A Radical Proposal For The Seattle Mariners
The First of The International Free Agents Signs….With Someone Else
1: With the playoffs still underway, it’s too early to know who’s in the free agency pool. Teams have a few days to submit qualifying offers, and players can mull over taking the money or opting for free agency (as Kendrys Morales evidently will). But international players aren’t subject to these rules, as the collective bargaining agreement obviously doesn’t apply. That’s the reason Jose Abreu’s in the news today – the Cuban slugger reportedly signed a 6-year, $68 million deal with the White Sox – apparently a new record for an international free agent signing.
As Dave’s article (linked above) mentions, the quick success of Yoenis Cespedes and Yasiel Puig undoubtedly influenced the market for Abreu, a 1B/DH. Previous imports have often failed to live up to the hype, as all of us who lived through the Yuniesky Betancourt era can attest. The White Sox know this better than most, as their starting LF, Dayan Viciedo, was once a highly anticipated free agent. Viciedo cracked the Cuban national series at the tender age of 15, and was a triple crown threat at 16. A Puig-ish build and plenty of raw power led some to project 30-HR power in the majors. Unfortunately, Viciedo’s in-game power’s been slightly below forecast, and coupled with a lack of patience and uninspiring LF defense, Viciedo’s turned into a ~ replacement level player (albeit one with some upside; he’ll be 25 next season).
Abreu’s shown much more in-game power to date. While Viciedo knocked an impressive 16 HRs in the short Cuban season several years ago, Abreu hit 33 in 2010-11 to set the Cuban record, and upped that to 35 HRs in 11-12 (though Alfredo Despaigne re-took the record with 36).* The season was shortened last year to accomodate the WBC (where Abreu again destroyed so-so pitching), but Abreu is clearly in the top tier of Cuban hitters. Clearly, Abreu can dominate Cuban-league pitching, and he’s been a terror in international competition, but scouts are still split on his ability to handle elite velocity and location. Of course, that’s true of literally anyone- elite velo/location are, by definition, not things that even most MLB pitchers have in their arsenal. Some teams, including the White Sox, think the soon-to-be 27-year old has a short swing that will allow his power to play against anyone. Others think his complicated pre-swing routine and possibly average batspeed will prevent him from squaring up big league pitches. Dave’s post also points out that Abreu will have to hit *a lot* to pay off. As a 1B/DH, he can’t add value as a league-average hitter.
It’s an interesting gamble, and it’ll be fun to watch the White Sox three Cuban players next year – will Abreu help Viciedo develop? Will Alexei Ramirez remember how to hit for power, or is he still frazzled by his up-close encounter with a Tom Wilhelmsen curve ball? The money seems fairly high for a guy with some batspeed questions, but it makes more sense given the paucity of options on the MLB free agent market, and the fact that the White Sox won’t have Paul Konerko’s contract in 2014 (and Adam Dunn’s deal comes off the books after next season). All told, it’s probably a gamble worth taking.
2: The other highly-anticipated international player to hit the US is Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka. If you read my article on Wlad Balentien, you’re aware of the “juiced ball” controversy in Japan this year, and how offense was up after two seasons in which pitchers dominated. Gaudy ERAs were more common in 2011-2012, with Yu Darvish’s 1.44 figure (his 5th straight year with an ERA under 2) talked about a lot before he was posted. Try to keep that context in mind when you look at Tanaka’s 2013 numbers here. Tanaka, who turns 25 in a couple of weeks, went 24-0 with an ERA of 1.27 in 212 IP. Those are old-school stats, and the league context is different, and he played for a good team, etc. etc. But this was the year the commissioner resigned due to the ball inflating offense *too much*. Tanaka had an above-average season, is what I’m trying to say.
He may be posted this year, and the Yankees are apparently willing to forget the Kei Igawa experience and go all-in on Tanaka. The Yankees have seen first-hand how a splitter-throwing righty can take the short fences of new Yankee stadium out of play, and they’ve reportedly had scouts watching Tanaka throughout the 2013 season.
The Yankees need pitching, but there’s another reason Tanaka may appeal. While the total outlay to get Tanaka on the team will be significant – Yu Darvish’s $52m posting plus $60m contract is a good starting point – not all of it will count towards the new, more stringent, luxury tax. While the Rangers’ $60m contract to Darvish was breathtaking at first, he’s now making $10m in AAV, less than guys like Andy Pettitte and Ryan Dempster last year. The total will be higher, but the hit to the payroll may come in less than the Tigers’ $80m deal for Anibal Sanchez last year, and will certainly be far below Zack Greinke’s deal. If you have plenty of money to spend but not quite so much that you can afford to blow off the luxury tax, a guy like Tanaka’s perfect.
So why wouldn’t he be perfect for the M’s? The M’s know at least as much about NPB-imports with plus-plus splitters as the Yankees do. Why were they never a serious player for Tanaka (or Abreu, for that matter)? It’s a good question, really. The team has money to spend, and clear needs both in the line-up and the rotation. I think many of us have been more concerned that Zduriencik on a one-year extension had an incentive to focus on 2014, damn the consequences, so it’s a bit odd that they’ve been silent. Of course, everyone knew that Yoenis Cespedes would head to Miami or the Cubs right up until he didn’t; we don’t know where Tanaka will end up, but the M’s haven’t been connected to him at all, just like they weren’t connected to Abreu and weren’t connected to Cuban SS Alexander Guerrero. The M’s haven’t made a splash in the international market; they got Iwakuma for peanuts after shoulder woes tanked his value. I’m not suggesting that they should just to shake things up, but I do wonder how the M’s front office sees guys like Tanaka and Abreu…and, perhaps more importantly, I wonder how they see their own current roster.
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Postseason/Winter League Odds and Ends
I’ve been taking a break from Marinerland recently. Instead, I’ve been following the post-season, watching football and soccer, and attempting to communicate with my family without making analogies to ex-M’s prospects, or lapsing into Eric Wedge imitations. In the spirit of attempting to re-establish communication with this wordpress window and thus with all of you, please accept these bullet points.
1: Jeff’s already mentioned it, but this postseason has been, for the most point, a joy to watch. You can certainly quibble with the teams that have advanced thus far, but the games have been great to watch from this neutral fan’s point of view. There have been several brilliant pitching performances, from Verlander’s last night, Wainwright’s complete game, Sonny Gray’s first appearance versus Detroit, and Gerrit Cole’s first game against St. Louis. But I wanted to talk about Wacha’s for a moment. Even after seeing him in person this year, I’m still a bit surprised by his ability to both miss bats and generate some sickly looking swings by elite hitters. He’s primarily a fastball-change pitcher, but it was his use of the curveball against Pittsburgh that gave a partial explanation.
Pace the TBS announcer who weirdly announced late in the game that Wacha had thrown *only* FBs and changes, Wacha threw 14 curves to Pittsburgh. It was never used leading off an at-bat; instead, up until his final inning, he always used it after a fastball. Specifically, after a *high* fastball. Why? As Josh Kalk (now with the Rays) pointed out back in 2009, it’s a great way to delay the point at which batters are able to pick up the difference in movement. In general, a fastball and a curve are so different in trajectory and velocity that it can be easy for hitters to differentiate the pitches. But a high fastball and a curve look similar for longer from the batter’s point of view. This helps to explain how lost Starling Marte and Marlon Byrd were against the Cards rookie.
What’s kind of amazing is how the more I look back on the game, the less command of the hook Wacha appeared to have. And he threw it to 10 batters, only one of whom reached base – that’d be the last batter he faced, Russell Martin, who walked. That was the only time in the game Wacha wasn’t able to set up the hook with a high fastball. To every other batter who saw a yellow hammer, Wacha had previously thrown a fastball at or above 3′ off the ground. Many were well out of the strikezone and were taken for balls – like a ball to Byrd in the 2nd, and the first pitch to Martin in the 3rd. At other times, like the first pitch to a completely flummoxed Byrd in the 5th, Wacha threw the pitch for a high strike, setting up a garbage swing on a curve low and in the dirt. But even in that at-bat, Wacha threw one curve very high and out of the zone (which Byrd laid off of). He threw another such curve to Charlie Morton, and one to Andrew McCutcheon – both were put in play, as their trajectory should’ve been easy to see. But both were fairly routine outs, as you might expect when a batter makes contact with a ball out of the zone.
I’ll be fascinated to see if he repeats this pattern in his next game against the Dodgers. With better command, five days rest, and pitching at home, it could be quite a game for Wacha – despite LA’s rampaging offense. Wacha reserved his curve ball to right-handers against Pittsburgh – giving lefties a traditional course of fastballs/changes. The Dodgers (like most good teams) have lefties who can hit – Adrian Gonzalez, for example, but the middle of their line-up is very right-handed: Puig, Ramirez and Uribe are all righties.
2: The Arizona Fall League’s already underway, and several M’s prospects have put in appearances with the Peoria Javelinas. Brandon Maurer got the start today, and the ex-prospect was again knocked around early. He looked much better down the stretch, but apparently looked fairly ordinary today, as he gave up three hits and two walks (no Ks) in 1 2/3 IP. It could’ve been worse; Maurer’s catcher, Austin Hedges, picked off a runner in the first who would’ve scored otherwise later in the inning. Hedges is routinely tabbed as the best defensive catcher in the minors, so it’s unlikely that Maurer’s control problems were due to lackluster receiving.
Carson Smith, Dominic Leone and Kyle Hunter have pitched in relief for the Javelinas. We’re most familiar with Smith who played for Peoria last year and looked unhittable in spring training with the M’s back in March. The sidewinding righty throws a hard, hard sinker at around 92-93, and has a wipeout slider. Dominic Leone had a great season, rising to AA in his first full season in the org after being drafted in the 16th round out of Clemson. The short right-hander showcased a mid-90s fastball and a hard slider/cutter thing in the high 80s. Hunter’s a left-hander who replaced Danny Hultzen on the roster after Hultzen’s shoulder unpleasantness. He’s used a very straight 85-88mph fastball, a cutter, a curve and a change/split-type pitch. Way too early to tell much on the hitters, but SS Chris Taylor, LF Stefen Romero, 3B/DH Patrick Kivlehan have all appeared to date.
3: The Venezuelan Winter League started yesterday, with several M’s and ex-M’s in action. Logan Bawcom got the hard-luck loss in Lara’s opener when a throw to the plate was dropped by ex-M’s catcher Jose Yepez, allowing the winning run to score. M’s farm-hand Gabriel Noriega played SS in the game, but the oddest line score came from Brodie Downs, the surveyor-turned-unlikely-draft-pick turned retired minor leaguer. Downs pitched an inning for Lara, after (apparently) not pitching competitively for three years. Jesus Montero’s obviously the guy to watch on the club, as he attempts to restore a modicum of his prospect sheen and I’m finding it difficult to care too much about that given that Chris Jakubauskas is also on the roster.
4: As they did last season, MLB’s got a handy page of winter league stats by MLB organization, so if you’d like to keep tabs on the M’s players, go here.
Sweet Lou
One thing we know for sure: Ken Rosenthal reported the other day that the Mariners had expressed interest in Lou Piniella as their next manager. Beyond that, Rosenthal’s source indicated that the Mariners put on a “full-court press” to try to lure Piniella out of retirement. Ultimately, Piniella said no to the potential opportunity, deciding he’s rather quite fond of his current living arrangement, which involves a lot of not being in charge of the Mariners.
One thing we probably know for sure: Rosenthal’s report wasn’t actually entirely accurate. The Mariners and Piniella have spoken, and Piniella has said no to managing again, but based on the organization’s words, it was Piniella who initially broached the subject. The Mariners simply asked if he was interested, and he indicated maybe, and then a little while later he indicated no. The Mariners say there was never any full-court press, and they didn’t seek Piniella out, and they have a very long list of managerial candidates for 2014. All in all, it wasn’t much of a story. And it’s hard to see a reason for the Mariners to outright lie about this.
So in the end, nothing has changed. We’ve gone from not considering Lou Piniella as the Mariners’ next manager to not considering Lou Piniella as the Mariners’ next manager. I guess what we know now is that he’s officially out, but no one was ever really counting him in, on account of the retirement and all. To whatever extent people are thinking about the Mariners’ manager search, they’re thinking about names like Joey Cora, Bryan Price, and, regrettably, Dusty Baker. Something’ll get done in a matter of weeks.
But out of this non-story, there’s a lesson to learn. When word initially spread, there were, I’m sure, a variety of responses, but a common one was that the Mariners were doing something embarrassing. People didn’t know very many details, but the immediate assumption was that the Mariners were being idiots again, humiliating themselves. Reconnecting with an old flame over the phone, trying to get something ignited. There’s long existed the criticism that the Mariners make too much of what happened in 1995. The more years that pass, the more years the Mariners fail, it only looks worse. To see Piniella’s name brought up again out of nowhere? That one wasn’t going to sit well.
It suggested that the Mariners aren’t interested in looking forward. At least, it suggested that the Mariners are only interested in looking forward by looking backward. It suggested the Mariners don’t want to try to find a new direction, preferring instead to get some maps out of the attic. And a “full-court press”? That smells of desperation. Desperation to bring back the glory years by literally hiring the glory years, ignoring that the characters have aged. Rosenthal’s report felt very Mariners. People responded to that.
It was immediate, it was instinct. Nevermind waiting to know more, waiting at least for confirmation. When the tweet went out, it took no time at all for fans to conclude the Mariners were making a mistake. People figured the Mariners had learned nothing at all, and there was renewed drive to burn everything to the ground and rebuild with new material. This is how people deal with Mariners news now. We’ve become conditioned to believe the Mariners are going to screw up. Worse, to believe they’re going to embarrass us and themselves. When the Zduriencik front office was still smelling new, things were the opposite. We trusted them with their decisions, because it seemed like they’d earned it. Zduriencik’s still there, but he’s not the same guy, despite being the same guy. How we feel about this team has done a 180, or, going back to the Bavasi years, a 360.
When something gets tweeted about the Mariners, people automatically get nervous. Skepticism and cynicism run rampant. This was made readily evident by Rosenthal’s Lou Piniella report. The Mariners’ online fan base is such that, if the Mariners are said to be doing something, the people believe they’d be better not doing it. The Mariners, simply, don’t have anyone’s trust.
But then we already knew that, even before Rosenthal’s article. So the actual lesson is nothing we hadn’t already learned, and where we are today is where we were earlier in the week, a few days closer to death. What we’ve gotten out of this experience is nothing. But at least people got to make fun of the Mariners for something they didn’t do. Keeps ’em from getting rusty.
Eventually, we’ll all once again trust the Mariners. I don’t know who’s going to be in charge of the team at that point, but it’s a probabilistic certainty. Hard to imagine, that feeling. But we have felt it, not even long ago.
What We Can Say About Safeco Field
There were times this summer — lots of them, in fact — when I couldn’t tell if I cared about baseball anymore. The Mariners weren’t provoking any sort of emotional response at all, and that’s supposed to be my most favorite team. I didn’t just not want to watch them; I actively avoided them, and I recognized my own behavior. But it turns out it wasn’t baseball — it was the Mariners. The Mariners were downright unwatchable for stretches. I’m sitting here, watching the playoffs, and it’s incredible. No one has a better atmosphere than the Pirates right now. Pirates fans have been through a lot worse than we have. The Pirates are proof that the Mariners can be good again, and Safeco can be packed and loud again, and baseball can be fun again. Don’t know when, but no matter how you feel about the Mariners today, they’ll pull you back if and when they can win 90 games. Baseball’s awesome when it matters.
The Mariners have a vested interest in mattering, and last offseason, a step they took toward that end was bringing in most of the fences at Safeco Field. It wasn’t something that was going to directly give the Mariners any more wins — it was a change that would affect the Mariners and their opponents equally. But the change was intended to make the park more neutral. More fair. More appealing to other players. More tolerable for current players. There probably was too much imbalance before, and it’s possible the park got into some hitters’ heads. Safeco seemed overdue for a fence-bringin’, and over the course of some months those fences were brought. A full season, now, has been played.
So it’s only natural to wonder what’s become of Safeco Field. We grew accustomed to all the old park effects. How about the new park effects? We should have an idea by now, right, since it’s been a whole season? What is Safeco Field, v2.0? The answer is not contained within this post. But there will be numbers anyway.
The most important thing to get is that park factors take more than a year to overpower the noise. There’s signal in there — there’s signal in there after even just one single game — but this is going to take years. Split the season in half, first. That’s how many home games there were. Then you have to consider all the balls in play, and how many of them were grounders, or routine flies, or homers that would’ve easily cleared any fence. Only a small percentage of balls in play are subject to park effects, and there aren’t that many of them hit to each location. Plus, there’s the matter of other, unseen, confusing park effects, like effects on walks or groundball rate. Parks do lots of stuff, directly or indirectly, and you just have to let the games be played for a while.
There are a few things we know for sure, though. The fences were brought in in left, left-center, center, and right-center. The fence was lowered a little in left. Automatically, we know that’s going to mean more dingers. Reasonably, it can’t not. The dinger threshold is reduced, so home runs will go up, because they have to. The question is by how much, and the other question is what else is going to happen? What happens to doubles and triples? What happens to run-scoring, overall?
Nothing can be said conclusively, but we can at least look in the numbers for clues. Below I’m going to include a table, showing 2000-2012 Safeco Field, and 2013 Safeco Field. The percentages are simple park factors. A percentage of, say, 90% means that Safeco’s rate was 90% the same measure on the road. For example, between 2000-2012, games in Safeco had a .252 batting average, while Mariners road games had a .269 batting average. The percentage shown is (.252/.269) * 100 = 94%. This approach is too simplistic, but I have interest in simple approaches.
| Years | BA | OBP | SLG | ISO | BABIP | 2B/3B | HR | BB | K |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000-2012 | 94% | 96% | 91% | 87% | 96% | 89% | 90% | 107% | 108% |
| 2013 | 99% | 98% | 96% | 92% | 102% | 106% | 88% | 93% | 106% |
For the record, the 2B/3B and HR rates are rates on contact, not rates overall. Anyhow, to just walk through: this year, batting average was almost even. OBP was almost even. BABIP was almost even. Doubles and triples were up a lot, combined, while homers didn’t actually budge. Something might’ve happened with walks, but that’s going to take years to sort out, just like everything else. There’s so much noise. All of these error bars overlap the previous park factors, so none of this, I have to imagine, is statistically significant.
But, there you have it. Safeco didn’t quite play neutral in 2013 — OPS in the park was .705, and .727 elsewhere — but it played more neutral, especially compared to the season before. Interestingly, this didn’t happen as would’ve been projected. Instead of increasing home runs, it left home runs the same and increased other hits, despite reduced in-play surface area. This is the opposite of what we would’ve thought, and compelling evidence of just why we’re going to need a multi-year sample. These results don’t quite make sense, and there’s no reason to believe Safeco isn’t going to increase homers going forward from last winter.
One other thing I did look at was ESPN Home Run Tracker data, going back to 2006. One of the things that’s measured, for each home run, is how many ballparks would’ve allowed that home run to be a home run under standard conditions (no wind, room temperature). The maximum value, of course, is 30. The minimum value is 0, in case the homer got help from the air in some way. Between 2006-2012, Safeco averaged 19 homers a year that would’ve left 15 or fewer ballparks. It averaged eight homers a year that would’ve left ten or fewer ballparks. Last season, there were 37 homers that would’ve left 15 or fewer ballparks, and 18 homers that would’ve left ten or fewer ballparks. So there’s some evidence of more hitter-friendly dinger conditions, and it goes along with our own memories of some homers, especially to left-center, that wouldn’t have been homers before. Ryan Divish has casually estimated that Safeco yielded ten extra homers this season, and that seems to be roughly in the ballpark. That’s not meant to be a play on words, but I don’t care enough to think of another expression.
So Safeco played differently in 2013, as expected, but it didn’t play differently as expected. More than anything else, that’s a demonstration of the noise that goes into single-season park factors. As for how Safeco feels, now? It probably still feels big, especially on cold nights, but hitters should no longer live in such fear. Don’t know if the new Safeco is going to mean brighter futures for the Mariners’ young position players, thanks to increased confidence, or decreased non-confidence. At worst, it ought to have no effect, so there’s no reason to be upset. With the park. Lots of reasons to be upset with the Mariners.
Something I neglected to mention earlier: anecdotally, it seemed like a long and dry and beautiful summer. Certainly, it was a better summer than the two previous summers in Seattle, and that would’ve had an effect both on the gameplay and on the attendance. There’s also the matter of what might have changed as a consequence of the new big giant videoboard, but that’s just going to be folded in with the rest of the ballpark adjustments. We don’t care so much about the individual components; we care about the overall park factors, of the park as a package, and as more and more time passes, we’ll get a better and better idea of what Safeco has turned into.
For now, we’re left with assumptions and approximations. We know that Safeco has changed its clothes, but we don’t quite know what it’s decided to wear. It’ll emerge from the dressing room slowly, over a matter of a handful of years. This has been one godawful metaphor.
Kendrys Morales And A Timeline
We’ve already heard that the Mariners intend to extend to Kendrys Morales a qualifying offer, worth a year and around $14 million. The idea is simple: the Mariners want Morales back, and it helps them to drive down his market. They want to try to sign Morales to a multi-year deal, and this will make other teams less likely to do that, and if Morales does sign elsewhere, the Mariners get a compensation pick. It’s highly questionable whether Morales really is a $14-million player, but just as important is how Morales sees himself, and indeed we have word:
Morales will turn down the qualifying offer, as he’d expect to hit it much bigger in a market flush with cash but bereft of power[…]
So the Mariners will offer Morales a year and ~$13.8 million, and Morales will reject it. The Mariners will no longer be held to that $13.8-million figure; if Morales doesn’t find what he wants in the market, the Mariners could conceivably re-sign him for less. I don’t love Kendrys Morales, because I don’t think he’s the upper-tier slugger the Mariners seem to consider him, but with all this in mind I want to show you a timeline. Courtesy of Rotoworld, here is Adam LaRoche’s 2012-2013 offseason:
November 2: Nationals extend $13.3-million qualifying offer
November 4: Nationals reportedly reluctant to offer LaRoche more than two years to re-sign
November 5: LaRoche, Nationals not close to deal
November 7: Red Sox, Rangers in LaRoche pursuit
November 9: LaRoche declines qualifying offer
November 29: “nothing hot” between LaRoche and Nationals
December 1: LaRoche, Nationals still at odds over contract length
December 3: Orioles in hard on LaRoche
December 3: Nationals say no developments in LaRoche talks
December 4: report that LaRoche would take two years from Nationals with vesting third year
December 6: said that no team will offer LaRoche more than two years
December 12: indications LaRoche will sign before Christmas
December 14: Nationals said to have not upped $25-million, 2-year offer
December 17: LaRoche talks with Nationals reach stalemate
December 17: LaRoche said to be willing to take free agency deep into winter
December 22: LaRoche, Nationals make progress
December 27: Red Sox reportedly after LaRoche
December 28: Nationals and LaRoche still disagree over contract length
January 8: Nationals re-sign LaRoche for two years, $24 million
Adam LaRoche wanted a big contract, and he was coming off a big season. The Nationals made a two-year offer, LaRoche didn’t like it, LaRoche explored the market, and eventually LaRoche took that same two-year offer. The Nationals did well to hold firm, and though they wound up with a bit of a roster crunch, they were able to unload Michael Morse for young talent, so that solved that. Teams liked LaRoche, surely, because there was no denying that he looked like a pretty good first baseman, but teams value draft picks highly. Maybe the highest they ever have. That did enough to LaRoche’s market to leave the Nationals with a lot of the leverage.
I don’t know how it’s going to play out with Morales, because Morales is younger than LaRoche and seems to have a better reputation. On the other hand, Morales’ contract season was worse, and he doesn’t look like he can be a regular first baseman. There’s the distinct possibility this qualifying offer is going to reduce Morales’ market to the point where it makes some sense for the Mariners to bring him back. And if another team out there is still willing to give him three years or big money, then the Mariners can back away and take the pick. Or, they should. They shouldn’t go to three years. They shouldn’t go to big money. Morales would project as a fairly minor inefficiency, but inefficiencies are inefficiencies and they’re matters of millions of dollars. There’s no need to splurge on a Kendrys Morales.
Out of this, there are three potential outcomes:
(1) Mariners keep Morales on reasonable deal
(2) Mariners keep Morales on unreasonable deal
(3) Mariners get a compensation pick
Two of those three outcomes are good. I like those odds!
Lincoln Speaks, Hope Disappears
Howard Lincoln talked to the media today. Ryan Divish did the yeoman’s work of transcribing the entire conversation, 44 minutes worth of talking on a wide variety of subjects. Other people are going to summarize the comments, or offer commentary on the comments, but Divish gives you the full context, the full question and answer session, and you should read the whole thing.
I’m going to keep my comments about his comments brief, because its 2:30 in the morning and I need to go to bed. Also, because I wanted the organization to have learned something from 2013. I hoped there’d be some soul searching, some wondering about what happened, and perhaps a questioning of whether their plan was flawed from the start. Instead, I saw this.
You’ve had a few days now to look back, what were your thoughts on the 2013 season?
This was the most disappointing and frustrating season I’ve ever endured without any question.
Worse than 2008?
Yeah, really. I don’t judge it just by wins and losses. And the reason I say that, at spring training our expectations were very high. And I think that was justified. You were there. This looked really good.
Still believes that spring training matters? Check.
If I go around the infield (Kyle) Seager, (Brad) Miller, (Nick) Franklin, (Justin) Smoak, (Mike) Zunino – I think that’s our future.
Justin Smoak, still part of the core of this team’s future? Check. (Also, Franklin mentioned but not Ackley, which you can probably read into.)
So I think I’m very optimistic about the future. I think there were some good things. For one thing, I just realized today that we hit more home runs than any other team in the league except Baltimore. That’s unbelievable. I actually had to check that statistic.
Still focused on home run totals? Check.
Certainly, the young talent is coming up or is already up. I’m very confident about the organization going forward. I think it’s regarded in major league baseball as a really good organization. And I think if you were to ask Bud Selig, he would tell you that. So that’s how I feel.
Still completely oblivious to the actual view of the organization within the game? Check. (Oh God, the Bud Selig comment. I can’t even…)
How do you sell this team to fans? If two fans were standing here right now and asked, ‘Why should we spend our money to go see your product?’ What do you tell them?
First I’d tell them that when you get to Safeco Field you are going to have a safe, friendly environment. You are going to be sitting in a first class ballpark. You are going to get great entertainment. It’s a great place to come whether it’s at the Pen or at Edgar’s or wherever. So there’s a lot of things going on at Safeco Field for the fans to enjoy besides watching major league baseball. And I would point that out to them. Many of our fans are thinking about things other than just what’s on the field, so we have to provide a really good entertainment experience across the board as well as getting that major league team to perform.
Still totally unaware of how patronizing this answer is to people who are actually fans of baseball and don’t just treat Safeco Field as a distracting place to show off their wealth? Check mate.
I’m going to go to bed now. I may or may not punch myself in the face on the way there.
Mariners Plan To Trap Kendrys Morales
An important principle is having an understanding of how a team’s success or failure can bias your evaluations. A certain player on a bad team is likely to look better than if he were on a good team, even given a completely identical performance, because good teams come with things like expectations and standards. Everything’s relative, including evaluations, and they’re relative to the context of the team. I had lots of conversations about Michael Saunders a year ago. I was really excited about his breakthrough, coming out of nowhere. Liked him as an everyday outfielder. The reality is that Saunders was and is fine, but he’s more Mariners-good than actually good. Kyle Seager is more Mariners-great than actually great. These guys are values, but they’d seem less valuable on a competitive ballclub.
Kendrys Morales, also, is more Mariners-good than actually good. He seems like a big-bat thumper in large part because of what else and who else we’ve experienced. On a good team, Morales isn’t critical, but the Mariners aren’t a good team, and so that’s kind of how we end up with this:
Jack Z says on @710ESPNSeattle that he’ll definitely make qualifying offer to DH Kendrys Morales this offseason.
— Greg Johns (@GregJohnsMLB) October 1, 2013
This has long been the suspicion — now it’s basically been confirmed. The Mariners will offer Morales a one-year deal worth something in the vicinity of $14 million. They’ll also, I bet, try to negotiate a multi-year deal around a similar average annual value. Morales might not be super jazzed about coming back, but the qualifying offer could do a number on his market value, since he’s a DH with an unspectacular track record. He might well end up trapped by the Mariners, and even if he does get away, then the Mariners will get a little compensation. Not so bad, for Seattle.
Except for the ~$14 million part. As a DH who can’t run, Morales needs to hit great to be good, and he hits a level below great, leaving him a level below good. By hitting well, he’s okay, fine even, and the economics of the game are healthy with salaries going through the roof, but Morales is a $14-million player around his career peak, and he hasn’t been there for a long time. He just had an offensive year like Seager’s. We like Seager. Now take away Seager’s defense, and make him less athletic. Also make him years older. You’re left with a role player with a weirdly-shaped head. Morales isn’t the guy the Mariners want him to be.
But he is, at least, acceptable. He’s a demonstrably above-average hitter, and I’m not worried about him collapsing in 2014. The front office would advance the argument that he makes the rest of the hitters better, and, maybe. They’d say it can be hard to find quality bats who want to come to Seattle, and, maybe. They’d say Morales gives the Mariners more credibility, and, maybe. We know the team has a lot of money coming off the books, and even if the Mariners end up overpaying Morales next season, they’ll overpay by just a few million, and they have lots of flexibility. That’s part of the thing — Morales isn’t a $14-million player, but he’s also not a $0-million player. We’re talking about relatively minor inefficiency.
But there’s the matter of a potential long-term contract. That would be an issue beyond 2014, when things look more cloudy. Also, there’s the matter of what this could signify, with regard to the front office’s thinking. I imagine they could spend $14 million better this winter, and to make a commitment to Morales suggests they’re still big on bats and big on dingers and worried about not scoring enough instead of not outscoring enough. I’ll give them time to reveal their plan, but Morales isn’t a star, and I’m not encouraged by a group of executives that thinks that he might be. It’s like if someone at your table can’t calculate a simple tip. In isolation, it doesn’t really matter, but it makes you wonder about what else the person can’t do.
I liked the trade for Morales. I like Morales, as a player. I like that he learned how to improve his switch-hitting, and I like that he doesn’t use gloves. I like that he came back from a devastating injury. I don’t like when the money gets steep. I don’t like when money makes me feel negative about a guy I support. There’s no franchise-ruiner here, but you get the sense the Mariners are about to overpay a DH, and that makes you wonder how else they’ll maneuver. Like it or lump it, the future is coming, and with it some answers.
The Hisashi Iwakuma Cy Young Argument
As advanced stats go, I’m not sure how much nerdier it gets than xFIP-. The number, at least, takes some real-life inputs, but then it makes a bunch of hypothetical adjustments. It attempts to adjust for defense. It attempts to adjust for sequencing. It attempts to adjust for fly balls and home runs. It attempts to adjust for ballpark. The stat is valuable, in that it correlates well with future performance. Good pitchers tend to post good xFIP-, and among starters this year, no one posted a better xFIP- than Felix Hernandez. That’s really great, and we should be happy about that, but good luck using that to convince many people of anything. It’s too far removed from the game that people watch on the field.
I’m not above trying to use xFIP- to support a Cy Young argument. Especially if there’s a Mariner in the running, since it’s not like the Mariners can win anything else. But today I can make a cause for a Mariner using something much simpler, much more easily understood. There is a case to be made that Hisashi Iwakuma should win the 2013 American League Cy Young.
Boil everything down. What’s the job of a pitcher? A pitcher is supposed to prevent runs from scoring, for as long as he can. There will be runs, eventually, but there can be fewer of them. Pitchers are just trying to keep batters from advancing four bases. One base, two bases, three bases? Dangerous, but manageable. Those bases don’t hurt. The goal is to keep people from going those last 90 feet.
This season, Hisashi Iwakuma allowed 2.83 runs — earned and unearned — per nine innings. That’s an extraordinary mark. In the AL, it’s better than everyone but Anibal Sanchez, and though Sanchez edged Iwakuma by six hundredths of a point of RA/9, Iwakuma also threw nearly 40 more innings, since Sanchez had a DL stint. Voters love innings, and innings that go to good starters are innings that don’t go to other guys, who are worse. Iwakuma beats Sanchez in playing time, and he beats everyone else in straight-up runs allowed.
Make little adjustments if you want to. That’s entirely fair. Yeah, Iwakuma pitched half the time in what’s still, presumably, a pitcher-friendly environment. But how pitcher-friendly is an environment with faraway walls but the Mariners’ defense? The Mariners had one of the worse team defenses in recent baseball history, and it’s not like Iwakuma was given a special exception. The park and the defense might balance out. Yu Darvish pitched in a hitter-friendly park, but with a good defense. Max Scherzer pitched in a pitcher-friendly park, and though his defense was also not good, it was better than the Mariners’ defense. Bartolo Colon was in a relatively friendly situation. Chris Sale allowed lots more runs than Iwakuma did, and his defense, too, didn’t compare with the one in Seattle.
Where Iwakuma stood out was with runners on base. He was fine with runners not on base, but here’s an AL leaderboard, showing wOBA allowed with men on:
- Hisashi Iwakuma, .248
- Felix Hernandez, .266
- Hiroki Kuroda, .275
- Max Scherzer, .277
- Ivan Nova, .277
Iwakuma blew away the rest of the field, preventing damage in more damaging situations. Of his 25 home runs allowed, all but six were solo shots. This is how Iwakuma managed to allow so few runs, and you’ll notice that .230 BABIP with runners on base. This gets to the core of a common conversation.
What we care about, usually, is seeing what’s coming. That’s where we care most about strikeouts and walks and dingers and whatnot. It’s trickier to evaluate the past, because we don’t actually know how to divvy up credit. Countless hitters have said they can’t get good, reliable swings against Iwakuma, and this year he depressed his rate of hits given up. In particular, he didn’t budge when budging would’ve meant runs. It hasn’t been shown that pitchers can sustainably reduce hits on balls in play and pitch extra well in the big situations, but what if it happened over a few months? Iwakuma was trying to get those outs. He threw the pitches that got those outs. How can he not be given some credit? How can he not be given a lot of credit? We don’t care about sustainability looking backwards. Next year, Raul Ibanez won’t hit 29 home runs. This year, he most definitely did hit 29 home runs.
By innings and runs allowed, Hisashi Iwakuma was the top pitcher in the American League this season. If you pay more attention to the peripherals, he wasn’t. But if you pay attention to sequencing and quality of contact, he probably was. And to get a little more hardcore, Iwakuma’s average opponent had a .749 OPS. Scherzer’s average opponent had a .730 OPS. All the other candidates have figures lower than Iwakuma’s. Despite his friendly ballpark, he faced tough hitters before a lousy defense. This can’t be outright ignored.
I don’t mean to convey that I believe this argument. It’s not necessarily my argument — I still haven’t decided. I might never decide, and thankfully, I don’t have a decisive vote. I’m fully aware that I’m more receptive to the runs-based argument because the pitcher in question pitched for the Mariners. But that bias can open you up to different ideas, and Iwakuma was arguably the best at doing his job. Make some adjustments, and maybe he was still the best. How did Iwakuma limit hits, in front of mediocre gloves? Did the gloves perform unusually well, or did Iwakuma actually generate inferior contact? If the latter, isn’t that important? Isn’t that the most important?
I don’t know if I support Hisashi Iwakuma for this year’s Cy Young. I know that he’s not going to win it. But there is a case to be made, and as primitive as it might sound, it’s not that primitive, really. We know when runs do and don’t score. Runs didn’t score much, against Hisashi Iwakuma. That’s an important thing.
Uncertain Embarrassment
I knew, immediately, it was all embarrassing for the organization. There are, at any one time, 30 managers in Major League Baseball. Many of them are safe, not at all fearing for their job. It’s a tough gig to land, not unlike being a major-league broadcaster, and so when you have one of those positions, it seems like it would take an awful lot to be compelled to give it up. Eric Wedge was managing the Mariners, and because of his experience, he removed himself from the running for managing this team in a year. He probably wasn’t going to get the chance anyway, but Wedge went out because he wanted to. The Mariners, essentially, were rejected by their own manager, a manager who had so confidently bought in. There’s no way for that to not make the organization look bad, and now this is all people want to talk about. Wedge quit the Mariners, they say. It’s just the latest turbo boost as the Mariners rocket toward irrelevance.
I know this is embarrassing. What I can’t figure out, though, is how embarrassed to feel. So the Mariners and Eric Wedge didn’t see eye-to-eye. What reason is there to believe Wedge had the right ideas? What more have we really learned about how the Mariners are run?
It seems like maybe there were failures of communication. Yeah, that’s kind of a part of this team. It seems like there are some accountability issues up top. Yeah, same. Maybe the Mariners don’t come off committed enough to trying to succeed. People have been saying this for years. Where did Wedge and the Mariners disagree, beyond just the Mariners’ confidence in Wedge himself?
Obviously, Wedge and the front office would’ve shared in the goal of seeing the Mariners get good. Differences must’ve been in how to get there, and to be honest, as much as I’m skeptical about the front office, it’s not like Wedge is a roster-management mastermind. His job isn’t to build a team — his job is to manage a team, and we can’t speak to the respective plans without knowing what they are. Wedge talked about committing to development, implying the Mariners might’ve been wavering, but he also alluded to a need to spend more, implying the Mariners might’ve wanted to stick with youth. I don’t know, and I suspect we won’t know. We don’t know where they disagreed — we just have an idea the Mariners aren’t losing a brilliant strategist.
As for the Mariners not committing to Wedge, well, what has he done? He most certainly hasn’t been the problem, but the team hasn’t gotten better. Wedge managed for three seasons, and it’s not like this roster feels like it’s on the verge of something special. Maybe, a year ago, Wedge wanted a longer commitment, and the Mariners were reluctant to make it, and maybe it would be better to have Wedge still around, but just as Wedge wasn’t the biggest issue, is the manager going to be the Mariners’ biggest solution? Ultimately, it’s the players who play the game. They get instruction from coaches, teammates, opponents, and experience, and it’s up to the players to make themselves better.
Wedge talked about the need for personnel continuity, consistency. Said it was extra important for a developing team like these Mariners. The Indians switched managers and now they’re a wild-card team. The A’s took off not under Bob Geren, but under Bob Melvin. Wedge has a vested interest in asserting that consistency is important. Consistency means a kept job. What he actually needs, now, is inconsistency somewhere else, so he can get a job there. Because, you know, Eric Wedge is a free agent.
Wedge was all-in with these Mariners, and you could genuinely see it in his eyes, and now he’s lost faith in the organization. He did what he could to leave on his own terms, not quite quitting, but conveying the idea. That doesn’t look good, and we all have reason to believe the Mariners are headed in the wrong direction. But then, that doesn’t mean Wedge was right, and it doesn’t mean the Mariners are worse off without him, and it doesn’t mean the Mariners are any further from success. I don’t know what Wedge envisioned, and I don’t know what the Mariners envision, but I don’t want either building a roster. Endy Chavez just batted 279 times. Wedge went out like a man, but he very well might not have been the man for the Mariners. He didn’t quite seem like the man for the Indians, although there at least he had success, and again, a manager can get only so much blame.
The Mariners might have a hard time finding their next manager, given the situation with their next manager’s boss. What the Mariners need more than a good manager are good baseball players, and that’s going to drive everything. Talent means wins and fans and success and respect and appeal, and everything would be helped rather considerably if the Mariners just stopped being bad. I suspect Wedge would’ve had relatively little to do with that. I think Wedge now has some personal issues with Zduriencik and Armstrong and Lincoln, but we all already did. So. I think we were kind of already embarrassed, and losing Wedge seems a hell of a lot better than overspending on Josh Hamilton.
After 2011, the Orioles had a hell of a time trying to find a general manager. Nobody wanted the job. They gave it to Dan Duquette, who wasn’t even involved in the game beforehand. It seemed like it must’ve been humiliating. Last year, the Orioles won 93 games, and this year they were involved in the race until the final one or two weeks. They seem to be in pretty good shape, and no one thinks of them as being a laughingstock anymore, at least. People don’t laugh at the Pirates, either. Maybe soon the Royals won’t be a joke.
And maybe soon, the Mariners won’t be, either. I know I’m supposed to be embarrassed by what’s happened, and I think I am, a little bit, but I have a stronger sensation of how I’m supposed to feel than with my actual feelings. Just how black is this black eye?