Thanks for the mention, Doc.
I don't "know" the right answer to the question posed to James, but I do believe that you treat, at this level, greatness as greatness. I think we all agree that Smoak and Ackley have, as their downside, solid MLB careers. Upside? Well that should be "star" level performance, and in Ackley's case multiple "All-Star" type seasons. So you treat guys like this as such. You give them the ball and say, "Go win the game." If Ackley becomes that type of player you probably shouldn't be waiting until the end of year six to extend him, anyway. I know that extra year of control makes "sense" in some totally rational type of world but building a winning squad isn't necessarily totally rational. Sometimes you bet on a hunch. My hunch? We've got a player that will be here for a long time spraying the ball around, popping 10 or 12 taters (or more), hitting 35 doubles (45 some years) and walking 80-100 times. He'll be special. Let's treat him as such.
=== Cool Breeze Dept. ===
Moe sez,
[re: Dustin Ackley being a Brett Favre, as opposed to being a Max Hall]
Which is why moving Smoak down this year after struggling was stupid. And why, in a perfect world, Ackley is the starting 2b, beginning today..not some artificial date in May.
Favre threw as many interceptions as touchdowns in his first two seasons. Nobody sat him down, Greatness in progress still become greatness. Willie Mays was ofer 21to begin his career, or some such thing.
If Smoak is the hitter everyone seems to think he is, then 100 PA's in Tacoma didn't do him much good. Let him adjust on the fly.
Worrying about year 7 on a contract when the guy may be a 15 year star, all things going right, seems a bit chintzy, too.
Alas, I suppose I can survive the Tacoma-2011 Ackley days.
And let's just call him "The Cat!" Wicked reflexes and a keen eye.
=== Founding Father Dept. ===
We axed James how he and the Red Sox sort out questions like this one. He replied,
"There are so many unquantifiable positives associated with using him April 2, and so many unquantifiable negatives associated, that I won't comment on the question."
If Bill James and the Red Sox don't know whether it's best to Super-Two Ackley, we don't, either ... it tends to be a litmus test of whether you like to win now, or save money.
In general, we should try to be aware of the light bulbs we have off.... and as it applies to a question like Delaying Hotshot's Free Agency, I've got real enthusiasm for this caution ...
.
SSI is often in the win-now camp, but even I can sympathize with the objection, "Do you really expect to win in 2011?" ...
This particular team -- with Ackley, Smoak, Pineda, and that A++ ranked hitting system -- may indeed be better timed for 20122H, 2013. I dunno. The heart says "play some baseball, pokeys," but the head says "The young nucleus needs some time anyhow."
If there were a team you were going to try to time for a year or two on, this might be it...
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Impossible to imagine Ackley bouncing back and forth between AAA and MLB. The strike-zone coverage is the name of the game.
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G-Money sez,
Which is why one of my favorite articles about him this year was on how he was in a HUGE slump to start this season. Rather than stressing about it in the locker room or getting tight, he was helping Pineda get Rosetta Stone worked out and helping him with his English, calm as can be.
He knows he can hit. He knows he's a winner. His pulse is a cool 70 beats a minute no matter the pressure.
The man works hard on his game, and knows he'll reap the rewards. He doesn't hope for it, or pray for it. He knows it in his bones....
Just so!
It's the same kind of mentality that has a Kobe Bryant continuing to shoot after four misses in a row. C'mon, how could I have missed that shot!
And it's one thing to talk about Ichiro relaxing when in a slump (which he evidently does NOT), but another to talk about Ackley being unworried about a slump just after being promoted to a new level.
I'm a fan first, and I gotta admit I'm hoping for Ackley and Smoak to hit .380 in spring training. Sue me...
March 2011 will be fun. The marines are hitting the beach.
Comments
Stars & Scrubs dictates handing the ball to the guys who have more talent than the enemy's guys do...
You don't see *any* of the 30 MLB franchises delaying, say, ARod or Mauer or Felix an extra 2-3 years just so they can get the max $/VORP out of the commodity ... when that player has learned 85% of what he can learn at AAA, he gets moved up...
Therefore, the subconscious factor comes right back to "Do we have faith in him?"
I'll bet alllllll dayyyyyy long, on the guy who owns the strike zone...
This is true not only of Ackley, but of Justin Smoak too... only difference, we have SEEN a false start from Smoak, and haven't SEEN failure from Ackley... both are as-good-as-it-gets, though...
I've always been of the opinion that you let spring training decide what you are going to do with a player. Whether it's a rookie or a long time vet. If Ackley comes in and hits and fields like a major leaguer, then he starts with the big club out of spring. Dont' force anything and don't go in with preconceived ideas of what is going to happen. Cardinals did that with Pujols 10 years ago. In baseball 6 years down the road is too long to be making a decision about. Whe was the Mariners manager 6 years ago?
As far as Smoak being sent down I believe it was the right decision, not because of how he was hitting in the Majors but because on the day of the trade Z mentioned that he thought Smoak was rushed to begin with in Texas. Looks like it helped but who really knows.
Anybody else curious about Manny as a DH for the M's next year?
Couldn't agree more with your "who was the M's manager 6 years ago?" It's blinkin' hard enough to get anything to go as-planned in 2011, without deluding ourselves into thinking we can control 2015.
First I'd heard about the possibility. You see Manny and Jack as potentially being interested, Merks?
Who knows if Jack would put the money into a one year or two year venture with Manny. But if he comes back from his injuries that he had last year he is the prototypical RH'ed hitter for Safeco. Has power to rightfield (key to hitting in the Safe), has a good approach and makes for a much more opposing lineup with Smoak, Ichiro, Ackley, Guti and hopefully the Figgins we saw late in the year. With the exception with Guti that's a good OBP group.
Plus Ramirez's idol was Edgar, if I recall correctly.
I don't know how anyone can fault the M's for sending Smoak down to AAA like they did. He got away from the toxic M's clubhouse and into an exciting, winning environment. He got away from the pressure that warped his approach at the plate, was able to relax and get back to what made him such an elite prospect to begin with.
As far as Ackley goes, I would like to see him demonstrate dominance at AAA before bringing him up. He hasn't done that. The AFL stats are good but the sample size is very small. Nobody wants to see him come up and hit .207 for two months and then get busted back to AAA to get himself together. It happened to Smoak because he was rushed to the bigs before he was ready. Let's not put Ackley through the same wringer. Let the kid develop.
I don't see any big resaon why putting Ackley in there in April makes much difference either to him or to the Mariners. And I should think that Smoak's tremendous September performance would put paid to the notion that sending him down was a bad idea.
Who's been getting on the M's for sending Smoak down? ...
The very first sentence from Moe says "moving Smoak down this year after struggling was stupid."
FAIL! :)
You don't see *any* of the 30 MLB franchises delaying, say, ARod or Mauer or Felix an extra 2-3 years just so they can get the max $/VORP out of the commodity ... when that player has learned 85% of what he can learn at AAA, he gets moved up...
Not 2 years, but 2 months you will. Mauer was brought up in April and the Twins essentially lucked into his injury which gave them an extra year of club control before paying his $23 mil a season.
But A-Rod and Felix were both held over in AAA for 6-8 weeks to give their clubs an extra year of control and lower salary.
Smoak getting sent down, as far as I can tell, served the purpose of getting him off a losing team and onto a winning one, letting him clear his head, form relationships with future Mariners Ackley and Pineda...but it also saved us a year of club control.
These things do matter. We don't want Pineda, Smoak AND Ackley all coming up for their arb dates at the same time. That means they all hit FA at the same time too and you risk gutting your team 6 years from now because there are no staggered contracts and you can't afford the cash to extend everyone at once.
So I get why that is done. But there is no way short of injury that Ackley, Smoak and Pineda aren't all at LEAST 4 month warriors for the Ms in 2011.
The key for me is what we do around them, and how fast they learn the pro game.
~G
Clubs are very conscience of the technicalities regarding service time and will try to manipulate them to their advantage, as was the case with Tampa Bay and Evan Longoria. Here is a good article discussing the issue:
The Boston Red Sox spend freely in the Draft and the free-agent market, yet it's believed that they have never had a Super Two player since Theo Epstein took over as general manager.
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"As the world has changed financially, there are a variety of markets and clubs at different stages," [John] Hart explained. "There isn't one blanket feeling on protecting service time or protecting from the Super Two. Everybody in the industry is aware of it.
"When I had good clubs, it never crossed my mind. When I felt we were growing or building and a guy could use more development time, I'll admit, I did pay more attention to it because he was going to fit for a longer period of time."
Little woozy from the R/X vicodin the last few days. Focused on Moe's remarks on Ackley.
Some think that if you did it right, you'd bring every prospect up once, no bounce back and forth, and that every AAA yo-yo is an admission of mistake.
I'm on the other extreme there. I'm into phases of consolidation.
So, ya, agreed with those who defended Smoak's stint in AAA.
Not 2 years, but 2 months you will. Mauer was brought up in April and the Twins essentially lucked into his injury which gave them an extra year of club control before paying his $23 mil a season
Here's were talking about the routine ploy of moving their FA out one year.
I'm talking about the hyptothetical of moving a young player's 6-year window as far right as possible (to get, say, his age-29 year in place of his age-23 year).
... though you could list half-a-dozen plusses and minuses of bringing Ackley north out of ST.
For example, does that extra trip around the league, in April-May, create a different 2012 for him? Is 2012 the critical year for Jack Zduriencik, GM?
Does Ackley Opening Day 2012 save you a mistake -- or at least an expenditure -- on an NPB middle infielder? As usual, the problem is complex.
..............
But, yeah. If there were one player I'd ever Strasburg, it might be Ackley this year. They leave him in AAA, they'll get no complaints from SSI.
...that the Mariners will do this with Pineda at a minimum. They already did it with Smoak, so he's a mainstay for 2011...the starting 1B. But I'm willing to bet that Pineda gets left deactivated at some point later in the year for "arm fatigue" and that kills his service time...or that he starts the year in AAA. And I definitely expect Ackley to get held down until May.
I suspect most "uber" fans understand there are "control" ramifications depending on when a player is brought up to the majors. And it is certain that all 30 MLB clubs understand this, also.
But, I think it naive in the extreme to mistake the reality that "team control" is *A* variable to consider with the perception that is *THE* variable that supercedes all others. I don't believe this is true for ANY club -- even the most miserably run organizations in baseball.
The error is in thinking any personnel decision is made based on only a single variable. NONE of them are.
Smoak wasn't sent down "because he had a 23/1 K/BB ratio in his first month with Seattle. He was sent down because of that AND because he still had options AND because Kotchman was still on the roster AND because Branyan finally got healthy AND because the farm team was making a playoff run AND because of any number of scouting reports/opinions that were passed along to Z.
Some might ask "should" the "club control" card be a variable -- and the answer is a resounding YES! But, no - it should not override every other variable. And, just because a club makes a choice to put a kid back in AAA doesn't mean *THAT* was the reason they did so.
Good organizations have plans -- "Let's put A + B + C together, etc., etc., etc." But, good organizations change plans routinely based on changes in the variables in question. Atlanta was *PLANNING* on sending Heyward to AAA to start 2010. But, he was hitting as good or better than most of their long time vets in Spring Training - so they altered the plan.
I'm sure Seattle has a plan for 2011 - "Smoak starting at 1B -- Ackley starting in Tacoma". And that is a fine plan for November. Come March, maybe that plan changes. Maybe Smoak comes up with a bad hammy - and Carp hits 1300 during ST. Maybe Ackley gets a case of the yips at 2B during ST. Maybe Tui hits up a storm in ST, (A - GAIN!).
When you've got a roster where you're paying $200 million to your regulars, you can KNOW who your lineup is before ST begins. When you've got one regular making more than $5 million, you'd have to be a moron to *THINK* you knew who every starter was going to be.
But, I think it naive in the extreme to mistake the reality that "team control" is *A* variable to consider with the perception that is *THE* variable that supercedes all others. I don't believe this is true for ANY club -- even the most miserably run organizations in baseball.
The error is in thinking any personnel decision is made based on only a single variable. NONE of them are.
Smoak wasn't sent down "because he had a 23/1 K/BB ratio in his first month with Seattle. He was sent down because of that AND because he still had options AND because Kotchman was still on the roster AND because Branyan finally got healthy AND because the farm team was making a playoff run AND because of any number of scouting reports/opinions that were passed along to Z.
And, there are crack analysts in Seattle for whom, $$-per-base-on-non-FA's is the North Star of baseball analysis. Decisions like these can look very simple, if reduced to one variable.
You personally, San-Man... if Ackley has a big spring training, you lean to bringing him North, or not?
When you've got a roster where you're paying $200 million to your regulars, you can KNOW who your lineup is before ST begins. When you've got one regular making more than $5 million, you'd have to be a moron to *THINK* you knew who every starter was going to be.
Great way to put it.
M's are going to have to have some dice come up 7's in 2011. That doesn't happen by scripting your Scrubs in November...
Not following the NL whatsoever ... especially in a non-roto year, especially in a 101-loss year... I mean, in a down year I follow the NPB about as much as the NL...
Hadn't realized that the Giants did precisely this with Buster Posey. And what a non-year they got out of him.
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Wish there was some way to study how much a Super Two maneuver helps a Buster Posey have a big 2H on arrival, but there probably isn't...