2012 Tacoma Rainiers Preview
Before we get into it, there is one last, less exciting aspect of “who’s going where?” and that is the usual round of releases. The first one in mid-March cleared out thirteen while the second got rid of another ten. A lot of these releases, I was initially pretty surprised by, but then I went to look up the stats from last season and saw that it’s largely the non-performers and guys who saw limited time, but it will remind you of certain things, like how Danny Cruz never lived up to the bonus, how Kasparek’s career stalled, and how McOwen and Shaffer were both interesting fourth outfielder prospects at one time.
And did you know that Colorado Springs has a humidor now? It’s true!
This is the end of this round of graphomania. Thanks to Marc, who let me use some of the pictures he’s taken to help break up the text slightly. I’ll be back not this Monday, but the Monday after to talk about what’s been going on in the first week and a half. For now, enjoy opening day.
2012 Jackson Generals Preview
I’ll say it publically because the rest of you are thinking it anyway: there are going to be many, many days where I would rather watch this team than watch the Mariners. Good lord, it’s like all of our best prospects landed here. This will be either the stuff of legends or the most depressing footnotes you will ever read.
2012 High Desert Mavericks Preview
So what, nine hours later and one response to the previous preview? I feel like I’m throwing these to the wind, like so many batted balls leaving Mavericks Stadium. Segue!
I was looking it up the other day and it surprised me to discover that the Mavericks have been the Mariners’ Cal League affiliate since 2007, which was when Saunders went through. 2007! It’s such a long time! Someone could have entered and completed an entire PhD program in that span! And which of the two collections of data would prove more valuable? Of the hitters and the degree holder, who would have a more inflated sense of self-worth, who would stand a better chance on the job market within the same field? Further jokes! Okay, let’s get on with it.
2012 Clinton Lumberkings Preview
I’m going to hit this one up before I have to run to classes and the rest will trickle in as I get time. Sadly, I have a busy week, and really could have used these rosters two days ago, insert meaningful glares and such.
So there have been some changes for the Lumberkings over the offseason. For example, Alliant Energy Field is now Ashford University Field (naming rights!) and Dave Lezotte bounced for the Gwinnett Braves and so now Chad Seely, formerly of the Daytona Cubs, is the “Voice of the Lumberkings”. He’s originally from Wisconsin, so this gets him closer to home I guess. Also of consideration, since the Lake County Captains shifted to the Midwest League not long ago, is that someone may see fit to combat “Moby Dick”, a $20, fifteen-inch sandwich which features fish filets, cheese, clam strips, French Fries, cole slaw, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, tartar sauce, and the threat of myocardial infarction. The Lumberkings won’t be visiting Lake County this year, but one of these years, it could happen. Lord help us, it could happen.
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Cactus League Game 23, Padres at Mariners
I think somewhere in the Cactus League rulebook, there’s something that says that in any given game, so as not to disappoint the fans, x number of “starters” must appear so that a sense of decency can be maintained. The Mariners, returning from Japan maddened by fame and sleep deprivation, have decided that the rules no longer apply to them. The Padres will be sending out a split squad, and will find themselves adhering to that starter quota, but oh, what they have in store for them, friends…
CF Denny Almonte
LF Daniel Carroll
SS Brad Miller
1B Rich Poythress
2B Stefen Romero
3B Mario Martinez
DH Joe Dunigan
C Jesus Sucre
RF James Jones
RHP Kevin Millwood
What I like best about this lineup is how the outfielders go in order from right to left as the lineup turns over and how the basemen do the same in the heart of the order. There are some things that make sense in this, like Carroll being a decent on-base presence as the #2 hitter and Poythress, Martinez, and to a lesser extent, Romero possessing some power for the middle of the lineup, but overall it looks like an arbitrary order was imposed without consideration for what might work best.
And we even have reserves! Johan Limonta, Jamal Austin, John Hicks, Mike Dowd, Leury Bonilla, and Scott Savastano could all see time. The bullpen will be Bobby LaFromboise, Brian Sweeney, Carter Capps, Stephen Pryor, and Tyler Burgoon. This is almost entirely meaningless to anyone but me!
Tune in at 6 pm for this particular brand of madness.
Friday Lunch Prospect Links
Did you know that there is baseball going on right now? It isn’t important baseball, but it’s setting the stage for more important baseball in the future. One of the things that I enjoy about this kind of baseball is that, where the end of the Cactus League season is mostly about players who will definitely contribute to the team’s success or lack thereof, the beginning is usually spent on fringe contributors and prospects. PROSPECTS! Here are some articles I’ve read over the past few days. It’s not as exhaustive as it could be because my time with news media is somewhat diminished these days.
* The Times had a joint article on Michael Saunders and Steve Delabar. The gist of it is that Delabar is continuing to do the weird thing from before that gave him all that velocity (or Velocity, technically) and that Saunders is trying to tighten up his swing with the aid of rubber bands. No really. At this point, I’m willing to entertain whatever might work.
* There was also a piece on Vinnie Catricala, and his attempts to find balance between his offensive and defensive games. He says he was known for his glove in high school and then got lazy about it in college as he focused more on his hitting. Recent and distant sports history tells me that if he reconciles the two and ends up being good, there will be much talk of Vin-sanity. We are so clever. So clever.
* Baker is wondering if James Paxton is this year’s Pineda, which is rooted in the notion that both were basically two-pitch guys with the ghost of a third entering spring training. I like Paxton plenty, and it’s neat that we were able to snag him, but I suppose I wonder more about his endurance, since he suffered from an assortment of injuries well into his college career and he had very few opportunities to pitch two years ago. Caution might push him back a bit.
* Trayvon Robinson is wearing glasses now. Because he has astigmatism. This isn’t quite Jose Lopez getting braces, but at least it has the chance of being relevant to his performance in games.
* Danny Hultzen talked to the TNT about how to throw a curveball, then talked to them at length about his stuff and his process. His process is pretty neat, you guys.
* Also at the TNT, a Taijuan Walker piece that discussed learning the curveball, taking advice from Rich Dorman, and assorted personal details. Walker seems to be one of those special types with talent, drive, and a knack for figuring things out.
* This just in: Erasmo Ramirez throws strikes. An abnormal number of them. To such a degree that his pitching coach forced him to throw balls in the bullpen late last year so that he could try to convince hitters to chase pitches out of the zone. He’s not in the same tier as the other three, but heck, I just really like Erasmo.
Rebuilding and the Draft, The Grand Overview
This quarter in grad school, I’ve been attending a series of lectures by writers. Outside of “the first book takes ten years on average,” the most common refrain I’ve heard is “I throw out far more work than I save.” I don’t think I’ve actually heard anyone claim that their ratio of published work to discarded work is actually pretty good. If you’re lucky, some of the stuff will get cannibalized and turn into something relevant later. Heck, I did that just last week with something I wrote two and a half years ago and didn’t know what to do with.
The baseball journalism shtick operates under similar parameters. Except in some cases it can be worse. Sure, you may not be as concerned with the aesthetic value of what you’re doing, but you’re bound to a news cycle where, true enough there are opportunities for digression into history (2003 Tigers!), but you’re mostly trying to get things out on a schedule. If someone else has had the same idea and managed to beat you to it, that’s a lot of work that you can’t really do anything with. There are about 150 drafts on the server that will never see the light of day, and as I revealed some time ago, I had three pre-written draft articles for last year that I had to throw out when Hultzen got picked.
At some point yesterday, a question was posed in the comments section as to whether or not anyone else had done studies of this ilk on other systems. I don’t know why anyone would bring that upon themselves, but okay. The way I see it, if you’re bad, it’s depressing. If you’re good, you might not have anyone who cares. You probably have other things to enjoy. Like baseball!
But FanGraphs author Jim Breen cared, and thought enough of it to post, first, a Building Through the Draft: Best of the Best article the covers the top 5 success stories (this was Monday), and a piece on the other half of the story, Building Through the Draft: Worst of the Worst, which includes a table of all thirty teams and their production going back to 2002. We are the worst. We were so bad. I, meanwhile, was working on my own variation of the thing and only went with the time span I allotted for my own Monday article. And I spent three hours on that last night. Hours I should have been devoting to other things.
Still, for my own peace of mind, I don’t feel like throwing it out, even if Breen was presumably using FanGraphs WAR data and I went with B-R out of convenience or laziness/time-saving. The parameters, I expect are similar: I’m only considering players that were signed as it doesn’t take too much to spend a 50th round pick on a talented kid you know you will never sign. If I had the capacity to set up a table to re-order things either by team name or WAR, I would, but instead I opted to go by team name. I’ll trust that all of you know how to use a find function on your web browser.
Since Breen already did his thing, I won’t be going too in-depth with the analysis here, like considering what players actually accumulated WAR for their drafted team as I did with the M’s. If someone else wants to pick up that, they’re free to do so. This should provide us enough material for our purposes. I’ve mentioned names that caught my eye in parentheses, but I won’t promise that I found all of them. And because I’m talking about the WAR generated by each class and presenting an average of the classes, that’s somewhat different. Right?
As a final point of clarification before the numbers: this is overall WAR generated, not WAR generated with the drafting team. This is more of a look at the method of drafting and signing than the utilization of the talent, which isn’t really something that the draft people can do anything about.
2003:
Angels: 1.0 WAR (Brandon Wood sucks)
Astros: -2.3 WAR
Athletics: 11.4 WAR
Braves: 3.7 WAR (Jo-Jo Reyes sucks)
Brewers: 12.4 WAR (Rickie Weeks)
Cardinals: 18.2 WAR (Brendan Ryan!)
Cubs: 9.3 WAR
D’Backs: 12.7 WAR (Quentin)
Dodgers: 33.0 WAR (Kemp, Billingsley)
Giants: 11.7 WAR (Aardsma, that guy with the beard)
Indians: 8.4 WAR
Mariners: 12.2 WAR (Jones)
Marlins: -1.8 WAR
Mets: 1.1 WAR
Natinals: 5.4 WAR (Chad Cordero)
Orioles: 20.1 WAR (Markakis)
Padres: 2.3 WAR
Phillies: 19.4 (Bourn, Brad Ziegler)
Pirates: 13.9 WAR (Maholm)
Rangers: 47.1 WAR (Kinsler, Danks)
Rays: 0.7 WAR
Red Sox: 26 WAR (Papelbon)
Reds: 1.8 WAR
Rockies: 1.7 WAR
Royals: 4.9 WAR
Tigers: -2.6 WAR
Twins: 12.4 WAR (Scott Baker)
Blue Jays: 33.5 WAR (Aaron Hill, Shaun Marcum)
White Sox: 6.5 WAR (Ryan Sweeney)
Yankees: 8.1 WAR
Average: 11.07 WAR
2004:
Angels: 29.3 WAR (Jered Weaver)
Astros: 26.9 WAR (Zobrist, Pence)
Athletics: 26 WAR (Street, Suzuki, Braden)
Blue Jays: 12.7 WAR (Lind)
Braves: -0.8 WAR
Brewers: 14.6 WAR (Gallardo)
Cardinals: -2.5 WAR
Cubs: -0.5 WAR
D’Backs: 16.9 WAR (Drew, Mark Reynolds)
Dodgers: 6.7 WAR
Giants: 1.3 WAR (Jonathan Sanchez and some negatives)
Indians: 2.8 WAR
Mariners: -2.3 WAR
Marlins: 5.2 WAR
Mets: 5.2 WAR
Natinals: 3.5 WAR
Orioles: 2.9 WAR
Padres: -0.2 WAR
Phillies: 5.8 WAR
Pirates: 2.9 WAR
Rangers: -0.8 WAR
Rays: 6.3 WAR
Red Sox: 25.8 WAR (Pedroia)
Reds: 0.1 WAR
Rockies: 10.1 WAR (Ianetta)
Royals: 7.9 WAR (Butler)
Tigers: 26.1 WAR (Verlander)
Twins: 3.1 WAR
White Sox: 5.0 WAR (Gio Gonzalez)
Yankees: 5.7 WAR
Average: 8.19 WAR
2005:
Angels: 3.4 WAR
Astros: -0.6 WAR
Athletics: 7.2 WAR
Blue Jays: 11.4 WAR (Ricky Romero)
Braves: 24.7 WAR (Yunel Escobar, Tommy Hanson)
Brewers: 22.8 WAR (Braun)
Cardinals: 7.9 WAR (Rasmus, Jaime Garcia)
Cubs: -0.3 WAR
D’Backs: 16.5 WAR (Upton)
Dodgers: -4.1 WAR
Giants: 3.6 WAR (Romo)
Indians: 1.9 WAR
Mariners: -1.2 WAR
Marlins: 5.3 WAR
Mets: 6.3 WAR
Natinals: 26.4 WAR (Zimmerman)
Orioles: 2.5 WAR
Padres: 14.4 WAR (Headley, Venable, Hundley)
Phillies: 5.1 WAR
Pirates: 11 WAR (McCutchen)
Rangers: 2.8 WAR
Rays: 4.8 WAR
Red Sox: 24.1 WAR (Ellsbury, Buchholz)
Reds: 12.9 WAR (Bruce, Axford)
Rockies: 23.7 WAR (Tulo)
Royals: 9.7 WAR (Gordon)
Tigers: 15.1 WAR (Matt Joyce, Maybin)
Twins: 19.8 WAR (Garza)
White Sox: 2.7 WAR
Yankees: 16.6 WAR (Gardner, Jackson)
Average: 9.88 WAR
2006:
Angels: 2.0 WAR
Astros: 1.4 WAR
Athletics: 16.5 WAR (Cahill, Bailey)
Blue Jays: 0.2 WAR
Braves: 0.9 WAR
Brewers: 0.4 WAR
Cardinals: 8.3 WAR
Cubs: -0.2 WAR
D’Backs: 13.3 WAR (Scherzer, Brett Anderson)
Dodgers: 16.7 WAR (Kershaw)
Giants: 20.6 WAR (Lincecum)
Indians: 1.2 WAR (David Huff and his -2.9 WAR)
Mariners: 11.8 WAR (Fister, Morrow)
Marlins: 2.3 WAR
Mets: 6.1 WAR
Natinals: 0.7 WAR
Orioles: 0.7 WAR
Padres: 9.2 WAR (Latos)
Phillies: 0.2 WAR
Pirates: -0.3 WAR
Rangers: 0.6 WAR (Holland)
Rays: 27.0 WAR (Longoria)
Red Sox: 14.2 WAR (Masterson, Bard)
Reds: 11.4 WAR (Stubbs)
Rockies: -1.7 WAR (Greg Reynolds is disappointing)
Royals: 3.4 WAR (Hochevar)
Tigers: -1.3 WAR (Andrew Miller sucks)
Twins: 1.1 WAR
White Sox: 0.1 WAR
Yankees: 19.1 WAR (Kennedy, Joba, Robertson)
Average: 6.20 WAR
2007:
Angels: -0.3 WAR
Astros: 0.0 WAR
Athletics: -0.7 WAR
Blue Jays: 4.3 WAR
Braves: 10.5 WAR (Heyward, Kimbrel)
Brewers: 0.4 WAR
Cardinals: -0.2 WAR
Cubs: 0.9 WAR
D’Backs: 2.4 WAR
Dodgers: 0.0 WAR
Giants: 5.7 WAR (Bumgarner)
Indians: -0.2 WAR
Mariners: 0.4 WAR
Marlins: 9.2 WAR (Stanton)
Mets: 2.9 WAR
Natinals: 4.3 WAR
Orioles: 9.9 WAR (Wieters)
Padres: 3.8 WAR
Phillies: -0.5 WAR
Pirates: 0.6 WAR
Rangers: 4.7 WAR
Rays: 10.6 WAR (Price)
Red Sox: -0.7 WAR
Reds: 1.1 WAR
Rockies: 0.4 WAR
Royals: 3.3 WAR (Holland, Moustakas)
Tigers: 3.3 WAR (Porcello)
Twins: 0.2 WAR
White Sox: -0.8 WAR
Yankees: 0.8 WAR
Average: 2.54 WAR
Things I learned from all this:
* The Angels drafted Brandon Morrow, Anthony Vasquez, Brian Matusz, and Buster Posey, but as a pitcher. WACKY
* The Astros, for as much as their farm system has sucked, hit it big on two guys in 2004.
* The Athletics have had eleven graduates from the 2004 draft. Most of them good.
* The Blue Jays 2006 draft has gotten 0.2 WAR out of Graham Godfrey, who went to the Athletics within a year, and 0.0 WAR out of Travis Snider. Buh?
* For a team that had a track record for building internally and player development, the Braves drafts were mostly awful and I don’t know how much one should credit them for Escobar, who was not a prep player. Fortunately for them, the ’07 draft had Heyward, Kimbrel, and Freeman. They could have had Brandon Belt too.
* The Brewers drafted Andrew Bailey before the A’s did. Now you know where those rumors this offseason were coming from. Expect Jake Arrieta or Jemile Weeks rumors eventually.
* The Cardinals missed on Ian Kennedy and Max Scherzer in 2003, but to date, Brendan Ryan has accumulated more WAR than either of them. Let’s see how long that lasts!
* Everyone remembers when the Cubs drafted Tim Lincecum in the 48th round in 2003, right? Boy, we sure did miss an opportunity there. The Cubs 2005 draft was worse than ours by a good margin as their only graduate has a negative contribution.
* I included Clay Zavada from the D’Backs 2006 draft on technicality, since he left and came back. Otherwise, they’ve been more productive than I knew.
* The Dodgers missed out David Price and Hochevar. I can’t imagine it’s common to miss out on two guys who later became 1/1s. Their 2005 class is the worst overall as far as negative contributors.
* The Giants were one of a couple of teams that drafted Doug Fister, but beyond that they struck me as among the most efficient teams as far as signing the guys that got to the majors.
* In the Indians 2004 draft class, B-R has 45th rounder Tony Sipp accumulating 0.2 more WAR over his career than first-round pick and 6th overall Jeremy Sowers.
* The Marlins, despite being around only since 1993, have drafted and signed two of the seven major leaguers to have gone by the first name “Logan.”
* Lastings Milledge has been worth -2.0 WAR, but he was big deal for the Mets back in the day. Most of their first-rounders/first overall picks have been awful or not nearly as good as anticipated. Eddie Kunz, Nathan Vineyard, Kevin Mulvey, Mike Pelfrey (the best!), Philip Humber (the second-best!), Milledge…
* Brad Peacock, a key piece in the Nationals trade for Gio Gonzalez, was a 41st round pick. He was drafted as a catcher. He’s a pitcher now. He is one of only two Peacocks to reach the major leagues.
* The 2005 Orioles draft has Nolan Reimold and Garret Olson canceling each other out. In ’04, they had Will Venable and Jaime Garcia and could sign neither.
* The Padres’ 2005 draft produced two major leaguers named Cesar. There have been twelve major leaguers that have gone by Cesar ever, thirteen if you go with Tavo Alvarez whose first name was really Cesar. The Padres’ 2005 draft has produced 16.7% of our major leaguers who have gone by Cesar.
* The Phillies’ 2006 class is Jason Donald and four negatives right now. They also drafted Rob Johnson before he had any ties to the Mariners. Weird.
* The Pirates’ rebuilding efforts would have been aided by the addition of Lonnie Chisenhall, their 11th rounder in 2006. Like us, they’ve only really started drafting well recently.
* The Rangers could have signed Drew Pomeranz and Cory Luebke too (along with Brad Lincoln, who was a big deal at one time). Of the contributors the Rangers have had from the 2006 draft, three of the five were from after round 20.
* Twelve picks from the Rays’ 2003 draft have graduated. Of those, only four ever were signed by the Rays, Jaso, Delmon Young, James Houser, and Chad Orvella. Their 2005 draft had six graduates, the only one of which they signed was Hellickson. They missed out on Ike Davis and Tommy Hunter. In 2006, it was Mike Minor.
* All of the positive contributors from the Red Sox’ 2005 draft were signed by them, in addition to Craig Hansen, who was the 26th overall pick that year, and has had the worst WAR. Otherwise, none of the other negative WARs signed (This includes Pedro Alvarez and Jason Castro, for the moment).
* John Axford went from a 7th round pick by us in 2001 to a 42nd round pick by the Reds in 2005. He’s been good too.
* The Rockies surely would have liked to have signed Chris Sale, who may not have liked to have been signed by the Rockies. 2005’s WAR is all Tulo.
* Likewise, Alex Gordon is the only player from the Royals’ 2005 draft to reach the majors.
* In a draft where they picked Andrew Miller first, Brennan Boesh has been the Tigers most productive pick. Miller has been so bad as to negate any gains in that draft all on his own.
* The Twins were the first team to draft Yonder Alonso, 16th round 2005.
* Outside of the Mariners, the White Sox have had some pretty dismal drafts. Breen indicated that over a larger timespan, they did better than us, but for the purposes of this sample, they were worse.
* The Yankees drafted Doug Fister. WE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN MONTERO FOR HIM.
So what conclusions can we draw from this? A few perhaps, but I’m leaving it more as a data playground for people to run around in since Breen did his thing already. The 2004 draft was probably one of the most boom or bust affairs I think we’re likely to see for a while, though its overall quality was substandard. The Mariners’ 2003 draft, while productive, is only a little bit above the average at this point while, as I suspected, their 2006 effort was well above average. I’ve also concluded that I’m right not to go further than 2007 at this point, what with the diminishing returns.
I probably won’t do this again next year because I would have to re-calculate everything and it would take me something like six hours to do it all, but I hope that this has provided some amusing diversion to you on this Wednesday.
Rebuilding and the Draft, 2012 Edition
You may remember that last year, as the season was opening up, I wrote a post that analyzed the Mariners efforts at rebuilding. In brief, it was depressing. We determined that only two of the four drafts yielded much of anything and what few productive players we had went elsewhere pretty quickly. This year, I’ve decided to bump up the timetable on that a little bit and get it out of the way at the beginning of spring training in light of the fact that there weren’t a whole lot of external acquisitions. Oh sure, you thought that because spring training was starting and we were all starting to think about baseball coming back, you’d be able to get through mostly uplifting and optimistic articles. Not so, suckers.
We’re getting closer in relative terms, but as the old saying goes, old sins cast long shadows. I forget what WAR I was using before, but I’m using FanGraphs now, which I type out partially as an attempt to get myself to remember it next year. Let’s go and become despondent now, shall we?
2003 Draft:
Graduates: CF Adam Jones (1), LHP Ryan Feierabend (3), LHP Eric O’Flaherty (6)
Yield: 11.8 WAR (-0.1 with Mariners)
Biggest Contributor: Jones, 9.2 WAR (0.1 with Mariners)
The bulk of it, I think I said last year. There were a lot of picks that could have been something but were derailed. This may include Feierabend, who still hasn’t seen major league time since 2008. It depends on how much you think of him. Maybe you don’t think of him. The notion of prospects panning out to nothing is no new revelation in the overall reckoning, even if it seems like more of an array of factors here, but looking over the list again, it’s interesting to me that there aren’t even guys we could have signed that would have done something. Scott Maine, whom we picked up in the 15th round that year and couldn’t come to terms with, has seen twenty total innings with the Cubs and been worth -0.1 WAR. He could yet turn into something, as he’s always run impressive strikeout rates, but his walk rate hovers around four per nine innings and that’s no good. The other guy who made it was Doug Mathis, now with the division-rival Rangers. He’s been worth -0.1 as well, though his skillset doesn’t involve strikeouts. Not having strikeouts as a pitcher is kind of a bummer.
To add a little bit to last year’s commentary, the first “hey, wait a second…” move to me of Zduriencik’s tenure was designating O’Flaherty for assignment, considering that we continue to look for a left-handed reliever in his absence. O’Flaherty probably won’t be as good as last year’s 1.6 WAR going forward (his strand rate was 92.3%! That was third-best among major league relievers!), but he seemed like a neat piece to have around, and a local guy to boot. Perhaps I’m being irrational again. But it does seem that relievers can be a bit of a blind spot for Zduriencik. That Lucas Luetge Rule 5 pick this winter has not made any more sense with time.
2004 Draft:
Graduates: UT Matt Tuiasosopo (3), C Rob Johnson (4), RHP Mark Lowe (5), CF Michael Saunders (11)
Yield: 1 WAR (0.9 with Mariners)
Biggest Contributor: Lowe, 1.8 WAR (1.5 with Mariners)
Ahahahahahaha…. pfft haha… oh…. mercy. We lost value this year and Tui didn’t even have to play. He’s even gone to the Mets now! Rob Johnson started 67 games for the Padres and was even worse in the NL, which is perplexing. Lowe was actually a positive contributor for the Rangers in limited time, but then Saunders accumulated -0.5 WAR for us as his hitting managed to find a new low (defense was fine though). Saunders is still around, but even considering that, we’re close to that horizon where the players we drafted are no longer generating returns for us. Unless Lowe comes back, or something.
I overlooked it last year, but James Russell, who was pretty well liked as a draft prospect and didn’t come to terms with us because, you know, 37th round and all (we even picked him twenty rounds higher the next season!), went over to the Cubs three years later in the 14th round. He’s had a bit of a dinger problem in the major leagues and could have struck out more guys last year, but he was a close-to-neutral contributor then in spite of all the hits he gave up. Think about this for a moment. I am talking about a player that generated -0.2 WAR last year because in context, it does seem like something worth talking about.
2005 Draft:
Graduates: C Jeff Clement (1), LHP Justin Thomas (4), RHP Anthony Varvaro (12)
Yield: -0.7 WAR (-0.4 with Mariners)
Biggest Contributor: Thomas, -0.2 WAR (0.0 with Mariners) or Clement, -0.2 WAR (-0.1 with Mariners)
I may have reached that magical point at which I can regard this and merely feel numb. Clement had his injuries and all, but it’s still strange to consider because I don’t know that any of us thought that he pick was going to turn out as bad as it did. He came out of a college program! He had the national home run record for a prep player! Be baffled with me! Hindsight can allow us to moan about “oh, we could have gotten Tulo and we were looking at him but we needed a catcher blah blah blah”, yeah, and Clement batted .275/.370/.497 in Tacoma in 2007. He was hitting .335/.455/.676 there in 2008 in limited time. Moving through the other names, Varvaro helped the Braves last year, but Thomas did not see time with the Pirates after giving up twenty-one hits in 13.0 innings while running a 5/5 K/BB in 2010. His minor league numbers were actually pretty decent that year. Not so much this year.
I can’t really go over this and pick out many names that blossomed as they were drafted again, which is turning out to be a recurring thing. The only one is Lance Lynn who accumulated 0.6 WAR last year in 34.2 innings for those guys that won the World Series. I’d give him good odds at being the most valuable pick we made going forward from that draft. I’ll bet that someone clever is going to swing by and say “If he signed with the Mariners, he never would have made it to the big leagues LOL.” I’ve certainly never heard that one before. You must have many wonderful insights.
2006 Draft:
Graduates: RHP Brandon Morrow (1), RHP Chris Tillman (2), RHP Nate Adcock (5), C Adam Moore (6), RHP Doug Fister (7), RHP Kam Mickolio (18)
Yield: 18.6 WAR (7.6 with Mariners)
Biggest Contributor: Fister, 8.8 overall (6.4 with Mariners)
Last year, this was the best looking of the Fontaine drafts and this year, hey, it looks even better. And the Mariners will have even less of the overall value from it going forward. Great.
For about three days, that was where my evaluation ended. I don’t rightly know how to extend it because at this stage, the Fister trade looks pretty bad. But there’s a lot that would be hard to evaluate about it in so short a time span and every time I’ve tried to be angry about it, I’ve subsequently felt somewhat dumb. The negative aspects are pretty plain: Wells had vertigo, making evaluation of him tricky; Furbush gave up a lot of pulled contact as Marc and Matthew have discussed; Ruffin, while he has been ranked in the top 10 for a lot of prospectors, is still a reliever and maybe not even the best one in our system; and the line between projecting Francisco Martinez to be a contributor based on his tools and projecting Carlos Triunfel to be a contributor based on his tools is a finer one than I’m really comfortable with. Fister also blossomed into an unusually dominant pitcher and only got better after the trade.
But if I have to turn around and be objective about it, I should probably consider the other side. Wells isn’t always going to have vertigo (I hope?). Furbush has the fastball going for him and it’s not as though the rest of the toolbox is empty. Ruffin has his place in the system and will likely be a big part of a dominant team-controlled bullpen in the near future. And Martinez, well, I’m still less than enthusiastic about that type of player, but last year represented a step forward for him and he hit as many dingers in 33 games in Jackson as he did in 89 games in Lakeland the previous year. I don’t really know if Fister is going to continue to be that awesome, but we may yet get some value out of this thing. I swear I’m not just trying to convince myself of this.
Anyway, going back to the draft itself, much value here, and you can go back to last year’s post to get the bulk of it. It’s just depressing that Moore is the only one left now. I eventually came around to the idea of liking Moore before he got injured, but “extensive tear” in the meniscus is not something I ever want to hear about with a catcher. I don’t blame the M’s for pursuing Jaso and Montero to add depth.
2007 Draft:
Graduates: 3B Matt Mangini (1s), RHP Shawn Kelley (11)
Yield: -0.2 WAR (-0.2 WAR with Mariners)
Biggest Contributor: Kelley, 0.0 WAR
The new season means another opportunity to mess around with a year’s worth of selections. Did you know that our 2009 class, which includes Anthony Vasquez, has already been more productive than most of these groups? The book is hardly closed on 2007, after all, Carroll had a .378 wOBA for the Mavericks last season and managed to stay mostly healthy whereas previously it seemed as though he might be confined to a bubble at some point in his career, but there remains a good chance that the only contributors from this class end up being marginal ones. Except for Shawn Kelley, who will always be a major contributor in my fandom.
To go over the broad strokes… Aumont went away in a trade, became a starter and then not a starter again, and still suffers from command issues. Mangini has had injuries, worse plate discipline than expected, and only slugged particularly well in one season (he may be recently out of baseball). Almonte was a boom or bust tools guy that has not been so much on the boom end of the spectrum, except for some dingers and hilarious strikeouts. Carroll has been mostly injured. Gallagher was almost entirely injured. Dunigan has also been boom or bust and, like Johermyn Chavez, provides an interesting test of prospect evaluation. McOwen was looking like a 4th or 5th OF before his shoulder injury. Hill and Hume have both been injured recently. There were a couple of guys that were picked later who seemed like sleepers at the time, such as Colin Buckborough and Brooks Mohr, but both washed out with injuries after a couple of seasons. Various other reliever types who initially looked promising ended up in the Limbo of High Desert and were seldom heard from again. There was also Brodie Downs, who was our Tom Wilhelmsen/Steve Delabar before either of those guys were in the system. I’m not seeing any major missed signings looking over this, since we got Forrest Snow a few years later anyway. Early returns seem unimpressive, and may become “disaster” in time, but there’s a non-zero chance that this isn’t abysmal.
Conclusions:
If you’re still with me by now, you might have something of an intellectual pain tolerance which means that you’re okay in my book. To put things quantifiably again, we’re looking at 30.5 total WAR from five years of draft classes and the bulk of that is squarely in two of them. Of that, we could call 7.8 WAR our own, a little over a quarter, which is nowhere near as efficient as some might like. I know I for one would like to see the Mariners play better baseball and make smarter moves. But next year I’ll have the 2008 draft to evaluate too and boy won’t that be fun. Maybe by that time we’ll have had one player from that class to make the majors. It better not be Josh Fields.
Anyway, the basic thrust of this article has been the same as it was the last time I did it. Rebuilding efforts require good young players. Zduriencik had little to work with, and still seems to be trying to build up that foundation. It’s kind of a slog to get through at times, but what we’ve seen so far from him on the draft front has proved more inspired than his predecessors, in a way that talking in relative terms doesn’t seem to do justice without hyperbole. There will eventually come a day when I don’t have to get up and do this because the Mariners won’t suck anymore.
’11 40-Man Preview Extravaganza
It’s that time of the year again. Leaves are dropping, everything is pumpkin flavoured, Christmas music exists prematurely as something for people to either enjoy or loudly complain about, and I come back from the dead to tell you all about setting the 40-man (deadline: Nov. 18th) in advance of the Rule 5 draft. So! This year, we’re looking at ’07 HS draftees and int’l signings and ’08 college draftees. Thrilling, right? This is the last year we’re going to be dealing exclusively with Fontaine drafts and I’m curious to see how the new administration will prioritize their own picks, but for now, we have a large pile of players among whom there aren’t a whole lot of locks. I’ll note before we get into it that the contracts of some of the international players can get a little confusing in that it’s not always easy to tell if they’ve signed a 2007 contract or a 2008 contract. If guys like Francisco Martinez and Erasmo Ramirez are eligible (I’m at least pretty sure Erasmo isn’t), you can bet that they’ll be added, but I believe both would be due next year.
So let’s take a more exhaustive look than we need to at some names here:
Other Winter Leagues Starting Soon
Winter ball has started, and while we’re all presently reading as much into Hultzen’s Arizona Fall League debut as we reasonably can, there are a few other leagues that will be starting up soon here that will also be worthy of some attention or at the very least, something to get you through a panged winter of baseball withdrawal. Larry Stone got a preliminary list of who will be playing where, and while it doesn’t include the lesser leagues like Nicaragua and Colombia, it does give us a good idea of who will be playing in the Caribbean Leagues and Australia.
As usual, Venezuela got assigned the bulk of our players, and Stone highlights Alex Liddi and Michael Saunders as being the big ones while adding Vicente Campos, Edilio Colina, Jarrett Grube, Moises Hernandez, Cesar Jimenez, Jose Jimenez, Luis Jimenez, Johan Limonta, Mario Martinez, Yoervis Medina, Scott Patterson (currently with Team USA for World Cup/Pan Am), Stephen Pryor, Mauricio Robles, and Nate Tenbrink as other players scheduled to see time with just the Cardenales, who are turning into the Mariners South. Yohermyn Chavez, Francisco Martinez, Luis Rodriguez, and Jesus Sucre will play for other teams in the league.
I’ll start out by touching on the two names that Stone mentioned. The mind will probably drawn to Saunders’ name because he’s carried with him certain expectations as he’s moved up and we’re still waiting on him to make good on any of them, or maybe he’s become less of a figure in our fan consciousness thanks to the addition of all sorts of new shiny outfield toys. On one hand, I could point to him having another season that had him post interesting-looking numbers in Tacoma (a 71/50 K/BB in 291 PAs) and then flopping at the major league level, but on the other, we can’t undersell the personal issues he’s had either. It’s been a bad year for Mariners fans and Mariners players. Liddi had impressive power numbers in his limited time with the M’s, with two-thirds of his hits going for extras, but that 17/3 K/BB in 44 PAs was pretty horrific. I suppose what we’d be looking for him is some semblance of discipline and a reasonable level of hitting beyond that. I find it curious that he would be getting additional playing time this winter while Seager, the guy who more people are projecting to take the third base job, is not, but most would claim that Liddi needs more time to help even out his game.
The other names are probably not so relevant for a lot of people, so I’ll only touch on a few. Grube has pitched well for us since coming over from the independent leagues and could be a short-term pitching solution, but he’s also going to be thirty in November. Cesar Jimenez would be continuing his bullpen audition and hoping that he’s found a way of getting left-handers out. After going down with that elbow thing in spring training, Robles needs to get innings in as he only logged 32.1 all season and walked ten more than he struck out. Another player in similar straights would be Tenbrink, who didn’t play at all after late June. The dark horse is probably Pryor, who has an outside shot of pitching his way into a seventh-inning role out of spring training and has the stuff to hold up in higher leverage situations. It will also be worth seeing if Francisco Martinez can help to redeem the Fister trade, which isn’t looking so hot at the moment, or if Chavez could re-establish himself in anyway.
While going over the Cardenales site, I came across a few other news items that would probably be of some interest. One is that Tenbrink wasn’t the Mariners’ first choice to fill an outfield spot, and that they had originally wanted to send Casper Wells down there, but Wells is still ailing in some way or another and they decided to let him sit. The other is that the manager of Lara this season will be Pedro Grifol, who used to head the Aquasox teams in the Junes of yore. We’ll be grasping at whatever straws are available to us, but Pedro should be in position to be making better evaluations. Games for them will be starting up Wednesday.
Moving around to the other leagues, Stone has Leury Bonilla, Edward Paredes, Carlos Peguero, and Carlos Triunfel in the Dominican League. This is one of those times where I’d say “look elsewhere”, because unless you’re really curious to see if Peguero can fake some plate discipline for a while or if Triunfel will work to justify his seemingly inevitable placement on the 40-man, there are better options. Paredes still hasn’t developed command and Bonilla, bless his little heart, is mostly interesting when he tries to play every position on the field in a single game. Similarly, you should be able to pass up on the Puerto Rican Winter League. Sure, Daniel Carroll will be there, and he had a breakout season in the Cal League this year, remaining healthy for a full year for the first time ever, but even though he walked eighty-eight times (EIGHTY-EIGHT TIMES) he struck out in over a quarter of his plate appearances. I’m waiting on him doing something interesting in double-A. The Dominican League will start up next Friday and Puerto Rico has usually kicked off about a week after that.
The only other league we have information on yet is that starting in November, we’ll have Denny Almonte, Steve Baron, James Jones, and Jandy Sena in Australia playing for the Adelaide Bite. This season, Almonte cut thirty Ks off his 2010 total, which sounds great except that the drop from 192 to 161 is less impressive in a larger context of him striking out in nearly 30% of his plate appearances. Baron didn’t do much after spring training, being injured much of the time, but his overall line was pretty close to his 2010 line anyway, just with slightly improved peripherals. Jones has another season where he was abysmal in the first half (.617 OPS) and pretty amazing in the second (.931) with the improvements again coming at the expense of patience. Sena split his time mainly between Clinton and High desert this season and was mostly interesting in that his season K/9 was around four.
The overall picture looks pretty similar to a lot of winter league seasons you’ll see. There aren’t a lot of lower level top prospects that you want to keep tabs on, but there are plenty of nearer-term contributors that could be worth tracking. After a certain point in the winter, you take what you can get.