And my larger issue with the Morrow discussion
There’s been a huge amount of criticism of Dave (and my) writing on the Morrow-League trade for not having the same insight into the players that the front office does. That we should take the judgment of sound talent people and call it good, in so many words.
Which is fine, to some extent: we don’t know Morrow, or League, personally, and certainly haven’t spent the time evaluating them and their health as long as the Mariners have with Morrow.
What’s concerning is this is exactly the same argument people raised whenever the Bavasi front office (and before that, Gillick) made a move we disagreed with. That all of us are on the outside doesn’t make a considered opinion invalid, or even without insight (or, as commenter Ivan likes to say, “I don’t have to be a chicken to tell you an egg’s rotten”).
I went back through some of the Bavasi off-season moves and it’s there for them all, though from different people, couched in different language, for things like the Everett signing (maybe they see that his swing’s made for Safeco and he’ll hit 20 HR/80 RBI…) (fun side note: people pointing out Branyan was set to make less than Bloomquist in 2007 in this comment thread), or the strange trade pursuit of Juan Pierre (remember that? (shudder)), and on until the front office had lost everyone.
Here’s my proposal, then: I’m entirely willing to acknowledge (as we’ve done with Morrow) that a trade makes sense if you make some evaluation that the team may have arrived at. And I’m happy to argue for or against that evaluation, though I worry we risk wasting a lot of effort arguing things we can’t know.
And in return, let’s not argue that those things are given: that if we believe the reason a trade or a signing happened was unprovable thing x, that isn’t in and of itself proof of thing x.
Because we’ve all made those assumptions and seen them fall flat.
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What sort of response do you expect from the front office during your USSM event in two weeks?
Derek,
I confess I’m not sure I follow the last couple of paragraphs of your post. But let me make a couple of observations:
1- If you (and Dave) evaluate players differently than GMZ and his team, that doesn’t mean that either side is provably right or wrong; just different.
2- I think a clear case can be made that right now League is a better pitcher than Morrow; thus, Jack has a legitimate point.
3- I think Dave’s primary counter to that is that starters are more valuable than relievers (although certainly not in an absolute sense; no one is saying Fister for Mariano Rivera would be a steal for the Yankees, right?)
4- What I haven’t seen quantified to support that is the metric for how much more valuable starters are; e.g., “a typical #4 starter is xx% more valuable than a typical 8th inning shutdown guy”.
5- What I hope we can all agree to drop is speculation that somehow this deal was tied to the Lee deal. If Jack says there was absolutely no connection, that should be good enough for everyone, right?
6- And the only other small counter I would raise against Dave is his statement that somehow the trade rests on the hope that Morrow will ‘fail’. It may be a fine point, but I think it would be more accurate to say ‘fail to improve’, since there really isn’t much Morrow success to point to so far.
Most of all, I hope contrary opinions to this deal are generally based on far different arguments than the kind you raise above during the Bavasi era.
We’re all going to disagree with the front office and with each other on different moves. For instance, I think that the Morrow-League trade is a good trade on its own, because I believe that Morrow would never have sorted himself out in Seattle, and as a reliever, he is less valuable than League. It takes something egregiously bad or incredibly good to get everyone to agree on a move. Until we are all the way through the life of the deal, it is impossible to truly know who “won” or “lost”. Until then, it’s all speculation. Granted, some of the speculation is definitely more grounded in fact than others (especially Dave’s and Derek’s), but it’s all speculation nonetheless.
About what? Disagreeing with them? None. Jack has been receptive to all forms of media criticism since taking over. He knows that USSM has been on his side about most things. He knows that they were one of the few places that loved the Silva / Bradley swap. He knows he has like minded friends here.
But if you meant about the Morrow trade, I guess we’ll have to wait and see. If anybody KNEW what they would say, then we wouldn’t be mired in discussions about it, eh?
DMZ et al,
I don’t need to tell you guys that you’re never going to please the entirety of your readership.
Quite frankly you should just be happy for more ammunition when people start labeling this blog as lap dogs of the Zduriencik administration.
Also, you know you’re making waves as a blog when you have so many willing detractors hurling their darts of criticism.
Keep up the good work.
I think you want your “m” in seem to be an “n”
Fixed
I come down on the not-so-good side of the trade of Morrow. However, that’s just my opinion and I have a lot of faith that GMZ knows a hell of a lot more about the subject than I do. I don’t object to others who don’t accept my opinion, as long as they are not disagreeable in the process of disagreeing. I have a lot of respect for the validity of Derek and Dave’s opinions as they are expressed on USSM, that’s why I’m here but nobody can agree with everything every time.
If we limit the discussion to the parameters of USSM’s analysis, there is little to discuss. It makes perfect sense within its own bounds.
But it also requires that we think Jack Z and company suddenly went “Bavasi” on us (“This is what Bill Bavasi often did.”). With all the good moves that Jack Z has made, I just find it harder to believe that he had no other motivation for the trade as opposed to just the considerations outlined by USSM.
I don’t think there is much more to it than Z betting against Morrow and taking the safer bet for 2010 in League. Not to mention picking up a minor leaguer who has at least some potential.
Whether or not you like the deal hinges all upon your opinion of Morrow. And since at this point he has very little actual starting experience as well as a lack of control and poor secondary stuff, I think it’s perfectly reasonable that Morrow wasn’t as highly valued as we thought. And that, in my opinion, makes this deal pretty average overall.
We’re weird. We like using our own minds to think things through and come to our own conclusions. But there are just some times when I want to be lazy and appeal to authority, dammit.
In the final analysis, the Mariners ended up with a player in League that will require a couple tweaks to gain consistency with a strong ground ball ability which should carry over at home AND on the road. In addition, as stated by USS Mariner, they gained a Wladimir Balentien type player that is still developing at 20-21 years of age. Now if I remember, Balentien was going to be one of our starting power outfielders so should the upside on this kid be that we win big. I just think Z and company have enough other issues to deal with so they removed one of them!!
Although I tend to be pretty optimistic under all circumstances, I still enjoyed the fact that USSM finally disagreed with Z about something. Gives us something to sink our teeth into, and also gives their praise of Z’s other moves more weight.
One point I saw raised by a commenter from Minnesota that made some sense to me was that, with respect to prospects in particular, more deference should be afforded to front offices in their evaluations. Especially in the case of lower-tier prospects, the team’s advantage from being around the player every day is much larger than in the case of major leaguers or high-level, heavily scouted, prospects.
That said, League and Morrow aren’t that type of low-level prospect…
Part of any fan’s judgement of a trade is the regime that is making it. Putting it in the context of other moves the front office has made is valid. And when you do that with the Morrow trade, it’s not illogical to say, “Well, Z has turned sh** into gold before, and found value where others undervalued, so he must know some things here.” And that isn’t the necessarily the black and white argument you refer to in your last graph. You revisit your position as the realities of a trade play out over time. But it is a legitimate argument.
I understand that we don’t have to agree on a trades merit. I also agree that we don’t have to agree with the front office on the merits of a trade. Bavasi was generally lampooned by anyone who had a statistical bent for most of the moves he made. A lot of the people whom I read and respect think this was a ho/hum kind of trade, not something to get excited about. Honestly, that’s how I see it. If League is a good reliever and Morrow is a 4th or 5th starter, do I really care? Now if Morrow hits his high water mark as a 2nd or 3rd starter I might feel differently but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal even then. I guess with the good moves he’s made I’m willing to give our GM the benefit of the doubt and let him build the team.
I think the argument on Morrow is pretty straight-forward actually. We shouldn’t be so concerned about how Seattle views Morrow, but how other teams viewed him. I don’t know how heavily he was shopped, but obviously Toronto views him as a starting pitcher who can fit into the middle of their rotation who is under club control for a few years. If other teams view him in that light (and I have a hard time believing that there aren’t any), then I think we got the raw end of the deal. We picked up a reliever (albeit a good one), and an A-ball strikeout machine who has no clear path to the majors with the M’s in exchange for what Toronto sees as a starting pitcher. I don’t see how that evens out on paper at all. Whether or not he’d be a starter in Seattle, other teams might value his potential as a starter, and I just don’t think we made them pay for that. We sold him as a reliever. They bought him as a starter.
Whatever your opinion of the trade, I think it’s very clear there are reasonable arguments to be made on both sides.
Isn’t the best evidence of what other teams think of Morrow what the M’s just got in trade for him? Milwaukee turned down a Gamel/Morrow trade, so we know he isn’t worth bad-defense slugger prospect coming off a so-so year in AAA. What other data points are there?
Derek your post is disconcerting to me. It seems like you guys are trying to please your critics instead of taking them head on. You do rebut their arguments against you, but I think it needs a little more furry. When you said
That we should take the judgment of sound talent people and call it good, in so many words.
The next sentence if I were writing would have been “These are the same critics that should of used sound judgment when Bavasi sold our farm system for off injured player and we called it like it was and we will continue to call it like we see it.”
Of coarse these thing are easier said then done and I’ll fully admit I have no clue of outside pressures put upon you and Dave. Keep up the good work. Critics from within are needed and will never not be needed.
What I am really curious about, and will never know the answer to, is what it would have taken outside of Morrow to land League.
Anyone know if Morrow was out of options? Seems like he would be. If so, this starts to make a little bit more sense. If Morrow struggled out of the gate and did not have an option then it becomes like Wlad last year (more or less).
Kittens!
adamN, furry=fury, coarse=course. Correct spelling helps make a more forceful argument too.
And “off injured” should read “oft injured”
That’s funny I thought the whole point of a blog was to express your opinions about things. Then we can compare and contrast your opinions with our own, and others we might come across and make up our own minds.
I must be new to the internet thing because I have read too many successful blogs that consistently parrot the official line and defer to authority. It just doesn’t make compelling reading. There is no point in disagreeing just to disagree, but conversely there is no point in agreeing just to agree. I don’t always agree with your opinions but I’m always interested in reading them.
[no]
Derek:
Not sure how much you know about soccer, but Arrigo Sacchi, one of the most influential and successful managers ever, responded to similar criticism by saying, “You don’t have to have to have been a horse to be a jockey.”
Since evaluating this move hinges so strongly on projections, and projections come from assumptions, discussing the trade really has to discuss the assumptions and how they percolate through into projections. Plus, it’s not just the possibilities (Morrow could flame out – great trade, Morrow could develop into a quality starter – bad trade), but the percent chances for each possibility.
Derek’s point about treating assumptions as just that and not trying to make them into either tautologies or strawmen is the key to a useful discussion about the Morrow-League trade. One of Dave’s main points against the trade was that the advantage of League (today) over Morrow (today) was so slim and the potential upside of Morrow so valuable, that you had to assume an exceptionally small chance of Morrow reaching his potential to like that trade.
So, Dave was attempting to move the discussion beyond duelling assumptions.
[this is not a board]
[see comment guidelines]
[ostentatiously correcting spelling and grammar is not always the cure]
There’s a lot more benefit to discussing the substance of the post, people, than there is to eviscerating low-value comments. Dismiss them once, then it’s preferable to move on and return to the topic at hand.
There’s a lot more benefit to discussing the substance of the post, people, than there is to eviscerating low-value comments. Dismiss them once, then it’s preferable to move on and return to the topic at hand.
Awesome, so do you know if Morrow has options left?
Apologies. That was meant to be a joke.
[meta]
I believe Morrow has one option left.
I believe Morrow has one option left.
blows my theory then if true.
Nice summary by Dave, without the sturm und drang, on the Book Blog and nice dialogue with Tom Tango.
My own opinion, and this goes back years and years, is that you rarely succeed when you trade someone, as opposed to trading for someone. I will exclude deadline trades and trades made for economic reasons, because there are other factors involved, but this trade, the Soriano trade and the Guillen trade were all trades made to get someone off the team instead of to improve the team by getting another player.
The trade opinion presented by Dave and Derek is good but does have its point of arguments none which have been brought up critics. In my opinion, we like when Jack has taken on risk with the scenario that we bought undervalued talent with potential to break out like Branyan and Aardsma. However, I think with Morrow we were on the other end of the deal and we were selling. We are selling because the expectation of failure instead of buying because we expect success. To make things simple, we assume 50/50 shot with Branyan and Aardsma succeeding and we beat the odds. We Went 2 for 2 instead of 1 for 1. Now we are selling Morrow and we have 50/50 shot at it going in our favor and it not. Now the odds are not really 50/50 they could be 90/10 that morrow does succeed as a starter. The way Dave and Derek state it they think it’s about 55% he succeeds. Under this case we are taking on more risk then when we started. However our value to risk is much less. With keeping morrow we say his high end is 2-3 WAR = .9 WAR at risk. Now trading him off we eliminate .9 at risk and instead we have 1.1 with probably .1 at risk. Basically management wants to lower their risk at the moment. Now with that being said I would pose the question if both Branyan and Aardsma went the other way we would probably be saying sell Morrow. I think at the moment we are accustom to taking on risk when buying but not when selling when I believe the risk is about the same as past moves.
We need more furry attack kittens wearing Mariner mittens!
My own unprovable theory is that the Morrow deal was a case of Zduriencik protecting his ability to do future trades by taking a bit a dive. After getting Lee and dumping Silva there was all this press about how awesome he was at making deals and how much more the M’s got than they gave up. Just for the sake of image he had to do something so other GMs would feel it was possible to deal with the M’s and not get taken to the cleaners. If every deal were a heist, other GMs would stop taking his calls.
That’s just stupid.
@mikeym
If his goal was to “lose” a trade, why not just make one that appeared to be bad instead? One fatal flaw in this and your theory is that all GMs don’t think alike and won’t come to the same conclusions.
Even assuming there’s any germ of truth to this, why in the world would you categorize this trade in that way?
People need to understand better what kind of pitcher League is.
The way Dave and Derek state it they think it’s about 55% he succeeds.
I don’t know where in the world you come up with that number.
mikeym,
In those trades everybody got something they needed/wanted. It’s not really like Zduriencik fleeced anyone. It may appear that the Silva trade was like that, but you have to consider how badly they wanted to get rid of Bradley.
And didn’t Zduriencik state in his press conference after the Lee trade that they approached him and not the other way around?
I’ve been on the Interwebz long enough to know better, but I’m a little surprised anyone took my unprovable theory seriously. I thought the idea of any GM, much less Z, tanking a trade to enhance his “table image” was ridiculous enough on its face to not need a disclaimer. It was just meant to be a mildly humorous take on the general heaping of praise for the first two deals followed by all the head-scratching and debate surrounding the Morrow deal that led DMZ to post this item in the first place.