Sorry, Cubbie fans
Dave · November 19, 2006 at 1:00 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Jim Hendry has just tied a monumental millstone around the necks of the Chicago Cubs franchise, reportedly agreeing to an eight year, $136 million contract for Alfonso Soriano.
Good Lord. This offseason is a repeat of the Hampton/Neagle/Vaughn stupidity.
This offseason has been fun in an Alice in Wonderland kind of way.
First the Matsuzaka bidding war, now Soriano, what’s next?
Gil Meche getting a $100 million contract?
I’m curious that if we trade Sexson to anyone, (for pitchers, I assume) then where can we find another productive 1B? (not to mention the price) There are only Kevin Millars and Doug Mientkiewiczs in the free agent market, and M’s need to improve their hitting this winter, too.
How about Ben B?
I just saw this on ESPN.com:
“The Cubs do not yet know where Soriano will play. It could be any of the three outfield positions, and they know — working with the Nationals — he became an exceptional outfielder whose throwing arm makes him a rarity.”
I was under the impression that Soriano was less than exceptional in the outfield.
Who’ll man 1B once Sexson leaves…with the history of our front office..either Ryan Klesko or Darrin Erstad.
I was under the impression that Soriano was less than exceptional in the outfield.
But, but, he had a league-leading 22 outfield assists! That means he must have a throwing arm that makes him a rarity, and moreover that he must be an exceptional outfielder!
You know, Ichiro only had 8. He’s pretty pathetic and I can’t believe the Mariners are sticking him in the OF. He should go to 2B cause he obviously can’t throw worth beans, and is just generally awful out there.
Pff… Alfonso Soriano, 2007 NL Gold Glover. ‘Cause all the skills in the world mean nothing without the rep.
M’s need to improve their hitting this winter, too
The Mariners, despite having two positions in the lineup that were among the worst in MLB (DH and CF) were an average offense in the AL out of Safeco Field. The reason why everyone thinks the Mariner offense sucks is because Safeco Field is completely brutal on the offense.
Our CF is now Ichiro. Competent DHs and corner OFs aren’t hard to find (unless you get fixated on Carl Everett). The offense could easily survive a measurable downgrade at 1B iif we don’t get completely useless plate appearances from Everett, Reed, Jones, and instead get reasonable performance and the Benuardo platoon hits like they should-and in fact, we could have a BETTER offense than in 2006, because the odds are pretty good that the Beltre/Doyle/Lopez/Reed/Betancourt axis of young players will out perform their 2006 in 2007.
In terms of return on payout, ‘No’ Mo Vaughn was worse, but in terms of _prospective_ return at the date of signing, this is THE _WORST_ contract I have ever seen. I mean, just . . . I meaaaan *wow* Soriano isn’t even a good player, and the Cubs very probably will realize _nada_ on the last half of this deal.
This does confirm something I’d been feeling: Beltre’s contract looks more and more reasonable in the present environment. There will NEVER be a better time to deal him, or for a bigger payout. —Won’t happen, though.
The reason why everyone thinks the Mariner offense sucks is because Safeco Field is completely brutal on the offense.
I think their horrible inconsistency sans walks can also be partially attributed to the thoughts of a bad offense.
When the second half came around and Betancourt continued to be a .290 singles slap hitter with no walks, and Ichiro and Lopez decided it would be fun to try too, that was pretty harsh.
I agree that Safeco does help that impression, too.
Without the Lost At Bats there should be some improvement from those positions. Hopefully less would be coming from Ballgame too, but I guess that’s too much to ask.
I’m not too sure how much better Betancourt will be. Beltre and Lopez, I’d expect a little better but it’s certainly not a given. A full season of Doyle would be nice – let’s hope he stays healthy and does not pull a 2006 Tacoma. Reed…I’m not sure where he’d get the ABs in even if he does stick around.
I should have added, I think it’s fair to believe in the likeliness that Ibanez will regress.
I can’t believe Alfonso Soriano and Manny Ramirez now have comparable contracts.
And Manny’s looks pretty good.
and it sounds like it might be 3 years with an option for Catalanotto from Texas…
I’m not concerned with having Cat in the division. He’s a fine hitter (and I thought he’d end up a Yankee – the YES guys love him), but has an easily exploitable platoon split.
#60: Every year, we keep thinking Ibanez will regress, and frankly, with good reason. And every year, he keeps not regressing.
Dave has addressed his trends and patterns before, and there are some things in there that shout “unsustainable” … but then he keeps right on sustaining. He may get worse in 2007. He may not decline until 2009. Really, nobody knows.
But I sure wouldn’t make offseason personnel decisions that assume an offensive slip for Raul next season.
Soriano doesn’t have that skillset. He has the power part, but not the contact part. Essentially, all he’s got as a hitter is batspeed, and when that goes, he’s going to be terrible.
Question. It has been shown that as players age and lose their batspeed they do get more selective with pitches, and their walk rate increases. Wouldn’t this actually improve Soriano’s value a bit in his latter seasons, or at least balance things out?
.350 OBP and .600 slugging is a .950 OPS.
.365 OBP and .585 slugging is also a .950 OPS.
Just posing a question. Or does Soriano not have the ability to compensate in such a way? I realize that, eventually, he’ll become a .320-.330 OBP guy with a slugging near or below .500, but for the time being, couldn’t he stave off the downward curve?
You know, even after 2005, I wasn’t quite that down on Beltre. He kept his glove when he came to Seattle, and there was reason to hope for a return to, if not 2004, at least some higher level of production. Now, frankly, I wouldn’t trade him for a non-excellent offer. He’s not that overpaid, he plays good defense, and he’s still young and durable.
The difference between the market for Lee (OMG!) and Sexson (meh) is position, position, position. If Sexson could play a league average LF, he’d be a hot hot chip. As it stands, this is an example of why Sexson was a stupid idea in the first place; it’s just not that hard to get a first baseman that can hit. The market, in terms of # of teams looking for a first baseman, will never be all that great.
And Hendry just moved himself several ranks lower in the ‘Who’s the Best GM in MLB’ game. Goddess, I am staggered, and I am not a weak man.
I’m just curious. I know they have a DH, but do the Yanks have no interest? He’d play a better 1B than Sheffield and Giambi.
I don’t believe the M’s actually have any serious interest in dealing Sexson, of course.
Question. It has been shown that as players age and lose their batspeed they do get more selective with pitches, and their walk rate increases. Wouldn’t this actually improve Soriano’s value a bit in his latter seasons, or at least balance things out?
The increase in walks doesn’t offset the loss of average and power. It’s a trade-off, but overall, it’s a negative exchange.
.350 OBP and .600 slugging is a .950 OPS.
.365 OBP and .585 slugging is also a .950 OPS.
But that’s not how it works. It’s more like he’ll go from .280/.350/.550 to .260/.340/.470. The isolate walkrate goes up, but the lack of hits and home runs drive both the OBP and SLG down.
Sexson was brought in so that the M’s could sign a good FA. Had they not signed Sexson first it would have been alot harder to convince Beltre to sign and Beltre’s not who they wanted. The idea at the time was to sign Delgado and put Sexson in LF, which Sexson agreed to do. Hindsight shows that they still couldn’t sign Delgado and therefore needed a first baseman anyway. We would probably not have Beltre if we hadn’t signed Sexson. There was more to signing Sexson two years ago than having a slugging First-Baseman for the 2 years/$28million that’s left. Hindsight only shows that they weren’t able to get Delgado anyway and consequently couldn’t move Sexson to LF. If you want to compare Soriano’s signing to signings in the offseason of 2004 it shows how important it really would have been to sign Delgado because Sexson would likely be much more of a tradeable commodity this offseason rather than an albatross.
Sexson was brought in so that the M’s could sign a good FA. Had they not signed Sexson first it would have been alot harder to convince Beltre to sign and Beltre’s not who they wanted.
This isn’t true. Beltre was a done deal before Richie’s contract got finalized. The order they announced the contracts in was not reflective of how they actually came to terms.
The idea at the time was to sign Delgado and put Sexson in LF, which Sexson agreed to do.
Also not true.
I’m not concerned with having Cat in the division. He’s a fine hitter (and I thought he’d end up a Yankee – the YES guys love him), but has an easily exploitable platoon split.
it wasn’t so much about having him with Texas, it was that they gave him a 3 year deal.
Is there any chance that all 30 GMs are in a massive fantasy baseball league where they’re only allowed to draft players who are actually on the team they work for? Because if that’s the case, this signing makes perfect sense. Soriano is always rocking in fantasy stats and I can just see Jim Hendry sitting in his office, thinking to himself, “Screw it, if we’re gonna suck out on the field, I’m at least gonna give myself a shot to beat Minaya and Cashman!”
Dave – I’m not the best at knowing when Press and News are truth or purposeful fiction, but here’s the article and the critical sentence.
“At the moment, Sexson is penciled in at first base, though he would move to left field if the Mariners are successful in signing Delgado. ”
Mariners_Dec15_2004
In this instance, it was a popular rumor that didn’t have much ground in reality. The M’s discussed the possibility of using Sexson in left, but it was never going to materialize.
Well at the time of the announcement I didn’t know much about Sexson. Needles to say, in retrospect, I’m glad it was just a rumor, as I’d hate to see him lumbering around out there….probably would make Raul look a gold glover.
That’s assuming his art along the basepaths would equal his grace in the outfield.
M
The main reason it had little ground in reality is that Delgado wanted to stay on the east coast and the M’s weren’t willing to overpay as much as they had to to get him. They would have put Sexson in LF as long as they would have had to (which would have turned out to be about 3 months) to see if he could become adequate fielding a position he had a history of playing (LF.) Maybe he would have been horrible, but the money the M’s would have had to give Delgado for us to all find out would have probably been more horrible. It was not the reporters that brought up the idea.
Among references in the article on mlb.com written just after the Sexson signing that Lokiforever posted a link to “the organization is still talking to Delgado and Beltre, although it seems unlikely that both would sign with Seattle.” If they were still talking to Delgado where else would they have put Sexson? Once they gave up on Delgado (next day after signing Sexson) because he didn’t take the M’s any more seriously, of course the team put the spin out as if they were never interested in Delgado. Jilted lover…