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Q.  Does the Mainframe crunch with a particular munch on this topic?

A.  Read it and weep.  Dr. D's Oct. 9th "Food Fight" article featured the eerie prescience of The Wreck of the Titan.

Everybody disagreed strongly, but he persisted.   When you've got Biff's future almanac, that's your attitude.  

... Well, technically, somebody disagreed, but as you know, Dr. D resents this as much as if everybody did.  And technically, Grizzly was the one who first said "I'll bet Saunders is gone in the offseason," and we put the Uma Thurman 5-finger discount onto his idea.  But we're hoping you won't read the link.

At any rate, Dr. D will thank you not to question his wisdom, ever again.  Especially regarding Michael Saunders.

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Q.  We do presume that SSI agrees, at minimum, that this trade is feebleminded?

A.  It's not in the least feebleminded.  

True, it is a clear "loss," by about a ratio of 2:1.  Saunders is worth solidly twice what J.A. Happ is worth.  But the Mariners were always going to shed Michael Saunders.  As you now realize.  

What it turns out, is that J.A. Happ was the best refund the Boxing Day cashier would offer.

:: shrug ::

When Pete Carroll paid $100M and four 1st-rounders to cast Percy Harvin's sorry keister overboard into New York polluted 2-and-9 seawater, nobody blinked.  And glory be!, the Seahawks immediately Power Ranger Mighty Morphed back into their 2013 form.  

Such is sports management.  Beyond a certain point, a player can't tell management to go stuff itself.  They won't tolerate it.  Even Dr. D would use the Nuclear Option against players in certain situations.

Billy Beane powerflushed Josh Donaldson for exactly the same reason.  Be thankful we lost a 253-AB fourth outfielder and not Kyle Seager.

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I don't regret "losing" a battle to win the war, even if it's the battle of the Have Mercy It's Percy gulag.  I do regret, mightily, Michael Saunders' lost potential in Seattle.  You coulda been a contendah, kid.

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Q.  Did the M's lose -2 WAR already in 2015?

A.  All due respect to our fave sabes, we can confidently reply, "Huh?"

Dr. D is tenuous on past WAR used dogmatically.  For "steamer" projections of future WAR, well ... those projections are indeed steamers.  As it were.

You never played roto?  You can try to predict rate stats.  You can't predict volume stats on part-time players!  What you do is, check back on March 20th, to see what their AB's and IP's might look like.  Man alive.  Dr. D's work is NOT done here.  He may have to conduct it on TWO blogs if this keeps up.

Less tongue-in-cheek ... J.A. Happ only has to be a league-average pitcher -- lefty in Safeco! -- to be worth 2 WAR by definition.  He was a lot better than average in the second half last year, provided you're willing to watch tape as well as count numbahs.  And those computerized playing time projections ... ergh.

True, Michael Saunders might have scored us 5 WAR.  In Dr. D's world.  But for Lloyd McClendon, he was going to score splinters in his keister.  

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Q.  What's a realistic UP scenario on this trade?

A.  That Michael Saunders has the same 106-108 OPS he had in 2012 and 2013, plays part-time, and is (in a practical sense) a replacement-level right fielder.  

We do realize that his 128 OPS+ last year was an outlier on his baseball card, and done in 250 AB's.  It's not at all far-fetched to imagine him hitting the league average.  He's hit far worse than that before, for long stretches.  

No, I don't expect that.  Me?  I would draft the Condor in roto.  But if the Mariners are cynical about Saunders becoming a fast Tony Clark, I don't blame them.  Remember everybody weeping and wailing in sackcloth that we traded John Jaso?  He promptly went to Oakland, played the first 30 games, and hit the bench so hard he broke it in two with just hands and feet sticking out.  

John Jaso can't play catcher in the big leagues.  Not full time.  Jack Zduriencik was the only man in the world, other than Dr. Detecto needless to add, who realized this.  One of the other [7 Billion - 2] who didn't realize this:  Billy Beane.

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The UP on J.A. Happ is simply that he did learn to pitch last year.  And that he simply reproduces his second half, wherein he had the same 7.7 K and 2.0 BB as did Adam Wainwright and Sonny Gray.

Look, kiddies.  Even NOT pitching in Safeco Field, there will be roto champs who see J.A. Happ as ready to pull a C.J. Wilson out of the swing role.  If Jack Zduriencik believes that, well, that's what makes a ball game for a GM.

If J.A. Happ takes that 92-95 lefty fastball of the second half, over-challenges like he's been doing, and lets the "SOCKKKK!" sounds die in left-center, he's liable to go neck-and-neck with James Paxton for ERA.

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Q.  What about signing Chris Young for the same salary as Happ, and keeping Saunders?

A.  I share Gordon's concern that Chris Young should count his 150 good Safeco innings blessed and not count his chickens on doing it twice in a row.  In roto, Dr. D wouldn't dream of giving you Happ for Chris Young.

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Q.  What about signing some really great 1-year pitcher, for the same salary as Happ, letting that SP make the All-Star team, and keeping Saunders?

A.  1 year, $7M and we can easily buy a star now.  I loooove eeeet

1 year, $7M for a pitcher you (as Jay-Z) think is about to become the next C.J. Wilson?  If next year's pennant run is your focus, this has a whale of a lot of potential to be a key reason you won.

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Q.  What about losing the extra two years of Saunders?

A.  You got me there.

Well ... it's nice in a sense to have one year of J.A. Happ is a bridge unto Danny Hultzen, various, and sundry.  With FA's, you are usually trying to minimize the years and they're trying to maximize it.

On Saunders, see above.  He's due what, $5M in arb here?  And what in 2016 and 2017?   The deltas between Saunders, and another RF, that's probably what Zduriencik is looking at.

It is the lost 5 WAR potential that Dr. D mostly regrets.  ... as a theoretical WAR construct, not so much.  Mickey hadn't done it in full time play, not by a long shot.

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Q.  Give us something depressing here, just to prove that you're not completely delusional.

A.  To Dr. D's great sorrow and great surprise, it turns out that the Mariners will not be pitching Max Scherzer in game #4 next year.

It's cleanup hitter or bust.

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Q.  Does this cue the sound of Jaws sharks in the water on an Upton trade?  Not for Taijuan, surely.

A.  The M's have a true hole in right now, as in, no players at all.  From an F-500 standpoint, this tells us that Jay-Z now has a "baseline" trade in place, a move he knows he can make while he searches for better.

Giving up Taijuan for Upton ... that's another POTD.  Jeff Sullivan has an interesting Fangraph up, arguing that it would be reasonable.

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Q.  Does Dr. D prophesy J.A. Happ to reproduce his second half?  Or do even more?  Does he like the pitching template?  To whom does Happ compare at this point in his career?

A.  Next POTD.  Philosophy first, application later.

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There's also a bubbly thread at the New Mainframe.

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Apathetically,

Dr. D