Ron Villone
Well, it’s Christmas, so I guess you can’t blame Ron Villone for wishing.
“A two-year contract would be nice,” the 34-year-old said from his offseason home in New Jersey, “and I definitely would have to put Seattle on the top of the list.”
Among other things that would be “nice” for me this December:
Nikon 80-200 2.8
Epson 2200
VW Jetta V
I don’t have a prayer of getting any of these things for Christmas. I don’t even have the cajones to ask. Though, honestly, it’d be a better investment for the Mariners to buy me some new wheels than it would be to hand Ron Villone a two year contract. More fun from the article.
He appeared in 56 games, going 2-2 with a 5.43 ERA in 10 starts…
Okay, so, let’s be honest, he was awful as a starter. Awful.
and was 6-4 with a 2.95 ERA in 46 relief appearances.
But was a moderately effective reliever. All while posting mediocre ratios that point to the success being related to non-repeatable skills. Remember 2003 Shigetoshi Hasegawa? Meet the left-handed version.
The M’s bullpen for 2005 currently consists of Eddie Guradado, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, J.J. Putz, George Sherrill, Julio Mateo, and Scott Atchison. Is Villone significantly better than any of these pitchers?
Handing Ron Villone a two year contract would be a gigantic waste of resources. I’m not in favor of bringing him back at all, but if the team is required by law to have a left-hander over the age of 30, can we please limit the damage to one season?
Kendry Morales
By request, here’s my quick take on the Angels signing of Kendry Morales to a six year major league contract, including a $3 million signing bonus, with incentives that could push the total possible value to $10 million.
It’s a big risk, one I’m not sure is justifiable. Everybody who saw him agrees that he’s got work to do before he’s an impact major league player, and most teams wanted him to start the season in the minors. The signing is essentially equivalent to contracts handed out to the top selections in the amateur draft the past few seasons. By comparison, the Brewers gave Rickie Weeks, a college player drafted #2 overall and believed to be not far from the majors, a 5 year major league contract with $3.6 million signing bonus, $4.8 million guaranteed (including the bonus), and a $5.5 million value if all incentives are reached. The Angels paid Morales comparably to an elite draft choice. Is he that kind of player?
I doubt it. There’s a reason teams just don’t select first baseman that highly in the draft. Not one amateur first baseman was selected last June. Billy Butler, taken #11 overall, will likely end up at first eventually despite being selected as a third baseman, but the fact that a player with his offensive abilities slipped to the eleventh spot speaks to how highly teams value defensive ability in their prospects. If you’re going to be an impact first baseman, you’re going to have to hit an absolute ton, and the hitting tool is by far the hardest to scout. Compound that with the limited information clubs had in regards to Morales compared to a normal prospect, and the ability to project his bat at the major league level is even more difficult. If he doesn’t hit, he’s not going to be worth a darn, and the Angels will be out around $5-6 million. That’s a significant amount of money to any franchise.
Morales may work out and become a solid contributor. But by including incentives that make his total contract worth $10 million, the odds of him being a huge bargain are pretty slim. The best case scenario is that they’ve got a good player making pretty good money. It just doesn’t seem that the reward justifies the significant risk in this signing. I’m glad the M’s didn’t make this kind of commitment to Morales.
Giambi steroid testimony leaks
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Jason Giambi testified before a grand jury that he used steroids in 2003 and for two years before that. The 2003 steroids were obtained from Gary Anderson, who is Barry Bonds’ trainer. Jeremy Giambi, who you may remember from his brief prospect-dom, also testified that he used steroids. You can construct a whole timeline here of what he took and when if you want.
Or, if you want it second-hand:MSNBC link
MLB.com link
I don’t care what your stance on this is, if this is true than you have to admit that the continuing leaks out of this investigation are ridiculous. Beyond being illegal, why would anyone cooperate with a grand jury investigation any more than they absolutely had to if they knew thier testimony would become public? Especially in a case like this?
On a larger note… every time I think it would be hard for this mess to get uglier, I’m shocked at how easily it overcomes my doubts.
To me, the tough part is (as the Chronicle notes) that Clomid’s side effects include
Headaches, hot flashes. Can exacerbate pituitary gland tumors.
Which is what the New York Daily News reported Giambi suffered from this year — in a story that, oddly, mentions that Giambi was taking corticosteroids (which are not performance enhancers) as part of his treatment for the tumor, steroids which caused him to test positive for steroids but not the ones he’d actually been taking since 2001.
To Jeremy Giambi’s admissions — knowing this, it might offer some insight into why the A’s purged him abruptly in mid-2002, getting almost nothing (well, John Mabry, who performed well for them) in exchange for Jeremy, who was hitting .274/.390/.471 at the time (and was cheap to play). Even if the A’s didn’t know, which seems unlikely, they must have suspected, and I see how something like his reputed partying could easily suddenly tip the team against him.
Really, if you’re a GM and you knew or suspected with a good degree of confidence that a player on your team was using illegal steroids, and that player was showing troubling signs of getting into other behaviors that potentially could affect their play, like staying out all night on road trips, isn’t there a good chance you’d try to make him someone else’s problem as fast as you could? Even knowing that because baseball’s a small game, you’re going to have to be up-front about the why, and hope someone’s willing to take the gamble and give you a token back to show the fans?
Anyway. This whole thing stinks.
Delgado, Sexson
David Andriesen of the PI writes about the team’s free agent pursuits, and it’s reassuring:
The two top-tier free agents are Carlos Delgado and Richie Sexson, and the Mariners are thought to be after both. Contrary to recent reports, however, the twin pursuits are about keeping options open and will almost certainly not lead to acquiring both players.
“Recent reports” being the Seattle Times, mostly. Anyway, yay!
One possible hitch for the public relations-minded Mariners is Delgado’s quiet refusal to stand for the national anthem, a conviction that has rubbed many wrong.
This is not true. Delgado, when it’s possible, doesn’t stand and take his hat off for “God Bless America” which, as you probably know by now, I detest hearing at baseball games (I’ll spare you that argument for now). He avoids being on the field when it’s sung if he can, so as to not make it an issue.
To quote the Balitmore Sun, for one:
Delgado isn’t sitting out the national anthem. He’s sitting out a song that is played in some ballparks during the seventh-inning stretch at the direction of baseball commissioner Bud Selig.
Other articles that talk about this are available all over the place. Newsday. I’d cite the New York Times (July 21, 2004) on this, but you have to buy the article and… no. But here:
Last March when the United States invaded Iraq, Delgado, in his own quiet way, said that for him, enough was enough. He had stood for “God Bless America” through the 2003 season but vowed not to do so this season.”
This should not be a big deal. It’s not the national anthem. And even if it was… so what? If Seattle can’t accept a good guy who is anti-war, I’m going to be even more disappointed in humanity than normal.
Pizza Feed Reminder
Yes, I’m back to pimp for the second annual U.S.S. Mariner Pizza Feed. We’ve got a good sized crowd confirmed already, but still have some space available if you’d like to come and talk baseball with the gang from USSM, a large group of readers, and some special guests. And there’s food. Details below.
When?: December 18th from 12 pm to 5 pm.
Where?: Horace Mann Elementary School in Redmond.
Who?: Derek, Jason, Dave, you, and various special guests who you’ll enjoy meeting.
How much?: $15 per person
Is there food?: Enough pizza, salad, and sides for lunch and a small dinner (New York Vinnie excluded)
Great! Now what? If you’re going to attend, you must do three things:
1. Email us with the name of each person you’re confirming attendance for.
2. You’ll receive an address in response to mail your check to. Payment in advance is required; your spot is not guaranteed until we receive your money.
3. Show up on the 18th.
We’re getting close to the deadline for confirming your attendance, since I have to place a rather large food order in advance. Hope to see you all on the 18th.
Benitez signs
This off-season… I don’t…
Armando Benitez to the Giants, 3y, $21m.
“He’s the prototype,” general manager Brian Sabean said. “He has been and will be a dominant force at the end of the game. … He’s a guy we had our eye on.”
He’s an early version of something used as the basis for later production? Wouldn’t you want the production version?
More rumor mill fodder
On the ever-continuing-wheel-of-Finnigan, he cranks out another column contradicting things he recently wrote. Remember this?
Confirming that yesterday, an independent source said the club would fit the sluggers into the defense by asking Sexson to play left field much of the time.
“What they are hoping is to have a rotation of Delgado, Sexson and (Raul) Ibanez for first base, left and DH,” the source said.
Well, now, we’ve got this:
If the Mariners come to agreement with one of the sluggers, that would knock the offer to the other off the table.
The available money has fluctuated from $13 million to $16 million and now is mentioned at between $15-16 million.
I’ll repeat what I’ve been saying ever since the offseason started. Patience, folks. The M’s aren’t going to do anything until the winter meetings. All this stuff is just filler.
Wilson signs with Reds – 2y, $8m!
Paul Wilson, that is. Sorry, slow news week.
Ichiro at the Key
As noted here, Ichiro was indeed at the Sonics game tonight. He got a long standing ovation when first announced, though he had to be prodded into even standing up in the first place. Later in the game, Squatch convinced him to throw t-shirts into the crowd. Unlike when Bret Boone did the same thing a few years ago, Ichiro didn’t go all out and try to hit the upper bowl; he seemed content to lob them to the rich folk. He actually looked more comfortable than I thought he would, given how much we’ve heard about his desire for privacy, etc. As far as I could tell, Ichiro and his wife were seated between Mr. and Mrs. Howard Schultz. Perhaps there’s some sort of Ichiro-Starbucks marketing deal in the works.
Umpire negotiations
The 2000 agreement with the World Umpires Association expires December 31st. There’s been remarkably little rumblings about this, which I hope is a good thing. The quality of umpiring has improved dramatically in four years since Richie Phillips botched a labor action (having agreed to not take collective labor action in the agreement his union signed with baseball, he encouraged umpires to resign together to force a new contract and MLB, sensing opportunity, accepted the resignations and… well, there’s a new union now).
The only substantial issue I can see is the conflict between MLB’s quest to make umpiring better through the application of technology (through Questec) and the union’s opposition to any evaluation based on what they believe is badly flawed technology.
This isn’t as simple as it would seem at first. The union, in trying to protect the interests of its current members, doesn’t want outside evaluation because it gives the evaluating body power over compensation and, potentially, promotion and post-season assignements. MLB wants umps to call the strike zone consistently, and is willing to apply technology to solve the problem.
What’s different about this year from 2000 and previous negotiations is that WUA’s consistently demonstrated that they’re willing to improve the quality of their work, and their work has made the game itself better. If they and baseball can look at this contentious issue and try to find a way to incorporate advancements with the goal of making umpiring better, there’s an agreeable compromise to be found.