Notes on a Lost Decade
To be clear from the start: there was no way this decade wouldn’t seem like a let-down after the highs of the 2000s. The Seattle Mariners have felt like afterthoughts in the game for most of their existence, but for a little while there, they were among the dominant franchises in the game. It didn’t/couldn’t last, and the slide from the upper echelons back to mediocrity doesn’t hurt any less for those who loved the team when they were losers. It’s banal and obvious that the sheer length of the M’s futility starts to eat at one’s fan experience. You can only watch the same movie so many times, especially when the movie isn’t that exciting. Ultimately, though, the 2010s were defined by failed promise. We saw tantalizing signs of development, we followed tons of prospects who had near-universal acclaim, and the result was a .468 winning percentage and no playoff appearances.
I’m not sure if it’s a good or a bad sign that the MVP of the decade is so blindingly obvious. Felix was the most fun player to cheer for the team’s had, at least since Ken Griffey’s Jr. first go-round. The decade opened with Felix at the top of his powers, winning the first of what felt like 5-7 Cy Youngs in 2010. More important, though, was his stature as the team’s building block, the singular talent who had both youth and experience that the M’s could structure their rebuild around. By mid-2010, the Mariners had a top-10 prospect in all of baseball in Justin Smoak, and one of the most heralded college hitters in a generation, Dustin Ackley. Ackley was MLB’s #15 prospect in 2010, but headed into 2011 ranked #5, just behind guys named Trout and Harper. Jesus Montero ranked #9, and the M’s would add him before the 2012 season. The M’s had another pair of prospects in the top 20 in 2012, with Danny Hultzen and Taijuan Walker, and Walker cracked the top 5 the following year. You all know what happened.
As great as Felix was, and as much as he towers over the Mariners 2010s, he can’t be the story. He was great, and the M’s were bad – we need to figure out *why* and we won’t find that out by examining the great ones, just like you can’t scrutinize Mike Trout to figure out why the Angels haven’t won a playoff game in years, either. Instead, to tell a disappointing story, we need to go where the disappointment is. The story of the M’s decade is the story of Dustin Ackley. You could pick several players for this dubious honor, from Smoak to Franklin Gutierrez to Montero (whose fight with a scout armed with an ice cream sandwich supplied the jet-black comedic moment of the decade, a bizarre and deeply sad moment in which the failures of the M’s player development group poured out their frustration with players in public). The M’s had Felix, and they had a guy in the high minors rated right around where people had Mike Trout and Bryce Harper.
Ackley debuted at 23 after a dominant half-season in Tacoma. He always looked slightly off in my viewings, but he was hitting for average, drawing walks, and putting up solid gap-power numbers – things that had eluded him the year before in AA. Brian Cartwright’s pre-call-up forecast looked downright alarmist and pessimistic at the time, but Ackley essentially exceeded them in half a season with the M’s. His SLG% was a bit low, but it was more than made up for with surprisingly good defense – a bonus that bumped his production to 3 fWAR in just half a year. At this rate, even if the power never showed up, he’d be a tremendously valuable player at the keystone for a decade. But his first full season was a disaster: a slash line of .226/.294/.328 that not even great defense could overcome. I don’t know how much influence that season had in the M’s decision to move the fences in at the end of 2012, but I bet it played a pretty big part. Of course, it wasn’t just Ackley – Justin Smoak swooned in 2012, too, and Jesus Montero had a sub .300 OBP at DH. Something was going very wrong with how these should-be superstars were developing in the big leagues.
The M’s knew how critical Ackley was to their plans, so they figured the only solution to poor coaching and development was a whole lot more coaching and development. Ackley showed up in Peoria for spring training in 2013 with a bizarre new swing, and then scrapped it a few weeks into the regular season – which he started 3 for 30. Despite his solid defense, the M’s decided to move him to the outfield to accommodate prospect Nick Franklin, sticking him in CF for a good chunk of 2013, and then to LF in 2014. After coming so close in 2014, the M’s had an abysmal 2015, and shipped Ackley to the Yankees for Ramon Flores and Jose Ramirez. Ackley slugged .654 in limited duty in 2015 with the Yanks that year, then was sent down after an awful start to 2016. He hasn’t made it back since.
Ackley was always supposed to hit for a higher average than his career .241 mark, but his .367 SLG% was also a big strike against him. But there’s an asterisk there: Ackley played for Seattle from 2011 to the first half of 2015, a period wholly encompassed by the little batting ice age, where a different ball mixed with reliever usage and the inexorable rise of strikeouts to suppress offense league-wide. It was even worse in Seattle from 2010-2012, as fly balls died in left field. Given those disadvantages, it’s not a shock that he accumulated 3 fWAR in half a year in 2011 despite a so-so SLG%. It may be why guys like Smoak and Ackley floundered for a bit, and why they sought so many changes and different ideas on how to “fix” their swings, when all they needed to do was play with a different baseball. Smoak actually got that chance, and became an intermittently solid starter. I wish Ackley got more than a handful of games in baseball’s new normal.
But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? The M’s always seemed a year or two behind whatever baseball was doing. They built a team around a staff and OF that would allow fly ball contact, and watched the all-time HR record get shattered as more fly balls turned into HRs than ever before (at least until 2019 came along). They built an offense around avoiding strikeouts and hitting singles as their rivals built teams that avoided strikeouts while hitting dingers. They looked for pitchers who pitched to contact as their rivals built formidable staffs of strikeout-throwing, high-velo guys they’d developed or tweaked. None of it’s worked, at least not well enough or long enough to make a sustained run at the postseason. 2020 looks like another rebuilding year, and we’ve seen an awful lot of those recently.
It’s true that there are glimmers of hope on the horizon, but the same was true in 2010. The only thing that will change the outcome is if the M’s aren’t just good, but better than other teams at turning prospects into really good MLB contributors. This is essentially the same conclusion to every post of mine for the past few years, and I really want to thank those of you who’ve hung around listening to me repeat myself while going slightly crazy. The failure of either the Ackley/Smoak/Montero troika or the Walker/Paxton/Hultzen three-headed-monster to lift the M’s was the defining story of the decade. It was a failure that spanned multiple front offices, even as both touted the ways they were revolutionizing development. There were enough success stories (Kyle Seager!) that you couldn’t chalk it up to total incompetence. Whatever it is, it seems deeper, more insidious than a few bad coaches. It’s gotten to the point where it’s almost a defining trait, as depressing as that sounds. I sincerely hope they can get it turned around, if only because it’d make 2020 a much different experience for M’s fans. It would put meaningful baseball back in play for 2022 or so, and it would end this pervasive ennui that at least I feel towards the team I support. I’m ready for that.
There have been real, honest, joyful moments this decade. Felix’s perfecto, of course, but some of the highlights in their chase in 2014, or Taijuan Walker’s debut in Houston, or Paxton’s first great game against Kansas City. The weird team no-hitter, or Hisashi Iwakuma’s brilliant no-no after the team decided against trading him. There’ve been reasons to watch, but the sum total is still kind of dispiriting. A few years ago, I mused that it must be almost impossible to be an A’s fan, with the team trading away any budding superstars and seemingly trying to hang out near .500. Since then, the A’s have two 97-win seasons, and have developed some superstars. I’m going to refrain from any further “at least we’re not like X fans!” takes for the foreseeable future.
M’s Take Astros RHP in Rule 5 Draft
The Rule 5 draft kicked off this morning in San Diego, with the M’s telegraphing their move early. Last night, Greg Johns and others reported that the M’s had their sights set on two pitchers, and if they were off the board by the time the M’s picked at #6, they wouldn’t pick anyone. Apparently, at least one of them was still around, as the M’s selected righty Yohan Ramirez, who’d been in the Astros org.
Ramirez is your classic live arm with poor control. He’d opened some eyes in 2018, touching the high-90s with his fastball, and getting the occasional mention for his curve and change-up (he’s also worked on a slider). That *should* be good enough to carve up the low minors, and it mostly was, even as he had to work around a concerning walk rate. Those walks hurt him more when he’d get bumped up a level, but to his credit, even after struggling at a level, he’d often solve it the following season.
This year was fascinating: both his strengths and weaknesses were cranked all the way up, as he racked up an impressive 158 strikeouts in 106 innings (a career high). But he also walked 74, including 52 in 62 1/3 IP in AA. This is the classic case of a team betting on their coaches to “fix” a power pitcher who struggles throwing strikes. As a rebuilding team, the M’s could conceivably take their time with Ramirez, using him in mop-up duty this year and continuing to work on his mechanics for the future. But just because they *could* doesn’t necessarily mean they should. The M’s need to figure out what Ramirez’s ceiling might realistically be, and if the progress isn’t there, to move along. Ramirez will turn 25 early next year, so he’s not an Elvis Luciano from last year (picked by Toronto at age 19) or some of the former international free agent prospects available in today’s draft at 20-21. You can’t fault the M’s for shooting their shot, though. Here’s a guy who put up ridiculous strikeout numbers working both from the rotation and bullpen, and who has at least the makings of a starter’s arsenal with 3-4 pitches.
The M’s had the room, and bet on upside. They’re focused, as you tend to be in the Rule 5 draft, on what Ramirez does well and not his easy-to-spot flaws. That’s what player development should be about, and without mucking up a perfectly optimistic post with criticism, it’s the opposite of what we saw in the hasty trade of Omar Narvaez. I believe that Narvaez’s defensive struggles could impact pitchers, and I also believe the M’s when they say that Tom Murphy should be the starter. But that entire situation was borne of the M’s laser-focus on Narvaez’s flaws, and letting those drive their overall valuation of him down. It’s possible, even likely, that Ramirez doesn’t throw a pitch for the M’s, but I hope they’re able to rein in his “high effort” delivery and help him find the plate. I hope they’re able to get the most out of the many flawed players on the roster, because it’s going to be a long year, and some real, meaningful, hope would be nice.
M’s Rid Themselves of League Average MLB Player
The fact that Omar Narvaez was traded today is perhaps not the biggest surprise of the off-season. With the emergence of Tom Murphy, with Cal Raleigh on his way, and with Austin Nola hitting better than expected, the M’s had signaled that Omar Narvaez was available if a deal could be struck. Today, the M’s consummated a deal with the Milwaukee Brewers, sending Narvaez east in exchange for a low-level sort-of-prospect and a competitive balance pick in next year’s draft, likely around pick 71 or so. I find this troubling, but many in M’s land seem pretty chuffed about it, and I thought I’d try to lay out where I’m coming from , because reading the reaction to the deal, I feel I may be sort of crazy. You perhaps have known about my infirmities for a while, but allow me to make my case.
Here goes: the M’s say they’re trying to compete in 2021, and today they shipped out a catcher who hit .278/.353/.460 last year and everyone who likes the deal is raving not about the actual ballplayer they got back, but about the 70-odd pick in next year’s draft. That seems crazy. The huge, unmissable caveat here is that Narvaez’s defense laid waste to so much of that offensive and positional value. That’s absolutely true, and we should account for it, as WAR does. Fangraphs had him as just under 2 WAR in a bit less than full-time duty. At BaseballProspectus, he was slightly over 2, but both absolutely hated his defense – BP just liked the bat a bit more. I want to stress: both sites thought he was abysmal defensively, and that is *included* in his 2-ish WAR numbers, which were similar to his numbers in 2018, his final year with the White Sox (adjusted for playing time). How would you value a roughly averagish, maybe lower, maybe higher depending on your view on how teachable C defense is?
I think reasonable people – and reasonable teams – can differ on that question. But I’ve been absolutely floored to see M’s fans thinking that a 70-ish draft pick is decent compensation for an above-average MLB hitter and average-ish ballplayer all around. What are the odds that the #70 draft pick, or a team’s 15th or 12th or 18th or whatever rated prospects becomes a league-average MLB player? The answer is substantially lower than 1/2, probably less than 1/4, right? But beyond that, the M’s, as opposed to other teams, have clearly set their sites on contention in 2021. So, to be blunt, how on earth does trading away a productive major league player right now, today, in exchange for a draft pick in the 2020 draft help further that goal?
Corey Brock at the Athletic has an answer: it’s addition by subtraction. To be very clear here, I love Corey’s work and remember following him way back from his News Tribune days. I don’t dislike his article, I just dislike the reasoning the M’s are evidently giving for it. There are a couple of related points Brock works through, but I encourage you to read it in full ($). First, the M’s evidently prioritize defense at the catcher spot. Second, the M’s need for defense has never been more pressing with the wave of young pitching prospects coming to Seattle.
On the first claim, let’s remember that we’re a bit under 13 months from the M’s willingly trading Mike Zunino for Mallex Smith, and then trading Alex Colome for Narvaez. The M’s had great defense and some question-marks on offense, and decided to fling the ol’ pendulum all the way over to “fuck it” and picked up a catcher who was an outright bad defender, but seemed to break out at the plate. Now, we’re told that the organization’s focus is on catcher defense? If the org really values stealing strikes, they…they had that, and a bit over a year ago decided they wanted its opposite. I don’t completely hate the reasoning here, but I have to point out that what “the organization values from its catchers” seems kinda variable.
The second claim – that the prospects coming up need help from favorable catchers – seems reasonable as well. I would point out that the presence of Narvaez didn’t stop the M’s from bringing up Justus Sheffield, Justin Dunn, and a cavalcade of RP prospects, waiver-claims, and anyone else the M’s could find. If Narvaez can’t be on the same field as an M’s pitching prospect, this seems to be a new-found conviction. It’s clearly felt, though – as Brock writes in that Athletic piece: “Seattle couldn’t take the chance on keeping Narváez, not because some feel his bat will regress moving forward, but because of a real fear he couldn’t help — but could actually hinder — the development of these young pitchers who have arrived or will arrive soon in the big leagues.”
Everything about this deal lines up with that statement. The M’s made up their mind that they were going to trade Narvaez because his framing cooties could actually hurt the M’s pitching prospects. This is not an encouraging statement about either the pitchers’ resilience or the coaching at either the C or P position, but let’s look past that. The argument is that the M’s will be better for having Tom Murphy as the everyday catcher. For what it’s worth, I agree with that. The problem is that the M’s don’t seem to have thought about what to do as a result. Right now, their DH is Dan Vogelbach, a talented hitter coming off an awful second half. He’s projected to outhit Narvaez next year, but Narvaez’s has two straight years of about a 120 wRC+, and Vogelbach hasn’t reached that plateau yet. Even if you were determined not to let Narvaez catch a minority of 2020 or 2021 games, he could *still* have MLB value that a 2020 draft pick will not. I completely understand shopping Narvaez, but if no one offers a reasonable return, you just hang on to him. The M’s seemed bound and determined to move Narvaez, even if the return was a box of baseballs. This is curious.
What we know for sure is that the M’s had one of the most productive catching duos in the league. Their production from the C spot ranked 4th in the majors last year, and again, that includes the massive debits that Narvaez’s catching accrued. The bulk of the positives came from Murphy, it’s true, and he figures to provide more of them going forward (though his profile is frought with risk, just as Zunino’s was, and MUCH more offensive risk than Narvaez’s). We know for sure that Narvaez has 2+ years of service and three more years of club control. What we know for sure is that Narvaez won’t be paid the league minimum anymore. I’d gone into my view of the trade thinking that it hinged on an outsize view of the impact his defense makes. Again, multiple credible views of the impact of his defense are *already* baked into his value. No one is ignoring it, though we can quibble with how it’s actually calculated. My worry now is that all of this is a fig leaf for the fact that Narvaez has 3 years of MLB service time, and Murphy just 2 (and Nola less than 1). We’ve seen for a few years now that bat-first, corner IFs seem absurdly undervalued, with CJ Cron freely available for the second straight year after hitting 30 and 25 HRs in consecutive seasons. Cron’s not really a prospect now, and was paid just $4.9 M for his contributions to the playoff team in Minnesota. Given his patience, I think Narvaez is a decent bet to outhit Cron next year, just as he did in 2019. And no one seems to want either one.
Ultimately, it may be true that the M’s traded Narvaez for the absolute best package on offer. I still find that really sad, not just because Narvaez will be far more useful for a team trying to win in the near-medium term than the return here (a low-level Brewere RHP named Adam Hill, who’s likely a reliever, and had control issues this year plus the vaunted draft pick). Rather, because if this is the best deal on offer, then the distortions in baseball’s economy have been laid bare: if you’d rather get a draft pick than pay a bat-first catcher a few million in his *first* season in arbitration, then that work stoppage people talk about in 2021 is all but a certainty. We’ve been hearing for a while about the problems in the middle-tier of free agency, or perhaps the tier below that. I’ve written a bit about how the league and players have agreed to further suppress pre-arb salaries in the hope that the savings would be spent on non-star free agents. But if teams aren’t willing to spend it on the already-suppressed arbitration-eligible players, and we’ve seen a ton of interesting players non-tendered this year, then the game’s up. That money isn’t going to arb players OR to low-level free agents. The Zach Wheelers of the world (like the Patrick Corbins and Bryce Harpers) are fine – the problem is that arb eligible, contributing players have a value equivalent to that of a random, low-level flyer, or a literally unknown future draft pick. That simply does not map to actual, on-field, in-the-majors baseball value, and the further these player valuations get from on-field value, the higher the risk of a work-stoppage gets.