Seattle Sports Insider

Matt Kemp

Could be on a lot of #1 roto teams next year

Posted by

7/22/14

Didn't Know Where Else To Put This, So Just Figured I'd Put It Here, dept.

... an old Bill James subject header. Far be it from Dr. D to fail to annotate his plagiarism.

Rodney was questioned by the peanut gallery, though not by people in uniform, for his arrow into the Angels' dugout. Dr. D's angle?

1. We're sure that his supervisors have asked him to please refrain, next time.

1a. We're equally sure that they did it while suppressing a smile.

2. If the Mariners have decided they wish to look other teams in the eye, it's all right by me.

Matt Kemp

Kain't keep up with our own Shout Box any more. Imagine July 30. Does everybody realize there's a link in the left sidebar, that gives you 1 day's worth at a time? You're gonna need it.

Bat571: Whether that change of scenery brings him to Seattle is another issue, but it appears he now realizes he's not in championship form, he's serious about getting there but is having trouble doing so because he's having to do new things as well as those he's comfortable with. He's insecure about his abilities because he's not comfortable with his role - and he says stupid things about it. I'm not sure that a country boy from Oklahoma who's seen the Hollywood lights will ever get himself grounded again. But IF he did ....2 min 41 sec ago

Bat571: Reading all the stuff from the LA Times about Kemp for the last week + I'm struck by a couple of things: 1) Kemp is very frustrated by his struggles, knows he's not in shape for an MLB season, and is trying to figure out where he fits. 2) He still thinks he is a high-level contributor, but is limited by his lack of preparation during the last off-season. 3) He doesn't like LF - he was drafted and came up as a RF, moved to CF when Andruw Jones went down, and has "comfort level" issues in LF. His comments after playing RF in Puig's absence sound like he doesn't have the same issues there. 4) In LA, where every utterance gets in the papers, he's fighting a losing battle for positive PR - he, like every top athlete, thinks he can be a champion if he's "set free", but being set free means playing poor baseball as he makes up for the lack of off-season preparation. He needs a change of scenery -- and it looks like he now realizes it.9 min 28 sec ago

rick82: I'd rather have Saunders than Kemp in right at this point, and I'm not certain which one is less injury prone. I do know which is more affordable :-)2 hours 34 min ago

drm: I actually really worry about the rumors that he was terrible off the field. It's the main reason I want to wait. I want nothing to mess with our chemistry. This team seems really close and I worry that a guy who doesn't work hard, will mess with the chemistry. I got the impression teammates were not impressed.2 hours 34 min ago

tjm: Some interesting info on the outfield trade candidate front: LA Times piece today on Matt Kemp says he hates playing left field, doesn't play it very well, and is below average in center. He really only sees himself as a right fielder, which limits his value to a team like the M's, I'd think.2 hours 36 min ago

Personally, I'm quite optimistic that Kemp would settle into his Happy Juice here in Seattle.

Dr. D hopes he does not get a visitor gleefully jumping in to try to enforce PC censorship, but ... have you noticed there's a comfortable, supportive community of black players in Seattle now? (Ken Griffey Jr. used to always good-naturedly complain that his closest friend in the clubhouse was a redneck; some years he was the only black player on the roster, and he justifiably talked about it.)

In 2014, Cano sits there at the head of the dugout, Jay-Z's and Hollywood's shadow behind him in a lower-key setting, and Fernando Rodney with him a lot of times, Chavez, and other guys. I think this is a healthy and appropriate thing, in context: communities naturally develop wider and narrower circles of friends. In baseball, language often drives this, but it doesn't have to. Common interests can do this.

I don't know what the PC police would say, but we know what the real world says. You pick your own friends. This doesn't have to be exclusive; in Seattle, it obviously isn't exclusive. New York is as cosmopolitan as are Seattle and LA.

......

As to Kemp preferring RF .... I'm not sure that the Mariners' lineup has progressed to the point to where it needs to worry about who might be displaced by an MVP candidate. ;- ) Not meaning to take the questions lightly. If Kemp was my guy, clearing a position for him would not be my issue.

None of which is to say that Matt Kemp is my guy. But Robinson Cano is, in my view, helping transform the Mariners in a lot of ways.

The 9-to-make-5 thing gives way. An important point. But Billy Beane is only to glad to cash in 9-to-make-5 when he can swap out for Samardzija or Holliday ...

........

Kemp gets $20M plus this year, and 5 more years, and this is his second consecutive off-season. He's a great talent but a classic dice roll. I'm in Zduriencik's shoes, I look him in the eye and shake his hand ;- )

BABVA,

Dr D

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Comments

You missed my 3rd shout of the sequence

would rather it completed the above thoughts -
Bat571: Which leads me to wonder what would result from getting him on the Ms, putting him in RF ~4 days a week and DH'ing him the rest of the time, getting Robbie Cano in his ear about what he could mean to this club, and let him finish this year at his current ~.760 OPS with some incremental improvement along the way. Given that a .760 OPS is above what most Ms are putting up, to me it comes down to whether the Dodgers will pick up > 1/2 of his remaining contract to resolve their issue. And then whether the lights of Pioneer Square will be enough.

JJ

Just to add to the community idea - I think Matt Kemp and JJ would make a nice pairing of personalities and abilities and be a nice beacon for black youth who might be looking away from baseball as boring and too-white-bread. Kemp seems to get moody. Well, the effervescence of JJ's smile and enthusiasm ought to help that. JJ needs to improve. Encouragement and driving by Kemp - both of them out there with Andy Van Slyke - ought to help, there, too.
Of course, if Andy's son Scott could be in the Ms LF/1B rotation it would help, too. !!!

Why I think Kemp would work here...

As referred to previously, I'm guessing maybe Kemp has two problems:
-- he hasn't fully recovered from his numerous ailments, and isn't performing at his peak, which is frustrating
-- like the other Dodger outfielders, he's not gotten a straight answer from Mattingly on future playing time since before spring training. And that's now exacerbated by Van Slyke and Pederson. That's a threat.
So it's not unprecedented that he would react negatively. Does that mean he's a head case?
I don't know. But my guess is that 99% of all professional athletes just want to be respected and talked to honestly by their managers/coaches. And that's where I think we have a golden asset in McClendon. He doesn't seem to sugar coat anything...and has shown that he really just wants performance. Nothing personal--if you're hurt, or need more seasoning, fine. No judgement. He just puts the guys out there who he thinks give him the best chance of winning.
And my guess is that Kemp would respond to this just as well as anyone else.
Does that mean he's worth the salary? I have no clue. But I don't doubt he would like being here once he's settled in--and Felix and Cano can help make that happen.

Yes I did - thanks

Posted the article and then saw the shout. Thanks for completing.
JJ? ... oh, right. James Jones. And it's also not Seattle-correct to ask, but ... could we presume that Kemp would get along better with Lloyd McClendon than with Don Mattingly?
Really seems that Cano's "benign," selfless interpretation of Hollywood is paying big dividends. Not hard to imagine Kemp being a beneficiary.

Deserves to be said again

"If the Mariners have decided they wish to look other teams in the eye, it's all right by me."
Best response, and classic Doc!
The next time we face the Halos, I want to do so with Price and Paxton in our rotation - you know, 7IP/9K/0ER Paxton - the last time they faced him Paxton. That guy. Let's get a bat or two while we're at it - give Weaver and Garret something to think about as well.

Rodney's arrow

Rodney's arrow shot is the dumbest celebration in sports. And doing it in the 8th was even dumber.
It's not an exuberant celebration. It's not something that comes somewhat naturally. It's a forced pantomime of shooting the other team dead. I understand that sports is ritualized battle, but if Rodney instead cocked an imaginary shotgun and 'shot' it at the opposing dugout, that wouldn't quite fly, would it? Well an arrow can be just as deadly as a shotgun shell. Pointing the weapon in another direction is an important difference, but not a big enough one for me to mentally disconnect the killing concept from his act.
What is Rodney shooting at, anyway, pointed to the sky? Is it the crowd? No, wouldn't want to kill the fans. Is it a seagull? I don't think they've wronged him in any way. Is it God? I mean, players often point to the sky when something good happens, thanking their Lord. Maybe Rodney is atheist and is ritualistically killing the Deity after every save.
Maybe my distaste for this celebration stems from the fact that all the times I've seen people shooting weapons in the air, they were celebrating a terrorist attack, a beheading, burning an effigy of a foreign leader, or some other similarly wholesome activity.
I don't care how good Rodney is in the clubhouse, or on the field; I don't care for his persona or the feeling I have that he'll choke when the stakes are highest. I'd prefer a Mariners team with fewer wins if it meant not having him on the team.

Thanks for stating the case against

I'm not Rodney's biggest fan, but do like his "chest," as it were.
..........
The word is that he's firing an arrow into the next city. It looks to me more like a signal flare. I think to everybody it looks a tad contrived. :- )
About the only thing I can't agree with you on, GL ... the idea that we shouldn't even pantomime weapons. Somebody in my church asked what I was doing playing airsoft (battle skirmishes with BB-type guns). The guy standing next to me said instantly, "Right, I think he should play with dolls."
Heh...
I think Joakim Noah fires sixguns into the air from the bench, and even the Chicago media doesn't object to that.
...........
++ Maybe Rodney is atheist and is ritualistically killing the Deity after every save.++
In which case you know for a fact that his right of free expression would be quickly secured, especially in Seattle.
Sorry. Am sitting here testy in a sick bed with WAY tooooo much time on my hands today ;- )
.........
At SOME point you draw a line, agreed. I might vote along with the NFL guys who banned throat slashes. You could argue about firing an imaginary "arrow" directly at somebody, I guess. But the signal flare into the sky seems fairly benign to me, and don't the players take it that way?
Ron Luciano ("Fall of the Roman Umpire") used to pistol-shoot runners Out! Out! Out! 25 times as they ran past the bag. Nobody feared that an actual Glock might materialize on shot #17. ;- )
.........
I don't like the arrow, either. Didn't like Randy Moss' "open elevator" move. DeShawn Stephenson's "can't see me" move is .... um. Some celebrations just don't cut it.

Scurvy

Well I'm grumpy in an office chair , trying way toooo hard to avoid working. :-)
Obviously the arrow pantomime bugs me more than it does MLB or Rodney's teammates. And I don't think it should be banned. I just don't want it on 'my' team.
Rodney's 8th-inning arrow was the same to me as the D-lineman who celebrates a QB sack way too much when his team is down 3 touchdowns. Have a sense of context, man.
Cockiness, confidence, braggadocio, you want that on your team, at least to a degree. Especially a perennially soft team like the M's have been. They need barrels of limes to keep their teeth from falling out after a decade in the doldrums.

A city that adores Richard Sherman disdains Rodney?

Don't get it...

What is a Saunders worth?

I see Kemp as basically a player of Michael Saunders quality at this point. He had one phenominal year...which appears to be a Figgins'-type outlier year. Alas, his injury the next year convolutes the evidence as to just what his level was oging to be. But right now, he's a RHB Michael Saunders. Or they live in the same neighborhood, anyway.
So even if LA buys down Kemp by $10M & $10.5M a year, he's still an $11M player. For 5 years. That's $55M, being the math whiz I am.
Would you pay Michael Saunders $55M over 5 years? That's a tough one.
OK, Kemp MAY have an upside that exceeds Saunders, based on his '11 and '12. In '11 he had a .380 BABIP, btw. But his career # is .352......so obviously he hits the ball hard (.352 last year, .348 this one). Well, really hard!
Which reminds us that Kemp K's with a great frequency. OK, I don't really care about that...much.
He hit 39 homers in 602 AB's in '11. He's hit 34 in 984 since.
He seems to be injury prone.
I need a heck of a subsidy if we're in on Kemp.

And Payton

Gary Paton was a lot like Sherman. Seattle just loves a winner.

One thing on Kemp

One thing on Kemp - you make that call, you HAVE to be right. 'Cause the way this franchise operates, that will be the last big salary addition to the club for the next five years. If he sucks, he's a loadstone. The committee won't just swallow $20 million per year - the budget is something very tangible to consider with this franchise.

MVP candidate

I take the point that the M's can't quibble about where their stars want to play - they just need stars. I guess the thing you have to determine is if Kemp still is one.
Last year was basically lost. This year he's working back. No one knows right now if he gets back. In any event, I think that uncertainty precludes the M's from being an active player for Kemp given the already demonstraed skittishness about spending money, which is the real issue for the team going forward. That, and the inability to develop hitters.
And for what it's worth, I think the Dodger players actually like Mattingly quite a lot. I don't think Kemp has any particular issue with him. The Dodger outfield is both overloaded and a mess - too many guys getting paid too much and none of them able to play CF. I'd rather go back to Ackley in center than any of the guys they're putting out there. At least he can run.
And for what it's worth further, The Arrow Thing doesn't seem to be that big a deal to players, who all hate it, but figure what the heck. Pujols said he's been telling Rodney for 15 years he was going shoot back if he ever got the chance. This weekend, he did.

Like Figgins

Somehow, I'd never thought of the *convergence* of the $/WAR argument and the Seattle Committee problem.
Other teams carry their share of dead payroll. The M's aren't going to do that. The nature of the problem changes as a team de-prioritizes the pennant race.
Ergo: get a Star of Stars, like Cano :- )
........
Good stuff as always Grizzly.

You and Grizzly have me almost convinced in like 200 words

Not that the M's *should* necessarily deny themselves access to a "talent demographic" available to everybody else... but ... if they're going to write off several seasons every time they Figgins one, then they should probably tighten the circle into the Cano's, Felixes and Prices.
In fact, maybe we should just leave the SP's to our enemies? Pitchers get hurt.
But yeah. The argument is very tough to beat Terry.

What looms large for me is his .943 Career OPS vs. LHP

With a .386 BABiP over 1150 Career PA, makes the .288 he's currently running look flukishly low, especially as he's hitting Righties just fine (.813 OPS). I think he fits closer to the Jayson Werth category than Michael Saunders, but then maybe he's just a version of Michael Saunders at 35.

In Kemp's favor

You can grab Kemp cheaply as I think the Dodgers are ready to move him so the cost in player lost will be fairly low, but not a give-away. It looks like there isn't much of Kemp market out there so we may be able to push pretty hard on the subsidy wee need from the Dodgers. There's a mix and match potential here. Offer a better quality package and demand more rebate, for example. The Dodgers would get in, I'm pretty sure.
And I had not thought of this until this morning: Saunders is in his 1st Arb year. He will get more expensive each of the next two. If Kemp gets relatively healthy and no less productive than he is now, there is no reason why you would have to pay Saunders beyond two years. He's only two years younger than Kemp (which seems impossible) and has his own injury concerns.
We have OF'ers in the fold, too.
I'm not against signing Kemp. Not at all. But I want some of that LA cash coming our way. The more prospects we send that way the more green that we get in return.
If we get him, let's get it right.
But I hate the fact that we've waited until the 11th hour to do anything.

Kemp's cost

You're absolutely right, Moe, on what to do if you can get Kemp at low cost. Get him. Personally, I'd be thrilled if they could buy him down to $10 million a year with a bunch of players going out. I just don't see this ownership willing to spend. If they were, why are we running out lineups with four or five guys threatening the Mendoza line every night? When Bloomquist is the fourth or fifth best hitter, you got problems. It just kills me to watch them.
When we compare this team to the all pitch no hit Dodgers of yore, we're doing ourselves a favor. Those Dodger teams hit way better. I wasn't kidding the othr day when I mentioned that the Angels had sent a player, Cron, back to AAA who'd be hitting cleanup for us.

If Kemp can't hit for LA now

With his salary, the pennant race, the commitment made, etc. etc., I see NO REASON to think he'll change here. Yeah, as a flyer maybe, at a flyer cost, or if we had a bad contract to trade - like the Silva-Bradley deal. Otherwise...man, they better eat a lot of salary for us. Maybe a graduated salary compensation thing would work...LA compensates a hug amount for us, but...for every game Kemp starts for us, LA pays us so much less. Something like that would be creatively useful.
But I'm with Grizz and Doc for sure: the last thing I want to live through again is waiting around 3 years for a Cirillo or Figgins to go off the books before we spend money again.

Kemp hitting

He's at ~.760 OPS, which while below his standards (.840 career) is better than every Mariner except Cano and Seager. And he's been picking it up as the season goes on. And that's while getting inconsistent playing time due to no NL DH. Get him in Seattle, in the lineup almost every day, let him DH to rest his knees a bit, and see if he's at .800 (Seager) or .820 (Cano) by season's end. But even .760 would be a BIG boost to a lineup with most of the players in the mid-.600s !

A .750 added to this lineup would be nice

Looks like Kemp,can do that regardless of what else is going on. That's 100 points better than anyone else who comes along these parts, who has to strain like heck to see .750, excepting the two stars of course. Getting .750 on a bad year around here is a novelty.