The Cost of This Team
It seems like, at the moment, the prevailing school of thought on what the Mariners should do this offseason is keep this team almost entirely in tact, but just add two quality starting pitchers to the mix, with most of the general population agreeing that those two pitchers should be Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jason Schmidt. People generally seem to be satisfied with the rest of the roster, and feel that spending the available budget money on starting pitching is the way to go.
Except that it’s not. Assuming the organization don’t raise payroll significantly, the Mariners can’t afford to do that. They can’t even really come close.
The team has spent approximately $81 to $88 million on its 25 man roster the past several years. You’ll hear the team report a higher payroll figure that includes the entirity of the 40 man roster, buyouts and contract bonuses, and a reserve fund for “special circumstances”. But, in reality, the combined yearly salaries of the team’s 25 man roster has been in the $80-90 million range, and there’s no reason to believe that the ownership is going to give management significantly more to work with this offseason. You can argue that they should, but that’s another post entirely. Dealing with the realities of a budget that isn’t likely to increase by much if any, we’re bound by an upper limit of about $85-$90 million for the 25 man roster.
As it stands now, the Mariners have approximately $75-$80 million committed to 2006 contracts for the 23 players that most people assume should return next year. Take a look:
Player 2006 Salary 2007 Salary Richie Sexson $13,000,000.00 $14,000,000.00 Adrian Beltre $12,900,000.00 $13,500,000.00 Ichiro Suzuki $12,530,000.00 $12,530,000.00 Jarrod Washburn $7,450,000.00 $9,500,000.00 Kenji Johjima $5,433,333.00 $5,433,333.00 Raul Ibanez $4,916,667.00 $5,000,000.00 Ben Broussard $2,487,500.00 $4,000,000.00 J.J. Putz $415,000.00 $3,500,000.00 Rafael Soriano $450,000.00 $3,000,000.00 Eduardo Perez $1,750,000.00 $2,000,000.00 Julio Mateo $700,000.00 $1,000,000.00 Willie Bloomquist $650,000.00 $850,000.00 Chris Snelling $328,500.00 $500,000.00 Yuni Betancourt $677,500.00 $450,000.00 Felix Hernandez $340,000.00 $400,000.00 Jose Lopez $335,000.00 $400,000.00 George Sherrill $333,000.00 $400,000.00 Jeremy Reed $375,000.00 $375,000.00 Jake Woods $332,000.00 $332,000.00 Mark Lowe $328,500.00 $328,500.00 Emiliano Fruto $328,500.00 $328,500.00 Rene Rivera $328,500.00 $328,500.00 Total $66,389,000.00 $78,155,833.00
That’s a complete roster, minus two starting pitchers. The salaries for Putz, Soriano, Broussard, and Snelling are estimates, as they are arbitration eligible and we won’t know exactly what they’re going to earn next year until some point this winter. That said, I’m pretty confident that the esimates are pretty close to what they’ll be looking at, salary wise, next year. Some of the names are easily replaced with others; Fruto and Woods could easily be Baek and Huber, but for salary purposes, it doesn’t really matter.
While it’s true that we’re shedding the costs of Pineiro, Meche, Guardado, and Spiezio, we’re also giving out pretty significant raises. Putz, Soriano, and Broussard are going to get large increases in their pay through arbitration, Jarrod Washburn has a $2 million salary bump for 2007, Richie Sexson gets $1 million more, and the salary escalations for Beltre, Mateo, Bloomquist, and Perez total almost $1.5 million combined. As you can see from the total column, it will cost almost $12 million more to field this same roster next year compared to this year.
That leaves the Mariners with approximately $7-12 million (giving the team a payroll range of $85-$90 million for the 25 man roster) in spending money for the offseason, depending on how the arbitration cases go. $7-$12 million for two starting pitchers. That might get you Daisuke Matsuzaka, as long as the posting fee doesn’t count against payroll, but then you’re done. Would you be happy if the Mariners essentially brought back this same team with just Matsuzaka (or Schmidt, or whatever $10 million pitcher you think we’d acquire) added to the rotation to replace Gil Meche?
I don’t think so. I wouldn’t be. This team still has some issues that need to be resolved, and acquiring one starting pitcher and asking the rest of the team to pick up the slack isn’t the kind of offseason that most of us are hoping for.
If you want the Mariners to make significant additions to this roster, you necessarily have to be in favor of significant subtractions. The Mariners are in line to pay Sexson, Beltre, Ichiro, and Washburn $49 million for next season, leaving about $40 million for the other 21 players. When you have 54 percent of your payroll tied up in four players, those guys have to provide a significant contribution to the team. It’s nearly impossible to create a supporting cast good enough to carry those four players to the playoffs. The Big Four, salary wise, have to produce at a higher level for this team to succeed.
Or, alternately, one of them has to go. This team could create significant budget room by trading one of these four players, giving them enough budget room to replace them with a similarly compensated but higher performing player. Considering the team already has significant holes in the rotation, it’s extremely unlikely they would move Jarrod Washburn, and I’m not sure they could even if they wanted to. So, realistically, if you want any kind of serious upgrade this offseason, one of Sexson, Beltre, or Ichiro has to go.
Essentially, the M’s have two options. Keep this team in tact and make just one significant move this offseason, or remove one of the highly paid players that is already here in order to create room for a more complete roster.
Sexson, Beltre, or Ichiro; which one would you trade?
Re #196: Exactly. Ichiro doesn’t work pitchers for walks because he doesn’t have to — he has another approach which works just fine for him — not because he can’t. He’s perfectly capable of doing so, and when his current approach no longer works well enough, he’ll be able to adjust it. Similarly, he can hit for power, he’s proven that; he just prefers to play a different sort of game, which works well for him (and which, it might be noted, provides more frequent gratification than a lower-average higher-HR approach would). When the singles aren’t coming often enough anymore, he’ll be able to make the shift to focusing on driving the ball more. Or so, at least, I conclude from listening to the man talk and watching him play.
Remember, Pete Rose posted an OPS+ of 119 in 1981, at the age of 40. He was of course an extreme outlier, but I think there’s very good reason to argue that Ichiro could well be a similar outlier, especially given that he’s much faster and a much better fielder than Rose ever was.
Through all of this Jeremy Reed has been kicked to the curb. I assume his value is at an all-time low, but maybe some NL club needing a gloveman with offensive upside would be willing to take a whirl?
Could we get a starter worth plugging in every 5th day, can he be packaged?
The question isn’t even if you would retain Ichiro, the question is how much would you pay him to spend his ten years in MLB as a Mariner?
Because if he spends ten years in MLB he’s a lock for the Hall. Pioneer status, an MVP, a hits record, at least 6 Gold Gloves.
How much is that worth now and in the future.
Three year extension at what dollars?
201: Remember, Pete Rose posted an OPS+ of 119 in 1981, at the age of 40. He was of course an extreme outlier…
Wow, you said it, extreme outlier. It’s interesting you cited the only year in the last seven years of Rose’s career that he put up an OPS+ over 100. I believe that’s called “cherry-picking.†The complete list over the last seven years was: 94, 119, 91, 69 (yikes!), 99, 98 and 61. Average them together and that’s seven years of mediocrity. (The bastard kept putting himself in the lineup at 1st base, a power position, so he could get the hits records with the occasional single, but that’s a different discussion.)
Ichiro put up an OPS+ of 121 over his first five seasons in MLB. If he could put up an OPS+ of 119 in 2011 at the age of 37, I would be ecstatic, but that is an extremely high stakes bet, don’t you think?
And for what it’s worth, I’m glad you can take it faith that Ichiro can morph from Alphonso Soriano into Bobby Abreu at the plate out of sheer necessity, but I’m afraid I’m from Missouri.
I wonder where Bavasi’s from.
#203: Three year extension at what dollars?
I don’t think he’ll take three, because some idiot GM out there will offer him four.
He’s getting $11m/yr AAV now. I’m sure he’s not expecting a pay cut.
#202: Could we get a starter worth plugging in every 5th day, can he be packaged?
I guess there’s hope. The Red Sox gave up a very hot prospect for Crisp to play CF.
Come on, LB, grow up and think a minute. I’m not trying to argue that Ichiro will play until he’s 45, and I’m as well aware as anybody that the only reason he kept playing in 1985 and ’86 was that he was his own manager. But I wasn’t cherry-picking any more than you were in citing “the last seven years of Rose’s career” (emphasis mine), given that in the years before those last seven, he posted OPS+ of (working backward) 130, 119, 115, 141, 132, and so on. What I cited was his last productive year, which is the point which was actually relevant to my argument: namely, that the man could still hit at 40. Had I been trying to use that to prove that he was still productive to the end of his career, that would have been cherry-picking — but I wasn’t.
And in any case, yes, Rose was an extreme outlier. So’s Ichiro.
Also, I’m not taking anything on faith, but on observation — which also tells me that Ichiro’s very little like Soriano.
In the area of plate discipline, Soriano and Ichiro are practically the same player, only batting from opposite sides of the plate:
OBP – BA, after 6 seasons as an MLB starter
Player A: .326-.281=.045
Player B: .375-.329=.046
Looks pretty darn close to me. Too much of their OBP is tied up in BA. If you think Ichiro can morph into Bobby Abreu when he gets old, what’s stopping Soriano?
Right, because walk rate is the only way to analyze “plate discipline”.
Really, you don’t think contact rate matters at all in aging patterns? You think Ichiro’s career 9.4% strikeout rate is the same as Soriano’s 21.4% strikeout rate?
Read Tangotiger’s articles on aging. Or Nate Silver’s findings from building PECOTA. Or just ask me, since I’ve been doing a lot of research on the subject lately.
High contact hitters age better than low contact hitters.
#210: It’s a quick and dirty toy (I think statheads call it “Isolated Discipline,” don’t they), but I didn’t mean to suggest it was the only tool in the shed.
Ancient Mariner suggested in post #194 Ichiro’s walks and power numbers would go up as he aged.
At this point in their careers, Ichiro and Sorino have based a great deal of their OBP on their BA. (AL average is about .070, if I recall correctly, and they are both hovering at about .045.)
I don’t know whether or not Ichiro can maintain or boost his OBP when his BA drops; I never played the game at any level. AM says Ichiro can do it based on AM’s observation, but I don’t know what I should observe in order to convince me. I can’t tell a good MLB swing from a bad one. The only way I could tell Jeff Cirillo was a colossal mistake was to look at my scorecard at the end of the game and tally up another 0-fer.
I have read that Ichiro’s approach at the plate is, uh, unorthodox, so I hope his transformation into an OBP machine won’t depend on getting hitting tips from the Don Baylor or Jeff Pentland of 2010-2011.
Glad to hear that contact hitters age well. I don’t think PECOTA projections can tell us more about the 2011 edition of Ichiro than a weather forecast can tell us about the 2011 chance of rain on Opening Day. But since you’ve been researching this, I’d sure like to know your opinion.
Will Ichiro be an elite hitter four years from now, a so-so hitter, or a fairly easy out in the lineup that we have to bat leadoff to please Mr. Yamauchi and the Japanese press and ballpark tourists (who I am led to believe pay a healthy chunk of Ichiro’s salary)?
Will Ichiro be an elite hitter four years from now, a so-so hitter, or a fairly easy out in the lineup that we have to bat leadoff to please Mr. Yamauchi and the Japanese press and ballpark tourists (who I am led to believe pay a healthy chunk of Ichiro’s salary)?
I have no idea, because I think that generally, projecting one individual player is a fool’s errand. We can make all kinds of generalities, but we can’t know the future.
Ichiro’s skillset should age quite well, however, based on historical comparisons. His speed isn’t declining at all, and he’s still making contact at the same rate as always. Players with speed/contact skillsets are generally great athletes (as Ichiro is), and great athletes often have longer careers than guys whose bodies aren’t in the best of shape.
Ichiro’s durability is also a marker of his athletic prowess. The guy just doesn’t get hurt.
The things Ichiro does well aren’t going away anytime soon. I have no idea what kind of hitter Ichiro will be in 2011. No one does. But guys with his skillset generally age very well, and we should expect Ichiro to age better than most players too.
Okay, let’s make the optimistic assumption that he ages so well that 2011 Ichiro will not decline in any significant way compared to 2006 Ichiro. Let’s also assume that he’ll continue to patrol centerfield adequately.
Johnny Damon got 4/$52m from the Yankees at age 32 because Bernie Williams’ corpse was no longer an option for them as a starting CFer (at the age of 37). I believe they also had to fork over $3.5m to Bernie to buy their way out of his option year. Is it fair to say that Damon’s deal approximates what Ichiro could get as a FA CFer? Is it a good idea to give Ichiro an equivalent deal this winter before he can talk to any other club?
My fear, as you can tell, is that 37-year-old Ichiro becomes the Bernie Williams of the M’s organization. I suspect Damon will become Bernie Williams Mark II. Branch Rickey was big on trading players a year too early rather than a year too late.
He’s only wrong if we’re making stupid decisions. Trading away Ichiro, for example, would not balance out the attendence loss with any gain in attendence for winning. However, earlier this year we had the same discussion on whether to “win now” or “win later” somewhere around the trade deadline. In the end we agreed that winning (meaning getting to the postseason) would be beneficial for the team in the short and long term, despite what it might do to our situation for 2007.
In the end, it’s how you go about it, not the idea of trying to win.
Dave,
That straw man accusation is totally baseless. There are at least 5 people in this thread arguing that the M’s have to keep Ichiro in order to keep casual fans happy. It is a clear issue of chosing PR over winning.
The real issue is whether or not it is a good idea to resign him. Nobody here is arguing that signing Ichiro to an extension is a good idea as far as managing payroll or building a long-term winner. The arguments against trading him deal exclusively with issues like Japanese fans, international revenue, and selling tickets. Those things are peripheral to fielding a winning team. The only person who suggested that resigning Ichiro was a good idea explicitly stated that it was in lieu of winning.
Please explain to me how this is a straw man argument.
Keeping Ichiro in 2007 might help the M’s in the short term. But it makes little sense if you look past next season. If you disagree with this, I would love to hear your reasoning.
You yourself, in this very thread, said that you would shop Ichiro. You just don’t chose to discuss it because you don’t see it happeneing. In that sense, I think that you are probably correct. What I am saying is that it is unfortunate that this is the case.
These are the unpopular decisions that good organizations make. Oakland, Cleveland, Atlanta, Minnesota: all these clubs are good at recognizing the big picture, and making moves irrespective of fan sentiment. Many of the best trades these clubs have made were wildly unpopular.
Regarding the effect of Safeco on attendance, I agree that the park has a huge effect on attendance. But we need to make a distinction between novelty and quality.
When a new park opens, there is definitely a novelty factor. But you would expect that to wear off relatively quickly, as the park ceases to be new and exciting. But Safeco has been open for 7 years now, and the attendance is still higher than you would expect for a club that sucks as bad as the M’s. If the effect of the park are still strong after 7 seasons, and three losing seasons, you can asssume that that won’t wear off in a season or two.
At this point, things have equalized. The M’s are still a very good draw relative to other clubs, and particularly when you consider their W’s and L’s the past few years. At this point, the newness factor has worn off. Safeco is still an awesome park, though. That doesn’t just go away. Safeco will continue to be one of the best parks in baseball for years. At this point, I don’t see any reason to think that the effect of Safeco will simply go evaporate. If that was the case, explain why the M’s are still selling so many tickets.
Again, look at the team’s record versus the attendance. The M’s attendance is a direct effect of winning. When they suck, the attendance is mediocre. When they make the playoffs, they are in the top-3 draws in MLB.
If Safeco was the main factor, you would expect to see 2000 as the biggest year. But their attendance figures peaked in 2001 and 2002, the year they had the best record in baseball, and the following season.
People obviously still like to go to games even though the team sucks. But to suggest that this is independent of winning is silly. Nice park + crap team = mediocre attendance. Nice park + good team = high attendance. The reason why attendance has gone down recently is because the M’s are a bad team. If the club starts winning, those people will jump back on the bandwagon.
The M’s are averaging over 30,000 people/game. If they are contenders, that will go up. I think that this is as close to a 100% certainty as you get in sports.
Johnny Damon got 4/$52m from the Yankees at age 32 because Bernie Williams’ corpse was no longer an option for them as a starting CFer (at the age of 37). I believe they also had to fork over $3.5m to Bernie to buy their way out of his option year. Is it fair to say that Damon’s deal approximates what Ichiro could get as a FA CFer? Is it a good idea to give Ichiro an equivalent deal this winter before he can talk to any other club?
I’d sign Ichiro to a 4 year, $52 million deal in a heartbeat.
My fear, as you can tell, is that 37-year-old Ichiro becomes the Bernie Williams of the M’s organization. I suspect Damon will become Bernie Williams Mark II. Branch Rickey was big on trading players a year too early rather than a year too late.
Well, Bernie was a lot bigger than Ichiro, so I wouldn’t expect his speed decline to be a good comparison, but even if we allow for the possibility that he’s going to be a $5 million player in 2011 making $15 million, and he’ll be costing the team $10 million in wasted money that year, odds are the deal will still be a good one in total.
And yes, I know the “year too early” cliche quite well, and 90% of the time, I think it applies. However, when your organization, which essentially has no history to speak of, has a guy who is probably going to be enshrined into the hall of fame at the end of his career and he’s still a highly productive player, you shouldn’t get rid of him on the fear of what he might become in 4 years.
I’m not necessarily a “keep Ichiro at all costs” guy, but I’m not anywhere close to a “dump him before he becomes an albatross” guy.
That straw man accusation is totally baseless. There are at least 5 people in this thread arguing that the M’s have to keep Ichiro in order to keep casual fans happy. It is a clear issue of chosing PR over winning.
No one is arguing that. People are stating, correctly, that the P.R. and additional revenue concerns have to be factored in, and that people like you who ignore all off-field concerns are ignoring all the facts that need to be weighed. Your position has clearly been that the decision should be made strictly on performance. There are others, including me, who think that the decision should be performance and P.R. and financial. No one thinks it should be solely made on P.R.
Please explain to me how this is a straw man argument.
You: “It is a clear issue of chosing PR over winning.”
No one is choosing P.R. over winning. That’s a giant straw man comment.
Keeping Ichiro in 2007 might help the M’s in the short term. But it makes little sense if you look past next season. If you disagree with this, I would love to hear your reasoning.
It makes little sense to you, because none of the real world aspects of this decision matter to you besides how Ichiro plays on the field. Those real world aspects matter to the team, though, and they should.
When a new park opens, there is definitely a novelty factor. But you would expect that to wear off relatively quickly, as the park ceases to be new and exciting. But Safeco has been open for 7 years now, and the attendance is still higher than you would expect for a club that sucks as bad as the M’s. If the effect of the park are still strong after 7 seasons, and three losing seasons, you can asssume that that won’t wear off in a season or two.
The fact that the Mariners have maintained high attendance in spite of losing teams, by choosing to have a roster of marketable players, is a point in our favor, and I’m not sure how you can’t see that. On one hand, you’re criticizing the Mariners for “choosing P.R. over winning”, and then claiming that their decisions haven’t had an effect on their attendance. Which is it?
People obviously still like to go to games even though the team sucks. But to suggest that this is independent of winning is silly.
Hello straw man, nice to see you again. Been a while.
The M’s are averaging over 30,000 people/game. If they are contenders, that will go up. I think that this is as close to a 100% certainty as you get in sports.
No one is arguing this point. The point, the entire time, the one that you just keep missing, is that Ichiro adds value beyond his on-field performance, and that has to be figured into the decision of whether or not he should be retained.
Your point has been made perfectly clear. On Field Performance alone determines whether he should be re-signed. Pretty much everyone disagrees with you, for a lot of very good reasons, and your response is to claim that these people are choosing public relations over winning.
And then you don’t see the straw man argument.
But Safeco has been open for 7 years now, and the attendance is still higher than you would expect for a club that sucks as bad as the M’s.
The Baltimore Orioles, 2002: 2,682,439. 3rdin the Al in attendance. After FOUR 4th place finishes.
The M’s actually are dropping off QUICKER than the Orioles did. Try again, please.
The Mariners don’t need Sexson, Beltre, or Ichiro.
They have WILLIE.
That’s all they need. 😉
The Baltimore Orioles, 2002: 2,682,439. 3rdin the Al in attendance. After FOUR 4th place finishes.
In 1997, the last year before the mentioned four years of 4th place finishes, the Orioles drew 3.7 million fans. In 2002, as you mention, they drew 2.6 million fans. A net loss of 1.1 million fans over four years.
In 2001, the peak of Mariner popularity, they drew 3.5 million fans. In 2005 they drew 2.7 million fans, a net loss of 800,000 fans. I don’t know what 2006’s numbers project, but unless they’re going to draw less then 2.4 million fans, they’re not losing fans at a faster pace then the Orioles.
Besides that, the Orioles in 2003 drew 2.4 million fans, in 2004 drew 2.7 million fans, and in 2005 drew 2.6 million fans and they still finished 4th, 3rd, and 4th, respectively.
Conclusion: Using the Orioles as a comp was a really bad idea. In fact, using any fanbase to compare to another fanbase is a really bad idea, because the teams involved are different, the motivations of the owners are different, the actions of the GMs are different, the markets are different. I mean, you have to factor in a ton of aspects before you can compare two attendence records on something so significantly blind as period of losing following periods of winning.
Subtractions: yeah. It is most depressing that the principle reason that this club as constituted isn’t a contender at all going into ’07 is that our principle free agent signings of the last few years are producing far less than their salaries necessitate. That’s a significant warning sign on allowing our present FO to reinvest the money freed up by dealing a major player. But we could get lucky even if we won’t get smart, whereas if we stand pat we won’t get either . . .
Ichiro isn’t going to be traded. He may surprise us and bail at the end of his present contract, as mentioned above, though. If the Ms aren’t seriously contending by the middle of next season, I’d say it’s better than even odds he leaves. It seems clear that being associated with mediocrity sits ill with him. But that’s for next year.
Beltre or Sexson?: Both of them. Oh they won’t both be dealt I feel sure, ’cause the Ms management doesn’t have the stomach for that. If the idea here is to free up salary, then obviously Sexson is the better bet to be moved. The Ms have more and better options to replace him, he’s on a decline path even if it is no certainty that he won’t bounce back next year, and his season this year just wasn’t all that great. But the thing is, it’s not who you give away, it’s who you get (unless you’re looking to offload Jose Guillen, that is). So hang both of them over the wall in the offseason until after some fool buys Carlos Lee, see what offers are floated by then when other GMs sweat a bit and raise their bids, and make the move WHICH BRINGS THE BEST TALENT BACK.
This is about more than $$$. It’s really about changing the mix on the team, and bringing in new talent which makes a greater total. Where is the greater _talent value_ to be found, in trade or in reinvesting Sexson’s salary? Of course if no deal for either Sexson or Beltre includes a nice package coming back then dump Richie and use the dough. —But Beltre has a better chance, to me, of being the keystone in a multi-player package which brings back some _significant_ talent. To me, this is the angle that the Ms should be playing for, with dumping Richie as the back up plan. I’m not saying this to harsh on Beltre; he has real value, if not here equal to his present salary. But I think he’ll bring more back _in a trade_, and so he’s the one to focus on trading if possible. I don’t think we hear as many teams talking about ‘grabbing Beltre’ because the assumption is that he’s signed long-term and the team isn’t dealing him. So call up the other guys, disabuse them of that cannard, and see what they’re willing to pay for him. No matter how one values Richie relative to Adrian, NEITHER ONE is so valuable that he should be kept if a good multiplayer package can be built around _either_ one in a deal. So do the best deal.
In 2001, the peak of Mariner popularity, they drew 3.5 million fans. In 2005 they drew 2.7 million fans, a net loss of 800,000 fans. I don’t know what 2006’s numbers project, but unless they’re going to draw less then 2.4 million fans, they’re not losing fans at a faster pace then the Orioles.
Wrong. 2001 was the peak of Mariner performance, not Mariner popularity, at least not using attendance as the measuring stick. Mariner attendance peaked in 2002 (as has been pointed out several times already, there’s a lag between winning and increased attendance). Compare apples to apples, please.
but unless they’re going to draw less then 2.4 million fans, they’re not losing fans at a faster pace then the Orioles.
They’re going to draw between 2.4 and 2.5 million.
However, since we’re going to be snarky about this, the Orioles went straight into the toilet, under .500 and into 4th place after 1997 (with the exception of 2003, going 78-84 and making it to 3rd place).
The M’s after 2001: 3, 2, 4, 4 (the first two OVER .500, and over 90 games- in fact they won more games in 2002 and 2003 combined than some playoff participants over both those years. Their luck just sucked.)
And, despite not having a team finishing over .500 since Wade Boggs was playing in the league, the Orioles drew 2.6 million last year. It’s taken them almost 10 years of bad baseball, AND a second team in the area (Washington) to fmake the fans finally give up (this year, the Orioles are going to draw 2.1 million).
My point’s simply this: arguing “oh, teh Seattle fans are stoopid and don’t care about wins and losses and want cuddly faces” doesn’t exactly explain phenomena like Baltimore and Chicago, now, does it? I think, rather, that given a metro are of Seattle’s size, the baseline attendance is around 2-2.2 million even if your team is really the Tacoma Rainiers wearing M’s uniforms, unless you go out of your way to actively piss off the fanbase (think Montreal or Florida).
My point’s simply this: arguing “oh, teh Seattle fans are stoopid and don’t care about wins and losses and want cuddly faces†doesn’t exactly explain phenomena like Baltimore and Chicago, now, does it? I think, rather, that given a metro are of Seattle’s size, the baseline attendance is around 2-2.2 million even if your team is really the Tacoma Rainiers wearing M’s uniforms, unless you go out of your way to actively piss off the fanbase (think Montreal or Florida).
Do you think trading team icons like Ichiro would be seen by fans as pissing off the fanbase?
Like I said, you might be able to get away with it, depending. Ichiro’s not as revered in the press as Edgar was, and if you can get away with trading RJ and Junior, you PROBABLY can get away with it…but you had damn well better win that next year.
I think it would be a high-risk strategy compared to trading Sexson, for sure- and I’m not at all convinced that an argument of “you should be trading superstar players because they might suck in 2011 after you resign them to a deal next offseason” is really the right way to look at it. The primary consideration needs to be 2007, and maybe 2008- and I think it’s a pretty easy case to make that Sexson is far more replacable than Ichiro in the NEAR future, and the sort-term payoff is better.
Ichiro’s not as revered in the press as Edgar was, and if you can get away with trading RJ and Junior, you PROBABLY can get away with it…but you had damn well better win that next year.
Yes, well, the decline in interest is as bad as it is because the team has been both losing and churning the roster. Fans are saying, essentially, “call me when you figure out who you think your team is.”
A little bit of stability in the roster plus games in September that matter (even if they don’t make play-offs, but at least are in the race) will stop the bleeding. I really don’t think Seattle can generate sustained fan interest without both.
They blew it in 02 when they didn’t make a real effort to improve the team. Coming off two straight playoff runs and the magic of 01, plus the new stadium, they had huge buzz. The team – after 01 – had two big needs. A top-flight starter and a power-hitting left fielder. Instead, they got James Baldwin, Jeff Cirillo, Rueben Sierra and Luis Ugueto. Really, Ugueto? Here’s a team that is on the verge of winning over a city and establishing at least a minor legacy and they saddle the team with a Rule 5 kid who, despite being on the active roster all year, got 25 PAs, and probably shouldn’t have gotten that many. He should’ve been in AA. Where is he now? Released by KC last year. Not from their big-league roster either. Ouch. He had 31 PA as a major leaguer, all with Seattle. Ugueto in a best-case scenario would’ve develeoped into Charles Gipson. Who the M’s already had on their 25-man roster.
#226: At the time, I was anti-Ugueto (or, as Lou nicknamed him, “The Rule 5 Kid,” great nickname) too, but it’s not unheard of for a team to carry a Rule 5 player and win the World Series. The Red Sox carried Lenny DiNardo on their roster in 2004, he pitched a total of 27-2/3 innings for them, and they went all the way. And now, two years later, he’s developed into… Lenny DiNardo. His upside seems to be John Halama.
It seems appropriate to mention that Ugueto was suspended for steroids, so at least he and Ryan Franklin will have something to talk about at the 20th reunion of the 2001 team.
Jeff Cirillo came into town with a gaudy .311 lifetime BA and taught M’s fans (and, we hope, the front office) about park adjustments. It was an expensive lesson.
I think Baldwin instead of a stud FA starter was the big mistake. But don’t forget the mid-season acquisitions: Doug Creek and Jopse Offerman. Where are they now? (Rhetorical question; don’t waste time looking them up.)