Lookout Landing - Our Center Fielder Is Better And/Or More Attractive In A Sexual Way Than Yours

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AL West Standings

	W	L	PCT	GB	STRK
Los Angeles Halos Heaven	97	65	.598	0	Lost 1
Texas Lone Star Ball	87	75	.537	10	Lost 2
Seattle Lookout Landing	85	77	.524	12	Won 2
Oakland Athletics Nation	75	87	.462	22	Lost 7

(updated 11.8.2009 at 2:26 AM PST)

Heads Up, Sounders Fans

by Jeff on Nov 6, 2009 11:23 PM PST in Good News Comment 18 comments

SBN is looking out for you.

Go visit.

18 comments | 0 recs

Faces

by Jeff on Nov 6, 2009 3:28 PM PST in Faces Comment 4 comments

Alejandro de Aza looks like at first he didn't really want to go to the party, but then someone told him there would be Triscuits and he's all "I love Triscuits!"

4 comments | 3 recs

Mariners Fan? Jobless? Hate Cancer?

by Jeff on Nov 6, 2009 3:01 PM PST in Upcoming Events Comment 9 comments

Next Tuesday, between 11am - 1pm, Jamie Moyer will be signing the 2010 Moyer Foundation calendar at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. The calendars, which you can see here, cost $5 and benefit Hutch School for children whose lives have been affected by cancer. You may feel disinclined to spend $5 on a signed calendar somewhere else when you can spend $5 on a signed baseball card from eBay without leaving your seat, but if you buy a card instead of a calendar, you're basically ruining a child's life, and Jesus, man, that's sick, you're sick, I don't know how you live with yourself.

Seriously, $5 to help some kids and get a little face time with one of the most uniquely successful athletes in the history of professional sports. Plus, autograph! And I guess people still use calendars. If you have the money, time, and transportation, there's no reason not to go.

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M's & Jack Wilson Discussing M's & Jack Wilson

by Jeff on Nov 6, 2009 1:17 PM PST in Regular News Comment 35 comments

Dejan Kovacevic link, as mentioned in the comments:

Jack Wilson, the Pirates' shortstop most of this decade, is discussing a multiyear extension with Seattle that would keep him from becoming a free agent.

The Mariners are believed to have offered a two-year contract worth more than the two-year offer the Pirates made Wilson -- $8 million -- shortly before trading him July 29.

I don't know if JJ Hardy was ever on Z's radar, but now that he's off the table, Wilson's about as good a shortstop as this team's going to be able to get without surrendering something(s) of considerable value. So, rather predictably, the M's are seeing if they can extend him for a couple years for something below the $8.4m price of his 2010 option. While Kovacevic doesn't give us a number, mentioning only that it's worth more than $8m (total, not per year), I can't imagine Z would go beyond $10-12m, so that should be in the ballpark. Which...well, it's not amazing, but Wilson's a perfectly legitimate everyday shortstop, and Kenji Johjima's return home helped alleviate the budget problem a little bit. So provided Wilson re-signs for a reasonable price, which is the likelihood, then all things considered I'll be happy with it. Yay defense, and all that.

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J.J. Hardy to the Twins

by Graham on Nov 6, 2009 9:09 AM PST in Miscellaneous Comment 124 comments

Carlos Gomez is the return. More later.

[Source]

Later: Hardy is a guy that we'd all been hoping that the Mariners would make a play on this offseason to address the shortstop position, so it's a bit of a shame that he's been taken off the table so early and for what appears to be a fairly low price - one we doubtless could have paid. Gomez is a slightly below average centrefielder for league minimum, and the Brewers had top prospect Alcides Escobar waiting in the wings and a hole in CF with the departure of Mike Cameron, but I have a hard time thinking we couldn't have beaten that price.

In terms of money/talent, the deal makes a good amount of sense for both sides. The Twins get a big upgrade at shortstop, the Brewers deal from depth to cover a weak position (albeit not that well) for free, and have some more money to play with in free agency. As the return for a guy like Hardy, Gomez the talent is rather underwhelming, but the financial flexibility he provides is useful. Could/should the Brewers have gotten more for him? Yes. But they didn't, which is where this deal becomes weird from the Milwaukee side. They had an asset which had less value to them than to the rest of the league, but they sold him for his value to them rather than anyone else's, which is not the best trading strategy in the world.

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Junior's Decision Likely To Come Before Long

by Jeff on Nov 6, 2009 12:29 AM PST in Regular News Comment 1 comment

Not a whole lot to say on this, but Dave passed along the link, so I might as well post it:

Goldberg [Griffey's agent] said he was scheduled to meet with the Mariners soon and any decision on Griffey's future with the team -- and in baseball -- would be made sooner rather than later.

We'll tackle this story once it's resolved. For now, just something to think about. It's not exactly news, but at this point in the offseason, it might be close enough to qualify.

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Best & Worst In Hidden Value, 2009

by Jeff on Nov 5, 2009 8:35 PM PST in The More You Know Comment 10 comments

Baseball players can make contributions in a number of different ways, the most obvious and talked-about of which is how they do at the plate. Defense, position, and baserunning tend to be brushed off as secondary concerns. What follows are the top and bottom 15 in the sum of these latter three values, as determined by UZR, Fangraphs' position adjustment, and Baseball Prospectus' EQBRR.

Note that catchers aren't measured by UZR, so the worst ones are getting a boost and the best ones are getting it in the shorts. However, no catchers are likely to deserve placement on either list, except maybe Gerald Laird. So.

TOP 15		BOTTOM 15
Franklin Gutierrez	35.2	Bobby Abreu	-20.3
Nyjer Morgan	27.3	Nick Johnson	-20.3
Michael Bourn	26.0	Carlos Quentin	-20.4
Ryan Zimmerman	26.0	Carlos Lee	-20.5
Ben Zobrist	25.1	Aubrey Huff	-20.8
Evan Longoria	23.8	Ryan Braun	-21.3
Chone Figgins	22.3	Adam Lind	-22.0
Chase Utley	22.0	Delmon Young	-22.5
Ryan Sweeney	21.9	Andre Ethier	-22.9
Elvis Andrus	21.7	Jose Guillen	-24.8
Rajai Davis	20.7	Billy Butler	-25.7
Brendan Ryan	18.5	Michael Cuddyer	-25.8
Jack Wilson	17.9	Jermaine Dye	-27.2
Adrian Beltre	17.4	Brad Hawpe	-27.5
Ian Kinsler	17.0	Adam Dunn	-48.0

Neither Guti's placement at the top of the list nor Dunn's placement at the bottom should come as a shock; Guti plays a mean center field and runs pretty well, while Dunn's an athlete in the way people used to think glass is a liquid. The 29-run gap between them with the bat is erased here by the nearly threefold difference in "hidden" value. Franklin Gutierrez is awesome. Adam Dunn is not.

I don't think any names here really stand out. At least, they shouldn't. Notice the three Mariners in the top 15 and the bottom 15 being 47% AL Central. Turns out Chase Utley can run well too.

The best way to look at this would be to take a multiyear window such that we could smooth out statistical anomalies or misleading UZR. However, for whatever reason I can't load BP's '07 and '08 baserunning data, so we're stuck with what we have. If you ignore baserunning and focus on UZR + Position, then the 07-09 top three come out as Utley/Gutierrez/Hardy, while the bottom three are Dye/Hawpe/Dunn.

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Mets decline JJ's option

$1m buyout instead of an $8.6m option. This'll be an interesting name to watch; JJ would make a great buy-low candidate for a bad team looking to cash him in at the deadline, but on the other hand, it was the Red Sox who wound up with Takashi Saito for $1.5m a year ago, so this could go any number of ways. What's important is, we win.

2 days ago Jeff 16 comments 0 recs