Seattle Sports Insider

Branyan's Second Year, 2

Posted by

11/11/09

Q. Maybe Branyan won't play at all.

A. Then we wouldn't be hearing about Branyan getting one solid guaranteed year.

Looks to me like we're talking about trying to pay $6M for one season that will be worth either $9 or $15M, one of the two.

Like I say, that's great for M's fans. It sounds like Jack is going to save so much money at SS and 1B that he'll be able to go after Lackey and Bay together, or who knows what he's thinking.

Q. Do the M's owe Branyan anything?

A. I think so, yes.

Russell Branyan produced $12M worth of performance in 2009 for $2M, and Russell Branyan never said one word about the zeroes on Erik Bedard's paycheck.

Branyan far outperformed his contract in 2009, and never complained. He didn't pull a Shawn Kemp and convince everybody in the locker room that the club should treat him better; Branyan outperformed his contract and he did it with a great attitude. That should count for something with Zduriencik.

If it's me, I'd like to send a message that the boss and the employees are in it to win-win together. Not a message that the front office will exploit its employees if it gets the chance.

Look, I'm not saying that the front office is evil here. It's big business, big dollars at stake, and I admire all the players in this opera. But I think that when your employees do exactly what you ask them to do, then you reward them for it.

Q. Do you think any other team might offer Branyan two years?

A. I'd be surprised if nobody else offered him $12M total guaranteed. He just earned that in 70% of one season.

29 other teams will be aware of the same thing you are: that even if Branyan is injured a lot, he'll still be worth a lot. But, still, Abreu took 1/$5M last year and Branyan has health questions. Both the M's and Branyan are shooting in the dark for another month (when RB will hear the offers from other teams).

......

Branyan is hardly asking for charity. His value is >$100,000 per game. If Zduriencik passes, I expect Branyan to get fairer money elsewhere.

And we're not talking about an absurd reward, for being a good soldier. Branyan wants a second year, at what, 50% of fangraphs value. I've got to side with Russell on this one.

Q. What do you think will happen? What do you make of the agent being "confident"?

A. I think we all know that the M's can vest 2011 at certain health scenarios in 2010. That's very common, and that's what's appropriate here.

A vested 2011, assuming that Branyan is fine in 2010, is the least the Mariners can do for Branyan. Loyalty works two ways, Cap'n.

If Zduriencik drew the line in the sand and wouldn't even vest Branyan, I'd call that Theory X, 1970's management style. But I'm sure that won't be the case.

The M's need those bombs. Git R Done.

My $0.02,

Dr D

Comments

Add to that Z's Overbay hardball

The rumors leaking out about the Mariners talking trade with the Jays for Lyle Overbay got a chuckle out of me today. Zduriencik is a NASTY mo-fo, ain't he? Branyan says no to the one year deal with a CLUB option (we did offer a club option...he wanted a club-guarantee because he's tired of playing year ot year and wondering if he'll have a job next season)...fine, Russ...tell your agent I'll just go spend your money on Lyle Overbay. Or we could get that contract signed tomorrow, y'know. It's your call, meat.
I think there's about a 95% chance Branyan signs a vesting-option contract and the dollar value for year one is a little more generous...to make up for the lowball first offer. :)

Hadn't even put 2 and 2 together there

Do we rule out an Overbay DH + Branyan 1B + Griffey UT scenario, or you figure that was a shot fired over the bow?
If *that's* what Zduriencik is doing, "warning" Branyan to take 1 year, then.... man. ::whew::
One difference between the Bavasis and the Jockettys of the world, is which guy will stab a ballpoint pen through your kneecap when you cross him. I'm not blaming the guy, you understand. But it's a little intense over there at Royal Brougham these days....

Bavasi couldn't think like this

This is really the difference between a great executive and a guy that has been promoted one level beyond his competency. Bavasi always seemed to have one plan and one plan only. He went into each off season projecting what he wanted ("left handed sock; innings eating starter, et al) and seemed to have no flexibility at all.
Jack, on the other hand, seems to have contingency stacked upon contingency. I doubt that there is any malice involved - he's probably got three or four other irons in the fire for the 1B/DH slots that we have no inkling of. His flexibility is unbelievable.
Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett's right hand man) talks a lot about having different "mental models" for various business strategies and being able to switch one's mind between the models on the fly. He swears that's what makes Berkshire Hathaway so powerful - they don't have one rigid philospohy that they are captive of; he and Buffett have layer upon layer of these "mental models" and it allows them to analyze each situation or investment through multiple prisms and from wildly different angles. Munger's former right hand man uses the same techniques at his little startup (Overstock.com).
I think Jack is like that. It's fascinating.

First half/second half

Branyan is as much to blame as the M's, but he hurt the team by trying to play in the second half with a bad back. How many times have we seen this with M's players? Can't the M's do any better in medical diagnostics? Maybe he earned his coin in the first half, but he showed that you couldn't count on him for the season. Pay him $8M for his first 80 games, then give him incentive pay to stay healthy for the second half. I obviously don't mean just hauling is carcass out to first every every day, but actually being healthy.

I do think that Capt Jack is agile-minded

In fact, time for a promotion :- )

A fair point amigo

But it's open to question, how much Branyan's dropoff was due to his BABIP (which fell off to a mere .226). Adjust his BABIP to his normal .300 and he's not killing the team.
Also wonder to what extent it was a simple batting slump, since his EYE fell off from 0.50 to 0.25 in the second half. Admittedly, this could be due to the pain, but it's hard to tell.
.............
Your overall point is a great one: if he's playing in pain, will he be hurting the club? Good question.

herniated disk hindsight

My conclusions were based on perfect hindsight, which I know is cheating a bit. Russ ends his season on the DL and we learn about the herniated disk. So what did he and the M's know and when did they know it? Your guess is as good as mine. It just appears that the back issue seemed to show around the AS break, and the poor second half was history. One would think that a disk issue would manifest itself in the training room, taking BP, or with the team doc. The thought is usually that a slightly injured MLB player can get a little rest, and still perform better than a AAA replacement player like Carp. So the M's kept running him out there until they no longer could.
I don't buy the BABIP issue, as if normal BABIP is an entitlement. If his back is hurt, he's not hitting with the same authority, and so his BABIP is lower. That at least makes sense to me.
-Watcher

Agreed

I think BABIP may have been a little unlucky and a little the extreme shift and a little his being injured...but we certianly can't expect him to bop around at .300 at his age, with his lack of speed and with the extreme shift they play on him in the AL.

It does make sense, ya...

but normal BABIP is going to occur within a certain range.
Normally, 30% of all batted balls hit the grass someplace where the 9 fielders aren't standing. That can go up or down, depending on the pace of the batted ball, but 24% to 36% are the usual bounds there.
It's asking a lot for 7 guys to get to every spot in an acre within the 2-5 seconds the ball is in the air. Even lousy hitters are going to see 26, 28% of their batted balls fall in.
Branyan's lifetime H% is 30.0% on the dot, and last year it was 22.6% in the second half. Branyan was responsible for some of that 30 - 22%, but couldn't have been responsible for all of it.
My $0.02 :- )

I actually found it kind of surprising

that Branyan's BABIP was only .300 lifetime.
Jim Thome's, for example, is .321, despite the fact that he run like baboon with two club feet. The big strong guys often (not always) whistle the ball through the infield with extra pace.
But I wonder if Branyan's extreme upward-arc'ing swing has something to do with it. His bat isn't travelling on the same plane as the pitch at all. He skies and tops pitches whether he's going good or not.
Still projecting a guy as physically powerful as Russ Branyan, to BABIP much less than .300, that's a tough one. :- )

appearances aren't everything

When healthy, Branyan is physically powerful. With a herniated disk, it is likely that there is associated physical weakness, say in his arms or legs, wherever the nerves go that are associated with the disk. I have seen it first hand with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (see Kenny Rogers, Hank Blalock, etc.), where pressure is applied to nerves/blood vessels in the shoulder. You can measure the loss of strength in the throwing arm compared even to the opposite arm. The muscle mass is still there, but the weakness is real.

You can also see it...

...watching Branyan's HR distances.
First 21 HRs traveled an average of 409 feet.
Last 10: 391 feet.
And you can see it in the jump in his SW-S%. A weak bat is a slow bat...and Branyan was getting slower and slower on high pitches as the season wore on.

Huh! I didn't know that.

An ace up center court Matty.
.............
When unhealthy, Branyan is still physically powerful compared to Jack Wilson :- ) and 1,000 other guys whose BABIP's would be fine ... Branyan's HR's might have been 391 but other guys don't hit homers at all...

True of course. :)

Not saying Branyan turned into noodles McLimpy out there...just saying if you lose a tick on your arm strength or can't drive off your back foot as well (and he's a pure back-leg HR hitter...everything in his swing is geared toward his back leg digging in and him using his body like a big lever to launch the ball way up into the air)...it will impact your BABIP by turning HRs into deep flyouts and kill your BA by increasing your K rate.