SI reports no deals for Wash, Ibanez
DMZ · August 14, 2008 at 2:51 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Heyman reports the M’s failed to work out a deal and both players will be returning to the team.
If true — The M’s could have just rid themselves of Washburn’s horrible contract for next year. This is absurdly horrible mistake of the team that should disqualify our interim GM and anyone associated with the decision from even being considered for a leadership position in the future.
Dave adds: Seriously, this is an indefensible position. None of the people involved in this decision deserve to work in baseball. Fire them all.
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Bingo.
They really think that Washburn is a valuable pitcher, and they won’t trade him unless they get something (even something that is truly worthless but at least looks to them like it may have value) back.
Based on the response they have been getting from the rest of the teams when they called to ask about trading, oh, Vidro, Washburn, and even Ibanez, I would expect their heads would have exploded.
How can they reconcile it? They must be telling themselves that every other team in the Majors is stupid. That is the only way they could reconcile their belief in the value of their players.
Why haven’t we heard them trying to trade Silva? Is it because even the M’s realize his contract is an albatross?
I feel like I know.
You just knew this was going to happen when they couldn’t close the earlier deal with NYY. It was clear they didn’t think they were being offered enough for Washburn, which made clear that they actually thought he was worth something. So they must have been just clueless negotiating these deals. It’s amazing to think about, but this organization still hasn’t realized how bad some of Bavasi’s signings actually were. I despair about our chances for rebuilding if this team is dumb enough to keep Washburn around after having him claimed off waivers.
Baker:
WHAT THE FUCKING HELL.
Just out of curiosity, does Washburn project as a type A or B free agent after next year? If so, that’s worth 10 mil to me. We’re not competing next year, the free agent market isn’t encouraging, so why not carry the albatross in the hope it bears a couple golden eggs?
This organization’s management is a known quantity. I frankly would have been surprised if they made a deal for either Washburn or Ibañez. So it goes.
Ibañez staying isn’t such a raw deal thanks to the draft picks the M’s will get should they offer arbitration this offseason and he refuses. But we’re stuck with Washburn and his salary through next year, all because Lee thought he was worth more than he actually was. Lame non-move by a lame duck GM.
Here is a trade Lee would try to make.
Jamie Burke to Yankees for Jeter,Wang and cash.
The risk is that he might accept arbitration, and the way arbitration works, he might soak them for $15MM to be a back of the rotation anchor. And I mean “anchor” in the sense of “that which can drag you to the bottom of the ocean if not used properly.”
I’m waiting for the Keyser Söze moment. I have a feeling I’ll be waiting for a long time.
What’s sickening about this, is that the M’s f’ed up a 3 minute negotiation.
Lee P.: “So, GM(Sucker)Schmuckatelli, you’ve claimed Washburn, you wanna give us anybody good for him to keep us from pulling him back?”
GM S: “Nah, not really.”
Lee P.: “You wanna give us anybody for him, that way I can claim at least a minor victory for adding to our farm system?”
GM S: “nope, but hey, we’re already taking his contract, isn’t that enough?”
Lee P.: “How about a dozen balls and a coupon to Sizzler?”
GM S: “We can do the balls, but we’re not going to be able to do the coupon…”
Lee P: “Ok, you win, enjoy Washburn’s splitter”
We hosed this, and now we’re either stuck with him for next season, or more likely than not, we’re taking somebody else’s bad contract in a trade to make any offseason deal financially equitable… I’m fine with them keeping Raul, but Washburn???
Is anyone besides me worried that they’re going to keep Ibanez around by giving him a rich multiyear deal in the offseason? With this group of idiots I think it’s dangerous to assume that we’ll have two additional premium draft picks next year. There is no evidence that they’ve realized that their habit of overpaying non-superstar old guys is the primary reason for this abysmal season (and for that matter the previous four seasons as well).
Yea, that multiyear deal for Ibanez is something to worry about in the back of our minds. Frankly though, it’s probably not even in the Top Ten of things this organization can (will??) do wrong.
Fuck the Seattle Mariners.
I’m throwing 30 years of fandom into the toilet here.
Seriously: fuck them. Fuck them hard. No lube.
Fuck them with a red hot fireplace poker.
Go ahead and moderate my language if you want. I no longer care about this team. No, scratch that: I do care. I wish them all the ill will in the world. Death, dismemberment, pestilence, plague.
Howard Lincoln, you make me vomit.
Ugh. I don’t have anything else to say, just ugh.
I have no doubt that they will try to keep Ibanez, a great guy and fan favorite (big smile for the camera!) around, and will probably offer him a 3/$25 deal with a club option for a fourth year.
Mutual option, I’d wager.
my heart hurts.
Hopefully Raul wants to play for a winner instead though.
Arthur Rhodes for GM… Everyone will play hard and other GM’s would be afraid to say no to him.
For those of you confused with the post 7/31 waiver process, DePodesta breaks it down for you:
http://itmightbedangerous.blogspot.com/2008/07/deadline-has-passed.html
Boy that is two wildly disperate views of what free agent compensation is worth:
and
I think the correct answer is somewhere in the middle. Even a AAAA player in return for Ibanez wouldn’t be worth it because Raul’s salary isn’t an issue, and we could expect to get at least one player that projects to a major league player in the draft as compensation for Ibanez. A 4A player is a great pickup when you are paying nothing, but he isn’t worth 2 draft picks.
On the other hand 10m plus what ever Wash would get in arbitration is WAY over what the draft picks would be worth, and would Washburn even qualify as a type A free agent?
Plus, you’ve got one more year of having the guy on the roster. Raul, to put it mildly, is not hurting us in the lineup, and even his play in the field is not hurting the team as much as his bat is helping it. The analysis is completely different with Washburn.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune says that the Mariners wanted one of the Twins young starters for Washburn. Why the Twins would ever go for that deal (or even risk getting Washburn handed to them) is beyond me. As a Twins fan, I am stunned that a) the Twins claimed Washburn and b) that Seattle didn’t just dump him. I don’t understand.
Our team is stupid.
Even Woody Woodward’s deals, at the behest of that noted curmudgeon George Argyros, pale in comparison to the deals during the Bavasi Regime.
Reminisce with me about the few glimpses of relatively good GM’ing for what amounts to a New York Minute in the lifespan of the Mariners organizaiton, Pat Gillick’s short stay here. John Ellis probably had something to do with that.
I have to think that the same old more recent upper management interference is the heavy hand in these boggled bungled aborted non-waiver and waiver deals: Howard and Chuck. I mean, Lee Pelekoudas has been a Mariner gofer through ALL of those regimes, surely after all this time and experience he recognizes good management when he sees it. He’s probably hoping his term as interim GM ends ASAP.
Mainly because he stayed out of the way and let the baseball people make baseball decisions.
HowChuck think they know baseball.
27:
Sounds reasonable (and familiar). But the DePodesta article (linked in posting 71, above) says “Furthermore, many teams will place claims on players with absolutely no intention of acquiring them. They do this in order to block another organization from being able to trade for that player. This can get tricky, though, as the originating Club can choose to dump the player on the claiming Club along with the player’s entire contract.”
So it might no longer be standard practice and it “can get tricky”, but according to DePodesta, it is still done by “many teams”.
Yeah, but you see the distinction. Teams are making a risk/reward calculation: is the chance I get stuck with a player worth blocking a potential deal?
Besides which, for a huge portion of players put on waivers (and claimed) their contracts are quite attractive, and the risk isn’t all that great. If you see Pujols on waivers, of course you claim him.