Category Archives: Mariners

Posts dealing with the Mariners

by | April 2, 2010 · 4:13 pm

Calm Down Mariner Fans

I’m so glad March is over.  When it comes to baseball, March always feels really long but this one was particularly long.  Over the past four weeks it seems all we’ve had is bad news:  Cliff Lee got hurt, Jack Hannahan got hurt, no one in the back-end of the rotation had a great spring, the offense was pretty sucky, having Mike Sweeney on the team will single handedly ruin the Mariners playoff chances, and Milton Bradley will obviously explode and kill someone this year.  All of a sudden, the best off season in team history turned into a spring training filled with doom and gloom.  I want to tell all of you one thing, it’s going to be okay!

Here are a few reasons why:

  • The offense will not be worse than last year.  I would bet any of you a lot of money that the Mariners will score more runs this year than last.  All projections I’ve seen have Seattle scoring about 50 more runs than last year, if not more.  I’m not saying the offense will be good, I’m saying that the offense was absolutely terrible last year and the Mariners still had a winning record.  This team can still be good even with a bad offense.  (As I wrote this Chone Figgins hit a home run.  This is a minor miracle.  Seriously.)
  • I’ll keep the comparison to last year going.  Let me remind you that Ichiro was on the DL at the beginning of last year.  I think Ichiro missed a total of 8 games last year.  Over the course of those games the Mariners had a 6-2 record.  Ichiro is the Mariners best player but somehow the Mariners had a winning record when he was gone.  I hope you’re following me here.  Losing Cliff Lee for about a month will hurt.  Over that month he probably would have picked up 5 or 6 starts; instead of watching Lee we’ll be watching Doug Fister which makes this injury hurt more.  But the Mariners excelled in 8 games without their star last year, I think they can survive 5 games without Lee.  I could be wrong but I think this injury has been blown way out of proportion because there’s nothing else to talk about.
  • I admit the back end of this rotation scares me.  These guys aren’t sexy names by any means and they haven’t had the best spring training.  But, this rotation is almost identical to the one that pitched through August and September (minus a frustrating Brandon Morrow and add a frustrating Jason Vargas).  Through that time period the Mariners had a record of 33-26.  Most experts feel that if the Mariners are around .500 by the time Lee and Bedard (hopefully) come back.  As they showed last year, .500 could happen quite easilyin April.
  • Another reason that a .500 record could be easily accomplished is because of the schedule.  The Mariners playOakland (7 times), Texas (3 times), the White Sox (3), the Royals(3), the Tigers(3), and Baltimore (3)  from the start of the season until April 28th.  Those teams were a combined 456-523 last year.  During that same period the Angels play teams with a combined 491-483 last year ( including the Yankees six times and the Twins four times) and the Rangers play teams with a combined 509-464 record (including the Yankees and the Red Sox).  The schedule certainly favors the Mariners while Cliff Lee is expected to be out. 
  • April baseball can be weird.  Some bad teams start out hot and some good teams start out cold.  It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen in April and you’d much rather have injuries in your team in April than you would in September. 

I believe the Mariners are a better team than last years team that went 85-77.  I know, that team overachieved based on numbers but what those numbers don’t say is that the Mariners are built for close games.  There may have been a little bit of luck with the 1-run game record last year but I think it has just as much to do with the defense than it does with luck. 

So, don’t panic.  Sure, it was a March to forget for the Mariners but it’s not as bad as everyones making it seem.  Writers don’t have anything good to write about during spring training so problems are magnified.  But March is over and real baseball is about to begin.  Despite the problems this spring, it very well could be a summer to remember in Seattle.

Andrew

(If the Mariners come out and are truly awful you can blame me.  If that happens we should try to forget that this post ever happened.)

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by | March 31, 2010 · 3:22 pm

How Bad Was Bavasi? vs. How Good Is Zduriencik?

Aside from playing sports for a living, I have always thought being a general manger would be the next greatest job in the world. I know it would be difficult, and I am not qualified, but as a Mariners fan from 2003-2008, watching helplessly as Bill Bavasi made bad move after bad move, I wondered if I could have done a better job. The trades, signings, and draft picks made by a GM are typically the measuring stick for how good or bad a job he has done. There are many more duties, but ultimately, it comes down to the outcome of the transactions. For Bavasi, his tenure will be remembered for horrible free agent signings where time and time again he threw large money to veterans will little upside, and of course, some bad trades as well. But beyond the Bedard trade and the Carlos Silva type of signings, what else did Bavasi do for 6 years as Mariners GM? Surely he must have made some good moves, but the bad ones are what we remember, right? Yesterday I set out on a mission to analyze the Bill Bavasi era move by move–because I had the day off, the weather was horrific, and baseball storylines are hard to come by right now! Anyways, I compared his tenure to what Jack Zduriencik has done thus far. The results are even uglier than I thought.

Trades

Breaking down Bavasi’s 47 trades on my grading scale, I see 2 definitely good trades, 7 definitely bad ones, and 38 rather insignificant moves. Just how bad were Bavasi’s 7 worst trades? Consider this. If you combined all 7 trades, the Mariners gave up Carlos Guillen, Yorvit Torrealba, Matt Thornton, Asdrubal Cabrera, Shin-Soo Choo, Shawn Nottingham, Rafael Soriano, Adam Jones, George Sherrill, Tony Butler, Kameron Mickolio, and Chris Tillman, in exchange for Ramon Santiago, Juan Gonzalez (not the one you’re thinking of), Marcos Carvajal, Joe Borchard, Eduardo Perez, Ben Broussard, Horacio Ramirez, and Erik Bedard. WOW!

Jack Z on the other hand has made 17 trades thus far, none of which can be conclusively graded bad, and 6 that I would already call definite good moves. This includes the Bradley for Silva swap, and I realize Bradley has yet to play a regular season game for the M’s. But the fact is Zduriencik was able to unload an overweight, underachieving pitcher for a potential clean-up hitter in Milton Bradley. Even if Bradley never amounts any success in Seattle, it is already a good move, in my mind, based on the fact that Silva was definitely never going to have success here. Again, combining Jack’s 6 definitely good trades, the Mariners gave up J.J. Putz, Sean Green, Luis Valbuena, Jeremy Reed, Fabian Williamson, Yuniesky Betancourt, Justin Souza, Jarrod Washburn, and Carlos Silva, in exchange for Franklin Gutierrez, Endy Chavez, Ezequiel Carrera, Maikel Cleto, Aaron Heilman, Mike Carp, Jason Vargas, David Aardsma, Derrick Saito, Daniel Cortes, Jack Hannahan, Mauricio Robles, Luke French, and Milton Bradley. That’s quite a haul! Essentially we received our starting centerfielder, utility infielder, 5th starter, clean-up hitter, closer, and a ton of minor league talent for next to nothing.

Signings

Now, as if the trades weren’t bad enough, the signings are where things really unraveled for Bavasi. Overpriced veterans with little upside were Bill’s obsession, for some odd reason. And he made a habit of accruing them. Things started nicely with the Raul Ibanez pick-up and extensions for Randy Winn and Ichiro. But then came Scott Spiezio ($9M), Rich Aurilia ($3.5M), Richie Sexson ($50M), Pokey Reese ($1.2M), Jarrod Washburn ($37.5M), Carl Everett ($3M), Miguel Batista ($25M), Jeff Weaver ($8.3M), Yuniesky Betancourt ($13.75M), Carlos Silva ($48M), Brad Wilkerson ($3M), and Kenji Johjima’s extension ($24M)–though Kenji’s extension was probably not Bavasi’s decision. That’s more than $225 million for 12 players who amounted zero all star appearances. Of these 12 disaster signings 7 were cut, 2 traded, 2 played out the full contract (yeah for Batista and Washburn!) and zero are Mariners today. In fact, of the 23 most notable signings of the Bavasi era, I would argue that only once did Bavasi have a successful free agent acquisition, meaning a player who was not already on the Mariners. That’s Jose Guillen. Thanks Jose for salvaging a small part of the Bavasi era.
Note: One could also argue Adrian Beltre was a successful signing, and while I would tend to agree, his injuries and general lack of power make it tough to definitively call the Beltre signing good.

Again, I find it beneficial and uplifting to look at Jack Zduriencik’s body of work, and so here is a summary of his signings thus far. Of the 8 most notable signings, 1 was a definite success (Branyan), and none appear to be bad moves thus far. Better yet, the largest contract Jack has given to a free agent is to Chone Figgins, for the reasonable price of $36 million. Jack has also done well to lock up arguably the three most important players for the future in Ackley, Gutierrez and Felix Hernandez.

Draft Picks

    Finally, the draft picks are where we can find a glimmer of talent in the Bavasi era. Of course, draft picks have a lot to do with talent evaluators and scouts, so who knows how much credit Bavasi deserves. But nevertheless, under Bavasi’s watch, the M’s drafted promising players in Mark Lowe (5th round), Michael Saunders (11th round), Chris Tillman (2nd round), Adam Moore (6th round), Doug Fister (7th round), Tyson Gillies (25th round), Shawn Kelly (13th round), and Josh Fields (1st round). Of course, all of this is overshadowed by the biggest draft mistake, which of course is taking Brandon Morrow over Tim Lincecum. Tough to penalize Bavasi too much for this though because every year team’s pick someone over a guy who ends up being an all star. Still, it’s hard to imagine what could have been with Tim here.

    Jack’s draft is hardly conclusive. Ackley, Franklin and Baron are the 3 most notable picks of the Zduriencik tenure, none of whom are conclusively good or bad picks quite yet.

    There you have it! As they say, the numbers don’t lie. Unfortunately for Bill Bavasi, 2 good trades, 1 or 2 nice free agent pick-ups and some solid draft picks aren’t enough, or even close, to qualify as a good tenure. Despite the shrewd Sean Green and Sean White acquisitions, Bavasi’s history leading the M’s will be marred forever by short sighted signings, lopsided trades, and a boatload of cash spent on little return in player performance. We will forever associate Bill Bavasi with Carlos Guillen, Horacio Ramirez, Scott Speizio, Carl Everett, Richie Sexson, Brad Wilkerson, Carlos Silva, Miguel Batista, Jeff Weaver, Asdrubal Cabrera, Shin-Soo Choo, Rafael Soriano, and of course, Adam Jones, Chris Tillman and Erik Bedard. But the page has turned, and our trust is in Jack Z now. The bad contracts are unloaded, new talent is on board, and the future is bright for Mariners baseball. It’s good to be a fan again.

    Special thanks to Brendan Bianowicz and MLBTradeRumors.com for gathering the bulk of this information.

    -Dan

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by | March 29, 2010 · 12:30 pm

Monday Quick Notes

Who doesn’t like some quick notes on their Monday lunch break? 

  • Just when it looked like the Mariners season was going to fall apart before it started, it now looks like it probably won’t.  Of course, both feelings were based on spring training, which is usually not a good way to go.  Cliff Lee is still injured, but there have now been good performances in the last week from everyone else expected to be in the rotation.  Ryan Rowland-Smith looked sharp yesterday, although his velocity was a little down from what you’d like to see.  Has anyone heard if it’s just a slow gun in Peoria?  Fister threw four innings today as he’s mostly recovered from that forearm bruise, and looks like he should be good to go to start the year. 
  • Speaking of Lee, his suspension appeal hearing that was supposed to be today was postponed indefinitely.  He also was shut down for 5 days to rest his abdominal strain.  I think that time is about up, so hopefully we’ll know more about when he’ll be back later this week.  At this point, I think he’s a 95% bet to start on the DL.  Even if he recovers quickly, he’ll still need to stretch out a little bit after a spring of little work.  In the interest of keeping hopes down, I’m planning on him returning around May 1st.  Anything before that is a great bonus.
  • Bedard threw off a mound today, which is a huge step.  He didn’t throw real hard, of course, but the added strain from throwing from a mound compared to flat ground is a big hurdle to overcome.  It sounded like everything went well today, so hope for very little soreness tomorrow.  The team sounds very enthused about his comeback, and he’s theoretically way ahead of schedule, but setbacks can happen in a hurry.  May 1st or shortly thereafter isn’t out of the realm of possibility form him either, but I would plan on closer to June 1st.
  • We are now seeing the downside of an NCAA tournament with a ton of upsets, in my opinion, that being a pretty uninteresting Final Four.  As great of a story as Butler is, I just can’t get excited about seeing them in a semi-final, much less the final.  I want the big names!  I couldn’t even tell you who the best NBA prospect still playing is.  Any thoughts?  It’s been a great tournament to watch thus far though.
  • Spring practice for the Huskies starts tomorrow.  I’ll try to get to a few practices, and I’m sure Andrew will make a few more.  See Andrew’s spring preview posts for an idea of some of the issues the Huskies are looking at.  I’ll try to put up a quick post with some of the biggest questions the Huskies have this spring later today or tomorrow.

Mariners season opener is in a week, April 5th!  Everybody getting excited?  You know I am! A few things to watch this last week of spring training:

  • Roster moves: the roster seems fairly set, but watch for injuries or a random surprise.
  • Cliff Lee: once there’s some resolution on the appeal and he throws again, we should have a better idea of a return date.
  • Can the pitching staff, especially the rotation stay sharp and stretch out to 80+ pitches in their last starts before the season?
  • This should be the time where numbers start to mean a little more for the hitters.  The veterans especially should be getting a little more locked in.

-Matthew

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by | March 27, 2010 · 4:56 pm

Y2010M! Ian Snell

Ian Snell is hard to figure out.  Snell came up through the Pirates system and broke into the league in 2004.  He was used sparingly in ’04 and ’05 and then was added to Pittsburg’s rotation in 2006.  That year Snell had a 14-11 record despite his 4.74 ERA (and a slightly lower 4.58 FIP).  The next year his wins took a hit (as to be expected when you play for the Pirates) but his ERA and FIP were a very respectable 3.76 and 4.01.  Snell was on his way up.  He missed a lot of bats with his above average slider and assortment of other pitches.  He was young and only supposed to get better.

Then 2008 happened.  Snell’s ERA jumped all the way up to 5.42 (although his FIP was at 4.57) and his record fell to 7-12.  The struggle continued through the early part of 2009.  Snell had a combination of bad luck, bad fielding behind him, a lack of control, and a loss of confidence.  Everyone could see that he still had good stuff but he left pitches up in the zone which caused a raise in his fly ball %.  He started giving up too many doubles and home runs.  All of this ended up in Pittsburg sending Snell down to the minors for a spell (where he responded by striking out 17 hitters in one game) and then trading him to the Mariners as a part of the Jack Wilson trade.

Snell was mediocre in his starts with the Mariners.  He always produced swinging strikes but often got hit hard because of the ball being up in the zone.  This trend has continued throughout this spring. 

So the question is, “Can Ian Snell become a valuable starting pitcher for the Mariners?”  He will start the season in the rotation, barring injury, and will be counted on to produce a good start every fifth day.  A couple things will need to happen for Snell to get back to a quality 3 or 4 starter for the Mariners.

  • His fastball must get better.  No one questions Snell’s good slider but his fastball, which sets the slider up, has become suspect.  Over the past 4 years his fastball velocity has slowly decreased.  And over the last two years Snell threw the fastball a higher percentage of times than in his solid ’06 and ’07 campaigns.  Seattle Sports Insider  (who took a look at all the starting pitchers in that link) made the observation that his fastball seems flat and lifeless.  For a guy with a fastball that is 89-91 mph, this is bad news.  Movement is needed for his fastball and right now it seems that he doesn’t have much of it.  If Snell is to become a good pitcher his fastball has to become better.  That or he has to locate it much better, which leads me to my next point:
  • Snell has to get the ball down in the zone.  In 2007 Snell’s ground ball to flyball ratio was 1.23.  Last year, his ratio was at .96.  By no means is Snell a ground ball pitcher (and we saw last year that flyball pitchers in Safeco can work) but with this bad of a ratio comes too many home runs and doubles.  Leaving pitches up in the zone combined with a mediocre fastball is a recipe for disaster.  If Snell can keep the ball down his fastball becomes less of a liability and then he can get to his stellar out pitches.  (Not only does he not keep the ball down, he doesn’t throw enough strikes.  Control is a problem and if he could figure that out, Snell could be much, much better).
  • He needs to get better against lefties.  Snell’s platoon splits are drastically bad.  Because his slider isn’t a very effective pitch against lefties, Snell has no above average pitch against them.  His fastball doesn’t tail away from lefties, which is a way many right-handed pitchers get lefties out.  His change-up is an okay pitch, which could be efficient against left-handed hitters.  His splits last year were quite a bit better than 2008 which is a direct correlation to a 5% increase in change-ups thrown.  If Snell’s fastball gets better and his change-up is used more than his splits won’t be near as bad. 

As you can see, this comes down to Snell’s fastball and control.  If he somehow rediscovers one of these things he’ll be a decent pitcher.  If he rediscovers both of these things he could be a good pitcher.  Unfortunately, this is a lot to ask.  I like Snell and I like his upside.  Z believes he can be a good pitcher so that’s enough for me to believe at the moment.  But he needs to show improvement quickly or else he’ll be replaced in the rotation once Lee and Bedard (hopefully) return.  If Snell becomes the pitcher he was in 2006 or 2007 the Mariners would be that much closer to a very memorable season.

Andrew

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by | March 27, 2010 · 1:06 pm

The Great Bench Debate

Not all benches are created equal. Johnny Bench?  Greatest catcher ever. Park bench?  Not so comfortable.  And wooden.  While not nearly as important as the Johnny or park varieties, the Mariners’ bench might be the most debated bench in history.  So, let’s break it down!

The opening day roster as I see it (position players only):

Starters

C Adam Moore

1B Casey Kotchman

2B Chone Figgins

3B Jose Lopez

SS Jack Wilson

LF Milton Bradley

CF Franklin Gutierrez

RF Ichiro!

DH Ken Griffey Jr.

No real debates here, I don’t think.  Johnson might start at catcher, but it’ll be one or the other.  Griffey won’t see all the DH at-bats, but will probably start out seeing the majority of them, and is a lock to be on the team.

Bench (after the jump!) Continue reading →

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by | March 26, 2010 · 4:39 pm

Y2010M! Mike Sweeney

(Y2010M! stands for Your 2010 Mariners! and is a series of posts aiming to touch on every player possibly important to the Mariners’ season.)

Geoff Baker is claiming today that, barring some unexpected pitching moves to deal with the Lee injury (13 man staff?), Mike Sweeney has made the opening day roster.  This will likely come at the expense of Ryan Garko and has commentors throughout the blogosphere gnashing their teeth and proclaiming that this clearly shows the team has no intention of winning this season. Count me as one who really doesn’t get it.  Get the gnashing of teeth, that is.  Sweeney on the team makes total sense from my viewpoint.  Sure, Sweeney and Griffey at DH again is not what anyone wants, but barring a trade for someone clearly better, Sweeney sure seems like the best option we have.  This team is not going to hit that much.  I think they’ll hit better than some are expecting, but they still need every bat they can get. Continue reading →

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by | March 23, 2010 · 5:07 pm

Two More Weeks

The Mariners season opener is just two weeks from yesterday.  Luckily we have the NCAA tournament and the Huskies to watch those two weeks, because we have reached the official spring-training-is-incredibly-boring point.  This is also the point, though, where players start to round into shape and stop experimenting with swings and new pitches and such, so the results begin to mean a little more, but not really.  A look at some issues and questions still out there in Peoria after the jump! Continue reading →

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by | March 17, 2010 · 7:22 pm

Why Cliff Lee Getting Ejected isn’t Awesome

The only reason Cliff Lee getting ejected isn’t awesome is because he is now suspended for the first 5 games of the season.  I’m going to try to not go on a rant here but this is stupid for a number of reasons. 

  • No one got hurt, heck no one even was hit. 
  • It’s spring training and pitchers are wild.  I think Lee threw at Snyder but the league office is definitely not giving the benefit of the doubt to one of it’s best players.
  • League offices sometimes like to show off their power and “send a message” about the upcoming season.  I guess this years message is we will not tolerate pitchers almost hitting batters.  This is unfortunate since it’s been part of the game for 140 years and won’t stop anytime soon.  My mom might say “Good for them for trying to stop this.”  I’d say that the league office is power-tripping.

I know I’m overreacting a little.  Five games is equivalent to one start for a pitcher but, as ussmariner.com pointed out, if Cliff Lee is playing to his full potential this year, one start could be worth up to $700,000.    Hopefully Lee’s suspension is knocked down a few games after he appeals, then he won’t have to miss a start.  If that doesn’t happen I say we send Milton Bradley up to show Bud Selig how angry he can get.

Did I mention that Lee didn’t even hit Snyder with the pitch….

Andrew

Update: Right after I wrote this I saw Milton Bradley had been ejected from tonights game.  Irony is after me.

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