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Sheesh I hate my own typos! &^%$$#@!!*&^! laptop keyboard!
moe
A Fork in the Road
The braintrust thought they had a team that was a playoff team this year, I'm convinced. Lee and Felix and all that plus their belief in the idea that Bradley had smoke left in his bat and that Kotchman was a breakout waiting to happen. Throw in an All-Star and OBP stud in Figgins and last years record all of a sudden got a bunch better. repeat the Junior/Sweeney lovefest and, voila, 95 wins.
Something happend on the way, not the least of which, I think, was the delusion that last year's team was better than it really was. Pythagorus was the better way of looking at lasst year's team, not wins. I think Bill James wrote years ago that over a couple of seasons those things average out. We're seeing that this year.
But we all know that stuff.
And now we have arrived at the fork in the road. We've gone from a team doninated by a veteran presence to one with a very youthful face.
I pose the question to all of you whether Z and the front office will acknowledge this and embrace it for the rest of the season or play this one out with the guys we've got. What roster moves will they make (or not make) and when will they make them. Lay your bets down.
Here goes:
#1 Kotchman is gone inside a couple of weeks, maybe a few days. I know he's had a good game or two, but I think starting him against Sabathia was a way to show him off to other GM's a bit. Hopefully it worked. The Smoak era has officially started and Kotchman, although a nice guy, simply muddies the waters. Heck, this was always a signing wating to fail.
#2 Bradley stays. While I certainly hope I'm wrong I'm betting that this is a sunk cost the M's will not identify as such. I think they'll hang onto him through the end of the year, God knows why. He's bringing zip to the team and is simply an impediment to younger players.
#3 Wilson will not come up (until Sept.), which is inexcusable considering Langerhans brings the team nothing. Wilson may auger into the ground vs. MLB guys who can hit spots...but he may just not and may be a nice MLB player. But the way he is used in Tacoma and the fact that Langerhans remains on the team leads me to believe that the M's want Saunders to succeed (especially against LHP, which given his performance there is entirely problematic...or less than) and that they feel Wilson simply muddies the waters there. This is too bad, I think. The better player currently, considering Saunders hit squat against AAA guys this year, doesn't get a deserved shot. Baseball is funny that way, huh?
#4 Pineda gets 8-10 MLB starts. As he should. This one the brass can't miss. Next time RRS is scheduled in the rotation look for the kid, instead.
#5 Ackley gets the phone call and the ticket winging him to Tacoma. Maybe soon. he certainly gets a call up late in the year. Tacoma would be the precursor.
OK....those are my 5 for the rest of this season.
BTW, a very interesting decision (probably delayed until after the season) is going to be the Figgins and Lopez and Ackley situation. Brass has to decide if Ackley is up next year, and if so, which guy do you part with? Conventional wisdom says Lopez goes. Right now I'ld bet that Figgins goes to a contender, if Ackley is up. He would bring more, I think...and there is something the M's (me too, his shakey bat this year not withstanding) like about Lopez.
Also...Bradley is not a M next year. But I'll bet Sweeney is. A team that goes youg still needs a gray beard who will take charge of the clubhouse. Sweeney will be that guy. PH/DH, 200 PA's. He can still hit.
Josh Wilson stays with this team next year. A valuable MIF bench type of guy.
Mangini or Tui as a CIF/COF utility guy?
All-Star break noodlings. Add your two cents.
moe
Comments
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Interesting rundown. :)
As far as next year goes, I don't see us trading Chone. 3x24 is a tough swallow for anyone if he stays at his current numbers, and if he improves to his normal numbers isn't that what we paid him to do in the first place?
Chone is gonna stay. And Ackley is gonna come up.
Ackley as of 7/12: .263/.389/.384/.773. Not as stellar as we'd like, but not bad. Now, dropping his first 20 games of painful wood-bat adjustment: 62 games, .304/.418/.439/.857, with a 1.6 eye (42BB/27K) and a K every 8 ABs. That's as a 22 year old in AA (turns 23 next February...not bad for a 4 year college grad). I don't normally advocate dropping a batter's worst showing, but if you want to see what he's been doing recently, there it is. It's been pretty impressive, except for the absent HR power.
Lopez is gonna go. I just don't see how it could be otherwise. Whether it's comfort zone or not, Chone is having the worst year of his professional career - and Lopez has been even worse, since he walks every other ice age.
We're also gonna need veteran bats who will talk to the kids. Ichiro's not like that. Branyan may not be here (though he should be) and wasn't the most well-liked member of Cleveland's clubhouse. Bradley could go postal any second and isn't the world's most sociable guy. You're right, we might go with Sweeney just to have his clubhouse presence, but even so Smoak, Saunders, Moore, Johnson, Ackley etc are gonna need Chone. And so the Ms are gonna move Chone back to 3rd, let Ackley play second, and let Jose go club in Cincy or something where his short-porch power will devastate once the weather warms up.
~G
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BTW, Ackley's OBP and OPS #s are estimated, since I didn't have HBP available. It's probably higher. ;)
~G
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I guess you would have to sell Lopez on his second half surge. Interesting that you would point to the Reds.
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Also I'm still betting on the Garret Anderson career for Lopez with the stick.
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I can see that. I've always comped Jose to Ronnie Belliard, myself.
Garret Anderson: .293/.324/.462/.785, 103 OPS+.
He was steady as a rock (had 6 of his 8 seasons from 1998-2005 within 7 OPS points of that average, the other two were higher peaks)
Ronnie Belliard: .274/.339/.417/.756, 97 OPS+.
He was...not steady (OPS+ ranging from 45 to 122 by year, with several 20 point gains and drops between consecutive seasons).
With Jose's crazy half-season jumps and crashes and general instability, I still feel comfortable with the Belliard comp, even though Jose will never walk even that much (Belliard had quite the eye as a young callup, before he realized he just didn't care that much). Lopez CAN give you a 100 to 110 OPS + season, but he can also give you an 80. It always makes life...interesting.
Chone's .330+ OBP even in his most terrible season can still make him useful. Not without somebody to knock him home, obviously, but the 60 points of OBP he is better than Jose is exceeding Jose's better slugging #s in usefulness IMO, even though they both have the same OPS this year.
Of the two, I think Jose goes. And then will probably be better, especially if we trade him to a warm-weather team in a small park.
My question is gonna be: where do you bat Ackley? He's a #2 hitter, but that's where Chone wants to be. #9, so he's on base in front of Ichiro? Probably. It'll be nice to have all that OBP lumped together - we'll just need SOMEONE to hit them home.
It isn't gonna be Jose. I still think we're gonna wind up trading him and likely Saunders before the start of next season and getting back a bat at SS or LF though (probably LF, though we may go there in the offseason with a guy like Jayson Werth).
I don't think Jack would feel especially comfortable with Ackley/Saunders/Smoak/Moore/Johnson as 4 of the bats (since Moore and Rob play the same position) in his nightly lineup. Ichiro/Chone/Branyan/F-Gut likely can't carry them through the rest of their learning phase (And Josh-or-Jack Wilson can't carry ANYone ever), which is another reason I don't expect to see much of Mike Wilson. Can't survive with that many 1st and 2nd year bats and not enough mega-producing vets to offset em.
Swap a kid for a 120 OPS+ bat and you might make it. And Jack definitely wants to make it.
~G
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#5 Ackley gets the phone call and the ticket winging him to Tacoma. Maybe soon.
Looks like that happened today. Good news. Good news! I would be inclined to read into that a call up to Seattle before mid-August. With a trade deadline approaching it will be interesting to see if this ties into that.
And the Jose to Cinn. mention is one that might make since. Band box and a dead pull hitter. Those things go together well, but a rejuvinated Scott Rolen at 3rd and an improving Brandon Phillips at 2nd may block that. Rolen is expensive and old...He could go, I suppose. If Cincy makes a strong Sept./Oct. run they may be less willing to bring in a new guy if they have established bats.
The Ackley promotion may also indicate the brass is ready to make more moves. I'm sticking with the idea that Pineda is up very soon. RRS as a durable long guy in the bullpen is a great idea. As a#4 or #5 guys isn't.
And it makes me more hopeful that the front office suddenly discovers that Langerhans or Bradley has a pulled hammy and they get DL'ed and M. Wilson comes up.
Or that Kotchman gets shipped for a "prospect" (probably VERY prospect) and Wilson replaces. Smoak and Branyan can man first...and Lopez, too (with Josh Wilson playing third). Well..the other two guys are only needed if Smoak get dinged...he's playing first for the next 2+ months!
I'm guessing that it is a 66%+ shot that both Ackley and Pineda are up in the next 5 weeks. And probably 66% that Wilson is up, too. So 2/3 of 2/3 says that it is about 44% that all three of them get the phone call.
What do you think? Doc, do you want to chime in here?
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CorrectionCorrectionCorrection
"might make sense" not "might make since!"
My wife says all men are idiots and she married their king!
Today, I won't argue that point!
moe
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First of all, Z wants to be competitive in 2011, and he's not going to construct a roster based on hoping that 5 or 6 very young guys all pan out (Smoak, Ackley, Saunders, Pineda, Moore, Tui, Wilson, Halman, etc.).
But he's not going to construct a roster based on hoping that Bradley, Lopez, Snell, Kotchman, etc. all have massive rebound years, either.
But, I will bet strongly that he will see if guys who have already been productive major leaguers show any chance that they can be that way again (especially Bradley, who is under contract and has had All-Star caliber seasons in the recent past) before he will "take a flyer" on a Mike Wilson. Not saying that's fair or right, but I think that's what will happen.
Lots of the vets are "prospects" now, in that they are way below their expected level of production, and there is a need to assess the probabilities that they are "done" or whether they can return to some measure of form. So, except for Kotchman probably being gone, I don't see wholesale change. I think they would trade Lopez in a heartbeat, but he has very low trade value right now, and, even if they did, they'd probably play Josh Wilson rather than Ackley.
I would love to see Ackley in the bigs, but the reports on his 2b defense are that he's not ready to be thrown into that. So you would need to short-circuit the 2b experiment and take ABs away from Saunders instead of Lopez/Figgy. Don't think it will happen. They took the plunge with Ackley @2b, so they're going to ride it out. Doesn't mean he couldn't hold his own with the bat as of today.
I would love to see Pineda in the rotation, but first they will see what Bedard brings, if he can ever pitch at all. We all love MP, but he's not a Strasburg-level freak, and I don't think they'll rush him up and expect him to be part of the rotation right away. I could see him getting a trial later in the year, though, or a bullpen trial earlier.
Actually, I've been saying all year that the true prospect possibly closest to helping the MLB club is lefty reliever Edward Paredes, who got the promotion to Tacoma along with Ackley. I would not be surprised to see him in the bigs in the near term, since he can fill a role that they need filled.
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