Felix article at Baseball Prospectus
From the Department of Don’t Miss This:
Jonah Keri has a 2,800-word, link-laden subscriber-only article up about King Felix at Baseball Prospectus as of yesterday. The Felix-love flows around here like ouzo at one of Socrates’ parties, so I’ll leave belaboring that point to Jonah.
Suffice it to say, Felix Hernandez is one of the best reasons to be very excited about watching baseball this season.
Tuesday newsotronic
PI:
Johjima has glove, tongue
Beltre doesn’t think Cubans will defect from WBC team.
Ichiro’s out of his slump.
And the M’s traded Thornton. PI, TNT, Times.
The Times, in their re-designed and vaguely confusing new page, have similar content (Johjima and the staff)
Bye Bye Matt Thornton
The M’s have traded Matt Thornton to the Chicago White Sox for Joe Borchard.
There’s almost no way to not like this move, in my opinion. Thornton was, and still is, essentially useless. Yes, he throws 95, but big whoop-de-doo. He’s basically pitched well as a pro for all of one season, back in A-ball, pre surgery, and been mediocre to bad the rest of his career. He throws straight, without command, and has no real secondary pitches to speak of. He doesn’t hide the ball well, and hitters tee off on his hittable fastball, especially when they’re sitting on it 2-0. He didn’t deserve to be on the team last year, and he certainly didn’t deserve to be on the team this year. Removing him from the roster almost certainly guarantees George Sherrill a spot on the team, and he’s a vastly superior pitcher who was squeezed off the team by Thornton’s presence last year. Simply removing Thornton from the equation is a net positive.
Then we come to Borchard. He was one of the best college players of his time, earning a then-record $5.5 million signing bonus when the White Sox took him in the first round of the 2000 draft. He battled injuries, but showed promise in his first exposure to Triple-A pitching at the age of 23, hitting .272/.349/.498. He’s stagnated since then, failing to improve at all at the plate and losing agility and fielding prowess.
The guy has flaws that aren’t easily fixed. He has a poor approach at the plate, the main factor being a problem with pitch recognition. Borchard, essentially, has turned himself into a guess hitter. If he gets a fastball, bravo, the ball may go 400 feet. If he doesn’t, well, he’s screwed.
I’ve seen a lot of Borchard the past few years, and I remain convinced that there’s a good hitter hiding inside of the player he is now. His approach needs work, but it’s a fixable flaw. If he can improve his theories of hitting and turn himself into a .270/.330/.450 guy, that’s a valuable reserve, giving the M’s a legitimate major league hitter coming off the bench who swings the bat from the right side.
Borchard has the potential to fill a need; right-handed power hitting reserve outfielder. The M’s options for OF are currently all left-handed. If the team brings in a lefty to face Reed, Ibanez, or Everett, your options are essentially to let them hit or to replace them with Willie Ballgame.
Borchard, at least, has the chance to offer a bat with some juice from the right side and the ability to play all three outfield spots, though he’s a bit of a liability in center at this point. He’s essentially a slightly different version of Mike Morse; better defense, less contact, more power. I’m sure some folks would prefer Morse to make the roster, since he hit .800 for a few weeks last year, but the fact is that the team doesn’t have to choose.
If they deem Borchard able to help them in the role Morse was penciled in for, they get both Borchard and Morse. Morse goes to Tacoma, giving the team something they badly lack; depth. This team has been dangerously thin for several years, leaving them one injury away from playing a replacement level player at pretty much every position on the diamond. Having Borchard in Seattle and Morse in Tacoma gives the M’s one more layer to go through before resorting to Willie Bloomquist, starting left fielder, or rushing Adam Jones to the big leagues prematurely.
In the end, the team gets a few weeks to see if Borchard can fill a hole on the roster. If he can’t, no loss, because we didn’t want Matt Thornton on the team either way. If he can, well, congratulations Bill, you just got more free talent. These are the kinds of moves Bavasi has specialized in, getting potentially useful parts for nothing. Make enough of these moves, and you’ll eventually hit a home run.
Thumbs up. Good move for the club, and adios to Matt Thornton.
Bronson Arroyo traded
After an offseason full of rumors, most of which had him coming to Seattle, and then a contract extension that reportedly came with a handshake agreement that he wouldn’t be traded, Bronsono Arroyo was traded to the Cincinatti Reds for Wily Mo Pena today.
After being so successful with flyball pitcher Eric Milton last year, the Reds apparently are going back to the well, acquiring another flyball pitcher who needs his defense to keep him in the ballgame. And, when you have the worst outfield defense in baseball, that’s generally a bad idea.
I’m still thrilled that the M’s didn’t swap Jeremy Reed for Arroyo, but in the end, it looks like that was a wise non-trade for the Red Sox, as well. Wily Mo is lousy with the glove, but the kid’s got serious, serious power, and he’s clearly more valuable to the Red Sox than Jeremy Reed would have been.
Monday might be boring, but …
… you still shouldn’t miss Jim Caple’s piece about Ichiro and the World Baseball Classic. Worth reading for the “filthy dugouts” line alone.
Monday, boring Monday
PI: Thiel on the unfixable Gil Meche. Sexson wants to win a World Series. Johjima’s getting hazed.
M’s lost — PI version, Times version.
Lazy Sunday
M’s v Rockies! Bloomquist is playing! HOLY MACKERAL ARE THE TEAL JERSEYS UGLY!
M’s lost yesterday, but Felix still rocks (ST). Guardado is a sage to young players (TNT). Pineiro enjoyed playing in the WBC (TNT).
Alert reader Aditya Sood pointed out that yesterday Matt Thornton pitched for the cycle and then some in getting three outs:
1 HR
1 3B
2 2B
2 1B
That’s painful. In happier news, both Gonzaga and the UW advanced in the NCAA tournament in two games that were much more fun to watch than a Thornton-thwacking.
Boy, Foppert’s getting rocked as I write this, with a nice assist by his defense.
Saturday: 12 pitchers again! Wheee!
PI: M’s lose, but Everett hits his first homer. Not of his career, of course. Despite the hype, neither Vina or Bloomquist played. Appier hurt himself.
Since Mike Hargrove plans to keep a dozen pitchers, the Mariners will have 13 position players on the 25-man active major-league roster on opening day.
This is so dumb. 5 starters + 6 relievers didn’t work out so well for us last year.
Anyway, Finnigan figures that with C = Johjima, 1B = Sexson, 2B = Lopez/?, SS = Betancourt, 3B = Beltre, LF = Ibanez, CF = Reed, RF = Ichiro!, and DH = clubhouse leader Everett, that leaves 4 spots left. A backup catcher, then Bloomquist takes one if he’s not the 2B, Lawton’s the backup OF, and that means you only get to pick one of “Roberto Petagine, Greg Dobbs, Mike Morse or Cody Ransom.”
Cody Ransom? They’d consider that?
So look at what these guys offer:
Petagine: left-handed bat, might rake. Can’t play good defense anywhere, may be passable at 1B. (PECOTA: .257 .349 .419 ) No speed.
Dobbs: left-handed hitter (PECOTA: 246 .274 .356). No speed.
Morse: right-handed hitter (PECOTA: .252 .301 .397). Was decent at short, bad in left, may have improved his defense there.
Ransom: right-handed hitter. No PECOTA, but he can’t hit. No speed. Plays the infield reasonably well.
When you look at this team, then, which of these guys would provide the most value? Ransom’s Bloomquist without any basestealing ability. Petagine is the best bat of the bunch, but given that the team’s got two DHs in Ibanez and Everett, Lawton probably chewing up some LF time, finding him any kind of regular ABs is likely to be a challenge.
The nature of building a bench is that you don’t get to pick starter-quality players. I don’t get to say “well, obviously, the team needs a crackerjack switch-hitter with a great glove” because you don’t get that.
Instead, how about this: the M’s play in a huge, spacious park with a massive outfield. Every candidate on the roster who supposedly plays LF is bad at it (well, Bloomquist isn’t bad). No one can play center well behind Reed except perhaps Ichiro. There are pitchers on the team who could really use a solid defensive upgrade there, some of them in the bullpen. It’s not a huge deal, but unlike the skill set of Morse (can’t hit, can’t field) it does offer the team something they don’t have. Even playing Choo as a 5th OF (with primary Reed-resting responsibility) gives the team some options (PECOTA, btw, .268 .337 .396) and he has some baserunning speed.
I’m not convinced Choo’s the answer (or Bohn or anyone). It’s strange that besides Petagine, the players being discussed as candidates for the bench don’t offer the manager anything, be it additional tools or options within a game. There’s no need they fill or help they offer.
Ahhhhh Friday
Team had an off day yesterday, so no game stories.
Mariners got about 2,000 fewer season ticket holders compared to last year to about 15,000. I’m curious whether that’s full-season or includes 16-game plans (you’d think it’d be full-season). That’s a lot of money disappearing (though, of course, many of those people will likely still attend some games).
Tomorrow! The hated Padres! Vina may actually play a game! Bloomquist may return! Will the excitement never stop?
Thursday Mariner fix
PI: M’s beat the Royals. Ichiro said some things about the WBC that didn’t work out.
Times: Finnigan laments Heaverlo’s release.