What I would do
Is there anything less productive yet more fun than creating wildly unrealistic scenarios where we get to manage the rosters of our favorite teams? The enjoyment-to-usefulness ratio is off the charts. They’re generally a gigantic waste of time, but there’s something oddly interesting about creating trade proposals and reshaping the team in our own image.
So, since everyone is angry today and wants to make wholesale changes anyway, what better day for a useless diversion thread where you can put all your crazy ideas and not have them deleted for being off topic?
So, welcome to the 2006 What I Would Do thread. Bill Bavasi calls you up tomorrow, hands you the reins of the team, and tells you to knock yourself out. What do you do? My ideas after the jump.
Dave’s Crazy Ideas For Improving The Roster
1. Fire Mike Hargrove. Install Dan Rohn as manager through the end of the season. Have meeting with Rohn, explain organizational philosophies, and make sure we’re on the same page. Explicitly go over the awfulness of sacrifice bunting with good hitters, and have him repeal the ridiculous aggressive baserunning philosophy the M’s have been using to run themselves out of innings all year.
2. Designate Carl Everett, Eddie Guardado, and Julio Mateo for assignment. Everett’s useless, so that one is self explanatory. Mateo, you’re hoping someone bites on his not-expensive contract for next year and claims him on waivers. Because he’s done as a major league pitcher, and the M’s will be better off if they aren’t trying to get him to reclaim his old glory. Guardado, you’re just giving a chance for another team to pick him up if they’re interested. Since he’s not going to get many innings here while I’m running the team, I try to do him the favor of finding him another job somewhere else.
3. Remove Joel Pineiro from the starting rotation. The fifth starter isn’t needed for a while, and he hasn’t pitched well enough to keep his job.
4. Trade Ryan Feierabend, Wladmir Balentien, and Justin Thomas to the Cubs for LHP Rich Hill and RHP Scott Williamson. The Cubs have never given Hill a real shot, and his minor league numbers demand that he’s given a look in the show. Only 25, he’d be a perfect experiment at the end of the rotation, and a good fit for Safeco Field. Williamson adds another power arm to the end of the bullpen.
5. Option Rene Rivera to Tacoma, recall Guillermo Quiroz. Quiroz is better, and his bat could actually help the M’s win games.
6. Recall Doyle from Tacoma and make him the DH vs right handed pitchers. Recall Yung-Chi Chen from San Antonio. He gives the bench needed versatility and allows the team to get away from having 12 pitchers and actually use the reserves in a strategical manner. He’s not a great prospect, so stalling his development isn’t a huge concern. He’ll be a role player in his prime, and having him fill a role now can help the team.
7. Have a meeting with Ichiro, explaining how the team needs him in center field, and asking him to try it for the rest of the 2006 season. If he hates it and feels it effects his focus, he can move back to RF in 2007, no questions asked, and he’ll never be asked to move to center again.
New Line-Up:
1. Ichiro, CF
2. Doyle, DH
3. Beltre, 3B
4. Ibanez, LF
5. Sexson, 1B
6. Lopez, 2B
7. Johjima, C
8. Choo, RF
9. Betancourt, SS
Quiroz, Bloomquist, Perez, Petagine, and Chen off the bench.
Pitching staff has Felix-Moyer-Meche-Washburn-Hill in the rotation, with Putz-Soriano-Sherrill-Williamson-Woods-Pineiro in the bullpen.
That’s my team. Let’s hear yours.
I wonder how much cash we packaged with Eddie.
Hmmmm. Where to begin…
I agree that canning Grover is priority numero uno. Installing Rohn and meeting about organizational philosophy makes a lot of sense as well.
DFA’ing Jurassic Carl and bringing up Doyle seems like a no brainer to me as well.
I have no idea if the Cubs deal would actually work, so I’ll just operate under the “what I would do with what’s already in the organization” concept for right now.
Moving Ichiro to center would be great, if it actually happened. I like giving Choo a shot in right thanks to his arm, but isn’t LF actually more important in Safeco? I know Choo isn’t a fantastic defender, but I’d have to think he’d be an upgrade over Ibanez. Why not Choo in left and the Ibanez/Doyle combo in right?
I would opt for the Junior Nomar promotion over the Chen promotion, as Garciaparra is less of a prospect and harming his progress doesn’t even cross my mind. Chen could, at least, have some trade value at some point. I’d keep him progressing.
I’d certainly send Rivera down and bring Quiroz up.
I agree with going to the 11 man pen, for sure. Since I’m not trading I don’t get Scott Williamson. I’d promote Atchison (who has struggled somewhat this year but at least has some promise as a reliever). Joel is booted off my team, as are Mateo and Guardado. Cruceta is brought up to get a chance to start.
My lineup:
CF Ichiro
DH/RF Doyle
3B Beltre
RF/DH Ibanez
1B Sexson
C Johjima
2B Lopez
LF Choo
SS Betencourt
Rotation: Felix, Moyer, Meche, Washburn, Cruceta
Pen: Putz, Soriano, Sherrill, Fruto, Woods, Atchison
Again, I’m not making trades since I don’t really know what’s realistic, but I’d at least be interested in what it takes to acquire Jacque Jones. If I could get him I would have a legit CF to keep Ichiro happy most of the time, but I’d sit him against lefties, in which situation Ichiro slides over.
My lineup against righties would be Ichiro RF, Doyle DH, Beltre 3B, Ibanez LF, Sexson 1B, Jones CF, Johjima C, Lopez 2B, Betencourt SS.
Against lefties it would be Ichiro CF, Doyle (who hits lefties well, IIRC) LF, Beltre 3B, Ibanez RF, Sexson 1B, Perez DH, Johjima C, Lopez 2B, Betencourt SS. So essentially the platoon would be Jones/Perez which would be killer.
I don’t know what it would take to acquire Jones – presumably a bit better package than for Hill/Williamson. So I’ll just assume the three guys you parted with plus Choo (no clue if that would fly).
That leaves my bench as Bloomquist, Garciaparra, Perez/Jones, Quiroz, and Petagine.
Dave, any idea how feasible the Jacque Jones idea is?
RE: my own post…of course I agree about DHing Snelling at least part time, so however that works out is fine in the mix with Ibanez. He’s not very useful to us on the DL as we all well know.
RE: 46, I’d be all for keeping starters in the game after a couple of rocky innings if we had any pitchers besides Felix that I really trusted to right themselves. Moyer’s great, but when he’s getting hit, he’s getting hit–and I don’t think I need to explain about the rest. As for Felix, we’re trying to keep his pitch count down more than we’re trying to rest the bullpen, I think, so I just don’t see that being a viable strategy for this team, unfortunately.
Travis Chick, and in 2006… uh, yeah. Sounds like “live arm” to me, listed as having a good fastball in 2004 by Baseball America.
We got something for Guardado? I’m shocked. Absolutely shocked.
Has anyone got any info on the kid they got back in the deal? A bag of baseballs is an improvement on Eddie at this point. Wow. (Did the M’s have to eat salary? That’s the other big question.)
I just heard we traded Guardado for some chick. Sounds about right.
Travis this year in Chattanooga:
W- 4 L – 5 ERA-4.61 G-16 GS-16 CG-0 SHO-0 SV-0 IP-84.0 H -79 R – 45 ER – 43 HR- 12 HB 3 BB – 36 SO -77 WHIP – 1.37
I’d have taken a Chick-Fil-A for Guardado, let alone a guy who’s got a live fastball, apparently.
My guess is he’s middle/short relief organizational fodder, eventually, and in an organization that’s thin on fastballs, I can live with that.
Chick for Guardado has its own post.
Fire Hargrove, Hire Joey Cora,
Trade Piniero, Nageotte (i dont think he will be sucsessful) to PIT for Kip Wells.
Find another Outfielder.
Lose Guardado, Mateo, Pinero to Pen.
Travis Chick, 6-3 righty, according to BP’s 2006 book:
“Like a lot of hard-throwing youngsters, he had to take something off his fastball to avoid walking the bases against more experienced hitters who didn’t swing at every pitch in the same ZIP code as the ballpark. He’s got lots of time to improve his decent slider and minus change, and he’ll need it.”
Good K/W rates, but hasn’t thrived in AA or higher yet.
In Double-A Chattanooga this year:
4-5, 4.61 ERA, 36 walks, 77 Ks, 12 HRs allowed in 84 innings.
Sounds like marginal-major-leaguer material to me.
Like Eddie.
Good K/BB at least, maybe Safeco will help the HR problem.
I’d fire Mike Hargrove and first ask Sweet Lou if he wanted the job. If not I would give the job to the bench coach (taking ideas from the Houston Astros) who in 2004 fired Jimy Williams at the All Star Game, gave the managerial job to their bench coach Phil Garner and went 48 and 26 the rest of the year.
Now for lineup changes. First I’d trade Rivera, Choo and one more prospect who really doesn’t really have a future in this organization such as Navarro and trade them to the Phillies for LHP Rheal Cormier so he can help the bullpen. Then I’d try to trade Everett to a team with a bad offense for a couple of prospects then I would waive Eddie but if nobody took him I’d try to do the same as Everett. For Mateo I think one of the main reasons he’s doing so bad is that Hargrove overworks him. I think it was twice, well at least once that he was unable to pitch because he had pitched in like four straight games, plus he was injured for a while. So if he didn’t do better I’d demote him and call up Crucetta or some other good pitcher in Tacoma. I’d also demote Woods. Also for Choo I’d call up Doyle and for Rivera I’d call up Clemente who could bat versus rightys. Oh yeah I’d also put Pineiro in the pen and put Soriano into the SR, so my lineups would be:
Vs. RHP
1. Ichiro! CF
2. Beltre 3B
3. Ibanez LF
4. Sexson 1B
5. Lopez 2B
6. Petagine DH
7. Doyle RF
8. Betancourt SS
9. Clemente C
Vs. LHP
1. Ichiro! CF
2. Beltre 3B
3 Lopez 2B
4. Sexson 1Ba
5. Ibanez LF
6. Perez DH
7. Johjima C
8. Doyle RF
9. Betancourt SS
Pitching Rotation:
Starters:
1. Moyer
2. Soriano
3. Meche
4. Washburn
5. King Felix
Bullpen:
LRP. Cruceta
LRP. Baek
MRP. Fruto
MRP. Pineiro
CP. Putz
Re my post number 52:
Not sure what I was thinking, but I’d hit Perez cleanup versus lefties, and drop Ibanez to 8th.
As much as I wish I could, I can’t support a move of Soriano to the rotation this season. I’m too afraid of him being injured. Hopefully, they give him a nice rest after the end of the season and start stretching him out for 07. Ojalá.
Well guess what the Mariners… trade Eddie!!!! to the Reds for minor league pitcher Travis Chick.
Sorry guys didn’t see the other post or the messages for this post.
SI says Abreu and Burrell will both be available, for reletively cheap.
They’re both expensive, but signed through the next season or two, so it wouldn’t be a rent-a-player. Any idea on what it would take to pry Abreu away, or if he’s worth the money anyway? Unfortunately they’ve both got a no-trade clause, so getting them to come to Seattle might not be possible, but Gillick knows the M’s system, so he could certainly find something to match up.
Okay, the hindsight of the Eddie deal aside… my take.
Bye, Grover. Hi, Rohny.
Bad pun city: Put the junkballer in the Bullpenero. I’m not sold on Fruto and the jury’s obviously out on whoever takes Eddie’s place in the pen. There will be a spot for him.
Call up Cruceta and give him a shot in the rotation. Sink or swim, he cna’t be much worse than Joel.
Entertain the idea of trading Gil Meche. If no one shows significant interest or offers anything of significance in return, then ride it out with him, and let him test the free agency waters in the offseason. I’d lean towards keeping him for this year only because I don’t see another arm in Tacoma besides Cruceta that could step in and contribute anything beyond batting practice.
Bye, Bigotsaurus. If Doyle’s healthy and got his chops back, come on in, mate. Platoon him with Eduardo at DH. Rotate Ibanez/Perez/Doyle between LF/DH at will, to give each other a rest. Speaking of resting overworked starters, Petagine, twice a week at 1B, for Big Richie, and he doesn’t like it, he can stop striking out and GIDPing and start hitting .300 with consistency.
In fact, that will be the response to any struggling veteran who complains about getting benched or getting moved down the lineup. “Don’t like it? Play better. Until then, shut up before I trade you to Kansas City.”
If we see more solid play and less of what we saw yesterday out of Choo, leave him in CF. If not, go get the Ignitor, tell pentland to teach him how to drive the gaps and hope you get anything more than 250/280/320 and missed diving catches out of him. Entertain the thought of dealing Jeremy Reed in the offseason, while shopping the market for a useful CF on a 1-2 year deal.
Bye, Mateo. Sorry about your brother, but business is business. I’m not sold on Fruto but at worst, he’s better than Julio. If anyone in Tacoma is lights out and Fruto or anyone struggles, bring em in.
Bat Reed 9th when he returns, until he hits. In fact, take your worst slumping hitter, even if it’s Lopez of Ibanez or ICHIRO and bat him 9th. Set an example. No more entitlement to lineup spots.
Give Washburn a couple starts off (yes, start the Junkballer in his place. In fact, use the Junkballer as a spot starter. It’s not like he can’t do it.). Get Jarrod not to reach so far back on his windup.
I’m with everyone on sending down Rivera and calling up Quiroz. Ditto on adding a bench player and cutting the bullpen to 6 guys.
Rest guys whenever you can. Give Adam Jones the call and make him the middle infield and emergency CF guy. If that sounds implausible, just pick a middle infielder. Yeah, even LITTLE GARCIAPARRA.
Rotation: Moyer/Cruceta/Washburn/Meche/Felix
Bullpen: Junkballer/Woods/Fruto/Sherrill/Soriano/Putz
Lineup: Ichiro/Beltre/Ibanez/Johjima/Lopez/Sexson/DOYLE or Perez/Betancourt/CF
Bench: Petagine/Perez/WILLIE/Quiroz/PICK EM
Re: Offering a job to Piniella.
If I recall, Piniella isn’t particularly patient with young players. He isn’t a bad manager, would add some fire to the club, and wouldn’t put up with anybody’s crap, but one might prefer to hire somebody like Rohn that is both happy, comfortable, and experienced in developing young players.
On the other hand, anyone you could name, with the possible exception of “I can’t think of a single reason why a decent starting pitcher should ever be given a day off” Melvin, would be more flexible than Hargrove.
The problem with some of the trades proposed is that, with Hargrove in place, the new guy wouldn’t get any playing time if there was still an old experienced guy around to play in front of him.
Thus, fire Hargrove has to be first, unless the posited trades elicited All-Stars or at least old guys. In a perfect world Lincoln/Armstrong would be included in the fire-Hargrove package, but that’s unlikely to happen.
No one was a bigger supporter of Soriano as a starter than me. But putting him in the rotation now is a terrible idea, seeing as how we don’t know the full extent of his injuries.
If the Cubs would go for Dave’s deal, maybe they would trade the same pitchers for Chick, Everett, and Sexson. Put Petagine, backed up by Perez, at first.
Put [HIS NAME IS FREAKING PINEIRO] in the bullepen and give 2 starts to Hill. If he sucks as bad a Pineiro, try Curcetta for two starts. If he also sucks, try Jimenez. If he sucks, try Baek. Then give Livingstone a shot. If none of them are any better than Pineiro, give him another shot. Repeat the process until someone shows he can stick.
I also like swapping Rivera and Quiroz, especially since Johjima is likely to tire late in the season. But I wonder if there is a personality clash at play there, since they made such a precipitous move to get rid of Quiroz early in the year.
And bringing up Doyle to platoon with Perez is an obvious move.
This leaves a big hole in center field. Maybe the three minor leaguers Dave mentioned in his trade with the Cubs could be dealt for a decent outfielder.
To tell you the truth… it might be fun to run the team even for a day, but I’d be worried that I would screw it up. I guess I would have no problem telling Bavasi to fire Grover, but other than that…
If he sucks as bad a Pineiro, try Curcetta for two starts. If he also sucks, try Jimenez. If he sucks, try Baek. Then give Livingstone a shot. If none of them are any better than Pineiro, give him another shot.
Lou? Is that you?
Dave, just wondering your thoughts on possibly acquiring Jacque Jones (is it even worth looking into), as well as moving Choo to left and Snelling/Ibanez to right?
I’d like to add Randy Wolf to the list of guys I’d look into acquiring. Just a thought.
Feirabend + Choo + Adam Jones
for
Andruw Jones + Smoltz.
Flags fly forever.
Whoa… you’d have to say that’s dramatic.
OTOH, Andruw Jones has exactly zero rings as a Brave, so I’m not convinced he’s the end-all, be-all to give you a championship. It’s a pretty interesting trade conceptually, though- assuming Mariner ownership was willing to blow up the budget.
confess all the corporate thievery of the mariner organization to the fans. return the stadium to the people. offer to testify at the trial of the FO managers….uh …
as Butthead says: “that would be cool.”
Feirabend + Choo + Adam Jones
for
Andruw Jones + Smoltz.
The Braves could get way, way more than that for those two. They’d probably ask for more than that for just Andruw.
Dave, I’ll go after this in two parts. I know you threw out your plan for discussion not dissection, but there’s some points on it I don’t think are going to/can happen, and I want to reframe the focus a tad.
—Grover will not be fired _now_: he’s a blast shield for ownership to take the blow-up when the team finally tanks this year. As such, he has real value to the higher-ups in the org. He’ll be axed 1 Sep, or after the final game to take the fall, but till then we’re stuck with him. His constitutional inability to use his bench, or to distribute the workload amongst his bullpen arms will continue to hurt the team, maybe costing a loss or two the rest of the way. I’m not convinced that the ‘aggressive baserunning’ move is completely his play; we’d likely see some variation on it even with Rohn, ’cause the org believes that their weak-scoring team should do something on the basepaths to manufacture runs at Safeco “. . . like Lou managed to do.”
—Ichiro will never play CF here, except in an utter emergency. It’s very clear looking at his non-statements and “They haven’t asked me” remarks that he simply is unwilling to do it, but doesn’t want to take the heat for turning down the team publicly. They won’t put him in that spot, and they _will_ not force him to do it against his will. If there was ever any circumstance where it was going to happen, it was just now with Reed out for months but the team on a hot streak: Ichi didn’t go there. He will never play CF for the Ms. We can just forget this.
—Trading Feierabend+JThomas+Balentien: well, these guys are all taking a big step forward this year for what that’s worth, and they all have been in your personal doghouse since the team signed them, so on a nice speculative ‘what-if’ of course clean the fantasy roster of guys one is down on for guys one is high on. I’m far from sure it makes sense to dump them ALL, though. I’d rather like to see if Fontaine has really latched onto anything in Thomas, who could also advance quickly. Balentien has a better than even chance of drowning at the AAA level, but a non-negligible chance of turning into a monster masher. Like, yes, Ryan Howard, who had all of the same flaws, and more, and has not patched enough holes in his game and his swing to make his positives count for a few years. I have no problem with flipping Feierabend, who isn’t significantly better than Livingston, to me, or flipping all of them if I’m _sure_ something solid of long-term value is coming back. Otherwise, no, not all of them.
—I’m not sold that the team needs to spend prospects to bring in a power bullpen arm. By this time next year, the first of a big, big wave of power arms will be coming up through the system. Long-term, we won’t be hurting for Scott Williamson equivalents. This year, if Putz, Soriano, and Sherrill aren’t going well enough for the team to make the playoffs, the team just can’t make it. Getting one more arm behind them doesn’t change the equation unless Soriano is injured enough that they shut him down as a precaution. Bullpen isn’t the team’s big need.
—Offense is the team’s big need, and OFers who can play every day with good D, especially in center. To me, that’s where the focus of a ‘win this year’ deal should be.
In mix-and-match time, the Ms want to bring in a few bodies to make a run at the division title or at least finish at .500, and so put butts in seats and make their budget projections. I, on the other hand, believe that this season is bearsquat more or less, don’t care whether or not the Ms finish a few decimel places in the red, and care greatly that the team cleans up its roster and ideally brings in at least one player to build around. So:
—See if a package including but not limited to Meche+Choo+Asdrubal Cabrera can bring back Milledge from the Mets or Crawford from TB . . . oops, can’t do that, can I? Well, that’s the org’s major mulligan, since they swapped out their best chip for 1/3 of a pretty good DH who’s too old to be any use long term. I’m not going to forget this for a long time.
—I’m a big fan of Bobby Abreu, and was hoping for a Beltre for Abreu swap last offseason. I’d do it right now (I mean NOW, 2300 hrs PST, 6 July). But I’d also do Ibanez for Abreu right now, too, and I don’t care what the ‘Yah Gotta Love These Guys’ fans think. Both guys have about as much left but Bobby’s just better than Raul, and Gillick would do this one ’cause he knows Ibanez. Whether Abreu would come is open to question, but here’s one way to sweeten it: offer him the right to demand a trade _this_ offseason if he agrees to come now. He’s moveable in the offseason if it doesn’t work, and the team would clear salary if so.
—Get a CFer for the near-term witch some upside as a reserve but who won’t block Adam Jones, ideally a RH bat. Eric Byrnes comes to mind. If a LH hitter, Corey Patterson might well be pried away from Baltimore. Choo+shiny toy is the basis of this package. There are probably better guys out there, but I haven’t looked under every fallen log, so feel free to name a better name. I’d take Aaron Rowand if he’s available, but after a couple of highlight reel catchs I suspect that he either isn’t or would be too expensive. But yeah, he’d do the trick.
—If Feierabend+throw in for Rich Hill has any angle, work it hard. I’d be happy to have him.
—Carl Everett has to go, and Eddie too [already gone]. Mateo: he’s been torched several times which leads one to forget that the rest of the time he’s thrown fairly well. Yes, dump him in the offseason, he’s no keeper, but it’s hard to see anyone else doing much better. Rather than burning a bunch of organizational maybes for a bullpen arm, I’m quite happy to see what Fruto, Cruceta, and late in the year even Mark Lowe can do. If Hargrove fulminates a phoneme, _then_ fire him; winning is his job, not personnel, especially since he botched the one call he had on that with Everett.
—Quiroz up, Rivera down; total no-brainer, but obviously the Ms FO needs some help here.
—Doyle up, and he and Raul split time rotating between LF and DH. Someone above beat me to it, but this is the best way to improve LF defense, give Doyle limited playing time, and it can be sold to Raul as ‘keeping him fresh for the stretch drive.’ Perez DHs against lefties, while Doyle rests his knee, and Raul hazards the outfield. If we get Abreu, then DH is a platoon of Doyle and Perez until they bring up Clement, after which it’s probably Clement and Perez with Doyle getting occasional games in the outfield.
—Garciaparra up as an infield sub. I actually love the idea of bringing up Chen, but Hargrove won’t use either of them, and I’d like the team to get enough of a look ag Garciaparra to let the shine wear off, as happened with Dobbs and should have happened with Reed except his D was sweet for a time.
—DFA Pineiro. Look, players HAVE to be held accountable for performance. The team has done this with expensive vets where they’ve had to eat salary (see: Guardado, E.). The only reason Joel is still in the rotation is that the FO feels they don’t have a replacement who’s any better, and are terrified that they’d stick a body in his place who got raked for an 0-5 record. Well, DFA Joel, and when no team picks him up send him to Tacoma. Bring up Cruceta. He’s likely to be better in the pen then Joel, and can go in the rotation if Rich Hill is out of reach. I think clearly something is going to happen here, with team talking about ‘reordering the rotation.’ Joel _is_ going, and I say “Bye bye.”
—Cheap pen guys who are interesting: Jon Rauch, Damaso Marte.
—More generally, Pittsburgh and the Nationals aren’t going anywhere, have many holes, and are likely looking to next year already. See if their organizations can be picked for something useful long term.
—Lineup
Ichiro RF
Beltre 3B
Lopez 2B
Abreu LF
Perez/Doyle DH
Sexson 1B
Joejim/Quiroz C
??? CF
Betancourt SS
Bench:
Perez/Doyle
Quiroz
Petagine
Bloomers
Young pup
Rotation:
Moyer
Felix
Washburn
Meche
Cruceta/acquisition
Bullpen, six men:
Putz
Soriano
Sherrill (getting more innings)
Damaso Marte/Jon Rauch
Fruto
[one load of assorted backfill]
Pray alot, and when that doesn’t serve order another Triple Carmeliet.
I’m surprised no one has suggested a trade for Craig Wilson.