Misunderstood Melvin
John Levesque on Bob Melvin.
I think Levesque’s essential point: that criticism of Melvin because of his demeanor is misplaced, is a reasonable one. Managers come in all forms, and success is a package with one particular style. And it’s reasonable to point out that other managers rise and sink with the fortunes of their team, their style praised and attacked depending on fortunes often outside their control.
That said, he misses a larger point here, which is that Melvin’s laid-back style does not, from what we hear from other channels, include accountability, that he demands very little from his players and they respond in kind. You can be a player’s manager and still get results out of your players — Dusty Baker comes immediately to mind. Melvin does not do this.
The other point this article misses is that Melvin’s deficencies that will lead to his firing aren’t limited to his style. I’ve made some pretty serious arguments against Melvin’s unmotivating style in this space, but that’s the small of it. He’s bad at putting together lineups. He runs his bullpens badly. He’s a bad judge of talent. He’s out-foxed on the field by other managers.
It may, in the way other players’ attitudes and public relationships have led to their ouster, be the reason why Melvin’s fired. But there are many reasons to fire Melvin, and they can’t all be defended so easily.
Another Section 101 Call to Arms
Ahhh, the Post-Intelligencer. Longtime reader and the Seattle P-I teamed up to give the Mariners a quick 1-2 combination in this week’s Answer Guy column:
Q: Jeffrey Wood of Le Pecq, France, asks: “One of my brothers is over here in France now and we’re wondering: What in the world are the M’s thinking? Putting seating in the Center Field Landing at Safeco Field to make more money when a third less than a full house is showing up is poor planning at best, a kick in the trick knee at worst. That landing was one of the greatest open spaces at Safeco before much of it was filled with those bleachers … Is there a short-term chance that the Center Field Landing will again be a friendly and family free-for-all within smelling distance of the outfield grass?”
AG: Don’t bet on it, unless fans of the open landing speak up loudly.
As mentioned in a June column, the temporary bleachers (Section 101) were installed based on a decision made in March to satisfy expected demand for Safeco seats this season and to provide a new revenue stream for the team.
The bleachers will remain for the rest of the season and might return next year, reflected by how tight-lipped the team is being about fan response to the bleachers.
M’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hale does say: “We’re not going to provide a specific count and analysis of the comments. Suffice it to say, we’ve heard from a number of people about the temporary bleachers and we’ll take the comments into consideration with the other factors we’ll use to make a decision about the status of the bleachers in 2005.”
Interestingly, the temp bleachers have marred an area of Safeco Field the M’s still tout on their own Web site: “The patio of the Bullpen Market in center field has become an event within an event as thousands of fans gather there for festive atmosphere before and during the games.” Not any more…
I love that! HA! It’s like they’re poking the team in the eye.
Take Answer Guy’s cue: go! Speak out loudly!
I like that Hale’s response is that they’re not going to say anything about the size and nature of the response they’ve gotten. I would be willing to bet that if she had bags of telegrams from all the children in the world supporting the bleachers, she’d be giving a press conference sitting on one, surrounded by piles of the others.
I’m also pleased to note that Mssr. Wood, Official U.S.S. Mariner Reader-in-France, is keeping busy agitating from abroad. You may note that some of our other official endorsements, like tede, Jen Van Dijk, and Paul Covert, keep on forcing their way to a second endorsement. Not so much Jen, recently, but she’s mad at me, so I understand.
Section 101
Forgot to mention this, but Ken Haselman got his letter about the bleachers into the Sunday Times/PI sports letters section. Nice.
M’s v Indians, Sep 6
Mmmm… Meche-a-licious. I’m not sure why anyone thinks Meche is going to contribute to the team next year: there’s a decent chance they won’t even take him to arbitration, where he’ll be compared to other players with his service time and the most the M’s could hope for would be a very slight decrease in the money they’re paying him… and if they want to pay a starter $2m to be ineffective, well, they’ve already got that in Ryan Franklin.
It’s Aaron as “ay-ron” by the way, as he’ll be happy to tell you.
Mickey Lopez in Tacoma: switch-hitter, played 100 games at 2B, hit .286/.369/.440. And we’re starting Bloomquist at first tonight.
Greg Dobbs in Tacoma: .271, .286, .416 … but in San Antonion, .325/.373/.507. Not a man who takes his walks, Dobbs.
Jeremy Reed rocks. Seriously. I can’t believe we got him and Miguel Olivo for Freddy Garcia.
When Niehaus called that Omar non-walk walk I was wincing, saying “Come on, notice, notice…”
Mmm.. Meche-a-licious. Travis Hafner should send Meche a nice thank-you note after Meche went to all the trouble of putting that ball on a platter.
Dear Gil,
Thought of you when talking about this season to my mother. Thank you for your recent pitch of September 6th, which I hit for a home run. It was delicious, both in speed and presentation, and I look forward to meeting you in future games.
Yours sincerely,
Travis Hafner.
7:40 — Also, Omar sends his regards.
7:58 — did you see that pitch Meche threw? It was a curve, huge break, hit about mid-plate on the lefty batting box inside line and bounced (it seemed) straight up. Olivo wathced it fly off — and it never lands, apparantly flying — where, the second deck? Did it veer off to the left somehow?
Weirdest pitch I’ve seen in a while.
8:02 — what’s Edgar got to do to get a fricking double this year?
8:03 — Ibanez grounds into another DP. Did you know that Ibanez is a clutch hitter and x of his y home runs tied the game or gave the M’s the lead? Seriously, clutch.
8:05 — Commercial break! If that White Sox fan wanted to hurt the Cubs, he’d make sure Sosa was in the lineup this year. Yeagh.
If you were at a car dealership and a crazy eighteen-wheeler came screaming into the parking lot like some meth-addicted banshee with a death wish, spinning out, disgorging cars everywhere, wouldn’t you walk off the lot? Who would want to buy a car that endures that kind of treatment in delivery?
8:08 the curve that made Belliard look stupid is part of the reason people keep insisting Meche is a starter of the future… Ron Fairly’s now claiming that being consistent is the difference between Gil now and early in the season, even as he mentions that Gil has a feel for the curveball and didn’t the last start. Memo to Ron Fairly: the definition of consistency… oh, it’s not like Fairly reads memos anyway.
8:11 Ron, here’s the thing — an umpire’s not supposed to call times if the pitcher’s in his wind-up. It’s not just “he doesn’t always” — it’s in the rules.
8:13 A rare unintentional glimpse inside the M’s broadcast booth as they turn the mikes on early
Valle: Robby, Robby, my ties are looking… proper
(presumably Robby): That’s up there (muffled– ?)
Rizzs (annoyed): Allright, Valle, you want to sit down so they can get a shot?
Valle (curt): Save it, Ric-o (?)
Rizzs: Here we go (clears throat, pause, switch to fake enthusiastic voice) And welcome back to Safeco Field….
I love how incoherent the announcers are if you really listen closely. Dropped words, mixed metaphors, weird sentence construction… I’m not saying I’d want to work a game where you have to talk for three hours, around action that’s unpredictable in rhythm and nature, but… come on now.
The huge downside to the TV/radio swapover isn’t just that you’re forced to listen to Rizzs no matter which way you’re watching, it’s also that you’re forced to listen to the crew that comes on second repeat the obvious information nuggets already mined by the first crew.
8:22 — I’m not saying that you have to be a great hitter to be a great commentator, but to hear Valle talk about the amount of concentration it requires to have a five-hit game… what do you know, Valle? If you concentrated super-extra-hard, maybe the key to being a good hitter is relaxation.
8:26 — Ichiro’s averaging 1.7 hits/game. At this rate he should break the single-season record about twenty games from now, about during the late-September road trip to Oakland. Unless he goes absolutely insane and manages it before the 20th, he’s not going to do it at home.
8:32 — I also love that the Dairy Council of Washington or whoever want you to have three servings of dairy products a day. Hey, guess what? The Zumsteg Advisory Board recommends that everyone send me a crisp $20 bill every day. It’s for your own good, really.
8:46 — Masao Kida! A reason to watch the rest of the game — crazy guys you may not have seen before!
Talking Heads
Howard Lincoln, being wrong:
“We have been very fortunate to have had four straight years of winning baseball,” Lincoln said. “This has been a bad season and no one saw it coming. Nobody expected anything like this, but now we have to pick up the pieces, not look back at all those wins, and address the future.”
Here’s a few snippets from when the blogosphere predicts the season to come
Chris Caldwell:
5. I’m most disheartened about the M’s chances this year because… of the loss of Cameron and the subsequent defensive downgrade in the outfield.
David Cameron:
5. I’m most disheartened about the M’s chances this year because… they haven’t been good enough the past two years, and this is the worst team they’ve run out there since the late 90’s.
Jeffrey Howard:
5. I’m most disheartened about the M’s chances this year because… of management. Plain and simple. While there have been good things (Moyer, Ichiro!, Boone (kinda lucky), and the farm system) the moves of the front office have been, not only poor, but alarmingly poor.
Bob Mong:
5. I’m most disheartened about the M’s chances this year because… the offense is very close to a collapse.
Steve Nelson:
5. I’m most disheartened about the M’s chances this year because… they’re going to suffer breakdowns of key position players, without quality replacements.
Patrick Sheehan:
5. I’m most disheartened about the M’s chances this year because… they’re two injuries away from scoring less than a eunuch on the Isle of Lesbos.
Bill Wilmot:
5. I’m most disheartened about the M’s chances this year because… every single everyday player is on the downside of his career!
Derek Zumsteg:
5. I’m most disheartened about the M’s chances this year because… our front office doesn’t have the answers to questions they should be asking.
And, from one of Derek’s posts here on April 7th:
Here’s my in-a-nutshell prediction for the team as we head into the season: This is a 85-win team that can swing 5 games either way through your normal in-season luck, and could beat Oakland, who is clearly doesn’t look like a 100+ win team right now. But I don’t think any contending team is better poised for a total, utter collapse than the Mariners: this looks like a team that can win 90 if things break their way and might be scraping for 75 if they go break the other way.
CONSESUS PICKS
1. How many games with your 2004 Mariners win? 87.92.
2. Who will win the AL West? Oakland.
3. How will the M’s finish their season? Second in division, no playoffs.
Glad to see that “no one saw it coming” and “nobody expected anything like this”.
2005 free agent list
From Gammons today.
Also contains this insane bit:
We also know that this winter’s signings will be for 2005, with the Players Association chomping at the bit for another labor war in 2006.
There’s probably a 10% chance of labor meltdown in 1994 or worse style, in 2006. But to say that anyone’s chomping at the bit for a labor war? I don’t understand why Gammons carries this anti-MLBPA torch, taking every chance to attack them (see: Rodriguez trade) anyway, but this is ridiculous. Players don’t get paid when they’re locked out or on strike. Most of them love their jobs and love playing baseball — they’ve done it all their lives. It’s crazy to think that they want a fight, especially after all the concessions they made in the last CBA to avoid a labor action by either side.
And as much as the owners enjoy winning a good labor fight, the money they save is far less than what they lose in an extended outage. Labor negotiations are bitter and too personal between the two sides, but neither of them wants to go to the mattresses.
That aside… the really funny bit in here is “FREE AGENTS WHOSE VALUE HAS BEEN TARNISHED BY INJURY:”
which includes Magglio Ordonez, who… well, to put him in a ‘tarnished’ category is like saying the Camaro I wrapped around a phone pole while drinking Mickey’s Ice and speeding through Auburn cursing is a “pre-owned” car. It’s a fair bet Ordonez will never be the same after this.
40-man roster, Rule 5 draft
This post has been edited to reflect the decision to not call up Rene Rivera, as previously reported
It’s a holiday and I feel guilty for not posting much last week, so I’ll knock this out now. As I mentioned in the callups post below, adding Rene Rivera to the 40-man roster puts the Mariners in a bit of a bind for roster spots this coming offseason. The M’s have several mid-tier prospects who project as possible role players at the major league level that will be available to anyone with $25,000 in the rule 5 draft if the M’s do not place them on the 40-man roster this offseason.
The 40 man is composed of the active 25-man roster as well as 15 prospects from the minor leagues. The rules of eligibility for the rule 5 draft are pretty complex, but here’s a basic summary. Any player drafted in 2001 or earlier needs to be on the 40 man roster or they will be exposed to the rule 5 draft. College draftees from the 2002 draft need to be protected, but most of the high schoolers do not (it depends on your age). Don’t worry about not seeing guys like Felix Hernandez on the list below; he doesn’t need to be on the 40 man, and he’s not available in the rule 5 draft.
Below is my projection on how the fourty spots will be allocated and which players the M’s will potentially see plucked from the system.
Guaranteed to be on the roster
Miguel Olivo
Scott Spiezio
Bret Boone
Jose Lopez
Justin Leone
Raul Ibanez
Randy Winn
Ichiro Suzuki
Bucky Jacobsen
Jamie Moyer
Gil Meche
Bobby Madritsch
Ryan Franklin
J.J. Putz
Shigetoshi Hasegawa
Matt Thornton
Clint Nageotte
George Sherrill
Julio Mateo
Eddie Guardado
Joel Pineiro
Rafael Soriano
Jamal Strong
Travis Blackley
Cha Seung Baek
Luis Ugueto
Chris Snelling
Jeremy Reed
That’s 28 guys who you can say with almost absolute certainty that the M’s will have on the 40 man roster next year. Of those 28, you would expect Baek, Blackley, Nageotte, Strong, Snelling, Ugueto, Reed and Thornton to begin 2005 in the minors. That means that the team will need to sign, at a minimum, three free agents to fill out an active 25-man roster. In reality, the team will probably sign 4 or 5, but for now, we’ll just assume they fill the roster with three players. That means we’ve got 31 guaranteed roster spots from the above players and the trio of new guys, leaving 9 roster spots for the rest of the organization.
Guys who are on the 40 man now who will probably still be here next year
Scott Atchison
Willie Bloomquist
Greg Dobbs
Ramon Santiago
Aaron Taylor
Rett Johnson
It’s not a mortal lock that Wee Willie is back next year. He’s starting to get near the service time levels to demand more than the league minimum and the new manager won’t share Melvin’s appreciation for Bloomquist’s ability to out-and-out suck. It would be an upset, but not out of the realm of possiblity, if the M’s decided to ship Bloomquist off in favor of a new utility man. Dobbs, Santiago, and Taylor have enough fans in the organization to stick around, and the team has vested enough in Rett’s comeback to see if he can eventually get back to where he was in 2003 to cut him loose now. If these 6 players all stick around, that puts the roster at 37, leaving 3 spots open.
Guys on the 40 man who may be designated for assignment
Jeff Heaverlo
Aaron Looper
Hiram Bocachica
Masao Kida
Mickey Lopez
Brett Evert
Actually, I’d expect all six of these guys to be DFA’d at the end of the season, with a minor league contract offered to each. The M’s did this with Ryan Anderson and Ryan Christianson after injuries ruined their prospect status, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Heaverlo and Looper continue the tradition. Assuming that none of these six make the cut (and the M’s only sign three free agents), that leaves three open spots to protect the eligible rule 5 prospects in the system.
Legitimate prospects who need to be added to the 40 man roster this winter
Bobby Livingston
Shin-Soo Choo
Rene Rivera
Mike Morse
Morse’s suspension probably won’t cost him a 40 man spot, and Livingston and Choo are mortal locks to get added. Rivera is the odd man out now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they find room for him somehow. That brings us to 40, and this is assuming the M’s only sign three free agents. For each free agent they sign above three, the M’s will have to clear a spot by either designating a current roster player for assignment or leaving one of the three prospects above unprotected. They won’t let Choo or Livingston go, and Morse is a longshot, so the odds would be on a guy like Atchison getting DFA’d.
Possible rule 5 selections that the M’s will leave exposed
Ryan Christianson
Jared Thomas
Rich Dorman
Ryan Rowland-Smith
T. A. Fulmer
T. J. Bohn
Josh Ellison
Greg Jacobs
Hunter Brown
Jon Nelson
Jon Huber
Cesar Jimenez
Once you get past Fulmer, the rest of those guys are pretty long shots to get selected. Christianson’s health will probably scare off most teams, so I doubt he goes either. Thomas, Dorman, and Rowland-Smith are all decent possibilities, exactly the type of pitchers who usually gets taken in the rule 5 draft. Also available, but not listed, is the epic bust of the Frank Mattox era, Michael Garciaparra. And how bad was the 2002 M’s draft? Not one of the college selections is going to be protected this year, and right now, I wouldn’t project any of the high school kids to be protected next year either. It’s likely that no member of the M’s 2002 draft class will ever reach Seattle. That was an abominable draft of historic proportions. A failure like that in normal society would cost several people their jobs. Frank Mattox, a year (and another abymsal draft) later, got a promotion. I’m just saying…
Losing those guys wouldn’t be a huge blow, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Dorman or Rowland-Smith turned into effective relievers within the next few years. The M’s have painted themselves into a bit of a roster crunch, and the awarding of multiyear contracts and 40-man roster spots to terrible players may end costing them actual talent.
Callups
The M’s are adding four players to the roster today. RHP Aaron Taylor, 3B Greg Dobbs, OF Jeremy Reed, and C Rene Rivera will join the team for September. The M’s will have to make a corresponding roster move to free up a 40-man spot for Rivera, which will likely be the switch to the 60 day DL for Pineiro or Blackley.
With Rivera getting added to the 40-man, the list of open spots for protecting players from the rule 5 draft this fall continues to shink. The M’s are going to have to make some tough calls on some interesting players, and guys like Ryan Rowland-Smith, Rich Dorman, and T. J. Bohn are now almost certain to be available to any team who wants to pluck them from the M’s system.
Edit: As noted by JC in the comments, Mickey Lopez is reportedly getting the call as well.
Edit part two: Rivera has not been called up. They changed their minds.
Morales
Reader mail! And man, am I posting frequently lately or what. Jerry Ek asks:
I was reading an article in the NY post about Cuban defector Kendry Morales. It mentioned that he was working out for teams this week in the Dominical Republic, and that he could sign with a club very soon. I have heard conflicting information about the M’s interest in this guy. Do you guys have an insider info on whether the M’s are looking at this guy, and if so, what there level of interest is?
The Mariners have been interested in Cuban defectors in the past but never at the price they go at. This is a good thing: when do these guys ever live up to the contracts they get? Maybe you can argue El Duque, but even he turned out to be older and his contract wasn’t a consistent value. I think the M’s would be interested if the price was right, but correctly look at Cuban players like Morales as being too costly to be worth the risk.
As to Morales’ possible value: I’ve stopped paying attention to these guys. Until we have some kind of actual reference point for thier performance, I’m going to hold off on making judgements, in the same way I would for a guy who had a great season in short-season rookie ball. Dave may have something to offer here.
Since the 2004 season is such a bust, and the fans are not happy, why can’t the M’s divert some of the ‘Sasaki Money’ and the unused payroll to offer this kid a big signing bonus. He could end up being the 1B player of the future, and he can play 3B and both corner infield spots as well. Since he is 21, he probably won’t be ready for a bit. But at least it would give the hard-core fan-base something to talk about besides Ichiro’s hunt for the hits record.
It’s true, they could do this, but… they won’t. They’ve already said that money saved can’t be carried over for next year, so it would seem to make sense that they could spend it on player acquisition costs, but remember from the strange Matsui speculation that the Mariners consider foreign player costs as some weird semi-off-budget category of spending, and so they’re unlikely to raid account #1 to do something interesting with account #2.
Today’s game and Niehaus
I spent my day doing plumbing work on my house, so I listened to most of the game on the radio, and a couple things occurred to me as I installed a new toilet, and so forth:
Ichiro! could go hitless for the rest of the season and end up hitting ove .310. Estimating out the number of at-bats he could get the rest of the season (which is not helped by this offensively bad offense) he’s only going to have to hit about .275 to tie George Sisler’s hits record (of 257). To break .400, he needs to hit over .500 the rest of the season. While I’m all about regressing to the mean and all, he hit .432 in July and .463 in August, and anything can happen in a hundred or so at-bats. Heck, Willie F. Bloomquist hit .455 in 33 at-bats one September.
The real problem for Ichiro! is that we’re going to face some good pitching down the stretch from Oakland, and he’s going to see it a lot. I’m cheering for him.
Niehaus is making more and more strange comments. Not just player X when player Y is out there, but weird stuff. Like when I was watching the start: “There are a lot of Mariners fans out here in Chicago, and many of them made the trip to Seattle for this game.” No joke, I TiVo’d that. I worry about him.
When Dave rips into the team, you’re in serious trouble. And he tore into them a couple times today in a way you almost never hear from him. He talked about the crappy defense repeatedly, how it’s hurt the team all year… from a guy who once kept me interested in the horrific Mariner teams of the Argyros era (“…and with two outs, the tying run is in the dugout for the Mariners…”). I was shocked, honestly. On the criticism spectrum:
team can do nothing right — team can do nothing wrong
While Dave Henderson would anchor the right-hand side, Niehaus would be pretty far towards that side. He’ll look for a reason something might not have been a bad idea, and often will prefer not to say anything about a play or a managerial decision if he thinks it’s crazy. If he’s going to come out and say a bunt was a bad idea, it may have been the worst idea all year. And yet today it was like someone put the team on a firing range today at about 10 yards and Dave brought his own gun to work out some issues.
Franklin picked someone off. Expect this bit of positive reinforcement to lead to even more throws to first. This is why Franklin’s starts are best watched on radio.