Tag Archives: New York Yankees

by andrewlong7 | July 23, 2012 · 11:32 pm

Thank You, Ichiro

Matthew just wrote a post about Ichiro below this. It’s based more on facts and what it means for both sides. This post is more of the emotional aspect and I just wanted to write a few words about the legend.

For the last month I’d been planning to write a post about Ichiro Suzuki. I’ve been a defender of his this past year and I had grown frustrated with the media constantly bashing him while overlooking other faults in the organization. Every time I tried to write the post though, I couldn’t get it out. The truth is, Ichiro just has been very good in the last couple of years and I couldn’t write a strong enough piece to totally defend him. I guess, more than anything it bothered me how Ichiro was treated.

I’ve never been one to truly care about how much a player talks to the media. I didn’t like it when Chone Figgins repeatedly said, “Next question.” but that’s just because I don’t like Figgins. Unfortunately, the media doesn’t like it when players don’t speak to them and where do fans get most of their information? The media. With that in mind, I think number 51’s career was tarnished a little bit. Ichiro Suzuki was one of the Mariners most productive hitters this season. He wasn’t good, in fact, he was bad, but there truly weren’t many better guys. Yet, talk shows spent hour after hour debating his spot in the batting order. National media members (Jon Heyman) tweet about the Mariners once a month and it’s usually to bash Ichiro.

For some reason, Ichiro has gotten the label of being a ‘selfish’ baseball player. This stemmed from him not interacting with people and always hitting singles. Think about how ridiculous this notion is now that he’s not here. You had 2,533 hits for our organization and you are selfish. What? Former players didn’t understand Ichiro and then bashed him, because of that, after they’d left town.

Over the course of this year, there have been many things said about Ichiro that shouldn’t have been said. Jay Buhner said recently said he would have vomited if Ichiro was signed to a good-sized extension. We all understood the sentiment, but don’t you think he could have made it sound better? A Mariner legend, who will never sniff the hall of fame, just insulted a future hall-of-famer, who played in Seattle longer than he did, in front of the whole city. No one would have done this to Jr. in his last season even though he was producing at a much lower rate.

I think, over the past year, we’ve diminished the player Ichiro was. He’s been the face of Japanese baseball and will continue to be long after he retires. I ask you to forget all things that were said this past year about Ichiro. He’s not selfish, he’s from another culture and just came here to play baseball the way that he knew how. He was great at it. He’ll be the 2nd player inducted into the Hall as a Mariner, right after Griffey, and he should be treated like that. He’s a legend and we won’t see anyone else do what he did, ever. 2,533 hits in 11 and a half seasons. Read that sentence again.

Remember Ichiro for his laser throw to gun down Terrance long. Remember Ichiro for the day he broke Sisler’s hit record. Remember him for the player he was as a Mariner, not the picture some of the media painted him as.

I’ve always hated the Yankees. I’m like most people. Now, I will root like crazy for them to win the World Series. Ichiro truly deserves that.

I’m sorry if you ever felt under-appreciated here, Ichiro. I hope you know that you are loved in this city and you’re a legend. Go hit .320, win a ring, wear it to spring training and punch Jon Heyman in the face with it on.

Andrew

The Value Question

The Pineda-Montero trade is fascinating on so many levels. Baseball just doesn’t see many trades of elite young players for each other. If a Pineda or Montero gets traded, it’s for a more established star or, less often, for a package of younger prospects. The failed Cliff Lee-Montero deal aspect just adds another layer.

When I first heard about the trade, my thought was that it was so obvious that I couldn’t believe it happened. I remember even asking Dan and Andrew back in the summer whether they would make this trade straight-up. To me, it seems like both teams are trading from a position of strength to fill a weakness.

Most trade analyses you’ll read have a different focus. You can literally read for hours about whether Montero or Pineda is more valuable, whether Jose Campos or Hector Noesi is more valuable, about who did better in this deal. All of those issues are interesting and highly debateable, which makes them fun and worth writing. I think they occasionally miss the point, however.

The goal of a baseball team is not to add the most valuable pieces, or to win the value war in a trade or signing. The goal is to build the best team. Typically, the two go hand in hand. The more value a team can get in a deal, the better. If given the choice between Adam Dunn for $14 million a year or an outfield of Michael Stanton, Andrew McCutcheon and Jacoby Ellsbury for roughly a third of that amount, the choice is obvious. You want the most bang for your buck. You don’t want to spend huge money on guys who will underperform and you ideally want to underpay guys who are good and getting better. That’s why building up an elite farm system is so important.

What is obvious in the macro view becomes highly nuanced in practice. It’s not enough to just say that starting pitcher is a more valuable position than designated hitter, or that Pineda has more value than Montero because he’s had a year of major league experience. Both of those statements are true and yet, they don’t matter too much for the Mariners. The Mariners strength is their rotation. They will miss Pineda, especially if he turns into a Cy Young candidate. The difference between Pineda and Danny Hultzen, James Paxton or Taijuan Walker is potentially tiny, however. That is compounded by the Safeco Field effect and the way it can turn mediocre pitchers into average ones. In Safeco, pitching is nowhere near as valuable as hitting, and adding hitting is much more valuable for the current Mariners because they have so little of it.

Speaking of hitting, it’s not crazy to think that Montero could be the most productive guy in the Mariners line-up in 2012. It’s not certain, of course, which is why there’s some risk here. Still, where the gap between Pineda and Hultzen is small to non-existent, the gap from Montero to the Mariners best hitting prospect, be it Nick Franklin or Vinnie Catricala or whomever, is huge. It’s debateable whether Montero or Pineda is more valuable in a vacuum, but I think it’s clear that Montero is much more valuable to the Mariners.

This offense is suddenly sort of interesting. It will still likely struggle in 2012 as all of the young guys (hopefully) come of age, but with Ackley and Montero and Smoak and possibly Carp, they now have a heart of the order that could turn into something scary. Now Franklin and Catricala and Wells and everyone else only have to be supporting players rather than stars. The other fun aspect of this trade is what it allows them to do in the future, as Dave Cameron and others have pointed out. It’s possible but highly unlikely they still sign Prince Fielder, but assuming they don’t, that potentially leaves them with a lot of money to spend in the near future. Maybe they add a pitcher for a year or two, or maybe they wait until next year to find an offensive guy at a position of need like third base or outfield. This deal potentially improves the Mariners immediately and sets them up to more easily improve in the future as well.

As with any trade, this one will not be determined good or bad until we see what Montero and Noesi, to a lesser degree, make themselves into. It’s tough to see Pineda go. I’ll never forget those early fastballs that looked like they were thrown at about 150 miles per hour. This deal potentially gives the Mariners tremendous value, however, whether Montero is more valuable than Pineda or not.

-Matthew

Pineda-Montero Trade Reaction

Earlier today I sat down and was starting to write a post on how we shouldn’t listen to any baseball reporters this off-season. Part of it had to do with me being frustrated at the hysteria of Prince Fielder being in Texas. The other part of me was frustrated with the Mariners for the lack of moves this off-season. Did I disagree with what they did? No, but I was just bored. Sports are entertainment, and it’s never fun when they leave you bored. The last part of me was just hungry and didn’t even care about baseball reporters because I wanted to eat some chicken. When I started that post, the Mariners made a trade. Hey! A trade! After 4 months of peeking through the fence at Prince Fielder, the Mariners jumped over the fence, jumped on one of their horses, rode it into town, swapped it for another rancher’s horse, rode that horse back to the fenced-in area they owned, and had a glass of lemonade all in the span of about 10 minutes. Sorry, about that. I hope you followed. My first point of this post, is that you shouldn’t take much of what these baseball writers say as gospel. They get the reports right every now and then but tonight showed just how fast the unexpected can happen.

As for the trade, well surely you’ve read other people’s reaction by now. There’s been enough time for you to form your own opinion. But, if for some reason you’re indecisive on how you feel, and you’re up at 3 AM, a Good Guy is here to help! I want to cover a few things before I get to my quick reaction.

It seems as if the opinion from people around Seattle is all over the place. There are people completely against it, people who love it, and people who think it’s strictly average. Dave ‘Softy’ Mahler had about a 10 tweet rant about how the ownership has to change now. Mike Salk loved the trade. (‘Softy’ wasn’t necessarily upset about the trade, but for some reason it sent him over the edge, just for the record.) I want to caution you on who you listen to about this. I believe that the Good Guys would have a more intelligent conversation about the Mariners than many of the Seattle sports radio guys. That’s not to say they aren’t knowledgeable in other ways, but many of them aren’t experts on the Mariners and I think they’d admit as much. Salk (from Brock and Salk) seems to try to understand more than any other. Some of them just don’t care and don’t try to understand. ‘Softy’ had no good reason for his rant and Jason Puckett is way off when he says that this feels desperate because the M’s should have just traded Lee for him.

That brings to my next point. That very point of saying, why didn’t the Mariners just trade Lee for Montero. For those of you that don’t know, that was very close to happening a few years ago before the Mariners’ decided on Justin Smoak instead. It’s very ironic that they both ended up here now. Anyway, it’s ridiculous to say they should have traded Lee for Montero so they could have kept Pineda. When that traded happened, most baseball analysts thought the Mariners made the right move in getting Smoak. Perceptions change over a year and a half and that is what has happened here. Don’t think, “the Mariners made the wrong decision in getting Smoak, since they went out and got Montero now.” They are 2 separate events and, though our mind’s link them together, they are independent of each other. The Mariners got the best young hitter they thought they could get for the package they were offering and that had nothing to do with Cliff Lee and Justin Smoak.

Now, on to my thoughts on the actual trade. I’m somewhere between liking and loving the trade. Lookout Landing does a good job of summing up the pieces involved (much better than I could do, so read that). I do think Sullivan may undersell Hector Noesi, who’s the pitcher coming over from New York, a little bit but there’s no way of knowing that.

Noesi seems like a good place to start since I just mentioned him a sentence ago and he’s the least known player in the trade as far as Mariner fans go. He hasn’t pitched much in the majors, 56 innings last year and was nothing spectacular in doing so. It sounds like the Mariners will lock him in as a starter to begin the season. He seems like he’ll be a decent big league pitcher at least, and a few scouts seem to think he’s a very good pickup for the M’s. Time will tell if those scouts are correct. That’s a theme for this whole trade.

I’m sorry to see Jose Campos go. Over the past couple of years I’ve started to follow the Mariners’ farm system fairly closely. I read a review of each team’s game every night and try to familiarize myself with the top players from every part of the system. By doing this I start to like players I’ve never watched more than the one’s I watch everyday on TV. Jose Campos was one of those players. He’d be rated about the number 5 prospect in the Mariners system and has tons of upside. He’s only 19 and who knows what will happen because, young pitcher but if he stays healthy, look out for his name in 3 or 4 years.

Now for the big names! Jesus Montero is said to be a world-class hitter. The comparison I’ve heard the most over the last 3 years is Edgar Martinez. Heyo! Edgar! Put him in the Hall of Fame, by the way! That’s a good comparison. He’s either a catcher or a DH. Catcher would be awesome, but his defense is lacking and most doubt that he’ll be able to stay at the position. As far as his hitting goes, he’s said to have good power to all fields (important for Safeco) and good contact ability. Yes, he hasn’t had much time in the majors and that’s a little frightening. Jack Z knows more than me though and I trust his scouting ability above all of his other skills.

Michael Pineda was fun. It’s sad to see someone fun go and there’s nothing I like more in baseball than a big, young, flame-throwing pitcher. Man, he was big! I hope he only gets better, even if he is pitching for the Yankees. He deserves it. I’m not sure he’ll ever turn into an elite ace and I’ll leave it at that because most of you who read this know who he is and what he projects as. Some of you will disagree with me.

I like this because the Mariners got a hitter! My philosophy if I was a GM is to draft talent (don’t draft for needs) and accumulate it by international signings. Then trade from internal positions of strength for positions of weakness. This is exactly what happened here. Yes, it sucks that Pineda is gone but I think we’ve got a good one in return.

Now what happens? I have no idea. I really think the Mariners are still going to go after Prince but I’m in the very small minority. They have the same amount of money they had when you woke up last week. No one knows how much that is but it seems to be a fair amount. If they don’t sign Prince, I still expect some other big move. I think it will be another bat, but a pitcher makes plenty of sense. I’d go for Roy Oswalt! After today, we just have to realize that we have no idea what will happen. Speculating and projecting is fun, but the truth is that not much turns out how we have it planned in our brain. In sports, all we can hope for is that our team improves and I think that the M’s are a stronger organization now than they were 24 hours ago. Not everyone does, but I do. And hey, there’s still that report that Prince is renting a car in Seattle this weekend.

Andrew

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Filed under M's Transaction News, Mariners

Tagged as Dave 'Softy' Mahler, Hector Noesi, Jack Zduriencik, Jason Puckett, Jesus Montero, Jose Campos, Lookout Landing, Michael Pineda, Mike Salk, New York Yankees, Prince Fielder, Seattle Mariners, Seattle Mariners trade

by Joe Loughery | September 30, 2011 · 11:36 am

MLB Division Series preview

Here are my quick picks for the various MLB Division Series starting this afternoon!

New York Yankees vs Detroit Tigers

How fun will it be to watch Justin Verlander vs CC Sabathia? A baseball fans dream to be sure. Because both pitchers are so dominant, they cancel each other out dramatically, so that perceived advantage the Tigers have evaporates quickly. I love Doug Fister, but who knows how he’ll do under the bright lights of pressurized playoff baseball. The Yanks have the best lineup in baseball, and I am encouraged by how well they played down the stretch. Detroit can hit, and the Yanks have issues in their rotation, but I can’t see anyone out slugging the Bombers. Yankees in 4.

Texas Rangers vs Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays are rolling into post season on one of the most incredible runs ever. Boston’s collapse opened the door for Joe Maddon’s crew to take the AL Wildcard in an unforgettable Wednesday night rollercoaster. It’s a great story, and I admit I’m rooting for Tampa to win this series. The problem is Texas is a better team. People tend to forget Tampa was struggling to score runs most of the season, and even down the stretch it took Evan Longoria’s bat catching fire for them to win. We know Texas can hit and score with anyone. They have a deep, balanced lineup. I think Texas’s pitching is underrated, they have a legit #1 in CJ Wilson and good pieces behind him, with a strong bullpen. Tampa is rolling a green as grass rookie out there for game one, and who knows in game 2. Texas won’t see Shields or Price until games 3 and 4, and then potentially another rookie in game 5. All this means is Tampa’s rotation is messed up for a short 5 game series, while Texas is setting things up nicely. My heart wants Tampa, and hey Joe Maddon gets more out of less than anyone, but I just don’t see how they out hit the Rangers. Tampa will stay on a roll and force 5 games, but that’s it. Rangers in 5.

Milwaukee Brewers vs Arizona Diamondbacks

This is the great mystery match up of the playoffs. Two teams that get almost no national attention, yet are packed with ridiculous talent. The Brewers are lead by Prince and MVP candidate Ryan Braun, while Arizona is lead by Cy Young hopeful Ian Kennedy and young stud Justin Upton. I’ve been intrigued by both teams all year. I love the Brewers make up, a tough, brash arrogant bunch that simply bashes the ball and wins a ton of home games. They have a decent bull pen, with ok starting pitching that is supported by the power bats. Arizona is simply a reflection of their manager, Kirk Gibson. They play tough and together as well, also playing with a chip that borders on arrogance. The key to this series to me is simple: Milwaukee has the home field advantage, statistically the best in baseball. And even on the road at Chase Field, a very homer friendly park, they’ll mash big flys. I think Prince blows up in this series, especially when they go on the road and the DBacks fans boo him again for his perceived all star snub of Upton. Kennedy and Hudson are solid pitchers, but completely unproven in the post season, especially against a powerful lineup. I’m bullish on the Brewers here. Crew in 4.

Philadelphia Phillies vs St Louis Cardinals

The Phillies come into the post season as the perceived favorites in the NL, and for good reason. When you roll Halladay, Lee and Hamels out there for the first three games, it’s hard to see how the Cards win a game, especially when Carpenter isn’t available until they go home. For this reason, and this reason alone, I love the Phillies here. St Louis is much like Tampa: red hot coming into the playoffs, but they have a jumbled starting rotation with a woefully over worked bullpen. Yes, I know the Phils struggled quite a bit down the stretch, but that doesn’t concern me at all. This is a veteran team with one goal, and that’s to win the World Series. They’ll regroup and refocus with renewed energy. I know the Cards are a chic pick in light of their recent success, but I see a let down coming, and I also see the Phillies starters dominating. Cards win one at home with Carpenter on the bump, and that’s it. Phillies in 4.