Today In Maybe
I have no idea if this is actually true. If it is, or if it isn’t, I have no idea how often this kind of thing might happen to other organizations in other situations. But I think we can all agree that a big part of our fun with the baseball experience is laughing at the very team we hold most dear, so with that particular thought in mind, here’s Evan Grant:
By mid-day Friday, Seattle had heard that some team bid nine years and $225 million for Robinson Cano, so the Mariners upped their bid to $240 million and 10 years before apparently realizing the initial bid had come from themselves, too.
Zduriencik: You drive a hard bargain, Kingston.
Zduriencik: But I beat you in the end.
Kingston: haha
Zduriencik: haha
Cano’s agent: haha
Lincoln: why is this funny
Is there iocaine powder involved in this scene somewhere…?
This can’t be true, right? Right?
Lincoln never has got it, how could he not now.
It appears the White Sox are willing to move Chris Sale. If the Mariners are going to trade Walker, I’d much rather get Sale back than Price. Someone should let Howard Lincoln know this was all his idea.
After reading the Baker article this sounds about par for the course. Unreal.
I wouldn’t bet my life on it. Plus, it would be absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable. Nobody in the media knows what we’ve done, and nobody from our office would leak any information so fast.
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Out of curiosity, why do you ask?
Wow. Would it surprise us if this were true?
This is the funniest thing that’s ever made me cry bitter tears of frustration.
“I call that getting tricked by a biz-ness” (your own)
Ouch.
If memory serves, this is the same corporate brass that shipped of Jason Veritek and Derrick Lowe for…wait for it, wait for it…HEATHCLIFF SLOCUMB EVERYBODY! The kicker, with that story of course, was that apparently Boston asked for ONE OR THE OTHER. That translated into to us, of course, giving them both players. So, if you’re asking me if I think this is true? Yes, yes I think its probably very, very true.
ABP’s story about the Slocumb heist is pretty close to correct, but I think the Sox actually inquired about the availability of two players, thinking they would ask for one of them. They were surprised when Woody Woodward, who was the GM, offered both for Heathcliff.
Call me neurotic, but I worry that Baker’s article might make Cano and/or Jay Z reconsider. That sounds dumb for several reasons, but if anything can go wrong in Marinerville, it probably will.
You can’t tell me that everybody in baseball didn’t already how clueless the Seattle troika is. We really knew it all along, too. When the Ms had Gillick and Lou to run things day-to-day (and I know people still criticize Gillick for stripping the farm system wherever he goes, but the bottom line is his teams win), the effect of Chuck and Howie was reduced.
Then we come up with Bavasi, and then Z as GMs, and a succession of managers, some bad, some worse. Wedge was probably one of the better managers to come along after Lou, and I think his exit was diagnostic. (I think the best of the lot was BoMel, but following a legend pretty much makes you toast automatically)
The sad part is that there were some really innovative and interest candidates, and I thought at the time that the choice of Z was about as generic as you could get. (Fat middle aged white bald guy with a background in scouting – that’s pretty much the old boy network at its most typical).
If Lincoln can get the courage to hire an innovative thinker as a replacement for Chuckie, then maybe things will turn around. I think the Cano deal got done in part because in one way or another Lincoln has started to learn what a fool he has begun to look like in his decision making process. Wedge’s exit may actually have helped to stir the pot and may have helped push Chuck out the door. At least that’s what this optimist is thinking
🙁
I sure hope we don’t swoop in and steal him away from ourselves today, before it’s official…
Could still happen. We have to be bitter about being outbid by ourselves.
I could see us doing it just to spite ourselves!
RaoulDuke37….was just having this conversation with my dad last night at the dinner table. I would definitely give Walker for Sale. He is a proven left-handed starter and has nasty stuff. He also is six years under control. In a perfect world, we might do this. Of course, we are the MARINERS, hear us ROAR!!!!! Just makes sense
30 games started in 2013. 1.07 WHIP 46 BB/226 SO 3.07 ERA
This is noise. I don’t care if it’s true as long as it doesn’t become a pattern. Winter Meetings have my attention. Moving on.
That’s an extra year of Cano for only $15 million – what a deal! It also drives the AAV down to $24 million from $25 million.
Shrewd business cloaked by seeming ineptitude.
Hey, its not that bad. In 10 years $15m will probably the market value for a replacement player. And Cano will be replacement level then. Win-win.
So the only net cost will be a roster spot that could go to a productive player, but what are the odds we will have one to plug in to a spot then?
Market value for a replacement-level player is, and always will be, more or less the major league minimum salary. (Realistically you could peg the value a bit higher based on the friction and risk associated with securing an actual replacement.) While that number continues to go up, I don’t think it will reach $15 million by 2023.
We could be at $15M per win by then perhaps, but he’d still have to be a 1-win player. Which incidentally is where Dan Szymborski’s projection actually ends up. (His projection of Cano’s WAR in 2023, not of baseball salary inflation, that is.)