Kansas City

Area 13: the Value of Trades

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The last couple of weeks, Dr. D has returned to an old favorite pastime. What did they call it ... dowsing ... no, lousing up ... no, BROWSING the net. Thass it. Surfing and stuff. D has been clicking on hyperlinks in the sidebars of websites. It's got to stop, or we're going to hemorrhage the rest of what little quality we'd been trying to retain.

One reason it will ruin us, is because we blow our legs off on land mines like Thirteen's Offseason Plan Post at Lookout Landing. It cost me like, two hours' worth of noodling up data on scrubs like Logan Morrison. Thirteen's plan is so well-thought-out that had it been signed by a Baseball Prospectus author, it would have been one of the events of the offseason... SSI does get one side benefit, the coming dozen or so freebie articles that it can slam off Thirteen's heavy lifting.

Another reason it's going to ruin us, is because we keep running into bizarre stuff. In this case, off-site responses that declare 13's fundamental flaw to be that .... he's using trades to make the team better. Actually trades move talent around; free agency purchases are what add talent. Eureka! See how simple baseball can be? :- )

Jay-Z and the 'Baltimore Draft'

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At BJOL, Les Lein axed an innocuous question:

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Pitching for Wil Myers?

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Thirteen's inventive commentary has been a pleasure to read. If you missed his Justin Smoak Thumbs Up, er Down, er Cracked fanpost at LL, it's an eyebrow-raising read. Here he comes again with a trade idea. Now, 94.3% of trade riffs are throwaway, but on the other hand don't be too quick to blow them off. I mean, we sit here going, "this winter we need a deal." But give it up for the guys who bring something specific.

Thirteen wants to target Baseball America's player of the year:

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Seahawks 27, Cowboys 7

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Bill James divided baseball into six historical eras. The era that existed before the current era, 1969-1992 or so, he called the "Artificial Turf" era.

With everything available to define an era, he went with the playing surface. James' beloved 1980's Royals were an epic turf team, meaning one that exploited speed and finesse. In Weaver On Strategy, Earl lamented the way his big, powerful Orioles got embarrassed every time they went to Kansas City. "They played way back on us, getting to lots of extra ground balls. But if we tried that, it wouldn't work, because of the Orioles' speed down to first." Weaver revealed that there was only one place he'd have built an offense without home runs, and that was on the super-fast turf at Kansas City. James wrote essays about how much he liked the style of baseball played on turf.

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John Madden wrote, after he won the Super Bowl and retired, that he had one criteria applied to all his players. They all had to be natural-grass players. By that he meant that he didn't want players who avoided contact, preferring to use skill and speed to win football games. He wanted "lunch-pail" players.

In They Call Me Assassin, the Raiders' free safety Jack Tatum sneered at "finesse" teams. By the time they get to the second half, Tatum wrote, their will to win would be gone. The punishment that he and his fellow Raiders dished out would tell. "If you hit a man enough times," he said, "his will to win is going to be warped."

That's the way the cookie crumbles, Dept.

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Grumpy sez, speaking for all of us,

Blech. This is getting tiresome.

"We're going to lose the ratings on Friday this season. Sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles." - Dan Miller to super-CEO Robin Stone, The Love Machine by Jacqueline Susann

"My cookie doesn't crumble." - Stone, acidly, in reply

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Dr. D loves Seattle, and note carefully that his wife is a classic soccer mom. However, there are certain aspects of the region he could do without. One is the soccer mom mentality surrounding the Mariners: oh, well, if we don't win it's still a wonderful night at the park.

In its cyber/saber manifestation, this attitude morphs into a variation expressed as "Nobody rational (tilt nose back) expected to win, anyway. It's important to rebuild correctly. If we were sufficiently intelligent we'd know not to cheer in the press box." ... of course, we bloggers aren't in the press box, but you get it.

Zduriencik said, on his radio show recently, "We were up front. This was going to be a tough year." That part of it, the full disclosure, I can respect, and Zduriencik himself is going to be the one paying the price in 8,000-fan crowds.

My question has been: why allow it to be a tough year? This club is loaded with young talent.

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G-Money sez,

If the starters are good, the pen falters. If the pitching all shows up, the offense is MIA. If the offense is good then the pitchers try to give it all back.

If the offense gets on base they can't drive them in. When they do, the arms screw it up.

Also known as the implosion of a team's self-confidence. They were game, but there comes a time when your five realizes you can't beat their five, and then you stop setting screens.

Watching a young team is hard. I expect Delabar to have issues. He was teaching kids history or whatever a year ago. I expect young hitters or arms to struggle.

But that's what the vets are there for: to pick them up. Except none of our vets are able to do that. Furbush and Wilhelmsen salvaged things for the pen, only to have League blow it all and waste an offense that was finally productive for the # of hits they had, with the kids coming through in crucial places.

Vets are supposed to stop losing streaks, only Felix and Vargas and League have all blown their opportunities to do just that this week.

Veteran presence like Josh Willingham is one thing. Willingham signed with the Twinkies for a $7M salary, and is following up a 30-100 year in Oakland* with a .600 slugging average so far this year. He's got 22 RBI.

Put one (1) veteran, transition, bat at cleanup for the 2012 Mariners and the whole game changes. Pitchers are throwing the Mariners blizzards of strikes because, in the pregame meetings, they know there is nobody to fear. They take the mound with happy-happy joy feelings, they're loose, and they attack.

What Are Sabermetrics?

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No disrespect, I just don't think we can completely figure out baseball based off of sabermetrics alone.

Jack Zduriencik does not primarily use Baseball Prospectus or Fangraphs to decide whether Shawn Kelley is coming north. Statistics are backwards-looking! What Zduriencik needs is a reliever who will get outs in the 2012 season.

Most people would understand "sabermetrics," as Andrew uses it, to mean "the statistics you can find on Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs." So, the comment would bring derision in some quarters. But let's remember that Jack Zduriencik and Eric Wedge are in profound agreement with this. Neither do they think that you can make roster decisions based on 2009-11 statistics alone.

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It is not because we fail to understand WAR that we, at SSI, refuse to limit ourselves to its implications. Tony Blengino his ownself comes, as the years go by, to see himself more and more as a scout/saber dual class. Most of the stats-based, "pure sabermetrician" types who get hired, wind up blossoming into stats/scouting blended analysts. Every GM who ever lived --- > used methods that transcend WAR.

My own approach is based on organizing our thinking about any given baseball question -- directing our attention to the right questions. For example: what are the causes of Felix' lack of velocity, and if he does lose velocity, what does that mean? What patterns are there here, and what precedents apply to the problem?

It's a chess paradigm. Whatever position you've got, it's been played before. Felix Hernandez' velocity loss has been seen before, in Pedro Martinez and in other great pitchers. Find the games that have looked like this before, and review them from the standpoint of the masters who won those games.

We try to begin, sincerely, with questions, as opposed to beginning with what are in essence position statements. If we find a good clear question, it is not so hard to find historical patterns that illuminate the questions.

Projecting Montero: Age, Arc, and ... POSITION!

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Q. How can Jay-Z, or anybody, compare Jesus Montero to Albert Pujols, when Pujols' strikeout totals were so low in the minors?

A. SSI suspects that Jesus Montero's HIT tool may be similar to Pujols', yes.

True, Pujols struck out only 47 times in 133 games in his age-20 minor league season. But how old was Albert, really, when he defected to the U.S. and played high school baseball here? How old was he when he played junior-college baseball in Kansas City? All we know about Albert is that he showed up in the minors, saying he was 20 years old, and that he had a .320/.380/.550 year in the minors when they put him there.

Meanwhile, Jesus Montero fanned 47 times in 92 games at a real age 19, in A+/AA baseball ... how many times would Albert Pujols have struck out, if he were a catcher?

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300-lb'ers in the D.C. humidity - Justin?

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Jason has an interesting article up, in which he opines that the anti-Seattle stuff sounds like mostly hooey to him.

He relates a comment that I hadn't considered: the heat and humidity in the D.C. area. Very overweight people are indeed miserable in 85-90 degrees and 90% humidity. If I were Fielder, I might be all right with a road trip there, but to finish my sports career in that stuff? Yowch.

A reader replies, well, he lives in Tampa. Yeah, but he doesn't play sports outside in Tampa.

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Jim Bouton, in his July 4 entry in Ball Four, cracks "What could be better than a 4th of July doubleheader in Kansas City? Anything up to and including a kick in the [man region]."

Would like to hear Justin's impression of what the big athletes say about the heat, but if it's me, I can easily imagine myself saying, "Cubs? Great. Marlins indoors? Awesome. Washington? Man, that place is an oven. Don't we got anyplace else?" Don't know whether Atlanta falls into this category. Sandy?

POTD Scott Boras - the Opt-Out Thing

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Word around the 'net is that Scott Boras, attempting to save face, is running the Opt-Out swing pass. I don't know if that is the case, but if it is, then you have a situation that is nauseating even by the toilet-bowly standards of Scott Boras.

Last week, ML execs negotiated in the press. Hey, Scott, what about 3-to-5 years and then hit the market again. When we know whether Prince is going to be under 350. Call it the William "Refigerator" Perry Safety Valve.

Scott huffed, in the press. "That's delusional. We are about win-win scenarios and you guys are about nothing but money. How does 3 years achieve the goals of the franchise? Prince's new franchise is getting an icon. Somebody for the 10-year-olds to grow up with."

To Rook or Not To Rook (forgotten man)

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We could say, we s'pose, that Jason Vargas is the Rodney Dangerfield of the '010's Mariners. But none of you kiddies would know who Rodney Dangerfield was.

"My girlfriend called me the other day, said, 'Come on over. Nobody's home.' I went over. Nobody was home."

Homer Simpson, mebbe? Dunno. Anyway, San-Man sez:

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I think the odds of Vargas missing the rotation in April are effectively zero (barring injury). If I had to guess right now, I'd say there are two open slots that Beaven, Furbush and Hultzen are competing for.

Zero or less. Fo sho Jason Vargas is in the rotation. Here or someplace. If he's traded, they always talk about cutdown time in late March, after your trade partners have had time to realize that their own rookies ain't exactly Michael Pineda...

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