Soooo, uhhhhh, about that lack of news
The deadline for teams to offer arbitration is tomorrow midnight. Maybe… something will happen. Anything?
Why I have hope Beltre will return to the team
We’ve talked about this a little before, but here, from an article on Mike Lowell:
Adrian Beltre, after a disappointing five-year run in Seattle, could come at a reasonable price for a team willing to chance that Beltre may yet have the thunder in his bat that he displayed with the Dodgers, for whom he hit 48 home runs in 2004.
Were you disappointed in Beltre’s five year run here? I was not. He earned his money and then some. Anyone who thinks he was paid to repeat 2004, or that his value is dependent entirely on his ability to hit, is not giving the subject enough serious contemplation. Or is ignorant. Or doesn’t care whether what they write is true.
What’s even funnier about this particular piece is that after a paragraph discussing Lowell’s UZR and whether he was affected by injury and might get better, there’s this gem:
Among free-agent third basemen, Beltre ranked first in the Fangraphs UZR/150. Figgins was fourth, Feliz 11th, and Mora 12th.
Defense is a reason that Lowell might get traded. And as long as the leaderboard is open, we can talk about other players. But defense isn’t something they’re evaluated on, and certainly doesn’t inform the larger discussion about other options. If the Red Sox swapped Lowell for Beltre, I suppose the Red Sox would lose some offense and there’d be some salary differences to work out. Team defense, hey, who knows?
This is exactly why I hold out hope that the M’s will make a better offer to Beltre than anyone else. That writer’s views represent a vast pool of belief for inattentive baseball writers, fans, and even front-office types. Beltre will not get the kind of contract offers he’d get if he was an average fielder and his value came from his offense, and probably would get better offers still if this five-year run hadn’t come on the heels of his 2004 season, setting it up as a “disappointment” contract.
The M’s though have two advantages in evaluating how much they should offer: they’ve seen Beltre every game for five years, and have seen what he contributes on both sides of the inning, as well as having a realistic view into his shortcomings on offense. And they’re smart, and should be able to value that correctly.
Mariner-related thanks
This is the first Thanksgiving holiday in a long, long time where I haven’t dreaded potential team news. Last year, I had hope, but we didn’t really know how things were going to go. And now, I feel like I could safely go on vacation for a week, or a month, and not come back to find that the team made some colossal error we’d be complaining about for years to come.
Leaving me to concentrate on cooking crazy potato dishes. Muwahahahahahaha!
So thanks for that, still-relatively-new Mariner front office.
Griffey’s deal details, to be accompanied by schmaltz
$2.35m base salary
$3.9m if playing time >= 400 PA && attendance > 2.5m && Griffey’s DL stays = 0
This will be accompanied in all articles by descriptions of his miraculous effect on the team clubhouse and past glory with the team.
On bringing back the Bus
Ah, remember the good old days when we were putting out sales pitches for Jarrod Washburn, hoping some dumb team would bite? Good times.
Well, now there’s talk he might return to Seattle. And his knee? You won’t believe this — couldn’t be better. “It feels great now, almost like I didn’t even have a surgery. So, I don’t see it being a problem for me in the future.”
As if he was going to say something else. “It feels kind of weak and doesn’t quite support my leg, so who knows what’ll happen when I get on a mound. I’d offer me a minor league contract and a spring training invite, maybe.”
Anyway, Kenji’s gone, so I’m sure he’s already thinking it’d be even better this time. But really, if I’m going to set that whole thing aside, he is pretty well-suited for Safeco as a flyball lefty. The knee thing’s a risk, but I’m sure the M’s will do their homework on that.
The thing is… the M’s need more for their money. A lot more. If they brought Washburn back on a one-year, $6m deal, there’s some upside there. But even with Kenji out, the team’s going to be trying to squeeze wins and one of their largest constraints is going to be the payroll budget the business side gives them. If Washburn wants $10m again, the team’s better off gambling on some reclamation projects with lower price tags and riskier profiles. They can’t break even on free agent acquisitions by paying $4-5m per win this year.
AFL Championship Game on MLB.com
Right now. It’s free. Recent 40-man addition Anthony Varvaro is starting and Dustin Ackley is leading off for the Javelinas.
Why aren’t you watching this already?
Dustin Ackley, Second Baseman?
Shannon Drayer ends the boredom with some real news – the Mariners are going to start working Dustin Ackley out at second base. This is something that had been speculated on pre-draft, as his college coach had publicly said that he though Ackley could make the transition, but the Mariners had been adamant that they saw him as an outfielder.
Clearly, something has changed since June. I don’t believe that the team was lying and intended to do this all along. Since getting him signed, they have either seen something in Ackley, or made a decision about the rest of the roster, that made this a more attractive option than it was this summer. The options of things that may have changed:
1. They weren’t impressed with Ackley’s outfield abilities in the AFL. I find this pretty unlikely. The reports I’ve heard on him from down there have been pretty positive, and you never expect a perfect transition to a position that a player doesn’t have much experience at. Toss in the fact that its a small sample from a bunch of games that don’t really mean anything, and I just can’t see the M’s deciding that he couldn’t hack it in the outfield yet.
2. They were so impressed with Ackley’s bat in the AFL that they’ve moved up their timetable for getting him to the majors. This is slightly more plausible than the above option, but still seems like a stretch. His AFL performance is exactly what everyone expected – a bunch of singles, some walks, and some doubles sprinkled in here and there. The M’s had scouted him extensively in college, so it’s hard to imagine that they saw something in his bat that they didn’t see during the spring, and the performance just wasn’t eye-opening. He was as advertised. That’s not impetus for a change.
3. They’re preparing to acquire a long term answer in left field – i.e. Curtis Granderson. This will get spun into that rumor, but I don’t buy it. I can’t see the M’s paying the price it will take to get Granderson when they already had Saunders, who potentially gives you a similar type of player when he develops.
4. They have decided that Michael Saunders has more of a future on this team than Jose Lopez does. This strikes me as the likely scenario. Lopez has long been rumored to be trade bait this winter, even though there aren’t many in-house options to replace him long term. If they trade Lopez, there’s no one keeping Ackley from a major league job when he’s ready. Saunders is younger, cheaper, under team control for significantly longer, left-handed, better defensively, more athletic… there are a ton of reasons why the M’s would rather have Ackley displace Lopez than Saunders. It’s not that hard to imagine that during one of the post-season meetings between the front office and the coaching staff, everyone decided that Saunders was a keeper and Lopez was a goner. That kind of decision would make an Ackley-to-2B shift more viable.
We’ll find out eventually, as the team puts the roster together. But if I was Jose Lopez, I’d be looking at how much it costs to break my lease.
Waiver claims
Jakubauskas goes to Pittsburgh, Robert Manuel to Boston, per press releases from their respective destinations. Who knows what it means, but losing those two doesn’t mean much. It could simply be clearing the decks for the 40-man roster additions, or maybe Zduriencik has bigger machinations in store.
Update: According to Geoff Baker, they’ve added to the 40-man everyone Jay covered earlier except for Peguero and Scott, plus J.C. Ramirez who I guess does need to go on after all. Also, Varvaro is going to start in the AFL title game.
I before U, except after T
Since there’s been some talk about comment moderation, along with proper spelling, this seems like a good opportunity to write this note. As you know, some employees of the Mariner organization have names that can be mildly difficult to spell (Zduriencik, Rizzs, etc.), but we expect that if you care enough about the Mariners to discuss them here, you should care enough to spell them correctly or use an acceptable shorthand.
The pair people have struggled with the most in the past, probably because they have a superficial similarity but the pattern is reversed (and then you have to remember which is which), are Piniella and Pineiro. Nowadays, we have another pair a bit like that who have been coming up through the system, Tuiasosopo and Triunfel. People seem to get Matt right, partly because shortening to “Tui” is an easy save, but Carlos gets butchered constantly.
It’s hard to know what the future holds for Triunfel. What position will he ultimately play? Will he recover from his injury well enough to compensate for the lost development time? How much power will he develop? Is he a future star, or a future Jose Lopez? Is all this going to happen for the Mariners, or will he become a trade chip? Whatever the outcome, though, it’s at least time to start getting his name right.
A Name To Tuck Away
Due to the varying abilities of the players already on the roster, the M’s find themselves in a rather interesting position this winter. They have four talented young position players who are all close to major league ready. They aren’t finished products necessarily, but they can play, and they have enough ability to fight for a spot on the team in spring training. Quality young talent is the lifeblood of an organization, and the upside of having first or second year players contributing for the league minimum is tough to match.
However, none of the four project to be good enough in 2010 that they should have job security heading into next season. They should have the opportunity to make the team, but the M’s can’t go into the season depending on these guys stepping up. It has to be a pleasant surprise, not an expected outcome. So, at each of their respective positions, the M’s need to provide a realistic alternative, but they need to do so without slamming the door shut on the kids.
At those positions, they need options, not necessarily solutions. That’s easier said than done, honestly. You generally don’t expend significant resources to acquire a player and then put his job up for grabs in spring training. You’re not going to sign Nick Johnson, then make him beat out Mike Carp for the first base job. That’s just not going to happen.
There is a path that can make this work, however – targeting players with positional flexibility. This is one of the ideas behind the acquisitions of guys like Jack Hannahan and Bill Hall. If Tui flops, those two could platoon at third base. If they trade Lopez, maybe those two share second base. Or maybe they keep Lopez and Tui wins the third base job, so Hall ends up as Saunders platoon partner and Hannahan fills the role of infield super-sub. Those guys give the M’s options.
What they don’t give the M’s is enough offense. They’re nice enough role players, but they’re backup plans if the first option doesn’t work out. The M’s need a guy with some positional flexibility who they actually want in the line-up and is good enough to hold down a fairly regular job. They need a guy who could slide in at two or three of the LF/3B/1B/C/DH jobs, depending on where the team needs him. It would also be great if he was a switch-hitter, giving the line-up some balance regardless of which position he ends up playing. Oh, and if he was already under contract for the next two years at reasonable salaries, that would help. If he happened to grow up in Moses Lake as a big Mariner fan, that would just be icing on the cake.
Believe it or not, that guy exists. His name is Ryan Doumit. He’s spent the last couple of years alternating between catcher and the disabled list for the Pirates, though they’ve also used him at first base and in the outfield, because his strengths behind the plate begin and end with “he can hit”. The rest of the resume is all pulled straight from Doumit’s file. He’s a switch hitter without much of a platoon split. He has some pop in his bat, and for his career, has been an above average major league hitter. He’ll be 29 next year, and is signed for $3.5 million in 2010 and $5.1 million in 2011, with a team option for 2012 and 2013 following that year. And yes, he’s a local kid. He’s even Willie Bloomquist’s cousin, so you know there’s grit and hustle in the genes somewhere.
He comes with downside, of course, or he wouldn’t be available. He posted a .299 OBP in 2009 when he was on the field, which wasn’t often. A good chunk of that was a low BABIP (.271 versus a .307 career mark), but he’s not a particularly patient hitter, so his on base percentage will always be driven by his batting average. He’s got enough power to make the approach work, but if you’re tired of guys hacking at pitches out of the strike zone, you may not love Doumit. He’s also been hurt a lot in his career, never compiling more than 465 at-bats in a season, and had wrist surgery last year, which is known for sapping power. And, as mentioned, he’s not much of a receiver behind the plate, nor would likely be particularly great at either first or in left.
He’s a hitter first and foremost, with the bonus ability to not totally embarrass himself at three positions. And that gives the M’s options.
If Rob Johnson’s recovery from multiple surgeries don’t go well or Moore flops in spring training, Doumit can fill in at catcher. If whatever 1B/DH they bring in has say, a herniated disc in his back that requires a rest, he can play there. If Saunders can’t hack it in left just yet, you can stick him in the outfield until Ackley’s ready. And, if the M’s hit the lotto and all the young guys play well, then you have the best 10th man in baseball.
Doumit would give the M’s flexibility and productivity. That he’s not particularly expensive and is coming off a poor season makes him exactly the kind of player Zduriencik has shown to be interested in. While the names of higher profile players float around, keep Doumit’s name in the back of your mind, and don’t be too shocked if the M’s end up making a play for him.