One More Link
Well, apparently, Geoff Baker wasn’t happy about being upstaged by Ted Miller and Larry Stone this morning. So, he blew them away with his latest blog entry.
It’s 2,212 words of analytical goodness – a rational, even-handed evaluation of how the current roster and the team’s record should alter our opinion of the team’s general manager. I was thinking about writing something about what the first half says about Bill Bavasi, but you know what, why bother? Geoff just hit a home run, even if I don’t agree with everything he wrote. Go read his take instead. It’s worth your time.
At some point, we’re going to get tired of pointing out just how amazing the transformation has been from the last Seattle Times beat writer to the current one. I’m not there yet, though. Felix mixing his pitches has taken its place at the top of the list of Best Things To Happen To Mariner Fans in 2007, but Geoff Baker is a clear #2.
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It’s hard to imagine that he and Kelley work for the same people.
That was a great article, I think he may have gone too easy on Bavasi myself, but good stuff without rushing to a conclusion which is what a reporter should do. Though I really had to laugh that Turbo has “arguably” the worst power numbers of any full time DH, I don’t think I could find someone to argue against that if I spent all year looking.
To me, judging Bavasi by the performance of the team this year isn’t a productive exercise. I want him gone because I live in fear of what his next move will be. Which promising youngster or stellar performer will be the next to be moved for a lousy player? Sorry, Bill, Horacio and Vidro are lousy, and you not only took them on, you paid for the privilege. I’m still steamed about Woody’s blunder for Slocumb, and it’s only a matter of time before Bavasi pulls something similar.
Even one Soriano for Ramirez deal betrays a lack of sound judgment. I don’t want someone with his player acquisition strategy in charge, period.
Even one Soriano for Ramirez deal betrays a lack of sound judgment. I don’t want someone with his player acquisition strategy in charge, period.
You probably would want to fire every GM in baseball, then. Billy Beane traded for Jason Kendall, the worst player in the game right now. Mark Shapiro traded Brandon Phillips to the Reds for a player to be named later, essentially giving away a guy who has turned into an all-star second baseman. Dave Dombrowski gave lousy, expensive free agent contracts to Magglio Ordonez, Troy Percival, and Todd Jones.
I can find you several moves by every GM in the game that just turned into total debacles. I’ve obviously had my issues with a lot of Bavasi’s personnel moves, but you can’t make a claim that one ba dmove shows a lack of sound judgment.
As bad as the Slocumb deal was we need to remember that Woody did have a few pretty good deals. Ken Phelps for Jay Buhner? Mark Langston for Randy Johnson, Brian Holman and Gene Harris? Woody pulled a big bummer on the Slocumb deal but he also made a few really good ones….
speaking of other news, what is all this radio rumoring of an Ichiro extension in the works? did I miss some good rumormongering?
I don’t have a big problem with his signing of Vidro, I just have a problem with the amount of the signing – about 10x his worth.
I’m curious about something regarding Rafael Soriano – was there ever a plan to convert him into a starter, or was he to be a career ‘pen guy? Was he to be groomed for the closer role eventually?
7. Soriano was being groomed as a starter and in fact, started 8 games in 2002. But the M’s decided to keep him in the bullpen after 2002.
Is Bavasi calling down the lineups from the executive suite?
Some of the criticisms in Baker’s blog post question how often guys are playing, but is determining that the role of the GM or the manager in this organization?
#9 — I think that they go hand in hand. I believe that Grover was firmly on board with the moves that Bavasi made this past offseason, particularly Vidro. Also, Bavasi knew how Grover managed. Bavasi knew that Sexson, Vidro, and Ibanez would be penciled in at their respective positions every day and would not be platooned. The lineup problems that currently harm the M’s playoff chances are a joint effort.
#5 Woody didn’t make the Phelps for Buhner deal — that deal was made by his predecessor, Dick Balderson.
Woodward was an awful, awful GM, so let’s not try to rewrite history by
giving him credit for a deal that was made when he wasn’t even employed by the team.
By most accounts, Woodward was not a hard worker, unlike most of the GMs of
his day and was given the nickname in indsider circles of “The Golfing GM”
Of course that had its advantages too — Wooodward was prepared to trade Randy Johnson to Toronto (to Pat Gillick)
at the trading deadline in 1993 in exchange for Steve Karsay and Mike Timlin, but when Gillick called back to accept the deal,
Woody was reportedly on the golf course and could not be reached, so Gillick made a deal for Rickey Henderson instead.
A few other gems during Woody’s tenure:
Trading away David Ortiz, Mike Hampton, Tino Martinez, Shawn Estes, not to mention the infamous deal he made prior to the ‘92 sdeason when
he dealt away half his pitching staff for Kevin Mitchell, who hit 9 HRs for Seattle.
The bad far outweigh good, but as they say, a blind squirrel is gonna find a nut every now and again.
Some good deals — Darren Bragg for Jamie Moyer, Joey Cora for David Bell and the Randy Johnson deal to Houston for Garcia, Guillen and John Halama.
What finally led Woodward to resign (or be forced out) was Junior needing to be traded. Woodward said he didn’t want to be the one that traded Griffy. If he was pushed out then it was management that didn’t want him to be the one to trade Griffey…
I also share the same question as #9, bermanator. To what extent does Bavasi influence the line-up and platooning? I always assumed none at all.
>>>You probably would want to fire every GM in baseball, then
I just used a couple of examples. I could go on. I was at the feed when he defended the Everett signing by stating that “hitting in the middle of the lineup is a skill”. He’s arguably in favor of using the 5th pick of last year’s draft for a relief pitcher.
I’m judging him by moves that were predictable disasters when they were made, not in retrospect.
I can find you several moves by every GM in the game that just turned into total debacles. I’ve obviously had my issues with a lot of Bavasi’s personnel moves, but you can’t make a claim that one bad move shows a lack of sound judgment.
But there is a difference between a defensible, logical move that turns out bad or backfires, versus a move that is clearly stupid and through no surprise to anyone other than the GM in question reveals itself to be so.
You know that, Dave, so I am kind of surprised at the defense of Bavasi you are offering.
Sorry to butt in, but I just heard from my bro that Ichiro is going to sign an extension next week. Cheers!
15: does your “bro” have inside information?
But there is a difference between a defensible, logical move that turns out bad or backfires, versus a move that is clearly stupid and through no surprise to anyone other than the GM in question reveals itself to be so.
Signing Magglio Ordonez, Todd Jones, and Troy Percival wasn’t logical or defensible. Giving Brandon Phillips away for nothing wasn’t logical. Trading for the obviously declining and overpaid Jason Kendall wasn’t logical.
You can find at-the-time criticisms of all those moves on the blog.
I’m not defending Bavasi in as much as I’m dismissing the claim that we can evaluate a GM’s intelligence on the basis of one bad move.
16: He was a bat boy for 3 years, with the team for 5…yes, he has contacts, but where this is coming from exactly I don’t know. I’m counting it as good though, and prepared to celebrate when I get confirmation. I’ll post again if I can get him on the phone to answer my questions.
I’m no Woody fan, but the Tino deal was a forced economic move back in the small market days.
#11, Oops my bad! Really not trying to revise history here. Woody was hired 7 days after Dick pulled off the trade for Buhner. I was under the impression that Woody was
they guy who did it but after researching it, you are right it was Dick Balderson. Good point on the blind squirrel thing.
Dave, I disagree that the Ordonez signing was illogical or indefensible, unless your argument is that no free agent pickups are defensible unless they are very cheap and involve no loss of draft picks.
The Tigers front office felt like it needed a hitter, so they went out and picked up one of the best on the market. Nothing illogical about that.
He didn’t block anyone of note in the minor league system, and there’s no evidence that his salary has kept the team from making other moves.
Geoff Baker said, “It’s one thing to assemble a set of capable players, as Bavasi appears to have done, in one form or another. Quite a different thing to know how to use them.”
I thought the “know how to use them” part of that second sentence was the field manager’s responsibility, yes or no? He should be able to buck whatever economic factors might loom over such decisions (like his GM overpaying for a player), if it improves the team.
Is McLaren enough NOT like Hargrove to put together a lineup on a day to day basis that makes sense based on productivity rather than how much the guys are paid or how long they’ve been a MLBPA member?
To put two into Woody’s good column, he did acquire Moyer for Bragg and D. Bell for Joey Cora.
Baker does a great job, just night and day compared to Finnegan….nice upgrade. You may not always agree, but you have to love the effort.
The Tigers front office felt like it needed a hitter, so they went out and picked up one of the best on the market. Nothing illogical about that.
Magglio Ordonez’s first half surge aside, he hasn’t been a particularly good hitter in four years, he was a huge injury risk, and the Tigers still gave him 5/75. It was a horrible deal, one of the worst decisions Dombrowski has ever made.
#21 — Maggs had never hit like a “superstar” Ortiz or Manny type prior to the contract, and his knee holding up is a minor miracle.
I could bet my kids’ college money on the spin of a roulette wheel, but winning would not mean that I made a wise decision.
Baker’s a stud. I agree, though, that he went a little light on Bavasi. I can’t think of one thing Bavasi has done that I thought was particularly smart. I’ve agreed with some of his decisions – the Beltre signing for instance – but he hasn’t done a single thing that, at the time, looked like a cool, low risk, high reward play or seemed like a steal… He’s able to spend a lot of money, but he doesn’t seem capable of much else. By contrast, he has made numerous moves that seemed stupid on the day he made them – Sexson, Everett, Vidro, HRam – and still look stupid now.
I’m not defending Bavasi in as much as I’m dismissing the claim that we can evaluate a GM’s intelligence on the basis of one bad move.
I guess I was missing the one part of that, and would agree that anyone can, and everyone sometimes does, make a mistake.
However, I’d argue that Bavasi has certainly made more than one move that was obviously and clearly bad at the time he made it.
Seattle Times reporting that Ichiro will sign a 5 year extension.
Dave, still looking forward to your analysis of potential deadline pitching acquisitions.
An observation:
LAA, Det, Cle, Oak, and Tex all have lower OPS vs. RHPs this season. Det is 53 points worse. LAA and Oak are each 43 points worse. A third of our remaining games are against those three teams.
I seem to remember there was a lot of hand-wringing about Baker on this very blog when he was hired.
Funny how all those fears turned out to be (mostly) untrue.
Re yofrarbs:I hope that is true and proves out to be reality and not just rumor/speculation.
While do agree with Baker that one bad move doesn’t make a bad GM however in Bavasi’s case where the bad moves tend to outnumber the good ones is another story.
Let’s face it Bavasi wasn’t rated #30 or 30 GM for no reason.
Jason Churchhill on KJR says that Ichiro will sign within the next couple of days. Seattle Times has a preliminary story ont he same subject with sketchy details.
It looks like Ichiro is staying in Seattle.
WHOO FUCKING HOO!!!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2003783037_webichiro10.html
YEEAAHH BOYS We got Ichiro for 5 more years. WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
HELLS YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111
I can’t top 33, but I will say that I thought Bavasi has done a good job on two fronts.
1) Unloading a lot of flotsam and jetsum in the form of veteran players making too much money and turning them into some young players. Now, granted many of those were Gillick dinosaurs and we’ll have to see if he’s willing to do the same with his own acquisitions.
2) Building up the farm system. Dave has stated many times that this organization is flourishing at the lower levels, and most of those players were a result of the Bavasi era.
Thank god. Regardless of how the rest of the season turns out, it will be a success.
Way to go Bavasi!!!!!!!!!Great freaking move.
5 years, 100 million?
I love Ichiro, but 20 million per?
MVPs get MVP money.
Year 5 is going to kill the Mariners payroll, but who cares? He’s staying.
SCREW YOU PADRES!!!! WE KEPT ICHIRO AWAY FROM YOU, OUR NATURAL RIVALS!!!! HA HA!!!!!
Iciro makes up a lot of that money in revenue and he is worth 20 million regardless…He will always be able to rake.
No matter his output on the field, he’s worth it for the additional income he brings in.
20 mill a year for Ichiro, pretty steep, have to think it will be less than that, but he did give us a nice discount when he signed for four years at 11 million, maybe this makes up for it.
Re 39,
I’m fine with that. Ichiro plays great defense at a key defensive position. Provides amazing offensive stability to the team in both the form of run production / creation and filling the important position of “leadoff hitter”. Could potentially help influence other Japanese talents to consider the Mariners because of their “respect” for a Japanese superstar. Keeps a high degree of interest from an overseas market that is rabid for their countrymen.
Also, Ichiro projects to age well with both his skillset and his intense and determined workout and training routines. He also will not be an “albatross” because of his HOF type talent, so if “necessary” he could be unloaded to another team who would be willing to pick up his contract.
All in all, this is JUST FINE.
Explain the additional income, please.
I have been under the impression that any revenues that are not ticket sales get spread among all teams in revenue sharing.
20 mil is really steep for someone that will decline in perfromance starting as early as right now. It’s all down hill from here folks.
Re 45: I agree completely Ichiro is more than worth this deal 5yr/100 mil cheap when you look at the other 100+ mil OFers sign in the offseason;
Soriano 8 yrs 136 mil
Lee 6 yrs 120 mil I believe
Wells 7 yrs 126 mil
with the possible FAs avaiable
Andrew Jones and couple othewrs you’re looking at 100 mil as starting offer not a ending one.
Chances are more like every one of these players listed or mentioned are most liely to suffer the “albatross” trouble during the backend yrs of their contract.
With Ichiro that is highly unlikely and even as you say ichiro will be tradeable in those yrs unlike those others.
Awesome! BP will mock this signing, I’ll bet. I’m delighted.
ONCE AGAIN:
Players with Ichiro’s skill set age very well.
Gonna be repeating that a lot in the next few days, I expect.
If I had to pick a guy whose tools wouldn’t really diminish that much over the next five years it would be Ichiro. He keeps himself in superb condition, and has never had a major injury. I think he is a pretty good bet to keep stroking singles and setting the table. If he slows down a bit on defense, fine, we have an excellent CF coming up in Jones who would allow Ichiro to move over if needed.
Ichiro can age well but you can’t say that he won’t decline.
He is having his best year in an M’s uni. When he hits .320 next year and you all bitch about how outragous his contract is I’ll be sitting here laughing at you for defending it.
Do we need Ichiro? YES! But not for 20 mil when we were saying that this is only a .500 team.
Think of this team as the Sonics a few years ago when they made the playoffs. They resigned everyone and failed miserably for the next two years. Our beloved M’s could be facing that realization soon because they are really not as good as their record suggests.
Its not like we have to worry about Ichiro’s power diminishing…
#51 – I’d love for you to tell me some FA we could sign otherwise with that 20 mil a year that would be a bigger improvement than the difference between Ichiro in CF and almost anyone else.
The Mariners can afford to overpay Ichiro. And J from Issay, I guarantee you I will never bitch about this contract. Who knows how it will work out over time; but Ichiro could explode tomorrow and I’d still be happy the Mariners made the deal.
I would have to psychic to tell you any FA we could sign with that 20 mil over the 5 yr contract.
Also that 20 mil. can be spread over many little signings not just one big signing. So I won’t indulge you with a real answer.
I hear what you are saying. The price, and the terms are just being speculated on at this point. I would like it better if it was slanted more towards 15.
I feel the main reason the M’s overpayed is because there is no viable option for a leadoff hitter in the upper system. Really, if Ichiro walked who would replace him? AJ is in center but who hits leadoff?
The M’s were being held over a barrel and would get a lot of backlash from the fans if they traded him or just let him walk. They did the right thing, but went a little overboard.
Hey, bottomline, this is the first all star since Buhner, and Martinez who decided he wanted to retire in Seattle. Ichiro is a legit Hall of Fame candidate too. The Mariners went out an protected the trademark today.
Losing Griffey, Rodriguez, and Johnson hurt becaue by the way they are still active to this day and are competitive. Maybe today we stopped doing that.
For a quantitative-oriented blog such as this, this is kinda a foolish statement.
If he declines by 3-5% over five years, then, yes, you’re right; he’s declined. But that kind of decline is irrelevant to the contract being discussed.
All I’m getting out of you is that it’s a foolish signing because….
Let’s have some more precise projections. Decline by 10%? 20% And how likely is this decline to be? INDULGE us by being more specific about why this is bad and give us a REAL answer on why this is foolish.
I would like to retire in Seattle too if I got more than anyone else was willing to pay.
I know it has been discussed, I’m just too lazy (hot) to do the actual research, but didn’t Randy leave because we weren’t willing to pay him.
If that is the case, then we could have low balled Ichiro, let him walk, and grouped him with the rest.
#55 – There are not any pieces we can add that will improve us (at least in the FA market) by spreading out 20 million. If you don’t recall, a mediocre pitcher like Washburn alone costs 12-14 mil per year.
If you’d like to make the argument that 20 mil towards minor league development would be a bigger improvement than keeping Ichiro, I’d be willing to take on that point.
But the argument that 20 million could be spent better on other players just won’t work.
#60, Randy left because he was unhappy with our upper management, and partly because we weren’t willing to pay so much. (I could be wrong on this)
Its one thing to spend X amount of money on one of the lowest-risk-tier types of hitters than it is to spend X amount on an aging 6′10 pitcher.
You can’t quantify how much someone will decline until it has actually happened.
Use the average decline rate of ALL baseball players and apply that to Ichiro. Or you could take players that have similar skill sets and take their decline rate and use that to get a better guess because all we can do is guess.
That is as good as anyone can do unless you can see into the future.
#61
Minor league development and international signings may be curtailed because of this signing.
This signing may impact keeping a quality young player beacause we don’t have the payroll flexibility to give him an extention.
I don’t know I’m just speculating and giving an opinion just like the rest of you.
J –
“Use the average decline rate of ALL baseball players and apply that to Ichiro. Or you could take players that have similar skill sets and take their decline rate and use that to get a better guess because all we can do is guess”
Which is exactly what Dave and others have done, which tells us that Ichiro is not only less likely to decrease than other players, but that he will do it at a slower pace.
>>>>>
And I understand your point on the minor league development, lets just hope that that does not become the case.
J, I think I’d want a little better than that.
You COULD do better than what you’re talking about, usually, by using PECOTA. Except that Ichiro is one of those rare outliers, who’s been pretty much outperforming what PECOTA projects for him.
Yeah, the numbers make you nervous, but I’m not so sure that his numbers are going to drop off that abruptly and that soon (and certainly the mental part of the game, the routes he takes in CF and the strategy he applies in batting won’t be decaying with age; and I’m thinking that his bat control is fairly age resistant…)
really?
I think many of you have missed my point. I am not saying we should NOT have signed Ichiro. I am saying we signed him for TOO MUCH.
The impact of this signing could affect other areas of this organization (as mentioned above plus others not mentioned.)
Ichiro will decline as ALL players do. It is impossible to say by how much player X will decline because all players are unique. But if stays on par with his averages then great, we got a player who is different than every other player throughout history.
Considering that Ichiro was underpaid (relatively speaking) for his first seven seasons here, $20m per doesn’t seem that outrageous. Using my crystal ball, I’m predicting that Ichiro will remain at his current level of productivity for three more seasons. He’ll then have two more good, not great years, and retire with around 2,600 hits and 1,300 runs. He’ll the become the first Japanese player enshrined in Cooperstown, having played all twelve major league seasons for the same club.
The above should read “He’ll then become…”.
Ahhh, let the business guys worry about the money. It looks like we get to enjoy one of the best and possibly the most exciting player in baseball for many years to come. I am absolutely grinning from ear to ear. And the better news is…he is on a mission. I think we will see him turn it up a notch (if there is a notch left to turn up to) in the second half as the M’s charge toward the playoffs. Exciting baseball has, at last, returned to Seattle.
I can’t see defending the Vidro/Snelling or Ramirez/Soriano trade. I can see picking up someone that looks like they had potential to get back in form (Guillen, Sexson, Ordonez) after surgery; or picking someone up after a career year (Beltre) because you have to take a risk. I can justify those, and realize that it’s a gamble that could turn against you.
Vidro and Ramirez though? I really see those as “laying your own minefield”. Especially the Ramirez (bad and fragile NL pitcher), when having kept Soriano could have allowed Morrow to go to the minors. You’re looking at guys that are either declining or never were, and are frequently injured.
Hind site is 20/20 though…
#31 I seem to remember there was a lot of hand-wringing about Baker on this very blog when he was hired.
Actually, the first post on Baker here was optimistic, including this line:
I’m happy to hear it’s Baker, though, as he’s written pieces critical of the local team, and Finnigan…
And the posts following that had their share of praise too.
Are we kissing Geoff’s ass every time he writes something now because he mentions USSM?
Well, the smartass answer is that it wouldn’t be a problem if they spent their money better on other parts of the lineup, it wouldn’t be a problem….
On the other hand, there is certain amount of value of being able to pack as much run-scoring/run-stopping ability as Ichiro offers into one position. The traditional way has been to focus on the offensive end…but combining defense and offense will do it as well.
As the blog authors point out, nothing matches the value of pre-arb players who perform. You’re not going to match the bang you get for your buck there. But when you look at the context of free agents and of your own players about to be free agents, I think the equation changes (for free agents, it averages out to be $4.4 million a win, and probably will increase in years to come). The question you may want to ask is if Ichiro will continue to give you 5-6 wins above average for the life of the contract….
I know this is off the track but Ichiro just hit an inside the park home run with one on.
AL 2 – NL 1. MVP??