The Current Roster
After adding Jack Cust, Miguel Olivo, and Brendan Ryan, here’s a snapshot of what the M’s projected Opening Day roster looks like at the moment.
1. Ichiro Suzuki, RF
2. Chone Figgins, 3B
3. Jack Cust, DH
4. Justin Smoak, 1B
5. Miguel Olivo, C
6. Franklin Gutierrez, CF
7. Michael Saunders, LF
8. Jack Wilson, SS
9. Brendan Ryan, 2B
Bench: Adam Moore (C), Milton Bradley (OF/DH), Josh Wilson (INF), Matt Tuiasosopo (UT)
Pitching Staff:
1. Felix Hernandez, RHP
2. Jason Vargas, LHP
3. Doug Fister, RHP
4. Michael Pineda, RHP
5. David Pauley, RHP
Long – Chris Seddon, LHP
Long – Jose Flores, RHP
Middle – Luke French, LHP
Middle – Dan Cortes, RHP
Setup – Garrett Olson, LHP
Setup – Brandon League, RHP
Closer – David Aardsma, RHP
There are still some holes to be filled, obviously.
Having Josh Wilson as your primary reserve infielder is a problem, as he simply isn’t qualified for anything more than a 25th man/pinch-runner role. Having him move into the starting line-up whenever anyone (read: Jack Wilson) gets hurt is simply not a good idea, and even with Dustin Ackley‘s likely arrival in the summer potentially solving that problem, the team should not be willing to go with Wilson as their primary reserve infielder for two months. With Brendan Ryan around to act as a backup SS, the team can go with a reserve IF who doesn’t need to be able to play SS, allowing them to get a better bat on the bench. That would push Wilson into Tui’s role and Tui off the roster, both of which are good things. A guy like Willy Aybar would make a lot of sense for that role.
The pitching staff still needs work as well. Pauley is probably best off in a long relief/spot starter role, and moving him to the pen would allow the team to not have to push Seddon to the majors, allowing him to serve as additional depth down in Tacoma. Relying on the hope that Erik Bedard is healthy enough to hold down the #5 spot isn’t a great idea, so the M’s should still be in the market for another back-end starter. Jeff Francis is still my ideal choice, but if he’s too pricey, Kevin Millwood would be worth kicking the tires on.
Speaking of price, the bullpen is still somewhat in flux while the club decides what to do with David Aardsma. Trading him saves around $4 million in salary which could be used to sign a guy like Francis for the rotation, so it’s worth doing even if they can’t land a big return for him. However, moving him also opens up a hole in an already thin bullpen, so the M’s will have to be on the lookout for a cheap reliever or two that they could bring in to bridge the gap in the middle innings if League and Cortes were promoted after Aardsma was dealt. Alternately, they could use Josh Lueke to fill one of those spots, but whether that happens is still up in the air.
So, that leaves the shopping list for the rest of the winter looking something like this – #5 starter, corner infielder with some offensive upside, and potentially decent middle reliever, and if he’s a lefty, that’s a bonus. If they don’t trade Aardsma, they probably only have $2 or $3 million left in the budget, depending on how Olivo’s contract is structured and what Brendan Ryan, Jason Vargas, and Brandon League end up getting to avoid arbitration. If they trade Aardsma, they have a little more flexibility and could probably expand their search a bit.
My preference? Deal Aardsma, and then sign Francis, Aybar, and Mark Hendrickson. That would give the team a better back-end starter, a deeper bullpen, and a better bench, plus whatever prospect they could get in return for Aardsma. They aren’t sexy moves, but they’re the kind of low-cost acquisitions that can fill some holes and give the team a chance to be not-terrible next year. Of course, the offense is essentially predicated on Justin Smoak and Michael Saunders living up to their minor league potential, so it could go badly wrong anyway, but that’s a risk the team has to take. They can minimize problems elsewhere in the hope that, if those guys hit, the team could actually be okay.
How is Garret Olson still on this team? The guy is TERRIBLE. Lefty or not he sucks.
This roster has another 100 loss season written all over it. Awful.
I don’t. What makes you think that?
The offense is only marginally better than 2010 and no Cliff Lee even if we only had him for half the season. Do we think that Cust, Olivo, and Ryan are going to make this offense significantly better? Besides Felix and Ichiro, this team is going to be painful to watch.
I don’t think so.
You DO realize that was a historically bad offense, right? A .690 OPS at DH, 1B and C actually IS a significant upgrade on 2010. And that’s not really a reach here? (Good god, a really bad year from Cust would be a .720 and that’s gobs better than what we got from DH last year) (Ed: Jack Cust last year: .272/.395/.438. That’s NOT a significant upgrade????)
Do the math. Compare and contrast.
Regression to the mean is a beautiful thing. Oh wait, did you realize Brendan Ryan’s 10′ WAR was better than Figgins, Lopez and both Wilsons combined last year? Or perhaps you don’t realize how anemic 1b, C, LF and DH were either? Or that we improved by simply cutting RoJo and Slowpez without needing any corresponding moves. Even if you don’t agree with Cust/Ryan/Olivo/Bedard etc., the process is sound (does not compromise the future while improving the team) and it is difficult to think the Mariners are not better on paper than 10′.
The offense is only marginally better than 2010 and no Cliff Lee even if we only had him for half the season. Do we think that Cust, Olivo, and Ryan are going to make this offense significantly better? Besides Felix and Ichiro, this team is going to be painful to watch.
So, basically, you’re arguing:
– Chone Figgins will not be an effective MLB regular again in 2011 (since he sucked last year)
– Justin Smoak will be a complete bust as a prospect (Mariner 1B hit .227/.293/.357 last year)
– Brendan Ryan will not improve at all on last year (he hit .223/.279/.294 and Mariner shortstops hit .230/.276/.294), despite his career numbers being better than his year last year and playing part of last year injured,
– Michael Saunders will be a complete bust as a prospect (Mariner LFers hit .218/.318/.375 last year).
– Cust will have his worst year in MLB by FAR (Mariner DH’s hit .194/.269/.340 last year- Cust’s worst year as a MLB regular is .240/.356/.417)
What I will say is that, yes, if a bunch of prospects turn out to be huge piles of suck and all the veterans mentioned turn into complete garbage, sure, we’ll lose 100 games. But that’s what has to happen: they can’t hit the numbers on the back of their baseball cards if they are a veteran, they can’t develop as prospects. They all have to turn into garbage.
Last I checked, not EVERY player ever acquired by the Seattle Mariners does that.
Oh, and let’s not forget: Franklin Gutierrez regressed a lot as a hitter last year. He can’t get ANY of that back in 2011.
Why not move Figgins to the catch all position thus giving the team a lot more flexibility.
2nd Ackley/Ryan
SS Wilson
3rd Ryan/Mangini
LF Saunders
and Figgins playing every day in each of those positions as a relief. Mariners can carry a Tui for 3rd and 1st backup/right hand pinch hitter.
Leroy Stanton:
You’re assuming that team runs scored is supposed to be proportional to wOBA. IT IS NOT! While runs scored vs. wOBA is linear it has a constant offset.
If you plot runs scored vs. wOBA for AL teams in 2010 you will see that the Mariners were right where they should have been.
I’d pencil in Bedard for the long LHP and save the Kelley to the 60 day DL move for a spring waiver pickup opportunity.
Getting a better backup IF would be nice, but I’d be surprised if they did. Based on that roster, Ryan can cover SS when Wilson is hurt, Figgins moves to 2B and Tui plays 3B, so currently there aren’t any holes, just from a roster construction point of view. Knowing Ackley will be coming up later I would expect their attention is on other parts of the roster.
OK, so this roster does not look like a world beater. I liked the Ryan pickup, more because it cost nothing to get a better version of what we already have (when the mystical power hitting SS appears, I am pretty sure we can still deal with having Ryan on the roster), but he doesn’t do that much to improve our ceiling. Speaking of ceilings though, last season we saw the floor from almost everyone (Ichiro and Felix excluded. And I guess the rest of the SP to a lesser degree). And that has colored our ability to evaluate these moves. With that in mind, I decided to project what this team would do if we get the anti-2010 and everyone plays closer to their ceiling than floor. To do this, I came up with WAR values close to the ceiling of what each player can do. I kept guys who did well last year the same, but reverted Figgins back to his average with the Angels (again, ceilings), Gutierrez back to 2009, gave Smoak and Saunders bumps, regressed Ryan back towards 2009, and gave high end projections for Pineda and Ackley.
Here we go
Felix – 6
Vargas – 2.5
Fister – 2.5
Pineda – 2
5th Starter – 1
Bullpen – 1 from League, .5 from Cortes & Lueke, .5 from the rest, so 2
Ichiro – 5
Figgins – 3
Smoak – 2
Cust – 2
Olivo – 1
Guti – 4
Saunders – 1.5
Ryan – 1.5
Wilson – 1
Then when Ackley comes up another 1
Bench
Moore: .5
Langerhans: .5
Bradley: .5
Tui: 0
Wilson: 0
So 1 WAR from the bench (wild card of Bradley getting his act together, but that is so much of a wild card that I won’t even think about it).
That adds up to 38 WAR for the team (if everything breaks right), without adding something like a 5th starter with some upside, or a legit Posey-like breakout from Ackley. So 86 wins. Not too bad, especially since that could take the AL West if it all breaks right.
Again, this is the rosiest scenario I could realistically see. Just trying to remind people to keep in mind that just because last year saw the worst case scenario, it doesn’t preclude a best case scenario from happening and there is still a little bit of upside here.
Hm. I kinda thought 2009 was the best case scenario.
Maybe the team will settle down into the middle of projections from here on out.
I agree. But sadly, we have seen a nasty pattern with the Mariners recently. 07′ we out performed expectations, 08′ we were garbage, 09′ we out performed again and were tricked into dreams of contention and a possible playoff berth. We cant expect this trend to continue or else fans will just watch every other year. I think it has to settle. Potentially, we could be a decent team this year and if that is the case, the rosiest scenario as alec stated, we need to keep our minds set on building. Making the playoffs would be fantastic, but I’d rather make the playoffs for multiple years in a row instead of once in a blue moon. I think the Mariners will surprise many of us this year and we will see them post a 73-77 win season. I think contention is possibly 2012, if the kids develop as planned. I’d like to expect the best outcome, but even if we are middle of expectations I don’t think we lose anywhere near 100 games.
Side note, as much as team chemistry is debated I think its not the chemistry that helps its the familiarity. When you play with around the same bunch of guys for a few years you know what to expect. That’s the great thing about when a group comes from the minors at the same time, they’ve usually had multiple years to learn about each other in the minors. I played baseball my entire life… the best teams I played on, were the teams where we had been together for multiple years in a row, the same group of guys. I think we will see that in 2011 and 2012, the comfort becoming more obvious, a better level of trust.
Brendan Ryan will be our opening and everyday shortstop. Jack Wilson will be traded before the season (Twins?) assuming that he can put together a healthy spring training.