Is that fair? Woody made his share of bonehead moves, Piniella easily manipulated him into making stupid moves, but I don’t think Woody ever had an off-season this bad. 97-98 was 90 wins to 76 wins, but what’d he really do in that off-season that was so bad.
Woody’s career is a list of dumb moves to patch things he’d left open and occasional smart moves that turned out really well. Woody poured prospects and money into trying to fix a bullpen that didn’t need fixing, left-fielders that didn’t solve anything… but I’ll say this for Woody: first, the moves worked sometimes. He didn’t make, say, 20 stupid moves in a row. And second, Woody, he at least was looking at actual problems (though with the bullpen/pitching, not looking for the cause of those problems). As opposed to Gillvasi, who seems determined to swap every perfectly adequate player for a worse one no matter the cost.
It’s like… imagine sending someone to the grocery store with a list that says “cracked wheat sourdough, eggs, orange juice, peanuts.” You give them a twenty.
Woody comes back from the grocery store and he’s got the wrong kind of sourdough, eggs, he’s bought fresh OJ in the bottle instead of concentrate, and shelled peanuts, for $19.50.
Bavasi comes back and he’s bought a 24-pack of Budweiser, a frozen pizza, a family-size box of Saltines, 3 oranges and a juicer, a carton of the kind of instant noodles you hate, and a copy of “Monster Truck Weekly”. He takes the Redhook out of your fridge and leaves it out on the street, where someone scoops it up within seconds. He tells you that you don’t really need sourdough, because you can eat Saltines instead, and they’re awesome with EZ-cheese, which you don’t have because he tossed that out too. And besides, this ramen is awesome, he used to eat it all the time at the last place he was at and he loved it, so you will too. The pizza he cooks and eats immediately while reading the magazine and drinking the first of his Budweisers. Then he tells you you owe him $100 because he went a little over on the groceries.
I hope everyone had a Happy New Year and you’re enjoying your snow back in Seattle. I’d just like to point out that the forecast calls for a high of 71 degrees in High Point, NC on Saturday, and 73 degrees on Sunday. Looks like I’ll be breaking out the sunscreen and shorts. I’ll be thinking about you guys, though.
While others have touched on it and its appeared at the bottom of a few columns across the country, it hasn’t received as much notice as the Guillen-Aurilia-Mariners hate triangle. However, from what I understand, a tentative deal has been reached that will send Jeff Cirillo and cash to San Diego in exchange for RHP Kevin Jarvis and C Wiki Gonzalez. If the Mariners can find a taker for Ben Davis by Monday, the deal will be completed. Including the buyout of his 2005 contract, Jarvis is owed $4.75 million this year. Wiki Gonzalez is owed $1.2 million for 2004 and is under contract for for 2005, though I can’t get my hands on the exact number. The Mariners are going to have to send a significant amount of cash to San Diego to even out the transaction.
Now, I know everyone is going to hail Bavasi for finding a taker for Jeff Cirillo, but this is a deal the M’s would be better off not making. They aren’t likely to save any money, and neither Gonzalez or Jarvis represents anything resembling an upgrade on the players currently in place. Gonzalez posted a .200/.264/.277 line last year, one that eerily resembles another M’s offseason pickup. And he’s not even the worst player the M’s are getting back. In 9 major league seasons, Kevin Jarvis has posted a cumulative ERA 25 percent worse than league average. Last year, he was 33 percent worse than league average. In the 2001 season that “earned” him a 3 year contract extension by virtue of winning 12 games in 193 innings, he was 16 percent worse than league average. DURING HIS BEST SEASON.
Kevin Jarvis is a terrible pitcher, something along the lines of a brittle, expensive Giovanni Carrara. He’s worse than darn near everyone at Tacoma who would make the league minimum and actually has a chance to turn into a decent pitcher if given the right opportunity. Jarvis does not belong on a major league roster, much less the Mariners, who are overloaded with quality young arms that deserve a chance at the big league level.
There is simply no market for Jeff Cirillo, and rather than focusing on acquiring other peoples crap just to say we traded him, the M’s should release him and eat the $15 million. At least that way they won’t be committing more roster spots to terrible players.
Add in the downgrade at shortstop for more money, and Bavasi has almost completed the task of turning a 93 win team into a 73 win team in two short months. A Woodward-esque performance from the new guy. Nice job, Bill.
The P-I, scooping the Times once more, is reporting that the M’s have agreed to a one-year, $4M contract with free agent shortstop Rich Aurilia. The deal is contingent on the Mariners being able to trade Carlos Guillen. Possible trade destinations include Detroit, Milwaukee and Colorado.
As an aside, imagine if you have Guillen in a fantasy league. You might luck out and score some Coors-inflated numbers next season, or you might wind up with him playing in Detroit. Ouch.
Getting back to Aurilia, I don’t have strong feelings about this one way or the other. Sure he’s older and slightly more expensive than Guillen, but he’s also a better bet to play 140 games in 2004. It’s also a very good thing that this is a one-year deal — perhaps they invision Jose Lopez taking over in 2005 — rather than the long-term deal Aurilia and his agent were supposedly looking for. Finally, there’s a chance the M’s wind up with a decent prospect for Guillen. Overall, I’d put this one down as a small net positive.
Happy New Year.
Glass Guillen
Last year: .276/.359/.394
3-year averages: .265/.338/381
Trend: consistently up, but he is 28, so that’s not really that special
Plays about 130 games/year.
Rich Aurilia
Last year: .277/.325/.410
3-year averages: .288/.335/.472
Trend: down, but only because his 2001 was spectacular
Playes about 140 games/year
Both players, statistically and scouting-wise, are average defenders at their position. Carlos, injury-hampered, has been adding power, then OBP, then power, and at 28 if he’s healthy (yes, I know) there’s a fair chance he’ll put together a full season where he hits really well. Like .285/.370/.420 or better. And that’s probably going to beat what Aurilia puts up here.
What’s the upgrade? Why make this move?
I’m not a big fan of Guillen, but Guillen’s young, and cheap, and he’s not the problem. If the team is determined to flush money down the toilet when they’re not lighting cigars with it, couldn’t they have splurged all at once and signed Vlad, then followed that up with a bunch of smaller, sensible decisions? Why this determination to take a hit from the crack pipe every week or so and make another bizarre, barely defensible move?
Bill Bavasi wants to bring in one of his old Angels players. Gillick tells him that the team only signs good clubhouse guys who can play the game the right way, which they figure out through standardized testing… and Gillick’s heard this guy isn’t too bright. Bavasi insists they give him a chance, so Gillick allows an interview and brings the guy in.
“What’s one plus one?” Gillick asks the guy.
“Uh…” the guy says, and looks around. “Two.”
“See, I told you, smart as a whip,” Bavasi says.
“What’s two plus two?”
The guy scratches his head, swallows. “Um… four.”
“Good job, kid,” Bavasi says. “You can do it.”
“What’s four plus four?” Gillick asks.
The guy shifts in his seat, sweats, looks around the room from Gillick to Bavasi… sweat pours down his face as he chews his lip and finally, he sighs. “Eight, I guess,” he says. Bavasi screams and drops to his knees.
“Come on Pat, give him one more chance,” Bavasi begs.
Happy New Year, everybody!
Ba-dum-bum.
Derek Zumsteg, ladies and gentleman. He’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your server, and folks? Try the veal tonight. It’s excellent.
Okay okay. These two Mariners are warming up before a spring training game, watching one of the older players and his kids playing catch in the outfield.
“Man, that’s sweet,” says the first player. “That makes me look forward to having a family some day.”
“It’s great,” the second player says. “I love having my kids watch me play.”
“They’re here?”
“Oh yeah,” the second player says, turning to point. “Right behind the plate, rows 13-17.”
Fine, fine, I’ll return from my good-natured attempts at woman-finding-related humor to making fun of the Mariners.
McCracken’s uniform number in Arizona was six, for the number of home runs he thought he could hit that season. He wanted to set his sights high. He was going to go for a realistic but also optimistic number for 2004, but unfortunately Randy Winn has dibs on ‘2’.
One of these days, Dave’s going to get sick of Derek’s well-meaning solicitations for a woman and show up on his doorstep (admittedly, it’d be quite a drive) with a semi-automatic weapon of some sort.
I’m just saying, is all.
Since it took less than two hours to get a response from our well-meaning readers, I feel compelled to clarify that I am single by choice, and have no need to become less single. Derek’s good-natured attempts to find me a woman are humerous, but I’m really not sitting at home, leafing through the personals, wishing a female would knock on my door. So, while I’m sure there are plenty of nice, intelligent, compatible women in the area, they’d be better off beating down the door of other eligible bachelors, and the matchmakers in our readership would be best served finding someone else to be their next victim.