The Griffey Interview
If you haven’t seen it by now, you should check out this interview Junior did with Trent Rosecrans of cnati.com – the first part focuses on the Reds and his departure from an organization he’s clearly not much of a fan of, but towards the end, it shifts towards his reunion with the M’s and how he’s felt about this season. The final quote is the most interesting for a Mariner fan:
CTR: How much longer are you going to do this?
KG: I don’t know.CTR: I mean, you’ve said you feel like you’re starting something. Do you want to stick around to see it out?
KG: Yeah. But, like I said, I’ve never forced myself on anyone. If they tell me they don’t want me anymore, that’s fine. I’ve had a chance to do something I’ve wanted to do, and that’s come back to Seattle. I haven’t wavered on that at all. I’ve gotten a chance to do it and I’m thankful to the organization for giving me a chance to do it. They could have said no. It wasn’t owed to me to come here. It wasn’t owed to me to have Atlanta offer me a contract. They thought enough of me to think I can help the organization and reached out to me – that means a lot.
If you’ve been waiting for Griffey to announce that he’s retiring at the end of the season so that the team can begin a final month goodbye to #24, it’s not going to happen. He wants to play next year, though he seems aware of the fact that the M’s are likely to go another direction at DH next season, and he doesn’t seem like he believes he’s entitled to retire as a Mariner. And that’s a good sign, because while his return to Seattle has been a pretty big success overall, this was always something that should only last one year.
Next year, the M’s will have a legitimate shot at a playoff run, given some strong moves this winter. Griffey isn’t a starting caliber player for a real contender, though – at this point, his skills make him a bench player/coach for any team hoping to make a playoff run. He may still find a team wiling to give him some playing time as a veteran influence, but that he realizes that team may not be the Mariners and is okay with that is nice to hear.
This will probably be Griffey’s last month in Seattle, so if you want to see him play at Safeco, you should make a point to go see him play. But don’t expect a long goodbye tour, because it doesn’t sound like Junior wants to hang them up just yet.
Game 128, Royals at Mariners
Davies v Fister. The Royals are the team you see next to the M’s at the bottom of all the offensive statistics when you sort, despite the clubhouse presence of such former Mariner stalwarts as Guillen and Bloomquist. And Betancourt. They’re terrrrribble offensively.
So a fun series if you’re a fan of defense and low-scoring, quick games. And singles. You’ll see some singles.
Lopez, His Hot Streak, and His Future
You’ve probably noticed that Jose Lopez has been on fire for about three months now. After starting the season with a miserable slump, he was hitting .215/.259/.306 on May 26th. 191 terrible plate appearances that took up nearly 1/3 of his season, and he had accumulated all of three home runs and as many double plays as walks (10). He had played at a below replacement level performance – again. We’d seen this from Lopez before, as he has a history of going into long funks where he’s just an awful player. He’s rebounded before, though, and the hope was that he would rebound again.
Has he ever. Since May 26th, he’s hitting .306/.325/.559, a performance as valuable as it is weird. He’s racked up 27 doubles and 16 home runs in the last three months, but he’s also drawn a whopping five unintentional walks, which is why the OBP is still on the low end despite the fact that he’s been stinging the baseball. For a right-handed pull power hitter to slug .560 over a prolonged stretch of time while playing half his games at Safeco Field is borderline amazing. For a second baseman, it’s incredible.
Whenever you see significant performance changes like this, there’s always going to be people who want to suggest that the most recent results are “real”, and what happened early in the season is something that has been adjusted away. You also see this with people who feel like Russ Branyan has been “figured out”. However, the truth is that both the hot streak and the slump are real, and both inform us about the players abilities. It is the performance in total that is most predictive of future results (when weighted with past history and what we know about how players age, of course), not broken down fractions of that season.
Jose Lopez is not a .570 OPS guy or an .880 OPS guy. He’s neither as bad as he was in April and May or as good as he’s been in June, July, and August. So, the question for the Mariners, then, is the totality of the player one they should want to build around?
After all, Lopez doesn’t turn 26 until after the season ends, and he’s under contract for just $2.3 million next season and a team option for 2011 at $4.5 million before he becomes a free agent. Given his production, he’s a net asset (value of production over cost) to the M’s in the range of $7 million next year and probably something similar the year after. If the M’s paid fair market wages for Lopez’s next two seasons, we think that they’d offer him something like $20 million for 2010 and 2011 – they’ll actually pay him about 1/3 of that.
Given the team’s holes elsewhere on the roster, a lot of people will feel that the team should just count their blessings, be thankful that they have a league average second baseman under contract for a fraction of his value, and use the savings to pursue upgrades elsewhere. There is some validity to this claim – a team can win with Jose Lopez at second base, especially when he’s not making much money, so replacing him shouldn’t be a priority.
However, Lopez in Seattle also represents something of an inefficiency for baseball as a whole. As we’ve talked about, his power is strictly to left field, where Safeco is toughest on hitters. It’s no coincidence that Lopez is hitting .231/.249/.387 at home and .310/.345/.536 on the road. The M’s ballpark is built to suppress hitters with his skill set, which is why the new administration keeps acquiring left-handed players who fit the park better. In addition to the park configurations, the M’s are also likely to field a pitch to contact staff next year, and defense is not Lopez’s strong suit.
Lopez is less valuable to the Mariners than he would be to a team like the White Sox, who play in a park that allows fly balls to carry and have a rotation with several strikeout arms for him to play behind. Just due to the configurations of the stadium and the types of pitchers they’ll have, there’s a real value difference in how Lopez would help the White Sox versus how well he would help the Mariners. In a perfectly efficient market, Lopez would end up on a team like Chicago, with the Mariners then replacing him with a talent whose skills are better suited to their specific needs.
MLB, of course, is not a perfectly efficient market. Adrian Beltre is a terrible fit for Safeco Field too, but the M’s rightly pursued him as a free agent and received more value than they paid to acquire him. Just because it’s not an ideal situation to have a right-handed pull power hitter on the team doesn’t mean that the team should ignore those types of players in total. After all, you can’t have a line-up with nine left-handed hitters. You have to have some guys who can swing the bat from both sides, so if the M’s ship off every player whose value is somewhat muted by Safeco Field, they’ll end up with a mis-configured line-up that is easily shut down by any generic southpaw.
So, where does that leave us? Lopez is a net asset to the M’s, but slightly more of one to other clubs. He doesn’t have the skillset that the organization prefers, but he’s also a productive, young, low-cost player on a team that is trying to add exactly that. He’s prone to wild fluctuations in performance, but he’s also talented enough to become more than what he is right now.
Some people look at Lopez and see Carlos Guillen – a useful player that is viewed as a disappointment due to his lofty prospect status, but one that the M’s gave up on too soon, only to see him break out in Detroit. No one wants to repeat that mistake, certainly, and I can’t imagine that the M’s will be giving Lopez away this winter. But if Kenny Williams (or another GM with a park made for Lopez’s 380 foot power) calls and wants to talk about adding Lopez over the winter, I think the M’s have to not only be willing to listen, but be aggressive in realizing that this off-season is probably going to be the high point of his trade value.
He’s two years from free agency, and is not the kind of player the M’s are going to want to commit long term, big dollars too. As his contract gets closer to expiration, his value willl decrease, and the M’s will likely never be able to get more in exchange for Lopez than they will be able to now. His production level isn’t so high as to be irreplaceable, so if the right deal is presented, the M’s should be willing to pull the trigger on a trade that uses Lopez to help patch another area of the roster.
Lopez is this winter’s J.J. Putz. He has value to the M’s, but likely more to other teams, and Jack should be willing to leverage that inefficiency to make the team better overall.
Game 127, A’s at M’s
Luke French vs. Gio Gonzalez. 7 pm. EXCITEMENT.
In Mariners-related news, Silva threw a simulated game, Ichiro is still out and really wants to play, and J.J. Putz is done for the season with a “slightly torn ulnar collateral ligament”.
Lineup:
CF Gutierrez
3B Hannahan
2B Lopez
DH? Sweeney
RF Hall RF
1B Branyan
C Johnson
SS Jack Wilson
LF Saunders
Saunders and Bunting
Last night, Michael Saunders laid down another perfect bunt, getting himself on base for the sixth time this season by bunting for a hit. He’s now tied for the team lead in bunt hits with Ichiro, and he’s only been on the roster for about a month. It’s not like he’s collecting these hits through sheer volume, either – he’s just been successful in reaching base six of the eight times he’s put a bunt down.
Saunders is a good bunter, there’s little doubt about that. He’s also fast and left-handed, which gives him an advantage in getting down the line before the fielder can get the ball to first base. Being able to drop one down for a hit is a nice weapon for him to have.
However, the M’s aren’t grooming him to be another Endy Chavez. He had 30 extra base hits and a .234 ISO in Triple-A when they called him up. There’s power in his bat, even if we haven’t seen it at the major league level yet. This is where my concern comes in. The whole point of having him up here right now is to attempt to evaluate his ability to help the team win next year as the club’s regular left fielder. He’s not going to help the M’s if he doesn’t drive the ball with some regularity, and he can’t do that if he’s bunting once every ten times he comes up to bat.
I’d like to see Wak tell him that he’s proven his point, showed he can get a bunt down, and that they can now trust him to handle himself in a situation if necessary. But, for the rest of the year, they’d like him to try to get the ball into the outfield, and he can feel free to put a ball or two in the stands if he wishes. He needs to learn how to work counts at the big league level, get himself into situations where he can expect a fastball and turn on it. Every time he lays down a bunt, it’s one less opportunity for him to learn how to hit big league pitching.
Being a good bunter is a nice bonus, but his value to the team will come through racking up doubles in the gap. More swings, less bunting please.
Game 126, A’s at M’s
Anderson! RRS!
Another day off for Ichiro! And another shake-up in the lineup:
CF-R Gutierrez
3B-L Hannahan
2B-R Lopez
DH-0 Sweeney
RF-R Hall
1B-L Branyan
C-R Johjima
SS-R Wilson
LF-L Saunders
That’s… well, yeah.
M’s Announce AFL rosters
The Mariners selections for the Arizona Fall League were announced today, and the M’s have loaded up the Peoria roster with some serious talent. Representing the M’s:
SS Carlos Triunfel
OF Dustin Ackley
1B/OF Joe Dunigan
RHP Phillippe Aumont
RHP Josh Fields
RHP Anthony Varvaro
LHP Nick Hill
Usually, a team will send one or two mid-level prospects and a bunch of fillers. The arms, especially, are usually not very interesting, as teams don’t want to tax their prospects after a full minor league season. But since the M’s have a bunch of guys who have missed time this year for various reasons, the AFL is a nice landing spot for them to get some extra work in before the winter hits.
It will certainly be interesting to see follow – for an M’s fan, you can’t ask for a better group of prospects to check in on down in the AFL.
The Next Big Test
Last year, we saw Zduriencik and crew come in and ace the off-season, making a bunch of terrific moves to re-shape a bad roster and take an organization out of a death spiral and into a strong rebuilding effort. However, with no disrespect intended, that was the easy part. Getting a roster from 60 wins to 80 wins isn’t nearly as large of a challenge as getting from 80 to 90 – you have to be able to identify some undervalued assets that can plug gaping holes, solidify some depth with some nice bargains, and fill around your core pieces with not-terrible players, but those tasks are far easier than upgrading decent talent to good talent.
This winter, the M’s front office has a new challenge. They’ve shown they can find nice complimentary pieces and fill out a roster without having to spend a lot of money. However, for the M’s to become a real contender again, they’re going to need another core player. If we assume Beltre is probably not coming back, the M’s have three guys that you could safely call above average major leaguers: Felix Hernandez, Ichiro Suzuki, and Franklin Gutierrez. There are some other guys who have the talent to play at an above average level next year, but it can’t be counted on.
Three above average guys – that’s not a big enough core. The M’s need another building block (or two) to form the foundation of the team, and while the role players the organization has already acquired are nice pieces, you can’t add them to the Hernandez/Suzuki/Gutierrez trio and hope to win a World Series. You can’t realistically compete with the New Yorks and Bostons of the world with three good players and a bunch of guys who aren’t terrible. You can finish .500 that way, but you’re not going to have a parade without another high quality player.
For the M’s, adding that kind of player is going to be a priority this winter. They were able to strike gold with Gutierrez, and they may be able to do so again, but we have to remember that the M’s surrendered real value in that deal. J.J. Putz was one of the main assets on the team and Luis Valbuena was a promising young player that was nearly major league ready – the M’s didn’t get Gutierrez for free (though, the deal is still a massive, huge win for the team).
So, now the M’s need to add a Gutierrez-caliber of player at some position, but they also have to limit the amount of major league talent they give up. That’s not easy, especially considering that the roster doesn’t have too many glaring holes any more. Replacing Miguel Cairo with Russ Branyan is easy. Replacing, say, Brandon Morrow with a quality mid-rotation starter… that’s a lot harder.
We know Jack and Tony are good at gathering assets and building the end of a roster. This winter, they’ll have to improve the front of the roster, too, and that’s more of a challenge. Whether it’s making a big splash on a young 1B/DH type (Prince Fielder, perhaps?) or hitting on a home run on a high risk/reward pitcher (Ben Sheets?), the team is going to have to add a 3-5 win player this winter. The Bill Hall/Jack Hannahan/Ryan Langerhans/Luke French types are nice and all, but we now have a full house of role players. We need another building block.
Game 125, A’s at Mariners
Snell! Wooo!
The Ichiro-less lineup:
CF-R Gutierrez
1B-L Branyan
2B-R Lopez
DH-L Griffey
RF-R Hall
C-R Johjima
3B-L Hannahan
SS-R Wilson
LF-L Saunders
Go Hannahan! Revenge yourself on your former team!
Situational hitting is just hitting
Quick pointer to Geoff’s very long post about the M’s situational hitting woes.
There is no one answer here. But one fact seems indisputable: this entire team needs work in some aspects of situational hitting. A team that’s the worst in the league at knocking baserunners in should adopt no less of an attitude.
I dispute that that’s a fact. They need to work at hitting, not “some aspects of situational hitting”. The M’s suck at advancing runners because they suck at hitting. They’re at or near the bottom any way you want to sort the teams. They don’t hit for average, they don’t get on base, they don’t hit for power. It’s Ichiro, Branyan, Gutierrez, and a collection of average-to-sucky guys.
Teams that don’t hit don’t hit with guys on base. There’s no approach, no spring training drills, that teams that can’t hit can use to become way more awesome with runners on. Advancing the runner with a bunt is generally a wash because you’re giving up an out, and you know the rest of this argument. And conversely, teams that hit don’t have to figure out why they’re not scoring enough runners, because they score because they’re hitting… tada! Triumph of the obvious.
There’s some variation, of course, because the sample size for hitting is huge and the sample size with guys on second is small, and leans heavily on hitters who are up when the good hitters are on, and so on and so forth. But you can predict a team’s hitting with men on next year with this year’s hitting better than you can with this year’s hitting with men on.
None of which is to say that this isn’t painful. But the correlation between hitting and hitting with runners on is nearly perfect. There’s no need to overthink this, or for the team to (as they did in past years to disastrous results) go find a guy they think is a good situational hitter.