FEELIN' it.
The young Mariners (with the possible exception of Seager) are pressing. It takes me back to the conversation this offseason that what this team needed was a serious veteran bat in the middle to take some of the pressure off and let the young guys develop. Ideally, they needed two, but hey, when you routinely get ZERO you take what you can get.
The reason why they needed it was not the undermine the youth movement but to secure it. Fielder wasn't coming here. I get it. The other options weren't captivating. I get it. But in the words of The Dave Clark Five, we've heard this tune "uh-Over-and-uh-Over-and-uh-Over again." (1) The really good one's ain't coming here, and (2) nobody else truly good makes sense at a rate we're willing to pay. And the end result, according to the British invasion band, was "This Dance Is Gonna Be A Drag."
Spring training was a fabulous feel-good for this team. It appeared we had a bevy of booming bats. We may yet. But so far the season has been a dose of reality that underscores the obvious concerns of the offseason.
You can TELL kids to grow up fast, but you can't MAKE 'em. They'll grow up as fast as they grow up. Start squeezing kids to produce like adults (metaphorically speaking) and you're just as likely to crack 'em.
The difference between adults and kids is experience, and experience is not something that can be force-fed. Put a young, inexperienced kid with oodles of sales talent up against competitors who have a proven track record of closing deals and the kid doesn't stand a chance. Not until he gains valuable experience seeing how the pros do it.
...........
"Whereas I ain't that fast, here to there," said the Iceman, "my gig is ziggin' and zaggin'." If they're expecting a zig .... keep that zag comin' all day long bab-eh
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=== Top 12 Sunny Mariner Thoughts ===
History is full of young teams that looked like regurgitated sushi and sake in April and May. And who then transmogrified once they got their soy sauce together. Happens all the time. Probably it happens most the time. Every young team had a pivot point, it sez here.
In Ball Four, Jim Bouton was traded from the Pilots to the Astros "for THE Dooley Womack." He talked about how he never fit in with the 1969 Astros, even when he was on a roll, even though the teammates were great because "I wasn't there with them in the beginning, when they were 4 and 20, when the whole world was against them and all they had was each other" Those '69 Astros were -16 games below 500 at the end of April.
They rode Larry Dierker -- one of history's 19-year-old aces, ::coughTaijuancough:: -- and Jim Wynn to a great summer and in mid-September, they climbed to with 2.0 games of first place. This is back when divisions weren't plentiful.
The 1969 Astros are just one specimen in a plentiful species, the first one that comes to mind.
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=== Puttin' the Funk in Blast, Dept. ===
What's funky about a Richie Sexson line drive into a bullpen? Like the kids say, lame is the new fresh?
Let's talk funk and hav'n a blast. In Jason Vargas' last 9 starts, he has gone 5-2, 2.81 with 46 K, 16BB, and only 3HR in 57.2 IP. Here, let's chart his profile against some 2011 pitchers' ratios:
| K | BB | HR | |
| Vargas | 7.2 | 2.5 |
0.5 |
| Jered Weaver '11 | 7.6 | 2.1 | 0.8 |
| Alexi Ogando '11 | 6.7 | 2.3 | 0.9 |
| Fister '11 | 6.1 | 1.5 | 0.5 |
| Moyer '98 (best year) | 6.1 | 1.6 | 0.9 |
Comp him to anybody you want, and see how far short the Buerhles come up to Vargas' righteous little hot roll. Iss' always the same.
Ron Shandler gives 5.6 strikeouts as the point at which a finesse pitcher becomes a star. That's like saying 95 MPH makes you a big league reliever, and this kid throws 99 ... wait. Stay on point, Dr. D. Vargas is fanning wayyyyyy too many batters for a Stay-Puft marsh mellow tosser like him.
He ain't kidding, either. He had 7 his last game vs. CLE, and 6 the game before vs. TEX.
I don't know what he will be, but I know what he has been (since the Bedard motion, that is). He has been Jamie Moyer plus two feet on the fastball.
Key and Moyer and Buehrle have had better 9-game stretches, of course. But Vargas' stretch is since the Rob-O-Tron, and captures all games since then. So we're hopin' plateau leap here.
By the way, here is a Fangraphs article listing the SP's with the biggest velo increases in 2012. Vargas is on it.
...........
Vargas' HR per fly ball is 8.0% lifetime. That's lifetime, pokey, and it's lower this year. That will happen when hitters are taking defensive swings and you're a lefty in Safeco.
Finally, a LHP who is mass kewl in Safeco. Think we could get David Arias for him?
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=== Well, One Section Sells Out ===
Felix has the best peripherals of his career, easily. His velocity took the HI scenario from where it was in Japan, and have we ever mentioned that Felix releases way in front of the rubber and his FB is +2 MPH due to extension?
We've always told Felix to pitch up in the zone, to lose the groundball ratio and to rack up the K's. His GB's have gone from 50% to 40%, his strikeouts have skyrocketed to 9.5 and his homer rate? Has gone down. Now that Felix is trying to MISS bats, the hitters are too busy running screaming into the night to take their swings.
Anyway, we're back to that big contract that G-Money was talkin' about. Isn't that a pleasant development?
The young Gary Payton once told the papers he could play on Michael Jordan's level. MJ threw down a dunk early next game and snarled, "You think you can play on my level? Huh? Well, I'm going to show you just exactly what level that IS, okay?"
Maybe we're about to find out just what Felix' level is. Lose the grounders, Felix. Pedro thought groundballs were too little reward for 0-1 counts.
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Comments
The reason I was interested in Cuddyer over the offseason is that he's a leader and a vet who can provide a good example and hit some. As a righty he's not a perfect park fit and he'd require us to squeeze Carp and Wells in around other lineup pieces... but I was desperate for a vet bat.
Cuddyer is killing it in Colorado, and since Tulo is not an especially vocal leader (nor is Cargo) they are getting decent early returns from his clubhouse leadership too.
I understand why Wedge is riding Olivo. He needs SOMEBODY over the age of 25 in that locker room to be a leader. Ichiro doesn't talk. Figgins is useless in that regard based on his body of work in Seattle. Ryan is a character but a total grinder who gets lost in his own pressures (as Wedge admitted last year).
We don't have that vet. And none of the kids is a real fiery leader. Smoak is a laid-back Southern boy, as is Ackley. They're both more-deeds, less-words sort of guys, and the deeds are failing them at the moment.
Montero got here about 4 seconds ago as a quiet Latin kid. Seager was a bench bat until he refused to stop hitting and Carp got injured.
Carp is about the only vocal firebrand we've got - I think we're missing him in the clubhouse. We need some brashness and supreme self-confidence, both of which Carp possesses.
I'm not really concerned about the talent on this team. Olivo can get marginalized by Montero and Jaso as the year goes on. Same with Figgins vs. Seager, Carp and Wells. Our immediate production will not be maxed out, but we're a lot more talented than the 2010 squad.
But the leadership hole has to be filled, and since we refused to add any veterans to help in that regard the kids are gonna have to do it.
We're asking them to do a LOT. #2, 4, 5, 6, 7 in the lineup are all kids. The vets are 1, 3, 8 and 9 basically - 3 of the 4 being positions you'd normally think the kids might be at. And since
I can't be mad at them for not instantly stepping up a la Buster Posey to take absolute control of an offense they just walked into.
But we need them to if we're gonna have a chance. So please, guys - hurry up, wouldja?
~G
Why trade Vargas for Ortiz (overpriced $14.6M) when you could have had Carlos Pena for the cost of signing him ($7.25M one year deal)? Granted, I don't care how much these guys cost when the M's are pinching pennies. We also could have bought low on Adam Dunn when his stock was down after last season. I don't mind moving players to make room for the stud kid pitchers in AA ball, but at least maximize value. Now if we sent Vargas plus dead weight (Figgins, Olivo), I'm all in.
Is this implementation of Jack's blueprint his chosen one, or an effort to do the best he can within the strict constraints mandated by his leash-holders?
All GM's (well, most) have leash-holders, and all GM's have constraints. But there is a history here with this organization. If anyone can find a way to hinder the success of Jack's blueprint it's these guys. What success the Mariners have had as an organization has been despite the organization, and every time there was a chance to reap great rewards it was foiled by needlessly strict constraints that forced GM's to make bad choices. And what's funny, all though the period of the mid-90's to 2003 the M's made the same mistakes over and over, jettisoning players that produced elsewhere, doing so in the name of payroll, only to find out that what bucks they DID spend were squandered. I'll say it for the third time in the last few days. Read "Shipwrecked." No need for me to post the evidence here when it's presented much better there.
You say "Well that was then, this is now. Now we have Jack." True. But what you've got is Jack constrained rather than Jack unleashed. Zduriencik may manage to overcome those constraints with the sheer volume of the young talent he is acquiring. But if he does it will be despite the organization, not because of it. And in the end his achievements will not be all they could be.
I too fully expect that the current struggles are temporary. How temporary remains to be seen. Is 2012 going to be another ugly season while inexperienced kids struggle along with marginal vets? Or will things gel during the season?
But I for one think that Jack is making do the best he can with the hand he has been dealt, and not only are WE paying the price, THE KIDS are paying the price too. The very kids that hold our future in their hands.
That's not a beanstalk he's been able to climb.
I don't consider Ryan a "vet" that he traded for, I guess. He had 1200 ABs in his pro career, or about 2 full pro seasons spread out over 4 years. If somebody had traded for Willie Bloomquist with us 3 or 4 years into his career I wouldn't have thought they were getting a "veteran" either.
So let's consider vets "free agents" instead of trades for players barely in arb. That would make this list:
Branyan - 128 OPS+ with Seattle. Success! (Z knew him from the Brewers)
Griffey - ouch
Figgins - double-triple-ouch
Sweeney - perfect clubhouse guy and part-timer, wish we had him now.
Byrnes - hahahaha
Langerhans - 100 ABs a year of decency. Woot!
Jamey Wright - ugh
Colome - blech
Jack Cust - done-zer
Kennedy - overused utility man but a good pickup
Olivo - there's a pain behind my eye...
Bard - yeah...
L-Rod - backup plan, nothin more
I mean geez...
That doesn't count Wilson and Snell, btw, who were both expensive and acquired in trade, or Bill Hall.
Millwood is not looking good this year in early returns.
If it was MY team, I'd absolutely be leery of giving Jack too much money for players he's not intimately familiar with. Another reason I was chasing Fielder in the offseason - nobody knows him better than Jack and his broad shoulders would help the kids find their footing and place in this lineup. But you can't make a player come here, unfortunately.
It's not like Jack has spent a ton of money on free agents. He's spent more on trade acquisitions (Bradley, Wilson, Snell, etc) but some of those were salary swaps and others were attempts to fill dire needs that failed. He wasn't locked in long-term on any of em.
But if your GM kept bringing you 16 million dollar black holes like Wilson and DOA vets like Cust, would you want to give him 40 or 50 million to better show off his skill?
Or would you ask him to trade for prospects like Montero instead?
Jack's brought part of this on himself by only making good choices with prospects. His only real non-prospect successes were with basically free players (Sweeney, Kennedy) or guys he already knew, like Branyan.
It unfortunately plays into ownership's fear of the Big Contract or paying for black holes. Bavasi was allowed to spend/waste hundreds of millions of dollars, but Jack can't get two sticks to rub together to prove he can make fire with more than scattered free-agent leaves. It's a vicious cycle.
Jack had his one big(ger)-money trade (Wilson and Snell) and his one FA contract trial, with Figgins, and he blew em both. Now the purse strings are tied.
And we have to hope, like you said DaddyO, that it doesn't cause long-term damage to the kids to make them carry the entire offense on their shoulders. I think they'll survive it and be able to put up a decent offensive output - but will it be this year?
~G
Was supposed to be a quip there Watcher ... I'm always talking about lefthanders in Yankee Stadium and Safeco Field, and then we get one and I'm talking about how fast we can shed him...
Joke's on me, I guess :- )
Grandmaster Zduriencik said "let's not kid ourselves; this is gonna be a tough year" and he had to have been thinking of the slow starts here of Ackley, Smoak, Montero, etc.
I hope that didn't extend itself to the idea of, "let's shed Paxton, Hultzen and Taijuan because what's the use."
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Point of the article, of course, is not that the M's are going to win 100, but that the losing streak is --- > growing pains, as opposed to dry rot :- )
That 75 OPS+ is what has the April-May in real trouble...
That Montero, Smoak and Ackley would start slow is understandable. Problemo is when that's going on, AND your team captains are glove-first 50 OPS+ players.
Right now, that bat-first team captain is looking mighty good, G. That could be an example of 3rd-order thinking that's out in front even of Zduriencik.
Give the M's full credit for offering Prince $180M. Z said that Boras told him, "the number needs to start with a 2" and that implies how close the M's were to offering that.
At the same time, the M's have had the same CFO for a quarter of a century, and he's always believed that you "can't get carried away" with winning. The budget right now is sad, considering that the city handed over a half-billion-dollar stadium that made failure impossible.
Baker (and you DaddyO) will continue to bang the drum on this, and I'm glad. There will never come a time when I tire of your Top-Down Message observations, bro'.
Sorry, doc. No matter how good a Safeco asset, !'m not sure we keep Vargas after the three kids arrive. With pitching at a premium and our suckitude at the plate, it is easy to see trade prospects for a DH/corner OFer type. You also have the issue of attracting FA bats if they don't want to come. With a trade, they are compelled to come.
I hope this question isn’t too naïve, but couldn’t the “problem” with Z’s free agent signings thus far be a sample size issue? Given that he’s had well under 30 free agent signings (no assumptions of normality yet!) and let’s say 110 signed draft selections (~=50*3*.75, approximated since I don’t know a fast way of looking up this number & don’t have time to compile the data using known/available methods), could it be that his talent evaluation is equal for amateur and professional players but there simply haven’t been enough FA signings yet to separate the signal from the noise? Furthermore, it seems to me that a reasonable response to the resource constraints (i.e. budget & FA options) and organizational needs—an empty farm system—might have been to focus both scouting resources and personal attention away from the FA market. (I mean this in a relative sense, against the level of attention free agents might have received if the possibility of major signings existed.) The notion that talent evaluation is a separable ability based on the group under investigation just seems tenuous to my completely ignorant eyes.
Cheers,
Mark
While I've been persistently pointing out Z's apparent weakness in identifying civics (low priced available replacement level talent) who possess upside, the one thing that is apparent in the list of FA failures is that they all are low cost and low risk moves.
GMZ has taken a flyer on many a cheap veteran. So far, none have really panned out. So far, only one (Figgins) has had a lasting negative impact - it just so happens that the one is also the only long term deal (of greater than 2 years). (I'm currently in the mindset that the Olivo deal might need to be included with Figgins, but last years available options at catcher were so, so bad, that I'm leaving it out.)
Being zero for one ain't so bad. Being one for a dozen ain't so bad when the odds are so long.
What is it? It's a concern. Personally, I'm more concerned that the team payroll has dropped by 30+ million and will continue to drop until they put a winning team on the field and butts in the seats.
- Ben.
I don't think that will happen. If we couldn't get a MOTO bat for Fister AND Bedard (I am assuming that if a legit one could have been had, Z would have grabbed one) there's no way Vargas will bring one. He gets no respect, and is starting to get expensive (though still at a relative discount).
like Nick Franklin, Carter Capps and Vince Catricala :- )
For me, I'm not saying that Jay-Z is bad with FA's. I'm only saying that his FA (actually veteran) evaluation is open to question, whereas his evaluation of minor leaguers and ML-ready players is not.
I'm not going to write one word busting him on Chone Figgins, 'cause I was delighted with the contract when it occurred. I thought we had a 4-6 WAR player for $9M a year ... from a division rival.
If I were him my lesson learned would be: be careful with "soft" WAR (based on UZR, walks that aren't VERY demonstrated, position adjustment etc.), and spend money on diamond-hard NON-THEORETICAL skills like ... Prince Fielder's.
In retrospect it's easy to see how Figgins was a saber, but not on-field, superstar.
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But I don't see how you can blame him for Chone Figgins. At $9M he only needed 2.0, 2.5 WAR to validate the salary.
All right, lets run with that... who do we target, and which young hitter do we kick off the island to make room?
Hopefully a post before too long. Like from G or Spec :- )
And I wouldn't expect other GM's to pull signings like Brett Boone or Arthur Rhodes out of a hat like he did, where a guy goes from being more or less ML-average to all-star and MVP caliber right after he joins your team.
What Zduriencik may lack in scouting is the fine sense of personality and how the player fits in with the team he has assembled. Gillick is a rare breed in that sense, because he was so ridiculously deep in to knowing the players themselves.
That would be my concern going forward - that the tools scouting becomes clouded by a team that has clashing personalities. That the manager isn't a good fit with the players' personalities (ala Wakamatsu).
What we see now seems encouraging. Wedge is consistent and confident and tough, and the kids seem resilient. Overall the young kids are quieter and more passive than I'd like. Felix is awesome, but he only pitches every five days. This team needs a Buhner type. Someone who plays every day and has the results to back up some swagger.
Honestly, I think Carp provides a measure of that attitude; I think his absence has hurt more than we realize. And Ryan is nails-tough. But the free-wheeling, confident, happy arrogance is missing. This team needs that... A QB to say, 'we want the ball and we're going to score'. A right fielder who says, 'forget the wild card, we're going to win the division'. A manager to say, 'This series is going back to Seattle' :-)
Over at the Stalk.
Working on a Carraway piece, and I'm refining my prospect rankings with a May 1 goal.
My instant take is that the platoons can take the beach if Smoak and Carp are the MOTO bats at the corner positions. In which case Carp would have to be the straw, personality-wise. Premium bats at C and 2b need to be in addition to sluggers at the corners. So that's where Z is placing his bets right now: Smoak and Carp.
Soooo....jettison Armstrong and hire Pat to be your president. He's not up to the grind of the GM job any more but Gillick in the Nolan Ryan role? I'll take a heaping helping of that. He still lives in the Seattle area - Churchill ran into him at a UW game, sitting by himself just taking in the game he loves.