Mmm.. more potpurri
DMZ · November 2, 2005 at 11:43 am · Filed Under Mariners
The M’s declined Hasegawa’s option (yayyyy), Reese’s option (you’re shocked, I know), and are still “in talks” with Guardado.
MLB.com reports they’re “negotiating a new deal with left-handed starter Jamie Moyer” in a passing tidbit, which is cool (home starter!).
In the front office, Lee Pelekoudas is now an Associate General Manager, whatever that means (the M’s got a lotta weird titles this year), and Jim Na moves up to Director, Baseball Administration.
Comments
90 Responses to “Mmm.. more potpurri”
It just bothers me that Bill would make such an obviously sub-optimal move.
I could point to a LOT of World Championship teams who made “sub-optimal” moves. Remember the Marlins signing Pudge in the offseason in ’03? The White Sox signing Garcia to 3/27?
Now, that’s not to say if you jump off a cliff and don’t break your legs it was a wise move- but there’s plenty of evidence that you don’t have to be Billy Beane to win a World Championship.
Bavasi made it clear at the mid-summer USSM “feed” that he really, REALLY likes Guardado’s attitude, and my guess is that + “we GOTTA have a closer” baseball groupthink is probably behind it. They might be reluctant to hand the job to Soriano based on very limited time healthy, Sherrill has to fight the same stigma Eddie did (“You wanna close? So where’s your 95 MPH fastball?”), and Putz was enough of a mixed bag at times that they felt Eddie was worth the cash, in light of his “bulldog” attitude. I don’t agree with the rationale, but it’s well within the gray area of “defensible logic”.
The key term is “rebuilding.” That is what we are doing, so how does that fit into that perspective? We are not going to contend until 2007, at the earliest. Signing Guardado can be good if he is tradeable in 2006 for players that can help us in 07 and beyond. What I worry about is whether BB is willing/able to pull the trigger on a trade before late July 2006. Most fans don’t have the long term perspective and thus would not be happy with a trade of Eddie until the team is clearly “out of the race” (not understanding that realistically, we are already out of the 2006 race when we have only two starters and extremely young players at several positions). And the Ms will not want to run up the white flag too early and undercut ticket sales and TV ratings. So in the best case scenario, this signing is, in my book, for half of 2006 and the chance to pick up some prospects thereafter. I can live with that. A second benefit is that we spend our free agent money for 2007 rather than for 2006. Eventually we need an influx of talent, but unless we get a long term (over three year) contract for a player, it doesn’t really make sense to sign someone this year, IMO. Essentially, I would just as soon spend the $6.5 on a tradeable commodity this year (Eddie) rather than on a FA pitcher, then use the $6.5 next off season (along with the players acquired in trade) to sign the FA then.
As a logician, my definition of “defensible logic” is staggeringly narrow.
Sure, teams win even thought they make some bad decisions. That is not a reason to make bad decisions; that just proves that bad decisions aren’t always fatal. But they’re still bad decisions.
It’s not necessary to make only good decisions, but good decisions help.
The whole idea that the team has no chance next year is totally wrong. We’re going to have to do a post on this, I guess, because you guys just keep repeating it.
#54 — I’d appreciate it, Dave, because I’m tired of listening to it 🙂
I certainly think the team has a chance, though that chance gets a bit more remote if the Angels get Manny.
This offseason could really change the look of some divisions.
#54 – Oh, please don’t do a post on how the M’s COULD win next year. It will be well written, well thought out, backed up with intelligent analysis and I’ll buy into it. I’ll start counting the days until spring training in January with an optimism I had planned to finally abondon for good only to fall into a destructive spiral of bitterness and disillusionment by the end of April.
…but there’s plenty of evidence that you don’t have to be Billy Beane to win a World Championship.
since ole Billy hasn’t won any World Championships, I would say there is more than plenty of evidence. I’m all for the M’s picking up Eddie’s option. Ya, you need a couple of Tums after he comes into a game but he still gets the job done for the most part. If the M’s are out of it by July you trade him (maybe we can payback Boston for the whole Varitek/Lowe for Slocumb disaster). Gives Soriano a half season (at least) to really make sure his arm is good to go (remember, his health hasn’t been exactly perfect either) and than in 2007 he takes the ball in the 9th full time. Worked in Ana-slime (aka – San Juan Capistrano Angels of Barstow) with Perci and Rodriguez.
Dave, I’m fine calling this a “sub-optimal” decision rather than a “terrible” decision. Who cares? No one wants to argue about the degree of badness. It was the *wrong* decision. Whether you think the Ms can compete or not, they just decided to spend $6M in the one area that was already a strength. They did this after publicly waffling on the matter, when a smart organization would have known in July whether they wanted to keep him.
It is possible to *buy* a closer, but if there’s one thing GMs around the league ought to have learned this year, it’s that closers are just as easy to *make*. See Dempster, Farnsworth, Jones, Street, Turnbow, Lyon, Valverde, etc., and of course, the Chicago White Sox, who went through 4 closers over the course of the season and won the World Series.
Another angle on the Guardado signing would be how much of our total ($90M) budget will be spent on the bullpen vs. how much theoretically should be spent there. I would guess that even with the signing, Eddie + Mateo + a bunch of league minimum guys would equal about $12-$13M? That is under 15% of the budget. Is that a good or bad position to be in?
I don’t know, but I would guess one of you out there has a league average or general rule of thumb on what % of a team’s budget should be spent on SP’s, RP’s, and position players. Thoughts?
My question is, though…
Why has it taken ~60 comments to point out to grammar & spelling nazi DMZ, that he flubbed with “potpurri”
😉
If you want to see the world in pure black and white, Chris, that’s your deal.
There are certainly enough arguable pieces over how Guardado will perform in 2006 to make a case on both sides, for this being both a good move and a bad move. You apparently can’t see the good side, for whatever reason. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
I Google’d Eddie’s contract and couldn’t find anything related to the signing of the original deal. I did find a couple of references, most recently the P-I this past week, that said “club option for 6.25M” or “player option for 4.25M, plus incentives”. That implies that the incentives aren’t in the Mariners option. OTOH, it could be sub-optimal reporting.
when a smart organization would have known in July whether they wanted to keep him.
Are you suggesting that we ignore any facts learned between last July and today? They tried to shop him and got nothing interesting to make the deal worthwhile. Just because you can trade doesn’t mean one should trade.
As far as I can see it, the club wasn’t waffling at the time to take/decline their option. They had until today and they waited until today. If you read intent in the calendar, please provide your insight so we can understand what you must know. What I saw was Eddy making the big public stink about respect, timing, etc.
Had Eddy not made any comments during this time period leading up to the deadline, I doubt people would be looking to make hay out of the date of the option.
61 – Potpurri is an assortment of flowers herbs and spices that smells like cat.
Potpurri is an assortment of flowers herbs and spices that smells like cat.
More commonly known as “litterbox.”
And it’s spelt potpourri, which was almost certainly Paul’s point.
67 – Whoooosh.
#59– the only comments made by the M’s were: “We would like to have Eddie back,” Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi said Thursday afternoon. “Beyond that, I’m not going to discuss any aspect of our negotiations.” and “[Chuck] Armstrong said “We’d like to have him back, he wants to come back, and hopefully we can work something out.”
The recent notion they were going to decline the option (aside from generally-held opinion based on what happened last year) seemd to stem from the PI’s Jon Paul Morosi writing “The Mariners are expected to decline their 2006 option on Eddie Guardado, enabling the team’s closer to file for free agency, according to a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations” and Eddie’s pre-deadline quotes fretting that he hadn’t yet heard anything. This week Hickey quoted Eddie’s agent as saying “They [the M’s] said they are not officially declining (to pick up the option)”….
68 – No argument there.
not that it applies here, but the Elias ‘A’ player rankings came out yesterday
I’m not buying Chris’s argument. I think the only guys worth two pennies to rub together, as a straight closer, are Street and Jones (maybe) and Street was bought, not made. Street was drafted and has always been a closer, Jones is a bluebird that fell into the Marlins laps, although I’m sure he was brought in as insurance in case Mota flopped, which he did. The rest?? I don’t think they have enough of a track record, as closers, to be considered solid, and they definitely don’t have the track record of Eddie. He’s saved 35+ three of the past 4 years. In 2004 he saved only 18 when his shoulder tweaked. His ERA is under 3 the last 4 years and on August 16th his ERA was 1.29!! His last 3 outings of the season were saves, two of which he had 1-run leads going into the 9th. I don’t deny he did stumble a bit in September but most of that was over a two week period covering 6 outings and only two resulted in losses. IMO, if anyone wants to try to say the M’s contend this season (I think it’s possible) than this is a good option pickup.
Guardado now has his own thread…
Just because the market is dumb doesn’t mean we have to be. If the market suddenly decided Ryan Franklin was worth 5M a year, would we be wise to keep him for 4M?
I disagree, the worst case is that his salary prevents the Ms from signing another FA SP to build an actual rotation for 06 and beyond.
MLB players get paid in dollars, not wins. The team does business with the player’s agent 9 times out of ten, the player makes little input. Having a “proven closer” means NOTHING to potential Ms signees.
See Ryan Franklin above. It makes great sense if we then deal Eddie in the offseason. Then we have a great example of arbitrage. Otherwise, we have a case where we overpaid, just not as much as other people.
So?
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The Ms should not be rebuilding. They are 2 good SP and a average LF away from 90 wins and they could have had ~20+M to spend.
Why should we care what the average team spends? If we have an opportunity to spend less than that and get better than average production why shouldn’t we sieze that opportunity?
I’m not going to speak for Chris, but my contention in this is not with whether or not it’s a “good” or “bad” signing, just that it’s not the best route the Ms could have taken. The Ms have a surplus in RP and a horrid derth in SP. The maringal value of retinaing Eddie’s services is far less than getting a SP, even if that SP posted the exact same WARP as Eddie will. When a consumer acts such a way, the economic term is “sub-optimal”. The Ms are certainly not making a Russ Ortiz/Eric Milton type of decision here. Eddie’s a good player and he’ll be paid about market value for better than average MV performance, but that doesn’t mean that the Ms couldn’t have done more with that money.
Dave, I don’t know why you love to play the devil’s advocate when situations like these come up. We all know from your earlier post that there is no way in hell that you would have made this move if it was up to you. Like someone said earlier how could this move not limit our options in free agency when we are working on a budget. The team is spending at least 6.25 mil on a player that will most likely provide a slight improvement over one of our guys making the league minimum. A bull pen of Sherill, Soriano, Putz, Mateo, Atchison, and Nageotte is a bargain and above average. If one of these guys gets hurt you mentioned several others in the minors that could easily fill in. The reason that Guardado may essentially be replacing Thornton is because Bavasi mistakenly believes that Thornton is or will be a good pitcher. This is another issue all together and I don’t think it is a credit to Bavasi when one of his bad moves inadvertantly nixes another. If a shrewd GM was running the M’s he would be replacing someone like Nageotte, Atchison, or Cruceta. If one disperately wants to spend money on the pen we could probably get Rudy Seanez, a much better pitcher, for a lot less.
FWIW, Matt Lawton.
I know there’s another thread now, but this is in response to Dave more than anything else. Dammit, Dave, Grant’s right. You’re just trying play devil’s advocate. Why? And if you’re going to do so, why not actually make the argument instead of attacking me, saying I’m only seeing black and white and saying that’s my “deal”. I don’t have a deal. I understand you can make an argument that signing Guardado makes sense, but it’s a *weak* argument. For god’s sake, a few weeks ago you (Dave) made a very strong case that the Ms would have an above average bullpen without Guardado and that they shouldn’t pick up his option. Has something changed, or are you just in a fighting mood?
FWIW, Matt Lawton.
Yeah, because this organization needs more steroid suspendees. 😉
jason
Didn’t see any news on it and thought it was worth “reporting”
In fact, the answer is probably yes, since it would make him attractive trade bait. If you thought houses in some neighborhood are overvalued and someone offers me a $1 million house in that area for $800,000, wouldn’t you buy it (and then turn around and sell it for $1 million)?
Now I’m not saying that that’s what the M’s are planning to do with Eddie. Neither am I saying that that’s not what they are planning to do.
I previously mentioned that if Bavasi picked up the option because of the market value and intends to turn around and trade Eddie than it’s a brilliant move. My statement you quoted is about keeping Eddie on the team and feeling privleged that you got commodity X at price Y when everyone else payed Y+Z no matter the relative value of X.
When we criticize the moves the front office makes, we’re labeled bastards who don’t want to see the team win and revel in the team’s failure.
When we support the decisions the front office makes, we’re tools of the front office who have been corrupted by having Bavasi attend our feed and have lost perspective on the ills of the franchise.
When we say that a move is neither good nor bad, but is somewhere in the middle, we’re told we’re simply playing devils advocate and are being contrarian.
Pardon me for not engaging in every discussion you guys want to bring up.
There goes my idea for Hasegawa as the teams translator for future Japanese players and Reese as the team’s new physical trainer. Well, they still have Nelson so I hope he gets promoted to team psychologist. I really don’t expect Bavasi to make many smart moves unless they are so obvious that a 6th grader could do it.
In my opinion, sewing up Eddie is a good move, if nothing else, to have at least that role defined so we can move on to other things, like getting a couple of stud starters. Another positive move would be giving R.F.F. (Ryan F@#*ing Franklin) his unconditional release. Then decide whether you’re going to keep Meche or Piniero (but, for Godsake, don’t keep ’em both. My vote is keep Meche, cut Piniero loose.
My other concern is this: which washed up former Mariner(s) will Bavasi bring back THIS year? Is he gonna pull Bill Krueger or Dave Magadan or Kevin Mitchell out of retirement? Then Bob F. Finnegan can write another “he’s in the best shape of his life puff piece” during spring training.
Hmmm. What are the Sonics up to…
Southpaw — I posed a budgeting question, which you quoted, but then you attempted to answer me with the same question I posed? I am confused.
I don’t think so. You asked about the percentage of payroll spent on payroll. My response is that we shouldn’t care.
Potpourri, potpourrah…
PI: Boo-hoo, Gillick’s gone, team talking to Morris and Giles
Times: Team talking to Boras, Giles, Jones, Burnett…and maybe trying for a deal for Delgado?
I believe the percentage of payroll spent on payroll is very close to 100%.
How about a Meche vs. Franklin debate
M: great stuff that usually never appears, head case, injury prone, cheap
F: mediocre stuff, dellusional (i.e., overconfident) but not really a head case, stays health (i.e., eats innings), not cheap but not expensive
To be honest I really don’t know which is worst. It’s like picking the lesser of two evils.
Hey, isn’t this tampering? Can the Yankers get away with this?
http://www.newsday.com/sports/printedition/ny-spyanks044497798nov04,0,3688707,print.story?coll=ny-sports-print