Process Of Elimination
We’ll hopefully find out about where Clement’s headed at some point today. Until then, we can do a little process of elimination to make an educated guess.
First off, let’s write off the entire National League. Clement’s a DH who might be able to learn how to play first or go back to catching eventually, but his primary position is hitter. National League clubs don’t have the fallback of letting him hit while his knee recovers, so they’re far less likely to trade for him.
Okay, now, write off the Angels/Rangers/A’s. Intra-division trades are rare enough, but division rivals don’t trade major league players to a team trying to catch them in the standings. Texas and Anaheim aren’t interested in helping make the M’s better. Oakland is already loaded with Clement-type players. Deals with those three don’t make much sense.
Now, write off the Yankees. Even with Matsui leaving at the end of the season, they need to save their DH spot for Jorge Posada. Also, their top prospect is a kid names Jesus Montero, a monster hitter who probably can’t catch. In other words, they already have their Jeff Clement. They don’t need ours.
Boston? Nope. Ortiz is hitting again, they just acquired Adam LaRoche to serve as their LH bat off the bench, and they’re not giving up pieces from their big league roster while they try to make the playoffs.
Detroit? No – he doesn’t fit their needs and they don’t have the kinds of players the M’s would be looking for.
White Sox? No – they already have six DH’s on their roster.
Minnesota? No – Mauer/Morneau/Kubel.
KC? Not a Royals kind of player.
That leaves four teams that make some sense.
Tampa Bay – they aren’t getting any offense from Dioner Navarro or Pat Burrell, and they’ve expressed interest in Clement before. Reid Brignac, as has been discussed many times, is exactly the kind of player that makes sense for the M’s to be pursuing. The M’s could also afford to take on Scott Kazmir’s contract to give Tampa some financial flexibility. Morrow + Clement for Kazmir + Brignac makes sense for both teams, even without the whole Cleveland angle.
Cleveland – They don’t need a catcher, but they just traded Ryan Garko and they might deal Victor Martinez, so there would be some 1B/DH at-bats open, and he’s their kind of hitter. Jhonny Peralta could be a good fit for the M’s if they think he can play shortstop.
Toronto – The Blue Jays ownership has just stated that they’re going to get “costs under control”, which might prevent the Jays from offering arbitration to Marco Scutaro this winter. Clement and some lower level prospects might be enough to get you Scutaro, in that case – he’d be a rental unless the team liked him enough to try to sign him long term, but as a Type A free agent, the M’s could prefer the draft picks to the prospects they’re giving up.
Baltimore – They have this Wieters kid, so he’d be a 1B/DH only in Baltimore, but Aubrey Huff is a free agent at years end and the O’s could use another young power bat. What they would give up in return is less clear, but they at least fit the mold of a team that would be interested in Clement.
If I had to bet, I’d say it’s a deal with Tampa Bay. Kazmir impressed in his start against the Yankees, and the Rays would probably prefer to be free of his contract even if they can’t pull off the Cliff Lee deal. Brignac, obviously, fits a big need too. This just makes the most sense of anything. But it’s not the only possibility – I could see him going to Cleveland, Toronto, or Baltimore as well.
Clement Pulled From Tacoma
In the third inning of tonight’s game in Reno, Brad Nelson pinch-hit for Jeff Clement, who had started the game at DH. Ryan Divish reports “a fairly reliable source says its not injury related”, which would naturally lead to trade speculation. We’ll find out soon enough.
Game 100, Blue Jays at Mariners
And Wakamatsu, attempting to enter the USSM Reader Challenge (see below), offers this:
RF-L Ichiro!
CF-R Gutierrez
DO-0 Sweeney
1B-R Shelton
3B-L Hannahan
C-R Johnson
2B-R Woodward
LF-L Saunders
SS-R Cedeno
At least it’s against SP-L Rzepcynski
Okay, sooo Shelton yay, though obviously you’d rather see Branyan. But Sweeney in the #3 spot? Why not just spot the other team a run and put someone else in there, save yourself the trouble of pinch-hitting later. I… seriously, this is Vidro-in-cleanup baffling.
Tuesday trade mongering, rosterbation, and related topics
Here’s your comment thread. Knock yourselves out.
USSM Reader Challenge: Lineups
Yesterday got me thinking. What’s the worst starting lineup the M’s have fielded
1. This year and
2. During the Bavasi Era
Remnants at the end of the game don’t count. Bonus points for being totally unsuited for the opposing pitcher (say, like last nights) and for fielding horrible defenses.
For #2, I submit this gem, which gets you Vidro at second, Lopez at third, Betancourt at short, and an Ibanez-Ichiro!-Broussard outfield in support of Washburn.
There will be prizes.
It Was Still Fun
The last four days haven’t been much fun for anyone. Getting the doors blown off at home by teams that are trading players away is not how you want to end July. Beyond the losses, they’ve just been ugly – bad pitching, bad defense, and bad hitting, as usual. Just a total collapse that basically ends the 2009 season and pushes the M’s into looking towards the future.
But, in the midst of all the speculating about where Washburn will go or who will fix the SS hole, we have to stop for a second and realize that this is the most fun we’ve had watching the Mariners play in years.
During the Bavasi era, we got a reputation for being negative about everything. We were the blog to come to if you wanted to know what was wrong with the organization. We loved Felix and Beltre and lauded the greatness of J.J. Putz, but for the most part, there just weren’t many things to be excited about. The team was bad and old, and the guys in charge didn’t understand how to fix the problems. We lived in fear of every transaction, and the best we could hope for is that the talent in the farm system could charge through the minors so fast that they’d make it impossible for the team to trade them for some crappy overpaid veteran.
But 2009 has changed all of that. This season has been legitimately enjoyable. From the breakouts of guys like Gutierrez and Aardsma to the maturation of Felix Hernandez, the majestic home runs of Russ Branyan, the deportation of Yuniesky Betancourt, the arrival of pre-injury Shawn Kelley (I’d love to see that guy again before the season ended), and now the debut of Michael Saunders, there has been a lot of reasons to watch this team on a daily basis. Instead of fearing what the GM will do, I’d imagine most of us are legitimately excited about the potential of Zduriencik being able to get some value in return for Jarrod Washburn.
We were always fans, but the organization made it very hard to find things to root for from 2003 to 2008. This year won’t end in a playoff series, but it re-established our ability to enjoy Mariner baseball, and that might be the biggest accomplishment of all. A few weeks ago, we were actually referred to as a “homer blog”, which, given our response to the team the last five or six years, might be the most impressive accomplishment of all.
So, congratulations to Jack, Wak, and the rest of the crew on a successful 2009. You probably didn’t want it to end in July, but these were the best four months of baseball we’ve seen in years. We look forward to even better baseball in the days ahead.
Game 99, Blue Jays at Mariners
Hernandez vs Romero, 7:10 pm
Happy Felix Day.
Back spasms for Lopez and a day off for Branyan give us the following strange line-up.
Ichiro, RF
Gutierrez, CF (he should stay here, in my opinion)
Griffey, DH
Shelton, 1B
Hannahan, 3B
Johnson, C
Woodward, 2B
Saunders, LF
Cedeno, SS
Is Hannahan-Johnson-Woodward the worst 5-6-7 in baseball history? It might be.
Dave On 710ESPN
I’ll be on with Mike Salk and Brock Huard at 1:10 pm, talking trade deadline and weekend collapses. Feel free to tune in.
Bedard And Arbitration
Now that Erik Bedard is back on the DL and the season is basically toast, we have to turn our attention to what they do with him going forward. Even if he can return to the mound in a couple of weeks (his earliest possible return date would be August 10th), they’re not going to be able to trade him for anything of substance in August – between his injury issues and the need to pass him through waivers, you can basically write off Bedard as not tradeable.
That brings us to the off-season. Even if he doesn’t pitch much the rest of the year, Bedard’s still going to be ranked as a Type B free agent. According to the latest calculations, Bedard’s a good way ahead of the cutoff, and there’s almost no chance that guys like Brian Bannister and Dallas Braden will pass him the last two months.
So, the M’s will be in a position to receive a compensatory draft pick if they offer Bedard arbitration and he leaves to sign with another team as a free agent. However, the M’s have to seriously ask themselves whether they want to risk Bedard accepting an arbitration offer.
Bedard signed for $7.5 million this year because he was arbitration eligible, even though he was coming off a bad season in 2008. His numbers are better this year, and the arbitration process essentially never gives pay cuts, so the M’s would have to be willing to pay him between $8 and $10 million for 2010 if he accepted. Due to his injury problems the last two years, he probably can’t do better than $10 million (arbiters lean heavily on playing time in deciding how much a player should get), but he has a pretty good case to get a raise over what he got last year. $9 million should probably be the expected cost if Bedard accepts arbitration.
Is Bedard worth $9 million for 2010?
It depends on how the free agent market plays out this winter. Last year, teams used the recession to clamp down on salaries, so $9 million would buy a +2 to +3 win player such as Bobby Abreu, Adam Dunn, Orlando Hudson, and Pat Burrell. However, MLB has weathered the economic storm better than teams projected, and we will likely see some inflation in the free agent market this winter compared to what we saw last off-season. If we project the cost of a win on the free market to be around $4.5 million, then Bedard would have to project as a +2 win player in 2010 to be worth $9 million.
He’s been worth +1.9 wins this year, and since 2004, he’s averaged about +3.2 wins per season. Obviously, the bulk of that was concentrated in his excellent 2006/2007 seasons, but even in the first few years of his career, he was a +2.5 to +3 win pitcher. When he’s on the mound, he’s valuable. How often you think he’ll be on the mound for 2010 essentially answers the arbitration or not question.
If you think he can give you 100+ high quality innings next year, he’s worth the arbitration offer. However, there’s a pretty decent chance that he won’t crack 100 this year, and he didn’t do it last year either, so there are obviously significant risks that go along with that assumption. For better or worse, Bedard is always going to have health problems. You have to count on him missing time, and maybe a lot of it.
On the other hand, the upside is certainly there. Rich Harden is a pretty comparable pitcher, and after breaking down in both 2006 and 2007, he threw 148 innings last year and looks poised to throw about that many again this year. Pitchers with arm problems can come back. Sending Bedard to the scrap heap is just as foolish as counting on him for 30+ starts a year.
In general, you want to guarantee as few years to a pitcher as possible. The risks that come with long term contracts to pitchers are extremely high, and if a team could get away with nothing but one year deals to the entire rotation, it would be in their best interest. In offering Bedard arbitration, your maximum risk is for 2010. There’s no Carlos Silva potential here, where he’s ruining your payroll for years into the future. Even if Bedard accepts arbitration and breaks down again next year, the net loss is contained to one season.
Plus, there is that draft pick to consider. As a Type B, he’d bring something like the 40th-45th pick in the draft, which probably has an asset value of $1 or $2 million. So, if you think Bedard is probably worth $9 million for next year, and his expected cost if accepts is $9 million, you should offer arbitration, because the chance at the draft pick pushes the needle towards a positive return.
It isn’t a slam dunk, though. If the M’s think they can do better in free agency with $9 million to spend, the 40th-45th pick in the draft isn’t so valuable that you have to offer arbitration. If the team sees some more value signings available this winter (along the lines of what Abreu or Hudson signed for last winter), the M’s are probably better off declining to offer Bedard arbitration and taking their chances on re-signing him to a low base, high incentive deal. Would he take it to stay in Seattle? Probably not. But that might be the team’s best plan.
Minor League Wrap (7/20-26/09)
After the poor showing over the weekend with Cleveland in town, perhaps we’ll be focusing more on the future in the coming weeks. Of course, the last time I was saying something like that, it was May, and things got better from there, but May also didn’t have the Angels going on eight-game winning streaks.
To the jump!
Read more