2019 Arkansas Travelers Preview
Here we go for a third season in Arkansas with the Travelers. They have a possum and a horse for mascots. Big fan. More of the possum than the horse. Big on hissing at stuff and playing dead to avoid threats. What were we talking about?
This team is, like the West Virginia squad, a rather talented group and so I found myself with a bit to say. Sure, the catching is a repeat of last year, but that may bring with it some added polish with which to direct the pitchers. For the rotation we have two, two-and-a-half guys who could be strong contributors if things break right for them, though the others are nothing to dismiss. The bullpen has a few standouts and is certainly a diverse bunch of velocities, angles, and ways of getting results. The infield has Evan White plus some likely producers, but the outfield could feature three viable major leaguers in any given day and that’s exciting. Potential and aptitude make for some entertaining baseball.
2019 Modesto Nuts Preview
This roster is… uh… familiar? Of the twenty-five players listed for opening day, fourteen of them had already played on the 2018 Modesto squad, which went 62-78. The Mariners have restocked parts of the system and look to be fairly talented throughout, but this one looks to be filled with miscellany.
The rotation appears to be a blend of “consistency” and “baffling inconsistency,” which I’d expect to lead to lots of ups and downs. The bullpen, when good, has a chance to be quite good, so leads if gained could be retained. Catching, or at least the starting catcher, is probably the biggest star on the roster. The outfield is full of guys who were formerly well-regarded. The infield is cool if you like Gritty Dudes with Dirty Uniforms and Intangibles and less so if you don’t.
2019 West Virginia Power Preview
This was not an offseason move that I was anticipating. Sure, I had been goading the Mariners for years to buy a Cal League franchise and stop with all this High Desert nonsense, but the quirks of the Midwestern League, with its routine early-season snow-outs, had become the price of doing business for me. Moreover, I liked the Midwest League, and had been friends with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers broadcaster since back when they were an affiliate. Now we’re operating a full-season affiliate in a part of the country unfamiliar to me outside of our brief dalliance as the parent club of the Pulaski franchise in the Appalachian League. Now I have to commit to memory a whole new set of park factors.
The West Virginia Power will be among the more exciting teams in a system that can now use that adjective without a smirking irony. Even without Stowers, the outfield is poised to be a star attraction the likes of which we haven’t had in a while. The rotation has some high potential in spots and is competent overall. For catching, we might have the second-best starter on the farm, or one of the more interesting ones. Bullpen could be good, but has a few question marks. The infield looks to be defensively solid and offensively hit or miss. Overall, the look is that of a competitive team with a few fun top prospects.
Game 8, Angels at Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Trevor Cahill, 7:10pm
The M’s are 6-1 and deservedly so. Sure, their bullpen is, uh, a work in progress, and their rotation doesn’t look great, but none of that matters when opposing teams step into the launchpad that is T-Mobile park and face a line-up that leads MLB in WAR. This is fun, and this is a great time to not worry about the sustainability of the performance and just revel in the pure weirdness of it all.
The M’s are fun, but you know what’s even more fun? When you’re good on both sides of the ball. I remember 2000-2001; I know it can be done. To do that, the rotation’s going to have to get better, and that means some improvement from the M’s Marco Gonzales…who’s 2-0. I don’t want these posts to just be a drum-beat of negativity about his velocity, but in my defense, have you seen his velocity these days? This brings up something when we talk about the M’s development of Marco. So many of the specific changes/improvements given for his success have turned out to be baseballing red herrings. There was his supposedly lower arm-slot, but here, look at his vertical release over time:
There was the matter of his improved velocity, which was legitimately true in 2017, but since then…well…:
His new cutter was going to be the key to his success, and that’s *partially* true, but much of his improvement came from two other changes. First, he bifurcated his fastball into a more traditional four-seamer – much straighter than anything he’d thrown before – and tried to accentuate the run on his old fastball to create a sinker. That led to fewer HRs-allowed on FBs in 2018 than in his abbreviated 2017 campaign. Second, his curveball really did look like a new/better pitch, and it was critical to his 2018. Until it stopped being as effective around the middle of the year. HRs will be an issue, but he’s addressed a lot of it, and if he can maintain some of the gains he’s made, he won’t be another Wade LeBlanc – someone whose HR problems keep him perpetually on the edge of playability. Instead, the bigger issue is that batters are swinging and making contact on pitches they used to watch, and that’s driving up his hits-allowed.
Years ago, the M’s had an unheralded prospect who threw 89 but didn’t walk anyone. Some thought this would make him a viable #4-5, whereas others saw an inflated hits-allowed total and thought that the low walk rate was driven by the fact that he’d just throw fastballs down the middle. Both ended up being right some of the time. His name was Doug Fister, and while a good strand rate got him through his first half-season, he gave up a ton of hits early in his career. In 2010, at the peak of the deadball era in Safeco, that was OK, as he didn’t give up HRs and was thus a perfectly fine #5 starter. But something clicked in 2011, and his hits-allowed dropped (it didn’t hurt that his velo ticked up a bit), and he took his talents to Detroit and became a minor star for a while, only faltering when his stuff faded just a bit and the hits kept on piling up.
As a first-round, college-trained hitter, Gonzales kept his hits below his IP on his way up the chain with the Cardinals, and kept it that way in his initial call-up in 2014. But something happened in 2015 and that ratio flipped big time, sending his runs-allowed sky high. The same thing happened in 2017; while the HRs were the proximate cause of his poor season, the wider context was that he allowed a lot of baserunners, and that made each HR (and each successive hit) more damaging. That wave subsided a bit in 2018, as he posted more IPs than hits thanks to a reduction in his BABIP from “ridiculously high” to merely “high.” The problem is that he’s got to bring that BABIP down, and he’s not going to have a lot of help from his defense this year. If he’s going to give up this many baserunners, he’s going to be vastly overrated by, say, Fangraphs WAR. He’s given up 16 hits in just under 12 innings, and I’d like to see evidence that his old curve is back or that he can halt his velo declines. It sounds weird to say about a pitcher who’s won both of his starts thus far (though 21 runs scored in those two games helps a ton), but I feel like Gonzales could go south in a hurry if some of these peripherals don’t change.
The Angels Trevor Cahill was one of the A’s utterly improbable successful starting pitchers last year, but he was only so-so in his first start for the Halos. Meanwhile, the A’s are doing it again, as even Aaron Brooks – SERIOUSLY, Aaron Brooks – was great for them the other night and Mike Fiers and company shook off their Tokyo shellacking and have pitched well. But back to Cahill: he boasts a true starter’s repertoire with two fastballs, a cutter, a curve and a change-up. None of them are all that eye-popping, and he’ll top out at 92-93, sitting 91. When he’s on, he can get a lot of ground balls thanks to his sinker (his primary fastball) and the natural movement of his other pitches. He seems to be going with a cutter this year, which he hadn’t thrown in a few years (he used a slower slider instead). That’s not a new pitch for him – he picked it up with the D-Backs in 2012-13 – but it’s been a while. More importantly, that pitch does NOT have the movement profile of a pitch that’s going to get grounders. His GB% may drop if he maintains this pitch mix, though maybe that’s what the Angels want seeing as their home park suppresses HRs. It may not be what you want tonight, when you’re facing the Seattle DingerMen in a park that’s playing remarkably HR-friendly for some reason.
1: Smith, CF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Santana, LF
4: Bruce, 1B
5: Encarnacion, DH
6: Narvaez, C
7: Beckham, SS
8: Healy, 3B
9: Gordon, 2B
SP: Gonzales
Game 7, Angels at Mariners
King Felix vs. Chris Stratton, 7:10pm
I don’t know how many more times I’ll get to say it, so to all of you, a very happy Felix day. The M’s rotation has settled in as probably the lowest-velo group in the game, just as they did last year. When Marco Gonzales was acquired, there was a lot of talk about his improved velocity, but that’s all gone now. Mike Leake’s throwing softer, too. Wade LeBlanc never really threw hard to begin with. It hasn’t hurt them per se, Leake is pretty much always Leake, and Marco broke out last year despite that troubling drop.
Felix, though, simply couldn’t adapt to life at 90-91. It’s too bad, because the great high point of his career came AFTER a huge drop in velo, when he slid from 97 to 94-ish. The further drop reduced his margin for error and sapped the effectiveness of his change (though it’s really his FB that’s been tattooed the past few years). The M’s have tried working with him on pitch mix, on different fastballs, and maybe developing a cutter. That’s been…not terribly successful, and as much as I love him, Felix probably shares a modicum of blame there. But the bigger thing that I’m not sure has been tried is just reversing the velo drop. That would’ve sounded like alchemy a few years ago, but it is very much a commmonplace practice now. Brandon McCarthy reversed his regular old age-related velo declines and gained several MPH later in his career. Charlie Morton, too. This isn’t crazy, and it’s possible it’d be more in line with how Felix wants to compete, and to be fair, maybe they’ve tried. But on a staff where velo drops are common and the team seems to put less value on pure miles-per-hour than others, I’m not sure it’s going to happen. Prove me wrong, M’s!
Chris Stratton has been a member of the Angels for roughly 10 days, having come over from the Giants late in spring training after losing his rotation spot. He was traded for a fairly fungible middle-inning reliever, which says a lot about how back-end starters with MLB experience are valued right now. Stratton throws 91 or so with a straight four-seamer, but he’s attracted some attention due to a freakishly high spin-rate curve ball, his best pitch. It’s generally been effective, or at least MORE effective than his other offerings, but that was a low bar in 2018. He wasn’t bad in 2017, so it’s a great pick-up by Anaheim who saw SF with a roster crunch and offered to help them out by sending a pitcher who had MiLB options remaining. A young-ish no-name reliever with options swapped for a #5 starter… that about sums up 2019 baseball, right?
1: Smith, CF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Santana, LF
4: Bruce, 1B
5: Encarnacion, DH
6: Narvaez, C
7: Beckham, SS
8: Healy, 3B
9: Gordon, 2B
SP: El Cartelua
Game 6, Red Sox at Mariners
Wade LeBlanc vs. Rick Porcello, 1:10pm
The M’s go for a big 3-1 series win today against Boston behind lefty Wade LeBlanc. LeBlanc’s velocity was down below 87mph last season, and despite a brilliant change, there’s going to be a lower limit to how far that fastball speed can fall. He was fairly consistent last year, though he’d have games where he’d allow multiple HRs, and if they came with runners on base, then his line looked fairly ugly, while if they came with the bases empty (or didn’t show up at all), then he’d put together a quality start.
I was just watching Wade Miley for the Astros a minute ago, another pitcher who looked to be cooked at the MLB level, but developed a decent cutter and saw it breathe new life into their arsenal. LeBlanc always had one, but his usage of it – and especially using it instead of his four-seam “fast”ball – seemed to really help last year. Wade is now mostly a three-pitch guy: sinker, cutter, and cambio, and when the sinker isn’t working, he can lean on the cutter a lot. Batters didn’t swing at it as much as his change, so he could steal a called strike at times, or get a foul ball.
Still, if he’s going to be effective, he needs to have a good change-up working. The M’s have thrown the Sox quite a few in the early going, with Marco Gonzales and Mike Leake throwing quite a few. And it’s worked well, as the starters have been mostly solid thus far. Leake in particular was sharp, and while the results weren’t great on the change, they got batters off of his sinker and cutter…kind of like Wade’s looking to do today.
Was thinking about Brendan Brennan, whom I mentioned in yesterday’s write-up, and then I came across a pitch movement doppleganger who just happens to be one of my favorites. Let’s go to a classic comparison template!
| Sinker Velo | Sinker H Mov | Sinker V Mov | Change Velo | Change H Mov | Change V Mov | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player A | 94.77 | -11.65 | 2.39 | 85.31 | -10.67 | 1.87 |
| Player B | 95.01 | -10.85 | 2.67 | 85.12 | -10.5 | 1.38 |
Like any comparison of this type, I’ve taken some liberties that make it closer than it really is. Player A is a starter, while Player B’s pitched in relief. I used 2019 data for sinkers, but needed to grab 2018+2019 for the change-ups, which makes things closer, as Player A seems to have had a slight arm angle change this year. Ok, enough suspense. Player A is Charlie Morton, now with the Rays, and B is Brennan.
The M’s face Rick Porcello today, a recent Cy Young winner whose K rate and K:BB ratio continue to climb. All of that said, he hasn’t been as effective as you might think given the improvement in those peripherals, and there’s an important reason why. He’s always had trouble stranding runners, and that’s interesting given that we’d expect his strand rate to improve as his K rate does. Instead, it’s staying around 70%, where it’s been for his career. And in his lengthy career, he’s had fairly consistent splits. His career wOBA with the bases empty is .312, and it’s .339 with men on (and even higher with men in scoring position).
Today’s line-up:
1: Smith, CF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Santana, LF
4: Bruce, 1B
5: Narvaez, C
6: Beckham, SS
7: Healy, 3B
8: Vogelbach, DH
9: Gordon, 2B
SP: LeBlanc
Game 5, Red Sox at Mariners in Dingerville
Mike Leake vs. Eduardo Rodriguez, 6:10pm
The Mariners will finally send someone other than Marco Gonzales and Yusei Kikuchi to the hill today when Mike Leake takes the mound. He’ll look to put that…unfortunate start at T-Mobile against the Padres the other day behind him and keep the Red Sox in the yard.
Leake turned in yet another remarkably consistent season last year, although he ended up with a similar line despite remarkably variable game-by-game performances. And he did it despite some concerning declines in peripheral stats. 2018 marked the veteran sinkerballer’s lowest K% since 2013, and given the growth in Ks league wide, that pushes him further down vis a vis his peers. His velocity sunk as well, losing over a full MPH. All of this pushed his ground ball rate – you know, his calling card – below 50% for the first time since 2013 as well, and that pushed his HRs-allowed up; his HR/9 was as high as it’d been since 2012. A part of the problem was a decline in the effectiveness of Leake’s slider, his primary breaking ball against righties. That gave righties a bit of an advantage, which they hadn’t had before.
We haven’t seen a lot of variety in SPs thus far, but we’ve now seen most members of the M’s bullpen, and that’s meant an absolute blizzard of sliders. That’s kind of Cory Gearrin’s deal, but it’s interesting to see Matt Festa and Zac Rosscup follow suit. Of the new guys, the one who looked the most interesting was the one with the least MLB experience: Brendan Brennan. The Rule 5 guy (from the White Sox org) has a really interesting sinker with tons of armside run. It’s got Leake’s sink and Carson Smith’s/Cory Gearrin’s run, but it’s thrown harder than any of them at 95. His change didn’t really move all that differently, but at least it had a 9-10mph velo difference.
1: Haniger, RF
2: Santana, LF
3: Encarnacion, DH
4: Bruce, 1B
5: Beckham, SS
6: Healy, 3B
7: Murphy, C
8: Moore, 3B
9: Gordon, 2B
SP: Leake
So who’s the new C? That’s Tom Murphy, whom the M’s acquired from San Francisco last night in exchange for MiLB pitcher Jesus Ozoria. David Freitas has been optioned back to Tacoma. Murphy’s played a bit with Colorado over the past few years, and while he put up some decent power numbers early on in his MLB career, he’s had a problem with strikeouts. He’s out of options, and thus he’s was DFA’d by Colorado and then made available by SF.
Closer Hunter Strickland not only blew a save last night, but he blew out a lat muscle. He’ll hit the DL with a strained right latissimus dorsi.
The M’s lead all of baseball with 12 HRs, and while, sure, they’ve played more ball games, they’re still up 3 on their closest competitor (the Dodgers). Don’t know how long it’s going to last, but it’s fun to watch. I couldn’t really get too mad about last night’s tough loss, as the M’s have been fun to watch essentially the whole season. They were by no means the biggest acquisitions of the offseason, but Domingo Santana and Tim Beckham have been revelatory thus far.
Game 4, Red Sox at Mariners: Kikuchi Time
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Nate Eovaldi, 7:10pm
Kikuchi’s home debut! M’s are 3-0! I’m at a play with my kids! More later…
1: Smith, CF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Santana, LF
4: Bruce, 1B
5: Encarnacion, DH
6: Beckham, SS
7: Narváez, C
8: Healy, 3B
9: Gordon, 2B
SO: Kikuchi
Game 3 – Home Opener: Red Sox at Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Chris Sale, 4:10pm
Baseball is back, and not just for two extremely late nights. The regular regular season begins today, and thus it’s time for a bit of optimism and joy. You may have seen the furor over the Sports Illustrated baseball preview, and the quotes they got from rival scouts. It’s a cool idea, but the scouts they rounded up did not…uh…just look at this. And this. And this. I get that you can’t just have nice quotes, and that asking people to name names when they think of guys who aren’t working hard or getting the most out of their talent will drive clicks, but it’s too bad that there are people in the game who seem to despise certain players or can’t see “different” as anything other than “wrong.” But it’s (kind of) opening day, so we won’t dwell on that. Instead, let’s talk about Dee Gordon’s open letter to Ichiro in the Times today. Dee Gordon was awful last year, and as flexible as he was to jump into CF, and as kind as he was to innumerable kids, his production on the field left a bit to be desired. He hasn’t sulked about it, at least that we can see. Returned to 2B where he’s been a defensive asset, a bounce-back season from Dee would really help lift this team and avoid a morale-killing slog to 95 losses.
I’m not sure how to value his off-field contributions and what all he does in the clubhouse. I just think that his presence could be helpful for a young team that will shortly get even younger. His pathway to elder statesman or team leader gets a hell of a lot easier if he can resume hitting, or at least keeping an OBP over .300, but in what might be a heretical statement around here, I think his total value might not be summed up in his WAR.
Similarly, I’m not convinced that the guys the M’s have nominated as the new core of the franchise can fulfill that kind of role, and what’s more, I’m not sure that even the front office actually believes it. But I’m absolutely fascinated to see how Marco Gonzales and Mitch Haniger react to their new status and the new expectations thrust on them. I’ll be fascinated to see Haniger work with some of the younger players who’ll probably show up at some point in 2019, be they Jake Fraley or Braden Bishop or both. I’d love to see Marco work with Justus Sheffield and/or Erik Swanson if they hit Seattle. And of course, I’m curious to see how their own game adjusts, and if they’re able to make the leap from “promising” or “really great…for the Mariners” to plain old great.
That challenge begins today when the M’s take on…uh oh. Chris Sale was, on a rate basis, *impossibly* good last year. It was only a late injury that kept him from a Cy Young, as he K’d 237 in just 158 innings pitched. It’s not for nothing that one new measure on a pitcher’s quality of repertoire ranked him as the 3rd best starting pitcher, and it’s easy to see why. He combines a funky, low arm-slot with plus velocity. The arm slot gives his fastball tons of armside run, which he can accentuate with a sinker or change, or ease off with his four-seam. His slider has extreme glove side break, and it’s effective against righties as well as lefties. To top it off, he has pinpoint control, which keeps his walk rate in the 5% neighborhood, which just seems unfair given the movement on his pitches. Last year, he really seemed to be able to utilize that movement to keep the ball off of barrels, and he posted a very, very low HR rate. Despite debuting in 2010, his average velocity continued an upward trajectory last year, and he had as high a velocity as he did in 2011…when he was a reliever. They haven’t done it with David Price, but the Red Sox deserve some credit for taking a great pitcher like Sale and making him even better, and for the way they brought pretty good but frustrating Rick Porcello to the kind of level everyone expected when he was drafted.
1: Haniger, RF
2: Santana, LF
3: Encarnacion, 1B
4: Bruce, DH
5: Healy, 3B
6: Beckham, SS
7: Smith, CF
8: Freitas, C
9: Gordon, 2B
SP: Gonzales
This team may not be great, but they’ll be better defensively than they were in Japan, and hopefully, they’ll be a lot less lost at the plate compared to the two-game stint against the Padres this week.
GO MARINERS.
The Risks: 2019
I know, I know, the season’s technically started, but tomorrow’s opening day for most of the league, and it’s the day the M’s kick off their home slate against Boston. I’ve said it before: for as much angst as the team’s…uh..stepback has caused the fanbase, I actually agreed with it from a strategic point of view. Thus, this post – which has been hitherto concerned with things that will prevent the M’s from competing – needs to change. The M’s themselves say that they’re not trying to compete in 2019, so we can’t *judge* their 2019 on wins and losses. Instead, I want to judge them based on the criteria that they’ve set for themselves.
Usually, that would be tough to do, because I’m not invited to ownership meetings or key in-season and post-season confabs with the front office. Thankfully, Ryan Divish’s article in the Times and the quotes the FO has given allows us to hear about the “step back” in the voice of those who ordered it, and we get to hear why it could work from those who engineered it. So for this year’s pessimistic post, I’ve paired my angstsy worries about their step back with a quote from Divish’s article. The idea here isn’t to judge the team based on how Wade LeBlanc or Edwin Encarnacion (or Felix…:Sigh:) does, but by the players Jerry Dipoto sees as the catalysts of the M’s renaissance. Steel yourselves, M’s fans.
1: Expected growth fails to materialize – “The Mariners kept starting pitcher Marco Gonzales and outfielder Mitch Haniger to be the foundation when the prospects begin to arrive to the big leagues at varied times.”
Marco Gonzales had a break out 2018, but as we’ve talked about, that’s more due to the low bar of his previous performance than a transcendent performance last year. Don’t get me wrong, he was successful in ways that portend good things in 2019; it wasn’t just a fluke. The problem is that it’s easy to envision 2018 as a peak, or to see him struggling to maintain his 2018-level of performance. And let’s remember, while it was great by Fangraphs’ FIP-based WAR and nearly as good by BP’s DRA-based WAR(P) he posted an ERA of 4. More worrisome, his performance in the second half was significantly worse, not only due to a rise in BABIP/drop in strand rate, but a recurrence of the HR problems that sunk his 2017 campaign.
For the M’s plan to work, Gonzales needs to continue his upward trajectory through 2020. If that doesn’t happen, the M’s entire step back plan starts to look like a real rebuild in that they’d be entirely dependent on their prospects plus whichever players didn’t get extended and made it to free agency. By their own words, they’ve nominated Gonzales and Haniger as the homegrown (kind of) core that they’ll build around, and that their prospects will supplement by 2021. That entire plan is sunk if Gonzales doesn’t continue to grow and improve. He averaged 90 MPH on his fastball last year, gave up too many HRs, and you could argue batters adjusted to his new cutter (and improved curve) by the end of the year.
I’ve already laid out how he can adjust, but I think the M’s are dramatically understating the risk that we’ve already seen peak Marco Gonzales. What’s worse, the same could be said of Haniger. One of the best attributes of the M’s RF/CF is his consistency. His batting line was remarkably similar in 2017 and 2018. He was a above average in every half-season. We’ve seen him as a streaky player due to injury or HR binges and droughts, but overall, he’s been remarkably…similar. The way he’s produced has changed from month to month, but it’s to his credit that he’s essentially always produced. But with such consistency, it’s harder to see how he might elevate his game. He hasn’t been snake-bit by the BABIP gods – his BABIP has swung from .338 to .336 in his two M’s seasons. If that’s down to even .310, then he’s definitely more in the “complementary player” range. He wasn’t showing increased power; his ISO has gone from .209 to .208 in his two seasons…I’m not making this up, the guy who fans often think of as a robot has produced nearly impossibly similar seasons.
So what happens if his 2019 is another robotically similar campaign? If he’s every bit as good as last year, but with maaaybe a touch of BABIP nastiness or recurrence of the minor injuries that have sapped his plate appearances? If that happens, the plan to build around he and Gonzales looks a bit fragile. As I’ve written before, the problem isn’t that Haniger’s bad. The problem is that he’s older AND not quite as good as Matt Chapman, Alex Bregman, Mike Trout, Carlos Correa, etc., and we’re just looking at the AL West. If those guys continue to grow while Haniger stalls out, then the basic problem that occasioned this step back is worse than Dipoto, Mather, and company realized.
2: The competition gets better – “A big part of this plan is comparing the Mariners to their American League West competition.”
In Divish’s story, the M’s clearly point out that the 2018-style gap in talent can’t last forever. “In two years, the Astros will become very expensive with young stars such as George Springer, Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman in, or nearing, free agency. The A’s will have to make tough decisions on Matt Chapman and Matt Olson,” writes Divish, with presumably some arguments from Dipoto and company backing that up. Of the players mentioned, only Springer is older than Hangiger/Gonzales, and only Springer could conceivably hit free agency before 2021. If the M’s wanted to point to the A’s and Astros young stars as reasons for hope, I… I don’t quite get the argument here. Chapman and Olson will hit *arbitration* in 2021. The tough decision the A’s will face is to extend an offer to a young 1B who’s won a gold glove and smacked 29 HRs in a pre-arb season, and to extend an offer to a 3B who had a season between 6-8+ WAR as a pre-arb player. I know it’s the A’s, but these decisions are not tough.
Bregman, another player who has demonstrated batting ability that no one on the roster or in the system seems capable of, was just extended, so any concern about the Astros budget in 2021 are moot – he’ll be there, whether we like it or not. Carlos Correa will be a free agent in 2022, so he’ll be in Houston in 2021, and he’ll be hitting his nominal prime, per Jerry Dipoto. He could be extended as well, as the Astros have plenty of flexibility for 2021, just as the M’s do.
That’s not the real problem, though. The problem is that the Astros and A’s (and plenty of others) have shown an ability to get more out of their draft picks and prospects. Sure, the M’s have traded more of their prospects, which is why people like Pablo Lopez are suiting up for other teams, but the Astros and A’s (and perhaps soon the Angels) can point to players they’ve drafter turning into stars, and not just swingmen or “having a promising second half in the Cal League” or complementary guys. If that *continues* then the M’s are in serious trouble.
The M’s don’t need Gonzales/Haniger to match Bregman/Verlander or Chapman/Puk/Luzardo in 2021 WAR. Not exactly, anyway. The M’s position seems to be that Haniger and Gonzales can be above-average players that lead the group of uber-talents the M’s have recently acquired, from Justus Sheffield to JP Crawford to Justin Dunn. Let’s take them at their word. What happens if the Astros hit on one of Kyle Tucker, Forrest Whitley, Josh James or JB Bukauskas? What happens if the A’s pitching prospects materialize, and they’ve suddenly got answers for Sheffield/Dunn AND they’ve got Chapman hitting his prime and Olson as a complement? What happens if Jo Adell of the Angels is everything the prospect gurus say he is, or if they extend Andrelton Simmons along with Mike Trout? There’s nothing in the offing in the M’s farm that can compete with the one-two punch of Simmons/Trout, and the fact that said punch has not been enough to lift the Angels to the postseason is absolutely NOT reassuring, as schadenfreude-rich as it is.
A few of the AL West teams have better talent in 2018-19, and seem to be set up to out-compete the M’s in 2021, even if Evan White is manning 1B and Kyle Lewis has a starting job in Seattle. It’d be a fun competition, but you can’t look at the M’s stated goal and say, “yeah, that’s the best team in the division” let alone the league. But if *any* of their division rivals gets another star, then things start to look bleak. We *just* saw this happen with the Astros, who were the Correa/Altuve/Springer show until they got Cole, rejuvenated Verlander, and watched Bregman go nuts. The A’s saw Chapman go thermonuclear and have seen impressive things from Luzardo, who’ll start in the minors. Their pitching staff is weak at the moment, but could be significantly better by the M’s supposed contention window. The M’s best hope is thus that teams that have shown great ability to develop talent internally suddenly STOP developing talent internally, while the M’s, who’ve ahhhhh struggled in this regard suddenly hit their stride. That…that could happen.
3: Injuries hit the up-and-coming players – “maybe the most oft-mentioned of the target players was J.P. Crawford.”
The common thread with these posts in the Dipoto era is this: The M’s front office thinks much more highly of a player than the projections/industry consensus. That was true about guys like Evan Scribner, Ben Gamel, and Ryon Healy, but also about Marco Gonzales, Mitch Haniger, and Wade LeBlanc. The track record isn’t perfect, but it’s not crazy for the front office to see, say, JP Crawford as a fundamentally better player than he’s shown, or that even his optimistic projections foresee.
OK, so now imagine that JP Crawford goes down in May with an injury. This isn’t some weird, nightmarish, remote possibility. He missed significant time due to injury *twice* in 2018. You know what the best predictor of a DL visit in year X+1 is, right? What would this plan look like if any one of Dunn/Sheffield/Swanson/Gilbert missed significant time? The M’s already lost Sam Carlson to TJ last year, and they haven’t appeared to be remarkably good at avoiding injuries as a group.
This isn’t philosophical; the M’s pointed to a wave of injuries as the reason they failed to compete in 2017, but then watched as Oakland and even Houston got past just as severe a spate and outperform them. The M’s are now younger than they were in 2017, and that pushes the likelihood of a recurrence of that injury wave lower, but this step back makes a recurrence all the more dangerous. The M’s are in this position in part because of Kyle Lewis’ horrific injury and slow recovery. They got Marco Gonzales because he was coming off of TJ rehab, and Crawford was available because the Phillies couldn’t wait for a low-power SS who kept missing time. If Lewis’ knee problems recur, if Crawford’s hand/forearm issues recur, or if Gilbert/Sheffield do what pitchers do and hurt their elbows, the entire timeline is thrown out of whack. The M’s don’t look like contenders in 2021; given the talent levels in the division, they’re right back where they are now, looking a few years down the road.