You know, as much as I would like to, I just can’t buy the Rob Neyer Method of Predicting Standings, which is pretty similar to what Derek posited below:
1. Look at last years standings, then look at last years Pythag
2. Adjust +/- based on how valuable offseason acquisitions were in year prior.
3. Print total.
To me, the assumption that the 2004 Mariners are a 90+ win team because the 2003 Mariners were is based on a giant, untrue assumption that these teams are anything alike. There are some familiar names, especially on the pitching staff. But, this is an entirely different team, for one main reason: the defense now stinks.
Last year, the M’s had, by most any metric, the best defensive team in baseball, and one of the best in recent history. They didn’t just not make errors, but they gobbled up fly balls at astounding rates, turned extra base hits into singles, and essentially surrounded the pitching mound with six ball-sucking vacuums and Carlos Guillen. The effect this had on the pitching staff has been greatly underestimated, in my opinion.
Last year, the M’s turned 73 % of all balls in play into outs. The league average was 71 percent. Now, 2 extra outs out of every 100 may not sound like much, but by facing ~6,000 batters per season, thats going to add up to approximately 120 outs. In reality, the number is probably higher, as those outs will extend rallies, in turn lengthening pitch counts and innings, causing overall pitcher effectiveness to decline and causing a multiplication type effect. By the end of the year, I wouldn’t be surprised if the number was closer to 150 outs that are now being replaced by hits, and in turn, lots of runs.
Those numbers are based on the assumption that the M’s will be a league average defensive team. And, you know what, I think that might be optimistic. They have established below average defensive players in LF, CF, 3B, and SS. They have declining mid-30’s veterans at 2B and 1B. The only player who you can reasonably count on as an above average defender is Ichiro, and his abilities are even overstated by most. As it stands now, this could be one of the worst defensive teams in the American League, and they’ll be fielding balls for one of the most defense-dependant pitching staffs around. While everyone not born in Spiro, Oklahoma is expecting Ryan Franklin to regress this year, I’m not sure anyone is prepared for the precipitous, Jose Lima-style decline he may be headed for.
In the next few days, I’ll put together some numbers to back this up, but my expectation is that the downgrades this team has taken in preventing outs is far more severe that most people expect. Plugging Win Shares, or VORP, or even WARP into last years standings and doing a little subtraction does not account for the cascading effect that placing this sieve of a defense behind the pitching staff will have on the team.
The Angels’ signing of Vlad is official. For all the raw blasting of negativity I do here, though, the M’s are probably as good as the Angels right now (and the Angels have some sorting to do between their outfield and first that may affect how this turns out). Someone emailed us today and wanted to bet $100 they’d win more than 84 games (85, maybe). I think the M’s are an 85-win team right now, but… last year they dramatically underperformed their expected record. Which is to say that given a team with x runs scored and y runs given up, you’d have expected the M’s to win z games… and they won z-6.
This is frequently used as a barometer of managerial effectiveness, though I’ve never seen a strong enough effect to hang my hat on. What you can see though is the M’s lost a lot more close games than they should have, and it’s not hard to trace that to Melvin’s early bullpen insanity (good relievers, pitch the bad innings, bad relievers, you’ll be coming in in tight games) and the problems with Rhodes/Nelson all year long.
If the team had the same players, average luck and avoided have those kind of issues this year, you’d expect to see them gain six games over the course of a year. This would inevitably be attributed to improved chemistry or the contributions of the new hitting coach or something silly.
All of that’s a long away around to saying this: despite being a significantly worse team (and a tremendously worse team than they could have been), the Mariners may finish as with as many wins or more than they did last year, and compete for the AL West pennant all year long.
And if luck breaks their way all year long, they could win it all, and have a chance at the World Series.
As much as I’d love to see that, if you gave me the choice between 90 wins this year and a first-round playoff defeat or 75 wins and a third-place AL West finish, I don’t know what I’d take, because the latter might result in the team firing Bavasi and bringing in the kind of state-of-the-art GM they should have hired this year to clean up this mess and start fielding competitive teams for years to come. And yet I can’t say that I actually want to see that happen. I’m a fan, and when I go to games I like to see good baseball and the team win.
Personally, my favorite part of the article was this: “But while Seattle may have afforded the ex-Expos slugger if it had put the combined $11 million that Ibanez, Spiezio and Randy Winn will make toward Guerrero, it chose instead to spread its money around. What the Mariners didn’t want to do was sign Guerrero and surround him with the likes of Jose Cruz Jr. in left, Denny Hocking at third and Deivi Cruz at short.”
Uh, no. First off, Jose Cruz Jr. is not a bad player. Second, Denny Hocking would not have had to play third — there was still Cirillo, and there’s always Justin Leone. Third, you already had Carlos Guillen at short. Hell, you could have dumped Cirillo (and by “dump” I mean “release,” not “traded for crap”) moved Guillen to third and signed Rey Sanchez for peanuts to play shortstop. Signing Guerrero would not have meant surrounding him with marginal players.
Then there’s this, which we’ve been over before but still strikes me as stupid logic: “The anticipated loss of Mike Cameron required someone to play center field. Melvin’s call was to have Ichiro remain in right, and how could anyone argue with the manager’s extreme reluctance ‘to move the best right fielder in the league, if not in the game.’ ”
Overall, you can tell Derek and I aren’t big fans of the article.
Jason thinks they’re going to try and get a catcher for Soriano, rather than a first baseman. Also possible, I hadn’t considered that: put Davis in the deal and get a backstop who can hit, then Wilson turns into Moyer’s personal catcher and team backup. Anyway, if we find out anything else, we’ll post it.
Also, I don’t know what everyone’s opinion on this is, so feel free to drop us a line about it. In a case like this — I’m talking to someone and I find out a nugget like this, should I drop it? Personally, I’m inclined to: I think we’re a good enough judge of this stuff to know when it’s credible or not. But if I can’t cite sources, it goes out into the world as a rumor and sparks random discussion, and if they don’t get the deal done, it passes.
The question then is: sit on this stuff or post what can be posted?
If you’ve got a thought on it, email us.
Pocket Lint ran a long piece today o’er at the Seattle Times (“Paper of Quality”) titled “Mariners makeover: Team swaps defense for extra offense” an at-best uncritical look at the disastrous off-season. My favorite quote is this gem:
“There are two distinct ways to analyze this winter’s work by the team: first, looking at Ibanez, Spiezio and Aurilia as a trade for Cameron, Cirillo and Guillen; second, as a swap of some defense for some offense.”
Uh… except that that’s grossly simplistic and wrong, sure, you could look at it that way. And as to the second, sure, except by “some defense” you mean “a lot of defense” and by “some offense” you mean “some offense”.
Seriously: if you want to look at it like a trade, here you go:
Winn for Cameron: huge defensive downgrade, but a couple runs back on offense
Ibanez for Winn+millions: modest defensive downgrade, modest offensive downgrade (there, I said it)
Spiezio and Hansen for Cirillo+many millions: offensive upgrade
McCracken for Colbrunn: pointless move, sets the bench back
Aurilia and Santiago for Guillen+1 million: depending on which of us you talk to, slight downgrade to slight upgrade, plus another wasted roster spot
Rhodes for Guardado: enh
So to simplify: Cameron, LF Winn, Cirillo, Colbrunn, Guillen and enough cash to sign any free agent on the market for Ibanez, CF Winn, Spiezio, McCracken, Aurilia, and Santiago.
“With Tejada gone and a determination to bring more determination to the clubhouse, general manager Bill Bavasi looked for men of character as well as talent.”
Uh huh.
Anyway, Boone likes the moves. He’s quoted over and over in the article saying — and I like Boone, I really do — amazingly dumb things, like Ibanez is worth at least four games in the standings because he was so good against the M’s last year.
But folks, here’s the capper. If you wanted a single quote that demonstrated that Bavasi has utterly no clue, at all, in any way, that he is twelve eggs short of a dozen and possesses as much insight as a discarded Jolly Rancher wrapper into the way teams are built in 2004, here you go:
“The guys we got are used to late-game pressure situations, guys who want the ball hit to them in the eighth and ninth innings of a one-run game, who know what to do with it when that happens. Have we a bit less defense? Probably. But I don’t think a lot less.”
One, he’s stupid. Two, he’s wrong. And three, if you can’t have good reasons and the best information you could get behind your decisions, you shouldn’t be making them. I would have more respect for Bavasi if he’d come out and said “Our scouts think Winn’s going to be just as good in center as Cameron and Ibanez will play left field as well as Winn did.” Then at least he’d have some kind of reasoning behind it. Right now, it’s like they’re a bunch of old geezers sitting around a stove passing a pot labeled “XXX” between them, offering stupid random insights to anyone who’ll listen.
“Ahhh, my knee’s acting up. We need to get rid of that Guillen kid. He’s got a shifty look about him, back in my day, a kid like that, why we’d teach him some manners. Oh, but nowadays you can’t hit kids in the minors. Congress! Bah!”
For those of you who don’t want to register for the LA Times, here’s the gist of things from ESPN. It doesn’t sound 100% final yet, though it’s pretty darned close — Vlad Guerrero to the Angels, $70M over five seasons. Guerrero only turns 28 next month; in my opinion, this is going to wind up looking like a huge bargain a few years from now. Heck of a signing for Anaheim.
U.S.S. Mariner exclusive rumor mongering: Bavasi’s trying to trade Soriano for an offensive upgrade, and through process of elimination…
Not third, just signed someone
Not shortstop, just signed someone
Not second, Boone’s there
Not DH, Edgar’s there
Not LF/CF/RF, they’ve made moves there (poooossibly center)
Probably not C, but maybe
Most likely 1B
So who’s out there who sucks but was once highly regarded, available in trade.. Mo Vaughn? I don’t have a good bead on who they’re pursuing yet. I fear it’s going to be bad: Scott Hatteberg, maybe?
If the team trades Soriano this will be contend for the worst off-season of any independently owned-and-operated major league team ever.
I wanted to post a thought that’s been rattling around my head for a while. One of the things I’ve heard about the Cirillo trade is that by trading Cirillo for Gonzalez-Jarvis, the team takes on two smaller crap contracts which they can then unload individually, eating some portion of the cost but in the process saving even more money (that is, if the M’s offer to give Gonzalez to someone and pay all but $1m of his remaining salary, and manages the same with Jarvis, they’ve saved $2m!)
Here’s my thought: Kevin Towers, whatever your opinion of him, is a deal-maker, with good relationships with the new school guys, the old school guys — I don’t know of any team that wouldn’t deal with the Padres. If Kevin Towers, motivated to dump salary in those two, could have made those individual deals himself, he would have. Instead he took on Cirillo. Now, maybe it’s to get Sweeney, which is possible though unlikely, but doesn’t it seem likely that Towers at some point this off-season has tried to dump these guys anywhere he could and found no takers?
If that’s the plan, Bavasi now is going to have to call teams up and make a sweeter offer than Towers did, whatever Towers’ offer was. The M’s may well be able to unload all of these guys, but it might be a “Free Snelling with Purchase of Regular Jarvis” offer… which is bad news.
Seriously, great move for Anaheim. We’re only really better than Texas now, and at least they have good young talent. Last place is within our grasp. You can do it Bill, we all have faith in you!
In case you missed it, LHP Ryan Anderson was indeed designated for assignment, thereby getting him off the 40-man roster.