Stone on Winter Meetings
Larry Stone’s full of tidbits.
For one thing, the Mariners are expected to make a formal offer to Jacque Jones today, something that will make Eddie Guardado happy, and probably bring smiles to the collective face of USSM as well.
In other “reasons to smile” news, Stone says no deal with Carl Everett is imminent.
Buried near the bottom of the story — probably because most discussions don’t get past the inquiry stage — is this:
On the trade front, there was word the Mariners had at least inquired into Boston’s Trot Nixon (and possibly pitcher Matt Clement) and Milwaukee’s Lyle Overbay.
Immediate impressions: I would have liked the idea of Trot Nixon’s swing in Safeco a lot better a few years ago, pre-back problems; I love the idea of Clement, but think there’s no way the Red Sox would trade him for anything the M’s would give up; and am underwhelmed by Lyle Overbay in general, even if there weren’t the problem of where to put him.
M’s deny Millwood 4/$44 offer
Short version: teams says they haven’t even talked seriously yet, much less gotten all the way to sliding a piece of paper across the table.
Almost as interesting was this, though:
Bavasi said that the Mariners had merely inquired about A.J. Burnett, who inked a five-year, $55 million deal with the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday, and that they had shown interest in the other three starters who have signed in recent days: Byrd, Loaiza and Hector Carrasco.
In characterizing the club’s interest in the four, Bavasi said, “One a ton, one a medium amount, one a little and one an inquiry.”
Niehaus makes Frick Award finals
Dave’s one of 10 finalists, one of three voted in by Internet balloting, and one of only two active broadcasters on the list.
Good luck to him, and good for all y’all that voted.
Carl Everett answers no questions worth asking
Largely on the basis of one report in USA Today, Seattle’s abuzz with rumors that the Mariners are reportedly close to signing Carl Everett. Without further confirmation, I’d say I think this has a slim chance of being true.
I desperately don’t want it to be true. While I think, in general, I’m a lot more tolerant of players who don’t fit into some team’s clubhouse (after all, David Ortiz got released from the Twins in part because a huge, slow slugger didn’t fit in with what they wanted from their players) there are a few players that, for whatever reason, I would not under any circumstances sign for any positional need, ever, and if I went the rest of my life knowing I lost the World Series because I didn’t sign that guy, I’d be okay with it.
Meet Carl Everett!
But we’ve seen the management, so concerned with the public image of the team, bring in Al Martin (and Ben Christensen!) so it’s not impossible that the team would bring in a guy with child-beating problems (this might deserve a longer timeline, but it’s really scummy and suspicious). Who fights with teammates. And coaches. And reporters. And managers. And umpires. Who doesn’t like homosexuals, or fans.
While it might be possible they’re willing to sign players with issues who (like Al Martin) are hard-working guys well-liked by their teammates, consider that Everett’s never spent more than two full seasons with any team in his career (though he’s spent parts of three with the White Sox). Organizations sour on him quickly.
So ignore that for a second. Pretend he’s as nice as Willie. It’s still a bad business signing. He’ll be 35 next year, which isn’t by itself disastrous, but his stats have taken a huge dive these last couple of years, and injuries have limited his playing time severely. The best you could reasonably expect from Everett is he’ll get into 140 games, maybe play some outfield corners, and hit .270/.350/.450 which doesn’t help you much compared to an average DH/LF.
Everett’s a switch-hitter, but with this lineup we can fairly assume he’ll be used as the left-handed sock the team’s wringing their hands over. v RHP:
2003: .299/.382/.557
2004: .272/.332/.450
2005: .246/.317/.441
Which about mimics his general collapse. It’s not as if his offensive decline’s due entirely to an increasing inability to hit lefties which you could try and compensate for a little by platooning him.
Plus, then he gets in a fight with me over something, like my inevitable constant stream of criticism of his poor play, runs me over with a car, and then there’s no one to pay the bandwith bill when everyone rushes to reload the site when they hear “Everett hits baseball writer with SUV, man’s life only spared by high ground clearance” and USSM goes down until I can get someone to get a new server with the money I’ll get burying Everett in lawsuits (which will have the fortunate side effect of keeping him in court and off the field)… so actually, I guess that works out okay for all of you.
Trade Value
I imagine most of you probably have read a Bill Simmons column at least once. While he’s not much of a baseball analyst, his stuff is a fun read, and he has a running column he does every year ranking the top 40 players in the NBA in terms of trade value. Analytically, its a puff piece, full of cliches and unsupported arguments that, in the grand scheme of things, mean nothing. But every year, I enjoy reading it. It’s not serious analysis, but variety is the spice of life. So, as we enter the Week Of Insane Rumors, I figured I’d kick it off with my baseball version of his idea, and rank the 40 most valuable commodities in baseball. I’ll let him summarize the rules, though I’ll change the examples for those of you who don’t follow the NBA:
A. Salaries matter. Would you rather pay Bobby Crosby $2 million for the next three years or Derek Jeter $44 million for the next three?
B. Age matters. Would you rather have Pedro Martinez for the next five seasons or Roy Halladay for the next 12?
C. Pretend the league passed the following rule: For 24 hours, any player can be traded straight up for any other player without budget ramifications. So if Team A tells Team B, “We’ll trade you Player X for Player Y straight up,” would Team B make the deal or not?
D. Concentrate on degrees. For instance, neither the Marlins nor Cardinals would pull the trigger on an Pujols-Cabrera trade. But at the very least, the Marlins say, “Wow, Albert Pujols is available?” while the Cardinals would say, “There’s no way we’re trading Pujols.” That counts in the big scheme of things.
E. Make the list in reverse order (Nos. 40 to 1). So if Alex Rodriguez comes in at No. 19, players 1 through 19 are all players about whom New York would probably say, “We hate giving up A-Rod, but there’s no way we can pass up that deal.” And they wouldn’t trade him for any player listed between Nos. 19 and 40.
Fair enough? Oh, and my own personal add-on rule: This is for fun. Try not to get too worked up over this. Feel free to disagree, make your own list, whatever. But try not to get offended, okay? Off we go.
#40: Daniel Cabrera, RHP, Baltimore
If you take away Felix’s command, you have Daniel Cabrera. Huge velocity, dominant groundball pitcher, impossible to hit, and crazy wild. Even when he’s not throwing strikes, he’s not bad, and if his command ever improves to passable, he’s an all-star. Also just 24 years of age and making the league minimum.
Burnett to Blue Jays, other good stuff
In this mid-day filing from the PI.
The Mariners, from this short piece, appear to now be headed after Millwood or pursuing trade offers (which, really, is wise: if you can’t get Millwood, even at a premium, you’re better off not getting involved with the remaining second-tier free agent pitchers).
With the recent signings and all the noise about the market, I want to share a couple of thoughts Jeff and I were tossing around.
First, there is more money in the market right now. Shared media revenue is up in particular, so teams have more money to spend. So in turn, when teams evaluate how much they can afford to spend, there are a couple of factors that go into it (how well they think the player will perform, how that’s worth to them, how close they are to the playoffs, and so on).
Then there’s the knapsack problem. Sayyyy you’re the Mariners, and you have one position to fill and $15m to do it. You have four choices:
A: Random minor league free agent, $350,000, baseline
B: Modestly coveted cast-off, $1,000,000, +1 win
C: Good undervalued free agent, $5,000,000, +3 wins
D: Highly coveted free agent, $11,000,000, +5 wins
You pick D if you’re trying to win then, even though that’s clearly not the most efficient choice (and may limit your ability to make roster moves in the future, and so on).
Beyond the market rising, though, there are several things worth noting:
– Don’t chase a market. There’s a difference between understanding that a commodity is more valuable and buying tulip bulbs in 1636. If a win is now worth $2 million instead of $1.5, that doesn’t make B.J. Ryan’s contract defensible as a value purchase.
– (related) This is cyclical. A few years ago, an average left-fielder got a 1 or 2 year deal for a couple million a year and the players were investigating whether owners were colluding. It looked like teams were doing a much better job valuing players, particularly the concept of scarcity. But it turned out not to be a long-term trend: this year, that’s out the window. It’ll be back.
– Be flexible. If the free agent market would suck up your payroll budget and force you into long-term deals that hurt the team, look elsewhere. This, more than anything else, is the lesson of “Moneyball” (not “OBP is awesome!!!”): look for undervalued commodities. In this case, for instance, you could look to free agents towards the end of their fat contracts, picking up a shorter deal for one of those guys. You could, if your organization is sufficently flexible, buy every Cuban defector and phenom from Latin America for a year. Or, as Dave’s argued, you shop for what other teams overlook: defense, for instance, or players who might succeed with your team that struggled elsewhere.
Rumor roundup
Not much new to report. The dailies are mostly rehashing rumors we’ve hashed out in the past (Juan Pierre, Jeromy Burnitz, etc.).
One older rumbling is effectively shot down by both Larry Stone and certain east coast media reports. Evidently both the Tigers and Mariners have asked about Carl Pavano and been rebuffed by the Yankees, who say they aren’t trading him. This is for the best. For the M’s, anyway.
The team’s pursuit of A.J. Burnett looks less and less likely, and it seems their attention is turning to Kevin Millwood. Word is that the M’s came way up on their offer to Millwood this morning, and they’re pushing Scott Boras to get a deal done in the next few days.
Then there is this in today’s TNT:
Sources say the Mariners have already approached the Rockies to inquire about starters Aaron Cook and Jason Jennings. But Colorado has balked so far.
Neither of these guys excites me. Jennings has been terrible, and he can’t blame all of that on Coors Field given his road splits. Cook pitched pretty well during his partial season, but there’s that scary history of pulmonary blood clots. As with all trades, it would depend on what we’d have to give up –but it appears the Rockies aren’t interested anyway.
Finally, in other news: I was going to argue that Congress had much more important things to do than investigate the BCS. But seeing what they did to Oregon, I say go, legislators, go!
All Ichiro, All the Time
The Times today has a bunch of Ichiro coverage, stemming from the now famous “I’m unhappy” interview which led to numerous articles about a month ago. Finnigan states that the P-I received three seperate translations of the original interview, and that one did not agree with the other two. Keizo Konishi, who conducted the interview, feels that certain aspects — specifically about card playing in the clubhouse and team leadership — made their way into the translation despite not being part of the original interview. Here’s the rundown of coverage:
Finnigan: Lost in Translation
Konishi: Reporter Aims to Get it Right
Translation 1: Newly acquired from Kyodo News Service
Translation 2: From “Number” Magazine
Given the translation issues involved, this is a potentially delicate subject. That aside, however, there’s a bunch of good Ichiro content, stuff like him talking about his swing, swinging at first-pitch strikes, and so on.
Felix and the WBC
Long story short, King Felix wants to pitch for his native Venezuela in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, but the M’s, as you might imagine, don’t want him to. They’ve gone so far as to file “an official objection,” according to Larry Stone. Over in the PI, Morosi goes a bit more in-depth on the topic, pointing out the similarities between this situation and that of Rafael Soriano, who injured himself pitching for the Dominican Republic in the 2004 Caribbean Series. The M’s also filed objections for Travis Blackley and Chris Snelling, though their agent says this is of little concern given that injuries would prevent either player from participating even if they wanted to.
I’m torn on this. Sure, I don’t want those extra innings on his arm. But on the other hand, do you really want to piss him off? He’s going to be a free agent someday, after all. In case you were wondering, the M’s have already made sure Felix won’t be pitching winter ball this year.
Interesting side note: Kenji Johjima has already turned down his invitation to play for Japan, choosing istead to work on learning his new pitching staff. I like this guy already.
At the bottom of the article you’ll find some notes on minor league managerial moves, which mostly means guys moving up a level since Dan Rohn was promoted to the major league coaching staff.
Juan Pierre
Another item of note in the Morosi article that I think merits its own thread:
The Mariners have inquired about the availability of Marlins outfielder Juan Pierre and left-handed pitcher Ron Villone, a former Mariner. Pierre’s arrival would displace Jeremy Reed in center field and create a curious scenario at the top of the order. Pierre is regarded as a true leadoff man, and Ichiro Suzuki has a stated preference to bat first.
Boy, Ron Villone and Juan Pierre? Christmas came early this year! With extra coal!
Morosi hits on a few of the problems with this — Jeremy Reed is suddenly a man without a country, Ichiro becomes startled at the acquisition of Ichiro Lite — but let me drop one more. Pierre’s arm would conjure up images of Randy Winn’s halcyon days.
More to the point, Pierre doesn’t seem to fill any of the team’s stated needs. Why would the team give up something presumably of value for him when other matters are more pressing?
There are only two positives that could come from bringing Juan Pierre to town: first, he might feel inspired to drop another “Wiggly Feel” verse on us at some point; second, his middle name is “D’Vaughn,” so I would get to make all kinds of lame Dudley Boys jokes.
We know of the organization’s fondness for Villone, so at trying to bring him back was predictable. I have no idea why they would want to do acquire Pierre, unless doing so is the precursor to an additional move.