This pregnant with possibilities point is a reason that I'm against hiring Nori Aoki, or Colby Rasmus. Those guys sound great on paper, but if you sign one for $8 million or so and he tanks, or Romero goes insane, or a like situation, then ownership isn't going to let you jettison him at the drop of a hat. Also, if a guy is set to command significant free agent money, he probably also has the political capital to successfully avoid a platoon role.
If you do violate a veteran's playing time, then grudges and pouting often ensue. Remember Chone Figgins pouting and playing poorly for three and a half years because Wak pinch hit Ken Griffey Jr. for him one time? Remember when the Mariners played Ichiro every day when he was far too old to play every day? You don't want that.
I think it was this type of labor dispute that led to the trading of Condor. He didn't want to be a fourth outfield platoon bat and get a half a season off. He was too talented for that, and those type of guys don't get paid in free agency. Players actively resist the labels "injury prone" "platoon bat" or "part time player". There is a fortune at stake that depends on avoiding those roles.
Lloyd on the other hand, doesn't worry about player reputations and resumes. He is interested in having a player who is injury free, fresh as a daisy, and ready to play. "The minors are for learning" as it were.
If the Mariners sign some promising youngster, such as Souza, Van Slyke, Wil Myers, or some similar player, and he does poorly, then the Mariners have much more control over whether he is benched, demoted or platooned, or placed on lengthy rehab assignments.
If the Mariners sign someone who demands every day play, then he should have the results to back it up.
Stars and Scrubs forever.
What about the Dodgers DFAing Brian Wilson? Its pretty gutsy of Friedman to tell his bosses that he wants to set $9 million dollars of their money on fire.
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Dr. D will cheerfully concede, as he did in the Shout Box, that the M's overestimated their chances to land a MOTO hitter for right field. The idea that "we are going to clear RF, because we plan on having a Star there," I gave too much credit to the M's on that point. Agreed.
The M's powerflush of Saunders was therefore (largely) motivated by their falling out with him. I oversold Zduriencik's readiness to make his next move, and undersold the M's personal vendetta against Saunders. Point granted.
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All that said, I would still maintain that if J.A. Happ was the guy they liked, then "striking while the iron was hot" was very reasonable. ... Three strategic concerns were at play on the board:
- You know you're shedding the Condor, and
- Boom, here's a chance to swap for a guy you really like, steal him out from under the noses of your jealous rivals, and
- You also really like the tactical variations in front of you for RF.
That third point, it is a chessplayer's way of thinking. You sac a pawn for an attack with threats all over the place. The return isn't guaranteed, and doesn't have to be. The mobility, the variations, those themselves have a tangible value.
Non-chessplayers think in terms of paying $100 now for a $100 TV now. Chessplayers are willing to commit to a scenario pregnant with possibilities. You do that 5 times, you'll be rewarded 4 times, and the Return on Investment (ROI) is higher.
Sure, you could wait to deal Saunders (to sac the pawn) until after you locked in your checkmate. Problem is, there are many variations that become unavailable to you. In this case, that variation was called "J.A. Happ."
.........
Personally I would also factor in the "floor" that Zduriencik has had built in. The Mariners are not going to drop off from Michael Saunders to Chris Denorfia. If they did, Dr. D would be the first one to call bloody murder.
If you gave me 110 games of Brad Miller in RF, and 50 games of Jesus Montero there (via Nelson Cruz), I'll take my chances as to the M's kids outplaying Saunders. It's hardly a tragic dropoff IMHO.
Whether Chris Taylor can hold his own at SS is another Q. I like the way he battles at the plate, so would pencil him in. But there's a significant chance that Miller will be needed for short. If Taylor washes out, the M's (as currently constructed) really do have Barney in right field.
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It's mystifying to me why, all of a sudden in 2015, having 1-2 handpicked rookies in the lineup now implies desperation. Rookies play for the Red Sox and Yankees, right? Wasn't Robinson Cano once a rookie? Brad Miller and Chris Taylor are not exactly D.J. Peterson here. They were both playing well, in the major leagues, last year.
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Am not sweating Saunders-out-Miller-in, but I do dislike the old-school, Theory X tone that comes across too often from the Mariners. "If you want to play, you gotta be ready when I call your name or I'll find somebody who is" ... I think that's more rooted in small-mindedness and concern for self (as a management team) than it is rooted in concern for the ballclub.
It smacks of a NCAA football coach saying "if you're not healthy enough to practice, you're not healthy enough to play." It just hits me as petty.
But I wasn't there,
Dr D
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Comments
Give the ball to Kivlehan. He'll be fine. Other teams do it all the time....see Mookie Betts. Rookies will be rookies...but then they'll be smashing sophomores, too.
Alas, we won't. give hime the ball.
So sign somebody good already!
TJM could tell us whether this guess is true or not, but ... My sense is they woo'ed Friedman by saying something like "You're the best there is. Come do it with a big budget. You just do your thing and you have a blank check to light money on fire. Make us a juggernaut."
If any team would do that, it'd be the Dodgers and if any exec would do that, it'd be Friedman...
Or not...
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As for everything before your last line: thanks for the freebie mosh pit URL. Knew there was a reason we kept yer around...
Random question, as I'm sure someone else has mentioned this elsewhere, but I haven't found it. Could it be that Saunders was traded since the price of pitching is unexpectedly high?
Ervin Santana: 13.5mln x 4 years
Brandon McCarthy: 12 mln x 4 years
Maybe Z saw that mid-level pitching was too expensive, so he traded Sanders for pitching, assuming that a platoon would be a better use of resources?
Just posing another possible hypothesis, but would love to see what everyone thinks.
Many really interesting comments by Drayer in the comments section of this article:
http://mynorthwest.com/374/2670392/Mariners-add-Justin-Ruggiano-will-the...
Granted she is a bit of a mouthpiece for the organization, but still, new lightbulbs perhaps?
Item #1
Tony Carbone • 12 hours ago
And that goes to the heart of what scares me about this regime.
As opposed to the "no politics, the best man plays" culture that has made the Seahawks - the M's seem to be all politics. Eric Wedge said as much.
Zunino was the worst hitting catcher in MLB with more than 400 PA. I get he has potential - but he should have to earn his spot. However, he'll play no matter what, because Zduriencik pushes him.
And McClendon didn't like Saunders, so he's gone. But Jackson is one of his favorites from the Tigers - and based on what we saw last year - will play every night even if he sux.
It's why I have no faith in this organization - much as I want it to do well.
Shannon Drayer reply
Since you are comparing to the Seahawks I would remind you that there was all sorts of trouble brewing that no one outside of the organization knew about with Percy Harvin. I would keep that in mind and take what you think you know with a grain of salt or at at least allow for the possibility that guys aren't playing for reasons you don't know.
Item #2
Shannon Drayer
I am trying to point out a lesson learned rather than a comparison with Harvin. I really don't care what the specifics were. The relevant thing is, if that news had not leaked the public wouldn't have known there were problems. Don't assume you know everything in any situation in sports.
You have been very clear that you don't like Happ. I've seen it in several posts, so we get it. Appreciate the warning but there are others that like the potential. A very fair, numbers-based write up was on Lookout Landing shortly after the trade. The M's anyalytics department and scouts liked the deal, for the cost which was very low. It wasn't just we will take this guy for that guy, work was put in. All that said, we will see. The numbers so far have not been good.
Item #3
Murray > Shannon Drayer • 3 hours ago
Shannon are u saying Saunders wasn't being played because he was in altercations with teammates or refusing to go out on the field? Obviously you're not.... Mclendons anti Sainders thing started in spring training way before the injury happened
Shannon Drayer > Murray • 3 hours ago
I am saying you shouldn't assume that you know the whole story. As for spring training, Saunders had lost his everyday position before spring training even began. That was an organizational decision.
the word I'd use. He, unlike us, actually had the agents for guys like Santana and McCarthy on the phone, peddling their clients as they're paid to do, so he already *knew* approximately where the SP market would be. He pre-empted it and landed a guy in the vein of the aforementioned veterans for the cost of Michael Saunders.
This, to me, is not something to be ignored. There was a recent article at Fangraphs where a commenter asked, in a completely reasonable and articulated fashion, whether or not Cole Hamels and his contract (4 years at $22.5mil plus a $6mil buyout on an option year valued between $19-24mil) was worth more, in trade value, than Jon Lester is (6 years at an AAV of $25.8mil plus a $10mil buyout on a seventh option year of $25mil). The thinking, I believe, was that Hamels doesn't have the extra couple of years worth of liability on his contract and provides substantially the same production (average of something like 4.2 Fangraphs WAR for each pitcher over the last four years).
It was pretty amazing to me to see people steadfastly cling to the 'Cole Hamels' contract is an albatross; there's simply no way the Phillies get out from under all of it, even if they take little-to-no prospect value in return' line. I'm not trying to cast aspersions on the entire community, but why didn't anyone jump up and say, "Why, yes, in fact here is the attrition rate for pitchers heading into their mid/late-thirties, and that works out to about $10mil worth of average liability on those extra years." I mean, I have no idea what the numbers actually are, but there IS value in having Jon Lester's bearded twin from an alternate universe signed for two fewer years, especially when those years come in what is generally considered a decline period in an athlete's career.
Z got Happ for the cost of a nice 4th OF, and he apparently only has to pay him the same salary he was paying Condor for the upcoming season in terms of salary. That, essentially, can be viewed as a talent swap (maybe we lost $2mil worth of value in predicted performance?) AND ALSO as a way to avoid spending $50mil+ on a guy like Santana or McCarthy, who are by no means 'sure things' themselves (although I do tend to buy the idea that Santana has figured something out over the last year or so).
How much value do you place on the ~$45mil Jack Z saved on his #3 pitcher? In some scenarios, you WANT to spend that $45mil because the player ends up outperforming the contract. But in a more common outcome, you end up with a pitcher whose last couple years look more like Carlos Silva's or, at best, Jarrod Washburn's.
Fangraphs' writers, however, prefer to use the aggregate WAR projections because it reduces things, but they're closing off several key points of examination by doing so. When you see a WAR projection, and the infamous "subtract about half a win per season" to determine long-term value, you're missing the boat by the length of the dock in many cases. Sullivan's article where he examined Giancarlo Stanton's contract was a MUCH better attempt to analyze potential outcomes since he examined several INDIVIDUAL cases, rather than saying, "The aggregate of the outcomes suggests..." The aggregate is only useful in the macro sense; in the micro sense, you have to get more nuanced than that.
There are scenarios where trading Saunders for Happ was a mistake; there are scenarios where the reverse is also true. But the question isn't, should not, and cannot be, whether or not the trade was fair in a WAR-for-WAR sense. That's reducing it too far. The question very well might be: was Z wise to trade a 4th OF for a MOR arm when quality 4th OF's cost fungible, AA bullpen arms (as with Ruggiano) or
This really helped me position my question in a more significant context. Much appreciated!
Many thanks Misterjonez! This was exactly the kind of analysis I was hoping someone could provide. I couldn't quite contextualize the move, so this really clarified the "10,000 ft." view.