If you haven’t read about today’s Luncheon already…
…what are you waiting for? I’m not going to just copy and paste all the beautiful quotes and nuggets of information but, trust me, it’s worth your time.
• Recap on Ryan Divish’s blogÂ
Tired of waiting…
Pitchers and catchers report in 22 days (wait…Friday the 13th?!?! I thought baseball players were supposed to be a superstitious bunch!)
Opening Day is 74 days away. (Damn, that seems like so long!)
M’s home opener is 82 days away.
The Aardsma Trade
Seriously, I think Jack is trying to do whatever possible to make sure we write as many positive things about him as we can. When the Red Sox DFA’d Aardsma a few days ago, I wrote a post about how the M’s should make a deal for him, then said “ehh, screw it, it’s a few hundred words on something that isn’t going to happen.”
I even lobbied last March for the M’s to pickup Aardsma, as I think he’s got potential to be a pretty decent reliever. This is the kind of buying low on a guy with a big arm that can pay off in significant ways.
Yet another move where we can just sit back and say “yep, our new GM is awesome.”
Tuesday news
Real quick…
• The Mariners avoided arbitration with Erik Bedard today, agreeing to a base contract of $7.75 million. The deal can be worth $8.35 million if Bedard pitches 205 innings this season.Â
• They also pulled off a trade with the Red Sox. According to the News Tribune’s Ryan Divish, the Mariners sent minor league lefthander Fabian Williamson to Boston for righthander David Aardsma. This fills the M’s 40-man roster and adds another arm to the already overflowing fight for bullpen spots. As they say, you can never have too many pitchers and perhaps this is just the first piece of a bigger puzzle.
Williamson has a good arm, but has never been considered one of the M’s top prospects. The 19-year-old spent last season with rookie-level Pulaski. Over 11 starts, Williamson pitched 52.2 innings, striking out 67, walking 27 and maintaining a 4.10 ERA.
And, yes, Aardsma’s sister is an actress.
One More Bat
With spring training a few weeks away, we have a pretty good sense about most of the roster.
Johjima and Clement are going to split time behind the plate. Depending on how much Clement shows defensively, the M’s may or may not carry Jamie Burke as a third catcher.
Beltre is at third, Betancourt is at short, and Lopez is at second. Branyan is penciled in as the first baseman, and Chris Shelton will fight Mike Morse for the right to be his platoon partner. Reegie Corona is currently the reserve middle infielder/pinch runner, but the team is looking to upgrade and might bring in a better player to unseat him.
In the outfield, Gutierrez is the center fielder and Ichiro is in right. Endy Chavez and Wladimir Balentien are the current candidates for the LF job.
However, Zduriencik has made it clear that his preference would be to add one more good major league hitter, preferably a lefty, before the club gets to Arizona. With the other six spots essentially taken, the new player will have to come from the LF/1B/DH pool. Here are a few of the more popular options, as they currently stand, if we allocate approximately 2000 plate appearances and 2,900 defensive innings to those three positions.
Stand Pat
In this scenario, the M’s would likely run different platoons with Chavez and Balentien in LF, Branyan and Shelton/Morse at first, and a rotating wheel of DH’s that would look something like this:
LF PA Innings wOBA UZR Chavez 300 850 0.304 10 Wlad 300 600 0.313 -5 1B PA Innings wOBA UZR Branyan 400 850 0.337 -3 Shelton 275 600 0.335 3 DH PA Innings wOBA UZR Clement 300 0.338 Wlad 150 0.313 Branyan 100 0.337 Shelton 75 0.335 Johjima 50 0.304 Lopez 30 0.324 Beltre 10 0.338 Ichiro 10 0.338 Total 2000 2900 0.325 5
The wOBA projections come from Sean Smith’s CHONE projection system – I put in the defensive projections. The offense would be -8 runs over 2,000 PA, the defense is +5 runs, the position adjustment for these three is a total of -35 runs, and the replacement level adjustment is +67 runs. Add it all up, and you get +28 runs above replacement, or +2.8 wins. That’s the status quo.
Trade for Nick Swisher
Here’s my preferred alternative – trading for Nick Swisher and giving him all of the PA’s that would have gone to Wlad (he’d either go away in the Swisher deal or in a separate trade) plus some of the PA’s that would have gone to Chavez.
LF PA Innings wOBA UZR Swisher 600 1100 0.360 5 Chavez 150 350 0.304 4 1B PA Innings wOBA UZR Branyan 400 850 0.337 -3 Shelton 275 600 0.335 3 DH PA Innings wOBA UZR Clement 300 0.338 Branyan 100 0.337 Shelton 75 0.335 Johjima 50 0.304 Lopez 30 0.324 Beltre 10 0.338 Ichiro 10 0.338 Total 2000 2900 0.340 9
The new wOBA from these three positions is .340, which translates to a 26 run offensive increase. There’s also a 4 run defensive increase, so the group goes from 28 runs above replacement to 58 runs above replacement, or +5.8 wins. Using Nick Swisher to replace Wladimir Balentien and cut Endy Chavez’s at-bats gives the Mariners a +3.0 win surge for 2009.
The other fun thing about Swisher is that his experience as a 1B gives you some serious flexibility. In late game situations with the lead, you could move Swisher to first and use Endy as a defensive replacement in the outfield, maximizing his defensive innings without giving him that many at-bats. You could also use Swisher as Branyan’s platoon partner instead of Shelton/Morse. Lots of options with Swisher on the roster.
Sign Adam Dunn
For those of you who are salivating over Adam Dunn sitting out there without a real contract offer, here’s the same analysis, except we sub in Dunn for Swisher.
LF PA Innings wOBA UZR Dunn 500 1000 0.373 -12 Chavez 150 450 0.304 5 1B PA Innings wOBA UZR Branyan 400 850 0.337 -3 Shelton 275 600 0.335 3 DH PA Innings wOBA UZR Clement 300 0.338 Dunn 100 0.373 Branyan 100 0.337 Shelton 75 0.335 Johjima 50 0.304 Lopez 30 0.324 Beltre 10 0.338 Ichiro 10 0.338 Total 2000 2900 0.344 -7
Instead of a .340 wOBA and a +8 defense, the team gets a .344 wOBA and -7 defense. That’s a seven run offensive increase and a 15 run defensive decrease. Instead of being +5.8 wins, the team would get +5.0 wins from these three spots. That makes Dunn a +2.1 win increase over the status quo and a -0.8 win decrease over trading for Nick Swisher. Considering Swisher’s contract (3 years, $22 million with a club option that could make it 4 years and $31 million) and Dunn’s reported demands (4 years, $56 million), in order for Dunn to make sense, he’d have to either cut his asking price in half or the Yankees would have to be demanding the moon for Swisher. Neither of those seem likely. As long as Swisher’s a possibility, Dunn doesn’t make sense.
And finally…
Sign Ken Griffey Jr
It won’t help the team. I promise.
LF PA Innings wOBA UZR Chavez 300 600 0.304 8 Wlad 250 500 0.313 -4 Griffey 150 350 0.332 -4 1B PA Innings wOBA UZR Branyan 400 850 0.337 -3 Shelton 275 600 0.335 3 DH PA Innings wOBA UZR Griffey 250 0.332 Clement 150 0.338 Wlad 100 0.313 Shelton 50 0.335 Johjima 30 0.304 Lopez 25 0.324 Beltre 10 0.338 Ichiro 10 0.338 Total 2000 2900 0.326 0
The team would get an extra run on offense and lose 5 runs on defense compared to the status quo. Yep, that’s a downgrade. They’d be a half win better by not adding Griffey. Whatever money you’d spend on Griffey would be wasted, both in terms of improving the club on the field and in limiting the playing time of players with some career ahead of them past 2009. Toss in the opportunity cost of not acquiring a real hitter to fill the void, and it’s a move that doesn’t make any sense at all.
So, to sum this up:
Make no more moves, platoon Wlad/Chavez in LF: +2.8 wins
Trade for Swisher: +5.8 wins
Sign Dunn: +5.0 wins
Sign Griffey: +2.4 wins
One of these options is clearly superior to the rest of them. Nick Swisher please.
M’s Luncheon On Friday
If you haven’t seen the ad over on the left hand side, there’s a luncheon on Friday from 11:30 to 1:30 at the SeaTac Doubletree Inn. It’s a fundraiser for the Boy Scouts of America. Guests include Edgar Martinez, Jack Zduriencik, and Don Wakamatsu among others, and they’re auctioning off some pretty cool stuff.
The flyer for the event is linked here. Sounds like it should be a fun time.
Arbitration avoided with Felix
The Mariners and Felix have agreed on a one-year deal reportedly worth $3.8 million, thus avoiding arbitration. While it’s not the multi-year deal many of us were hoping for, it’s good that the situation didn’t drag out at all.
Fun fact: Felix is 8 months younger than Rays rookie David Price.
Stone on Edgar’s HOF credentials
Larry Stone has a piece on Edgar’s candidacy for the Hall of Fame – he’ll be eligible for the first time next year. Edgar seems destined to be the new Tim Raines/Bert Blyleven – the guy who has significant support from rabid supporters online, but not enough support from sports writers to get in. He’s definitely not getting in next year, and I have a feeling this will be a long process to get him to Cooperstown.
Template for a Felix Extension
Felix is due to submit his arbitration request for his 2009 salary on Tuesday. He’s three years from free agency. If you’re wondering what an extension for Felix would look like, consider the case of Cole Hamels – also arb eligible for the first time, also an elite young hurler, and also three years from free agency, he re-signed with Philadelphia for $20 million over the next three years today. The Phillies didn’t buy out any of his free agent years, but avoided potentially large arb awards down the line and gave Hamels some financial security.
If we assume that the Phillies didn’t get a huge discount and Hamels valued his arb years at $7 million per, we’d have to assume that he’d value his free agent years at at least double that. So, perhaps a five year extension would have cost them $45 million or so, pretty close to what we estimated it would take to sign Felix to a five year deal, assuming he’s interested in a contract of that length.
So that’s the template – $20ish million to buy out his arb years, and probably around $45 to $50 million to take away his first two free agent years.
Friday potpourri
• Adrian Dunn from Melbourne’s Herald Sun reports that the Australian World Baseball Classic team will feature Ryan Rowland-Smith and Doyle, who is still a minor-league free agent.
• The Mariners recently made a couple front office/coaching moves, including the hiring of former GM Woody Woodward to be a pro scout in Florida. Woodward certainly made some terrible, horrible no-good, very bad moves for the M’s (the Kevin Mitchell trade, the Heathcliff Slocumb trade, keeping Edgar in Calgary, trading David “Arias” Ortiz, trading Mike Hampton, trading Tino & Nellie for Russ Davis & Sterling Hitchcock, etc.), but he also brought in Randy Johnson (eventually trading him for Freddy Garcia, Carlos Guillen & John Halama), Brian Holman, Norm Charlton, Chris Bosio, Dan Wilson, Omar Vizquel, Jamie Moyer and Lou Piniella.
• In 2009 we could see improvements to Pitch f/x and Hit f/x could be on the way. Woo!