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Talking Points
By the time you hash out all 9,000 sub-arguments on this one, you'll arrive at a very simple bottom line. "If Lee can be had without giving up Walker and Franklin and those guys, then Seattle should bid. Heavily."
The talking points, though, are these:
It's one thing to pay $25M per year in free agency for a Hall of Fame pitcher. It's another thing to pay huge minors talent for the privilege of signing a Justin Verlander at full market value.
But! There is one thing you do get with this "free agent contract" that you wouldn't get if you purchased CC Sabathia on the open market. You would get to sign Cliff Lee for only 3 years.
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Dr's R/X
What is that worth to you, you being the one club that gets to sign CC Sabathia for 3 years instead of 7 years? You cut four years of risk out, $100M worth of risk, and it's at the end of the contract. That is worth serious, serious talent to achieve.
Ruben Amaro thinks it's worth "your three best prospects." Well, if the Mariners could give up three prospects equal to the Angels' or Tigers' three best prospects, the decision would be simple. You and I have no way to know whether Ruben Amaro would play chicken over Taijuan Walker.
But if it's me, and it is James Paxton, Stefen Romero, Carter Capps and a sweetener, then yeah. Lee is a Mariner, baby.
I dunno. There are three or four Hall of Fame pitchers right now, who are also operating at a Hall of Fame level, and the Mariners have one of them. One of the others is available. That pitcher is a tailor-made fit for a 2014-17 Stars & Scrubs Seattle roster. I'd be pretty likely to outbid everybody else.
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Or who knows. The four elites we named were Kershaw, Felix, Verlander and Lee. The M's top two minors SP's are stylistic matches for two of those. Maybe a year or two from now we'll have our own Kershaw and Extra Felix.
Or not,
Dr D
Does Lee have a no-trade clause that would block his return to Seattle or otherwise raise the cost of getting him here? With Lee, the M's rotation would be built for the playoffs next year: Felix, Lee, & Iwakuma would be formidable.
Then so do I. It really would be a good offer, even though we all love K-Pax. The Phillies would certainly get a better haul this time than the last time.
...that you pay more in prospects for Cliff Lee in this situation, considering that next year will be his age 35 season and the size of the contract. Typically, these are salary dumps, so the price in prospects goes down. I understand that he isn't showing signs of decline, but we're still talking about his age 35 season and three more years at 25, 25, and 27.5.
My sense is that this deal is hard to get done without giving up Taijuan Walker. I'll move pretty much anyone else not on the major league roster (and some that are on it), but if they insist on Walker, there's just no way.
BIG props for noting (correctly, IMO), that the prospects are paying for the limited downside.
Being the self-appointed voice of age-arc doom, this is precisely the kind of situation where I am willing to gamble. SPs don't play by normal age rules. Having 4 rest days between starts mitigates the "primary" age related factor (IMO) --- the inability of the body to completely repair the damage from professional level effort on a nightly basis.
If you're talking "average" talent - yeah average pitching talent will tend to fall apart in their late 30s ... but Lee is not average. HoF level pitching talent routinely is highly productive up to age 40. Beyond 40 is where the annual risk starts accellerating.
As for the "not THIS spec" mentality ... count me as a dissenter.
Have we learned nothing from Ackley and Montero (and Smoak to some degree)? No matter how high the perceived upside ALL prospects are gambles.
I get why we would be excited about Walker. His AGE (more than his performance) makes him "feel" more like Felix. But, in the end, he is no more a guaranteed MLB pitcher, (much less Hall of Fame pitcher) than Maurer or Beavan.
Remember, Fister didn't start off as Fister ... he started off as just another organization arm and BECAME Fister.
Pineda started off gang-busters, had one great season, then ended up fat, happy and on the DL.
If the organization ONLY had Walker as a top arm prospect, the math gets different. But, if the club gives up Walker, its still got Hultzen and Paxton and Erasmo and Maurer and a history of developing arms.
I'd be FAR more concerned about giving up any hitting talent at this point, because the minors hitting depth has already been plumbed and Z is going to need some time to replenish, (and I definitely don't want to destroy the offense which is just "barely" good enough at the moment).
The upside of this move is that it shows that the M's managaement is willing to go for a winner .... now. It would quiet the accusations that all they want to do is make money with a ~.500 team. It would ensure that other moves (add RH-hitting, good-fielding OFer) required to be fully competitive would get executed.
I don't know if the M's are on that list. Did he enjoy his stay last time he was with the M's? I did hear he has lost a couple of miles on his fastball this year, but being left handed with great control not as big a deal as most pitchers who lose something on fastball. I still shake my head on the fact that the Mariners were able to trade for him in the first place with a really mediocre to poor package years ago. I wouldn't trade Walker because I don't think you'd have to. Prospects are more valuable these days, especially top, top ones.
Agree with your point that M's should give up pitching prospects, not precious hitting prospects. However, if the M's trade Walker, I would hope that would be enough by itself to get Lee -- given Walker's upside.
No way I give up Walker... and I have to think about Romero very long and hard.
Maurer or Erasmo or even Victor or Fernandez... sure. Capps or Carson Smith, Leoni or Bawcom - no problem. Paxton or Hultzen... I need time with my scouts.
I would steer away from the young pitchers as well - especially Gohara, Pike, Diaz and Urbina.
I would let one hitter go from corner positions like: Choi, Kivlehan, Marder, or maybe Romero.... but they are not touching the athletes. Jack's team seems to know how to draft these types of players, and selling now is way too soon.
Lee has had a total of TWO HoF years. In '08 he had that 22-3 season with a 167 ERA+ and a 1.1 WHIP. In '11 he was 17-8/160/1.0. But that's it, really. The rest of the time he's been a very good pitcher. His K's/BB's has been wonderous for the last 5 years, for example. But is he, right now, any better than 'Kuma? Their numbers are quite similar the last two years.
Are you willing to pay $25M for 'Kuma? Would you pay that to him right now for the next three seasons? That seems to be a reach, doesn't it? But it would be cheap compared to Le''s $25M, because you wouldn't be giving up the prospects.
I understand the idea of critical mass for a staff, but I'm not giving up Paxton or Hultzen or Walker. Man, Lee is the shining example of why you don't give up on based on MiLB numbers, and you have to look at their stuff. Minus '02-'03 in AA, he really never dominated in the minors. Walked guys all over, too.
He figured it out, though.
25 large x 3 is a lot. I'm thinking long and hard before going there for Lee.
With all respect, I think Terry is thinking wishfully if he assumes a Lee acquisition would force us to open up the check book even more. These are the M's. Lee would basically be it. Doc is right, the Stars and Scrubs deal would be in effect, then. It's a good plan.....if there is no decline in Lee. Can't be. A 10% decline gets him to where Walker may start out.
I'm slicing and dicing this one up carefully. It isn't a no brainer.
moe
Here is his career. Either 2, or 3, "HOF years" out of the 23 he pitched.
Am guessing that the "run of the mill" HOF pitcher :- ) had only a couple of seasons at Randy Johnson level... right now Lee has 60-70% of a HOF career at age 34.
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The thing is, Cliff Lee is one of three pitchers (Felix, Verlander) you can bank on for Cy Young contention in 2014. He gets 8+ strikeouts and 1+ walks, with no gopheritis, every year.
If Lee's no better than Hisashi Iwakuma then you don't pay him $25M per, anyway, much less pay talent to do it... the trade is based on the premise that you believe Cliff Lee to be a HOF-caliber pitcher. If that's not where you put him, then nada.
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I dig the switch-of-subject to WBC-san's excellence, though :- )
If we think it through, I believe we'll come out with the realization that Lee's contract going forward is a major PLUS. Even compared to, say, Felix' deal.
What is the % chance that Felix will get to 2+ years remaining in his contract, pitching at this level? If it's less than 100%, then...
Quite the lift to the club, both in performance and psyche, in replacing a guy like Harang with a guy like Lee. Lee pushes Iwakuma to #3, Erasmo to #4 and lets you play the "pick one" game for #5 from your pool of whichever young guys are left (Maurer, Hultzen, Paxton, Walker) and the inevitable Saunders-level vet of choice.
It's a whale of an upgrade. That rotation with this infield? Dangerous. Not lethal without a better bullpen and OF but a dangerous club to play against, that's for sure.
The other issue with Lee is that if you do that deal, it might be hard to add the FA OFers we need this offseason. It looks like we'll need two OFers. Would we rather have Lee+Morse+Romero or (say) Hart+Choo+Walker/Hultzen/Paxton? Tough call, there.
Sutton had 3 of them: Age 27, age 28 and age 35. (BTW, three times in his career he gave up only 0.3 HR/9!)
And there in lies the bet. For $75M, you need Lee to have one of those HoF years during his three years here. $75M just to challenge for a WC spot isn't enough. You need a title, Divisional or otherwise. You can challenge for the WC for a lot less. To win a flag, you need Felix and Iwakuma to continue being Felix and Iwakuma. You can't add Lee and lose one of them, because that just gets you to right where we are today, basically.
And then there's the opportunity cost of the lost Walker/Paxton/Hultzen years. And the lost other FA's that we don't sign.
If Paxton is the guy I give up, I might be in. Not one of the other two, I think. Paxton/Romero/Capps? I might sneak into that trade. But I'm going to hate paying $75M for 90% of this Lee. I've got to get that one great year out of him. One Cy type year and a good one. In conjunction with more of the same Felix and Iwakuma.
I'll give him a 100 ERA+ year in those three.
Is he Moyer-Methuselah? Yes? Then by all means. Is he mortal? Then I don't know.
His HR/BB and K rates remain sharp, agreed.
But Walker + Miller/Franklin for somebody named Upton seemed a decent bet to some (not you...or I, Doc).
Proceed with caution: That's my motto here. If you get Lee, you will not get something else that glitters. But then you might not be able to get something as glittery, anyway. Oh, and don't swap out Walker. A deal breaker, that.
Getting to 85 wins with Lee isn't enough. There are a lot of ways to get there, w/o a #75M tag attached. Can he be critical in getting us to 95?
Doc, Moe the Greek says it's a "Pick 'em" as to whether he has another HoF year in the next three. Maybe 6 to 4. BTW, that has to translate to wins, too....not just K/BB.
Twist my arm some more.
moe
Then that would be a delicious decision.
If you've got ANY legit Stars & Scrubs scenario, I'm willing to wallow in it. Which Star you grab is less important than whether you grab one.
Still: not sure that Choo and Hart qualify as Stars, but like you say, those are three pretty tempting pieces by the time you consider the rookie SP into the bargain...
I think an improved OF may be more impactful... Making all the pitchers better. But if we can get Lee and fix the OF? Bring it on!
As an aside, I wonder if Philly would have any interest in Ackley.
Lee was one of my absolute faves when he was here last. An absolute pro, and without the middle aged health concerns of a fatty like CC. He would be a significant part of a legit contender/playoff rotation for 2014+. A trade-off between Lee vs Choo/Hart/Pax isn't fair. The only one we actually have is Pax, and he might go in the deal. We'd have to sign the others, and they can't be forced to do it. Figgins will be off the books, and Felix is the only current player earning anything to speak of. What the team chooses to spend is arbitrary. Trading for Lee and his salary in no way prevents signing FA hitters. Getting them to want to come here is the issue. Morales likes it here? Sign him up for three, or even just the qualifying offer.