I'd just like to go on record and say I was calling for DCab to cost 3X5 as soon as I saw his name on the non-tender list.

There are four guys I want for the Mariners.

Parker Brothers
Adam Dunn
Daniel Cabrera
Rocco Baldelli

I'd be OK with Saito on a 1-year deal. Otherwise...the rest of them can go sign wherever they want...I have no interest.

BTW Doc...y'think maybe teams don't want Dunn because of the bad defense? The Ks? Both?

You want to know why Tex is so much more highly valued than Dunn?

Let's put up the aggregate stat line comparison. (Both are 28 - Dunn 8 seasons, Tex 6)

(162-game avg._

Name: AB - Run - Hit - 2B - HR - RBI - BB --- K --- BA / OBP /Slug - OPS+
TEIX : 612 - 101 - 177 - 40 - 36 - 121 - 79 - 124 - .290/.378/.541 - 134
DUNN: 554 - 100 - 137 - 29 - 40 - 96 - 114 - 180 - .247/.381/.518 - 130

From an OPS+ take, they're nearly identical - except Dunn has never broken 150.

The REAL difference? Batting average. GMs, coaches and fans simply do NOT like low batting averages. If a player has an average under .250, he's perceived as being inherently dangerous and/or bad. This is PRECISELY why nobody in Seattle, (fans or coaches), had zero patience with Wilkerson. It's why a guy like Troy Glaus was viewed as the next Chipper in 2000, (when he hit .284), and has since become a "can't-we-do-better?" cog in the machine, since he proved himself to "only" be a .250 hitter.

And the big headache for "Z" is that because of the Ichiro-ness of Seattle, the fans are probably going to be even less accepting of incredibly productive .250 hitters who fan once a game.

There is a collective concious amonst baseball followers that if you aren't hitting AT LEAST .270, then you aren't really hitting. This is almost precisely why Carlos Pena was viewed as a CAREER failure prior to 2007. He was posting 110+ OPS+ figures every season, (while having to beg for at bats), but he was only hitting in the .240s. In 2007, everyone thinks it was the 46 HRs that changed opinions. But the career best .282 BA is what made people believe that he had "gotten it", and that he could potentially sustain it. If he had gotten the 46 HRs with only a .250 average, the mass opinion would've been MUCH more likely to be -- it was a fluke -- or he was juicing.

Think about it. Who is more highly regarded (and paid)? Soriano - (career 116 OPS+) or Glaus (career 121 OPS+)

I bet you 9 of 10 fans when given a choice between the two would say Soriano without hesitation.

It doesn't matter how dumb it might be to build large foundations of player assessment on batting average - even with 25 years of Sabremetrics behind us, it remains the truth for way too many fans, pundits and sadly - GMs.

Same story for Burrell.

Thought that doesn't explain with Bobby Abreu is drawing no interest.

Abreu is coming off TWO seasons considerably below his career average. Nobody has to speculate whether Abreu is about to decline. He has already shown to have peaked at 30, and after posting 114 and 120 OPS+ figures he's no longer viewed as a 140-150 guy. In short - he's done exactly what most 140-150 guys do after turning 30, he declined.

right...but even at 114-120 OPS+ you'd think some teams would at least want to talk to him. So far...nada

Great post Sandy.

Guys like Dunn are hated by most insiders. Hitting weak grounders to the short stop is completely acceptable and considered unselfish, but swinging for the fences every at bat and usually missing entirely is offensive and simply the WRONG WAY to play the game.

As for Abreu, he has always been overlooked in his career. Even in his best seasons he'd be lucky to be voted 9th for the MVP.

Also, I'm not the least bit surprised Cabrera isn't getting much attention. If he were in hot demand the O's would have traded him instead of cutting him outright.

The thing I would personally like to see Seattle do is trade (and pay for most of the salary) or outright release Batista, and Silva. The thing to me that has killed the team the last 2 years has been giving 20+ starts to pitchers far far below league average (Weaver and HoRam in 07, Batista and Silva in 08). If you replace those guys with league average guys, that would vastly improve the team. If you consider a rotation of Felix, Morrow, RRS, Wash, and someone to fill in until Bedard gets healthy, you could avoid having 5.5+ ERA taking up 150 or more innings. That would also avoid bullpen fatigue to some extent.

off topic, but does anyone here like Randy Messenger at all for next year's pen?

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The thing I would personally like to see Seattle do is trade (and pay for most of the salary) or outright release Batista, and Silva. The thing to me that has killed the team the last 2 years has been giving 20+ starts to pitchers far far below league average
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A hidden benefit to Stars & Scrubs...

You pay your $40M to two monsters at the top of the rotation, and run fungible Scrubs in behind them .... and you can get rid of the guys who don't perform.

You pay $40M for four mediocrities in the rotation, and you can't replace any of the guys who disappoint.

"You pay $40M for four mediocrities in the rotation, and you can’t replace any of the guys who disappoint."

Well, you can because it's a sunk cost.

But, then again you can't because there's that human being thingy that also translates into cost issues.

Gus has it right in terms of picking up salary if you have to when you offload a Wash or Batista.

I'm fine with Silva - I think he'll regress - in the good direction. And if he does that, he helps stabilize a young rotation. I'll never confuse him with a great starter though...

Silva's gonna be Silva. He'll come into camp slimmer, have better stamina and his knees won't hurt as much as they did last year. And he's going to go back to being the 4.5 K/1.5 BB/1 HR 5th starter. That's perfectly fine. And who knows...if the defense improves dramatically, at some point he may fool a foolish NL club into thinking he's a 4 ERA innings eater and they'll trade for him without us eating his ENTIRE salary (just some of it).

Same deal for Washburn which is probably why he has not been traded yet.

My "hot-list" still includes:

Parker Brothers
Dunn
DCab
Baldelli
Saito

In that order of desire.