The case against Contreras
In which I disagree with Dave’s argument that the M’s should take him even if they munch the whole salary.
The argument for Contreras is, is I may, essentially this: he’s moderately better than HoRam, the team needs him, and his contract is not that outrageous.
The first point, that Contreras would be better, is pretty much inarguable.
And I’d further argue that I entirely agree that at this point in the season, whatever helps them get into the playoffs is justified. The additional cost of his salary this year is negligible, and those remaining starts he picks up from HoRam could well be the difference.
My issue is essentially this — he’s in his mid-30s, and will be 36 and 37 in the next two years of his deal. His long-term outlook even before this year wasn’t that great: PECOTA’s five-year valuation, for instance, ran
Year VORP
2007 18.2
2008 13.2
2009 10.9
And that was based on him holding up a little better this season no less.
I’ll engage, in a way, in a logical fallacy here and appeal to authority, on several fronts:
– The White Sox chose to put him in the bullpen while Danks has been horrible for stretches this year
– In a year where several teams were hunting for pitching help (where Matt Morris moved!) no one took Contreras
– Contreras, as much as Dave’s now convinced that his contract would be easily movable at the end of the year, cleared waivers. No other major league team wanted to risk having the Sox give them Contreras with that contract. Not the dumb ones, but not even the smart ones. Not the ones with great pitching scouts who saw the same things we have.
I’ll also make the appeal to anti-authority. The M’s have shown repeatedly just this season (Davis, Parrish) that they aren’t any good at evaluating pitchers. If they trade for Contreras, we’re all hoping that for once, their crazed, ineffectual methods agree with Dave’s endorsement. That’s unsettling.
Moreover, I wonder how easy it really would be to move that deal at the end of the year. This seems a lot like the old fantasy lie (“I’ll throw in player x even though you don’t need him, and you can move him yourself- you’ll get a draft pick at least, right?”). If Contreras is good for the rest of the year, he becomes easy to move – but if that’s the case, how likely is it that he’s moved? Then the team’s paying $10m for a season with a 36-year old pitcher with declining stuff, and trying to move him for… for what? And if he sucks, the M’s end up eating a lot more salary if they want to move him.
For all the insanity over starters, who (besides the Mariners) would hand Contreras a two-year, $10m/year deal after this year?
On the other hand – and I don’t mean to argue for it here — given their recent track record, it’s likely if the M’s had $10m to spend, they’d only find some 36-year old starter to sign to a four-year deal. We might be better limiting the damage to two years.
And, again, you have to weigh that risk against the chance they miss the playoffs, 5th-starter upgrade or not. As much as it might be a huge PR boost for the team, the M’s are still neck-and-neck with two teams (Yankees and the gestalt Indians/Tigers) for the wild card and would have to catch the Angels for the AL West title. If they gamble and miss the playoffs, they’d have picked up that weighty contract on the chance that (again) this guy who cleared waivers, who no one else was willing to take on at that cost, is movable. And then the question becomes “how much salary do we have to eat to get him out of here?”
I don’t care about all of this: the M’s have tons of money to burn, and none of the salary stuff makes any difference in the team’s pursuit of a pennant this year, or the team on the field. But that’s the tradeoff we’re looking at: it’s a large gamble that Contreras gets the team to the promised land over the Yankees/Indians-Tigers, and they don’t have to eat too much money, against something we don’t know. I, as Geoff Baker’s argued on his blog, think the M’s have to have some backup plan: they’re going to throw some other pitcher into the rotation, use relievers L/R/L on one-inning stints, something. The trade is “Trade for Contreras and wager huge money” versus “M’s unknown option with unknown chance of working out”.
Baek’s not healthy and there don’t seem to be any other suitable internal options, but I don’t know that I’d give up on the unknown option that early: the M’s have had good success going to their player development guys and saying “who can we pluck out of the minors and bring up now?” I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Fontaine & Co. have a list of guys they think will be an upgrade over HoRam, and who wouldn’t expose the team to nearly as much risk. And at this point, given the track record of pitchers like O’Flaherty to stock the bullpen over the Davis/Parrish pickups, that option doesn’t seem so bad.
On the Moose and Coco
It bothers me that we haven’t said anything about this since it happened, but I wanted to say:
– Red Sox fans who were (and are) outraged have every reason to be. If Ichiro’s knees were hurt in a collision with Stomper, the A’s mascot, there’d have been a run on torches and pitchforks within the hour, followed by a mass short-term migration for the bay by people in M’s gear.
– Bavasi & the M’s baseball side showed a lot of class in their immediate horror and concern.
– And yet, the organization hasn’t done anything we know about and didn’t even say good things.
If the groundskeepers clocked an opposing player with a rake and they went down with a concussion, it’d be just as horrible – we want the games to be between the teams, unaffected by the clumsiness of others on the field.
And there’s what’s worse: if the groundskeepers knocked into someone accidentally as part of their non-dancing duties, they’d at least be on the field for a reason. The Moose doesn’t have any legitimate baseball reason to be out there. If he’s going to be there, there should be a massive burden on him and his attendants to keep out of the way of the players and umpires, who should have absolute right of way.
If I ran the Mariners, I’d at least have made noises about looking into ways to prevent this possibility in the future, of examining that parasite-infested non-moose the routines to ensure player safety, and so on… but we haven’t. All we got was the shrug and the “accidents happen” speech.
It’s embarrassing for the team, and for us as fans of the team, to be associated with that. I hope at least that behind the scenes, they’re making sure that that kind of thing doesn’t happen again.
Contreras’ Audition
Plenty of rumors abound that tonight’s start at Safeco was something of an audition for Jose Contreras in front of a team interested in potentially acquiring his services for the stretch run. If you think White Sox GM Kenny Williams was in Seattle tonight because of the coffee, well, he wasn’t. The Dodgers are also in the mix (and had a scout at the game), but the M’s have been linked to Contreras most heavily in the last week or so.
So, how did it go? If you’re someone who likes to judge by results, it was a mixed bag. He gave up 5 runs in 7 innings and got his 15th loss of the year, and his ERA now sits at 6.18. Not great. But, if you’ve read the blog for any length of time, you know that one of my soap boxes is using tools that aren’t results based to project future performance. And really, that’s what the Mariners care about – what is Contreras likely to do going forward if they acquire him. So, throw the results out the window. What did the process look like?
First off, let’s start with his stuff.
The fastball sat between 92-95 MPH, coming in with sink and varied arm angles. He didn’t have great command of it, leaving it up in the zone and catching too much of the plate, but he was around the zone with moving, above average fastballs. Ron Kulpa’s generous strike zone and the Mariners aggressive approach helped his strike percentage, but make no mistake, he was throwing strikes with the fastball.
His outpitch is still a splitter that is good and occassionally great. Sitting 80-82 with a lot of drop, it’s a true out pitch, especially against aggressive hitters. He commanded it well, usually burying it in the dirt and only leaving a couple up in hittable areas. His splitter is a real weapon, a swing-and-a-miss pitch that can be used to put away hitters when ahead in the count.
He also showed a couple of slurvy breaking balls. The slider, which he threw a couple of times in the 85-87 range, was better than the slower curve, which flashed 77, but neither were anything great. They’re both show pitches to keep hitters off balance, and are minimal parts of the arsenal.
Overall, that’s an above average package of stuff for a starting pitcher. Velocity, movement, an out pitch, at least passable third and fourth offerings, and okay command? That sounds like a league average starter at worst. The stuff is certainly still there.
What about the peripherals from the game – the results that might actually matter, if you’re into that kind of thing. In 7 innings, he threw 97 pitches, 70 of which were strikes, posted a 9-7 groundball flyball rate, didn’t walk anyone, and struck out five. That kind of line is good for a 3.63 FIP and a 3.20 xFIP, which are basically ERA scaled to eliminate things beyond his control. In other words, Contreras pitched like a guy who should have given up a 2 runs in 7 innings, not 5 runs in 7 innings.
If you watched the game, that should jive with what you saw. Guillen’s first inning double was an off balance swing at a pitch he was fooled on and barely hooked fair down the left field line. Guillen also later had a single that barely got by Uribe. Betancourt had a double that was a lunging swing similar to Guillen’s first inning double and wasn’t well struck. Ichiro’s bunt single was really a throwing error, and Beltre’s infield single was just the luck of a high chopper. The only hits that were ripped were the Ibanez homer, the Sexson double, and the Beltre double, and they all came in the first inning.
Tonight, Jose Contreras threw the ball like a guy who could start for almost any team in baseball. Considering the Mariners glaring need for a starter, if this was really an audition, I think they have to have liked what they saw.
The remaining contract, 2 years and $20 million, isn’t something you want to take on if you don’t have to. But, as I mentioned in the game thread, it’s not so far out of line with what healthy pitchers are getting on the free agent market that it becomes an immovable albatross. Whether it’s intelligent or not, major league GMs currently overvalue past success and health when it comes to veteran pitchers, and Contreras has both. Remember, if last offseason showed us anything, it’s that your most recent year performance isn’t particularly important in terms of dollars received, as Jeff Weaver, Randy Wolf, Adam Eaton, and Jason Marquis all cashed in despite miserable 2006 campaigns. $10 million for each of the next two years for Jose Contreras just isn’t a significant liability, given the current way teams view the value of guys like him.
Honestly, if I could acquire Contreras tomorrow without giving up any real talent in return, I’d make the move regardless of how much salary the White Sox were willing to eat. If they offer to pick up some of the money, that’s just a bonus. I saw enough tonight to confirm what I already felt that his performance record was telling us – he’s not done, and he’s not even really close to being done. He’s still a useful major league starting pitcher, and on a team that is running out Horacio Ramirez and counting on Jeff Weaver and Jarrod Washburn, he fills a big hole.
I’m officially on board with a trade for Jose Contreras.
Game 119, White Sox at Mariners
Future Mariner Jose Contreras v Current Mariner Miguel Batista. 7:05.
The crew that will determine whether or not there’s a trade?
CF-L Ichiro
DH-B Vidro
RF-R Guillen
LF-L Ibanez
3B-R Beltre
1B-R Sexson
C-R Johjima
2B-R Lopez
SS-R Betancourt
mmm… familiarity means comfort. Is beating up on Contreras in the team’s long and short-term interest? Would they be better off if he’s dominant? Who knows.
Another Notes Post
Just because there are a couple more things I should point out that are more blog related than Mariner related, they’ll get their own post.
1. USSM on KJR returns to its normal timeslot with Groz today – you can listen at 2:20 to try and figure out how many times my voice will crack this week. And, after Angry Dave made a long appearance last week, I promise to be more positive. Yesterday’s thread was awesome, by the way.
2. Also, reader Aditya Sood alerts me to the fact that we now have a Wikipedia page. I know they frown on people making changes to articles that are about themselves, so we’ll leave it alone, but if someone out there wants to give JMB the credit he deserves as a co-founder as well, that’d be great.
3. There was an article about the Pitch F/X system on Slate the other day. As far as I’m aware, no one on earth has a picture of me actually hanging in their living room, and I’m totally okay with that.
Time for a notes post
This is one of those ideas where I had a whole bunch of good ideas and don’t have time to finish any of them, so in lieu of a real post, have the abbreviated version.
1. Geoff Baker has spent the last few days blogging his thoughts on the Adam Jones situation, the value of experience, how rookies earn playing time, and so on. He’s done a good job of laying out the argument and articulating the organization’s philosophy on the issue of how players are evaluated. Not surprisingly, I think he’s wrong, and I’ve got a mountain of evidence to back me up, but it’s not the kind of post I want to spend 20 minutes on and slap up as a counterpoint, so a rebuttal will have to wait until next week.
2. Somewhat related to that, the Tigers are designating struggling veteran Craig Monroe for assignment today and calling up 20-year-old Cameron Maybin to take over as their regular left fielder. Maybin was promoted to Double-A last week, played five games there, and is now on his way to the show. You can add Maybin’s name to Andrew Miller, Ryan Braun, Justin Upton, Philip Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and the ever growing list of highly talented rookies who have displaced veterans and been handed prominant roles on playoff contending clubs as teams decide that talent trumps experience.
3. Jose Contreras takes the hill against the Mariners tonight. I’ve heard from multiple people that this is essentially an audition for the M’s – if he pitches well tonight and the scouts like what they see, he could be joining the Mariners as soon as tomorrow. He’s undoubtedly a huge upgrade from Horacio Ramirez, but the remaining 2 years and $20 million left on that contract are ugly with a capital U, and the fact that he cleared waivers when every pitcher of any value is getting claimed should tell you just what the rest of the league thinks of that deal.
4. Speaking of waivers, Jayson Stark reported that Richie Sexson was claimed on waivers and pulled back by the Mariners. This news generally sparked a lot of anger among M’s fans, since dumping Sexson’s salary and handing his at-bats to Ben Broussard sounds like a win-win situation to a lot of people. However, I’ve been told that one of the claiming teams was the Detroit Tigers, and as much as I’d like to see the M’s move Sexson this winter, I can completely understand the organization’s reluctance to hand Sexson to a team they’re trying to beat out for a playoff spot.
5. Yes, there’s a Future Forty update coming soon. Probably early next week. Short version – Carlos Triunfel is awesome and Chris Tillman has made big strides lately. The farm system is in better shape now than it has been at any time in the last five years.
6. Wily Mo Pena has been traded to the Washington Nationals. I’ve been joking for a few years that I think Jim Bowden’s Baseball America subscription ran out in 1997 but he still uses the old issues as his main reference when trading for players, but he just keeps giving me reasons to keep running that joke out there. The man has a toolsy outfielder fetish that is unrivaled in the history of the game. I’m somewhat surprised he hasn’t flanked Wily Mo with Ruben Mateo and Kenny Kelly yet.
Thursday positivity thread
Only positive thoughts here!
Ichiro is awesome!
Safeco is a great place to see a game!
The Mariners are in the playoff hunt for the first time in years!
Vidro Vidro Vidro
As much as I’d prefer to let this run to the end of the season, let’s get review this as he’s hitting .319/.384/.388 and ON FIRE! (and so forth)
Right now, Vidro’s beating up on his projections in one way: he’s hitting for a lot more average. His walk rate’s a little up, the strikeout rate a little lower, but not hugely. Almost no power at all (of players in the AL with 350+ PA, he’s the 8th-worst player in Isolated Slugging as I write this). His HR/FB rate is an absurd 3.5%. Everyone who tried to tell you he was going to turn into some kind of Edgar clone was entirely wrong, but you knew that at the time.
He has no speed at all – he hasn’t even tried to steal a base this year. Whatever the Mariners thought they were going to be able to do to rehab his legs, it didn’t work. He’s been healthy enough to be in the lineup, but that’s it. He’s not running out doubles. We should probably be grateful for that, though.
There’s a lot to be wary of. For someone with no speed, he’s getting a lot of infield hits (7.1% right now) and his batting average when he puts the ball in play is a ridiculous .346. Now, speedy hitters get good rates, because they’re hitting the ball hard, or they can leg them out. The players around Vidro’s infield hit percentage are generally speedsters, guys like Vernon Wells, or Orlando Cabrera (he is, to spite me, just behind Jack Wilson and ahead of Troy Tulowitzki in the majors in IFH%.
And the same thing with batting average on balls in play: Ichiro’s at .376, for instance (his career BABIP is .356)(worst in the majors right now? Richie Sexson, .219). And there are other players who put up really good BABIP numbers for different reasons — but generally speaking, if you’re putting up a really good BABIP rate, you’re Willy Taveras more than Pujols (career .312 BABIP).
Moreover, these are anomalous even in Vidro’s career. Even in his best year, he didn’t manage to get to a .346 BABIP, and his career batting average on balls in play is .319, a significant dropoff from what he’s running right now.
Those hits are in the books, though, in the same way it doesn’t matter what your run differential is if you end the season 90-72. However, it’s worth examining this in an attempt to look at how big a swing that is. If Vidro got hits at his career rate, and his infield hit rate was a little more reasonable, here’s his line:
.286/.351/.355
Moreover, you can look at his hit chart, there’s really been no change from early in the year, when we pointed out almost all his fly balls were dropping in the shallow outfield. I think he’s been putting a few more deeper flies to left, I don’t have the data for that.
Unless there’s a really good reason that those dribblers and bloop flies are going to continue to fall in for the rest of the season, that line is also a reasonable guess at how he’ll produce from here out. If you know a good explanation of why Vidro’s enjoyed such amazing, unexpected success in those areas this year, and can explain why you think it’s sustainable, we’d love to hear it.
I hope you see why I’m skeptical, though.
I’m a long-time defender of Ichiro, who played a different game than other right fielders, and there’s no reason not to apply that to the DH. I don’t particularly care that he’s not hitting for power if he’s contributing in a different way. And if Vidro can continue, the salary’s not an issue: $6m a year isn’t that outrageous, especially compared to some of the other botched signings (hellloooo, Mike Piazza, who didn’t see that coming?)
But it was still a bad acquisition. Discard Snelling/Fruto entirely: there were more-productive DH candidates available for less. Putting Vidro at DH has created team construction problems that have kept the team from putting the best lineup on the field. Who knows what it’s going to mean for them going into next year.
And say that those hits were luck — would you pay six million to get .286/.351/.355 from a DH? What about next year, when he’s another year older? Where does that 2009 option vest?
Signing Vidro to a 2-year, $12m deal with a vesting option would have been a bad idea, even if the team hadn’t given anything up for them. Our objection to this trade has always been about the ease of finding a DH, not about who they gave up for him.
On the trade, yes, Fruto’s in AAA Columbus, trying to become a starter and having a bad time of it, not contributing to a major league team, and Snelling’s on the DL. And I freely (and have, repeatedly) admit that I’m unable to discuss Snelling with any degree of impartiality, so I’ll only say yes, he’s on the 60-day DL with the knee contusion, but it could have happened to anyone, and also yes, it’d be nice if he could get or stay healthy but he doesn’t, and I know the chances he’s going to have a major league career are basically gone, so if everyone could please stop sticking me about it, that’d be nice.
Or, to get back to my point: I haven’t found any good reason besides good fortune that explains Vidro’s recent performance in finding holes, and a lot of good reasons to think he owes those extra dozen or so hits to chance. And if that’s the case, that’s the performance of a replacement-level bat rubbing a lucky rabbit’s foot bare.
Yes, Vidro’s hitting .400 since the all-star break, and like everyone else alive, he’s a great player who is helping the team if he can hit .400. But there are all kinds of reasons to think he can’t, and there’s nothing less indicative of a hitter’s skill then the ability to hit a bunch of singles. Vidro was a horrible player the first half of the year and has been an amazing one since, but the underlying skills suggest that we should expect something a lot closer to this first half performance than his second half performance going forward. And this team can’t afford to have another hitter go cold.
Game 118, Twins at Mariners
Baker vs Washburn, 1:35 pm.
Warning – if you’re tired of hearing us complain about the line-up, turn away now.
1. Ichiro, DH
2. Lopez, 2B
3. Guillen, RF
4. Ibanez, LF
5. Beltre, 3B
6. Sexson, 1B
7. Jones, CF
8. Burke, C
9. Betancourt, SS
When Adam Jones was called up, the decision was made that he would play center field three times the rest of the year – games immediately preceding an offday, so that Ichiro could get a half day off before the full day off. There was no consideration taken into scheduling Ichiro’s DH games to coincide with a groundball pitcher being on the mound (hint – Washburn, not a groundball pitcher) or when they’d be facing a left-hander (hint – Baker, not a left hander).
The Mariners decided that arbitrarily giving Ichiro consecutive rest is more important than putting a line-up out to counter the strengths of their opponents. So, today, with a flyball starter on the mound and facing a right-handed pitcher, the M’s replace Turbo’s left-handed bat with Adam Jones’ right-handed bat while simultaneously putting Jones in the outfield without improving the defense.
It takes a lot of work to be this strategically horrible. The Mariners live in oblivious world, and reality is a long, long ways away.
Draft Signing Day
A bunch of you have been asking in the comments about Philippe Aumont lately, but I’ve held off talking about it until today to avoid making any misleading statements. Since today is the deadline to sign picks from June’s amateur draft, we’ll cover a bunch of topics all at once.
Aumont’s deal is basically done. They’ll put ink to paper later this afternoon, but there was never a real concern that he wasn’t going to sign. Expect the signing bonus to come in around $1.8 million.
Why did it take so long? Well, thanks to an initiative by the commissioner’s office to hold the line on labor costs, the process that teams go through to sign their draft picks has become quite political. MLB sends every team a “recommended” signing bonus for each pick in the first 5 rounds with each selection being worth marginally less than the one previous. They’ve been using this recommended slotting procedure for several years now, but they’re getting more aggressive – this year, they slashed 10% off of last year’s slot bonus recommendations.
Now, thanks to the collective bargainining agreement, the commissioner’s office does not have the power to mandate these bonus recommendations. In the end, the team makes the decision on how much they’re willing to pay. However, MLB has instituted a procedural chain of events that leverages the influence they do have. Before a team can sign a player to a contract for higher than the recommended slot bonus, they must inform the commissioner’s office. If they don’t, they’re subject to a fine. Once the commissioner becomes aware that the player development staff is on the verge of breaking from the recommendation, he places a call to that club’s owner, who in most cases, he’s very close with and has a lot of power over. He leans on the owner, who then in turn leans on the front office, in an effort to convince them to hold the line on the bonus figures.
For most teams, this works. Selig has a lot of allies in ownership groups, and as we saw last year with the Miller/Morrow decision, many clubs will simply decide that it’s not worth it to fight the commissioner for guys who make it known ahead of time that they expect a contract out of line with MLB’s recommended bonus. The Mariners are one of these teams. The ownership is Selig friendly, and they’re not going to significantly deviate from the bonus suggestions with their top picks.
Detroit, New York, and Boston, however, could legitimately not care less about the slotting system. They’re exploiting its flaws to their own gain on a yearly basis. The last four years, the Tigers have selected Justin Verlander, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller, and Rick Porcello – all elite prospects who required significant signing bonuses. Only Verlander didn’t require an above slot deal, but since he went #2 overall, he still cost an arm and a leg. Maybin, Miller, and Porcello all fell to the Tigers in large part due to their contract requirements. Detroit, recognizing a chance to add premium talent on a yearly basis, continues to lay out the money necessary to get these kids signed, and it’s been a massive success – Miller and Verlander are both in their rotation, Maybin is a top 5 prospect in baseball, and Porcello’s drawn comparisons to Josh Beckett.
Likewise, the Yankees and Red Sox have also loaded up on guys who fall in the draft due to their bonus demands, using their significant revenue advantage to simply outspend every other team with their draft budget. The other 27 teams are essentially ceding a competitive advantage to the three teams who don’t particularly care about the recommended slot bonuses. It will be interesting to see how many years they’ll be willing to let the rich get richer before realizing that giving these clubs the pick of the litter every year is probably not the best way to run a franchise.
Anyway, that’s a little bit of a diversion from the Aumont issue, but here’s how it applies to the M’s – they’re going to give Aumont a little bit more than the recommended slot, and they’ve known this for a while. However, the commissioner’s office essentially requested that teams that were going to go over slot to sign someone hold off until the last possible minute so that other clubs couldn’t use that signing as leverage in negotiations. As such, there are a ton of deals that will be announced today that have essentially been done for quite a while. The M’s aren’t lying when they say they don’t have a deal with Philippe Aumont just yet – there is no signed contract. But if you take away the commissioner’s offices role in the contract negotiations, this would have been done months ago. There was never any real risk that the Mariners weren’t going to sign him – the delay is just part of the political process teams have to go through to stay on the commissioner’s good side now.
Also, in slightly related news, Monday saw the reassignment of Frank Mattox from director of player development to an undefined role in the scouting department. Mattox, you’ll remember, was the Mariners scouting director before Bob Fontaine’s arrival (rescue?) and he oversaw some of the worst drafts in the history of major league baseball. Greg Hunter will take the director of player development role at least on an interim basis, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he ended up with the gig full time.