Well, the results of the Maels Rodriguez tryout are in. Good luck getting through the agent double talk, though. He didn’t get above 90, but this apparently proves he’s healthy in the mind of Henry Villar. I’ve only touched briefly on Rodriguez on the blog, but here’s my basic stance:
1. There are maybe three relievers in the game who are worth between $8-10 million in a particular season. Wagner, Gagne, Rivera. Thats it. I’m almost always against giving large contracts to relievers. They are too inconsistent and easily replaced. Giving a multiyear contract to a reliever is even worse. Inconsistencies are the expectation, not the exception, and locking yourself into paying a reliever 3 years down the line is just not a good idea.
2. Maels Rodriguez is, by all reports, a two-pitch pitcher when he’s going well. Fastball with velocity and a vicious slider. We really don’t have any idea what his command is like, how well he sets up hitters, how he changes speeds, or his ability to locate his fastball. These are the things that seperate an arm from a pitcher. Colt Griffin was paid a lot of money because he threw 100 as an 18-year-old. Two years later, and he’s been a below average pitcher in A ball, getting banged around by hitters far inferior to anything he’ll ever face in the majors. Maels Rodriguez comes with the same assurances, assuming his velocity ever returns. Investing in Rodriguez is essentially like paying a whole heck of a lot of money for another Clint Nageotte. The Mariners are overloaded with interesting RHP’s who may or may not be ready to contribute at the major league level. Maels Rodriguez simply isn’t a need for the M’s.
3. Cubans have an absolutely awful track record. Here is a list of every Cuban defector who has reached the majors. This list doesn’t include the flameouts who never even got to the big leagues (hello, Evel Bastida-Martinez). A quick rundown of the results for the pitchers:
Busts:
Rene Arocha
Rolando Arrojo
Danys Baez
Jose Contreras (so far)
Osvaldo Fernandez
Adrian Hernandez
Hansel Izquierdo
Vladimir Nunez
Ariel Prieto
Michael Tejera
Successes:
Livan Hernandez
Orlando Hernandez
Calling these two successes is being pretty generous as well. The Marlins got some use out of Livan early, then the Giants absorbed a lot of money paying him to be a below average pitcher, before the Expos reaped the benefits of a monstrous 2003 season. For most of his career, he’s been a disappointment, but has shown flashes of dominance. Orlando Hernandez is similar, but his struggles have come thanks to repeated injuries, and he’s been a quality pitcher when healthy. He is, ironically, available to any team who wants him, and if the M’s really want to sign a Cuban right-hander, he’d get my support. He’ll be cheaper, has less question marks surrounding him, and won’t command more than a one year commitment. Watching him pitch, I always thought he could make a dynamite Tom Gordon-style reliever. If there’s anything left of his right arm, he’s an interesting flyer for some team.
Adding those three factors together, I can’t support any effort to sign Maels Rodriguez. Yea, there’s a chance his velocity comes back and he’s the most dominant pitcher to ever come out of Cuba. But the odds are about as good as if Bavasi took the money to Vegas and played slots til it ran out that he’d hit the monster jackpot. Its a giant gamble, and not one that this team needs to take. Put the money elsewhere. Just say no to Maels.
Hey all. I’m guest-hosting Baseball Prospectus Radio this weekend. Lots of local stuff in this one:
January 24: What’s replacement level for radio hosts? BPR investigates as columnist Derek Zumsteg steps in for Will Carroll this week. We’ll talk to former Astros manager Larry Dierker about pitching, managing, and his book This Ain’t Brain Surgery. We’ll take a trip to the high minors to talk to Mike Curto, the broadcaster for the Tacoma Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League, and to rookie ball when we catch up with Pat Dillon, who does radio for the Everett Aquasox of the Northwest League.
It’s on early in the morning (our time) on Saturday if you want the life web feed, unfortunately, but hopefully we’ll post clips on BP.com and I can point you to those when they’re up.
Ooooooooooor…. feel free to call or write your local sports talk station and ask them why they don’t have such a fine program available.
On my way to post an explanation of some of the intricacies of the negotiations to allow Sasaki to play in Japan, I saw that Steve Nelson beat me to it. Go read his post, then come back, and I’ll clear up a few of his assumptions.
1. He’s right about the working agreement between MLB and the Japanese Professional Leagues. Players under contract with a team from either league are not eligible to play for any team in another league. This is why you’ll see players having their contracts sold to Japanese teams. According to the agreement between the leagues, there has to be a legal transference of ownership of the contract.
2. This situation is more complex because Sasaki wants to play in Japan next year and not just spend his free time boating. Retirement is not an option, as he would still be contractually obligated to the Mariners for the 2004 season and unable to pitch in Japan. The process for selling a players contract to a Japanese team includes placing said player on waivers and allowing each team to take a pass. In this instance, I imagine no team would claim Sasaki. We should not expect a repeat of last years Kevin Millar fiasco.
3. As Steve noted, the union will not allow unilateral termination of the contract. However, as has been suggested in several places, the Mariners are unlikely to place Sasaki on the suspended list. Under the current rules, a suspended major league player is still considered under contract, and they would have to amend the working agreement to allow him to play in Japan next year. This is possible, but unlikely.
4. The scenario getting the most support so far would be an Albert Belle-style retirement. The Mariners will keep Sasaki on the 40 man roster until spring training, then place him on the 60 day disabled list with some form of “personal issues” as the reason. An addendum will be written into the working agreement allowing disabled players for that specific reason to play in the Japanese Leagues while still under contract to Major League clubs. He will voluntarily forfeit his salary, so the Mariners will not be responsible for any of the $9.5 million they had earmarked for him (and, for those who are seeing conflicting numbers, that includes his $8 million base salary, $500,000 in incentives that he was going to reach barring injury, and $1 million buyout of his 2005 contract) this year.
Everyone I talk to says its going to get done, and the union won’t stand in Sasaki’s way of returning to Japan. Their main concern is to make the language specific enough to not allow the owners to funnel players with unwanted contracts to Japan. They want to make sure the agreement allows only for this specific exception to the rule, and that will be the complicated part.
However, any claims that the Mariners make that they cannot spend this money now is either ridiculous overconservatism or just lying. The $9.5 million is essentially like a tax refund; you know its coming, and as long as you can guarantee payment won’t be due before you receive the money, there is no reason not to allocate that money to your present budget.
Things Gillvasi is considering doing the money they’d planned on spending on Kazu in 2004
—
- Go to dollar store, buy 22oz sodas, give two to every fan entering Safeco Field, all year long
- Buy ownership group Oyster Perpetual Datejust model Rolex “timepieces,” stash remaining millions, laugh behind their back as they try on and admire their new watches, because that model’s for the ladies
- Fund highly speculative but interesting biotech firm interested in exploiting critical phenomena in phase transitions
- Spend it on weather control to get Jim Foreman a real storm for once
- Eight $1m outfielders who can out-perform Raul Ibanez, reserve for mid-season acquisition
- Crash program to build heated shelter for predicted crowds of picketers before they show up mid-season demanding his firing
- Former president Clinton made $9.5m on speaking engagements last year, see if he’s available for whole season to give pre-game pep talks
- Buy the Expos
- Grant program to support the importation of Mariners merchandise into hat-starved eastern Europe
- Head down to Indian casino, play roulette
- Buy up every ticket in nation for upcoming “Win a Date With Tad!” then giggle on Monday when box office tallys are announced
- Purchase 711,610 copies of Baseball Prospectus 2004 from Amazon.com, read at least one of them.
- Buy Faberge egg at auction, put it on tee for Boone to hit really far.
I think I’m on the Ivan Rodriguez bandwagon. With Sasaki off the books, that’s nearly $10M ($8M for 2003 plus a $1.5M option buyout) to spend in 2004. After the 2004 season, there are a number of guys coming off the books: Rich Aurilia, John Olerud, Edgar Martinez, Dan Wilson, Freddy Garcia… the money is there, both for this season and beyond. I’m thinking of a three-year, $35M deal.
Alternately, I’d be happy to trade, say, Garcia and Winn for Magglio Ordonez. Or perhaps Jim Edmonds.
ESPN has a translated interview with Sasaki. One part in particular caught my attention:
Question: When did you reach the decision?
Answer: I started thinking about two years ago I wanted to live with my family, and when my agent told me I may have a chance to leave the Mariners before my contract is up, I decided that continuing my playing career in Japan would be the best thing to do. It became a reality this offseason.
Somehow I’m not buying that. If he really was thinking about this two years ago, he wouldn’t have signed that mid-season contract extension.
Really, Jason? 3 years, $35 million for a 32-year-old catcher with a history of health issues who hit .294/.361/.417 after the all-star break last year? That seems like a guaranteed albatross in year three, and probably one in year two. If Vlad Guerrero is only worth $14 million per year in this market, is Pudge really worth $12 million?
I’d offer him one year, $10 million. He would turn it down and sign with the Tigers, but thats his perrogative. I have no interest in locking up long-term big money in a 30+ catcher, regardless of if he’s a first-ballot hall of famer or not.
And yes, its hindsight, because Sasaki going to Japan was unpredictable, and we don’t know if Vlad would have even considered coming here, but here is your obligatory math:
Guerrero’s 2004 salary: $14 million
–
Ibanez’s 2004 salary: $4.3 million
and
Sasaki’s 2004 salary: $9.5 million
=
$200,000. Two-hundred grand gets you from Ibanez to Guerrero. Yech.
The M’s have signed Joel Pineiro to a three-year, $14.5M contract according to ESPN. He’ll get a $1.5M signing bonus, $2.5M next season and the rest over the final two years. I’m not exactly sure about his service time because of the brief time he spent in the majors in 2000 and 2001, but even if you count those two as a full season together, this deal doesn’t buy out any of his free agency years. On the other hand, it’s possible that even at the end of this contract, he’ll be just shy of the six years of service time needed to become a free agent.
Get home from a nice day off to find raw, unrestrained good news sitting in my inbox. The offseason needed something like this; pure, unadulterated, tremendous news. Sasaki is essentially retiring from major league baseball, and the M’s have just cleared $9.5 million ($8 million salary, $1.5 million buyout of 2005 contract) from their books that were allocated to an average right-handed reliever, of which they have in abundance.
Of course, five minutes after I read the news, my joy subsided as I realized we are likely to just convert this into Maels Rodriguez. However, I’ll save the pessimism for when Bavasi actually does waste the money, rather than anticipating the inevitable.
Great news. Going to bed on a happy note.
Sasaki. Wow. WOW!
I’ll try to not be cynical by saying the M’s will probably sit on this money rather than spend it on improvements, but it’s oh so easy to do.
And of course part of me is saying, “Why couldn’t he have decided this a few months ago, when there were still free agents available?!”