Notes From the Dailies
A few interesting columns in the local papers today. First, in the P-I, Rafael Soriano voices his desire to convert back into being a starting pitcher.
“I’ve seen him as a starter, and I’ve seen him very good as a starter,” said pitching coach Rafael Chaves, who coached Soriano in the minors. “But that’s a decision that will be made by somebody else.”
If Soriano is still here next year, they have to at least try it. If it doesn’t work, you can always shift him back to the bullpen, but there’s no point in not seeing if he can succeed as a starter again.
Then, over in the Times, Geoff Baker begins a five part series on looking at the M’s year. Today is Bavasi and Hargrove, with lots of intimations that both will be back but that the decisions have yet to be made. As usual, the discussion shifts to the team being young.
“The players have gotten better,” Bavasi said. “It’s a young team. No manager likes playing with young players. They don’t want any part of young players. And [Hargrove] has accepted them willingly, with a positive attitude. He’s made them all better.”
Accepted them willingly? Really? Tell that to Shin-Soo Choo, Adam Jones, or Chris Snelling, all who came up and were immediately shown the bench. Or tell that to any of the arms in Tacoma who had to watch Joel Pineiro get 150 innings this year to prove that he’s done. Or any of the arms in the bullpen who got to see high leverage innings handed to Julio Mateo.
“There’s a real thin line between being patient and being foolish,” Hargrove admitted this week, not naming any specific cases. “And I’ve learned that, no matter how long you do this, you have a tendency at times to cross that line. It’s not always bad that you do. It’s just bad if you don’t recognize it in time.”
I’m glad that he’s aware that he crossed the line between patience and foolishness with pretty much every veteran player on the roster this year. This isn’t something he should be realizing in his 15th year as a manager, though, considering this same criticism has been leveled at him for years and years.
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Also, can I please just head off the inevitable discussion of “Dave, do you still think Hargrove is gone at the end of the year” questions? Yes, I do, and no, I can’t tell you why. I know that all the papers think he’ll be back. Until it actually happens, we won’t know one way or another, so lets just wait and see, okay?
In the year of the 2006 Florida Marlins, it must be hard to offer the “it’s a young team” excuse with a straight face. Especially since the young players that actually played played well (with the exception of Jeremy Reed — and who knows whether he might have recovered if Hargrove had made him the everyday player he should have been).
Having listened to Hargrove all year, it’s clear that he has a certain degree of self-awareness one wouldn’t expect offhand, and that he’s not stupid in so many words. But he’s not imaginative, one doesn’t get the sense that he looks to improve his approach or to grow at all, and he clutches his old familiar patterns like a security jersey. His quote cited above only serves to reinforce that take on him. I wish he wasn’t coming back, but really he isn’t the worst problem with the organization’s management layer.
Baker first acknowledges that the team has a lot of young players and then later in the article wonders if somebody like Lou Piniella might be the answer.
Soriano’s availability for the rotation may well hinge on Mark Lowe’s health. No report on his exam in Seattle yet. If he has to go under the knife, the chances aren’t as good that Soriano will go to the rotation. Has anyone seen any kind of update on Lowe?
In the year of the 2006 Florida Marlins, it must be hard to offer the “it’s a young team” excuse with a straight face. Especially since the young players that actually played played well (with the exception of Jeremy Reed — and who knows whether he might have recovered if Hargrove had made him the everyday player he should have been).
This second point is the key, and the one that should be the immediate response every time the organization tries to bring up the idea that the team was too young to win. The young players were the strength of this team.
If we just look at VORP as an approximation of value (while acknowledging its flaws, especially as it regards evaluating pitchers), we can easily see what the problems were that sunk this team:
Joel Pineiro, -14.6 VORP.
Jeremy Reed/Adam Jones/Shin-Soo Choo: -12.6 VORP.
Rene Rivera: -11.6 VORP.
Carl Everett: -9.9 VORP.
Benuardo: -9.7 VORP.
The huge glaring problems were #5 starter, center field, backup catcher, and DH. But Pineiro, Everett, Perez, and Broussard are clearly not “young players”.
Yes, a few young players (mainly Rivera and Reed) were legitimately terrible. But Rivera should have never been in the majors, and the organization’s fascination with him was self made. Their expectations for him were the problem, not some underachievement by Rivera.
Reed, Jones, and Choo were problems in center field for half the year, but the organization found a solution by moving Ichiro to center and calling up Chris Snelling (finally). That hole did significantly less damage than trotting Pineiro and Everett out there everyday.
These team lost because their veterans underperformed, not because the team was too young. If you want to know why this team didn’t want, look at the guys 30+. They’re the ones who failed to perform.
I think the youth of the team would be best served by Dan Rohn – someone who has their trust, won with them against great odds, and dislikes the Hargrove-school-of-managing to the point of sabotaging his own job to make the point.
Dave, what do you think Soriano should/will do in the offseason? I like the idea of trying him as a starter, and I guess the question is if the team goes that direction, should the experiment begin in winter ball or should it wait until spring training? I wouldn’t want them to wear him down, but maybe it does make sense to find out sooner rather than later what he can do as a starter and how he is recovering from the injury.
#7 – I don’t see Rohn ever having a place in the organization. He questioned Hargroves decisions/leadership to the players. While it’s ok for us to sit here and do that, it is unacceptable to do that in the clubhouse. If Rohn had a problem with Hargrove, he should have gone to Hargrove himself.
Rohn screwed himself by doing that to no end. He wasn’t going to win himself a job by undermining Hargrove. He went about things the wrong way.
…the papers think [Hargrove]’ll be back
Of course they do. Bavasi is doing a great job of being classy or politically correct, depending how you want to look at it, and the papers take that as a “prediction”. I figure if you aren’t happy with Hargrove and you fire him, then you can talk about his failings as a manager. But there’s no point in running down your manager in the press and then sending him out there to run the ballclub. I can’t prove that the Girardi stuff has been a distraction, but boy the Marlins have gone down hill the last few weeks.
I hate that people write about this season as “a third consecutive last-place finish,” as Baker does. Of course, that’s true but it’s misleading. Two years ago this team sucked and they were bad last year. But this team is near 500 and in the Central or the East they’d be 15 games AHEAD of last place. Essentially you’re criticizing the Mariners for being in a tough division and that neither Texas or Los Angeles had bad years — two things over which they have no control.
This struck me as the most unintentionally funny quote in the piece:
Hargrove insists Seattle’s “level of talent” is far better than what he had during four losing seasons in Baltimore.
Uhm, Seattle’s level of talent is likely better than that of any team in the division. Dave wrote several pieces about that a couple of months ago. The problem is utilization of that talent (the -35 VORP by Pineiro, Rivera, and Everett) and getting the players to perform up to their talent level (-22 VORP by Reed and Benuardo, not to mention Sexson and Beltre’s first halfs or Lopez’s second half).
I guess we’ll be seeing another post from Dave on how the Mariners can improve by 7 games just by converting 1200 AB and 170 IP to replacement level.
If the M’s do try Soriano out as a starter, and building on what #8 said, how many innings could we expect out of him next year? I would imagine he would have some sort of limit due to the fact that he hasn’t started in a long time, has had semi-recent surgery, and hasn’t pitched more than 71 ML innings combined in the past 3 years.
No argument that Rohn is obviously inept at office politics. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be good choice to run this team – only that he won’t ever get the chance.
It is obvious that ML managers are not there for the X’s and O’s. Rather, it is the job of the big league manager to turn a group of individuals into a synergistic collective. Hargrove is grossly incompetent at this all-important function.
I would have liked to see what he could do. Too bad he ouldn’t have just been a little more adept at clubhouse relations.
Do we know that Rohn “has the trust” of the team’s young players, anyway? We know they played for him, but that doesn’t mean they liked or respected him. I mean, maybe they did, maybe there are quotes to that effect or inside information, but I haven’t seen it.
It’s obvious that Bavasi feels his fate is tied directly to Hargrove’s and thus he offers the deplorable spin job about what a great job Hargrove has done. As Dave has illustrated, this argument can easily be blown up. Still, it’s hard to dispell Bavasi’s notion that progress has been made. The question is, will upper management choose to see the glass as half empty or half full?
What is Hargrove’s definition of “young”? Maybe he thinks he’s trusting our youth by running WFB out there regularly. Moreover, he’s calmed by the “veteran presence” of players who are over 30 and declining.
It’s obvious that Bavasi feels his fate is tied directly to Hargrove’s and thus he offers the deplorable spin job about what a great job Hargrove has done
Actually, no, it isn’t obvious.
What’s obvious is that Bavasi doesn’t feel the need to stick the knife into Hargrove’s back in the press. Folks, it’s really NOT a bad thing to keep internal matters….internal. And not air your dissatisfaction in public….
If Soriano is still here next year? Is that just a turn of phrase, or is there a chance he won’t be?
What’s obvious is that Bavasi doesn’t feel the need to stick the knife into Hargrove’s back in the press. Folks, it’s really NOT a bad thing to keep internal matters….internal. And not air your dissatisfaction in public…
and it might buy you some good will with future employees….
Dave, you’ve stated before that you don’t believe managers have that much direct effect on the outcome of games.
In going back through various threads from this season, I came across at least a dozen games in which the host and poster consensus is that a Hargrove decision about the lineup, a substitution, sending a baserunner or other choice had a direct effect in a Mariners loss. How would you judge Hargrove’s direct impact on the M’s won-loss record this year in context with the extent to which managers usually directly influence game outcomes?
What will starting do to Soriano’s velocity? It seems his velocity has still not fully returned to pre-surgery speed. I wonder if he has good enough second and third pitches to miss bats as a starter.
There’s a huge difference between not saying anything negative and raving about what a great job someone has done. I’m not suggesting Bavasi would or should comment negatively about Hargrove in the press. I’m suggesting Bavasi is going out of his way to complement Hargrove on his willingness to play young players when it is blatantly obvious he stuck with several veterans way too long at the expense of younger players and clearly hurt the team in doing so.
At the press conference announcing the firing of Hargrove, almost everything Bavasi will say about Hargrove will be positive – “Mike responded well to difficult circumstances,” “Mike’s a good man,” “Mike cares about his players.” The worst thing he will say about Hargrove is something like “going forward, we thought a change was in order,” or that “with the direction of the team, we needed a better fit.” When pressed during the questioning about the reasoning for the firing, Bavasi will say that he talked things over with Hargrove, but it was “private” so he is not going to get into any specifics.
I’d love to see Soriano as a starter next year if for no other reason than to see the M’s get over their fixation with Moyer clones and extreme flyball pitchers. I’d rather see them try that than blow millions on Jason Schmidt.
Assuming Hargrove does get the boot in the offseason, it’s going to be amusing reading all the local media’s reaction (predicted headline words: “stunning,” “suprise,” and “bombshell”). And then the invevitable “inside” stories of what really was going on to explain why they were so fooled, followed by a series of chases up blind alleys as they guess who’ll replace him. (All while I sit at home with my eyes closed, repeating: Please not Dusy Baker, Please not Dusty Baker…)
I do kind of wish we had a “Benuardo” two-headed platoon as GM: Bavasi to build the farm, the international organization, and work on the future; and someone else to make the decisions about trading for players that will be on the team in the current year. Bavasi (and the people he’s assembled) seem to have a real talent for the former, while leaving much to be desired at the latter.
Dave, what do you think Soriano should/will do in the offseason? I like the idea of trying him as a starter, and I guess the question is if the team goes that direction, should the experiment begin in winter ball or should it wait until spring training? I wouldn’t want them to wear him down, but maybe it does make sense to find out sooner rather than later what he can do as a starter and how he is recovering from the injury.
I think he’ll pitch 10 or so innings of winter ball, then shut it down. I think he’ll report to spring training, they’ll give lip service to trying him as a starter, and I think he’ll open next year in the bullpen.
As for what should happen, I think that the team needs to make a decision on where he fits in their future this offseason. He’s only under club control for another two years before he hits free agency. As you’ll see in the offseason plan post, I’m in favor of dealing Soriano this winter. He’s got a lot of value, and he’s a piece that the organization can replace internally.
What’s obvious is that Bavasi doesn’t feel the need to stick the knife into Hargrove’s back in the press. Folks, it’s really NOT a bad thing to keep internal matters….internal. And not air your dissatisfaction in public….
Bingo.
If Soriano is still here next year? Is that just a turn of phrase, or is there a chance he won’t be?
He’s the team’s most sensible trade chip. No club in baseball needs a RH reliever less than the Mariners, and he’s got significant value around the game.
Dave, you’ve stated before that you don’t believe managers have that much direct effect on the outcome of games.
Kind of. I’ve stated that the bulk of managers don’t matter much – in other words, they’re all pretty similar in value. 90% of major league managers are within spitting distance of each other.
In going back through various threads from this season, I came across at least a dozen games in which the host and poster consensus is that a Hargrove decision about the lineup, a substitution, sending a baserunner or other choice had a direct effect in a Mariners loss. How would you judge Hargrove’s direct impact on the M’s won-loss record this year in context with the extent to which managers usually directly influence game outcomes?
Hargrove has been significantly worse than average when it comes to in-game strategic decisions. He’s terrible at this. He sucks at evaluating talent and understanding intelligent tactics to use when the game is going on. When it comes to strategy, he’s one of the worst in baseball.
However, I tend to think that in-game strategy is the minority of a manager’s job. His real job is to keep his players relatively happy, healthy, and focused while putting the players in situations where they could succeed. Hargrove was okay at this. He could have done a lot worse with his handling of the pitching staff. Besides the way he handled Mateo and the slavish devotion to Pineiro, he gave high leverage innings to the right guys and oversaw the transformation of the bullpen into one of the best in baseball.
Overall, Hargrove was a negative, but not in a cost-us-the-division kind of way. His in game strategies and inability to discern talent is a problem, and enough of an issue where he shouldn’t be retained, but he did do some things well this year. If the Mariners had a better manager, they’d have likely been a game or two over .500, but no manager in baseball was going to take this team to the World Series.
I think that every ML manager has individual game decisions second-guessed quite a bit. The decision to bunt with certain players in certain situations, or hit and run calls, pitcher substitutions, pinch hitters, etc., are all moves that can be analyzed in hindsight. Unfortunately, my guess is that bad moves succeed often enough, and good moves fail often enough, that the overall X’s and O’s impact isn’t huge.
That said, a good manager should still be evaluated on his ability to put the best players in the best opportunity to succeed, or conversely, give marginal players the best opportunity not to damage the teams chances to win.
However, it is my opinion that beyond this simple assessment, the manager’s primary function should be to form a synergy of the myriad individual players that make up a roster. How to define this “synergy” is no easy matter, but you might see a team that chronically underachieves and say – that team doesn’t have it.
Managers that clash with players, instead of creating an team environment where everyone pulls for each other and for the manager, are obviously incompetent. Hargrove’s well-established conflicts with Ichiro are a case in point.
Knowing Grover, that was probably a complaint about Doyle’s plate discipline.
“And [Hargrove] has accepted them willingly, with a positive attitude.”
I heard Bavasi speak last year and he mentioned that a big difference between Hargrove and other managers (implying Lou) was that Hargrove wasn’t in the GM’s office every day, lobbying for veterans to be signed to replace the rookies/young players, and generally being a pain in the rear about how he couldn’t win with the roster that he had. He went on to say that managers love veterans and all of them want to have veterans, including Hargrove, but that Hargrove simply sucks it up and deals with what he has. This may be the context in which Bavasi says that Hargrove “accepted [young players] willingly, with a positive attitude.”
I’d love to see Soriano as a starter next year if for no other reason than to see the M’s get over their fixation with Moyer clones and extreme flyball pitchers.
I’m not sure how you see Soriano as a cure for this. He’s also an extreme flyball pitcher.
IMO Soriano as a starter is a bad idea. His arm is fragile, his velocity is in question, and he still does not change speeds well.
One reliever should be made a starter before Soriano is considered. He has been a starter for most of his pro career. He has had no hint of arm trouble. He has developed a second out pitch, and his ability to change speeds has improved greatly this season.
His name is J.J. Putz. They are nuts if they don’t try this, but it is the last thing I expect them to do.
I’d say Putz has developed a first out pitch, not a second one. Take his straight fastball, with the loss of velocity in switching from relief to starting, and watch him get lit up.
Maybe I’m still jaded by how he pitched up until this year, but I’d like to see a repeat performance before being confident that he’s an ace reliever.
Putz is a one pitch pony. The fork is nasty because it’s paired with a high-velocity heater, but (as has been repeated here often) the conversion to the rotation costs pitchers velocity. If he had a devastating change-up, that would make sense.
Would an announcement of Hargrove’s firing likely occur at season end? Is there any reason to delay if they’re going to be in the skipper market?
#31– FWIW, from Greg Bishop in the Times 2 weeks ago
“Putz began his Mariners career mainly as a starter. He threw between 90 mph and 94 mph, threw a fastball and a slider and a split-finger fastball he had trouble locating. His arm motion put extra stress on his shoulder and elbow. Concerns with durability are long gone now — the Mariners tweaked the motion to relieve stress — but there were enough then to switch Putz from future starter to present bullpen. He made his major-league debut that 2003 season in Seattle’s bullpen.”
Dave – Will Soriano’s head injury impact his trade value at all? Do you think there are teams that will be scared away by whether he’ll be fine (psychologically) after a comebacker like that? Obviously it’s not a positive, but is it more neutral than negative? Also – can we get a firm date for your off-season plan post? How about the day after the World Series is over? These little teases are killing me!
31: I think the team is better served to keep Putz in the bullpen. He may have been a starter for most of his professional career, but he has had his greatest success in the bullpen. He is a two-pitch guy with a fastball that will suffer if he is stretched out over an entire game. Keep him in the bullpen.
#29, OK, I buy this. Hargrove was hired largely because he wouldn’t rock the boat. He was a “name” they could put in place while they tried to work some young guys in and they knew he wouldn’t make waves over it. The reality is Hargrove had no choice but to accept the situation. He’s smart enough to know why he was hired and what his bosses value the most.
Even though Hargrove’s decision making in itself doesn’t cost us that many games, for me it’s more an indication of what an irrational baseball thinker he is overall. His inability to understand the double switch in Los Angeles, his aggressive baserunning theories, giving WFB 275+ PAs, and his inability to evaluate Carl Everett’s talents all cast doubts for me for how much baseball sense in general that he has.
His name is J.J. Putz. They are nuts if they don’t try this, but it is the last thing I expect them to do.
The Mariners already have the starting pitcher version of J.J. Putz. They call him “Francisco Cruceta”.
Maybe I’m still jaded by how he pitched up until this year, but I’d like to see a repeat performance before being confident that he’s an ace reliever.
If you can find an example of a guy who was this good, then reverted to previous form due to non-injury, I’d love to hear it.
Dave – Will Soriano’s head injury impact his trade value at all? Do you think there are teams that will be scared away by whether he’ll be fine (psychologically) after a comebacker like that? Obviously it’s not a positive, but is it more neutral than negative? Also – can we get a firm date for your off-season plan post? How about the day after the World Series is over? These little teases are killing me!
It might impact the amount of teams interested in him, but I don’t think it will impact the specific interest level of the teams that would be after a guy like Soriano. In other words, we may only get 6-10 calls about him instead of 15-20, but those 6-10 won’t be any less aggressive than they would have been otherwise.
I’ll probably put the offseason plan post up next week. We’ll see.
#33. …Would an announcement of Hargrove’s firing likely occur at season end? Is there any reason to delay if they’re going to be in the skipper market?
Yeah, there’s the time-honored “let’s make this seem like we’ve put a lot of thought into this and not making a hasty can-Grady-Little type of decision” reason.
That means that Bavasi will go into the winter meeting and the GM meeting with Hargrove still on the roster, which means any available and ACCEPTABLE skippers looking for a job won’t approach Bavasi and they’ll all be employed by the time he fishes/cuts bait.
Would have been interesting to see how the M’s final record would have been if…
Pineiro didn’t get 150 innings.
Everett didn’t get 400 ABs.
Bloomquist didn’t get 250 ABs.
Mateo wasn’t called upon like a relief ace.
If the Mariners had a better manager, they’d have likely been a game or two over .500, but no manager in baseball was going to take this team to the World Series.
Well, with what Dan Rohn did with the 2005 Rainiers, you could apply MLE principles and argue that he could’ve at least won the AL-West with this team.
41. We’d be World Series champs.
I didn’t recall seeing this before, but this SI article seems to indicate that Hargrove is not secure, as Dave has mentioned before (hope the link works). It is good news, though the Dan Rohn comment seems strange.
Another (clueless) daily note from Neyer at ESPN.com:
Mariners (+8):
If I didn’t have any stats in front of me and could go only on what I’ve heard about the Mariners this season, I would guess they’ve underperformed. After all, Ichiro has been down a bit (well, except for the steals), Richie Sexson has struggled some (well, except for the grand slams) and Felix Hernandez hasn’t been the Cy Young candidate some of us (OK, me and my shadow) were expecting. Also, none of Hernandez’s rotation mates was better than decent this season. You know what? I still can’t figure out why they did as well as they did. Except they didn’t have any absolute zeroes in the lineup (once Carl Everett was gone) and, with the exception of Joel Pineiro, none of the pitchers was awful. Essentially the M’s had a few good players and fewer bad ones.
Minor point — Everett didn’t get 400 AB’s, he had 308.
Which was about 400 too many, so I know where Mr. Egaas is coming from.
If you can find an example of a guy who was this good, then reverted to previous form due to non-injury, I’d love to hear it.
Derrick Turnbow. At least, I’m not aware that any injury has been offered as an explanation, though perhaps that’s yet to be discovered.
Dave – I agree with most of what you’ve said about Hargrove (#26), but I think you underestimate his negative impact.
We all agree that he’s been terrible at strategy, and that is certainly the most visible cuase for criticism. But it’s also overrated as far as impact. Or, as you said, “I tend to think that in-game strategy is the minority of a manager’s job.” Agreed – his strategy gaffes cost us a few games, but not dozens.
And, you’re right that he eventually did a pretty good job of handling non-Pineiro/Mateo pitchers.
But, your next comment is where I think we differ: “His real job is to keep his players relatively happy, healthy, and focused while putting the players in situations where they could succeed. Hargrove was okay at this. ”
I thought he was awful at this, and I believe that’s where his true negative impact was manifest. Most of the players (supposedly) don’t respect him and dislike playing for him. This is a tangible, though hard to quantify, negative. How many games did we see where the players just seemed to mail it in? 15 shutouts? Yes, a team built on BA rather than OBP is prone to streakiness, but these guys just had their lunches handed to them too often.
As for putting players in positions to succeed? That’s the real problem with awful talent-evaluation. Giving PT to Everett, Mateo, Willie, and Joel is obvious. But Reed’s non-platoon didn’t help him any, and the awful handling of Jones, Choo and Livingston bordered on the criminal. And, yes, the team needed to give Doyle enough AAA time to prove he was healthy, but lots of folks have commented on the mental toll (and consequential nosedive in Tacoma) that he took while waiting for Everett’s carcass to blow away.
Finally, I don’t think we’ve touched on the issue of preparation. Whether it’s losing to no-name starters or curling up against the A’s, this team has often looked woefully underprepared. Look, some of the A’s streak is due to luck, sure. But they have a certain style of play, and that style (patient hitting, throwing strikes) works directly against the M’s weaknesses (impatient hitting, pitchers nibbling). Even in last night’s game, the M’s had 3 walks, while the A’s had 10. That’s a lot of extra baserunners.
I can see it, you can see it. Why can’t the coaching staff? Hey, I’m not an ML player or coach, and it’s obviously not as easy as “just throw strikes, son” (a la Lou). But maybe try changing the team’s approach when playing Oakland – how about “any one who swings at the first pitch and does not get an extra base hit will be benched?” Try *something*. The point is, Hargrove, along with his staff, is responsible for getting the team ready to play, and he failed miserably.
So, no, I don’t think any other manager could have gotten Seattle to the WS. And maybe it is just a few games over .500. But look how much better this team has been in the past few weeks, with just swapping Pineiro out and Doyle in, and maybe a better manager could have gotten THAT team into the playoffs.
Hargrove has sucked the life out of this club, and any game that they win is in spite of him, not because of him.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!
I (and probably every other season ticket holder) just got an email “from the Desks of Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong). Here’s the quotes:
“We have more work to do. And we believe that we have the right people
in place to get the job done. Bill Bavasi will continue to lead our
baseball operations and Mike Hargrove will continue to manage the
team. We believe that they are the right people to lead us to the
next level. We have great confidence in their abilities. In our view,
continuity of leadership is extremely important at this point in time.
Under Bill’s watch, we have seen a dramatic improvement in our
scouting and player development departments, which has already
resulted in several top prospects climbing quickly up the minor league
ladder and playing key roles for us this year.
Mike is uniquely equipped to lead a young team. His experience in
developing and dealing with young players is one of the reasons we
hired him in the first place. And we have watched as Mike has kept all
his players – veterans and young players alike – focused and playing
hard every day of the season. We bounced back from the tough road trip
in August by winning series from the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels and
Tigers, and continued to play well in September.”
45 – Neyer: If I didn’t have any stats in front of me and could go only on what I’ve heard about the Mariners this season, I would guess they’ve underperformed.
Way to get to the point Neyer. Guess you really didn’t have any Mariners stats in front of you. Did you?
Neyer: After all, Ichiro has been down a bit (well, except for the steals), Richie Sexson has struggled some (well, except for the grand slams) and Felix Hernandez hasn’t been the Cy Young candidate some of us (OK, me and my shadow) were expecting.
Shame on you for believing that Sexson is more than just a home run hitter who strikes out a lot. I’m also sorry that you put too much expectations into a 19-year-old pitcher who is just finishing his first full season in the big leagues.
Neyer: Also, none of Hernandez’s rotation mates was better than decent this season.
I think it would have sounded better if you said “none of Hernandez’s rotation mates WERE better than decent this season. It’s still a pretty poorly writen sentence, though.
Neyer: You know what? I still can’t figure out why they did as well as they did.
Oh, I don’t know? How about the great season that Raul Ibanez is having? JJ Putz taking over the closer role? The emergence of young stars, like Jose Lopez and Yu-Bet? Johjima behind the plate and with the bat? The 18-8 record in June? Anyone?
Neyer: Except they didn’t have any absolute zeroes in the lineup (once Carl Everett was gone) and, with the exception of Joel Pineiro, none of the pitchers was awful.
Don’t even get me started here. Again, it should be “none of the pitchers WERE awful.” And just so I get this clear through all the garble, you’re saying that Hernandez was “better than decent,” Pineiro was “awful,” and I guess the rest of the Mariners’ pitchers were just “decent?” Gee, I wish it was always that simple. Maybe Hargrove sucks worse than we all thought?
Neyer: Essentially the M’s had a few good players and fewer bad ones.
Way to close it out, Neyer. You really saved face with that final observation. FEWEST words from you about the Mariners would have been better.
50. Tell me that’s a joke.
52 – I believe it. Wish I had proof, though.
I wish it was a joke, but I just received it. There’s lots of other stuff naming the players who are helping with the improvement, saying they’re frustrated too about how long the rebuilding is taking, and some general marketing fluff. But the Hargove part is what kills me.
50, 52. No joke, I just received the same mail and was coming over here to post that little nugget. I’ve forward the entire mail over to the moderators, hopefully we’ll see a post on this
[snip]
Howard Lincoln is an idoit.
I’ve heard about this e-mail elsewhere, too. WTF is up with this?
They send a few of these types of mails out every year. For example, we also got a “here’s why we signed Carl Everett even though we know you probably think it’s stupid” email right after that signing was announced.
I hate Hargrove! duh, duh, duhduh, duh. I hate Hargrove! duh, duh, duhduh, duh.
Retaining Mike Hargrove for next season is simply a case of Chuck and Howard refusing to admit they were wrong to have hired him in the first place. It would have been an indictment of them as much as anything. I KNEW this would happen.
61. Isn’t Bavasi that deals with coach hirings/firings? Also we should all use the chant of my last comment next year.
OK, if I’m participating too much in derailing this thread too much toward the Hargrove problem, feel free to delete and accept my apologies. If not…
At least I will say this, I think Bavasi is moving the roster closer and closer to one that Hargrove could mismanage less. The big problem will be sitting Snelling against left-handers, though. That will flip me out all year long if he’s really back. But if the bullpen were, for example:
Putz
Soriano
Lowe
Sherill
Mateo
O’Flaherty
Huber
With no Pineiro and everyone else healthy the Mateo innings will be a problem, but that’s really it. The other big problem was using Sherrill as only a LOOGY, but that’s only bad if you don’t have enough awesome RHers to bring in (or O’Flaherty to use next time around). That Mateo problem will loom very large, though.But he’s shown an ability to not overwork pitchers, at least compared with some other managers. And that’s crucial for this team.
Hargrove infuriates me in a way that few other people could even approach, but I’m not convinced he could hurt the 2007 Mariners as badly as he hurt the 2006 Mariners. And Dave’s right, the number of wins he lost us, while depressing and painful, were not sufficient to make this team into a playoff team. They really weren’t. But we could definitely be there next year.
from the Times:
Bavasi, Hargrove to return in 2007
OK, if I’m participating too much in derailing this thread too much toward the Hargrove problem,
Ain’t off topic now, given the Seattle Times article….
As I said in the other (wrong) thread:
I was planning on getting season tickets next year. I have now changed that decision.
There is no sensible reason to retain Mike Hargrove after this season (I was never in favor of getting rid of Bavasi) and to do so demonstrates that the Mariners organization has no clue of how to right the good ship Mariner.
Please, somebody, I really want to believe this isn’t so.
When I get the Strat-o-matic cards in a few months, I guarantee I win the AL West with the M’s by 5 games over the A’s. I will do this with friggin common sense, and stick to a couple rules:
1. Joel Pineiro will never pitch. Ever. Of course it would be hard to launch his strat season when his card is in my backyard covered in chicken squirts.
2. Bloomquist will play ALOT less. As in a pinch runner for the catcher sometimes if I feel like it. Nah, screw it, I’ll use Jones for that. No money bags for WFB. Cuz I said so.
3. Felix is my number 1. Not Moyer so he feels good about himself.
4. Ichiro is in Center and hits leadoff. Funny how a little card can’t give you any shit about a position change.
The lineup writes itself, and the pen with Lowe, Soriano and Putz is sick. I like this team alot with simple subtraction.
If Mike Hargrove is uniquely qualified to lead a young team, then I’m uniquely qualified to perform neurosurgery on wombats.
-Shudder-
Let me try a Steve Kelley column-ending type post a shot:
Another year of Mateo as a lead protecting type reliever.
-Shudder-
Another year of Snelling being replaced by Bohn and his ilk late in games(which is nuts, did you see Snelling’s throw to home last night? Perfect toss)
-Shudder-
Another year of WFB as the given way to muh credit for what little he does. (Did you hear, Rick? Willie had 5 hits in one game last year!)
-Shudder-
Of course, the problem with this is that Kelley will come out with a pro Grover column soon.
Maybe Fairly quit because he heard Grover was coming back. Man, would I love to run into Dan Rohn right about now.
It looks official – the Mariners will keep the bastard. Say it ain’t so, someone. Please.
This may be the last straw for me. If he comes back, I won’t be watching next season.
I’ve come to have a modicum of respect for Bavasi, whom I was entirely against at first, but this evaluation of Hargorove proclivites and skills is horseshit worthy of certain Adminisstration officials, and I really find it unforgiveable, even if Har-Har leaves this time, last week.
What an absolute crock!
If Chuck and Howard have decided that they’re under contract to pay for Hargrove next year and don’t want to pay him to sit on his couch and watch TV, that’s not a fight Bavasi can win.
And from the looks of that email, Chuck and Howard have made that decision.
Derrick Turnbow. At least, I’m not aware that any injury has been offered as an explanation, though perhaps that’s yet to be discovered.
Turnbow was good last year, but he was Soriano-good, not Putz-good. 3.4 BB/G, 9.1 K/G, 50% GB rate. The super low ERA was a function of his LOB% (88.1%) and his BABIP (.249). For the year, his FIP was 3.07.
Putz this year has been, well, way better. 1.6 BB/G, 12.9 K/G, and the same 50% GB rate. His FIP is 1.78.
Turnbow wasn’t a relief ace last year, despite the shiny ERA. He was a guy who missed bats, had iffy command, and left a lot of guys on base. Putz has been completely unhittable.
12 walks and 99 strikeouts? That’s just not a fluke.
The difference between Turnbow in 2005 and Turnbow before and after is comparable to the difference between Putz now versus before this season. Other than in 2005 and early this year, Turnbow has been a pitcher who doesn’t belong in the major leagues at all. Putz belonged in the majors before now, so he’s got a higher baseline, but the spike is similar.
It is or isn’t a fluke much like Beltre in 2004 is or isn’t a fluke. The ability was there to begin with, and presumably still is, but that particular performance might not ever be repeated. That’s why I want to see Putz show he can repeat it before I start assuming that he will repeat it.