Wednesday Morning TripleShot

=== Jarrod Washburn ===

Rumors persist, even heat up this morning, that Washburn will wind up either in Minnesota or Safeco.

MLBTradeRumors opines that although Washburn declined Minnesota's offer of 1 x $5m, he might take that same deal to pitch in his dream stadium at Safeco.

Boras is a huge believer in "you don't know what your value is until the last second," so no doubt he's stalling to see if the offers rise as the seats are gone in the musical chairs game.  But SSI could legitimately imagine no team bumping Minny's offer by much, and then Zduriencik swooping in to nab Washburn for $5, 6m.

Washburn didn't throw poorly in Detroit last year.  Neither was he a bad pitcher just begging for a 7.00 ERA.  It was just circumstance that led to his poor starts in Detroit.

Exec Sum on Washburn, once again:

  • Average-solid AL starting pitcher (50-55 on 20-80 scale)
  • One of the lowest-risk SP's in the game (180 IP in the bank; there's a whale of a lot of guys who aren't)
  • Low K's but also very low BB's
  • 50-55 pitcher in a neutral stadium but a 60-65 pitcher with the 2010 M's
  • Was worth $11m in just 20 Mariner starts last year
  • Harang >> Washburn, but Washburn >> any M's minor leaguer

It's kind of a finger-trigger game going on.  GM's have to be ready to pounce as the player pool dwindles and the "sweet spots" in their opportunities arise.

.

=== Johnny Damon ===

Another Boras client.

Damon has racked up 6.8 runs per 27 in both of the last two years; after Ichiro, the M's best offensive player is in the 4's.  Damon is a beautiful Safeco player, into the bargain.

Damon would be a reasonable 3-hole hitter for the M's, but Boras is finally up a creek without a paddle.  He can't go to Damon with offers

Too good to be true.  Let's hope he doesn't sign in the AL West.

.

=== Wilson & Snell Trade ===

JFromSeattle with interesting ideas as to why Pittsburgh chose the three young pitchers they did in the Jack Wilson / Ian Snell / Jeff Clement deal.

Jay points out that Brett Lorin had a CTL nearly 4.0, a DOM near 5.0, and did it with legitimately plus stuff in a hitter's park.

He also notes that Aaron Pribanic got 2.7 grounders per fly with a 92-94 Scott Erickson heavy fastball, making him an intriguing ML prospect as well.

Zduriencik evidently gave up a whale of a lot to get Jack Wilson, but Whitey Herzog woulda done exactly the same thing.  As the White Rat said, you gotta have a shortstop you can win a pennant with.

Cheers,

Dr D


Comments

1
Taro's picture

So Damon goes from asking for 2/20 to being in a position where 1/5 might be the best he gets?
At that price, sure. Saunders can spend another development year in AAA.
Damon+Washburn wouldn't be anything to sneeze at. Damon is probably closer to a 2-2.5 Win player now with his declining D, but thats still around a 4 win upgrade over Saunders+5th starter.

2

...so the defense is much less of an issue.
Bradley is probably a better fielder than Damon at this point.  What you're really upgrading is Jr.'s ZERO WAR...
With Damon and Washburn on the team, I would find it EXTREMELY difficult to find playing time for sub-marginal players on this club.  I'm not a Damon fan...but for 5-7 million...sure thing...sign me up.
You'd have a WAR stack like:
Felix Hernandez: 6.5
Cliff Lee: 5.0
Ichiro Suzuki: 5.0
Chone Figgins: 4.2
Franklin Gutierrez: 3.8
Parker Brothers: 3.0
Johnny Damon: 2.8
Jose Lopez: 2.6
Ryan Rowland-Smith: 2.3
Jarrod Washburn: 2.0
Jack Wilson: 1.6
Brandon League: 1.5
Ian Snell: 1.0
Shawn Kelley: 1.0
Mark Lowe: 1.0
Casey Kotchman: 1.0
David Aardsma: 0.8
Adam Moore: 0.6
Doug Fister: 0.5
Catching Scrubs: 0.4
Reliever Scrubs: 0.0
Starting Pitching Scrubs: -0.4
Infielder Scrubs: -0.8
Total: 45.4 WAR + 48 replacement level wins = 93.4 wins...and that's about as negative a projection as I could possibly construct with that roster...I mean I shaved back a LOT of my original projections just to make this darned thing conservative.

3

I think "WAR Stack" is the new SSI catch phrase ...
Nothing homer about the observation that the M's have added some serious W's.  Cliff Lee is a huge add, Chone Figgins is a big upgrade over Beltre, you've stopped the SS bleeding, etc etc.  ... add a coupla more big upgrades in LF/SP3 and that does add up.

Add comment

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd><p><br>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

shout_filter

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.