Re-running the seasons with Oakland hobbled
After running the sims with a healthy A’s team showed them as division favorites, to much hooting, I took a suggestion and ran it again after crippling Harden and Gaudin, taking them out for the year, and re-ran the whole thing. Not because Harden and Gaudin will miss the whole season (well, Harden might if he’s traded) as much as to try and severely degrade the rotation all year.
The gap between the A’s and the Angels goes way up (average wins between them was 87 to 83, the A’s chance to win the division plunges to 17% win and 6% tied for the title).
Particularly interesting to us here in Mariner Land, though — the M’s win an extra game a year to put in an average season of 78-84. Yayyy.
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As much as Clement would be worth much more as a catcher, they still have Johjima as a catcher, and as Dave has said before, that Johjima isn’t someone you want “off the books”. At the same time, Johjima is kind of old for a catcher, so I wouldn’t know what the club would decide to do once the season is done. After Sexson is gone, I don’t know of a serious replacement at first besides Ibanez. Unless Clement puts up huge hitting numbers, it would be a waste to put him at first rather than catcher.
This year, Sexson, Johjima, and Vidro (I hope) in particular come off the books. Giving Joh another 2-3 year contract is certainly not a bad idea if he doesn’t decline rapidly this summer. As for Sexson and Vidro, thats about $17.5M in salary (since we’re not paying all of Vidro’s contract), giving us plenty of room to re-sign Beltre (…please?), Bedard, and get us an actual 1B (assuming Balentin or Reed is ML-ready).
But, that’s really a discussion for another time. The bottom line right now is, Clement should get at least half a season in as a catcher in AAA (and half is almost certainly too little), and Morrow should be starting…somewhere.
“As much as Clement would be worth much more as a catcher, they still have Johjima as a catcher, and as Dave has said before, that Johjima isn’t someone you want “off the booksâ€. At the same time, Johjima is kind of old for a catcher, so I wouldn’t know what the club would decide to do once the season is done. After Sexson is gone, I don’t know of a serious replacement at first besides Ibanez. Unless Clement puts up huge hitting numbers, it would be a waste to put him at first rather than catcher.”
But Johjima will likely be much more expensive next year.
The ideal would be for Clement to be ready to be the every day catcher, and use the Sexson/Vidro (you can’t let that option vest under any circumstances)/Johjima money to sign a 1B and a RF/LF. Adam Dunn would look great at 1B with his OBP/lefty power.
Tossing something else in…Roger Hansen has been quoted that it’s the day in between catching stints that help development for young catcher. If (and that’s a big if) we take him at his word, and he’s correct (another big if), that removes one block to Clement coming up. (Though he probably still has some development time left for his bat…)
Dave –
When are you coming out with an updated prospects list?
Would it kill his development to rotate Clement in as the LH platoon with Johjima, Vidro and Sexson? Let him catch two or three days per week, play 1B a couple days and DH the other days, with perhaps a day as PH per week. With most staters being right-handed this would significantly help the team and give Joh plenty of rest during the season.
This raises the question of whether Clement has played any 1B in the minors. I can’t seem to find it on the Rainiers web site.
It looks like he’s played 143 games as catcher, and 51 as DH. Other than maybe an odd spring training game or some emergency fielding insertion that I’m sure we would’ve heard about, he hasn’t played anywhere else since college. Which isn’t to say he couldn’t play 1B — he’s supposed to be a pretty good athlete, and it wouldn’t be hard to match the glacier-like nimbleness of other guys that end up fielding that base — but it’s not like you want to see him learning the position in actual meaningful games. And if you think he can be a catcher, you’re not going to waste everyone’s time putting him at 1B in Tacoma either. In fact if he starts showing up at 1B for the Rainiers it would be a pretty strong indication they’d given up on him as a catcher.
Johjima will be more expensive, but he seemed to go out of his way to sign with the M’s the first time around. Assuming the last couple of years haven’t soured him, he may not drive a hugely hard bargain. Either way, they’ve got lots of money coming off the books they can use. But Clement is obviously the big wild card. Does the transition begin in the latter half of ’08, or do you re-sign Joh because the transition year still hasn’t begun?
There’s no reason to carry Clement on the roster. It’s a bad idea – if you want a left-handed bat to backup at first base and play once or twice a week, just carry Greg Norton. For 2008, there’s very little difference between the two.
Yeah, and it sounds like him playing 1B in the majors is a very bad idea this season.
I Completely agree. Stunting yet another top prospect’s development isn’t really on the top of my list of things to do.