WHEN Bavasi gets fired

$13 million per year for a guy who fell off the face of the planet at the beginning of year 3 is a disaster. Sexson can't play defence and he can't hit. Sure, he had a fantastic first year and a decent second one, both of which amounted to nothing because the team core sucked. And now the team's maturing around him, he's collapsing. Yay.

"Vidro isn't blocking anyone at DH... The money Seattle is spending on Vidro is piffle."

Vidro is blocking Ibanez's move to DH, which is blocking Adam Jones's move to LF. 8 million dollars is certainly not piffle - it's well over half the difference between Raul Ibanez and Carlos Beltran. Make moves like that constantly and your team is screwed.

"We talk about millions and think of our own lives."

Speak for yourself. I happily divorce myself from my own life when thinking about economics.

"Vidro plays, Snelling rehabs."

The problem with the Vidro trade isn't really the trade itself, it's the inability to recognise freely available talent at DH and grab it rather than spend prospects and money on an inferior product: At least when Snelling went down this year we'd have been able to replace him for free.

"Why is VORP a terrible way to evaluate a pitcher?"

VORP overrates durable mediocrity to the point it's almost scary. They almost certainly have replacement level calibrated wrong. In addition, since it's a BP stat, defence isn't filtered out properly. You'd probably be better off looking at ERA+ * innings pitched.

"I didn't compare Washburn to other bad signings, I compared him to his own free agent class."

Comparing Washburn to other bad signings is the same thing as comparing him to other free agent deals that year. It was a terrible class and sensible GMs stayed away from it. It's a shame none of our vaunted pitching prospects developed, because having to fill holes in the rotation with free agents is a hard job.

"Soriano, an oft-injured setup man, frankly, didn't/doesn't have much trade value."

You're dead wrong here. He was traded because he had a cold when the M's scouted one of his winter ball starts, and front offices around baseball were horrified about how little it took to get him.

"Morrow has one pitch--a fastball that loses 5 ticks when he starts."

His fastball was down at the end of last year because he was tired, not because he was starting. I seem to recall him hitting mid-90s at Berkeley. He also has a decent splitter and a mediocre slider, and even if he didn't have any other pitchers, the best way to develop them is to start in the minors. Morrow needs to improve his command and develop a changeup, not sit in the big league pen throwing unhittable fastballs at random. Relievers (not relief aces) are fungible.

"Nothing he does happens in a vacuum the way our opining does."

This I agree with you on. I think a decent defense of Bavasi as a GM could be made, but certain moves are completely indefensible. Your point that there are factors going on behind the scenes is a completely valid one, and I do believe that Bavasi is doing OK given his constraints. That's still not an excuse for some of the debacles that have occured on his watch.