USSM Goes To Safeco Sold Out
The response to the August 8th event has been tremendous, and despite only posting two notices about the event, we’ve sold out of the 300 tickets that were available for USSM Goes To Safeco. The response has been so great, in fact, that we’re getting a good amount of emails from people who didn’t buy tickets before they were gone and are looking for a way to go.
So, if you bought tickets to the event and are now not going to be able to make it (or one or more of your friends has dropped out), this is the thread for you to sell them to others who are trying to get in. Just put a comment down below saying how many you have available, and give people a way to email you, and you’ll get a buyer post haste.
If there aren’t enough people whose plans have changed, there is one last option for those of you looking to score a pair of tickets to the event – Brock and Salk will be giving away a pair on the air at some point in the next few weeks.
Thanks to everyone for their interest. We’re really happy that you guys are as excited about this as we are, and it should be a great time. I’m sure this won’t be the last one of these we do.
Photo of the day
— from the White House photostream
Lincoln and Armstrong
Highighting a paragraph from Drayer’s latest:
We are going to have wheels up in a minute, but before I head off to Cleveland, one quick mention has to go out. Been listening to all sorts of analysis of the first half, first half mvps, awards etc. A big dose of credit should also go to Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong for making the choice of Jack Z, who made the choice of Wak. Howard and Chuck did not know Jack personally, and Jack did not know Wak. They all took risks after doing their homework, and without those works, we would not be where we were right now, which I daresay, is in much better position than this team has been in years.
Over the last five years, Howard Lincoln and Churck Armstrong have taken a massive beating from Mariner fans. There was a sizable part of the fanbase that held all the failures of the organization against them personally, and even during the GM search last winter, it was common to hear people make comments like “it doesn’t matter – this franchise can never win with those two in charge.” They were the least popular guys in the city, and they had to know it.
For instance, here’s one comment from our thread announcing Zduriencik’s hire:
I want to like this hiring but color me extremely skeptical. This was more or less the hiring I expected out of Stincoln and Armstrong.
Those two couldn’t think out of the box with a boxcar load of extra “THIS END UP†arrows. I think they picked a candidate that most reflected themselves and their perspective as franchise managers.
I agree with Dave that a great next step would be to hire a stat department to supplement their scouting perspective, but I’m not holding my breath that Stinkchuck will ever allow it.
That was how a lot of people reacted to the news, and it was a fairly predictable reaction. Lincoln and Armstrong had to know that the reaction was going to be something like that.
But Shannon is entirely right. Despite some fairly significant momentum for the M’s to hire a different kind of GM than the last few, Lincoln and Armstrong tabbed the candidate who most resembled Bill Bavasi – older, white (and bald – sorry Jack, but it’s true), from the scouting side of baseball, and a guy who came from an organization that wasn’t generally considered one of the “new school” type of teams. But he was the right guy to hire.
Since then, I think absolutely everyone following this team has realized just how great of a hire it was. Zduriencik has proven to not just be open about the new ways of evaluating talent, but excited about using all the information he can get his hands on. Literally, we couldn’t have dreamed of the M’s changing course in the way they have in the last 8 months. They’ve gone from laughingstock to well oiled machine, and they’ve done it because Howard and Chuck hired the right guy.
You might not like the two executives in charge of the team, but you have to admit that they made a great decision, and one that could easily turn out to be the most important in the history of the franchise. They literally changed the entire focus of the organization by hiring Zduriencik and allowing him to build a first class organization in Seattle.
So, congratualations, Messers Lincoln and Armstrong. You made the right choice, and we’ve all got years of great baseball to look forward to because of it.
Mini All-Star Thread
Sorry, worked late, thought I had time. What in the world is going on with Ryan Franklin’s facial hair?
Link Roundup
Mike Salk, of the Brock and Salk show on ESPN710, has started collecting a bunch of relevant baseball links from around the web every morning, and posting them on his blog. If you’re looking for one stop shopping in a recap of recent Mariner tidbits, he’s doing the legwork for you. Brock and Salk is easily the best thing going in Seattle sports radio right now, so support them by checking out their work too.
Also, I’ll be on the air with Brock and Salk at 2 pm to defend my Bedard/Washburn for Hardy suggestion. Salk thinks I’m crazy, just like the rest of you. I’ll do my best to convince him that I’m not totally insane. Should be fun.
Lincecum Lincecum Lincecum
The semi-ban on Lincecum mentions will be lifted today for the All-Star Game. If everyone could not get into the whole draft thing, though, that would be really, really nice.
The Felix Derby
So apparently there’s some kind of exhibition going on, which is why we don’t get any real baseball for a couple days. I don’t know what all this has to do with the Mariners. Maybe we can strain a little bit to point out that some guy Jack Zduriencik drafted won some sort of contest. It wasn’t that exciting, but it’s all the news we have right now.
I guess Felix likes this stuff, though, as Larry Stone tells us in an entertaining blog post. You get the sense that Felix would have more fun competing in the Home Run Derby than pitching in the All-Star Game. To which I say, why not?
Let’s have a home run derby specifically for the pitchers. Right now, other than the drama of picking who gets to start the game, there’s not a whole lot of All-Star attention for them. Half of them won’t even play out of fear that we might get another Bud Selig Special. And it’s not like you can have a real skills contest because the starters in particular have to save their arms.
So split the pitchers up into pairs, give them alternating batting practice swings, and whoever hits one out first advances to the next round. Sudden death, keep eliminating guys that way until you have a winner. Instead of numbing repetition as the Ryan Howards of the world knock balls over the fence, you get real suspense throughout. On every fly ball to the warning track, you wonder if this is the one that’s going to make it over. Okay, so maybe the NL guys have a bit of an unfair advantage, but you know Felix’s greatest moment of glory is still that eyes-closed grand slam off Santana. That’s why he would love to be part of something like this.
Wouldn’t this be fun? At least until somebody messes up his arm trying to make a home run swing. Oh well, it was an idea.
Riggleman takes over another moribund last place team
We mentioned this repeatedly last year, but we here at USSM have an immense amount of respect for the job Jim Riggleman did trying to keep the M’s together and playing in a lost season. Well, he gets to try again, as Manny Acta’s been fired in Washington-the-non-state.
Good luck, sir.
Bedard currently middle of the Type Bs
Wanted to touch on this since it affects trade value: there are ~10 guys ahead of him in the Bs right now, according to Eddie Bajek in Detroit Tiger Thoughts latest calculations. You want page 7. So the value for hanging onto him is not so great.
Fun fact: Washburn, according to this, is not so far off the B ratings himself.
Dave adds: However, offering Washburn arbitration, a necessary step in order to get compensation for a departing free agent, would be crazy. He’d clean the Mariners clocks in arbitration, thanks to his rosy ERA this year. So, he’s a non-compensation player, for all intents and purposes.
The JJ Hardy Plan
With all the talk of whether the M’s should be buyers or sellers, I’ve advocated for the last few months that the M’s should be both.
This team is not good enough to justify hanging onto Erik Bedard and Jarrod Washburn only to watch them leave via free agency at years end, when the trade market is craving veteran starting pitching. If this team had a 40% chance or better at making the playoffs, then you could look at maximizing the talent on the 2009 squad at the expense of future teams in order to take a chance at winning in October. But, realistically, their playoff odds are more like 15%, so five out of six times, that push for the playoffs comes up short and the team gets neither October baseball or future value in exchange for keeping Bedard and Washburn.
On the other hand, a 15% chance of making the playoffs is too high to abandon as a lost cause. The potential reward for that one-in-six chance coming up in your favor is extremely high, and should keep the team away from a blow-up-the-roster-and-play-the-kids strategy. St. Louis won a World Series in 2006 while going 83-79 in the regular season and outscoring their opponents by a whopping 19 runs. You don’t have to be the ’27 Yankees to get hot in October, and the M’s have enough talent to make a crazy playoff run possible. You can’t pretend that the potential for that kind of outcome, even if it is unlikely, has no value.
So the team is faced with a scenario where it should trade Bedard and Washburn for players that will be around past this season, but also should be looking to keep the 2009 team competitive. The solution? J.J. Hardy.
The Brewers shortstop was drafted by Zduriencik when he was the scouting director for Milwaukee. Since arriving in the majors in 2005, Hardy has compiled a career .264/.324/.435 mark that is about as close to league average as you can possibly get. Over 2,168 plate appearances in the big leagues, Hardy’s Weighted Runs Above Average is -0.5. Half of a run below average as a hitter over his 4+ year career. When someone says he’s a league average hitter, they aren’t kidding.
A league average hitter might not be that exciting, but it isn’t very easy to find league average hitters who play quality defense at premium positions. As Mariner fans have seen over the past few years, the average offense + terrific defense combination is quite valuable. And Hardy is a really good defender – his career UZR is +39 in 4,411 innings, which works out to about +12 runs per 150 games. That makes him one of the best defensive shortstops in the game.
This is, essentially, the Adrian Beltre/Mike Cameron/Franklin Gutierrez skillset. Hardy is that kind of player. Over his big league career, he’s been worth +13.4 wins in those 2,168 PA, or about +3.7 wins per season. He turns 27 in August, so he’s not living off of career year performances that he can’t be expected to repeat, either. Going forward, Hardy should be projected as a +4 win player over a full season.
Why on earth would the Brewers want to trade a 26-year-old +4 win shortstop while they are in the middle of a pennant race? Because they have this kid named Alcides Escobar hanging out in Triple-A, waiting for the call to Milwaukee. Escobar is a 22-year-old that the Milwaukee front office is absolutely in love with, to the point that when declaring him off limits in trade discussions, Doug Melvin said “You can go years without having a shortstop prospect like him. They don’t come around that often.”
Escobar is a premium defender with an improving bat, currently hitting .296/.348/.417 in Triple-A, including a .310/.412/.517 mark in July. He’s capable of holding his own in the big leagues right now, and he’d be one of the rangiest players in the league from the moment he got to the big leagues. Quite simply, Escobar is the Brewers shortstop of the future, and they’re going to have to move Hardy out of his way at some point soon.
They could move him to third base, except he has no interest in playing anywhere besides shortstop and their other “untouchable” prospect, Mat Gamel, is getting time there right now. They could move him to second base, but Casey McGehee is posting a .396 wOBA while filling in for the injured Rickie Weeks, who will be back next season. In reality, they just don’t have a spot for Hardy going forward. His future is somewhere besides Milwaukee.
So, if Melvin is looking at an inevitable trade of Hardy, dealing him now to acquire some badly needed pitching help makes more sense than waiting to deal him this winter. Melvin has been blunt about his ability to acquire pitching in this market, stating that the teams that are willing to move veteran starting pitchers are looking for young pitchers back in return, and he doesn’t have any to trade. He’s a man trying to buy in a land where his currency isn’t any good.
The M’s, however, should have little to no interest in getting a young pitcher back from the Brewers. The Mariners need a shortstop, and the Brewers have two. The Brewers need starting pitchers, and the Mariners have seven. This would be a perfect match even if Zduriencik and Melvin hadn’t spent years working together. Their history should make a deal between those two significantly easier to hash out.
What kind of deal would work for both sides? No need to make this complicated. The M’s ship both of their free-agent-to-be starters to Milwaukee, along with enough cash to fit their salaries into Milwaukee’s budget, in exchange for Hardy. Both teams trade from depth to fill holes.
For the Mariners, the move would essentially break down like this.
Hardy replaces Cedeno at SS
Hardy (projected .338 wOBA going forward) would be a big offensive upgrade from Cedeno (projected .284 wOBA going forward), and probably a minor upgrade from Cedeno defensively. Over two and a half months, the offensive difference would be worth about 11 runs.
Morrow replaces Bedard at SP
One talented but enigmatic pitcher replaces another. Morrow’s not nearly as good as Bedard, but as we saw in Boston, he has his moments. His projected FIP of 4.37 over 69 innings over the rest of the year is a dropoff from Bedard’s 3.19 FIP over 62 innings, but only about an eight run difference.
Rowland-Smith replaces Washburn at SP
This is where it gets a little dicey. Washburn’s projected for a 4.22 FIP over 77 innings for the rest of the season, but ZIPS doesn’t know that Ryan Rowland-Smith has been converted to the rotation, got placed on the disabled list for a few months, and then had some issues with decreased velocity in Triple-A. However, RRS has pitched well in the majors in previous years and his last three starts for Tacoma have been very good, so there are reasons to believe that he could join the rotation and pitch well. If you think he’s going to be something like a Jason Vargas and post a ~5.00 FIP over the rest of the season, you’d be looking at a six run dropoff. If you think he’d be really bad, we could give him a 5.50 FIP and the gap would go up to ten runs.
Add it all up for the M’s, and the net difference of adding Hardy while subtracting Bedard and Washburn would be something like -5 runs over the rest of the year. That’s half a win that they lose, while also getting to retain Hardy’s services for 2010 (after which point, this deal would be an easy net positive for the Mariners).
If I do the same thing for the Brewers, just without the wordiness, we get a -5 for the dropoff from Hardy to Escobar, a +9 from Suppan to Bedard, and a +4 from Burns to Washburn. That makes them almost a win better this year by making this deal. They also offset the loss of Hardy’s future value by getting the draft pick back from letting Bedard leave via free agency, and potentially getting Washburn to sign a home town discount deal to stay in Wisconsin beyond this season.
The M’s get a shortstop for the present and future. They make the 2009 roster only marginally worse while drastically improving the 2010 roster and providing a long term solution to the shortstop problem. The Brewers get much needed pitching help, while clearing the way for their shortstop of the future, and they do so without having to expand their budget or trade away any pieces from their farm system.
This is the quintessential win-win trade. The M’s allow themselves to stay in contention for the rest of 2009 (and if you’re that concerned with the rotation after the deal, just go trade for Ian Snell, who Pittsburgh is trying to give away) and acquire a foundation-caliber player who will stick around for 2010 and potentially beyond.
The M’s have surplus pitching. The Brewers have a surplus at shortstop. The Mariners need a shortstop, and the Brewers need pitching. Let’s just make everyone happy and pull the trigger on this, okay?