A weird signing, no doubt. One that has me completely scratching my head.
BTW, Doc...I posted a thread about the Raul signing a couple of days ago....but it never showed up on screen. Did I blow it?
As I think about it, the only thing that makes sense is that Z is intending to use Raul in a platoon in LF with Jason Bay. Really.
Or maybe Wells. This would be the better choice, certainly.
But, if Raul is starting 2/3 of the games,...that means that Guti plays fulltime. And you know what...Guti's career vR numbers are almost identical to Brendan Ryan's. Look 'em up.
So if we use Guti full time...we essentially roll out two weak hitting SS's against every RHP. Hard to see how that works in the AL.
And an OF with Bay and Guti and Raul making up 3 of the 4 you use, is one that is pretty dang fragile, in a lot of ways.
Raul's cost is quite minor, in terms of dollars spent. But in terms of perplexing me, the cost is great.
And this may mean that Zunino is Tacoma-ized for a full season, because this cuts into the AB's that Jaso might get...if Raul gets any DH time.
And along with Zunino, Vinnie and Liddi and Franklin and Romero all hear the clear signal that you get to do another full minor league year. The trend in baseball right now is to roll your young talent into your MLB lineup as soon as possible. Trout, Harper, Stanton, et al.
I think this is a trend that makes sense. Every other sport rolls out 20-21 yr. old stars into the starting lineup. I would much prefer we do that than sign one-year guys like Bay and Raul. Maybe one of them goes all Branyan on the AL, but in the end...we get nothing out of it, really.
This signing has me more bummmed than anything else this off-season. Perhaps there is a trade coming up that opens space....but I'm doubting that because it would mean there actually was an overall plan.
I'm not seeing it.
Bay and Bonderman are completely low-rish...and essentially free. Raul isn't. He blocks others.
I would much ratehr see Thames or Carp or Liddi or...anybody gets those PA's. They might be something we like down the line.
Dazed and confused....
Oh...Merry Christmas
moe
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=== Slow Down One Second, Guys ===
It's not far-fetched to believe that Rauuuul could be a better hitter, at age 41, than any of the in-house options available to Zduriencik. I was surprised to see that a fair number of age-41 players have hit well, including recently:
- Brian Downing - .407 OBP (!), 138 OPS+ in 400 plate appearances for Texas 1992
- The Edgar - 300/400/500 season at age 40, roughly league-average hitting at age 41
- Carlton Fisk - a 135 OPS+ at ages 41 *and* 42 for Chicago 1990-91
- Paul Molitor - more BB's than K's, nearly league-average hitting for Minnesota in 1998
- Dave Winfield - 138 OPS+ with 108 RBI at age 40, better than league at 41, almost league at 42 for Minny
- Pete Rose - hit .325 with a .391 OBP for Philly in 1981, hit league-average at 43
Of course, you have a bunch of Ted Williamses, Ty Cobbs, Luke Applings and Honus Wagners who were bona fide stars at age 41. We wouldn't consider these old-timers relevant as it pertains to the question of 21st-century competition at age forty.
Stan Musial was 10th in the MVP voting at age 41; that was in the early 60's, when guys like Koufax and Gibson and Whitey Ford were around. so, there's that. He had a tremendous .330/.416/.508 season; this was the NL in the sixties, remember.
Barry Bonds is a laughable exception: at ages 41 and 42 he had (collectively) an OPS over 1000. He was better, at 40, 41, and 42, than the best players are right now. Ah, but you say, Bonds was physically different. So is Raul.
................
We assume that Rauuuul will be platooning; last year, at age 40, he slugged .492 against right hand pitching, this in a full 360 AB's.
In 2011, Rauuuul slugged over 100 points higher against RHP's. This is perfectly normal; the bat slows a tick, the platoon splits go up. At age 39, Rauuuul's EYE against lefties was ... wait for it .... 3 walks, 38 strikeouts.
In 2010, Raul had 57 walks and 64 strikeouts against RHP's; against lefties it was 11:44. This is an absolutely classic pattern: aging RBI man gets mortified by LH-on-LH matchups against the kiddies, but ... he can still git R done against righties.
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=== State of the Rauuul ===
In September of 2012, when last seen, Raul slugged .541. The guy's in weird physical condition, and the fact is that he can still rock RHP. His SLG against them last year was .500'ish ... and that is despite a .242 BABIP.
I wouldn'a signed him. But be advised that Zduriencik believes that he's one of the M's 25 best on-field players for 2013.
I'm not as sold on Casper Wells as youse guys; I think that with exposure, with consistent AB's, he'd very possibly prove himself a mirage. Shedding Wells will cost Dr. D no tears -- except that the Mariners have invested a whale of a lot of Safeco AB's in dead ends like Wells, Trayvon, Carp, etc. The ROI on these experiments is getting out of hand.
Rauuuul is NOT a player you're going to win your next pennant with. Zduriencik is managing the 2013 roster as if he's got the 2013 Lakers and he's got one more year to win before he's done ... oh, wait. My objection to Rauuul is strictly the CYWYNPWTP.
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=== Here's How It Could Work ===
As to the roster crunch, I got two words for yer. Two catchers, one of which starts at DH. Mike Napoli just did it for Texas: in 2011, Torrealba caught a lot, Napoli DH'ed, and Teagarden played 14 games out of AAA. Avila and Victor Martinez did it a couple years ago. In recent years, the 13-man bench hasn't allowed for platoons and pinch-hitting. But a 2-man C/DH system could enable such a retro strategy. Whether Eric Wedge is the man to buy in, who knows.
It says here that the leadership, the "buy-in," isn't as big a factor as people make it out to be. The Mariners apparently think that Rauuuul will give them an Earl Weaver-style big bat off the bench, a modern-day Terry Crowley type. Earl used to want offense out of his backups. I don't think the Mariners have ever had offense out of their backups, unless you consider Mark McLemore 2001 a backup.
ASSUMING that you were going to use Jaso and Montero behind the plate, with a Shoppach in AAA, and ASSUMING that you were actually going to use Rauuuul to pinch-hit for Brendan Ryan and Franklin Gutierrez, Terry Crowley-style, well, hey. That would be refreshing. To me, the Raul decision means a 2-catcher decision.
Trust me, if Raul SLG's .510 in part-time play next year, you're not going to be hearing any static from the peanut gallery in August.
.........................
We're playing devil's advocate with this post. I got no idea why the M's would invest so many AB's in the Trayvons and Carps and Pegueros and then, all of a sudden, do a U-turn and freeze them all out for 41-year-olds. Dr. D hates, hates, hates this inconsistency here: let's pile 20,000 hours of Safeco time into this and that and the other kid. Now, just when some interesting guys like Franklin and Zunino are getting here, let's cut all that available time to zero.
But Raul Ibanez could be an ironically effective role player for the 2013 M's. It's possible that, for 2013 in a vacuum, Raul is the best choice.
BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
moe, your post captures my discomfort perfectly. If Jack Z is indeed doing this beause he "must win now," it makes me very uncomfortable, because the last time the M's put a GM in that position it was a recipe for disaster. Just because Z's approach is different doesn't mean he can't equally be headed for disaster.
What really concerns me is that we are in the fifth year of the Zduriencik regime (however you want to juggle the facts to excuse it), and his "all-in" youth movement still hasn't matured to the point where he has any young outfielders (besides Saunders) he feels are ready to step into the everyday lineup. If he doesn't think Wells, or T.Robinson (now gone), or any other young outfielders brought in or drafted are ready, it means the initial talent evaluation from years one and two has failed. The spaghetti on the wall must have been heavily oiled and undercooked prior to throwing it. Moves like this CANNOT have been The Plan. Is Raul/Bay the Jackie Z equivalent of Boehner's Plan B?
My discomfort is not so much that Raul is the precise player signed. It's what the signing signals.
What the Ibanez signing is, IMHO, is Zduriencik forcing Wedge to actually use his bench and keep the outfielders rotating through the OF and DH slots with someone he likes always getting a day off.
Because he KNOWS he's got a team with many injury questions that he does nto want to get overexposed.
Wells is not frozen out if Bay doesn't hit...and if Bay does hit, I do not care one iota about Wells. I don't think Z was playing Wells because he thought Wells was awesome...I think he was just trying to keep a warm body out there to plug the embarrassing hole that could sort of hit.
To me, this is a 6 to make 4 OF/DH situation with Jason, Bay, Ibanez, Saunders, Guti, and Montero getting all of those DH/OF ABs.
Moe,
There is a big difference between Trout, Harper, and Stanton and our young talent. The former trio beat down the door. While Zunino still might this ST, the plan from early on seemed to be to stash him in AAA, maybe until June-July, to gain another year of club control. The other guys, Liddi, Cat, Franklin, Romero are developing, but haven't been ready for prime time, yet. Wells and Thames have had a chance to step up, but have shown to be no better than platoon players. They haven't earned unlimited opportunities. Ibanez, if used properly, should give reliable production, which we haven't seen in recent years. The commitment to him is short, and buys another year of development without so much suckage.
I think this means we will see Thames, Smoak and anyone with an option start the year in AAA. Don't know where Carp goes. If Smoak dominates in AAA then we can flip Morales at the deadline.
Merry Christmas everyone - with Raul I feel as if M Fans just received a lump of coal in our stockings. Raul still is a lousy defensive outfielder and we need a right-handed hitter on the bench, not a 41-year-old lefty when we already have Carp. To me, it looks as if Carp is the loser here -- where are his at bats now? After his lost year last season, Carp's trade value has to be diminished. If we trade him at the bottom of his value due to no roster spot and he flourishes somewhere else, I will be disappointed in GMZ. And speaking of work ethic, doesn't Carp work just as hard as Raul?
Raul still has some bat (vR) left.....that isn't the issue.
Daddy said it, the signals this sends are messy.
And I think we have young OF's that can play. They're named Liddi, or Catricala, or Franklin or Romero or Seager....
Are you telling me that they can't be as adequate as Raul in LF?
We have some flexability because all those guys are athletic and multi-positional.
Until we commit some consistent MLB PA's to those guys (excepting Seager), why are we discounting them?
Liddi has 170 PA's and a 93 OPS+. Is that his top end? How do we know? Bryce Harper hit .222-.306-.313 in 111 PA's in July. Do you discount him on those PA's? See what I mean. We have young guys with (seemingly) MLB talent right now. How about using them and finding out who is and isn't a player. Give them a sample size that counts.
This is especially true with Franklin and Romero. I'm ready to see them.
Liddi, too. For goodness sake, pre-September we invested 424 PA's/395 AB's in a 1B who was hitting .189-.264 with a whole 8 doubles and 14 homers in those chances. We played him everyday, almost. We can't invest that kind of time in a young slugger in LIddi, rather than Ibanez?
Raul has nothing to do with where this team is going. He'll get 300+ AB's, minimum. Why not invest those in somebody who might have something to do with where this team is going.
Alas,
We're wandering in the wilderness. Perhaps there is a swap coming up that clears things up.
I hope so. I'm hardly optimistic.
moe
Signing a Raul just indicates that we're going to postpone that until '14........
Or we'll give them their 100 PA's in August/September of this year...and still won't know anything because of the size of the sample.
Sorry Mo'! Your article (and Mal's) should be up shortly and we've sent them to the front of the line. Thanks amigo.
- Jeff
That's a great catch, Mo' Dawg. If there is ADDITIONAL lineup cost to Rauuul's platooning - if you've got to put a no-hit glove man in CF to cover for him defensively - than I've got nothing to say but aaaarrrrrrrgh.
And obviously it's tough to play Rauuul at DH against RHP's because Jaso's catching against RHP's (or, is available to DH and is superior to Ibanez offensively).
That's perplex-ation that will have to be explained by Capt Jack. ... Now, if Ibanez is in (a smaller) LF and Saunders still gets to play CF against RHP's -- or Guti was the CF choice in any case -- then fine.
I've got to agree with Spec that as it looks right now, some AAA time looks to be in order for Nick Franklin. It is reasonable to push him -- he hits .400 in spring training, slap him in there -- but it's also reasonable to give him some more time.
As we've noted quite a few times, if Zunino starts NEXT year he's on a Posey timeline, which is an accelerated timeline. Liddi is beginning to be overdue, but he's a potential Carp situation. So, technically speaking, I've got to admit that Zduriencik's approach is sensible.
PROVIDED that there is room in AAA for all these guys, including Smoak?!
I've agreed with the on-field analysis provided so far and the attendant confusion. This caused me to pause...why was a premier think-tank (in this arena) getting stumped? We know Jack Z isn't prone to going loco. What is it that's missing?
I have to assume that what's missing is the off-field stuff. The stuff that we know exists but is not measurable. We know that Wedge was pulling his hair out all last year trying to Y-A-N-K the ship in a certain direction, talking about 'accountability' and 'professional at-bats'. The front office spoke boldly at the outset of the offseason about getting a veteran presence. And we all know that you don't speak aloud an objective without the commitment to obtain it (just mention McDonald's as a possibility for lunch in front of a 4-year-old and see what happens).
Raul is well-known in baseball as a great guy and a hard worker. We know that Wedge likes to depend on a specific subset of players to govern the clubhouse. This move smacks of establishing something in the clubhouse identified early on as not being present.
A leader cannot lead if he doesn't perform qualitatively so expect Raul to get playing time and be given every opportunity to succeed (i.e. platooning) as an expression of his real reason for being there. Make no mistake, Raul was signed to be a living, breathing platonic form of what the team believes a Mariner should be.
Nathan,
I had thought of that too: Raul = Grizzled Old Vet.
That was Olivo's role wasn't it? I'm not sure that was a productive element.
I really believe that Grizzled Old Vet is how Wedge saw himself...or now sees how he was in his lackluster career.
He loves those guys.
OK, I can get that idea.....but not if it actually eats into the playing time of guys that might have something to contribute tomorrow.
Doc is right in his MIke Morse comment. We may lose a couple of Mike Morse's again.
And the comment comes up that our young guys aren't ready. Harper hit all of .256-.329-,385 in his 37 AA games, and .243-.325-.365 in his 21 AAA games. Exactly how much better was that than Romero or Zunino or Franklin?
Stanton wasn't that much better...minus his 2nd AA go-around.
moe
moe