Trades I’m Rooting For
With the trading deadline coming up, some different opportunities are starting to present themselves as chances for the Mariners to make some moves and help rebuild this roster. What follows are my suggestions (not rumors, not inside sources, suggestions) for three deals I’ll be rooting for the M’s to make.
Raul Ibanez to the Mets for LHP Jon Niese and 1B Mike Carp
The Mets are surging, but their outfield is a mess. Moises Alou is out for the year, and Ryan Church’s status is up in the air thanks to lingering concussion issues. Omar Minaya is going to make a move, so the M’s should put themselves in the forefront of his thoughts and convince him that Ibanez is the guy he wants. He has no problem emptying his farm system in attempts to win now, and Ibanez has the reputation to command more than he’s worth.
Niese is a 21-year-old southpaw with an average fastball and good curve who mixes his pitches well and is already succeeding in Double-A. He’s not a high upside guy, but as a potential #3/#4 starter, he’d help give the M’s a legitimate young pitching prospect who could potentially help the team as early as next year.
Carp is a 22-year-old left handed hitting first baseman with a good eye at the plate and gap power. Right now, he projects as a Lyle Overbay type, but there is room in his swing for some extra pop, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he grows into a 25 to 30 home run guy down the line.
Why The M’s Should Do This: Ibanez is obviously in decline, and 2008 might be the last year he’s a starting quality player. As such, he shouldn’t spend the rest of the year in Seattle. Niese and Carp give the M’s some moderate reward youngsters that could be useful players down the line.
Why The Mets Should Do This: They sold the farm to get Johan and they’re running down the Phillies in the east, but a Fernando Tatis/Endy Chavez combination isn’t going to work in RF/LF. While they would prefer to keep Niese and Carp, Ibanez will almost certainly be a Type A free agent, so if they offer him arbitration and let him leave in the winter, they’ll get two draft picks to replace the prospects they gave up. The addition of Ibanez for the stretch run and the draft picks makes it worth doing for New York
Yuniesky Betancourt to the Dodgers for Andre Ethier and Chin-Lung Hu
The Dodgers badly need a shortstop to make up for Furcal’s injury, and they don’t have a long term answer if they Rafael leave at years end. Betancourt would stop in and give them a huge offensive upgrade over Angel Berroa once they realize that Nomar is going to kill them at shortstop. Thanks to the contracts they gave Jones and Pierre, Ethier is somewhat expendable, and their need for a shortstop outweighs their need to keep him around.
Ethier is a 26-year-old left-handed outfielder who doesn’t have any one special skill but has a solid all around game. He’s solid defensively and hits RHPs quite well, and while he’s not going to be a star, his combination of offense and defense would make him one of the M’s best players, and his style of hitting is a good fit for Safeco Field.
Hu is a 22-year-old 2B/SS who is terrific defensively and has a questionable bat. He might end up as a defensive replacement, but if the bat develops at all, he could be a nice option to hold down one of the middle infield spots for a few years.
Why The M’s Should Do This: The M’s need to vastly improve their defense to help the contact pitchers on the staff, and bringing Ethier to replace Ibanez and committing to finding a new shortstop is a good step in that direction. Betancourt’s defensive reputation hasn’t matched his performance the last few years, and his swing-at-everything approach is too repetitive in this line-up. Betancourt’s not going to develop into the star the organization hoped he would, so trading him now before other teams realize that is the right way to begin rebuilding a bad group of position players.
Why The Dodgers Should Do This: The Dodgers production from SS since Furcal got hurt has been as bad as the M’s DH production. They need a guy who can fill that gap while they make a playoff run, and Betancourt would be the best SS on the market. Yes, they lose Ethier, but they’re committed to getting at-bats to Pierre and Jones, so he wasn’t going to play enough in LA as is, and if they need to pick up another OF to replace his loss, that’s easier than finding a shortstop.
Jarrod Washburn and Jose Lopez for Chris Duncan and Jamie Garcia
The Cardinals aren’t going to give up Colby Rasmus, so they’re not going to get a frontline starter to match what the Brewers and Cubs have added, but they’re still going to make a move to try and stay in the race. With their rotation struggling to stay healthy, Washburn would give them a 5th starter that would give them predictable results, while Lopez would solidify their long time second base hole for both this year and the future.
Duncan is a 27-year-old first baseman who has played some LF, but is St. Louis’ version of Raul Ibanez out there. He’s suffered a power outage this year, but he’d shown some real power from the left side the last few years, and he’s also more than willing to draw a walk. If he finds his power again, he’d be the M’s best hitter.
Why The M’s Should Do This: Getting rid of Washburn is a plus, so this deal breaks down from their perspective as Lopez for Duncan and Garcia. While he’s having a nice resurgent year with the bat, his defense has become a problem, and the M’s need to transition away from right handed free swingers. With Orlando Hudson and Mark Ellis hitting free agency this winter, they’d be able to spend some money to fill the hole created by his departure, while Duncan would give them a 1B/DH option and Garcia would give them another good young left-handed arm.
Why The Cardinals Should Do This: If St. Louis is going to hang with Milwaukee in the wild card race, they need a starter and a second baseman, and this is the only place they’ll find both in the same package. Washburn should be fine in the NL, and since neither he or Lopez are free agents at years end, they’re not mortgaging the future for a rent a player. Duncan doesn’t have a role with the Cards, and while Garcia is a tough arm to give up, questions about his command and durability make him the kind of higher risk arm that you can move in a deal where you get a 24-year-old sescond baseman who is under contract for three more years.
If the M’s made all three of these deals, they’d set themselves up to have a good off-season and contend in 2009. Yes, they’d have to get a new middle infield, but this is a good winter to go shopping for second baseman, and there are shortstops like Ronny Cedeno who will be available in trade in a few months. They add a few legitimate major league hitters to a line-up that needs some, pick up a couple solid young arms, shed a bit of payroll, and get a chance to build around position players who can both create runs and play a little defense.
The Best Development Of The Year
Watching Brandon Morrow improve has certainly been one of the silver linings in this cloudy season, and while I’m not rooting for him to implode, I think we should all recognize that him blowing back to back save opportunities might be the best thing that’s happened all year long.
Really, Morrow was dangerously close to earning the proven closer label that gets stuck on anyone who racks up a few saves (just ask Joe Borowski). With his struggles giving up the long ball lately (which really shouldn’t be a huge surprise – he throws a hard four seam fastball up in the zone a lot), that label isn’t going to stick as easily now, and his chance of moving into the rotation in the future improve with every blown save.
That’s how baseball works – the worse Morrow does in the closer’s role, the more likely he’ll end up helping the team more as a starter. It’s a little messed up, but there you go – thanks for not being perfect, Brandon.
Game 95, Mariners at Royals
The Bus vs Gil Meche.
Of the two, Meche is being paid about $2m more for this season
Meche 08: 6.9 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 1 HR/9
Washburn 08: 5.6 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 1.1 HR/9
Make of that what you will.
Tug Hulett starts at DH. Nothing against Tug, but… yea, that’s the season in a nutshell.
Dog bites man, Vidro is terrible and shouldn’t be hitting #4
.217/.265/.316
That’s Vidro’s line when he was written into the cleanup spot tonight.
What kind of protection is this supposed to be? You could not find a worse non-Vidro hitter to bat behind Ibanez without taking a Tony Pena Jr-type player who plays a premium defensive position.
Johjima’s hitting worse than Vidro, but not by much. Where’s he batting? 6th, rarely, 7th, more often, 8th most of the time.
Yet there are other fans who may have it worse. Who’s as bad as Vidro, offensively, on other teams? Bartlett, in Tampa. He bats #9. That’s good, makes sense… Michael Bourn, in Houston. He bats #1. Gathright bats #1 or #9. Freddy Sanchez bats first or second.
Yeaaagh.
Vidro’s terrible. He’s not protecting anything, no matter what Riggleman says. The essential proposition of protection is that by being in front of a good hitter, the protected hitter sees more fastballs because — well, it starts to break down in practice, and there’s not a lot of evidence that protection does much for even the best hitters.
But just dwell on the insanity of this for a moment. The manager is claiming that the performance of Ibanez is improved by having one of the worst hitters in the major leagues, one with absolutely no value at the plate, behind him.
To the reputation question: how long, exactly, are we supposed to believe that teams will pursue a poor strategy because of old information? Every team’s employing video guys, advance scouts, and producing reports for their pitchers on how to go after each hitter.
Vidro’s probably just reads “throw pitch”.
Or one word: “Done.”
Are we really supposed to believe that other teams are producing scouting reports that read “Was once kind of good ten years ago, be careful! Don’t be afraid to walk him instead of giving him something he can put into play for an out.”
No. Of course not. It’s absurd. If that were true, and Vidro’s fearsome reputation helped him hit better, he wouldn’t be at .217/.265/.316.
But really — how long? Are we talking about his fearsome 2007, when he hit .314 and drew some walks with no power to be a little above league average (as a DH)? Or is this the remnant of his 2001-2003 run, when he hit some home runs to go with his doubles?
Meanwhile, Vidro, one of the worst hitters in baseball, gets middle-of-the-order at bats behind a rare productive offensive sequence. He gets more at-bats than the guys behind him who are more productive… like Reed, for instance, who at .260/.322/356 is a substantially better hitter in every sense even with that unimpressive line.
Batting Vidro at #4, even thinking that Vidro at #4 is defensible, requires someone to hold a set of beliefs that are variously long-disproved, unbelievable, wishful thinking, and deluded.
Unless they’re losing on purpose. If so… well played.
Game 94, Mariners at Royals
Felix Day! wooo! The return of Felix Day!
Felix v Hochevar, 5:10 our time
Dave on KJR
I’ll be on with Groz at 4:05 pm. You know the drill by now.
Welcome to the Mariners, your office overlooks a smoking crater
A partial list of challenges facing an incoming GM, and why whoever takes over needs be half-crazed with ambition and, preferably, backed by an equally insane staff.
As it stands right now, here’s what the team will look like in this offseason, moving around the diamond:
We have no DH.
We have a young, promising catcher and an older catcher who seems to have collapsed entirely after being given a three-year deal.
We have no first baseman.
The second baseman signed to a multi-year deal through 2010 has turned into a defensive sinkhole.
The shortstop signed to a multi-year extension through 2011 has turned into a defensive sinkhole who doesn’t hit either.
You have a year of a good third baseman in which to extend him or find the next one.
We have no left-fielder.
We potentially have a center fielder in Reed, but resolving his situation may depend on the GM’s evaluation of his play.
Then to the pitching:
The Felix dilemma.
Bedard’s around for another year, what do you do with him?
Batista’s signed through next year and stinks.
Silva’s signed through 2011 and stinks.
Washburn’s signed through next year and stinks.
Morrow: start or relieve?
Assembling the rest of the bullpen.
That’s a huge list of issues to be done in the rebuild. Feel free to assign them your own difficulty rating, but it’s clear that while some of these will have relatively easy fixes — finding a new DH may be asking Raul if he wants to hang out for another year, for instance, and first base and left — leaving a lot of that will require a lot of work, and possibly the rapid application of a lot of money.
When they interview GM candidates and ask them “What would you do with the team?” they’re going to need to schedule a lot longer than an hour to get reasonable answers.
Jeff Sullivan @ LL’s been doing some good articles on how to approach the scope of the problems. (one, two). I think any team with the current version of Betancourt/Lopez is doomed to suck horribly, so I wouldn’t rest until that’s resolved, but still– it’s good reading.
Random thought
If PR concerns played a part in letting Richie go — and by PR concerns they certainly mean the constant booing — won’t that just encourage booing? Read more
A great day in Mariner history
Bloomquist’s power is back! In the 9th inning, in his fourth plate appearance, Bloomquist doubled off of Alan “Hey that guy is still in baseball oh I forgot he’s left-handed” Embree. And it wasn’t one of those cheap “skipped by Ibanez” doubles, no. It was a rulebook double! Bounced into the stands! Yeaaaaaaaahhh hooooo! The Mariners get to avoid having all of baseball watch the team for the continuation of an ignoble record! Wooooo!
I believe – and Jack Howland will correct me if I’m wrong, no doubt, brings the final tally to:
87 games without an extra-base hit, short of the unofficial record of 100.
173 consecutive at-bats without an extra-base hit, short of the unofficial record of 223.
199 consecutive plate appearances without an extra-base hit, short of the unofficial record of 266.
He was only five days from going a full calendar year without anything but singles.
This brings his slugging percentage to .272 and his season line to .262/.368/.271.
May Willie fill the power void long left by Richie Sexson! All hail Willie Boom-Boom, newly revived long-ball threat!
You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
So, remember a while ago, I proposed the Full Nelson plan, suggesting that the Mariners should use the fact that they have several months to audition potentially useful players from Triple-A who wouldn’t otherwise get a shot at the bigs and see if they could be of some value, specifically naming Nelson Cruz and Brad Nelson as potential targets.
Well, with Sexson gone, the M’s have indeed acquired a Triple-A first baseman – Craig Wilson. Yea, that same 31 year old you remember kicking around Pittsburgh a few years ago, now past his prime, and hitting .230/.323/.396 for Indianapolis.
He’s right-handed, doesn’t walk, strikes out a lot, is a bad defensive player, and is near the end of his career. Sounds like exactly the kind of guy this organization should be acquiring…