Cactus League Game 3: Angels at Mariners
Chris Flexen vs. Reid Detmers, 1:10pm
With Kris Bryant off the board, many M’s fans waited on news of Trevor Story, one of the last big free agents available, and someone who’d been linked with the M’s off and on since the pre-lockout days of the offseason. While earlier he’d insisted on playing SS, that stance had weakened, and he signaled he’d be willing to move off of SS if the right situation opened up. Last night, it did, and Story signed a contract to play 2B for Boston, giving the Red Sox one of the best infields in baseball, with the possible exception of division-mates, Toronto. The same day, Minnesota came from nowhere to sign Carlos Correa to a three-year deal with opt-outs, hoping he can stay healthy and test the market again before he’s 30.
To some in the fanbase, and presumably in the front office, these two moves brought a measure of relief: Correa seemed destined for a reunion with Houston, and getting him out of the AL West seems nice. The same could be said of Story, who would fit perfectly on an Angels team attempting to compete with David Fletcher as the starting SS. But the reality of the new 12-team playoffs is that divisions matter less and less (a point not lost on traditionalists and those who want the regular season to have more, not less, meaning) and you’re competing across the league with teams in every division. Nowhere is this more true than Seattle, who still has to contend with an Astros club who’s more talented at most position. That doesn’t mean they’re a longshot for the playoffs, but it means that they have to keep an eye on teams near them from a talent or projection point of view. And thus, while Story/Correa avoided the AL West, they landed right on teams who seem to be competing with the M’s for the final playoff spots: Boston and Minnesota.
Right now, there is a core group of teams that are pretty clearly a step ahead of Seattle in true talent: Toronto, Chicago, Houston, and New York. I think you could potentially put the Rays in that group as well, but their brutal divisional schedule may make it harder for them to repeat the success they’ve had in recent years. Below them is a large group of .500-to-a-bit-better clubs, from Boston, to Minnesota, LA, and Seattle. If things break right, the Tigers could join them, but they seem more like a year or two away. All of these teams have strengths and weaknesses, and these four are realistically competing for the final two wildcard spots. Minnesota, coming off a disappointing year, has been among the league’s most active clubs in trade and now in free agency. Boston held back for most of the offseason, but struck for a huge free agency coup in acquiring Story. The Angels have been quieter, but in getting Noah Syndergaard and Michael Lorenzen to help their rotation, they could be significantly better than last year. And of course, the Angels already made their big FA push last year when they picked up Anthony Rendon, who missed most of 2021 through injury. I’m not saying Seattle’s been asleep at the switch; the trade for Jesse Winker is huge, and it gives them some room for error on offense – something they haven’t had in years.*
Grant Brondson had a good twitter string this morning summing up Jerry Dipoto’s use of free agency (or lack thereof). Outside of a series of bargain-hunting relief moves, and two lower-risk pick-ups from Asia in Yusei Kikuchi and Chris Flexen, it’s not a path that’s interested the M’s. There is clearly higher risk when outlays crest $100 million, but even this is overstated. We were told that Robbie Cano’s contract made him unmoveable, or tied the M’s hands, only to see clearly that he wasn’t, and didn’t. Free agency *can* reduce flexibility, but it’s worth asking what that flexibility is *for.* Is it, you know, better to cycle through a series of in-house and waiver-wire options at a position rather than to commit to someone with established value? Did those “low-risk” reliever deals actually improve much? It’s one thing to consider risk and reward in a vacuum. It’s one thing to rely on your own projections from your vaunted prospect core. But what the past 24 hours tell us is you can’t simply ignore it. Other teams will make other calculations on risk/reward, and at the end of the day, *they will have better teams than you.* You can chuckle to yourself that it could all go wrong, or that they may not like the back end of these 5-6 year deals, but on the other hand, you’re at or past your self-identified contention window, and now your pitchers have to face a Sox line-up that goes Bogaerts/Story/Devers/Martinez or a Twins line-up that starts Buxton/Polanco/Urshela/Correa.
I’d hoped the M’s could land Seiya Suzuki to bolster their OF, but I suppose it’s sort of nice he landed in the NL with the Cubs. But it’s meant that the M’s went 0-for-free agency, and they’ll run with the guys they’ve got. Promises to add more in-season are fine, but can’t help if the other teams run away and hide. The expanded playoffs mean it’ll be harder for the M’s to be well and truly out of things, but I can see Dipoto arguing in July that mortgaging the future for a big add at the deadline would be irresponsible. That’ll be fun. So what you see is, for now, what you get with this club. By the projections, one of the M’s best hitters is Julio Rodriguez, and he’s looked the part thus far. One easy way to improve the M’s team projection (which could use some improving) is to give Julio more playing time. Let’s show baseball that service time manipulation is sooo early 21st century.
Today, the M’s face the Angels and lefty Reid Detmers, an absolutely critical part of the Angels playoff chances. The club hasn’t exactly struggled to develop pitchers as much as it’s struggled to *keep* them developed. They’ve seen a string of prospects and youngsters flash a half-season or more of solid performance only to collapse. They need solid starters behind Ohtani, and while Syndergaard is absurdly talented, he’s been off the field far too long to really count on. Detmers tore through the minors last year, but had a rude introduction to MLB, giving up both too many walks and HRs. He relies on a low-mid-90s fastball that he keeps at the top of the zone, and then his bread-and-butter whiff pitch, a hard slider at 85. He mixes in a slow curve and change-up, too. Pitching up helped improve the whiff rate on his fastball, but it made him an extreme fly-ball pitcher, and that’s just tough to do in today’s game. Still, this is a guy who rocketed through the minors in a half-year after being drafted in 2020. There’s talent here to be a good #3, but he’s got a ways to go to find that level.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Winker, LF
3: France, 1B
4: Haniger, RF
5: Frazier, 2B
6: Suarez, 3B
7: Kelenic, CF
8: Murphy, C
9: Raleigh, DH
SP: Flexen.
* By this I mean that Eugenio Suarez could bounce back and grab the starting 3B job and be a major contributor even if he never recaptures his peak form, OR he could continue his slide, either contributing the odd dinger with a low OBP (which, remember, was pretty much what Kyle Seager’s final year looked like) and open the door for Abraham Toro. Trading salary help for Winker works just fine even if Suarez is bad, but Suarez is not at all guaranteed to be bad.
Comments
2 Responses to “Cactus League Game 3: Angels at Mariners”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Maybe it’s time to call a spade a spade: this team would rather risk missing the playoffs than risk missing a profit margin? Hard to take a well below average payroll (increased, but in a year where MLB gets more $$$) any other way.
I agree that it would have been nice to get a big FA bat but I don’t understand how you could possibly say they “went 0-for-free agency” when they signed the literal reigning AL Cy Young winner.