M's Still In on Jason Bay?

Q.  With Cliff Lee and Brandon League, right now this ballclub has everything except ... what?

A:  A cleanup hitter.

This club has:

  • Two aces
  • Talented BOR starters
  • Lockdown relieving
  • Great defense
  • Two All-Star table-setters
  • A lefty number 3 hitter
  • Every position covered except LF
  • Interesting hitters at the bottom of the lineup (Guti, Lopez, 1B, Griff)

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

As you know, my preferred debating position is the one in which I'm right and everybody else is wrong.  ;- )

Cyber-Seattle as an entity, amazingly, continues to root against the Mariners acquiring Bay to hit #4 in our lineup.   Yes, I (and the Mariners) realize that Bay's defense is questionable, and that he hits right-handed.  A couple of other things about him:

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

The last five years -- excluding 2007 -- Bay has hit for +39 runs per season above average.   Above replacement, that's +61 runs.  Per season, kiddies.  10 runs is one win.

Back up the Hubble telescope, take a breath, and consider 60 runs above a good AAA hitter.

Here we are rooting against 30-60 runs, 3-5 wins in the AL West next year, because we'd feel terrible if somebody else got a better bargain than we did.

Is Bay going to cost the M's some other player they could otherwise afford?  They have all their other players.

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

After applying positional adjustments and (questionable) defensive adjustments, then Bay has been a 4.1 WAR player in 2005, 06, 08, and 09.

Last year, it was 3.5 after defensive penalties -- which Bill James, onsite for Boston, pronounced inaccurate.   Cut the speedy* Bay's defensive penalty from -13 runs to -8 runs and you have a 4-WAR outfielder, hard on the barrelhead.

Disregard the defensive penalty and he's a 5-win player.   But you can still give this guy a full -8 on defense and he's at 4 wins.

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

You'd rather have a 1-win rookie out there, than a 4-5 win cleanup hitter, unless the guy takes $11m instead of $14m?  

What is $3m to you?  The M's payroll flexes to fit their vision.   We're getting caught up wayyyyyy to much in $/WAR.   We don't have hard-and-fast $260 budgets.  Supposing you had $260 to spend on a roto roster, but I said you could have $270 if you rostered Jason Bay? 

.

=== SSI Bay Index ===

Jason Bay Update -- Bay lives in Bellevue and would love to play here.  That means not only a value contract (be reasonable!) but even more clubhouse chemistry.

Jason Bay's lifetime OPS+ is 131.  Them's the big leagues.  And he gets hard RBI.

Jason Bay Thread -- Bay is very comparable to a faster Jay Buhner.  He's righthand in Safeco, but you have to have a key righthand bat your lineup someplace.   According to Shandler, Bay retains .320/.400/.600 upside.

Average and Correct Are Not Synonyms -- keep in perspective what it means to say, "on average, teams have been paying $14m for free agents with Jason Bay's production."  Sometimes you pay more for a house than market 90-day sales averages, and sometimes you pay less.  Neither is "correct" or "incorrect."

Jason Bay, This 'n That -- Bay's spectacular numbers against filthy-rich Yankees pitchers.  In the Red Sox-Yankee rumbles, Bay was the first man front-and-center with an 18-inch chain.

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

It's not clear to me why, "$3m more a year, we're hosed, $3m less a year, we're golden."  That $3m is power lost in the gears anyway.  The payroll is a variable, not a constant.

As Bill James said, I'm all for the players making some money, as opposed to the owners keeping it all.  If Jason Bay doesn't come here, and the M's simply run a lower payroll, haven't we kind of lost sight of the point?

With Cliff Lee and Brandon League now, this team has absolutely everything except a cleanup hitter.

Comments

1

Not AGone or Fielder, because Samuel Jackson told me, "I said DREAM, not HALLUCINATE!"
...........
1 Ichiro rf
2 Figgins 3b
3 Bradley/Griffey dh
4 Bay lf
5 Branyan 1b
6 Gutierrez cf
7 Lopez 2b
8 c
9 Wilson ss
10 Tui 2b/3b/lf
...........
1 RH Felix
2 LH Lee
3 LH RRS
4 RH Snell, good version
5 Fister (or add) .... later Bedard
.........
CL/SU League, Lowe, Aardsma
.........
I could see a World Series with that.  And not sure it would take all that much payroll flex to do it.
It would be about the first time, since 1997-1998, that the Mariners had a roster full of, well, my kind of players.

2

I calcualted that the Mariners had spent approximately 89 million dollars after Bradley (and Silva's kick-in money), Lee and Figgins...and assuming 10 mil for Felix in 2010, 3 million for Gutierrez, 1.5 million for Aardsma, 1 million for Lowe, 0.7 million for RRS.  Morrow was set ot make 0.5 million and has been traded for League who will probably make 1 million or so.
It's going to be (minimum) 14 mil/year to get Bay in here, so that's 103-104 million in payroll right there.  Add Branyan and we're at 109 million.  That's a pretty considerably flex, Doc.

3

...with Bay, the payroll approach 104 million but that's not much of a raise over last year's payroll and gives the Mariners a good base to build around and a great shot at the WS in 2010.  You'd have to skip Branyan and take you chances with Mike Carp as your starting first baseman though.
Ichiro! (RF)
Figgins (3B)
Bradley (LF/DH)
Bay (DH/LF)
Gutierrez (CF)
Lopez (2B)
Carp (1B)
Moore / Johnson / Alfonzo (C)
Wilson (SS)
Griffey can spell Bradley if he needs time off (or has been suspended for flipping the home plate umpire off and throwing his bat and home plate itself into the crowd...LOL) and he can put on a first baseman's mitt and spell Carp a bit perhaps.  The other benchies are the back-up catcher, Tui and Hall

4

And whether Bay's salary for '010 is $11m, $13m, or what.
Granted, backloading is problematic if you intend to keep Lee and Felix...
..............
2.  If skipping Branyan is the cost of getting Bay, bring it awn.
...............
3.  Depending on whether Zduriencik is done -- if he flips Bavasi favorite Lopez for something, and installs Tui (or a lefty ML-ready hotshot via trade) there's your $5m back.
................
4.  Increasing the payroll from $98m to $108-109m isn't beyond their means.
.................
5.  Thanks mucho for the $$$ crunching!

5

And I don't think there's a second baseman out there who can fully replace Lopez' bat...so that's making a hole to fill a hole.  Not sure I like that idea.
I would agree that the correct play is to go over budget a few mil and get Bay...not Branyan...but that's if Howie and Chuckie let it happen.  I don't want Griffey to be my 60% starting DH again...that didn't work out so well last year and he's a year older.  You've got to get a decent left fielder in here to force Parker Brothers to the DH role more of the time.  We have a first baseman...he's not sexy, but he's not likely to be a complete flop...and if he is...hey, we've got the college hotshot Poythress in AA, we've got a few other interesting bats in AAA that could handle first for a while like LaHair...and we've got Matt Tui who could push Lopez to first.  There's more stoploss protection at first than there is in left where we have a hope and a prayer than Langerhans and Saunders might OPS .750 if things break just right.

6

Here is a well-sourced report that the Braves and Yankees will not pursue Bay.  The Red Sox announced themselves out, but reportedly would like to jump back in.   How that dovetails with the Mike Cameron signing, I dunno.
Bay has a nice 4/$65 offer from the Mets, and has wandered off in disinterest, using it only as a baseline to throw at other teams (who no doubt realize he doesn't want to play in New York, especially for the Mets).  Bay did the same to the Red Sox:  get a quality call from them and then simply not respond.
The same site indicates that Bay has been in negotiations with an unspecified team this week.
If I didn't know better, I'd say that Bay is laser-focused on posting his 130+ OPS's for the Mariners.

7

According to Cots, his base increased to $2.75 after he qualified for arb, and goes to $2.9m if he passes his bodyfat tests.
$2.5 to $3.0 this year and $5.0 next year?  Are you kidding me?  It's unpossible that he has no trade value.  No possible way that is true.
Name another 26-year-old, healthy, quality ML infielder, making $3 and $5 the next two years, that nobody wants.  Provide a name?
.............
Right.  Moving Lopez is no way to clear $.

8

If Bay really REEEEALLY wants to play for the Mariners...there is no telling what kind of break he might give us in year one.
You could see him going 4 years 56 million dollars, but with a structure like:
2010: 5 million dollar base salary
2011: 10 million dollar base salary and 5 million of a 10 million dollar signing bonus
2012: 15 million dollar base / 3 million bonus
2013: 16 million dollar base / 2 million bonus
Don't forget that this is not unheard of.  Richie Sexson did that very thing (essentially)...taking 7 million dollars from year one and having it paid on year 2 so that the Mariners could afford both Sexson and Beltre.  You could see Bay being like "I know you guys are up against it for payroll room in 2010...how can I help make this negotiation easier?"
THEN you could afford Bay and Branyan without blowing up the budget completely.

9
misterjonez's picture

he'll be playing here next season ;)  I like the guy, and hope we can somehow squeeze him into the picture.  But ultimately, he isn't the perfect fit for our roster and park.  So if he doesn't come here on something of a hometown discount, I do think it's better to wait and try to work out a mega-deal for someone who fits the org and park a little better.  Someone like A. Gone, Prince or Mauer. I know you can't get too far-sighted when trying to build a winning team, but I don't like the idea of paying franchise money for a player who isn't a great fit on paper.
 
Not trying to poo-poo the idea one bit.  If we sign him for less than what he's been intimating it'll take, I'll be jumping up and down with joy.  But I'll also realize that a deal for A. Gone or Prince probably becomes an impossibility, which will have me grinding my teeth since we *STILL* won't have acquired a true franchise lefty slugger.  And I don't want all of our hopes to be pinned on Ackley...we've seen too often how that ends up.
 

10
Taro's picture

I'd do 3/30, but not much more than that. Bay just doesn't seem like the right fit.
Something like Smith+Branyan adds more offense and defense and doesn't add a bad long-term contract to your roster.

12

I'm seriously going to build up a collection of Seth Smith baseball cards and send them to you so you can put them up in your voodoo shrine and bow before them at night. :)

15

When you got a "happy" for a player...you get it for years!

16
Taro's picture

I'm not as crazy about Gross anymore due the emergence of Smith and strength of Ms OF prospects.
Gross is a 2-2.5 WARish starting OF thats a great fit for Safeco and a platoon situation. He seemed pretty undervalued and available in early '09 (and he still seems pretty undervalued).
Smith is more of a potential impact guy (3-4 WAR). He also seems undervalued and blocked by his current team. :-)

17

I think their approach with Bay is "if he falls into our lap as a tremendous bargain, fine; otherwise, pass."  At least that seems to be the way they're treating it.
Why?
(1) LF is their flex point: MB will play there some when Jr is the DH.  Saunders some.  Figgins can flex out there when Tui plays 3b.  The ABs you want to spread around Griffey-Saunders-Tui would all be stomped out by Bay.  Otherwise, you're taking Bradley's bat out of the lineup to get those guys in, and that doesn't make sense.  (In other words, LF is covered -- by the sum of your part-time parts.)
(2) Z is playing for July 31, too.  I think that's when he believes AGone or Fielder (or somebody else) will be available.  Bay takes up his payroll space and prevents him from showcasing his young MLB-ready talent in part-time roles.  If they are heading to the playoffs, they will have a cleanup hitter.  They just might not have him until July 31.

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