No Thanks
John Hickey gives us a blog post with some good news mixed with bad news.
Perhaps that call will come from Minnesota. Sources suggest that the Mariners have been trying to clear some room on the payroll by trading left-handed starter Jarrod Washburn to the Twins.
The Twins might take Washburn? Sweet!
One deal discussed in the last week or so involved sending Washburn and catcher Jeff Clement to Minnesota in exchange for 23-year-old outfielder Delmon Young.
Ummm… no thanks. Delmon Young could be a nice buy low candidate as his stock has taken a huge hit the last two years, but the Mariners are a bad, bad fit for him. A right-handed, bad defensive OF, he has upside, but is not so much better than the sum of the M’s current group of young OFs (Wladimir Balentien, Greg Halman, Michael Saunders, Dennis Raben, Ezequiel Carrera) that they should be trading Clement to add to the deepest position in the organization. When looking at a one versus the field proposition, you’re almost always better off taking the field – in fact, I’d argue that it’s not just possible but likely that one of the five players listed in the parenthesis will be a better major league player going forward than Delmon Young.
Making this deal would do a lot of things, and most of them not good. It would make the ’09 team worse both offensively and defensively, skew the line-up even further to the RH side, block off the path to the majors for some of the team’s better prospects, and generally muck up a lot of the good work that’s been done this winter.
This rumor doesn’t make sense for the Mariners, and it doesn’t really make sense for the Twins either. See, they have this guy named Mauer that isn’t going anywhere, so they’d be acquiring Clement as a DH, which he wouldn’t be particularly happy with. And he’s not so great a hitting prospect that teams should be crawling all over themselves to acquire Clement The DH.
So, I’m just going to write this one off as one of those strange rumors that isn’t going anywhere. It’s just not a deal that makes sense, and thankfully, with this new front office, we can feel safe that not every rumor that would make the team worse will come to fruition.
I’d have to agree. This just doesn’t make sense. But hasn’t there been some talk that Mauer might have to move from behind the plate for health concerns?
Wow does UZR hate Delmon Young! I thought the scouts had him pegged as an above avg defender. If he isn’t going to hit for power and is going to be auwful in the field he’ll never come close to his potential.
I have no problem trading Clement as he’s excess baggage right now and hasn’t proved a whole lot yet either. But I don’t want to do it for an average right handed OF’er. We already have on in Wlad and he needs to be given the job full-time this year to prove if he can do it or not. Endy is for defense only – he has no bat and shouldn’t be considered anything other than a 4th option. I know the authors of this site can’t see past OF defense but it’s the truth.
Is it possible it would be done for the salary dump, then move Young? His salary is just under 1.5 million, so from an economic standpoint wouldn’t it make sense to ship Washburn off?
The last line of the post saying that the FO would not do something that would make the team worse is very weird sounding when I am so used to the bad player evaluation of the previous GM.
Also regarding spar123, Endy is an average player. He certainly can be a solid starter and the M’s do not need to acquire anyone else to be the starting LF.
Well spar123, apparently you can’t see past OF offense, because it’s been stated numerous times how much Endy’s defense would help and how it helps to make up for his offense. Wlad is not and will never be a good fit on the Mariners.
I have no problem trading Clement as he’s excess baggage right now and hasn’t proved a whole lot yet either.
And when he’s gone somewhere else and “proved something” by putting up good numbers, what then? Wait for him to hit free agency and then overpay to get him back? Bavasi, is that you?
And why does Wlad get a year to “prove something” in your mind but Clement does not?
I know the authors of this site can’t see past OF defense but it’s the truth.
Riiiiiight, that’s the problem with the authors on this site. If you’re going to be a troll you should be a little less lazy about it, and at least try to wrap your falsehoods in something entertaining.
“I have no problem trading Clement as he’s excess baggage right now and hasn’t proved a whole lot yet either.”
Carlos Quentin, Ryan Ludwick, and Carlos Pena didn’t show a lot in their first couple of seasons either. Clement still has a chance to really help this team.
“Endy is for defense only – he has no bat and shouldn’t be considered anything other than a 4th option. I know the authors of this site can’t see past OF defense but it’s the truth.”
I don’t think anyone is saying that you can’t upgrade from Endy to someone better in LF. I think the point the authors would make is that Endy is terrific defender in the outfield and he has some value. Thats what I’ve got from what they’ve said anyway.
“so from an economic standpoint wouldn’t it make sense to ship Washburn off?”
I wouldn’t think so if you have to give up on Clement.
freeing up some salary for that one year abreu deal would be super swell. but I only like this trade if they have something setup to get delmon out of here faster than he throws a bat.
I know the authors of this site can’t see past OF defense but it’s the truth.
It’s only because people overlook it they stress it so much and they do think offense is good and they recognize it .
I have no problem trading Clement as he’s excess baggage right now and hasn’t proved a whole lot yet either.
Delmon Young however has shown what he has and people don’t like it bad defense and average offense bad attitude. Clement has only been in the bigs for a little while I rather see if he actually develops the 20-25 HR power we’ve been hearing about or not then trade him for someone who is not an ideal fit for this team.
Yeah that sounds like a pretty crappy deal for both teams considering, as you point out, that between Mauer and Morneau and Kubel the Twins have pretty much every position Clement could be helpful in covered.
I don’t want to get too speculative but it would make much more sense if the ‘sweetner’ in the deal were a pitcher, as Churchill reported a few days ago. Morrow springs to mind right away, but also Olson seems to be the Twins’ kind of pitcher – lefty, good change, great K rate, maybe fixable.
Whatever. Pitchers and catchers report in two weeks and then we can finally start hearing about which player lost/gained how many pounds.
If it was Silva + Clement for Delmon then the M’s should listen but Washburn, as bad as his contract is, is only one year and then off the books.
Or if it was Washburn + Balentien for Delmon, then great.
Dave, would you be in favor of a Washburn + Clement for Span type deal? How does Span project both defensively and offensively? Span is also a lefty bat which is nice.
In the short term, Clement would be at most a marginal upgrade over Jason Kubel as a DH, so even the idea that the Twins would want to acquire Clement as a DH doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Everything other than the Clement bit kind of makes sense. I’m sure the Mariners want to ditch Washburn for the obvious reasons. The Twins have seemingly expressed a strangely large amount of interest in Washburn’s mediocrity, but at least from what they tell the press, they like having a “veteran leader” in the rotation. (Performance-wise, Washburn would arguably be a marginal improvement over Glen Perkins, too.)
The Twins would clearly like to move Delmon Young so that Denard Span can play LF every day. I guess from the M’s standpoint, maybe Delmon is a buy low opportunity, but I don’t think he’s ever going to be very good. He’ll probably become a good hitter, but I don’t think he’ll be an elite hitter, and his defense is either going to be so bad that he’ll be stuck at DH or you’ll wish he was stuck at DH. At least with Clement, if he can’t catch, he might have a decent shot at playing first base credibly.
This would be exactly what I’d expect Bill Bavasi to do.
If the Twins want to get rid of their logjam in OF, why not do Washburn (and eat ~$4mil for the contract) for Carlos Gomez? Speedy, good defensively (+17 UZR last year), basically a better defensive version of Willie Bloomquist and a good fifth outfielder.
Wow. A lot can happen in 4 years.
http://ussmariner.com/2005/06/13/franchise-players/
I agree that this deal makes very little sense for either side, and does not seem to be in the vein of Jack Z’s previous moves this offseason.
Also, JH’s link: I second the wow.
ManifestDestiny: The Twins LOVE Carlos Gomez, and his defense makes him an average-slightly above player even with the awful offensive contribution last year. He was 22 last year and showed promise in the minors, so there’s little reason to think he won’t get better at the plate and become a +3WAR player soon, with the chance for much more.
Minnesota isn’t a stupid team, and that would be a horrible trade. Carlos Gomez is a legitimate everyday center fielder on a winning team, and he has the potential to be a star. Washburn for Gomez would be laughable even if both players made the league minimum. At their relative salaries it’s borderline insane.
There’s nothing to this one, I’d say…for all the reasons expressed above…but I’d bet good money Zduriencik is rattling the phones as much as any GM right now..
If this rumor was true I would be excited! Because Jack-Z and company would be turning around and trading Delmon Young for someone’s +5 WAR AAA prospect.
I believe in this FO that much!
JH,
For crying out loud, that was 4 years ago. Delmon Young was a future stud then. 4 years later and he didn’t pan out, sounds like thousands of future studs over the years to me (Little Unit anyone?). Wow, talk about cherry picking, the rest of the list looks (mostly) good.
As for the rumor, not much substance there, what would be Z’s motivation to bring in an underachieving right handed OF into the mix we already have? Only makes sense if he can turn Young, even then, Clement is too high a price. Make it Wlad and it works for the Mariners, but not the Twins. Sounds like a reach.
Are we really saying Delmon Young is a lost cause at age 23? I am not going to argue that his UZR defensive ratings are poor but at the same time, we’ve seen many examples of players finding themselves after up and down starts to a career.
If we’re going to give Jeff Clement time to develop and have growing pains, then surely Delmon Young should be given the same chance. It’s not like his last couple of years have been horrific offensively. His power is not there yet but most offensive players don’t develop power until later in their careers.
I understand the logic on why this deal would not be good for the Mariners but I am not ready to bury Delmon Young at age 23.
Thing is you guys are acting like Wlad is incompetent in the field. Sure he’s not an elite defender but you don’t need 3 elite guys. Nice if you have them but if they all hit for basically nothing then there is little point right? Wlad can handle LF just fine – it’s not a hard position to handle anyways. He’d be a major upgrade over Ibanez which the authors hated to no end. In short – if you can’t see that Wlad would be a far better option for LF than Endy then again, you are blinded by OF defense. Sure it would be nice to have 3 gazzelles out there that would run everything down but if they can’t hit – you better have 4 IF’ers that can mash and we don’t.
As for Clement – the team has made it pretty clear that Clement isn’t really the future but that other kid – not johnson – moore or something like that. Also we got a messy situation with Catcher now with Joh and Clement. Clement hasn’t showed much of anything, like Wlad, so you can’t support one guy while getting rid of another. I’d be all for trading both Wlad/Clement to get a very good LF’er or 1B.
I got no problem giving both Wlad/Clement a full year at their positions to see if they can prove the position belongs to them if thats what the team wants to do. The value on both is still high so is the right time to trade them if you want as if they falter this year – the value will plummet.
And i’m no troll – i read this site from time to time but don’t bother to post cause I don’t feel the need to build the authors ego’s like most of you do and if I directly say what I think about them they will block me, sadly. Acting like these guys best friends won’t help you guys any – these guys are right some of the time, wrong some of the time – so develop your own thoughts and don’t just adopt theirs ok? That’s called having your own opinion, lol.
What in the world does “blinded by OF defense” even mean?
Wasn’t that what happened to Al Pacino’s character in “Scent of a Woman”?
Actually, if anyone is “blinded” by OF defense, it’s me, because I stabbed my eyes out last year watching Raul Ibanez play left.
Well, the scouts seem to think so. The stats seem to think so.
What’s YOUR evidence?
Um, wrong. If your defense is good enough so that your “little offense” wins games, then you have a BIG point. And lots of wins. That’s the point; scoring more than the other team. The point you KEEP IGNORING is that you can do it with big offense…or you can do it with big defense.
And you DO realize that the outfield offense is going to be IMPROVED over last year?
Jeff:
He’s being given two and two and doesn’t believe in adding them together.
Ha ha… indeed! You actually dug up the first post that I commented on, too. Boy I was stupid then. At least I never made the “I’ve played / been involved with / pleasured myself with a baseball for upteen years and know more then you do, geek in your mom’s basement!”.
I remember now what my beef was with the original post. I flat out misunderstood what you were doing. Rather, I had an image in my mind of what a franchise guy was, using other sports as examples, and yours didn’t make sense to me. Yep, pretty stupid once.
kennyb: I’m not exactly sure what comment you thought I was making. I wasn’t criticizing Dave for picking Young if that was your impression. I was just commenting on how far he’s fallen in the past few seasons, from the only minor league player considered a cornerstone “franchise player” to a guy for whom we wouldn’t give up a B+ prospect like Clement.
Clement is a problematic prospect.
Not healthy enough, or skilled enough, to be an everyday catcher. LH bat with power potential in a park with a short porch in right.
Honestly, he could be Buhner, and he could be a LH Huskey/Jacobsen.
Whatever the outcome, this trade rumor makes no sense for the Twins or the M’s.
I am reallllly on the fence on this one. On one hand, I really do believe that Young might deserve a shot to develop…I just don’t think it should be with this team. The thing is Washburn is only on the books for one more year, and as much as I love Z’s little moves…eh. I don’t want to go as far as to say I’m 100% behind any move Z would ever make either.
I’m also glad that at least someone recognizes that all us posters want to do is suck up to the “authors” of the site. That’s really my only reason for coming to this site.
But it was entertaining to reread!
and if I directly say what I think about them they will block me, sadly.
Yes, it’s quite sad that we don’t allow random personal attacks. What is this world coming to?
Now, if you want to continue to post here, you can leave all your comments about other people at the door. You’ve been warned.
If not having your opinion be influence by people who know more about things than you do is worth being hilariously wrong… good job I guess?
And while you form your opinion you might consider the advantages of avoiding a variety of common logical fallacies.
So far in this thread you’ve managed at least the following:
– Argumentum ad hominem
– Argumentum ad ignorantiam
– Argumentum ad nauseum
– Argumentum ad verecundiam.
Congratulations!! That’s a lot of items to bundle into one short thread.
Appears that this is yet another person who doesn’t know the difference between personal attacks and attacks on arguments. Generally, if you decouple the two, it works better around here.
That said, there’s (again) that common flaw of focussing on one area to the exclusion of all else. There’s lip service paid to thinking defense counts, but the bottom line for this thinking is that only offense matters. It’s very Bavasi-like (i.e., traditionally minded).
Accusing folks of being blinded by OF defense is ironic, because Dave and the others are doing the precise OPPOSITE. They’re looking at both offensive and defensive contributions, adding both sides up and seeing who has the bigger numbers.
JH,
Sorry, my mistake, I thought you were ripping on the post itself. I guess I read too many other blogs that degenerate into name calling and doing anything you can to point out other people’s mistakes-no matter how old.
Now that I know what you are saying, I couldn’t agree more.
I do still think Young may develop into a very good hitter, but I don’t think he fits with the Mariners.
I do still think Young may develop into a very good hitter, but I don’t think he fits with the Mariners.
Right. That’s what we’re saying. This isn’t a Delmon Young is a bust post. His early career looks an awful lot like what Adrian Beltre went through. He’s probably going to turn into a pretty useful player. But Seattle is just a bad spot for him, both in terms of Stadium and organizational depth.
I have been known, on occasion, to be blinded by science.
spar-
Do you really think people will take you seriously when you say, “moore or something like that.”?
Learn the players’ names…
So what if, thanks to the statistical enlightment this site (and sites like Fangraphs et al) has given me, I come to those same conclusions, on my own? Am I still just sucking up to fuel an ego? THERE’S LOGIC IN THESE NUMBERS PEOPLE! This is no bandwagon. This is good common sense based in reality rather than historical convention. Get used to it, cause this is the way it’s going to be more and more.
On this rumor, I also hope it’s just that. Although, with having so many good young backstops, if they’d take Rob Johnson, I’d do it. Also, any thoughts as to whether this move, which could free up that abreu money, could be similar to a Heilman where we could free that money, sign abreu and flip young? Just wondering if anyone has heard of any other teams interested in young, as if anyone could pull a move like that off, Z has shown us it’s him.
I’m thinking along the lines of Axtell, Mark S, and BobbyAyalaFan4Life on this rumor. If the M’s were to acquire Delmon Young, I think they would most likely flip him to another team pretty quickly, like they did with Heilman. If they could get a single player with Clement-like talent, or 2 prospects with upside for Young, then that would be a huge victory for the front office.
(quick aside, Delmon Young’s career UZR/150 is -0.4 in RF, but -16.6 in LF. I believe he spent most of his minor league career in RF and it is entirely possible he is capable of playing league average defense, but just hasn’t adjusted to LF yet. Speaking as a guy who played OF into college and now in adult leagues, I believe this is possible. I grew up playing CF and RF and have never, ever been comfortable in LF. So maybe Young’s LF defense will improve with more time there or if he could get shifted back to RF.)
Washburn + Clement –> Delmon Young –> Clement-like talent = win for M’s
What do you notice about that equation? How about the fact that Washburn’s salary gets dumped? And honestly, moving Clement of other young talent might make sense. I think most everyone still believes in Clement’s bat, but the M’s have plenty of young catching prospects. Moving Clement would free the M’s from having to worry about Clement’s defense and about some of his injury problems. Plus it would allow them to get a player in a position of more need.
So I’d be all for the deal if the plan was to flip Delmon Young. To summarize the positives:
(1) Dump Washburn’s salary
(2) Don’t have to worry about Clement’s defense
(3) Don’t have to worry about Clement’s injuries
(4) Have plenty of young catching prospects behind Clement
(5) Get value similar to Clement at position of greater need
I don’t support the rumor if the idea is to keep Delmon Young. He is still ridiculously young (23, 2 years younger than Clement!) (pun not intended). But he’s getting to his arbitration years and has stagnated the past couple seasons (with the exception of an improving BB%). One big problem is that he hits way too many ground balls for a guy that was supposed to have power (55.2% in 2008, up from 46% in 2006 & 2007). Even when he does hit the ball in the air, he’s not hitting many HR (7.6% HR/FB in 2007 and 2008).
So if the idea is to flip Delmon Young, who are some possible partners?
(1) Nats – I include them in every discussion of a toolsy outfielder. They already have a crowded OF, but Milledge for Young straight-up could work out well for the M’s (the Nats seem tired of Milledge already). Milledge and Young are the same age, but Milledge is under team control for an extra year, he’s shown a better BB rate and more power in the majors, and he is probably a better defender (-8.7 UZR/150, mostly in CF, whereas Young is -11.8, mostly in LF and RF, so Milledge’s numbers would presumably go up with more time in LF since UZR compares players at the same position).
(2) Braves – great farm system, but they might not buy into Delmon Young.
(3) White Sox – they want to get younger and have shopped Jermaine Dye in the offseason. Their farm system is pretty poor through. It would be funny to see the M’s turn Jeff Clement into Tyler Flowers.
(4) Reds – this could actually work. Reds have a decent farm system and an old school GM.
(5) Indians – also have a decent farm system. Not sure how convinced they are that Francisco and Choo can be their everyday corners (though I don’t know how Young could be considered an upgrade at this point). Matt Laporta could be a piece.
(6) Rockies – good farm system, Young could replace Holliday in LF.
(7) Royals – don’t really need an OF, but I include them in every trade discussion because Drayton Moore is looking like a pretty bad GM lately.
(8) Mets – I don’t love their trade pieces, but they could use a corner OF.
(9) Giants – Sabean has had a good offseason, but I also think he is the kind of GM who might overpay for Delmon Young.
I could easily see one of these teams giving up a Clement-type prospect for Delmon Young.
What this new front office is doing is really demonstrating how much this was true with the old front office.
We’d hear rumours that something dumb might happen that would make the team worse, and almost invariably that did happen, and it was even worse than we’d heard.
We came to expect bad news. No news really was good news, because all the news we got was terrible.
This season, GMZ is in for some very positive game thread emotion over at LL, I think.
I think you might be onto something, mymrbig, about Delmon Young’s difficulties adjusting to left field. That was a thoughtful post throughout. I always enjoy hearing about how people’s days playing baseball informs their Mariners talk. I’d be interested to see if far smart people than me can use Hit F/X to determine if batted balls come to left fielders differently than they come to right fielders. Maybe balls come off lefties’ bats differently than righties’ bats. I remember hearing often that lefties like to hit pitches down-and-in much more than righties do – although I haven’t looked for data to back that up. I have a vague feeling that the ball slices more off lefties bats than righties, but maybe that’s just what Bill James warns about: your eyes decieving you.
Bill James? I thought that was Obi-Wan Kenobi.
General rule is that all fly balls hit to the OF move toward the nearest line. Usually balls hit the other way have more slice than balls that are pulled (i.e. a ball hit by a righty to left will generally hook less than a ball hit by a lefty will slice). Also, batters tend to have more power when they pull the ball, which affects positioning and jumps.
I grew up playing CF (generally faster than the competition in high school and summer ball). Then in summer ball in college played RF (no longer as fast as the guys in CF, but my arm was usually strong enough for LF). My college team was too good to justify giving me any PT, but during intrasquads I played mostly RF, with some LF.
I hated LF. Never felt comfortable reading the ball off the bat because I wasn’t used of being out there. No amount of fielding practice helped because when someone is trying to hit flyballs with a fungo, the ball generally has very little tail/slice (the coach is generally facing toward you, rather than actually pulling the ball or hitting the ball the other way). The only good option is to shag balls during BP, but even that isn’t a really good substitute. If Delmon Young sticks in LF and his defense improves to where he was in RF in 2007, I think what I said above will be vindicated.
Some guys play enough at both corners that you don’t see a lot of difference in their defense. but I think for guys that play almost exclusively on one side of the diamond, moving to the other side takes a definite adjustment. Mentally, it is easy to tell yourself “Everything is a mirror image, just react accordingly.” But getting your body to respond is a different story. In my case, I was used to expecting everything hit by a righty to tail to my left quite a bit (meaning balls hit to the RF gap would tail back toward me and balls toward the line would tail away). Balls hit by a righty also wouldn’t carry as far. I never played enough LF for my body to react in the opposite way, so my routes and reaction in LF were noticably worse in LF than RF, plus my comfort level and confidence were worse.
This is just my limited experience and my talent was so far beneath the guys at the major league level that the grain of salt you need to take with my comments would feed 1000 deer for a year. Sorry for the long, slightly personal, slightly off-topic post.