Baek designated for assignment
DMZ · May 21, 2008 at 8:57 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Because someone has to take the fall for the awful pitching and God knows it can’t be Silva, Washburn, or Burke, personal catcher to the immature and poor interviews.
Because boy, is this bullpen exhausted!
| Who | Today, May 21 | Day -1, May 20 | Day -2, May 19 | Day -3, May 18 | Previous |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baek | 38 | 35 | off | May 12 | |
| Green | off | 20 | May 14 | ||
| Lowe | 16 | off | May 16 | ||
| Morrow | off | May 16 | |||
| Putz | off | 14 | May 17 | ||
| Rhodes | off | 3 | May 16 | ||
| Rowland-Smith | 35 | 16 | off | May 16 |
Oooooooooooooor not.
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The solution is obvious. Baek and Clement to the Orioles for Kevin Millar.
Millar is a great clubhouse guy and great with the media, filling Seattle’s two major needs.
[no]
There’s no more reason to put Washburn in the pen now than there was since he became a Mariner. Last year, when Washburn was off to a great start, Dave posted a very intelligent article noting that whilst his ERA was vastly different, his walk and strikeout rates were almost identical to his previous performances. The main difference was his LOB% which sat at 78.9%.
Well, here are the BB/G and K/G stats for Washburn’s last four years (including 2008) –
2005: 2.6 BB/G; 4.9 K/G
2006: 2.6 BB/G; 4.9 K/G
2007: 3.1 BB/G; 5.3 K/G
2008: 1.8 BB/G; 5.3 K/G
These figures are actually marginally better than they have been in recent years; however, his LOB% has dropped to only 59.9% and that’s the reason why his ERA is so high. Just as it was wrong to assume that Washburn had turned into a great pitcher at this stage last year, it’s wrong to assume that he’s completely done as a pitcher now. He’s still exactly the same number 4/5 in the rotation guy he’s always been.
Good point – and really, this is an ownership issue.
Like Towers, Bavasi has a lot of work to do to rebuild his team. But while Towers has all but admitted he’s punting this season to build for next year and beyond, Bavasi is caught in the middle – try to win now, or punt and rebuild? That he feels he’s in this spot reflects poor ownership. If they don’t trust him to do this work, he should be gone tomorrow. Otherwise, he should be assured that he’s free to make the best moves for the future of the organization – and that he’ll stick around to enjoy the fruits of his labor if he does his job properly. There can be no middle ground, which is where (at least from an outsider’s perspective) Bavasi appears to be.
It will be very interesting to see how these two situations play out.
45 – Yes, but these guys aren’t even entertaining to watch at the moment.
Only from the standpoint of what new brand of WTF move can they make or fail to make today.
54 – Completely agree. Very well said. That’s what should be done in any well run organization and…umm…oh…
This is maddening. it is hard to see how the M’s can be so incredibly stupid in their personnel decisions. They need hitting, so they DFA Norton and keep Cairo. They need pitching, so they DFA Baek and keep Batista. One gets the sense that these decisions and so many more (Soriano for Ramirez, etc.) were made by people who had never seen a baseball game before.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Right now the Yankees and O’s are looking at Cha and thinking “WOOT WOOT WOOT!”. Good luck Cha, you will be missed. As for the fans, get angry and start writing emails, flood there Inbox till it crashes. Make them see this is BS and fans are sick of stupid moves. Hell someone should start an online petition to show the discontent. We may not know everything going on behind close doors but whatever it is I get the feelings its showing in the overall production of the team.
And there’s little more reason to leave him in the rotation than there was before.
xFIP by year:
year Baek Wash Batista
2004 5.74 5.06 5.11
2005 n/a 5.01 4.27*
2006 5.08 5.35 4.88
2007 4.66 5.30 5.12
2008 5.23 4.58 5.23
* Used exclusively as a reliever
In 07, Baek actually started 12 games and was a regular part of the rotation for almost a third of a season. He posted 5.9 K/G and 1.7 BB/G – half the walk rate he posted in 06 and 08, when he was used as an irregular starter and long-relief respectively. This year, doing random long-relief duty, his Ks are down and his BBs way up – if there is such a thing as “roles†impacting performance, then Baek seems to have much better command as a starter. Even if that’s baloney, 07 represents over 40% of the IPs in his ML career, so his “mean†is heavily weighted towards that 4.66. An xFIP in the low 5s or high 4s is perfectly reasonable to expect from Baek as a #5 starter. Washburn, on the other hand, is walking far fewer than he has any time in the past few years, but is that sustainable, or will he regress to his recent career mean in the lows 5s? Batista for his part shows signs of being in his late thirties, and an xFIP below 5 would seem to be unlikely.
Baek is almost certainly a better pitcher than Batista at this point in their respective careers, and he’s probably a Wash with Wash, with a chance of being a little bit better. He makes league minimum. The one advantage the other two have is they’ve shown more durability.
Of course, RRS would be at least half a run a game better than any of them. Oh, why bother.
Derek, the reason the pen is exhausted is those guys who haven’t pitched for a few days, none of them has a “role†that would let them come in in the third inning when the starter blows up. Only Baek and RRS can do that, asking any of the other guys to pitch before the 6th would be like asking your backup 1B or a utility infielder to go play the OF or something.
bunk_medal, you’re probably right. But Washburn has been such an ass and made himself such a team problem — with management’s craven cooperation — that few people are inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Plus, he’s getting a little long in the tooth…and, as we know, those extra years of veteran grittiness are always SO essential.
I read many who say dump Batista, but why not dump Washburn?
He’s already a sunk cost and RRS would be worlds better at this point. Batista is at least a versatile guy. He can work out of the BP and he’s not the ass that Wash is.
Jarrod is the perfect example of an entitled vet and the M’s are letting him get away with nonsense. I blame McLaren here. HE is the one getting input here. Baek goes because he isn’t one of Mac’s vets. Bavasi dumps Baek in agreement because he HAS to know that Mac will not use Baek properly.
As much as I want to dump on Bill Bavasi, I won’t. I have ALWAYS believed the problems we see in this organization are all Chuck & Howie’s doing. Chuck strikes me as a meddler who insists on things being done with HIS philosophy at the heart of it. I see him sitting in a meeting and when a free agent’s name comes up as a possible signing, Chuck weighs in with “I’ve heard of that guy, sign him!”
Howie and Chuck look only at putting butts in seats (as they should) using the lowest common denominator. Look at Felix. He should get an extension but what are the M’s waiting for? Other orgs have signed their kids. It’s an positive direction all over MLB YET our team can’t seem to extend the one player that will cost them serious arbitration cash down the line.
When they make a move, it’s like a state secret or something. It took Geoff Baker to note that when Clement was sent down, Jeremy Reed was seen coming into the clubhouse later that day.
Sorry for the long post, but I tend to be the type that will wait to see how things play out before getting too worked up. It’s time for Chuck to retire, Howie to hire a team Prez that he can hand the reigns to and either give Bavasi full reign to make decisions or fire him after the season and give the reigns to new blood. No more retread GMs. No more bland, faceless Managers. I get it, Chuck, Lou pissed you off with his antics but c’mon. BoMel was a newbie and it showed but look what he is doing with kids in Arizona?! Mac is proving he was a bench coach for so long for a reason. I do blame him as much as I blame the FO. This team has ZERO fire to it. The Padres have more fire and they suck.
So far, in answer to my question posed in #3 the only thing I’ve seen on this page that makes sense is that the 70 odd pitches in the last two days makes Cha un-available and they are using the 10 day window to bring someone (Dickey?) up to finish the road trip.
(Several have mentioned this above,#6, #16, etc).
One can only hope this is the case, as any alternative is just painful to contemplate.
Not that Baek is the worlds best, but he does tend to stop the bleeding more often than not (numbers from memory). Besides his scolded child expression when he gets tagged for a long ball is entertaining to the opponent fans.
Baek has to be happy to get the hell away from this fucked-up organization. Maybe he’ll land on a team that knows what they’re doing. He would have trouble find one that has less idea.
WTF is a button violation? I can’t find it in Guildlines.
The submit button says “This comment is free of spelling errors”.
Wow…just wow
[more button violations]
It’s not a forum at all, actually.
I’m not going to go back through them all, or start a moderation fight in this thread, but if you routinely make spelling mistakes in your posts, they’re subject to deletion.
Questions about this policy can be directed to me or to the authors via email.
Also, this.