Shiggy is back. Too much money (reportedly $6.3 million for 2 years), but I’m glad its not a 3 year deal. Not good news, but not a completely awful signing.
To follow-up on my constant harping on the $92m lie. This is going to get annoying and technical, so if a lot of financials-related math isn’t your thing, this isn’t going to be your post.
The M’s payroll as total salaries was reported on Opening Day as $87,184,500 by the AP and is listed as being $86,959,167 for the 2003 season by USA Today.
Article XXIII, C. “Determination of Actual Club Payroll” says that “Actual Club Payroll” is the sum of:
a 1/30th share of player benefits (the pensions, etc) aaaand the sum of yearly salaries. Which as calculated pursuant to E, is “value of total compensastion” and includes average value, so signing bonuses are in there, too.
Benefits cost each team $7.7m in 2002, which is the year I dug up. I can’t imagine that went down in 2003. So if the M’s calculation of payroll-as-dispensed-to-local-media includes that, they should have been using a figure of $95m… which is what Lincoln claims was the team’s total expenditures on players last year, but that’s a coincidence, because then it can’t include pro-rated signing bonuses and incentives.
Obvious signing bonuses and stuff (signing, bonus)
Ichiro, 5m on a 3 year deal = 1.7m rated, bonus of 3m possible (achieved?)
Moyer, 1.5m on 3 year deal = .5m rated,
Edgar, 3.5m in incentives last year
Cameron, 1.25m on a 3 year deal = .4m rated
Rhodes, 1m on 4 y deal = .25m rated
Total obvious incentive/signing-type costs: $9.6m total
If you want to argue that the M’s include bonuses and pro-rated signing bonuses, but not benefit costs, they should be claiming $97-98m dollars (unless Ichiro somehow missed his bonuses, which I can’t imagine happened, since bonuses are always tied to playing time and are not performance-based).
The only way the M’s get to their $92m in “payroll” and $95m in “total costs” is if you figure they’re selectively picking chosing which things they include to get to those figures, because there’s no way you can.
There’s really only one way to get to the Mariners’ number, and it’s like this:
$87m in player salary costs
$5m in magic number costs (food and hotel incidentals, or something)
——–
$92m
How can we be the only people saying there’s no way to make the numbers work, that any way you add them up the Mariners aren’t telling the truth?
If you weren’t angered by LaRue’s weird column, today’s Pocket Lint piece at the Seattle Times will test your tolerance. Here:
As such, the Seattle club is in the midst of its annual offseason split-personality mode to uphold: a) its standard as a contender and b) its payroll budget.
This year, team officials have kept that figure private, but it is almost certain to be about $95 million. Team president Chuck Armstrong said it would be no less than the 2003 budget of $92 million, and CEO Howard Lincoln said it would be no less than the $95 million expenditure of 2003.
The $92m is a lie. It’s always been a lie, and it’s a telling stain on the local media that they continually regurgitate it when even in pre-season puff pieces the Times couldn’t get the number up to $92m, a fact we pointed out here. No one has ever been able to explain how the Mariners get to a $92m payroll last year without including expenses no other team (or accounting method w/r/t the salary cap, etc) includes in their calculation. It’s a lie, and they push it because it looks good to say they spent over $90m — it’s a big, generous figure that compares well with other teams.
That the team claims their payroll was $92m and their actual expenditure was $95m makes their lies even more obvious, if that was possible: because in saying that, the team acknowledges that there’s payroll and then incentives etc, and that they’re not counting those as part of payroll. The most convoluted method we ever managed to come up with for getting the team to their claimed payroll was to count everything they’re not supposed to count: incentives, pro-rated signing bonuses, meal per diem allowances, the whole thing.
I’m continually disappointed with local press’ failure to analyze or even report on front-office moves (as Dave did yesterday), but their continual complicity in putting out the stories the Mariners want them to cover, in the way the Mariners want them to cover, is shameful and a disgrace to any journalistic principles these papers might claim to honor. The sports section should not be a refuge for editorial compromise and printing lies in the service of those your press pass depends on.
The Mariners have made some front office moves, including the hiring of a new scouting director, Bob Fontaine Jr. The other moves were in-house promotions and a slight reorganization to help ease Roger Jongewaard into retirement and redistribute some of his responsibilities. A quick rundown:
Jongewaard: From Asst. GM to consultant. He’ll be more active than Gillick, but more of a part-time employee.
Looper: From director of player development to VP of player development and scouting. More say on major league side of scouting, less involvement in the farm system.
Frank Mattox: From scouting director to director of player development. Now in charge of farm system administration, player promotions, and the minor leagues in general.
Greg Hunter: Named director of minor league operations. A fancier job title and more responsibility for the rising star in the organization’s front office.
Bob Fontaine: Named director of scouting. Will be in charge of amateur signings and the June draft.
It isn’t a big surprise that Bavasi brought in his own guy to be the scouting director, though Frank Mattox staying on with the organization wasn’t guaranteed. Fontaine and Bavasi are friends from their days with the Angels, and both are long time baseball men. This continues the organizational trend towards hiring people with experience who believe in the tried-and-no-so-true methods of old school analysis. It has its place, but the last thing this organization needed was another old-school thinker.
Bob Fontaine is a pretty intense individual with a very strong set of beliefs. You won’t be seeing a drastic change in the way the M’s draft, though Fontaine will likely draft more college players than Mattox did. The focus will still be on athletes over players, however. Hiring a new scouting director should help alleviate some of the tension that has been created between the Mariners organizations and agents during the Gililck/Mattox regime, but don’t look for wide ranging improvement in the M’s ability to turn draft picks into useful players.
All in all, it is a continuance of the old-school philosophy that relies heavily on subjective analysis. While I’m certainly a fan of scouting (to the point of being labeled an anti-stathead recently), good organizations have balance, and the Mariners currently lack an understanding of the value of objective analysis. As they continue to bring in like-minded thinkers, they fall further into the trap of not seeing their own flaws and repeating the mistakes of history.
According to this from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the M’s have called the Pirates to ask about catcher Jason Kendall. That’s interesting, given the seemingly never ending presence of Dan Wilson on the roster, as well as that of Ben Davis. Kendall is owed a boatload of cash ($42M) over the next four seasons, and at age 29 isn’t getting any younger. More importantly, his power has dipped to scary levels the past three years — SLGs of .358, .356, .416 beginning with 2001. While I have no doubt that he’d be a big improvement over Wilson, I don’t see picking up that sort of salary for a soon-to-be 30-year old catcher being a good idea. If the M’s are looking to throw $10M+ a year at someone, it should be Vladimir Guerrero.
Huge moves brewing as the M’s contemplate offering arb to their players. Given the spin they’re putting on this through local media, of the big four, I predict they’re going to let Freddy walk, Guillen walk, Cameron walk (booooooo), and may offer arb to Hasegawa and Rhodes both. The first batch of decisions (potential FAs) has a Sunday deadline.
Reports on Tejeda’s contract demands vary: I’ve heard both that he wants a super-long deal and that he doesn’t. I guess we’ll see how this shakes out.
There’s quite a bit about Miguel Tejada to like, as much as you’re probably expecting us/me to rip him. For starters, he’s extremely durable — he’s played in all 162 of Oakland’s games each of the past three seasons, and in 150 and 159 games the two seasons before that. Offensively he has good pop for his position, and while his walk totals have been erratic, he has at least shown the willingness to exceed the 10% threshold (66 walks against 607 at-bats in 2000). I don’t have an opinion on his defense one way or the other, though it’s not as if he’d be replacing Ozzie Smith or Omar Vizquel out there.
Clubhouse chemistry? Team leader? I generally don’t put much stock in such things, though all things being equal (they never are), I’d certainly rather have a player who’s known for his leadership than for being a dreaded clubhouse cancer.
There’s also reason to like the M’s offer to Tejada. Whether it’s a three, four or five year deal, the fact remains that Tejada only turns 28 next May — a contract of that length covers his prime years without extending too far into his likely decline years. This isn’t like offering a 32-year old player a three year deal.
That the M’s are able to make such an offer is amazing for two reasons: One, it just doesn’t seem like them. And two, a year ago it looked like Tejada would get something like a seven-year, $100M deal on the open market thanks to his career year in 2002 and subsequent MVP award. Now, not only did his batting average drop off by 30 points last season, but those sorts of contracts just aren’t being given out anymore.
This article in today’s News Tribune suggests that “Tejada wants a deal twice as long as the four- to five-year contract Seattle offered,” perhaps throwing all my comments out the window. That said, is anyone going to give him an eight- or ten-year deal? No, they’re not.
The Mariners didn’t lowball Cameron because they think he’ll take it, or they think that’s what his value is — they lowballed him because Cameron’s said he wants to come back, and they want to make sure the offer they give him (so they can go to the fans and say “we tried”) is so low he absolutely won’t take it. This happens a lot, it’s slimy, and Cameron deserved better.
Much of the resentment of Cameron by fans stems from his strikeouts. I blame this entirely on too much exposure to the idiocy of the M’s broadcast teams, who harp on this continually, the M’s organization, which from Piniella on has made a big deal about getting Cameron to change what he does (and does well) in order to put the ball in play, and local media types in general, who point to his offense as a problem, which is only part of the story.
In 2003, Prospectus has him as the 11th-most valuable center fielder in baseball.
In 2002, even with his eye problems, he was 8th, behind Carlos Beltran.
2003 was also the first year his splits weren’t crazy-bad in Safeco Field:
Home: .235/.329/.429
Road: .268/.357/.432
2002 for instance, it was
Home: .218/.334/.370
Road: .258/.345/.509
Cameron doesn’t and has never hit well at Safeco. Haven’t I written this post before?
His defense, by almost any measure, is one of the best in the game. Subjectively, I went to a ton of Mariners home games this year, and you can sort of mark out a player’s range by how often you see them get to balls that drop here, and there, and sketch out a mental circle… this totally sucks, objective-stat-wise, but bear with me. After seeing a ton of games, if you’re really paying attention, you see that other outfielders don’t get to the balls he does. It’s totally obvious with really bad ones, but even with mid-tier guys, I noticed it frequently.
Cameron is a vacuum in the outfield. A vacuum mounted on a rocket sled equipped with AEGIS technology for ball tracking. I don’t mean to be rude, but if you think Mike Cameron is a bad defensive centerfielder, you’re watching some other Mike Cameron. Or you live in Bizarro World, where dropping balls is good. Or you’re just being contrary for the sake of being contrary.
If you buy into Win Shares (and you shouldn’t, but for reasons that are way too complicated to get into here) Cameron was the 10th-best *outfielder* in all of baseball last year, and he was the best defensive outfielder in baseball. Clay Davenport’s translations have Cameron worth about 20 runs more than the average center fielder. I have seen some particularly weird stats that don’t have him as super, but instead good, but if that’s the worst possible way the defensive stats come out: possibly good but most likely amazingly awesome — then we have to consider that maybe he’s pretty good.
If Cameron goes someplace that doesn’t severely punish all (non-elite) right-handed hitters, he’s going to put up (seemingly) career numbers and the people who today dismiss him as “an uncredited star” are going to have to recognize he is exactly that.
Now, what teams, generally speaking, are really good at recognizing undervalued players?
The Yankees, for one, who now have a spot for him if they decide to move Bernie.
The A’s are said to be sniffing around.
If Cameron goes to the A’s for $4, $5m and hits .285/.360/.500 for the season while playing stellar defense, everyone who was so eager to run him out of town, including management, should feel ashamed of themselves. And buy me beer.
Also, I believe that the Safeco Field of Lights thing looks really, really stupid.
I was going to write more about Guillen v Matsui v Tejeda again, but I’ve run out of steam. Just cross-apply my previous arugments… Matsui’d be Guillen-plus for a whole season but not a significant upgrade, and not for that kind of money. If the team is thinking about spending that money on a SS, Tejeda’s a far better option.
Tejeda’s a fair bet to put up his 2003 numbers for a couple more seasons. I’m still concerned about the age rumors, but still. The big problem I see is that he’s a righty, and righties get killed in Safeco (see: Mike Cameron, others) unless they’re nutty-good (see: Edgar Martinez). If Tejeda is putting up a .280/.340/.475-ish line in Safeco, he’s worth spending on.
I’m also concerned (warning: stat cap coming off) that Tejeda has some awful at-bats. People who complain about Cameron — unless Tejeda responds well to Molitor, these people will hate Tejada. Man in scoring position? First-pitch hacking, ground ball to short or second. Sometimes he has terrible pitch selection and doesn’t seem to give a crap about working the pitcher for what he wants, or even trying. This is a constant source of frustration for A’s fans I know, I saw it watching a lot of A’s games this year, and I hope it’s a product of something in Oakland rather than his approach.
Finnegan reports that the M’s have offered Tejada a 3 year, $24-25 million contract. I’d heard $27 million, but other than that, this is pretty much dead on. I’m not a huge Miguel Tejada fan, but this is a good deal, and we should hope he takes it. It would even lessen the pain of the Ibanez signing, as the Royals would then have to settle for our second round pick. I’d sleep better at night knowing the 19th pick in the draft got us Tejada instead of Ibanez.
However, that isn’t really what I wanted to talk about. This is what got my blood burning this morning. LaRue details the M’s plan of action with their own free agents and the decisions to offer arbitration, specifically to Hasegawa and Rhodes but not Cameron.
Last year, the three were paid a combined $11.8 million. If each was offered arbitration before Sunday, then they all won their cases in the spring, that figure could double.
This just isn’t true. Can anyone come up with reasonable projections that place those three at a combined $24 million? Rhodes and Hasegawa, max, would get $6 million apiece, and thats extremely generous. That means Mike Cameron has to make up the other $12 million. Umm, yea. Not happening. Now, I generally like LaRue, but that statement is just blatently wrong, and by a giant margin. I’d project the actual value of all three players salaries (assuming they accept arbitration, don’t sign with another club, and then win their cases, which is extremely far fetched) to be around $15 million. Slight raises for Hasegawa and Rhodes, and Cameron leveling off at about the same as he made last year.
The Mariners have spent much of the offseason looking at upgrading the Seattle offense and Cameron – who made $7 million last season – is likely too big a risk for the team in salary arbitration.
Why? We’re afraid that the best defensive center fielder in the game, and a giant part of the reason this team has won so many games the past 3 years, might actually come back, and that would screw up our plans to keep Randy Winn? There’s a market for Mike Cameron, and the odds of him accepting arbitration are pretty slim. Even if he does, if you still feel the need to move his upcoming contract, he’s easily tradeable. The Twins just moved Eric Milton and his $9 million salary, and Milton tossed a grand total of 17 innings last year. If Cameron accepts arb., and you still determine you don’t want him back next year, trade him. Get a low-level relief arm. Whatever. It won’t bust the budget.
If that happens, the Mariners are unlikely to extend that offer to Cameron or Rhodes. If the team signs Hasegawa before then, it might offer arbitration to Rhodes.
I know many of you have asked for an in depth explanation of why I’d rather have Rhodes than Hasegawa, but I haven’t had time to write one yet. So, for now, I’ll just reiterate, choosing Shiggy over Arthur is dumb. If you can’t have both, you take Rhodes. The organization is teeming with right handed relievers. There is no point in paying Hasegawa to keep them blocked in AAA.
Because once offered, a team cannot avoid arbitration if the player accepts, and once the process is begun, an arbiter must pick between one of two salary figures – one from the team, one from the player.
This isn’t completely true. A team has the option of cutting the player once the arbitration case has been settled and before opening day (essentially, during spring training) and only owing 16 % of the total value of the contract. If Cameron was awarded $7 million, the M’s could cut him during March and be out just $1.12 million. So the risk is not nearly as high as LaRue, and the Mariners, are making it out to be.
Cameron, the Gold Glove center fielder and fan favorite, is seeking a multi-year contract, and there are teams willing to offer one. Seattle is not among them.
If the M’s know this to be true, then failing to offer arbitration is just stupid. The odds Cameron takes a one year tender with an undetermined salary to stay with a team who isn’t sure they want him over a guaranteed multiyear deal are about the same as Bill Bavasi hiring me as a special consultant next week. If there is a reasonable assumption that Cameron will sign elsewhere, you offer arbitration, because the reward justifies the minimal risk.
If they go to arbitration with Rhodes, Hasegawa and Cameron, then face the same process with their eight already arbitration-eligible players, there’s the potential of losing 11 salary cases.
Of course, any team who loses 11 arbitration cases in one year deserves to be disbanded and have their assistant GM’s hung in a public square. I believe, in all of baseball last year, that 4 players won arbitration cases. Most players willingly settle, and arbiters have been siding with owners more frequently anyways. LaRue’s comment on the possibility is absurd. There is a possibility that every computer in the world could break down and he’ll have to write his next column on papyrus using sap from a tree for ink, too. Talk about hyperbole.
Mike Cameron is getting jobbed by the M’s, and a 1 year, $4 million offer is insulting. There’s no reason for him to stay, and as much as I’d like him to, I know he’s going to play elsewhere next year. Which is why offering him arbitration is the only logical step; get your two draft picks and recoup something, at least.
But no, this organization is hell bent on making the wrong move on every possible transaction this winter. Sign a crappy LF and forfeit a draft pick in the process? Great! Let our most underrated player leave and ask for no compensation in return? Sounds good! Overpay for average relievers because they are “proven closers”? Sign us up! Why not just institute “Light Season Ticket Holders On Fire” night for next year?
This team gets harder to root for ever year.
I like Shiggy, but if the Yankees are able to keep the M’s from spending too much for his services, that’s probably a good thing. Besides, it’s not as if there aren’t a ton of relievers — Aaron Taylor, Aaron Looper, JJ Putz, Allan Simpson — lazing around the system ready for work.