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Q. Was it basically a GOOD July in trading, or was it a BAD one?
A. Objectively speaking, it was a fairly good one. But to hear Jack Zduriencik talk afterward, it was a huge Fail.
In this Times vid-terview, he is defensive ... um, no, actually testy ... um, no, let's call that defiant. The words could be exactly the same if Zduriencik had stood pat.
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Q. Why would he add a #1 hitter, a #4 hitter, a #7 hitter and then be so defensive about it?
A. In my opinion, this article at Fangraphs provides you the Insta-Answer. "These are EXACTLY the kinds of trades a team should be making when they know they're going to lose."
When a guy who --- > plays to lose --- > is madly in love with you, it's never a good sign.
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Q. What was that Zduriencik thing about "to give up pieces that ... are going to be part of this thing going forward, it just didn't make sense."
A. He followed on with alacrity ... "I just wasn't willing to do it. It's just the way it is. ... If a few guys get ruffled feathers, that's their fault. This is OUR property. These are OUR players. This is OUR organization."
:: Squidward stare ::
Minor point: when he says "Look, we've spent a lot of time to get a young team ... that is producing pretty good. There's too much into this. This group of kids will get better."
... to me that sounds uncomfortably like "If and when we win, I want it known that it was my scouting that got us there. I want to win with players I found." I'll bet you it sounds that way to some other ML execs, too.
Does Billy Beane work that way? Pete Carroll? When you win, you get plenty of credit, whoever you win with.
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Q. You said that was the minor point?
A. Major point: I've tried to make deals, roto, with guys who
Such owners receive exactly the same complaint that Zduriencik did: "Can't get them across the finish line." They're not invited back. On the ML level, the other 29 GM's can't vote Zduriencik off the island, but they certainly can leak some very angry complaints about him. For public consumption.
Do you think Billy Beane gave up Addison Russell and Yoenis Cespedes because he had no plans for them?
It makes me feel like getting into an MMA ring to burn off some aggression. Preferably with the trade partner.
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Q. So the focus, once again, was on the price rather than the purchase.
A. Yeah. It was interesting to hear that Roenis Elias was off the table. Elias was the first name that occurred when Price was dealt for Drew Smyly ... Smyly has a little better stuff and a preferable track record; Elias also has great stuff, great makeup, nice rookie results and has more club-control left.
So you think "Huh? Couldn't we have matched Smyly with Elias?" and there's Zduriencik an hour later, saying that Elias was a player he liked, and therefore not available.
Apparently Franklin, Elias, Chris Taylor and MAYBE a sweetener, and the M's could have had David Price. But in the statement today ... "Hey, we found Elias. He's ours. It's our rotation. It's our team. You can't have it."
Right, I find that kind of annoying. Note well that it's not a primitive emotional reaction; we've explained precisely why we find it annoying.
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Q. So, once again, the rivals import the Lesters and Prices and we use Bondo to seal the cracks.
A. Like Dave says, a man's got to know his limitations. If you're a loser -- sorry, that's indelicate. Rather, "if you expect to lose" -- you should act that way.
No sense trying to impose your will on the competition. Know your role (background scenery for the Big Boys), take the bottom of the dunk poster, and get off the court.
Cheers,
Dr D
"So, once again, the rivals import the Lesters and Prices and we use Bondo to seal the cracks."
Exactly. This is the way the M's do business, and it's been the way they do business since they first became relevant in the mid-90's. You only have 25 MLB roster spots. I mean, so WHAT if you put together a nice little team with home-grown talent and one huge PR add? It's still a miser rather than investor mentality.
doesn't want to play the patsy to the pressures of rival GM's. That was pretty much the core idea in his remarks. These players are "our property!" Well, the definition of a trade is when you, um, trade YOUR property for someone ELSE's property. Still, even though I'm hard on Jack, it's possible the only offers he turned down were ridiculous. If so, he has no one to blame but himself and his bosses, who have failed to earn the respect of their peers. I don't believe it's strictly geography that accounts for the Mariners' reputation as irrelevant. It's partly true, but in the end it's just an excuse. It's the M's own behavior that have entrenched this idea in the minds of baseball opinion makers.
The Seahawks were irrelevant until Mike Holmgren brought with him some instant credibility, then Pete Carroll, coming with no credibility at all, EARNED what the Seattle Seahawks now have by rolling up his sleeves and getting some WORK done, lifting the franchise to undreamed heights in just a few years.
I read pretty much what you read, Doc: Price WAS available and it didn't/wouldn't take the whole farm to buy him.
I have no problem with Walker and Paxton being off the table. Beyond that, I love the promise of out Cuban lefty. But it is worthy of debate as to whether Elias is not the pitcher that Smyly is. Elias is nearly a year older, but has 2 fewer years under his belt. Smyly in 100 innings in '14: 4.17 FIP/1.3 WHIP/9 H9/ 1.3 HR9/ 2.8 BB9/ 7.8 K9 Elias in 123 '14 innings: 4.02 FIP/1.27 WHIP/8 H9/1.0 HR9/3.3 BB9/8 K9. Jack Z could make that argument, being the great scout that he is.
Elias actually beats Smyly in everything but BB's. The SS TB gets could be matched by Martel or Smith or.....We've got you SS's. Add a Pike or Sanchez and you win the day. Well, Smyly had that very nice '13. You have to trump that, too.
But we don't get Jackson in that case. And RH bats were needed.
That said, we probably could have got Rios!
But you get the sense that Price could have been ours W/O giving up Walker or Paxton.
Are 11 Price starts worth 50 Jackson games in CF?
Zips has Price worth 1.5 WAR through the rest of the year. Steamer has it as 1.3. (If I'm reading that correctly)
For Jackson the numbers are 0.9 and 1.2.
So let's just say that Price is worth 1 more WAR from here on out.
But the M's are much further above Replacement Value at pitcher than they are in CF. Let's call it even, on who has more value for the rest of '14. Pick 'em. Flip a coin. But, without a doubt, Price would be the louder/bigger splash. "Hey Orcs! You can have your Shark, we'll take our guy with the CYA!"
I'm not down on these moves. But we've struggled for a month. Even after our 18-10 June it was clear we needed a move like this. If we manage to hold the lead in Cleveland tonight (Zunino just homered: Carter or Parrish....it's all good!) our horrible month turns out to be 11-14. You can survive such a terrible month. Maybe.
But I can't give today's moves a better than passing grade because I think we could have done something similar a month ago. The faces coming here would have been different but the overall talent may not have been. The grade is "C" because of the lack of urgency. It is indeed part Sponge Bob, part Squidward.
Had we waded in earlier, BTW, we still might have been able to get Price at the deadline.
And another BTW, Maurer just "nodded and chucked" his way through another dominant 1-2-3 inning. SSI called that right.
Go team!
moe
to resent the opinion of Eastern and Midwestern MLB establishment. We consider they are ill-informed about anything West Coast except perhaps LA and SF. And I suppose they are. But once someone begins to earn respect, not before, they tend to catch on pretty quickly and remedy that problem.
The MLB establishment scratched their heads when the M's signed Cano last December. They then correctly said, "It doesn't mean anything unless they go out and sign another bat or two to hit behind Cano. Otherwise they have too many holes." When the M's DIDN'T do this, they nodded their heads at each other and concluded, "Nope, the M's are still a bunch of knuckleheads." The season has so far proved them right, especially given that the team has pitched even better than we dreamed.
So just because they are "ignorant" MLB establishment, and we naturally resent their point of view, are their remarks in recent days incorrect and unfair? Perhaps they are spot on.
Good posts DaddyO!
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Yes, it looks evident that Zduriencik got some "IQ checks," had some things pushed at him to see if he'd blunder. EVERY negotiator has that done to him. The fact that Zduriencik got gruff, when he thought it happened too much, I'm down with that.
What was that James Woods movie, where the serial killer asked him, "Do you think I'm stupid?" Woods: "No. I was ... um ... HOPING you were stupid, but ..."
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For Zduriencik to send out an All Points Bulletin in the Times, "So you thought the Seattle Mariners were stupid, huh, all you guys?" is poor form in my book. Especially in the context of his not wanting to give up anything he's proud of.
I'm coming around to Spectator's point of view, that as a GM, Zduriencik makes a really good scout.
++ our horrible month turns out to be 11-14. You can survive such a terrible month. Maybe.
But I can't give today's moves a better than passing grade because I think we could have done something similar a month ago. The faces coming here would have been different but the overall talent may not have been. The grade is "C" because of the lack of urgency. It is indeed part Sponge Bob, part Squidward. ++
A 14-footer drained with authority, Mo' Dawg.
I'm having a hard time believing the reserved reactions to this deadline from the local community. Jackson is a dynamic player that a team can win (and has won) its next pennant with. When the trade was going down, national pundits were screaming that Walker HAD to be included! I think we will look back on this and say it was Trader Jack at his best.
... taking into account that some OTHER good developments -- Maurer, for instance, or any surprise hitter from Tacoma jells -- could buffer an unpleasant surprise?
Serious question. Do you think you need 11 of the 15, or ?
:: daps ::
I tend to edit items after I post until I'm satisfied, so there are now 16. Sorry.
In any case, I think ALL of them may be true. And they do not take into account (after Cerberus and the 'pen) the farm system reinforcements. That doesn't say I believe the Ms are - right now - world series contenders. I'm just saying that if you see these things as possible/probable/practicable, as I think JackZ does, and as I do, then the moves to provide some RH-hitting bridge to the future and to grab an OUTSTANDING young CF without sacrificing much of anything make eminent sense for the rest of this year and going forward.
Top flight CF, entering his prime years, for Nick Franklin. That's darn good trading. Darn good. But yeah, I agree with you, Doc, that Spec was right. He's a scout, not a GM. Time to get a Pat Gillick, and finish this darn good looking core Jack has assembled. Spec needs to stop beating himself up about that third baseman who's now a cop. He's right more often than not. He called the Elias for Price thing, and figured we could get a very good center fielder in the mix.
The way the moves the Ms made make sense is:
1) You believe James Paxton is going to be on the same plane as those other two very, very soon (and based on his MLB starts, he may very well be now except in experience)
2) You believe Zunino is going to get better at the plate by reducing his K's and taking some walks as pitchers start being more careful
3) You think Ackley is doing an Alex Gordon and getting it together. (watching the Indians' pitchers bust him inside and pay for it was a nice sign)
4) You think the Ms will find a SS that will either OBP >.400 -OR- SLG >.400 - even though those are not one guy.
5) You think Erasmo Ramirez has figured some things out and is a decent #6 starter (again).
6) You think Taijuan Walker lost his mechanics on his layoff and just needs to recover that perfect stride to get back to being the best RH starting prospect in baseball and a potential 5 game winner for August/September once he gets the call.
7) You think Saunders can get back within the next two weeks and then hit a .760+ OPS for the remainder of the season.
8) You think Chris Young, with adequate rest, will keep the Ms in any game he pitches.
9) You think that Roenis Elias will be a warrior for every remaining inning they let him pitch, and will be better next year.
10) You BELIEVE that Felix will continue pitching like he has, and with 4+ runs/game rather than 1+, will reel off 6-8 more wins this season.
11) You believe that Danny Hultzen will pitch in the AFL and show why he was a top draft pick and come into 2015 ready to do HIS Lester imitation.
12) You think that Austin Jackson will "do a Cammy" and make us forget all the CF issues the Ms have had (and this from a JJ fan). And his .826 OPS vL will immediately rebalance the Ms lineup.
13) You think Seager has become one of the premier 3B in the majors, and is going to get better.
14) You think the Ms bullpen is more than smoke and mirrors, and, with Colvin, Brazis, Smith, et al coming it will continue to be an Ms strength, and - as the starters go 7 innings more consistently at all positions in the rotation - that it might even get better.
15) You think that *somehow* the Ms will find a decently-fielding 1B who can be a league average hitter (I'm about ready to see Smoak again)
16) You believe that Cano IS the leader and hitter he has shown himself to be, AND that Lloyd McClendon will prove to be the leader of men he has appeared to be.
IF you can buy into these things, the Ms are not that far from being a strong contender. Maybe they don't get the WC. Or maybe they do and get smacked down in the division series by Oakland or Detroit. Nonetheless, they are moving in the right direction. Not as fast as some of us might like, but the direction is positive.
Maybe Jack wasn't really telling the league, 'These are our players and you can't have them!' Just like many of us thought it was odd that he thanked ownership for being able to add Kendrys, I think this was more of a pointed comment than a general one.
As we all know there was that story that Rosenthal and Fox ran with about how Z is hard to deal with. I wonder who would leak these things? Maybe a team that wanted too much? Maybe a team that has gotten killed by Z in a trade before. Just moments after Ruben Amaro Jr. came out and said teams weren't as aggressive as he expected, GMZ fires back with a counter-shot.
Maybe there was a bigger falling out between these two than we know about.
That, or I like conspiracies too much.
I do like the trade... and TOTAL agreement on Spec
Guys it's really pretty simple. The Sacred Budget handed down from on high by the M's ownership group was spent by Z in the offseason, including $7M in incentives for Corey Hart. Hart sucked and won't get his $7M. So Z went shopping at the deadline for:
Fat "Ichiro" $4.33M salary the rest of the way
Austin Jackson $2M
Denorfia $0.75M
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Now, let us total up these sums...let me get out my trusty slide rule here...ahem...ah yes -- $7M. What a coincidence!
The "flexibility" Mather bragged about was typical Mariner front office blather (Mather blather, nice ring to it). There was no flexibility, Z just got to respend money he had already spent (instead of ownership banking it). They could have probably afforded Price/Zobrist (total cost ~$7M) but it seems like the Rays backed out of that deal or demanded more than we wanted to give. That was probably Plan A for the M's.
In conclusion, given the M's financial restrictions, I think the only fair way to judge Z is: did he make the best possible use of $7M for the remainder of 2014. I for one think he did pretty well. But compare Kendrys+AJ+Denorfia+keep some extra blue chippers, to Price+Zobrist...dunno what do people think?
That's a razor-sharp take Andrew. Thanks for adding.
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It's tough to gauge this stuff from such a distance. When Blengino went off on Zduriencik, SSI was the blog that went "not so fast there" as to the pile-on.
The M's notorious secrecy has gained them this much, for sure - the picture of Zduriencik-as-Exec has been very slow to coalesce.
:: cpoints ::
Nice goin' BSR.
Can definitely see an exec standing in a superior exec's office, and asking for the Hart bonus to be re-allocated for deadline additions. In fact the Moneyball book emphasized exactly that point.
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If $7M was the first constraint, and "don't give up anything you're high on" was the second, then Zduriencik did a *masterful* job this July.
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Occam's razor, deftly handled. Nice!
Jack Z just spent the last month resisting a barrage of assaults telling him he HAD to sell the farm to upgrade this club. Good for him.
The fans bought into this as well. I just spent the last month getting texts from fans suggested we offer 3-4 of our top 10 prospects plus a bullpen arm and other goodies for Price/Zobrist. Talk of Walker, Franklin, Peterson, Diaz plus Maurer and another minor leaguer or some incarnation of the deal. It's like people forgot all about the Bedard trade.
I have no problem playing for high stakes, but their comes a point in negotiations when a counterparty becomes determined to rob you blind and hopes you are stupid and desperate enough to make the move. Bill Bavasi continued talking with the Orioles and before you knew it Adam Jones, Chris Tillman, George Sherrill, Tony Butler AND Kam Mickoleo were wearing orange. Bavasi should have hung up the phone and told them to call back when they were serious.
I know Jack Z took a lot of heat for not trading Franklin and Maurer for Ben Zobrist. My response at the time was, why do you need to give up so much for Zobrist? I doubt Tampa will be able to get more for him, so why pay it? Well, over the past week Z sent out Franklin and Pryor (less than he'd send out in a Rays trade) and received Austin Jackson and Kendrys Morales (higher return). The return gets even better when you factor in Jackson's additional year of club control.
Jack Z let people know he wasn't running a charity. Lots of people around baseball seem to think he should be running one and are throwing a temper tantrum when they aren't getting what they feel entitled too. These attitudes deserve strong pushback... not negotiations.
Z will be judged on whether or not this team makes the playoffs. He put the team on the field to do just that without giving up next years seed corn. Honestly, he had a much better trade deadline than Gillick ever had in Seattle.
I would rather have AJ instead of Price. If you want a Lester-Price level addition you can buy him for the 2015 season in FA. Pitching is so not the problem with the M's. Paxton will be back soon and anyone want to place wagers on him being at least mid pack compared to the big name pitching trade assets that went down? Anyone? Jackson - LM connection 5 WAR player. Jackson is a huge upgrade over JJ in every aspect except base running and you gotta get on base to do that. Denorfia, cheap platoon bat. KMo was a legit middle of the order bat last year in Safeco and will most likely come around again. I am confused how anyone can look at what was acquired considering the price we payed and give Jack anything but an A+.
The big thing is that Jack Z seems to be a sniper. He is trying to operate with razor-fine accuracy in almost every axiom of the baseball roster tango; draft, international amateurs, FAs, trades, et. al. It's not that we're bringing a knife to a gun fight; we're trying to use the least bullets at a gun fight.
Now, this may be good in the sense that if you hit gold. You might end up with a Franklin Gutierrez or Russell Branyan (who wasn't really a revelation since half the interwebs was screaming for him as a hidden asset anywayas) or David Aardsma or whatever, but the problem is that you HAVE to hit your target straight on. Welcome to the Death Star Trench Run, make sure your proton torpedoes make it in!
My feeling is that *right now* the market inefficiency is a ginormous overvaluing of prospects. Almost every team and every national news outlet talks about how prospects have become super important in the market of expensive FAs, so the Home Team can't trade Awesome Prospect for anything but a HOF Shortstop or All-Star Starter.
So what do the A's and Tigers do? They send out everything they have and sweep in to take all of the players on the market home. They're all in.
Remember that scene in Saving Private Ryan where an American sniper is picking off Nazis but then gets vaporized by a Panzer?
I feel like the M's are the sniper and Billy Beane and Dave Dombrowski are in their Panzers.
Whether they win the war is another question, but right now, all we've got is an X-Wing trying to shoot torpedoes into a 2 meter wide hole.
Yes, I'm mixing up movies as I feel.
At the same time, I think the Mariners are doing things that make it difficult to operate in such a market. I truly feel that the M's end up depreciating some of their prospects by saying they won't trade A, B, C, D & E because we love them and they have cute nicknames and blah, blah, blah... BUT they don't *appear* to be valuing their prospects.
Almost every other team has rumors of "Awesome Prospect is blocked by equally Awesome Veteran, so team may look at Awesome Prospect as ballboy or trade Awesome Veteran for a chalupa" during the offseason. The M's go sign Robinson Cano and sit around with Nick Franklin at MIF as if they're adding a Libero between SS and 2B. All winter it was "What are the M's going to do with Nick Franklin?" and no "The M's like Nick Franklin, so they're going to try him in LF". Now, which looks more legit: screaming the burrito is good or seeing someone devour the burrito as if it's the last piece of food on earth?
Anyways, that's kind of a poorly written spinning account of what I think, but I agree with Doc. I don't really mind the trades, but when it comes down to it, the M's are still not going crazy after the Pennant. They may want to win, but they're not gonna break out the crazy.
Great stuff on Elias vs Smyly. I was thinking the same thing, but more importantly that Price shouldn't have cost us either Walker or Pax. However, that doesn't mean that the Rays would have actually made that deal with Jack without one of them. There are GM personalities involved. The bottom line is that we think we could have offered TB a better deal for Price, from our perspective, but they settled for less. It also means that if we got Price, then Detroit might not have parted with Jackson. Maybe that could been a separate deal, but Detroit wanted to add another ace.
I'm with Doc and Rick! This is a great point you've made, bsr....and one nobody else caught.
You got quite a bit of applause from me on this one. If all that is very true, then I will have to evaluate the "Meh!" grade that I gave Z, mostly for his lack of urgency. If you've pegged it, he gets a much better grade, B+ perhaps, for using his limited financial resources very wisely.
A terrific post.
Ice,
Does that mean that Billy Beane and the A's are womp rats rather than orcs? :)
Adding up THREE recent moves by the M's, Z brought in 3 RH bats (one a switcher), which addresses our biggest concern. He did it with limited financial resources, too. He sniped away quite well.
I still wish he had done part of it a month ago.
If you are going all in for a shot at today, you don't trade guys you need today. Maurer is not an addition I recall anyone wanting to add in a Zobrist deal. Bavasi threw in George Sherrill, and there was no comparable left handed specialist on our current roster. To deal with the loss of Jones, IIRC, the solution was to move Ichiro to center field and bring in Brad Wilkerson. Bavasi was scavenging the current team to reconfigure the roster to add Bedard. That was his big mistake. If you are going for it now, keep what you need now.
I see lots of redundancy in our farm system I never remember seeing, maybe since the 80's. For example, If we unloaded both Peterson and Kivlehan for a current day stud, we still have Choi and Montero in AAA, nearly major league ready. Middle infielders galore are coming up with no place to play. It's a totally different situation.
If Jack is taking a stand like I advocated over the off season, "You know what, trading the future for today ends up hurting you in the long run, and probably in the short run as well, so much so that we aren't going to do it," I would appreciate it, because it's a bold strategy and it would be a statement that we're going to be the best, but we're doing it our way. Jack kinda said that. But if you are going that route, then Hart doesn't play while Montero is in Tacoma, learning to DH. Taylor goes to the outfield, and Franklin to. Jack isn't doing that. He's keeping guys in their best positions, so they have to be trade bait. Then he says, "You aren't valuing them like I do, GMs, so they are going to sit in AAA, or on the bench, until you do. That's Dog in the Manger stuff, especially when other GMs are giving away Lesters and Prices.
until the store opens. I'm reasonably confident GMZ would have done his shopping earlier if the store was open but the proprietors controlled that and there is inevitably going to be some haggling and posturing involved. He spent his money wisely and came home with some tasty rewards. I could see Jack being replaced by a higher competence but not for these moves.
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Wish he did it earlier, but I imagine that AJ wasn't on the market until recently.
That said, the moves are extremely efficient and hopefully it's enough.
I'd just have preferred to see them dump the farm for the right bats.