More Free Agent Pitcher Badness
At some point soon, as hot stove league talk heats up, you’re going to hear one recurring suggestion from the mainstream media – the Mariners need to acquire a frontline starting pitcher. Generally, they’ll add in even more fun extras such as “no matter what the cost”. The idea is, basically, that if the Mariners are serious about contending, they’ll spend the necessary money to sign a big name free agent pitcher. This is an annual suggestion – we’ve been told that this is the solution to the Mariners problems for years. Considering how poorly the rotation pitched this year, it’s inevitable that the same Sign Big Name Free Agent Pitcher calls will be even louder than normal.
I wonder, though, if they ever consider just how bad a strategy that really is? I’ve written about this issue several times before, but the general consensus remains the same – bring us a big name free agent pitcher.
Well, now that the 2007 season is basically over, we can look back and see just how good of an idea that would have been last winter. There were seven pitchers who signed multiyear contracts in excess of $10 million a year in annual salary – basically, these are the guys who would qualify as the types of pitchers that people want the Mariners to pursue every winter. Should the Mariners have been more aggressive in going after a “top tier” free agent starter last offseason?
Player Tm W L ERA IP Hit K BB HR Lilly CHN 15 7 3.85 187 164 156 51 26 Meche KC 7 12 3.82 188.3 195 132 56 21 Zito SF 9 12 4.46 173.7 156 121 73 21 Padilla TEX 6 9 5.70 115.3 142 69 45 15 Schmidt LAN 1 4 6.31 25.7 32 22 14 4 Mussina NYA 8 10 5.51 127.3 162 77 29 14 Suppan MIL 9 11 4.74 180.3 212 97 58 16 Average 9 10 4.63 163 170 110 52 19
Those seven big name, big dollar, long term contract guys have given their teams, on average, 163 innings with a 4.63 ERA. Average Annual Salary? $12 million per year.
With Carlos Zambrano and Mark Buehrle off the market, this year’s free agent pitching class is going to be even less exciting than last years. When Livan Hernandez, Jason Jennings, Kenny Rogers, and Freddy Garcia are the best guys available, it’s time to shop elsewhere.
The Mariners rotation needs help, but it won’t be found in free agency.
Award Winners
Not much interesting to say about last night’s game. M’s lose, Washburn struggles, McLaren says dumb things in post-game interview. Pretty standard day all around.
So, let’s talk non-Mariner things for a second. Everyone always has an opinion on the postseason awards with new names just filling the template for people to rehash the same arguments every year. I’ve long since gotten bored with those arguments and don’t particularly care what the BBWAA as a whole thinks about too many things, so I don’t get wrapped up in those discussions any more. I find it hard to get too riled up about whatever mediocre player Jayson Stark decides to push as his MVP candidate of the year.
But, that doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion on who should win the awards, so, without further ado, here are my totally theoretical ballots, going three deep for each award.
AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro Suzuki, Jorge Posada
A-Rod ended this race a few weeks ago, and no one else should get a first place vote. Honestly, a vote for anyone else this year is just a sign of personal bias. A couple of up the middle players who both provide significant offensive value round out the top three.
NL MVP: David Wright, Albert Pujols, Hanley Ramirez
Wright makes it a clean sweep for New York third baseman in a year with a lot of solid candidates but no obvious answer. You could make a compelling case for Pujols or Ramirez (though his defense is attrocious), and the difference between the guy who finishes 1st and 10th on the ballot isn’t even that large. It’s a balanced field, but Wright gets the edge by a couple of hairs.
AL Cy Young: Johan Santana, C.C. Sabathia, Josh Beckett
Johan’s still the best pitcher alive, while Sabathia has quietly put together a tremendous season as well. Beckett may get the actual award thanks to his win totals, but he’s thrown 20 less innings than Johan and 40 less innings than Sabathia – that’s too large a quantity to overcome when he hasn’t been demonstrably better on a per inning basis.
NL Cy Young: Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb, John Smoltz
The gap here is a lot smaller than you may think as either Peavy or Webb is a deserving choice. But am I the only one who wonders why John Smoltz’s season has gone totally under the radar? The guy is 40 years old and hasn’t declined at all – he’s literally just as good now as he was in his prime. Amazing.
AL Rookie of the Year: Dustin Pedroia, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hideki Okajima
Clearly, Boston’s reliance on three rookies to play major roles was evidence that the Red Sox don’t understand the value of major league experience. Those nerds and their calculators – when will they ever learn.
NL Rookie of the Year: Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, Hunter Pence
Braun is putting the wraps on one of the great rookie seasons of all time. Just a monster of a debut. Tulowitzki’s glove has proven to be more than good enough for shortstop and his bat provides solid value at an up the middle position. That he got nearly 200 more plate appearances than Pence pushed him to the number two spot on the list.
AL Manager of the Year: Joe Torre, Mike Scioscia, Terry Francona
You can talk about payroll all you want, but Joe Torre’s team is going to play October baseball after having to give 23 starts to Tyler Clippard, Matt DeSalvo, Chase Wright, Jeff Karstens, and Darrell Rasner. That’s basically a rotation spot that they handed to Double-A pitchers due to the ridiculous amounts of injuries they faced, and they’re still going to win the wild card. Joe Torre doesn’t get nearly enough credit for how well he’s handled NY.
NL Manager of the Year: Manny Acta, Willie Randolph, Bob Melvin
The Nationals were supposed to be terrible. Instead, Acta has managed to take a team that epitomizes replacement level and turn them into a respectable club, winning games with minor league free agents and Triple-A veterans. Acta’s not perfect (see the Nook Logan fetish), but if I could choose anyone to manage a franchise next year, he’d probably be my pick.
The Value of Adrian Beltre
Now that the season is effectively over, we can turn our attention from the daily matchups of the next game to bigger picture analysis. Today’s subject: Adrian Beltre.
Longtime readers will know that we’ve never hid our affection for Beltre. During the run-up to the 2004 offseason, I threw my entire support behind signing Beltre, and called the deal “a stunning accomplishment” for the Mariners. We were all optimistic about Beltre’s performance heading into the 2005 season.
Obviously, that first year was rough. He couldn’t have started his Mariner career any worse. His first two months in Seattle, he received 199 at-bats and hit a staggeringly terrible .236/.264/.357. Since most of baseball was already convinced that his 2004 season was a massive fluke, the early struggles simply fit into the already written narrative about a bad player who had a contract year and was now one of the worst free agent signings in baseball history. The story of the Adrian Beltre contract was written two months into a five year deal, and in general, the national perception of the contract hasn’t changed much at all, as Beltre is often referred to as overpaid or disappointing. MLB.tv users will remember the last Rangers series in Texas for Tom Grieve’s constant whipping of Beltre in particular.
Well, that story was wrong then and it’s wrong now. The only better third baseman in the American League is some guy named Rodriguez who is running away with the MVP award and is already practicing his hall of fame induction speach. The only Mariner players who helps puts wins on the board with more regularity are Ichiro and J.J. Putz, and they both can lay a claim to being the best in baseball at their respective positions.
Adrian Beltre is a star, an underrated asset whose remaining two years on his contract are nothing short of a bargain. Don’t believe me? Look at the 2006 performances, and the contracts signed, by four very similar hitters during the last year:
Aramis Ramirez: .291/.352/.561, 126 OPS+, $15 million a year for 5 years
Alfonso Soriano: .277/.351/.560, 132 OPS+, $18 million per year for 7 years
Carlos Lee: .300/.355/.540, 125 OPS+, $16 million per year for 6 years
Vernon Wells: .303/.357/.542, 126 OPS+, $18 million per year for 7 years
The market value seems pretty clear – the .300 hitter with power skillset, usually providing offense that is about 20 percent above league average, has been valued at between $15-$18 million per season for 5-7 years. Let’s look at how those guys are performing this year.
Aramis Ramirez: .315/.370/.539, 129 OPS+
Alfonso Soriano: .295/.332/.529, 116 OPS+
Carlos Lee: .298/.353/.519, 121 OPS+
Vernon Wells: .251/.307/.418, 87 OPS+
Besides Wells, they’re all performing right in line with expectations, showing the same basic skillset and performance level that their teams thought they were getting when they gave them long term, big money contracts.
Now, take a look at Adrian Beltre’s 2007 line: .283/.331/.503, 122 OPS+
The raw numbers are a little bit lower, but that’s Safeco Field for you. At home, Beltre’s hitting .270/.332/.430, but away from Safeco, it’s .295/.330/.567. From an offensive production standpoint, 2007 Beltre is basically indistringuishable from Carlos Lee, Alfonso Soriano, or Aramis Ramirez, and he’s several notches ahead of Vernon Wells.
And that’s not even getting into the non-offense values. There’s the defense, which is obviously a significant factor in Beltre’s favor. There’s the health – he hasn’t missed any real time due to injury in six years. And, to top it off, he has age on his side as he doesn’t turn 29 until after opening day next year.
What would a 28-year-old with Beltre’s performance record command as a free agent this winter? Not even accounting for possible inflation, it’s almost impossible to believe that Beltre would do significantly worse than last year’s crop of similar hitters. $15 million a year for 5 years would be the starting spot for negotiations, and it’s not hard to see him getting into the 6 years, $100 million range that Carlos Lee ended up receiving.
The Mariners should be extremely happy to have Adrian Beltre already under contract for the next two years at the relative pittance of just $24 million dollars. He’s a terrific player, one of the best third baseman in baseball, and despite what the national media may tell you, he’s underpaid relative to his market value.
In praise of Vidro
Sincerely. I realized today while looking something else up that I hadn’t pointed out that Vidro leads the Mariners in walks. We’ve talked about why having a batting-average dependent offense can make for a streaky team, and I’ve been baffled why Vidro’s been able to keep up that high BABIP, but I don’t think we’ve pointed out what a huge deal this is. Sure, he’s not a base-stealing threat when he’s no, but he’s drawn 56 walks on a team that is by a ways the worst in the AL at taking a free base.
Vidro, all by himself, accounts for 17% – almost 1/5th – of the team’s walks. David Ortiz walks like crazy on the Red Sox, the AL walk-leading team (he has 97 of their 611) and doesn’t quite get to that proportion.
Fun side note: the Red Sox have five players who have draw more walks than Vidro.
Nick Swisher of the A’s has 94 of their 575, for 16% (16.3 to Vidro’s 16.5). Alex Rodriguez (82 of 540) doesn’t match it.
The M’s are mid-league offense, even adjusting for Safeco, their attack based almost entirely around batting average: they’re 4th in AVG, 6th in OBP (last in walks), 7th in SLG.
The team has only a few sources of any real power: Beltre, followed a ways behind by Ibanez, Johjima, Guillen, Betancourt. They’re not a power-hitting lineup.
Vidro is the team’s Beltre of walks. I know. But there it is. What’s all the more impressive about it is that he’s working in a team that actively encourages their players to hack early and often, and yet there he is… 56 walks. The confused and frightened and possibly post-cliff Sexson has 51, but the only other effective hitter in the lineup, Ibanez, has 43. Vidro’s the only person who’s really bringing plate discipline to the plate, and he’s been doing it despite a team offensive approach that makes it extremely difficult to do that.
That deserves some recognition, and applause. You have to wonder if he’d be even more effective if they weren’t trying to get him to swing at the first two pitches of every at-bat.
USSM on KJR returns
After a one week hiatus, I’m back on the air with Groz at 2:20 pm. You can catch it live at KJR’s website.
Future Forty Update – End of Season
With the minor league seasons coming to a close, it’s time for our last monthly Future Forty update and a look back at the year that was in the farm system.
Big Steps Forward
Adam Jones – Really, I don’t think we need to say much more about AJ.
Carlos Triunfel – the best prospect in the system and one of the best alive proved he could hold his own at 17 years of age.
Wladimir Balentien – Refined the rough edges of his game, made better contact, and probably made himself prime trade bait.
Matt Tuiasasopo – Showed that he could actually drive the ball into the gaps, drastically improved approach at the plate, and re-established himself as a potential everyday major league player.
Solid Improvement
Michael Saunders – Turned athleticism into performance, though playing in High Desert certainly didn’t hurt.
Chris Tillman – Recovered from disastrous performances after promotion to California League, showed flashes of brilliance despite a general lack of command.
Kameron Mickolio – Added cut fastball, improved command, and went from interesting late-round steal to putting himself in contention for a bullpen spot in 2008.
Up and Down
Jeff Clement – had a few great months and a few terrible months, providing evidence to both his supporters and his critics. Still something of an enigma but continues to work hard.
Tony Butler – Arm and back problems led to reduced velocity and a couple stints on the DL, but when healthy, showed why he’s got as much upside as any arm in the system besides Felix.
Brandon Morrow – Showed a legit 98 MPH fastball that can overpower hitters at times, but also had very little idea where the ball was going or anything to complement the fastball. Move to rotation is likely going to include significant growing pains.
Greg Halman – Horrible in Wisconsin, but when shipped back to Everett, made big strides. It’s scary how much he looks like Alfonso Soriano when hitting, and while he won’t be that good, he’s got a similar skillset.
More Down Than Up
Alex Liddi – One of my favorite bats in the system, Liddi failed to make enough contact to do any damage to MWL pitchers and has a lot of adjustments to make. Still very talented and worth keeping an eye on.
Rob Johnson – Mariners still love his leadership and catching skills behind the plate – I remain convinced that he’ll never hit high level pitching.
Doug Salinas – Age is the main thing on his side, as he rarely topped 90 MPH and showed a couple of 62-68 MPH breaking balls that have no chance of getting real hitters out. Stuff did not match the hype.
Overall
You can’t categorize 2007 as anything other than a big win for the farm system. The top talents had successful seasons almost across the board, the best arms avoided surgery, and a few guys took steps up from interesting to legitimately intriguing. There’s no doubt that the organization has more young talent in it now than it has in any year during the Bavasi era, which has only seen significant improvement in minor league development since he took over as GM. Bob Engle, Bob Fontaine, and their staffs deserve every plaudit that can be thrown at them – the Mariners have a lot of talent on the way to Seattle.
However, that doesn’t mean everything is perfect. As an organization, they still fail in installing any kind of real approach to hitting, and the club continues to churn out a plethora of the exact same types of hitters they already have on hand. When you look at the major league line-up and see Adrian Beltre, Jose Guillen, Jose Lopez, Yuniesky Betancourt, and Kenji Johjima, you see five shades of the same thing – right handed, highly aggressive line drive pull hitters. When you look at Adam Jones, Wladimir Balentien, Carlos Triunfel, and Greg Halman you have (to differing degrees) four more right-handed, highly aggressive line drive pull hitters.
With a couple of exceptions, this is the kind of player the M’s are both developing and pursuing at the major league level, and while they’re valuable players and good prospects in their own right, it’s time for the organization to diversify. They have a park that harms right-handed pull hitters moreso than any other player type, but significantly rewards left-handed flyball power hitters. Jeff Clement is the only guy in the organization who fits that mold, and it’s not even a given that he’ll still be a Mariner past this coming offseason.
The M’s scouts are doing a great job of finding talent – now they just need to find different kinds of talent. But, make no mistake, the farm system is in good shape, and the Mariners have a significant quantity of high ceiling guys that could add real pieces to the major league roster in the next several years.
As always, feel free to use this thread for any questions you may have, and I’ll do my best to answer as many as I can.
See ya, Rick
I’m not sure what the point is, with rosters this full, but anyway. He’s 38, stank in Houston and stank here. Anyway, so yeah, that’s the M’s for you: first you’re being thrown into extremely high-pressure important game situations you’re entirely unsuited for and then you’re discarded like all the empty cans of Febreeze used on the Moose costume every week.
Youth, again
Hi!
So Geoff takes issue with my post on the Braves, illustrating that it’s possible, and good, to work youth into the lineups of contending teams. A couple points to pick on before I move to a whole other point, though:
As was mentioned, the young Braves were all Rookie of the Year contenders, which implies they got most of a full season to work their way in. With Jones, we’re talking about a 3 1/2 week “sink or swim” indoctrination, which is hardly the same discussion. Not even in the same ballpark.
The post wasn’t intended to prove that Jones should play. That’s just a given. It was intended to offer a larger example of how a successful franchise, while competing, can still develop their young players and get them playing time so they can blossom into beautiful flowers.
And I’ll point out that refuting that list of RoY candidates misses the larger point of the post. I used RoY voting because it was handy, but you can go through those teams and see how they continually found time for players mid-season and in smaller roles as they prepared them to start, as well as sometimes handing them starting jobs. Giles is a great example of this.
Anyway, to youth and Jones.
There’s a couple discussions here: one, did the M’s clear a spot for Jones at the start of the season? No, and I don’t think it’s at all fair to expect that the team would go into the year with an outfield spot open for him in case he was. You don’t know, right?
Then: once it became clear in, say, May/June, that Jones was dominating Tacoma, did they make a role for him? No, and here you can throw some garbage at the screen and boo them or whatever. It’s clear that they could have, especially with Ibanez’s slump and horrible defense all year, and could have found a way to put Jones out there a couple times a week.
Now, there’s the final argument, which is: having failed to clear a spot for him to start the year, and having failed to get him regular playing time, should the M’s have played Jones down the stretch in important games?
Dave and I have both argued at some length and frequently at some volume that you do. You put the best team on the field. And I’d argue the Franceour isn’t a particularly good comp for Jones, but anyway —
Baker’s argument against playing Jones down the stretch, and I’ll quote two paragraphs for the point:
So, which of those monthly OPS totals would Jones bring to the table these final few weeks if the M’s throw him in the lineup every day? Don’t know? Neither do I. Neither does the team. If Jones were to put up a .688 these next few weeks, in-place of the .800 by someone else on the team, it would potentially be a disaster.
But as I said, maybe he puts up a .900. It’s a risk. And it doesn’t matter what his minor league predictor stats say. This is too small a sample period for anyone to predict how he’d do every day with any accuracy. At the beginning of the season, or even in July, it’s a different story because there is margin for error, or an off-month for a rookie trying to adapt. In Francoeur’s case, he took the league by storm, then cooled off. But who’s to say what order Jones would perform in. I know this is becoming a tired debate in some respects. But I’m just pointing out the issues I’ve yet to see covered and to explain my feelings on the Braves. I agree that any team loaded with young talent should try to use it or trade it. Just not right now, not this late.
We’ve made this point too before: you don’t know what any player is going to put up in any situation anyway. Rookie having “an off month trying to adapt”? Vets have off months. If you’re looking at two players, one a veteran hitter and the other a far superior talent (not that that’s the comparison we’re making w/Jones v Ibanez, but bear with me) you want the better hitter. All players are different, all situations different, and so on and so forth. You can find months where horrible hitters tore it up, and great hitter stank up the joint.
You want the better hitter. You do. In the same way, you want the best team you can field. That team has Jones in the field.
But let’s say you take this whole argument, and you say “well, we could play Jones and improve the outfield defense a ton and he might hit some, he might not, I totally discard minor league track records and scouts and think that he has to prove himself at the major league level even though he can’t prove himself at the major league level because I’m going to play veterans because I totally discard minor league track records and scouts so I guess he’s screwed and we should trade him for pitching or something but veteran pitching because as I mentioned– BUT instead, I’m going to play Raul for this critical stretch against the Angels and whenever, because he’s hot for August and the team needs him and we can’t afford to try a rookie.”
Ibanez went 9-34 with no power at all from August 27th to today’s game. .265/.324/.265 over that stretch of nine games.
How can that be? Adam Jones is hitting better than that on the season, and he’s pretty regularly mocked as not being major league ready on the basis of his 35 at-bats. Is Ibanez not major league ready?
Shouldn’t veteran consistency have come through? Isn’t that what you count on? How could Raul fail so? If you’re supposed to count on veterans in these kinds of circumstances because you can’t afford a cold streak and veterans go cold like that, what then? What’s left?
Veterans are no different than any other hitter. They hit, and they don’t, and just like you want a good veteran hitter over a bad one, you want a good young hitter over a bad veteran one.
And, just to re-iterate, the case I’m making is not that Ibanez should be out of the lineup entirely. I’ve been arguing, and I think Dave largely agrees with me, that a player as talented and as ready as Jones can help the team, and if someone can help the team, you find a way to make the most of that, and it doesn’t matter if it’s June or September if you want to win.
I’m going to throw out one more analogy I think is particularly apt: Matt Kemp. Matt Kemp got spotty playing time last year for the Dodgers (52 games, 153 AB) and this year, at 22, they gave him some time in April, but he banged his shoulder into a scoreboard trying to make a catch in April, and went down to Las Vegas to hang out for a while. A long while. Matt Kemp’s not the defensive player Adam Jones is, but they’re not that dissimilar hitting prospects: a lot of Ks, nobody knows if they’re ever going to walk a lot, but they’re aggressive in the strike zone and put a charge into the ball when they make contact.
Anyway, when Kemp’s ready (and they really take their time), there’s a problem: the Dodgers are in contention and they’ve got an outfield: in left, veteran leader Luis Gonzalez, hitting .282/.362/.431. In center, Juan Pierre (.291/.325/.349) and in right, Andre Ethier, not quite as young, but played well last year and doing well again (.289/.354/.448).
The Dodgers, in many ways, faced an even worse situation than the Mariners did, with no DH to help shift defensive alignments, and without a June pretext for shifting things.
So what’d they do? We know what the M’s did, faced in June with a similar situation. The Dodgers kept trying to find ways to play Kemp, and even though it meant their outfield rotation’s had some fits and starts, and Kemp’s still sitting on the bench 2-3 times a week, since he came back up and played again June 8th, they’ve managed to get Kemp 215 plate appearances.
Kemp’s hitting .338/.372/.537 with Dodger Stadium as his home park. By VORP, he’s the third-most valuable hitter on that team. He’s a huge reason the Dodgers are in the NL wild card race.
There’s no way to know if Jones would produce like he’s capable of if he’d gotten the same opportunity. They’re different players, in different leagues, facing different situations, and so on. But other teams, faced with the same kind of dilemma, found ways to work similar players who can help into their lineup.
Finding Jones playing time wasn’t going to transform Horacio Ramirez into a good pitcher. Or Jeff Weaver. It wasn’t going to solve Sexson’s hitting issues. On the grand scale of things that deserve some blame for the slip from contention, or if you prefer the failure to seize the opportunity they had, it’s not that big a deal. It’s a game or two.
But I don’t at all agree that game’s not worth trying for, just as I don’t agree that there’s any reason not to field the best team possible, or that veteran hitters are any more reliable over short, arbitrary stretches of the season.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh Vidro
Hey, remember back like a month ago, when I wrote that whole summary post of the state of argumentation on Vidro, and I said that he was getting hits on a really high percentage of his balls in play and there didn’t seem to be any skill-based explanation for why that might be, so it could well be luck?
Yeah. Just wanted to check in.
However, it’s worth examining this in an attempt to look at how big a swing that is. If Vidro got hits at his career rate, and his infield hit rate was a little more reasonable, here’s his line:
.286/.351/.355
How’s Vidro been hitting since then, in his 80-some PA since then?
.278/.349/.417, not including today’s 0-4 performance.
Yeah. Now, that’s obviously just good timing to take a sample – it goes up if you include the other two games of that Minnesota series, and then Chicago… but we still haven’t seen any good explanation for why Vidro was getting hits like a Taveras-type slap-and-dash hitter, despite having little footspeed (better than he started the season with, certainly) and it appears in the last month that yeah, maybe as depressing as that is, this is the Vidro signed for next year.
If you do have a great explanation for why Vidro should be able to get hits on balls in play at a rate far above anything warranted by his skills or speed, please, I’d love a reason to be optimistic. We’ll pair it up with “he’s wearing down late in the season and would have done better with more consistent rest” and put that up for the best-case scenario for next year’s preview.
That’s A Wrap
If you had told us in March that we’d still care about the outcome of Mariner games until September 5th and Ichiro would re-sign to a below market contract before the year ended, we’d have all taken that, I think.
2007 – a successful season that is now over.