Fun Fact: Aaron Sele And The 2001 Mariners Salaries

by Matthew on Feb 11, 2011 12:30 PM PST in Seattle Mariners History

Courtesy of Dave Cameron's FanGraphs post regarding Alex Rodriguez's contract with the Rangers comes this nugget that I had either forgotten or was never aware of.

In fact, here’s an interesting tidbit for you: Here’s the [2001] Rangers’ salaries for everyone but Rodriguez matched up with the 2001 Mariners’ salaries for everyone but Aaron Sele, their highest paid player that season.

Mariners, minus Sele: $67.7 million

Rangers, minus Rodriguez: $66.6 million

That is interesting, but what is more interesting is the what: Aaron Sele? The 2001 Mariners, the greatest team of all time, paid the most money to Aaron Sele? If you did not already know that, how many guesses would it have taken you to get that one right?

Perhaps it is just me that has his impressions of Aaron Sele from 2000-1 completely obscured by his dreadful 2005, but I just cannot remember him being good much in the same way that I am quite positive that Jeff Fassero's good years are completely made up and never actually happened. Here's the breakdown by the way.

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As I mentioned in the comments at Fangraphs, this just blows my mind.

AARON SELE? On a team with John Olerud, Edgar Martinez, and Ichiro, Aaron Sele was the highest paid player.

Dustin Ackley is going to make Joe Morgan look like Joey Cora.
AL Scout on Rendon: "I would peg him as a poor man's Jose Lopez."

by joof on Feb 11, 2011 12:34 PM PST reply actions

I remembered that--

the big to-do over pulling off the coup in getting him, after Angelos decided his arm would fall off if they signed him to the agreed-to 4 yr-$30M

by msb on Feb 11, 2011 12:49 PM PST reply actions

Woah.

Between 1998-2000, Sele was worth over 5 WAR on average.

Writing from beautiful Yuma, AZ

by Ballard Erik on Feb 11, 2011 1:04 PM PST reply actions

Did Al Martin make 5 million?

Or did he SAY he made 5 million?

League minimum has gone up $200k in ten years, not quite the same in my field of work. Why couldn’t I hit a curve ball??

by HikinGDub on Feb 11, 2011 1:04 PM PST reply actions

First half 2000 Aaron Sele was a god damn saint though

by Robert on Feb 11, 2011 1:41 PM PST reply actions

How on earth wasn't Edgar Martinez the highest paid Mariner at that point?

by katal on Feb 11, 2011 1:42 PM PST reply actions

Edgar was the fifth highest paid player, behind Rookie Ichiro, John Olerud, Jaime Moyer, and Aaron Sele

Dustin Ackley is going to make Joe Morgan look like Joey Cora.
AL Scout on Rendon: "I would peg him as a poor man's Jose Lopez."

by joof on Feb 11, 2011 3:06 PM PST up reply actions

My guess is that he was coming to the end of a contract he signed in the mid 90s

by Poochie on Feb 11, 2011 3:15 PM PST via mobile up reply actions

Edgar seemed to be one of those players that had more interest in playing for the Mariners than in trying to make the most money he could.

I’m pretty sure he could have gotten more money if he had looked around, but he seemed to want to play in Seattle, that was what was important to him, and money was secondary.

by nathaniel dawson on Feb 11, 2011 3:57 PM PST up reply actions

wow

Needed: Ping Pong table. Anyone wanna donate $78 million?

by sergey606 on Feb 11, 2011 1:54 PM PST reply actions

I seem to remember he had a really nice curve, then it went bye-bye.

by waldo rojas on Feb 11, 2011 2:05 PM PST reply actions

He had that big ass 12 to 6 curve that was just brutal.

"Making hitmen legal would really help the unemployment rate."-Thingray

by ToddK on Feb 11, 2011 3:07 PM PST up reply actions

How dare you say Jeff Fassero's good seasons were made up.

That’s an insult to those of us who were around before 1999.

by Mariner John on Feb 11, 2011 3:05 PM PST reply actions

I can't remember him doing anything other than give up home runs

by Matthew on Feb 11, 2011 3:34 PM PST up reply actions

I just remember him being old.

by Mariner John on Feb 11, 2011 3:47 PM PST up reply actions

Tony Fossas was the guy we had for the purpose of being old.

He was our lefty specialist. We’d bring him in, he’d walk the lefty, and we’d get another pitcher.

Charter Member: Dave Sims Sweet Hat Club // Career .384 BA, .543 OBP for Rocky Diablos

by Two Rs and Two Ls on Feb 11, 2011 11:30 PM PST up reply actions

After he left us he was the Giants' old guy.

He played til he was 43!

by Mariner John on Feb 12, 2011 12:54 PM PST up reply actions

What a bargain Boonie was at $3.5 mil

by basebliman on Feb 11, 2011 3:12 PM PST reply actions

Boone was just coming off an injury in 2000.

I seem to remember we picked him up on something like a one-year flier that season.

Charter Member: Dave Sims Sweet Hat Club // Career .384 BA, .543 OBP for Rocky Diablos

by Two Rs and Two Ls on Feb 11, 2011 11:29 PM PST up reply actions

Amazing how so many of those players were relative bargains

A lot of excellent play out of a group that wasn’t being paid all that much. Well, there was Al Martin. After him, you have to go down to Chris Widger to find a player that…….CHRIS WIDGER MADE $1.7 MM IN 2001??? How the hell did Chris Widger ever get paid $1.7 million dollars?

by nathaniel dawson on Feb 11, 2011 4:04 PM PST reply actions

What did he do with 1.7 million dollars squared?

Are squared dollars even legal currency?

Was he paid in funny money?

I write for Stumptown Footy, SB Nation's Portland Timbers blog.

by thehemogoblin on Feb 11, 2011 4:06 PM PST up reply actions

I can't believe 11 million was devoted to Sasaki, Nelson, and Rhodes

It seems like a lot of money for relievers even considering the contract inflation that has occurred in the past decade. Sasaki as closer, Rhodes to face lefties, and Nelson for righties was one of the best if not best closer/set-up man teams in the league that year though. It is scary to think the Yankees might have had a team even better than that in 2001. Rivera, Stanton, and Mendoza are better in fWAR but Mendoza was never used in as high leverage situations as Rhodes or Nelson and was jerked around quite a bit as a long man/spot starter.

by tdot mariner fan on Feb 11, 2011 5:15 PM PST reply actions

There are about three things when I think of when I think "Aaron Sele."

He pitched the final game in the Kingdome (for the Rangers)

He had a big curveball

He was terrible in the postseason.

Aaron Sele faced 164 batters in postseason play for his career. He allowed 7 HRs. (4.27% of all batters faced)
In the regular season, for his career, Sele faced 9,534 batters and allowed 225 HRs. (2.36% of all batters faced)

According to a one-tailed Z-test, Sele’s career postseason HR-allowance percentage is greater than his regular season HR-allowance percentage in a statistically meaningful way (at alpha = .1). That seems pretty crazy.

Charter Member: Dave Sims Sweet Hat Club // Career .384 BA, .543 OBP for Rocky Diablos

by Two Rs and Two Ls on Feb 11, 2011 11:48 PM PST reply actions

What is the overall difference in home run rate...

…between hitters on teams who make the post-season and hitters in the league at large? It seems likely that postseason teams are going to be better at hitting home runs than regular season teams, which could contribute to a meaningfully higher postseason HR-allowed rate.

by ubelmann on Feb 12, 2011 11:21 AM PST up reply actions

Interesting question, and I don't have the answer.

When I looked this up, I wanted to check Sele’s HR/FB% to see if he was just wildly unlucky in the postseason, but I didn’t see the quick and easy way to do that on baseball-reference, so I let it go.

Charter Member: Dave Sims Sweet Hat Club // Career .384 BA, .543 OBP for Rocky Diablos

by Two Rs and Two Ls on Feb 12, 2011 11:29 PM PST up reply actions

Also...

…alpha=.1 is a pretty low confidence interval. For every 2-3 playoff teams, you’ve got 8-10 starting pitchers, so you’d expect about one Type I error for every 2-3 teams at alpha=.1.

And since a priori Sele could be better or worse at this particular skill in the playoffs, I think you should probably be doing a two-tailed test and not a one-tailed test.

by ubelmann on Feb 12, 2011 11:28 AM PST up reply actions