Five Questions at THT
Dave · March 13, 2007 at 7:26 am · Filed Under Mariners
As part of The Hardball Times season preview series, they asked me to write and answer five questions about the team heading into 2007. Head on over and check it out.
I’m not so sure about your conclusion. If it’s anything like last year, it could easily be a boring summer for the M’s.
Great job Dave. It’s good to hear that you’re still a loyal subject of the King.
Good Stuff Dave.
I liked the conclusion. There are enough broken pieces here to warrant some measure of hope for at least a month further into the season than last year. Sure, Richie and Beltre could start slow, and Guillen and Vidro might still suck, but they could all come around come June, and then the team gets a lot better.
Win shares above bench? My jaw is still hurting… where can I send the doctor’s bill? 🙂
Concerning the critique…great job…. I think there is hope in there.
WSAB isn’t my favorite tool, but its a THT stat, and I was writing a THT article, so there you go. It’s good enough to get the point across, and it wasn’t an in depth analytical piece.
I’m not sure that you heard, Dave, but King Felix lost quite a bit of weight!!!!
Great summation of a wild off season. Nice balance between understanding the FO’s goals and critiquing why the FO would try to accomplish those goals. “Crossroads” is the right mental image.
5 – I reacted the same way. I literally doubled-checked for Dave’s byline after reading those two words. Good on you Dave for matching the stat to the audience.
So Dave, after reading the answer to question, I’m not exactly sure what you think of the team’s off-season. Care to clear that up?
I killed it. That was supposed to be:
Yeah. It would be no surprise to see the M’s bring in Steve Trout. And, for that matter, Rich Amaral.
Rich Amaral.
(Okay, so you brought up “Steve Trout” — I had to retaliate for the stinging sensation with which his mention bespattered my eyes by bringing up Rich Amaral)
So Dave, after reading the answer to the first question, I’m not exactly sure what you think of the team’s off-season. Care to clear that up?
It sucked.
So do the people in the front office cross the street to avoid coming in contact with you? Or inquire about taking out contracts in N Carolina? I can’t say that I have seen, from my distant perspective, much of an effort by Bavasi to defend his ‘approach’, other than muttering something about the market.
85-90 wins? Sure, if EVERYTHING goes right that might happen, but you could say the same about every team other than the Kansas City Gilgamesh’s.
Yeah, seems like he covered the EVERYTHING part in the article.
So do the people in the front office cross the street to avoid coming in contact with you?
No. Despite some seasons of frustration, overall, the organization has been pretty nice to us, even when we call them incompetent.
I can’t say that I have seen, from my distant perspective, much of an effort by Bavasi to defend his ‘approach’, other than muttering something about the market.
From what I understand, he answered all the questions he was asked at FanFest and the get together down in Peoria with his usual honesty.
Bavasi knows that we didn’t like the moves he made this winter. I’m not sure he likes all the moves he made this winter. But, he’s been willing to discuss his methods and his thinking with us both publically and privately.
We’ve said it a lot around here, but I’ll say it again – as a person, Bill Bavasi gets a thumbs up from us. He’s a good guy who is honestly doing his best. Unfortunately, we just wish his best was better.
Bavasi knows that we didn’t like the moves he made this winter. I’m not sure he likes all the moves he made this winter. But, he’s been willing to discuss his methods and his thinking with us both publically and privately.
…to the point that he’s able and willing to articulate his methods and thinking. Certainly he’s very straight and personable with anyone who approaches him. He also seems to be very honest and open about things for the most part. That’s one of the reasons I really, really, really like him.
The biggest problem that I see is that his methods and thinking aren’t very clear even in his own mind. As you mentioned in your THT article, the part of his ‘plan’ that seems to be very sound is that he’s gone out and gotten pitchers (in Ramirez, Batista, and Reitsma) who are groundballers, if they’re nothing else. Pairing that up with the IF defense the Mariners currently have is certainly a decent approach. But I’m not sure how much of that is his plan and how much of that came about by accident — especially since I see Bavasi as very much a reactive/improvisational dude that when everything hasn’t (as Palpatine put it) “proceeded exactly as I’ve foreseen” he panics and does thing completely irrationally. A good GM would devise a plan that takes into account things completely blowing into and beyond worse-case scenario. This, apparently, seems to be Bavasi’s weakness.
But, yeah, as far as baseball FO types go, I can’t imagine there being a better one with armchair-GM type fans than Bavasi. He’s an incredibly decent human being, and a fantastic individual. With the M’s track record of hanging onto guys like that, it’s no surprise that they have the GM equivalent of Greg Dobbs — an outstanding fellow who pretty much can’t hang with the big boys.
Does Bavasi cuss? I ask because after reading Moneyball it seems to me that Billy Beane cusses ALOT.
If I recall, that was Billy’s only real complaint about Moneyball. It made him sound considerablly more profane than he is.
BTW, I like THT approach to commentary….5 questions etc.. Jeff did an outstanding job with the Seattle write up in THT 2007 preview too-I loved the breakdown organized into categories….
This is how we got mother-f’ing Enron!!!!
Here’s my conclusion.
We’re going to win the division. Win the ALDS. Win the ALCS. Win the World Series.
It’s gonna happen. M2K7
Big Red
Good read