USSM Q&A for January 3rd
If Hargrove’s head is indeed on the block, are the M’s more likely to look inward or outward for his replacement? Does the answer to that question depend on whether he’s canned mid-season or after the season? –pdb
This will depend entirely on who the GM is. Assuming there’s a new GM for a second – if they bring in someone from another organization, they’re going to want their own guy as the manager, someone with a philosophy and approach they’re comfortable with, who can be trusted.
Generally speaking, I don’t think it’ll be an internal candidate. The M’s minor league system has undergone dramatic changes in the last few years, to the point that there aren’t a series of obvious internal candidates you can look to in the way we’d talk about Rohn and Brundage a year ago.
Q. How does Jeff feel about “change-the-story†books? –msb
“Like the jailer leading the prisoner from his cell somewhere,” Jeff says. “Is it release? Parole? Execution? Only the jailer truly knows and controls the outcome.”
who exactly is it that would hold the proverbial ‘axe’ at Howard Lincoln’s throat if he were to be fired, since he himself stated he was on the hotseat. Also, theoretically, if USSM purchased the team, how would you set up your organization and why would you replace the people currently there? (e.g. president, gm, manager, director of scouting, etc) –mikelb420
Nintendo of America, as the majority owner, is presumably the axe-holder. But we don’t know what would cause a change. What their criteria for Lincoln’s performance, though, how willing they are to fire a guy who once led their company, how satisfied they are now… all of these things are unknown.
Now, say we purchased the team because someone donated $1bn to the site and we didn’t run off with it (also, that we could buy it and Selig would let us, and so on). I wouldn’t make any changes to the way the organization’s run immediately, but I’d start putting a lot of money into — well, I’ll get to that in a second.
As for personnel changes – I think a lot of people would quit before we had to make any cuts.
What are the chances that in the near future Nintendo will sell the M’s to somebody who actually gives a rats behind about baseball? –bigpoppa01
It seems unlikely. There doesn’t seem to be any pressing reason for them to sell. The team’s profitable and even if Nintendo isn’t able to milk money out of it like a media conglomerate would, they’re locally based and in good financial shape.
The Cardinals only won five more games than the Mariners did last season, yet they won the World Series. What is your take on the World Champs?
I’m of two minds. I didn’t think much of them all year, and I didn’t see a really good team in the playoffs, either. If you were around USSM for the playoff game threads, you saw how totally boring I found the NL games they played in.
But they really did whup up on the Tigers. There’s no getting around it. You’ve got to tip your cap to them. I don’t think it means you go searching through the season looking for a hot eight-game stretch to point as evidence of their true strength, but it turns out they matched up well against the AL Champs and took them down. Good work.
More than anything, though, there are important lessons for the Mariners in the way the Cardinals operate. The Mariners like to say their goal is to be competitive every year, and what they mean by that’s been analyzed up down and sideways, but it seems like it means “we’d like to be over .500 and compete for the division title”. They’ve said they don’t want to make a one-shot run at the World Series if it would be long-term costly which I think drives many of us crazy, because it’s crappy goal setting.
The Cardinals provide a really good example of how that philosophy can be applied productively, though. They intentionally built a team that was good but not great this year: they ran the projections, did a lot of arguing, and figured they were good for 90 wins and they’d get into the playoffs. They didn’t do what the Yankees might, and spend another $40m trying to lock up a World Series win, or make trades that would hurt the team long-term, or anything: they stuck to their guns, made moves during the season they thought were good, and it worked. They won a playoff berth, and from there, won the World Series. This year, they’re in good shape to go after 90 wins again.
The question this raises, obviously, is “why can’t the M’s do that?” They would have us believe they’re in a much similar situation, with the ability to spend – but not too much – and the need to always keep the eye on the long-term. The Cardinals are able to do this, but the M’s suck at it. Why? Are they smarter? What are they doing differently? Sure, they have Pujols, but beyond that, how are they solving this problem? Why are the Cardinals doing interesting, innovative things while the M’s don’t? How can that change?
Who is (was) the most important Mariner of all time? –waldo rojas
Ken Griffey Jr. He was the first superstar to play on the team, he was young, amazingly talented, exciting and charismatic, and people loved coming to see him in a way that – as much as I love Alvin Davis – we’d never seen before. He played on the first winning Mariner team, the first team to go to the playoffs. Griffey brought baseball in Seattle to life.
Bavasi hires USS Mariner Consulting to review the baseball operations under his control and make up to three realistic recommendations on how to improve them (e.g., Bavasi is not going to get $100 million from ownership to build baseball academies around the world, he cannot replace Rick Rizzs with Mike Curto, he is not going to fire Hargrove or himself, he cannot bend time and undo the Snelling and Soriano deals, etc.). What are your three recommendations? -Grizz
1. Spend whatever it takes to catch and surpass Cleveland’s technology lead, and commit to using those resources. There is no reason a baseball team in Seattle shouldn’t have the best information systems in the baseball, and be able to apply them to better decision making. This project will be long and expensive, and absolutely worth it.
2. Hire contrary voices. Even if you don’t want to give out veto power or dilute decision-making responsibility, put smart people with opposing viewpoints into discussions, listen to them, and if they’re right consistently, re-consider not giving them veto power or decision-making authority.
3. Stop the aggressive promotion of offensive prospects. It’s building a generation of ineffectual hackers in the minors. I know they want them to struggle before they hit the majors, but there are better ways to do it.
Who would be the best manager to complement Chis Antonetti? Would it be in the teams best interest to keep Bob Fontaine as scouting director? Or would Mr Fontaine be looking to try the GM position much like his Father did (SF Giants)? — pensive
I’d have to ask Antonetti. Presumably, someone open to input from the front office, able to work with young players, a decent talent evaluator who isn’t going to decide after a game that they hate Adam Jones and refuse to play him. Glad-handing the press will be important coming in after five years of stagnation: they’ll need to get good coverage to try and change the discussions around the team.
I don’t see Fontaine staying if Bavasi leaves. I don’t know where he’d go, but the job he’s in allows him to do what he excels at with none of the BS a general manager has to cope with, and I can’t see that he’d want that. The hours would be worse, the pay probably not all that much better, and the work wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying.
That said, I don’t know what jobs he’d consider. There may well be GM jobs where he could be comfortable, though I don’t know how you’d make that possible for him.
How much do you guys know about non-traditional performance data that some teams collect? I’m talking about things like assigning landing zones and trajectory levels to balls struck. I’d love to hear a little about what the smart organizations are measuring and keeping track of. — Manzanillos Cup
Beyond subscribing to Baseball Information Solutions and their ilk, I know good teams are working on this stuff. One of the interesting advances has been computerizing defensive video, so you can go through and say “show me every play where Jeter has to go to his left” and watch them all. I don’t think anyone’s to the point yet where they can do a Bohr model of a player’s defense and say “on a ball hit at 80 miles an hour that will come within ten feet there’s a 80% chance he gets there and makes the stop”… but just the ability to easily reference and watch that much video of a player is a huge step up from editing tapes.
Is Bavasi aware that he is getting universally ripped by the mainstream press (forget the blogosphere) for his deals this offseason? If so, do you think such negative reaction will have any impact (direct or indirect) on his subsequent moves this offseason? — ChrisK
Yes. No (no and no). He’s going to do what he thinks is the right move. Unless ownership gives him some overarching direction, like “the fans are really mad about trading kids away, try to avoid that if you can” (which is unlikely) it’s not going to affect his decisions at all.
If Hargrove and Bavasi are indeed “allowed to pursue other interestsâ€, sometime during the season, who will likely inherit the reins? –ira
They’ll hire the GM first. Given their history and what we know about them, it’s almost certain to be a long-time baseball guy with a familiar name and long resume who carries some kind of weight. Dallas Green, say. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But there’s going to have to be some serious arm-twisting to get someone risky in that job. The organization’s not about taking risks, and if they make a change they’re going to want someone who oozes stability and confidence, because it’ll mean they’ve gone through another unsuccessful season.’
There has been a lot of informative disscusion about Replacement Level Players. I don’t know a lot about players on other teams and I don’t have a good idea of who a RLP would be on the Mariners. It would help me understand the concept better if I had a player that I’m familiar with, so I can more easily follow the discussions about roster management (especially the Sexson talks). Can you write a little about the M’s current roster and how they relate to RLP’s? — Jed C
This is probably a longer and tougher question than I can handle here. First: there are many ways to define how you set replacement level. It’s often described as “who can I get for very little cost?” (I need a backup catcher right now, who’s out there I can buy for a chunk of cash, like when they brought Pat Borders back mid-season) or “who’s hanging around the Pacific Coast League?” (if your second baseman goes down with a hamstring injury, you call up the 35-year old guy from Tacoma). I’ve heard it described as “the worst regular player in the majors” but that’s not particularly useful, for reasons that probably already occur to you.
I generally think about it like this: if before the season I had to put together a team while paying no one more than $500,000 on a one-year contract, what would those players look like? No draftees, nothing: it’s minor league free agents, declining veterans no one else wants to give $1m to but don’t want to retire, injury rehab gambles, those guys.
Yeah, it’s pretty ugly, and field the worst team in the league. But you should never pay more than that for someone who’s that bad. So if you have a DH who is a horrible hitter, well, there are a ton of guys you could find who can only hit horribly, and you wouldn’t have to pay them anything. The extra money you’re paying is wasted. So if Jose Vidro can’t hit at all, that’s millions (and two good players) wasted.
Or a utility guy – there are many guys who can steal a base and play infield defense while not hitting. There’s no point in paying Bloomquist $1m.
I hope that helps.
Does the career of Willie P. Bloomquist mirror a post-modernist rejection of absolutist hierarchical thinking, or does he objectively suck? — bergamot
I have often wondered if Bloomquist is some kind of Dada prank myself.
In the last few years, what were percevied or projected to be the 5 worst trades or Free Agent Acquisitions that actually turned out OK.
On the Mariners? Let’s call the last few years as “5” so I get one/offseason
Signing Ibanez looked like it was crazy, worked out.
Extending Ibanez looked like it was crazy, it’s worked out so far.
Beltre’s contract is widely derided as insane, it’s really not. The gap between Beltre’s actual value and the wide perception of his contract might be the largest of any active player.
Piniella for Randy Winn? That turned out okay, rather than the end of the universe.
I’m scraping for a fifth – Villone seems like a good choice.
Given that Dusty Baker is available to be hired, how can you even mention the idea of Mike Hargrove getting canned? — Johnny Slick
I don’t see them hiring a manager who might criticize the GM/ownership in public. They don’t want controversy or finger-pointing, especially if things are bad enough that they fire Hagrove mid-season. Unless the team’s 0-20 or something and they’re desperate to demonstrate they’re serious.
What is the worst move or non-move of the M’s since 2000? –induced entropy
Since 2000?
It’s always a tough question, because I think we operate on the outside with imperfect information. We don’t really know how close any particular rumored trade was, or how serious an offer was or even if it was on the table long enough to be snapped up. So I’m going to pass on what might have been.
And I don’t want to think about things that we couldn’t see at the time, where they made a trade that looked great at the time and then didn’t work out (like the Garcia trade, for instance).
So I’m going to have to go with Fruto-Snelling for Vidro. Older, way more expensive, worse, plus they threw in Fruto. This trade’s indefensible. Also, I can’t think of “bad move” without fixating on this for a while. Ask me again in a couple months when I’ve calmed down a little.
Will Bavasi survive the season without getting fired? Hargrove? –dw
Yup. Unless the team starts out 0-20, and then they’re gone. That could happen, too – they’re a pitching injury away from being able to go into deep funks where they give up 8 runs a game, the bullpen’s pitching tired and everyone checks out. But they’re not that bad of a team.
Which non-Mariners do you enjoy watching most? — conor
In no particular order:
Clemens
Pujols
Vlad
Johan Santana
Webb
Mussina
What baseball web sites do you read on a regular basis? — conor, again
Besides news sources and team blogs, I’m always looking at Baseball Prospectus, Hardball Times, the Inside the Book Blog even though it hasn’t been updated in forever and I constantly disagree with Tango, Baseball Musings, Baseball Analysts, BTF sometimes. I’m probably forgetting a bunch.
If my vote counted, my Hall of Fame ballot would include the following players: — conor, again again
Of 2007 candidates: Bert Blyleven, Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr.,
I’m actually starting to come around to the McGwire doesn’t get in on stats argument lately. I’d have to think about that.
What additional moves could the Mariners make this off-season to give them a fighting chance in their weak division? Are there any free agents left that could help? –scott47a
and
Okay, we can all agree that Bavasi, Hargrove et al screwed up the offseason to this point, but there are still almost three months left until the season starts. If you were at the helm of the Mariners and not just USSM, what would you do in the interim to improve the team—assuming for now that you can’t just fire Bavasi and Hargrove? -# bat guano
It depends on how far you can go. If you can blow payroll out of the water, there are pitchers on the market who will be better than Ramirez and probably Batista. There are players who’ll hit better than Vidro. There are still some guys who might help the bullpen, and a lot of people you could sign to improve the team’s depth to guard against injury.
But it’s going to be really expensive, and they’re not going to spend the money. And as long as we’re constrained by the realities of ownership, you can’t trade Ibanez, so you’re trying to trade Sexson, which I’d try to do desperately, punt Mateo somewhere so Hargrove can’t use him, and other similar tweaks.
What’s the deal with Reed and Jones? Odds that one or both become legit major league outfielders? Likelihood of them staying in the organization? Value as prospects? — sparky
I’m a huge fan of Jones, that’s no secret, since I shout about him all the time. His value’s really high right now, and if the progression he showed in Tacoma last year holds up, his bat’s ready soon, and he’ll be a minor star in a few seasons. Woo!
Reed — what are you going to say? His value’s extremely low. We can hope it was the wrist that sapped his ability to hit last year. The M’s are in a bad position to try and get him enough playing time to work his way into a trade for value, too, with Ichiro in center and Ibanez in left. I still think he gets punted somewhere before the season starts for very little in return.
My gut feeling is that the Mariner front office instinctively goes for people who subtract from joy. Would love to see some speculation about this. — Cedalus
Nah. It’s that their perception of joy is different. They think Ichiro’s an exciting, great player, and I agree, but they also think the scrappiness of Bloomquist makes him a fan favorite and that’s worth rewarding, and Ibanez being a great guy is joyful, and worth spending on. I’m a little surprised they traded Snelling in part because I know Bavasi was a fan, and liked him a lot. They’re not making these moves because they want to spite me, much as this off-season seems to suggest. They think it improves the team, which is in a way, worse, because at least the spite explanation means they’re competent.
Are there any good baseball podcasts? — Paul B
I don’t know. I haven’t found any. Jeff and I were talking about doing one, and it never came to be. That would have been good fun. Damn you Jeff!
Anyway, that’s a fair chunk o’ questions. If you thought this was at all amusing or interesting, cool, it might be something we do more of in the future. Or never again. You never know here at USSM Labs. We’re crazy.
hey, Matt Millen still has a job….
I’m actually starting to come around to the McGwire doesn’t get in on stats argument lately.
You’re kidding, right? Didn’t someone at BP already take that argument apart?
Yes, his numbers were Kingmanesque at varying points, but he was no Dave Kingman. They’re average or above average for a HoF first baseman.
How is it possible that Pineiro is going to be rewarded with a garanteed $4 million in 2007?
I know it’s a step down for him in salary but last time I checked, soft tossing right handers with a 6.00+ ERA aren’t hard to find.
Perhaps they think they can fix him… and if so, why couldn’t the Mariners?
Pineiro has his own post now.
Let’s go back to the start of this off season. You are the GM. Who do you trade for and whom do you trade, and what FA’s do you sign that would help this club be competitive for the AL West in 2007?
Randy Winn for Piniella was good? Ignoring the Lou as God cultist’s issue, his defensive inadequacies in cf had to weigh heavily on the 04 pitching staff…if there was a man on 1b and the ball was hit in the gap, it was even money that the guy scored.
Go read the question. It was “worst trades that turned out okay”. Piniella’s departure was supposed to be the death knell of the team, and it wasn’t, and as a bonus, Winn was an outstanding left fielder to complete one of the best defensive outfields ever when Cameron joined.
Thanks for answering my q on “worst move since 2000.” I went with 2000 for modern history and it seems like since 2001 everything has either been a bad move at first glance or it turned into one later (like the Freddy trade) later on. Plus I didn’t want to bring up the BoSox deal of yesteryear.
I still have to go with Carlos for Santiago,a no hit fielder, at this point. The Carlos is a pure hitting infielder– who I would MUCH rather have– even at 5 million more a year– than Vidro to play spot position play and DH. I believe he is no longer a true SS, but he can still play it much better than Vidro in a pinch.
In addition, then we’d still have Snelling and Fruto, not to mention we may never have signed Crazy Carl last year, and we’d have a solid bat (admittedly when healthy) in the lineup, not to mention if we hadn’t traded him a potential career Mariner.
That one still makes me sick, and I think when you move past sentiment and see with hindsight, there is at least some (albiet minor) upside potential with the Vidro debacle. There was never any with the Guillen debacle.
Even better than my question though–
sometime maybe go with “Worst 10 M’s moves since XXXX year.”
and i’d even enjoy “10 moves that could have worked but didn’t” ala the Freddy trade, etc. and…
“best 10 moves the M’s made over the same period.” — if we can find 10 good moves.
Wow, that’s a lot of content for one post. I’m impressed.
So I’m going to have to go with Fruto-Snelling for Vidro.
Might I suggest moving Raul Ibanez back to LF? By clogging up an OF spot and opening the DH spot, I would argue that it led to the Mariners spending Choo/Cabrera/Snelling/Fruto just to fill a position for which they already had a perfect candidate on the roster. (Crap, and I almost forgot that it led to them signing Carl Everett.)
At least if they were going to spend some combination of Choo/Cabrera/Snelling/Fruto, it would’ve been nice if you weren’t spending them to improve the easiest position on the roster to fill. Smart teams don’t put that much of their resources into the DH spot.
On McGwire: nope, I’m not kidding, I’ve been having my doubts this week. Now, I think even with Bert I’m arguing for pretty high standards, first off.
But here’s my thinking:
You get 1987-1992
Then there are two lost seasons.
Then even in 95-96, he’s great without playing a full season.
97-99 he’s awesome again
Over his career, in an average year he was worth about 45-50 runs above average offensively, and he’s pretty much a crap fielder after 92.
Now, that means on average, even with the missing and absent years he turns out to be a top-30 player, but is Chipper Jones a Hall of Famer? Vlad Guerrero?
1998 was one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time, but he’s only got 3 of the top 100 park/era adjusted seasons. Albert Belle has four.
I don’t know. But I’m fessing up that I’ve really started to think about it this week, where a month ago I’d have said it was a no-brainer.
PER Vidro;
Infielders that became DH’s in their thirties and went on to have some of their best offensive years;
Edgar Martinez
Paul Molitor
Harold Baines
Julio Franco
Andre Thornton
And those are just the guys that won the Silver Slugger at DH… I am sure there are more if someone wanted to do more investigating.
My guess is that Vidro will hit better than his lifetime average next year which makes this deal decent (.301 .363 .459 with 15-20 HR’s)
Great post. This answered a lot of my questions. I think that most of us have questions that can’t be answered, like Why does the ownership hate the hard core fans, or When is Princess Willie going to walk too close to a microwave and have his pacemaker explode?
It’s just really disheartening to know that the ownership is fine with the course we’re on and that we basically have to wait for other teams to get worse so we can show some improvement.
one of these things is not like the other….
(blip!)
No one’s going to argue that it can’t happen. But the chances of it happening are extremely slim. Generally speaking, moving to DH doesn’t increase a player’s offense. We can hope that Vidro improves to better than career averages, but it’s like arguing that we should bet on roulette because someone won once. It’s still not a good bet.
Also, if Vidro hits that line you wanted, he’ll be a slightly better-than average DH being paid a ton of money. That’s still not a good deal, and trading for it even worse.
Oh yeah– and great post– I suggest more of these in the future.
Unless, of course, you want to be like Bavasi and the M’s this offseasons, generally angering your fans simply because you were trying for something “better” like a full database of park adjusted metrics formulated by salary for every player ever to wear a trident, but instead in your end result you come up a little short and just do Julio Cruz.
And those are just the guys that won the Silver Slugger at DH…
That’s actually a big problem with the argument, not a feature. By only considering the infielders that succeeded when making this change, you’re definitely being too optimistic. If you want to get a better idea what Vidro’s going to hit like, you should look at all of the infielders who are similar hitters at a similar age and then switched to DH. Of course, that’s basically what PECOTA does, so you could save yourself some work and look at his PECOTA projection when it comes out.
and of course also doesn’t factor in just what the Silver Slugger voting entails…
Guillen for Santiago? Sure, the opportunity cost was significant, but that’s about it. Looking back at the last five years, I have a hard time finding anything that looks as bad as the Vidro deal. Potentially, this is a) a two-for-one deal in which the player we got back was b) the worst player in the deal and c) expensive, while d) the two we gave up were cheap.
It’s hard to beat that as a bad move.
On the bright side, I don’t know that we need to start 0-20 to end this administration — Vidro completely tanking could do it, especially if Doyle stays healthy and takes advantage of a much better place to hit.
Nate posted the PECOTA for Vidro in his short blog post on the trade. The park-adjusted numbers were .283/.352/.406
I’ll take the Jeff Cirillo trade for the worst move since 2000. They were coming off the record setting season and a lot of guys were still in their prime (or at least not way past it), and I think the team having to watch Cirillo go out there every day and pop out or strike out in critical situations just wiped out everything good that went before. The money they paid Cirillo kept them from making other necessary moves, and pretty soon Piniella (whom I understand was behind the Cirillo acquisition) butts heads with the FO and leaves, and the rest is history…….
Oh yeah, and the year before the Cirillo trade I had him on my fantasy team and I knew he sucked in Colorado, so why didn’t Gillick know that?
Ok but Derek said ‘Generally’ a switch to DH doesn’t increase offense… I’d like to see some evidence of that.
Vidro was a special hitter whose value was directly affected by his injuries playing 2b… I’d like to see some anecodtal evidence of special hitters affected by injuries that became DH’s. Very much like Edgar and not some collection of dudes hitting .260 who happened to have a few days at DH.
PER # 19
My problem with PECOTA and others…
You try to buckle down and play through an injury to help your team… play at 75% of your ability because the guy behind you is only 60% of you or you are tyring to stave off some kid trying to take your job? Or you are just the kind of guy that rubs some dirt on your knee and keeps playing? You get SCREWED by the rating systems.
If Vidro is HEALTHY and plays DH he will CRUSH that PECOTA.
Will Bavasi get any credit if Vidro does a 3 year Edgar impression and Snelling is out of baseball? Or will it just be that he made a bad move and got lucky?
First, they’re not rating systems.
And second, no you don’t. I don’t think you understand how PECOTA works. You might be well-served to go check out Nate’s articles on this. There’s little difference to a player’s projection for the next year between missing a whole season and playing, say, twenty games and sucking. The scope of the comparison, with all the previous seasons and everything included in that, is much larger than playing through an injury.
I could just as easily argue at this point that he’s a unicorn and unicorns get extra pony powers if they’re designated hitters. Disprove that!
I mean really now, come on. Let’s either define the terms and talk about this reasonably or abandon pretense and fly into fantasy land.
Vidro is a unicorn?
wow!
QUESTION: Who on the team or in the system would you consider “untouchable”? Or at least would have a strong reluctance to trade? Who are the conerstones to build around over the next 5 years?
A good argument for PECOTA and playing switches, now that I think about it, is Nate’s work with Piazza‘s projections. Essentially, he came up with a line for Piazza’s switch to DH and found that historically even players moving from the most grueling position on the field to DH did not see offensive resurgences. Further, in testing whether it made a difference in other ways, he changed Piazza’s position attribution and even bumped his playing time over the last few years. The maxiumum difference was 3 pts of batting average and 11 pts of average.
So there’s a clear case where PECOTA, looking at players similar to Piazza, didn’t find good reason to assume an offensive resurgence, even when Nate tweaked real life to try and make Piazza a better candidate for the very conditions people argue are true for Vidro.
#24
You are right… I don’t. But I do know that they are mostly weighted over the last 3 years… and the last two were marred by injury.
Healthy he will be better… that seem indisputable. I don’t have a searchable database at my finger tips but if you could find me a 32 year old .301 .363 .459 middle infielder who’s had two injury marred seasons of sub performance then he moved to a better offensive team and played everyday DH… well THEN we are talking. But I am guessing there aren’t a lot of them for comparison.
Okay, but here’s the thing – that’s something that gets thrown into the comparison. Players who get badly injured need to be considered when you’re looking at the possible futures, because few of them bounce back entirely healthy.
Good read, thanks Derek.
RE: Griffey (The most important Mariner of all time)
I’d also like to point out that if the M’s don’t draft Griffey (which was a possibility) and he doesn’t help them win, then there’s a very good chance Safeco doesn’t get built and the team leaves town.
Safeco really should be known as The House That Griffey Built, even though they didn’t build it for him… So I guess it should maybe be known more as The House That Griffey Built That They Didn’t Build For Him So He Left Town (yeah that’s right, anyone who watched Junior knew he was extremely displeased with Safeco and pouted his way back home to Cincy).
Come on… 38 year old catcher… maybe if Piazza was switching in 2000 to DH.
#30… OK. But you have to admit… injury is where those things get dodgy.
I didn’t particularly like the move but as a M’s fan I will hope Vidro is Edgar-Style terrific. I refuse to root against him in order to get Bavasi/Hargrove fired. To me that is unacceptable.
Question: Did Jason Schmidt use Seattle this time around (and before wen he resigned with SF) or were we that far below the Dodgers offer?
Hey, the Mariners very own Bill Bavasi gets some love from ESPN … or not:
Bill Bavasi, the author of “Dunderball: How I cornered the market in overpriced players who spend lots of time on the DL,” will soon be available for book-signing events … very available.
On McGwire: nope, I’m not kidding, I’ve been having my doubts this week. Now, I think even with Bert I’m arguing for pretty high standards, first off.
I think Bert plays into this argument. Hold that thought for a second.
But here’s my thinking:
You get 1987-1992
Then there are two lost seasons.
Then even in 95-96, he’s great without playing a full season.
97-99 he’s awesome again
Casting aside the PED issue, that’s a hell of a peak. He was top 5 in OPS for five straight seasons.
Over his career, in an average year he was worth about 45-50 runs above average offensively,
Go look at his BP card. He was good to great, but that peak of his is unreal.
and he’s pretty much a crap fielder after 92.
Well, given that the RFg family is about as effective at measuring fielding as a tape measure is at measuring the volume of a bucket, he still looks like a pretty average 1b until 1998 or so, when the numbers plunge below league average. The FRAR numbers seem to agree, though they suggest that he went below average in ’95 or so. Not crap, but not Olerud, either.
Now, that means on average, even with the missing and absent years he turns out to be a top-30 player, but is Chipper Jones a Hall of Famer? Vlad Guerrero?
Right now, I’d say they are.
1998 was one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time, but he’s only got 3 of the top 100 park/era adjusted seasons. Albert Belle has four.
But Albert Belle had zero longevity, and the fall from his peak was a base jump off Half Dome.
Which brings us back to Blyleven. Hall voters love big peaks and long longevity. Blyleven had the longevity, but the peak never really was there. McGwire has the excuse of being broken down in the mid-90s to use for his lack of longevity. Belle just vanished.
And for that, I think McGwire looks like a HoFer. Blyleven, to me, also looks like one, but I understand the issues with his candidacy. I mean, 13 more strikeouts and he’d already be in.
I don’t know. But I’m fessing up that I’ve really started to think about it this week, where a month ago I’d have said it was a no-brainer.
I still think it’s a no-brainer.
Black Ink: Batting – 36 (41) (Average HOFer ≈ 27)
Gray Ink: Batting – 110 (189) (Average HOFer ≈ 144)
HOF Standards: Batting – 42.0 (126) (Average HOFer ≈ 50)
HOF Monitor: Batting – 169.5 (60) (Likely HOFer > 100)
Gray Ink and Standards are low due to the injuries, but he exceeds the average in Black Ink and Monitor. Only two HoFers on his comparables, but Manny’s there too, as are Thome and Delgado. Though having Canseco and Kingman on the list isn’t all that good.
I just can’t see how you can keep McGwire out when he’s a slightly-above-average hitter for the Hall.
If McGwire isn’t a HOFer on merit, then Edgar certainly isn’t.
I think there’s little doubt that McGwire has HOF talent, the question is if he played enough to justify his entry. Personally I like my HOFers to have been in at least 12 full seasons in which they were a standout player.
McGwire was awesome in ’96 and ’98, excellent in ’87, ’92, and ’99, very good in ’88 and ’97– and, if you want to cheat you can add together his ’95 and ’00 #s to give you one more excellent season. There we have roughly 8 great to excellent seasons. Throw in his decent 88-90 numbers and you’re at 11…
Normally, on a guy like this I’d say no, but McGwire wasn’t simply a very good player who had one HOF-type outstanding year, and I think he has a much better case than guys like Sammy Sosa, Albert Belle, or Rafael Palmerio. If had had to compare his career to anybody’s I’d compare him to Dick Allen.
If Vidro is HEALTHY and plays DH he will CRUSH that PECOTA.
If being the key word here. By admitting that Vidro needs to stay healthy to beat his projection, you’re basically already admitting that your idea of Vidro is optimistic and not what Bavasi should expect to get.
I can maybe see arguing that Vidro’s injury history makes him a riskier, high variance player. If he stays healthy, then maybe he does really well, and if he re-injures himself, maybe he does really badly, so the realm of possibility is perhaps greater than the possibilities for a player who is healthy from year to year.
However, that’s admitting that you’re just trading one form of risk (Snelling/Fruto developing into productive players) for another form of risk (Vidro staying healthy), so I fail to see how that’s really even a benefit to the trade even if you accept Vidro as a higher variance player.
I didn’t particularly like the move but as a M’s fan I will hope Vidro is Edgar-Style terrific. I refuse to root against him in order to get Bavasi/Hargrove fired. To me that is unacceptable.
I wish for Vidro to do well, but I expect him to do poorly. These two things are not mutually exclusive. Hoping for Edgar is a recipe for disappointment, though. Edgar is a borderline HOF candidate, and those don’t come by every day.
WTF?! Was I just blacklisted or something? My post got deleted.
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It’s an old article, it was discussed at the time, and I’ve been nuking links to it in every post for days. I’m tired of it
First, Tango’s blog looks like it’s been updated quite a bit recently. The top post is backdated because it’s promotional, but there’s a bunch of newer content below it.
Second, thank you for the extensive Q&A. I enjoyed it.
I think a Podcast would be really neat.
Thanks for the shout out, DMZ.
Yes, that promo entry makes it look like it’s the latest one. I had 42 entries in December, and I pretty much average 6-10 entries a week.
Funny as to how Derek says he constantly disagrees with me, as I find I often *agree* with him.
#38
And at DH he will be more likely to stay healthy… that is what it seems the systems dont buy into. The post on Piazza as much as admitted it. And when they backed out his Catcher years and rated him like he was a 1B they did it as a 38 year old.
With out any real world evidence for or against I am of themind that common sense tells me a 32 year old 2b with Vidro’s career numbers is going to do much better at DH. I am still waiting for an actual comparable case.
RE: Vidro and Edgar
http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/martied01.shtml
Look at Edgar’s 30 and 31 year old seasons.
I wonder what Edgar’s PECOTA would have been in 1995…
And if there had been a USS MARINER back then and the M’s had just traded Marc Newfield for Edgar… Oooooooh the SCREAMS we would have heard.
What? No it didn’t, and that’s pretty clearly a typo.
You asked for comparable cases with exactly Vidro’s career line. There aren’t any. There can’t be any, for obvious reasons.
Now you’re just being ridiculous.
OK… So Snelling is better than Newfield although that is guess work at best.
But the Nate link you posted said the following; “Although PECOTA isn’t really designed to handle this sort of experiment”
And then the Piazza as 1B part of his post did show a improvement across the board for Piazza’s numbers… and that was as a 38 year old when I am sure the aging component of PECOTA’s calculations are kicking in hard core.
I am not asking for a EXACT case… but I think the Edgar Case is close… but my main point is that without a body of evidence about very good MI’s affected by injury and moving to DH then all the hand wringing is a bit overblown.
44/45:
I don’t know what will fit your definition of a comparable case, but here are a few to consider…
1: Carlos Baerga – Jose Vidro’s most comparable player through age 31, Baerga became a DH after an ill-fated venture to a new league. It didn’t really work, save for a bizarre year as a platoon hitter in Arizona playing 1b. Summary: no, it didn’t help his career.
2: Wil Cordero – Vidro’s old Montreal teammate came up as a SS (before the OC) and played some 2b there too. He had some injury problems (ooh), then became a DH/1B when he moved to the AL (oooh). He totally collapsed at 32, hitting .197/.250/.288 (yeeauughh).
3: Jose Offerman – ex SS/2b type with the Dodgers moved to the AL and after some good years with KC, became a 1b/DH type with Boston and Seattle. Did not help his career, and he slid into retirement (save one pretty nice year for MN).
4: Ray Durham – people often forget he went to Oakland in 2002 to be the DH while Mark Ellis/Frank Menechino manned 2b. As a midseason trade (in his age 30 year) and in a year in which he played both 2b and DH, I thought this was an especially apt comparison, even excluding the fact that Durham was younger at the time. Well, even adjusting for the park, it was clear that Durham fared *worse* as a DH than as a 2b – his OPS+ went *up* in his age 31 and age 32 seasons in SF (when he resumed playing 2b).
5: Mike Sweeney – ok, not a 2b/SS, but a guy in his early 30s coming off injury-plagued years trying to extend his career by DHing exclusively. He’s 1 year older than Vidro, but he collapsed in his age 32 year (not a good sign).
Two things here:
1: There aren’t going to be lots of great comps because you don’t typically get DHs from the ranks of middle infielders. This isn’t GM or stathead stubborness, this makes sense. It’s perfectly fine to have an all-hit, no-glove guy at 1b or LF (manny ramirez), but you generally can’t/shouldn’t do that at 2b. Given that the 2b’s skillset is quite different because of this, it’s, um, odd to get your DH from amongst even *good* hitting 2bs. It’s also clear that DHing random middle infielders, even ones with bad knees, does not turn them into Edgar Martinez (who was a corner infielder, but I’ll let it pass).
2: DHing can often change a hitters approach. Durham’s value dropped in his ill-fated DH experiment in Oakland because he became less patient. He hit for a higher slugging pctg, but his total OPS still dropped due to a drop in walks. Didn’t seem to help either Offerman, Sweeney or Cordero either. That’s not saying there’s causation there; it may just be because the players were older and pretty crappy as a result. But again, it goes against the argument that focusing on DHing is some sort of silver bullet.
Someone compareable to a 32 year old .301 .363 .459 hitter (any position really) who moves to DH… preferably on a better Offensive team… and maybe throw in a league switch.
None of these will do;
Baerga – 50 games at DH
Cordero – 60
Offerman – 100 but most coming after he was 35 and doesn’t belong in the same sentance as Vidro as a hitter
Durham – Intersting… of course only 50-ish games as a DH but did just Slug over .500 at 2b in 2006…
Sweeney – What are we just going to forget about his .500+ SLG in 2005 @ DH? And his was a shoulder injury… different.