On Aardsma, Vargas, And Sweeney/Garko
by Jeff Sullivan on Mar 25, 2010 12:22 AM PDT
in Miscellaneous
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PrintI thought about doing this as three separate posts, but I also thought about melting jelly beans in my coffee this morning, so for me it's just another Don't Go With Your First Instinct Wednesday, to be followed by my tenth consecutive You Should Probably Apologize Thursday. Anyone want to trade brains? Does anyone want to trade brains.
- David Aardsma made his fifth appearance of the spring tonight, and to show for it, he's got five walks, one strikeout, and an ERA over 12. His results have started to frighten a bit of the fan base, but I think more disconcerting than a handful of runs in some meaningless ballgames is the following velocity data since Aardsma returned from his groin issue:
March 12th: 91.5mph average fastball
March 17th: 92.8mph
March 20th: 92.2mph
March 24th: 92.7mph
2009: 94.1mph
It is of vital importance that you not get too freaked out over this. It's March, and Aardsma's only a few weeks removed from a minor injury. There's also the possibility that there's some difference between the PITCHfx systems set up in Arizona and the big league ballparks. However, this is something for all of us to keep an eye on going forward, as it seems clear that the DA isn't yet in peak form. We shouldn't expect him to be, but he ought to be getting closer, so we'd all like to see him make some progress. If he's still missing a mile at the end of ST, whether it be due to timidity or something else, that's not going to be good for the team. - Congratulations to Jason Vargas for unofficially sewing up a rotation slot with five shutout innings against San Diego. What you see from Vargas is what you get - he's a finesse lefty with a good changeup, and he's not going to suddenly start breaking off a hard slider or anything. But I do think it is imperative for Mariner fans to remember that Vargas went straight from zero innings in 2008 to 143.1 innings in 2009. It took its toll. He had nothing left on his fastball by the time September rolled around, and the likelihood is that he just about ran out of steam before that.
Of course, you could argue either way, here. On the one hand, Vargas might have a little better stamina this time around, but on the other, that kind of jump might put him in danger of a pseudo-Verducci Effect. I don't know which it's going to be. But I'm open to the possibility that, as predictable a skillset as Jason Vargas' really is, he might surprise a few people this season. Remember that, through his first eight big league starts a year ago, he walked 11 and whiffed 27. I know Jason Vargas isn't sexy, and I know he's no one's idea of a reliable starter, but he's not a bad arm. - So both Larry LaRue and Mike Salk are hinting at the possibility that Mike Sweeney now has the inside track for a roster spot come Opening Day, presumably at the expense of Ryan Garko, who still has options. Or rather, Salk is hinting, while LaRue picks it up and pokes you in the eye with it. This, of course, hasn't been confirmed, and we won't know for sure until the end of ST. But all spring I've been saying Sweeney doesn't have a chance, and now it seems I couldn't have been more wrong.
In a lot of ways, this is remarkably similar to last year's battle between Sweeney and Chris Shelton. The difference between the two guys at the plate isn't enormous, neither really offers any sort of positional value, and Garko can be stashed away in the minors. If the coaching staff really believes that Sweeney's got a lot left in the tank, they can make this happen. The issue, though, is two-fold:
1) It sure seems likely that Garko's a better overall fit
2) What do you do if Sweeney doesn't cut it?
As far as the first is concerned, Garko's 29 and free of health concerns, while Sweeney is 36 and less free. Garko isn't nimble on his feet, but he can at least play a passable first base, whereas Sweeney has yet to see game action in the field. From a versatility standpoint, Garko makes more sense, and from a statistical standpoint, Garko makes more sense too. Keeping Sweeney would seem to put a lot of stock into ST performance and a lot of stock into chemistry.
And as far as the second goes, what if Sweeney's hitting .200 at the end of May? How do you cut Mike Sweeney? It's not quite like cutting Ken Griffey Jr, but a team that loves Mike Sweeney for his personality is going to have a hell of a time making him go away if he sucks, or - worse - if he's mediocre, and that could be a problem, unless you're a firm believer in the 60-day-DL/hang-out-in-the-clubhouse-until-October approach. The point is, it's an obstacle. Replacing Mike Sweeney with Ryan Garko midseason wouldn't be like replacing, I dunno, Ryan Garko with someone else. There are complications.
If Mike Sweeney makes this team, it won't be the end of the world. With that said, I think the evidence is stronger than it was a year ago that such a decision would hurt the team more than it would help it.
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But wouldn't cutting Sweeney now hurt the team chemistry even more?
Right now he hits, even some rumors about him staying here start to come up. If in May he doesn’t hit at least everybody could understand the cut.
Nah.
People get cut in ST all the time. He and the team knew going in that his chances of making the team were slim to none and in fact they were mainly keeping him to showcase his talents to other teams.
The real issue here is if he’s hitting, say, .250 with a .300ish wOBA in mid-May. Not quite bad enough to force the team’s hand, but not good enough to actually help. That’s where that “oh, man, he likes to HUG people! You can’t cut a HUGGER” thing might work against the M’s.
by Johnny Slick on Mar 25, 2010 9:06 AM PDT up reply actions
I still think the Mariners will find a trade partner to take Sweeny.
I mean someone has to want a guy playing this good in ST, right?
That scenario would be ideal because the Mariners would have essentially given him a job without messing with the original plan. Then he can retire and comeback as the team chaplain next year. Everybody wins!
I hate you
with the passion of a thousand suns.
by Johnny Slick on Mar 25, 2010 8:40 AM PDT up reply actions
I'm one of those guys who still believes Sweeney has something left in the tank
Sweeney hit pretty well the later part of 2009 and he’s been great in ST now. This doesn’t seem to indicate that he’s finished as a batter.
When you add in the chemistry effect and that it is possible to send Garko to the minors as backup, keeping Sweeney seems like a good choice.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a *good* choice
Sweeney hasn’t had an OPS over .800 since 2005, when he was 31. There’s every reason to believe he’s a little better when he’s healthy, but does that matter when he’s so rarely healthy?
If the team wants to – as Jon puts it – run Sweeney into the ground, then that would make some sense, but I’m afraid of the situation where we have to lose Sweeney and nobody wants to.
by Jeff Sullivan on Mar 25, 2010 9:02 AM PDT up reply actions
I agree that such a situation is usually not pretty
but I guess it just depends on how much he has left in the tank (or how healthy he can stay, as you said).
But one good thing about Sweeney is that when the time comes at the end of his career when he is really “run into the ground” (which we have seen with some other M’s these past few years), he won’t be moping around giving off bad vibes, kicking things in the dugout, etc. Sweeney’s really a great guy.
No team can expect to be super-efficient, i.e. getting only the good times out of batters while quickly cutting them when things seem bad,
and if we do carry some veterans who might be nearing their end (this is not clearcut in my opinion, especially the way Sweeney has been hitting recently and latter part last year), I’d rather have Sweeney and Junior than Sexson and Co.
At least the reason Sweeney and Junior will be playing is not just because they’re being paid exorbitant salaries (I hate when this happens, Sexson, etc.).
And for that matter, even just performance-wise I think Junior hit better than Sexson did in his last 2 years here. Sexson was out there for 2 years.
But why would you want to watch Griffey/Sweeney
Sexson isn’t on the team and isn’t an option. Wouldn’t you rather watch a better player than either of those two?
by Edgar for Pres on Mar 25, 2010 7:25 PM PDT up reply actions
If there was a substantially better player yes of course, but marginally better, I'd say not really, considering the good these guys obviously seem to be bringing to the clubhouse
If they became terrible, OK I understand what you’re saying.
But as I wrote above, Sweeney did hit pretty decently from last August, and Griffey’s numbers were not much more worse than what we’ve been getting out of the DH spot post-Edgar, well most years I guess. (I’m sorry this is just my impression, the detailed memory of the actual Mariner DH players year to year after Edgar retired have been erased from my memory.)
"Sweeney did hit pretty decently from last August"
This is called a small sample size.
by Aaron Campeau on Mar 25, 2010 9:59 PM PDT up reply actions
The thought has always been
that with Bradley and Jack Wilson, two guys who can’t play in the field every day each week, and with a 12 man pitching staff to start the season, and with a first baseman who could use some platooning against some lefties, it is going to be difficult to have two guys on the bench who can’t play in the field.
I don't know about trading brains
But if you work with us in a synergistic, pro-active fashion, all we want to do is eat your brains.
Vargas can run out of gas
As long as Bedard shows up to take over. Oh, and Lee. (Oh, right… crap!)
Seriously though, he’d be a decent #5 in a rotation that had healthy and effective Felix, Lee, Bedard, and RRS ahead of him (though is it wise to have a rotation that is all LH except for Felix?)
The trouble is, two of those four guys are injured and one of them is not (so far) particularly effective. As your #3 to start the season, the situation is a lot less comforting.
I know Jason Vargas isn’t sexy, and I know he’s no one’s idea of a reliable starter, but he’s not a bad arm.Not so fast. I know there are some in the fanbase who think he has sexy hair.
I'm also not the least concerned about Vargas' durability
it’s not like we don’t have five guys that can take over his job the minute he starts showing signs of fatigue.
De Gutibus non disputandum est
by Bearskin Rugburn on Mar 25, 2010 8:50 AM PDT up reply actions
He's basically Jarrod Washburn.
I don’t know why people are freaking out either way about this. Pitch to contact guy, not really great, ideally suited for the back of the rotation… there’s nothing about that that doesn’t also describe the #2 starter going into last year.
by Johnny Slick on Mar 25, 2010 8:51 AM PDT up reply actions
"Contend" is also a tricky word.
This year the AL West could be won with 85 wins. That wasn’t perceived to be the case last year (the Angels ended up winning with just over 90 but at that they were worse, I think, than they were predicted to be).
by Johnny Slick on Mar 25, 2010 8:56 AM PDT up reply actions
What the hell are you talking about?
Of course we were. The general consensus was that the Ms were about an 80-win team and that the Angels were a mid to high-80 win team. Plenty of us were hoping, rationally, for enough good luck to overcome that gap.
As I recall, the best-case consensus projection for the 09 M's was to be a .500 team
And I don’t recall anyone suggesting that a .500 record would be good enough to win the division
Yeah
I mean, I’m not going to do an extensive google of this, but a lot of folks weren’t expecting them to climb out of the basement. As I recall BP projected a last-place 69-93. The most optimistic scenarios were ones like “You Never Know” that pretty much had to invoke everything going right for the M’s and everything going wrong for every other AL West team for the Mariners to win the division, and even that one admitted
A more realistic scenario is the Mariners winning 81 games, improving themselves by 20 games. That would be a remarkable turnaround which, health permitting, is a realistic scenario given the talent on the roster. If the Mariners can achieve that while allowing their young pitching to develop, the organization would be on target to compete in 2010.Which is what I would call “rationally hoping”
Or here’s Dave in January 2009
I currently have the offense projected around a 725 run level, though it seems likely that the team is going to acquire one more position player, and where he fits will affect that total. That’s why I keep saying that this looks like a ~78 win team to me right now.
A contender? No, probably not, unless they get a ton of unexpected breakthrough performances. But this also isn’t a bottomless pit of a roster that’s going to slog through a 90 loss season and has no chance for decency. A true talent 78 win team will win 88+ games about 5% of the time, so even if the team doesn’t improve the current roster at all, there’s a non-zero chance that the M’s could make it interesting next year.
So, ok, that might put some smart folks’ “best case” scenario at better than .500, but it’s always couched in the sort of “you never know with baseball” if-everything-breaks-right kind of language, which is getting out of the realm of rational hope. At least to me.
However many games we were projected to win, the Angels were projected to win only a couple more.
It wasn’t irrational at all to think the team had a fairly decent chance of competing. It’s just that the projections didn’t foresee the Angels hitting the shit out of the ball.
Actually, that last place 69-93 BP projection
Quoted by CBS here, predicted 92-70 (1st place) for the Angels. They’d won 100 in 2008, remember, and hadn’t declined enormously (in fact, if not for the injuries early on they probably would’ve approached that). It’s true some other projections held the race to be a lot tighter, but I don’t think any of them suggested .500 would be enough to win it all. In fact, PECOTA at least seems to have consistently underestimated the Angels for several years, so the race probably was never as tight as those projections suggested.
Ok
Angels 85 - 77Again — the M’s would have to be better than expected to even reach .500, which would not be enough to win the division.
Athletics 81 - 81
Mariners 78 - 84
Rangers 72 - 90
Teams can over- or underperform to a pretty good degree, though.
If the M’s overperformed by four games (they did, and more) and the Angels underperformed by four games, the M’s win the West. Obviously it’s not the most likely thing to happen, but it wasn’t a pipe dream.
Well, now we're going to get into
Parsing the vocabulary of hope, which is naturally going to mean different things to different people. I know I read as many predictions as I could find last year and ultimately felt comfortable expecting something less than a .500 team, with 81 wins as the best case I could reasonably hope for. As a result I was ecstatic with the results last season (and that final-game piggyback ride suggests at least some of the players were also, though obviously that wasn’t so much about the W/L record per se). And despite that, despite those expectations, I watched almost every game — and not just because the error bars on those projections might, if everything went right, overlap.
I mean, Samuel Johnson described a a second marriage as “the triumph of hope over experience” and yet people continue to have them (or first marriages, for that matter, even when the divorce rate hit 50%) At some level almost anything that requires good luck for success is a triumph of this sort and not entirely a rational undertaking. That’s what makes us fans, afterall — fanatics are by definition not entirely rational. Which is why I made that comment about the inherent oddness of “rational hope” — that point where the bracing gin of rationality fades into the lingering vermouth of fantasy is impossible to pin down and different for everybody.
That was posted in February,
which I believe was before the Angels had a bad rash of injuries to their starting pitchers.
No one ever projects Bedard for more than 150 innings or so
that’s like one win we lost, tops
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 3:59 PM PDT up reply actions
As I recall, last year's team looked like a high 70s/.500 team coming into the season
The best-case scenario for that sort of team is the playoffs, because the variation in W/L around true talent is enormous.
by Jeff Sullivan on Mar 25, 2010 3:04 PM PDT up reply actions
There's just something unique about Washburn that made people believe he was better than he was
Wish I could put my finger on it, but all I’m coming up with is “fiery competitor” and that’s stupid.
by Jeff Sullivan on Mar 25, 2010 8:55 AM PDT up reply actions
I was thinking of "proven winner".
I have a friend who is an Angels fan (not a GOOD friend, mind you!!!!) who wondered why I was so high on the M’s trading him away for (basically) a younger version of himself. He was such a winner with the 2002 Halos…
by Johnny Slick on Mar 25, 2010 9:04 AM PDT up reply actions
I understand that point of view from Angels fans. Don't agree with it, but I *get* it.
I just think it’s odd given that most of the people clamoring to resign him saw him pitch in 2008. There’s not even an attempt to explain it away, it’s just not relevant somehow.
I could understand this
thank God Jarrod Washburn would just get up there and throw the ball and make it slightly less painful than watching Miguel Batista take thirty minutes to walk four hitters
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 10:32 AM PDT up reply actions
Actually, I've always thought there must be something unique about Washburn that made posters here believe he was worse than he was
The guy did a decent job for us for four years, but he’s generally reviled on this site. Maybe because he was signed by Bavasi, and that colored people’s opinion of him, I don’t know. He generally did a much beter job than opinion here would have you believe.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 1:05 PM PDT up reply actions
Well he underperformed versus his contract every year he was here.
He threw Kenji under the bus. Whined about pitching the day after another lefty had started. Tried to tell us he only made one bad pitch in games where he gave up 5-6 runs. He was not an innings eater. He didn’t get many swinging strikes. Yeah, much better.
by Sec 108 on Mar 25, 2010 1:17 PM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Yeah, some of his behaviour wasn't what you would call exemplary
And yet, he did pitch 710 innings over the last four years, and the lack of swinging strikes didn’t keep him from being effective at preventing runs. And Washburn wasn’t the only one who didn’t like pitching to Johjima, either.
Based on his public persona, he probably wasn’t the most likeable of players for a lot of people. But you can say that about a lot of players — we can’t exactly expect to have a whole team full of likeable model citizens.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 1:59 PM PDT up reply actions
Jarrod Washburn wasn't effective at preventing runs
Safeco Field and Franklin Gutierrez were effective at preventing runs.
At best Washburn was average. When you add to this that he was overpaid and annoying, it’s no wonder that most of us hated him.
Luke French is a better pitcher than Jarrod Washburn. Luke French would have cost 1/25th of what Jarrod Washburn made in 2009.
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 2:27 PM PDT up reply actions
It was because he was a 1.5-2 WAR pitcher getting paid like a 3-3.5 WAR pitcher
And he was endlessly overhyped in the media for someone who was not that hard to replace.
No, he certainly was not getting paid like a 3-3.5 WAR pitcher.
He would have been getting something like $12-14 MM if he was. He was paid like an average starting pitcher, which is how he produced for us. And you can ask any GM in baseball — it’s not an easy task at all to replace a pitcher that can reliably give you 30 starts a year for four years and do an average or better job at run prevention.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 2:07 PM PDT up reply actions
We had similar options in the system already who would've given us roughly the same for pennies
And you need to factor the marginal value of wins into that contract, nobody pays full market value for a 1 WAR pitcher. Well, not smart teams anyways.
Similar options in our system?
Name some. (besides Felix, because that would be ridiculous to compare them, and of course, we didn’t have 5 Felix’ to fill out the rotation.) And then tell me how their careers have gone since then.
And besides — that’s a different issue. Whether the contract was a good decision at the time, that’s another story. When all was said and done, Washburn lived up to his contract and provided 2 prospects in return. Considering the minefield that free agent starters are, that ain’t bad at all.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 2:45 PM PDT up reply actions
I'm not sure what proff you'd want to see other than what's easily available on B-ref, Fangraphs or a dozen other sites.
And what proof are you showing that he didn’t live up to his contract?
During his time with the Mariners, Washburn averaged 30.87 starts per year and 181 innings. Perfectly decent numbers for any starting pitcher. Now I could do some heavy lifting and figure out how many other starters have pitched that many innings during the same time span, but that’s a lot of work that probably isn’t all that helpful. I doubt any one that follows baseball closely wouldn’t put that number in the top half of all starters.
His R/9 during his time with the Mariners was 4.22. His FIP was around 4.6. His tERA was around 4.7. Now we understand that none of those numbers are going to give us an exact picture of his “true talent level” because they may include factors such as defense, park, biases, random occurence, and scaling. And of course, we’re not so much interested at this point what his true talent level was, but mostly what he was actually providing for the Mariners in terms of value.
During those years, the average runs/9 in the American League was right around 4.8. Since we know that starters as a group give up more runs/9 than relievers, the average for a starter was probably around 5.0 or so. Washburn (on his own without help from his defense or park)n was certainly around that level or even better.
During the time that Washburn signed, other “average or better” free agent starting pitchers were signing deals for generally 3-4 years for $7-10 MM. Examples of the top of my head would be Esteban Loaiza (3/21), Carl Pavano (4/40), Miguel Batista (3/24), Kevin Millwood (5/60), Gil Meche (5/55), Matt Clement (3/25), and a dozen others I can’t remember right now. Washburn signed for 4/38, right in that range. A little on the high side, more than what I thought they should sign him for, but definitely in the range of what other comparable pitchers were getting. Washburn has faired better than most on that list (although this is anything but an exhaustive look).
Now how can anybody be disappointed in what we got out of Washburn, or think that his production during that time was “crap” and not worth the money we paid him? He did a perfectly fine job for us.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 4:41 PM PDT up reply actions
Statcorner WAR for Washburn from 2007 - 2009
was 2.8 total. You can do better with nearly $30 million. Even if you remove Detroit, it is 3.7. Still not perfectly fine.
If you want to, you can take a quick look at a player's Fangraphs page and use the WAR number that you find there.
Of course, that’s only one site’s estimation of his value, and it’s probably best to consider how it’s constructed and look at other pieces of information as well. There have been people who have criticized Fangraphs for using FIP in their WAR calculations for pitchers, as they feel that it’s not appropriate for historical value of production. I’m not going to get into any kind of evalutaion about what’s best, because I really don’t have a frim grasp on that anyway. Dave Cameron explains his reasoning for their usage of it, which is a very good read.
I can also point you to Rally’s WAR page for Washburn, and it tells a different story: 8.4 WAR for his time with Seattle.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 5:36 PM PDT up reply actions
Oops
I probably should have looked at his Satcorner page like you said instead of thinking you said Fangraphs. Sorry. On Fangraphs, his 4 year total is 7.2 including his time with Detroit, or 7.8 with only Seattle
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 6:42 PM PDT up reply actions
Of people in the system currently -
Nosey, Vargas, Olson, French.
Seriously. Of all the teams in Major League Baseball, the Mariners are by far the runaway leaders in soft-tossing, young, club controlled, replacement level, left handed starting pitchers
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 2:53 PM PDT up reply actions
Huh?
We’re not talking about 2010. Washburn signed in 2006.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 3:16 PM PDT up reply actions
Those are people in our system who could give us equal production to Jarrod Washburn now for a fraction of the cost
I’m sure you could throw some combination of Bobby Madsdritch, etc. up there if you want to talk about the time when Washburn signed his contract.
Seriously, crappy left handed starters aren’t hard to find.
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 3:18 PM PDT up reply actions
I'm not talking about now.
Nor was Jeff in his comment. You could list of a couple dozen names of players (aside from Felix) that were in our system at the time Washburn signed. You’d be hard pressed to find (m)any that have contributed even 10% of what Washburn has.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 3:42 PM PDT up reply actions
Baek, RRS, Feierabend
Those weren’t the only ones, but yeah. Lots of young guys in the system he was probably only a marginal upgrade over for a lot more money.
Feierabend and RR-S were far from the majors at that point.
And Baek has certainly seemed a decent pitcher, but no better than Washburn, and was still making his way back from elbow problems at the time. And, of course, has had more problems since then.
Really, we didn’t have a bunch of comparable pitchers at that time that we could have plugged into our starting rotation. And, again, that’s kind of beside the point. It’s not whether it was a good decision to sign him but how it worked out. The Mariners did sign him, and he did pitch well for us.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 5:01 PM PDT up reply actions
Never said Baek was better
Just comparable and cheap, and there were other guys. And I think this team has shown how easy it is to acquire that level of talent if you just go look for it by stockpiling a bajillion of these guys for almost nothing. And they aren’t 32 and don’t cost 9 mil a year. Plus Washburn doesn’t even have a job right now after putting up better numbers than he has in years so what does that tell you about his replaceability.
But whatever, if you want to believe something dumb I’m not gonna stop you, obviously.
by OlSalty on Mar 25, 2010 7:05 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
Being four years older and coming off a knee injury and a horrid stint with Detroit.....
and asking for $5 million in a down year for free agents, it’s no wonder that he’s having a hard time finding a job.
Again, not really relevant to looking at how he pitched while he was with Seattle and whether he gave us good value.
But we’ve about ridden this to death. Let’s just say that I find it odd to see the kind of animosity toward Washburn that I see here and the poor opinion of the job he did for us. I just don’t get it. When I look at it, I see a guy that did a very decent job for us and gave us pretty much exactly what we could have expected from him and what he was paid for. I don’t know why anybody would be disappointed by that unless you were expecting something more than you should have been.
And Ol Salty, you can make a point without calling someone’s opinion dumb. That just doesn’t make for a very compelling argument.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 8:41 PM PDT up reply actions
Getting average FA production from an FA pitcher isn't good
It’s an average investment in the free agent market, and the middle-tier free agent market is a bad way to build your team. Rather than giving all that money to Washburn, the M’s would’ve been better off taking a little hit in the rotation and using that money to fill other holes or pay for guys with actual upside.
by Jeff Sullivan on Mar 25, 2010 9:29 PM PDT up reply actions
I'm absolutely on board with that.
As I said earlier, I think the amount of money teams spend on free agent pitchers is borderline insane. I’d much rather see a team use it’s money for free agent position players and stay away from the risk inherent with pitchers. It seems wiser to rely on developing and/or acquiring cost controlled pitchers to build a rotation. Probably easier said than done, but there’s a huge payoff for the team that can do that.
But again, in retrospect, it all worked out fine. We were probably fortunate that it did given the usual return for free agent pitchers, but hey, it did. He remained healthy and effective, and gave us good value.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 10:00 PM PDT up reply actions
I think it's a dumb opinion because the justification you're giving for it is not adequate
And I have no problem saying that, because it isn’t, as I think has been pretty well covered already. There seems to be a pattern emerging here where these “debates” devolve into just repeating your opinions over and over instead of providing evidence. That’s not really debate at all, and not something people want to read.
And it’s just not an interesting enough topic to get this deep into again because this argument has been pretty well hashed out over the years and I’m no longer interested in trying to convince you otherwise if you still believe it.. If you think giving 4 years 37 million for a 32 year old, 2 WAR pitcher is not overpaying that pitcher I really don’t see what there is to argue about, because the disagreement between us is a fundamental one,, and there’s certainly no need to draw it out into these long subthreads time and time again when that becomes painfully clear.
Well
He never gave us 200 innings. He only crested a 2 WAR once in the past four years. He only started 30 games two of the four years. He only averaged 6.2 innings per start. He was paid at a rate higher than his return which is very easy to find.
The burden of proof is on you.
And that's WAR by FIP, too
he looks much worse by tRA
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 2:28 PM PDT up reply actions
Alright, let's just take a nice, simple look at Washburn's stay in Seattle
He signed for roughly average free agent starter terms, he remained healthy and reliable for the length of his contract, and was average or better at run prevention for a starting pitcher. And in the end, provided a couple decent prospects as well. That all looks like a good return to me.
What more can a team expect when it signs a free agent pitcher? Do you know how many of these guys fail to remain healthy or effective during the term of their contract? We painfully saw that first-hand with Batista and Silva. Say all you want about the foolishness of Major League teams in committing the amount of money they do to these players, because you’re going to get no argument from me there. But at least in Washburn’s case, the Mariners got what they paid for.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 3:01 PM PDT up reply actions
He was not good at run prevention
unless you think a true talent level of ~5.1R/9 is good
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 3:11 PM PDT up reply actions
You forgot to add "Washburn sucks" in that comment.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 3:24 PM PDT up reply actions
You could, of course, evaluate Washburn's true talent level as a 5.1 R/9 pitcher
Which is right around average for an AL starting pitcher.
I would have to disagree with that, myself. I think he’s better than that. Hard to get a handle on how much better, because evaluating a player’s true talent level is a very tricky thing. I’d put it at “average or better” for a starting pitcher.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 3:39 PM PDT up reply actions
We have this beautiful little thing called tRA
it’s pretty truthful most of the time.
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 4:02 PM PDT up reply actions
Or maybe not.
We don’t really know how reliable it is for any one pitcher. For a pitcher like Jarrod Washburn who has consistently over-produced his tERA, there’s a very good chance that it doesn’t capture everything about his ability to prevent runs.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 5:06 PM PDT up reply actions
I really liked having Washburn on the team because in concert with the park and defense he was perfectly OK
but that doesn’t mean he was good at preventing runs by himself, and that we couldn’t have gotten his production for a fraction of the cost.
Jarrod Washburn sucks.
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 3:13 PM PDT up reply actions
"was average or better at run prevention for a starting pitcher."
He was average at best before even accounting for the park. Durability has value, but when you’re a No. 4 starter, it’s not all that important. The Washburn signing wasn’t a massive failure, but he was overpaid.
Durability has a lot of value for a major league team.
Because if they can get 30 starts a year from a good pitcher, it keeps them from thowing replacement or below pitchers out there to make up the difference. If Washburn had gotten injured and missed a bunch of starts, Seattle would have been forced to use a lot of pitchers in his stead that would have given up 6 runs a game.
by nathaniel dawson on Mar 25, 2010 5:50 PM PDT up reply actions
I feel like the team's projection lost like 3 wins
over the course of ST.
De Gutibus non disputandum est
by Bearskin Rugburn on Mar 25, 2010 8:48 AM PDT reply actions
If you're really pessimistic on the amount of time Lee is going to miss
Hannahan going down isn’t good but it’s unlikely to cost us that much, over a full year he’s probably like 1-1.5 WAR as a backup, so a month or whatever of a replacement level guy filling in for him probably doesn’t cost us that much.
Also Aardsma, commitment to the Lopez/Figgins swap
hints about Milton playing LF regularly, Sweeney possibly being on the roster, Lee maybe not missing much time but having lingering issues and so on and so forth.
De Gutibus non disputandum est
by Bearskin Rugburn on Mar 25, 2010 9:47 AM PDT up reply actions
The silver lining in Aardsma getting off to a slow start
Is that with the rotation in such disarray, the M’s are unlikely to see many save situations anyway.
By the time they do, he may be back to his ‘09 form (though of course you’d expect a regression from that anyway due to HR/FB rates, etc)
Or the other bright side.
If aardsma sucks enough in ST, League may win the closer gig sooner rather than later.
by lailaihei on Mar 25, 2010 10:00 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions
Is League any more dependable?
last I checked he had control and HR problems, which is a big fucking deal for a closer.
De Gutibus non disputandum est
by Bearskin Rugburn on Mar 25, 2010 10:39 AM PDT up reply actions
Yeah, because Cliff Lee being out is going to cost this team like 13 save situations over the first few weeks of the season
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 10:34 AM PDT up reply actions
It's not just Lee
You have Felix once every five days. Who do you really feel confident about for the other four? RRS may have been working on pitches rather than trying to win in his starts, and Spring Training is not a good sample of anything, but still — as it looks right now, is this a rotation that’s going to keep opposing batters within striking distance of the M’s offense (and thus games tight enough to generate save situations)?
I'm not sure you understand quite how math works
the likelihood of there being lots fewer save opportunities because Cliff Lee is out is very low.
Maybe there will be one fewer save opportunity, and that’s virtually irrelevant, since save opportunities are stupid anyway.
by seattlebruin on Mar 25, 2010 2:30 PM PDT up reply actions
Saves are extremely stupid, yes
But as long as they exist, and Aardsma is “the closer”, we’re generally going to expect to see him in those situations. Of course, if there aren’t many, we’re going to see him get thrown into other situations just to give him some work. But those are unlikely to be games the M’s end up winning, which is my point: if the rotation (again, not just Lee) is messed up enough that the M’s end up losing games (effectively) long before the 9th inning rolls around, it doesn’t really matter if Aardsma is still getting his legs under him — his performance isn’t going to have any impact on the outcome of those games. The real danger of an unreliable / unready Aardsma is if the M’s do find themselves in a lot of “close-and-late” situations where he gets high-leverage innings.
Though, as somebody said, if Aardsma is going to be unreliable it’s better we find that out early. And yes I read, and agreed with, the article here a week or two ago about how “Aardsma Makes Me Nervous.” Even healthy and throwing with his full velocity he’s unlikely to be as lucky with HR/FB (among other things) as he was last year. But he is “the closer,” which means he gets those high-leverage innings until he shows he can’t get out of them intact.
I see a rotation that's more or less identical to last year's.
Bedard and RRS combined added up to approximately one pitcher, so I guess RRS by himself is slightly worse (at least until Bedard returns), but otherwise you had Felix (still here), Jason Vargas (in the rotation and set at this point to give the M’s more than 20 starts at similar production to Wash), Ian Snell (in the rotation), and then crappy Garrett Olson (soon to be delivered to AAA I hope), Doug Fister (injured with [insert joek here]), and Brandon Morrow (gone but not terribly effective when he did start). Toss in a few starts by French (still here!) and Silva (Jackz’d off this team!) and you basically have everyone who started for the team last year. Even with Cliff Lee out and Erik Bedard not coming back for a couple months, I don’t see how this rotation is significantly worse than last year’s.
Granted that last year it was not good.
by Johnny Slick on Mar 25, 2010 6:02 PM PDT up reply actions
If Garko goes to Tacoma, any chance he gets a couple starts a week at C?
I still have a Adam Moore & Garko pipe dream.
Yes, that could happen.
And Ken Griffey Jr. could start in CF!
by Johnny Slick on Mar 25, 2010 10:49 AM PDT up reply actions
Wouldn't they get Sweeney some innings at first if he was under serious consideration for a roster spot?
Or are they sure he can’t play a position and are OK with having two DH/PH-only players on the bench. Doesn’t seem to add up.
Yeah I don't know what to make of this either
If it’s true, it seems a tad…..impulsive, I guess. Unless they’re seeing some kind of meaningful adjustment in Sweeney’s approach they really like that we aren’t aware of, it’s not really a good idea to make a decision based off of 23 AB’s (or whatever his PA’s are, they’re not listed) with a BABIP as insanely high as he’s sporting right now.
What we really need is an Old Hero roster exemption
because all things being equal, we would just cut Griffey.
by lemonverbena on Mar 25, 2010 11:48 AM PDT up reply actions
I'm perfectly fine with Sweeney on the team if he is healthy and performing
And the Mariners should be able to get him on the DH if he isnt performing well. Is there any way we could end up controlling Garko for an extra year if we option him and he spends enough time in AAA this year? I’m not very familiar with his contract situation.
I think it makes some sense for the Ms to ride sweeney while he is healthy, especially if it can save some service time on Garko.
At least we have depth and options. We have too many slightly-above-replacement level players now, thats a good problem to have.
Service time doesn't really matter
Garko already has a few years left of team control, and it’s not like he’s going to be a big part of our future.
by Jeff Sullivan on Mar 25, 2010 11:34 AM PDT up reply actions
Did anyone else notice Larry Stone?
Larry covered for Geoff Baker in yesterday’s live game thread. What a pro. He can deftly wield his phraseology, illuminating the important and interesting along the way.
"Josh Bard had been 0-for-13 this spring. Make that 1-for-14 after lashing a double to right-center that brought in pinch-runner Matt Tuiasosopo. "
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