Tuesday trade mongering, rosterbation, and related topics
Here’s your comment thread. Knock yourselves out.
USSM Reader Challenge: Lineups
Yesterday got me thinking. What’s the worst starting lineup the M’s have fielded
1. This year and
2. During the Bavasi Era
Remnants at the end of the game don’t count. Bonus points for being totally unsuited for the opposing pitcher (say, like last nights) and for fielding horrible defenses.
For #2, I submit this gem, which gets you Vidro at second, Lopez at third, Betancourt at short, and an Ibanez-Ichiro!-Broussard outfield in support of Washburn.
There will be prizes.
It Was Still Fun
The last four days haven’t been much fun for anyone. Getting the doors blown off at home by teams that are trading players away is not how you want to end July. Beyond the losses, they’ve just been ugly – bad pitching, bad defense, and bad hitting, as usual. Just a total collapse that basically ends the 2009 season and pushes the M’s into looking towards the future.
But, in the midst of all the speculating about where Washburn will go or who will fix the SS hole, we have to stop for a second and realize that this is the most fun we’ve had watching the Mariners play in years.
During the Bavasi era, we got a reputation for being negative about everything. We were the blog to come to if you wanted to know what was wrong with the organization. We loved Felix and Beltre and lauded the greatness of J.J. Putz, but for the most part, there just weren’t many things to be excited about. The team was bad and old, and the guys in charge didn’t understand how to fix the problems. We lived in fear of every transaction, and the best we could hope for is that the talent in the farm system could charge through the minors so fast that they’d make it impossible for the team to trade them for some crappy overpaid veteran.
But 2009 has changed all of that. This season has been legitimately enjoyable. From the breakouts of guys like Gutierrez and Aardsma to the maturation of Felix Hernandez, the majestic home runs of Russ Branyan, the deportation of Yuniesky Betancourt, the arrival of pre-injury Shawn Kelley (I’d love to see that guy again before the season ended), and now the debut of Michael Saunders, there has been a lot of reasons to watch this team on a daily basis. Instead of fearing what the GM will do, I’d imagine most of us are legitimately excited about the potential of Zduriencik being able to get some value in return for Jarrod Washburn.
We were always fans, but the organization made it very hard to find things to root for from 2003 to 2008. This year won’t end in a playoff series, but it re-established our ability to enjoy Mariner baseball, and that might be the biggest accomplishment of all. A few weeks ago, we were actually referred to as a “homer blog”, which, given our response to the team the last five or six years, might be the most impressive accomplishment of all.
So, congratulations to Jack, Wak, and the rest of the crew on a successful 2009. You probably didn’t want it to end in July, but these were the best four months of baseball we’ve seen in years. We look forward to even better baseball in the days ahead.
Game 99, Blue Jays at Mariners
Hernandez vs Romero, 7:10 pm
Happy Felix Day.
Back spasms for Lopez and a day off for Branyan give us the following strange line-up.
Ichiro, RF
Gutierrez, CF (he should stay here, in my opinion)
Griffey, DH
Shelton, 1B
Hannahan, 3B
Johnson, C
Woodward, 2B
Saunders, LF
Cedeno, SS
Is Hannahan-Johnson-Woodward the worst 5-6-7 in baseball history? It might be.
Dave On 710ESPN
I’ll be on with Mike Salk and Brock Huard at 1:10 pm, talking trade deadline and weekend collapses. Feel free to tune in.
Bedard And Arbitration
Now that Erik Bedard is back on the DL and the season is basically toast, we have to turn our attention to what they do with him going forward. Even if he can return to the mound in a couple of weeks (his earliest possible return date would be August 10th), they’re not going to be able to trade him for anything of substance in August – between his injury issues and the need to pass him through waivers, you can basically write off Bedard as not tradeable.
That brings us to the off-season. Even if he doesn’t pitch much the rest of the year, Bedard’s still going to be ranked as a Type B free agent. According to the latest calculations, Bedard’s a good way ahead of the cutoff, and there’s almost no chance that guys like Brian Bannister and Dallas Braden will pass him the last two months.
So, the M’s will be in a position to receive a compensatory draft pick if they offer Bedard arbitration and he leaves to sign with another team as a free agent. However, the M’s have to seriously ask themselves whether they want to risk Bedard accepting an arbitration offer.
Bedard signed for $7.5 million this year because he was arbitration eligible, even though he was coming off a bad season in 2008. His numbers are better this year, and the arbitration process essentially never gives pay cuts, so the M’s would have to be willing to pay him between $8 and $10 million for 2010 if he accepted. Due to his injury problems the last two years, he probably can’t do better than $10 million (arbiters lean heavily on playing time in deciding how much a player should get), but he has a pretty good case to get a raise over what he got last year. $9 million should probably be the expected cost if Bedard accepts arbitration.
Is Bedard worth $9 million for 2010?
It depends on how the free agent market plays out this winter. Last year, teams used the recession to clamp down on salaries, so $9 million would buy a +2 to +3 win player such as Bobby Abreu, Adam Dunn, Orlando Hudson, and Pat Burrell. However, MLB has weathered the economic storm better than teams projected, and we will likely see some inflation in the free agent market this winter compared to what we saw last off-season. If we project the cost of a win on the free market to be around $4.5 million, then Bedard would have to project as a +2 win player in 2010 to be worth $9 million.
He’s been worth +1.9 wins this year, and since 2004, he’s averaged about +3.2 wins per season. Obviously, the bulk of that was concentrated in his excellent 2006/2007 seasons, but even in the first few years of his career, he was a +2.5 to +3 win pitcher. When he’s on the mound, he’s valuable. How often you think he’ll be on the mound for 2010 essentially answers the arbitration or not question.
If you think he can give you 100+ high quality innings next year, he’s worth the arbitration offer. However, there’s a pretty decent chance that he won’t crack 100 this year, and he didn’t do it last year either, so there are obviously significant risks that go along with that assumption. For better or worse, Bedard is always going to have health problems. You have to count on him missing time, and maybe a lot of it.
On the other hand, the upside is certainly there. Rich Harden is a pretty comparable pitcher, and after breaking down in both 2006 and 2007, he threw 148 innings last year and looks poised to throw about that many again this year. Pitchers with arm problems can come back. Sending Bedard to the scrap heap is just as foolish as counting on him for 30+ starts a year.
In general, you want to guarantee as few years to a pitcher as possible. The risks that come with long term contracts to pitchers are extremely high, and if a team could get away with nothing but one year deals to the entire rotation, it would be in their best interest. In offering Bedard arbitration, your maximum risk is for 2010. There’s no Carlos Silva potential here, where he’s ruining your payroll for years into the future. Even if Bedard accepts arbitration and breaks down again next year, the net loss is contained to one season.
Plus, there is that draft pick to consider. As a Type B, he’d bring something like the 40th-45th pick in the draft, which probably has an asset value of $1 or $2 million. So, if you think Bedard is probably worth $9 million for next year, and his expected cost if accepts is $9 million, you should offer arbitration, because the chance at the draft pick pushes the needle towards a positive return.
It isn’t a slam dunk, though. If the M’s think they can do better in free agency with $9 million to spend, the 40th-45th pick in the draft isn’t so valuable that you have to offer arbitration. If the team sees some more value signings available this winter (along the lines of what Abreu or Hudson signed for last winter), the M’s are probably better off declining to offer Bedard arbitration and taking their chances on re-signing him to a low base, high incentive deal. Would he take it to stay in Seattle? Probably not. But that might be the team’s best plan.
Minor League Wrap (7/20-26/09)
After the poor showing over the weekend with Cleveland in town, perhaps we’ll be focusing more on the future in the coming weeks. Of course, the last time I was saying something like that, it was May, and things got better from there, but May also didn’t have the Angels going on eight-game winning streaks.
To the jump!
Read more
The Washburn To Milwaukee Stuff
As you’ve probably read by now, both Geoff Baker and his Milwaukee counterpart Tom Haudricourt are speculating that the M’s and Brewers could make a deal for Jarrod Washburn as early as tomorrow. His next scheduled start is on Tuesday, and the Brewers don’t currently have a starting pitcher for that day – add in the fact that Brewers GM Doug Melvin has publicly talked about his desire to add an arm despite his unwillingness to give up his top two young players (SS Alcides Escobar and 3B Mat Gamel), which would take him out of the running for Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee, along with Washburn being from Wisconsin, and you have the recipe for a deal that makes a lot of sense. Plus, there’s that whole Zduriencik-Milwaukee tie which should making trading with the Brewers fairly easy.
Washburn helps Milwaukee a lot more than he helps the M’s. If they’re not going to give up Escobar or Gamel in a bid for one of the Cy Young arms, this is their best fallback plan. And, as we talked about recently, they have depth at SS – the big glaring weakness in the M’s organization. It all fits.
However, don’t count on Hardy coming back for Washburn in a one for one deal (that would just be a horrible move for the Brewers), and don’t expect Alcides Escobar to be coming to Seattle at all. If the Brewers were willing to move Escobar, they’d go get Halladay or Lee, because he’s good enough to headline a package for one of those two. The only reason the Brewers would settle for Washburn is because they were dead set on retaining Escobar. If he’s actually available (and Melvin insists that he’s not), they’ve got bigger fish to fry.
There is likely a deal to be made involving Washburn and stuff for Hardy and stuff, which is what I’d bet on right now. But Escobar? Don’t hold your breath.
By the way, don’t be surprised if Carlos Villanueva is coming back to Seattle in any deal the M’s make with the Brewers. He’s falling out of favor in Milwaukee, thanks to a 6.18 ERA in relief, but his FIP is just 4.22. His fastball is underwhelming, but he throws a bunch of off-speed stuff and has solid command, and he’s got experience in the rotation. He’s the kind of major league arm that the M’s would like to get to replace Washburn, and one that the Brewers would actually be willing to give up.
Game 98, Indians at Mariners
1:10. Cliff Lee v Vargas. Sure would be nice if Lee was pulled before the game so he could be traded somewhere, and the M’s faced someone hastily shoved out of the bullpen.
Here’s the kicker: Baker reports Bedard’s on the DL with shoulder inflammation (which seems to be the M’s injury of choice this year), allowing Vargas to join the active 25-man roster… and in turn means Bedard’s not going anywhere, certainly not ahead of the non-waiver trade deadline, because you can’t trade guys on the DL.
Lineups!
CF-L Sizemore
SS-B Cabrera
RF-L Choo
1B-R Garko
3B-R Peralta
DH-L Hafner
LF-R Francisco
2B-R Carroll
C-R Shoppach
M’s
RF-L Ichiro!
1B-L Branyan
2B-R Lopez
DH-0 Sweeney are you freaking kidding me? This is a joke right?
CF-R Gutierrez
C-R Johjima
3B-L Hannahan
LF-L Saunders
SS-R Cedeno
FREE CHRIS SHELTON
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Earlier this year, I wrote a couple posts about the Sounders. Since then I’ve been thinking about the M’s, Sounders, Seahawks, sports in Seattle generally, and today, with the M’s and Sounders lined up (and me with a last-minute windfall ticket to the Sounders-Fire game), I was going to start putting it all together along with a nice recommendation of the Sounders.
On my ticket, though, there’s this:
The ticket holder will not transmit or aid in transmitting any picture, account or description (whether text, data or visual) in any media now or hereafter existing of all or any part of the Events.
So I’m not supposed to tell you anything, much less throw a picture up (and if anyone took a photo of themselves having a good time, or updated their Facebook status, well, woe to you).
And it’s not that I can’t do it anyway, and tell them to shove off. It’s that now, as petulant as I’m sure this seems, I don’t want to. What a venomous little provision.