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Q.  Does Dr. D believe that the M's are even going to try to acquire four Stars?

A.  On some things, We The SSI People hold these truths to be self-evident:  

... we can "emotionally invest" in a Mariners team at such time as they are 10-1 and have just added Percy Harvin.  

... If and when the Mariners DO acquire a Star, it will be 100% within their "comfort zone."  

... The Mariners would like to win, but it's all gravy, since they already kept the team in Seattle.  

... etc.

*M's supposedly wouldn't protest if they onloaded "a #2 starter to slot behind Felix."  Well, a guy who slots between Felix and WBC-san, that's a #1 starter, kiddies.

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Q.  Would their "comfort zone" allow for actual Git R Done deals?

A.  They might have landed Fielder, if not for Detroit.   They offered Hamilton $25M times 4-6 years, and they were more scared of his downside than anybody.  A comfort zone ain't what it used to be.  And with all their new TV money, versus their existing payroll, well...

Fact is, they've been gathering momentum on this Stars & Scrubs thing, and two offseasons in a row they've swung and missed; even they must be frustrated with coming up short in the FA market, and in a mood to git r done.  

The Mariners are the Mariners, but we SSI fans can expect semi-legit runs at big names.

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Q.  Is that a disaster waiting to happen?

A.  We The SSI People hear this shtick, "Four Turtle Doves," and we think SSUUUUuuuuuure.  We'll believe it when we see it.

Other good amigos hear that shtick, and they think "Please, dear Bud, let other teams outbid the Mariners.  Anything but Nelson Cruz, anything."

Some amigos in the Seattle blog-o-sphere react thusly:  Suppose the M's WERE serious.  It wouldn't get them anywhere, anyhow.  Dr. D has a caffeine-like craving to put himself on the record that --- > [+4 Stars] would be peachy keen.

It's a funny thing:  On Friday* we got an Op-Ed savaging the M's for the Demonstrable Nelson Cruz Stupidity.  On Saturday we got the news that Billy Beane is a big fan of Cruz -- and to him, Cruz costs about twice what he'd cost everybody else.  As a fraction of payroll.

Stupid is as stupid does, I guess.  

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Q.  Is Dr. D enthused about Nelson Cruz?

A.  Not at all.  Cruz is just about his least-favorite, among the big names bandied about.

Which is not to say that a Cruz move would prove that the Mariners are (literally) unintelligent.

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Q.  Can you win by signing free agents?  Is it possible?  I don't recall many teams signing four guys and going from 69 wins to 97.

A.  Other than the Red Sox, naturally.  But we know what you mean.  The Red Sox weren't really a 90-loss team.

Granted, it's not real easy to "buy" a 90-loss team into the playoffs.  That doesn't happen often, not in one winter, and when it does they attribute it to something other than the imports.  People will look at Ryan Dempster and Mike Napoli and Shane Victorino and Koji Uehara .... hey, that's a #2 starter, two MOTO hitters and a closer, ain't it? ... and go "Well, they had their own players, Lester and Ortiz and stuff."

Oh yeah, they signed Stephen Drew last winter as well.

If the M's added four players, and Seager/Felix/et al played well, they'd say the same.  "You gotta have your ingrown players do well, too."

Sure.  ::shrug::  The whole idea is, bring in production, and put pressure on your incumbents to play as well as the imports do.  This did in fact occur in Boston.

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Q.  Wouldn't it be more clever to win by adding 2.5 WAR players for 1.5 WAR money?

A.  This debate goes on, in nutrition-fitness-bodybuilding.

The professors and researchers assure you that "a calorie is a calorie" and that "jogging for an hour only burns 417 calories." Meanwhile, the bodybuilders and Hollywood actors go on with their --- > lo-carbing and their HIIT workouts, and go on losing 25 lbs. in a month, shredding down from fat to six-packs in six-weeks.

Cognitive dissonance.  Hey, math is math and thermodynamics are thermodynamics.  The professors hate lo carbing, hate rich Americans eating animals, and keep massaging the studies until lo carb shows no advantage...

A calorie is a calorie and a WAR is a WAR, yes.  But the human body (and the human baseball team) is complex.  All sorts of weight loss factors occur...

• Hormones, like insulin, affect fact storage
• TEF (thermo effect of food) requires 20% overhead for protein digestion
• Calorie "afterburn" curve following HIIT training
• 9,000 things like that, that we suspect
• 10,000 more things like that, that we don't even suspect

And, as always, it turns out that the real world is complex, not simple.  And we regular Americans go on ignoring the pronouncements of smart people who --- > have lied to us repeatedly in the past.

Instead, we go over to the thin people, the stage (natural) bodybuilders and to Hugh Jackman and to Daniel Craig, and we ask, "how did you do it?"

.....

People assure us that a WAR is a WAR.  Well, it is, but ... human 25-man rosters are complex.  What is one player's effect on another?  What is the benefit to having fungible sectors of your roster, due to Stars & Scrubs dynamics?  etc.

In all honesty, the problem with "A WAR Is a WAR" thinking is that it is simplistic.  It's ironic, but it's true.  The nutrition scientists are preaching a scientific theory at us, which is suitable for 6th graders.  Nothing in the real world is that simple.

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Q.  If Great-grandpa ate it, is it good or bad?

A.  To your college prof, if that's your diet, what Great-Grandpa ate, that's reason enough to avoid it.  (If corned beef, cabbage and potatoes is all you need to be healthy, what good is he?)

To us P90X'ers, if it's what Great-Grandpa ate, that's reason enough to NOT avoid it.  :- )  

Something similar goes on in modern baseball analysis.  If John McGraw was aware of something, let's say Right Hand Power, then what good is the newfangled premium blog?  A lot of the time in America, we're arguing about whether George Washington was basically stupid, or basically smart.

That is inherent to the words "liberal" and "conservative," also:  what is our attitude toward the human being born 50 years ago?  Basically respect, with the idea to build, or basically disdain, with the idea to replace?

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Q.  How do real contenders, in MLB, do it?

A.   Well, I dunno, let's take a look ... the Boston Red Sox are always crammed with free agents.

Who else was in the ALCS?  Detroit, do they have any pricey free agents?  Oh yeah, Prince Fielder and Anibal Sanchez, and Miguel Cabrera was a de-facto free agent, acquired just before he cashed in on his 8/$153M deal.

St. Louis, the poster boys for "purist" team construction, feature Carlos Beltran and they traded for FA albatross Matt Holliday ... still, we'll give them props for doing most their work through the farm system.  If Dr. D wanted to preach "stay out of the market," this is the franchise he would use as his foam-rubber bat.  (Dr. D is not preaching dogma here; he is arguing that the world is complex.)

Angels' free agents?  HEH!  The Dodgers?  Heh, heh, HEH!

Billy Beane has a rep for staying out of deep water, but then, he doesn't have any oars.  His latest team included Bartolo Colon, Coco Crisp, and Grant Balfour ... despite his payroll, Beane always has whatever Matt Hollidays or Nelson Cruzes or Josh Willinghams he can afford.  On radio a few weeks ago, Beane said sure, he'd love to be able to be in on the big names.  He just doesn't have the money.

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Q.  Maybe the worry is just that the Mariners will pick the WRONG free agents, namely, Nelson Cruz?

A.  The "wrong" free agents (and trade targets), from this paradigm, are going to be those that can do serious damage to good pitchers -- guys who get their WAR in the batter's box.  The "right" ones will be the ones that are clever, the ones that the madding crowd doesn't like.

I don't agree, and neither do the GM's.  Just getting that on the record.  

Those WAR that occur from within the batter's box, I think those are the most important ones.  Judging by Billy Beane's history with Holliday and Willingham and now (apparently) Cruz and with Frank Thomas and etc., even he doesn't disagree.

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Q.  Are you saying you can't win without big free agents?

A.  Of course not.  SSI is merely arguing that it's not disastrous to be in on the same names that the other contenders are in on.  

In this town, that's giving yourself plenty 'nuff of a cross to bear.  :- ) 

The 2014 M's want to roll out David Price and Curtis Granderson for us, we don't file that in the "too bad to be true" category.  More the "too good to be true" category.  Bring on the Hot Stove, man.  I'm down.

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