Game 4, Mariners at Astros
Kendall Graveman vs. Joshua James, 4:10pm
The M’s got their first win yesterday, coming back against the Astros after a poor start from Yusei Kikuchi. Taylor Williams, Washington native, got the save with the tying run on 2nd. Today’s game is a great match-up between Kendall Graveman, who seemed to be on the upswing before suffering a UCL tear and missing two years, and Josh James, the one-time phenom who had a rough season out of the Houston bullpen. Will Graveman flourish with Seattle? Will James take a step forward and secure a rotation spot with his power arsenal?
I don’t know, and the news out of baseball has been so ugly that it’s harder to care. Nearly half of the Marlins tested positive for COVID-19, necessitating two games being canceled today. This came a day after Justin Verlander’s elbow injury knocked him out for the season. We haven’t made it a week, and MLB’s viability is kind of teetering and we’ve lost at least one star player. Fun.
1: Long, 2B
2: Crawford, SS
3: Seaver, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: White, 1B
6: Marmolejos, DH
7: Nola, C
8: Lopes, RF
9: Gordon, LF
SP: Graveman
Marc must have Mets’ pitching on his mind. Nothing wrong with that, though.
Hell of a start for Graveman. Altuve’s reaction said it all.
White’s first MLB hit had to be earned with his legs.
His first home run looked easy and left no doubts from the point of contact.
Yay Evan! … belatedly.
Overall, though, watching the game – it’s a good thing we weren’t looking to compete this year. Honestly, I can’t see most of these guys being significant contributors in 2021 – Jerry’s public timetable is too optimistic.
I’d love to be proven wrong, though.
I can’t help but wonder if Rodriguez’s injury will play a part in delaying the opening of Seattle’s window.
They could/should have Rodriguez, Hancock, and Marte in 2023. Kelenic and Gilbert, along with some veteran additions and an extended post-season format, could make things interesting in 2022.
But yeah, 2021 isn’t happening. Not likely, anyway.
I will say that – while it’s still frustrating to watch at times, I’m much more willing to watch young guys learning the ropes than watching a bunch of over-the-hill veterans trying to recapture past glory (the Jack Z Mariners, in other words).
As long as they eventually click, anyway.
Lost two star players with Kluber.
So, we’re going to be on year 7 of DiPoto’s Glorious Five Year Plan before we sniff a pennant race?
So at what point can we safely assume he’s not any better than any random GM? How long do we have to wait this out?
eponymous, this rebuild started in the 2019 off-season. This isn’t the same try-to-sneak-in plan we saw upon his arrival (thankfully). In fact, a rebuild probably wasn’t an option at that point as the majority ownership at the time wanted nothing to do with a rebuild.
How about looking at where the farm was in 2018 (or when he arrived), where it is now, and then ask yourself what it is you really have a problem with? We haven’t seen this organization this loaded with talent in ages. How can you honestly suggest what we’re seeing is no different than it was with Jack or Bill?
Jerry’s doing fine. We still have to see everything translate, but rebuilds require patience and I have no problem with that. I can enjoy the individual breakouts and performances we see along the way, much like we may be witnessing already with Lewis and White.
The only thing that annoys me right now is the “step back” label. It may have started as something a little different, but it’s a pretty typical rebuild at this point.
So Jerry gets mulligans forever because patience. Okeydoke. Can’t wait for 2023 when we have a .500 team and it’s the next set of excuses. “Patience, he’s only been a general manager for over a decade, why would you expect a good general manager to show you why he’s a good GM before his first decade is over?”
Simply put, it’s not the first time I have seen the M’s have talented kids in the pipeline because they get to draft high and suck. Talented kids aren’t enough though. I don’t see any evidence yet that he’s very good at building teams- it’s not like in his decade of baseball he’s built long term winners also Cashman or built good teams out of spare parts and $12.53 spent on salary like Beane. We dumpster dive for busted veterans and busted prospects like Jack Z did, and get the same results, very few pleasant surprises. Mallex Smith looks like Dustin Ackley style regression all over again. Vogelbach doesn’t look like he’s building on anything.
Simply put, all the evidence so far is we are reliving the experience of having a GM who is some dude among 20 or so mediocre ones, while the good ones have their orgs leave us in the dust.
Again: when can we reasonably judge when Dipoto hasn’t met his performance objectives and we need to move on? If we don’t have a contender by 2022? 2023? Never, because patience?
Okay, name a GM for a comparable and detail how exactly they might have done things differently–and better–since commencing the rebuild. Do you think they would have more than 5-6 top-100 prospects over the same period of time?
And who are these talented prospects you saw and why do you think they flamed out? Do you think the problem might have had something to do with the developmental system?
Do you think that Jerry’s first full-time gig as a GM and the struggles he endured were solely on him? If so, you’d be the first to person I’ve seen suggest that. Eppler hasn’t fared any better and it’s the same issue: Ownership interference.
You’re construing the present as an extension of the past. It’s not the same. New front office, new majority ownership, new coaching and management organization-wide along with a new developmental system. You haven’t seen a farm like this in this millennium.
There is zero evidence we’re following the same dead-end path. We’ve never seen a real rebuild nor have we seen a very public commitment like we’re seeing now. There has been no hint that the team will be cash-strapped, and if you didn’t notice, there’s almost nothing on the books beyond 2021.
Again: when can we reasonably judge when Dipoto hasn’t met his performance objectives and we need to move on? If we don’t have a contender by 2022? 2023? Never, because patience?
First, you’re assuming failure.
Second, you should already understand that rebuilds often take 5 years. You’ve been around here long enough to have seen this discussed a number of times.
Again, what exactly is it you have a problem with ? Did you not want a rebuild? Do you think Jerry should somehow have an even stronger farm? Think they should have stuck with Cano, Paxton, Diaz, and Zunino and tried to buy their way into a wild card slot before a complete meltdown with nothing to build off of? Do you think firing Jerry and hiring a new GM to take over would be the right call now?
We’re looking for progress and success from the top prospects as they graduate. That’s going to take time with most still in the minors. Kelenic and Gilbert are close, but Rodriguez, Kirby, Marte, etc. are further out. Free agent spending and trades will obviously factor in as well, but we probably won’t see much on those fronts while we’re still in the early stages.
There are going to be misses. They need to hit on some of the elite prospects, but the elite prospects are impressing.
Zero reason to think this can’t work.
No, I want “well, this is how we know we are succeeding” rather than infinite mulligans because whatever.
Can I take 5 years from the 2019 start of the tank job as a marker for success and failure of the rebuild, then? In other words, Jerry gets mulligans in whatever crap he foists on us as a MLB club until 2024, as long as there are kids developing? If so, that’s fine, that’s an actual marker being laid down. I’ll just point out that’s eight seasons into him being the M’s GM, and into his second decade as an MLB GM. That’s not exactly a world beating record.
There are no “infinite mulligans”. That’s just you reaching. We’ve seen one change of direction, which was what probably should have been the task given to him upon his arrival.
Bottom line is that we have a rebuild underway and nothing about it has looked bad by any stretch. I don’t know what more you could possible ask for at this stage, which is probably why you’re dodging my questions and pivoting. Nothing suggests they aren’t succeeding with this mission.
But please, feel free to keep whining about how terrible everything is. I’ve got a game to watch.
If the mission is to be in a rebuild so lol, wins and losses won’t matter until 2023, just play kids, develop them and check back in then, that’s perfectly fine for “this is an objective standard” to judge where success is measured from the rebuild. It’s not the first time the goalposts have been moved since 2016 (“step back”, now 2021 is looking like a big ol’ “nope” because this team just looks plain bad, like “worse than most M’s teams, early-10’s Astros-level bad”- basically I expect the 2020 team to be the 2019 team post that 13-2 start, so a low 60-high-50 team, if 2021 is like that this is pretty ugly as far as how bad the M’s have been literally EVER), but whatever, fine.
It’s pretty realistic to expect that going from “among worst in the league”/low 60’s or high 50’s to “actually good” is a multiple year process, and it looks like 2020 won’t actually start the process, so sure, 2021 might not either, so.. fine.
“LOL, nothing matters for wins and losses until 2023, just play kids” does mean Haniger, Kikuchi and Gonzales are going to be fairly irrelevant to this process of building part of the next good M’s team, though, except for being possible trade chits. Haniger’s going to be 30 before he plays another full season. All of them will be on the wrong side of 30 before too long.
If we’re actually good by then, OK, but if we’re Pittsburgh or SD or (insert MLB non-contending team here) when it’s always jam tomorrow, never jam today… well, I guess that’s a long time to hand a GM a paycheck to not show results, but OK, sure, let’s do a five year rebuild plan.
It’s not that hard to find stuff on this very blog that points out Dipoto has a mixed record, though, and that we’re not all the way through the rebuild and there’s a lot of stuff to navigate through.
http://www.ussmariner.com/2020/07/24/the-risks-2020/
http://www.ussmariner.com/2018/07/06/game-89-rockies-at-mariners-ms-extend-jerry-dipoto/
My argument isn’t that Dipoto is Bavasi. It’s that he’s interchangeable with a bunch of other MLB GMs. That all the process hubbub hasn’t produced results on the field. My discontent at the goalposts of “good team” slowly receding into the mid-20s is wanting to know “wait, so what are the measures of success now”?
When you finish ranting, feel free to actually answer my questions directly without attempting to (poorly) put words in my mouth.
OK, sure.
How about looking at where the farm was in 2018 (or when he arrived), where it is now, and then ask yourself what it is you really have a problem with?
I have a problem that so far I’ve seen no evidence he’s particularly good at doing anything, regardless of CTZ or whatever the slogan du jour is. Having a fire sale and deciding it’s time for a tanking doesn’t prove you’re good at being a GM; it means you’ve traded talent NOW for talent later. We haven’t seen later yet.
DiPoto’s also getting the natural benefit of drafting high while being in the tank (and the jury is also still out on the development work needed to turn fire sales + drafting high into an actual good team).
He’s definitely not shown he’s capable of the Billy Beane trick of “how did he put together a legitimately decent or not bad team on a budget of $12.95?”. When given the chance to build a good team with money he failed, when he was given the chance to build as good team as he’d like with no budget Beane style as the “step back”, he… failed (Billy Beane can actually build mediocre teams without spending any money). So tanking for draft picks and playing not ready kids is what we’re left with.
This is not to say I think he’s legitimately a BAD GM. More just a dude who’s in the mediocre middle. Granted, by definition 15 MLB GMs are at or below average.
Did you not want a rebuild?
I wanted a GM who would make the right call right away on where the org was, on day 1 and execute well on it. That’s his job. If he had started the teardown in 2016, where do you think we would be now as opposed to starting it three years later? I guess we’d have the exact same number of playoff appearances.
I grant that having ability to change your mind when the facts change is something you need to be good at a job that’s all about judgment calls and evaluation, but given that he was wrong about ability to build a contender on the fly, wrong about “step back” turning into “holy crap this team is legitimately as bad as any Mariners team ever” (something you actually admitted up there), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think we might not have the second coming of Branch Rickey. He has an actual record to run on. It’s not great. Remember, this is the guy who screwed up on hiring Dr. Martin.
Do you think firing Jerry and hiring a new GM to take over would be the right call now?
I actually think it’s more likely we’d hire a better GM or similar GM as a worse one. Again, he’s in the mediocre middle. There’s an argument for firing him and trying someone else.
That being said, I can buy an argument that the M’s need to settle on a guy and an organizational approach for the next few years, Dipoto is their guy and give him enough leash to finish the rebuild- though they gave Zduriencik what, seven years? Bavasi got four and a half? You’re suggesting eight? That’s a lot of leash.
There’s also an arugment that there are enough mediocre GMs/management groups in baseball that at SOME point if you let them keep going they’ll actually win one just by luck of the draw. We could always keep going with that.
Anyways, this has been a great time talking past each other, we’ll have to not do it again sometime. Cheers.
Anyways, this has been a great time talking past each other, we’ll have to not do it again sometime. Cheers.
We’re still working on this one! And we’re finally getting somewhere.
I have a problem that so far I’ve seen no evidence he’s particularly good at doing anything, regardless of CTZ or whatever the slogan du jour is. Having a fire sale and deciding it’s time for a tanking doesn’t prove you’re good at being a GM; it means you’ve traded talent NOW for talent later. We haven’t seen later yet.
First, the talent he traded was talent with either minimal control and health concerns (Paxton), old and expensive (Cano), a clubhouse problem (Segura) or an offensive liability (Zunino). The exception of course was Diaz, but I would argue moving Cano with him was huge. Not exactly a “fire sale”, either. Seager and Gordon had undesirable contracts, but surely they could have been moved with enough salary eaten, and Haniger and Gonzales were kept to potentially ease the transition. Not moving Haniger was probably a mistake, but it’s not like anyone could have predicted the issues he would endure, nor this pandemic, and no GM gets every single decision right. Rebuilding, however, and most of the trades he’s made since that commitment have looked good. This leads to the next point.
Second, the team isn’t tanking. You can argue that the results in wins/loses are the same, but there’s no intent to lose. When the the intent is to lose, there’s almost no chance at winning. When the focus is learning and polishing off the development, there’s still a chance to win, and more importantly, something to build off; confidence and experience to move forward with.
Third, I think we do have evidence that he’s doing fine.
While you can argue that he could’ve/should’ve done better with what he inherited (I’ll get to that in a minute), the overhaul to the developmental system was crucial and we’ve see progress throughout the minors with a number of players. Until the majority of the top prospects graduate, their progress is all we have, but it’s promising. Taking a farm ranked dead-last to what is now likely top-5 (nearly every BA article suggests they’ll land in the top-5 in the updated rankings; fangraphs has them 8th by future value/dollars) is significant, especially considering that we’ve seen just two off-seasons and one regular season since commencing the rebuild. As cheesy as “C-the-Z” sounds, the process behind it appears to be working.
DiPoto’s also getting the natural benefit of drafting high while being in the tank (and the jury is also still out on the development work needed to turn fire sales + drafting high into an actual good team).
Not exactly. Lewis was the 11th pick in 2016. That’s high, but not where a team would typically land one of the best in the class. White was the 17th pick in 2018, Gilbert was 14th in 2019, and Kirby was 20th. That’s largely middle-of-the-pack and with exception to Lewis initially, each of them have steadily progressed to a higher status than anticipated at the time they were drafted. Hancock was the first top-10 selection since Jerry took over. And yes, we’re going to see at least one more.
Those picks, along with a number of other non-first round picks, are a big reason the farm has shot up in the ranking, which is again a strong sign that things are coming along well.
He’s definitely not shown he’s capable of the Billy Beane trick of “how did he put together a legitimately decent or not bad team on a budget of $12.95?”. When given the chance to build a good team with money he failed, when he was given the chance to build as good team as he’d like with no budget Beane style as the “step back”, he… failed (Billy Beane can actually build mediocre teams without spending any money). So tanking for draft picks and playing not ready kids is what we’re left with.
Jerry inherited the enormous contracts of Felix and Cano, plus Cruz (well worth the $), the back end of Seager’s back-loaded deal (still reasonable in 2016), a need for a number of upgrades and limited payroll flexibility (more than Beane, yes, but not over-the-top kind of $) and he chose to spread out the dough on short-term deals. His primary form of currency by all appearances was prospects from what was already one of the worst farms in baseball – if not the worst.
It didn’t work, we all know that. But what he didn’t do was also an important part of why the farm and team is where it’s at in this rebuild: He didn’t trade the prospects he believed were key to the future. Remember when fans, journalists, and analysts alike were all suggesting he should push in all the chips at the 2018 deadline? He refused to trade Lewis, White, or Rodriguez.
You could argue this to death, suggesting that he created the situation, then shift the blame to Jack before coming round full circle, but the bottom line is that he refused to compromise the future for a possible short-term gain that likely would have driven the entire organization into the ground. He was thinking big-picture as much as he was trying to sneak into the post-season.
Getting back to the Beane comparison, I would argue he has found some value dirt cheap. A number of relievers last season pitched well, headlined (in my opinion) by Austin Adams. He also did well with Nola and Murphy.
Regarding playing not-ready kids, we don’t know that that’s the case. Lewis is shining in the early going. White has yet to really get going offensively, but doesn’t look lost (yet). Long looked like he was deserving of a longer look upon his call up last year; Crawford is off to a good start. Of those that have clearly struggled, such as Vogelbach and Sheffield, none of them were rushed. Gilbert and Kelenic made cases for early promotion, yet neither will likely be seen this season.
I wanted a GM who would make the right call right away on where the org was, on day 1 and execute well on it. That’s his job. If he had started the teardown in 2016, where do you think we would be now as opposed to starting it three years later? I guess we’d have the exact same number of playoff appearances.
The call wasn’t his to make. Ownership wasn’t going to hire anyone to blow it up after all they had invested in Cano and Felix alone. They gave him a task, again, with minimal payroll flexibility and no real up & coming prospects (well, good prospects) that were close and potentially helpful to the process, unless you think Gohara and O’Neill were legit.
If he had been able to start things off with a rebuild, perhaps he could have moved Cano and Seager, and even Felix if ownership and the fans were open to the idea. Cruz was probably moveable as well. There’s no way to know where we would be at right now, but it’s certainly possible that the team would be breaking out and possibly contending.
I grant that having ability to change your mind when the facts change is something you need to be good at a job that’s all about judgment calls and evaluation, but given that he was wrong about ability to build a contender on the fly, wrong about “step back” turning into “holy crap this team is legitimately as bad as any Mariners team ever” (something you actually admitted up there), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think we might not have the second coming of Branch Rickey. He has an actual record to run on. It’s not great. Remember, this is the guy who screwed up on hiring Dr. Martin.
He probably did believe that he could improvise with what he was inheriting, but again, the choice wasn’t his. Stanton and Mather have both stated/suggested publicly that they wanted to see the team contending as soon as possible. If fault lies anywhere, it’s with the ownership. The majority of it, anyway.
The “step back” slogan was ridiculous. Rebuilding and fielding a contender in 2 years was incredibly optimistic. But does that really matter? Most of us knew all along that 2022 was the earliest realistic target date and that’s looking optimistic now given the circumstances with this pandemic impacting development.
Dr. Martin was a miss as well. But the idea was understandable at the time. We have the benefit of hindsight now. Still, it didn’t seem to set anyone or anything back. The PR disaster has been all but forgotten by most.
I actually think it’s more likely we’d hire a better GM or similar GM as a worse one. Again, he’s in the mediocre middle. There’s an argument for firing him and trying someone else.
That being said, I can buy an argument that the M’s need to settle on a guy and an organizational approach for the next few years, Dipoto is their guy and give him enough leash to finish the rebuild- though they gave Zduriencik what, seven years? Bavasi got four and a half? You’re suggesting eight? That’s a lot of leash.
With the farm firmly on the rise and a number of prospects evolving into elite prospects, there is zero reason to think another GM would step in and likely improve upon the current progress. I would argue that the risk of tinkering could screw everything and set things back further. And as you acknowledged, Jerry is their guy.
His tenure can be viewed two ways. You can look at his initial plan and call it part of an ongoing process, or you can look at the rebuild as a fresh start. I choose to look at it as the latter. It’s not a 8-year rebuilding plan.
We still have to see how he pulls it all together, but I’m good with the progress we’ve seen and look forward to seeing the results. I think he’s earned it. We can revisit this again down the road, but where the organization is right now gives plenty of reason for optimism.