A brief return to the Clement decision
I don’t buy that Clement deserved to be sent down because he wasn’t producing and you never know with these rookies, they’re so unreliable, it’s sink or swim or whatever blah blah blah.
Clement hit .167/.286/.250 in his time here. How did those reliable veterans you can count on do? Check a couple out:
Turbo hit .167/.167/.167 with his back spasm-y self
Betancourt hit .190/.190/.259
Sexson hit .161/.188/355
Beltre hit .156/.217/.250
Bloomquist hit .125/.300/.125
Cairo hit .222/.300/.259
Once again proving that over any arbitrarily selected time period, veterans are no more reliable production sources than your rookies.
There was no reason to send Clement back down. He was a good bet to hit better than the alternatives over that span of time, and he’s a good bet to hit better than them for any stretch after that.
Also, Cairo has no business being on this roster, and we’re reminded of that with every move.
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37 Responses to “A brief return to the Clement decision”
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Did he ever get to see the same pitcher twice? if so, what is is stats on those occasions?
You could look that up. I’d be interested in what you find.
Not to mention Clement hit a Grand Slam today for the Rainiers.
Sad but so very true. At least Clemet hitting .167 might lead to some type of long term benefit to the team. Sending him down just puts that much more pressure on him to perform immediately next time that is called up. Playing Sexson, who in no way phatobable is going to be with the team next year, has essentially no long term value. MacLaren and the FO don’t have any more ability to read the writing on the wall than they do the ability to evaluate talent. The season is done, put a fork in it. Lets start thinking about 09 and beyond.
This is why I love USSMariner so much. I would like to see Geoff Baker’s argument to this evidence.
did I lose all credibility from my spelling of fathomable?
Sending Clement down and keeping him down for twenty straight days gives us back that extra year of control that we originally thought we lost once Bavasi brought him up. Considering we really have no legitimate shot at winning anymore, I think it makes an awful lot of sense to send him back down for at least twenty days. Then again, I disagree wholeheartedly with Dave’s stance on how it’s unfair to the players to keep them under team control for as long as humanly possible. I think that’s an important part of the game, and it’s something that’s rectified when a team signs a player to a longterm deal years before that control would be lost in a show of faith and in hopes of potential future earnings.
Anyway, I’m of the opinion that it’s time to get rid of anyone valuable in an effort to stock the farm full as well as re-energize a line-up that has clearly lost all interest in playing baseball at the Major League level. Putz for LaPorta (with Gagne going down again tonight) and Bedard and Rowland-Smith for Homer Bailey, Daryl Thompson and Ken Griffey, Jr. smacks of turning things into a much more interesting future for the M’s while giving the fans Griffey to enjoy in the present. But whatever. Get rid of Bavasi first and I’ll be happy with baby steps.
5 – his response is here
But his response is not that important. What is more important is that it is a bad decision by people that make bad decisions and fix their bad decisions with similar bad decisions.
8 – I feel like banging my head on the wall after reading his responses. I realize he isn’t a shill for the team, but sometimes his arguments seem so narrow minded, he makes it sound like he is.
Richie Sexson should give back his salary to the Seattle Mariners. Armstrong and Lincoln need to step down after 5 years of losing baseball–and Bavasi couldn’t make competent hiring decisions for a McDonalds.
Cairo’s OPS: .559
Sexson’s OPS: .543
This club should be burned down for the insurance money already.
Sending Clement down was an okay move with me, and with the braindead moves they usually make an okay move seems like a victory. He wasn’t hitting, and yeah the argument could be made that he’ll get the experience he needs and start hitting, but I think the argument could also be made that he could struggle to adjust, start messing with his swing and take a step back in his progression.
That being said if I was in charge I wouldn’t have sent him down. But I can understand why they did, and actually being able to understand a move they made was a nice feeling. Now why they would bring up Reed but not play him… I can’t answer that.
Yeah, Bavasi’s reign has been a brutal failure. Oh well, when the FO sees the Safe filled with only a few kids and mommies and corporate goofs drinking in whatever club (not watching the game) maybe they’ll get the clue that they should maybe think about putting together a winning baseball club and getting a GM who’s not gonna get ripped off every time. But I kind of doubt it. As long as Lincoln ans Armstrong are in charge, they’ll just spend more money and dream up new crap (Teal Cotton Candy? Wow!) and perpetuate the mediocrity that has become OUR DAMNED TEAM!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe the Ms have sold more than 100% of the team’s profits, kind of like “The Producers.”
“Springtime for Sexson and the Mariners,
McLaren is happy and gay,
We’re looking for a run today
But Sexson hits into a double play…”
8 – thanks for the link. I had to go check it out for a moment…call it morbid curiosity.
Anyway…“Sexson, while not producing nearly enough as a first baseman overall, is still one of the better offensive producers on his team at this very moment.”
Sooo…I know I’m not as smart as Geoff Baker when it comes to baseball. But when I look at that sentence the reasoning just escapes me. It would be like saying the Ford Pinto had a problem, but it still sold well.
Sigh. It’s reaching the point in the season where I’m going to have to start paying more attention to the posts and looking for some good “McLaren-isms.” 😉
Reading Baker’s words hurts my brain.
I’ve described the [Mariners’] roster decision making process as a pachinko machine before. Clatter, clatter, ping, ping, rattle, ding, ding, ding, and out pops a random decision. Every couple of weeks, you just turn the crank again. Sometimes it seems like a good decision (Clement taking Vidro’s place at DH! Whoo hooo! Morrow starting in the minors, maybe they’re turning him back into a starter! Jones up, maybe he’ll take over LF and Raul moves to DH!). But, since it’s just random brownian motion behind it rather than any sort of coherent plan, the next turn of the crank frequently undoes whatever good move we thought they just made. What a lark! I say…
I think Paul Allen needs to buy a baseball team…
Careful what you wish for…BB might actually take us up on one of these ideas for once and end up trading Ichiro and Felix to the Yanks for Cabrera and Chamberlain (or something else equally as lopsided).
As the great Smokey Robinson once said, “I’ll second that emotion!”
Baker really doesn’t know how to structure an argument. He will use any little fact that he can, like Wlad and Clement’s OBP after a tiny sample of games, and then throw out boners like the idea that Vidro’s 2007 BA is essentially an indication of his true hitting ability.
I just fail to see a plan developing to make this a better baseball team in future in any way shape or form. Frustrating.
DMZ
Don’t mash Beltre in with those guys please. Beltre is possibly the unluckiest player in baseball.
BABIP is hovering right around .240
LD % is right around 22%
GD% and FB% are both around 40%
ISO .200
Beltre has been hitting the ball well…just no luck and nothing to show for it.
I would like to humbly suggest everyone writing about the game of baseball go find Bill James’ long article following the 1985 KC Royals World Series win.
“..while other organizations would take young players and develop them, none of the Athletics’ young performers would ever progress an inch from the point at which they entered the league … Over the years, I have noted this effect, that when a good organization comes up with a young player that young player will develop, but when a weak organization comes up with a good young player he seems less likely to progress.”
He went on to cite the reasoning: Bad organizations put undue pressure / undue expectations on young players, and the minute those aren’t met, they’re shipped out. Whereas a good organzation waits, teaches, is patient. Bad organizations have “..extreme instability, resulting in a truly remarkable lack of committment to their best young players.”
Very many of them apply to the current M’s, who seem determined to be the last team in baseball not to employ a sabermetrician / modern day stats analyst to assist with their decision making. Its not universal, because of how Felix, Betancourt and Lopez were handled, but if you look at some others that have been through here lately I think the pattern fits, it definitely fits with how they handled Clement, how they handled Adam Jones, Brian Fuentes, Asdrubal Cabrera, and more. In their place we have had the zombie Arthur Rhodes, Ben Broussard, Wilkerson, Turbo, and all the other broken down veterans who’ve come through here lately to collect a paycheck. I think James also wrote how even when you succeed at this strategy — importing veterans on the down side of their career to prop up a lineup — you wind up “in an invitation to a treadmill.” And that the strategy will always over time fail, because the quality of the veteran degrades that you can afford.
Sounds a whole lot like how the M’s are becoming / have become. Very sad, not likely to change without front office housecleaning.
Clement had more strikeouts than AB’s… almost. I think the pressure got to him a little and it was a good move to send him down. He will be better for this in the long run. There is no reason to rush him, especially if it means a 42% strikeout rate.
I agree, there is no reason to rush him. So set him in a major league roster spot, and tell him, “Kid, we don’t care how you hit. Just play the game the way you know how, and things will happen for you. We’re not going to move you for at least a couple of months, so just go out there and have fun.”
See? No rush, no pressure.
The way they are handling it, when he comes back up he’ll be thinking that if he doesn’t produce in the first week, he’ll be back in Tacoma again. Now THAT’S pressure.
Looking at Vidro and Cairo and their roles on this team, I’ve got to think that the “hot seat” that Bavasi and McLaren were supposed to be on last year actually started at absolute zero, and right now it is only up to room temperature.
I would post my Geoff-rant on his blog, but his !@#$%^&* CAPTCHA thing is worthless.
Just read Geoff’s responses to questions, and I’m astounded. Is he watching the same team that I’m watching?
His arguments are essentially that you give the benefit of the doubt to the veterans, and that call-ups get no slack. This is fine, until your veterans are no longer producing, and the M’s have way too many of these on the staff. I mean, seriously, comments like “Clement was overmatched” but somehow there’s an excuse for Vidro, Cairo, Sexson, etc.
Geoff, I just don’t get it.
QFT, dammit!!!!
These guys don’t know how to develop young players, and it’s been systemic, persisting through decades.
And don’t go quoting A-Rod or Jr…if a system is 50% worse than others, that still means it will OCCASIONALLY produce a good player.
[dupe]
Hey look, Derek beat me to it. That’s why he’s number one.
14 – That is freaking hilarious. Great reference
@ 1,2:
Re Clement’s facing a pitcher twice:
He face Vincent Padilla twice. First time he flied out, SO swinging, SO looking. Second time he singled, lined out, then doubled (causing Padilla to be pulled).
Sooo, maybe an adjustment? Of course an incredibly small sample. Also, to be fair, it could have just been an off day for Padilla in general. He pitched 7 shut out innings in the first game against us, then 5 innings giving up 7 hits, a BB, 6 runs, 3 earned. Still interesting to see that the only pitcher Clement faced twice he improved drastically from 0-3 with 2 K’s (Padilla’s no artist) to 2-3 with a double and a line out.
On point as usual DMZ.
jzalman, good call with the ‘same pitcher twice’ difference as well. I just wish we had more examples, I bet the stats would look a lot more favorably on Clement.
But, but, but….he has the best line there!!!
My first reaction to the Clement decision was “there they go again”. Upon reflection, I sort of understand the decision, because the M’s don’t have the luxury of waiting for Clement to season and get used to being a major leaguer because they think they have to rescue the season “before” it is lost. Of course, most of the folks on this site believe the season is already lost, so we don’t buy that argument.
Holding off an extra year before Clement “free agent-hood” is a good thing for the M’s future. Next time he comes up, he’ll probably be more effective because he will be less anxious and will be more and more likely to face pitchers for a second time. And, the next time he comes up, the M’s will have realized what most of already know and will be preparing for the future.
Just heard on KJR that the two best teams in the NL right now are being managed by Lou Piniella and Bob Melvin. Also, Jorge Campillo (!), Joel Pineiro, and Gil Meche all had good outings yesterday….
And I forgot to add…the comment by “certaindoom”, #23, is right on! It describes the M’s to a tee.
I usually don’t read Seattle press (Pirates fan), so I had to double check that Baker doesn’t work for the team as a PR guy or something. I didn’t realize that I’ve been spoiled by the Buccos’ beat writer for the Post Gazette.