Revisiting the M’s Top Prospects of 2006
I mentioned it in a game thread a few days ago, but seriously, you really have to read this Sam Miller piece at BP that looks at what’s become of the Rays top 30 prospects ten years later. It’s the fourth in a series of posts Sam’s done, detailing the outcome of the top farm system in baseball ten years previously. What’s fascinating is not just that many prospects bust, but, and this should’ve been obvious, what teams DO with their prospects vary widely. The Brewers group of 2003 (a group put together largely by Jack Zduriencik) got solid production from the very top of their list – headed by Prince Fielder, JJ Hardy and Rickie Weeks – but struggled to do much with everyone else, and if that isn’t some pretty big foreshadowing of the Zduriencik era in Seattle, I don’t know what is. The Angels did a bit better *despite* the fact that their top prospects at the time – Dallas McPherson and Brandon Wood – are legendary prospect busts. But they had a deep system, and thus got plenty of production from Kendrys Morales, Howie Kendrick, Erick Aybar and the like, and they made a few smaller moves with that cohort, including flipping Kendrick for today’s pre-arb starter, Andrew Heaney. The Rays article represents a very different approach. Instead of keeping their top prospects together, they were very selective about the players they kept, and after that, traded liberally with anyone who’d listen. What this means is that, even ten years later, the Rays still have a bunch of prospects and cost-controlled players they acquired in exchange for earlier prospects, who they acquired in exchange for the prospects on that original 2006 list. As a result, they’ve put up far more WAR as a result of their original list, many of their *current* prospects are in the organization as a result of the original prospects.
The Rays were remarkable in that they ID’d the right players to sign (Evan Longoria) and the right players to sell high on (Delmon Young), and then they kept parlaying one set of acquisitions into another, turning Delmon Young into Matt Garza into Chris Archer. The Angels weren’t quite as adept as that, but their deep system still provided the basis for 5-6 years of contention, thanks to the infield tandem of Kendrick and Aybar. So, what would the M’s look like in this kind of analysis? What would we learn, apart from the basic fact that baseball, like life, is pain, and that point-in-time errors cascade through the seasons, bringing old ghosts and new torments together in a Grand Guignol of… sorry, got a bit carried away. I’m not going to lie: doing this means reliving some of the most painful, most self-destructive moments in recent M’s history. This might hurt a bit.
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Cactus League Game 11, Rockies at Mariners
Jon Garland vs. Juan Nicasio, 12:05
The M’s get a new victim today to celebrate their impending 10th straight victory: the Colorado Rockies. Picking up on the recent outbreak of M’s fever, ROOT Sports will televise today’s game, so we’ll be able to see the M’s dispatch the Rockies, who’d huddled together high on mountain peaks to escape the ravaging horde of Mariners. Some may say it’s unseemly to make a spectacle out of predator/prey interactions, but it’s just nature’s way: you can’t easily map human morality to something like this. Jon Garland and Taijuan Walker need to feed. Reid Brignac is protein-rich, and his bones aid the natural digestion of apex predators like Walker.
The M’s received a bit of a scare today – no, not from another team, don’t be absurd – when Danny Hultzen was scratched from today’s game with a hip flexor injury. It’s not thought to be serious, and will only keep him out for a few days. And as it’s not arm-related, he can continue to throw a bit on the side. Still, it’s something to keep an eye on throughout the month. There was never much chance of Hultzen breaking camp with Seattle, but that small percentage has just dwindled to zero.
Joe Saunders pitched effectively yesterday, but as Harry Pavlidis noted on twitter, he was sitting in the low-mid 80s. Saunders has never been a fireballer and his game isn’t about velocity, but if you’re already monitoring Hultzen’s hip, you may as well track Saunders’ arm as well. He was at 85-88 in his start late last year in Seattle, so it’s not a huge change, but seeing a presumptive M’s starter fire in what looked for all the world like a four-seam fastball at 83 was…perplexing. Brian Moran does that all the time, and he’s a reliever, I get it. It’s also early March, and this is the kind of thing I may be making too much of, but…83?
Line-up!
1: Gutierrez, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Ibanez, DH
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Wells, RF
6: Thames, LF
7: Shoppach, C
8: Andino, 2B
9: Triunfel, SS
SP: Garland
Game 35 “Not Quite Dead Yet”
Hey, 14-21. Perhaps there’s hope after all.
Late edit: The West Tenn Diamond Jaxx’ website says that Jack Wilson will be rehabbing with them starting tomorrow when the roadtrip to Mississippi begins. The Mariners official site confirms.
* Doug Fister had six walks coming into the game, and this was advertised as one of the things he’d need to keep up in order to win this one. He got to a full count on Jason Bartlett and threw eight pitches before he induced the ground out. This at-bat was a rough summary of how Fister was pitching today. While he did manage to get first pitch strikes in for over two-thirds of the batters he faced, he struggled to put them away and left after just five innings, having walked three. To be fair, one of his walks, the one to Brignac, basically wasn’t if you take a look at it…
Not a great outing for him, though watching him fool Longoria badly on a 88mph pitch in, and then get him to K on a checked swing up in the eyes, that was nice.
The run that scored against Fister was among the stranger ways I’ve seen to get on the board lately. First there was the double to Bartlett, which is something I suppose, but then Saunders threw a dart to the left of the second base bag that Figgins couldn’t line up with, and so the ball ended up spiking and bouncing away. After that, Fister got a cleat caught in the mound and ended up with a balk that resembled some unintentional whirlwind move that scored Bartlett from third. That was annoying.
* As disheartening as the losses in Baltimore were, this game served as a reminder of how much better the team is with Gutierrez in the lineup. The first inning home run on a pitch into his wheelhouse was a decent enough example of that, especially considering that was the first home run Wade Davis had given up to a right-handed hitter all season, but so was the sixth inning walk, where he stole second and alertly went to third as the throw went astray. Smarter baserunning always helps.
* One of the comments made during the game was that neither Johnson nor Moore has really taken the title of starting catcher, due to both weak hitting and frequent mistakes behind the plate. After tonight’s game, I figure a number of people out there will want to give that title to Moore after seeing a double and a home run in the box score. Frankly, I don’t know if those two aren’t caught in a ballpark where the ball doesn’t carry as well, but their location, to right field in both instances, raises an interesting point. You look at Rob Johnson’s hitting charts, in Safeco at least, and you’ll see that only four of the balls he’s hit have gone to the right side. Moore, while logging nine fewer at-bats at home, has five, and three of his four balls in play tonight went to the right side. That ability may be more conducive to future success in Safeco.
* In May, Casey Kotchman has hit .056/.190/.083 in 36 at-bats. The Rays still opted to walk him intentionally in the sixth in order to bring up Josh Wilson. That should tell you what other teams really think of Wilson’s recent hot hitting.
* Kanekoa Texeira had to face the 4-5-6 hitters in the Rays lineup in the bottom of the sixth. He frisbeed in two pitches around 90 mph to get two quick inside strikes on Longoria, and then struck him out two later on a pitch in the dirt. He then struck out Carlos Pena, a left-hander, on eight pitches, and Upton on five pitches, the last two of which were swings out of the zone. The seventh inning featured three pitches to get through the likes of Pat Burrell and John Jaso, and after the walk to Brignac, one more to Bartlett to end the inning. We like Texeira.
* Sometime in the sixth inning, seeing a number of pitches being dropped in around the dirt and barely snagged, a small child behind home plate screamed “HE CAN’T EVEN GET A HOLD OF IT!” Though this was one of our better games behind the dish all season, clearly the child had not been watching much Mariners baseball this year.
* We shouldn’t fault Kelley for the dinger to Longoria because it was a decent pitch to a fantastic hitter. All you can really do in that case is tip your cap to the guy. Against Carlos Pena, Kelley managed a strikeout on five pitches all around the zone, and B.J. Upton was knocked out with just four. Kelley is still one of the Mariners better relievers when used properly.
* I know that the condensed game for this one will include the highlights of the home runs by Gutierrez, Moore, and Sweeney, but I really do hope that Sweeney’s stolen base, his first in four years, manages to make it in there too.
Another edit: We now have more home runs than the Cleveland Indians. LOOK OUT, AMERICAN LEAGUE.
Process Of Elimination
We’ll hopefully find out about where Clement’s headed at some point today. Until then, we can do a little process of elimination to make an educated guess.
First off, let’s write off the entire National League. Clement’s a DH who might be able to learn how to play first or go back to catching eventually, but his primary position is hitter. National League clubs don’t have the fallback of letting him hit while his knee recovers, so they’re far less likely to trade for him.
Okay, now, write off the Angels/Rangers/A’s. Intra-division trades are rare enough, but division rivals don’t trade major league players to a team trying to catch them in the standings. Texas and Anaheim aren’t interested in helping make the M’s better. Oakland is already loaded with Clement-type players. Deals with those three don’t make much sense.
Now, write off the Yankees. Even with Matsui leaving at the end of the season, they need to save their DH spot for Jorge Posada. Also, their top prospect is a kid names Jesus Montero, a monster hitter who probably can’t catch. In other words, they already have their Jeff Clement. They don’t need ours.
Boston? Nope. Ortiz is hitting again, they just acquired Adam LaRoche to serve as their LH bat off the bench, and they’re not giving up pieces from their big league roster while they try to make the playoffs.
Detroit? No – he doesn’t fit their needs and they don’t have the kinds of players the M’s would be looking for.
White Sox? No – they already have six DH’s on their roster.
Minnesota? No – Mauer/Morneau/Kubel.
KC? Not a Royals kind of player.
That leaves four teams that make some sense.
Tampa Bay – they aren’t getting any offense from Dioner Navarro or Pat Burrell, and they’ve expressed interest in Clement before. Reid Brignac, as has been discussed many times, is exactly the kind of player that makes sense for the M’s to be pursuing. The M’s could also afford to take on Scott Kazmir’s contract to give Tampa some financial flexibility. Morrow + Clement for Kazmir + Brignac makes sense for both teams, even without the whole Cleveland angle.
Cleveland – They don’t need a catcher, but they just traded Ryan Garko and they might deal Victor Martinez, so there would be some 1B/DH at-bats open, and he’s their kind of hitter. Jhonny Peralta could be a good fit for the M’s if they think he can play shortstop.
Toronto – The Blue Jays ownership has just stated that they’re going to get “costs under control”, which might prevent the Jays from offering arbitration to Marco Scutaro this winter. Clement and some lower level prospects might be enough to get you Scutaro, in that case – he’d be a rental unless the team liked him enough to try to sign him long term, but as a Type A free agent, the M’s could prefer the draft picks to the prospects they’re giving up.
Baltimore – They have this Wieters kid, so he’d be a 1B/DH only in Baltimore, but Aubrey Huff is a free agent at years end and the O’s could use another young power bat. What they would give up in return is less clear, but they at least fit the mold of a team that would be interested in Clement.
If I had to bet, I’d say it’s a deal with Tampa Bay. Kazmir impressed in his start against the Yankees, and the Rays would probably prefer to be free of his contract even if they can’t pull off the Cliff Lee deal. Brignac, obviously, fits a big need too. This just makes the most sense of anything. But it’s not the only possibility – I could see him going to Cleveland, Toronto, or Baltimore as well.
Many Hands Make Light Work
It’s a common refrain to hear people say that the M’s need another bat or two to be a real contender. The offense is bad, there’s no doubt about that. Their .313 team wOBA is 6th worst in baseball. However, I’d like to suggest that the M’s don’t need to get one big bat – they just need a couple smaller ones.
Let’s compare our offense to the Rangers offense, for instance. They have a .335 wOBA that ranks 10th in baseball. When you adjust for their home park, they come out just a bit above average. If the M’s had the Rangers offense, they’d be right in the thick of things, and we’d be talking about chasing down the Angels over the last two months.
Texas’ offense is led by Nelson Cruz (.380 wOBA), Michael Young (.371 wOBA), and Ian Kinsler (.357 wOBA). Those three have combined to be +34 runs above average on the season. The Mariners offense is led by Russ Branyan (.390 wOBA), Ichiro (.374 wOBA), and Franklin Gutierrez (.350 wOBA). Those three have combined to be +46 runs above average so far this year.
The M’s big three bats have been better than Texas’ big three by a fairly decent margin. The difference between the two isn’t in the quality of the good hitters, but instead in the quality of the bad hitters.
The Rangers have five players who have gotten significant playing time and been below average hitters. Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Chris Davis, Taylor Teagardan, Elvis Andrus, and Josh Hamilton have racked up -37.5 runs between them, basically canceling out the work of the top three and giving the Rangers an average offense overall.
The Mariners, on the other hand… the guys who have held down shortstop (Cedeno + Betancourt), catcher (Johnson, Johjima, and Burke), DH (Griffey and Sweeney), third base (Beltre, Woodward, and Hannahan), and left field (Chavez, Balentien, and Langerhans) have almost all been below average. Their combined total: -68.7 runs.
The M’s are 29th in wOBA from shortstop, 29th in wOBA from catcher, 13th (of 14) in wOBA from designated hitter, 30th in wOBA at left field, and 27th in wOBA at third base. The good work done by Ichiro, Gutierrez, and Branyan is wiped out by the lack of offense the team has gotten from these other five spots.
The difference between Texas’ offense and Seattle’s offense isn’t that they have more big bats, but instead that they have little bats that are okay instead of terrible. Omar Vizquel, Hank Blalock, David Murphy, Marlon Byrd – role players who can hit a little bit and won’t sink the offense when they’re on the field. This is what the Mariners are lacking.
The team needed more Ryan Langerhans and less Ronny Cedeno. You can win with average bats playing great defense behind a decent pitching staff. You can’t with with lousy bats playing great defense behind a decent pitching staff. The Mariners simply have too many lousy bats.
The problem spots are catcher, shortstop, and designated hitter. The M’s got good enough value from the gloves at 3B/LF to justify the offensive levels that they got from those positions. The same can’t be said at the other spots. Rob Johnson, for all the talk about how much pitchers love him, doesn’t have enough offense to be the #1 catcher for a playoff team. Ronny Cedeno has done a nice job defending at short, but he’s miscast as anything other than a utility infielder. Ken Griffey Jr and Mike Sweeney may have been great for the clubhouse, but they didn’t live up to their end of the bargain on the field.
These are the positions the M’s have to address going forward.
Adam Moore may push his way into the catcher conversation next year, but if the team isn’t ready to give the catching job to two youngsters, they’ll need to go get an offensive minded backstop that Wak can live with behind the plate for 2010.
Shortstop, the answer has to come from outside the system. There aren’t any internal options. You know the names by now – JJ Hardy, Reid Brignac, Jack Wilson if they want a stop-gap who will have to settle for a one year deal… the M’s will have to get someone in here over the winter who can play the position and hit enough to justify his paycheck.
DH should be fairly easy, honestly. Russ Branyan isn’t the only under-appreciated hitter who hasn’t been able to land a full-time job and is just waiting for his shot. Jeff Clement probably deserves another look, and Mike Carp may be able to give him a run at the internal candidate position as well. Eric Hinske could serve as a short-term fill-in, or you could try to get Jake Fox from the Cubs as a more long term solution. Finding a DH who can hit just isn’t that hard.
As the M’s begin to shift their focus towards 2010, they should not be seduced into looking for “a big bat”. They don’t need another all-star caliber hitter. They just need a few more guys who don’t totally suck at the plate.
The M’s Should Not Trade For A Third Baseman
The 5-4 road trip, the latter portion coming with Adrian Beltre on the disabled list, can’t be construed as anything other than a huge success. No one thinks this is a great team, but they just played ball with three of the best teams in baseball, on the road, and didn’t embarrass themselves. Yes, there was some bounces going their way, but they put themselves in the position to have those lucky breaks translate into wins in a stretch of games where getting blown out early and often wouldn’t have been much of a shock.
Given the strong performance and the team’s place in the standings, just 3 1/2 games behind both Anaheim and Texas, the organization has ample reason to focus on improving the team they’re putting on the field and giving the 2009 team a chance to make a run at the playoffs. And, realistically, it’s pretty easy to identify the glaring weakness on this team right now. Chris Woodward seems like a nice enough guy, but when he’s your starting third baseman, you have a problem. Considering the M’s inconsistent production (or just total lack thereof) at other positions, they can’t afford to punt third base in a playoff race. Woodward has to be replaced if this team really wants to try to make a push for the AL West title.
That fact, obvious to most everyone, has led to speculation about which third baseman the Mariners could possibly acquire. Names tossed around include Mark Teahen, Garrett Atkins, Kevin Kouzmanoff, Ty Wigginton, and Blake DeWitt, as fans and reporters alike try to come up with some possible options for the club. For most people, the discussion simply comes down to which 3B the M’s should go after, but I’m of the belief that the best option is none of the above.
Making a move for a third baseman would provide an upgrade over Chris Woodward and improve the team’s ability to stay afloat while Adrian Beltre is on the shelf. I don’t disagree with any of that. However, what do you do with New Guy if Beltre is able to come back in September? Or, even better, what do you do with New Guy if the M’s actually pull this thing off and make it to the playoffs? There’s not a third baseman available in trade that you’d want in the line-up over a healthy Adrian Beltre, or even Beltre at 80% of his normal abilities. At that point, you’ve given up some presumably valuable asset(s) to help you for the next ~7 weeks and then improve your bench for the final month/playoffs. Meanwhile, the guy lining up next to Beltre would still be Ronny Cedeno or Yuniesky Betancourt.
That’s the real hole – shortstop. The M’s don’t have a single major league quality starting shortstop in the organization. Cedeno’s flashed the leather the last few weeks like we hoped he would earlier in the year, but there’s still too many problems with his offensive production to look at him as a real solution. Yuni, we’ve talked about to death. On a team trying to contend, both of these guys are bench players.
If we’re going to accept the premise that this team should be bolstering the roster for a run this year (for the purpose of this post, we are), we have to look beyond August 31st. The team only has so many trade chips that will bring them back assets in return, and using one or more of them to acquire a guy who may not have a full-time job for the last month of the season and any October baseball could be a mistake.
The team has to replace Woodward, but they don’t have to do it by acquiring a third baseman. Instead, if the team is going to aggressively pursue an upgrade on the roster, I’d suggest that shortstop is the position to target. If you can make a deal that brings back an SS, you still replace Woodward, but you do it by shifting Lopez to third and Cedeno/Yuni to second.
The starting 2B/3B/SS, in either scenario, will be Lopez-Cedeno/Betancourt-New Guy. How those players are deployed is the issue. And I’d argue that with Beltre potentially returning for September and beyond, it is in the organization’s best interests to make sure that New Guy can play next to Adrian down the stretch, rather than being displaced by him. You don’t want to give up assets for a two month player if you can get a three month (plus playoffs) player instead.
Thankfully for the Mariners, there are a pretty decent selection of shortstops who potentially could be acquired by the M’s. There’s a couple high rent district guys who would cost a lot but could also be terrific acquisitions (J.J. Hardy and Reid Brignac), the veteran rent-a-player option (Jack Wilson), and a trio of need-a-change-of-scenery players (Stephen Drew, Jhonny Peralta, and Yunel Escobar, the latter two of whom could potentially play third until Beltre came back, then shift over to shortstop).
Any possible deal involving Hardy or Brignac is going to cost you Erik Bedard (and then some), so he’d have to be lights out in his two starts this week in order to facilitate a move. More realistically, Wilson would cost significantly less in talent to acquire, thanks to his contract and the Pirates perpetual rebuilding phase, while providing a really good glove guy who isn’t an automatic out. The last three are all questionable gloves at short, but they have a track record of hitting well enough to make up for it – how much the M’s should give up for a guy who might have to move off the position after 2009 is a legitimate question, but they provide options at least.
The worst thing the M’s can do right now is overreact to the road trip and make the easy move that doesn’t help them enough for 2009 and costs them talent for 2010 and beyond. If they’re going to make a move to improve this club for the stretch run, it should be a move that can help them through the rest of the season, even after a potential Beltre return, and in an ideal world it would be a player with some value to this club in 2010 as well.
Replace Woodward, yes, but replace him with a shortstop.
The value of showing up
“[Napoleon] had a two-part plan.â€
“What was it?â€
“First was show up. We’ll see what happens.â€
“That was his plan.â€
“Yup.â€
“Against the Russian army.â€
“Yup.â€
“First we show up, then we see what happens.â€
“Yup.â€
“Almost hard to believe he lost.”
— another Sports Night quote
The M’s are going to make like Napolean. And if they lose, it’ll still be the right play.
No matter the outcome tomorrow morning they’ll have pulled a win out of this road trip by staying in contention while playing the Yankees and Red Sox. In the last week, their playoff chances have dramatically improved. Looking at the AL East, it’s pretty clear the division title’s going to be the only way into the post-season dance, but the division title requires them to climb over two teams.
Dave’s talked a little in recent weeks about players the team can target (like Langerhans!) to improve their chances, and I want to take a little larger view here. With two teams at 43 wins already, for the M’s to take the pennant they’re going to need to bank 90 wins. There’s a chance at 85, sure. If the team does nothing, they can still luck into it. All they have to do is stay close. With Beltre out, though, their chance is probably 10%. To stay in the middle of the fray, and be able to take advantage of any opportunities if the other teams stumble, they will have to make some pickups before the trade deadline.
The great thing about the M’s as currently built is we can see how you get there.
Two things they have to do:
They need a shortstop. Gambling on a miraculous appearance of super-Yuni won’t do it. Dave suggested Jack Wilson, Nick Punto, and Reid Brignac in this post. Put someone average in there and you get another win at least in the second half. Put someone good in there… oh yeah.
They need a third baseman. I’m not betting on Beltre’s return this year, and crossing my fingers and wishing really hard isn’t going to help. I’m still all wished out on the illusory 2007 run at contention. If you’re willing to take a below-average glove, you go after the last year of Aubrey Huff’s deal, or see how far in the doghouse Garrett Atkins is. Or check pre-season USSM-suggested gamble Andy Marte, currently hitting .323/.363/.543 in Columbus) (and that I’m even throwing these out there is a measure of how wince-inducing this problem is).
And the problem here is if you’re trying to improve the team, you have to get to Beltre production to stay even. Which means they need to patch here and improve elsewhere.
How much do these upgrades cost? In some of these, taking on salary might make the cost in young talent much less. Jack Wilson’s being paid $7m this year, and while the team’s got a 2010 option, the Pirates are in last place (and making bad trades). Huff’s $8m in payroll. Atkins is on a one-year arbitration-avoiding deal for $7m. The M’s are still drawing, though not as well. Proving they’re in contention, particularly that they’re turning this thing around, might be hugely valuable in keeping the season ticket sales up for next year, when they can put back-to-back years together and show this isn’t a 2007-style luck-fest. It might make it worth trying even if they don’t make it into the playoffs, which is like hitting the jackpot.
And as Dave’s suggested, trading off Bedard or Washburn could hugely improve the team now and help not give up the players who might help contend in two or three years.
Then we have less-pressing needs. Jose Lopez isn’t helping, but finding an upgrade there may be too costly. They desperately need a right-handed DH platoon for Griffey, preferably one that can hit a little, because Sweeney has done nothing all year to give anyone reason to believe he can still play. You can fix that with Chris Shelton, or any number of other candidates. Sweeney’s by all accounts a great guy, but character’s not hitting and the offense sucks. If you can upgrade on Griffey, that’d be nice too, but he’s way down on the priority list.
The offense needs it. They’re not going to win a pennant with a .316 on-base percentage. And neither is Texas at .317. The AL average offense so far is scoring 4.8 runs a game and the M’s are at 4. The LAAoA are scoring over five. Even considering Safeco’s park effects, that’s too much. It’s almost like the M’s are spotting the other team a runner on third for the start of every game, all year long.
What’s particularly good about this is none of the holes they have to plug are hard to confront. It’s not like telling Ichiro! he can’t play any more, and Yuni and Lopez don’t have such large contracts there’ll be pressure to keep them out there.
So let’s say in July they find an average third baseman somewhere, an average shortstop, and a decent RH bat. The offense gets a little better, the defense gets a little better (swapping Beltre for an average glove, Yuni for an average glove), and the cost shouldn’t be too dear.
That’s showing up. Patch a couple holes, gut it out.
If they seriously want to make a push and target the division, the team has to get a lot better than even that. They need a good third baseman, a good shortstop, a good second baseman, a big DH upgrade, and they might look at a catcher. At the same time they’ll probably need to upgrade the starting rotation at least in one spot.
And the price tag there is potentially huge. We can argue about who you can throw in at each positions who might be adequate, but the list of players who can make enough of a difference in a half-season is a lot smaller, and most of those aren’t available at any reasonable cost. You can get Langerhans for Mike Morse, but David Wright doesn’t come for a hundred of them.
The team’s finally setting up for a long run at contention and this season’s success is only the first fruit. I’d love to see them get into the playoffs, but I’d much rather watch the team exercise patience, continue to improve, and make a legitimate run at a World Series win in the future. This year, I’m all for paying a small price to stay in this, rather than make the kind of mistakes we’ve seen the franchise make lately in chasing contention at so high a cost. And staying in it might prove enough.
Yuni To Second?
Lost in the rest of the news yesterday was a short note from Larry LaRue that the team is considering shifting Yuniesky Betancourt to second base when he returns from the disabled list. Lopez would move to third in Beltre’s absence, and Cedeno would presumably continue as the starting shortstop.
This move would do a couple of things. Most notably, it’s probably the best defensive infield the team can run out there without Beltre. Yuni is probably a -5 to -15 defender at SS now, while Lopez is 0 to -10 at second, and Woodward is -5 to +5 at third. That would suggest that the M’s would expect to lose 15 runs on defense from those three positions compared to league average over a full season.
By shifting Betancourt and Lopez to positions where their range isn’t as critical, they would get a good chunk of those runs back. Cedeno’s something like a -5 to +5 shortstop, while Betancourt would probably be a -0 to -10 second baseman, and Lopez would be -5 to +5 at third base, where his defensive skillset profiles a bit better. All of the sudden, -15 from that group becomes a -5.
It also gives them a new series of moves to consider. We’d talked about the rather lackluster options for acquiring a third baseman from outside the organization, but the re-alignment would put the M’s in the position to be able to buy a shortstop instead. There are some decent ones available, from Jack Wilson to Nick Punto to Reid Brignac (okay, he’s less available than the other two, but one can dream). Acquiring either Wilson or Punto would put the M’s in a position to get above average defense from their 2B/3B/SS collection, which is hard to imagine given the talent on the roster right now.
Given the available options, this is probably the best the M’s can do. It’s not great, and they should still look to upgrade on Cedeno at short if they can get a decent player for a reasonable price, but it’s better than having Chris Woodward in the line-up on a regular basis.
It also comes with the bonus that if Beltre is able to return in September, there’s a pretty good chance that Betancourt is the one who loses the game of musical chairs. Lopez would almost certainly go back to second base, and Yuni would have had to impress enough with his work to unseat Cedeno or the new shortstop and get his old position back. Yea, I don’t think that’s very likely either.
Buying And Selling
Larry Stone has a good piece in the Times this morning, discussing the timing of when the Mariners need to decide whether they’re buyers or sellers. As you guys know, I advocated for an early selling position on Bedard and Washburn, calling them “volatile assets” whose value could drop precipitously with an injury or a regression in performance. With both of them nursing health problems and Washburn coming off a bad start in Coors Field, hopefully you can see what I was talking about – it would be harder for the M’s to get a good deal for either of them right now than it would have been 10 days ago.
So, now, the M’s have to wait and let those two re-establish their health, which they’ll hopefully do this weekend. In Bedard’s case, he probably has to string together several good outings in a row, showing he can handle a regular workload without having to skip starts every few weeks. Washburn has to continue to show that his two-seamer has given him an extra weapon to handle lefties, and his uptick in strikeout rate isn’t a fluke.
For today, I agree with Larry. The market for these two will grow if they can prove that last weekend was an aberration and pitch well for the next couple of weeks. For now, we probably need to wait before moving those two.
However, as I talked about a bit yesterday on 710/ESPN with Mike Salk, I am convinced that there is an option here beyond the normal “trade prospects for veterans to make a run” or “give up on the season and go with the kids”. Yes, historically, teams have divided themselves into those two camps after the July 31st deadline, but I think the M’s are in a unique situation, in a unique economic environment, and that they have a chance to do things differently this trading season.
The AL West isn’t good. The Rangers have stopped hitting of late, and despite their improved run prevention, they aren’t getting to the playoffs on the backs of their pitching and defense. The Angels were supposed to get a boost from the return of their walking wounded, but Kelvim Escobar just needed one start to prove he couldn’t handle a regular rotation spot anymore, while Ervin Santana hasn’t found his fastball and is going to miss his start tonight with forearm tightness. John Lackey hasn’t exactly been an all-star, either. The Angels still have issues, both offensively and on the pitching side of things.
So, despite the flaws on this M’s roster, I think the front office would be wise to make moves that would help keep the 2009 team afloat and potentially able to capitalize in the second half if Texas and Anaheim continue to struggle. However, at the same time, I think Bedard and Washburn fit the mold of overvalued assets in the mid-season trade market. Teams always overvalue pitching, especially left-handed pitching, as they gear up to make a playoff race. It’s the one thing that’s constantly in demand from multiple clubs and could bring a significant return in trade.
As Mike Salk pointed out yesterday, though, the common belief is that if you trade Bedard and Washburn, you’re done. You’ve just punted two starting pitchers who have been critical to your early season success, there’s no way this team can with without them. I disagree. I think the team can take a buy-and-sell approach to this deadline that would help them build for the future but also keep the 2009 team from going in the tank.
Here’s my suggestion.
The M’s badly need a shortstop. We all know that. The M’s rank 29th in wOBA (.242!) and 30th in UZR (-9.8!) from the SS position. The performances they’ve gotten from Betancourt/Cedeno have been worth about -1.5 wins less than a replacement level shortstop in about 40% of a season. That’s incredibly awful, the kind of gaping hole that no team can really overcome.
The M’s also need another left-handed hitter in the line-up, which we’ve covered ad nauseam here on the blog. The line-up is too right-handed, so when they face a righty with two-seam fastball (the pitch with the largest platoon split), they lack the left-handed bats to punish the opposing pitcher and they get shut down.
What the M’s need more than anything else is a left-handed hitting shortstop with some ability to hit and field. They need a stop-loss to prevent the massive sucking hole at shortstop from taking wins off the board. Upgrading from Betancourt/Cedeno to even a below average SS would be a massive improvement over what the M’s have gotten from the position this year. Where would they find such a player?
Meet Reid Brignac. He’s a 23-year-old left-handed hitting shortstop in the Tampa Bay Rays system. He spent the last few weeks filling in for Jason Bartlett while the Rays starting SS was on the DL, but now that Bartlett is back, it’s off to Durham again for some more time in Triple-A. With Bartlett ahead of him at SS and Ben Zobrist/Willy Aybar holding down second base (and then some) in Akinori Iwamura’s absence, Brignac doesn’t have a role with the Rays. He’s depth for them, an insurance policy in case Bartlett gets hurt again, but not a piece of their core now or going forward.
Now, maybe you look at his .271/.295/.390 mark that he posted over the last few weeks for the Rays and say “meh, another low OBP hacker”. However, look closer. In fact, look at his L/R splits.
Vs RHP: .357/.386/.524, 44 PA, 2 BB, 5 K
Vs LHP: .059/.059/.059, 17 PA, 0 BB, 7 K
To say that Brignac had problems with left-handed pitching would be a bit of an understatement. There’s definitely need for improvement there, and he’s not ready for an every day role in the majors. However, that performance versus lefties hides the fact that he hit the crap out of the ball against right-handed pitching during the last couple of weeks. This isn’t new, either. Here’s his minor league splits from Durham this year.
Vs RHP: .300/.370/.491, 124 PA, 14 BB, 17 K
Vs LHP: .258/.303/.355, 33 PA, 1 BB, 4 K
Brignac hasn’t figured out how to hit lefties yet. That’s okay – he’s 23. That can be improved upon later, and hidden now. The M’s could hide Brignac against lefties, platooning him with Cedeno in order to give both of them the best chance to succeed offensively. He won’t put up a .900 OPS against RHP all year, but he doesn’t have to. If he hits .270/.320/.400 and plays league average defense, the upgrade from Betancourt to Brignac would be larger than the downgrade from Bedard to Rowland-Smith/Jakubauskas/whoever.
Seriously, if the M’s swapped Erik Bedard for Reid Brignac, there’s a pretty good chance they wouldn’t see a significant drop-off in 2009 performance as a team. When you couple the magnitude of the problem that SS has been for the M’s this year with the general overrating of the impact of starting pitchers, you get a situation like this where a decent position player can be worth as much as a good starting pitcher.
Now, there’s a pretty good chance that the Rays wouldn’t swap Brignac for Bedard straight up. They don’t have a ton of budget flexibility, and they’re notoriously reluctant to trade young talent. That’s okay – the M’s have the pieces to make a deal work. They have the financial ability to pay Bedard’s contract through the end of ’09, eliminating the need for the Rays to increase their payroll. They have extraneous players like Jeff Clement, who would appeal to a Rays front office that likes that kind of player type, that could be added into a multi-player deal.
The pieces are there to make this work. Even if you can’t find a perfect fit with the Rays (maybe they don’t want to deal with Bedard’s health problems), the team should still pursue Brignac as a target. As we saw Jack do in the Putz deal, it’s quite possible to use players to acquire talent that another team wants in order to get the guy you’re after. If the Phillies are willing to overpay for Bedard (and it sounds like they probably are), then the M’s can target a player in that deal who would appeal to Tampa Bay in a Brignac trade.
Because they’ll be in demand this trading season, the M’s have the flexibility to use Bedard and Washburn as bait to pick up pieces that won’t just help them in the future, but can help them right now. There are players out there, like Brignac, who would be an immediate upgrade for the Mariners, while also providing some long term value. These are the kinds of players the M’s should be targeting.
Don’t get caught up thinking that it’s a trade-prospects or trade-for-prospects decision. The M’s are in the position to do both. Deal Bedard and Washburn to the highest bidder, or for the pieces that will allow you to go out and get guys like Brignac. Sell, yes, on those two players, but then buy us a left-handed hitting shortstop who can help the team right now and going forward.
This isn’t an either/or situation. Buy and sell, not buy or sell.
Rainiers Opening Day Game Thread
It’s opening day in the minors, and the M’s have a day off, so we’re throwing up a game thread for the classic showdown between the Tacoma Rainiers and the Sacramento Rivercats. Cha Seung Baek vs Jason Windsor in a battle of guys with command and no outpitch.
You can catch USSM-endorsed announcer Mike Curto call the game from the Rainiers webpage.
Also, in other news from the affiliates:
Justin Thomas has been impressive in his start for West Tennessee but is being outdueled by Chris Seddon. Thomas has kept elite prospects Evan Longoria and Reid Brignac off the bases so far. Tui is shockingly pulling an 0-fer.
Ricky Orta got bombed for Wisconsin (1 IP, 4 H, 7 R, 4 BB, 2 K), but Carlos Triunfel is already 2-3 with 2 steals in his professional debut as a 17-year-old. He was replaced in the top of the 6th inning after making a play on a groundball – no word on the injury yet, but we’ll let you know.
High Desert kicks off their season in about 15 minutes, but their team is terrible and not particularly interesting. Their webpage is the stock one provided by minorleaguebaseball.com, and their top story is a notice that Brandon Morrow has been impressive in spring training but is still expected to open the season in the Cal League. Way to be on top of things, fellas.