Looking Bad In Retrospect
The Red Sox signed Chris Capuano today, for a year and $2.25 million. If he hits all his incentives, he’ll make $5 million, and not a penny more, at least not from the Red Sox. In theory, Capuano will compete with Felix Doubront for a rotation slot out of camp, but the reality is that Capuano will probably at least begin the year in the bullpen. Recently, the Mariners were reported to have expressed interest in Capuano, as they’re still looking for a starting pitcher, especially with Hisashi Iwakuma hurt.
Many months ago, the Mariners signed Willie Bloomquist for two years and $5.8 million. He’s a utility guy, like he’s always been, in spirit if not in practice, and he’s got a nice and neat line as a replacement-level player. More recently, Emilio Bonifacio was dropped, and then he was snagged by a minor-league contract. Bonifacio is at least as good as Bloomquist, and most of a decade younger.
The first line of thought: the Mariners guaranteed more money to Bloomquist than the Red Sox guaranteed to Capuano. Bloomquist is a less-useful player than Capuano is. The Mariners also made a far bigger commitment to Bloomquist than the Cubs had to make to Bonifacio. Would you rather have Bonifacio and Capuano, or Bloomquist and pending? By the first line of thought, the Mariners look pretty stupid in retrospect.
The second line of thought: the Mariners might not have known how easily Bonifacio would be available. And perhaps Capuano wasn’t available to the Mariners at the same price as he was to the Red Sox. The Red Sox, you’ll recall, just won the World Series! And Capuano grew up and went to high school in Massachusetts so maybe he’s got his loyalties, even after spending the last couple years on the better coast. It might not be as simple as saying the Mariners could’ve had Capuano for a few extra dollars. By the second line of thought, the Mariners still don’t look great, but they look less stupid in retrospect.
The third line of thought: how many of you actually remembered that the Mariners signed Willie Bloomquist? I think I’m probably taken by surprise every two or three weeks. Which means every two or three weeks, there’s one extra sigh in my life, as I eyeball the upcoming roster. Then as soon as I remember about Bloomquist, I forget about him, making him the exact 2014 equivalent of 2013 Robert Andino. My experience with Andino was like an uninteresting sequel to 50 First Dates, and I remember him more now that he’s gone than I did when he was still a member of the team. I feel like Bloomquist’s going to be an unanticipated email from work — annoying to have to deal with, but sufficiently infrequent that you never include it as a scheduled part of your day. When one shows up, it’s just an extra burden, as if there wasn’t already enough.
So by the third line of thought, the Mariners have Willie Bloomquist, and don’t you forget it, until you do, which is inevitable, because it’s probably already happened five or six times.
Going back real quick, the Mariners were in on Capuano, and for whatever reason or reasons they came up short. Which means they’re probably still interested in finding a lower-tier starting pitcher, which is a pretty good idea given the unreliability of pitchers in general and the unreliability of these pitchers in particular. The free-agent market doesn’t have a whole lot left to offer. There’s the one big fish, and guys like Joe Saunders and Jon Garland. Capuano was the one somewhat interesting bargain, and the Mariners might prefer to look to the trade market.
And that’s how we circle back to Nick Franklin, who’s allegedly going to compete with Brad Miller for the starting shortstop job. I’m sure McClendon isn’t lying when he says Miller isn’t being promised anything. I’m sure the plan is to give Franklin a real look. But Miller’s the better shortstop and the organization knows it, and though there’s no obligation to trade Franklin immediately given that he won’t have a role, he’s still the best bet to be flipped for a decent player at a spot of greater need. Maybe that’s actually an outfielder, but Franklin could snag the Mariners a starter if they looked hard enough, and there are two- and three-way trade possibilities. Just because it’s almost March doesn’t mean teams will stop thinking about tweaks, and Franklin is no less expendable than he was the day the team signed Robinson Cano. He still doesn’t have a job, and if the Mariners don’t want to try him in the outfield, he’s still of greater use to somebody else. There’s not a lot left for him to do in Triple-A.
It’s uncommon for there to be trade rumors during spring training involving anything more than fringe roster guys. But then, it was an uncommon offseason, and the Mariners are in an uncommon situation with Franklin and the rest of the depth chart. I do think the Mariners still want a starting pitcher. I do think the Mariners could still use a starting pitcher. And I do think the Mariners have the available resources to get a starting pitcher. Maybe they wait to see how guys like Baker, Ramirez, Paxton, and Walker are throwing, but there are most certainly roster decisions left to make. The Mariners don’t have to win right away in 2014, but they’d sure like to.
Right This Very Second, Robinson Cano Probably Isn’t Sprinting
Here’s as February a story as you’re ever going to find. Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long said some things about Robinson Cano’s effort running down to first base. Lloyd McClendon subsequently issued a response. Long has since issued a response to the response, and Joe Girardi has also been asked for his own opinion. In this way, the media can create the illusion of a war of words, and out of one quote there can be written several articles. Mission accomplished, for the newspaper types, and to be fair this is a hell of a lot more interesting than learning about which player lost weight to get better, and which player gained weight to get better. If you’re holding out for substance, you won’t be doing a lot of baseball writing or reading this month.
The heart of what Long said that caused a stir:
“If somebody told me I was a dog,’’ Long said here Sunday, “I’d have to fix that. When you choose not to, you leave yourself open to taking heat, and that’s your fault. For whatever reason, Robbie chose not to.’’
McClendon:
“Last time I checked, I didn’t know that Kevin Long was the spokesman for the New York Yankees,” McClendon told ESPN.com. “That was a little surprising. I was a little pissed off, and I’m sure Joe [Girardi] feels the same way. He’s concerned with his team and what they’re doing, not what the Seattle Mariners players are doing.
“I’m a little surprised that Kevin Long is the spokesman for the New York Yankees. I wonder if he had any problems with Robbie when he wrote that book [“Cage Rat”] proclaiming himself as the guru of hitting.”
So here’s what’s going on here. Spring training just started, and Robinson Cano just showed up in Peoria, and McClendon is a new manager who’s trying to defend his new superstar. Probably, McClendon was sought out for comment, and probably, McClendon heard about Long’s criticisms while paying less attention to the context. McClendon is trying to defend his own team and get off on the right foot with Cano so that the two can have a deep and positive relationship. There was realistically no other way he could have responded. McClendon, of course, has no issues with Cano because he hasn’t managed him yet. As far as he’s concerned, Cano’s starting over in a new place. McClendon’s supposed to be the leader of this team, and here there was a chance to stick up for a guy and speak forcefully about it. This is Lloyd McClendon, Mariners manager, managing.
And Long? Long, probably, was sought out for comment. Jogging down the line has long been a criticism of Cano’s, and you hear about it now more than ever, and Long acknowledged that much. But one should also pay attention to the rest of his words. Long and Cano formed a very strong relationship, and Long talked about how hard Cano worked to improve in all the other areas of his game. To go with one critique, there were a lot of compliments, and Long noted that last year Cano started to become more of a leader. It frustrated Long and the Yankees that Cano still jogged sometimes, and that led to a worse perception, but it’s important to understand that Long didn’t call Cano a dog. He said that he dogged it sometimes, which I don’t think anyone disagrees with. Even Cano would probably say, yeah, sometimes he doesn’t bust his ass. He’s 31 now and that’s just part of his game.
Long said a critical thing, among complimentary things. McClendon stood up for his player against the critical thing. Long, later, noted that there were a lot of complimentary things, too. Today is February 18th.
We can try, I guess, to evaluate the impact of Cano not always running so hard. Maybe it’s cost him a few groundball singles. Maybe it’s cost him a few reached-on-errors, or advances after a dropped pop. Alternatively, maybe it’s helped Cano stay so healthy, as he’s played at least 159 games seven years in a row. Any effect you’re going to find is going to be super small, and it also isn’t really the point.
The concern isn’t about a player busting it to first. The concern is about what that tendency, or lack thereof, says about the player. If a player jogs to first on a grounder, it probably doesn’t make a difference on that grounder, but it makes you think the player might be lazy. Maybe the player doesn’t care. Maybe the player isn’t committed. Maybe the player doesn’t put in the extra hours. Maybe the player is just coasting on his own talent. Jogging can suggest a total lack of drive.
And none of these assumptions would be true about Cano. Long’s own words:
“He overcame so much while he was here,’’ Long said. “As a young kid there were holes everywhere. There were holes in his swing, in his makeup, in his body composition. This kid grew and grew and grew.
“All the other stuff … he’d take plays off in the field, he’d give away at-bats in RBI situations. He made a lot of personal decisions to get over the hump in those areas. People don’t know how hard he worked, how many times he was the one asking me to do extra work in the cage.’’
Cano reached the majors as a non-prospect. At least, he was never considered elite. He made improvements everywhere and turned himself into one of the best and most reliable all-around players in the world. There’s no indication that Cano was ever content to rest on what he already had. It takes work to become that good and stay that good, and no one has ever said Cano isn’t a hard worker, at least since he was a younger player. All that gets said is that Cano jogs to first base sometimes, when he figures he’s hit into an out. The positive spin would be that Cano cares so much that he’s beside himself when he makes an easy out and is too upset to sprint.
If you see Cano jog to first, there is no deeper significance. It’s not that he isn’t a hard worker. It’s that, at that instant, he isn’t working hard. Probably because he worked hard through the at-bat, and now it’s effectively over.
In a way this is a variation on the Ichiro/diving-for-fly-balls theme. People couldn’t stand that Ichiro wouldn’t lay out. Ichiro didn’t want to chance it, and for a decade he was an absolutely fabulous player. Cano’s fabulous, too, and Ichiro had some other weird quirks and didn’t have the leadership potential that Cano does. I can at least understand why Ichiro might’ve been hard for some people to like. Cano seems to have one issue, and it almost couldn’t be more insignificant.
If Cano jogs, and the Mariners are losing, people will grumble, because that’s what dumb fans do. Teams can’t please all the dumb fans, and teams shouldn’t strive to please all the dumb fans, and it’s mostly all better when the team is better, and Cano will make this team a lot better. It doesn’t matter how Cano is perceived by the fans, and the people with the team will see a lot more than Cano taking the occasional grounder off. They’ll see the other work he does, for himself and with his teammates, and they’ll see a professional role model, solitary quirk be damned. Yeah, okay, I guess I wish Cano would go at 100% literally all of the time. I’d like to not even be talking about this. I also wish Justin Smoak would slug four-friggin-fifty.
The Five Worst M’s Games of 2013
I’ll say this: I’m glad this offseason has provided so many opportunities to discuss 2014 and beyond. I know “being more interesting than the 2013 M’s season” is damning with faint praise, but from the Cano debates to the various (thankfully minor) injuries to Iwakuma’s finger and Montero’s dignity, it’s been legitimately interesting. That said, I did want to close the book on 2013 by looking at the various flavors of pain it doled out. If the “Best 5 Games” post was about looking for the exceptions and the exceptional, this is going to be about seeing the forest for the withered, diseased trees. Stroll with me through a really terrible forest…
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Robinson Cano Just Has To Be Good
This is a bad article. Maybe that’s too mean. That is an article I don’t particularly care for. You can read it, if you like — the link’s right there. But you’re probably not going to learn anything, and you’re probably not going to think about anything in a different way from how you did before. In a lot of ways it’s substance-free commentary.
It’s about Robinson Cano and the Mariners and how the Mariners have been bad and how Robinson Cano can change that. The idea is that Cano ought to become the Mariners’ Derek Jeter. A reliable, high-level contributor who also serves as clubhouse leader and face of the team. Those other responsibilities come along with a contract the size of the one Cano recently signed. I’m not going to argue the fact that Cano will be expected to be a little more than an ordinary player. As an established veteran, he’s going to be looked up to by other guys in the same clubhouse. I don’t even like writing media criticism so I’m going to try to make this about more than just the one throwaway article.
But Felix Hernandez isn’t mentioned. Not even once. Not as Felix, not as Hernandez, not as the King, not as anything else. I didn’t find him upon the first read-through, so I attempted a second read-through. Then I searched the article for his name, specifically. Nothing. It’s as if Felix doesn’t exist; it’s as if Felix isn’t a superstar and an icon. It’s as if Felix isn’t the face of the Mariners, as he has been since Ichiro began his decline.
The Mariners already have their guy. Robinson Cano is another guy, but he isn’t the same, and he can’t be. Know why? Let’s stick with the Derek Jeter parallels. Jeter’s retiring this year, as a Yankee. He was drafted in 1992, by the Yankees. He’s spent his whole career in New York, loyally representing the organization and the city. Felix is entering his tenth(!) year in the major leagues. He was signed by the Mariners in 2002. He’s spent his whole career in Seattle, loyally representing the organization and the city, and he’s under contract forever. Robinson Cano was a free agent who crossed the country after his 31st birthday and took the offer that blew the other offer away.
Cano can fall in love with Seattle, and Seattle can fall in love with Cano. Just because the origin story is all about money doesn’t mean things can’t work out as a warm and mutual relationship. But Felix is already here, and he’s already bent over backwards for a team that has simply refused to surround him with enough good players to build a team worth watching. Felix’s unconditional loyalty is downright mystifying, and it was this way from the very beginning, when he signed with the Mariners as a teenager despite having a bigger offer on the table. Felix is already in love. Has been. And Felix is already loved. Has been.
The guy has his own god-damned rooting section, and it’s the best such section in baseball, with no competition from the rip-offs. Felix is the guy you’d pay to see even if it meant you were also paying to see the rest of the Mariners, and there’s never been any questioning his drive or commitment or desire to pitch this team, this very team, into the World Series. Every game, he’s visibly passionate, and he moved his family to Seattle, and he’s come to Safeco in the middle of winter for FanFest, and he’s volunteered himself to perform area services. He’s great and he’s vocal and he’s never in trouble. Felix doesn’t get bad press. Back in the day, he used to let little mistakes get in his head, but that’s because even from a young age he just wanted to win so badly. That feeling hasn’t waned, and every year Felix talks about how he can’t wait to see October, no matter what the rest of the team might look like, and no matter how the previous season played out.
The problem with the Mariners hasn’t been a lack of leadership. It hasn’t been a lack of a winning spirit. It’s been a lack of winning, due mostly to a lack of enough good players. Sure, there were some years that the clubhouse was in better shape than others, but the problem guys are gone and it’s hard to achieve clubhouse stability when the team’s losing since losing teams are sadder teams and teams vulnerable to roster shake-ups. The team’s had plenty of potential leaders, but at some point you just can’t lead a loser. You can lead a winner, which means a winner has to come first, which means good players have to come first. That, more than anything else, is going to be Cano’s main responsibility.
Cano needs to help the Mariners win, just like how Joey Votto helps the Reds win. Votto’s never going to be the vocal, fiery sort, but he can lead by example and he routinely fills up his line in the box score. The Reds paid Votto because Votto’s really good. The Mariners paid Cano because Cano’s really good. They wouldn’t mind if Cano stepped up to be a leader in the clubhouse, but there hasn’t been a void. The Mariners haven’t been faceless, on the inside or from the outside. The Mariners have Felix Hernandez, and Hernandez is literally everything you could want in a star player. Cano is just another star player, beside him.
Players can’t just become Derek Jeter, no matter how much you pay them. Say what you will about Jeter, but his status is undeniable, and New York has been undeniably blessed to have him on their side for two full decades. Jeter has been among the rarest of breeds. A lot like the King. Seattle’s also been blessed, in this particular regard, and we’ve been blessed for more than a handful of months. Cano isn’t Felix, not here, and he never can be.
Franklin Gutierrez And Life
Jesus Montero is kind of fat. Taijuan Walker’s shoulder doesn’t feel 100%. Hisashi Iwakuma hurt his finger pretty bad. Franklin Gutierrez is opting to sit out the entire 2014 season with a recurrence of his gastrointestinal symptoms. Pitchers and catchers reported to camp yesterday, and there will be optimistic feelings in the future, but there are no optimistic feelings now, only other feelings, and a desire to not have to feel them. The organization has had better weeks, and they haven’t even overpaid Nelson Cruz yet.
Incidentally, there’s construction going on outside. As a consequence, my whole entire building is shaking, ever so subtly but ever so noticeably. What I’m feeling is a fraction of what Franklin Gutierrez might be feeling every day, and this feeling’s unpleasant. The heart weeps for Guti, who’s alive and young and rich and unable to do the only thing he’s done since he was a child.
If you’ll allow me a moment to write pragmatically, unemotionally, the latest news isn’t so bad for the Mariners on the field. From an on-paper standpoint, Gutierrez had some upside, but now that job could be given to Abe Almonte, and there’s a lot to like about his skillset now that he’s no longer an active alcoholic. In Almonte, I see a good fourth outfielder who might make for a fringey starter, and if he ends up getting more time with Gutierrez out — Almonte, and not Endy Chavez — the Mariners should be about as all right as they were. Almonte doesn’t have Gutierrez’s strengths, but Gutierrez doesn’t have those same strengths to the same extent anymore, and Almonte is good at some other things. The short of it: I’m kind of fond of Abe Almonte, and I wouldn’t mind him playing.
But this isn’t about Almonte. This isn’t about Montero, who’s a non-factor. This isn’t about Walker, who believes that he’s fine. This isn’t about Iwakuma, who should hopefully miss only a few turns. This is about the latest chapter in the book about Franklin Gutierrez that only the most heartless of people would want to read. My sense is that, while we have a new chapter, the book’s almost finished. The baseball part, anyway. Gutierrez is 31 in a week. He’d be 32 if he played in 2015, and if he played in 2015, he’d have to get over the problems that have plagued him for more years than I’d like to remember.
Franklin Gutierrez might have to retire. Not today, not anytime soon. For now, he’s just going to focus on his own health. But it’s something he’s going to end up thinking about, and something he’s going to end up discussing with his family. Right now, Gutierrez is out at least until he’s feeling consistently better. There’s no timetable for when that might happen, since this is a recurrence of something he’s struggled with before. We might have seen the last of Franklin Gutierrez in the major leagues, and if we have, his last game saw him go 1-for-4 with a dinger. It was a shot to left off Bartolo Colon, Guti’s third homer in six starts, and that stretch was a promising sign that Gutierrez might be back to being a helpful all-around player again.
My hope is that Guti returns, even if it’s somewhere else. I’ve always been an obstinate Guti believer. My guess is that he’s finished. Maybe he signs another low-risk contract or two, but my guess is that his career totals today will match his career totals in a decade. It’s been a heartbreaking career, but from where I sit, I think at least there are twin consolations. Consolations that might help Gutierrez feel better in some time.
He did get to play to his peak. In 2009, over a full season, Franklin Gutierrez about maxed out his skillset, and his team won a surprising 85 games. One site paints him as about a seven-win player. Another site paints him as about a six-win player. He played like an elite-level center fielder, and he had a better peak season than the majority of players can manage. He turned himself into an area star. Mariners fans loved him and the team put him in a commercial. At least for six months, Gutierrez found out what he could be at his best. Because of that year, he was able to sign a $20-million contract, which can support a person and a family for an awful long time. Franklin Gutierrez made it, he really made it, once.
And it’s not like he had control over what happened. When something beautiful reaches its end, often, one is left wondering what could’ve been done to keep it going longer. Maybe there could’ve been this action. Maybe there could’ve been this behavior. Often, there are regrets, potential mistakes acknowledged in hindsight, and emotionally the reflection process can be interminably devastating, but for Gutierrez, this is a disease. Everything’s been out of his hands — there’s nothing he realistically could’ve done to avoid this. It’s not like he can look back and think he should’ve hit more. It’s not like he can look back and think he should’ve stretched more. He got sick, and it got bad, and there were some other freak accidents too, and as much as that makes Gutierrez terribly unlucky, it can be easier to cope with bad luck. Gutierrez isn’t staring ahead at a lifetime of blaming himself for a career that didn’t burn as bright as it could’ve.
You come to terms with bad breaks. Eventually, you come to terms with bad breaks, and if this proves to be it for Franklin Gutierrez, he shouldn’t leave behind many regrets. He played well when he was healthy. He continued to try to play when he wasn’t, and for stretches, he still resembled a high achiever. And he did make his money, which is one of the primary things that makes a professional baseball career so appealing — he hasn’t won a championship, and there was the potential to make many more millions, but he still made millions and in that sense he’s one of the fortunate ones. He’ll be able to support himself and other people and he’ll be able to afford care for his health. Ultimately that’s the point.
Franklin Gutierrez hasn’t retired, and the next time he might feel up to trying to give it a go, I’ll be right back there in my familiar spot, selling him as a high-upside roll of the dice. I’ll always want to believe in him because of what I’ve seen him be. He’ll never be that again, he’ll presumably never be close, but he was an everyday spectacle. Bad luck can rob him of his present and it can rob him of his future, but down the road Franklin Gutierrez might well be able to tell the story of his career with a comfortable smile on his face.
Jesus Montero Is In The Best Shape Of Brett Wallace’s Life
I want to give Jesus Montero the benefit of the doubt. I’m usually inclined to give the benefit of the doubt — life tends to be complex, and people tend to have reasons for doing the things that they do. Maybe Montero didn’t quite understand the question. Maybe Montero gave more of an answer, that wasn’t included in the post. Maybe Montero still isn’t entirely comfortable with and confident in his English. Maybe there are legitimate reasons for this, but I can’t get over how poorly this reads:
“I gained a lot of weight in my country,” [Montero] admitted. “So, now, I’m on a program to lose weight. I’m working really hard to get my weight back. I wasn’t doing nothing (after finishing winter ball), just eating.”
Last year, Jesus Montero got hurt. He also got moved away from a premium defensive position, and he struggled to perform, and while he was in the minors he got suspended for a PED violation committed earlier on. Montero’s value has disintegrated into near-nothingness, and given a player like that, still young, you’d think the player would do everything possible to show up to camp ready to impress. Yet after winter ball, Montero says he was “just eating”. Not even eating responsibly. Eating sufficiently irresponsibly that now the Mariners have put him on a diet to get him down to a reasonable playing weight. So that he can be at a reasonable playing weight in Tacoma, since he’s sure as shoot not making the big club.
This offseason, Jesus Montero got pudgy. Last offseason, Jesus Montero had to try to learn how to run. The Mariners have had Jesus Montero for two full offseason, and each of them has been differently embarrassing.
Not that this seals any deals, of course; last spring, Nick Franklin showed up weirdly fat after eating nothing but like Olive Garden baked butter pasta several times a day for a few months. The Mariners were horrified and worked to get Franklin back into shape, and he wound up good enough to bump Dustin Ackley to the outfield. But at least Franklin’s heart was in the right place, and he thought he was working to get himself better. I don’t know what Montero was doing or thinking, but if it was more than just lazily eating, he might consider a more extended explanation.
Two years ago, Jesus Montero was Baseball America’s No. 6 prospect. Two years ago. He was the kind of prospect you could flip for a Michael Pineda. If he were that prospect today, he’d be the kind of prospect you could use as a centerpiece to land Giancarlo Stanton. Instead, Montero today is the kind of prospect you could exchange for Mike Stanton, the other Mike Stanton, maybe, perhaps as long as you threw in some cash. He’s so without value the Mariners have nothing to do but try to allow him to rebuild some value. Montero is a month younger than Brad Miller.
From the most optimistic perspective, Montero puts the Mariners and Mariners fans in an interesting position where everyone’s given up on him, but he might still re-establish himself. The talent has to be in there somewhere, and who knows, maybe Montero actually comes out and hits like the player he was supposed to become. Nobody thinks he’ll do anything — everyone’s already accepted that he’s currently garbage — so at this point he’s pure upside. He achieved his maximum downside so quickly there’s still time and room for improvement.
It reminds me of a story from when I was younger. I’ve loved watermelon all my life, but perhaps never more than I did when I was nine. My grandparents grew a lot of fruit in their backyard, and I thought, why not me? There’s plenty of space and every watermelon has seeds in it. So one day I had some watermelon, and I collected the black seeds, and then I went out back and buried some of them under a few piles of dirt. I wasn’t sure entirely what I was doing, but that’s how you plant plants, right? You put their seeds in the ground? I covered them up and for the next few weeks I made sure the area was steadily watered. I couldn’t wait to have my very own watermelon plant.
I’d planted seeds before, so I had some understanding of what you’re supposed to observe, when things are going well. In time, I grew frustrated that I wasn’t seeing any sprouts. The seeds weren’t doing anything. Maybe I’d done something wrong. Maybe there was something wrong with the seeds. Maybe it was just bad luck. But before too much longer I gave up and stopped watering that part of the yard. It was worth an attempt, but despite all my excitement, it wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to live my dream.
I continued to do whatever nine-year-olds do for a while. I made stupid jokes that I thought were clever. I built Legos. My body expanded. I probably ate a lot of watermelon. There was school. I thought about the things that I thought were important to life, and then one day I went out back with my brother to start making a little mini-golf green. We’d recently come into some golf clubs, see, and everybody enjoys a round of mini-golf. We figured out where the hole was going to go, then I glanced over at where I’d planted the watermelon seeds so many months earlier. It’s not that I expected anything to be there — it was nothing but a casual glance. But something was different. I walked over, and, sure enough, there were green sprouts sticking out of the earth. Watermelon was growing. Watermelon was growing in my own backyard. I didn’t have a lot of big dreams as a kid, but this was among the biggest, and I was going to be able to live it.
Jesus Montero might well go on to become those watermelon plants. That’s currently the optimistic view. After we’ve all given up on him, Montero might still surprise and bear legitimate fruit. I should also note that story never happened. Not the end of it, at least, and growing plants is hard work. I sure did bury a lot of watermelon seeds, though. And my mom never hesitated to pick up another fresh watermelon from the grocery.
Nelson Cruz Might Happen While I Write This
He might take his physical while you read this. He might let a ball get over his head while you share this on Facebook. Bob Dutton says he keeps hearing it’s a matter of time before Cruz ends up with the Mariners, and I imagine we all have the same sense. Nelson Cruz isn’t a Mariner yet, to my knowledge, but we’re already a lot of the way along the path to dealing with it. By the time there’s word, actual, official word, it might make nary a ripple, at least within our spheres on the Internet. This is one of the consequences of Twitter, and a media landscape worshiping the deity of content generation. Another consequence is a burning, intensifying desire to disconnect yourself and live in the woods. Let’s all build a cabin in the woods.
Why is this almost certainly going to happen? I need to leave myself an out, because there is some chance Cruz goes elsewhere, but you can think it right through and you keep stumbling to Seattle in the end. Cruz’s market isn’t big enough for him to pick favorites and pick other places he doesn’t want to go to. If he were truly in demand, he could identify cities he’d like to live in, successful organizations he’d like to play in, hitter-friendly ballparks he’d like to hit in. As is, Cruz isn’t Masahiro Tanaka, and as much as he might like it in Texas, it seems like the Rangers are only willing to give a year and some millions. Cruz should be reduced to having to take the best offer that presents itself.
We know that the Mariners have more money to spend, and we know that they’re trying to demonstrate their intention of competing in 2014. We know they like Cruz because they’ve talked about Cruz by name. We know the Mariners could fit him into the lineup, and we know the Mariners value players of Cruz’s type even just based on the way they hyped up Michael Morse a season ago. The Mariners are likely to like Cruz’s upsides. Other front offices are more likely to dislike Cruz’s downsides.
The Orioles are also looking for help, and the Orioles also have a little money to spend, but they currently seem focused on starting pitching and they’ve had positive things to say about David Lough, and specifically his defense. If the Orioles were to sign Cruz, it would probably be to have him as a DH. The Mariners could offer more playing time in the outfield, and if Cruz is anything like most of his peers, he doesn’t want to be a DH yet, even if he doesn’t run like he used to. Players like playing, and in Seattle Cruz could do more playing.
It wouldn’t do Cruz a lot of good to settle for one year. I mean, if he really doesn’t want to play for Seattle, he could just go back to Texas, but it’s not like his market would be any better in December. He ought to end up accepting a short multi-year contract, and we’ve already heard the Mariners are pretty comfortable with two years and maybe a third-year option. By this point Cruz understands he’s not coming close to his initial demands. He’s just about out of leverage, and the Mariners, if I had to guess, are just waiting for him to come down to wherever their level is. Theirs is probably still going to be the highest level. It’ll be significant, but short of something massive. Maybe even something only a little more pricey than the Fernando Rodney contract.
A bunch of people have asked me on Twitter if signing Cruz would make the Mariners contenders. The answer depends on what you think of the Mariners now, because Cruz barely changes them. Maybe he’d make them, I don’t know, a win better. Maybe less than that! There’s nowhere that a win is the difference between a contender and a non-contender. It’s all just math, and Cruz would turn some of the numbers into slightly bigger numbers. The M’s would probably still be worse than the A’s, the Rangers, and the Angels, but the gaps aren’t enormous. The division is winnable, the playoffs are achievable.
The trickiest part might be sorting out the Mariners’ roster post-Cruz, assuming Cruz happens. You could put Cruz in a corner and split 1B/DH between Justin Smoak, Corey Hart, and Logan Morrison. You could put Cruz in a corner and still give the other corner to Morrison/Hart for some reason. There’s no way to make things great because no great plan involves Nelson Cruz at the core of it, but there would be decisions to make. Peter Gammons passed along the idea that the M’s could deal Smoak to the Pirates, because the Pirates could use a first-base upgrade, but Smoak might not even be an upgrade, and he certainly wouldn’t bring back great value. The Mariners gave up little to get Morrison. The Mets haven’t been able to turn Ike Davis into anything worthwhile. The Pirates might prefer a guy like Mike Carp, which is the kind of hilarious I don’t want to think about too much. And the Mariners keep hyping Smoak up, suggesting he’s got fans among the string-pullers. I don’t know the solution because I can’t put myself in the Mariners’ mindset and I’m more than a little proud of that.
Earlier in the offseason, I saw two inevitabilities: Bronson Arroyo would sign for too much with the Giants, and Nelson Cruz would sign for too much with the Mariners. Arroyo went to a different team, for a more reasonable amount of money. Cruz is going to end up with a more reasonable amount of money, too, but Seattle’s still looking inevitable. It didn’t happen while I was writing the first paragraph, here, but if you’ll excuse me, I need to check Twitter again. In a weird way, Nelson Cruz officially signing with the Mariners would bring me and all of us some closure.
The Five Best M’s Games of 2013
Even in a year characterized by disappointment and failure – a year that brought us the weird, bitter end of the Zduriencik and Wedge partnership and the total, comprehensive destruction of the M’s best position-player prospect – there are moments of joy and beauty. No, there aren’t any meaningful games to choose from in the traditional sense, but what are we all doing here if not searching for meaning? We M’s fans look into the void, and declare a corner of it “a future #2 starter.” We see, ok, if not beauty, then auguries of change, development and not-Brendan Ryan.
#5:
Game Number: 12
M’s record: 4-7
SPs: Iwakuma vs. Darvish
Why it’s listed: The M’s opened 2013 with a dominating performance from Felix and backed it up with a great start by Hisashi Iwakuma. And then they went 2-7. Before this game, Dave wrote that the next 9 days were crucial to the M’s continued ability to compete in 2013, and that with Michael Saunders ailing, the team needed a huge lift from someone to stay competitive against two of the league’s elite in Texas and Detroit. 12 days later, Dave wrote this, so you can tell how that all worked out. But this game…THIS game was different. This was one of the bigger mismatches of the young season, with presumed (and actual) Cy Young candidate Darvish facing a line-up of Jason Bay, Endy Chavez, Brendan Ryan and Kelly Shoppach and facing presumed DL candidate Hisashi Iwakuma. A third of this line-up would be DFA’d during the year, and that’s the part that DOESN’T include Brendan Ryan.
The M’s jumped on Darvish early, with a HBP/WP, a 1B, then an RBI single from Raul Ibanez, who’d looked abysmal to that point, followed by a huge two-run double by Kyle Seager. It wasn’t text-book, but the M’s had a 3-0 lead. Given the nature of the line-up, you won’t be shocked to recall that the M’s were done scoring after that, but Iwakuma made three runs hold up, going 6 1/3 IP of 1-run ball (a solo HR accounting for the run, naturally) over 6 1/3 IP. The M’s bullpen helped out, with Stephen Pryor unhittable for 1 1/3 IP, then turning it over to Tom Wilhelmsen, whom M’s fans still trusted in mid-April.
The M’s were in deep trouble and absolutely needed to steal a win, and they did. Their actions over the next two weeks rendered the importance of this game moot, and we all settled in to another year of…this. But this game showed that Iwakuma was both not hurt and ridiculously good when he was on.
Line from the game post: “The M’s are facing Yu Darvish, at home, with a starting pitcher who may not be 100%, and it *kind of makes sense* to start Ibanez/Chavez/Bay in the outfield. That’s why the M’s are in trouble in the short term. But if you’re going to steal a win, *steal* one. Make it hurt.”
What would the Seahawks have done?
Not enter the game 4-7.
#4
Game Number: 134
M’s record: 61-73
SPs: Walker vs. Peacock
Why it’s listed:
Taijuan Walker’s the best pitching prospect the M’s have produced since King Felix. Of course his big league debut’s going to be on the list, and the fact that he shut the Astros out for 5 innings on only 2 hits just makes the decision easier. I’d been following Walker’s meteoric rise, which helped make this one of the few games in 2013 that felt like it mattered. I was nervous. I clapped at my TV after groundouts and whiffs. It was like a simulacrum of a playoff game, or a meaningful down-the-stretch game – the kind we haven’t had in a decade plus. Part of that’s my own weirdness, and part of that’s the dearth of any opportunity to get stoked for a late-season ballgame, but I *felt* something. Thanks, Taijuan Walker.
Let’s be clear: this was not actually one of Walker’s best games. I’ve seen Walker in person maybe 3 times, and on TV a few more, and I *still* don’t think we’ve seen what he can actually do. In the first inning of this contest, he was touching 94-95, and didn’t have his best command (understandably so). His cutter in particular just wasn’t that sharp, as he left quite a few up over the zone, and piped a couple over the heart of the plate. But that’s what makes this special – Walker doesn’t need to have everything working the way a Joe Saunders does, or hell, the way Erasmo Ramirez does. His repertoire, mechanics and stuff mean that hitters have a lot to consider, and thus Walker got away with some centered pitches.
I’d been struck by his poise in his AAA debut, another outing where he simply didn’t have a feel for his cutter, but he pitched out of a jam in the 3rd, when a 2-out double and then an error by Justin Smoak led to an unearned run. He was facing hitters for the 2nd time, and he yielded another hit and a line drive before getting out of the inning. In the 4th, facing the heart of the Astros line-up, he struck out Jason Castro, got a foul-out and a grounder. I know: it was the Astros. That’s context, sure, but Walker dominated a big-league team (kind of) without his best stuff. In his first big league appearance. That’s worth celebrating.
Line from the game post: ” It’s important to be reminded that it’s possible to really care about this team, and the development of a core group of players who could actually compete someday. Is this a low bar to get over? Yes, it is, but that doesn’t mean we’ve cleared it very often.”
What would the Seahawks have done? Faced with opposition like this, the M’s would have dominated early on to ease the pressure on Walker. Final score: 45-1.
#3:
Game Number: 1
M’s record: 0-0
SPs: Hernandez vs. Anderson
Why it’s listed:
Yes, we’ve seen it before. Hell, Felix has dominated the Oakland A’s on opening day before. This wasn’t about novelty, this was about Felix eliminating any doubt that his massive contract extension had changed him. This was about sending a message to the A’s, suddenly an elite team in the AL. And yes, the rest of the league is accustomed to these messages, and now disregards them because the M’s have struggled to back up a dominating Felix performance with more than a flurry of ground ball outs and a quick series loss. But so what? It was opening day, and Felix pitched 7 2/3 IP with 8 Ks and just 1 walk. John Jaso doubled, and while that was annoying because of context/circumstances, it just didn’t matter. The M’s got the best team in the AL West, facing that team’s best pitcher in one of his rare bouts of health, and shut them out.
Was the lack of run support worrying? Not facing the A’s #1 starter, and not on April 1st in Oakland’s cavernous ballpark. Is it annoying that the best most fans felt about the team came on opening night? Yes, sure, though I want to point out they won the next game too. But the M’s season went south quickly, as we saw in #5 above. If that just means it was somewhat inevitable that this game would end up on the list, well, so be it. Felix dominated a really good division rival, and somewhere underneath all of that scar tissue, we were excited about the M’s again.
Line from the game post: “Opening day means we can stop tabulating probabilities and start rooting *against* them.”
What would the Seahawks have done? A key early season match-up against a tough divisional foe? They’d focus on defense. With 2 outs in each inning, Felix would bean an A’s batter. With runs at a premium, the M’s would play ridiculously shallow on the IF corners while shouting insults to the batter. Chin music and constant abuse will take a team out of their rhythm.
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The Elephants in the Neighborhood
I haven’t been following the M’s as much for the past few weeks. As most of you know, the M’s next-door neighbors won a championship with one of the most dominating Super Bowl performances in memory (and Super Bowl history is littered with dominating performances). For years, the Seahawks success – hell, even their mediocre 7-9 seasons – has highlighted just how bad the M’s have been, and how two different M’s GMs have tried and failed to right the ship. Those fans that still care about the M’s despairingly list just how *different* everything feels at the Clink, and how Seahawks GM John Schneider seems like Billy Beane supplied with a league-wide salary cap and actual clairvoyance.
Everyone’s weighing in on what “lessons” the Hawks have to teach the M’s, and so I thought I’d stop high fiving random people in the supermarket and see if there’s anything to glean from Schneider’s rapid rise to the top. Beware, there be tenuous analogies in these parts.
The Seahawks absolutely dominating defense is their calling card. Several teams in recent memory, from the Rays in 2008, the Giants in their 2 World Series years and the Tigers of last year seem like decent comps, but a closer look at each team shows that they just don’t fit. The Rays turnaround was led by Evan Longoria, who was not only an offensive factor, but a 3rd overall pick. The team transformed itself in part by trading disgruntled prospect Delmon Young for help at SS and SP Matt Garza. The Hawks, frankly, didn’t need an overhaul. The Giants won with great defense and pitching, led by Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain and Buster Posey, so the home-grownness looks similar, but again, the closer you look, the more the analogy falls apart. Each of those Giants stars was a first-round pick; the team did a marvelous job of developing them, but it’s not like they came out of nowhere. The team was fortunate to hit on some big bets, and it paid off for a GM previously known more for his nearly pathological love of veteran grit than his draft acumen. The Tigers pitching staff put up the kind of stats that make a comparison to the Seahawks seem appropriate, but again, the way the Tigers were assembled is quite different. Verlander was homegrown, but Scherzer and Fister came in trade. Anibal Sanchez was first acquired in trade (a deal that also netted the Tigers their 2B), then kept on a free agent deal. The offense was headlined by perhaps the biggest trade haul in a generation and the roundest player to ever command a $200m free agent deal. None of this is to say that the Tigers bought their way to the pennant or got lucky – their trades are now the stuff of legend, and it’s the only thing that makes me hesitate before slamming the return they got on Doug Fister this off-season. It’s just not a great parallel to the Seahawks.
The Hawks built their secondary and linebacker core largely through the draft, and spent in free agency on edge rushers on the line. It’s an interesting strategy, almost the inverse of what I might expect given the admittedly little I know about advanced football analysis. But while the Hawks have one legitimate first-round guy that many teams coveted in Earl Thomas, the team is famously peppered with back-of-the-draft flyers and questionable reaches. NFL Draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. famously panned several of the draft classes that produced the Seahawks starting QB, a starting LB and more. Richard Sherman was a 5th round pick, Malcolm Smith a 5th rounder, and fellow LB KJ Wright was a 4th round selection. Sure, Marshawn Lynch was a highly-touted ex-first rounder when the Hawks acquired him, but he’d largely failed to live up to expectations in Buffalo, and honestly looked a step slow in his first season in Seattle (until a certain playoff game). The key to the Seahawks isn’t just that they’re largely home-grown, it’s that the guys they appeared to have signed/drafted for depth simply took over, and in the process helped cover what would’ve been high-priced errors.
So who in the baseball world does that sound like? To me it sounds like the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that played in the World Series in 2006* and 2013 (whoa), and whose recent success has been driven in large part by big contributions from unheralded young players. Allen Craig and Matt Carpenter went in the 8th and 13th rounds, respectively. Yadier Molina was a 4th round pick. The pitching staff had more of a draft pedigree, but Lance Lynn and Michael Wacha, while first-rounders, certainly never seemed like difference makers – they just seemed like safe, boring, back-of-the-round selections. Shelby Miller was a legitimate phenom (although he went 19th overall; we’ll comp him to Earl Thomas, who went 14th overall), but their vaunted bullpen was another collection of late-round flyers (Trevor Rosenthal somehow lasted to the 21st round of the 2009 draft. Kevin Siegrist went in the *41st* round).
It all looks sort of familiar, er, at least to me. But the problem comes when trying to extrapolate these lessons to out-of-sample teams. You can’t discern a concrete “lesson” here, other than something easy and circular like “draft awesome players that no one else thinks are awesome.” I’m not Gladwellian enough to distill this into a meme-ready soundbite, and I’m not sure what there is to distill. Be better than your competitors! Hidden talent is out there somewhere! At this point, we’re really just looking at two very different front offices that just seem to function a bit better than others. It’s not that they’re never wrong, but their depth is such that any errors can be quickly covered over.
This is the sports version of the “great man” theory of history – with powerful visionaries as shapers of national and international events, whose singular genius trumps the power of culture, economics, technology and the like. It’s a pretty out-of-date theory, but it seems to work here. I’m sorry, M’s, but there doesn’t seem to be much to learn from the Seahawks other than the importance of player development. That’s nice, but it’s essentially a truism, and there seems to be so little to glean from football player development – where it’s sometimes possible to be a prospect despite never having seen an actual football before in your life. So take heart in the fact that Seattle’s completely sports crazy right now. Be inspired by the Seahawks rise from team in disarray to presumptive favorites to champions in about four years. There aren’t any specific strategies to take back to Safeco, but it’s helpful to remember how quickly things can change.
Fernando Rodney: Proven Closer, Somehow
Fernando Rodney is 36 years old. That might surprise you, in either way. He might be older than you thought, because it’s really only been recently that he’s been any good. Or he might be younger than you thought, because you can’t really remember baseball before Fernando Rodney, because baseball always has dozens of pitchers like Fernando Rodney at any one given moment. Rodney built a whole career on being a reliever with an electric arm and potential. Then he built a new career. A career where he’s more than Mike MacDougal.
Rodney debuted in 2002 and for a decade, for literally a decade, he was hard-throwing and mediocre. His strikeouts wouldn’t match his velocity. His walks would, and then some. That whole decade, he was worth about 2.5 wins, according to his FanGraphs page. Last year Mark Melancon alone was worth 2.5 wins. In 2011 Rodney was a wreck for the Angels, and he barely pitched in September. It looked like it could be the end of the line, if a reliever ever hits the end of the line when he throws 96. The Rays scooped Rodney up and he set a new all-time ERA record. In the low way, not the way you might’ve expected Rodney to do it. Rodney was worse last season, but he was simultaneously worse and good.
Rodney was always a guy with a live arm and promise. He figured things out at 35. Rodney’s why teams still give those guys chances. And Rodney’s a Mariner, now, for two years and $14 million, or $15 million, if he’s healthy and great. The Mariners were first linked to Rodney some months ago, and it seemed inevitable they’d throw money at some kind of veteran for bullpen work. Rumors died down until they burst back to life. Rodney’s the new guy, and he’s the new closer.
Which is a bummer for Danny Farquhar, and which is kind of a bummer for us, because I think we’re all pretty big Danny Farquhar fans. We know we have the numbers on our side, and there’s reason to believe that Farquhar’s the superior reliever. Ideally, your closer would be your best guy, and your setup guy would be your second-best guy, and so on down the chain. If Farquhar’s better than Rodney, it’s weird to have Rodney as the closer. But more important than having guys in the right order is having the right guys, and closer be damned, the Mariners needed bullpen help. It was awful flimsy behind Farquhar and Charlie Furbush, and while Rodney’s no sure thing, he’s what Yoervis Medina wishes he were. Rodney solidifies the unit, probably, and given that the Mariners are in the business of trying to contend, Rodney does positive things for their playoff odds.
At the appropriate cost. The Mariners sure as shoot aren’t paying Rodney to repeat his historic 2012, because that would be all but unrepeatable. They’re really just paying him to be a good reliever, and he’s coming off a couple good seasons, and it’s not like any other resources have been sacrificed. Rodney costs two years of money, then he’s gone and remembered in some way, to be determined.
Lots of people have been talking about the M’s signing Nelson Cruz. The M’s themselves have been talking about the M’s signing Nelson Cruz, even publicly, on the record. It’s feeling like a thing that’s going to happen. I can already sense myself working to get over it. I will have already been through all the stages by the time the news initially hits. Cruz is perceived as a major splash, but after looking at all the numbers, you could make the argument that Rodney’s the bigger improvement for this team. Maybe just equivalent, but Cruz is overrated by many, and Rodney is underrated by some, and this contract is probably better than that contract would or will be. Cruz wouldn’t mean nothing, but Rodney addresses an area of quiet concern. During the season, it wouldn’t have been so quiet.
Oh, it’s beyond easy to envision Rodney coming apart and turning into what Yoervis Medina actually is. It’s easy to envision Rodney turning into a guy we never want to see on the mound in a game closer than six. That’s something Rodney already was, for a long time, and now he’s older and not pitching to Jose Molina, and even a good version of Rodney puts people with weak hearts in hospitals. Rodney’s never going to feel safe, and as he shoots his celebratory arrow, it’ll be accompanied by the sound of some tens of thousands of people finally breathing. It’ll sound like an actual arrow in flight. Prepare yourself for even the good outcome to be mildly traumatizing.
But Rodney can be good because he’s been good recently, and we want the Mariners to have more talent on the roster, and I’m excited to have a closer with a little ego and personality. Farquhar’s too nice. Wilhelmsen’s too uncertain and spacy. I guess Brandon League had a little ego and personality but he was a moron. I don’t even remember what David Aardsma was like. I very much enjoyed the J.J. Putz era. The Mariners’ new closer has a choreographed save celebration. He also wears his hat in such a way that from the back you can’t tell where he’s looking. One thing Fernando Rodney isn’t is forgettable.
It’s not a great move by the Mariners, but it’s not a bad move by them, either, and the team’s better now than it was. I might usually want more, but I’ll take this. I’m actually pretty easy to please. Decisions in the past have caused me to forget that. But I’m a fairly positive guy. This, this right here — this is fine.