Review: 2005 Offseason Plan
Every year, I annoint myself ruler of the Mariner Kingdom and start wildly spending money in my imaginary universe, rebuilding the M’s with my kind of players to build a roster that would hopefully not suck. The results have been a mixed bag, from the good suggestions (Vladimir Guerrero!) to the not so hot (Matt Clement!), but it’s always entertaining for me, at least. So, we’ll do a 2006 Offseason Plan after the season ends, but for now, let’s take a look back at my suggestions for last year and see how they look a year later.
Dave’s A Genius!
Kenji Johjima
I suggested signing him a 2 year, $7 million deal, which is just a bit less than he actually got, but the idea was basically the same. We were pretty sure Johjima was going to be a significant upgrade offensively, and he certainly has been. No question, he was one of the best free agent signings of the offseason.
Jamie Moyer
He continued to defy age and gave the Mariners 150 decent innings, then waived his no-trade clause and brought us a couple of pitching prospects with a pulse. For the cost, this was clearly a win for the M’s.
Jacque Jones
He got one more year than I expected, but the $5 million average salary was right on target, and he’s been as good as advertised. He’s hitting .285/.330/.501 while playing a quality outfield. Since the plan called for Jones to start in left field, with Ibanez shifting to DH, he would have been something like a 30-40 run upgrade over Carl Everett. Additionally, he would have given us another CF option when Reed sucked and got hurt, allowing us to skip the whole Bloomquist/Choo/Jones center field debacles. He also would have made Ben Broussard unnecessary. Clearly, the M’s would have been significantly better off had they signed Jacque Jones, and he was a very good fit for the needs of the organization. Unfortunately, we got C-Rex instead.
Wes Helms
I argued that the M’s needed a RH bat who could spell the corner infielders and hit lefties, as well as be a top pinch hitter off the bench, and that Helms would be perfect for that role. Indeed, he has been, but for the surprising Marlins instead of the Mariners. His .306/.364/.520 line has made him one of the best reserves in baseball. His presence would have allowed us to skip the regrettable Asdrubal Cabrera for Eduardo Perez trade as well. Helms, like Jones, would have been a fantastic low-cost role player, but the M’s eventually had to go out of the organization to acquire a player to fill this role during the season, at the cost of one of their better prospects. Ouch.
Dave’s An Idiot!
A. J. Burnett
We all knew he was a health risk, but I supported throwing significant money (4/46 was my suggested offer, not that far from the 5/55 he signed for) at the best pitcher on the market. He’s pitched well when he’s been healthy, but he hasn’t been healthy enough to justify the contract. He may yet be worth the money, but after one year, this is a thumbs down.
Esteban Loaiza
Loaiza tried to pitch through an injury early in the season and was one of the worst pitchers in baseball in the first half. After shutting it down and getting his velocity back, he’s been terrific, and he was named AL pitcher of the month in August. That said, the total package hasn’t been worth the contract, and the A’s would probably go another direction if they had it to do over again. It’s certainly a better deal than what they gave to Washburn, but signing Loaiza wouldn’t have made the M’s any better than they have been.
Kevin Brown
He retired, so, who knows. I still think the idea was sound, if not the player who became the role model for the idea.
Overall
If you look at my suggested roster, you certainly don’t see a playoff team. Jones and Helms would have helped the offense significantly more than Carl Everett, for sure, but not enough to compensate for the sucking wound that was Jeremy Reed and the decline of Richie Sexson and Ichiro. The team’s offense would likely have been average at best.
The pitching might have actually been worse, believe it or not. Between the DL stints of Burnett and Loaiza, we’d have ended up giving 150 innings to random Triple-A starters, and Burnett/Loaiza haven’t been any better than Washburn/Meche. Instead of having a long term commitment to a mediocre pitcher, we’d have a long term commitment to a seldom-healthy pitcher.
The organization would probably be in better shape going forward, as they’d have valuable assets like Jones, Choo, and Cabrera instead of Perez and Broussard, but the overall change in performance and cost wouldn’t have been significant.
All this to say, essentially, that while Bill Bavasi made some very questionable transactions last winter, there probably wasn’t much he could have done to make this team win. The Mariners hopes for contending rested squarely on the shoulders of Felix, Beltre, Sexson, and Ichiro, and those four were underwhelming this year. The supporting cast as a whole actually performed well enough to get this team into the playoffs (especially the bullpen, which was downright awesome), but the franchise players weren’t good enough to win with.
The story for 2007 will probably be similar. The M’s are going to have some chances to improve this ballclub, but in the end, this team probably rises and falls with Felix, Beltre, and Ichiro. If they succeed, the Mariners should have a chance to succeed as well.
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In any event, Gammons is better connected than 99%+ of everyone out there.
Just curious Evan, why would you be shocked if the M’s didn’t win the bidding for Matsuzaka?
#99: Moneyball makes it plain that at least one GM thinks Gammons is the most important baseball journalist in the business.
Peter Gammons is revered in the game. Players, coaches, GMs, whatever, they all love the guy.
It doesn’t mean he’s always right, or that Matsuzaka is a Yankee, but he’s as credible as they come.
Can anybody help me take a massively long link into the small ones I see on here usually?
Peter Gammons has a great article on ESPN today about his aneurism, recovery, and a very sad (but intriguing) look at the top pitching prospects of the last 10 years.
Wow, nevermind! By the time I got back to finish my post, everyone has already read the article!
Sorry!
Can anybody help me take a massively long link into the small ones I see on here usually?
Tiny URL is your friend. Enter a long link, click “make tinyurl”, and you’re done. Easy as pie. Mmmmm, pie.
So that will shorten any link for you? Just copy and paste it into tinyurl?
I not only learn baseball stuff from this site, I learn so much more!
So that will shorten any link for you? Just copy and paste it into tinyurl?
Ayup. It even copies it to your clipboard, if you’re using IE. If not, it displays the short link so you can copy/paste it. The shortened links (as far as I know) never expire.
So when is the write-up on Matsuzaka going to be posted here?
Ichiro! might have another .340 season in him. I would be inclined to bet against it, as about .040 of his batting average is tied up in infield hits, and he’s certainly not going to get any *faster*.
Math time.
Ichiro already has 38 infield hits this season, as Dave already pointed out above. Assuming 700 at bats (not insane for him, he’s already at 640 with 12 games left), Ichiro would need 210 hits to bat .300. He would need 240 hits to bat .340. In other words, he’d need one more hit every 5.4 games (assuming 162 games played).
Why the hell would that have to automatically mean “infield hit”? One more hit a week. That’s it. A little dunker, fister, floater, seeing eye single, excuse me swinging bunt, line drive, worm burner, deep into the hole at short, squibber, tee shot, duck snort, belted deep to right field, tight-roping hit here and there and he gets to .340 instead of .300. It doesn’t have to be 30 more infield hits. It can be anything.
As Peter Gammons’ role with ESPN diminishes each year, so diminishes ESPN’s credibility.
It’s a little late for this, and let me be clear that this is no criticism of Gammons and any way, but doesn’t his statement just state the obvious? Grrr…Yankees rich…uh…Matsuzaka play for team pay posting…argh.
I mean, does that say anything at all? Couldn’t it just as easily read, “Matsuzaka (considered a Royal if they pay the posting fee)?” Obviously, we know the Royals won’t pay the posting fee and that the Yankees (along with the Mariners) are on the short list of teams that are prepared to seriously pony up for the guy.
But Gammons doesn’t even claim to know if the Yankees will pay the posting fee. So his credibility, flawless though it may be, is completely irrelevant. Right? Am I missing something?
#110: That sounds just like the Crash Davis soliloquy in the pool hall in Bull Durham.
CRASH: (drunken, mad)
You know what the difference is between hitting .250 and hitting .300? I got it figured out.
Twenty-five hits a year in 500 at bats is 50 points. Okay? There’s 6 months in a season, that’s about 25 weeks — you get one extra flare a week — just one — a gork, a ground ball with eyes, a dying quail — just one more dying quail a week and you’re in Yankee Stadium!
So, what would Willie Bloomquist’s BA be if he could get one extra hit a week? Richie Sexson’s? Rene Rivera’s? You make it sound like it’s not a big deal to add 40 (!) points to your batting average, but from what I hear, hitting is pretty hard. If it weren’t, we’d all be playing major league baseball instead of reading a blog about major league players.
So, what would Willie Bloomquist’s BA be if he could get one extra hit a week? Richie Sexson’s? Rene Rivera’s? You make it sound like it’s not a big deal to add 40 (!) points to your batting average, but from what I hear, hitting is pretty hard. If it weren’t, we’d all be playing major league baseball instead of reading a blog about major league players.
Willie Bloomquist, Richie Sexson, and Rene Rivera != Ichiro Suzuki.
113, point is, we don’t know. Here’s what we do know:
1) Ichiro does not appear to be any slower than he was. Evidence SB%, and also that no one in baseball is indicating he’s lost a step. It always seems like a possibility as he ages, but there’s no evidence of it yet.
2) Singles are the most random hitting result in baseball. It’s why Ichiro’s batting average is all over the map from month to month. Since there’s so much random variation in the way Ichiro hits, adding 40 points to his batting average (while not particularly likely), is not as unlikely as it would be for other players who show less variation in their results. Not because it’s not hard, but because so many random things go into batting average and especially Ichiro’s batting average.
3) Adding 40 points to his batting average is not actually what anyone is talking about. They’re talking about adding .40 points to his supposed “true .300 plus or minus” ability (which is crazy to say for a career .330 hitter, but we’ve been over that). It’s only .10 points to his career average, and only .23 points this year. So…
If Ichiro is about to suffer some major decline, it would be smart to move him before anyone else notices. However, it would be the height of paranoia to do so just because we’re afraid it might happen.
Also, for what it’s worth, the way he’s stealing bases this year, I think it’s foolish to focus too much on Ichiro’s lack of power. If we assume getting caught is 2-3 times more costly than a steal is an advantage (I’ve heard both, so let’s say 2.5), then Ichiro has added a total of 36 bases through stealing. I’m also going to make a very contestable sort of approximation here, but it seems half-way reasonable to me, that the amount of times he’s gone first to third when other players couldn’t, or even first to home, makes up for a good chunk of the fact that his steals don’t move other runners along the same way hitting a double instead of a single would.
But, we’ll still penalize him for it, another 6 bases. If you think that’s too little, go ahead and come up with some other number (11 maybe to keep us at nice round numbers); this is just an exercise in thought anyway. If 25-30 of Ichiro’s singles were actually doubles, would anyone be complaining about his lack of power this season? Of course, they’d be complaining about the fact that he hasn’t stolen any bases (having transformed them all into doubles)…so I’m not exactly sure what this says, but I think you all get the basic idea. Valuable.
#115: A single plus a SB is not as good as a double. Suppose there’s a runner on first. A double is very likely to score him. A single plus a SB is not.
It’s no accident that Bill James’s classic “Runs Created†formula ignores stolen bases.
LB, seriously, that’s what you come up with after reading my post? For the record, I explicitly state in my own post that a single + SB does not equal a double. That’s why I continue to knock off additional bases in my admittedly ridiculous approximation. If you think the numbers are off, go ahead and say that, but don’t pretend I’m calling a single plus a stolen base a double. Really, what about the following quote makes you think I don’t understand your point?
I’m also going to make a very contestable sort of approximation here, but it seems half-way reasonable to me, that the amount of times he’s gone first to third when other players couldn’t, or even first to home, makes up for a good chunk of the fact that his steals don’t move other runners along the same way hitting a double instead of a single would. But, we’ll still penalize him for it, another 6 bases. If you think that’s too little, go ahead and come up with some other number (11 maybe to keep us at nice round numbers); this is just an exercise in thought anyway.
Enough of your straw men, already. I know my example is kind of silly. But contesting an obviously incorrect point that was never put forward doesn’t help your case any.