Gotta love Leroy Neiman. He was the man.
Gotta love Seaver. He was the beast.
Gotta love Felix. He is the rock. Our rock, in fact, which is better.
Good stuff.
My post was done in the high altitude and thin air of a hypothetical question of value of young players and who you might protect. It was not intended for actual consumption. Man, I love horse type pitchers. Felix/Santana/Verlander...are they the biggest horses in the game right now? Pretty close. I hated to see Fister go and he's just a pony compared to Felix's Secretariat.
Ditto with the question of Felix for Votto. Purely for entertainment only. But worthy of debate, certainly.
I'm not letting Felix go anywhere for at least two years. Beyond that, it depends on signability. It becomes a business decision, then.
We have a snot load of young talent. W're bursting at the seems, really. The big question for me is whether Z puts it all on the field. I certainly hope so.
If I'm building a team for three years, then Felix stays, undoubtably. But if you're looking at a 7-year window (which is really/sorta what you're looking at when you list all your pretty young things....including a whole bunch of them who have never sniffed the majors) then it potentially becomes a different question. That was the position from which I wrote.
I think we're quite close to being close to a playoff hunt. Losing Felix for three 2 WAR guys doesn't get us any closer, partly because they would just block the 2+WAR guys we already have.
My druthers? For the next three seasons we roll out Felix, Pineda, Paxton, Hultzen, Vargas (or Beavan). Three of those first four guys are the equivalent of Palmer/Cuellar/McNally. And we know how that trio worked out.
I'll hold onto Felix for a while, thank you. But if I'm looking well down the line, Felix may not be the guy you keep.
moe
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Moe argues that Felix might not be among the M's five most valuable U-25 assets:
By the way. In considering the Felix thing I went back and looked at Tom Seaver, a decent template for Felix. Guys, Seaver is better than I remember, and I remember him being one handful of best players I ever saw. In his first 12 seasons, in which he threw more than 250 innings 11 times (the other season he only had 236, the slacker), he had only one season where he had an ERA ABOVE 2.98. That time he ballooned to 3.20.
Tom Terrific was, in a word, the best NL starter each year from about 1969 to 1977. A random list of guys would appear ahead of him on the ERA/WAR charts ... Randy Jones one year, Steve Carlton another year, John Montefesuco some other year.
Seaver was really the one guy, in the 1970's, that other guys tried to chase for the Cy Young Award. In a short span of 9 years, Seaver won-or-nearly-won the CYA five times, and finished high three other times.
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Between 1969 and 1977, Seaver racked up 72.3 WAR, over 8 per season, which was higher than any MLB position player. The three highest NL WAR batting totals, during 1969-77, were all Reds: Morgan 71, Bench 61, Rose 57.
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In order for Felix to have that kind of relative impact, he'd have needed 50 WAR since 2006 -- while no other AL pitchers did the Justin Verlander dance. Felix has actually got 30.1 during that time frame.
Felix, great as he is, hasn't quite come up to Seaver ... yet. But the Clemens / Seaver / Felix triumvirate is a clear 70's / 80's 90's / 00's 10's line of succession, burly RHP monsters who are everything you want in a 6'4" flamethrower-pitcher combo.
Of course, the game has changed, and it's not easy for a starting pitcher to rack up 8.0 WAR year in and year out, like Seaver did. But if that's the case, maybe the relative value of the Opening Day starter has declined.
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Moe also says,
.... as I started reading, immediately Ackley and Pineda come to mind as the two I would protect first. They're cheap and will be cheap for quite a while. Felix will be "relatively cheap" (in relation to WAR value) but not like those two guys. I'm not sure Felix would be in my top five, in fact.
Ackley, Pineda at the top, for sure.
Then...it is a tough one. OK..Hultzen, Paxton, Carp, Smoak, Taijuan (because he's still in the lower minors), Franklin (might put him ahead of Taijuan, Smoak, Carp if he's a true MLB SS), Seager.
Heck, I might only put Felix ahead of Seager. That might be it. The deal with Felix is that you can turn his $57M over the next three years into something quite pretty (or pretty hefty, if Fielder lights your fire). Then you would be stuck with a Pineda, Vargas, Beavan, Hultzen, Paxton rotation. Man! That would be terrible, wouldn't it.
In that light, another question comes up. Would you do a straight up Felix for Votto swap right now?
From a strictly WAR/$ standpoint -- if baseball is as simple as this equation is -- then all you need is one more premise and you've got the "Shed Felix" conclusion.
| P1 | WAR/$ net value is the "bottom line" |
| P2 | Assume Hultzen, Seager, and the others will have 2.0 WAR rookie years |
| Concl | Felix is less valuable to the M's than are 10+ M's young players |
In other words, if you grant that James Paxton is going to run a league-average ERA in 2012, then you're going to grant that he's more valuable to the M's than Felix is.
Again: Dr D believes that baseball is a lot more complicated than that. I don't believe that the conclusion is sound, because I deny premise 1.
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=== Immovable Objects and Irresistible Forces, Dept. ===
I honestly do not know for sure whether Felix is the M's #1 asset ... or not one of their top 10 assets. Here is where you have a learning opportunity -- the "holistic" and the "WAR junkie" worlds collide, and you could very convincingly argue Felix to be #1 or #11.
The fact that I haven't decided which one Felix is -- #1 or #11 -- tips me off that I haven't seamlessly integrated a "personal theory" on holistic vs WAR-junkie paradigms.
I lean towards his being the M's #1 asset, or #3, behind Ackley and Pineda.
No doubt that one specific hurdle, the one between Danny Hultzen being potentially an ML impact player, and Pineda's having proven that he is an ML impact player, is the plateau leap that resolves the decisions. No matter how talented Taijuan Walker is, his value is cemented only after he proves it in the bigs.
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But the M's are sitting on a motherlode of really premium talent. And it is ML-ready.
Fun stuff,
Dr D
Comments
Sabathia is a horse...Santana is a broken down old stallion without three of his shoes.
The dude can't stay healthy to save his life anymore...just ask a Mets fan. :)
But yes...I do love me some horses...which is why King Felix stays on my club forever...and cost isn't really any object.
Thanks Ghost
I sqirm at the idea of Felix being considered to be less than one of the Mariner's most valuable commodities simply because he's getting paid a relatively large amount of money. I mean, what's the point of money? What else could you spend the money you're giving to Felix on? Prince Fielder? Maybe? If he agreed to it and paid him more than you're paying Felix?
The goal is to put the best players on the field in order to win the most games. In that paradigm Felix is #1 or #2. The Mariners are not a small-market team and can afford some of the best baseball talent that the world has to offer. If we were operating on a strict WAR/$ model then Felix would be in Boston or New York today and the organization would be all the worse for it.