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Jeff Weaver
Yes, I’m alive, and no, they haven’t beaten my Mariner fandom out of me yet. After taking a much needed hiatus from blogging for a few weeks, I’m back, with many thanks to Derek for putting the good ship USSM on his back during January.
So, Jeff Weaver. The Mariners are reportedly on the verge of signing him to a one year contract to fill out their rotation. In an offseason that saw poor decisions stacked on top of each other like legos, it’s easy to just add this signing to the mix. The guy posted a 5.76 ERA last year, was released by the Angels halfway through the season, and generally pitched about as badly as Joel Pineiro, who we were all happy to see go away. He’s no one’s idea of a savior, and Weaver-Washburn-Ramirez-Batista adds up to a whole lot of expensive mediocrity behind The King.
However, like the Jose Guillen signing, I think there’s some things to like about this move. If you’ll recall last summer, I advocated picking Jeff Weaver up once the Angels dumped him, writing the following:
So, here’s a crazy suggestion; trade for Jeff Weaver. He’s been terrible for the Angels this year, sporting a 6.29 ERA and he’s due over $4 million for the rest of the year. The Angels are on the verge of replacing him with his brother Jered, who is simply a better pitcher right now.
However, Jeff Weaver is a great bet to pitch better as the year goes on. His 6.29 ERA isn’t close to his Fielding Independant ERA (5.20) or xFIP (4.61), which adjusts for HR/FB rate. Weaver’s peripherals aren’t much different than what they were previous years - 2.0 walks, 6.0 strikeouts, 39% GB rate. He’s a flyball pitcher who throws strikes and occassionally misses bats.
This year, he’s been struggling because teams are getting more hits on balls in play than expected, he’s giving up more homers per fly ball than expected, and he’s got worst Left on Base% of any starting pitcher in the American League. Basically, he’s the anti-Jarrod Washburn, who last year had those three things break in his favor and cashed in on non-repeatable skills. Weaver’s not going to keep giving up home runs at this rate, and he’s not going to keep giving up hits with RISP at this rate. He’s a great bet to pitch better in the second half of the year than he has to date.
Weaver didn’t pitch any better after signing with St. Louis, but thanks to the change of leagues, he did lower his ERA by a run. His unsustainably low LOB% went up, and stranding runners made him appear a little more effective. But, all in all, it was still a bad year, at least until October, when he pitched like an ace and reminded everyone that he was once a highly thought of pitcher.
He essentially had one big problem in 2006 - home runs. he gave them away like Bobby Ayala discount jerseys from the team store, surrendering a ridiculous 1.78 home runs per nine innings. As a flyball pitcher, he’s always had a bit of a home run problem, but in 2006, balls that had previously stayed in the field of play were clearing the wall, taking him from decent innings eater to suckiest suck who ever sucked.
Sometimes, a surge in home run rate can be a sign that a pitcher has lost some of his prior effectiveness. Other times, it’s just random variation that isn’t predictive of any future performance. There are reasons to believe that Jeff Weaver’s problems were the latter. Take a look at his peripherals with his career average in parentheses:
BB/9: 2.46 (2.46)
K/9: 5.60 (5.99)
GB%: 39% (40.8%)
FB%: 38.3% (37.1%)
LD%: 22.7% (21.5%)
His walkrate hit his career average right on the mark. His strikeout rate was down a little bit, but nothing close to dramatic enough to signal an end-of-career dropoff. His ball in play rates were basically steady with his recent production. The massive change was in his HR/F rate, which was a career high 14.9% while playing in a park that suppresses home runs. His park adjusted HR/F rate was 16.8% while playing for the Angels, a mark that was good for fourth worst in the league.
As we’ve talked about extensively around here, HR/F rate is far, far less predictive than all the other pitching markers. It’s wildly inconsistent due to outside factors and should not be evaluated as a part of a pitcher’s core skillset. As a group, pitchers who post HR/F rates outside of the normal range regress heavily back to the mean in future years. If we had 100 Jeff Weavers, 95 of them would post a lower HR/F rate next year.
If you project Jeff Weaver to have a normal home run rate in 2007, even if his other ratios take a small decline (he is a pitcher after all, and they do generally get worse over time), he still comes out as a decent back end starting pitcher. Fangraphs has gotten four notable projection systems to donate their 2007 data and made it available on their player cards, so we can look at Jeff Weaver’s projection through the eyes of one basic projection system (Marcel) and three more advanced formulas (Zips, Chone, and the Bill James Handbook). Here’s what they spit out:
BJH: 188 IP, 4.40 ERA
Chone: 198 IP, 4.59 ERA
Marcel: 168 IP, 4.98 ERA
Zips: 187 IP, 4.28 ERA
And, just for fun, here’s his PECOTA weighted mean projection, which is available to BP subscribers:
164 IP, 4.44 ERA.
The advanced systems that regress individual skills all have him pegged as a guy who would post an ERA around 4.50. Most of these are based on assumptions that he would re-sign in St. Louis, so we need to add half a run or so for the move to the AL, but Safeco then brings part of that back down. A Safeco-centric projection would probably put him around a 4.75 ERA or so.
On a one year deal, a durable guy who has shown an ability to eat innings and avoid the disabled list and projects to post an ERA south of 5.00 is a pretty nice pickup. Jeff Weaver is not the kind of arm you want to be committing to for multiple years, but he’s a decent innings sponge, and since Safeco is rather pitcher friendly, it’s a good spot for him to come attempt to rebuild his image.
If you asked me if I’d rather have Jeff Weaver or Gil Meche for 2007, I’d probably flip a coin. They’re both flyball ptichers with question marks about their mental preparation who have a mixed bag of historical performances. Gil Meche got $55 million for 5 years. In this market, a one year deal for Jeff Weaver looks like a bargain.
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Dave:
Weaver appears to have some significant lefty-righty splits. Combining that with Weaver’s flyball tendencies, wouldn’t Safeco cease to be a pitchers park for Weaver?
Safeco’s a pitcher’s park for everyone - it helps some more than it helps others, but there’s not a pitcher in the world who won’t benefit to some degree from pitching in Safeco Field.
Weaver will fall into the “helps less than others” category, since Safeco is more friendly to left-handed bats, and as a right-handed pitcher, he’ll face more left-handed bats than a LHP would. However, the effects of his L-R splits are overstated; teams don’t have nine left-handed batters on their roster to the point where they can run out an all LHB line-up and turn Weaver into a Triple-A scrub.
Even with his large splits, he’s still going to face a proportional number of LH and RH hitters, and his dominance over RH hitters helps deflate some of the effect of his weakness against LH batters. Safeco will still help him, even if it doesn’t help him as much as it does a guy like Jarrod Washburn.
I like this move. If it’s a one-year deal, I don’t see much downside, even if the salary is relatively high. I like Weaver to bounce back this year. Good move, Bill!
It would still be a pitcher’s park, only to a (somewhat substantially) lesser extent. Safeco isn’t so much a bandbox for lefties as it is a death box for righties, thereby making lefties look better by comparison.
Pecota thinks there is a 50% chance he’ll improve and an 18% chance he’ll either really kick booty or fall off of a cliff.
based upon that and the 164 IP at 4.44 ERA, Pecota seems to like him well enough….
This would be a more expensive flyer but based upon Pecota, it has a much greater chance of working out than taking a flyer on Thomson… especially if you really need those innings…
See - I take three paragraphs to say what Jeff Sullivan can say in two sentences.
We can’t all be superstars.
and, gosh, we all were told during the post season that Dave Duncan had ‘fixed’ him when he came over to the Cards….
interesting that Boras is apparently thinking a 1-year deal in Safeco would be better for his client than a 2-year deal pitching in the NL.
or maybe it’s just money.
This is a good link for park factors:
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/PK_SEA03.htm
And lefty/righty splits can be compiled (on the batting and pitching splits) on a year-by-year basis:
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/WSEA02006.htm
so much for giving little jake woods another chance, oh well. looks like we picked another pitcher off the scrap heap according to the espn wire.
this time he’s recycled. Welcome back Mr. Too bright ear rings, Arthur Rhodes. Minor league deal, ST Invite
Dave-
One other anomaly that sticks out from Weavers stats from his time in LAA is his IF/F rate. In 04′ it was 17.3%, in 05′ it was 13.4%, then in LAA it dropped to 4.3%! It’s easy to correlate how a 10% in his strand rate would effect his ERA, but is the huge drop in IF/F tell us anything?
Jake Woods sucks. There’s no reason to worry about whether or not he gets a chance at anything.
One other anomaly that sticks out from Weavers stats from his time in LAA is his IF/F rate. In 04′ it was 17.3%, in 05′ it was 13.4%, then in LAA it dropped to 4.3%! It’s easy to correlate how a 10% in his strand rate would effect his ERA, but is the huge drop in IF/F tell us anything?
IF/F rate is almost as varaible as HR/F rate. Some pitchers (Barry Zito and Mariano Rivera, among others) have shown a consistent skill at inducing infield flies, but for most pitchers, it’s pretty random.
#13: just a little bit of sarcasm there.
Dave, i would add some meaningful discussion if i didnt just get off of a 6 hr shift at my workplace running on 1 hour of sleep. I like the 1 year deal, i probably wont like the money since hes a Boras client. Just another thrown away pitcher. We cant even get the “has-beens”, more like the never-was. Rhodes and maybe Washburn being the exceptions
Kill me now.
I mean really. Jeff Weaver?
Call me statistically scientifically challenged if you want, but I don’t know how people can look at the numbers he put up in Anaheim last year and project him for a 4.28 ERA.
You are statistically scientifically challenged.
As always I appreciate the analysis and thought process you guys put in evaluating players, esp. pitchers.
Sadly, all we’re going to hear at the press conference (and thus the media’s main sound bite) will be “playoff hero”.
It looks like Tacoma will have a very good staff in Baek, Woods, Fierbrand,Lehr, Campillo, etc. While the big club has spent so much money on players other teams were glad to get rid of(Ramirez, Bautista,Weaver and even Washburn will keep the Mariners in last place again with their ballooning era’s. That’s why Ichiro will leave, also. If you’re going to be in last place with these KNOWN reject pitchers who have no upside, why not give the others a shot in spring? Now that they are committed to the LOSING 4, Hargrove will have to stick with them longer then he would want to, because of $$$ committment to them. By the time, the FO gives up on them and admits their mistake, the M’s will be too far gone. SAD. Not to mention other rejects the M’s have added $$$$$ to pen Reitsma, and Rhodes. I don’t really know how good the M’s other hopefuls are (other then Lehr), but I do know how bad Bautista,Ramirez,Weaver, Washburn, Reitsma, and Rhodes are. I saw Weaver stink it up for Angels last year. Pathetic. Now I see why you guys complain about Bavasi so much.
Good luck to M’s this year. Looks like spring training will be a waste of time this year, due to the committments made.
Mike
#12, a 4.3% IF/F bodes well for a rebound, as did a 62.4% LOB. He didn’t strikeout as many guys in STL, but regression to the mean (and the general stability of K rates) tells us he’ll probably post a K-Rate north of 6 next year. Safeco will help, he’s a flyball pitcher heading to a notorious flyball park.
The Weaver - Paul Weller
“I’m the weaver of your dreams - I get rid of your bogeyman
I’m here to smash the shell you’re under
An’ get you into another thing -
I’m the weaver of your dreams - I put paid to the rocketman
I’m here to break the spell you’re under
And get you started with another plan.”
I think the song says it all. Bring on the Weav!
I’ve been looking at his splits too. It’s kind of interesting that he really didn’t develop a lefty/righty issue until 2003. It’s pretty obvious that his issues with lefties have trended to worsen till perhaps he’s reached his limit of suckitude against them.
Here’s his OPS vs righties subtracted from his OPS vs Righties, and his FIPs:
2002: -.055 FIP: 3.81
2003: .179 FIP: 4.43
2004: .240 FIP: 4.04
2005: .280 FIP: 4.65
2006: .261 FIP: 5.52
So my question is what happened during the offseason following ‘02? Obvisouly a significant injury can’t explain his sudden onset of lefty-itis (he’s never been on the disabeled list). Is this kind of thing normal? Or more importantly, if something broke after 2002, can it be fixed?
Thanks for pointing that out….
BTW… both Derrick’s book and The Book are on my B-day list….. I had better not get another tie this year
Weaver’s lost about 3-4 MPH on his fastball the past few years. When he came through the Tigers system, he was sitting in the 92-96 range. The last few years, he’s been 89-93.
That’s just part of pitching. Velocity peaks early, which is why pitcher’s don’t generally follow a generic aging curve that sees them improve, hit their prime, and then decline. Good Jeff Weaver is probably gone forever. Mediocre Jeff Weaver will stick around for a few years, and then he’ll be out of baseball.
that’s OPS vs lefties minus OPS vs righties…
Baseball is a game of constant adjustment and counter-adjustment — I wonder if that’s just the point where he was “figured out,” and for whatever reason hasn’t successfully adjusted since.
His stuff doesn’t seem to offer a lot of adjustment possibilities against lefties, as all of the arm angle crap he does won’t really affect a lefty like it will a righty. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t possess anything that really breaks away from lefty bats — he’s not really known for a good 2-seamer or change-up.
So yeah, I’d say that that’s just the point where the league adjusted to him, and his repertoire didn’t offer much of a recourse after that.
for what its worth, according to Rick Hummel who covers the Cards, they tried to keep Weaver and also came hard after Batista (offering him more than they offered Weaver) only to lose him the Seattle.
If you compared the projected Weaver against the projected Baek, how would they compare? Say they give Weaver 1 year at $8 million and Baek gets the league minimum, would Weaver even be maginally worth any upgrade?
My mantra for starting pitchers- “Cheap signings are good signings”
If they can really get him for one year (and not too many million $), and he ends up in the better end of the distribution curve on some of the key stats that Dave and others have mentioned, he’ll be a greatr signing.
OTOH, I’ll bet he gets at least an option for 2008 with a reasonably attainable vesting level (I don’t know, say 150 innings?). With the quality of the current projected rotation, I think he could pitch like Pineiro did last season and still keep his rotation spot as the lesser of evils.
I think a gradual loss of velocity fits well with his lefty-itis… His fastball pretty much moves into righties thus tending to jam them. With that kind of movement he could probably tolerate a loss of 3-4 mph off of his fastball against righties.
However, against lefties, its another story. His fastball moves away from lefties (and presumably over the plate), so there isn’t such a margin of error. At 94 mph, maybe he gets away with some pitches improperly located. At 92 mph, he pays for a mistake. Heck at 89-92 mph, there’s a greater chance he pays for a properly located fastball too since he doesn’t get to jam lefties with its movement.
Hey, my spellchecker quit wiggin’ out…. happy days.
Yes. Weaver’s probably a win or two better than Baek. And, of course, the question isn’t Weaver or Baek, because Baek doesn’t disappear now. He becomes the #6 starter, and the guy who gets innings when someone gets hurt.
So it’s Weaver and Baek, not Weaver or Baek.
#32 That’s my point. If Weaver, Bautista, Ramirez IS pitching, #6 starter Baek or other CANNOT pitch. Unless injured?? that’s not very hopeful. Why would we need a manager if we only make the CORRECT decisions due to injury. And just because you do not make rotation of starters, that doesn’t mean you can be a reliever. the mentality , conditioning , prep for pitching is different. so if baek, woods, Lehr don’t make rotation, they may be better suited to go to Tacoma, for if, and when, the other 5 flops.
Mike
Any speculation on how much this is going to cost? I agree that with one-year deal and the money unlikely to go somewhere any of us will cheer about, we can probably stomach a higher salary on a one-year commitment over a lower yearly average over a number of years. But what’s 1 or 2 wins over Baek worth?
Even without considering the answer to that question, I like the signing mostly because it adds depth against some injury concerns we have with at least one starter, has the potential to look like a really good move if Weaver has flashes of his post-season performance from time to time, and doesn’t lock up salary for years to come. If things go badly this year, the new GM won’t likely have Jeff Weaver to worry about, even if he’s taking up a chunk of salary this year. Medium risk, medium reward, I think.
#31:
Does his fastball tail that much? Conventional wisdom says that a pitch breaking away from a batter is significantly harder to hit than one breaking in towards a batter, as it’s easy to pull your hands in mid-swing while it’s awkward and difficult to reach out in mid-swing. Maybe it’s not so much the velocity loss that hurt him against lefties (as that would seem to hurt him against righties just the same) as it was the resulting loss of movement on his fastball? /shrug
There isn’t a team in baseball (aside from the idiotic M’s experiment a couple of years ago) where the #6 starter “CANNOT pitch”. The M’s will probably end up using eight or nine starters, like every other team. #9 won’t get a lot of work (one start), but the difference between #5 and #6 in terms of workload usually isn’t very big. Seasons are long (that’s what I like about ‘em!)
I’m not real keen on Weaver, but the comparison to Meche at the end of your piece is a clincher. DAMN, that contract just looks worse and worse the longer you stare at it in disbelief. Dave, you are the Chairman of Useful Role Players, and I think you’re absolutely right again. And there really isn’t a downside; if he sucks, release him, and try something else.
Man, I can’t believe that Meche deal. And we think WE’RE suffering. I assume the Royals’ telephone is ringing nonstop from agents of just about everybody; at that pay scale even Willie Bloomquist (or, uh, Bucky Jacobsen) must be worth a few mil.
#34–Considering that there isn’t really anyone left to spend money on this year, and money saved this year won’t be applied to next year’s budget, it really doesn’t matter what it costs unless your one of the team’s owners, so long as it’s a one year contract.
How’s that for a run-on sentence?
If it’s a 1 year deal, then it doesn’t matter how much WARP/$ you are getting because at this point that money was just going to go to the owner’s pockets so ANY improvement is good.
Also, as the recent THT series shows, it’s not just about Weaver’s marginal improvement over Baek, it’s also about Baek’s marginal improvement over whomever’s next in line after him. Depth at SP is critically important.
DanO - That wasn’t a run-on sentence. It was just a long sentence; your grammar was fine.
…we’d have 20 sucky rotations.
But Dave’s on fire!
Well, if this happens it’s not going to kill me. As a one-year deal it almost looks smart. Well, at least not stupid. And everytime the M’s play the Angels the media gets to hype the brother-vs-brother angle.
I guess every GM has a blind spot where even as they switch teams they keep trying to get the same couple of guys whom they inexplicably and inordinately like for some reason. Gillick got his Franklin, so I guess Bavasi gets his Weaver (and his Spiezio… oh, god, he’s once again a proven clutch playoff vetran whatever, isn’t he?! No, Bill, just…no!)
Improving the pitching depth of the organization is a good thing- last year there really wasn’t any, thus we had the spectacle of seeing Joel make about 20 too many starts. Having a AAA rotation with guys like Woods and Baek getting regular work is pretty good. Remember the 2000-2001 teams? Brett Tomko, who was in the middle of a pretty decent journeyman career since then (if nothing spectacular) couldn’t consistently break into that rotation. Neither could John Halama. It didn’t seem to kill us. I think Bavasi is trying to recreate that sort of depth.
This is also exactly what I wanted Bill Bavasi to do- wait until now and pick up the guys who didn’t end up signed. It’s a pity that he had to make the Vidro and Ramirez moves (because this team would be better with Soriano and Snelling) in the interim because of an urge to make some sound and fury, but the reality is we could have signed Weaver and someone like John Thomson and objectively had a stronger team… because the reality is the dumpster-diving and one year deals you can make in January are quite often better than what you can do during the winter meetings when everybody is in the herd mentality of “must make a move now”.
I think we can class the Rhodes signing this way as well- I think he’s a reasonable and cheap option in the bullpen for splitting LH setup duties with Sherrill, with no big deal if he doesn’t make the team.
Is it stating the obvious to say that the M’s will have 7 “starters” on the major league staff, 2 at long relief? And when the ones that succeed get more starts later?
Possibly, though I’m not a big fan of more than one “emergency starter”, because there’s inevitably a stretch where your second long guy goes a week and a half without pitching (unless you’re willing to burn him in a 7th or 8th inning in some game just to keep him fresh, and risk him not being fully available for an extra inning game the next day) and develops serious rust spots.
You make a good point. It would take more clever management to get the 2nd long relief work. In theory the manager can pull a starter earlier in games because of the extra long guy to burn. And if say Batista only lasts a 2 innings start, he becomes available as the next long relief guy. But I think keeping track of that would just give Hargrove a headache.
What I want to know is, if this deal had happened in November, would we still have Soriano? Man, I hope he becomes a superstar with the Braves and the Mariners look stupid over this. I also hope Ramirez stays healthy and pitches well — in case anyone is waiting out there to tell me I’m wishing ill on the team — but I still get really, really mad when I think about the potshots at Soriano after the Reitsma signing. So infuriating.
I honestly think Batista is our #2 starter. I’m more worried about Washburn and HoRam.
I think the Weaver signing might just be of those “even a blind squirrel find a nut occasionally” sort of deals. I seriously doubt that Bavasi looked at Weaver’s xFIP or any similar stats last year when making a decision to pursue him.
More than likely, he wanted to sign him because he’s a vet (albeit a younger vet at the age of 30) and (most importantly to Bill) he has World Series experience. In any event, if it’s a one year deal that doesn’t break the bank, I’m for it at this point. He has to better than whatever Woods or Baek would bring to the table, right?
I loved the blurb in THT’s new links article.
Is Ramirez really overpriced?
He’s making more than the minimum, so yeah.
And the price was giving up Soriano…
and what Bavasi said he was looking for…
#47, do you really know that? do you know what he looks at and doesn’t look at? I’m not defending him, just curious why people assume he’s stupid. We don’t know all of his reasoning for his decisions. There could be other influences for some of his decisions than pure baseball ones, like “your jobs on the line, make us a winner or your gone.” I dont think he’s a saber-heavy type, but I doubt he or the FO is clueless on that front either.
I think there are a few reasons Bavasi might’ve had for making this decision (none of which involve squirrel nuts). In fact here’s the top ten reasons:
10. Weaver’s got a reasonable chance of being roughly league average.
9. Weaver has never been on the DL….anyone hungry for another plate of innings?
8. Bavasi says to himself with zeal, “One year deal….what a steal, it’s sure to appeal to the one in charge of the wheel so maybe he wont boot me so hard in the rear this July that I can taste his heel”.
7. Look people…we’ve just signed a proven world series winner… *hint, hint, buy some season tickets, hint, hint*.
6. Bavasi actually thought he was signing Jared?
5. Boras has pictures of Bavasi and he’s not above posting them on the internet…
4. Bavasi is smart and he does understand Pecota…. nahhhhhhhhh.
3. Somebody has to pitch those pesky innings between Felix’s starts.
2. Bavasi feels he owes Boras for getting Washburn to sign with the Ms so cheaply a few years back….
1. Bavasi absolutely loves watching Garret Anderson go yard…
I honestly think Batista is our #2 starter. I’m more worried about Washburn and HoRam.
Huh?
Stats for 2006, stated as ERA, FIP, xFIP, K/G, BB/G and HR/G
Batista: 4.58, 4,52, 4.88, 4.7, 3.6, .8
Washburn: 4.64, 4.86, 5.35, 4.9, 2.6, 1.2
Ramirez: 4.48, 4.57, 4.94, 4.3, 3.6, .7
There’s not a “OMGWTFBBQ” difference between the three of them (Washburn’s HR rate is higher because he’s a FB pitcher…but he helps make up for it somewhat by having less walks than the GB pitchers do). There also SEEMS to be a class of flyball pitchers who regularly outpitch their FIPs and xFIPs in the Moyer/Ohka/Washburn class (Jeff Sullivan did a post on this a year ago), and one would think that Safeco is an ideal environment for a FB lefty pitcher to pitch.
Yeah, it’s a staff of Felix and a bunch of backend innnings eaters- but if the rest of the starting staff has an ERA in the low 4’s thanks to Safeco (while being “mediocre”) and Felix has a monster year…
http://tinyurl.com/ghyem
See that? NOBODY had a composite starting ERA under 4 in the American League last year, not even the Tigers. Oakland and Anaheim’s pitching was in the low to mid 4’s. So IF (big if) we got “mediocre” (read: league average, 4.6 ERA) starting pitching out of 2-5 and Felix went Cy Young on us, we’d have pitching comparable to the top of the division.
Of course, the way you’d want to maximize chances of that is by putting in a solid defensive lineup, which means you don’t trade a reasonably mobile 25 year old for a boat anchor with bad hammys at DH, and you don’t give up on your OTHER kid OF, since the best defensive OF you could have is likely Reed/Ichiro/Snelling L-to-R, and you probably think about swapping out your $14 million lummox at 1B, and picking up a good-glove backup like Mientkiewicz, as well as wanting a better defensive IF backup than WFB…but this topic just makes me want to stabble people in the eye, so let’s drop it.
I’m with others who don’t mind picking up Weaver on a one-year deal (so long as, obviously, the dollars are not stupid). Weaver is someone my gut tells me is due for comeback or return to form or whatever. I have thought so for awhile. That being said, I am probably wrong and Weaver probably really is an irredeemable stiff. My biggest fear is that when he does prove to be a stiff, Hargrove will continue to trot Weaver out there, just like he did with Guardado (and others that I can’t recall with 10 seconds of thought). That will drive me friggin’ crazy!
So, in sum, I like the idea of Weaver, but I don’t like the reality of Weaver (i.e., the reality that Hargrove is making decisions about Weaver).
So THAT’S why you made your post all italicized. You really did want to ’stabble’ people in the eye…
I bet you kick ass in scrabble…
56:
Yes.
Building a “good” pitching staff that consists of mostly mediocre pitchers backed by good gloves only works if you have superior gloves. It’s hard for me to see how having a DH who can’t play a position in the field (Vidro), and sub-par defensive players at LF and 1B (Ibañez and Sexson) is the right way to do that. In a world where I am going for this strategy, I probably dump Sexson AND Broussard for whatever I can get, skip signing Sexson, go with Doug Mientkiewicz at 1B with maybe a good-glove platoon partner, and try and pick up another OF who can pick it (Jacque Jones, anyone?) and either make Reed a 4th OF or involve him in a deal to pick up a RH version to platoon with (speed, defense, some bat, can play CF in a pinch).
Broussard was actually rated well above average at first by PMR to runs and, believe this or not, Guillen was rated higher than Jones in right. Center is set-they’ll stick someone there i’m sure. Id’ just as soon let Reed play left than sign Jones if you were goiing to somehow get Ibanez out of there….
Overall, the M’s have a good defense. Sexson is not good, but at 1B he is not a big defensive liability. Ibanez is a sore spot defensively, but, other than that the M’s have average (Lopez) to above average (Guillen) to great (Ichiro, Betancourt, Beltre) defensive players.
Right, but Jones is a better match for Safeco as a LHB and has no significant injury history, so it’s not much of a contest to who I would prefer (even given that Guillen’s contract is one year + an playing time-based qualifying option)- though you’d have to trade for Jones.
Tek, the point is not that the defense is terrible, but there are soft spots you could shore up if you wanted to put a really outstanding defensive club other there- and moves like sticking a full-time DH in the lineup who can’t play ANY defensive position, while you have someone who really should be a full-time DH (at best, only playing OF occasionally, to give someone a day off in a park with a small OF to cover) in LF, and keeping an expensive and bad defensive 1B don’t put together as strong a defensive roster as you’d like.
Last year, the M’s were in the middle of the pack in Defensive Efficiency…
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=116639
So I’m not sure 12th in MLB translates to “good”.
Overall, the M’s have a good defense. Sexson is not good, but at 1B he is not a big defensive liability. Ibanez is a sore spot defensively, but, other than that the M’s have average (Lopez) to above average (Guillen) to great (Ichiro, Betancourt, Beltre) defensive players.
hmm. are you allowed to pitch for the Fresno Bulldog alums if you are under contract?
#63. Could you explain those numbers a little? Ichiro is rated at just below average defensively in RF (-1), whereas Guillen is rated +15. That doesn’t make any sense that Ichrio would be below average in RF.
PMR to runs looks like it overrates the Mariners’ defense compared to other metrics. I really doubt that Lopez is a +16 defender; I don’t have UZR numbers, but Chris Dial has him at +2, and the Tangotiger fan scouting project has him being slightly above average. And while YuBet and Beltre are very good, I don’t know if they saved 36 runs last year. I could see 15-20 runs, but 36 seems steep. Also, PMR is known for having some issues with evaluating first basemen, so I wouldn’t trust the numbers on Broussard. Also, the numbers for Guillen have the sample size caveat.
I look at a rotation with Weaver instead of Baek/Woods and I don’t see much improvement, unless we get a big Felix upgrade.
2007 Felix > 2006 Felix (hopefully more like >>>)
2007 Washburn = 2007 Washburn
2007 Batista 2006 Pineiro
Everybody has issues with evaluating firstbaseman…
Ya, in my zeal to spellcheck, I forgot to asterisk Guillen as well. He was in the negatives as a RFer in ‘05 and just average as a LFer in ‘04 according to PRM.
Concerning the overestimating, I don’t get that caught up in the absolute numbers in as much as I consider the trends… Most of the gold standard metrics are likely to agree that the Ms have an above average defensive infield. Concerning Broussard, I’d believe he is above average…PRM would place him somewhere in maybe the 75th to 85th percentile of defenders. Though obviously he didn’t get a ton of defensive innings either.
PMR didn’t like Ichiro and suggests he didn’t have a great defensive year. It’s liked him in past years but not so much in ‘06. The Cards forgot to email the latest UZRs to me so i don’t know what they think of Ichiro’s ‘06. Concerning Guillen, CSG already hinted at him and PMR in ‘06.
All in all, they would have been better off signing Okha or someone like him for far less. Someone like Weaver, with what presumably is a weak constitution, will most likely not thrive here. This is a place where careers are stripped down and defeated, not where they are re-invigorated. I hope I’m wrong but the cloud over the M’s organization is getting thicker and greyer every move they make.
#67, Miguel Batista > Joel Pineiro. HoRam is the one I’m personally afraid of turning into 2006 Joel.
I meant Batista > 2006 Joel. I am afraid of what he’ll turn into over the life of the contract though.
Baseballdigestdaily.com is reporting a one year deal worth slightly over $8 million with bonuses that could bring the contract up to $9.4 million. Should be officially announced Monday.
Concerning the overestimating, I don’t get that caught up in the absolute numbers in as much as I consider the trends… Most of the gold standard metrics are likely to agree that the Ms have an above average defensive infield.
Well, 12 out of 30 for defensive efficiency is above average, but it’s not in the same ballpark as Detroit or SD last year, and it’a hard for me to see a DER that is in the middle third as really superior.
I suppose you can argue CF was a pit, but that’s really the only defensive position that changes next year, from Reed/Jones/His Name Is Legion to Ichiro. So if PMR says we’re defensive wizards, why isn’t it showing up in the balls being converted to outs in DER?
Do we really have to go with HoRam as his nickname? There must be something else we can call him. Wouldn’t that make the rotation be:
FeHer
JaWas
MiBat
HoRam
JeWea
I’m not sure I want to start down that road.
Seattle Times is reporting that the M’s have locked up Weaver. 1yr slightly more than 8 million, with incentives as high as 9.4
#72– well, obviously he can’t take his physical ’til monday, what with the big game happening this saturday…
I would hope that he would skip that game, or at least pitch from behind a screen or something.
Nobody could be as bad as 2006 Pineiro.
And Weaver is easier to spell.
Doesn’t this all show that the Mariners still have no concept of marginal-win cost? Is the difference between Weaver and Baek as pitchers really worth the difference in the money they’d make? Especially when it will likely be the difference between 78 and maybe 80 wins?
#68
It looks like PMR is the only stat that really likes Broussard, though. He’s below average by Chris Dial’s numbers, ZR, FRAA, and by the fan scouting report, he’s an absolute butcher. I don’t think you can say he’s an above average fielder. I don’t disagree with the statement that the M’s have an above average infield. It’s just that it’s inspite of our first basemen.
Its official!
“one-year contract with a base salary of slightly over $8 million”
[snark]let’s all read the thread before posting. [/snark]
Well, at least I can head into the weekend feeling a little better about the depth of our starting pitching. A dim ray of hope in a gloomy off-season. TGIF!
I’ve been following Jeff Weaver’s career for a while, partly because he pitched for the Dodgers, partly because he seems to be so much in demand, partly because fans seem to want him for their team. I think the interest in him has been a function of his good fortune to be pitching for teams whose home parks are generous to pitchers, like Detroit and LA.
Not many people agree with me, but I think the better shorthand way to judge a player’s skills when he has played at a home park that distorts their stats, is to look at his road stats only. Sure, one could translate his stats and account for the home distortion, but you don’t usually have access to such adjusted numbers, but you normally can get your hands easily on road stats.
And if you look at his road stats, why would anyone want him like he was a top-line starter? ERA for road: 5.80, 4.55, 4.14, 2.48, 6.45, 4.46, 4.34, 4.38. That’s not too bad for a middle of rotation guy, for the most part (4.34 to 4.55 ERA mainly), but for a #1 or #2 pitcher, which he seems to have been considered for much of his career, that’s pretty sad. For comparison, his home ERAs, which are slightly better overall, with half in the low 4’s or lower (only two on the road like that): 5.34, 4.12, 4.03, 4.51, 5.47, 3.55, 4.11, 7.70.
However, in a alternative universe today where a Meche and Padilla can get $11M per season and Lilly $10M per, his reported $8M actually seems to be in line with his career stats, an adequate middle rotation guy. In addition, his rate stats are nothing special, other than his very low walk rate: high hit rate and HR rate, low K-rate. Only his K/BB and BB/9 rates are good.
So putting him in a pitchers park that suppresses HR’s is probably a good thing for his stats. But don’t let his stats or rep fool you, he’s not really that good a pitcher, certainly not as good as Boras’ hype, but he’s a decent middle of rotation guy and if you accept him as that, then he’ll put a smile on your face.
Yup, we may have a mediocre rotation this year but it’s dee[ mediocre.
Good Lord. All that formatting work and I still mistype a word.
I don’t believe that anyone thinks Jeff Weaver’s a “top-line” starter. He’s an average pitcher who’s durable, and there’s value in that. And just looking at road stats really isn’t a very good way to evaluate a player.
74: I can think of at least USSM author who would probably agree with you.
FRESNO (See # 64, etc.) - Don’t MLB contracts contain a clause that voids the contract if one gets injured while indulging in extra-curricular activities ?
It seems that he will be scratched.
Not many people agree with me, but I think the better shorthand way to judge a player’s skills when he has played at a home park that distorts their stats, is to look at his road stats only. Sure, one could translate his stats and account for the home distortion, but you don’t usually have access to such adjusted numbers, but you normally can get your hands easily on road stats.
Throwing away half of a player’s season is a pretty drastic measure. Also, ERA is bad.
I don’t think that anyone who has ever seen Broussard play first base could credibly call him “above average” defensively. He very well could be the worst defensive 1st baseman that we’ve had in quite a few years.
Weaver may be an average pitcher, but he will come in handy on those long flights when it becomes necessary to disable a lavatory smoke detector.
There’s no way Broussard is worse than those 2004/5 games with Ibanez over there. Woaaah. If they ever decide to convert him to 1B they need to make the decision right after the season ends so he can work out there full time for a couple months.
Well, if you want to count 14 games over a two year period, I guess. Broussard is just horrible in the field. He makes Julio Franco look like a youngster out there.
I don’t like the deal for philosophical reasons.
I think the M’s keep trying to pick up players with some name recognition still attached to them in an effort to keep butts in the seats. This is not a good plan.
I’d rather see Baek get a shot. He may project to be worse by a tiny bit than Weaver, but he’s young and perhaps there’s some minor chance that he’ll have a breakthrough or something. It probably doesn’t make any practical difference, but the M’s badly need a perspective shift where they’re looking to give young guys a chance. Pushing him back in favor of Weaver is the same kind of thinking that got us Vidro for Snelling.
There is no reason not to like this move. A couple of scenarios make this deal attractive. Worst case he can be cut with a minimal expense (only this year hurt), best case he could be good and be let go as a type a or b free agent or traded at before the deadline. As for our staff we have 1 stud and 4 average guys. This is a decent way to build a staff, with the high fluctuations of pitching results we could easily end up with a real good overall performance for the year. Any of the four could end up playing to the caliber of a two starter and they look to be durable. The end results could be an era in the 2’s, 1 or two in the threes, and two or three in the 4’s ( I am not calling era how to judge here, just saying we could luck into some nice results). The M’s are a team of average players with a couple of studs, ideally I think most bloggers here would prefer a team of stars and replacement players, but having no replacement players and all decent players might be enough to win the west.
It’s a real shame we have our share of replacement-level players, then.
I think there will be one more trade coming out of Bavasi before ST. I for some reason see Geoff Jenkins or some one coming to the Mariners for Reed, or a prospect or?? The Mariners don’t need Reed and Milwaukie doesn’t want or need Jenkins and has said they would trade for a prospect or about anything. I am surprised Jenkins is still there.
#98 I agree that reed will probably be gone…hopefully for some young pitching prospect…i can see broussard being moved as well…
Is there a reason Weaver is not working out of the bullpen?
I dunno….maybe because he’s projected to do this:
BJH: 188 IP, 4.40 ERA
Chone: 198 IP, 4.59 ERA
Marcel: 168 IP, 4.98 ERA
Zips: 187 IP, 4.28 ERA
Pecota: 164 IP, 4.44 ERA.
Jeff Weaver is perfect for Seattle! He kinda looks like Kurt Cobain.
And he always has that angst ridden look on his face–usually after giving up one of his many home runs.
I wonder if we will see Jeff Weaver hanging around in Seattle cafes, wearing all black with a pain tortured artist look.
I am one who supports having excess of mediocre starters on the staff. The good pitchers trickle into the rotation and the bad ones become long relief. It could work but it would require smart management. [insert snarky Hargrove comment here]
Jeff Weaver and Fresno State - FWIW: http://tinyurl.com/2e9d55
[I'm really skeptical about the level-headedness of a player who would jeapordize all that money.]
So, at least the Associated Press has noticed our opinions:
John D: According to this, Weaver pitched one inning. While I have no opinion on his level-headedness, I’d say that one inning of an exhibition game sounds like a calculated risk for someone with Weaver’s track record (more than 1500 major league innings and, as far as I know, no injury history).
From this article on the P-I:
““Of his last seven starts with the Angels,” Bavasi said, “six were pretty good. Put it this way: When he left Anaheim, it didn’t bother us.””
Last seven starts with Anaheim, from S-I:
• Best ERA: 3.18, versus the M’s in his last start (do you think that might have had something to do with the signing?…)
• Worst ERA: 17.18, versus the M’s on May 14 (doesn’t jive with the previously mentioned game.)
• The author should have gone back eight starts…
• 21 K’s, 11 BOB, 10 HR.
•