Monday’s Mariner news
PI: “Hargrove says language barrier not an issue to courting Jojima”
DMZ: “Seattle PI runs longest sub-head ever”. Also in that article, Eddie Guardado runs a poker tournament.
Sunday, the Times ran The Mariners meet with Jojima
Yup. On MLB.com, there’s a story that the M’s want to acquire a pitcher. There, I’ve just spoiled the whole article for you.
Schwarz on PECOTA in NYT
Don’t miss officially endorsed Alan Schwarz writing about Nate Silver’s PECOTA player forecast system in the New York Times. Read it quickly, before it falls behind the terrible “Times Select” wall of paid content.
Leone moves on
In case you missed it — Justin Leone signed a minor league deal (scroll down) with the San Diego Padres last week. Leone was a favorite among many M’s bloggers, but to be honest, he was never going to get a shot in Seattle. Whether or not he deserved much of one given his age and performance last season is another issue. I wish him well in San Diego, though he’s of course now stuck behind both Vinny Castilla and Sean Burroughs.
M’s Close to Jojima Deal
The News-Tribune reports that the M’s are nearing a deal with Kenji Jojima for two years, $8 million with an option for a third year. This confirms what we’ve been hearing, that Jojima’s already looking for a home in town.
If the report’s accurate, I give this deal my full endorsement.
Ichiro traded for magic beans!
Ichiro to New York! Griffey to Seattle! Cuban vampire baby pitcher throws 104mph escapes to Costa Rica, Yankees interested!
It’s baseball off-season time. We’ve already seen a huge amount of hysteria around a dumb New York Post rumor that Ichiro’s available, in particular, so I wanted to offer this:
– writers have to write about something
– front offices are trying to work deals
– front offices use the writers
This is important to remember. Let’s say your team wants to pick up Player A. You might spread rumors he’s looking to get out, wants to play for a contender, whatever, and that the team’s thinking about trading him.
Then you let the rumor mill churn for a bit, and you call up the other team and say “I read you might be shopping Player A. What would you want for him?”
Some teams are hoooooooooooooooooorrrible about this. Both New York teams, with the city’s massive media, are the worst. Some random under-assistant to the guy who stocks the vending machines thinks they should go get Felix Hernandez, and bam! It’s in the tabloids: “A Yankee front office source confirmed the team is interested in trading for Mariner pitching prospect Felix…”
If you follow baseball for long enough, you’ll get a feel for what other teams do this, and for that matter, what other teams use the media for (character assasination, for instance, rather than rumor-mongering).
And think about sourcing. Baseball’s a small game, and information gets around, but “an NL scout” knows as much about what Bavasi & Co. are talking about as you or me: zippo.
Which is to say, there are a couple questions you should ask when you come across these rumors:
– Does this rumor make any sense?
– Reading the rest of the article, is it well-written and thought-out (do it have a bunch of players going to teams that don’t need them, for instance)?
– Is the writer known and generally dependable?
– Is the paper known for good coverage or sensationalism?
So..
Larry Stone or Morosi writing that the team’s considering whether they should try to move Ichiro is worth something.
The NY Post writing that Ichiro wants to go to New York because he wants to win a World Series is worth *nothing*.
A random internet site filled with half-crazy trade speculation (Delgado traded to Arizona in a 12-player, eight-team trade that sends Jamie Moyer to the moon!) is worth nothing.
Don’t waste your time on worthless rumors. Don’t waste other people’s time on worthless rumors. Thanks.
Plug
For those interested, I wrote a guest article for the Baseball Analysts blog run by Rich Lederer and Bryan Smith, with the topic being King Felix. It’s probably nothing new to you guys, but you might enjoy it anyways. And if you don’t, well, it’s free, so don’t complain.
Also, for the three of you that can’t get enough of my writing, I’ve got an article in the Hardball Times 2006 Annual, which I’ve been told will begin shipping next week. The THT annual contains a bunch of statistics and data that you simply cannot get anywhere else, such as hit type data and some interesting analysis that they’ve done off the information collected by Baseball Info Solutions. Plus, you get to read my article. So it obviously gets my totally unobjective recommendation.
Early Free Agency News
Three quick tidbits.
First, from MLB.com: the M’s are among several teams expressing interest in Esteban Loaiza. The others are the Royals, Indians, Rangers, Mets and Rockies.
Next, from the NYT‘s “at least the Mariners get an ‘expected to contend’ mention” department:
It seems as if every team in baseball has contacted Darek Braunecker, the agent for starter A. J. Burnett. Burnett lashed out at Marlins management toward the end of the season, and he is not considering a return to South Florida. The Blue Jays, whose pitching coach, Brad Arnsberg, once worked with Burnett with the Marlins, are considered a leader, but the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers are also expected to contend for his services.
Finally, the M’s are one of three teams to inquire about trading for Carlos Delgado. The Orioles and the Mets are the others. The saving grace: “With any scenario, the Marlins likely would be asked to pick up some of that money.”
We’ve discussed the merits and drawbacks of each of these moves before. Whatever happens, it doesn’t look like a do-nothing offseason. Like the Chinese curse says, may you live in interesting times.
The Importance of Defense
One of the things we’ve been talking around, but have never said outright, really, is how wrong we used to be about the importance of defense. The statistical community, 5-10 years ago, believed that defense was a very minor factor in the game, and that you could evaluate the worth of a player by looking at his offensive line, and then making a minor adjustment for defensive value. Players like Darin Erstad and Rey Ordonez became sabermetric whipping boys as the main analysts of the day railed on the franchises that gave them playing time that they apparently didn’t justify through their at-bats.
However, as we’ve begun to come up with ways to quantify defensive performance, at least at a blunt level, we’ve realized that we were wrong. Badly wrong. Defense is a huge, huge part of baseball. To steal a quote from Bill James, much of what we call pitching is really defense. For all intents and purposes, the Chicago White Sox are world champions because they were a team of terrific defensive players who weren’t so awful at hitting or pitching that it would offset the strength of the team.
Clearly, if you’ve been reading our posts for the past few years, you’ve seen a change in the way we evaluate players. I stumped for Pokey Reese (well, a healthy one, anyways) for two years. The support of the signing of Jacque Jones is largely based on his defensive abilities and the effect he would have on the team’s pitching staff. However, it seems to me that the importance of defense is still underestimated by most fans. In fact, while I think our readers represent the upper tier of intelligent fans, I’d say that I would expect that most of you underestimate the importance of defense as well. We see this manifest a lot in the comments, when people suggest doing whatever it takes to bring in “The Big Bat”, including terrible ideas like shifting Richie Sexson to left field.
I’ve been trying to think of a good way to explain just how important defense on a team level can be in a way that would make sense and still be understandable. While there’s some good defensive work being done, most of it deals with mathmatical theory of regression analysis and other non-interesting reading material that I’ve slagged through. But, tonight, Chris Dial introduced his “method” of evaluating defense over at Baseball Think Factory. It’s not that tough a read, and it makes a lot of sense, especially if you’re familiar with some of the previous work that’s been done in this field. Now, there’s still enough problems with individual defensive stats that I’m not linking to this to back up any claims about a specific player, and I’m not saying that his numbers are the answer. I haven’t even given them more than a cursory glance. However, there was one table that jumped off the page at me that I’d like to share, and hope its importance sets in.
Position AvgZROps Runs/play Runs/Season AvgZR* Runs/Season
Perfect Average
1B 281 .798 224.24 .870 195.09
2B 507 .754 382.28 .822 314.23
3B 430 .800 344.00 .783 269.35
SS 532 .753 400.60 .835 334.50
LF 348 .831 289.19 .861 248.99
CF 462 .842 389.00 .888 345.44
RF 365 .843 307.70 .873 268.61
Essentially, what this table tells us is how many runs an average player at each position saves over the course of the season. The baseline it’s compared to is zero, so don’t freak out because the numbers are huge. Essentially, what this is saying is that if you played a season with just 8 fielders and left everyone in their normal spot but eliminted the shortstop, you’d give up an extra 335 runs. If you punted the left fielder, you’d “only” lose 249 runs.
The difference between the positions should jump out at you. Center Field is the most important defensive position in baseball. It is way, way more important than right or left field. Think of it this way; an average center fielder will have the opportunity to save his team 70 more runs than his average right field teammate. Holy crap. 70 runs!
Defense isn’t something to be looked at as a minor factor in player analysis. We certainly haven’t discovered the key to perfectly evaluating the abilities of each player, but we should all be past the point of thinking that the vast majority of a player’s value is tied to what he produces with his bat. What he can do with his glove is far from insignificant, and needs to be considered.
In other words, just say no to Richie Sexson, left fielder.
Win the World Series next year
I’m going to look at the same thing Dave did from a different starting point, and arrive at a far different place.
What are the barriers to the Mariners winning a World Series in 2006?
They’re not good, to begin. Stick with me, this is going to get better fast.
Huge Problem Solution 1 No starters after Felix 2 Starting rotation sucks 3 Offense sucks
That’s a little too general to do anything about. Let’s break that down further:
Problem Solution 1 Pineiro not good 2 No third starter 3 No fourth starter 4 No fifth starter 5 Poor offense at third 6 Poor offense at short 7 Poor offense at center 8 Poor offense at right 9 No catcher 10 No second baseman 11 No left fielder
To win the World Series, the team has to solve all of these.
In detail:
1. Pineiro’s not good. Whether Pineiro’s done has been hashed over here many times, and there are still some who believe he could still turn into an ace. He won’t. Even the supposedly good version of Pineiro last year was a league-average pitcher. If our goal was to get to .500, that would be fine. It’s possible that we might even look at him as a late-rotation guy in a championship team (certainly, many World Series winners have some random guys in the #4, #5 slots). But Joel Pineiro, in his remaining year here, isn’t going to be a pitcher who helps the team win it all. Ideally, you want to upgrade on Pineiro.
2-4. Moyer may return, filling a spot, and handled well, that’s a reasonable gamble.
Meche may come back on another one-year deal, but again, there’s no ace Meche left. There’s no point.
5. Beltre, Beltre, Beltre. A Beltre that’s somewhere between 2004 and last year’s a big contributor. And yet, counting on a rebound is unsettling.
6. Betancourt’s a ground-ball vacuum, and even if he hits like last year all year, he might be worth playing. He’s a fairly young player who doesn’t take walks and also doesn’t strike out excessively or hit for home run power. There’s offensive potential with Betancourt, and it’s reasonable to see that coming at this stage of his development.
7. I think I wrote once that Reed, reliant on average, lack of walks, but with power, would live and die on his ability to make contact, and that sometimes he’d look like the best player on the team and seem almost unstoppable, while other times he might seem as helpless as a kitten (not as cute, though). Reed has to hit better if they’re going to win it all next year (this would be called “a breakthrough season” if he has it). It might have been Dave.
8. Ichiro is a great player if he can hit .330 or higher. At .300 he’s not helping. I’m a great fan, but that’s just true.
9. Team needs a catcher.
10. Team needs a second baseman. Lopez has now had two extended trials at the major league level, and he hasn’t hit in either of them. Whether that’s coaching or what remains to be seen, but if he’s handed a job next year we’re going to be looking for something more than Luis Rivas style prospect flop-dom.
11. Morse could be a left fielder but then, so could you or me. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
The offense doesn’t so much suck as it’s hugely incomplete. If you stuck randomly selected minor league free agents in there, it’d be horrible. Fortunately, the team’s not going to do that. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So look at that list again, with some additions.
Problem Solution 1 Pineiro not good Hope for rebound 2 No third starter Bring back Moyer 3 No fourth starter 4 No fifth starter 5 Poor offense at third Hope for rebound 6 Poor offense at short Hope for development 7 Poor offense at center Hope for development 8 Poor offense at right Hope for rebound 9 No catcher 10 No second baseman Hope for development 11 No left fielder
That’s a lot of hoping already. But for a second, let’s just assume that the Mariners go with those solutions. That leaves us with:
| Problem | Solution | |
| 3 | No fourth starter | |
| 4 | No fifth starter | |
| 9 | No catcher | |
| 11 | No left fielder |
Fourth and fifth starters is a little misleading: adding two starters almost automatically moves Pineiro into the #5 slot. But for a moment, consider this as “the team needs two more starters.”
Let’s say the team decides to open the doors and spend like crazy: they’re going to get everyone (I know, I know, but bear with me for a minute).
A.J. Burnett signs for 5y, $50m
Millwood signs for 5y, $50m
Loaiza signs for 3y, $20m
Pineiro’s moved to the bullpen or Ellensburg
Jojima signs for 3y, $15m
Jacque Jones signs for 2y, $10m (yes, I’m with Dave on this)
Wow. What do we get?
Rotation: King Felix, A.J. Burnett, Loiaza, Millwood, Moyer
Lineup
C-R Jojima
1B-R Sexson
2B-R Lopez
SS-R Betancourt
3B-R Beltre
LF-L J. Jones
CF-L Reed
RF-L Ichiro
DH-L Ibanez
And then you throw some guys together for a decent bench, and the bullpen’s fine.
We’ve just gone tearing past $100m. And even though I tried to go a little high and long on those contracts, it’s likely that if the M’s went on a free-agent tear like that it would cost them even more than that. Some might argue that signing more than one premier free agent makes it easier to sign the next, but even if that were true, that’s not going to translate into a 15% off coupon.
This team wins 85 games easily, even without the crossed-finger guys coming through.
Could that team win a World Series? It could. As with all teams, there’s a lot of luck in who you draw and so on. But that’s a real, authentic contender.
What’s surprising, then, is that the gap between the team we have now and the team that could go worst-to-first isn’t that huge. The team wants to spend $85 million because the team’s ownership is a bunch of skinflint profiteers, but are the playoffs and a fair shot at World Series contention worth $20m? Even from a straight financial view, it might well be. And let’s be entirely clear: the team could run a $100m payroll and still be quite profitable. Asserting otherwise is silly: this team has revenue streams that make the Columbia River look like a neighborhood creek.
So there’s an off-season plan for you: go for it, and go for it now. All that money the team’s been socking away? Go find a hammer big enough to break open that piggy bank.
But we’ve discovered another problem that wasn’t on my original list.
Huge Problem Solution 1 No starters after Felix 2 Starting rotation sucks 3 Offense sucks 4 Tepid ownership
And as much as I’m all about proposing solutions and so forth, unless someone wants to buy the team and put me in Howard Lincoln’s seat (I’d be great, I promise, no scandals or anything) that’s one we can’t even touch.
This last problem is potentially the worst of all. If you want five cents, don’t ask for three. As long as the Mariners are content to put together high-but-not-too-high payrolls, content to authorize their baseball people to build 85-90 win teams, they’ll either succeed or fail at that. A 116-win juggernaut team out rising accidentally from this strategy is a miracle, and it’s not going to happen again.
The baseball people can get around this problem, and they’re doing it, in a way — by building a strong farm system, drafting well, signing international free agents like Felix, they hopefully can build a strong enough, young enough core that $80m can be spent around and take the team a lot farther. And then you hope that the powers-that-be don’t scratch their chins and ask “Why do we need to invest that money if we have three, four really good players only making $3m between them?”
Let’s say, then, that the $100m mark can’t be surpassed. Let’s say the bleating about $85m is real, for whatever reason. Bringing this team back to reality, you ditch some pitchers, Pineiro’s a starter instead of serving free coffee off I-90, and you’re back at Dave’s Plan or the real plan, whatever that is, and scraping.
What’s bad about blowing away the fictional budget here though is that this severely hampers their long-term flexibility while helping win in the short term. Say that Lopez doesn’t develop. You’re stuck with him until another one of the middle-infield guys develops. Reed never improves, you’re waiting on Adam Jones, and so on. The team would have a massive amount of money locked up in a set of players and only left-field would clear reasonably fast.
That’s not a good idea from a roster-construction standpoint, but that’s a whole other post.
Break $100 million. Get to the playoffs. Drink expensive champagne.
Here’s a novel idea — Moyer as a home starter
John McGrath in the Tacoma News Tribune (“Whupping the Times in M’s coverage for a couple years now”) writes that the M’s should consider Moyer as a home starter.
An equally good case can be made that Moyer figures to be as reliable as anybody else in a rotation whose only certain returning starter is 19-year-old Felix Hernandez.
My case? Go halfway.
Instead of paying Moyer $8 million to start 32 games, pay him $4 million to start 16 home games. He could accompany the team on trips – and be available to pitch in a pinch – but he’d concentrate on taking the mound at Safeco Field.
There’s no precedent for this arrangement; the closest parallel might’ve been the weekend passes extended to players with domestic military commitments.
That’s crazy! Who would think of such a thing? Besides me and Dave back in July.
Anyway, I this is a good idea and if gets any traction from distribution in print, so be it.