This is the part where my love for the current Ms minors (and pre-arb guys) will probably overwhelm you. I have trouble not cheering for these guys, and that hasn't always been easy in prior seasons. Back when TJ Bohn and Greg Dobbs were the best we had to offer it was a little tough to polish that turd, but now? When I say we've got bait to trade, I ain't kidding. Our top-15 or so obliterates most every system. Just numbers 10-15 could make most of a top 5 for several other orgs.
I give you:
Seager - 7.5 WAR in 2 and a half years, still getting better
Ackley - 4.5 WAR in the same, while being bounced around, demoted, and learning multiple positions
Franklin - top-50 prospect, switch-hitting middle infielder with power, billion years of club control left
Miller - ascending at least as fast as Franklin, better-liked at SS and as a leadoff man with great speed
Zunino - maybe the best catching prospect in the game, already loved by his managers behind the plate
Saunders- might not be a full-time CF but is still worth a couple WAR a year, at least
Walker - The title for Best Pitching Prospect In All The Land goes either to him or Bradley.
Paxton - Mid-90s lefty who could be better than Walker.
E-Ram - Solid #3 with a 4.00 xFIP in 130 innings. It's like adding Mark Buehrle or Kyle Lohse for free.
Pryor - Ferocious, nasty bullpenner who throws 95 like he wants to kill you.
Capps - like Pryor, but throws a hundred and needs somebody to teach him pitch sequencing.
That's just the 2014 major league team pieces that will go to Spring Training expected to be Mariners.
Then there's the real minor leaguers like Pike (3 plus pitches, draws Glavine comps stylistically), Sanchez (short tank with both heat and accuracy), Diaz (all limbs, throws 95, completely unhittable as a teen so far), Gohara (throwing low-90s at 16 with a real breaking ball), Chris Taylor (Brad Miller with better D and a little less power), and Tyler Marlette (power-hitting catcher who could be a beast behind the plate once he learns the nuances).
This does NOT include DJ Peterson or Austin Wilson (can't be traded so soon after the draft), nor Danny Hultzen (gonna miss 2014 with shoulder surgery) nor Ji-Man Choi (Koreans aren't real prospects until they get MVP votes, apparently). Nor Tank O'Neill, or Dylan Unsworth, heck Pizzano might make some top-10s in other orgs.
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I'm telling you, we are L-O-A-D-E-D with tradable pieces. Look, from MLB's mid-season review, here's the Rays top 10:
#1 Guerieri: top 50 prospect, killed the MWL at 20 (7.3 H / 1.6 BB / 6.9 K per 9, 2.01 ERA). You know how our young arms did in the MWL?
- Sanchez: 2.78 ERA, 8.4 H / 1.4 BB / 6.3 K per 9 at 18.
- Pike: 2.37 ERA, 6.0 H, 4.6 BB / 7.3 K per 9 at 19.
- Unsworth: 2.32 ERA, 7.9 H, 0.3 (2 walks all year) BB / 6.3 K per 9 at 20.
Guerieri has better pure stuff than Sharkie Unsworth, no question... but Guerieri is not head and shoulders over Sanchez and Pike, let alone Paxton and Walker.
#2 Odorizzi: pretty good stuff, very good results, already traded twice. One of those 4-decent-pitch guys. Not sure what makes him substantially better than Erasmo Ramirez, other than 4 inches of height. But then, I really like E-Ram.
#3 Hak-Ju Lee: literally the only good hitter in the Rays system it seems. Aspires to be Brad Miller eventually.
See? Someone else gets it!
If there was ever a time to trade Taijuan Walker it is now. The up coming draft is one of the best ones for HS pitching talent and college power bats in a bajillion years.
Walker's "potential" versus Price's bona fides? I'll take Price, thank you!
That you can throw away WAR this way, as well as you can some other way.
You've got 10, 15, 20 talents you need to cram into Safeco, and only a couple of small phone booths to fit a few of them into. Every one that you can't fit is a waste.
GREAT read.
To be skeptical of prospects in their organization who are raved about. Scads of 'em over the years. Other than Seager, none of them have (yet) broken out into sustained MLB productivity with the M's. (I acknowledge that Adam Jones and Shin Soo Choo have done so in other organizations.) We may get slices of seasons that show great promise, but in the end that is all it has been.
Nobody has more respect than I for the knowledge and opinions about minor and major league baseball that are daily displayed here and other places like MarinerCentral. This is not a throw-away line for me, something said for the sake of argument. It is how I really feel about all of you. And when I read your work, Gordon, I often feel like you have worked out with specific knowledge and judgment, and presented with flair my own more intuitive thoughts.
I really, really, REALLY hope you are right. All I know is, the M's and previous years of reading blog and forum posts about M's prospects have trained me towards skepticism regarding the actual MLB impact forthcoming. Whether this is a systemic failure in player development, or a lack of ability to finger talent that will translate to the big league level, or the failure to surround the recent crop with proper veteran support, or all of the above, or whatever, is beyond my ability to discern.
I look forward to the time when the M's begin to train me otherwise. This week they took a huge first step in retraining me with regard to their commitment to put a first-class baseball team on the field. I am more than open to being persuaded regarding their prospects. Unfortunately for me it will require more than articles to get me to believe. This has nothing to do with my regard for those who write the articles, it has everything to do with how the M's have trained me.
But I have to ask, what about Romero and Morban? Those seem like guys who could sniff the majors sometime this year, no? And like you said, you're not even mentioning guys like Guerrero, Kivlehan, etc.
Pretty amazing stuff.
This said, I find the intial, knee-jerk reactions to the Cano signing by the NY-based sports media to be ridiculous. It shows how ill-informed they are about teams like Seattle, who they consider too irrelevant to bother with. They form snap judgments based on ideas that may be obsolete by several years.
I cannot help but be excited that the M's finally appear intent on getting down to the business of winning ballgames.
The M's have quietly snuck up on the AL West in more ways than one.