Annual Offseason Reminder
by Jeff Sullivan on Nov 6, 2010 7:35 PM PDT
in Miscellaneous
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So it's the offseason again, and the Mariners couldn't hit again, so most everybody wants to see the M's add some hitters. Which, yeah, they should, because they need some guys who can hit. You might have missed this, but during the 2010 season the Mariners scored FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN RUNS. Opposing pitchers threw 1453.1 innings against the Mariners and posted a 2.92 ERA. Pedro Martinez's career ERA was 2.93. It'd be nice to not do that next year.
But, as we say going into every offseason, there's no sense in focusing on one or two particular kinds of improvements. Because, as we say going into every offseason, a run is a run, and a run saved is a run scored. The M's don't need to pick up some thumpers. The M's need to get better, in whichever ways they can.
I bring this up because I've seen some sentiment, here and elsewhere, that the M's are wasting their time with Hisashi Iwakuma, because what they really need are bats, and their pitching is fine. True, they do need bats. But here are next year's starting pitchers, as of now:
Virtual Certainties:
Felix Hernandez
Doug Fister
Jason Vargas
Hot Prospect:
Fifth Starter Options:
Garrett Olson
Ryan Rowland-Smith
Luke French
David Pauley
Felix, Fister, and Vargas are fine. And Pineda should be good for at least, I dunno, 120-150 innings. But that still leaves a lot of work to be picked up. And while you could make an argument for any of those four fifth starter options, each of them could pretty clearly stand to be improved upon. You can feel free to like David Pauley as much as you want, but David Pauley is never going to be a guy who should prevent you from adding another starter in his place.
Just as an example, let's say you think Pauley is a 5.00 RA guy. Find a 4.50 RA guy and, over 180 innings, that's a ten-run improvement. Ten runs is most of the offensive difference between Franklin Gutierrez's 2009 and Franklin Gutierrez's 2010. That's a big step up, and if the M's can find a cost-effective way to take that kind of step up, they should do it, no matter what form it takes.
The M's don't need offensive help. The M's need help, whether it comes at the plate, in the field, or on the mound. Try to keep that in mind and we'll see how it all looks when the offseason's over.
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And as far as those (*coughTimesReaderscough*) complaining the Ms should be signing up hitters right this very minute
don’t they and every other team have to wait until Monday to sign someone not already on their team?
Oh you stupid stats people and your facts.
Why don’t you go outside and see the real world.
"Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback."
by the other side on Nov 6, 2010 7:58 PM PDT up reply actions
Agreed.
Any team that loses 100 games flat out needs help. Everywhere. Question about the posting process though. Tha actual posting fee doesn’t count as payroll right?
by DaveValleDrinkNight on Nov 6, 2010 7:52 PM PDT reply actions
I keep hearing about there being a seperate budget on japanese posting/fees but I haven't read any articles that quoted a mariner official saying that it is veritably true.
I know there is a really cool thing called google, but Jeff is right here why not use his brain?
Eat shit bum!
Ugh.
I know what you’re saying. But touting pitching at the expense of (or even as equal value to) hitting is a bit painful in the context on a historically bad offense.
If nothing else… it will be easier to upgrade hitting, because it’s SO bad that ANY improvement is massive. But I would also theorize that adding ANY quality of hitting will have a cascading effect on the lineup. The 2010 lineup was significantly worse than the added individual performances in that lineup. Adding two decent bats would provide more benefit overall than those bats individually would warrant.
I am not
saying that the M’s shouldn’t upgrade their pitching.
Just to be clear. =)
It's been discussed, but I think the overseas stuff comes out of a different pot.
So it’s possible we can have both.
"Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback."
by the other side on Nov 6, 2010 8:04 PM PDT up reply actions
I'm pretty sure from the way the Mariners have handled Japanese players in the past,
the posting fee doesn’t come out of the player payroll budget, but the salary does. No guarantees, as they could decide to change it at any time, but if they do as they have done in the past, any signing of Iwakuma would count his salary as coming from their Major League player payroll.
by nathaniel dawson on Nov 6, 2010 10:59 PM PDT up reply actions
It's not so much about the M's choosing pitching over offence.
The rationale is if you have an opportunity to improve your team for relatively cheap(Posting fee side for Iwakuma) you should most definitely go for it. The M’s signing Iwakuma doesn’t mean they won’t sign a hitter to improve the offence. It’s kind of odd that the M’s first signing may be a pitcher given their struggles hitting but that doesn’t mean people should be caught up in the fact that the M’s are signing a pitcher that could very well improve the rotation. The M’s will need both to compete and fixing up this side of the ship while fixing the other won’t hurt at all.
You got slurved!
I think the reason why this was the first move is because of the timing of the japanese team.
Free agency has barely begun and the Japanese team posted their player early in the off season.
I don’t know who they Mariners will add for a bat, since speculating on what Jack Z will do is hard. I was convinced he would add a bat last year and he went and resign Griffey and Mike Sweeney made the team.
Eat shit bum!
by LeftArrow2 on Nov 6, 2010 10:58 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
One point I saw made over at USSM today
is that even if the M’s made zero (!) moves to improve the offense, the offense would improve. It was that bad last year.
Just picture Randichiro.
Regression to the mean,
it’s a powerful concept
by Matthew on Nov 6, 2010 10:36 PM PDT up reply actions 3 recs
Then again, I think people said that last year as well.
There is no floor and all that.
You're dead to me.
They did, and were right to.
Probabilistic uncertainty, it’s a powerful concept.
Also, some of our sophomore players real talent level will have improved as a result of the experience garnered from ABs in 2010
A very good hitting talent like Smoak almost certainly will play considerably better. Saunders and to a lesser extent, Moore, should also put up better offensive numbers. A hot start from Ackley would be the icing on the cake.
by tdot mariner fan on Nov 7, 2010 2:23 AM PDT up reply actions
On a good team
you would be deciding between Fister, Vargas, Pauley, French, RRS, etc. as your fifth starter. There’s so much room for improvement, you could fit Bartolo Colon in there.
People get pretty stoked about Vargas, and yeah, he pitched well, but his xFIP was 4.82 last year. So as much as everything went wrong last year, everything really went right for Vargas. He’s not that special.
I agree the logic, but there's just no way that most people are going to buy it. Because...
Losses where the 2010 Mariners scored…
2 runs – 20
1 run – 25
0 runs – 12
People just have a tough time getting over that. It just seems like 50+ games that are almost unwinnable with the current offense. It’s tough to shake frustration when you have to watch such ineptitude.
Well it's because in a very vague sense they're right.
An offense that scores zero runs per game will never win. But a pitching staff that gives up 100 runs per game can still conceivably be beaten, even though the likelihood is around 0%. So yeah, we need offense when it is terrible, and those people that want offense are not wrong. It’s just not the only problem.
I won’t get upset if someone argues that we need offense, because we do. Bad. I think the real problem is that people don’t realize that this comes from another budget, and there isn’t exactly a Japanese player we are going to be able to buy and afford.
...and now I'm here
It's the people proposing a players offensive abilities while ignoring what he gives back on defense
Not every player is perfectly balanced, but some of the names floated around are players I never want to see on the field.
Rosenthal predicts the Mariners will sign Guerrero and bring back Beltre so everything will be a-ok!
Morosi said we were going to pick up Vitor Artinez!
"Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett Mariners Minors
by JY on Nov 7, 2010 10:25 AM PST up reply actions
Felix didn't debut until Augus of his rookie year.
Before that, they were keeping him down in Tacoma, and even used a probably fake injury to keep him out a while so he wouldn’t run up his IP counts.
"Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett Mariners Minors
by JY on Nov 6, 2010 10:09 PM PDT up reply actions
With all the concern over his arm coming into the past season
it’s kind of hard for me imagine them just bringing him up from the get-go and letting him handle a full season. He’s never even topped 140 innings. But whatever, I’m sure they’ll find some way to work around it.
"Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett Mariners Minors
by JY on Nov 6, 2010 11:42 PM PDT up reply actions
Service time!
I’d be shocked if he broke camp
I'd be surprised too.
But we haven’t really seen much to tell us how Jack and Co. view the whole manipulation of service time issue. They’ve really only had two players that this has come up with so far (Saunders and Smoak). In both cases, it doesn’t appear that service time concerns were a priority. With Saunders, they did not try to hold him back this year to preserve another year of team control. Smoak, on the other hand, was optioned to Tacoma for a spell, but it does not seem to be enough time to assure that he won’t be a Super Two. The demotion probably had a lot more to do with his poor hitting rather than service time.
My gut feeling is that they weigh the team’s current needs more highly than trying to work the system to preserve service time. What they do with Ackley and Pineda may tell us a lot more about how they feel about this.
by nathaniel dawson on Nov 7, 2010 1:33 PM PST up reply actions
They may have limited Smoak's service time just enough to avoid Super Two actually
Smoak missed 17 days before Texas called him up on April 22nd. Then he was sent down on July 31st and recalled September 18th, so that’s another 49 or so missed. By my count he had 117 days of service time, and the usual cutoff ends up around 128ish or higher for Super Two, I think? As valuable as minor league playoff experience is it makes sense that they had some ulterior motives too keeping him down those couple extra weeks in September.
Yeah, he may miss out on being Super Two.
I forgot about the extra couple weeks spent in the playoffs. He’s borderlinish right now, depending on how all the other players shake out.
I’m wondering if teams will have to hold out players for longer periods of time in the future, as it seems more teams are using the service time rules to their advantage, pushing the Super Two window out longer each year.
by nathaniel dawson on Nov 8, 2010 2:30 PM PST up reply actions
When will we know??
Are we just waiting until the Japanese team makes their decision before we’ll know any confirmed details or is there a certain date we’re waiting for? Didn’t expect big news so soon but now that it’s here I can’t wait to confirm or not!
That looks right.
Four business days after the posting (which I assume was Mon., Nov 1st, making the fourth day Friday), all bids must be submitted to MLB. Four business days after that (which would be Thur., Nov 11th), the Japanese team must decide if the highest bid is acceptable. The highest bidding team then has 30 days after the date of acceptance by the Japanese club to negotiate with the player.
by nathaniel dawson on Nov 7, 2010 1:52 PM PST up reply actions
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