With respect to Oakland — they just made a steal of a deal, sending reliever Mike Neu to the Marlins for lefty starter Mark Redman. In addition to the “Big Three” (Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, Mark Mulder), the A’s now have Redman and Rich Harden at the back of their rotation. With three lefties and two righties, it’s a wonderfully balanced rotation… and one which should, thanks to those lefties, carve up the M’s this season.
So here’s the new question: grant us that the M’s are, at best, a 90-win team next year. The A’s have had a pretty strange off-season, too: are they better than that? The Angels are spending serious money: did they make the right moves to win the division? And Texas… well, they’re still Texas.
Link to “Vizquel trade nixed“. If the article’s to be believed, one of Omar’s two surgically repaired knees (of three total) didn’t look good when the M’s doctors looked it over and that’s the end of that.
Here’s my long-not-awaited 2004 season rough cut estimates of what happens to the Mariners next year
Offense changes
(Martinez-Wilson/Davis-Olerud-Boone-Guillen-Spiezo-Ichiro-Winn-Ibanez)
Winn to Ibanez = -10 runs (yes, I’m serious)
Cameron to Winn = wash
Rotating 3b to Spiezio = +15 runs
Rotating OF subs to McCracken = -10 runs (and that’s generous)
-5 runs
Defense changes
Winn to Ibanez = -10 runs
Cameron to Winn = -20 runs
Rotating 3b to Spiezio = -5 runs (ish)
Rotating OF subs to McCracken = wash (and maybe an upgrade)
-35 runs
Pitching changes
(Moyer, Meche, Pineiro, Franklin, Soriano)
Garcia to Soriano = +15 runs (but really, anyone’s guess)
Franklin to normal Franklin = -10 runs
+5 runs
(Sasaki, Mateo, Guardardo, Hasegawa, Soriano, ??)
Rhodes to Guardardo = +5 runs
Nelson/Benitez to random guy from AAA: -5 runs
+0 runs
That’s an overall drop of 35 runs, which puts the team a hair under 90 wins. What that doesn’t include, though, are the matchup problems with the lineup that we’ve been pointing out, the team’s natural age-related decline (it’s an oooold lineup), the vulnerability to lefties… I would bet that others out there will take a crack at this (I think Peter at Mariner Musings has the gap at ~50 runs overall before he started to take a swing at defense).
Oh please oh please oh please — MLB.com’s front page has a headline that reads “Vizquel to Mariners Nixed” but it links to the same pro-trade Jim Street article. I only hope the headline got updated in front of the article.
More rats climbing onto the sinking ship:
Sodo Oh No
Mariners Weekly which offered the M’s off-season an “A-” on December 13th. Ummm.. not so much no.
In fact, if anyone could email us if they can think of a contending team that had as bad or worse of an off-season as the Mariners, we’d love to hear from you. Even the Steve Phillips Mets teams didn’t go downhill this fast.
But to quote Supernintendo Chalmers, “It’s a hell of a toboggon ride.”
Jason’s projected opening day 2004 batting order:
RF Ichiro
SS Vizquel
2B Boone
DH Martinez
1B Olerud
LF Ibanez
CF Winn
3B Spiezio
C Wilson
Ewwwww…
Oh, and not to harp too much on the awful Ibanez signing, but similar players keep signing better deals:
Ibanez — $13.25M over 3 years, 32-34
Carl Everett — $7.5M over 2 years, 33-34
Reggie Sanders — $6M over 2 years, 36-37
Rondell White — $6M over 2 years, 32-23
Jose Cruz Jr. — $6M over 2 years, 30-31
Juan Encarnacion — $8M over 2 years, 28-29
Those numbers are the end are the players’ age during the contract.
Things just keep getting better.
According to the Times, a deal for Cleveland’s Omar Vizquel is all but done. Carlos Guillen is likely to be involved in the trade, as Vizquel and Scott Spiezio (I hate typing his name) will fill the left side of the infield, making Guillen expendable.
I’m no big Guillen fan, though I do think the deal they just signed him to is quite reasonable for his services — I wouldn’t want to be paying him, say, $5M a season, but that $2.5M number looks pretty good. Vizquel, on the other hand, will cost a minimum of $7M ($6M for next season, $1M buyout for 2005) and possibly more (in addition to the 2005 option at some cost I can’t find, he has a $1M “personal services” contract for next season which may or may not come with him). There’s also the fact that he can’t hit, making this a bum deal.
What’s amusing, though, is that this is likely to be a good PR move for the M’s. Vizquel was extremely popular during his time in Seattle (remember that “Older Women for Omar” sign at the Kingdome?), whereas Guillen has a reputation (deserved or not) for always being hurt (as well as driving too fast, but that’s another issue). For the most part, people seem disappointed with the likes of McCracken and Spiezio… I hope they don’t get suckered by this Vizquel deal, though.
Perhaps the M’s will pick up a prospect in the deal (which they should be able to justify, given the salaries of the players involved), in which case it wouldn’t totally suck. In that case, Vizquel is a one-year place holder for Jose Lopez. While expensive, especially considering Rey Sanchez could have done the same thing at 1/6th the cost, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Ah, who am I kidding? This is going to suck.
Good times. According to the New York Post, the M’s and Mets are talking about a Jeff Cirillo for Roger Cedeno trade. I’m not sure how I feel about this, though right now I’m leaning towards, “simply releasing Cirillo would be better than trading him for Cedeno.”