Thursday’s moves-a-go-go
So! Larry Stone says Carl Everett’s signing is pretty much done:
The Mariners are also on the verge of signing free-agent outfielder Carl Everett to a contract, addressing their need for a left-handed bat. If nothing goes wrong, the signing of Everett, a 34-year-old switch-hitter, could be announced any day, but possibly not until next week. The Mariners need to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for Everett…
Again, this is a horrible, horrible, horrible idea. Stone’s article cowardly pushes Everett’s issues to the second-to-last paragraph of the article:
The other outfielders on Seattle’s radar were Jeromy Burnitz and Everett, with Everett getting the call despite his controversial history.
Yeah. Controversial. That’s one way to put it, I guess. How disappointing.
Also, the M’s didn’t offer arb to PH Dave Hansen, RHP Shigetoshi Hasegawa, RHP Jeff Nelson, or DL Pokey Reese.
According to ESPN, the Red Sox trade Edgar Renteria to the Braves and get ANDY FREAKING MARTE. This is nutty. Marte is a stellar prospect. Renteria bites.
The Blue Jays picked up possible Mariner target Lyle Overbay, and gave up:
RHP Dave Bush
OF-L Gabe Gross
LHP Zach Jackson
That’s quite a haul for Overbay. The Brewers are making some really sweet deals this off-season.
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89 Responses to “Thursday’s moves-a-go-go”
The Mets picked up Jose Valentin for a minor-league contract. He would have made a quality utility infielder/left handed pinch hitter for the cheap. As rotoworld points out, he’s a true clutch guy.
Career:
.270/.366/.509 with RISP
.308/.349/.673 with the bases loaded
Beats the hell out of Dobber.
That Dinosaur quote is hilarious. I don’t know if the guy is actually a moron, or just likes to mess with people.
“Free-agent first baseman Julio Franco, who turned 47 in August, is close to signing a two-year contract with the Mets, FOXsports.com has learned. The Mets are giving Franco a two-year deal to lure him from the division rival Braves, for whom Franco has played since 2001.”
#53: I’d almost laugh, but it isn’t funny. Age 47 or not, Franco can still produce within his role. He just might creak his way to 3,000 hits yet.
This is pretty simple….Everett during a poor year should give the M’s 20 hrs and 80 rbis.
The rejects from Tacoma plugged into left…well, maybe they give you adequate defense.
Someone else suggested Huff would MAYBE be an offensive upgrade over Winn… I think we’re now just flying fast and lose with opinions in hyperbole.
Is Everett out there…well yes….. does his views on sexual orientation really matter….uh no…. will he bust his tail between the lines….yes is he getting old…..well we all do. Is he Jesus…no is he Satan….no is he even milton bradley….hardly.
Everett has potential upside. Id prefer Jones because his defense is so superior but the world wont end if they sign Everett to a one year deal.
“Everett during a poor year should give the M’s 20Hr and 80RBIs”
JoJo – can you defend this sentence? Last year, in a year typical of his recent career, that is almost exactly what he gave the WhiteSox, playing half his games in a hitters park. 23HR, 87RBI.
One year older, playing half his games in Safeco he’d have to play out of his skin to match that. 20/80 is probably his maximum upside for Seattle.
Also, we’d not be plugging him into left, he’d more likely be the DH, putting Ibanez back in left, with all the horrors that Raul’s limited range entails for our flyball staff.
Everett at this stage of his career is a very marginal contributor with a ton of baggage. He’ll cost millions. We should leave him the hell alone.
I’d rather the M’s signed Franco.
Not to throw water on a drowning man, but didn’t he lose visitation rights with his kids because he beat them to the point of child abuse? Probably that “Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child” thing. I may be wrong about that one, and if I am, sorry Carl.
The child abuse has been discussed earlier, and it’s more complicated than that.
BTW I don’t think that refusing to believe in dinosaurs indicates that Carl Everett is a moron, merely that he is capable of holding deep unshakeable beliefs in something completely irrational. That puts him in line with about 80 percent of the population, or maybe more.
Hating gays and having one of his children removed from his custody because of ‘excessive corporal punishment’ – that makes Carl Everett an asshole.
well, the Ms may not have made a big winter meeting move, but they DO have new bp jerseys….
Choo hit .282/.382/.431 in AAA, with 20 steals. That’s not great, but that’s not “trouble” either. It easily beats Willie B’s minor league numbers, for instance. Those numbers are better than Scott Podsednik’s minor league numbers, as another example.
Choo and Morse project out to be “tweener” OF’ers pretty much everywhere I’ve seen them graded- not good enough defensively for CF, not enough bat for corner OF’s. Basically, they are 4th OF’ers as major leaguers. I submit that a platoon of two 4th OF’ers (where both of them would be facing the pitching hand they would logically hit the best) is arguably maximizes their value.
Someone else suggested Huff would MAYBE be an offensive upgrade over Winn… I think we’re now just flying fast and lose with opinions in hyperbole.
Aubrey Huff’s OPS’s in 2002-2004: .884, .922, .853.
Huff had a bad year in 2005. He’s also younger than 30. I’d be willing to pay 6.75 million to a guy in his walk year to see if that’s a fluke, and if he can get an OPS between .850 and .900 similar to 2002-2004 from a lefty in our lineup. Unless you think Randy’s numbers in SF are real instead of flukey, you won’t be seeing a .850-.900 OPS from him.
Everett, OTOH, gives you nothing any marginally competent hitter can give you at DH. RBIs are a function of where you hit in the batting order (read: useless by themselves as a measure of offensive skill), and 20 HRs in New Comiskey (Insert Corporate Name Here) is no big deal. What IS the big deal is that his on-base percentage has been below AL league average, adjusted for park in every year but one since 2000- and THAT year he played in Arlington and New Comiskey, and his slugging has been below .450 for all of those years too. He sucks as a DH option.
From the beat writer for the Devil Rays:
“Huff is the player the Rays are most eager to deal, but they require a ‘top-prospect pitcher and a position player add in.'”
“Toby Hall is becoming ‘more unlikely by the day.’ Given that and an impending Lugo deal, the Rays could try to obtain a shortstop as part of a Huff trade. Regardless, the focus of the Devil Rays will continue to be pitching.”
Does this translate to Mateo and Santiago? Anyone have any ideas what the M’s could put together to get Huff over Everett?
Choo struggled during the first half (he was hitting .255/.371/.392 in mid-July). He had a hot August to raise his overall AAA numbers, but by then, the quality of AAA pitching staffs had taken a hit due to promotions and attrition. He was caught stealing 10 times, so his baserunning needs work. His 0 for September with the M’s also suggests he is not ready. If he cannot hit major league pitching, his OBP will not translate because there will be no need to pitch around him.
A platoon of cheap players in LF is not a bad backup plan, but Choo/Morse would be both an offensive liability and a defensive liability.
Enough has been written about Carl going to the M’s. But as an outsider observer (non M’s fan) if you had asked me before the Winter Meetings where Everett would end up I would have listed Seattle WAY down the list. A city that prides itself (among many things) as being diverse, an organization that repeatedly discusses “character”, and a player who is, to be kind, the antithesis of both. What’s beyond oil and water? Matter, anti-matter?
And somebody explain to me how a professional guy like Ichiro is going to respond to an Everett melt-down involving loud cursing and likely some fisticuffs? Geez, if Ichiro wasn’t happy with the clubhouse in 2005 because of guys playing cards………
Oh, and glad somebody noticed the Overbay trade. I won’t smirk too much even though somebody around openly derided my listing of Overbay as a possible left-handed bat on the market referencing Doug Melvin’s comments to the effect that Lyle was not available.
What? A GM not telling the media what he’s really thinking?
How shocking. 🙂
today’s (unconfirmed) catcher news: “Free agent catcher Ramon Hernandez [age 29]and the Baltimore Orioles have agreed to a $27.5 million, four-year contract.”
the thought is they now move Javy Lopez for pitching…
This is shaping up as an ugly off-season for the Brewers and Tigers. I’d rather the M’s do nothing than do the things they’ve done.
His 0 for September with the M’s also suggests he is not ready.
And Willie’s 2002 cup of coffee meant he was going to be an All-Star? Please. He’s had 18 frickin’ MLB at-bats. You can’t draw conclusions from that and dump the minor league stats on the floor.
Another explanation for struggling is he figures some things out at AAA, and then starts hitting. See, I can find excuses for stats too!
Like I said, Choo’s minor league numbers grade out better than Podsednik, Bloomquist, Larry Bigbie and Mike Morse, to pick some guys who’ve been discussed here. His minor league OPS’s, actually, aren’t very far away from Jeremy Reed’s (who also had a “meh” year in Tacoma/Charlotte at 22)- the major difference being Reed hitting for higher average and Choo walking more. So why is Reed deserving of a shot last year, and Choo needs to go work on his spelling or something in Tacoma?
His 0 for September with the M’s also suggests he is not ready.
And Willie’s 2002 cup of coffee meant he was going to be an All-Star? Please. He’s had 18 frickin’ MLB at-bats. You can’t draw conclusions from that and dump the minor league stats on the floor.
Another explanation for struggling is he figures some things out at AAA, and then starts hitting. See, I can find excuses for stats too!
Like I said, Choo’s minor league numbers grade out better than Podsednik, Bloomquist, Larry Bigbie and Mike Morse, to pick some guys who’ve been discussed here. His minor league OPS’s, actually, aren’t very far away from Jeremy Reed’s (who also had a “meh” year in Tacoma/Charlotte at 22)- the major difference being Reed hitting for higher average and Choo walking more. So why is Reed deserving of a shot last year, and Choo needs to go work on his spelling or something in Tacoma?
We should pick up Miguel Tejada – he wants to be traded.
I thought this was a troll, but by golly, so Miggy says…. huh.
oh, and btw, one reason sports-talk radio makes me crazy….
After an update that included the news that Renteria was traded for ‘a prospect’, we heard the theory that because the M’s proposed trade package was turned down by the Marlins + Bavasi thinks some trades would need a succeeding trade this = the Mariners minor league system is bare = the Ms should move at least one big money player for prospects a la the Marlins or they will never improve.
In just some random news… Miguel Tejada wants out now http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2252946
We missed out on him a couple years ago… I say we grab him if we can… Doubtful though..
Everett == bad idea. Moving on to the interesting (to me) parts of this post…
Who the hell is running the Red Sox? If we knew having no GM was this effective, we would have done it years ago. The Beckett trade was costly but defensible, but the Marte trade is just a fleecing. If the Sox turn Lowell (now a totally spare part) over to the Twins for, well, anything at all, that’s the hattrick of a GM’s lifetime.
“And Willie’s 2002 cup of coffee meant he was going to be an All-Star? Please. He’s had 18 frickin’ MLB at-bats. You can’t draw conclusions from that and dump the minor league stats on the floor.”
That does not rely address the point. Bloomquist showed a baseline ability that he could hit major league pitching in a limited opportunity, but given the sample size, it provided little basis to judge how well he could hit over a period of time. Choo’s problem was that as a starting point, his minor league numbers last year were not very impressive, even with the one-month hot streak. He then could not get a hit in 15 major league ABs in September. As a long-term indicator, it means little, but as a present one, it suggests that at this point in his development, he is overmatched by major league pitching.
“So why is Reed deserving of a shot last year, and Choo needs to go work on his spelling or something in Tacoma?”
Reed was a good defender and could play centerfield; Choo is not a good defender at this point and would be playing leftfield. Reed showed better contact skills throughout the minors, which translates better to the majors than players relying on-base skills. When promoted Reed showed that he had the ability to hit major league pitching. If a major league pitcher throws a pitch over the plate, Jeremy Reed can hit it. Choo has not shown that he can do that yet.
Players with better minor league numbers than Choo have failed to adjust to the major leagues. That is not to say that Choo will not adjust, but based on what he did last year, it is purely wishful thinking that Choo is ready to contribute in the major leagues on a daily basis. There are better options available for the M’s than to plan on Choo as their starting leftfielder against righthanders.
colm:
Please elaborate. Because as a National League Central fan I have seen the Brewers:
–sign Cirillo on the cheap to be a spare part at first/third base
–pick up Dan Kolb on the cheap (Wes Obermuller is less than nothing). Kolb flourished under Mike Maddux. He has a fastball. Maybe he re-captures the 2004 magic.
–jettison Wes Helms and his lead glove, lard ar*e, and excessive salary expectations based on a lucky year pinch-hitting
–clear the way for a 21 year old first baseman who cranked 28 homers in 378 at bats at Triple A (.291/.388/.569 at Nashville)
–pick up a decent fourth outfielder (Gross) to backup Jenkins/Lee
–pick up a decent arm for middle relief (Bush)
–pick up pitching prospect Zach Jackson (these last three from the Overbay trade. Overbay was part of the Sexson trade to the D-backs. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Ha!)
–sign Rick Helling on the cheap to be a spare part in the bullpen or spot start
So the Brewers are clearly going with youth (infield of Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, Hall), got some pitching depth (to let their younger pitching prospects continue to work in the minors), and fleshed out the bench.
All at minimal expense.
What’s the downside here? Enlighten me.
An interesting little bit of news i read on the mariners mlb website. apparently the mariners and the red sox had some discussions involving a trade for Trot Nixon. Exactly how far these talks went and what they entailed, it didn’t say. But it would be a nice addition to have Trot play LF for us next year. He can hit and play solid defense. The only question mark is his health. But I’d still take him over Burnitz and Everett.
If Trot’s knee doesn’t hold up he sounds like a Seattle DH to me…
Tejada…Maybe if we’re trading Beltre. What do we need another RH hitter for…at SS? The Reds have 5 ML OFers. Not Tejada…Dunn. As long as we can keep Felix, Sexson, Kenji and Ichiro it’d be hard to say no to a deal for Dunn. If Sexson’s a Moose is Dunn a Monster? Who’d protect who in the lineup? Well it’d never happen, so…
on KOMO tonight, an exhausted sounding Benny Looper on the Winter meetings–
Bavasi & Pelekoudas were actually on the way out the door circa 1AM to sign trade papers when they got the call saying the trading partner (Florida?) had changed their mind
Carvajal, young with good stuff, excited to get him
Bourgeois, athletic, can play 2nd, ss, 3rd; thought he was the best player available to them on the AAA level
will the Boras pitching clients go for the level set by Burnett? Scott’s usually slow & deliberate, so we’ll see where that leads…
any deal that stood out, good or bad? hard to say as a team may look at a move differently than the utsider will, and sometimes you don’t know how it will work until the whole team is together– but there was one in partiklar he didn’t understand, but he’d rather not comment on it 🙂
Left hand sock? came close on one that wasn’t quite what they were thinking of, but still working on it
Carl Everett; how do I say this without being dematerialized? . . . Ahhh, it seemed to me for years that his production and his behavior had a common solution, but now that neither are hot at all anymore he’s simply problematic. I would consider myself seriously insulted as a fan if the Ms pick up Everett, he’s everything the Ms _don’t_ need, and the kind of guy I don’t pay to watch.
Whoever is running the Red Sox is doing a friggin’ fantastick job. In essence, they turned the mistake that was Renteria into Lowell, which would be a wash except they save a bunch of money and years, and filled the hole, if any, left by Mueller. They turned Hanley Ramierez and Anibel Sanchez into Josh Becket and Andy Marte, plus tipped in a couple of lesser lights for Guillermo Mota. They dumped Wells and the marginal quantity which is Graffanino for Loretta, who can actually hold down a ML starting position job. They will probably now have enough money to offer Damon five-at-value, which may get the deal done. This is the best offseason I’ve seen in quite a few years, by anyone. I have plenty of respect for Theo Epstein, but evidently he didn’t have a corner on smarts in that FO, just the window with the best view.
Word over at ESPN is that Millwood wants a deal comparable to Burnett’s: 5 years at around 11 million. I know we need pitching, but I’m not sure Millwood is worth that extra year.
Bloomquist showed a baseline ability that he could hit major league pitching in a limited opportunity, but given the sample size, it provided little basis to judge how well he could hit over a period of time.
You’re not getting it.
ANY minor league hitter can have a hot streak that makes it look like he can hit major league pitching for a brief period of time. That’s the basic problem with small sample sizes. Just because the coin in my hand comes up heads 10 times in a row, doesn’t mean it’s loaded, and just because Willie Bloomquist in September 2002 outhit Shin-Soo Choo in September 2005 doesn’t mean Bloomquist was a better hitter- the sample size where Choo kicked Bloomquist’s butt at EVERY minor league level (and at a younger age) is more important in the evaluation. And again, Reed didn’t have better stats in AAA than Choo did. What got him his job was looking good in September 2004- which, as 2005 illustrated, was not the correct evaluation to make (Reed SHOULD have had a platoon partner last year).
Choo’s also beaten Podsednik and Bigbie out for performance, based on minor league stats. Doesn’t that mean he’s a better hitter? Or is he the only player in MLB who will automatically be awful in 2006 in a major league job, based on 18 major league at-bats?
And my point’s simply that Everett’s awful. His signing basically gives us a bad defensive LF (Ibañez) plus .700-.750 OPS at the DH slot, which we could basically get for nothing 17 different ways instead of paying millions. Taking a chance on a kid (Choo) would be one of them. I’m not wedded to it, nor do I think Choo’s going to be an All-Star rookie, but Everett’s been a barely above replacement-level player 4 out of the last 5 years, and it’s not any kind of a stretch to assert a young player who’s performed reasonably well at AAA could match his performance in the right circumstances- because that’s the DEFINITION of replacement-level, that it’s easily replaced by free talent.
Ed-gah fah Mah-tay? Wicked pissah. Luchino’s smaht. Uncanny how the Sox FO finds playahs whose names challenge the local accents. Nom-ah. Mill-AH. Muell-eh. Trottah. Pahk the cah. Bah Hahbah? Cahn’t get they-ah from hee-yah.
Sorry, impossible to even muster a comment on the prospect of acquiring Everett. Even as a rumor, an all-time WTF?!?!? Can’t somebody warn him about the Canadian taxes he’d have to pay if he signed with us homos in Seattle?
To correct what I wrote above, the Brewers are having a stellar off season.
I meant to say “Orioles and Tigers”
If the Mariners sign Everett, does that mean they have taken the lead
in the race for stupidest free agent signings/hot stove league trades this winter?
And that Renteria/Marte trade is yet another good deal for the Red Sox. First they get Beckett et al., now Marte. Unbelievable.
#65 I will now say without any doubt….there is NO WAY Milwaukee will trade Overbay 😛
#56 Last year was Everett’s worst season since 2000 when playing over 125 games…he had 23 hrs and 87 rbis
With the Everett issue, im trying to look at it from Bavasi’s shoes(and admittantly id be a lousy GM) but here’s what I think the M’s are mulling- Everett isnt the ideal answer but he’s a better option at DH than Morse and forcing Ibanez to left is alot better than the rejects from Tacoma platooning there… Please dont even suggest Morse as an option in left….people are decribing Raul in left as an apocalyptic event… Snelling, well he’s too injury prone. Jamal and Choo, well ewwwww and besides, if the M’s were trying to develop Morse as a LFer last year, that pretty much should tell you theyve already decided on Strong and Choo Choo. Arguing how their minor league numbers will translate is pointless. The M’s have decided they arent the answers.
The M’s would be interested in Everett because despite all of his flaws because he is an upgrade.. You can argue that he isnt your preferred upgrade but dont use Everett’s views on sexual preference or dinosaurs as your argument that he isnt an upgrade. Simply put, take away Raul and the M’s got NOTHING out of leftfield or the DH spot the second half of the season last year.
I dont really like Everett either but the arguments against him seem to lack the context of the M’s situation. The choices seem to be the following: either spend 3-4 mill on Everett for a year and take your 20 hrs/70 rbis with him as a DH, spend maybe a little less on Burnitz for the same scenario, spend 6-7 mill a year for 3 on Jones and hopefully get the same production (or better) while playing him in left, somehow pull off a creative trade which seems a very remote possibility, or settle on the rejects from Tacoma.
The rejects from Tacoma seem a deadend to me. Signing Jones may not even be an option (he has several offers) or the M’s might not want him at the price he’s likely getting. the M’s dont seem overly interested in Burnitz. That leaves Everett.
Its not like theyre chosing Everett over a choir boy version of Bonds. To me, theyre considering Everett as a short term option versus a signifincant commitment to Jones or versus ewwwwwww thats really really bad. I dont know if Bigbie was ever a true option for the M’s, but if he was and they passed, it suggests they’d really prefer at minimum a reasonable chance at 20 hrs from left and 20 hrs from DH. Everett is that.
The issue with Choo is not whether he will become a better hitter than a list of random names. The issue is whether Choo can contribute at the major league level right now. Unfortunately, there is little to suggest that Choo is ready to contribute much above replacement level value with his offense and defense.
The most important minor league stats are the most recent and those against the highest level of competition. Choo’s AAA stats last year were nothing special for the PCL. Let’s put him in context:
Doyle 370/452/553 1.005 OPS
Brown 291/366/448 814 OPS
Choo 282/382/431 813 OPS
Nunez 274/364/447 811 OPS
If Choo is the answer in leftfield next year, why not try the versatile Brown or better yet Nunez, who unlike Choo, would add value with his glove?
The next concern with Choo is that when you break down his AAA stats, Choo’s stats were mediocre for most of the season but a red hot August raised the final numbers to a respectable level. Is the real Choo what he showed in August, or what he showed during the other months of the season?
The next concern is that Choo needs to make better contact and to hit for more power. (I think Dave at one point described Choo’s swing as “weird.”) Major league pitchers can expose a hitter who struggles to make contact and cannot hit the ball far when he does make contact. The largest component of Choo’s success in AAA (and throughout his minor league career) was his ability to work a walk, but if he cannot hit for average or power in the majors, no one is going to pitch around him.
Then to top it off, when Choo gets a limited opportunity to face major league pitching, the concerns about his hitting play out. While it means nothing in the long term, his complete failure to hit major league pitching (much less for any power) suggests that — right now — the concerns that he would be overmatched are legitimate.
If the M’s decide to open the season with a contact-challenged, no-power leftfielder, they should at least find a defensive specialist.