December 2008

Q. Jarrod Washburn and Richie Sexson were paid stars money. Neither move worked out very well for the Mariners.

This city, over the last ten years, has conditioned us to call a signing a "big contract" in circumstances that are a little different from those that New York or Boston would call big contracts. :- )

Sexson and Beltre were more towards what I’m talking about with “Star” money, but ... Jarrod Washburn? By the time Washburn signed, a 4-year deal for $10MM per was Civic money. The Mariners chose Washburn and Silva for $10MM to $12MM apiece, as opposed to choosing a Santana type and pairing him up with a Ryan Rowland-Smith to form a $20MM All-Star / Rookie combo.

Washburn, Silva and Batista became the epitome of choosing NOT to sign stars like Mussina, Schilling, DiceK and Sabathia.

When I’m talking about giving Star money to a core group of 4-5 players, I’m, like, talking about guys who make the All-Star team. It’s a good rule of thumb. :- )

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=== Let's Isolate the Variable Dept. ===

Richie Sexson, BTW, had two very productive seasons for the Mariners. Read more

... because we're placing more confidence in the metrics all the time. And that isn't justified.

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Q. Do Fangraphs' new dollar values make us smarter or dumber?

A. Sandy-Raleigh has an info-taining take on it at Mariner Central. We had pointed out, last week, that the new values are based in huge part on the defensive portion of the evaluations -- for example, we noted Mark Teixeira went from $16M in 2007 to $30M last year, mostly because he learned to play 1B last year. :- )

Instantly recognizing the import, Sandy jumped into the fray with more convincing examples. Usually we edit down to just a couple sentences, but we couldn't leave any of the following Sandy-sagacity out:

To ME, Beltre is the guy that calls the entire system into question. His RC/27 for the three years in question, along with his dollar worth:

Year - RC -- $$$ - OPS+
2006 - 5.1 - 17.8 - 105
2007 - 5.2 - 10.9 - 112
2008 - 5.2 - 18.3 - 109

.... Read more

This is the overview, one of five articles. The sabermetric data is in the other four articles:

Age Comps Against

Age Comps For

Age-38 Splits

Value and Junior

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Q. Can I have the exec summary?

A. You shore kan. How about in the picture at right? :- )

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Q: Could he make a difference in 2009?

A. Yes, he could. Read more

The following three players have been: (1) Junior's natural :- ) comps since about 1992, and (2) guys who were verrrrrrry capable of playing baseball at age 39.

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Frank Robinson played 50 games, just over 100+ AB's, and had one of his best lines in this tiny amount of play: .237/.385/.508 with a 153 OPS+ and a 2:1 eye (in 1975). 1975 was my favorite baseball year as a boy, but I don't remember whether Robbie was hurt or what. Here is the '75 Indians team, which had the DH. Two good OF's, a great DH, and one mediocre developmental OF in front of Robbie.

Robinson's eye ratio strongly indicates that he'd have hit very well in full-time play.

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The Say Hey Kid hit .291/.390/.506 with a 139 OPS+ at age 39 -- in full-time play. He was 8th in the NL in offensive winning percentage, a Bill James stat.

At 40, Willie led the entire NL in OBP at .425 and drew votes for MVP. He started in CF for the All-Star team both seasons. He was not using steroids.

At 41, Willie was also an excellent player in part-time action. Read more