Horse First, Then Cart
I’m a bit sleep deprived after a long week in Dallas, but I wanted to make one quick point before heading to bed. I know that the Angels decision to spend big on Pujols and Wilson has caused a lot of people to turn their attention back to the size of the Mariners payroll, and calls are getting louder for the team to spend more money in order to compete in the AL West. I’m not against the team spending more money, but I do believe that we need to understand the actual causation that drives the correlation between a team’s payroll and their record.
It’s easy enough to look at a chart that includes total payroll and total wins and see that there’s a relationship. Teams that spend more generally win more – not always, but usually. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why this is.
However, that’s a correlation. That the two things are related does not mean that increasing payroll will increase your win total to the degree that the correlation would suggest – that conclusion requires causation, and you have to dig deeper to see the actual effects of increasing payroll on team wins.
In reality, there’s causation that goes both ways. Increasing your payroll does increase your expected winning percentage, but raising your expected winning percentage also raises your payroll. In order to win, you need good players, and good players demand more and more money as they get older. A team that has managed to successfully draft and develop a nice young crop of home-grown stars is going to win first, then see their payroll rise as a result of the success of those players. In that situation, the increase in team salary occurs as a result of the acquisition of talent, rather than the increase in salary causing the acquisition of talent.
This is why you have to be very careful concluding that the Mariners failures of late are because of the team’s decreasing payroll relative to the rest of the league. In reality, the poor decision making of the front office over the last decade has actually had more to do with the payroll going down than ownership getting “cheap”. Because the team drafted poorly and traded away most of the young talent they did manage to develop, the franchise simply hasn’t had many players worth locking up to long term deals that escalate the payroll organically.
Here’s the list of meaningful contract extensions handed out by the Mariners over the last 10 years:
Ichiro Suzuki – 5 years, $90 million
Felix Hernandez – 5 years, $78 million
Kenji Johjima – 3 years, $24 million
Bret Boone – 3 years, $24 million
Franklin Gutierrez – 4 years, $20 million
Mike Cameron – 3 years, $15 million
That’s it – that’s the list. In over a decade, the M’s have only given out a half dozen contract extensions to players they wanted to retain due to their quality performances. What young talent did make it to the big leagues generally failed to develop into players that the team wanted to keep around, and thus, the team has entered into very few payroll-raising contract extensions to keep talent on hand.
Put simply, the Mariners lack of talent has had a significant impact on their payroll – there simply haven’t been good enough players to pay to keep around to keep the team’s overall budget going up organically. And so, without good players to retain, the team was forced to hunt for talent in the free agent market, and we all know how well that has worked out for the organization.
Having a $150 million payroll simply shouldn’t be anyone’s goal. The goal is to accumulate so much talent that you need to raise your payroll to that kind of level in order to keep it all. Not every piece of the roster has to be homegrown, and there’s certainly a spot for acquiring veterans from other organizations through free agency or trade, but history shows that teams who increase their payrolls by trying to buy wins in those markets generally don’t succeed. The winners are the franchises who develop talent through the farm and then invest in long term contracts in order to keep those players around.
The correlation between wins and payroll is real, but don’t make the mistake of believing that the relationship between the two means that raising payroll will lead to substantially more wins. For sustained success, the winning comes first, and then the rising payroll follows.
Payroll wouldn’t go up much in 2012 with the trade of Felix,Guty and a pitching prospect to Miami for Ramirez,Morrison and A. Sanchez. Most holes would be filled for the Mariners but The FO needs to strike while the iron is hot in Miami.
Be careful. Any contract that you see as 1-yr/$414k is the league minimum and not year arbitration eligible and thus is the young talent I was speaking of.
Those teams also had a decent minor system already, which the Mariners didn’t have when Z took over. Like I said, when your starting 9 + rotation + closer except for Ichiro, Felix and Pineda are all Z’s acquisitions, it means that the minors were bare-bones poor. That also means that Z had to trade/use FA to churn the roster to make a major league team while at the same time rebuilding the minors almost from scratch.
Those teams you listed? Their homegrown talent was drafted:
Rays
2000 (Shields), 2002 (Upton), 2003 (Jaso), 2004 (Niemann, Davis), 2005 (Hellickson), 2006 (Longoria), 2007 (Price)
Phillies?
1996 (Rollins), 1998 (Madson), 2000 (Utley), 2001 (Howard), 2002 (Hamels), 2003 (Kendrick)
Brewers?
2000 (Hart), 2002 (Fielder), 2004 (Gallardo), 2005 (Braun), 2007 (Lucroy)
Still not part of the “homegrown, developed into key contributor and then extended”, then.
That is the point, the Mariners have failed to build talent within their minor leagues either from draft or trade. On top of that they’ve failed to acquire talent via FA signings. From top to bottom they’ve done a poor job at evaluating, acquiring and developing talent for a really long time. Additionally the factors that have caused this have not changed, ownership and leadership at the highest level. Going back to Pat Gillick this team has done a horrible job of growing talent. If the problem still exists after 3 GMs you have to look beyond the GM as the cause of the problem. IMHO things are going to get worse before they get better.
Additionally the factors that have caused this have not changed, ownership and leadership at the highest level.
It seems to me that this means you believe one of the following things is true:
1. Jack Zduriencik is a poor talent evaluator.
2. What are presented as Jack Zduriencik’s decisions about personnel are not his own; they are being dictated by his superiors.
The first is arguable, I suppose, but I think there are better reasons to disagree with it than to agree. The second is an evidence-free conspiracy theory. Perhaps there’s some other belief that could underpin the quoted statement, but I can’t figure out what it would be.
Angel’s just agreed to a 20 year deal with Fox worth around 3 billion. And the hits just keep on coming.
I’m not sure, but to me it would seem that you think Z has failed as well, which I say we can’t make a decision from.
In churning the major league roster to field the best available team, it’s an attempt to nurse the face of the org (the major league team) forward until those players he’s acquired in the minors can develop properly. Now, there are some that are thrown into the majors immediately like a Guti or Smoak, but they were theoretically further along in development and did not need anymore time in the minors.
There just hasn’t been enough time to let the minor league players acquired through Z’s tenure to make a noticeable difference in the majors. Which is why things may be “mediocre” before they get better.
Also remember that Z’s major trade chips have been a closer in JJ Putz, a synthetic chip in Cliff Lee, and a starter/reliever/starter/? in Brandon Morrow. If you want, you can throw in Fister as well. Not exactly the type of talent that can net you a lot of great prospects like a Teixeira or a Volquez did for the Rangers.
I’m not saying Jeff’s agreeing with me, I’m saying I agree with Jeff. In fact, that’s exactly what I said. Twice already. This is actually the third time. I was guilty of hyperbole, and in what is completely typical fashion for Dave, he focused on that one line, and not the other fifty lines that provide the context for what I was saying. And he told me I should be a Yankee fan which, to me, is kind of like saying: “Go F yourself” (I have lived in Seattle my whole life, big Mariners fan, big Yankee hater).
Anyway, the point remains. I think Jeff at LL nailed it with his post. The M’s are probably going to have to raise salary to be successful. If you trust the FO, then they will do it when the time is right. If you don’t trust the FO, then maybe they won’t, and the M’s will languish.
Here’s a question: whey don’t the M’s lock up Ackley and Pineda to long term deals right now, as Tampa Bay did with Longoria and now Moore (and others in between)? Is it philosophy? Money? Are the players not good enough to warrant that?
Ackley is signed to a major league deal *cough* Boras*cough*, so chances are he’ll be resigned soon enough.
Pineda’s arbitration years don’t begin until 2014, so there’s no hurry to sign him for now. Perhaps when he reaches arbitration we will, but that’s several years off.
I think CCW’s question about Ackley and Pineda is interesting. You don’t really hear a lot of beating of the drum about “why don’t the Rays just break the damn bank and buy Fielder?” They could obviously use a quality 1B, and are so much closer to winning a title if they did drop the change. But, Friedman and Co. operate in a small market and contend. They do this for the reasons Dave illustrates in this post. Admittedly, they sucked for a long time before the young talent started to coalesce. I would be curious to know how other clubs persevere through years of inadequacy. Cubs and Orioles, Pirates, Astros- is the only way out of a hole on the strength of your pursestrings, or is this a myth born of impatience?
League average contributors may not be key, but they’re still valuable, particularly in comparison to what the Mariners’ have had over the last five to seven years.
Home grown league average or slightly above average players at minimal prices is still a necessary part of building a winner. THe Mariners’ lack of such would point to a failure of player development and scouting over the past few years.
Here’s a problem; I’d rather have Pujols at 10/$254 than Fielder at 6/$150. Does anyone think Fielder goes for less than that?
Pujols got 10 years, at $25mm/year. Prince is going to get 10 years, $20mm/year. Neither one seems like a very good deal to me, but I’d still be happy if the M’s signed Prince. It’s just the way I feel.
CCW, I’m glad you aren’t making the decisions for the Mariners.
Are you kidding me? First, who said we could never afford a star? Not me, and I don’t think anyone else has. It’s about timing. I simply don’t believe dumping 25 mil a year on Fielder right now is a good idea if payroll is roughly 93-95. There’s still a need for a third baseman and an outfielder. Second, you argued my point with your comment about how good the product is. We have two potential star (or at least, really good) first-basemen. First base isn’t a hole. Would you pay roughly 25 million a year (multi-years)for a DH? You think they should bail on Smoak and/or Carp immediately? I’ve said along… patience! Third, again, I’m not against signing Fielder if the price is right. I’m not anti-Fielder. I don’t think anyone here is. Anyone would love to see his bat in their line-up. I’d love to see him as the DH if he was affordable. Fourth, the starting pitching is a completely different argument. You’re comparing a 254 million dollar contract to a 77 million dollar contract. On top of that, the Mariners aren’t likely looking for a big name like Wilson, with Hultzen, Paxton, and Walker coming up soon.
I don’t think the Mariners and Angels are/were much alike at all. Especially in the outfield and 3/4th’s of the infield. I don’t think too many people here would agree with you either.
There’s a reason Jack Z is in on Fielder. And it’s not just because they want to see if they could get him for 6 years, or else we would have been in on Pujols and Wilson with low-balling offers. It’s because Jack Z is serious about getting Fielder.
If you believe in Jack Z, then you have to believe his analysis, that a potential Fielder acquisition is the right move for the club.
That is not really what I said. So I’ll restate. The Mariners have been bad for a long time spanning multiple management changes. Z’s tenure has also been bad. Yes, he is far enough into it to be at least partially to blame. However, ownership and presidential level management has not changed, nor has the philosophy of make money first, win games second. Until this changes, the team will continue to be mediocre at best. Risk returns reward or failure, right now the team is unwilling to do either.
You don’t see that as a problem? Most interviews with Z his answer has been, to paraphrase “we can win now and build for the future”. This clearly has not been the case. The problem in my opinion is mediocrity breeds mediocrity. It leads to mid level draft picks. It leads to mid level expectations. Furthermore, after 3 years of working to build the minor league system I would expect higher quality talent in AA and AAA. The truth is Ackley was the only prospect that had high expectations. Everyone else mid to low level prospect with some upside potential. To me, that is not good enough. The Mariners don’t have a good major league squad and they don’t have a strong cast of prospects in queue to get excited about.
The Mariners have not been trading their key chip players to get prospects and truly rebuild. If they were truly trying to trade to rebuild, Ichiro and King Felix would have been traded early on. Both of which combined could have drawn as much or more in return than Teixeria and Volquez did. I’m saying we need a San Diego fire sale here but something needs to change.
I agree. Which is why you can’t just say that locking up homegrown talent to long-term contracts is the way to build a winner. It’s part of the way. It’s a component of a balanced team and well-rounded, healthy org. But you need the one-off league-average guys as part of your “floor”, and you need to get good contributions via trade and FA too.
First base isn’t a hole. Would you pay roughly 25 million a year (multi-years)for a DH? You think they should bail on Smoak and/or Carp immediately?
1B is filled a by a rookie who didn’t hit. I would pay $20M a year (for 8 years) for a top 5 bat, regardless of his position, yeah. This isn’t bailing on Smoak and/or Carp (although personally I bail on Carp).
This argument applies to the Angels – 1Bs not a hole! You want to pay $25M for roughly a DH? You think they should bail on Trumbo/Morales immediately? It filled a similar need for the Angels as it would have for us, so you can’t claim it fills an Angels need that we didn’t have.
I don’t think the Mariners and Angels are/were much alike at all. Especially in the outfield and 3/4th’s of the infield. I don’t think too many people here would agree with you either.
Tons of money tied up in Hunter/Wells; tons of money tied up in Gutierrez/Ichiro. Decent potential 1B in Trumbo; decent potential 1B in Smoak. 2 Aces, 1 decent starter, and 2 scrubs; Felix/Pineda, Vargas, and scrubs. Terrible Catcher; terrible catcher. Great 2B/SS/3B; great 2B/SS. It’s pretty similar.
To those who don’t want Fielder your probably safe you know why? Our front office doesn’t even keep there star players Felix being the exception he took less $ to play for M’s but he won’t do that again and i don’t blame him.
Again, patience! Smoak and Carp deserve more time. Why pay out the a** now for a first baseman when we may already have an answer? The Angels aren’t going to bail on Trumbo and Morales. Maybe they ship one of them, maybe both, maybe they find a role for both? But would you compare those to as equals to Carp and Smoak? I think there would be a lot more interest in Trumbo and Morales as things sit right now.
20 million a year is a number you can kick the tires on. You have to draw a line, and I’m sure that’s exactly what Jack is doing. When you start talking 25 plus for 7-8 plus years, it’s a very different scenario. And that’s what most people are probably expecting.
Wells and Hunter are making considerably more that Guti and Ichiro (combined). Hunter’s contract is up after next season, but Wells is on the hook for another 63 million through 2014.
Never said I’d pay 25 million for a DH, I was arguing the opposite. Seriously, are you reading what I said?
First, as I already mentioned, the Mariners have starting pitching coming up. You know that. Everyone knows that. Our holes at the bottom of the rotation need a temporary fix, not a 77 million dollar FA. Second… You think Ryan is a great SS? His defense is fine. His bat is average at best. Aybar is the better of the two. Catcher… yeah, I’ll give you that one. Second base is the one (field) position I’d actually give the Mariners the edge.
It’s not that similar. And considering we still have no idea who’s going to man third, it’s even less similar.
Really? After 3 years you expect to have a high-class minor league system when it was barren beforehand? Did you see when those homegrown players were drafted on the 3 playoff teams that were quoted earlier? How many teams can hit on a winner in the 1st round every single year? 1st and 2nd round? 1st, 2nd and 3rd rounds? Really?
You know for a fact the casual fan doesn’t want to hear the word rebuilding, so what is he supposed to say?
We know where you stand, and if you’re not going to be productive to the conversation and actually bring something to the table, just stop and forget watching the M’s if that’s what you believe.
Anybody else hoping that Zumsteg makes an appearance and slaps a few people around?
@Valencia-
The Angels were/are (especially now) closer to dethroning the Rangers. And they had the money to make the moves they felt would put them over the top. I assume you’d agree with that. The Mariners simply aren’t that close. I would love to see them develop more from within and possibly land a bigger name (or two) if payroll is increased.
From the man who built the Brewer’s and is expected to be great at building from within I would expect a whole lot more excitement about what could be out of our minor league system by now. You can call it unreasonable if you like but thus far, the results aren’t there. Just like the results weren’t there before Z either. I don’t expect every prospect to be a winner, that truly is unreasonable, but after 3 years I would expect at least some buzz about your minor league system and the great crop of high potential kids that are coming.
I duno, how about the truth? That might be refreshing. The M’s suck, they have sucked for a while even casual fans know that. How about something like: What we’ve been trying isn’t working. So we are going to go back to what made us good for those 6 years from 1995 to 2001, and I don’t mean bringing Griffey and Arod back…
Yo amnizu. First, there is indeed a bunch of buzz about about the high-potential kids coming up. I doubt many other teams have 3 SP candidates the calibre of Hultzen, Paxton and Walker getting close.
How can we get you to realize that rebuilding a farm system is not a 3-year enterprise? Think about it. Generally, if you draft a high school kid, they enter the low minor leagues and take 4-5 years to develop. If you draft a college player, they usually start higher, but still need a year or two of seasoning.
Three years is simply not enough time to judge how Z’s drafts and other moves to strengthen the farm have played out, but I think it’s looking decent already.
Also, what exactly are the elements that resulted in the success of 1995-2001? Gee, suppose it was allowing the farm system to produce good talent?
Sorry i am not a fair weather fan quit asking me to be one i am loyal to my teams. Also if you don’t like what i have to say you can always not respond.
That’s kinda ill-informed. You do know the usual cycle of player development, right? Well, probably not, given your statement.
Four years is a minimum, and Churchill has concluded that very few make it that short to rebuild a farm system.
I agree with the idea that Jackie Z probably covets Fielder. Fielder is his claim to fame and probably a huge reason why he got this GM job in the first place. I would not doubt that Jack Z is going to do all he can to acquire Fielder’s talents. He’s always stated that he wants an impact bat but the opportunity never arose. I think, it has now, in Fielder.
Given this, do you think he would be making a mistake in giving Fielder 8/175?
Anybody that thinks it takes three years to rebuild a system, look through here:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.cgi?draft_round=1&year_ID=2008&draft_type=junreg&query_type=year_round
It’s the 2008 draft. So it’s one year before Zduriencik took over the Mariners. Two players have more than 5 career WAR: Daniel Hudson and Alex Avila (both 5th round picks). Buster Posey would have but he got hurt.
If you look at 2009, Dustin Ackley is basically tied with a couple other guys as the most productive draftee from that year.
I wish it was quicker, but it’s not.
Well, that’s just focussing on the ones who made it.
I mean those are the ones you want; a productive minor league system gets you one regular a year (which in and of itself implies a longer than 3-4 year view), but also consider that for each bona fide major leaguer, you’ll have to also generate 3-4 prospects that won’t make it…and that takes time as well.
“If the problem still exists after 3 GMs you have to look beyond the GM as the cause of the problem.”
Truer words were never spoken. Armstrong and Lincoln – how do they survive in the face of the utter disaster they’ve created? Horrible won-loss records, crashing attendance….10 years of poor talent evaluation (drafting Jeff Clement ahead of Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitski; Morrow ahead of Lincecum). Why are they never held responsible for any of the horrible decisions made in this franchise???
Four years is a minimum, and Churchill has concluded that very few make it that short to rebuild a farm system.
Tampa Bay and Texas contended in 3 years after changing GM, Arizona and Toronto have done a good job building a farm in 2 years (I like our system better than both though despite both being considered deeper than ours).
I’m not saying 3-years is normal, but teams have become competitive in similar situations, in the same time frame. Texas hit jackpot on Hamilton, Cruz, Wilson and had the Teixiera infusion, while Tampa Bay had a stronger farm to start with than we did, but it’s not set-in-stone take 4 years.
I love Fielder but he weighs 300 lbs. and will not even stay healthy for half a 7 year contract. Can’t pay 20+ M a year for a DH that won’t be able to leg out any doubles.
Yea i have no idea why Z gets the blame its due to Lincoln and Armstrong not giving Z adequate funds and the way they let Bavasi have 1 more year when it was clear he had no idea what he was doing. Signing a right handed pull hitter in Beltre then giving $ to Carlos Silva they both had career years and had done nothing really prior to that.
Actually. Texas, Arizona and Toronto were the reasons why Churchill thought it took more than three years.
And, again, think carefully about the player development cycle. If you have players in the pipeline, yeah, you can contend sooner. But that is certainly not the case for the Ms. The cupboard was bare (see how few major leaguers were developed pre Zduriencek). Thus, it will take 3-4 years for the FIRST draft to come near the major leagues. Hm. I don’t think even the best GMs can restock a system with only one draft.
If the Mariners signed all of Free Agents left on the market, they probably still couldn’t put together a team in the same strata as the Rangers and (now) Angels. And saying next year’s selection of free agents isn’t very good doesn’t mean there won’t be an opportunity to spend money. I’m sure we could trade for Alfonso Soriano if we really wanted to, for example. (similar to the Wells deal. Not saying this is a good idea, but there are always ways of spending money if that’s what it comes down to.)
So if the rangers sign Fielder then trade Moreland for a SP they will be even more stacked.
But i’m sure Dave will post something saying “patience” and how “irresponsible” the Rangers are being.
Then in 5-10 years when both of them have each won a couple WS titles and the M’s have yet to make the playoffs we will read a post by Dave about how good our farm system is looking.
Teams that spend money win. Sure they do it a little irresponsibly but who cares.
Everyone wants to model their team after The Rays. They have never won a WS and have only been to it ONCE.
Sign Fielder. Trade for another big name player. Then next season sign another big name FA. Our payroll would be around $130M. Still not even enough to crack the top 5.
Did you read what Dave wrote? That’s not apparent from your message.
Stoyboy
Let me start by saying- I don’t want to sign Fielder either… But with that out of the way…
Your argument wouldn’t be one I’d choose to defend my position. Since his very first full season (2006) he’s played 157 or more games every year, and has missed just ONE game over the past 3 seasons.
MrZDevotee: You made my point. I know he will be good the next couple of years but it is when he is in the middle of a 6-7 year contract that the weight will take its toll. Why do you think he hasn’t got a legitimate bid yet? All GMs are worried about the weight for the life of the contract. Highest value in trade now for Felix to Marlins for Ramirez and Morrison. I know no one wants to talk about it but the FO won’t make a bigger splash and you know it.