Q. Do you figure that Capt Jack knew about the Ryan option when he refused to bid decently on Nishioka?
A. If he didn't, something woulda been wrong...
We remember a George W. Bush TV interview several years ago, when Bush had been in office just a few years. The reporter asked, naively, "Does your father help you make decisions?"
George W. replied, calmly, as though talking about Del Monte vs. Libby green beans:
My father isn't well-informed enough to advise me about domestic or foreign policy decisions.
There's a huge element of that in the blog-o-sphere as we kibitz Jack on deals like Nishioka's. We didn't know that we could get Brendan Ryan for one minor leaguer.
Strictly speaking, none of us are in a position to advise Jack Zduriencik about anything. As Cohaagen told Richter, "I don't give you enough information to think!"
Ryan vs Nishioka is an epic illustraton of that fact.
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After all the results are in, on April 1, then we can kibitz about opportunities lost. :- ) Not on December 15th, though.
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Q. Why would the Cards give him up so easily?
A. Oh, I dunno that they gave him up easily. Maikel Cleto could easily be argued to be a blue-chipper.
In the 2010 Minor League Forecaster by BaseballHQ, they had only three pitchers in Seattle's top 15 prospects. Pineda, of course. And then Robles and Maikel Cleto.
Cleto looks a lot like "You can have any pitcher in our system, except Felix or Pineda." Maybe not quite, but Cleto is pretty much a "You pick a blue-chip arm." Or that's my guess.
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Larussa supposedly hated Ryan, or so they say, based on his personality. From watching Ryan play wiffleball on YouTube, anyway, that's not a personality that bothers Dr. D. A guy like that keeps you loose.
Ryan is coming off a terrible year, and he still brought back a guy who's probably the #2 or #3 arm in the system. Ryan's got value.
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Q. It's a lower-risk, lower-reward move .... with a better risk/reward ratio?
A. Certainly it has a better ratio, but you can't build a ballclub just by running that ratio.
Nishioka would have been a dynamic player to bring in -- a guy who might have become the best shortstop in the league, and keyed your championship runs. How do you measure that value?
Nishioka also had a serious downside, that being that he might not even be able to stick at short. And the chemistry issues would have been legitimate, both in terms of dubious defense and the Ichiro Syndrome.
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Ryan, by contrast, is what he is: a healthy Jack Wilson. Ryan is a static choice, but an Old School choice.
Ryan pounds your tent stake into the ground, and then you get to work winning your pennant at other positions.
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Under normal circumstances, it would have been an interesting philosophical inkblot test. But in this case, the salary gap was so wide that the choice was obvious.
The M's can now go get another player, with the Nishioka savings. Heart says no, head says yes. [Ryan and ?] is preferred to [Nishi].
So, give it up for Zduriencik. He did you better than Nishioka.
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Cheerio,
Dr D
I don't know that Nishioka will cost $8mil a year. My guess is $4-5mil per year including posting.
Even so, Brendan Ryan is cheaper and more proven at SS. He may not have as much upside, but IMO hes got a good shot at some 3 WAR seasons.
UZR has him around 10 runs + per season. Plus/minus and Total Zone have him OVER +25 runs. Theres a shot here for a Gutierrez type impact defensive player at a glove position.
If he's like a +25 runs guy, then there's a guy you can win a World Series with...
Reasons I would not be inclined to +20 runs:
1) He doesn't look like he has THAT kind of range to me
2) And apparently doesn't to the Cardinals either :- )
3) He's been placed at 2B and SS some
Am aware that there are easy answers to those three things, but still.
.................
But his speed indexes are consistent with a spectacular range, and the thought of Ryan performing at a defensive +2, +3 wins level is thrilling...
If nothing else, the statistical rumors of his +25 runs ability might cause a cyber-GM to gingerly bump his D-runs from 10 to 15....
Making Brendan Ryan one of the ten best defensive players in the majors... 'twould truly be a Franklin Gutierrez-level heist...
A lot of it is based on reputation though. Gut himself was a RF in Cleveland and many thought Sizemore was the better defender at the time.
I agree that +10-15 runs is more conservative, but Ryan has had two straight rediculous defensive seasons. He looks great in the vid I've seen and he might have some more 20 run seasons left in him.
Bref had his 09 season at 3.4 WAR. While hes unlikely to hit that well again, he could pass the 3 WAR mark again with +20 run D and more playing time.
With a bat that doesn't embarrass him, then Zduriencik will be back to getting his standing O's at the fanfests.
Looks like a Gutierrez move to me, pretty close. If Ryan can hit a little.
This smacks of Part One of a two part tale. Now with two Wilsons, a Rodriguez we all agree is "interesting" and Ryan that's 4 MIF guys that all pencil out as much better as full-time SS's, not 2B's.
That's a glut, in case you didn't know.
Perhaps Jack Wilson is way more dinged than we know.....or part of a trade deal on the way. I don't think you acquire Ryan to "push" Wilson and then relegate him to 25 games at 2B.
This is a very nice trade for Z. I'll give him this one.
I think there's another one lurking.
moe
Assuming things play out, this will make 2/9 of the everyday lineup (Guti & Ryan) and 1/5 of the rotation (Vargas) acquired for a sore-elbowed closer, coupla going-nowhere types and Luis Valbuena.
And we also got Mike Carp, a few months of Endy Chavez, and Zeke Carrera, whom we flipped for Branyan's second half.
Mets got a 79 ERA+ from JJP, a 63 OPS+ from Jeremy Reed and 79 medicore innings from Sean Green, the only one still on their 2010 roster (and he was hurt most of the year and is now a free agent).
Rangers whiffed on Lee and Angels missed on Carl Crawford -- good news for AL West competitive balance, I suppose
I mean ridiculously, fabulously amazing. The Phillies had Lee in house, and traded him to us in order to acquire Roy Halladay. No one will convince me that Brandon Morrow wasn't used to pry Halladay away. There is ZERO other reason for the Phillies to take the junk that we gave them and skip what would obviously have been far superior offers from other teams.
Morrow was our biggest trading chip, and we flipped him.
So:
Morrow+Gillies+Aumont+JCR = Cliff Lee + League + Chavez to us and the final major piece for Philly to get Halladay.
Then Lee turns into Smoak+Lueke+Beavan+Lawson 3 months into the season.
And now Lee is back where he wanted to be all the time, Philly. The fence-mender there did an outstanding job, and the Phillies have to be favorites.
It's great. Lee came to us to turn our best pitching prospect into our next MOTO hitter and give us something pretty to distract us from the first dismal half of the season in the meantime.
And then the clock struck midnight and Lee went back to Philly, leaving the Rangers with a couple of missing prospects and an AL Pennant to assuage the pain.
All we need now is for Smoak to be as good as we think he can be. I would trade a top-level pitching arm like Morrow for a fully-producing Smoak any day. The fact that we got back a 30 HR LF, two closers and the rest in addition just speaks volumes about Trader Jack's skills there.
And his willingness to bet that he could get back more than he gave up.
The Phillies...man, they just spent like wildmen trying to get a couple more titles on the shelf with this current all-star roster.
I hope sometime in the near future we've assembled talent like they have up and down the roster. At least they were kind enough to help us get started on that path.
Thanks to them and the Rangers, I guess. And the Mets, for helping us with our new SS and our CFer thanks to other trade pieces.
It's a group effort to turn this sorry team around.
~G
Need to back the truck up, come back at this as a Morrow-Lee strategy. Even after Morrow's emergence in Tor, I'll still take Smoak all day long.
SOOOOoooooooo thrilled that Cliff Lee isn't a Yankee, much less his not being in the AL at all.
::WHEW::
I can only imagine that George S is rolling over in his grave. He was used to getting anyone to bite those carrots. A bit of the Pinstripe mystic disappeared?
Regarding the unliklihood that Brendan Ryan ever becomes more than offensive liability. I have to admit that ever since the Mariners picked him up, that I haven't thought there was any upside to his offense either; no real power, above average but not amazing speed, poor patience, and at 28, no reason to expect much in the way of development. And then I noticed something about Brendan Ryan while looking at his Baseball-Reference page for the umpteenth time. The dude is 6'-2", 195 pounds. I had been operating under the assumption that he was a David Eckstein type; 5'-10" and 150 pounds of hustle.
So, of course, I ran a Play Index search on recent middle infielders that size that didn't hit at that age and was surprised to find not much in the way of hope (with a couple other current, more expensive shortstops in Jason Bartlett and Yunel Escobar). But there were a couple interesting comparables: Carlos Guillen and Mark Grudzielanek.
For me, the more similar is Grudzielanek since Guillen seems to have walked more and run less and I think people believed more in his bat even then. Grudzielanek is about the same size, used a similar approach, and had similarly poor performance in his early seasons (other than leading the league in doubles during a season where his ISO sat at .111).
Something clicked for Grudzielanek in 1999 and with a little BABiP luck, he managed a 110 OPS+. I think the 29 & older part of Grudzielanek's offensive career is a good target for Ryan. It's not like Mark Grudzielanek ever set the world on fire, but he did manage a 95 OPS+ from age 29-38 (including a 99 at age 38).
The trick is figuring out what took Grudzielanek from an 81 OPS+ to a 95. Was it the move off of shortstop at 30? The move to more offensively minded ballparks than the decrepit Olympic Stadium, or did he just figure out how to hit it where they weren't, because looking at his stats, that's most of it. For Grudzielanek's first 4 years, his BABiP was .311, and for the next 10, it was .328, and honestly, that and little bump in BBs is the improvement. Admittedly he earned it, moving his line drive rate from 22% to 25%.
Anyway, enough about Grudzielanek. Why does this relate to Ryan? He has the same basic skill set and size as Grudzielanek (with the added ability to field shortstop terrifically) and with his reputed baseball rat type attitude, would probably be open to the teachings of one Dr. Elliot. Now I'm certainly not suggesting any miracles (like I said, I think the upside is Grudzielanek's 10 year run of 95~ OPS+, and there were a bunch of guys on that list who didn't have enough offense to keep them on a an ML roster by 33), but if Ryan can squeeze a couple more percentage points out of his line drives and maybe lose a couple points from his IFFB%, then I think he's got a good chance to go from tolerable offense to adequate. woo.