Carl Everett answers no questions worth asking
Largely on the basis of one report in USA Today, Seattle’s abuzz with rumors that the Mariners are reportedly close to signing Carl Everett. Without further confirmation, I’d say I think this has a slim chance of being true.
I desperately don’t want it to be true. While I think, in general, I’m a lot more tolerant of players who don’t fit into some team’s clubhouse (after all, David Ortiz got released from the Twins in part because a huge, slow slugger didn’t fit in with what they wanted from their players) there are a few players that, for whatever reason, I would not under any circumstances sign for any positional need, ever, and if I went the rest of my life knowing I lost the World Series because I didn’t sign that guy, I’d be okay with it.
Meet Carl Everett!
But we’ve seen the management, so concerned with the public image of the team, bring in Al Martin (and Ben Christensen!) so it’s not impossible that the team would bring in a guy with child-beating problems (this might deserve a longer timeline, but it’s really scummy and suspicious). Who fights with teammates. And coaches. And reporters. And managers. And umpires. Who doesn’t like homosexuals, or fans.
While it might be possible they’re willing to sign players with issues who (like Al Martin) are hard-working guys well-liked by their teammates, consider that Everett’s never spent more than two full seasons with any team in his career (though he’s spent parts of three with the White Sox). Organizations sour on him quickly.
So ignore that for a second. Pretend he’s as nice as Willie. It’s still a bad business signing. He’ll be 35 next year, which isn’t by itself disastrous, but his stats have taken a huge dive these last couple of years, and injuries have limited his playing time severely. The best you could reasonably expect from Everett is he’ll get into 140 games, maybe play some outfield corners, and hit .270/.350/.450 which doesn’t help you much compared to an average DH/LF.
Everett’s a switch-hitter, but with this lineup we can fairly assume he’ll be used as the left-handed sock the team’s wringing their hands over. v RHP:
2003: .299/.382/.557
2004: .272/.332/.450
2005: .246/.317/.441
Which about mimics his general collapse. It’s not as if his offensive decline’s due entirely to an increasing inability to hit lefties which you could try and compensate for a little by platooning him.
Plus, then he gets in a fight with me over something, like my inevitable constant stream of criticism of his poor play, runs me over with a car, and then there’s no one to pay the bandwith bill when everyone rushes to reload the site when they hear “Everett hits baseball writer with SUV, man’s life only spared by high ground clearance” and USSM goes down until I can get someone to get a new server with the money I’ll get burying Everett in lawsuits (which will have the fortunate side effect of keeping him in court and off the field)… so actually, I guess that works out okay for all of you.
Comments
103 Responses to “Carl Everett answers no questions worth asking”
#67 Morosi seems to think so? I feel better now. This is the same writer who got Ichiro’s words completely wrong.
Morosi didn’t do the translating.
I won’t support any move that makes the M’s outfield weaker, and any signing that pushes Ibanez back to left field makes the Mariners unacceptably weak on defense.
What do you call a defense of Henderson/Cameron/Buhner, if Ibañez/Reed/Winn is “unacceptably weak”?
Let me illustrate what I’m getting at:
Stats for the following starting pitchers for 2005, organized by name, GB/FB ratio and K’s/9:
Group 1:
Jamie Moyer, 0.87, 4.59
Joel Piñeiro, 1.29 , 5.10
Gil Meche, 0.95, 5.21
Ryan Franklin, 0.95, 4.39
Aaron Sele, 1.02, 4.11
Group 2:
Kevin Millwood, 1.34, 6.84
Jamie Moyer, 0.87, 4.59
Joel Piñeiro, 1.29 , 5.10
Felix Hernandez, 3.31*, 8.22
Jason Jennings**, 1.83, 5.53
* this G/F ratio is almost certainly Small Sample Size Theatre.
** used as a hypothetical example since Dave likes him and apparently we’ve inquired about him in trade.
So, doesn’t it strike you that Group 1 is going to be a hell of a lot more dependent on OF defense than Group 2, and Group 2 would be helped more by a wizard at SS (Betancourt) than a wizard in LF (Randy Winn or Jacque Jones)?
Also, the most critical OF position isn’t LF or RF- it’s CF (right up with SS in terms of top defensive positions). Again, the M’s are the ones shooting themselves in the head playing their best CF in RF, though if Reed’s a decent enough CF (which appears to be the case) the effect’s minimized.
I submit that depending on the makeup of next year’s staff, we could live with less OF defense than last year, because we’ll have more K’s and more groundballs- and if Betancourt is as good as advertised, a full season of him (instead of Valdez, Morse, Bloomquist, THEN Betancourt) could make up for a full season of Ibañez/Huff/4th OF instead of Winn/Snelling/Morse/Ibañez. Also, the offense we get from a guy like Huff might be an acceptable tradeoff for the loss in defense between Jones and Ibanez- because the defense won’t be as valuable as it was last year.
Defense is certainly important- but so is context. The context of the 2006 Mariners is almost a lock to be different than the 2005 context (and if it isn’t, and Meche and Franklin are back, with Carl Everett as a DH AND Ibañez as the LF, we should grab pitchforks and torches and converge on Safeco).