Minor League Wrap (8/31-9/7/09)
The regular minor league season of 2009, with nearly nine hundred games in the books, is done, so this is the final wrap covering most of the teams. The Rainiers and the Mavericks both made the playoffs, the Peoria M’s won theirs, and the D-Jaxx end up on the out, looking in. I hope it’s been educational and at least somewhat entertaining for you all. Of course, the action never really ends, so I’ll be around with winter league stuff and other reviews in the offseason.
To the jump!
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A game with playoff implications for your Monday
Tacoma! Plays Colorado Springs for the last game of their season. Winner heads to the playoffs… and the loser is done for the year. The Colorado Springs starter was supposed to be Russ Ortiz, who I understand quit after the big league club didn’t call him up when rosters expanded. Gaby Hernandez goes for Tacoma.
1:30, radio only… or you could head on down to Cheney.
Report From Everett
Thursday evening, I was up in Everett catching the Aquasox home finale, fan appreciation night, where some guy won $5k on the dice throw and I ended up getting my ticket called to receive a bag of Aquasox goodies. Baseball was played too, and good baseball at that. I don’t know if there will be any revealing remarks as Dave had, what with Everett being a lot closer in proximity to the majority of the fanbase than Pulaski is, but here are some notes I scratched down on my legal pad.
Game 138, M’s at A’s
Fister v Gonzalez. 1:05.
If it has to happen on the road trip, I would love to see Ichiro! get his 2,000th MLB hit in front of Oakland fans, who are not fans. And I hope when he gets back, he gets the ovation his milestone’s worthy of.
I don’t care if anyone thinks Ichiro! is over/under rated, or over/under paid, and my scorn for the “Ichiro’s bad for the clubhouse” crowd and their leaders is well-known. But if you can’t watch Ichiro! play and appreciate his ability and take some joy from it, I’m sad for you.
Game 137, M’s at A’s
French v Anderson, 6:05
The Yahoo GameChannel lineup lists “SS J Wilson” twice, which I assume means that Josh is playing second. Jose Lopez at first, Designated Hugger Mike Sweeney bats fourth, again, inexplicably, so either shake your head or take your blood pressure medication, depending on how worked up you get about this kind of thing.
Game 136, Mariners at A’s
RRS v Mortensen.
Bill Hall in left! That guy’s crazy! Johjima behind the plate, too.
So ready? It’s time for that long-missing game, “Would you swap ’em?”
Position by position, let’s go. Contracts (and contract status) count.
C Johjima v Suzuki
1B Carp v Crosby
2B Lopez v Ellis
SS Wilson v Pennington
3B Beltre v Kennedy
LF Hall v Hairston
CF Gutierrez v Davis
RF Ichiro! v Sweeney
DH Griffey v Garciaparra
Or, to put this another way, maybe the M’s aren’t in such a bad spot.
Recruiting iPhone beta testers
Got a ton! Thanks!
Hey — this season I’ve been working on putting together a USSM-ish iPhone app to do help… do something cool.
So we need some beta testers. If you’re interested in helping out, read on.
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We Don’t Mind Missing
In my piece for the Wall Street Journal today, I note the exponential increase in strikeouts over the last 50 years. Over the last 10-15 years especially, there has been an extreme shift towards the acceptance of whiffing, as teams have discovered that it’s okay to build an offense around non-contact hitters as long as they do good stuff when they put the bat on the ball.
Perhaps nowhere is the change in management philosophy more obvious than the Mariners. Last year, the Mariners struck out in just 15.8% of their at-bats, fewest in the majors. This was by design, as the Bavasi regime placed significant value on guys who didn’t strike out. The M’s saw contact rate as a big positive, and the team was constructed to maximize balls in play as an offensive strategy.
Jack Zduriencik? Couldn’t care less about strikeouts. Seriously, look at the list of guys he’s brought in.
Branyan – 34.6% K%
Hall – 34.4%
Langerhans – 27.4%
Hannahan – 23.1%
Gutierrez – 22.4%
Practically every position player the team has added since the new administration took over has had contact ability listed as a weakness. They do other things well, and that’s what they were acquired for. Defense, extra base hits, walks… these are the things that are valued now. Making feeble contact just for the sake of making contact? No thanks.
You might not like to watch the offense as currently constructed, but you should still be encouraged – the GM has shown that when it comes to bringing in hitters, he’s not going to be looking for the same kind of slap-hitting, anti-walk, contact specialists that formed the basis for the lousy teams that we saw the last five years. This offense isn’t good, but our GM realizes that strikeouts by his hitters aren’t a problem, and that’s just another reason to be optimistic about the future.
Game 135, Mariners at A’s
Snell at Tomko.
Griffey returns, Lopez back to second base.
Felix’s Contract From Felix’s Perspective
We’ve talked about what kind of deal the M’s should offer Felix this winter to try to avoid arbitration and buy out a couple of his free agent years, coming to the conclusion that something like 4 years, $60-$70 million should be their target offer. However, let’s take a look at what Felix should do, if we assume that he’s simply interested in maximizing total future value.
He’s arbitration eligible the next two years, then hits free agency as a 25-year-old. Based on historical comparisons, I’ve estimated his arbitration payouts at $10 million and $15 million each of the next two seasons. If he stays healthy and continues to pitch well, I’d expect him to sign the biggest free agent contract for any pitcher in history. For this purpose, I’ve assumed that he’ll get an eight year, $204 million contract, giving him an average annual salary of $25.5 million per season from 2012 to 2019, though with the salaries escalating at $1 million per season throughout. That would give Felix these estimated yearly payouts for the next 10 years.
2010: $10 million
2011: $15 million
2012: $22 million
2013: $23 million
2014: $24 million
2015: $25 million
2016: $26 million
2017: $27 million
2018: $28 million
2019: $29 million
His expected earnings over the next ten years would be $229 million. If we use a 5% discount rate to calculate net present value, the NPV of those cash flows over the next ten years would be $171 million. However, the actual worth of those years to Felix is less than that, because of the risk he’s bearing over the next two seasons before the big contract kicks in.
Let’s distribute the possible outcomes by probabilities in order to recalculate actual value of those potential cash flows to Felix this winter, including assumed risk.
60% – best case scenario, $171 million NPV
25% – nagging injuries reduce value of free agent offer by 40%, $112 million NPV
15% – significant injury eliminates big offer, career derailed, $23 million NPV
This is a pretty broad overview, given that there are more than three potential outcomes, but I think we can use these generalizations to get us in the ballpark of the probabilities of the scenarios that could occur. Given the present value of those odds, we could reclassify the expected value of Felix’s next ten seasons to be worth about $134 million to him right now.
In other words, we’d suggest that Felix would be willing to take about 80% of his best case scenario NPV for eliminating the risk of injury before he hits free agency. What would a $134 million NPV offer look like in total value? About $178 million over 10 years, with annual payouts going 9/13/16/20/20/20/20/20/20/20.
If Felix is only concerned about getting set for life and is willing to negotiate away his risks for the next two years, the M’s could potentially look him up with an offer in the 10/180 range. Now, its unrealistic to think that either side would be looking for a ten year deal, so perhaps something more like 7/130 would be a deal more along the lines of what Felix is looking for – that would provide a similar NPV while still allowing him to sign another contract before he retires, if he continued to pitch well over the next decade.
From the M’s perspective, they’re going to want to do something like 4 years, $60 to $70 million. From Felix’s perspective, he’s probably going to want something like 7 years, $140 to $150 million. That’s a big gap to overcome.
I wish i could be more optimistic about this getting done, but Felix is at the point where he doesn’t need to take a short term deal anymore, and long term deals for pitchers are historically bad ideas. Trying to find middle ground is going to be a challenge.