Game 101, Red Sox at Mariners
1:40. Buchholz vs Felix.
Happy Felix Day!
Why You Have To Move Washburn
I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here, but just in case anyone was buying the line about it potentially being wise to keep Washburn, here’s why you absolutely have to move him if you can.
M’s 2009 Committed Payroll:
Ichiro: $17 million
Beltre: $12 million
Silva: $11 million
Washburn: $10.35 million
Bedard: ~$10 million (arbitration eligible)
Batista: $9 million
Johjima: $8 million
Putz: $5 million
Felix: ~$4 million (arbitration eligible)
Betancourt: $2 million
Lopez: $1.6 million
Those M’s are on the hook for almost $90 million for those 11 players. I know, it’s brutal, but it’s true. They do have a decent group of pre-arbitration guys who will all be cheap (Morrow, Green, Lowe, Dickey, Rowland-Smith, Clement, Balentien, Reed) and will fill roles on the club, but this team needs to add five or six new players this winter, with at least three of them being starting quality.
You don’t have to fill all the holes through free agency, but having $36 million in budget room is a lot more appealing than having $25 million in budget room, especially when Washburn is so easily replaced by the Dickey/Rowland-Smith/Morrow group of cheap arms.
It doesn’t matter if the M’s get any talent back in return. For the health of the 2009 team, they need to get Jarrod Washburn’s salary off the books. If you get a player back who can help you, bonus, but the correct answer to any trade offer that involves the M’s unloading his entire 2009 salary is “yes”.
Game 100, Red Sox at Mariners
Matsuzaka versus Dickey.
Why Not Trading Ibanez Might Make Sense
As we head towards the trading deadline, the rumors will continue to push forward as the M’s take phone calls from contenders looking to improve themselves for the stretch run. The two free-agents-to-be (Ibanez and Rhodes) are the most likely to be moved, as most teams prefer the security of getting a name and a face in return for their walk year guys as opposed to the unknown potential draft picks that they would get if they leave as a free agent.
However, as I’ve noted in the past, it occasionally makes more sense to let a free agent leave during the winter than trading him at the deadline. For this to be the case, you basically need a case where you have a player who does things that the Elias Sports rankings consider highly valuable (plays a lot of games, racks up RBIs, gets Wins or Saves, posts low ERA) but, in general, isn’t all that helpful towards building a winning team. Because MLB teams have gotten smarter a lot faster than the free agent rankings system, there are often big disparities between what a team will offer in trade and how a team will be compensated if he leaves via free agency.
Ibanez is going to be one of these cases. He’s almost certainly going to be a Type A free agent at years end, thanks to the fact that he’s been in the line-up and racked up a lot of RBIs the last two years. The Elias Rankings love players like him. A Type A free agent, if offered arbitration and signing with another club, nets the team that lost him two high draft picks – a 16-30 first round pick (if the signing team finishes in the top half of MLB standings, otherwise, its a 1-15 second round pick) and a supplemental pick between the first and second rounds.
Those picks are quite valuable, and forfeiting the right to them by trading Ibanez away can’t be ignored. That is the baseline for what you have to receive in trade in order to justify the move. Would someone be willing to give up the equivalent of two high draft picks for Ibanez?
Not if they understand baseball, because despite what the local media around here thinks, Raul Ibanez is a below average baseball player. His .278/.343/.452 mark while playing half his games in Safeco translates to about +9 runs offensively over a league average hitter so far this year. Considering that an average LF is +5 over an average hitter in a full season, Ibanez is about +4 or +5 runs compared to the average AL left fielder offensively this year.
His defense is, of course, horrible. There’s no denying this – he’s one of the very worst defensive players still being allowed to carry a glove. Every advanced defensive metric shows this to be true. His Fielding Bible +/- is -14 plays (or about -12 runs) so far this year. His UZR is -18. This follows exactly in line with what we’d expect, considering how bad he’s been with the glove the last few years.
Even if you want to take a conservative estimate of his defensive value so far this year, the best you can claim is that he’s been 10 runs below average. It’s almost certainly more than that, but if you want to play devil’s advocate, you could argue for a 10 run defensive penalty and not be totally crazy.
+5 with the bat, -10 with the glove… you do the math. Raul Ibanez is less valuable than the average left fielder, and every good organization in baseball knows it. They aren’t giving up premium prospects for a below average player who, over the course of two months, won’t even add half a win over a replacement level player to a contender’s ledger.
That’s the predicament the M’s find themselves in. Raul Ibanez isn’t very good, and the smart teams in baseball realize that, but the free agent compensation system is so out of touch with reality that the M’s will be highly rewarded for letting him walk this winter. For what Ibanez is, you should expect at most a B- prospect in return, except that you’ll be getting the chance at something much better by just letting him leave via free agency.
The only way the M’s will get a real haul for Raul is if a team decided to take advantage of the system, trade a couple of solid prospects to get him, and then let him walk at years end in order to receive the draft picks to restock the farm. Oakland and Milwaukee have both done this well the last few years, but neither of them will be in the market for an LF in ten days, so I wouldn’t hold my breath that anyone will follow their footsteps.
M’s Jump To KIRO
The P-I makes it official – M’s to be back on KIRO starting next year, giving up about $4.5 million a year in what they were getting from KOMO for the rights.
Wow, did you see that?
I’m not sure you could ask more of a starting pitcher than to go up against that Red Sox offense and come away having only given up two runs. What an example for the rest of the rotation to live up to in this season. “We can challenge these guys and do well,” Washburn’s performance says.
All in all, another demonstration that Washburn is the foundation of this rotation and we’re lucky to have him. I hope that this performance helps prove that if he’s going to be traded, he should demand a high price indeed. This is exactly the kind of gutty start you’d want in a playoff contending rotation.
Game 99, Red Sox at Mariners
7:10. Thank goodness Jarrod Washburn has returned to the rotation!
I’m so glad. Fun facts about Jarrod:
– he finished 4th in AL Cy Young voting only six years ago
– he’s a workhorse, who has started over 30 games every year since 2001 except 2004 and 2005
– his career ERA is under 4.13, far below league average
– he has a career winning percentage over .500 despite playing for the 06-08 Mariner teams
– despite having pitched over 1600 innings, he’s walked only 500 batters and given up just over 200 home runs
– at the same time, he’s struck out nearly a thousand batters — that’s almost the magic 2:1 ratio analysts and scouts look for!
– he averages a balk only once every four years
– because of the below-market contract he signed with the Mariners, he’s under team control for another season! He’s a cost-certain bargain this year and next!
– his baseball-reference page can be sponsored for only $20?
– he’s 97-0 with a 2.12 ERA in games where he’s awarded a win
– he holds opposing lefties to a .245/.302/.399 line
– he’s a seasoned playoff veteran
And he’s left-handed! It’s all true. I hope no astute team trades for him, because he’s the heart and soul of this Mariner staff.
Rainiers Game Thread
Tacoma has a day game against Tucson today, starting at 11:30. The not-good Joe Woerman against real prospect Matt Torra. As always, you can listen live to the great Mike Curto at tacomarainiers.com.
A few interesting Tacoma related notes:
The M’s signed Oscar Villareal to a minor league contract, and he’s in the bullpen. Not a bad free pickup.
Wladimir Balentien has homered in four straight games. I think he wants to come back to Seattle.
Ryan Feierabend rejoins the team and starts Thursday, with RR-S making his first start on Friday.
Rhodes’ Usage
Here’s a fun fact about how the M’s have used Arthur Rhodes this year:
Among pitchers who have been used in at least 30 games in a season since 1950, only two pitchers have faced fewer hitters than Rhodes, who has faced 74 men this year – 2001 Jesse Orosco faced 69 and 2002 Rich Rodriguez faced 72.
Rhodes is facing 2.39 batters per game. It doesn’t get much more LOOGY than this – even when he’s getting people out, the M’s aren’t even trying to get full innings out of him.
Brad Wilkerson
Since being picked up by Toronto, May 9th on: .222/.313/.326, somehow even worse than he was doing when the M’s tossed him.
Here’s what’s crazy: that’s better than Johjima (.233/.269/.342) and Vidro (.230/.269/.323) over the same period. And it’s close to Betancourt (.262/.274/.371).