At a batting level of .200-.250-.250, which is a bit better than Figgins is hitting now, he remains the worst fulltime (400+ PA's) 3B in MLB over the past 50+ years (actually, I think it is 80 years, but will trust that 50 yrs. makes the point).
IF you think he can improve to a .200-.300-.300 line, he then joins 6 guys over the last 50+ years: Don Wert, Jerry Kenney, Eddie Joost, Danny Ainge, Coco Laboy, & MIke Pagliarulo. Wow. Boom! What bats!
To dump him, er...trade him, the M's are going to eat a bunch of salary. Even at that, I'm not sure there is a buyer out there.
So....Now you just bench him. On the pine. Splinter time. Then just hit redo next year and see if he can contribute at that point.
But as for this playoff race? Pleeeeeze....keep him out of the lineup.
Is Bill Stein still available?
moe
=== Uniformity of Motive, Dept. ===
Aaron Laffey's catch was unpossible. ... and yet, sometimes it seems like about 80%, 90% of major league pitchers can make that catch.
I used to play slo-pitch with a pitcher like this ... their biggest guy would hit a screamer one-hop through the box, and our guy would just fling his mitt, and it seemed like he caught it every time... I thought it was freaky, but Laffey's catch easily topped any of his. And you see that all the time.
Why should ML pitchers all have hands like Omar Vizquel? The gap between me, and the world's most physically superior human beings, is vast. There isn't any way to suppress genetic engineering forever, and when it occurs, some seriously strange slop is going to occur.
.
=== Imminent Domain, Dept. ===
Today's game happened to be a game that would have been won with a good performance from a third baseman - say, from Adrian Beltre. It was lost, primarily, because of the performance logged by Chone Figgins.
The loss was merely illustrative. Figgins' season-long OPS+ is 43% of average. I don't believe I've ever seen a team B-Ref card wherein any regular finished the season in the lineup with a 43 OPS+.
As we continually remind, it's like a team keeping a $55M Darren Dreifort in the rotation despite an 8.14 ERA. That's not what teams do with $55M pitchers running 8.14 ERA's.
Unlikely as it seems, Figgins has to be powerflushed. All of baseball history, not to mention logic, demands it.
***
We loitered around the halls of big companies at times like this... flushing Figgins' contract is a political problem, not a financial one. What that means is: any official decision to cut-and-run is approved in a boardroom, and that meeting is hugely painful for the exec present who made the call...
The exec who made the call on Figgins, however, also made the calls on Ackley, Pineda, and Kennedy. My own guess, based on limited but somewhat-relevant experience, is that Zduriencik come through a Figgins shed with flying colors.
Can you imagine how relieved we would all be, if we woke up tomorrow and Figgy was on to the next org? With Kennedy and LRod playing 3B? Can you imagine what that would feel like?
***
The alternative might be to talk Ichiro into batting second. You could reason with him about the appeal of postseason play..... Naaaahhhhhhhhh.
.
=== Trader Jack, Dept. ===
Wright and Pauley did an admirable job for a coupla-three months.
Jack needs to go get us a legit setup man. He should be looking at Wright and Pauley as guys buying him time, and that's all.
Of course, the going rate for a legit setup guy seems to be Brandon Morrow. I dunno: I'd give you Gillies, Aumont and Carrera for a Balfour-level reliever. That wouldn't do it?
We're talking about a pennant race, here. Not without a setup guy. David Pauley can't go 120 innings.
.
=== "I'm a Loyal Guy," Dept. ===
... sez Erik this week, commenting on the fact that the Mariners treated him like a king for two years... and on the fact that he is now outpitching The King. Bedard knows that he is as good as, say, C.C. Sabathia, and that he isn't paid quite as well. Nobody who is as good at anything as Bedard is, is unaware of how good he is.
People ask whether the M's should spend $10, $12M on Bedard --- > if that means they can't add a big FA bat. Well, a healthy Erik Bedard is worth over $20M, so if he'll sign for $12M, I challenge you to find an FA bat who will deliver more bang for the buck?!
For $10-12M on the FA market, you can get ... a $10-12M hitter. Like Chone Figgins or Jason Kubel, maybe? Or -- suppose you can get $20-25M worth of pitching.
Then what? You simply can't pass up $20M at $10M cost, in order to buy $14M for $14M cost. It would be a catastrophic blunder, and Jack Zduriencik is not known for catastrophic blunders. If he has a 50%-on-the-dollar situation looming with Erik, here's betting he exploits that. And Bedard just now said that he's game...
***
In one sense, Erikkk would feel risky, but in another sense he's not.
Bill James, with his Grand Historian cap on, observed that some pitchers are effective anytime they can raise their arms above their heads. I can't name them off the top of my head for you, but guys like Bret Saberhagen, David Cone, and John Tudor sound kinda like the guys I remember... yeah, check Tudor's ERA's as he battled through injuries late in his career.
This winter, Dr. D read all kinds of bilgewater, "well, if you can pencil Bedard in for 80% of his usual effectiveness, he could help us a little ..." Erik Bedard just doesn't work that way. When last seen in 2009, he was fanning 10K a game, literally with a torn labrum. It made ZERO sense to pencil him in for 80% of himself. It never will.
As long as Erik can take the mound, locate an 88 fastball and spin that curve, he's going to be an ace. It's true that he might get injured. But part of your hedge is that he doesn't get mediocre.
***
It took Erik Bedard four starts to kick the rust off. Since then, he has started ten (10) games, and has thrown ten (10) lockdowns. Here's the game log.
Not ten quality starts, gentlemen; quality starts mean only that you gave your team a decent chance to win. Not ten games in which he kept runs off the board, and not ten games in which he was usually good but occasionally was lucky.
Erik Bedard has simply dominated the opposing lineups for ten (10) games in a row. Ten games in a row, not QS's, but ten games in which his team has had to work blinkin' hard not to win.
In those 10 dominating Erikkk starts, the M's:
- Did win 8 of them
- Lost the one tonight -- 2 unearned runs and a 2-1 loss
- Lost the one May 8 - an unearned run took the game to extras, tied 2-2
The Mariners are three fielding errors away from having won the games, the last 10 times Bedard started.
Chop the stats any way you want. The result's the same. AL teams score against Erik Bedard when they get lucky.
The Mariners gotta get this rotation into the playoffs. Something tells me that it would do just fine against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies.
.
BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
It doesn't SEEM like one hitter should have this profound an influence on my psyche, but the lack of Ackley made me say "ugh...it's the bad Mariner offense tonight...we won't score 2 runs"
We need to be playing Kennedy at second when Ackley has the night off...not Wilson.
Wedge says he needs to be aggressive to get out of the slump, but it's fairly well documented by the rise in 0-swing rates along with plummeting BB rates that Figgins's problems were, if not caused by, certainly exacerbated by over-aggressiveness.
I'm in favor of a two week trial at leadoff before power flushing him, because it's the one thing we haven't tried, and I think the psychological benefit might work. But it sure reminds me of Andru Jones's Dodger days. A change of scenery is probably all that's left. Someone will be getting a very useful leadoff hitter on the cheap soon.
The Mariners gotta get this rotation into the playoffs. Something tells me that it would do just fine against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies.
LOL! Considering the M's just very recently took 2 of 3 from both the Phillies AND the Yankees, I'd say they'd indeed do fine. Get some semblence of offense from 3B and LF/DH and they could go all the way with this pitching staff (caveat of course being the health of the pitchers...).
I'm still trying to come up w/a list of potential bad contract swaps that the M's could make to get Figgins a fresh start elsewhere, preferrably in the NL. I can think of Zito, whose contract is the same length, but the Giants have Panda at 3B, and they probably still like Zito (who should still be able to somewhat hold his own in the NL). Anyone else?
But precisely because the M's could use some SP depth that's ready (Walker, Paxton & Hultzen being the coming-soon-but-not-quite-yet-ready-to-step-in longer-term future) is why I'm interested in Zito. I wouldn't turn Pauley back into a SP either - I agree that the M's need one of Kelley or Aardsma to find the healer quickly, and/or Lueke or Cortes to find the strikezone. Too bad Atlanta's kicking tail in the NL - I'd be just fine with a dominating-again GS52 reunion ;-)
...and come to think of it, the Angels always have preeched that their lead-off hitters need to see a lot of pitches...maybe hitting lead-off not only makes him more comfortable, but forces him to be a more patient hitter.
I've been mulling over how to reconcile my contention that the front office needs to make a move in order to 'get in the game' and show the players and middle management that they've 'got their backs' with Sandy's excellent and well reasoned arguments that doing nothing this year is the right move. I think the solution is presented above. Extend Erikkk Bedard. Send the message that we aren't going to be 'sellers' at the deadline by locking up our major asset. Send the message that we're in it to win it by locking up an ace starter for a home town discount. Love it. Do it. - Ben.
End of April. :- )
:gotcha: Paul ... here's a towel for the shaving-cream pie...