Morrow signs
From the PI which is running an AP story:
The Seattle Mariners have scheduled a Friday news conference to announce they have signed Brandon Morrow, the fifth overall choice in this month’s major league draft.
Barry Bonds is coming to Seattle
Tomorrow, yes, but could the petulant slugger be bringing his size XL melon to Safeco next year as well? San Francisco media reports indicate that it’s a possibility:
During a 10-minute chat initiated by two Seattle writers, Barry Bonds said he might be interested in playing for the Mariners next year. “If they’re looking for a DH, it could be,” he said.
First thought? Much ado about nothing, speculation stirred up by a couple of bored reporters. Not that I blame them. I’m all for throwing rocks at the hornet nest, especially as regards scurrilous rumor-mongering.
Bonds also reiterated how serene he is now. “That’s probably bad for me because normally when I’m an a — , I function better,” he said. “Right now, I’m having a great time with the guys, enjoying life. I may not be the ballplayer I once was, but I’m a lot happier.”
Temtping as it is to let this pass without comment, this implies a facetious five-point action plan:
Step 1: Sign Bonds
Step 2: Piss him off
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Repeat step 2
Step 5: Profit!
Ryan Anderson wants to be like me
It’s apparently not enough for former M’s prospect Ryan Anderson that he had more of a professional baseball career than I ever will. No, The Little Unit has enrolled in school at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute in Arizona. The Mariners are even paying roughly half of his tuition (I haven’t asked if they’ll cover mine, even though I’ve been to far more of their games than Anderson ever has).
To which I say, bring it on, Little Unit. You may be six-foot-ten, but I’ll outcook you every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Updated Future Forty
Long overdue, but finally here, we have a new Future Forty. A bunch of changes since the pre-season update, as some guys go away and new guys join the club.
This was probably the hardest I’ve had to look to find 40 guys in the system that I felt were worthy of being listed. I finally relented and put the struggling Michael Saunders on the list just based on talent, because honestly, there wasn’t anyone else who deserved the spot. He’s not hitting, but he has some talent (even if it was overstated during the past offseason by folks who got a wee bit too excited), so he ends up on the list due to what he might become.
The system is a bit better than it was, mainly due to two things – the addition of Brandon Morrow and the current health of Doyle. Adding two upper tier prospects will help any system look better, and the M’s are no exception. They’re still a league average farm system, at best, but there are some players to like on the way.
One of the problems is we’ve yet to see any significant breakthrough performances this season. Last year, Adam Jones took a big step forward, but no one has had an eye-opening season that changes the way we view their future. Matt Tuiasasopo was a good preseason candidate, but while he’s hitting for average, he’s not doing anything else. The arms who are pitching well are mostly relievers, which just isn’t that exciting.
Guys who have improved their stock include guys like Francisco Cruceta, who still profiles as a back-end starter/swing man until his command improves, and Mark Lowe, who is showing some potential as a multi-inning setup man. Justin Thomas, who many of us shook our heads at last year when the M’s popped him in the second round, is also blowing expectations away.
There have been some disappointments as well. Jesse Foppert’s still not anywhere close to what he was pre-surgery, and Yorman Bazardo’s arm looks to be in bad shape. Shin-Soo Choo still can’t hit lefties and lacks the requisite skills to be a major league starting outfielder, and Clint Nageotte’s velocity just doesn’t look like it’s coming back. Unfortunately, the decreased velocity hasn’t brought improved command.
The prospects at Tacoma have been mostly disappointing, but there’s been some signs of life in the lower levels. As such, you’ll see a huge clumping of players in the “prospects – several years away” category. There’s not a rush of young talent banging down the door to Safeco, but there could be in a year or so.
And no, Michael Garciaparra’s not on the list. I’m not jumping on the bandwagon. Guys who can’t buy an extra base hit in the minors don’t make good major leaguers.
As always, feel free to use this thread for all your prospecty questions.
The Week in Mariners
Woo-whee. WWWL,WWW. That’s how you set the ‘snooze’ button on the fire Hargrove alarm. What’s to say, really? The pitching’s been fantastic (well, except Pineiro)(and Green)(okay, Moyer wasn’t fantastic, exactly).
Ichiro! hit .559.
Five.
Five.
Nine.
His OBP was .571.
His slugging % was .794.
Seven.
Nine.
Four.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this lately, but Ichiro! can hit a little.
Among all major leaguers, there’s only a handful who had better weeks (and Ichiro! has more plate appearances than any of these): Joe Mauer, who feasted on M’s pitching, Jason Bay, Hafrner, some Griffey kid, Beltran, Victor Martinez… Berkman… who cares. The point is Ichiro! is absolutely on fire.
It’s a shame that he got off to a slow start. Digging himself out of this hole has made people overlook his excellence this year. Ichiro’s on the leaderboards for park-adjusted hitting: by EQA, he’s the most valuable right fielder in baseball right now. I understand he plays some defense, too.
Man that dude is good. Quick, ask your local columnist to write about how he can’t sustain this success and will inevitably “regress to the mean” or some such thing.
Also, Johjima’s off his torrid pace, Sexson’s still sucking, Beltre had an overall off week despite seeming to take well to the lineup switch, and C-Rex was just baaaaaaaaad.
Game 62, Twins at Mariners
Johan The Great vs Joel The SubStandard. 1:35 pm. No tv.
M’s go for the sweep of the meager Twins, but have to go up against the best pitcher in baseball to get it. They hit him okay in the Metrodome, but the Small Sample Size Police will arrest you if you try to take any meaning from that.
Last 7 Days
In the last week, the Mariners have played six games – four against KC, and two against Minnesota. The Mariners are 5-1 in those six games. Now, both of the opponents stink, to be kind, so beating the Royals and Twins isn’t exactly cause for celebration. But man, it’s been fun to watch, at least. Some performances over the last week:
Ichiro! – .571/.586/.821
Ibanez – .444/.522/.889
Sexson – .320/.308/.720
Hello, power. It’s amazing what driving the ball consistently can do for an offense. Those three have combined for six of the team’s 11 home runs in the past week. Hard to have an offensive slump when you have a third of your line-up just whacking the baseball.
Now, for the weird lines:
Beltre – .231/.286/.538
Lopez – .190/.357/.476
Neither one is hitting for average, but they’ve both shown enough power to be useful despite that.
Oh, and Betancourt is hitting .350/.409/.550 for good measure. They’ve averaged 6.3 runs per game while playing all the games in Safeco Field. Not bad.
On the pitching side:
Jamie Moyer: 14 IP, 1.93 ERA, 3 BB, 3 K (don’t ask how, just enjoy)
Meche/Pineiro/Hernandez: 7 IP, 1.29 ERA
Moyer was awesome and then just okay, while the rest of the rotation (minus Washburn) has been equally excellent. Literally. All three even walked two guys in their start. The bullpen hasn’t been great (besides Putz, who really should be an all-star this year), but the rotation pitched really well. As a team, they allowed 3.7 runs per game. Even in Safeco, against those offenses, that’s not shabby.
Yes, the competition has been terrible. But, you know what, they’re wins. They count in the standings too. So hooray.
The wider view on the draft and economics
There’s been a lot of good discussion around here about the economic and competitive implications of the draft, and what it means for baseball. Arguing against the draft, it’s seemed at times, creates the perception you’re arguing that small-market teams should wither up and die.
So I’ve given a long-simmering article I’ve been working on a quick polish and pushed it out. This is where I am on the baseball economics issues, so that my arguments against the draft can have a little context.
I support revenue sharing done well.
I oppose public funding of stadiums.
I support allowing teams to build their teams any way they wish.
I support a free market for baseball talent in general (so no drafts) and understand that’s not going to happen.
Teams should work without a net.
From the top:
Unless baseball allows teams to move freely, it needs to do revenue sharing, because its messed up territorial rules means some teams have massive economic advantages that are for all intents unsurmountable for even the best owners of other teams.
Read more
Why not Miller?
At the risk of inundating the blog with yet another Andrew Miller thread, I think it important to take a look at what really happened yesterday, now that I’ve detached myself from the fanboy disappointment of the first pick. There’s been a lot of speculation on why the team went for Morrow over Miller, ranging from Howard Lincoln calling the shots to Frank Mattox tying up Fontaine and stuffing him in a closet. Thankfully, none of that happened. So what did?
First, you have to understand how MLB is attempting to deflate signing bonuses for draft picks. While there is no official cap, the commissioner’s office sends every team a list of “recommended” signing bonus’ for each pick in advance of the draft. Bud Selig and Bob Dupuy regularly remind the owners that they are part of a team attempting to hold down the costs of doing business, and every time that one owner exceeds that recommended slot bonus, they make it harder for the league to institute its defacto salary cap on the draft.
For the #5 pick, the recommended slot bonus is about $2.5 million. Last year’s #5, Ryan Braun, signed for $2.45 million. MLB has a strong interest in seeing to it that this year’s #5 signs for somewhere in the same neighborhood.
Now, going along with the commissioner’s recommendation is not mandatory, and they have no legal authority to do anything to a team that exceeds the slot recommendations, but if you want to know how much power these slot recommendations hold, look back to last year’s draft. Among the first 300 picks (or, essentially, the top 10 rounds), you know how many players signed for significantly more than the slot recommendation?
Four. Justin Upton, the #1 pick, got $6.1 million when slot was $4.5 million. Mike Pelfrey, the #9 pick, got a major league deal worth about $6 million when the slot was about $2.2 million. Cameron Maybin, the #10 pick, got $2.68 million when slot was about $1.9 million. Finally, Taylor Teagardan, the 99th pick, got $725K on a slot of about $400K.
That’s it. Four times out of 300, the team decided to go against the MLB recommendation and give a player what it took to sign him. The D’Backs, the Mets, the Brewers, and the Rangers all took the trade off of experiencing the wrath of Bud in exchange for getting the player they wanted.
The Mariners, as an organization, were not willing to make that exchange this year. Now, I know everyone loves to blame Howard Lincoln or Chuck Armstrong for anything dealing with money, but this really was an organizational decision. It didn’t happen in the draft room yesterday. Going into the draft, the club made a decision that they were going to pay slot money for the fifth pick. Period.
Due to his contract demands, Andrew Miller was not an option once that decision had been made. The club wasn’t going to fight Bud Selig on this issue. While we might all despise Seligula, the owners love him. He’s made them huge amounts of money and turned the public reaction against the players in almost every labor dispute. When Bud tells the ownership of every club to do the right thing to hold down costs, they listen, whether we like it or not.
The M’s didn’t look at Andrew Miller and Brandon Morrow and say “you know, we think Morrow is almost as good and we can save a few million bucks here.” The club looked at Miller’s contract demands, realized there was no way in hell he was signing for anything close to the $2.5 million they wanted to offer that selection, and chose to draft the best player remaining on the board who would fit into the recommended slot.
There was no war between the scouts and the front office. Fontaine didn’t have the rug pulled out from under him, though I guarantee you he’d trade Morrow for Miller once both players have been signed and their bonuses paid out. This wasn’t a case where the organization “went cheap” to save money. The Rockies went cheap, getting a far inferior talent for below slot. If you want a fan base who has a right to be pissed at their front office, it’s those people in Colorado.
But the M’s just bowed to pressure from the commissioner, just like pretty much every other team does. They did the “solidarity, brother” thing with most of their fellow owners, refusing to shake the boat and cross the commissioner’s office. And so they took the best player they knew they could sign within those constraints.
Is it frustrating? Yea, it is. But it’s not worth torching Safeco Field over. I’ll have a post on Brandon Morrow in a little bit, and guess what, I actually like him as a pitcher. I’d rather have Andrew Miller, but I understand why the club passed on him, even if I wish they had given Bud the finger anyways.
Draft aftermath
Larry Stone’s writes a nice draft piece focusing on Morrow:
the reaction in Seattle’s war room when the Mariners made the fifth overall pick  California junior right-hander Brandon Morrow  made it clear that this was the college arm they were targeting.
Again, I have no idea, but if the people in the war room had already been told by ownership they couldn’t go get Miller, and Morrow was the guy they wanted next, that’s going to be their reaction. During the draft, they’re not going to be calling up Lincoln and asking if he’s got an extra $3m hanging around and if he’s in the mood to spend it because they’re shocked Miller was still available.
There’s actually some support for this in David Andriesen’s PI piece:
The Mariners had a chance to take Andrew Miller, the North Carolina left-hander who was once considered a lock to be the top overall pick but dropped amid fears about his asking price. But in the conference room, packed with two dozen Mariners officials, there was not a word of discussion after the early picks. Morrow was Plan A. The Mariners passed on Miller, who went to Detroit with the next pick.
Not a word of discussion? That seems like – at least – they had the same idea others did, that Miller might be dropping, and had already considered it.
I’ll stop flogging that angle. We’ll probably never know unless somone like Fontaine or Bavasi spills, and that’s not the kind of thing that leaks if you want there to be a next year (or a next job) in your baseball future.
Andriesen also has a short description of what the draft room is like.
Art Thiel has a weird bit on Morrow and the M’s pitching injuries.