Men

Gordon Gross skims over the Paxton series and whacks Dr. D's underhand scoop shot into the cheap seats:

It took Kershaw 4 years in the bigs (granted, 4 young years) to become the Cy Young bundle of C-4 that he's become. His first 3 years?

1: 9 hits, 8.5 K, 4.5 BB per 9
2: 6.5 hits, 9.5 K, 5 BB per 9
3: 7 hits, 9.5 K, 3.5 BB per 9

Years 4 and 5 are where he took off:
4: 6.5 hits, 9.5K, 2 BB per 9
5: 6.5 hits, 9 K, 2.5 BB per 9

Guys with good heat and a good breaker can survive wildness, though - his year 2 and year 3 returns were nothing to sneeze at (ERA+ of 143 and 133 those years).

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You wanna see what Paxton's first two years in the system have been?

1: 7 hits, 12.5 K, 4 BB per 9
2: 8 hits, 9 K, 4.5 BB per 9

Paxton's HR rates are miniscule. He simply can't be squared up, and he'll never pipe you an easy one even when his curve isn't dropping in.

And pitchers with excessive heat and repeatable mechanics tend to get it figured out - it just may require patience.

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Randy Johnson took until year 5 to become the HOF version of himself, but his ERAs were in the 3s from year 2 on. Kershaw's ERAs were great in year 2 and beyond even though he wasn't TOTALLY dominant. Brandon Morrow (a righty, but with a similar arm) took until year 6... but Brandon WILL pipe you a HR ball, and his higher ERAs reflect his ability to be hit. When his walks came down and he couldn't be hit as easily (because he didn't have to throw hittable balls down the chute in hitter's counts) his ERA came down to where it should be.

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Paxton is hard to hit, for either average or power, and I expect him to carry that over to the bigs. In fact, in a league where they'll call the curveball for a strike (a notorious problem in the minors) he'll probably do better-than-expected at carrying that success over.

But if he starts off with high walks.... DON'T FREAK OUT. Price walked 4 per his first year. Bedard? 4.5. Lester 4.5, Gio Gonzalez 5+.... CJ Wilson's walked 4 per for his career, and he's done all right because he's hard to hit.

Odds are, Paxton will walk guys. As Doc said, his foot plant is inconsistent and he's compensating. When he gets it worked out the walks will magically disappear, but even WITH walks he's a TOR starter thanks to what I expect to be low hits and low HRs. Paxton is the sort of arm you deploy knowing that his first 3 years will likely be as your #2 or 3 starter, and his next 3 he may be your ace.

Which is why I don't want to give him up - he can fight a rearguard action while getting the league figured out, and then once he does... boom. And what's fun about this team is we have several pitchers who may be able to do that. We'll see how many we keep to allow them the opportunity. So far Morrow and Pineda have been moved on, and the returns haven't been what we'd hoped at this point.

I would like to see us roll out a couple of those types in the 2013 rotation, though. Felix, Iwakuma, Ramirez, Paxton, and Hultzen could be a formidable rotation with a low disaster-potential. We'd have to keep em around for that to work.

~G

The pre-1993 Randy Johnson wasn't just a guy with high walks.  He was a DISGUSTING MESS mechanically, worse mechanically than most high school kids without the slightest exaggeration.  He had no idea where the ball was going and this had a lot of positives as far as his effectiveness.  

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Q.  What are the Mariners expecting to receive from Mike Napoli?

A.  Napoli slugged .630 two years ago.  He slugged .470 last year, that being .450 in Arlington and .490 on the road.  His lifetime SLG is .507.  He walks 70 times per full season and the BB total is going up, not down.

So rotisserie analysts are going to split the difference, splitting it well towards the DWN side, and project him to a 2013 slash line of .250/.350/.500.  -ish.  With nothing on the line, without being too close to the situation, without emotions involved, a roto champ in St. Louis, MO is going to assume .250/.350/.500 for Napoli next year based on 100-120 games.

The question is:  what's that worth?  Not to a phantom drone team, but to the 2013-14 Seattle Mariners?

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Q.  What are the chances that he'll outperform a 4/$50M contract?

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Don't freak out, LrKrBoi29 my friend.  We're not saying that Mike Zunino, or any player in the next (say) thousand years, is going to outplay #5.  We are saying that when we got our first look at Zunino, from the CF camera, that Zunino reminded us of Bench, more than he reminded us of any player.

By "remind" I mean that Zunino "caused me to think of someone or somebody else."  The somebody else that Zunino caused me to think of was John Bench.  (Sparky Anderson called him that.)

Here's why Zunino's defense caused me to think of Johnny Bench ...

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Scouting Report.  John Mayo's full scouting report, bottom-of-the-monitor version:  "Outstanding bat speed and loft.  Natural leader behind the plate, very agile."  

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Receiving.  Zunino sets up with those super-closed knees, like he's hiding the signs from the ... pitcher.  John Bench did this.  (Bench, as a 19-year-old rookie, paused behind the plate for a long time when Willie Mays came up to the plate.  Finally Bench said, "As soon as you're done looking, Willie, I'm ready to give the sign."  Mays was peeking out of the corner of his eye.)

John, and Mike, set up on their toes, knees almost touching, shoulders hanging as loose as shower curtains, as though they could crouch there comfortably for approximately one presidential campaign.  This despite the fact that John, and Mike, were linebacker-sized men.  You're talking about 220-lb. men* who have better strength-to-weight ratio than the 180-lb. men around them.  I doubt that middle infielders could get out of a squat position like Zunino can.

(One time Alex Johnson crashed into Bench at home plate; Johnson crumpled on the ground, was helped off and was asked later "Where does it hurt?"  Johnson's reply, "Everywhere but the roof of my mouth."  Bench flipped the ball back to the pitcher.  Mike Zunino is that way:  huge, lineman-class thighs, thick abdomen, shoulders, you know what I mean.)

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This week, the Angels have been shopping Dan Haren and Ervin Santana.  They have (had) one-year club options on both, and didn't want to use either one this year at that money.  So they grabbed a megaphone and said "HEY EVERYBODY!  WHO WANTS TO GIVE US SOMETHING FOR ONE YEAR OF DAN HAREN OR ERVIN SANTANA?  ANY REASONABLE OFFER ACCEPTED!"

The Royals finally held up a hand, about halfway into the air, and gave Brandon Sisk.  He's a career minor league lefty with a mediocre fastball, 88-92 MPH, that he says is his key pitch ... yet he fans 9 men per game in AAA.  You could (very) loosely compare him to Lucas Luetge 2011, as far as value is concerned.  Luetge would be higher.

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=== Talking points ===

1.  I was kinda thinkin' about this all week, because I didn't remember this situation ever coming up before, the sign and trade.  Could be I just hadn't noticed.  Is this a common thing, this sign-and-trade coming out of a team option year?  Why wouldn't you do it with every option that was theoretically in favor of the club, but which didn't fit its needs going into that season?

You'd think this would be one of the most common transactions in baseball, because there are always situations where you can't use the player but somebody else can.  Don't recall any at all, though.  All you would need, to make this work, would be:

• The club-option year is one in which the player is theoretically underpaid
• You have internal options that you prefer

Club-option years, for players under 33 or so, should be club-favorable once you get there.  You'd think that many club-option situations would lead to sign-and-trades.  

Is this something new in baseball, where clubs have decided they don't care whether they tick players off?  The Mariners have one player coming into that situation after this year:  Franklin Gutierrez has a $500,000 buyout next year or a $7.5M salary at the Mariners' option.  If he produces 2-3 WAR this season he's a perfect sign-and-trade.  How good do you have to be, to be a CF worth $7M?  Not very.  And the M's will probably have better options than him next winter.

Sign and Trade alert?

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=== All Apologies ===