only reinforce the point I’m about to make.)
But, look at the line just above the Mariners projection in those standings. Marcel thinks the A’s are currently an 82 win team, and the difference in those six extra wins translates into an extra 11.7% chance to capture the division and 2.4% chance of winning the wild card. All told, the also-ran A’s – the eighth best team in the AL based on the simulations – made the playoffs 18% of the time. Whether or not you think the A’s are actually that good (I’ll take the under, personally) is besides the point here, as we’re really more interested in the rise of playoff expectations as a team adds wins to their roster.
Given an expected last place finish, many people suggest that an organization should just concede the season, take their lumps, play the kids, and figure out what they have in terms of young talent going forward. You hear comments all the time like “what’s the difference between winning 75 or 78 games if you come in last in both scenarios?” I’d venture to say that the common perception among fans and many analysts alike is that adding wins to a non-contender is essentially worthless, and teams shouldn’t bother to pursue significant roster upgrades until they’re expected to contend for a playoff spot.
That argument is essentially hogwash, and the available evidence does not support a punt-seasons-on-purpose plan of franchise building in most cases. There are scenarios where a team is so far away from contending that the value of a marginal win is quite small (the 2012 Astros are in such a situation, for instance), but ~75 win teams are not in that position. While wins 85 to 92 have the largest impact on on a potential playoff berth, there’s still quite a bit of value in improving a roster that is only a few players away from being a .500 club.
The reality of a 162 game season is that every year, one or two teams are the benefactors of significant good fortune, and they destroy their pre-season estimate by 15+ wins. Whether it’s a bunch of guys having career years at the same time, the entire pitching staff staying healthy, winning a bunch of one-run games due to timely hitting or pitching, or just a group of young kids making a larger than expected impact on the big league team, the surprising upstart is an annual tradition at this point. Last year, the Diamondbacks improved by 29 games and won their division going away, despite generally being considered an also-ran before the season started. In 2010, the Reds won their division after finishing in the bottom 10 in the league in winning percentage the year before, and the Padres went from one of the worst teams in baseball to missing out on a playoff spot on the final day of the season. The Rockies went from 74 to 92 wins in in 2009. The 2008 Rays won 31 more games than the season prior and ended up in the World Series. Both the Cubs and Diamondbacks went worst-to-first in 2007. In 1990, the Twins won 74 games and finished dead last in a seven team division, but in 1991, they won the World Series – and that was back when only two teams made the playoffs each year.
The current reality is that a 75 win team is a few good breaks away from playing meaningful baseball in September, and even if it doesn’t result in a playoff spot, that kind of unexpected contention can have a significant positive effect on a franchise. The top four teams in attendance gains last year were the Indians (+449,000), Rangers (+442,000), Giants (+350,000), and Pirates (+327,000). You’ll notice that along with the two teams that played in the World Series the year prior, the two teams that got fans back to the ballparks were the teams who hung around in contention for most of the season during a year where their fans had minimal expectations of success.
Fans want hope. Winning provides hope while losing breeds resentment. The singular focus on wins as they relate only to a team’s ability to win a championship is a misunderstanding of the value of a marginal win to a franchise. Back in 2007, Vince Gennaro published a piece at The Hardball Times dealing with win curves and the marginal revenue benefits associated with adding wins for each franchise. Based on the team’s market size, he estimated that adding five wins to push the team from 78 to 83 wins would produce an additional $6 million in revenue for the franchise. That’s just a fraction of the $16 million that would be added by gaining wins 86-91, but there is a real tangible benefit to improving from mediocre to decent.
Why should we care if the Mariners make more money? Well, any basic understanding of economics will tell you that additional revenues support capital expenditures, and teams with higher revenues can support higher payrolls. This isn’t about making the team more profitable – a better team in 2012 gives the team more money to play with next winter, and the winter after that, and the winter after that. Wins produce present value that creates compounding future value.
And so, if the Mariners are really content to sit on their hands and avoid improving this team any further, they’re missing an opportunity to not just make the team less bad, but to really improve their odds of winning both in 2012 and in the future. I’m all for building the nucleus of a roster through the farm, and I’ve spent the entire off-season explaining why I didn’t support a massive contract for Prince Fielder, but my point all along has been that the team could take the money they would have given Fielder and improved the roster in a more efficient way.
Taking the money they would have given Fielder and just putting it in a savings account isn’t helpful. It’s less actively harmful to the organization than signing up for another awful contract, so I’ll take this off-season over one that involved the M’s giving Fielder $200+ million, but at no point have I been advocating for the time to just put their money away and avoid improving the roster when they have the financial capability to do so.
I’m not one of the guys who believes that increasing payroll is the panacea that will allow the Mariners to be competitive again, nor do I believe that Mariners ownership is cheap or is simply defrauding us of a quality product for their own financial gain. I think any reasonably objective look at the team’s expenditures over the last 15 years requires a rejection of that kind of thinking. However, there’s no getting around the fact that the team (as currently constructed) represents a significant downward adjustment in payroll from where the budget stood a year ago, and that’s a bad thing.
This roster has holes in it that could have easily been improved upon with a more aggressive off-season plan. If the organization really decided that their best course of action this winter was to simply wait around to find out exactly how much Prince Fielder would cost, then not invest the money that they would have allocated to him in order to fund alternative upgrades, they screwed up. That’s just a bad plan, and unfortunately, I don’t think the Mariners are all that much closer to being competitive in the AL West than they were in November. They moved some pieces around and brought in some depth to help stave off disaster scenarios where the team might lose another 100 games, but in terms of just pushing the organizational talent level forward this winter, I can’t call this off-season anything other than a failure.
Asking for patience is fine. We’re not expecting a miracle, nor are we demanding that the team just start spending recklessly in order to appease an angry mob. But, there’s no reason the Mariners should cut payroll in 2012, and right now, that looks to be exactly what they’ve decided to do. This team could use more good players, and there have been good players changing teams this winter at prices that were reasonable and easily within the scope of what the team has spent on talent in prior seasons. They didn’t have to sign Prince Fielder to improve the team, but they should have done more than this.
Right now, the Mariners have something like a 1-in-25 shot of making the playoffs. Signing a guy like Edwin Jackson could have pushed those odds to something more like 1-in-10, and put the Mariners in a better position to capitalize if they do catch lightning in a bottle next year. That the team has apparently made a conscious decision to ignore that kind of potential upgrade is frustrating.
I know some will argue that the team is simply leaving themselves more money for next winter, when guys like David Wright and Josh Hamilton could be available to add the roster, and that by going young, the organization will have a better idea of just who they can and can’t count on going forward. But, I don’t see that bringing in another good player or two on reasonable contracts would have interfered with the team’s ability to pursue a premium talent next off-season, nor would those players have significantly interfered with the development of the core of the next good Mariners team. They had room to both go young and still get better this winter.
That they chose to only do one of the two is just simply disappointing.