Us
Meta
Reference Material
The Future Forty 3/19/09
Evaluating Defense Evaluating Pitcher Talent
Evaluating Managers
Bugs Bunny, Greatest Banned Player Ever Selected for Best American Sports Writing!
The Attrition WarDisclaimer, Copyright
The U.S.S. Mariner is in no way affiliated with, condoned or given any notice by the Seattle Mariners baseball team, who have their own website. Similarly, we have no association with the ownership group or any businesses related to the Mariners. All article text is written by the authors, all pictures are taken by the authors, who retain copyright to their works. No copying or reproduction of any content here, photographic or otherwise, is authorized. Please email us if you wish to reproduce our work.
Sexson to the Yankees
DMZ · July 17, 2008 at 3:10 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Yup. Good times.
Tags:
Comments
-
Recent Posts
- The AI Has Taken Over
- ’22 40-Man Preview Extravaganza
- ALDS Game 3: Astros AT Mariners – Welcome Home
- ALDS Game 2: The Pitch and What Follows
- ALDS Game 1 – Series Preview
- Recent Events Fill Mariners Fans With Unexpected Emotions
- AL Wild Card Series Game 2: The Ray Game
- AL Wild Card Series, Game 1: Here We Go
- AL Wild Card Series Preview: The Battle of Robbie Ray
- Game 162, Tigers at Mariners
Author Links
Local M's Coverage
M's Blogosphere
M's Official Sites
Resources
Twittah
Sitting in the bullpen with the relievers when he was benched? I hadn’t heard about, or considered this level of pouting when it was reported before.
story
I don’t know why they didn’t DFA him first. Maybe they had explored trades, and maybe the Yanks wouldn’t have given them anything, but is there anything to lose by DFAing a player rather than just releasing him? He’s immediately off the roster when he’s DFAed, and he can be released later. I suppose it makes more of a statement to other bad body language bench-sitters, but that’ not worth much.
Any word on LaHair getting called up?
If that is the case, I am HOPING Vidro is cut.
I’m told the New York accent makes “boo” sound especially nice.
Of course, he’ll probably hit 20 HRs over there…meanwhile, our DH…
it was in the PI at the time
My buddy is a Yankee fan (and a Notre Dame fan…I can’t figure out why I still like the guy!) is absolutely horrified by this development. I, OTOH, am laughing like a hyena.
If Richie thinks the fans at Safeco were too rough on him…
Wow. Bonds must be steamed right now. Sexson over Bonds?
Matthew,
But Sexson is white..duh.
Why would they need him, they already have giambi, unless they are looking for a vidroesque DH
Platoon with Giambi…Richie did fairly well against lefties this year. Although Giambi hasn’t done too bad of a job against lefties.
If Sexson really can still hit lefties, then this isn’t totally moronic of Cashman.
Though I have to believe that there’s some AAAA lefty-masher that can actually play defense rotting in somebody’s minor league system somewhere.
At least this gives me some interest in watching the Yankees.
NBarnes:
Or there’s a somewhat proven lefty three true outcomes masher available for nothing more than prorated league minimum. And won’t they get a supplemental pick?
Would Richie have been a type A free agent? If so, wouldn’t that alone have been argument enough for the Ms to keep him around?
Err, A/B
Two quotes from nyyfans.com that say it all about those “knowledgeable” NYY fans:
Hahahahaha!!
Sexson is supposed to report to the Yankees by Saturday, so he’ll miss one top ranked pitcher scheduled to pitch in the upcoming OAK/NYY series.
You know, there’s not a whole lot of LH American League starting pitchers listed over at ESPN/MLB — 12 with ERAs between 2.31 and 5.26 — and I’d say the first 8 of those 12 are going to be tougher on Sexson than he would be on them.
The Yanks have an opportunity to see nearly all of the LH starting pitchers on that very short list between now and the end of the season, although they could come up empty, depending on the rotation schedule for these other teams.
You KNOW Richie is going to be about as useless for the Yanks as he was for Seattle if they are reduced to using him as a “defensive replacement” and pinch hitter and occasional DH, the only other alternative if the bulk of opposing pitchers are RHP (you have to take CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte off the “possibles” list).
according to Hickey on the day, he was ‘put on irrevocable waivers’
the Daily News on Sexson
“Sexson, who was released by the Mariners July 10, cleared waivers. He was holding out for a team that would let him play every day, but found none, so he signed with the Yankees…”
Just to show you how ridiculous Yankee fans and rumors can get, this was also posted by some fan on nyyfans.com today:
And another Yankee fan followed that with, “Yeah, but they have to take Damon back [in trade]”
Oh, yeah, that’s what it’s come to: Others think our sometimes misguided front office will be dumb enough to get rid of a big part of the reason for Japanese fan interest in the Mariners, and exchange that rocket arm/baseball Tao/ultimate-in-preparedness for a noodle armed Neanderthal — who won’t be off the DL until just before the 7/31 deadline.
Gawd, I hope not.
Sexson over Bonds?
Fist Base defensive replacement Barry Bonds?
(I know, it’s funny when you say that about Sexson too, but at least that is his nominal position).
But you know, considering the Yankees already employ Giambi, there might be something to be said for hiring Bonds also. It certainly would simplify some of the legal stuff. They could share a cab to the hearings and all.
Seriously, since apparently all is forgiven with Giambi (by both the team and the fans), NY might be the one place that could hire Bonds and actually have it work out — provided they reach the postseason. There would be a firestorm of publicity at first, but this is NY, so what else is new? Anyway, ARod could just be a clubhouse leader and get his picture taken walking into some hotel with Madonna, and it would be “Barry Who?” for a couple of weeks. Of course, if the Yanks picked up Bonds and then didn’t even pull off the wild card, there would be hell to pay in the offseason (especially as Bonds’ trial would be there to remind people — “NY Yankee Barry Bonds arrived at court today…”)
What, was Rob Deer not available?
Yeah, like #7 and #19, my first thought was “[i]Wow, this sure adds some legitimacy to Bonds’ agent’s claims that there must be collusion[/i]”. How New York picks up Sexson, a hitter so bad the last-place Mariners didn’t even want him in the clubhouse much less on the field, but won’t pick up an [i]actual[/i] power hitting left-hander whose OPS last year in 477 plate appearances was 1.045 with 28HR and 132 walks… it defies explanation. Even if he was simply platooned against lefties, Bonds’ OPS was still .991.
And given the presence of Giambi and even Pettitte- and in the past, Clemens- that the Yankees haven’t snagged Bonds well before now is even more odd, since it’s not like they have some strict “clean clubhouse” rule.
Whoops- sometimes I forget when I need BBCode format and regular HTML. 🙂
If Sexson thought the Seattle [fans] [were] bad…[ ]he is in for a wake[-]up call.
so, just who was this fabled ‘guy on PTI’ today, who was apparently dissing Ichiro!s contract and trying to move him off the roster?
of course, Bonds is a 42 year old who hasn’t faced live pitching since Sept 26th.
I was giving my neighbor — who’s from the Bronx and thus a dyed-in-the-wool Pinstriper — total crap about this…of course, he also could not honestly believe that Yanks were that desperate, either.
Too funny! 🙂
say, did you know that Sexson “kills lefties”?
that’s what they say on BBTN, anyway.
BBTN: Is Richie Sexson the missing piece?
Eduardo Perez thinks most definitely there is still life in that bat, he can rake lefties this year, he’s figured it out.
one of the knocks on him is that he is passive– that’s not going to be acceptable in NY, so he needs to get off to a great start. They need someone who can hit lefties, someone with power.
Prolly not…though he might be the missing link!
No one had faced live pitching during the off-season, yet somehow they manage once the season started and get their swing back pretty quickly. That’s a self-fulfilling situation: don’t hire Bonds, then claim that you aren’t hiring him because he’s out of practice. But we’re talking about one of the greatest offensive threats of all time. Ted Williams’ last season was at age 42, when he hit .316 with a 1.096 OPS and 29 HR in 113 games- not too dissimilar to Bonds last year- and no one would doubt that if Williams had played the next year he’d have still been considerably better than league average, something Sexson can’t claim even now.
I’d suspect that even being a year older, and even allowing for the natural degradation of skills and the rust, Barry Bonds would still be orders of magnitude better than Sexson. It’s collusion, pure and simple, for a deep pocketed team with existing PED using players like the Yankees to not pick up a Bonds for the exact same asking price as Sexson. When the Yankees are 6 games back in the AL East, 5.5 in the WC, and are 7th in the league in runs scored… and choose to get Sexson to help their playoff run? Probably the only contending team in the AL that wouldn’t enjoy the benefit of Bonds is the Red Sox, since with Manny, Ortiz, Ellsbury, and Youklis they have too much depth at DH, 1B, and LF to sit anyone in favor of Bonds.
Bonds IS a proven liar and yet he still have a chance to play even he did something much worse that Pete Rose was banned for life.
We try not to get into the steroids stuff because it devolves in a hash pretty quickly. But it is hard to see how it is possible to have a sensible discussion about Bonds while ignoring this issue.
I don’t really see why people are so stunned by Bonds not being hired. If you ran a company that managed money and you were looking for some good traders to help out would you really hire a guy who was amazingly successful in the market but whom everyone suspected of shady practices in the past and was currently being investigated by the Feds? Would you ever want him to be part of your company or its history?
Seriously?
For those convinced that Sexson’s ABILITY is simply gone, and he’s doomed for utter failure and retirement at age 33, here’s a split for 2008 to consider. (37 games in both cases)
HOME: 146-PA; .178/.267/.256/.523 — 3-HR; 6-RBI
AWAY: 146-PA; .260/.363/.512/.875 — 8-HR; 24-RBI
This is the difference between a guy who is relaxed and doing his job on the road, compared to a guy who has been so utterly destroyed mentally by his own fans that coming to the park in Seattle likely ranked #1 on the list of least favorite things to do today. The platoon with Sexson that could’ve worked would’ve been to simply start him only in road games, and then pinch-hit him for Vidro at home. That way, he might mistake the fans cheering for getting Vidro out of the lineup as support.
That AWAY line, quadrupled to 148 games, ends up being a nearly identical tally to his 2002 age 27 season.
This is NOT to say NY is a good destination for him – just to point out that the evidence suggests his physical ability is NOT gone — and that his problems in Seattle were *MENTAL* issues.
Riiiight, because the fact that Safeco pretty specifically kills right handed power hitters couldn’t be a factor.
Sexson is done as an everyday player.
How bad was Safeco to Sexson in his first two seasons?
2005 HOME: .254/.365/.541/.906
2005 AWAY: .272/.373/.541/.914
2006 HOME: .257/.322/.493/.815
2006 AWAY: .271/.353/.515/.868
2007 HOME: .185/.279/.403/.681
2007 AWAY: .225/.312/.394/.706
2008 HOME: .178/.267/.256/.523
2008 AWAY: .260/.363/.512/.875
==========
In 2007, he stunk everywhere. And Safeco has some legit negative pull on production — but NOT 350 points worth of OPS.
My point is that, while in 2007, his game completely fell apart – the bounce that MANY people projected actually DID occur — but it only manifested itself on the road. I’m perfectly willing to accept a 50 point OPS suppression due to Safeco. The other 300 points — that’s MENTAL.
I assert that it’s due to eating bad Ivar Dogs.
There’s just as much evidence to support my theory as yours.
I wonder how long it will be before we hear stories about how Richie borrowed the Golden Thong to help break out of his year and a half slump.
Must…bleach…brain…
firemane: The progression I see there is .900, .800, .700, and something less than .700, debateable exactly how much less. Looks like a pretty steady and consistent decline, to me. Sticking him in optimized situations (i.e. good management, i.e. not the M’s) may still yield value, but if you let him play full time, it looks to me as though you won’t be getting much offense from your below-average defensive 1B.
Any reason for us to think the fluky-looking split in 2008 isn’t actually just a fluky split?
It’s hard for me to accept MENTAL as an explanation when RANDOM will do quite nicely.
#36 – If you don’t believe that hitting 23 points *ABOVE* his career OPS does not constitute evidence that he is not finished as an every day player, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Of course, if you had responded by showing his split versus lefties and rights in 2008 …
vs RHP: .178/.281/.304/.584
vs LHP: .344/.423/.623/1054
I could have easily accepted the possibility that he has lost his ability to hit righties, (his career split is .842 vs RHP and .879 vs LHP).
Maybe it was just a fluke that he happened to stumble upon hittable lefties exclusively on the road. But, he had less than half as many PAs against lefties as he did on the road – so I’m sticking with the larger data sample as my tie-breaker.
However, given that he was hitting 1045 against lefties THIS SEASON, and was hitting .875 away from Safeco this season, I’m thinking the Yankees may have just gotten a better bargain than Oakland did when they snarfed up the discarded Frank Thomas.
#39 – is it possible? Sure.
But, his CAREER OPS is .852.
His ROAD OPS is *ABOVE* that number in 3 of 4 seasons with the Ms. The pattern is NOT random.
The pattern is steady, increasing decline AT HOME, while the pattern for the road is 3 pretty decent years around expectation and 1 outlier.
If you combine your own point that he’s lost his ability to hit righties (the majority of pitchers he would face) with his abysmal defense…
How does that not equate to him being done as an everyday player, again?
He may have some very small value as a platoon bat against lefties, so for the amount they’re paying he’s not a bad pickup for the Yankees; but he’s no Frank Thomas.
I like this move by the Yankees. As firemane points out he has some splits that suggest he might be able to hit away from a park that kills right-handed power hitters, fans on his case, and against lefties.
Two possibilities
1) Sexson is done and the Yankees waste 50-100 AB over the next two months confirming that his “splits” are just random variance.
2) Sexson has dropped off, but he’s still an effective part time player playing mainly against lefties and he’s a great pickup for $200K.
Either way, the idea that he’d be a defensive replacement is laughable.
As far as his performance being bad because of fans being mean to him:
People didn’t just wake up one day and decide to start booing Sexson. They started booing him because he sucked.
a guy who has been so utterly destroyed mentally by his own fans
Riiiight, because the notoriously bullying and quick-to-anger fans in Seattle arbitrarily decided to start booing Richie while he was still putting up good numbers, and that caused him so much mental anguish he lost the ability to hit.
Meanwhile, those of us in the real world who actually watched the games last year noticed he came out of Spring Training sucking (.145/.244/.606 April) and he continued to suck for most of the season before one boo was heard (though I think it was his July that offered a roost for the boo-birds: .165/.305/.584). He was given four months to stink up the place, which is 3.5 more than he’d get in NY.
Also, it’s generally a bad idea to talk about a player’s “career OPS” or any other “career” number as if it has predictive value, especially when talking about players entering or in their decline phases.
A career average number of any stat you can name inherently makes a declining player look better because it weights their “pre-suck” seasons equally with their “post-suck” seasons, when clearly it’s the latter that are more relevant to determining what their future performance might be.
it’s generally a bad idea to talk about a player’s “career OPS†or any other “career†number as if it has predictive value
To that point, Tom Seaver, Reggie Jackson, and Harmon Killebrew all have pretty nice career averages. I’m pretty sure they’d all suck right now.
Firemane and others, don’t forget how much Richie’s current ability to take a walk factors in to his OBP, which of course factors in to his OPS.
I can’t believe how many times people get conned into believing something “magical” is happening to a fading hitter when they look at his OPS and see it’s better than the past few years…when it turns out the guy either is walked because he can’t pull the trigger on a mistake pitch and the pitcher tries too hard to get him to swing at a pitch outside the K zone, or he actually is IBB’d more often, like Bonds (of course, THAT won’t happen to Sexson, not while he’s still in the AL).
————————
Adam S said (in part):
Yankee fans on two blogs I read are waxing poetic about his ability to throw from 1B to 2B to get the force on an A’s baserunner. Wooo-woo! I know Giambi was bad, but really, how long before they realize Richie ain’t that good? (he fooled ’em last night by successfully fielding throws from all 3 other infielders)