Jones/Triple-A All-Star Game
Dave · July 11, 2007 at 2:35 pm · Filed Under Mariners
The News Tribune shoots down the Adam Jones promotion rumor, but confirms that he’ll be up “soon”, whatever that means. We’ll have to hold the celebration on that front for a little while longer.
Also, the Triple-A All-Star game kicks off at 4:30 pm pacific and can be seen on ESPN2. Adam Jones will be taking part in the ASG, so if you need your AJ fix, here’s your chance.
Comments
140 Responses to “Jones/Triple-A All-Star Game”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Well, you’re not going to find out if the second time’s the charm until you bring him up, now, can you?
Gotta be done some time, and if you do it while giving your key veterans rest (which they DO need), then it can’t be that much of a decision….
“Why are we taking Prospect Insider as the Bible”
Jason is usually 98% on, and if he was off he was misled. Jones will be up shortly. the only reason he isn’t up now is that haven’t decided who to ship out since Vidro can’t be moved.
I never understood the Vidro thing, it never made sense, just anothe Bavasi blunder
13 games over .500, that is the bright side of bavasi blunders, we are talking total luck in how the team jelled.
Why do people still think Vidro has trade value? Especially to an NL team, where he would have to play the field.
Jones was 20 when he got called up last year, if he had done any more than he did it would have been phenomenal.
I don’t see anyone taking Vidro off our hands.
Not sure Vidro does have a lot of trade value but if he does it won’t be in the AL as a DH. He produced better in the NL and he knows the NL and they know him so there might be a trade opportunity there. As is the case with most Bavasi pickups and discards the M’s will eat some money in the process. That’s what I think will be Bavasi’s ultimate downfall with the owners; too much money eaten on discarded players in less than one year, or at least very little time, with the M’s. That’s no way to run a business.
I think I have more trade value than Jose Vidro.
This thread reminds me of June 22nd vs the Reds.
Johnb in 102 said:
“I never understood the Vidro thing, it never made sense, just anothe Bavasi blunder”
Really, I’m as glas as the next guy that Jones will soon be called up. However, how you define “blunder?” If the M’s had kept Snelling at DH, he’d likely be injured and taking up a roster spot on the DL, or on injury rehabs. Vidro, at least, is second on the club in runs scored, so when he does get on base on base–(4th highest OBP among starters)–it benefits the club. Snelling might not even be on the club, and Fruto would likely be redundant in the current bullpen, maybe replacing Reitsma. Sure, Vidro isn’t nearly a good DH, but he’s at least better than an injured guy.
107: Yeah, that wasn’t a good birthday for me. >
108: Vidro may be better than an injured guy, but he’s not better than an injured guy and several million dollars to find an uninjured guy.
No, vidro is NOT better than an injured guy. Especially a league minimum injured guy. Among qualified batters, players with lower OPS than vidro. Also, most of these guys play the field as well, rather than only having to hit.
L. Castillo, A. Huff, J. Damon (surprised me), A. Gordon, J. Dye (wow), T. Pena JR, Yuni, A.J Pierwhineski, C. Monroe, J. Bartlett, J. Uribe, J, Barfield, G. Laird, B. Crosby, C. Patterson, N. Punto, J. Lugo, and J. Kendall.
Vidro makes more money than all but kendall, Dye, Damon, and well thats it. Kendall is decent defensively, Dye will finish ahead of Vidro in OPS easily, and Damon probably will. The rest consists of middle infielders, backup catchers, and Royals.
Runs scored is the most useless stat to value players. Would you rather have a guy with 1.000 OBP who rarely seemed to score over a 300 AB stretch or a guy who only got on .320 of the time but scored every time over the same time frame?
Vidro is not just a bad DH, he’s a bad regular player. For any team. He’s not even fast to avoid double plays or causing them himself.
So, to recap. Had we kept snelling, he would have gotten hurt and Jones or Balentien or Clement would be up here sooner… And cheaper…and Fruto may or may not be doing something for us…and next year would be a clean slate instead of already giving money to Vidro.
It is inconceivable that someone could read this blog semi-regularly and still find a way to rationalize vidro’s “output” as beneficial to the team.
How would Snelling on the DL take up a roster spot? In any case, why use a roster spot at all? If you don’t have Travis Hafner or Edgar on the roster, there’s no reason why you have to go out and find some guy who is a pale imitation of that. Right now the M’s have one guy (Broussard) who isn’t in the lineup as often as he should be and another guy (Ibanez) who’s in the field way more than he should be. Plenty of successful AL teams use the DH as a “half-rest” spot, rotating guys through regularly and using it to add another LH or RH bat depending on who they’re facing. I suspect the only reason Bavasi went out a blew a wad of cash was because Hargrove wanted “set lineups” (which means a truly Designated Hitter) and because Hargrove preferred “proven vetrans” (which means no kids, injury-prone or otherwise). Hopefully MacLaren is a little more sensibly flexible, leaving Bavasi to make mistakes for his own reasons and not because he’s accommodating someone else’s.
Also, given that Vidro has made more outs than anyone else on the team, he is actually worse than an injured guy. I said it before: if Jones comes up and strikes out at every at bat, he at least won’t be hitting into double plays. That makes him a better deal than Vidro, even before you factor in his defense.
I’m pretty sure that Vidro being driven in a lot has more to do with where he’s been hitting in the order than any sort of repeatable skill.
So any news on how Jones did in the all-star game?
Since this thread isn’t going to get much worse,
I’m pleased to report that the unbearable 4th of July traffic spike in McCall has subsided a bit, and I was actually able to get through town in under 20 minutes today.
Thank you Corco
Right now the M’s have one guy (Broussard) who isn’t in the lineup as often as he should be and another guy (Ibanez) who’s in the field way more than he should be…
Yep, fits in with my “trickle down” theory of Bad Moves. Bad Moves are ones that not only cost you and don’t solve a problem, but actually create additional ones. Soriano for HoRam and Snelling/Fruto for Vidro were both Bad Moves.
+littered with dead businesses that were flip-floppers and wafflers.+
Businesses (like politicians) would be better-advised to figure out and make the right decisions, rather than worrying about the perception of being a flip-flopper or waffler.
If the M’s bring up AJ in the next two weeks, do I care that they vacillated along the way? No.
If the M’s decisively go with Vidro or Carl Everett and stick with each for 300+ ABs because they made a decision and don’t want to be perceived as waffling, am I happy to have a front office that knows its own mind? Of course not. (We won’t even get into Weaver et al.)
Did Coke worry about flip-flopping when they revived “Coke Classic” to save the company and grow it bigger than it had ever been before? Again, of course not.
Do I wish my current and future presidents are capable of changing plans based on the reality in front of their eyes? It’s a forlorn hope, but yes I do. Please flip-flop away.
I’m willing to let this play out, but I hope the M’s soon make the flip-flop they should have made two months ago. If they waffle along the way, more power to them. 🙂
119: Thank you.
Meh.
#119, you’re talking about being decisive AND agile. Make a decision, implement as well as you can, but be ready with another plan if it doesn’t work out.
What I’m talking about is not being able to make a decision at all–vacillating with no purpose, changing your mind before making the decision, delaying making a decision for two months. That sort of indecision helps no one–you SHOULD care if the Mariners vacillated for two months over a decision, because that’s two months wasted, and x number of games they may have lost because of the decision they should have made.
119 – Exactly.
There is a big, big difference between not having made a decision, and unnecessarily delaying the implementation of a decision that has already been made.
Everything I’m hearing is that this decision has already been made, so it’s in everybody’s best interest to have the implementation happen as rapidly as possible.
The Coke analogy is flawed; this situation would be similar to them saying “We’re going to bring Coke Classic back, but we’re going to wait a while before actually doing it, for no discernible reason”.
[deleted]
Why would I keep reading after this point? You’re dismissing the world of rational argument because some people abuse it. At that point we’re just sounding off at each other, which one can find most anywhere else if desired.
Vidro has hit for average, he hasn’t hit for modest power, he doesn’t have speed, and he really doesn’t have a defensive position anymore which hurts the teams flexibility. He also is an expensive player that will block kids such as Balantien, and Jones. He also keeps another good bat on the bench in Broussard.
If Vidro was only signed for one year, and we didn’t have to give up anyone to get him, the move would look better.
You can’t discount Vidro’s contributions since he is a veteran piece of a pie that happens to be 13 games over .500 at the all star break. He is obviously part of the chemistry that got us to this point.
As for Snelling, and Fruto, we all hated to see them go, but neither would have made much of an impact on this years team.
Is Vidro awful?
No, he is hitting like an average second baseman, which is what he formerly was. Problem is he is now pretty much limited to DH, and we need more power, and just happen to have it in the minors.
#124, you are way off base.
First, BA is a horrible way to value players.
Second, Vidro has no other skill: no power, no ability to get on base other than BA, no speed, no fielding. So all we have to judge him on his BA, it is his only positive skill, and against that you have one big negative skill, GIDP.
The M’s have a better hitter against righties sitting on the bench (and he was on the roster before Bavasi stupidly signed Vidro to a 2 year albatross of a contract.)
Here’s the thing, even if Vidro was performing at his best career year BA level, he would still be a bad DH. Look around the league, see what other teams have for a DH or what they are using as platoon or part time DH’s. Use some other metrics to judge hitters, use OPS+, use RC/9, use something that considers the total value of a hitter.
Geez, compare Vidro to a replacement level hitter you could get for free. Then take the money and buy a pitcher.
Paul, all that you say is true, but it will take a miracle, or a DFA to get rid of him, but hey, it isn’t my money.
I put on the earphones just in time to hear Nelly & Mahler agree that you should give a Jones up for ‘a big time arm’. No actual thought on just who that available ‘big time arm’ might be, but as Nelly points out, he agrees with Joe Morgan who says, just what has that minor league prospect done for your team?
sigh.
I combed through this thread and still must have missed this:
Why didn’t we have BOTH of our promising outfielders in the AAA All-Star game? Shouldn’t Wladimir Balentien have been there too?
Can’t wait to see Vidro OUT of the starting line up either…someday…sigh
johnb, yes, but they have to consider the money a sunk cost. They spent it, and there is no way to get it back, no one is going to assume Vidro’s contract (if Bavasi can find someone to take Vidro and his contract, I’ll change my opinion of Bavasi!)
I think putting him on the bench doesn’t take a great stretch. If they have better options for bench players, then DFA him. That’s not really a miracle, just good decision making.
I remember other times in the past when the Mariners had a lot of deadwood on the roster (more than the current team does!) and a new manager came in and got the team to make a lot of changes to improve the team through subtraction. Dick Williams was good at that (until he realized the team still sucked and he gave up and coasted the rest of the way). Bob Melvin was really bad at it, maybe because he wasn’t given the authority or maybe because he was too much of a good organization man.
I really must stop torturing myself by reading mlb.com articles that spark my curiosity when I’m looking at schedules, etc.
Apparently, we have no reason to call up AJ. According to the guy who wrote the Midterm Report for the AL West, regarding the Mariners:
“Gold stars:
Ichiro Suzuki; hitting 26 points above his career average. Jose Vidro; career National Leaguer has done a terrific job adapting to the new role of DH. J.J. Putz; not only perfect in 24 save opportunities, but has gone either multiple-innings or 1-2-3 ninths for most of them.”
I don’t need to point out which statement is insane.
I like Vidro for what he is: a contact hitter who can work counts and a good lockeroom presence.
I see in today’s PI an article by David Andriesen that says that McLaren knows nothing about a pending call up of Adam Jones, and says he wouldn’t be in favor of it because the team is playing well and he doesn’t want to interrupt that.
Ugh.
McLaren “knows nothing” about it. That doesn’t sound too good. I hope he’s just being dishonest and that this is the sort of thing he is in the loop about. He may not have heard about an impending call up, but he should know SOMETHING about what the status is regarding AJ.
As for Andriesen, you have to be kidding me. Yeah, like we couldn’t be playing well if Vidro’s impotent bat wasn’t in the line up and Raul’s clay of feet weren’t in LF (eyes rolling).
Sorry, just couldn’t let this slip past:
111: Runs scored is the most useless stat to value players. Would you rather have a guy with 1.000 OBP who rarely seemed to score over a 300 AB stretch or a guy who only got on .320 of the time but scored every time over the same time frame?
A pretty strong assertion to begin with, given that it is commonly accepted that runs scored is far more useful than, say, batting average or RBI. But the example you use to demonstrate your point is outrageous– the likelyhood that someone who got on base EVERY TIME for 300 plate appearances but “rarely seemed to score” has got to be very small.
In fact, a good argument could be made that runs scored is more valuable than OBP if we use the Runs Created metric to measure a player’s value. (Dave used this to estimate Ichiro’s worth in the previous thread. I’m getting my data from baseball-reference.com which uses (H+BB)*TB/(AB+BB) to calculate Runs Created).
Here is the list of who led MLB last year in OBP. (In parenthesis is where they ranked on the top 10 runs created list):
1. Helton (10)
2. Giambi
3. Pujols (2)
4. Giles
5. Rodriguez (3)
6. Lee (1)
7. Berkman
8. Hafner
9. Johnson
10. Abreu
And here’s the top 10 in runs in MLB last year (and where they ranked on the top 10 RC in MLB):
1. Pujols (2)
2. Rodriguez (3)
3. Jeter
4. Lee (1)
5. Ortiz (4)
6. Damon
7. Rollins
8. Young (8)
9. Figgins
10. Ramirez (9)
10. Teixeira (5)
There’s less variation between the Runs Scored/Runs Created list than the OBP/RC list. Now this is by no menas a throrough analysis, but I think it at least casts doubt on the two claims that 1. Runs scored is the most useless stat to value players, and 2. OBP is a better tool than runs scored to evaluate a given player’s skill.
Well, I’d just answer that by saying that correlation does not necessarily imply causation.
In other words, I’m not sure that scoring runs (other than by hitting home runs, which is why I suspect there is some correlation between thsoe lists) is necessarily due to some inherent skill that a player has, so much as it is a product of where in the order they hit.
There is some player skill involved in getting oneself into scoring position, but I think that OBP works okay as a measure for that portion of it.
Why didn’t we have BOTH of our promising outfielders in the AAA All-Star game? Shouldn’t Wladimir Balentien have been there too?
Balentien played in the Futures game. I don’t know if it is actually a rule, but from what I can recall from past years a guy plays in one or the other, not both.
omigod.
just in the last minutes on KJR, from several different voices:
‘Vidro is getting on base, he’s scoring runs’
‘you want to leave Guillen in right, he has a cannon and Ibanez has been playing great in left field’
The “Correlation does not imply causation” fallacy does not apply in my point, though. That fallacy argues that because A resembles B, A causes B. I am not arguing Runs Scored causes Runs Created. I am arguing Runs Scored correlates better to Runs Created than does OBP.
If we agree that the top list of Runs Scorerd more closely resembles the top list of Runs Created than does the top OBP list, and if we agree that Rund Created is an exemplary metric for determining a player’s value, doesn’t it stand to reason that Runs Scored is a better metric than OBP?
The top OBP list has more “sluggers” on it than does the Runs Scored list, so I’m not sure the correlation is preceisely due to home runs hit. I’d argue that Runs Scored probably *does* measure (however obliquely) some inherent, repeatable skill a player has– namely getting on base *and* hitting for power.