FanPost

Thanksgiving roster update

So, after Jerry's roster (re)construction to date, here's where we stand currently. Caveats: This is based on the depth chart up on mariners.com, salaries from Cots, MLBTR's arb calc and assuming just 0.5 for the others. I didn't look into playing time outside of Iannetta and Guti who both have performance bonuses based on it, and even then I only used it to calculate their salaries. sWAR is the Steamer projection from Fangraphs. Baron and Sucre don't have figures as they were only listed for 1PA a piece, everyone else had at least something hence a 0 is them projected to be 0 for some quantity of playing time.

$(M) sWAR $(M) sWAR
C Iannetta 4.55 1.5 SP Felix 24 4.7
1B Trumbo 9.1 1.1 SP Walker 0.5 2.4
2B Cano 24 3.5 SP Karns 0.5 1.6
3B Seager 7.5 3.7 SP Paxton 0.5 1.5
SS Marte 0.5 1.8 SP Elias 0.5 1
LF Smith 6.75 1.2
CF Martin 3.75 1.2 CL Benoit 8 0.3
RF Cruz 14 1.8 RP Smith 0.5 0.9
DH Montero 0.5 0.5 RP Furbush 1.7 0.3
RP Bass 1.1 0.2
C Zunino 0.5 0.9 RP Zych 0.5 0.3
IF Sardinas 0.5 -0.1 RP Rasmussen 0.5 0
OF Gutierrez 3.5 0.5 RP Reifenhauser 0.5 -0.1
OF Powell 0.5 0.3
Sub Tot 75.7 17.9 38.8 13.1
Tot 114 31
Depth:
C Sucre 0.5 SP Nuno 0.5 0.4
C Baron 0.5 RP Guaipe 0.5 0
1B Kivlehan 0.5 -0.1 RP Ramirez 0.5 0
SS/3B Taylor 0.5 0.3 RP Rollins 0.5 0.1
IF/OF O'Malley 0.5 0 RP Martin 0.5 0.1
OF Romero 0.5 0
OF Robertson 0.5 -0.2

Relevant notes:

Iannetta assumes 83 games (4.25 base, 0.15 bonus at 75 and 80)
Guti assumed 383 PA (1.5 base 0.5 bonus at 200, 250, 300, 350)

Nuno projection includes eight starts plus bullpen work
Bass projection includes six starts plus bullpen work

Puts us at 78-79 wins, assuming replacement level of 47.7.

So some obvious thoughts. This leaves some money for upgrades, but it'll be interesting to see how much they want to throw and where. Heyward for example projects at 4.7 WAR, meaning you bump Cruz to DH and Montero into depth assuming someone else doesn't claim him when he gets DFA'd, for a gain of 4.2 WAR (plus whatever adjustment for Cruz at DH) at a cost of $21.67 (using Dave Cameron's 9/195 estimate), pushing payroll up to around $135M, or a $12M increase on the 2015 opening day payroll (Cots)

Kuma projects for 3.3 WAR, an upgrade of 2.3 over Elias and turning Elias into some critical depth. Fangraphs crowdsourcing had him getting 3/42, so that's another $13.5M onto the payroll, pushing it up to almost $150M.

If you then swap Nuno and Martin/Rollins in for Rasmussen and Reifenhauser that's another 0.6 WAR, which takes us up to 38.1 WAR and right into wild card territory at 85-86 wins.

On the bright side, there's no gaping holes on the roster, and there's plenty of places to upgrade. On the down side, there's only four guys projecting to be average or better (five if you want to give Iannetta a pass due to catcher) and hardly anything in the way of depth on either side of the ball. Yeah there's some potential upside there but there's also some crater candidates, too.

I haven't taken trades into account because I have no idea how to make them work in terms of value so I've intentionally ignored that, however Ozuna projects for 2.3 WAR so there's that.