Oh, and not to harp too much on the awful Ibanez signing, but similar players keep signing better deals:
Ibanez — $13.25M over 3 years, 32-34
Carl Everett — $7.5M over 2 years, 33-34
Reggie Sanders — $6M over 2 years, 36-37
Rondell White — $6M over 2 years, 32-23
Jose Cruz Jr. — $6M over 2 years, 30-31
Juan Encarnacion — $8M over 2 years, 28-29
Those numbers are the end are the players’ age during the contract.
Things just keep getting better.
According to the Times, a deal for Cleveland’s Omar Vizquel is all but done. Carlos Guillen is likely to be involved in the trade, as Vizquel and Scott Spiezio (I hate typing his name) will fill the left side of the infield, making Guillen expendable.
I’m no big Guillen fan, though I do think the deal they just signed him to is quite reasonable for his services — I wouldn’t want to be paying him, say, $5M a season, but that $2.5M number looks pretty good. Vizquel, on the other hand, will cost a minimum of $7M ($6M for next season, $1M buyout for 2005) and possibly more (in addition to the 2005 option at some cost I can’t find, he has a $1M “personal services” contract for next season which may or may not come with him). There’s also the fact that he can’t hit, making this a bum deal.
What’s amusing, though, is that this is likely to be a good PR move for the M’s. Vizquel was extremely popular during his time in Seattle (remember that “Older Women for Omar” sign at the Kingdome?), whereas Guillen has a reputation (deserved or not) for always being hurt (as well as driving too fast, but that’s another issue). For the most part, people seem disappointed with the likes of McCracken and Spiezio… I hope they don’t get suckered by this Vizquel deal, though.
Perhaps the M’s will pick up a prospect in the deal (which they should be able to justify, given the salaries of the players involved), in which case it wouldn’t totally suck. In that case, Vizquel is a one-year place holder for Jose Lopez. While expensive, especially considering Rey Sanchez could have done the same thing at 1/6th the cost, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Ah, who am I kidding? This is going to suck.
Good times. According to the New York Post, the M’s and Mets are talking about a Jeff Cirillo for Roger Cedeno trade. I’m not sure how I feel about this, though right now I’m leaning towards, “simply releasing Cirillo would be better than trading him for Cedeno.”
Yet another new blog — MFan4Life_24’s Blog, otherwise known as the Greg Colbrunn-inspired blog with the really long URL. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s pretty cool that so many M’s blogs have popped up in the last couple of months. When we started doing this in April, there were what, two or three M’s blogs? Now there are a dozen.
New Big Board… just in case you needed yet another reminder that Quinton McCracken and Scott Spiezio will be members of the 2004 Seattle Mariners.
Players chosen by the M’s in the minor league portion of the Rule 5:
1st Round: RHP Darwin Soto, Boston
2nd Round: C Omar Falcon, San Diego
3rd Round: LHP Chris Key, Florida
Unfortunately, I can’t remember what the stipulations of the minor league portion are, but there you go.
Update: Dave informs me that the stipulations are few. It costs $12K for a AAA player and $4K for a AA player, you can assign said player wherever you want, and don’t have to offer them back. It’s just a way for clubs to swap organizational, non-prospect types.
I’m reminded today of a book by Walter Jon Williams (“City on Fire“). In it, one of the characters tells the story of his grandfather, who when under criticism for his leadership, steps aside to let others take control. The result, as he knew it would be, is a disaster, and soon he is welcomed back, given free reign to do as he pleases, and lives happily ever after.
Gillick chose Bavasi. This off-season’s moves range from known Gillick move Ibanez on down to likely-Bavasi moves (Spiezio?) and they’re all pretty much bad after Edgar signed, each worse than the last.
I wonder if this isn’t Gillick burning down the house, telling us all “you thought I sucked? Well check this out.” Bavasi gets blamed for everything, and Gillick gets revenge, keeps his reputation as one of the best GMs ever, and if he wants to take it, the city will be begging for him to return at any price as soon as next year.
What other explanation is there for this winter?
Possibly this is a stunning vindication of the Buddhist belief that desire creates suffering, in that in my frustration with the Mariners and my burning hope for a great Mariners team, I will be broken and humbled for dreaming.
Or, to quote Yoda: “Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Before I go off into my non-Mariner serenity, the organization thought I needed one more low blow, trading U.S.S. Mariner endorsed unheralded prospect, Allan Simpson, to Colorado for Chris Buglovsky. Bugs is so talented that he was passed over by every team in the rule 5 draft today, after getting beaten around like a ragdoll for Double-A Tulsa and posting horrible BB/K rates in both Double-A and the AFL. His career K rates are uninspiring, and Bugger is, essentially, a fringe non-prospect. Decent arm, but 4 years of middling results was enough to convince most teams to take their flyers elsewhere.
Not the M’s, though. They swap out Simpson, who could easily have filled the 6th spot in the pen for the league minimum and been quite effective, for the Bugger, apparently for the sole intention of further ruining my day.
I agree with Dave: I’m still stunned and speechless with how abjectly wrong this has gone. Gillvasi has engineered one of the most disastrous off-seasons of recent memory, and the only question that remains is how bad the M’s are going to be next year, which I’ll attempt to answer later tonight.
We know that a lot of people visit this site in the wake of transactions looking for analysis of the moves. The two busiest days in our sites history were last Friday, the start of the winter meetings, and July 31st, the day of the trading deadline.
However, I find myself unable to write about the team today. Bill Bavasi has, in one month, worn down the joy of following this club. I need a day off. Maybe more than one. I need to go find a quiet place and think happy thoughts. Those thoughts will not include the Mariners.
As a public service, here is what I said before these deals went down:
Why McCracken was a terrible idea.
Why Spiezio was, at best, not a good idea.
Hopefully, I’ll be back to normal by Saturday. I have a feeling Piecora’s is going to sell a lot more alcohol on Saturday.