Fun with random numbers
I missed the weekend while shooting a friend’s wedding in Kentucky, so it’s a stream of consciousness post as I play catchup on what I missed.
1. Adrian Beltre is obviously on fire. 11 for 21 with 7 extra base hits in his last 5 games, giving him a .275/.321/.495 line for the season. It’s stretches like this, along with his defense, which is why we’re Adrian Beltre fans. For all the complaining people do about the guy when he’s not going well, and for all the grief his contract gets from national writers, Beltre is entrenched as a top three 3rd baseman in the American League. The only guys with any kind of credible arguments as better players are Alex Rodriguez and Mike Lowell. The M’s have a competitive advantage at the position over every other team in the A.L. except Boston and New York.
2. Richie Sexson on this road trip: .333/.419/.593. No, he won’t hit this well all year, but it’s nice to have regression to the mean going in the M’s favor for once.
3. If Kenji Johjima doesn’t make the all-star team, I’m going to demand a criminal investigation. He’s a RH pull hitting catcher playing in the worst park in baseball for a right-handed pull hitting catcher, and he’s running an .870 OPS.
4. Turbo homered!
5. Hello Ryan Feierabend. You might not be ready for the major leagues, but you have a pulse, so you’re an upgrade over Horacio Ramirez. May you pitch well and stick around.
6. The M’s three high leverage relievers all have sub-2 ERAs. Remember when people were concerned about George Sherrill in Peoria? Yea, spring training performances don’t matter at all.
7. The M’s have raised their playoff odds from 3% to 20% in the last 7 days, per the calculations from coolstandings.com. BP’s playoff odds report has them at 28%, up from 15%. That’s a good week, but there’s still work to do.
8. The A’s are theoretically contenders, right? Did you know Jason Kendall is hitting .182/.227/.194 and is still playing everyday. He’s their Jeff Weaver.
9. From the Remember When These Guys Were Good category, the following players are all running an OPS of less than .700 this year: Eric Chavez, J.D. Drew, Brian Giles, Ivan Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Michael Young, Scott Rolen, Carlos Delgado, Mike Cameron, Jim Edmonds, and Bobby Abreu. 2007 may go down as the year of the Collapsing Veteran. I’m not sure I remember this many high profile players all falling off a cliff at one time.
10. Did you know the draft is nine days away? We have been less focused on it this year since the M’s pick 11th instead of 5th, like last year, but we’ll ramp up the coverage this week and fill you in on what it looks like the Mariners are going to do.
We should have picked Lincecum or Andrew Miller over Morrow.
And that’s not speaking from hindsight – that’s been a prevalent sentiment since the day of the 2006 draft. It’s not a stretch to say that Miller or Lincecum would be in the starting rotation for the M’s right now.
Obviously, the jury is still out on Morrow, so we can’t categorize the decision to skip those two superior arms for Morrow just yet, but I’m with Dave – we may very well never see Morrow start a game as a Mariner. If that’s the case, the pick was a HUUUUUUUGE mistake.
It only makes me worry about this years draft, any chance Bill Bavasi doesn’t mess this up?
As I said I’m not sure Morrow is any worse than Miller or Lincecum, I think he’s pretty good actually. But if he’s incapable of starting, then I agree that was a huge mistake of a draft pick.
Fontaine is the one who handles the draft, and he has a good record. The thing is Morrow being a reliever or starter isn’t up to him- it’s up to Bavasi and Hargrove.
Right now, stuff-wise, Miller and Lincecum are waaaay ahead of Morrow. He is quite a bit worse than they are. That’s not necessarily a knock on Morrow, but rather a pat on the back to Miller and Lincecum. Morrow is a one-pitch THROWER right now, whereas Miller and Lincecum are getting the chance to learn how to pitch (in Lincecum’s case, he was so good at Fresno, the Giants had no choice but to bring him up and let him learn at the ML level) as starters and develop a full repertoire of pitches.
The longer Morrow stays in the pen, the further behind those two he falls in terms of future value.
It’s almost criminal what the M’s are doing to Morrow’s future.
[no. go do some research]
“Hmm, now that I think about it, the M’s have one of the top 5 position players in baseball at 3 different positions (CF, 3B, C).â€
And closer…
154- Good to know.
He was a starter as late as last year, at Cal. He also started his two previous years at Cal, and was awful. However, in 2005-2006, he saw a big increase in velocity, and had a very good final season at Cal.
That said, however, 24 starts at the college level is not enough to prepare a kid to be a successful starting pitcher in the bigs, even if he’s had a good stint as a short reliever.
Morrow needs to learn how to start. He doesn’t know how, and he isn’t learning how. I heard an interview a few weeks back, after one of his first successful outings. He said, “I just reached back and threw it as hard as I could.”
I shuddered when I heard that statement….
Why is the moderator rude? Wait, what is the point in writing this, he’ll just delete it too. Just trying to talk baseball here. Sorry.
Because you asked a dumb question you could have figured out yourself in 2s by looking it up, rather than wasting everyone else’s time.
I can’t really hate on the Morrow pick myself. He is doing a pretty damn good job in the majors straight out of college. Obviously a starter is more valuable than a reliever but he is not a wasted pick. The draft is a pretty big crap shoot. If I were Morrow I would not view this activity as “criminal.” He is getting some early mlb service and being very productive. The hyperbole of calling it criminal is a joke.
FWIW, a note on drafting Miller back in June..
Tim Kurkjian just said that he had a GM wonder (paraphrasing here) what are the odds the Yankees, who still haven’t actually signed Clemens to a major league deal, decide it is just not worth it as they are so far back in the East …
Morrow’s agent shouldn’t be too happy; the difference between being established as a reliever now vs a starter later is potentially many millions of dollars.
Yep, sure glad we didn’t draft Mr. 3.14 xFIP Lincecum. Not that I wasn’t pleading for the Ms to draft since April of ’06. I’m not bitter at all noooo.
re: Miller
Didn’t he end up signing for like $3.25M?
Less likely to get hurt..quicker to arbitration..depends on your perspective if he is your only client you root for him to take the safe reliving act, if you have a stable of guys you mies well root for the home run as a starter. From Morrow’s perspective I might prefer the safer reliever route.
Good thing I called it “almost” criminal.
In 2002 (I couldn’t find anything more current), the average starting pitcher made just over 3.3 million. The average reliever made just over 1.5 million. The stater makes more than twice as much money.
If we keep that same ratio (it may be a greater difference in 2007), Morrow is at risk to make less half of what he is capable of making. The M’s supposedly drafted him as a starter, but because of the desparation of Bavasi and Hargrove, he was pushed into a role for which is overqualified. And the longer he stays there, the less likely he is to get back to starting.
He has the potential to be a good starter – the M’s are keeping him from that potential, and in the process, costing him money.
Closers make huge money, though.
Very brave, F-Rod. Not only for defending the “Morrow as a reliever” travesty, but also sharing a nickname with a proven cheater.
Oh, that’s right it should be “F-Rod”, but his real nickname is “K-Rod.” My mistake, carry on.
169. Not as much as staff aces. Or #2s.
But even the best closers don’t make close to as much as much money as front-line starters. Mariano Rivera made about 10 million last year, and he’s arguably the best closer of his time (by reputation, at least). While Andy Pettite — just one example, but not untypical, I think — made 16 million last year, and he’s good, but obviously not Mariano Rivera good.
169. So is that honestly how you see this playing out? That Morrow ends up as a closer? Or is there some hope that new management if that transpires, sends him back to starting?
Bavasi’s decision to put Morrow in the bullpen this year just may end up in the Desperation Hall of Fame someday, right alongside Al Gore’s recent creation of a fairytale to keep him in the spotlight.
Here’s the thing, then — what are the chances he gets a BJ Ryan-type deal, versus what are the chances he gets a #1/#2 starter deal?
If I was his agent, I’d be entirely happy to see Morrow become a good setup/closer guy.
True, I can see that as an agent, but as a fan, are you happy to see that?
What does Morrow want to be?
What does Morrow want to be?
Whatever gets him in the major leagues the soonest and keeps him there the longest.
DMZ – I think his agent would be a bit upset that Morrow didn’t get a shot to be a TOR starter. That’s not a bad gig – just ask “TOR starters” Gil Meche and Barry Zito.
From the Remember When These Guys Were Good category, the following players are all running an OPS of less than .700 this year: Eric Chavez, J.D. Drew, Brian Giles, Ivan Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Michael Young, Scott Rolen, Carlos Delgado, Mike Cameron, Jim Edmonds, and Bobby Abreu. 2007 may go down as the year of the Collapsing Veteran. I’m not sure I remember this many high profile players all falling off a cliff at one time.
OK, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. It’s not even June yet. By the end of the year, most of these players will have picked it up and come close to the numbers they usually have. It doesn’t mean these players have all of a sudden fallen off a cliff. Every year, there are quite a number of players that have a bad year, or a bad first couple of months. I’m sure you can look around and find an equal number of veterans having a suprisingly good first two months of the season. It’s just baseball as normal.
Jeeminy, how long you been watching baseball?
Eeeeevery thread’s just gotta degenerate into trade speculation, doesn’t it? It’s like Godwin’s Law for baseball sites.
And tech debates always degenerate into car analogies. (When they don’t just degenerate into “You teh sux0r!” “No Yuo!”)
+Bavasi’s decision to put Morrow in the bullpen this year just may end up in the Desperation Hall of Fame someday, right alongside Al Gore’s recent creation of a fairytale to keep him in the spotlight.+
I’m not convinced Bavasi’s as desperate as he is misjudging the relative importance of starting v. relieving. This feels like a mismeasurement/misallocation like Vidro as DH, Willie Bloomquist as starter (last yr), Everett as motivational veteran presence, etc.
Al Gore’s fairytale? Is that the one that’s been shared by 95% of climate scientists since the ’80s?
um, recent?
Um, creation?