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Dr. K's point right here:
"The franchise value has increased from 48% over those nine years, but over the time period the value of the Rangers has increased by 120% and the value of the Angels by 417%*."
Lemme pull rank here a bit, as (apparently) the Seattle blogger most familiar with 7th-floor steering committees. F-500 execs live and die by market share, live and die by the question of, "How are we doing compared to other people selling the same thing?"
Dr. Kelly's point not only has traction; it's a point that has so much traction that it had buried jemanji in oblivion. It hadn't even occurred that the appreciation had been so low for the Mariners. 48% over nine years is only 5.3% per year, and that is pitiful at these corporate levels, in this industry sector. 10%, 12% per year would be only marginally acceptable. The Rangers have scored over 30% per annum, calculated straight-line in retro.
Bloggers and Warts Spiders talk "profit" when, in fact, yearly cash flow is a trivial consideration compared to appreciation. The profit is when you sell (and that profit is fairly liquid, can be -- and is -- pulled at any time through bank loans).
For the Mariners it's a LITTLE different, because they're not EXACTLY a Seattle's Best Coffee that could be PUT TO DEATH by a Starbucks. The Mariners, almost uniquely, face no competition for market from other MLB franchises. But do you notice how hyper-sensitive the Mariners are even to the Sonics and Seahawks? Who don't play, mostly, at the same time they do?
The execs can and do look at Kelly's issue -- 1.2x and 4x growth for AL West teams while they saw a piddling 0.5x growth over a decade -- and they panic, believe me. Now I finally understand why the Mariners' puzzling willingness to bid on Prince Fielder last year.
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I think I read that the M's attendance drop, over the last decade or so, has been THE largest in SPORTS. Other teams have gone from winners to losers, but other teams have not lost their soul, have not decided that the pennant race is peripheral to what they do.
You could compare bloggers' outrage to the Royals' temerity in deciding to trade for James Shields. For many bloggers, the pennant race is peripheral to making smarter-than-thou decisions. You can certainly argue that Wil Myers is too precious to give away; Bill James is arguing that at BJOL. What you can't do is multiply that variable times the variable of "The Royals Have No Right To Try To Win."
It is precisely here, in the barren wilderness of non-pennant-race prioritization, that Dr. D has been wandering since the 2001 trade deadline. The Mariners decided that they couldn't get carried away with winning. The 2001 Mariners had briefly enjoyed the fruits of their 1999-2001 windfall: a $400M taxpayer stadium coupon, and the dazzling brilliance of Pat Gillick. Thanks to the taxpayers and Gillick, the Mariners' shot-callers were local celebrities for a few years.
Except for the five-year blip caused by the taxpayers and Gillick, and the little asterisk of the wasted Piniella-Griffey era, the Mariners since 1977 have played soulless baseball.
Do the Mariners want to win? All sports teams are interested in that, just like all fathers are interested in having sons who adore them. Some fathers prioritize that more than other fathers do. Some fathers have soulless family relationships. It didn't happen because they set losing as a goal. It happened because they didn't pay the price necessary to have families that were filled with joy and love. They didn't prioritize.
Sports teams have tons of priorities: franchise appreciation, and the corporate "brand," and to be good community citizens, and to win by the way, and to have a great relationship with Nike, and to feather their next TV contract nest, and to have players who don't go to jail, and 1,000 other priorities. Some teams put "winning" higher on that list than do others. Guess where Magic Johnson puts it on HIS list?
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As Sandy says, Hamilton's marquee value in and of itself *isn't necessarily* the key to a turnaround; neither is winning, exactly. It's a sense that you have a team, from the CEO down, a team that "wants to win" as Magic Johnson put it when he just authorized the latest Greinke cash splurge in Dodger Blue.
The M's sold their soul, and they have paid dearly. Hamilton, plus other adds, would have been a big step towards reclamation of that soul. What they do now, I dunno.
The Mariners don't sell tires or widgets or tax preparation. They sell a pennant race. The Royals traded for James Shields because of a PENNANT RACE. Whether it was correct execution is totally irrelevant. The corporate mission is what defines your brand and your future.
Since the trade deadline 2001, Silentpadna and I have been waiting for a team that wants to win as badly as its rivals do. There have been a few minor signals now, that this may be changing somewhat. We'll see.
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Great article, Dr. K.
The ANGELS have signed Josh Hamilton. There's nothing lef that I even remotely want. Dickey is too risky, Swisher is too old-man-skill-ish for a long term deal, Sanchez doesn't help us, and all of the good trade targets are gone.
We are completely hosed. No maneuvering room left...nothing worth acquiring. Welcome to Hades.
All y'all know that Dr. D is a glass-half-full kinda guy. But looking around baseball at what is going on, the Angels with both Hamilton and Pujols, what the Dodgers are doing, and the Mariners' orientation, today feels like an English Premier League moment. Where the top teams essentially spiral off into their own league, putting a total hammerlock on the sport.
We'll see where the M's go from here.
As I did the 'research' for the article, I was struck by how stagnant the M's value has been compared to the Angels. If MLB were like normal business, the M's would have been bought up years ago. Surely some corporation in the business of baseball would have been confident that they could do more with the M's market share than the M's have.
So how do the M's still have the same corporate leadership (Armstrong and Lincoln) in place after a decade of underperformance? Fans have complained about the baseball product, but we have usually presumed that the M's do well as a business. After looking at the numbers, it is now clear that the M's do miserably compared to their peers. Think about it. What other franchise in the AL has underperformed the M's as a business in the last decade? I'd say the Orioles and maybe the Royals. My only explanation is that the board of directors, blinded by the steady, but unspectacular franchise value appreciation, have remained blissfully ignorant of the general trends in the baseball industry and let the good ship Mariner sail forward rudderless.
...it's all based on momentum from so many years pulling so hard for this one goal...so much investment of time and energy and hope. Every year I find it harder and harder to care enough to invest again. This might do it for me. Another year wasted...another year of hopelessly outdated business practices, empty promises and player resentment. If they don't care enough to invest...why should I?
I'm so depressed right now, I can't even feel sad.
Hamilton might help the M's reclaim their soul, if he is healthy and they win.
If Hamilton shows up next spring, holding his new 6yr/$120M contract and the M's still lose 96,92 and 90 games over the next three years...then he burns out...he certainly hasn't helped the M's find their soul.
Spending money isn't the path to reclamation and neither is not spending money.
Spending money wisely and producing a winner is.
Hamilton is a fragile and very expensive guy with a huge homefield split: .292-.354-.504 on the road vs. .315-.373-.594 in Arlington. You would be paying for the first number...not the second.
Swisher is remarkable in that he has almost no difference, over his career, between home and road performance: .256-.365-.464 and .256-.357-.470.
You get a .858 player in Hamilton, a .828 player in Swisher.
The difference isn't worth double the contract length and double the $. Sign Swisher.
Then spend some of those saved dollars on something else a bit shiney or roll out the youth.
That would be a reclamation.
This offseason hasn't had a huge amount of action in it. If Sanchez doesn't help the Mariners, the only available pitcher that's better was Greinke... are you telling me that the only players in all of baseball that you remotely desired for the Mariners were Greinke and Hamilton? Setting the bar a little high, aren't we?
But we could use some glass-half-full impetus Thirteen. Bring it :- )
Simply that the personalities on the ownership board are not high-testosterone.
PC Seattle has its effete component and IMHO that is reflected here. There is another factor at play: the inertia of an ownership board, versus the vision, agility, coherence and passion of a single shot-caller such as Arte Moreno. If the Mariners had a single shot-caller that would be Yamauchi-san, who does not like baseball. The Committee Factor is not an absolute, but it is a variable here.
Lincoln and Armstrong are in charge because they prioritize the things the Committee wants prioritized. A nice night at the ballpark and a sweet most-recent-quarter cash flow.
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Impossible to imagine that the company does not pay attention to its long-term company value relative to other franchises.
I'm not disagreeing with the premises, or defending the front office brass, but it is simply fact that a huge, huge, HUGE part of the problem for the last decade is the complete lack of MLB-level talent coming out of the draft in the Gillick and Bavasi eras.
My grid shows a grand total of two hitters coming out of the draft for an entire decade with any semblance of a chance ... Adam Jones (traded away in the attempt to actually win) and Jeff Clement (who had some red flags and was a bust). Then you had Mike Morse, one of the very few longshot/late bloomers who beat the odds (and, obviously, traded before the odds were beaten).
[Edit: I was giving them more credit than due. I forgot Morse was drafted by the WhiteSox and came over in the Freddy Garcia trade. So the only guy who was actually drafted by the Ms in the Gillick and Bavasi eras who became an MLB hitter of note is Adam Jones.]
The rest of the guys with potential were international signings: Chris Snelling (defeated by injuries), Shin Soo-Choo (traded away in the attempt to actually win), Jose Lopez (also red flags, but the best we had at the time) and Wladimir Balentein (who seems to have finally figured it out, but in Japan).
But that's it. For an entire decade.
We've easily added that many guys with potential in the 2009-2012 drafts alone, plus a number of international guys. And that makes a huge difference in the ability to manuever, clear out payroll room, make trades, etc.
Again, I'm not disputing the role of the main brass, but the complete lack of talent flowing in was crippling, and the team is still recovering from that, really.
And how does it play in, that Lincoln and Armstrong never brought in genuine MLB(TM) muscle in the talent-acq department? They were uncomfortable enough with one legitimate major league personality, Lou's. Why would they bring in an entire infrastructure of cigar-chomping Bert Sugar types who, like Lou, would yell at their bosses?
The Mariners have always sought the Hargrove types, the mild personalities who knew how to get along with their bosses, at the expense of wielding an org full of bare-knuckled baseball warriors.
And we all remember how Hargrove left. Even with his mild personality and ability to get along with his bosses, the Mariners sucked any remaining MLB-TM soul out him also.
I didn't say that Sanchez was a bad pitcher...I simply said he doesn't help US in particular. We all know that our rotation is a little speculative, but given the prospect haul right below the surface, unpredictable is good and Sanchez simply locks in and ossifies a spot with a known, dependable, solid MOR starter level. I mean, he might add a win or two over the likely production we'll get from a guy like Vargas, but that's not going to fix the deeper problems with this team's reputation around the league and it won't make us more competitive. We needed a splash just to get people to stop saying we're not worth their interest. We needed a Hamilton or Greinke-level signature move to shake off the label around the league that we weren't interested in winning. And quite frankly, YES...*I* needed the Mariners to get someone REALLY big because I need some darned proof that they give even the tiniest care in the world about winning.
Swisher will not convince the league we'd actually consider spending money. I know it's not "rational" from a purely baseball standpoint (though Swisher's rapidly declining contact and patience skills warn of impending "age-out disaster", so I would argue you shouldn't pay for his .828 either), but from what I've read this offseason, baseball is being distinctly irrational about the Mariners. The players think we don't care about winning. The other owners think we're so desperate we'll just hand over 5 glowing prospects for their aging veterans, and the Mariners think their prospects are all the next Albert Pujols and believe they can win without taking any risks. Are any of those positions rational to you? We have to mstart behaving like the larger-markets - maybe not the Dodgers, but at least the Blue Jays and the Phillies. We have to start demonstrating that we actually want to win...and until we do, we'll be paying $1.50 for every free agent dollar, they'll be demanding five prospects for every two prospects worth of big league return, and Zduriencik will be digging his heels in that much harder with his guys because he knows the front office isn't going to back him if he trades anyone away, they do well, and his return does not.
So no...this offseason was never about WAR balance sheets and clever individual moves. It was about the Mariners proving to me that they even remotely cared whether the product they delivered was anything other than substandard garbage. And they didn't. Again. And they are rapidly losing my interest.
But in Gillick's case it wasn't so much that he was afraid to mix it up, but that he just didn't care about building through the draft.
In Bavasi's case, his crew just didn't have the ability to distinguish gold from pyrite. Jack and Mac have that (among draftees/prospects anyway).
The Yankess may not fear bold personalities, but they were also building on a foundation of Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, and now Cano, built from within.
RedSox had Pedroia, Ellsbury, Popelbon, Lester, Youk all from the draft
Giants: Posey, Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner, Wilson and Romo all developed from within
Cardinals brought in various guys but were always built around Pujols, whom they drafted
I don't know how many cigar-chompers it would take to overcome the fact that we had Felix and a massive vacuum for a decade. No low-cost, club-controlled impact talent for 10 whole years or more.
I completely get the idea of wanting ownership "intent" on winning. And it may well be that Seattle doesn't have that leadership. But, my own (3,000 mile distant) view is more along the lines of management that does want to win - (compared to franchises like Pittsburgh, Tampa (until their leadership turnover), or KC for the past couple of decades.
The evidence does not suggest that Seattle is "just" about the fan-friendly experience and winning is irrelevant so long as the club makes a profit.
After 88 wins in 2007, they increased payroll from $106 to $117 million in an effort to win. The result was 101 losses. The cutting payroll FOLLOWED the abysmal failure of attempting to win via FA acquisition route.
While I get the concept that lack of passion to win can create a self-fulfilling prophesy of loss ... passion to win is no panacea. Talk to the Cubs and Mets fans about clubs willing to spend huge sums failing to win year after year. Passion alone does not bring competence.
Where I think the Seattle fans might be mistaken is in the belief that demonstrating a passion for winning (while still losing) will somehow change the landscape of what is feels like to be a Mariner fan. It won't. Mets fans do not sit around applauding management for "having the guts" to overpay Santana and Bay and Beltran and Jose Reyes on their way to another 4th place finish in the NL East.
Seattle at this moment has a core of young players with HIGH probability that some number will improve. Who and how much is the big unknown. Before 2012, Seager, Saunders and Jaso were *NOT* the suspects for the foundation for a decade of winning.
My view is that too many are writing off Ackley and Montero and even Carp too quickly, (sorry, but I never was a Smoak fan), so 2013 is NOT IMHO a "lost cause", any more than Oakland's or Baltimore's 2012 was a lost cause in December of 2011.
Though I think it is equally baffling to conceive of a collection of business champions lacking want to. My guess is that Howie and Chuck failed because of arrogance. Let me explain.
Howie and Chuck come from a world where speaking with erudition, combined with results, leads to promotion and power. If you cannot conjugate your verbs or speak pursuasively about your vision to a well educated audience, you do not gain entrance to the board room. They have made the classic mistake of emphasizing style over substance. The failure is likely so deeply ingraining in their world views that they likely did so unconsciously, making the course correction so slow. Think about it, Bavasi could talk the talk and he had the pedigree of a baseball man, he just lacked any skill as talent evaluation. But how would Howie or Chuck know? They have no skill at talent evaluation either. They would have had to trust the opinion of a yokel, who they are disinclined to even listen to, much less trust.
KGaffney, I so agree with you. You have said it much better than I ever could.
In regards to another of your posts in the context of a "hammer, meet nail" approach one can certainly have a general baseball worldview of not signing expensive free agents except as the crowning achievement after having built a successful young core without agreeing that in the particular case of the 2012-13 Mariners that ought to be the overriding consideration. The Mariners have a history and a context of inept upper management. One can disagree about just how good Jack Zduriencik is, but he certainly has not yet fully demonstrated at the MLB level that he can overcome this in the face of the kind of stiff competition he is facing. He is literally betting the farm on his young talent, whether because of constraints from his superiors or because of his own predilections. All I can say is, he had better be everything his champions have cracked him up to be...and THEN some, or his quest to build a perennial contender in this division will become a quest to somehow by hook or crook find enough to stay near .500 most years and hope once every few years to stumble into a playoff run if things happen to go his way.
I have argued for several years now that Howard and Chuck, despite their reputation as pure "business-first" managing partners whose interest in winning is only secondary, are not even particularly good businessmen, at least not in the business of baseball. People have countered that they are making money on franchise value, but as it turns out even in the arena in which they choose to compete and focus their efforts their record is rather dismal compared to other MLB franchises.
As you suggest, who in the world as businessmen could keep their jobs with such woeful performance except the Dynamic Duo of The Benevolent Nintendo Society.
I appreciate the complement. I agree the jury is still out on Jack Zduriencik. He hired a good farm director and has insured that the talent acquisition and development transition from sub-standard to above average. We're still two years away from knowing if they are good enough at amateur acquistion and player development to make the franchise competitive. I think it is clear that he is average in MLB talent evaluation. He's no Pat Gillick, a true svengali, but he isn't a bafoon either. The Morrow and Fister trades, as well as the Figgins signing, have really hurt the M's, but many trades have helped [Putz for Gutierrez and Vargas, MiLB slop for Beavan and Smoak via Cliff Lee, Lueke for Jaso, and Pineda for Montero trades have all really helped]. We just don't know yet, but I'm hopeful because... it beats the alternative.
Swisher's rapidly declining contact and patience skills warn of impending "age-out disaster"
This is a really odd statement to me, because I'm looking at Swisher's Fangraphs page right now and completely fail to see what you're talking about.
The guy has had almost exactly the same Swing% rates and Contact% rates his entire career with minor adjustment to how they are measured. His K% has almost always been in a very narrow window of 21-23%.
I guess you could point out how his O-Swing% jumped up in 2010, but his O-Contact% correspondingly jumped up equally seems to be more indicative as a result that pitchers weren't pitching him in the zone as much (as opposed to the reverse correlation where he was swinging and missing more often outside the zone so pitchers decided to stay away from it).
The one thing that I am completely and utterly lost about in this issue is the claim that the Mariners "never do what it takes to win" when, in fact, they have made almost the exact same attempts people are clamoring for them to do now. Before 2005, we signed Beltre and Sexson. In mid-2006, we traded away Asdrubal for Eduardo Perez and later followed that up with Choo for Broussard. Before 2008, we traded Sherrill, Jones+++ for Erik Bedard. Before 2010, we trading Aumont, Gillies+ for Cliff Lee. The names may be different, but these are all the exact same thing people are screaming for right now. What really, truly, legitimately would have been different about a Hamilton/ Swisher signing from these acquisitions?
Maybe you can nit-pick and talk about how bad the platoony or Bedard trades were, but that would go against the sentiment about how "the Royals at least did something unlike us ('cause we never do anything you know)". Those who are calling the Shieds trade bad for the Royals aren't saying so because of the talent swap (necessarily). They're saying so because they believe the Royals aren't a competitive team with or without Shields -- just like the M's weren't competitive teams with or without any of those trades.
Maybe you can claim that Beltre and Sexson were just horrible fits for Safeco. If, however, you looked at Richie Sexson's 2005 season, you would see that the guy was a freakin' monster to the tune of a .263/ .369/ .541/ .910/ 144 OPS+ line... in Safeco... as a right-handed hitter... (for the record, that's the 5th best OPS+ in the history of Safeco behind A-Rod's 163 in 2000, Edgar's 158/ 160 in 2000/ 2001 and Boone's 153 in 2001 -- all of whom, interestingly enough, are right-handed...). Just because he started to get old the next season (in which he still posted a 117 OPS+) doesn't mean he was a bad fit.
And then what about the Lee acquisition? Why has everyone forgotten about that? Honestly speaking -- and I know I can't back this up because I didn't get brave enough to say it then -- but I thought at the time (and still think) that it was just a very crafty opportunistic grab by Zduriencik to net some amazing value no matter the team's results.
Step 1: Trade some very fungible, low-minors prospects for an elite pitcher
Step 1a: Spin the PR guys so it's not obvious what the real plan is
Step 2: Watch and see how the team plays with him on the roster
Step 2a: If the team is competing, ride him hard and try to extend/ re-sign him
Step 2b: If the team still struggles, trade him midseason for an elite package of high minors+high need prospects
Step 3: Relish in this win-win-win scenario
In the end, you can absolutely claim the Mariners have no soul. It's 110% bupkiss to say it's not because they don't dare to make the big moves because they absolutely have dared to make the big moves. It's just as a Sandy has been pronouncing for what seems like forever now, though. The big moves haven't helped. In other words, the big moves don't improve teams; they help maintain the status quo.