Baker follows up the story:

"I didn't pull anything,'' Wilson said. "I felt some tightness in my leg behind my knee and after everything I went through last season, I thought 'I'm not going through this again' so I just shut it down right away. I went inside, the trainer looked at it and it was nothing serious.''

Wilson goes on to say that the pain was in a different place than his hamstring injury a year ago, which is reassuring for some reason.

Anyway, Jack will probably take it easy for a day or three as he eases himself back into action. And given the conditions that (1) whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger, and (2) Jack Wilson isn't dead, then according to science Wilson's hamstrings should be indestructible by now.

This afternoon, the Mariners at least addressed what appeared to be one of their most pressing concerns by picking up Eric Byrnes for a year at the league minimum. With luck, Byrnes solves our lack of a right handed outfielder to platoon with whichever one of Michael Saunders and Ryan Langerhans makes the big club out of spring training. Before going more in-depth as to Byrnes's abilities, let me make clear that he is essentially free, and if he doesn't work out, he's very easy to let go. The Diamondbacks are responsible for the vast, vast majority of his contract, and if the Mariners release him and he signs with another team, they just assume our burden. In a sense, Byrnes costs no money at all, because what we're paying him is the minimum we could play anyone on with a place on the team. In other words, this absolutely does not preclude the team going a different direction if something interesting comes up.

What Byrnes does cost is Tommy Everidge, who is bad. I wouldn't worry about that one. Everything clear regarding opportunity cost, etc? Good.

So, Eric Byrnes. Let's start with the bad, since he did get released by Arizona after all. There are more than a few reasons they didn't want him around anymore. He gets hurt a lot. When he's hurt (he's torn both hamstrings in the past two years) he tries to play anyway, and is unsurprisingly terrible, leading to him getting his playing time cut due to his poor performance (apparently this is more manly than just sitting out when you're hurt). He's barely seen any time with the Diamondbacks over the past two years, which pissed them off because they're paying him lots of money to be awful on the bench and pisses him off because he has the 'I'm Eric Byrnes, bitch!' thing going on. So, performance, injury, and attitude problems. Did I mention he won't be able to help at all in the infield? He's an outfield-only guy.

His numbers over the past couple of years are not exactly impressive, either. .206/.272/.369 in 52 games in 2008 would fit in wonderfully with our lineup that year, and his on-base percentage actually contrived to get worse last year with a lovely little .226/.270/.393 line. And just when you were all starting to forget how Yuniesky Betancourt and Kenji Johjima popped the ball up all the damn time, Eric Byrnes has occaisionally given them a run for their money. Not individually, combined. Infield fly balls don't often go for hits, and almost 15%(!) of the balls Byrnes puts in play are popped up. He's not the sort of guy you want to see with a runner on third and less than two outs.

So, uh... the good. Well, once upon a time, Eric Byrnes was a pretty nifty, if overrated player. He's above-average defensively, if prone to both absurd flashiness and some amusing defensive gaffes, and he was a pretty good hitter prior to 2008, routinely posting wOBAs in the .340-.360 range with the Athletics and the Diamondbacks. When he was hitting well, he had ok plate discipline and made pretty good contact, even hitting for power on occasion. If his decline is more injuries than talent (at 34, he's not young, but he shouldn't be at falling-off-a-cliff territory yet), and he's healthy, he's a pretty good player. And even when he's not that healthy, he can be of some use to the team. Observe:

Figure 1: Eric Byrnes platoon split, 2006-2009

Byrnes has a massive platoon split. I've highlighted the last few years, but it's true of his whole career. He torches left-handed pitching to the point that even when he was hitting for a .206 average overall, he OPS'd .817 against them. There's room in the roster for a platoon out in left field, and if both sides of it can put up average defence and hit a little bit against opposite-handed pitching, we can squeeze some production out of the position. Would I have preferred someone better? Yep. Do I think the Mariners should keep looking to improve in left? Of course. But honestly, if they want to focus on something else (like another decent starter and, I don't know, going to a six-man bullpen), I wouldn't be too annoyed with the way left field has turned out.

Continue reading this post »

Nothing in English yet, but according to Francisco Blavia - a Venezuelan reporter who I believe broke the Kelvim Escobar --> Mets story - Gutierrez and the M's are finalizing a $20.5m/4yr deal with a 2014 team option ("Falta poco" translating as "almost done"). Kirby Arnold has picked up on the Tweet, saying:

The Mariners, of course, won't confirm anything until it's done. What I'm told is that the report from Venezuela has legs, but there are details to work out before an announcement can be made.

That the M's and Gutierrez were working on a long-term deal has been in the news for a while, now, but now that we have some actual numbers, we can see just how good of a deal this really is. This is Gutierrez's first year of arbitration eligibility. He has three remaining years of team control. If Blavia's report is correct, then the M's have secured all of Guti's arbitration years and at least one year of free agency.

For $20.5m. I'm just guessing at the breakdown, here:

2010: $2m
2011: $4m
2012: $6m
2013: $8.5m

Conventional wisdom has the first, second, and third years of arbitration paying players 40%, 60%, and 80% of their free agent value, so if you prefer, you can imagine this as the rough equivalent of giving an FA Franklin Gutierrez four years and $28-30m or so. And that, obviously, would be a steal, even without taking into consideration the 2014 option (which is probably valued around $10m). Franklin's turning 27 in February. These are his peak seasons.

This is good news. It's not phenomenal news, since we already had Gutierrez for three years anyway, but buying out quality free agent years is always super, and the fact that the M's and Guti won't ever have to go to arbitration is icing on the cake. That makes one member of the core locked up for a long long time. Now to move on to the next.

I don't mean to bury Matthew's excellent post below, but for those of you who're wondering, Baseball Think Factory is keeping a running tally of HoF ballots released to the public, and of those 68 to date, Edgar's a yes on 33. You can find many of the individual names of supporters and anti-intellectuals here.

33 out of 68 is 48.5%, well below the 75% threshold required for induction. It's also worth considering that that 48.5% may be inflated, as the ballots we've seen are more likely to have come from people familiar with the Internet and new media, and thus people more familiar with reasonable analysis. However, while Edgar's never going to make it as a first-ballot guy, he's getting a fair amount of initial support - more than many feared he would - and that should be a good harbinger of things to come. What once seemed little but a fantasy now appears like a legitimately possible outcome, and that's awesome. That's just awesome.*

* if you care. I wouldn't hold it against you if you don't, for a variety of reasons. I generally don't give a rip about the Hall of Fame myself, but then Edgar's involved, and Edgar's being involved could make me interested in milk.

---

Update: actually milk is pretty weird

Yay.

Pretty much everybody that gives a crap about baseball understands by now that the Mariners are way different from how they used to be, but people's minds have been changed by different events. Some people were convinced by the hiring of Jack Zduriencik. They knew about him in Milwaukee, they were familiar with his philosophies, and they saw what he meant and what he'd be capable of.

Some people were convinced by the Branyan signing. A guy many have wanted to see in Seattle for years, bringing Branyan into the fold showed that the front office was willing to take a risk in the name of getting good production for cheap.

Some people were convinced by the JJ/Gutierrez trade. The structure of the deal and the public justification for making it demonstrated that this organization knew which characteristics were important, which weren't, and how it wanted to go about building a contender.

Some people were convinced by the left field situation. Not only did the front office know how to value defense; it refused to deviate from its plan of having a strong defensive outfield, even when its original starter got hurt.

Some people were convinced by the team's 2009 record. Any team that gets that much better in that little time has to have done something right.

And so on. Ever since Jack Zduriencik and the rest of his new front office were brought in and put in power, there has been a series of revealing events, each persuading more and more people that, after years of prodigal lunacy, the Mariners organization finally had it figured out. And this afternoon we were able to add the latest landmark moment to the list when the following was written in the same place where just a couple years ago authors lamented the lacking of playing time for one Willie Bloomquist:

Wilson earned the Fielding Bible Award as the best fielding shortstop in the Majors in 2009, leading all Major League shortstops with 27 runs saved. In 1,143 starts at shortstop, he has recorded a .977 fielding percentage. He's a career .268 hitter.

The Fielding Bible Awards and defensive runs saved, on Pravda, used as evidence. I don't know if this was the author's idea or a suggestion from someone a little higher, but what difference does it make? Remember when the broadcast would talk about RZR and UZR? Forget whose decision it was. What matters is that not only does this front office intend to use its superior valuation skills to make this team good again - they're going to make damn sure as many fans as possible know how they're doing it.

A significant group of people were skeptical of the Zduriencik Mariners back when the hiring was made public.

Something tells me the remaining members of that group are getting sick of goodbyes.

Still nothing happening between parties to the best of my knowledge, but a couple hours ago we got this from Jon Heyman's Twitter:

#mariners gm zduriencik: Felix is our property. we're going to have him the next 2 years."

That's a bold statement from someone who isn't ordinarily so bold.

Something to think about.

SBN is looking out for you.

Go visit.