Deals of the day: Giambi, Pavano…
ESPN The Magazine senior writer Buster Olney reported the deal will pay Giambi $4 million in 2009 with a $6.5 million base salary for the option year in 2010. The second year would also provide for a $1.25 million buyout.
Pavano gets a 1y, $1.5m-base contract from the Indians.
Jerry Hairston reportedly will remain with the Reds, signing a 1y deal (some of you can stop hijacking threads now, thanks). Hairston would have been a nice pick for a backup infielder but it’s not hard to find a suitable replacement.
Jan 10 Feed update: under 75 seats left
Yup, we’re over 200 and they’re still going fast. At this rate, we may sell out.
Sell out. Yup. I may well buy up the remaining spots so I can scalp them for old time’s sake.
If you wanted to arrange to avoid PayPal and emailed us, you should have heard from me. If you wanted to pay for or bring a guest, you should have emailed us, and if you didn’t, I probably emailed you to bug you for the guest names. If you donated anonymously on accident (your name doesn’t show up on the Pledgie thing) you should probably mail us.
Dave’s promotional post follows
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We told you hold the date – now we tell you why. On Saturday, January 10th, we’re hosting the latest USSM/LL event. The guests for the afternoon are Mariners Asst. GM Tony Blengino and Mariners scouting director Tom McNamara. These are the two guys that Zduriencik brought over from Milwaukee – Blengino is the guy behind the Department of Baseball Research that is being established and the one pushing the organization into the 21st century of baseball analysis. McNamara is the top scout in the organization, and will be running the amateur draft this summer. They’re both going to be a lot of fun to talk to.
The event is at the downtown Seattle Central Library from 1:30 to 5:30 on Saturday, January 10th. We won’t be providing food, so we’ve lowered the price to $10, which just goes to defray the costs of the room rental. We’re trying to improve the whole registration/payment process for these things, so if you want to attend, click on the button below and donate $10.
Do not click the anonymous button, as we need your name to show up on the list of donaters -that will be the list we use at the door to let people in. If you’re paying for multiple people, send an email to the USSM account with the names of the people you’re bringing so that we can make sure everyone is on the list. And if you’re totally anti-paypal, send us an email too and we’ll work something out.
But, yea, January 10th, four hours of baseball talk with Derek, the LL gang, and two of the big wigs in the M’s new front office. It’s going to be a lot of fun, so I encourage you to go.
M’s Sign Tyler Walker
So, the “piece of the puzzle” guy that Zduriencik referred to having an offer out to was not Jerry Hairston, as I guessed, but instead Tyler Walker. The Mariners announced they had signed Walker to a one year deal this afternoon, and while terms were not disclosed, you can bet that it’s for between $1 and $2 million. The relief pitcher market has cratered, so there’s no way Walker is getting more than a modest contract for 2009. (Update: Hickey reports the deal is for $750,000)
Walker actually had a pretty successful season last year, coming back after having Tommy John surgery in 2006 and having barely pitched in 2007. His 8.27 K/9 was the highest of his career, and while he continued to show below average command, he got enough swinging strikes to offset the base on balls. His groundball rate jumped up as well, but over just 226 batters faced, that could easily just be small sample size noise.
Overall, he posted a 4.24 FIP as a fairly high leverage reliever (his gmLI was almost the same as Brad Lidge), and he was worth about .25 wins over a replacement level reliever. Yea, .25 wins. Relievers are just so easy to find that a good performance by one isn’t very tough to come by. So, Walker’s a nice arm, and his strikeout rate and experience in high leverage situations gives him a chance to add some depth to the ‘pen. So, for about 1% of the payroll, it’s a nifty little move. If he ends up taking the closer job, he could do some decent enough work for a few months and be a trade chip at the deadline – it’s that kind of asset building that this organization needs to be in the business of.
However, this makes a crowded pitching staff just that much more full. You can now add Walker to the mix with Aaron Heilman, Roy Corcoran, Miguel Batista, and Mark Lowe as right-handed relief options. Add in Ryan Rowland-Smith, Jose Lugo, Jason Vargas, Justin Thomas, and Cesar Jimenez from the left side and you’ve got 10 arms for six or seven bullpen spots. The M’s just have too many pitchers on the roster right now. Quantity is a good thing, but it doesn’t help if you don’t have room for them all.
Chance For Redemption
“I’d love to have an outfield bat, and I’d love to have another infielder,” Zduriencik said, listing the Mariners’ remaining priorities. “And everyone is looking for pitching.”
From Rosenthal this afternoon:
Nick Swisher might not be a Yankee for long. The signing of free agent Mark Teixeira eliminated any chance of Swisher playing first base, and the team’s outfield surplus almost certainly will lead to a trade.
Nick Swisher is headed into his age 28 season. He’s guaranteed $22 million over the next three seasons, and has an option for 2012 that could turn the deal into $31 million over four years. Depending on whether the option is picked up, the AAV of his contract is between $7 and $8 million per year for his 28-30/31 seasons.
Here’s Swisher’s FanGraphs Win Values for his career:
2005: 2.1 wins
2006: 3.4 wins
2007: 3.8 wins
2008: 0.9 wins
Yes, he had a bad year last year. It happens. His skillset remained in tact, however – his walk, strikeout, and home run rates were all right in line with where they’d always been. His batted ball profile was unchanged. His batting average on balls in play just tanked and pulled his batting average down to .219, and that’s not the kind of thing that screams “fell off a cliff”.
The CHONE projections have him at .250/.360/.450 for 2009, which would make him a +10 run hitter. Defensively, he’s above average in a corner, which is where he’d play on the M’s. Call him +5 runs as a left fielder. He’s also a switch hitter without much of a platoon split, and he’s durable enough to play everyday. That makes him a +2.75 win player for 2009.
Depending on how well you think he’ll age, he’s probably +7 to +10 wins over the first three years of the contract. $22 million in salary for 7 to 10 wins over the next three years. This is the kind of guy the M’s should be interested in – an above average switch hitter with a flyball swing that’s perfect for Safeco and who could step right into the middle of the line-up on a daily basis.
The M’s have the extra pieces needed to get the deal done. While I’m as big a fan of bargain shopping as anyone, there aren’t many above average players left on the market, and there aren’t any who are headed into their age 28 season and fit the M’s roster as well as Swisher does. They missed their first chance to pick him up on the cheap, but hopefully they can see that opportunity is knocking again.
Nick Swisher please. Thank you.
A Few Notes
Larry LaRue has a few quotes from Adrian Beltre and one from Zduriencik where he notes that they have an offer out for “a piece of the puzzle”, and LaRue confirms that it’s not Ken Griffey Jr or Adam Dunn. Most likely, it’s Jerry Hairston, whom the Mariners have been linked to for a couple of weeks now. He would replace Bloomquist as the utility player du jour and be the defacto backup middle infielder. Personally, I prefer Alfredo Amezaga for that role, but of course, you have to make the Marlins trade him, so Hairston might be the better option if he comes cheaply on a one year deal.
Other stuff of interest – with the Rays signing Pat Burrell for 2 years and $16 million and Milton Bradley joining the Cubs for 3 years and $30 million, the cap has been set on what good offensive/bad defensive outfielders can command. Bobby Abreu and Adam Dunn are going to have to take huge pay cuts from what they made last year if they want a job, because there are rapidly becoming fewer teams in need of a DH. I would imagine the M’s are keeping tabs on both players, and if the market continues to shrink for that skillset, the M’s could add a decent LH bat to the line-up on the cheap.
Also, yesterday was the start of the period where arbitration eligible players file their requests. We all know about Erik Bedard, but did you realize Felix Hernandez is arb. eligible for the first time as well? It will be interesting to see if Zduriencik approaches Felix with a multi-year contract offer that would buy out his three arbitration years and potentially a year or two of free agency. A four or five year deal won’t come cheap anymore, but it could still be a significant cost saver for the M’s in the long run.
Also, there’s ~100 spots left for the Q&A on Saturday with Tony Blengino and Tom McNamara. If you haven’t signed up yet and you want to, there’s still time.
Awesome Web site
Ever since the Web site Cal Leaguers stopped being updated, I’ve been looking for a good site to see video footage of prospects and today I found a gold mine. I was killing some time on YouTube and stumbled upon an awesome feed that coincides with an equally-awesome Web site.
After enjoying the draft videos prior to the 2007 draft, Drew Samuelson though about forming a site with video footage of minor leaguers. In 2008, the Seattle native relocated to southern California began filming Cal League games and Pacific Prospect Report was formed. He caught nearly every team and also got to a couple Pacific Coast League, Northwest League and Arizona Fall League games.
He’s back in Seattle now, in grad school at Seattle U studying Sports Administration and Leadership. He’s hoping to use the Web site, along with his education and experience (five years at Warner Brothers) to begin a career in sports entertainment.
There are a lot of videos on the site already and Drew said he is currently in the process of adding more of his Cal League footage from this season, which will almost double the size of his video library. So, if you’re looking for footage of Carlos Triunfel, Greg Halman, Michael Saunders or many, many more, head over to Pacific Prospect Report. You won’t be disappointed!
Someone explain this to me
Milton Bradley to the Cubs, 3y $30m
Pat Burrell to the Rays, 2y $16m
Raul Ibanez to the Phillies, 3y $32m
Raul going early may be the savviest move of any player this offseason.
Radio Interview
Kind of late notice, but I’m doing a half hour interview with some guys who have an internet radio show at 11:00 AM. Click the link here to listen, I think.
And here’s the archive of the show. I think I come in at around the one hour mark of the 90 minute show.
M’s Hire Tom Tango
Derek noted it in passing in his thread on Blengino’s BP interview, but it deserves its own post. The Mariners have hired Tom Tango as a consultant to assist them in pushing forward their advancement into the 21st century of statistical analysis. If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know who Tango is – we’ve learned/borrowed heavily from his work over the years, and he’s stopped by to comment once in a while as well.
I think it’s fair to say that, right now, Tom is the leading analyst of the day in public advancement of statistical analysis. If you wanted to know what the best practice for current analysis is, you wouldn’t go to Bill James or Nate Silver, you’d go to Tom Tango. He’s the gold standard of analysts publishing their work, and he’s made significant strides in pushing forward the understanding of baseball through his writings.
Seriously, if you had given me a magic lamp before the new GM search began and said “you get three wishes”, one of them would have been “Let the new GM hire Tango”.
Really, we all wanted the M’s to hire someone like Chris Antonetti because we believed the organization needed a GM who understood the value of both scouting and statistical analysis, would place emphasis on technology, and create an organization that actively recruited intelligent people to develop a front-office talent pipeline that would push us forward for the next 10-15 years.
That’s all being done, and it’s being done without having to endure all the crap that comes along with hiring a “stathead GM”. Seriously, we’re getting everything we could have possibly hoped for, and our new GM even comes in a media-friendly package that keeps them from yelling “nerds!” every 30 seconds.
If you weren’t already completely convinced, this should do it – the M’s are now one of the best run teams in baseball. They’ve implemented processes based on logic, reason, and evidence that will lead to positive results. They understand good analysis from bad analysis, and are pushing forward the organization’s ability to create new information and exploit their resources.
Seriously, there’s never been a better time to root for the Mariners. After years of pounding our heads against a wall, we’ve got a front office in place that knows what they’re doing. We’ve got the organization we’ve always wanted.
Exactly what this team needs
Five teams have shown interest in future Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr., his longtime agent Brian Goldberg said.
…another gimpy, injury-hiding player
Griffey’s performance was compromised last season due to a knee injury he hid for most of the year. Griffey had his left knee drained three times, according to Goldberg, and it was finally repaired surgically three days after the season. He hit only three home runs in 41 games after going to the White Sox, but his power may have been affected by his knee issue.
Griffey suffered the injury early in the season with the Reds when he tripped over a misplaced foot locker in the Reds’ clubhouse.
I cannot fathom why Goldberg thinks that revealing that Griffey destroyed his knee tripping on something — which he then apparently concealed for the rest of the season, badly hurting his team — helps demand. Though maybe it’s a bid to take over the mantle of leadership shown by our own gimpy, injury-hiding left-fielder and clubhouse leader Ibanez.