M’s Sign Eric Byrnes
Okay, so, we finally know who the right-handed hitting outfielder is going to be – Eric Byrnes. I wrote up Byrnes last week, when he was DFA’d by the Diamondbacks, so the full take is over there. Short version – I like this.
Since Arizona is on the hook for his remaining salary, this is a league minimum deal. The Mariners have no obligation to keep Byrnes if he’s not healthy in spring training, or he looks old, or whatever. It’s a no-risk flyer on a guy who was a pretty darn good player a couple of years ago. His last two years have been terrible, but if he’s healthy, there should still be some juice left in the tank. If he and Langerhans split the LF time (with Bradley playing out there occasionally), the M’s should have a terrific defensive combo that could hit at something resembling a league average rate. And the platoon will cost them $900,000.
One quick note of caution, though – if you look at Byrnes ridiculously low BABIPs the last few years and think “it’s bad luck”, well, maybe, but not all of it is. Byrnes is historically awful at hitting infield flies. He hits enough pop-ups that the moon has taken out a restraining order against him. Pop-ups, of course, are easy to catch and never turn into hits. So you should expect Byrnes to run a below average BABIP. He’ll regress some, most likely, but don’t expect him to come anywhere near .300.
Interesting Comments From Yesterday
The Mariners held their annual pre-season media luncheon yesterday, leading to a bunch of stories from all the usual sources. Check out Stone, Drayer, Divish, or Brock and Salk for quotes and audio.
For the most part, they said about what you’d expect them to say, though there were a few comments that stood out to me.
1. Jack basically confirms what everyone has assumed – the Mariners are going to trade for a RH OF/1B/DH power hitting type. If I was a betting man, I’d wager on Josh Willingham.
2. Wak confirms what everyone had assumed – Ichiro will lead off and Figgins will hit second.
3. Wak restates that they will give Saunders a chance to make the team in spring training. This basically rules out the team changing course and going after a guy like Damon. They could theoretically make a Saunders/Willingham job share in left work. There’s no way to make a Saunders/Damon job share work.
4. Wak states that Griffey is going to “be in there when he can.” Despite talk all winter of a reduced role for Junior, the quotes make it sound like he plans on Griffey regularly DH’ing. I don’t think the M’s are actually planning on that, however. You don’t acquire Milton Bradley and talk about still wanting another OF/DH type if you really are going to give Junior regular playing time. I’ll chalk this up to just saying nice things about the franchise icon. Remember, the M’s were willing to let Junior talk about playing the outfield last spring, but when push came to shove, he was a DH. They can talk about him as a potential regular this spring, but when push comes to shove again, he’s a bench player.
Randy Johnson Throwing Out First Pitch
If you haven’t heard, the Mariners announced today that Randy Johnson will throw out the first pitch at the home opener on April 12th, which is just really awesome. Johnson and the M’s didn’t part on the best of terms, but I’m really happy to see that the organization was able to put that in the past and give the fans a chance to salute Johnson one more time. Perhaps, if everyone in the stadium cheers loud enough, he’ll change his mind and un-retire. The bullpen could use a good lefty with a knockout slider.
New To Nerd Math? Start Here
One of the frequent questions we get is “If we don’t know what your numbers mean, where should we start?” I usually don’t have a great answer, suggesting a few various introductions and then telling them to get good at googling. Well, that’s over. At Lookout Landing, one of the commenters has taken it upon himself to collect and categorize a large variety of articles about various topics relating to the analytics of baseball.
So, now, start here. That post contains links to a lot of important information, covering nearly the whole spectrum of analysis. It’s a pretty awesome reference tool. Thanks, Fett.
Reacting To The Market
We’ve talked quite a bit about what type of player who makes sense as the final guy on the position player side of things, given the current roster – a right-handed outfielder who can swing the stick and not embarrass himself in the field would be the perfect complement to the current Bradley/Langerhans/Saunders group of LF options on the roster. There are any number of fairly cheap, useful players of that sort on the market, so the M’s should be able to fill that spot rather easily.
But sometimes, things happen that change your plans. And, given the market that is developing (or not developing, as the case may be) in Johnny Damon’s case, perhaps its time for the Mariners to consider an alternate plan in left field.
Buster Olney reported today that the market for Damon has “dried up”. The Yankees are holding steady on the fact that they only have $2 million left to spend, and they won’t expand their budget to bring him back. There was some talk that the A’s could still pursue Damon even after signing Ben Sheets, but Billy Beane threw water on that idea.
The other teams that had been rumored destinations for Damon either don’t seem interested or have already spent their money on other players. Olney speculates that $4 or $5 million on a one year deal may be the best that Damon could do, and he thought that kind of offer could come from Oakland, who now appears unlikely to pursue him.
There is apparently an opportunity for the Mariners here. As I wrote on FanGraphs today, there are a lot of similarities between Damon this year and Bobby Abreu a year ago. We all saw how the Abreu contract worked out for the Angels, and something like a 1 year, $5 million deal for Damon may be a similarly good idea for the M’s.
Damon is still a good player. He hits for average, draws walks, makes contact, and has some power. Sure, New Yankee Stadium helped him quite a bit last year, but Safeco is designed to help the same type of hitter, and he would find the right field porch in Seattle just as inviting. He’s a good enough defender to handle LF at Safeco, even as his range declines – there’s little evidence that he’s much worse than below average defensively at this point, and that includes his hilariously bad arm. The glove doesn’t even come close to canceling out the value he creates at the plate.
Given regular playing time, Damon should be a +2 to +3 win player, and the Mariners have playing time to offer him. Sure, it’s not ideal to add yet another LH hitter to the LF/DH mix, but Damon doesn’t need to be platooned, so you don’t have to replace Langerhans with a right-handed hitting outfielder in order to make it work (though you could if you wanted to). And you don’t walk away from a bargain just because it’s not ideal. If the M’s can really get Damon for $5M-ish, they won’t find a more cost effective way to upgrade the team in free agency.
Sheets to Oakland
The A’s have signed Ben Sheets to a reported $10 million contract for 2010, with incentives that could push his salary up even further if he pitches well. He obviously impressed teams at his outing last week, and his stock increased pretty dramatically.
Given the price, I’m glad the Mariners passed. This a huge buyer’s market, with significant quality talents sitting around looking for jobs. The M’s can spend the rest of their money in better ways.
Monday speculation post and comment thread
The M’s seem to need and be looking for (one or both of) an additional starting pitcher of modest talent (since with current MLB playoff scheduling you barely need two SPs once you get there) and a right-handed outfielder you can play part-time and who can field well.
And possibly a catcher on a short deal.
However… we’ve seen that what the front-office really likes to do is make some crazy awesome “win-win” move that hasn’t even been speculated about yet.
So: what could the next move possibly be, then? You want:
1. Plausibility (Cards aren’t going to give up Pujols)
2. Awesomeness
3. Lack of previous predictions by punditry
4. And a full ten points for style
M’s 2010 Promotions Announced
First, let me just say “Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!”
The first 30,000 fans attending the Mariners’ Interleague game against the Reds on June 18 receive a Ken Griffey Jr. and Ichiro “Cooperstown Bound” dual bobblehead.
1. Members of your fanbase are engaged in a wide-ranging and difficult fight to get Edgar in. Please, not now
2. Don’t do this early. It’s presumptuous. We already know there a voters who feel their gut is the best judge of worthiness — let’s not give them any reasons to delay the inductions of these two. Who knows what slight might push someone’s gut towards “no”?
Then:
“Ichiro Designed T-shirt Day” is scheduled for May 1 and, according to Greene, “He helped us design it. It’s pretty cool.”
This could be the finest promotional give-away ever. I’m buying tickets immediately. Though I’d much rather Greene had a wary, ambiguous statement than “pretty cool.” I’d be more sure of its value if it he’d said “Fans will find it an interesting insight that they’ll want to pass on to future generations” or “It’s one-of-a-kind”.
Notably absent: Dave Sims Hat Night. Wear your finest hat, get a chance to meet the man himself. Prizes could include autographed straw hats of increasing coolness. Because Dave Sims has tremendous style. Hopefully FSN sees an opportunity to extend their brand beyond Rally Fries and seizes this idea.
Dave With Brock And Salk
I’ll be on with the guys on ESPN 710 at 2:00-ish.
Here’s the link to the audio – apparently they made fun of how fast I talk after I get off the air. I can’t help it. Salk gets five hours a day to give Washburn a tongue bath, and I only get 10 minutes to make the opposite case.
Okay, I just listened to the audio of their speed test between me and Pete Carroll… and it’s really funny.
Spending The Rest
Felix’s extension is awesome on its own, but it also comes with a side benefit – because part of his 2010 payout is accounted for as a signing bonus, Hernandez will only take up a little more than $7 million of the payroll next year, or about $3 million less than the $10 million figure that we’d speculated on as his potential arbitration award. So, in the wake of the great news that Felix is sticking around is more good news – the team has a little more financial flexibility than previously assumed.
Now, again, I want to remind everyone about that last word – assumed. No one really has any firm grasp on what the team’s budget is. The M’s won’t say publicly, so we’ll all figure out what it is once they announce they’re done spending for the winter. Pretty much everyone who covers the team is assuming that it will be something similar to last year, but we don’t really know. We’re guessing. We could be wrong. But it’s the best guess we’ve got.
If you want to see the numbers, check out this spreadsheet from Cot’s Contracts, this post from Jeff Sullivan, or this post from Geoff Baker. They all do a good job of summing everything up, though I doubt any of them get it exactly right. Baker says that the payouts on Silva’s deal on Cot’s are flipped, with the M’s sending less this year than next year – I’d trust him on that. But he’s got Ackley’s salary at $1.5M per season, when it’s actually $1.5M over the five years, so he’s about $1M too high on Ackley for 2010. These are mostly small details, though – everyone comes out with the same general conclusion. The M’s have about $7 to $10 million left in the budget, assuming payroll is kept similar to 2009.
How the M’s spend that money is still up in the air. There are two obvious places on the roster that could use some help, then a few potential bargains in free agency that could offer upgrades to the team if they can work out the logistics. Here are the options, briefly:
Right-Handed Hitting Outfielder/Utility Guy
This is Bill Hall’s vacated roster spot. With Langerhans/Bradley/Griffey forming some kind of LF/DH job share, the team needs another right-handed bat that can play the outfield to balance everything out. It may be useful if that guy could also play the infield, as Jack Hannahan is currently projected as the only backup IF on the roster, but that may be a perk and not a necessity. Options for this guy have been discussed a lot, with names ranging from Xavier Nady to Fernando Tatis and most recently Eric Byrnes. Nady would be the priciest, and last reports had him asking for a ridiculous $6M contract – he’ll have to realize that the market has crashed and he’s coming off surgery before anyone signs him.
Starting Pitcher
If the M’s were still in pseudo rebuilding mode, than giving the last rotation spot to the winner of the Vargas/Fister/French/Petit/Olson contest would not be a bad idea. But given how aggressive they’ve been in upgrading the rest of the team for a run at contention in 2010, the team should do better in the rotation. There are any number of potential options at starter, ranging from the high risk/high reward guys (Ben Sheets, Chien-Ming Wang, John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez, Erik Bedard) to the less interesting innings-sponge types (Jarrod Washburn, Jon Garland, random old strike-throwers). The costs vary widely, even within the groups themselves.
Bullpen/Second Base/Reserve Infielder
This is the group of spots that could be improved upon, but have competent people in place at the moment. The team could choose to upgrade on the various LH relief options if a guy like Will Ohman is willing to sign for cheap, but they may prefer to give the kids a chance, or just not have a LH reliever again. The M’s are known to like Orlando Hudson, but they have Jose Lopez, and there doesn’t seem to be much of a market for his services in trade. If they could find a team who wanted Lopez, though, they could allocate some of the remaining money to bringing in his replacement. Likewise, Hannahan could be a useful utility player around the infield, but if the M’s could get someone like Adam Kennedy to play the same role at a discount, they may explore that option.
So those are the options. The M’s have a pool of money with which to acquire two, maybe three players, who will likely fit into one of the above categories.
Without knowing what each player’s price and willingness to come to Seattle is, it’s impossible to pick a “best plan”. In some scenarios, it makes sense to spend more on the outfielder and less on the pitcher. In others, maybe you spend all of it on the pitcher and go cheap in the outfield. Or perhaps you trade Lopez for the pitcher, then use the money to sign Hudson and a decent outfielder. Lots of options.
Odds are good that the M’s will fill these last couple of spots with quality players. If they spend it wisely, the Mariners will head into 2010 looking like a ~90 win team or so. That’s pretty amazing.