Hip Surgery For Aardsma
Well, if you were wondering why the Mariners haven’t traded David Aardmsa yet, here’s one possible explanation – they announced today that he needs surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left hip. Of the two labrums you don’t want a pitcher to injure, this one’s better than the shoulder, obviously, but it’s still going to nuke his trade value for the rest of the winter. The recovery timetable should allow him to be ready sometime during Spring Training if all goes well, but he’s going to have to throw well in Peoria before any team would even consider making an offer for him.
This has a few repercussions for the team.
1. They’re basically out of money now. The only way they were going to be able to add another significant free agent was to move Aardsma and use the money that would have gone his way to sign someone else, but now that he’s going to be on the books to begin the season, they don’t have much budget flexibility left. You can probably kiss guys like Jeff Francis or Kevin Millwood goodbye – they might be able to still get in on Chris Capuano, but it’s going to be all bargain shopping for the rest of the winter.
2. Aardsma’s probably going to be here until the summer. Even if he recovers and is ready to begin the season, most teams will have given their ninth inning job to someone else, and the M’s will have to wait for another team’s closer to either get hurt or struggle before a market develops for his services. The earliest you’re probably looking at a possible deal for Aardsma is June, and that’s only if he’s pitching well at the beginning of the year.
This is obviously a blow to the organization. Even if they end up moving Aardsma this summer, the opportunity cost of being out of money this winter presents a loss, and now there’s increased odds that Aardsma will have diminished trade value at the deadline. It’s not the end of the world, but this is not good news.
Assuming he doesn’t make it back for the start of the season, what options are we looking at to fill the closer role?
Will this affect how much he will get in arbitration?
There’s still some wiggle room in the budget. Most estimates have the club sitting at about $88 million of the $92 million available. Its not incoceivable that the club could throw all of that at a SP and fill out the bullpen and bench internally.
Whatever direction they go, you can be sure it will be a waiting game where Jack will be sure to get the most for his money.
Also, they haven’t signed Olivo yet for whatever reason. I cant ever remember a delay between handshake and signature as long as this deal has taken. Maybe Jack is getting cold feet and pulling another Montero… (jk)
League is considered by many to be the closer if Aardsma was traded. If Aa cant go expect League to be given the chance to close. He has the potential but they need to let him throw his split!!
Is there any hope they can get out of an Olivo signing. I sure hope so!! He was horrible when he was here as a younger player and he is only marginally better now. Safeco left field will kill any power he has. He is not a good fit!!
Just curious…how come this comes up now instead of earlier in the offseason? It’s not like he’s pitched that much since the season ended, if at all?
His explanation is that it was thought to be an oblique from late in the season, and the labrum tear wasn’t diagnosed until he started throwing again and realized there was still a problem.
With respect to which labrum, I think you mean “four”, not “two”.
If I had to choose between this scenario, Aardsma injured and untradable, and this scenario floated by Baker:
I think the Mariners are much better off losing Aardsma completely and eating his salary, than trading him and using the money to sign Brian Fuentes to a 3 year 15 million contract. Of course Fuentes wanting that, is a lot different than anybody paying that. But the max I’d pay for Fuentes is about 1 – 1.5m and even that for only a year.
Fortunately Mr. Baker is not running the team (Look at me – I’m agreeing with HowChuck!).
Trade away a reliever who’s under team control for two more years, and use the freed-up salary to commit to a different reliever for three years? Classic.
Worse yet, commit 3 years and the closer role to a lefty reliever who can’t get RH batters out. Pure genius.
This is all my fault… I was the one saying we should hold onto Aardsma till Spring Training because inevitably someone’s closer ends up getting hurt and available closers suddenly become golden with the season looming.
I didn’t realize I was predicting that WE would be the team with an injured closer. Evidently, the baseball Gods still aren’t quite paying attention to us up here in the Northwest again, yet.
Dammit. Sorry folks.
PS- From what I read, but don’t remember where, Olivo isn’t signed because he isn’t in the States currently and the deal is pending a team physical before becoming official.
The whole point was that the M’s have numerous cheap alternatives to Aardsma, right here in the organization right now. The absolute last thing they should have done was to trade Aardsma and sign Fuentes or anyone else. Baker is an idiot.
Is Aardma already under contract for 2011? If not, it might be better to simply drop him.
“Is Aardma already under contract for 2011? If not, it might be better to simply drop him.”
Yes, he’s been tendered a contract and cannot be dropped now. And no, even if they could drop him, it wouldn’t be a good idea to do so.
The M’s and Aardsma still haven’t agreed to final terms of the contract, so they could still go to arbitration with Aardsma. And seeing as how today is Dec. 31, that’s looking more and more likely.
And just when we thought there wasn’t any room for more bad news in 2010. GO CLOCK!
Does this mean seeing Aardsma in potentially more situations, to showcase him, or less, to reduce injury risk and be more confident that League is sufficient as next closer?
Dave,
Is Aardsma really without ANY “trade” value? He’s supposed to be back in spring training and doesn’t make that much money. Would nobody take him for nothing?
“taking him for nothing” means the same thing as having no trade value.
It’s not like he has no trade value at all. It’s just that you would find very few teams willing to give up much of anything until they see that he has recovered from his surgery. If you wanted to trade David Aardsma, you’d almost certainly have more teams interested and offering more value in return after he’s shown that he’s recuperated and gotten back to pitching well again. Until then, most teams aren’t going to give up much for a pitcher that represents so much risk.
But, it’s opportunity cost. If we could get someone to take Aardsma for nothing, we could sign another starting pitcher. If someone would take him for nothing, that would help the team.
Interesting. Aardsma’s so clean-cut and buff — I’d never have pegged him as a hipster.
Is the budget so cast in stone that there is no possibility that as a consequence of this, the budget gets expanded to allow for the addition of a bat without dumping Aardsma’s salary?
Is the budget so cast in stone that there is no possibility that as a consequence of this, the budget gets expanded to allow for the addition of a bat without dumping Aardsma’s salary?
Where exactly does this bat play? The Mariners aren’t going to give up on Ichiro, Gutierrez, Olivo, Smoak, Saunders or Cust, so your choices are second, short or third.
If you sign a major FA at 2B, you block Ackley.
If you sign a major FA at 3B, you force Figgins to 2B or a trade, and if you don’t trade him you block Ackley and play Figgins at a position he’s not great at (unless you turn Figgins into Mark McLemore and start shifting him around the field as a bench player).
There aren’t a lot of great FAs at short.
People need to realize that “signing a bat” for most of this team (as it is constituted right now) means “give up on a young player before really seeing if they are ready to contribute” or “give up on a free agent the M’s just signed”. Like it or not, the 2010 Mariners are mostly done when it comes to the starting lineup.
Where the M’s could easily add pieces is in the rotation or the bullpen- and that’s where the budget being cramped is going to hurt.
I think what a lot of people are really saying is that the Ms “need” to sign a Big Name, not a big bat–someone they know, who’s a “proven run producer.”
I consider this no better than a Bavasi strategy (looking at the wrong numbers, failing to understand that strategies are probabilistic, seeking in vain for certainty (or at least in the wrong places), etc.).
Agreed. And besides, why lock up money now on a player for a team that many of us think won’t be competitive in 2011 when we can save it for when we are? People forget that opportunity cost as well. Sure, the budget is the budget and saving money now doesn’t really do anything for later, but locking up money now loses flexibility for later when we might just need it.