Jack Wilson Inked
by Matthew on Nov 13, 2009 1:38 PM PST
in Seattle Mariners News, Regular
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Two-year deal. Details forthcoming.
Jeff's update: $10m, 2 years. I think I said everything I have to say about Wilson the other day, so the bottom line is that this is a great deal in a vacuum and still a pretty good deal for a team in our situation. The shortstop hole has been plugged without our having to make any sort of potentially debilitating commitment. Onward to solving the team's other problems. Call Felix!
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That kind of sucks. Seems like about the right value for projected production, but mostly only downside.
Oh well, I guess there weren’t a ton of better options. I was just hoping our FA money would be spent on a bat… Maybe it still can be, but this sort of rules out getting a Harden/Johnson combo doesn’t it?
Too expensive? I'm not sure what the FO's budget will be this year...
but it seems like a lot of teams are looking to reduce payroll, it’s not unlikely the Mariners will join them.
Bedard, Washburn, Johjima, Beltre, and Batista came off the books this year.
They have some money.
by BrettJMiller on Nov 13, 2009 1:53 PM PST up reply actions
I guess I'm just not a huge fan of Wilson.
And I think patient teams will get better deals again this season.
Does anyone know what the average $/win was for free agents in 2009?
Wilson is approx. a 4 win upgrade over 162 games from Yuni. You should be happy to have him on board.
I was at Shea for the Felix-Slam!
Personal M's record: 5-4.
by EnglishMariner on Nov 13, 2009 1:59 PM PST up reply actions
It's not like the market is flooded with better options.
FUCK THE ANGELS! FUCK THE ANGELS! FUCK THE ANGELS!
Who else were we going to have? Josh Wilson? League average SS don't grow on trees and certainly aren't available internally.
I was at Shea for the Felix-Slam!
Personal M's record: 5-4.
by EnglishMariner on Nov 13, 2009 2:06 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
Almost... UZR is almost certainly mis-grading him.
And he came as close to “growing on a tree” as the analogy points to.
Below replacement SS like to swing from their limbs on occassion.
by Aaron Campeau on Nov 13, 2009 2:27 PM PST via mobile up reply actions 2 recs
That's just it, we don't really know what the budget is, so it's foolish to assume that this move will hamper the ability to make other moves.
FUCK THE ANGELS! FUCK THE ANGELS! FUCK THE ANGELS!
I know this has been discussed ad nausem but there's not reason to believe that this is a bad deal or that we're getting Wilson's downside
It’s a pretty solid deal: 4-5 wins for $11-12 m
I'm not saying he IS downside, just that he's more likely to post 2 wins over that timeframe than 6.
He's pretty much a two win a year player though.
I don’t see how you expect him to be worth one a piece the next two years.
by BrettJMiller on Nov 13, 2009 2:20 PM PST up reply actions
I don't, he's probably +10 with the glove, -10 with the stick...
Maybe a 1.75 win player. His bat doesn’t have the potential to bust out but he could lose a step or become even worse with the bat, rendering him 1-win-ish. There’s also decent injury potential.
Let me put it another way, if he posts 5-6 wins over the next 2 years, I will be quite surprised because it’s hard to see where those wins would come from. If he posts 2 wins, not so surprising, many things could go wrong.
Right, the most likely thing is he's a 1.75 win player or so.
But it’s more likely for something to go the wrong way than the right way with Jack.
I'd say with Scutaro it's about even risk.
Scutaro could replicate last year, that’s unlikely but not out of the question. He could easily be a 3-4 win player over the next two seasons.
Wilson, on the other hand, hasn’t shown the ability to hit well enough to do that in his recent history.
I’m not saying it’s a bad deal, just there’s not much upside. I’m decently happy with it for $10 million.
But Scutaro is a Type A
That means you have to wait to see if he’s offered arbitration. And if he is, you don’t want to lose your pick. Plus, he could command more money. And if either of those two things happen, Jack Wilson might not be there to fall back on.
He's Type A, which will lower his cost.
It also will make it hurt less to sign other Type A’s like O-Hud.
If he does get offered arbitration, the price you pay is no longer just in $$.
The cost would include the lost draft pick.
Saying giving up a first so you can sign other type A’s and only give up a second isn’t a good argument for your case.
Yeah, ok, but it costs a draft pick for every team.
And thus lowers the value of the player to every team meaning the contract will be favorable on the financial end.
So Marco Scutaro > Wilson + 1st round draft pick?
My point was, your including your first round pick with the cost to sign Scutaro. The Mariners just missed their pick being protected, their pick is far more valuable than that of, say, the Yankees.
That's ludicrous to think that Scutaro's risk is even.
He’s a 34-year-old SS coming off his best season by far which was fueled almost entirely by him swinging a ton less and likely by a bit of BABIP inflation.
I'm beginning to think you're a crazy person.
by Kirk on Nov 13, 2009 2:33 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
This is cool:
Seattle Mariners Executive Vice President & General Manager of Baseball Operations Jack Zduriencik today announced that the club has signed shortstop Jack Wilson to a two-year contract.
Wilson earned the Fielding Bible Award as the best fielding shortstop in the Majors in 2009 and ranked 3rd in the Majors for most “Web Gem” points on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight. He led all ML shortstops with 27 runs saved (The Fielding Bible statistic) in 2009 and leads his position with 51 runs saved over the last three seasons. FULL STORY "
The Mariners have just emailed this to all of their subscribers through mlb.com. Great to see some love for FB and also justifying that with the runs saved statistic.
I was at Shea for the Felix-Slam!
Personal M's record: 5-4.
Just about to post the same thing...
It makes me happy to see the new regime using things like ‘runs saved’ in an official email.
I like how they include something for us and something for the commoners in the same sentence
by Jeff Sullivan on Nov 13, 2009 2:00 PM PST up reply actions
I also heard that Jack Wilson was Carl's
Stone Cold Lock of the Century of the Week
angels fan in seattle
by Eyebrows on Nov 13, 2009 2:17 PM PST via mobile up reply actions 1 recs
Jim Street recently pleaded for Jason Bay via his mailbag
I facepalmed myself, partially because it’s not at all a move worth making, and partially because I had to exercise some form of physical punishment on myself for reading a Jim Street mailbag and not expecting a dosage of stupid.
That is awesome.
Good job mariners for pointing out an advanced defensive statistic to people.
I also love it when I hear the mariners broadcasters mention UZR (usually in the context of someone like Gutierrez having an awesome UZR).
Did they?
I remember them mentioning RZR, but not UZR.
Fans are typically idiots.
by The Typical Idiot Fan on Nov 13, 2009 6:23 PM PST up reply actions
That's awesome.
These guys really know how to run a modern baseball franchise. They can guide their fans along into the new world with them and explain how they’re doing awesome stuff.
Fans are typically idiots.
by The Typical Idiot Fan on Nov 13, 2009 6:46 PM PST up reply actions
Per Dejan Kovacevic out of Pittsburgh
Wilson’s deal believed to have total worth of $10 million.
by ManifestDestiny on Nov 13, 2009 1:54 PM PST reply actions
That's not nitpicky
Every $mil/year we save is another $mil/year we can throw at Felix
by ManifestDestiny on Nov 13, 2009 1:57 PM PST up reply actions
Again from Kovacevic
Confirmed: Wilson’s deal with Seattle worth $10 million.
by ManifestDestiny on Nov 13, 2009 2:03 PM PST up reply actions
I'm looking forward to Jack answering his critics over the next two years. I am delighted we have a steady, league average SS. Not every deal has to be a bargain - I am happy we have a 4 win upgrade over our previous "SS" for $5 million/year more.
I was at Shea for the Felix-Slam!
Personal M's record: 5-4.
by EnglishMariner on Nov 13, 2009 1:57 PM PST reply actions 1 recs
Considering the overall shortstop scarcity in MLB
$5 million for a player as consistently valuable as Wilson is someone I’ll take as a two-year stopgap every single time.
Ok, my main beef with Wilson is this:
As a team that is kind-of-but-not-really a playoff contender in 2010, deals with risk and upside have more value to us than deals that are steady and more predictable.
If we are projected to be a 91 win team without Wilson, then it makes perfect sense to shore up the roster with some really predictable talent.
But since we’re somewhere like an 85 win team or so if we get all of our wins from free agency at $4 mil value, then it makes more sense to go with someone like Scutaro who just posted a ridiculous season and is more likely to give you the kind of breakout performance that will put us at 90 wins or something that is really good for a playoff run.
If it’s for $10 million and 2 years, though, then I won’t complain. There’s some real value in that deal and as long as we get some higher risk players then we may be able to fill out our roster in a way that makes us playoff contenders if things break right anyway.
It'll be interesting to see what Scutaro gets...
…and if he’s offered arbitration. There are other places to upgrade on the roster and a $5 million league average SS isn’t a bad thing. What if Scutaro gets the same deal as Chone Figgins? Would you rather have Tui and Scutaro or Figgins and Wilson?
Apparently Dave beat me to saying this by quite a few words and 4 minutes.
It’s not a move with much upside, so the M’s will have to compensate by taking some risks at other positions, but it’s a decent stop-loss move.
But that's really the point
We weren’t going to get much upside out of the shortstop position this winter anyway, so it feels like the best ‘win now and keep the position warm’ move for two years.
There were a couple places to look for it, but yeah I guess the options are pretty limited...
Scutaro and Bartlett were decent options for upside guys. And I kind of like the “maybe he’ll repeat a freakout year again” upside over “maybe his body wont break down” upside.
Want to have like a $5 bet at who will post a better WAR in 2010?
Anyway, I like the risk/upside of Scutaro for a middling-maybe-playoffs team like the Mariners.
I'll save it for you.
Both of you give me 5 bucks bitches guys and then I’ll totally give it to you later..
...and now I'm here
Is Marco Scutaro an insane risk?
Mark Prior is an insane risk, Dick Harden is an insane risk… Scutaro is just unlikely to repeat last year.
For us, in our situation
We are staring a perennial 2-win player in the face for $5 million per – and to wait until free agency to go after a player whose BABIP is severely inflated and might cost us a first-round pick isn’t an insane risk?
Perspective.
Harden and Prior aren't insane risks
Unless you are counting on them to throw 150+ innings or throwing high dollar multi year deals at them. But taking a flier on one of them for reasonable money isn’t a risk at all.
And, frankly, in our situation
A Rich Harden/Bedard/Sheets type is the kind of risk we need to make in order to compete, not this shortstop shuffleboard nonsense.
My guess is that he gets nothing approaching that because he's not really that good and he's a type A
Hudson had to hold out for a very long time and he had a bat and a good rep… Marco Scutaro is Marco Scutaro he has none of those things going for him. I bet he wait a very long time to sign
If you're a proponent of going after him for that kind of money
How much do you think we have in available financial resources this offseason?
And you'd rather do that + lose 1st round pick
than sign Wilson for 2/10 ?
I'm not Z, but
I bet the main reasoning behind the decision was purely defense. And Wilson is far better than Scutaro. I like it. And really at the end of the day is the minimal offensive upgrade worth the risk? There are better positions to upgrade our offense.
Racer X. You have to love those amarillo hops.
p.s. fuck you angels
I will never understand what possesses you to think Scutaro has breakout potential.
by Aaron Campeau on Nov 13, 2009 2:32 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Just he has an ability to repeat a 4-ish win season.
It’s not likely, but there’s decent potential. He could become 5 with the glove again and still be a 4 win player if his BABIP goes back to normal levels.
Shouldn't this be part of the "Faces" series?
“Suprise Face man looks like he just found out that his girlfriend has room for two cucumbers.”
I will smash your face into a jelly.
by Phil Hatzenbuehler on Nov 13, 2009 2:06 PM PST reply actions 1 recs
Finally someone with rational commentary.
I can get on board with this.
Oh right on! I had completely forgotten that happened.
What a fantastic experience. The M’s injury updates list Bedard as coming out a sling soon, I’m not sure how often they update that. The last dated injury report on any player was the middle of Oct.
If we sign John Lackey then Mike Carp has got to go
by Jeff Sullivan on Nov 13, 2009 2:38 PM PST up reply actions
$10 million for 2 years of Wilson is great.
He is about 2 WAR, and if his wOBA improves slightly to around .300, which is pretty reasonable imo (given Dave Cameron’s post about his offense on USSMariner), then he might even be 2.5 WAR.
2 WAR on the free agent market is like 8-9 million, so we are getting a good deal.
If he manages to be worth more than 2 WAR, then thats even better.
Oops, that post was on LL, not USSMariner, and it was by Jeff.
I got mixed up.
So Wilson is probably 1.5-2 WAR, we are getting him at a bit below market rates.
Yay
Get to use this for 2 more years
abender20 hates freedom.
by Scruffy Lefty on Nov 13, 2009 2:43 PM PST reply actions 5 recs
Quick math projections
Wilson: ~.295 – .300 park-neutral wOBA, +10 defense
Scutaro: ~.330 park-neutral wOBA, 0 defense
Congratulations, you have yourself a difference of about five runs.
by Jeff Sullivan on Nov 13, 2009 2:48 PM PST reply actions 1 recs
That's what I was tring to say earlier, but not as well.
Racer X. You have to love those amarillo hops.
p.s. fuck you angels
Interesting
Calabro brings up the moving from leagues to face a new set of pitchers, and Wilson’s first thought is how lost he felt not knowing how to defense a new set of batters ….
I was not a big fan of re-signing Jack Wilson around the time he was acquired.
Since the landscape has shifted and the odds of getting a youngish shortstop with enough upside to be worth using resources on, I’m pretty satisfied.
Hopefully he can ugly his way to a .320 wOBA.
Jack Wilson is a wonderfully handsome man.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
...and now I'm here
Love it.
With Hardy off the market, I’d have to think Wilson is certainly the next best thing. Not too expensive, either.
My Mariners blog - SodoMojo Twitter Feed, Fuck the fucking Angels!
Well this is good news
Finally nice to have a league average SS with above-average upside. And only 2 million more than what Pittsburgh was rumored to be offering Jack Wilson before he was traded (rumored to have offered 2 years/8 million).
Oh, well now I know it has to be a good thing
after reading the Times’ comments:
“And there’s your Bill Bavasi move. 2 years guaranteed $10 million even if the guy plays 12 games for you in those two years. ‘m sure the Zduriencik apologists will make up some excuse to justify $10 million guaranteed for a player that rivals Chris Snelling in injuries and can’t hit. "
Do they not know that all MLB contracts are guaranteed?
by Aaron Campeau on Nov 15, 2009 12:11 AM PST up reply actions
I once read a Times commenter suggesting Buhner should be the pitching coach.
I went to junior high with the guy too :(
"Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett http://mvn.com/marinersminors/
by JY on Nov 15, 2009 1:16 PM PST up reply actions
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