of Figgins. Nuh uh. As you said I would say, Doc - WE want him because he's snuffing major league MOTOs for peanuts. Could Pryor or Capps do that? Both guys ran 2 MONTH streaks in the minors without giving up runs. It's insane.
And now Pryor's sitting on the bench with a groin injury. Pitchers get hurt, and bullpenners tend to rise and fall precipitiously. Does that mean you should take advantage of increased value when you can? Sure. It also means saying "I've got a guy for the 8th and another one for the 9th" does NOT equate to "I don't need alternate plans."
See the demise of: League, Brandon. I wouldn't have minded capitalizing on League after last year. In fact, I recommended it. We've lost a lot of value with him for not taking advantage of that. But Wilhelmsen is under club control through 2017. He's not expensive and has a long time with us to get it right. He has time to go through Kelley-esque ups and downs and still come back and help us for cheap - or to JJ Putz his way to serious prominence before a trade would be warranted.
This isn't selling high on Wilhelmsen, not yet. And I want Pryor and Capps performing admirably in the bigs for a year or two before we start talking about bullpen excess.
Like you said, if he can help get me the missing piece of this team, then sure I'd consider it. Who would that be, though?
And to simply make the ledger prettier it's a no-go for me. Figgins can be cut to free up a roster spot - ownership doesn't need to be cheap about it and bribe other teams with our closer. If you would pay League 8 million to do what Wilhelmsen's doing then Tom's earning Figgins' paycheck already. Heck, we're paying League 5 mil to do what League's doing, which is basically to set fire to half a dozen winnable games.
Fire Figgins, pretend you're paying Tom his 8 mil for 2 WAR (well, 1.5 in leveraged innings) and call it a day. Because the great thing about that is that after 2013 Tom goes back to being a couple-mil guy.
It's just book-keeping, so tell yourself whatever you have to in order to keep the talent stocking this team and get rid of the dead weight.
~G
Q. Says who?
A. Geoff Baker with a well-thought-out argument on the subject. He, in full-on Pragmatist mode, emphasizes using Wilhelmsen to offload Chone Figgins.
The article is original, well-supported logically, and initiates an idea that is going to have traction. I'm sure that if this post occurred, word for word, on any major Seattle blog that it would be followed by about forty Fantastic Post, Dude's.
;- )
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Q. Is Wilhelmsen going to be perceived as a Certified Closer?
A. In baseball, you're closing when you're closing. (MAN ALIVE I love tautologies. That's going to be my next book. Baseball tautologies. That or something on Yogi Berra. Wisdom disguised as piles of dingleberry, that's the best kind of wisdom there is.)
If you're a baseball man? Tom Wilhelmsen has stepped "into the hot seat," has worked "without a net" and "has not spit the bit." He has snuffed major teams as closer, including Boston, and has looked imposing while doing it. He hasn't really shown anybody his keister, even a single time. Everything is perfect. (Which is why we want to use him, G will point out ....)
His stuff is Certified Closer, and that is important to the guys sitting at the $500 limit table.
He's got absolutely everything a contender would want in a guy who was going to do exactly what Baker describes: back up an expensive closer now, and replace him next year.
It's a "sexy" idea: you get a younger, actually superior "closer" and wow, he's actually even working the 8th for you. Twin closers. The examples don't occur right off, but teams love to do this. You remember the last time that Zduriencik had a "sexy" commodity to work with, that being Cliff Lee.
.
Q. What kind of return can you expect?
A. This is a quickie post on my way out the door, so Google the recent trades for yusself, man... if and when you find dominating relievers, ZERO problems, club controls, being traded, you'll see a whale of a lot coming back.
One trade that occurs: Andrew Bailey last year, arm thrashed, cutter/slider gone, three (relatively expensive) years left before free agency... for Josh Reddick (five years till FA) and two interesting 20-year-old prospects.
I wouldn't undersell the trade return of Tom Wilhelmsen. It's going to be quite a bit higher than J.J. Putz' was, when Zduriencik traded him for Gutierrez, Carp, and Vargas et al.
.
Q. Use Wilhelmsen to offload Figgins?
A. From a GM's perspective, that's officer thinking there, Geoffy.
From a fan's perspective, it would send me screaming into the night. That $13M savings, on Figgins, isn't going to change a lot on the field.
Still, we know what he means. Maybe Wilhelmsen and Figgins for a decent return, and Figgins' leaving is to be considered part of the return...
.
Q. Can the M's actually afford to lose Wilhelmsen?
A. It's like a mafia don once told a DEA contact. Nobody's got a million bucks to spare. Even if you got it, you don't got it to spare, know what I mean? Nobody can spare a dominating closer who's making $487,000.
But Furbush has emerged, and the fact is that Capps and Pryor are major league ready, and the fact is that every failed starter is another shot at a reliever. There are a lot of Victor Sanchezes and Bobby LaFramboises in our system right now. Billy Beane is a big believer in manufacturing closers, trading them, and then creating the next one. No guts no glory.
Me personally: I have an inkling for this idea because (1) I don't believe that Wilhelmsen is correctly cast as a reliever -- name me one other great reliever with his body type -- and (2) there would be a gamble, to a certain extent, in converting him to starter. Am not saying Wilhelmsen's not doing great. Am just saying there's an element of awkwardness about his role that is a thumb on the scale for me.
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Q. Aiming for what?
A. Dr. D loathes the idea of dealing Wilhelmsen if --- > Wilhelmsen is going to be the best player in the deal.
Doug Fister was traded and was the best player in the deal; how'd that work out? Erik Bedard was the best player in that deal, and now Video Game Chiang is an ex-Chiang. Seattle might as well have traded Bedard, deadline day, for zero. On the other hand, Pineda was traded and was not necessarily the best player in that deal....
If Wilhelmsen goes in July, that will be the algorithm freejacked into the mainframe. Was Wilhelmsen the best player in the deal, or was he not. If not, if Wilhelmsen + ? brings back a single player commodity that exceeds everything else in the package, yeah. Bring it on.
Cheers,
Jeff
Comments
And to simply make the ledger prettier it's a no-go for me. Figgins can be cut to free up a roster spot - ownership doesn't need to be cheap about it and bribe other teams with our closer.
I dunno, can anybody think of a trade that would fit this description? Having trouble coming up with one...
............
Also your observation ... develop the excess first, and then trade ... has a lot of traction.
Silentpadna should sit down and figure out the Net Present Value savings on Wilhelmsen over the course of this year and the next five years. It's probably close to $50M.
..............
As you realize G, my question is whether Wilhelmsen could be part of an AGone type deal. Where the guy coming back is the best player in the deal.
There are some good pitchers, especially if Hamels hits the market, but we're not really looking for that. Although maybe we should be with how most of our starters are performing. Who here thinks we're paying the price for Hamels though, either in players or dollars?
I've heard Chase Headley is available, and he's survived a bad park to post decent #s. Safeco wouldn't scare him. Why not save the prospects and just sign Carlos Quentin after the season, though?
I don't want to pay for Ed Encarnacion's career year - could have just signed Kubel like I suggested in the offseason if we wanted that, and kept our prospects. Ed's a free agent after the year anyway. Alex Gordon got paid (pretty reasonably) and either he or Butler is still available from the Royals. Butler could fix our 1B/DH problem pretty quickly, as well as the RHB problem. But KC doesn't need bullpenners, they need starters. Tom's not going in one of those deals unless they're converting him to the rotation a la Morrow - in which case *I* want to do that.
You could get Morneau out of Minny, I think, for the right price. But he's a FA in 2014, so you'd only have him for a season and a half, and right now that doesn't even look like a competitive season and a half either, for a guy with lowered production and concussion problems.
Francouer has a great arm for RF to replace Ichiro, but so does Wells, and Wells comes much cheaper while posting a similar line.
Honestly our best chance at a player of impact would be Hamels, which doesn't help the offense but would get an impact player. You'd be looking at some kind of Walker / Seager / Franklin / Wilhelmsen or Capps package, though, at a minimum, and he'd have to get paid. It's not happening.
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I dunno, man, I don't see it. Can you pry David Wright out of NY and pay him 150+ million, bad back and all? I would have traded for him last year because I believed he'd be better and I wanted 2+ years with him for the trade cost. Now you get less, and would be trading for him for basically his $16 mil option year of 2013. And the Mets would have to fall out of the race first, PLUS be blown away with an offer. Justin Upton's looking pretty "blah" for his cost to acquire. Logan Morrison is slumping, which might make him gettable, I guess. Ethier and Kemp are both Dodgers-for-life now, so they're off the table. Votto re-upped through age 87 at a billion and a half dollars.
Teams aren't letting go of their A-Gones right now. We should have gotten him while we could, if we could.
If you can find me a guy, I'm all ears. A top-shelf, grade-A All-Star and borderline HOFer, then you can have any of a number of guys for him. But I don't see him on the market. I see second-tier guys, and I can trade "mere" prospects for those guys, keeping Wilhelmsen for myself.
Is there any universe in which we can go Felix / Hultzen / Wilhelmsen / Paxton / Erasmo for the rotation in 2013, with Luetge / Moran / Furbush / Capps / Pryor for the pen? No?
Pity. We'd better figure out something then, because both the rotation and the lineup still need some juice.
~G
My top three targets would probably be Arizona, Kansas City, and Miami.
Kansas City's sitting on a veritable treasure trove of young, good, cheap-ish position players. Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, Mike Moustakas, Wil Myers..., Johnny Giavotella if you want him. The problem is that they don't want relief pitchers, they want starters, specifically at least one of Cerberus. While you could probably get KC to send over one of those guys in a package for Paxton-plus, I doubt you're getting anything from them for Paxton while they're still in the race. Unless Jack Z can convince them that Vargas plus a bunch of second-level pitching prospects (Carraway, Moran, etc) is really worth ditching one of their position players midseason, I don't think he has a shot at landing any of them until Detroit or whoever runs away with the division.
The Diamondbacks have Justin Upton AND Paul Goldschmidt, both desirable young trade targets who play RF and 1B respectively, thus fitting in very well defensively. All indications are that Goldschmidt has awful first base defense, not that that matters very much, and look! We have the DH slot! Obviously their numbers have been helped by Chase Field, but they are both well-known for having good power. Sadly, the D-Backs too are still in the race, and their bullpenners have been good enough that they have no real need for Tom. Their farm is stacked with pitching prospects, to boot... it's unlikely that we'd be able to land one of those young stars, unless the D-Backs collapse or their GM gets tired of the suddenly-slumping Upton.
The Marlins, now there's an interesting team. Their bullpen has been no great shakes this year, and the struggles of closer Heath Bell have been pretty well-documented, so there's a fit there. I personally don't think they're catching the Nationals, or the Braves for that matter, but they might, in which case Wilhelmsen could be a fit. They've got Stanton, who we'd love but they'd be absolutely insane to trade. Still if anyone can get it out of Safeco, it's him. The slumping LoMo, too, might become available and could be valuable as a 1B/DH/LF. His problems with their front office might incline them to trade him, too. Wilhelmsen for LoMo, with an additional package on one side depending on which team you're a fan of... sound realistic? The question is, what would become of his Twitter handle? Would he be henceforth and forevermore known as LoMoMariners?
Now, if we open it up to free agents, there are some other interesting possibilities. Swisher, for one, is a switch-hitting 1B/RF who never gets hurt, always puts up solid numbers, won't be resigned by the Yankees, and might be cheap-ish since he's 32. There's some other guys available, too, though obviously none are the young guns we'd be looking to trade for. Still, it's nice that the only real "holes" on the team offensively (if you have faith in Ackley, Montero, and either Franklin's bat or Ryan's glove) are 1B, DH, and maaaaybe one OF slot if you don't like either Carp or Casper. Convenient.
Not only could the M's have spent more this year if they wanted, but a whole bunch of money is coming off the books. Take a look:
Ichiro- $17 million
League- $5
Olivo- $3.5 ($750k buyout)
Iwakuma- $1.5
Sherrill- $1.1
Millwood- $1
That's almost $30 million dollars freed up! Does anyone seriously think we can add $35 million dollars worth of players this offseason? I wish that were the case but I doubt we'll be able to get one elite high-priced player let alone two. The market for top talent just seems super thin right now.
... could provide some fodder for the rest of the week.
Only have a sec tonight ... Churchill has analysis of moves for Upton, Alex Rios, Josh Willingham, Morneau, Alex Gordon, Butler, Choo, Holliday, and Cuddyer... I think it's $3 per month or something if you want to see his thoughts on those potential moves as he sees them .... he notes that Ken Rosenthal has (publicly, I think) reported the M's as talking to the Royals about Butler, who 13 mentioned.
Any further thoughts on any of those names?
Out of KC, none of the other players interest me as a Mariner fan. Moustakas would die a painful death in Seattle, especially with his K/BB problem. Gordon doesn't have enough pop for Safeco. Butler at least would get on base and hit doubles.
Actually...I frankly don't see any players anywhere that I would actually think would be huge upgrades over our current crop of potentials either offensively or defensively other than perhaps Butler, who would be available at a remotely payable price.
Frankly...I think the Mariners are in deep trouble. They can't buy players to get better because teams don't let good players slip and when they do, they're hotly sought commodities that don't want to come here to have their numbers die. They can't trade their way out of this, because teams are holding their young players aggressively and it's stupid to trade for old guys in our position. They have no choice at all but to hope that the talent they already have can mature into something useful.
Best chance for Mike Sweeney's career: Billy Butler
Best chance to suddenly pull a Joey Bats: Alex Gordon
Best chance for recovery to All-Star level: Justin Morneau
Best chance to never be a Mariner: Matt Holliday
Best chance at a cheap-ish vet trade: Cuddyer/Willingham (tie)
Best chance fo fall off a cliff: Cuddyer
Best chance to be overpaid for in a trade: Upton
Best chance to make Jack laugh: Rios
Best chance to get overpaid for all the wrong years: Choo
So. Willingham or Headley for decent parts would be okay. It would certainly HELP. From KC, Gordon is the untapped-upside pick while Butler will just keep being this guy forever. I prefer Butler, who is still ridiculously young even though he's been a big-leaguer for a long time. Morneau is gonna cost so much to get out of Minny, even for his expensive contract, that I have trouble seeing the worth in it since his next concussion will lead to retirement.
IMO, Butler's the best option. It means giving up on one of Smoak/Carp, and going with Wells / Saunders / Guti in the OF. I just don't see how you fire Wells, and Guti's immovable right now. Signing Carlos Quentin or trading for a Willingham is just paying more for a bit more than what Wells is doing right now and has done his whole career. I've been an advocate for Quentin in the past, but there's no guarantee we can get him in FA, especially with this park's rep against righties. Sometimes you just gotta make a trade.
IMO, Smoak is about to lose his place. He's had 800 ABs with an OPS of .675 as a Mariner. If I offered you prime Sweeney in place of Smoak you'd have to take it, right? That's Butler. To get Butler, you're coughing up starting pitching, probably one of the Big Three. Well, since it won't be Hultzen, it'd be either Walker or Paxton. And since it won't be Walker (unless we're going crazy trying to get Myers back as well) it'd be Paxton.
Maybe we also swap current starters (Hochevar for Vargas, since Hochevar is getting expensive in arb) in arranging the packages.
Do you do that for "only" a Butler return? Their offense, with Butler as their best hitter, is at 97 OPS+, so it's not like they've got oodles of offense out of their young hitters so far. Ours, with John Jaso as our best hitter, is at 88.
They have Wil Myers coming up, who's gonna be a mashing OF (on pace for 45 HRs in the minors this year) that they'd prefer to keep, but they only have Odorizzi who looks ready to maybe help in the rotation.
Anybody we add is gonna cost us somebody, most likely somebodies. Who do you like? Butler's a heart-and-soul guy, and I'd pay for that. Your mileage may vary, and there might be a cheaper option.
~G
I like Wilhelmsen a whole lot - but I'm biased in favor of the relief ace and I think that's what he is. Pryor, Capps, all the rest - they might turn into what Tom already is. Or not. If they do, then hey - those "you better have the lead after six or Seattle will slam the door shut on you" years were really fun.
I never got that "untouchable" feel from League that I get with Tom, even when he was doing well. He seemed to walk the high-wire a bit too much and a one run save was edge-of-the chair stuff for me. When the bartender comes in with a lead, I can sit back and enjoy. As a fan, I just love that. I love seeing him devastate the first batter with that high-heat/big yakker combo and seeing it reflected in the body language of the guy on deck. Hilarious. They just know.
I hope he's not used to salary dump Figgins or for one of Jack's "grab-bag-o-prospects" trades. The org could be giving up Papelbon's 2005-09 run and that's darn valuable.
I took Baker's discussion of a Figgins salary dump in that article to be a very understated (for him) / wry dig at the cheap ownership of the M's. And also unfortunately, a realistic assessment of their thought process - no one knows the M's management M.O. better than Baker.
A team that already spends 50% as much as the division leader, using arguably its best young player as bait for a small potatoes salary dump? Please tell me the M's wouldn't do that to us.
Trade him for a good hitter? (NOT the usual Jack Z pu pu platter) Now we're talking...
Vargas + Paxton probably goes a long ways towards acquiring Butler.
Freeing up the DH slot also allows KC to bring up Myers and give him a shot.
Packaging Wilhemsen just to move Figgins makes no sense, unless you get a guaranteed bat in return.
Real teams, ones with a clue, just get rid of Figgins right now. He has no value in trade, none. He has nearly zero chance to be a productive player next year, almost zilch. And this isn't the NBA where you have teams taking on his one year contract (in exchange for a longer contracted, better player) to free up space after that.
So we should just cut him and absorb the stupid decision made when we signed him.
You would end up with a Cuddyer or Willingham type plaer if you made the trade, and while I like those guys, they are both 33 years old. Why trade a young gun arm for a guy who may or may not be better than folks we already (well, Willingham certainly would play) have and may or may not age gracefully?
Really, I think we are in a situation where we dance with the (young) girls that we have right now. Wells and Saunders are 2/3 of a nice OF. I still think Carp is the other 1/3...unless he's our 1B...because Smoak isn't doing it, and it doesn't look like he's going to.
So then you trust that the AAA guys fill in.
But I'm not making a bad trade right now, just to get rid of a bad Figgins' signing.
moe
What about making Smoak part of the deal? Would they want him?
...I'd be all over that like flies on dung. seriously...Smoak needs a change of scenery. Safeco is removing his brain one fly out at a time. Put him at Kauffman and he's a new man. Butler, a pitcher and another B-prospect outfielder for Smoak and Paxton?
All right, so how about we throw in Wilhelmsen and they throw in Meyrs?
Smoak/Wilhelmsen/Paxton for Butler/Myers?
What you are suggesting is that Smoak becomes Butler if he gets to play in Kaufman. OK.
So the Royals would be trading an established Butler for a potential one. And then they would trade an established pitcher and a B-piece for a potential (high) pitcher.
I'm not seeing where the Royals would benefit, unless they want Paxton R-E-A-L bad.
If Smoak only might be Butler, why would they trade the real thing?
moe
No way Myers would be considered a "throw in" for this package. If you wanted to target both Butler AND Myers then your Smoak/Insano/KPax package would have to expand. Might I recommend targeting one or the other?
My preference would be to target Myers. Man, he looks legit. Could probably get him for KPax/Wells/Capps if you sold KC on Wells' CF abilities.
Having seen Smoak get the ball out of this park easily last year - in APRIL - it's hard to believe he's the sort of guy who needs a smaller park for success, but right now he does. Certainly it would make clearing his head much easier. He wouldn't play first (Hosmer), but he could back up first and get some of those DH at-bats while they're working Myers into the OF mix as well.
If we wanna go big-package for big-package I'm okay with that. The Ms and the Royals are kinda stuck where they are. Might as well try to shake up both clubs since we still match up pretty well for trades (though not quite as well as last year, perhaps).
~G
It'd be established pitcher (Vargas) and project stud hitter (Smoak), plus top pitching prospect (Paxton) for established hitter (Butler), and one of their troubled and getting-expensive starters (which is why I picked Hochevar, since he's a Super-2 repped by Boras).
But like I said, we fit them better last year when we could have done a Pineda-for-Butler-Plus trade, or a Fister trade (THIS is the trade I wanted last year if we were coughing up Fister, and said it at the time).
Vargas is better than Hochevar...but the Royals would have to believe in April/May Vargas, and think June Vargas is an aberration. Of course, now that Hochevar put 2 or 3 good performances together, NOW they'll think he's ready to be the guy they need. And then it'll all fall apart again, like it always does with him.
*shrugs* It's up to the Royals what they're looking for. We have the best pitching prospects to give, but we gave away our best current major-league pitchers last year and still haven't quite managed to fix our offense.
They traded Melky Cabrera (one of the guys I was targeting last year, with a 158 OPS+ this year) for Johnathan Sanchez (6.80 ERA and more walks than Ks). Sanchez is a FA after this year so they can't trade him to us. We'd have to all come to some kind of arrangement.
We'll see if Trader Jack can pull something out and give this roster a USEFUL vet hitter for once so we can start slogging out of this mess.
~G
I'd love to see my favorite bartender return to something he's done reasonable well in the past, no not pouring drinks, but going back to starting. I think he understands the game much better now and he clearly has the repertoire to succeed. I'd trade Vargas and consider stretching Wilhemsen out and seeing what he can do as a starter at the MLB level.