Offseason Predictions
I’ve still got a ways to go on my short articles on each important free agent on the market, but now that the offseason is actually upon us, I’d like to take a quick break and post what I’m expecting to occur this winter. Now, like any prognostication, odds are that most of these will be wrong in some way or another. Some of these beliefs are based on some things I’ve been told, while others are more speculative in nature. If you’ve been reading the blog for a few months, you’ll probably be able to tell which is which. So, without too many more caveats, here is basic timeline that I believe will at least somewhat resemble this coming offseason and the Mariners involvement.
Two week exclusive negotation window ending November 10th
During the next two weeks, teams have exclusive rights to negotiate with their own free agents without interfernece from other teams. Often, when a player and team both want to extend the contract, the player will reach an agreement without ever filing for free agency. The Mariners who fall into this category are Ron Villone and Dan Wilson. While the M’s are talking to Villone, I expect him to file for free agency, and the Mariners to pursue other options while keeping Villone as a fallback plan. I believe Wilson will be re-signed to a one year contract before the end of the month. In addition, the team will likely exercise the $1.5 million option on Jolbert Cabrera, bringing him back for another year of hacking utilitiness.
I also expect Randy Winn to be traded during this timeframe. The M’s are going to pursue several outfielders in free agency and are expected to move Winn off the roster in order to free up salary and an open position. Coming off another solid average season, he has a bit of trade value, and will likely be part of a package to acquire a veteran pitcher, either a backend starter or more likely a late inning reliever. Houston, Florida, and Baltimore have been mentioned as possibilities. If forced to pick the most likely destination, I’d guess Baltimore, with Jorge Julio being the player coming back to Seattle. The Mariners would likely include a pitcher in the deal as well.
Beginning of free agency, mid-November to December 1st
If the Astros don’t reach an agreement with Carlos Beltran before he files for free agency, I expect the Mariners to come out with a “take it or leave it” offer in the range of 6 years, $95 million and a 2005 salary of about $9 million. The Mariners would love to have Beltran and will give Boras an opportunity to set the market with a contract larger than what Vladimir Guerrero commanded last year, but they have little interest in getting involved in a prolonged negotiation. If Boras intends to keep Beltran on the market and create a bidding war, the Mariners will retract their offer and move on quickly. I don’t expect Boras to accept the Mariners terms, and I believe he’ll eventually sign with the Chicago Cubs for about the same money, perhaps a little bit more, than what the Mariners original offer will be.
After moving off of Beltran, the organization will turn to target B, who many in the front office prefer anyways. Again, the team will come out bidding strong with an offer intended to knock the Dodgers out of the running; probably something in the 6 year, $80 million range, again with a significantly lower 2005 salary. I don’t believe anyone else in the market will match the Mariners offer, and I expect Adrian Beltre to be the Mariners starting third baseman next spring.
With Beltre under contract, the Mariners will turn to their #1 pitching target, Matt Clement. Hoping that a mediocre record will deflate interest and that other teams will be distracted by bidding wars for Pedro Martinez, Carl Pavano, and Brad Radke, I expect the M’s to come in with a midlevel offer of something in the 3 year, $18 million range. Clement won’t accept that, and negotiations will eventually lead to him signing a deal in the neighborhood of 3 years, $24 million with a 4th year team option and a $1 million plus buyout. Again, expect Clement’s 2005 salary to be quite a bit less than the average yearly value of the contract, perhpas in the $5-6 million range. If Clement decides to sign elsewhere, look for the M’s to offer a similar deal to Kris Benson.
Middle of free agency leading up to Winter Meetings through December 13th
By this time, the Mariners will have committed about $70 million to the roster, leaving about $15 million to fill out the roster. The last “main” piece will be either an outfielder or a first baseman, which will determine Ibanez’s position on the club in 2005. Expect the M’s to make an offer to Richard Hidalgo in the range of a 3 year, $18 million contract with incentives that would push it significantly higher. I expect Hidalgo to get a better offer, however, and the M’s to eventually make a deal with Arizona to acquire Shea Hillenbrand, who will earn about $3.5 million in arbitration next season to play as the everyday first baseman.
They also want to bring in a veteran shortstop as Jose Lopez insurance and will be willing to spend a couple million on a backup who can play several positions. Expect us to be the lucky winners of Deivi Cruz, probably for something in the 1 year, $2 million range.
The last bench spot will likely be filled with by an outfielder. The front office has a lot of Todd Hollandsworth fans, and he’s coming off a career year, but with a projected outfield of Ibanez, Reed, and Ichiro, the team probably needs a right-hander in this spot. Gabe Kapler is a potential target, and don’t count out Juan Gonzalez, despite his health problems. If he finds the market completely uninterested, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the M’s offer him a nonguaranteed contract with a ton of incentives. I’ll pencil in Kapler for $1 million here, but this spot is pretty fluid.
End of free agency, non-tender period
Due to the questionable health surrounding Pineiro and Guardado, I expect the M’s to take at least one flier on a free agent reliever released by another club. There are just too many possibilities to speculate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the team picked up a non-tendered veteran and signed them to a low base salary, high incentive contract. Think Ron Villone, part two. It could be Villone himself.
So, what does this expected roster look like?
Position Player Salary C Wilson 1.0 1B Hillenbrand 3.5 2B Boone 9.0 3B Beltre 9.0 SS Lopez 0.3 LF Ibanez 3.8 CF Reed 0.3 RF Ichiro 12.0 DH Jacobsen 0.3 C Olivo 0.4 Util Cabrera 1.5 Inf Spiezio 3.1 OF Kapler 1.0 Util Cruz 2.0 SP1 Clement 6.0 SP2 Pineiro 4.2 SP3 Meche 3.0 SP4 Madritsch 0.3 SP5 Moyer 7.5 Long Franklin 2.4 RHP Putz 0.3 RHP Hasegawa 3.0 LHP Sherrill 0.3 Setup Julio 0.5 Closer Guardado 4.5 Total 79.2
There are some pretty prominant names not included in that final twenty five. Most obviously, Willie Bloomquist. I don’t expect him to be on the 25 man roster next spring. He may stick with the organization if he’s willing to go back to Tacoma, or they may designate him for assignment. Either way, Cabrera is likely going to inherit the main utility spot, with Deivi Cruz taking over the backup middle infield responsibilities. That leaves Bloomquist on the outside looking in. On the pitching side, there’s no room for Julio Mateo or Scott Atchison, though both could make the club if Guardado isn’t healthy or if Putz struggles in spring training. Atchison or Mateo could also be included in several deals, as their value to other clubs is likely higher than it is to the Mariners.
So, what do I think about this group? It’s a decent start, but it won’t make the playoffs next year. Beltre is a good building block, but he’s surrounded by too many easy outs in the line-up. The offense can be reasonably expected to get nothing from catcher or shortstop and needs to hope for average at best production from DH, center field, and left field. The bench is still going to be poor. At best, the team will finish in the middle of the pack in runs scored.
The rotation is improved, though questions abound. If Meche and Pineiro are healthy, it could be one of the better rotations in the league. If either one of them misses significant time, there’s trouble. The bullpen hinges on Guardado being healthy and Julio improving on his mediocre ’04 season. It’s an average at best group, but at least it costs a lot less than the average bullpens we’ve built in the past.
I’d probably suggest that this team could win 82-85 games, but there’s enough young talent to build around that its finally a team headed in the right direction. The acquistions I expect and won’t like are probably going to be short term moves without a big commitment.
This is what I expect from the club this offseason. It’s a cash outlay of around $24 million and a long term commitment to a free agent, both of which would be unprecedented in team history. There’s a first time for everything, right?
Watson turns down DC, Gillick to GM?
So the fat rumor today is that after Bob Watson turned down a chance to take the Expos job, Pat Gillick is now the leading candidate. It seems weird that instead of leaving a barren wasteland of a franchise, he’d be taking one over, but maybe guilt over his work with Toronto, Baltimore, et cetera finally overcame his reluctance to take such a difficult assignment.
Minor League Free Agents
This year’s minor leauge free agents posted at Baseball America.
As predicted by Dave, AJ Zapp’s off to greener pastures.
One of the ways good teams build their rosters is through minor league free agents: the A’s, for example, spend quality time building a roster in Sacramento that can help the major league roster if things go wrong.
Note that Jack Cust is available to be re-united with Hargrove, who gave him all of what, 10? 20? at-bats when Hargrove had the chance.
Champs
Congratulations to the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox.
BP to stay
Mike Hargrove has retained Bryan Price as pitching coach for the 2005 season, choosing the organization’s recommendation over his friend, Mark Wiley. However, Price is entering the final year of his contract, and I’d imagine that this is probably his last season as Mariner pitching coach. If the team’s pitching struggles, Hargrove will likely look to replace him with his own man. If the team turns it around, Price will have suitors elsewhere, and the cost of keeping him could be prohibitive.
Carl Pavano
At the beginning of the 2004 season, you could have given me 30 or 40 chances to name the most coveted free agent starter on the upcoming market, and I’m still not sure I would have gotten around to mentioning Carl Pavano. A prized Red Sox prospect coming up through the farm system (he was the main player given up in the Pedro Martinez trade), he had never lived up to expectations. His performance record consisted of three and a half below average seasons in Montreal and a year and a half of league average production in Florida. In just over 700 career innings of work, he had posted a 4.59 ERA with peripheral stats that supported the assertion that he was an innings eater at best.
2004 saw him post an ERA of 3.00, 37 percent better than league average, and post an 18-8 record and a VORP of 64.4, fourth highest among major league starters. Seemingly out of nowhere, Pavano became a legitimate Cy Young contender, mixing both durability and excellence at the age or 28. What changed to cause him to go from back end starter to ace? Look at his ratios for the past three seasons:
H/9IP K/BB HR/9IP K/9IP 2002 1.28 2.04 1.25 6.09 2003 1.01 2.71 0.85 5.96 2004 0.95 2.84 0.65 5.63
His walk rate has remained fairly steady, but he’s been able to cut his hits and home runs allowed. Usually, this would be accompanied by a higher strikeout rate, but Pavano is actually missing less bats now than he was during his mediocre years. Peripherally, there is very little difference between his average 2003 and superb 2004 seasons. So what the heck happened?
Honestly, it was probably luck. Based on his peripherals and an average defensive support, he should have posted a 3.57 ERA; still solid, but a big step down from his actual performance. It appears that a good percentage of the steps forward he took this year aren’t repeatable talent, but more good fortune.
Pavano’s skillset is one that can succeed, but much like Brad Radke, whom we profiled earlier, he’s going to be prone to inconsistency. As a ball-in-play starter, he will be more susceptible to the ups and downs of random variation than a three true outcomes starter like Matt Clement. 2004 was the peak of what one could expect from Pavano, given his stuff and command. Whoever signs him will pay the premium value for a pitcher who cannot reasonably be expected to pitch any better than he did last year, and should be expected to return closer to performances matching his career lines.
In all the talk about Adrian Beltre’s breakout season (or fluke, depending on your point of view), Carl Pavano’s leap from mediocrity to stardom appears to have the least potential to continue. Pavano, while coming off a tremendous year, is going to price himself into a market that will almost certainly make him a bad investment. He’s a great player to avoid.
Edgar pre-game
According to reports in both the PI and Times, Edgar will win the 2004 Roberto Clemente Award, which recognizes “the player who best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to his team.” (from MLB.com)
If that’s the case, we should see a pre-game ceremony before tonight’s Game 3 of the World Series.
AOL commenting
Real quick — because of the way AOL routes its traffic, getting rid of some particularly heinous trollers has meant that other AOL users have seen their comments delayed, so they get seen by a USSM person before they go live. So if you’re cool, and post a comment that doesn’t immediately appear, don’t sweat it, it’ll show up soon enough. I’m working on trying to figure out how to more specifically target offenders, but in the meantime, sorry for the inconvenience.
USSMariner Feed #2
Last winter, we held the first ever U.S.S. Mariner pizza feed, with about 50 of you showing up to hang out for several hours and talk about the M’s. So, back by popular demand, we’re going to host another pizza feed this year. Thanks to the pretty dramatic increase in readership we’ve experienced in the past twelve months, Piecora’s isn’t going to be large enough to handle us this time around. We’re looking into renting meeting halls capable of holding a couple hundred people. This feed may be a bit more like a conference than last years gathering, so before we get too far into the planning, I’d like to get some feedback from you guys on a few topics.
1. Tentative date is Saturday, December 18th. No real feedback on this necessary, as I doubt this date changes.
2. There is a moderate chance that we could get Bill Bavasi to attend, at least for a portion of the time, depending on his schedule. This is going to be the weekend after the winter meetings, so the big transactions of the offseason will likely be done by the feed. Obviously, having him (or any member of the front office) there presents a completely different dynamic than if he’s not. We had Chris Antonetti and Neil Huntington, assistant GMs for the Indians, come and speak to the 30 or so fans that attended the BP Cleveland feed last year, and they were remarkably candid and added a great deal to the feed. However, the entire atmosphere of the crowd changed when they arrived, and I’m not sure which you guys would prefer; a chance to have a Q&A with our GM or a chance to hang out with a few hundred fans and say whatever you want about the offseason moves. If Bavasi or another member of the front office does come, we’re going to demand that you treat them with respect and realize they’re giving up some valuable time to be there, and this would not be your opportunity to call Bill all the names in person that you’ve yelled at home for the past year. So, yay or nay to inviting a front office type to the feed?
3. Odds are we won’t be serving alcohol this year, so my theory was to hold the feed in the early afternoon (say, 2-6), which gives time for those of you that want to visit a nearby watering hole and drink the night away with fellow readers a chance to do so. Depending on how many special guests we get (right now, I’ve got two lined up, and am aiming for five), we might make the feed a bit longer, as well. So, what I’m wondering is what ratio of people talking at you vs you mingling with other readers you’d be happiest with. Should we cap the Q&A/us talking time to a couple hours so that you all can hang out with each other, or would you prefer more scheduled time given to people addressing the whole group?
4. On a similar vein, there’s a good chance that a friend of mine who is an area scout for a National League team is going to attend. I realize that not everyone is as big of a minor league geek as I am, and might not be as interested in talking scouting theory/mechanics breakdowns with a pro scout. Since his opinion on current minor leaguers is proprietary information to his club, he probably won’t be real forthcoming in his evaluation of guys in the M’s farm system, so the topic would center more on the role of scouting and what he looks for in general. Would you guys enjoy something like that?
5. Also, if you have any connections with meeting hall/conference centers that would give us a good deal and allow us to bring our own food, feel free to email us. One of our readers was willing to do a lot of the legwork for this feed (you rock, Conor), but if we have any inside connections, might as well use them. In a similar vein, if you’d like to help with the administrative side of planning this thing, let me know, and I’ll gladly put you to work.
M’s and rumor mongers, Alex’s a jerk
I’m back again, again — I spent the weekend hanging out with my brother, which included being hit by The Worst Beat Ever in my poker-playing life (but nobody likes bad beat stories, so I’ll spare everyone). And there was no Mariner news to write about. I was a little disappointed.
So I have two things, then:
If you’re following the free agent speculation, you’ll note that Carlos Beltran is frequently mentioned as a future Yankee. Possibly a Cub, or a Met, or an Astros. Sometimes the Red Sox, Angels, even the Dodgers. Not, though, a Mariner.
I think this reflects two things: first, in general, sports media (like all mass media) often fixates on the easy story. Every outlet has individual people who look at all the stuff they could fill their column-inch quota or word count with, and those people often look at possible topics and think “which of these is easiest to write something that my readers will look at and, possibly, react to?” I know: writing columns at BP I often sat down at keyboard with two or three topics, tried to work on the most interesting ones, ran up on the deadline, and ended up having to do the easy-to-write one and after that got back to the other topic.
The Yankees are eaaaaaaaaaaasy. Will they be able to continue their huge spending as the “tax rate” on payroll increases to 40%? Will they be able to take on Beltre, and does that mean Alex moves to short and Jeter to second? Or center? And then what about Beltran — does Bernie stay there? Are they looking to dump someone?
Easy column, guaranteed to generate response, because the Yankees are always controversial.
Moreover, and this is going to sound bad no matter how I write it, sports media in general is hugely East Coast-centric. ESPN, the big networks, they’re all out east, and it shows. Great West Coast performances rarely get national play because the games air at ten in New York, and nobody’s watching. This is more subjective, but coverage of some teams often seems to be an afterthought. I find many more factual errors in team and game stories the farther west they’re filed. In general it seems that only LA, also in a media center, gets the kind of press attention that the Phillies do. They certainly don’t cover the kind of in-depth backroom dealings that those east franchises do. If you want to get rumors out of the Mariners in a mainstream publication, you’re looking to Gammons pretty much.
So the fact that the Mariners are a huge revenue-generating team — I don’t think that’s well-known. That they’re interested in spending on a top-tier free agent… I don’t think that’s well-known either, and as a story it doesn’t lend itself to an easy column as well as the Yankees do. And then when people write about “speculation is that he’ll be courted by x, y, and, z” there’s no buzz about it.
There is also the fact that these teams are known to pursue and sign big names, while the Mariners are not. We could talk about whether the perception that the Mariners have never signed a top-tier free agent is justified, but it’s absolutely true that this belief is widespread, and it’s not going to go away until the team signs someone great to a truly monster deal. No one cares that the Mariners were bidding on Tejeda, or whoever — it’s going to take a signing to change this perception, and until then people aren’t going to buzz about how they’re rumored to be after this top guy or that top guy unless the team’s actually in the running.
I expect that once the free agent season has started and the team is out bidding, we’ll know about it. I don’t think this is a case where the lack of whispering about what they’re up to means they’re not up to anything.
And in the things-that-generate-hate-mail category, I’ve always stuck up for Alex. The money, even the contract, isn’t an issue for me, because I think he was worth it, and Texas’ whining about payroll flexibility rang false to me. He’s always been sort of… personality-less to me, someone who knows what he’s supposed to say, and says it. I’ve also seen Alex flash genuine warmth before kids while doing random promo appearances at schools and stuff when he was here, so I’ve always figured
But man, seeing his hand-slap thing in the ALCS, followed by his subsequent whining to the umpires and everyone else… what a jerk. There’s a certain amount of uh… latitude I’m willing to give players in trying to do what it takes to win, but between the move itself, the argument with the umps that he was just running — which was obviously not true — and then his bleating about the call, I was thinking “dude, don’t be a jerk about this, please…”
No such luck.