Jason Schmidt rumor mill
DMZ · June 16, 2006 at 1:33 pm · Filed Under Mariners
As Schmidt returns to Seattle this weekend, the mill’s a-grinding.
Seattle Times.
His hometown Longview Daily News. Kitsap Sun. San Francisco Chronicle.
And much, much more.
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Posturing. Suckage-up to the local media. It’s his only trip here.
Didn’t the Mariners make a sizeable offer back in 2001 when he was free agent, more than the offer he eventually accepted from Los Gigantes?
How much closer to a World Series team would the Mariners have been had Schmidt been on the team in 2002? Schmidt only started 29 games that year, went 13-8 3.45
Certainly starting Schmidt instead of Baldwin would have made a significant difference.
Of course, if they had just used more Doug Creek that year….
Didn’t the Mariners make a sizeable offer back in 2001 when he was free agent, more than the offer he eventually accepted from Los Gigantes?
The Giants offered a fourth year; Gillick would not.
Well, at least when his arm falls off in his first M’s game, we can blame the injury on Dusty “Oil Changes Are Just A Conspiracy By Big Oil And Big Jiffy” Baker and his pitcher abusin’ ways.
The real question is will he be effective if he does come to Seattle. It sure looks to me like Pinero and Meche are gone after this year. That would leave us with Felix, Washburn and (ancient)Moyer. If we can sign that one hot shit guy from Japan (Daisuke Matsutaka? I can’t quite remember his name) and Schmidt, would we actually have a good rotation?
Felix, Dice, Schmidt, Washburn and Moyer? Holy crap: the Murderers Row of Pitching Rotations. Fear the Mariners if that manages to happen.
I’m not gonna hold my breath for it, though.
Forget about the Japanese guy. Sign Schmidt and move Soriano to the rotation. Schmidt + Soriano would be a huge upgrade over Piniero + Meche. I don’t think the M’s will spend 11+M on Schmidt + 9-10M on the Japanese guy next year. Moving Soriano to the starting role will just be fine for me.
So, given Schmidt’s age and a bit of an injury history, do we want him? For how many years?
I think the sticking point is that he’d still probably want a four-year deal (or at least his agent will tell him that’s what he wants), and I don’t see that as an acceptable risk at this point in his career.
I predict there will be more than 50 stories linking Schmidt and the Mariners between October and January in the Times, P-I and News Tribune. And at least 9,000 columns between Steve Kelley, Larry Stone, Art Thiel, Jim Moore, John McGrath and Dave Boling.
And me.
Felix, Dice, Schmidt, Washburn and Moyer? Holy crap: the Murderers Row of Pitching Rotations. Fear the Mariners if that manages to happen.
Moyer? That’s just wishful thinking.
I’ve heard a rumor that Ichiro has always wanted to be a Yankee too….
I’d count on Meche for next year before I’d count on Moyer. Well, maybe.
Schmidt would be a nice addition, if the cost isn’t too high. It does seem like he get injured every year, and he is simply getting older. But how long is Moyer going to kleep pitching, especially for a team like the M’s. I would think the losing would get to him, eventually. Soriano to the rotation would be nice, as relievers are generally easier to find. That would give us Felix, Washburn, Soriano and possibly Moyer next year. Still room for one more.
Meche would make for a terrific trade-deadline dump deal.
As would Moyer, actually. But that’ll never happen.
There’s also the issue of can we afford: 1) Matsuzaka’s posting fee, 2) Matsuzaka’s contract, and 3) Schmidt’s contract, on top of our existing commitments? Savings from Pineiro and Meche only allows for one of those three items at most.
I don’t know if the posting fee might be treated as an off-budget foreign acquisition like they used to do, but you’re talking expenses as big or bigger than signing Sexson and Beltre in the same winter. While still carrying Sexson and Beltre’s limp bats on the roster. And there’s always the little matter of needing to extend Ichiro’s contract.
What do you think somebody would trade us for Meche at this point?
A B-level prospect.
Bag o’ balls.
Not fair. A middling prospect of a AA position player?
Watch him move to Chicago and grab the Cy Young.
#17,
One maybe could get a valet to park your car if the car didn’t smell too bad.
So if you have to choose between Matsuzaka and Schmidt, who do you take?
The proven (but older with an injury history) MLB pitcher, or the unproven (younger) guy from Japan?
A lot of people still believe in Meche because he can throw 97 mph. Add in his current winning record, a league-average ERA and not-completely-sucky peripherals, and I think he’d make tasty trade bait for a contender looking for a No. 4 starter to put them over the top in the second half. If Bavasi is shrewd, he can figure out how to play the desperation of contenders like a finely tuned musical instrument.
I still think Bobby Livingston merits an extended tryout in the rotation, and the second half might provide a good opportunity to experiment with that. He’s gradually pulling himself back together in Tacoma.
Does Meche still throw 97? I seldom see him that high on the gun, but maybe he’s throwing more two-seamers now.
Watch him move to Chicago and grab the Cy Young.
This is exactly why we get to enjoy Gil’s efforts every 5 days. They are afraid that if we trade him, he’ll come around. Of course he isn’t going to come around here in Seattle. He is fragile and no pitching coach to date has been able to impart any lasting postive effect. The Ms have had some pretty decent coaching efforts and have invested a great deal of time to help Meche wrap his head around the job at hand.
At some point it should be evident that he simply doesn’t have the right tools for the job. No shame in that, very few guys do have the ability. There are only 150 starting jobs in the whole MLB and about 100 of them are AAAA level pitchers. That fact may well be why teams don’t easily give up on players, regardless of the results.
“A lot of people still believe in Meche because he can throw 97 mph.”
Since when?
I think he can be somewhat effective when his arm is healthy…the problem: It hardly ever is. Trade him before he starts to struggle again.
This is what I’m sayin’.
Sell high!
“Nuke” Meche? Yabbut, does he throw 97 with any movement up/down, right/left? Or (most likely, like the unlamented Ron Villone) is it something hitters are drooling over, waiting until he’s worked himself into a hitter’s count?
I believe it was always 97, and dead straight.
Meche hasn’t sniffed 97 in 3 years. The only time he even hits 94 on the gun is the high fastball that doesn’t even come close to being a strike. He can throw a 92 mph fastball in the zone but that’s nothing special in MLB.
If we somehow got Schmidt and Winn back we could call ourselves the “alien team.”
um, huh?
who was it last year who happily told every new reporter who asked about how much he loved “Fill in Blank” Town, and sure he’d like to play there….
I remember that, but I can’t remember who it was… It became a running joke in the media though..
jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjooooooooooooooooooooopppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Sorry! Accident!
The M’s missed a chance to trade Pineiro a month back when he had value. They should not make the same mistake with Meche. If you’ve read this site for more than a few weeks, you should understand why Meche is just not very good and unlikely to get any better. Plus, as a free agent at the end of the year, he’ll likely command a multi-year deal, which would be an absolutely unacceptable risk. The M’s might only get a Grade B prospect for Meche, but that prospect would instantly become something like the sixth best prospect in the system.
With probably two open spots (Pineiro and Meche) in next year’s rotation and no real internal candidates ready to claim even one spot (with apologies to Cruceta and Livingston), bringing back Moyer on another relatively cheap, one-year deal is an easy call.
Don’t sign Schmidt:
Why Seattle is greater than McCall:
While stopped in traffic, you can comment on USS Mariner.
I’m pretty sure Meche still hits 96 on his fastball, and can sometimes throw it for strikes. He also has great stuff that he can sometimes throw for strikes. Problem is, sometimes he can’t get anything good over for long stretches at a time. If you tune in for one of the innings where he’s got control, he does look like a Cy Young winner. Then you check back two innings later and he’s walked the bases loaded and gone 2-0 on the next batter and can’t get any of his good stuff over for a strike. So he puts a 92mph fastball over the heart of the plate and it gets turned into a bases clearing double, followed by a home run, followed by a single and a another walk and another homer, followed by Jake Woods taking over and the post-game roundtable talking about how Gil pitched a good game except for that one bad inning.
If he could be consistent with his good stuff, he’d be great. But at this point, I think it’s wishful thinking. And believe me, I’m wishin’, wishin’ hard. I’d love to see Gil finally put it together and be what so many people have thought he could be. I just ain’t holding my breath any longer.
#38: Amen. So sell high while the illusion remains intact.
How much closer to a World Series team would the Mariners have been had Schmidt been on the team in 2002? Schmidt only started 29 games that year, went 13-8 3.45
Closer than you think because immediately after Schmidt turned down the M’s offer, they traded for Cirillo. A replacement level 3B and Schmidt would have made a more than signifcant difference.
Beats the hell out of Dave Schmidt.
In 1992, Dave Schmidt pitched 3 1/3 innings for the Mariners and gave up seven earned runs.
4 years ago schmidt was a good idea. not next year, and especially not the year after that.
IMO
Is this the game thread tonight?
Oh, and Randy Winn, RF? Wow, I forsee a LOT of “aggressive baserunning”.
Way to arrange to face Barry- bases empty. Good job, King Felix.
Looks like he’s picking up right where he left off against the Angels.
ICHIRO!
woooooo!!!!
Cool, we’re actually hitting a lefty.
I always worry when this happens– for some reason (nothing to back this up, of course) it seems that when Ichiro hits a HR to lead-off a game, thats the end of their scoring for the night….
Bonds in left? So much for the we’ll-see-lots-of-Bonds-because-of-the-DH thing.
Stellar AB by Lopez!
The game thread is up.