Our OF in particular is very durable.
Gutierrez may only need 5-10 days off a year, and if Ichiro misses a couple games a year its an upset. Ackley is going to be another guy that likely gets very little time off.
So lets say Saunder puts up a 670 OPS in his rookie season and losses the starting job to Ackley in late '10 or '11. Do you make Saunders your 4th outfielder for the rest of his Seattle tenure where he get 200 ABs a season? You're going to repeat the Wlad scenario where you had a guy with trade value that you ran into the ground and traded for an 85mph throwing middle relief prospect.
OF is a logjam especially with Langerhans and guys like Gross potentially hitting FA and signing for pennies. I think you're better off trading him for an infielder or pitching prospect of similar value while his stock is high.
In the NBA, the magic number is three solid bench players, plus a flex man, so 8.5 to make 5 each night.
We asked about 10-to-make 9. Or is that 12-to-make-9? :- )
.............
Numbed by the Hargrove Doctrine that says veterans are entitled to know that they're playing every day ... we asked resident Braves/M's fan Sandy-Raleigh, hey, what's it like in a foreign country?
We haven't followed the Braves much lately, but do remember several years back when they had a boatload of blue chippers (heh) all coming up together. The Braves have had some traffic-jam issues.
So: is it trade one guy? Or is it make one guy a pinch-hitter? Or is it a platoon? Or what's the Golden Key?
.............
San-man sez, no, the Eureka is just that you use more than 9 starters:
What Seattle fans have forgotten ... for a player like McLemore to play 140 games a season, SOMEBODY is getting a day off 140 times a year. The problem is NOT Ackley or Saunders. That only seems to be a problem for an organization that became so fixated on the 9 starters that if someone wasn't playing 158 games a season, they were a wimp.
Braves - 1991 - their worst-to-first season ... Lonnie Smith 122 games, Gant 154, Justice, 109, Nixon 124. Four OFs, for three spots, and ALL played more than 100 games. ALL got more than 400 ABs. And in the NL, there isn't a DH slot to create "half-days-off".
San points out that
The Angels in 2009 had Vlad, Torii, Rivera and Matthews ALREADY on the roster, and went out and ADDED Abreu. They didn't view this as a PROBLEM. They viewed this as a SOLUTION. If you've got 3 OF slots and a DH slot, then you've got enough PT for *FIVE* players to split, while all playing "full time".
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=== 2006-09 Oakland A's ===
I wonder if, for managers a little bit younger than Hargrove, this isn't the trend. Now that San' points out the Angels ADDING Abreu to a traffic jam.
The Oakland A's have routinely been using 11-12 starting position players.
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For example, in 2006, they had Scutaro, Crosby and Mark Ellis all get 400-500 plate appearances in the middle infield.
Then they had 5 outfielders get large AB's: Swisher, Milton Bradley, and Kotsay, all over 400 PA's, with Jay Payton getting 500+ PA's. And then Bobby Kielty got another 300 AB's.
They did not make it up at DH -- Frank Thomas got 559 PA's. But they did get some AB's at 1B, because Dan Johnson only got 300-odd PA's.
That's a good 11.5 players -- Kielty the 0.5 -- to man 9 slots. An NBA roation :- )
.................
In 2007, baseball-reference.com shows the A's first three BENCH players as Jack Cust, Marco Scutaro and Mark Kotsay. They also had Milton Bradley not in the first nine.
Imagine if we M's fans saw the M's add Cust, Scutaro and a Kotsay-type to this roster? :- )
...................
In 2008, when Wakamatsu was there, the rotation wasn't as extreme, because the extra guys weren't producing at the same level. That's one more order of flexibility: you can go more with 9 starters, if that's how the production shakes out.
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=== 2007 Texas Rangers ===
The last year Wok was there, IIRC, and the year before Josh Hamilton arrived.
The 2007 Rangers were, sure enough, doing what the Angels and A's have been doing: playing 12-to-make-9 all season long.
They had All-Stars at SS and 2B, so they weren't going to sit those two, but check out these OF totals!
377 - Catalonotto (their McLemore)
363 - Lofton
332 - Cruz (analogous to Saunders)
454 - Marlon Byrd
389 - Brad Wilkerson
They also had Jerry Hairston and Victor Diaz fighting for PT, and they didn't mind.
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=== Addicted to Glove ===
It jumps out at you, that all three AL West teams were very willing to put bat-first, NO-glove players into their lineups. These rotations were as robust as they were, because of the Wlads and Abreus and Wilkersons and Custs playing the OF.
In Seattle, this is a very unpopular idea with the cyber fans. A 12-to-make-9 rotation is going to have some plumbers at OF/1B. (Russell Branyan playing 3B is one such flex option.)
As it happens, both Ackley and Saunders are plus fielders, but when the idea comes up to add a bat player into this rotation ::coughdunncough:: let's not forget to ask.
What would Scioscia do. :- ) Or Beane, for that matter.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
He's getting up on 36...he's going to start needing incresaing time off soon.
He isn't really showing signs of slowing down yet. I think he misses an absolute maximum of 5-10 games a year even as he ages. With his conditioning hes just not going to miss much time, if any.
4th outfielders on our team are going to get a LOT less PT than on your average team. Our best and most durable players BY FAR are in CF and RF and aren't budging in 3-4 years minimum (Ichiro and Gutierrez lead the WAR charts by a considerable margin). Our #1 prospect projects in LF.
There just isn't that much PT left for a 4th outfielder. I saw swap him out for a guy at a different position with similar value and give that short-term role to Langerhans.
...moving Saunders for a pitcher or a middle infielder would be nice.
I'm betting the over.
I'm a big human being myself :- ) and I've always envied the little man his health advantages. At 6' 1", 270, my body has always fought against itself in lots of ways that don't apply to gymnast-types like Ichiro.
Moving his body is just effortless for him, on a level that bigger players, even players Gutierrez' size, don't enjoy.
If nobody had tipped us off about his birthday, how would we know he wasn't 29?
What is Saunders' value right now? I mean, trading him for another French level pitcher (or worse) doesn't get the M's anywhere. He's not one of the game's top prospects and at this point is probably as valuable as Wlad was 12 months ago. As in, he's not very valuable. He's the type of player that is going to have to play his way into some value before it will be worth trading him. M's fans place value on him because we've been following him for years.
I really don't get the urgency here, Taro. Ackley could be two years away for all we know. And if he kicks butt and puts himself into the coversation sooner, so what? Unless you've got a premium level all-bat guy, having a full time DH strikes me as silly anyway. Rotate guys through the DH to get them extra AB's and keep them fresh.
This seems like a solution looking for a problem to me.
I think its kind of like a stock. Saunders stock right now is going to be higher than it ever is UNLESS he develops into a good player at the MLB level.
Saunders is likely going to struggle mightilly with the bat in the early going. Considering that Ackley's ETA is likely going to be soon, Ichiro and Gut firmly in CF and RF for the next few years, and with short-term solutions that are likely more productive (Langerhans, maybe Gross), I just think that a Wlad scenario is most likely. Hes going to struggle for a year or less, get replaced by Ackley in late '10 or early '11 before he gets a chance to adjust, and then get stuck in a yo-yo situation where hes either your 4th OF that gets 200 ABs a season or hes stuck in AAA after destroying his trade value for the past year+.
Saunders has good value, hes not an elite prospect, but I do think hes the Ms #2-3 prospect and recognized as such around the game. A couple years ago you may have been able to trade Wlad for a guy like Scott Baker, I'd like to see the Ms swap Saunders this offseason for a SP or a MI prospect. The ONLY scenario in which keeping him makes sense IMO, is if you think he'll develop quickly and/or you grade Ackley lower than most.