=== One Tennis Match We Won't Miss, Dept. ===
Lots of pleasant buzz around Capt. Jack's reference to the M's discussions with a free-agent "piece of the puzzle."
Nobody seems to have mentioned that the "puzzle" in question is necessarily the 2009 pennant race. In context, all things considered, the comment has little meaning with respect to a 2011 target. One thing we love about Capt. Jack, is that he's got us all calmed down about whether it's okay to try to win now.
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=== The LOOGY "Piece" ? ===
Which piece of the puzzle? Larry LaRue suggests, relief pitcher, and from what I read at MC, LaRue rules out Griffey or Dunn (in this case).
If you're doing a puzzle that involves baseball wins, are we ever going to look for the piece that says "#3 hitter" or "#4 hitter" on it?
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The M's do need a relief arm, IMHO, though it would be an awfully modest "piece of the puzzle" unless this guy could bump us towards a Morrow-Heilman rotation.
Dr. Naka has suggested Takashi Saito. If healthy, Saito's obviously very effective. Time for our NPB experts to chime in: what have you been hearing about Saito's elbow? He was named to the WBC, right, so the Japanese intel must be encouraging...
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=== Now That's a PIECE of a Puzzle ===
Tim Dierkes, quoting Tim Brown :- ), says regarding Bobby Abreu:
Again, it seems funny even talking about bat-first corner outfielders in cyber-Seattle. I'm beginning to suspect that we will look back at the winter of 2008-09 as the year in which the defense-mania hit its absolute zenith, the way 2007 was the year Global Warming peaked. :- )
Suffice it for me to say, once again, that other cities (WINNING cities) don't put Endy Chevez in left field. They put 30 homers there.
"The Mariners seem to have the most interest" is usually reporter-speak for "have talked the biggest dollars."
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Now, I'm not Bobby Abreu's biggest fan, not by a long shot. But the "stay away from this bum and actually do something productive, like add Endy Chavez" has gone a just a weeeee bit over the top.
The man has a good 40%, 50% shot at the Hall of Fame, and he's still a top lefty bat in the AMERICAN League -- but he showed up as poor on the defensive metrics last year, so he's an "avoid at all costs."
Slap me silly, this defensive craze is going to drive me bananas. All of these same D-metrics had Abreu as average-solid -- in 2007, for the same team, in the same park. It's not like he forgot how to run. His SX's remain steady. Maybe he forgot how a ball slices into right field?
Abreu still pencilling out as a 5.5, 6.0 win player per WARP (which, if true, would make him a $25M player). Even if you're putting defense front-and-center, you have to concede that Abreu retains a high Speed Score and steals bases, so logic should tell you that he could hardly be Adam Dunn out there. He's got a good Shandler SX.
Abreu can run, and he's playing a position in which many guys can't. How bad can he be compared to all of the Magglio Ordonezes of the American League?
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But. Go ahead and dock him 1.5 wins for defense (a full 15 runs) and you've still got a 4-win player -- $18, 20 million a year.
I don't say that's the gospel truth, and I wouldn't pay $18-20M at his age, and I do think the defensive debate is interesting (Abreu was neutral on defense in 2007, and -25 in 2008, per HBT).
We're just sayin' -- Bobby Abreu ain't Henry Cotto. You're going to get 80-100 walks -- in Safeco -- with AVG and gap power and R scored and everything else. You could argue (though I wouldn't) that he's Ichiro, plus.
I hear that Abreu hits left-handed. He'd be your #3 hitter. At some point, the Mariners might want to give some thought as to whether they want any #3's or #4's in their lineup.
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Back on topic, Yahoo reports that "the Mariners seem to be showing the most interest" in outfielders. We'd like to read that as Griffey or Abreu, but .... guess we 'net rats will get our intel-fix in the next day or two.
Cheers,
Dr D
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image: http://www.arizona-coffee.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/zephyr.jpg
It would, IMHO, be rathe rbraindead to pay 16 million a year for Abreu when you could pay Adam Dunn 13 mil a year and Griffey 5 million a year. But what do I know. :)
I wouldn't be too annoyed if the Mariners added Abreu...EXCEPT...that he has a reputation in Philadelphia as being a lazy POS who doesn't care about winning (that's why they traded hm for NOTHING to the Yankees).
++ I wouldn’t be too annoyed if the Mariners added Abreu…EXCEPT…that he has a reputation in Philadelphia as being a lazy POS who doesn’t care about winning (that’s why they traded hm for NOTHING to the Yankees).
Nice observation, Matt.
I'd add the note that after years of failing to make it to the Series WITH Abreu, the Phillies finally managed to get their ring after his departure -- and the Yankees got no big gain from his addition.
This is, in fact, a fairly common occurence in regards to Free Agency. A club gets "close" to good enough -- then it runs and gets a BIG NAME free agent -- and fails. Then, it gets ANOTHER BIG NAME FA - and fails. Then it gets ANOTHER *BIG NAME* FA, and it makes the playoffs - but then fails.
The pattern I continually see is that the BIG NAME free agent acquisition route almost never seems to be as beneficial as the stat sheets indicate it should be. Meanwhile, the second tier FA pickups seem to coincide with surprise production boosts from other locations.
Philly goes and gets guys like Moyer and Eaton -- and 1/2 year of Blanton to make the series.
Tampa goes and gets has-beens (Cliff Floyd, Percival), and never-wases, (Pena, Gabe Gross).
The teams pulling in the Miguel Cabrerras and Johan Santanas end up on the sidelines much more often than you'd expect.
The only "big name" FA I know of in recent years to make a real obvious difference to turn an also-ran into a contender is Pudge -- who pulled off the feat twice -- first with Florida, and then with Detroit.
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And perhaps this comment you made helped me focus on an aspect of the roster construction picture that may not have come across in my early meanderings. There has been talk about the Mariner "culture" of losing. I am beginning to believe that there may be an underlying and subtle negative impact of the "super" star player - especially when acquired via free agency.
We know that AROD went to Texas, and the Rangers have stunk ever since, (while the Mariners went on to win the most games in the history of baseball shortly thereafter).
We know that AROD was brought to the Yankees to make that extra push into the Series -- and instead, the Yankees are now the team that folded when up 3-0 in the ALCS.
I have often rolled my eyes in response to much of the talk about team leaders and team cancers. But, I believe one of my real strengths is in noticing subtle patterns over time - not by looking for them, but by "feeling" them first, and then going to confirm (or refute) those feelings. I have a growing feeling that BIG NAME FA signings may have some unintended consequence, which manifests itself in lowered production from the guys he's joining. No data, (other than general scans of WS teams and basic memory), to support this feeling.
But, I believe that there are "whys" hidden somewhere that can explain how the Yankees can bloat their payroll to more than 200 million, yet sit at home in October, while a team like Tampa gets to play for a ring. And I'm increasingly interested in seeing what the historical tapes show in regards to the GIANT players moving, as opposed to the morely mortal good players. My intuition tells me that the big names fail to deliver their teams to the promised land at an incredibly high rate. I could be wrong. But, my sense is that this is part of the reason I'm very skittish about running out to the FA market to try and "fix" the Ms.
I'll add one important point. I'm thinking primarily of every day players.
Acquisition of Hall of Fame pitchers (in their prime), seems to be a different animal.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the missing puzzle piece is Fields. Z seems to be focusing on all the young talent he can get his hands on and Fields is right there for the taking. He may well value that draft pick as much as the blogosphere thinks but I wouldn't discount the value of getting a player like Fields into the system for 2009. Even if he can't close right away, getting one of those "final three innings" bullpen arms in place has to be an attractive proposition.
great point gents... had not considered... Abreu *may* be one of the guys you pass for chemistry reasons, though not because he can't play baseball....
Gillick evidently agrees, though his threshhold for me-first vets is verrrry low...
Ace pitchers turn a club around...I've seen it happen many times But when you go get a big free agent bat, you'd better make sure he has the right character to contribute to the clubhouse chemistry in a beneficial way. I don't think Abreu is that guy.
The mystery player is reliever Tyler Walker. Hopefully this means that both Morrow and Heilman are moving to the rotation. Does anyone have any idea what this bullpen could look like if assembled today?
Silva, Washburn, Batista, RRS, Morrow and Heilman competing for 3 rotation spots.
Batista, Corcoran, Heilman, Jimenez, Lowe, Lugo, Messenger, Morrow, RRS, Thomas, Vargas, Walker competing for 6-7 bullpen spots.
Doc, where the heck did you get 5.5 WARP for Abreu??!
Abreu is in clear decline. I'm not sure hes actually as bad as he graded out defensively last year, but even if you give him a HUGE break there he was no more than a 2.0 WARP league average player. Thats $8.8mil a year on the FA market, this being a buyer's market its closer to $7mil per. Hes nowhere NEAR Ichiro's value.
Abreu USED to be a great player, but his last 4 WARP season (per fangraphs) was in 2005. Since then hes been in STIFF decline offensively/defensively.
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Again, the defensive numbers are debatable (I actually think Abreu is better defensively than UZR gives him credit for), but the decline is NOT:
2005: 4.0 WARP $13.5 on the FA market
2006: 3.3 WARP $12.0 on the FA market
2007: 2.2 WARP $9.1 in FA
2008: 1.1 WARP $5.0 in FA
Again, the defensive numbers are low in the calulation, but this isn't a guy I'd want to sign long term. If you're thinking of signing Abreu, why not just sign a guy like Hinske? They're basically the same value-wise in '08/'09, and Hinske is younger and cheaper. $48mil over 3 years for a guy that'd be lucky to give you league average production...thats just a really bad idea.
Just get Adam Dunn. He can hit and hes still in his prime. Its a buyer's market; lets go get him.
After seeing Giambi go fo *5 MILLION DOLLARS* I'm completely with you, taro. Dunn ain't gonna get a $15m/year contract in this market, so I say go get him for $10-12m x 3-4 years.
Latest does seem to be 3 x $13M for Dunn.
I can't believe for the life of me that it will finish there, but if it did, that's about 33% of the guaranteed money he actually deserves (relative to Lee, Soriano, and even Teixeira).
How could you go wrong. Give the guy 4-5 years (option) and $14-15M and you're paying prices from four years ago.
Doc, where the heck did you get 5.5 WARP for Abreu??!
Baseball Prospectus. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pecota/abreubo01.php far right column.
They've got his last three years at 5.7, 7.2, 5.6, and 2008 wasn't a lot different, except that the unreliable defensive numbers might (misleadingly) skew him down 1.5 or 2.0 WARP. (New readers, note that the FA market pays $4.8 to $5.5 million for 1.0 WARP!)
I'm not saying I believe that. I don't. At least I certainly wouldn't pay on that basis.
But Abreu can hit, no doubts there. Those 6 WARP x $5M/warp numbers ought to give some people pause for thought when they are saying "Abreu's a bum who should be avoided at all costs."
40 million for Dunn? That's crazy! Richie Sexson got $50 million four years ago and he was a full year older than Dunn is now. Not only that, but he had just missed basically the entire season with a serious arm injury! And up to that point Sexy had hit .271/.349/.528 while Dunn is a career .247/.381/.518 hitter. Add to that the fact that Dunn is a lefty and actually has solid average speed, so everything is pointing toward him getting a far bigger contract than Richie. American League teams should be especially hot for him since he's the perfect DH. There is no excuse for the M's to take a pass.
It's amazing that we are well into the 21st Century and orgs are still judging players by batting average.
Dr. D, BP's WARP numbers are badly skewed because they use a replacement-level that is waaaay too low. As is, WARP is a really bad stat that they are supposedly going to fix.
(I wish we could edit comments)
Note to add to the previous remark: the replacement-level used doesn't just effect the accuracy of the stat, but it also determines the dollar amount you attach to each win to get your figures to match the market. For example, Tango and MGL use slightly different replacement levels for their evaluations and so they use slightly different $'s per win. If you are going to use WARP to estimate a player's deserved salary, then you need to use a much lower pay rate, I'm guessing some where around $2 million a win, maybe less.
One last correction: I just remembered that Nate Silver uses an exponential formula to get the salaries to match WARP's screwy replacement-level.
Ya, like Papa says BP WARP is screwy. It can't be used in relation actual replacement level.
I can buy Abreu as an Ibanez type player on the optimistic end. Somewhere around 1.5-2 WAR if he ages well. Needless to say, hes not a guy I'd want to target.
I wanted the M's to get Dunn, but it looks like that may not happen...
Or to put it a different way, Tango/fangraphs replacement level is set at a MUCH higher level than BP so you can't calculate one win as $4.4mil like you would with fangraphs WAR.
CPB, I don't disagree with any of that on WARP. Like I said right off the bat, I'm not only not paying $25-30M for Abreu, I'm not paying $16M either.
Just the same, we could use a little perspective as to whether this guy is Endy Chavez or not. :- )
CPB, that 2:41 post is an ABSOLUTE GEM!
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Re: editing posts: can't control the site features at the moment, sorry. We're chatting with the network owners to see what we can do...
