Short Hits
Consider this post a place for me to dump a bunch of short blurbs on thoughts that I’ve had over the last few days.
A few weeks ago, we announced a USSM event for the east coast crowd, to be held on May 17th at the Champps Sports in Durham. Due a scheduling conflict, we’ve had to move that back to May 31st. Same location, same deal, just a bit over two weeks from now instead of this coming Sunday. We’ll do another post as we get closer to remind everyone.
Speaking of North Carolina, for those who missed it, Dustin Ackley played a bunch of center field over the weekend for the Tar Heels. The arm looked good enough and the athleticism played in the outfield as most expected. Right now, he’s a pretty easy call for the #2 pick, I think.
While we’re talking about guys I wouldn’t mind having in the organization, can we have Chris Burke back please? Since the Padres re-acquired him from the Mariners, he’s been their semi-regular shortstop, logging 52 innings at the position and totaling 32 plate appearances as a hitter. He’s hitting .259/.375/.409, and he’s drawn four walks and has four extra base hits. In 117 plate appearances, Yuni has two walks and six extra base hits. Oh, and Burke’s been just fine at shortstop defensively as well. There’s nothing that Yuni does better than Chris Burke. We gave away the wrong guy.
Jason Vargas gets his first start for the M’s tonight. I like Vargas, and I think if given a chance, he’ll stick in the rotation all year. I just ask that everyone not judge him on tonight’s performance. The Rangers offense is just ridiculous, and playing them in Texas is as formidable a task as you could face. They’ll probably start seven right-handed bats tonight, and as a team, their RHBs are hitting .342/.384/.564 against southpaws. If Vargas can get through six innings and allow four runs or less, he should be congratulated.
The Mariners outfield has posted a UZR of +15.3 so far this year. The infield has posted a UZR of -6.5. I know the pitching staff will need some attention for 2010, but this really better be the last year I have to watch Lopez and Betancourt. Man, do they suck.
Walking The Tightrope
The Mariners 1-6 stint last week did a number on their playoff odds. With the Angels surging even before the reinforcements arrive, this was a bad time for the M’s to fall on their faces. The contend-this-year plan was basically predicated upon getting an early lead and hanging on for dear life, as it’s hard to find too many people who think this team can actually chase down the Angels from behind in a pennant race. Now that the M’s are looking up at Los Angeles in the standings, I’d imagine people are once again getting comfortable with the idea that this team is probably not headed for October baseball, and that the franchise should be valuing 2010 over 2009 at this point.
For Zduriencik and crew, this presents something of a challenge. They cannot punt 2009 this early in the season, especially as the organization tries to get fans back to Safeco this summer. The team has played well enough to still be in contention through mid-May, and baseball is a weird game – just as they ran off six straight losses last week, they could run off six straight wins this week. They aren’t in a position to tell the guys in the clubhouse or the fans “Hey, I know you’re only 1.5 games out of first place, but we’re going to make some moves to get better for the future at the expense of the present. Thanks for a good five weeks.”
On the other hand, they have two volatile assets in Erik Bedard and Jarrod Washburn. They’ve ridden some high quality innings from those two to their strong start, and this rotation would be an absolute disaster without them. They’ve both been pitched like All-Stars so far, and given the constant demand in the game for quality left-handed starting pitching, the M’s could potentially get some real value back for both of them – yes, even Washburn. His salary is less of a hindrance now that free agency is over, and he’s pitched himself back into being movable.
However, the window of opportunity to trade these two for value could literally close at any minute. Bedard’s health is a constant question, and all it would take is a twinge in his shoulder that requires a short DL stint and he’ll move from “best pitcher available at the deadline” to “I’ll just sign Ben Sheets instead, thanks”. Every pitch that Bedard throws, his trade value is at risk. He could elevate his status a bit with continued success and health through May and June, but the downside is a lot larger than the upside. You might get a little bit better package for Bedard by letting him continue to prove he’s healthy and back to ’07 form, but the incremental increase in potential value has to be weighed against the risk that the value disappears entirely.
Same deal for Washburn, though for slightly different reasons. We’re not as concerned about him tweaking his elbow, as he’s generally a durable guy. However, his strong start to the season isn’t built on entirely sustainable improvements. Yes, he’s pitching better than he has in the past (that 3.11 K/BB rate is all Washburn), but his HR/FB% is 5.8%, and he can’t keep it that low. A few extra flyballs sailing over the fence, and his ERA could jump to 4.00+ pretty quickly. It’s a lot easier to get a team to swallow his contract and send back a prospect when he has a sub-3 ERA. It’s a start-to-start thing to see if he’ll be able to keep limiting the long balls, and like Bedard, his value could take a big hit with one bad night.
There’s a fine line that the M’s front office has to walk here. They have to keep Bedard and Washburn for at least a few more weeks while the team is still within spitting distance of first place. However, they also need to be in a position to move very quickly on a deal if they determine that they won’t be winning the AL West this year. The risk of holding Bedard and Washburn too long is very real. These guys are not CC Sabathia. You can’t assume that they’re going to hold their current value for two more months.
I know Zduriencik has publicly stated that the team hasn’t even considered trading players away in July, and I believe him. I’m sure that their work the first five weeks of the season was almost entirely focused on helping this team win as many games this year as they could. However, the job of a front office is to manage the long term health of the franchise, and so now, they have to prepare for multiple scenarios. They can’t wait until July to make some phone calls and lay the foundation for deals involving the volatile assets. Beltre, you can wait on. There’s no hurry with guys like him or even Batista/Branyan/Chavez, all of whom could potentially be dealt later this summer if the team falls apart or the Angels just run away with this thing.
But Bedard and Washburn are a different animal. Keeping them comes with a potentially huge opportunity cost, and the organization has to be able to avoid overplaying their hand.
I’m not punting 2009 yet, but I’m really hoping that Zduriencik has already started having preliminary conversations with teams like the Dodgers, Mets, Blue Jays, Phillies, Cardinals, and Brewers. Depending on how the next couple of weeks go, the organization might be best served pulling the trigger on deals for both Bedard and Washburn around the beginning of June.
Minor League Wrap (5/4-10/09)
I was going to make some comment about getting more readers when the M’s weren’t winning, but then they pulled it out in the ninth today, despite Morrow’s efforts to throw it away and Yuni continuing to be awful. I suppose the attention will ramp up as the draft comes along, but then I’ll be looking at more teams to write about, which is a frightening idea.
To the jump!
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Game 32, M’s at Twins
11:10 our time. Bedard versus Blackburn.
Edit by Jay:
Baker with the lineup. Gutierrez sits today as Chavez and Balentien both get starts.
RF Ichiro
2B Jose Lopez
DH Ken Griffey Jr.
3B Adrian Beltre
1B Russell Branyan
LF Wladimir Balentien
SS Yuniesky Betancourt
C Rob Johnson
CF Endy Chavez
Let’s go out there and win for the first time in a week.
Game 31, Mariners at Twins
Hernandez vs Liriano, 4:10 pm.
Happy Felix Day! No, seriously, we need a happy Felix day more than we’ve needed anything in a while. That we get to face an LHP – even a good one like Liriano – qualifies as extra good news. The team could really use a win, and the best way for this team to win is to have Felix on the mound for us an a lefty on the mound for the opponents.
Line-up is posted in the thread below, but it’s basically the anti-LHP line-up.
Silva DL’ed; Morrow activated
The M’s cleared a roster spot for Brandon Morrow by putting Carlos Silva on the DL with a made up injury – I’m sorry, inflammation – so that he can go to Peoria and work on some stuff. Jason Vargas will take his spot in the rotation, beginning with a start on Tuesday against the Rangers.
Also, line-ups are already out for the game tonight, so I’ll toss those up now, but we’ll still have a game thread later.
Ichiro, RF
Lopez, 2B
Sweeney, DH
Beltre, 3B
Balentien, LF
Branyan, 1B
Johjima, C
Guiterrez, CF
Betancourt, SS
Rumor Of The Day
From Chico Harlan of the Washington Post, discussing the Nationals bullpen problems:
OK, so who’s next in line if the Nats are looking for (more) replacements? Trades are always a possibility, but a tough one. This season, for reasons that only smarter people can explain, relief pitching has been brutal across baseball. In 2008, MLB bullpens had a combined 4.08 ERA. This year, it’s 4.39. When you’re talking about averages spread across so many teams, that’s an incredible jump. Which is one of the reasons why the trade market isn’t so hot. The other reason, of course, is what the Nats have to offer. They could presumably trade one bad contract for another — say, Austin Kearns ($8 mil) for Seattle reliever Miguel Batista ($9 mil); this trade possibility has been discussed — but that’s the extent of it. Mostly, help will have to come from within the system.
Kearns is right-handed and the M’s don’t exactly need another right-handed hitting outfielder, but still, this is one of those say-yes-as-fast-as-possible type moves. Why the Nationals would even consider swapping Kearns (who is hitting .261/.414/.522 right now) for Batista is beyond me.
A Fun Comparison
Disclaimer: College statistics don’t mean all that much. This is more for fun than any kind of serious analysis.
Dustin Ackley, 2009, North Carolina: 190 AB, 76 H, 11 2B, 3 3B, 15 HR, 39 BB, 22 K, .400/.508/.726
Evan Longoria, 2006, Long Beach State: 201 AB, 72 H, 13 2B, 2 3B, 11 HR, 40 BB, 29 K, .353/.468/.602
Longoria, obviously, has turned himself into a monster of a hitter. He’s currently hitting .362/.411/.741 for the Rays, and he’s probably the best non-Pujols player in baseball. When he was drafted, he was looked at as a premium defender with a good but not great bat.
Ackley doesn’t have Longoria’s power or defensive abilities, but I do think that we might have undersold his offensive ceiling a bit. There’s Nick Markakis upside with him (though that’s the best case scenario), and right now, he’s pulled himself away from the pack for me. If the draft was tomorrow, I’d be lobbying for Ackley fairly hard. The M’s could really use a young guy with those offensive skills.
What A Game
Now that was fun. Lots of good news coming out of this one. Brett Lorin continues to pitch like an ace, moving to 3-0 with a complete game shutout. No, he can’t keep his ERA at 1.00 forever, but let’s enjoy it while it lasts. He’s making it easy for the hitters with the way he’s throwing.
Speaking of hitters, Denny Almonte continues to make a monstrous statement. 2 for 4, a couple of doubles and a walk leaves him with a .310/.367/.670 line for the season. Nothing like having a switch-hitter with some serious power in the line-up.
This win pulls us within half a game of first place Kane County, and with the way this team is pitching, you have to think this could be a really fun year for the boys in Clinton.
Oh, wait, you were expecting us to talk about the game in Minnesota? Why would we want to do that?
Game 30, M’s at Twins! Twins!
Sorry. My fault.