Add a Bat and Keep Washburn
=== The Bakery ===
Geoff axs, are the M's lucky to be contending, or not?
They are not, no.
The Mariners have great pitching and a terrible offense: they are a .500 team. Baseball Prospectus W2/L2 stat is based on EQR and EQRA -- expected runs based on bases gained and bases lost -- crossed with the Pythagenport Theorem that gives expected wins based on runs gained and lost.
W2/L2 has the Mariners at 34-34.
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The Mariners' "luck," if you will, consists of the broader fact that they play in a division with no powerful team. Are you "lucky" to be in the National League or American League? Fine.
But are the Mariners "lucky" to be close to the Angels and Rangers ... meaning that we should expect them to fall behind at any time? No.
The Rangers have terrible pitching, and their actual record of 37-31 is lucky. They should be 34-33. Like the Mariners, they're a mediocre team with (relatively) extreme strengths and extreme weaknesses.
The Angels have been, and will remain, chop-blocked by injuries and by an offense that never had a lot of talent in the first place. (Last year's Angels had an OPS+ of 94.) The Angels know how to win, and they execute beautifully, but their offense was always questionable and now their rotation is not healthy enough to make it up.
The Angels' W2/L2 is only 34-34.
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So the Mariners, Rangers, and Angels have been three mirror-image .500 teams. A bounce here, a bounce there, and one team is ahead or behind a few games. That's all.
Each team has extreme weaknesses and that means it is easy for each team to improve. The Rangers could import pitching -- or get it out of their hotshot minors system; the Mariners could add an Adam Dunn type. The Angels might have a harder time improving, because their rotation is set. Lackey and/or Santana will pitch better, but Matt Palmer will cancel that out by falling off the table.
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Larry Stone has an article in which Capt Jack hedges about whether it's realistic to contend. Why would it not be? The Mariners are, as they stand, as good as Texas and LAA. Why wouldn't they add to their pathetic offense and push for the 2009 pennant?
Why are you playing, if you're going to get to July and find you're as good as anybody, and then not try to win?
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=== Acquiring a Bat ===
Ergo, dealing prospects for an ML hitter is ... .it's simply what you do when you're in the thick of a pennant fight. As Beane put it, "you play two months to see what you have, and then you play two months while trying to get what you need, and then you play two months with the team you want."
Dealing quality talent out of the minors, for a MOTO hitter *even if a rental*, is a no-brainer. QED.
Capt Jack talks about feeding off Junior's big HR -- guys come in the next day "proud to wear the uniform." According to that logic much does the 2010 squad feed off of a 2009 playoff appearance? Or even a last-two-weeks fight for first place?
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=== Trading Washburn ===
But here's where it gets tougher. In May, dealing Washburn seemed like a no-brainer itself. If there is ever a guy you wanted to sell high, this was the definition of it.
There is no way in the world that Washburn is as good as he looks right now -- and he's gone after this season. In the "big picture" that Zduriencik talks about, he's absolutely forced to cash Washburn in.
But what kind of hit are you going to take in the #5 rotation slot? This is the photo-negative of the previous question.
If and only if you think you can get (1) a #5 SP rolling -- RRS or Jakabauskas or Olson or Batista or "the field" -- who will pitch ABOUT AS WELL AS WASHBURN WILL GOING FORWARD (4.00 ERA) -- or (2) get super hot prospects for Washburn -- then you trade him.
I don't believe that Washburn will bring mega-prospects, do you? Would he even bring back more than the draft picks? So don't set back your pennant drive for a trade package that is no big deal.
Or so it sez here,
Dr D