You really should have traded for Jarrod Washburn. Since you failed to do so, we have had to see fit to strike down both Joba Chamberlain and now Andy Pettitte after we already took out Chien-Ming Wang and Philip Hughes earlier this year. Your starting rotation is now Mike Mussina and four guys from an MTV reality show. You’re in a pennant race. You’re really going to throw Ian Kennedy, Dan Giese, and Alfredo Aceves this weekend?

I don’t think so. Claim Jarrod Washburn on waivers. We can’t make this any more obvious.

Signed,

The Baseball Gods.

Jarrod’s still here? Dammit.

First, off, the fastball velocity is going to go down. Right now, his average fastball is 96.3 MPH, but he’s able to throw max effort on every pitch without worrying about stamina. As a starter, he’s going to have to pace himself. Most hard throwers like Morrow lose between 1-3 MPH off their average fastball when they move to the rotation, so Morrow’s going to have to adjust to throwing a 93-95 fastball instead of a 95-97 MPH fastball. As a guy who pitches up in the zone, that extra velocity can make a difference, and he’ll have to realize that trying to blow everyone away with a four seam high fastball isn’t going to work.

Secondly, he’s going to have to reduce the amount of fastballs he throws in general. Right now, about 76% of all of his pitches are fastballs, and that’s just too high. The starters who throw that many fastballs are all sinker ball types (or Vincente Padilla, but he’s not the role model we’re looking for), and since Morrow’s fastball produces flyballs, he’s going to have to reduce the number he throws. This will be especially true against left-handers, where his change up will become a necessary pitch. Fastball/slider pitchers tend to really struggle against lefties, because both pitches move in on LHBs. To get them out with consistency, he’s going to have to trust his change-up and use it far more frequently.

Finally, he’s going to have to improve his command. It’s gotten significantly better than it was last year, but it’s still not good - he throws strikes about as often as Felix does, and I think we all have yelled at Felix to throw more strikes at some point or another. He won’t get the groundballs that Felix does, so that means fewer double plays, and the walks will be more of a problem. His command should improve some just by nature of not throwing as hard, but there needs to be improvement beyond that incremental step forward. Four seam fastball guys with bad command don’t generally become aces.

If he can make these adjustments, he should be able to be a solid #2 or #3 starter. His upside in the rotation is probably along the lines of Matt Cain. Certainly, the M’s have to hope that’s what he turns into, and if he reaches that potential, he’ll have quite a bit more value than he did as a late inning reliever. However, there are risks.

Injuries are obviously a concern. Morrow’s never handled any kind of real workload in his life, and they’re going to have to be very careful to not try and put too many innings on his arm too quickly. Realistically, he probably shouldn’t be allowed to throw more than 50-60 innings or so the rest of the year. If you assume he burns through 15 of those in Tacoma getting stretched out, that only leaves about 3-5 starts in Seattle before the best course of action is to just shut him down.

Bullpen to rotation conversions can work. Chad Billingsley, Adam Wainwright, Kelvim Escobar, Zach Greinke, and Joba Chamberlain all made the move successfully, but they all had significant minor league experience as starters. Morrow may take a little longer to know how to get batters out for six and seven inning stretches, and his arm isn’t as tested over full season of starting as the others were.

Patience and risk management will be key here. Don’t expect Morrow to come up and dominate. There’s a learning curve, but it’s one that the organization will be better off for having him go through.

Also, the media is going to whine like hell about the M’s blowing a lead because they optioned Morrow to Tacoma before Putz was all the way healthy. Ignore them - the team made the right decision.

Nice to see this team finally looking towards 2009.

Anyway — Ibanez made $5.5m this year. If he heads to arbitration, he and the team get to face off for a one-year deal where they both make arguments about why he deserves $5m or $20m, and he walks off with one under contract for one of those offers. Unfortunately for the M’s, defense won’t make much of a difference in that hearing. So pick a number… say he comes out with $7m.

He can do better on the open market. Ibanez is 37, yes, but from 06 through now, he’s hitting .286/.351/.486. This year he’s at .284/.350/.472. Plus, he’s got a sterling reputation as a good clubhouse guy, a media-friendly face who always gives the post-game cliche.

Jose Guillen was younger, but got 3y/$36m for less. Or go back to 2006 — Frank Thomas got a 2y, $18m deal at 40. Or Aubrey Huff, who got a 3y, $20m deal in Houston. Carlos Lee got $100m! Heck, Luis Gonzalez was 40 and got $7m, Moises Alou was 42 and got $8.5m…. anyway. The outfielder shuffle this off-season could be ridiculous, and Ibanez could easily benefit hugely.

Ibanez will know that he’ll almost certainly get a better one-year offer on the open market than he could win in arbitration. But even if he couldn’t, what Ibanez is really going to want is a multi-year deal, and he might well get one. And as a free agent, he gets his pick of situations. If he wants out of Seattle’s losing, or if he’d prefer a more agreeable travel schedule, he can control that.

To accept arbitration, Ibanez has to decide that he’s willing to stick around for another year at all. And then he has to decide that any value he places on liking Seattle plus his agents’ best guess at what they can come out of arbitration is worth more than making more money and being able to pick his situation in free agency. And, further, he has to weigh the chances that the M’s, having taken him through arbitration, will cut him anyway, leaving him without team at some point in the off-season anyway (significantly richer, presumably), but with his options possibly quite reduced.

I’d put the odds seriously against it.

What if he accepts, the M’s lose arbitration, and they’re stuck with Ibanez for a year at, say, ten million (just a number)? They can either play him at DH, which wouldn’t be so bad, or release him and eat a chunk of the arbitration-awarded contract. Either way, that’s not such a terrible outcome.

If a team could pay that release number for a 50% chance at two good draft picks, the smart ones would all take it. At the actual chance Raul declines, almost every team would bet that money.

Take him to the end of the season, offer him arbitration, see what happens. It’s the right move.