Mariners to Sign Willie Bloomquist
I’m not even going to bother with the commentary on this, because you can probably guess what I think of a guaranteed two-year deal for a replacement-level scrub. I’m just going to leave this here.
Nick Punto and Willie Bloomquist were born 19 days apart, back in 1977. Both of them are going into their age-36 seasons. Both have carved out nice long careers as utility infielders. Here are their career offensive numbers, side by side.
| Name | PA | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ | BsR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Punto | 3510 | 10% | 17% | 0.077 | 0.299 | 0.248 | 0.325 | 0.325 | 0.294 | 78 | 21.0 |
| Bloomquist | 2925 | 6% | 15% | 0.074 | 0.319 | 0.271 | 0.320 | 0.346 | 0.297 | 79 | 13.6 |
For all intents and purposes, they’re the same hitter. Punto walks a little more and Bloomquist has legged out a few more singles, but they’re both bad hitters who offset that a little bit with some baserunning value. You don’t hire either of these guys for their bats. They’re in the Major Leagues because of their ability to play multiple positions. But then there’s this.
| Name | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Punto | -76.0 | 105.1 | 14.8 |
| Bloomquist | -61.8 | -21.8 | 1.4 |
During the last 15 years, Punto has been one of baseball’s elite defensive players. In 2,500 innings at shortstop, he has a career UZR of +33. In 2,500 innings at third base, it’s +38. In 2,500 innings at second base, it’s +11. He’s split his time almost evenly between the three infield spots, and he’s been excellent at all three.
Bloomquist, in 2,000 innings at shortstop, has a -6 UZR. In 1,000 innings at third base, its -3. In 1,000 innings at second base, it’s -1. In 2,000 innings in the outfield, it’s -15. Bloomquist has been a below average defender at every position he’s played.
Willie Bloomquist is Nick Punto minus all the things that make Nick Punto valuable. A few weeks ago, the A’s signed Nick Punto to a one year, $3 million deal. The M’s are reportedly going to give Bloomquist between $5 and $6 million over two years. The Mariners are paying more money to get a worse player.
It’s a bench player spot. Bloomquist won’t be targeted for that many plate appearances — just like Raul Ibanez wasn’t supposed to play much last year — and its not like a two year deal at this kind of money is going to wreck the budget. But the transactions the team makes tell you something about the way the front office values performance, and their ability to understand that “bench players” become “regulars” when injuries occur, as they always do.
Judge for yourself if the Mariners have actually learned anything from their past mistakes. Judge for yourself if this organization has any idea how to actually build a baseball team.
Comments
67 Responses to “Mariners to Sign Willie Bloomquist”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Steamer has Punto at 0.4 wins for 2014, oddly enough, with a defensive contribution component (something WFB doesn’t have). Maybe Punto was well above replacement level, providing nearly all of his benefit from defense (see Ryan, Brendan), but if he’s “well above replacement” for 2014, Steamer doesn’t agree.
What I don’t understand is why this is going down just like last year…? Why? Why sign him this early? If the offseason goes well, we don’t need him on this roster… And if we get nowhere with REAL ballplayers, he’ll still be there.
Absolutely the same move as Ibanez last year… Why sign the disposable guy first? He’ll be there later. You just reduced your flexibility, and reduced your budget for essentially NOTHING.
Same as it ever was. Sadly.
I don’t put a whole lot of trust in Steamer, or Zips in general, but definetly not on part time players.
The projection systems do seem to like WFB way more then I would assume based on past performance compared to other players. Maybe there is something I’m missing but I don’t see why punto and bloomquist would age differently. They are the same age and Punto has a better history but is being projected to perform well under his last three years while WFB performs at the same level.
I just think looking at all the utility infielders signed this offseason WFB looks to be the worst, hopefully I’m wrong and he sits on the bench most of the year and plays well when he does. Its not the end of the world, we just seemed to get the wobbly chair in this round of musical chairs.
Wait-
In all honesty, is this a “parting gift” to Chuck Armstrong? Did he get to make one last move before sailing off into the sunset…?
“I’ll retire… Fine… BUT! I get to sign Willie Bloomquist to one last contract… I mean, it’s ‘Willie FUCKING Bloomquist!’…”
Ownership: “But then you’ll retire, right!?”
————–
Or maybe Chuck is going to do everything he can to piss us all off before January 31st?
I have no idea. Just bizarre. (And I graduated from South Kitsap, btw– Willie’s dad and then sister were my dentist at various times– and yet, even I hate this deal.)
Typical Idiot-
“As much as we think other team’s backup players are great, they’re not.”
Sadly, I’ve slowly come around to recognizing this… It happened when I realized Kawasaki was Toronto’s starting SS for much of last season, while they were taunted as World Series contenders.
Or when Ibanez was pinch hitting for Alex Rodriguez in high leverage situations of the playoffs.
Or when I watched Marco Scutaro and Ryan Theriot celebrating their World Series victory with the Giants.
It’s true– everyone needs filler players who hopefully aren’t dead wait. The real Mariner problem is we can’t find the few key characters who lift the team closer to success. (Although Zunino and Posey are two similarly likable names, the way they roll off the tongue…)
Signings like WFB just make it too easy for the fans to think- “they’re not even TRYING to sign the really good guys, are they?” Kinda like when mom makes you open the crappy Xmas present first and you have this dread that it’s gonna be the worst Xmas ever, based on plaid socks.
Paying millions for a replacement level scrub? No, thanks, I’ll either get a replacement level player from the minors for the minimum, or I’ll pick somebody up for free off waivers at the end of spring training.
Aging but replacement level decent-glove-bad-bat middle infielders can be found off the junk pile. No need to give them multi year contracts, save the money for where you can get an actual upgrade. Like someone above replacement level, for starters.
Just checked in to see what is going on, going back to lurker mode. I really don’t plan to see any Mariner games this year.
In bigger questions– are we interested in Bartolo Colon, now that Scott Kazmir has signed with the A’s, and for how much? Will he want multiple years?
2 years/45 million?
Hmmm…
When I saw the headline I had to check the calendar to make sure it isn’t April 1. Then I remembered, for Mariner fans, every day is April Fools Day. And the joke’s always on us…
where is it written that it is so easy to find replacement level players for league minimums? Do you know someone in the Mariners organization right now that could fulfill the role of backup utility player that I don’t?
It is written in the very definition of “replacement level.” This level of play is not selected at random. What you are suggesting here is that the statistical community has made an error in the level of performance that constitutes replacement level. Maybe you’re right! Stranger things have happened. But I’ll be needing better evidence than “Willie Bloomquist seems better than replacement level to me” before I take this claim seriously.
Why did Oakland pay $2.7m for Punto? Why did the Yankees guarantee 2 years for Ryan, plus an option year?
Because they’re excellent defenders.
Meanwhile– Doug Fister just became a Washington National… For a Willie Bloomquist-type, a lefty reliever, and a minor leaguer.
(For free, basically… Still with 2 years team control…)
Steamer has Punto at 0.4 wins for 2014, oddly enough
Which is already answered by one of the Fangraphs authors:
Because the way the Steamer projections on FG are built means that the system isn’t good at handling defensive projections for multi-position players.
Go look at both Fangraph pages, conveniently linked above. Steamer is projecting Punto for a big collapse on defense. Given that WFB and Punto are the same age, it’s hard for me to see why one would collapse due to age and one wouldn’t.
Did this move really surprise anyone?
This does nothing for me, but hey, at least he’s just a utility player, right?!
I’ll cross my fingers for now.
It isn’t really predicting Punto has a big defensive collapse. The reason for the low defensive value and overall WAR prediction is based on his playing time prediction. If you look at previous years, he’s been in the 3-10 defensive runs saved range (based on UZR) but also played twice to three times the games that Steamer has him projected for 2013.
It might be a slight decrease in the rate, but overall the problem is based on opportunities, not necessarily a decline.
Yeah, it’s pretty clear that the Mariners made a sub-optimal signing here. I would take the Punto contract any day over the WFB deal, and even at WFB’s contract terms, I would prefer Punto.
That doesn’t mean it’s an outright stupid deal for the Ms, though. Willie Ballgame’s positional flexibility fits the Ms’ roster better, since he’s able to play the outfield adequately, while Punto hasn’t seen action out there since 2008.
Moreover, even though WFB has been essentially a replacement level player for his career, it’s worth noting that he’s hit well enough to put up one win above replacement over the past two years for the Dbacks. If he simply repeats that, he’s worth the contract.
VivaAyala-
I like your definition of “adequately” better than mine… (As in Willie can play the outfield adequately.)
We’ll go with your’s, and cross our fingers.
Moreover, even though WFB has been essentially a replacement level player for his career, it’s worth noting that he’s hit well enough to put up one win above replacement over the past two years for the Dbacks. If he simply repeats that, he’s worth the contract.
Bloomquist’s improved hitter results in the last two years appear to be entirely the produce of a BABIP spike, that hasn’t been accompanied by any notable change to his batted ball profile. There isn’t any good reason to think that he’s developed some new batting skill in his mid 30’s that makes his balls in play 10% more likely to be hits. This almost never happens. Regression on the batting average front is the rational expectation.
“Bloomquist’s improved hitter results in the last two years appear to be entirely the produce of a BABIP spike, that hasn’t been accompanied by any notable change to his batted ball profile. There isn’t any good reason to think that he’s developed some new batting skill in his mid 30?s that makes his balls in play 10% more likely to be hits.”
That’s not quite true. WFB’s strikeout rate the last couple years is 13.4%, below his career average of 15.4%, and his line drives were up to 23.2% from his career average of 21.8%. It’s worth noting that Willie has, for his career, been a high-BABIP hitter (.319 career mark). Moreover, the high BABIP from the last couple of years has not been the result of an inflated infield hit rate (only 4.6% IFG% versus 7.2 for the career). While some regression is appropriate, you probably shouldn’t regress his projected BABIP all to the way to .300, and you shouldn’t omit the reduction in strikeouts.