Chat: 12/6/15 7:18pm
Chat: 12/6/15 7:18pm
Shouts
<p>Buchholz could be a one year guy, however. He has a team option next season. As a stop-loss guy, we could do worse. Of course, we have to give up something to get him. I'm not too confident about that. Adding Buchholz to what we have gives you Kuma-Walker-Karns-Paxton-Elias-Buchholz-#Montgomery. If you figure the first three guys are locks, then you have a 4 to make 2 situation.</p>
<p>It isn't ideal. But it could work. Not much #Money left to spend, however. Unless you shed salary to get a BoSox arm.</p>
<p>Miley is no better than Elias and has much less upside...what's the point of that? Unless you're freeing up Elias to be dealt elsewhere........Buccholz has much more upside but is even riskier for injury than Iwakuma and costs just as much...LOL</p>
<p>Some Haikus:</p>
<p>Best for family,<br />
The contract that you deserve,<br />
What about your fans?</p>
<p>Dear Mr. JeDi,<br />
The deal was not too obscene.<br />
Should've got it done.</p>
<p>Rakuten, Now us.<br />
Thought you were the chosen one.<br />
What happened Kuma?</p>
<p>Do not drink the water.<br />
Stay in well lit areas.<br />
Do not breathe the air.</p>
<p>so...we've cut payroll by about 16 million dollars so far (paying nothing for first base, paying nothing for Karns, paying a bit more for catchers...but getting CF for a couple mil compared to 10 mil last year, adding Aoki). Where's that 16 mil going to get spent now? Trade for an outfielder (making Aoki the most expensive fifth outfielder ever signed?) or upgrading first base all the way to...what we had with Trumbo? I don't unhderstand how all of these moves get us closer to be good for the same price.</p>
<p>Not interested in Miley and Sox say they're counting on top form Clay Bucholtz this year so doubt they move him. Here's the problem...the rotation is not upgraded if all we do is replace Kuma with Karns (who, BTW, also had arm pain last year...so...no, he's not safer for #Health reasons). The rotation was HORRIBLE last year, in part because Paxton and Iwakuma were hurt and Felix was showing severe fatigue...but many of those same factors remain in place. And...a big part of why the pen imploded in 2015 was overuse from a rotation not doing a good enough job getting deep into games. We've helped ourselves a bit there by acquiring a true swingman...but what now? Any move we make that improves our rotation will either (a) cost more Kuma (b) cost major league talent to acquire in trade (c) be just as risky as Kuma was or (d) cost a draft pick higher than the one we get for Kuma. The only thing we can do now is add "depth" to the rotation...no upgrade, but more options. That could help some, but it's not going to move us forward other than to remove the speculative innings from guys like #Montgomery and Nuno.</p>
<p>Miley or Buckholz from Red Sox?</p>
<p>I'm certainly not qualified to comment on how effective ERA+ is as a statistic, but Iwakuma has not been pitching as well as his past glory for a couple years. He is older and may or may not get back to that level again. It's frustrating not to see that big immediate splash like when we signed Cano. I'm willing to watch and see what all of these little moves add up to though. Maybe he has a scrap heap Chirs Young like guy in mind to add depth. Sure hoping bullpen is where those extra $$$ go :) 1B could be fairly inexpensive (and easy) to upgrade over LoMo. There are all kinds of Travis Shaw and Justin Bour around for very little in trade just sitting in AAA blocked. 27, 28 year old non-prospects that give you 3 or 4 good years like a Garrett Jones did. Keep rotating guys through until one of them clicks. Rangel Ravelo looks pretty blocked in #Oakland and he's young.</p>
<p>I'm thinking our payroll has been cut and they don't want to tell fans that. I'm pretty depressed about this, i really wanted Kuma back.</p>
<p>I think Matt's instinct is right. This is going very wrong for some reason.<br />
Wasn't the idea that the #Money we saved on Trumbo could be used on Kuma? Now we have neither. Why didn't he spend it?<br />
Dipoto said his top priority was signing Kuma.<br />
Either he failed because he didn't understand what the market was...or he was lying. I don't like either scenario.<br />
If his concern is maintaining value through the end of a contract...would he have signed either Cano or Cruz? Or extended either Seager or Felix?<br />
On the plus side, I liked both Benoit and Aoki. There's that.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure that Dipoto has no intention of signing Chen. It would deviate too far from what we've seen him do so far. jokestar</p>
<p>Given that we have 6 decent starters, half a year of Kuma is very valuable to us, even if he does get hurt. But OK...I'll give him time...I would just advise him NOT to sign Chen...that makes not signing Kuma look brain-damaged.</p>
<p>Thats the key, Matt. When he's healthy. I suspect that Dipoto wasn't interested about signing a player to a 3 yr contract at 15 mil a year with the various injury considerations that Kuma brought to the table. jokestar</p>
<p>It says here that ERA+ catastrophically underrates pitchers at Safeco Field whose game does not depend heavily on defense...the assumption in ERA+ is that the park will have a predictable, linear, across-the-board impact on the runs aany pitcher allows...that's not how the real game works. It says here that Karns is a good solid pitcher, but Kuma has much more upside when healthy.</p>
<p>The man has a plan. He stated it pretty clearly when he took the team over as GM. In his first move, he garnered a decent SP and, perhaps, our future CF for a couple of guys that really weren't in the M's plans. He solidified our catcher position. He signed Aoki to help solidify our OF defense. He signed a potential late man/closer in Benoit. Plus, he's added depth for our relieving corps, as well as, adding positional depth to our minoe leagues. He's NOT Jack Z. You guys have been calling for a stat geek in the GM position for a long time. Now you have one. The winter meetings have just started so I think we should give the man time to implement his plan. jokestar</p>
<p>My summary would be our rotation made a lateral move with Karns for Iwakuma. Both were ERA+ of 107 last season. Iwakuma was 103 the previous year. We now have the younger, possibly healthier and more unreliable perfomance option. Karns could have further upside or could regress. Catcher position has been solidly upgraded. Bullpen might have been slightly upgraded. More moves to come I'd imagine. Don't get too upset Matt!</p>
<div class="indented">Reply - diderot - 12/7/15 9:19am<br><p>Doesn't run prevention begin with starting pitching?<br />
It wasn't a case of trading Kuma for Karns--we needed both for Dipoto's plan to work.</p>
</div>
<p>Let me summarize where we are right now: we've exchanged a 1 WAR CF with bad defense for...a 1 WAR CF with a bad bat. We've sacrificed our only real MLB ready infield depth to get a #3 starter and then failed to get a useful #2 starter to stay ahead of him...so...Miller and Iwakuma out, Karns in...the rest stays the same. GREAT!! We have no first baseman. We have no right fielder. We have no DH. And all we got for the 1B optyion we have was a back-up catcher who might...or might not...hit some. We've replaced Rodney with Benoit which should be an upgrade. We've acquired two other very...very forgettable mediocre arms to bolster the pen. Yay. Do I have that right? What a friggin' joke. Unless he has some magic trade up his sleeve, this off-season is a catastrophic failure.</p>
<p>Definitely agree. Which has me wondering again about payroll. For all the vague talk about "having plenty of resources available," this comes across largely as a penny pinching move. Especially in light of dumping Trumbo. We even had Aoki personally lobby for the Bear in his press conference. Seems like all we had to do was come close, and Iwakuma would have signed. We really must have held firm at 2 years. The only thing I can imagine is that his medicals did not check out the way we wanted.</p>
<p>It is beyond stupid that the Mariners didn't offer 3/45 for Iwakuma. You will not beat that anywhere in #Baseball for a top starter. Period. Dipoto's been GM of the Mariners for less than two months and I already miss Zduriencik.</p>
<p>Chen is a Boras client, after all - it's not like we won't be put into a bidding war for Chen's services and have to outmuscle the Cubs and others for his services.</p>
<p>Swapping the 11th pick and Kuma for the 28th pick and Chen would be a silly and expensive way to get younger in the rotation. Chen wants 85 million, Kuma got 45 from the Dodgers. Well done everyone.</p>
<p>what do we have to give up to get Lind? Any thoughts? I'd be OK with that, so long as it costs us less than what we got for Trumbo (otherwise...what was the point of trading Trumbo??). And yeah...I guess we're down to hoping Maeda would consider playing for us or grudgingly giving up our first round #11 pick to sign Chen at the same sort of #Money Kuma gets for more years...making it seem very #Strange that we didn't lock in Kuma early.</p>
<p>Maeda and Chen, perhaps. Maeda is likely to be $90 over 5, counting the posting amount. Chen? Less, for sure. The Round Mound of Fastballs on the Black, Colon, is still out there. For the right price, he would be a decent addition. I think Lind may be where we end up for a LHB 1B.</p>
<p>If they sign Cueto, I'll be completely stunned. I doubt it muchly. Lowe is going to the Tigers, Soria to the Royals, running out of relievers I'd actually want at the top of my bullpen chart. This offseason blows.</p>
<p>Perfectly willing to wait and see Dipoto's plan B to Kuma.<br />
I don't think this is going to end well.</p>
<p>For all his faults, my feeling is Jack Z would have had both Kuma and Lowe signed a month ago.</p>
<div class="indented">Reply - anonymous - 12/6/15 11:28pm<br><p>I think if Z were still here we'd have Trumbo in RF, Chris Carter at 1B and Pedro Alvarez at DH</p>
</div>
<p>T-shirt's still legit, as is the player. That is until, the third year of the t-shirt. Burn it then.</p>
<p>One could make the argument that (cash-wise) Martin cost us Kivlehan, Wilhelmsen AND Kuma.</p>