Here's the odd thing, if we don't sign Kendrys (and I think we will), we would absolutely love it if we got 4 years of 120 OPS from the 1st Rd. pick we get.
Heck, just take the 4 years in hand and plug Kendrys in at #5.
As to the 5 to make 3......If you have guys that can field a position (beyond 1B) it can work. Kendrys, Smoak, Morrison, Hart....they don't field grounders. Add a crippled Guti to make 5. Three starting IF's and two C's...and you have 10. Bloomquest is 11. I suppose you could get by with just one CF type (Saunders) and a flexible Romero or Franklin and you're at 13 and done.
It doesn't work well, I think. But it could be done. Bloomy and Franklin subbing in for the IF positions give you flexiblibly.
But that makeup means you're playing Morrison or Hart in the OF every day, and you're playing both of them most days (when you don't play Guti). But if a Smoak is gone, then you can keep a Romero or a pure COF, and you can move Hart out of the OF.
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FOREST for the TREES, dept. One of the game's General Managers told Peter Gammons that he thinks Kendrys Morales will sit out until after the June draft (when he can then shop his services without the draft pick attached).
TREES for the FOREST, dept. Mike Petriello, at Fangraphs, does a superb job of going down the line, on a club-by-club basis, and demonstrating that no team is a feasible match for Kendrys right now.
CHAOS THEORY, dept. Of course, you never know when something weird will happen, and the electric fence will go down, loosing the velociraptors to chew on your keister. Maybe Kendrys will drive in his 90 runs for the Twinkies or Rangers.
But what SSI wanted to underline was --- > from a Fortune 500 point of view, you'd be surprised how fast your white board can wind up at a Brick Stone Wall Alley Dead End. The unnamed GM had run an analysis similar to Petriello's on every free agent available -- think about that for a moment -- and the GM remarked off-handedly, You better get comfortable, Kendrys.
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I/O: There are certain "unsexy" players who suffer unfairly from the "sexy comp pick" attached.
CRUNCH: The comp pick thingy IS unfair, in my opinion. And the "sexiness" of a transaction DOES play a factor, it says here.
Go down through the list, of those few players who have been STRANGELY hard-hit by the comp pick rule, and you'll find they are all "ugly" players. You have the ultimate "unsexy" players, LaRoche, Kendrys, Lohse, no upside whatsoever ... against the ultimate "sexy" asset, the First Round Draft Pick Baby!, the one with unlimited upside. You put these two in very close proximity to each other, and you get a psychological-exponential effect.
It's something to think about. We're all human. That's why salesmen sell the sizzle, not the steak.
Kendrys is a lot more steak than sizzle. If we sabermetricians were truly objective, then ....
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You know one thing that hadn't really occurred to me, for some reason: the Mariners also lose a 1st* round pick for signing Kendrys. The one they would otherwise gain, if anybody else signed him.
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Q. Why would Kendrys decline $14M -- plus his 2015 salary, and 2016 salary, whatever those would be -- to get into this dreadful situation?
A. I think the major thing is, a 3-year deal guarantees him 150 games. If you were in Kendrys' shoes, that concern would probably blot out the sun. You want to lock in a role as a day-in, day-out number five hitter.
The minor thing is, there have been moments in which it looked like he could score a $65M deal.
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I/O: Should the Mariners be interested?
CRUNCH: Kendrys looked good enough, in 2014, as The Main Man. It would be wonderful to see a 90-runs-created player as your #4 or #5 offensive player. THAT, gentlemen, would signal your legit offense.
That's what the Rangers have, and it's what the Angels have in their up years. Their 5th-best hitter is an 80-, 90-runs guy.
Problem is, we then take that guy (Kendrys, Nelson Cruz, whoever) and make him our #1 guy...
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I/O: How would such a roster configure? Hart needs AB's at DH.
CRUNCH: With the Mariners, it probably wouldn't involve another 156 games for Kendrys, and it would might also involve moving LoMo or Smoak ...
According to Jon Paul Morosi, there is interest from the National League, implying that Kendrys' ankle is now ready for reasonable duty at first base.
I know one thing. Billy Beane wouldn't fret about having five good players to share three positions.
BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
I totally forget about Romero. He should be ready now for a MLB role.
It's worth noting that right now the M's lineup has improved only slightly. At least in this way.
OK..give Zunino some improvement over last year.
Give Miller his 110 OPS and Seager his 120.
Cano's 145 is WAY better than Franklin's 96, but the trade off is Kendrys' 123 gives way to Morrison's 96.
Give Smoak his 113 and Saunders his 110. If Hart replicates Raul's 123 we would be pretty satisfied. OK here you have to factor in Bay as part of the Raul/Bay combo...but the vast majority of Bays PA came when he was above 100 OPS. Give Hart, healthy, a bit of an edge.
So with 8 lineup positions checking in, we're getting Cano's batting improvement over Kendrys, as Franklin and Morrison are a wash. We get an improved Zunino. Is 100 OPS too much to figure? And you may get improvement in one COF position. Morse and Ackley had 734 PA's last year with an OPS about 92. We need our unknown COF (part of it Guti PA's) to improve on that number. If that doesn't happen, then you can guess we're really only Zunino's improvement and Cano's better numbers than Morales. That's if everybody else holds form and doesn't make a leap.
Ergo: We need another bat. If we rolled a Guti/Ackley/Romero combo out into a COF position, they would need to reach a combined 110 to significantly improve on last year's Morse/Ackley.
Get Kendrys.
Maybe somebody goes nuts, Cano or Seager, perhaps. And it's true that Miller's #'s won't be watered down by Ryan's. But right now, we're some better....but just some. Get another bat. Kendrys or Van Slyke and we're a bunch better.
I remember Morales being pretty clutch. There are precious few players who can hit a pitcher's best when it counts. Kendrys is one of those players.
Is Morales likely to get a better deal if he waits out the draft? Could be tough if he is weighing that and a 3/$24 offer from the M's come spring.
I like Kendrys well enough, but how many non-athletic, injury-prone, one-dimensional players do we need now that we've added Morrison and Hart? MAYBE Hart can play the outfield a little bit, but let's be honest about that. We probably don't want him playing 80 games out there. 40 or 50 is more like it, if that. Right now, 1B and DH are manageable with a 3-way rotation between Smoak, Morrison, and Hart, with Smoak getting most of the starts at 1B, Hart rotating between DH and an OF corner, and occasionally at 1B, and Morrison mostly at DH or sitting on the bench. So where would Kendrys play? Do sign Kendrys and then trade LoMo?
The answer to all this is to still sign Morales to 2 year deal - hopefully around $15M with incentives... and let the boys earn their playing time in spring training.
If Smoak does his normal... he is in Tacoma.
If Lomo can't hit, put him on the DL... and give him the Guti treatment until he can hit OR until somebody gets hurt - be it Hart, Morales or Guti...