Q from mojician: “Who was Bavasi's best draft pick/ international signing of all time, as between Saunders, Choo and Fister?”

First of all, Choo was not signed by Bavasi - he was an IFA from 2000.  Neither was As-Cab (2002).  The previous administration gave him that 40 WAR to flush (along with Adam Jones and others).  5 years after his last draft should be enough time to judge the impact of his regime, right?  What Bavasi did (2004-2008 drafts/trades):

LF/1B - Mike Morse (5.6 WAR in 514 games, trade throw-in not drafted)

RF - Michael Saunders (2.7 WAR in 360 games)

C- Rob Johnson (-0.5 WAR in 245 games)

SP - Doug Fister (11.4 WAR, 103 games)

SP - Brandon Morrow (8.1 WAR, 215 games)

SP – Michael Pineda (2.3 WAR, 28 games)

SP - Chris Tillman (2.6 WAR, 58 games)

SP – Erasmo Ramirez (0.7 WAR in 16 games)

SP – Brandon Maurer (-0.3 WAR, 6 games)

RP - Shawn Kelley (0.8 WAR, 131 games)

RP - Nate Adcock (0.7 WAR, 36 games)

RP - Anthony Varvaro (0.4 WAR, 44 games)

RP – Phillipe Aumont (0.3 WAR, 30 games)

I’m not kidding you, that’s really about it.  Tui could go on here, I guess.  A couple of scrub relievers.  You could put Olivo on here since we did acquire him in the same trade with Morse, only to abandon ship a couple months into it.  That’d add 8.1 WAR to the ledger – except the guy really didn’t play  here.  Neither did Morse, but Bavasi didn’t get rid of Morse (though he never really played him) so I’m leaving him on the list.

Bavasi drafted ONE MLB ( tm) hitter during his tenure here. One. And the WAR of EVERY USEFUL PLAYER does not match that of the two players traded for .5 of a DH each (Choo and Cabrera).

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When he was occasionally right about a player (like with catcher JP Arencibia, or pitcher Lance Lynn) he often didn't sign em.  But it wasn’t like a lot of the guys we drafted but didn’t sign went on to success elsewhere.  They just flat out didn’t do anything.  OTOH, the guys he traded away went on to be giants (most not of the San Fran variety, tho Winn did go on to success there). Guillen, As-Cab, Jones, Choo, Sherrill, Soriano, Thornton, Tillman… If he’d just sat on his hands and kept the players available to him we’d have been in far better shape than we were with his “help.”

The Bavasi error was a three-front war against success:

1) he got rid of all of the pieces from the previous regime that could have helped him

2) he failed to add any new pieces to the farm while passing over All-Stars and MVPs and Cy Young winners

3)  his free agents and trades were in most cases catastrophic failures.  He had a couple of successes in the pitching realm, but even then managed to marginalize em (Morrow to the pen, for instance) or trade em.  There’s a reason Zduriencik dumped everything in the farm that had any perceived value immediately upon arriving – he believed that value would soon reach zero.  He was wrong with Fister (who wasn’t on the farm any longer) and Morrow (though to be fair, in a reliever-to-reliever sense he did fine getting a closer for the inconsistent set-up man – and Morrow was a headcase here by that time anyway).

Every other dumped asset was correctly perceived as the fool’s gold it turned out to be.

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Speaking of Zduriencik… It’s still too soon to tell on most of his drafts what benefits we’ll end up reaping, but let’s just call our current farm a top-3 instead of bottom-3 for its part, shall we? That's a significant turnaround in itself, with a certain number of potential All-Stars stuffing its gills.  We ALSO have the following big-league players:

2B – Ackley (6.9 WAR in 275 games)

3B – Seager (4.7 WAR in 242 games)

CF – Guti (10.1 WAR in 453 games)

C – Montero (0 WAR in 157 games)

1B – Smoak (ouch. 0.5 WAR in 317 games)

RP – Pryor (0.4 WAR – stupid torn muscle…)

RP – Capps (0 WAR in 31 games)

RP – Furbush (0.1 WAR in 89 games)

RP – Wilhelmsen (3.1 WAR in 112 games)

And Medina, and LaFromboise who haven’t been in enough games to bother with yet.  And he kept Maurer from the previous regime, as well as Saunders and Erasmo.  Out of the bare handful of useful pieces Jack was left to sort through he DID try to keep the ones who might become something.  The nagging irritation of the Fister thorn in the side should be assuaged once Erasmo, Hultzen and Co get up here to help finish the rebuild.  I’m not including Morse and Kendrys on this list even though they’ve both been good trade additions because neither is under contract for next year.

Everybody else is, though.  There are a LOT of farm pieces in the cooker, along with all the cheap talent above (and Guti, but whatever) who can help us.  I’m not trying to tell you the modern-era Ms are set up for a World Series victory in the fall, but compared to the building blocks that were accrued by his predecessor, Jack is doing an amazing job.

The only question is whether he can put together a team instead of a collection of pieces.  If all he can do is acquire talent, then the next GM of the Mariners will at least have a fully-stocked pantry and tons of useful assets instead of the nearly-bare cabinets and rotting fridge that Jack himself inherited.

Because that Bavasi list is abysmal, especially considering where he was drafting and who was available in some of those drafts.

~G