Mariners Swept Down to Baltimore
| MARINERS (50-58) | ΔMs | ORIOLES (60-49) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | 14.9 (9th) | -3.7 | -5 (15th) | Mariners |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | -28.3 (27th) | -3.8 | 14.4 (10th) | Orioles |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 15.2 (11th) | -0.8 | -38.2 (28th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | -4.1 (22nd) | -1.5 | -1.1 (18th) | Orioles |
| OVERALL (RAA) | -2.3 (12th) | -9.9 | -29.9 (19th) | MARINERS |
I also recently attempted going to Boston but instead ended up in Baltimore. I know how it feels, Mariners. It feels crummy and stiflingly humid.
That was some collapse. It seems almost unfair that it happened in a game in August between a team already likely to go to the playoffs and a team already likely to not go to the playoffs. In the grander sense of the story line for the season of these two teams, that game didn’t matter. It should, being nearly monumental in individual scope.
Instead, there’s some expected statements and now the team moves on to Baltimore, the organization where most Mariner trade rumors were connecting to at the deadline. Now’s your chance, Morse and others, to show them in person what they missed out on trading for. Or possibly the Orioles weren’t interested at all. Or perhaps they were and even offered above value but the Mariners turned them down. There are many possibilities. I wish each team kept an official historian who recorded all the behind-the-scenes stuff and later released it to the public.
As mentioned in the podcast and other places, Nick Franklin’s strikeout rate is quite elevated recently. You can see after the jump that he’s at 21 strikeouts over the past 14 days. That’s a whole hell of a lot. Literally. Hell is a unit of measurement; look it up. Anyways, on the positive side is that Franklin’s swing and contact rates are both still fine, not at all in line with producing so many strikeouts going forward.
Orioles’ reliever Tommy Hunter has faced 42 hitters in the past four weeks. He’s walked one of them and he’s struck out two of them. The other 39 have put the ball in play. So that’s pitching to contact.
Chris Davis has only two home runs since the All-Star Break. Jinxed!
Arrivederci, Alex Liddi
About an hour after belatedly posting about trading international bonus pool slots, the Mariners decided to give us all an object lesson. Recently DFA’d 3B Alex Liddi’s been traded to Baltimore along with the M’s 3rd bonus pool slot in exchange for the Orioles’ 2nd slot. This bumps up the total bonus pool for the M’s, theoretically allowing them to grab a better prospect.
On the face of it, this is a poor return for the Italian. I know, I know, I overrated Liddi in part, so I *would* say that, wouldn’t I? But Eric Thames had similar contact issues and played worse defense at a position lower on the defensive spectrum, and he was DFA’d at the time of his trade to the exact same Orioles club – and he returned a very good org player in Ty Kelly. Kelly’s not exactly Nick Castellanos, but that seemed like a fair deal for both sides. In this case, Alex Liddi appears to have been traded for just shy of $75,000 dollars to spend on a Venezuelan 16 year old. We’re a few days past the anniversary of Felix Hernandez’s signing with the M’s, so it’s not like I’m categorically against signing Venezuelan 16 year olds, but c’mon. People always talk about trading someone for a bag of baseballs, but this return is crying out to be translated into bags of baseball terms.
The O’s are trying to collect the set of failed Mariner prospects, having picked up Trayvon Robinson in spring training (for Robert Andino), then grabbing Eric Thames a week or two ago (for Ty Kelly), and now Liddi (50 bags of 100 baseballs @ $15/ball). The AL East has been a popular destination for M’s cast-offs, with Shawn Kelley of the Yankees striking out nearly as many as Steve Delabar for Toronto, while Mike Carp enjoys a breakout season in Boston.
See you later, Alex Liddi. I know it was tough being a 3B in this org behind Kyle Seager, but, uh, you see who Baltimore’s got at 3B, right? Here’s hoping Machado moves back to SS when JJ Hardy’s contract is up and Liddi gets a chance to at least back up at 3B. The O’s could actually use more IF depth with Ryan Flaherty/Danny Valencia the current back-ups. And here’s hoping the M’s made this move with a particular prospect in mind, and that this is part of a calculated effort to sign someone they think is worth it. Given the minimal impact of this move on their bonus pool, I’d tend to doubt this interpretation, but who knows.
Game 5, Mariners at White Sox
Blake Beavan vs. Jose Quintana, 5:10pm
One of the big questions coming into the season was: how bad will the M’s outfield defense hurt the pitching staff? Jason Bay was a comically bad defender (by UZR) in his Pittsburgh days, and that was when he was 7-8 years younger. The last image we had of Mike Morse in an M’s uniform before he was shipped to Washington was of the newly-minted OF getting turned around by a pop fly and tearing some knee ligaments. Now, those two guys, both past 30, would patrol LF fairly regularly.
In fact, I don’t think it’s going to be *too* much of a problem, though let’s be clear: no one’s winning a gold glove here.* One reason is that the M’s probably won’t yield anywhere near as many fly balls as they did last year. The M’s posted the 27th highest GB% in baseball last year, about a percentage point higher than last-place Oakland – the M’s had only one true GB-guy as a starter in Hisashi Iwakuma, but he didn’t take a turn in the rotation until the season was half over. This year, Iwakuma figures to pitch more, and Jason Vargas has been replaced by Joe Saunders, whose career GB% is about 10 percentage points higher. But the biggest change could come in the 5th spot. 2012 Blake Beavan (like 2011 Blake Beavan) was an extreme fly-ball pitcher. After a mechanical adjustment and a new, higher arm slot, Beavan got a flurry of ground balls in the spring. Will it carry over? If it does – if his GB% looks more like the league average and less like Chris Young’s – then the M’s corner OF may have less to do this year.**
The other reason I don’t think it’s going to be too much of a problem is that the M’s OF defense wasn’t actually all that good last year. Not only did the M’s see their CFs post oddly poor numbers, the M’s had to suffer through a depressed Chone Figgins logging several hundred innings in LF/CF. Now, while this “2012 versus 2013” comparison can’t actually tell us if the M’s OF defense is good, bad or indifferent compared to the *league* average, it does show that we may not see the kind of drop-off that many of us expected. Sure, there could be a drop off here or there, particularly in RF, where the M’s won’t get a half-year of Ichiro, but this could be balanced by some standard regression toward the mean from Saunders/Guti in CF. I’d still really like the ground-ballier version of Beavan, though. Better safe than sorry, and better to have Brendan Ryan field the ball in play than anyone.
Jose Quintana’s a left-handed starter who seems unremarkable in just about every way. His FB’s 91. He throws a cutter and a curve; neither is terribly noteworthy. He doesn’t get a ton of strikeouts, and he doesn’t have Beavanesque walk rates. Even his W/L record last year was 6-6. I suppose we could talk about how he posted excellent results after his call-up in May, but faded badly down the stretch? He did those things. Uh, ok, moving on – He’s somewhat interesting in that he was pitching with the Yankees Dominican Summer League team at age 20 (already having been cut by the Mets a few years prior), and didn’t actually reach the US affiliates until he turned 20. He posted solid but unremarkable numbers as a reliever, and got cut. The Yankees moved him to the rotation, and he had a great season in the Florida State League, and so they cut him again. The next year, 2012, he began in AA and ended up making 22 good-ish big league starts. That’s something, right? Overcoming adversity, never giving up, laughing at the Yankees player development system? Not every game is Felix versus Chris Sale or something.
Have a line-up:
1: Gutierrez, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Morales, 1B
4: Morse, DH
5: Montero, C
6: Seager, 3B
7: Bay, LF
8: Ackley, 2B
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Beavan
* Not Gutierrez, you ask? No. He’s been hurt several times, passed 30 years old, and may not play enough to stick in the minds of voters. The playing time consideration may have been a factor in JJ Hardy beating out Brendan Ryan last year. I don’t think Guti’s anywhere near bad (you hear me, UZR? You take your 2012 math and shove it.), but he’s not the defender he was in 2009.
** There’s a school of thought that says that as total chances go up (if there are a lot more FBs), then those chances will tend to be easier. That is, if you’ve got pitchers that no how to induce contact at particular launch angles, you’ll get more easy flies and fewer liners and long HRs, because if pitchers consistently gave up contact like that, they’d never be in the majors. UZR actually accounts for this to avoid OFs with a lot of chances posting amazing UZR numbers. Still, there’s a possibility this impacted, say, Josh Reddick’s eye-popping defensive numbers. No such luck for the M’s, though, as Guti/Saunders combined to lose 17 runs, according to UZR. This has been a Blake Beavan game write-up that’s only obliquely about Blake Beavan.
Minor League Wrap (8/1-7/11)
Good news, everyone, Moniker Madness is on and the M’s have a couple of representatives this year in perennial underachiever Jetsy Extrano (who will likely inexplicably lose to Kipp Schultz in the first round) and Forrest Snow. Moniker Madness is dumb because the player with the most interesting name almost never wins. The past four winners have been Houston Summers, Will Startup, Dusty Napoleon (okay, that one’s all right), and Rowdy Hardy, who somehow beat out SEQUOYAH STONECIPHER in the quarterfinals. It’s dumb.
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Minor League Wrap (4/7-17/11)
Hello, and welcome to the first giant wall of text this season, to be followed by more, sometimes even larger walls of text later in the season. We have a listing of games for you, some transactions, some items of interest, and a whole lot of real and pretended analysis.
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Dave’s 2010 Off-Season Plan
It’s back again – the annual winter tradition where I speculate on some potential moves the M’s could make and put together my own roster for next year. I try to be as realistic as possible, so I’m sticking to a $95 million budget and hopefully get in the realm of possibility with the dollars for the arbitration eligible guys and suggested free agents, as well as trying to compensate trade partners with sufficient talent. As always, the specific players are more just examples of the types of moves I’d like to see the team make. Oh, and yes, this is your thread for rosterbation. Go nuts.
The Moves
Trade Brandon Morrow to Milwaukee for J.J. Hardy.
Trade Jose Lopez, Mark Lowe, and Jason Vargas to Chicago for John Danks.
Sign Nick Johnson to a one year, $9 million contract
Sign Orlando Hudson to a two year, $16 million contract
Sign Ben Sheets to a one year, $7 million contract
Sign Russell Branyan to a one year, $4 million contract
The Rationale
The Mariners are in something of a tough spot this winter, caught between rebuilding and winning, and having to make some decisions that will push the organization towards one of those directions at the expense of the other. There are some young kids who deserve a shot at real playing time, but coming off an 85 win season and with some talent on the roster, the team isn’t in a position to sell a 75-80 win team as progress again next year. So, they need to add some guys who can help the team in 2010, but are not in a position where they should be sacrificing too much of the future for the present. The best solution – target guys with upside and the ability to help for several years if all goes well.
It’s not easy, but it can be done. J.J. Hardy is a great example of the kind player the M’s should be targeting. He’s 27-years-old and under team control for two more seasons with an established ability to play shortstop in the major leagues at an all-star level. He’s coming off the worst year of his career and has already been replaced in Milwaukee, so this is as low as his value will ever be. He’s an above average player headed into the prime of his career, similar in value to the departing Adrian Beltre, though significantly cheaper in salary.
He’s not going to come for free, though. The Mariners aren’t going to be the only ones interested in acquiring Hardy this winter, which is why I think it would require giving up Brandon Morrow to get him. Giving up four years of Morrow for two years of Hardy is a risk, but it’s a risk the M’s should be willing to take. Young pitchers are full of false hope, so while Morrow may indeed put it together and become a quality starting pitcher, the M’s would be better off building around a shortstop instead. The Brewers have coveted Morrow for years, and they probably won’t get a better arm in return for Hardy. It’s a win-win trade, upgrading the M’s infield while giving the Brewers a pitcher they badly need.
Now, having written all that, perhaps you’ll think it is a little hypocritical that I then immediately suggest swapping an infielder for a pitcher by sending Lopez, Lowe, and Vargas to Chicago for Danks. However, the situations are quite a bit different. Despite his age, Lopez is simply not the kind of player the M’s want to build around for the future, and his value will be maximized in another city. His best skill, power to left field, is in direct conflict with the way Safeco plays. The M’s will get less value from Lopez than just about every other team in baseball, so moving him to an environment that doesn’t clash with his skills is an efficiency maximization decision.
Danks gives the team an above average starter to slot behind Felix, but also helps build for the future at the same time. Heading into his age-25 season, he’s already arbitration eligible, which is why the White Sox would be willing to move him in the first place. As a left-handed starter with a bit of a home run problem, Safeco would be perfect for his continued development, so both main pieces of the deal would find a better fit in the confines of their new home.
Now that you’ve turned Morrow and Lopez into Hardy and Danks, it’s time to spend a little money. The organization will have already added two good young players who don’t require huge salaries, so they’ll have some budget room to spend on quality veterans to round out the roster.
Bringing back Russ Branyan is an easy call. He’ll come relatively cheap and provide +2 to +3 win upside. He would have been in line for a bigger paycheck before the back problems, but now, he’s looking at another one year deal, and there’s no better spot for him to spend 2010 than Seattle.
However, with Branyan’s health issues, the team isn’t really in a position where they can afford to carry a no-glove DH. They’ll need to have the ability to keep Branyan’s bat in the line-up without making him play the field, so ideally, they’ll get a DH who can also play first base. Enter Nick Johnson. He’s the kind of patient hitter the organization has needed for years, and his track record of health problems will prevent him from ever cashing in on a long term contract. The M’s can offer him a nice paycheck for 2010 with the ability to split time between 1B/DH in order to keep himself healthy, and Johnson can give the M’s offense a needed boost.
Having traded Lopez, the M’s will also be in the market for a second baseman, and Hudson is the natural fit. He’ll be back on the market after finding a cold reception last winter, and the M’s should take advantage of the fact that he’s still an undervalued asset. He’s not the defender he used to be, but he’s still an above average hitter who can play the position and provide solid value for several more years. Adding a switch-hitter to the line-up is a nice bonus as well, giving Wak a little more flexibility in his line-ups.
Finally, the spending is capped off with a high risk, high reward gamble on Ben Sheets. While his health risks are certainly a concern, the M’s need to take a gamble on a player with all-star upside, and they have the pitching depth to survive the inevitable trip to the disabled list. Seattle’s the perfect spot for a strike-throwing fly ball starter to re-establish his value, and Jack can offer the comfort of knowing the management team in place. The M’s can take advantage of Safeco and their defense in giving Sheets the best possible chance to line himself up for a big payday in 2011, while reaping the rewards of a high quality arm at a middling quality price.
The Expectations
This roster isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s simultaneously good enough to try to win in 2010 while still allowing the team to build for 2011 and beyond. Johnson, Sheets, Branyan, and Hudson give the team needed present value without tying up payroll long term, while Danks and Hardy give the team two good young players to add to the foundation of the roster going forward. On paper, it’s probably an 85 win team that would need a healthy, strong season from Sheets and a breakthrough by one of Saunders, Moore, or Tuiasosopo to really contend in the AL West. But those things are certainly possible, and the reward for having the gambles pay off could be significant.
The team would still be building for 2011, but they’d have given themselves a chance to make a playoff run next year as well. Straddling the line between contending and rebuilding isn’t easy, but it can be done.
Oh, and I forgot to mention one last part of the plan.
Sign Felix Hernandez to a 6 year, $90 million extension.
Get it done, Jack. We’ll love you even more than we already do.
Minor League Wrap (8/31-9/7/09)
The regular minor league season of 2009, with nearly nine hundred games in the books, is done, so this is the final wrap covering most of the teams. The Rainiers and the Mavericks both made the playoffs, the Peoria M’s won theirs, and the D-Jaxx end up on the out, looking in. I hope it’s been educational and at least somewhat entertaining for you all. Of course, the action never really ends, so I’ll be around with winter league stuff and other reviews in the offseason.
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The Washburn To Milwaukee Stuff
As you’ve probably read by now, both Geoff Baker and his Milwaukee counterpart Tom Haudricourt are speculating that the M’s and Brewers could make a deal for Jarrod Washburn as early as tomorrow. His next scheduled start is on Tuesday, and the Brewers don’t currently have a starting pitcher for that day – add in the fact that Brewers GM Doug Melvin has publicly talked about his desire to add an arm despite his unwillingness to give up his top two young players (SS Alcides Escobar and 3B Mat Gamel), which would take him out of the running for Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee, along with Washburn being from Wisconsin, and you have the recipe for a deal that makes a lot of sense. Plus, there’s that whole Zduriencik-Milwaukee tie which should making trading with the Brewers fairly easy.
Washburn helps Milwaukee a lot more than he helps the M’s. If they’re not going to give up Escobar or Gamel in a bid for one of the Cy Young arms, this is their best fallback plan. And, as we talked about recently, they have depth at SS – the big glaring weakness in the M’s organization. It all fits.
However, don’t count on Hardy coming back for Washburn in a one for one deal (that would just be a horrible move for the Brewers), and don’t expect Alcides Escobar to be coming to Seattle at all. If the Brewers were willing to move Escobar, they’d go get Halladay or Lee, because he’s good enough to headline a package for one of those two. The only reason the Brewers would settle for Washburn is because they were dead set on retaining Escobar. If he’s actually available (and Melvin insists that he’s not), they’ve got bigger fish to fry.
There is likely a deal to be made involving Washburn and stuff for Hardy and stuff, which is what I’d bet on right now. But Escobar? Don’t hold your breath.
By the way, don’t be surprised if Carlos Villanueva is coming back to Seattle in any deal the M’s make with the Brewers. He’s falling out of favor in Milwaukee, thanks to a 6.18 ERA in relief, but his FIP is just 4.22. His fastball is underwhelming, but he throws a bunch of off-speed stuff and has solid command, and he’s got experience in the rotation. He’s the kind of major league arm that the M’s would like to get to replace Washburn, and one that the Brewers would actually be willing to give up.
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.
Lugo as a cheap upgrade option
Today’s email carried a lot of questions about Julio Lugo among our standard massive load of spam/accusations of selling out/press releases. With the Red Sox giving up on him, should the M’s pick him up if he’s essentially free?
Maybe, but it’s not such a clear yes. Even assuming that his knee injury’s responsible for some of his 09 performance in limited playing time, he’s below-average defensively, he’s not driving the ball much any more, but he’d be a welcome on-base hitter in the lineup.
The really good thing is you don’t have to give up anything for him, where (as we’ve already seen) Jack Wilson, JJ Hardy, and the other trade targets command prices that at least are high enough that the team hasn’t made a move yet. That’s even more attractive when you consider that even if the M’s turn into sellers, a free shortstop upgrade helps them stay above water the rest of the year, when the weather’s nice and Safeco Field’s full.
Below-average glove and average bat is a lot better than what we’ve had so far this season. I know Cedeno’s been playing well lately, but even as a middle-infield caddy, Lugo’d make some sense for the M’s. The cost is certainly right.
Update for clarification: Lugo’s been “designated for assignment” which means he’s not on the Sox roster any more, and they have to now put him on waivers, where all the teams can claim him and take on his contract (or work out a deal), trade him, or release him. The reports are that the Red Sox are willing to eat the rest of his deal and maybe take a token minor leaguer back or a really nice pen.