Bavasi's Epitaph
Brains, yes. Magic Sparkle Dust, no.

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Gordon's article -- the previous one on the front page here -- convincingly demonstrates that the player development under Bavasi grades at a good, solid, echo'ing F.

 I'd say that's the first time I've seen a writeup that even-handedly assessed Bill Bavasi's years, and it's a damning assessment, at least from the player development end.

Gordon's right:  NOW is the correct time to ask, "How good or bad was Bill Bavasi?"  This post isn't answering the question.  It is there to provide a 10-meter jumping off point so that you can tell me how good or bad he was, as it pertained to 25-man roster construction.

............

Bavasi's moves on the 25-man roster are a little harder to assess, at least for me.  Using Gordon's fine analysis as a jumping-off point...

In fairness, Bavasi was left with the ashes of a Pat Gillick aftermath.  (If you're just joining us, Gillick -- one of my favorite baseball people -- converts a team's resources into the here-and-now, ossifies the team roster with 31-year-olds, wins huge for two or three years, and then leaves just before the ossified roster leaves a horrendous mess of over-the-hill veterans.)

..............

The biggest trades that stick in everybody's minds:

  • A lame-duck Freddy Garcia for Jeremy Reed (a Baseball Prospectus DARLING), Olivo, and ... Mike Morse
  • Choo and Cabrera (two org top-10 prospects, scoff-targets at the time by big blogs) for two platoon DH's slugging .500

Trading your org #8 prospect, when you have a bottom-3 farm system, for a cleanup hitter during a stretch run?  Don't tell me that's not reasonable, in concept.

At the time, local blogs viewed Shin-Soo Choo the way they view Mike Carp, now -- at best.  Probably they didn't give Choo that much respect.  D-O-V was arguing hard that he was a strike-zone master with 500-foot power and a very early age-arc.

..............

Bavasi, and his co-GM Chuck Armstrong, bet on:

  • Adrian Beltre
  • Richie Sexson
  • Erik Bedard
  • Jeremy Reed
  • Miguel Olivo (burned in Seattle for personality reasons)
  • Kenji Johjima
  • Washburn, Batista, and Silva
  • Jose Lopez (who was supposed to be the crown jewel of Gillick's player dev system)

..........

He filled in with some Jose Vidros and Mike Sweeneys, as all GM's do.  Look the list over as coolly as you can.  At the time, were those the kinds of players unintelligent bets?  Was it really unintelligent to bet on Jeremy Reed?

My big objection was Washburn, Batista, and Silva, as opposed to Stars & Scrubs.  That was a Committee decision.  You can certainly argue that a rotation full of 4-5K starters is "behind the times."  But remember that Bedard and Silva were the offseason recommendation of Mat Olkin, a leading sabermetrician of the era -- the Mariners were leaning heavily on consulting saberdudes during that time.

..........

Looking at the roster of players Bavasi bet on, at the major league level, the seem quite reasonable to me at first glance.  My first reaction is that GM'ing is a lot harder than people think that it is.  But that first reaction could be off track.

It strikes me, in retrospect that the vast majority of these bets and gambles were completely reasonable.  The fact that they did not work out, however, is Bill Bavasi's responsibility.  You're not paid for good intentions; you're paid for magic sparkle dust.

Betting on Beltre, and Sexson, and Bedard, and Johjima, and Lopez ... is the difference between that, and Pat Gillick's "magic sparkle dust" finds of Bret Boone, Mark McLemore, Aaron Sele, etc ... is that difference "creative genius"?

When Pat Gillick bets on Mark McLemore, and Bill Bavasi bets on Jose Vidro, that's not luck.  Gillick turns out to be right, again and again.  But don't tell me that Baseball Prospectus knows why.  The Magic Sparkle Dust is elusive, and I don't believe it's found in statistics.  Not primarily.

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Blog: 

Comments

1

Look, here's one trade:
3 months of a former ace (or TOR, if you prefer) who is declining by every measure, for:
- a CFer rated the #25 prospect in the game by BA, with more walks than Ks his first 3 years, posted a .310/.375/.460/.835 minor league line for his career.
- a huge SS destined for a corner, had a contact problem (both with average and hitting the ball flush for power)
- a decent catcher with some head concerns who was ready right now
vs.
3 months of a current ace (at the top of his game, one of the 5 best in MLB) and a decent RHP reliever for:
- a switch-hitting 1B rated the #13 prospect in the game by BA, with a 1:1 eye who was rushed up the ladder but still had a .400 OBP in the minors with decent power.
- AA pitcher of the year and former 1st round pick
- throw-in MIFer
- Fireballing relief arm with legal trouble
who was flipped for 
- a decent catcher with some defensive and platoon concerns who was ready right now
I'm including Jaso in the deal just for a picture of what we got.
---------------------------------
Is the Bavasi deal for Freddy significantly worse than what we got for Lee, who was absolutely the better pitcher anyway?  I mean, the packages aren't entirely dis-similar.
And Jack might well lose out on the Cliff Lee trade as far as its major component goes.  Justin Smoak is not gonna be what we wanted him to be.  Even if he becomes a good 1B he won't be the demolisher of men that we were hoping for.
But that doesn't castrate this team's future because we have other prospects.
Bavasi's problem was that he couldn't find the right free agents AND couldn't buttress that with trades or draftees AND couldn't figure out which players he should keep from the selection he already had on hand.  If Jack blows the Fister deal, or the Lee deal, that's not a death knell because they aren't the only talented and valued pieces he had or ever will have.
----------------------------------
Some guys, like Gillick, have that "magic sparkle dust" on their free agent adds.
Some, like Zduriencik, have it when it comes to drafting and acquiring club-controlled talent.
If you have it (in WHATEVER area you happen to have it) you can hold your own weaknesses at bay.  Kyle Seager is busy making up for the Figgins disaster.  Iwakuma is taking Fister's salary spot and effectiveness the next few years, and if Ryan was a bad call, well that's what Miller and Franklin will be here to fix shortly.  
If you think Bavasi didn't have much to work with, well lemme just say I would take Choo/Jones/As-Cab over Morrow/Fister/Saunders.  Maybe you can call it a push, but either way the system was in terrible shape and the major league club Bavasi was handed was better than what Zduriencik got. It's an ugly job trying to fix a mess like that but one of those guys was definitely not up to the task.
Gillick used to overwhelm off the bad by demolishing the farm, and then when the whole place went up like Savannah in Gone with the Wind, well that was the price of doing business.
Zduriencik goes the other way, by taking two steps backward for every three forward and trusting that eventually there won't be any more steps backward, and the forward momentum of the farm and its bursting young talent will propel us rocketing into the playoffs (and incidentally be more sustainable than the Gillick Method, where you sell your soul for a few years of playoff runs and hope for the title in the process).
Bavasi kept drilling holes in his own boat, and threw his bucket away, and then wondered why he sank.  He had no available method at his disposal to help himself, no skill to offset his mistakes.
------------------------------
The Bavasi Era was a failure not because Bavasi was bad at one thing, but because he was bad at everything.
That's his unfortunate legacy with the Mariners: being all the three Stooges at once, complete with eye pokes and "nyak nyak nyak"s while professional baseball in Seattle burned to the ground.
It's taken longer than I wanted to rebuild it, but a solid foundation takes a while to lay and looks a lot like an empty hole of nothin' to the casual observer.  Here's hoping this is the year we finally start putting the house on that foundation and giving ourselves something to be proud of again, but whether this year or another at least we aren't selling off every useful possession on the front lawn while the house behind us breaks off and falls into the ocean, 1941-style.
That era of Mariners baseball should be forever over.
Fingers crossed.
~G

2
GLS's picture

I think there was a pivot point following the 2004 season in which Edgar and Olerud retired, and with Wilson clearly nearing the end, where they looked at what they had and made the decision to reload (Beltre, Sexson) rather than rebuild. It's understandable. You had Ichiro and Jeremy Reed looking like your #1 and #2 hitters for the next decade, Jose Lopez was a projectable prospect with ML service time on the books, and Felix was your top prospect and looked like your future ace to build a pitching staff around. Also, it looks like that offseason was when they signed Yuniesky Betancourt, because 2005 was when he broke into both the minors and the majors. So, maybe they had an idea that they were set at shortstop. They also had Raul and Bret Boone on the roster.
I think, pretty clearly, they misjudged what they had at that point. I wonder if they even thought about trading Jeremy Reed at the peak of his value? Bret Boone, going into his age 36 season and coming off a season where he was clearly on the decline but still hit 25 home runs, probably should have been traded. I can't recall if that was talked about much at the time. Maybe they were stuck with the salary? The starting pitching in 2005 was pretty mediocre. Just looking at the numbers, it's hard to imagine that they thought this was a pitching staff that would win a lot of games.
You can look at the next few years and see more mistakes. Clearly, they thought they had something close to a contender, and so they kept trying to fill holes, but they were wrong. What I wonder about is how different things would be if they had passed on the 2004 to 2005 reload and instead committed to rebuilding. At a minimum, it seems like that wouldn't have led them to trade AsCab, Choo, and Jones.
I'm not saying everything I think I need to say yet. There are just so many variables. The one constant seems to be talent evaluation. Even if Bavasi (and Fontaine) screwed up all the drafts, if he had properly understood the value of his own players at the major league level, we would have seen better outcomes.

3

Betting on Beltre, and Sexson, Johjima, and Lopez was mistake after mistake, etc.
Bavasi targeted right-handed power bats to form the core of his team. With the exception of Sexson, who I think just got old, Safeco chewed them up and spit them out.
I remember one of Zduriencik's first interviews in which he said, "We looked at this team and saw that every single player was ill-suited for their park."

4

Adrian Beltre was basically the same player as Kyle Seager, just right-handed with better defense, and once he escaped Safeco, on came the .900 OPS seasons. Kenji Johjima was mostly a solid offensive catcher, remember when we pulled our hair out that we couldn't figure out how the Mariners would get rid of a catcher with a .700 OPS that threw out 40% of base stealers? Obviously Johjima's cushy extension following his worst season poisoned the well, and the fact that Adrian Beltre never managed anywhere near a .900 OPS in Seattle stung (though he did manage an .855 OPS from May 17, 2007 to April 30, 2008), but for the most part, those guys were worth the money. Bavasi never could work out a pitching staff in the easiest pitcher's park in the AL though...

5

But that wouldn't be a very popular idea with those who see logic and stats as the Theory of Everything.
That's a game-changer Gordon.  Never really hit me quite that way before.  All humans are gifted, and those gifts transcend Method.  (with caveats, of course.)
Very profound.

6

But was it a stupid oversight?  Was the man in the street calling "Foul" as it was occurring?
Sexson transcended the park for two years, and Fangraphs gives Beltre's WAR as 3.5'ish during his time here, right?  Per Fangraphs net value, Beltre outperformed his salary and was "therefore" a "correct" move.

7

And based on age-arc I thought he had a 30% chance to be an impact bat at SS.  He hit .300 with gap power on his first taste of AAA.
In the minors, his teammates swoooooned over his talent on defense.
But as with many Cuban refugees, the work ethic (perhaps among other things) turned him into an icon for failed Bavasi-era gambles.  I'd have made that mistake too.  I'll bet you that Pat Gillick wouldn't have.
Nowadays I'd be very, very careful with refugees out of hellholes like that.  I wonder if Gillick has ever signed that type of Cuban refugee.

8
misterjonez's picture

a given perspective, the decisions don't look all that dissimilar. The Freddy trade was actually pretty good (for a lame duck situation), if we had just kept the pieces and deployed them properly.
Olivo would have been fine, if used appropriately (i.e. against lefties, and allowed to do what HE did defensively, rather than telling him he couldn't hold Dan Wilson's jockstrap). NOBODY saw Reed imploding (including the BoSox, who made some pretty strong offers at one point), and Morse vindicated himself as soon as he got away from our player development system. I'm through blaming the park for our disgusting decade of run-scoring-- we had some AMAZING runs in Safeco to start, under Gillick.
Hey Gordon, snag my email and send a message to me... I wanna talk about Mason's Order, if you're so inclined.

9

for anybody who wants to talk, would start with a g, then dot, and probably be followed by moneyball.  With gmail, naturally. :)
Drop me a line, Jonez.
~G
[edit: LOL I typed it wrong. g . moneyball, no spaces. Sorry...]

10

I'll give a GM a pass on lousy picks. That game is a gamblers throw of some sort, even at it's best.
But bad trades eat the meat off the team bone.
Terrible trades usually involve getting vets for talented youth. Usually when you trade good veterans you're playing from behind. You have an ugly contract, no hope for the next couple of years or a guy at maximum value because other teams are in the playoff hunt.
I can't fault those trades, generally. The Fister swap doesn't really fit here, because he was still cost-controlled AND good. Trading Lee for Smoak? That's an understandable swap, even though I cringe when Smoak comes up. Lee wasn't going to be ours for ever and we weren't going to be great while he was here. Z appraised Smoak wrong, but so did nearly all of baseball. It seems like everybody thought (except maybe Texas? Would be interesting to know their internal analysis of Smoak) he was "Big Country," with a great eye and 30 double/30 tater pop. Remember, Z personally chose him over Montero in that swap, and everybody was gaga over Montero's bat.
OK, we got Kotchman-lite instead of "Big Country," but I'm not whining about the effort. It was a VERY reasonable swap at the time.
Montero for Pineda? A bit more dicey, perhaps.....but a classic trade of arm for bat. Hasn't really worked out for either team, but it was a neat roll of the dice.
Z did fine in those efforts.
But GM's who swap out the farm for two years of grizzle better get a WS appearance out of it. Bring Lee for Walker+ and you better get the payoff. If you don't, then I think those are the swaps you can clearly blame the GM for.
Proceed cautiously in those areas. A GM has to compete today (or shortly) but can't decimate the farm to do it.
I'm a believer in talent, not in perfect grooming. This is baseball after all, not the Westminster Kennel Club. Perfect grooming pays off there. Raw talent pays off here. Find that, field it, trust it and you win.
Willie Buck Mays, Dwight Gooden, Robin Yount and Bryce Harper were all flawed in some way when they got the (youthful) call. Waiting for the flaws to disappear would have been counterproductive.
If you swap out talented youth, you better get it right. That's a talent that I wan't to see in a GM.
moe

11

Is a prime example of a guy being able to talk the talk, but being simply being unable to walk the walk.
The rumored moves of the Bavasi era were amazing. Remember the rumors about Adam LaRoche and Tim Hudson for Richie Sexson and Rafael Soriano? Somehow this move became Soriano for Horacio Ramirez. Or how players kept getting thrown in on the Erik Bedard deal? The original ideas were solid, but if plan A didn't materialize, his ability to improvise a plan B as effective as his plan A was terrible.
Some Q's to ponder about the Bavasi era:
1) How many players did Bavasi claim off waivers who had an impact at a major league level (Ability to find value from another team's surplus talent). Contrast to the players who we gave up in the roster crunch and their impact.
2) How many gambles (injury risks or minor league throw ins) turned into major league contributors. Contrast to the number of players we added to trades and their impact.
3) The number of 2-5th round picks who within a year of being drafted became recognized as top prospects.
4) The impact of his first round picks compared to the ten picks selected after his choices.
I'm sure there are more questions you could ask of this nature, but the bottom line is that his execution was horrible.

12
okdan's picture

Soriano for Horacio Ramirez. Totally forgot about that one. That was brutal.

13
okdan's picture

The list of Bavasi's free agent signings reads like a house of horrors (some more financially disastrous than others):
- Rich Aurilia
- Carl Everett
- Brad Wilkerson (signed for $3M, DFAd after 19 games)
- Scott Spiezio
- Carlos Silva
- Jeff Weaver
Some of the absolute least enjoyable baseball I've ever watched were the result of Bavasi's civics.

14
GLS's picture

I think this is a key differentiator. On the one hand, if your team can at least get the first pick in the draft right on a more or less consistent basis, then you'll probably be all right in that you'll have a steady flow (i.e. one per year) of new talent to the ML roster. But, the ability to consistently find useful players in those later rounds separates the organizations that are truly able to leverage the draft. This is why I'm so leery of the idea of letting Jack Z. go. If he goes, McNamara probably goes as well and then we're probably back to where we were.

15
M's Watcher's picture

Beltre never has returned to his Dodger walk-year inflated production. Then again, many never did once MLB started testing for juice. Hmmm, the balls must have been deadened at the same time, right? Beltre put up basically his career average numbers while with Seattle and never met MOTO bat expectations. However, along with his spectacular glove and arm, he gave solid value. In Boston and Texas, he was more suited for hitting there, and the numbers show it.
Sexson was younger than Delgado by a couple years (and still is), though he aged much faster. As a lefty, Delgado was a better fit for the park and would have been the right signing, but we're talking free agency. He wasn't compelled to come here, and Sexson was PNW-grown. Even so, Sexson was fine for a couple years. There was just nothing behind him among the kids, so when Sexson fell off the aging cliff, the team did as well.
On Johjima, he was one of the only glimmers of light at catcher since Dan Wilson, at least with a bat. You are absolutely correct regarding his extension, though I don't know if that can be blamed on the GM. That may rest with ownership, as it was otherwise inexplicable. Again, there was nothing behind him, and that blame falls on the GM.
As for Lopez, he had a solid 10 WAR MLB-TM career. He wasn't a glove 2B, and he didn't have the bat for 3B. What, you were expecting Ryne Sandberg? It's wrong for any GM to bet on a 15-20 year HOF career.

16

It seems as if it does not require great skill at baseball to sign the best free agent available. All it takes is money. Give anybody Illich's check book and he can land you Prince Fielder. Similarly, everyone knows the skill set of the upper tier of stars. We know how good Clayton Kershaw is. It is easy to spot and project great talent shined to a luster and placed behind protective glass. But, spotting what will be is the key to everything in baseball. Who knew about Kyle Seager a few years ago? Who knows about him now?
I think that this is an exciting time to be an M's fan. We're just one Erasmpage/ Hultz smash away from turning into the Giants of twenty ought yore and inflicting death by shutout on the entire league. Z gets extra points for not trading off all of the good young pitchers. With injuries and such, it turns out we need all of them to make a rotation.

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