USSM Pizza Feed Information
After a little bit of delay, we have the official details of the Second Annual U.S.S. Mariner Pizza Feed. Last year was a big success, and so we’re doing it again. I’m not sure there’s a better excuse to get out of Christmas shopping at the mall then “Sorry, I can’t today, I have to go hang out with a couple hundred Mariner fans for five hours”.
In anticipation of a much larger crowd than we had last year, we’re shifting venues in the hope of accommodating up to 200 people. If you want to bring your spouse to prove that you aren’t the only one who cares about on base percentage and the rule 5 draft, tremendous. Have some friends who think clubhouse chemistry is the ultimate factor in winning? Bring ’em along. Despite our sabermetric leanings, this isn’t baseball’s version of a Star Trek convention. It’s just normal folks with an abnormal love of baseball getting together in the dead of winter to talk about the boys of summer. What’s not to enjoy?
Anyways, that’s the sales pitch. Here’s the nitty gritty details that you need to know:
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’ll work on getting a paypal account for those of you who absolutely abhor writing checks, but I’d prefer the paper trail of good old fashioned pen and paper.
If you have any general questions that may be of interest to everyone, put them in comments. Specific questions, send me an email. We’ll be announcing a few of the special guests as they confirm their attendance. Either way, it will be a great time, and you should come.
Many unanswered questions
Despite being sick as a dog this last week, I beat Halo 2 before the release of Halflife 2.
As much as I enjoyed Halo, and I like that Bungie creates huge, rich story lines, Halo 2 didn’t answer any of my questions about what’s going on from that game, and managed to confuse me even more. There’s a certain amount of mystery I appreciate, but at this point in the series, I feel like I should know much more about the fictional world and what’s going on than I do.
Free agent sweepstakes begins
Teams are making their runs at Beltran and Beltre as we speak. The M’s have an offer on Beltre in, I don’t know any details yet so I can’t tell you if it’s competitive or not.
First signing appears to be Omar Vizquez, who — I can’t stop giggling as I type this — signed a 3-year, $12.25m deal with the Giants. No, really, the Giants signed a 37-year old shortstop through his…. what are they thinking? This is the front-runner for the Raul Ibanez Signing Award for this off-season.
Also, over at the Seattle Times, Steve Kelley writes that the team should spend money this off-season, in a column that must have taken him seven, eight minutes to write. I weep for the poor squids that gave their lives so that Kelley could have the ink to run this stuff.
Managerial hiring
A reader submitted this New York Times article on how managers are hired, focusing particularly on the sham interviews minority candidates receive due to Selig’s mandate that all teams interview at least one.
It has a lot of interesting information on the Mariners hiring of Hargrove, and how Jerry Manuel feels he wasn’t seriously considered, in particular because his lunch meeting wasn’t long enough.
And while I’m sympathetic to his concern generally… maybe it was that he wasn’t doing so well. If I was interviewing managerial candidates, it’s almost certain that the more suitable I found them, the more I’d want to talk to them and get their thoughts on other aspects of their philosophy and managerial approach.
If the team sat down with someone and said “how do you deal with difficult personalities?” and (say) Terry Collins responded “I’m an aggressive guy, I’ll ride them pretty hard in the dugout, I’ll fight them in the clubhouse before the press came in…” that’s when the team’s probably signalling for the check.
What that doesn’t address, though, is some of the larger issues, like “Is Selig’s mandate helping?”
It’s a worthy goal. Beyond baseball’s shameful racial legacy, even today front offices do not reflect the composition of its fan base or players. There are far fewer managers who aren’t white than is reasonable. It isn’t only the “people hire people they’re comfortable with, and people are comfortable with those with the same background, by which I mean race.” Part of the problem goes beyond that: because GM and managerial positions are so heavily composed of retreads, it keeps the same dudes in the canidate pool forever, and if that pool’s mostly white dudes, the managers that come from it will be mostly white dudes.
Selig’s mandate is certainly well-intentioned: by saying that teams must interview a minority candidate, he’s hoping that in consistently altering the candidate set, he’ll alter the result set. And that he’ll get these candidates experience interviewing, which will make them better candidates for the next job opening.
And yet… it’s not working. The result is that a small set of guys (which varies by position and changes by year) get interviewed and then passed up for every job that comes up, and return to the pool. When Dave Stewart was getting a lot of GM interviews, for instance, it must have been like a series of very short vacations. Fly somewhere, take someone with him, stay in a nice hotel, see the sights, spend a couple of hours talking to some people who have little interest in him — and probably already know who they want to hire — and then fly home.
That’s the problem with the state of things: if teams are convinced that they know who they want to hire before they talk to the Selig-mandated candidate, there’s no point to the process.
If MLB really wants to make the sport a better reflection of those who play in its uniform and those who watch it, there are more things they can do that might help:
Find more coaching and managing opportunities for interested minority applicants in the minor league systems. Teams should be more willing to take risks on unknown candidates at the lower levels of the minor leagues than at the top, and it’s in the actual managing where quality managers prove their worth. As teams have more diverse candidates internally, moving up in the system, they should have more diverse candidates they’re comfortable with, know well, and are organizationally happy to see succeed.
Expand the candidate pool, and alter the interview process. Many teams, faced with a vacancy, go through a process like this:
– We want Manager X
– Let’s interview some guys we kind of want
– Oh, and find some minority guy to interview too
– Interview Manager X
– Boy, he’s good, and his contract demands were quite reasonable, let’s hire him
– Oh yeah, send the mail boy out to interview those other three guys
It’s like the way the Mariners pursued players last year, and it means that someone other than Manager X has, as Manuel observes, pretty much blow them away with a song-and-dance routine that convinces the team that they were all wrong from the start. Once a team, or anyone, has made a decision, it’s extremely hard to talk them out of it. Sometimes the decision leaks before they’re through with the process, which makes it even more of a farce.
I’m against interfering with the hiring process of anyone in general, but there’s a change baseball can make here. Teams should submit a list of candidates they intend to interview to MLB, and MLB should return the list in random order. It’s lame, but it’s potentially a huge difference. If Manager X doesn’t go first, the interviews to those who go before him will open up their strengths and weaknesses for consideration. Instead of every other candidate being interviewed as not-Manager X, who already confirmed he was a dreamboat, the situation may be reversed. Manager X will face a much different interview, even if they’re still high on him. Hopefully, teams will think “We still like this guy a lot, but both the first guy had a great background working with pitchers, which we need, and the second guy’s done a lot of good work rebuilding, like we’re doing…” Manager X has to really interview for the job against the strengths of the other candidates, and maybe with the cartoon hearts out of their eyes, teams will make different decisions.
And once they’ve had honest discussions with the other candidates, those other canidates will be given more consideration for coaching opportunities or managerial positions elsewhere in the organization, which then helps them expand their experience, and changes the candidate pool for the better.
Long Term Contracts
One of the popular themes in every offseason discussion is the inherent risk of multi-year contracts. MLB has gone through a market correction the past two years with contracts coming down in both annual average value and length. Every year, we see teams trying to dump albatross contracts from players who were supposed to be the keys to their franchise. On the other end of the spectrum, we also have seen the Mariners take the risk-averse nature to the extreme, losing out on opportunities to acquire impact players due to their fear of the bad contract.
Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a ton of research published on the topic. For all the time spent writing about baseball, I find it rather amazing that no one has spent the time breaking down the success rates of long term contracts. I don’t have the time to delve into this topic too deeply, so anybody looking for inspiration on a topic, take this as a suggestion; it’s work I’d love to read.
I was interested enough, however, to do a bit of cursory work. Read more
Sexson speaks
In an interview with the East Valley Tribune, Richie Sexson talks about his contract desires.
“I have so much confidence in my shoulder right now, it’s hard for me to sign a deal like that,” Sexson said. “Say I take a deal of that nature and sprain my ankle . . .”
Reports of a three-year, $30 million offer by Arizona are not accurate, Sexson said, because not all of the deal is guaranteed. According to sources, Sexson would get the maximum value in the contract by reaching a threshold of about 120 games played in either 2005 or 2006.
In 2001-03 with Milwaukee, Sexson played in 477 of a possible 486 games, so he believes his durability should not be an issue.
“There’s always a way to work around everything,” he said. “(But) it’s tough for me to sign an incentive-laden contract after all the (rehabilitation) time I put in.”
The D-Backs say their medical team estimates a 10 percent chance his shoulder injury — suffered on a checked swing and aggravated on another before surgery — could recur.
“I think everybody’s 10 percent,” Sexson said. “You’re 10 percent. You might bump into a door and it might come out. You can’t put 100 percent on everybody’s shoulder.”
Honestly, these quotes annoy me. Sexson is not like any other player on the market. He finished the season the DL and has not played an inning of baseball since tearing his labrum. For a team to believe he’s completely healthy, they have one option; believe the self-serving comments of him and his agent. Considering his shoulder is completely uninsurable, that’s not exactly a good foundation to be making a multi-million dollar guarantee on.
Sexson is damaged goods, and he’s going to be treated as such in the free market. His options, really, are to take a 1 year deal and prove that he’s fully healthy, then cash in next offseason, or take a longer deal at a below market rate with contingency plans for the club in case the shoulder isn’t healthy.
If Sexson and his agent demand a fully guaranteed second and third years of the contract, walk away. He’s just not worth the risk.
Dave’s long-term plan for 2004
Given all the discussion about Dave’s last post, I’m a little surprised no one’s looked at what Dave wrote about this last year, which I thought was awesome. And generally, while going back and looking at what-ifs is… pretty pointless, I thought this was interesting.
Read more
Dave’s Plan
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote up my predictions for what the M’s would do this offseason. With the start of free agency only eleven hours away, now it’s my turn to extrapolate on how I would rebuild this team. I did a short suggestion write-up and a longer team construction post last year, and as you can see, the team basically gave me the finger, signing four players from the “Stay the Heck Away” category. I’m more optimistic that the team’s thinking this year is at least within the same stratosphere as my own. Keep in mind that this is entirely hypothetical, and I’m making a lot of assumptions on possibilities that we can’t know are true or not. An explanation of the moves will be found below the roster. All the salaries listed will be actual payout in 2005, rather than average annual value.
Position Player Salary C Olivo 0.4 1B Ibanez 3.8 2B Boone 9.0 3B Beltre 9.0 SS Reese 1.5 LF Kearns 3.0 CF Drew 10.0 RF Ichiro 12.0 DH Jacobsen 0.3 C Wilson 1.0 Inf Spiezio 3.1 Out Reed 0.3 Util Leone 0.3 Util F. Lopez 1.0 SP1 Clement 6.0 SP2 Madritsch 0.3 SP3 Pineiro 4.2 SP4 Meche 3.0 SP5 Moyer 7.5 Closer Guardado 4.5 Setup Osuna 2.0 Setup Sherrill 0.3 Relief Hasegawa 3.0 Relief Putz 0.3 Long Atchison 0.3 Total: 86.1
Free Agent Signings:
Adrian Beltre: 7 years, $84 million, escalating from $9 million in 2005
Pokey Reese: 1 year, $1.5 million, club option for 2nd year at $2 million with $250,000 buyout
J.D. Drew: 3 years, $33 million, mutual option for 4th year at $14 million
Dan Wilson: 1 year, $1 million
Matt Clement: 3 years, $22 million, escalating from $6 million in 2005
Antonio Osuna: 1 year, $2 million, club option for 2nd year at $2.5 million, $300,000 buyout
Trades:
Ryan Franklin, Clint Nageotte, Shin-Soo Choo, and Julio Mateo to Cincinatti for Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez.
Randy Winn to Baltimore for Matt Riley
Explanations by position:
Catcher:
Olivo is neither as good as he was in Chicago or as bad as he was in Seattle. Considering the available options, giving him a chance to start is the best option. Dan Wilson’s return is simply a public relations move coming off a season where the team cannot afford to alienate any more of its fans. Finding a reasonably priced backup catcher who would be a significant enough upgrade on Wilson to offset the loss of goodwilll from sending Wilson packing is nearly impossible. Despite the fact that he doesn’t really belong in MLB, I would bring Wilson back for one last season simply as a gesture of good faith.
First Base:
I’m not a believer in spending big money on a position that is this easy to fill. Ibanez is a liability in left field with the glove, and his defensive limitations can be hidden, somewhat, with a shift to first base. This also allows for an easy platoon with Jacobsen against left-handers. Spiezio fills in as defensive replacement.
Second Base:
Boone’s contract is immovable, so you simply hope he performs well enough to be trade bait at the deadline. The acquisition of Felipe Lopez gives the team a legitimate option to turn to if Boone’s decline continues.
Shortstop:
The crop of free agent shortstops are simply not inviting. Pass on the overpriced and overrated and offer Pokey Reese a chance to play most every day for a pittance. His defense will be a boon to the pitching staff, and Felipe Lopez can provide offensive support if his bat fails to show up at all. The hope is that Lopez’s improvements are real enough where he can claim the everyday job during the season, relegating Reese back into the utility player role he was born for.
Third Base:
Yes, it’s overspending, but not to the point where it’s going to be a burden even if Beltre performs to peak level. There’s some built in risk, but the Mariners need a franchise talent, and 25 year old MVP candidates at premium positions aren’t available very often. Take the risk.
Left Field:
The Reds just don’t know what to do with Austin Kearns. He’s been working out at third base during the offseason, but that experiment isn’t going well. He can certainly be had for the right price, and the hope is that a package that brings the Reds an innings eater, a league minimum young reliever, and two solid prospects while saving them approximately $1 million in 2005 salary is enough to make the deal. Kearns has an all-star bat and is one of the few opportunities to buy low on a potential elite player. He’s simply a 500 at-bat season away from being a monster, and he will never be available for this little again. Reed spells Kearns and provides help as the fourth outfielder.
Center Field:
We’ve been talking up J.D. Drew’s bat for quite a while, and now that Boras has stated his willingness to play center field, he moves up the list. His range is adequate for the position, while his offense makes him a superstar. The health risks are definitely there, but on a three year contract, the payoff is high enough to justify the move. Will this contract be enough to talk him into leaving Atlanta? Probably not in a perfect world, but the Braves are feeling a severe budget crunch and may be hard pressed making Drew a legitimate offer. Reed and Ichiro’s presence on the roster provide insurance in case of injury.
Right Field:
Ichiro’s still pretty good. Kearns moves to right field when Ichiro needs a day off, with Reed sliding into left.
Designated Hitter:
Bucky deserves a chance to at least enter the season as the regular DH. At $300,000, there’s no risk, and he offers potential of average performance for peanuts. Leone should get some time here, as well.
#1 starter:
Matt Clement is a solid pitcher with enough positive markers that its reasonable to believe that he could take a Jason Schmidt-style leap. The best value pitcher on the market, and Safeco will only help him.
#2 starter:
Madritsch was one of the premier pitchers in the American League in the second half. While he’s as good as he’s going to get, the ability to keep the ball in the park and throw consistent strikes makes him a solid bet to be an above average starter for several years.
#3 starter:
Pineiro’s health is still a big question mark, but he’s a solid third starter if he can overcome the injuries. Matt Riley’s acquisition is entirely driven by the questions surrounding Pineiro’s health, and he would be first in line for this rotation spot should Pineiro not be ready to go on opening day.
#4 starter:
There’s valid evidence to expect Meche to be an above average starter next year. There’s valid evidence to expect him to join Scott Sanders in the Christmas-Tree-Hall-Of-Fame. There’s valid evidence to expect him to spend a significant part of 2005 on the disabled list. Hello crapshoot!
#5 starter:
Moyer’s done as an effective starting pitcher and is simply holding this place warm until someone not eligible for social security takes his job away from him. Hopefully, that’s Matt Riley, once Pineiro proves healthy.
Closer:
Guardado is not likely to be ready in 2005, but since he’s on the roster for $4.5 million and wants to pitch, you might as well try and let him. The M’s are out $9 million over the next two years anyways, so there’s little downside to hoping the rest-and-rehab plan pans out. Don’t ask me to hold my breath and bet on Guardado finishing the year healthy, though.
Setup:
The loss of Rafael Soriano was a crippling blow, and this team needs a right-handed arm that can provide solid relief work. Antonio Osuna has been one of the more underrated relievers in baseball for some time, but his injury history will probably keep him on one year contracts for the rest of his career. He’s a good risk.
Setup:
George Sherill pitched his way onto the opening day roster last year. He’s probably not going to be outstanding, but for $300,000, he’s a great fit as a late inning lefty reliever.
Relief:
Shigetoshi Hasegawa isn’t going anywhere with his $3 million contract, so you just hope that he can smoke-n-mirror his way to another decent enough campaign.
Relief:
J.J. Putz is overvalued by the club, but pitched well enough at times to earn an extended look. Again, for the league minimum, there’s very little risk.
Long Relief:
Scott Atchison actually pitched the best of the Tacoma relief corps but got little notice for it. Stuff isn’t good enough to be a great weapon out of the pen, but a career as the next Ryan Franklin is definitely within reach. A great swing guy for the league minimum.
The roster isn’t good enough to rebuild into a favorite to win the west in one offseason, so my theoretical moves are designed towards building a solid core to go forward with. Players on the wrong side of 30 are mostly avoided and holes that cannot be filled for the longterm and patched with one year contracts of semi-useful players. The emphasis is on acquiring talents who have potential to be performing at a level similar to their peak value in two to three years, which leads to the likes of Beltre, Drew, and Clement and away from Delgado, Sexson, and Varitek.
Realistically, the team listed above is probably going to win 80-85 games in 2005 with the chance to get into wild card contention with several positive breaks. It is designed to give opportunities to younger players at little cost, while allowing breakthrough minor league performers to move up without dumping a high priced veteran. With most expecting Felix Hernandez to be in the big leagues in late summer and Rafael Soriano potentially returning in 2006, the young talent would be in place to make a run in the latter half of the decade. By keeping the payroll flexibility in 2006 to add another impact player next offseason and building around players with a chance to sustain or improve their current performances, the M’s would set themselves up as a team on the rise. Honestly, it’s been about nine years since the team has been on its way up, and it is high time for this team to return to a place of hope.
Daisuke Matsuzaka whips MLB all-stars
Complete game, one-run outing. I haven’t found a box score yet, but it looks like he struck out six, walked no one, and gave up five hits. The ESPN article mentions that he’s still a candidate to come over this year, but doesn’t offer any quotes or evidence to back that up. I’ve read differently elsewhere, so I’m not sure exactly what’s going on.
Added by Dave: No one in an MLB front office believes he’s getting posted. He’s almost certainly staying in Japan.
Leone For Third
If you don’t read Jeff Sullivan’s blog, you’re missing out. And now, he’s escaped from blogger and has joined us in the WordPress revolution. Go check out his new digs.