We’ve gotten a couple of emails today in the wake of the Guardado signing, wondering essentially, “What does this mean for Rafael Soriano?” If you recall, every so often there’s talk — be it from coaches, front office, media, whomever — that Soriano has the “Closer of the Future” tag somewhere on his person. Now, personally I think that’s garbage, that he’d be much more valuable as a starter. But I digress.
I don’t think the M’s would have signed Guardado as their lefty setup man if they didn’t have concerns about Sasaki. Teams don’t generally have two closers sitting around, let alone three (two and a half, in the case of Shiggy?) like the M’s do currently. In some form or another — be it injury, ineffectiveness or a return to Japan — I think they expect, or are at least planning as though, Sasaki won’t be the closer for a significant period of time next season, and they certainly don’t expect that they’ll be picking up his $8M option for 2005.
Which brings us to Soriano. With Sasaki, Hasegawa and now Guardado on the roster, the chances of him closing games regularly over the next two or three years are extremely slim. To me that screams “rotation!” as his destination, be it this season (if Garcia gets the old non-tender) or next. In any event, to me his eventual future in the rotation appears much more certain at this point thanks to the signings of both Hasegawa and Guardado.
So… new Big Board, complete with Hasegawa and Guardado. Also, if you’re keeping track, the 40-man roster is now at 40 men (or 39 men and one boy, in the case of Willie Bloomquist) meaning the M’s won’t be able to select anyone in the upcoming Rule 5 draft. Ah well.
Guardado — they’re paying him too much money, but other than that he’s a pretty good pitcher. His numbers the past three seasons are extremely solid, including a nasty .195/.217/.262 line vs. left-handed batters. Over that same span (2001-03) he’s fanned just under nine hitters per nine innings (8.88, to be exact), a pretty good indication that he has something left, and his K:BB ratio comes in at a cool 3.58:1.
For those interested in pegging me with questions, I’m doing a chat at Baseball Prospectus tommorrow at noon EST (9 am pacific time). You can submit questions ahead of time, though. I’ll likely gravitate towards prospect questions, but will answer a few M’s related queries as well. Keep them brief, however.
I’d have preferred Rhodes, but the details of the contract make this a better signing than I’d imagined Guardado would be. According to the ESPN story, it is a 1 year contract with team and player options for 2005 and 2006. The main problem I have with locking up relievers is their inconsistency from year to year, and this gives the M’s an out clause if Guardado turns into crap overnight. I’d imagine the buyout probably isn’t more than $500,000, so absolute worst case scenario, this is a 1 year, $5 million deal. Its overpaying, but its not tying up future salaries with a dead-weight contract.
Well, it appears as if Arthur Rhodes has been replaced by one Eddie Guardado. The P-I’s John Hickey is reporting that a three-year, $14M deal will be finalized this week. I was surprised to see that Guardado is actually a year younger than Rhodes… I had thought he was a year or two older. In any event:
Guardado, age 33, ~$4M 2004 salary
Sasaki, 36, $8M
Hasegawa, 35, ~$3M
So much for a youth/bargain movement, eh? And did I mention he’ll cost yet another draft pick? I have to tell you, I’m having a hard time getting excited about what Bavasi has accomplished during his short tenure in Seattle.
For those of you who haven’t yet signed up, there is still space available at the first ever U.S.S. Mariner feed. If you’ve missed the previous postings and failed to get on the mailing list, here is a brief rundown.
When: Saturday, December 20th, 4 P.M.
Where: Piecora’s Pizza Banquet Room, Capitol Hill
Who: Derek, Jason, and Dave, along with a large group of readers and a special guest or two.
Cost: $15 per person, includes full dinner (not just pizza) and soft drinks. Alcohol will be available for seperate purchase.
We’re going to spend several hours hanging out, talking baseball, getting to know some folks, and generally just having a good time with other Mariner fans. If you’re interested in attending, send me an email with “Feed Information” as the subject. This will get you on the mailing list, where further details will be provided. Spots aren’t going to last forever, though, so if you’re interested, let us know and reserve yourself a place at the feed.
One of the more common criticisms we get about Cameron is that he struck out all the time in rally situations. I’ll assume for purposes of this argument that clutch hitting exists, etc etc.
Cameron’s splits:
None on: .240/.317/.408
Runners on: .267/.373/.457
Runners in scoring position: .293/.401/.503
If you believe there’s something to be read in those numbers, how can anyone argue he wasn’t clutch? He did dramatically, undeniably better in traditional clutch situations than he did otherwise.
No one is saying that losing Cameron’s the death of the team: as a righty who hasn’t hit well in Safeco, he’s not a particularly good fit offensively. He’s over the hump and on the down side of his career. I think he’ll do well next year for another team.
If there was one thing I would say about Cameron, it’s this: he was, by far, the most undervalued piece of these winning Mariner teams. Their fly-ball staff lived and died by their outfield defense, and it was Cameron-Ichiro-Winn last year that made Franklin & Co. look so good. If the M’s replace his bat and find someone who can play average defense in center, they’ll still drop two games in the standings. If you don’t care about those two games — you’d rather see someone ground out instead of strike out, even if it means the team loses the division — well, I guess that’s your right. But don’t tell me Cameron was some kind of team-killing scrub, because you’re wrong.
On Borders: everyone emailing says he means Garcia’s coming back, because Borders was so good at whipping Freddy into dominating shape last year. Borders is Pat Gillick’s personal catcher and organization man, though — I don’t think we should read anything into this. It would be hard to find space for him on the 25m, for one thing, and carrying three catchers is hard (not as hard as carrying Gipson-Bloomquist-Ugueto, but there you are). Don’t read too much into this: if Garcia doesn’t take the team’s offer, they’re going to decline to offer arbitration and then say they couldn’t afford to risk him getting $9m.
I don’t think there’s anything shocking about the decision they made on Cameron.
So what’s a bigger surprise — that they offered arbitration to Borders, or that they didn’t offer to Rhodes? Nary an article went by this off-season without a final line something like, “The Mariners are not expected to offer arbitration to their other free agents: Pat Borders, Mark McLemore, Armando Benitez and John Mabry.”
In any event, I’m disappointed about Rhodes. I pegged him as something of a bargain for next season, as his injury last year would likely hold his price tag down somewhat.
Recap of the Bill Bavasi era to date:
Sign Raul Ibanez. Bad move.
Re-sign Shigetoshi Hasegawa. Questionable move.
Fail to offer arbitration to Arthur Rhodes. Bad move.
Fail to offer arbitration to Mike Cameron. Bad move.
You never know how much you’ll miss something until it is gone. Mike Cameron, thanks for the great years. Good luck with your future team. Hopefully a better ballpark and an organization not obsessed with strikeouts will lead to a year that allows folks to realize the value you have to a club.
Oh, and the Mariners offered arbitration to Pat Borders “due to the special relationship he has with this club.” I am unable to rationally comment on this tonight, and will now proceed to go to bed.
Matsui to the Mets, Gammons reports, 3y $6.7m/year. Reyes moves to second as the Mets fix a problem (no one to play 2nd) by giving up of their strengths (Reyes as a future star SS). Of SS candidates the M’s are said to be interested in, Tejada’s it.
Also, off-topic even for those of you in Seattle, I’d like to point out that that dumb million-dollar contest that KUBE tries to pass off as their own (“Santa Kube”) is, in fact, one prize for many, many stations, which is why KUBE has that ‘be the 50th nationwide caller’ blurb, though they don’t fully disclose anywhere (even on their site, which I have to think is illegal) the full nature of this contest, and in fact pretend that someone on (DJ name)’s show won $x dollars, even though that person could be anywhere in the country, and a listner to KUBE or not. This is why when they play the blurbs from the winners, it never contains regional or station branding tags — which should register on your suspicion-o-meter too, since if KUBE was running a contest they’d make every contestant yell the station’s ad line to play on the air.