Sale

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Feb. 7th Tomorrow's News Today Update:  Nightengale says 7 years, $175M.  

Dr. D bracketed the extension at 5/$125M if Felix was feeling like Abraham Lincoln, or 7/$200M if he was feeling a little more assertive.  In either case, he's worth far more.

At 7/$175M, the Mariners get a pretty screamin' deal on the salary -- nine years from now, $25M per year for Christy Mathewson will be wayyyyyyy low.  Felix did get the more years rather than the fewer, but then again, it's hard to speak of it as a loss for fans, that Felix is positioned to go into the HOF in an M's cap.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, ARod.

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Edit again to say, the 7 years *replaces* his current deal, so we're at what, 5 years, $135M.  Yowza.

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=== Talking Points ===

Dr. D has, for some reason that he cannot begin to comprehend, never gotten emotionally attached to Felix.  Nobody in Seattle likes Felix any less than Dr. D does.  That means for me, on a scale of 1-10, Felix rates about a 6 or 7 on the Likeliest To Own Some Dude's Jersey meter.  I bought jerseys for Jack Wilshere and Santi Cazorla; I won't get Felix'.  I enjoy watching Wilshere and Cazorla perform more than I do Felix, and I'm a pretty casual soccer fan.

I have no idea why.  Felix is one of the most likeable athletes you'll ever see.  His game, the five pretzel pitches he throws, is very enjoyable to watch.  He's been ours since he was 16.  Explain to me why I could take him or leave him, somebody.

Point is, I'm not biased in his favor.  Not at all.  If we traded him for Giancarlo Stanton, even steven, I'd be pleased.

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With Stars & Scrubs, you save money on Scrubs SO THAT you can buy Stars at fair-market prices.

A rotisserie champion saves a buck here, a buck there, SO THAT he can have five Felices going against his opponent's four.  

Point is, whatever Felix costs, $25 mill, $30 mill, $35 mill (because of inflation), just pay it.  The rest of your decisions are made AROUND that.  Felix' salary is the given in this roster equation, you feel me?  Move on.  Wrestle with other problems after you put that one in the bank.

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=== The Term "GREAT STUFF" Gets Tossed Around a Lot These Days .... ===

If you've got nothing Mariners that's better to do right now, head to MLB.com and enjoy this particular Capps vid.  G'wan, nothing wrong with a little sunshine and baseball.  Pitchers report in like four days, right?

Capps' first heater is so hard to see that a lefty batter, Josh Reddick, swings over the top of it.  Ya don't swing over fastballs when ya miss 'em; ya swing underneath 'em, 'cause of the angle of the swing arc and the 'rise' of the pitch.  Watch it again and you'll see that Reddick pulls one of those Nolan Ryan "C'mon, ump, anybody could hear that pitch was low" moments.

Capps' second heater lights up the red 100 font on the radar gun and you can just feel the seismo register as it SLAMMMMS into Olivo's mitt.  Cespedes' demoralization is palpable.  One time David Henderson took a first pitch like this and said, "Wow.  Too tough to even BUNT that pitch.  How are you supposed to hit it?"

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Q.  Is Kendrys Morales one of the most average players in the major leagues?

A.  He made Fangraphs' top five, and that seems to be the consensus.  Here's an article on the subject.  The obvious implication is that he's a mediocrity.  For example, the article notes Paul Konerko's WAR at 2'ish and sighs, "it's too bad," since Konerko actually looks kinda good at the plate.

As our servant, the WAR statistic is useful.  As our master, it is a deceitful, exploitative tyrant.  As we observed in this article, real GM's consistently pay less for no-hit WAR heroes than fanboys expect, and real GM's consistently pay more for no-WAR hit heroes than fanboys expect.

Even if Kendrys Morales were a 2.0 WAR first baseman, that wouldn't prove, to the flexibly minded, that he was a mediocrity.  Any more than Billy Butler's WAR is the way that GM's judge his value.

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Q.  Is Morales in fact a 2.0 WAR first baseman?

A.  He is not.