The Best Mariners Team Ever: A Comparison to 2014

One time, the Seattle Mariners were amazing!

In 2001, the Mariners won 116 games in the regular season.  They did not win the World Series, because winning a World Series requires talent + luck.  The Mariners did not have luck when they needed it (the American League Championship Series).  But they did have talent!  They were easily the most talented team in Major League Baseball in 2001, because:

(a) they totaled 62.7 WAR, over 11 WAR higher than the next-highest team, and

(b) they totaled 116 regular season wins, 14 wins higher than the next-highest team.  

It is indisputable that, heading into the playoffs, the team with the best chance to win the 2001 World Series was the Seattle Mariners, and any argument to the contrary ignores facts and circumvents logic.  The fact that the 2001 Mariners did not win the World Series is explained by random variation – nothing else.  I would write an entire blog post on this, but this point is already obvious.

WAR is cool because it allows to to compare teams across different seasons, and who play in different leagues and different ballparks.  So, for example, last year’s World Series-winning Red Sox were worth 58.3 WAR.  At 62.7 WAR, the 2001 Mariners were significantly better than the 2013 Red Sox.

So, this 2001 Mariners team is clearly the standard-bearer for future Mariners teams.  What can we learn from this remarkable team?

Well, first, to be truly outstanding once again, a future Mariners team does not need to look exactly like the 2001 team.  There are an infinite number of ways to get to 116 wins (or thereabouts).  But, we can look at the 2001 team, compare it to the 2014 team, and see where the largest differences exist.  Maybe this tells us something.

Okay, so how do we know what the 2014 team will look like?  There have definitely been a lot of changes since the end of the 2013 season, so we cannot just look at the end-of-season, realized data from 2013. 

Recently, the ZIPS projections came out for the 2014 Seattle Mariners.  What is a ZIPS projection?  It's one of the most-respected and proven baseball projection systems available: click here for more info.

Below is a table of the 2014 ZIPS-projected Mariners, as compared to the 2001 team (actual results). For these purposes, I selected the top 13 position players by WAR and top 12 pitchers by IP, for each team.  I am omitting athletes beyond these 25, because they are not consequential for the analysis.

There are some amazing things to be learned from this:

• The position players in 2001 were vastly superior than they are likely to be in 2014, but less than 50% of the difference comes from hitting.  Instead, defense and baserunning explain the majority of the difference in the position players.
• Overall, 2001 positional players were worth 44.7 WAR, versus 26.2 WAR for 2014, a difference of 18.5 wins.
• The defensive component of this alone was a whopping 106 runs, or 10.6 wins.  (10 runs saved/created on defense is approximately equal to one win. Click here for more info on that.) 
• The 2001 team stole 171 bases, while the 2014 team is only forecast for 103.  This is an indication that the baserunning in 2001 was much better than it will be in 2014.
• The 2014 Mariners are actually forecasted to hit more HR than the 2001 team did (175 versus 167)
• The 2001 Mariners' OBP blows away the 2014 team's.
• 2001 Mark McLemore would have been the 3rd best position player on this 2014 team!  (He was sixth-best in 2001.)
• The three best position players in 2001 were worth an incredible 19.3 WAR.  Today's top 3 position players will be closer to 12.6 WAR.
• Ichiro was the man in 2001!  He struck out in less than 8% of plate appearances!
• Evan with superstars Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma, the pitching in 2001 was much better than 2014 pitching is projected to be (19.2 WAR versus 10.0 WAR)... and, it's mostly because of the bullpen. 
• Rhodes, Sasaki and Nelson were worth a whopping 5.2 WAR, while the entire 2014 bullpen is expected to be basically replacement-level (zero WAR).  5.2 WAR out of your bullpen - let alone just 3 pitchers - is incredible.

What's the single-biggest takeaway?  To me, it's amazing that the same top management that created a miracle of an offense in 2001 - players with high-OBP, high-AVG, elite defense and baserunning - has somehow decided that HR's are the most important element of a hitter, and stocked their lineup with players of this profile in recent years. 

The Mariners were #2 in HR last year, in all of MLB!  Yet these same position players were one of the worst in MLB, because they had low OBP and horrendous defense.

HRs are loosely correlated with wins, but when you sacrifice other aspects - like K%, BB% and ISO - for the sake of HR, you damage the offense.

The Mariners need to return to their philosophy of 2001.  They know exactly how to form a winner.  Now, do it again.  Chances are, it will result in a World Series victory next time.

What Baseball Can Learn from Football

I was thinking about the upcoming Seattle Seahawks Week 17 game, and it got me thinking.  We really need to be clear about something.  

All these fancy new metrics - WAR, UZR, ISO, etc. - need to be used properly. 

These advanced stats are significant breakthroughs, brought to us by technologies such as Pitch F/X as well as tedious labor in terms of tallying batted ball location, positioning of fielders, etc.  Our advanced metrics tell a story more detailed than we've ever had before.  But they don't tell the entire story.

Not even close.

In football, we have advanced stats as well, but not nearly to the extent we have them in baseball.  Relative to football, baseball is sequential, deliberate, constrained and therefore quantifiable.

 

What bothers me heavily about some baseball sabermetricians, however, is that they don't understand the limits of their work.  They have a tendency to throw out, or greatly discount, statements such as "this player is a leader on the field" or "he's great in the community so he takes his work seriously," and instead focus exclusively on the player's wOBA or BB%, or whatever.

But football teaches us something.  Let's think about a random NFL offensive play from scrimmage.  What factors contribute to its success, or failure?  Can we quantify these factors (and therefore forecast future performance of the offensive unit)?

• Strength - this can be quantified, but only in a "laboratory," i.e. a weightroom, where muscle movements differ from those needed on the field
• Speed - similarly, this can only be approximated by proxy tests like the 40-yard dash
• Agility - same comment
• Throwing Accuracy - no, not really, our tests are not comprehensive for all scenarios
• Play Calling Intelligence - plays that work are considered intelligent, those that don't, aren't.  That's a dumb test.
• Effort - I am unaware of any way to quantify how hard someone is trying
• The Weather - temperature and precipitation play a massive role, but the best meteorologists in the world are inaccurate beyond 10 days forward

That's just a few of them.  If you want to get technical, there are millions (billions?) of factors affecting the outcome of a single football play - let alone an entire season - that we have no method of quantifying or forecasting.  We are hopeless, in a lot of ways.

Baseball is the same way.  A given baseball game has many more incalculable factors, than calculable ones.  The balance is probably weighted more towards the incalculable, by several orders of magnitude.

We can use our newfound sabermetric stats to improve forecasting, particularly in the long run.  That's why they're more useful in baseball (long season), than they are in football (very short season).

In the short run, especially a single game like Rams vs. Seahawks, you need to be very, very judicious in how much you expect the advanced stats to reliably predict the future.  You will often be let down.

I like writing about the aspect of baseball that is tangible and calculable, because we can speak definitively about numbers, and we can find amazing truths buried in the reams of data and information that baseball gives us.  But when the Mariners are playing Game 7 of the 2067 World Series*, I'll be throwing a lot of that data into the trash can.

Go Hawks.

*The Mariners suck.

Is It Time to Give Up on Dustin Ackley?

No.

It is not time to give up on Dustin Ackley.  Not quite.  Let me tell you why.

For the purposes of making this argument, I am NOT going to focus simply on his recent hot-hitting, after getting called back up to the Mariners from Tacoma last summer.

Instead, I am going to look at his full body of work at the Major League level, and thereby consider a larger sample size.  Then I am going to compare him to similar players, and see how their careers panned out.  This is how we will get an expectation for Ackley's future.

First, let's start with some basics.  There are several statistics that sabermetricians favor when evaluating a hitter's true, core talent level.  These stats have superior predictive power, versus more layman's metrics like batting average (which is skewed based on the ballpark and league in which one plays), let alone "counting stats" like HR and RBI, which are even dumber to use.  These advanced metrics cut to the core of fundamental, raw performance and talent.

• Strikeout percentage (K%) - the number of times a hitter strikes out, as a percentage of plate appearances
• Walk percentage (BB%) - the same metric, but for walks
• ISO - Slugging Percentage minus Batting Average, or, "raw power"
  
  

So, when we use these stats, we are evaluating hitters based on how frequently they strike out and draw walks, and how much power they have.

Now, on to the numbers.  For his major league career (1,471 plate appearances) Ackley has a:

• K% of 18.70%
• BB% of 9.20%
• ISO of .109

Based on those numbers, and based on Ackley's age and experience level, who are some comparable players, historically, and how did their careers turn out?

I looked back at the data.  Over the past 30 years, I found players with at least 900 plate appearances in their age 23-25 seasons.  (Ackley's career to date has encompassed ages 23-25.)  I filtered for players with a BB% within 1.5% (higher or lower) of Ackley's, a K% within 2% and an ISO under .150.  There were 13 such players. 

Next I found the number of oWAR - Offensive Wins Above Replacement - for the next three seasons, for each player.  Then I prorated that into 500 plate appearances.  This creates a metric that evaluates the hitter's offensive value per season, since in a typical season, you should expect somewhere around 500 plate appearances.  I am calling this metric "oWAR/500."  Sounds like an evil bot from Star Wars.  It isn't.  It is a thing that has to do with baseball-hitting. 

Here is my data table...

Of these 13 comparable players, the mean oWAR/500 is about 1.35.  The median was 1.2.  The high was 3.2, and the low was (0.6).

So, Ackley's bat projects to add somewhere between 1 and 2 wins per season, for the next three years.

That isn't spectacular.  It isn't even good.  It's pretty close to average.

So, why is Dustin still an asset, on net?

Because he will play better in the outfield than Corey Hart or Logan Morrison, and his contract is a good one for the franchise.

The Mariners outfield defense has been horrendous in recent years (see this link to one of my previous posts), and is setting up to suck again in 2014.  A healthy Ackley displaces defensive innings from Hart or Morrison, and leaves them at 1B or DH, where they belong.

As for the salary, Ackley's salary last year was $1.5mm, which is a bargain in the current market.  He is arbitration-eligible next offseason.  He won't get much of a raise in arbitration, though.  And he's not a free agent until 2018.  That last part is crucial.  It means he is cost-controlled for several more years.

Ackley could bomb in 2014, or he could be a borderline All-Star.  But neither of those are our base case. 

Our base case is a hitter that is probably only slightly below average.  If he can be a roughly league-average hitter and league-average fielder, there is value in that.  Championship teams have plenty of average players.  Average players can make more than $10mm per year on the free market.  So, an average, cost-controlled player is a net positive for almost any organization.  There is not a lot of sense in giving up on Ackley right now.

Is the Mariners' Offseason Spending Finished?

Yeah, probably.

I hate to say it, but yes, the Mariners are probably almost completely done spending this offseason.  They'll likely go to Spring Training with the current, flawed roster, or something very similar.

Why?  Didn't an enormous amount of salary come off the books this season??

Yes.  But they've spent a good deal of money already, and to sign even one more free agent - or take on large salary via trade (e.g. David Price or Matt Kemp) - would mean a significant departure from the recent past's budget/spending decisions.

Now, they definitely should be spending a lot more money than the recent past.  I'll get to that in a moment when I discuss their new cable TV deal.  (That topic will really get you fired up.)

But for now, let's look at the existing numbers.

The Mariners' current roster and payroll is above.  With this roster, you're looking at a range of $82-89mm in 2014 payroll, depending on how many incentive bonus are achieved. Let's split the difference and use round numbers - let's call it $85mm. 

(By the way, to make this table, I had to make some assumptions, but none of them move the needle more than a couple million dollars up or down.)

Okay, so the Mariners' 2014 payroll is $85mm, as it stands today.

How does this compare to historical numbers?  Funny you should ask.  At the bottom of this post is a table with the historical payrolls by year (source: link).

You can see that over the past five years, the team's average payroll was $90.8mm.  Over the past three years, it was $87.9mm on average.

So, the current payroll is already within 5% of the payroll of recent years.

Now, wanna play "what-if"?

The team's maximum payroll historically, was around $117mm.  If we went back to those levels, that means we'd have $32mm available right now ($117mm minus $85mm).  That very likely gets you Shin-Shoo Choo, plus you could afford to take on David Price's salary.  Those two players put you in playoff contention.  You're probably even the AL West favorite, at that point.

And here's what's really frustrating - the team should be spending $117mm in 2014.  Actually, they should be spending an even higher number.  Get ready to be annoyed.

The team's current cable TV deal pays them $450mm spread over 10 years.  In April 2013, the team announced they will soon have a new deal, beginning in 2014, and paying them around $2bn over 17 years, or around $118mm per year.

So the new TV deal is resulting in an increase in revenue of $72mm per season!  They could easily spend $32mm additional - less than half of that total - and make themselves the AL West favorite. 

They're either (a) not committed enough, (b) scared or (c) don't understand numbers.  In any case, they aren't qualified to be running the show, in my opinion.

Year	Payroll
2013	$84,199,643
2012	$84,928,100
2011	$94,623,191
2010	$91,143,333
2009	$98,904,166
2008	$117,666,482
2007	$106,460,833
2006	$87,959,833
2005	$87,754,334
2004	$81,515,834
2003	$86,959,167
2002	$80,282,668
2001	$74,720,833
2000	$59,200,000

Trade Idea: Michael Saunders for Gerardo Parra

What does a true Seattle sports fan do on Monday Night?  No, he doesn't watch two middling NFL teams play on Monday Night Football, to see how his fantasy team did, or whatever.  He watches Seahawks game film on NFL Rewind, and then when MNF begins, blacking out Rewind, he/she goes straight to the Monday press conferences and re-reads injury reports.  That's how a true fan behaves, baby!  Let's goo!!

Anyways, I'm bored of listening to Pete Carroll talk over and over about how there are two tough games ahead, and homefield advantage is going to be tough to get, blah, blah, blah.  (It isn't.)

So let's talk about the Mariners for ten minutes.  Here's a simple trade idea: trade Michael Saunders for D-Backs platoon/reserve outfielder Gerardo Parra.

Who is Gerardo Parra, why should we acquire him and why is he worth Michael Saunders?

First, remember my last post explained how the Mariners outfield defense is really costing the team.  The team's play out there cost the team about 50 runs, as compared to the average team last year.  50 runs!!  That was the worst is baseball, and not a single Mariners OF player last year was rated as much as average defensively. 

Gerardo Parra is a borderline-elite defender, who is undervalued and possibly being misused by the D-Backs.  He's better than Saunders, but a clever negotiator might be able to convince Arizona of the opposite, get the trade done and steal easy value from the market.

Remember, defense is constantly undervalued by the market.  So actually, if the Mariners were smart (they are NOT), they would realize that their biggest nightmare (outfield defense) is actually pretty easy to improve.  And they would capitalize.  Trading Saunders for Parra is a great way to do it.

***Side Note: The reason defense is undervalued by the market, is because the tools for evaluating it are new and are only understood by people with solid statistics and economics backgrounds (as well as people who read this blog), whereas offensive stats like batting average and OBP are plain as day.  A 5th grader knows what they mean.  Some GMs think more like 5th graders than adults, I am convinced.

We have solid tools for evaluating defense.  One of them is UZR/150.

Remember, UZR/150 is a calculation of the number of runs versus league-average a player is worth, defensively, over the course of a year.  It's a simple way of comparing fielders.

Over his career, Saunders has played 3,698 defensive innings, and is a -0.6 UZR/150.  That's basically zero: the definition of a league-average defensive outfielder.

Over his career, Parra has played 5,112 defensive innings, and is a 15.3 UZR/150.  That means, on average, every 150 games, Parra is saving his team 15 runs versus the league-average.  That's a gold-glove caliber player (as you see here: link)

To put it even more simply, the value of Parra's glove over Saunders' is worth about 1.5 games per season.  (His dWAR is 6.2 for his career.  You divide that by the number of innings, then scale it to a 162 game season, and you get approximately 1.5.)

Okay, so having Parra's glove out there gets you on average 1.5 additional wins per year.  So how do they compare offensively? 

It's pretty much a wash.  Parra is a sliver worse, probably.

Just like dWAR is the number of wins a player's glove is getting you, oWAR is the number of wins the player's bat, plus baserunning, is getting you.

Saunders has 1,656 career plate appearances and has a total oWAR of 4.5.
Parra has 2,460 career plate appearances and has a total oWAR of 3.0.

Prorate this to 500 AB's (a typical season), and what does this difference amount to?  Parra gets you 0.6 wins/year above the replacement-level baseline, while Saunders gets you 1.35.  So, Saunders' offense is better than Parra's, but by less than one win per year.

So on net, Parra is worth about one win per year over Saunders.

They're basically the same age - Parra is 6 months younger.

Parra will make around $2.5mm per year next year, and Saunders closer to $0.5mm. 

That $2mm difference is well-worth the one win.  (Don't believe me?  Well, as a simple example, if the market value for wins is about $2mm, then Robbie Cano's implied market value is $240mm /2 = 120 wins.  No.)

Okay, so if Parra is a better asset than Saunders, why would the D-Backs do this trade?  Well, it's not a slam-dunk, but I believe it has a better than 50/50 chance of being accepted.  In general, fielding value is undervalued by general managers, realtive to offensive value.  We talked about this above.  The perception says Saunders is a much better hitter than Parra, but in reality, the margin is tiny.  And in fielding, Parra more than compensates for it.  With this trade idea, like any good trade idea, we're hoping to outhink the D-Backs and capture net incremental value, at a below-market price.  That's how any good trade idea should work, now that I think of it.  Damn son, I am GOOD!

The other knock-on benefit here - right now the Mariners have Logan Morrison and Corey Hart scheduled to get a good deal of time in the outfield.  Doing so is a big mistake.  Their talent defensively in the outfield means they would need to hit like all-stars to overcome that, and generate meaningful positive value to the team.  They should play 1B or DH, only.

I advocated trading Justin Smoak as a means to open up 1B for Hart/Morrison, and keep them out of the oufield.  For the same reason, I advocate acquiring Parra, who will plant himself in at Safeco and roam the large outfield there well.  It reduces the temptation to use Hart or Morrison there when you have a tremendous defender sitting on the bench.  The drop-off is too pronounced; the players are too distinct in terms of their player profile.

Although, I'd be fine putting Parra on the bench against lefties.  For his career, Parra has a .772 OPS versus right-handers, while just .593 versus lefties.  Saunders is .688 / .629 - basically a wash.  So, if used intelligently (i.e. just against righties) Parra is close to an all-start player - a well-above average hitter who is always going to give you exceptional defense.

This isn't as bold as some of my other ideas (e.g. trade for David Price), but this gets the team a little bit better.  Throw it out to the D-Backs, and see if they mistakenly accept it.

The Mariners' #1 Problem

Saturday night blog post!  "Get a life!" you're saying.  Well, I would have, if i weren't too busy draining vodka shots at 3am with my high school buddies in NYC last night, obnoxiously rambling about what a quality QB Russell Wilson is.  Woke up around 2pm this afternoon, felt tremendous, grabbed a bite... Now here I am, bangin' away on the tablet and gettin' pumped for watchin' the Hawks destroy the New York Giants at MetLife tomorrow.  Who's the loser, now?!  Hahaha!!

Anyways, let's talk about one of the less-obvious reasons the Mariners sucked so bad last year: their outfield defense.

We have ways of quantifying how good, or in the case of the Mariners, terrible, an outfielder is defensively.  UZR is an advanced metric that takes into account a player's range, arm strength, ability to turn a double play, etc., and converts it into a number representing the amount of runs the player saved or cost his team, versus the league average player.  (Here is where you can learn more details about UZR.)

UZR is an unreliable stat unless you have about 3 seasons' worth of data on a player, or alternatively, if you look at a full team's season's worth of outfield play, by all three outfielders (similar sample size).  So, let's do that.

Here's a link that shows you the Mariners' OF defensive value (UZR) over the past 5 seasons: click here

Here is what we immediately learn:

In 2013 the Mariners outfielders were worth an average of NEGATIVE 17.5 runs per season, each, versus league-average.  

That is awful. -15 UZR/150 is considered by the UZR creators as "awful."  The Mariners were worse than that, on average, across all three OF spots!  That was dead last in MLB last season.

-17.5 x 3 equals some number that is approximately 50. (Again, too lazy to think much.)  So the Mariners OF defense cost them 50 runs last year!

Mike Morse and Raul Ibañez were the worst offenders, but not a single player was even rated as average.  Raul's impressive slugging last year was more than wiped out by his horrendous defense.  Sad face.

And check this out - in 2009 the M's OF had a POSITIVE 18 UZR.  So the difference between the OF defensive talent in those five years was 100 runs!  A swing of 100 runs on your run differential can be the difference between a World Series winner and a team that misses the playoffs.  Easily.

So how will the team's OF defense be in 2014?  The short answer is: bad.

Jack Z has mentioned adding a SP, RP and a third catcher.  He hasn't mentioned adding another OF.  So what talent is there today, defensively?

Ain't nobody.

Corey Hart and Logan Morrison don't belong in the OF.  Their UZR's have been solidly negative, historically.

And there is a misconception that Dustin Ackley and Michael Saunders have defensive talent out there, because they are young, or something.  But no, they don't, unfortunately.  They, too, have negative UZRs historically.

Having a healthy Franklin Gutierrez would be HUGE for this team. He has hella range.  But there's no reason to think he'll be healthy this season.  Oh, and he isn't even under contract right now, either.

Nothing else to say on this - just kind of crazy to think about how much the team has fallen in this regard.  Not sure the management knows or cares.  So I as a fan, will choose to not care!

Gonna go party again now, and talk about the Seahawks.

Robinson Cano - How Long is He Going to be Good For?

Robbie Cano is signed until about age 40.  (Maybe it's 41, but who cares.  Keep in mind - I am too lazy to actually research, much.) 

Now, click on this link.:

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphswd.aspx?teamid=0&pos=2B&season=2013&season1=1983&grid=50

This shows you the top 50 second basemen (by WAR) over the past 30 years, and how well they aged.  Darker the green box, better they were.

13 of these players are still active.  37 are retired.

Since the 13 active players' future performance is obviously TBD, let's look at the other 37.

Of the top 37 second basemen in the past 30 years:

• 27 were still playing when they were 35 years old.
• 5 were still playing when they were 40 years old.
• 3 were worth more than +10 WAR, total, from ages 35-40

If a player is producing less than +10 WAR over 6 years, he is a below league-average player.

So, 34 out of 37 players in this sample were below league average starting at age 35.

This sample is biased, as well.  It ranks the top players, and those players ought to have greater longevity, because they are more talented. 

More importantly, it self-selects away from injury risk.  Most of the players who suffered career-ending injuries, are not top-50 players.  So they are not included in this sample.

So in reality, you have less than a "3 out of 37" chance of having an above-average Cano from ages 35-40.  It's probably more like a 2-5% chance.

Wow.

So clearly, for the last 5 years of the Cano contract, we can't expect much.

This doesn't mean the contract was dumb or bad.  There are too many variables in terms of future price inflation, regional cable TV deals, the economy, etc. to be able to say with certainty whether it's a bad deal.  The market price of Cano is what someone will pay him.  And the M's paid him $240mm.  So for now, yes.  He is worth $240mm.

The M's have decided to go balls-to-the-wall with this contract. Their purchase is a tremendous asset to the franchise right now. It will deteriorate at an unexpected rate, but it will deteriorate quickly when it decides to.

What this means, is that the Mariners must win soon.  Each year decreases the likelihood that Cano is an important piece of a championship in Seattle.  Any depiction of this being a "New Era" in Seattle baseball is critically misleading.  We don't have 10 years of greatness ahead of us due to Cano.  We have 2, 3 or 5 years of a second baseman, probably.  There are 24 other guys on the team.

Now, fill out this roster in an intelligent way, or spend another decade being... a joke.

Go Hawks.

Trade Idea: Smoak for Khris Davis

Pretty simple trade idea here.  Trade Justin Smoak to MIL for Khris Davis, straight up.

MIL has a hole at 1B, and two of their options (Corey Hart and Logan Morrison) were acquired by Seattle yesterday.

The Mariners have a surplus of 1B/DH types, including Smoak, Hart, Morrison, plus the possibility of bringing back Kendrys Morales.

Keeping Smoak requires having at least one of Hart/Morrison roaming the OF.  Keeping Smoak and signing Kendrys requires BOTH of them roaming the OF.  Having even one of them in the OF is a horrendous idea.  The Mariners tried going for broke on HR's last year (via Mike Morse and Rau Ibañez)  definitely worked in the sense that it brought the M's all the way up to #2 in the MLB in HR.  (Plus it is hella fun yelling "RAAAAAUUUUUULLLLL-IIIII")  But their atrocious defense cost the team much more than their offensive production.  Don't trust me on that - read the reaearch on Fangraphs.

Smoak is forecasted for about +0.5 WAR in 2014.  Davis is forecasted for about +1.7 WAR, making him close to a league-average player.  A league average player is a huge upgrade from a below average player.

Both make negligible salary and are under team control for a while.

This just makes sense.  Get it done.

Prediction: M's Done Making Interesting Moves

Jack Z was asked a few hours ago if he had any more flexibility to make moves this winter.  (If I knew how to paste twitter stuff in here, I would do that.  But remember - I am really lazy and probably quitting this blog soon.)

Anyways Jack said, "A little. We'll probably keep our ears open."

To me, that means we are probably done spending big money.  Less likely, it could mean we are negotiating with someone like a Choo, but pushing back on the cost, and this comment is a way of lending credence to that story.  (It's a BS story BTW... The Mariners have ample money to spend, even after Cano and Hart.)

Everything else I have read says we are in on Choo.  So hopefully Jack Z is just posturing when he made that comment.

But more likely, we are done, and my first ever blog post correctly predicted that the Mariners will fail to execute a viable off season plan, and will continue to suck.  Front office is content with the current flawed roster.

By the way, having Hart and Morrison now does NOT mean we don't want really have a spot for/want Choo, as most of the East Coast Biased national media wants you to think.  We could easily trade away Morrison (see my last post about dealing him for David Price), or platoon him at 1B with Corey Hart, or have Hart be the full-time DH and Morrison full-time 1B.  Neither Hart nor Morrison belong in the OF.  Defensive skills are too weak.

Choo is below avg in the OF, but is much better than Morrison or Hart.  And Choo is on OBP machine.  Our lineup would actually be sick if we put him in front of Cano, Hart and Seager, boss.

What Do the Seattle Mariners Do From Here?

Some thoughts on the Seattle Mariners that I wanted to share.

The Mariners have been average or kind of bad or really bad for a long time.  They haven't made the playoffs in like, I dunno, 10 years or something.

The M's have done a lot this offseason, but we are still gonna suck unless we make some more big moves.  Robinson Cano is a reason to watch the team, but he's not enough to make them a winner.  Corey Hart was a nice deal, but if it's the last major move, this team will bomb, again.  Even with Cano.  Even with Felix.  Even with Iwakuma and Seager.  The reason??  The back end of the rotation could totally suck next year, and our outfield is probably the worst in MLB.  (Even if they put Hart out there, which they really should NOT do.)

The subsequent moves have to be creative.  You can get a great team tomorrow by (a) spending a la the Dodgers last year and breaking the bank (which is hilarious because they still almost sucked), or (b) mortgaging the future by trading away a bunch of prospects... but neither approach is creative and therefore you usually are exposed to long term sucking again shortly thereafter.  Creativity is key.

So in the case of the M's, we have loads of young prospects (I believe Baseball America ranked us the #2 farm system), but simply trading them all away for win-now talent really puts you in a bad situation down the road.  That causes prolonged losing. Prolonged losing implodes the franchise.  Thankfully we have the Seahawks.

The Seahawks are awesome, btw.  They are probably winning the Super Bowl this year.

Anyways the M's haven't shown the slightest amount of creativity in forever.  So we will probably not do any of this, and then we will suck again.

But here is how I would do it.  Here is how you win in 2014 and 2015, while keeping core, young, but more importantly cost-controlled talent (ie Taijuan Walker and James Paxton.)


Plan for Mariners

·         Trade Mike Zunino + ( Logan Morrison or Justin Smoak) for David Price.  If TB doesn't bite, keep trying – but if they require Paxton or Walker, just forget it and scrap entire plan

·         Trade Nick Franklin plus DJ Peterson (or lesser name eg Ackley) for Salvador Perez

·         Sign Sin-Soo Choo to 6/120 mm contract



Analysis of Plan (see above for Plan, boss)

This makes us not just a playoff contender in 2014, but likely the AL West favorites.  Here is why.

TB has a void at 1B.  They need a Morrison or a Smoak.  They will be lukewarm on their talent level (although they have had their eye on Morrison), but they will LOVE the fact that they have some upside (ie they are young) and are cost-controlled.  Remember, they are not marketing Price because they want to lose.  They are doing it to shed salary commitments.  Similarly, TB will love Zunino, because there is the thought that he becomes a Buster Posey.  That is unlikely.  A lot of catchers look like they're going to be Posey (figuratively), and they they don't become him.

Kansas City needs a 2B.  They are still in win-now mode based on their moves last offseason and marked improvement over 2012, so they will want someone with upside in 2014.  Boom.  Nick Franklin.

You trade Franklin plus DJ Peterson (or ideally a lesser prospect) for Salvador Perez

For those that don't know Salvador Perez, look him up.  He is dirty.  He plays C for KC.  He is young and cost-controlled.  He isn't a free agent until forever.  That means he is a tremendously valuable asset to a franchise.

If you understand the basics of sabermetrics and know what WAR means, and you know where to find a sabermetric projection system (try Fangraphs), you will see that the M's need +6 WAR to be tied in forecasted WAR with the 3 current division leaders.  The M's current roster is about +35 WAR vs +41 WAR for As/Angels/Rangers.  That is why this team needs a LOT of luck to win the AL West given its current, flawed roster.

Also remember Nick Franklin doesn’t have a spot on the roster today.  He cannot play SS.  Huge liability there, decreases his value immensely.

I am getting tired of writing.  Lightning round...

Ackley really doesn’t have a lot of upside, and seems to have lots of downside.  He is only forecasted for about 1 WAR, that’s below league avg.  http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=10099&position=2B

Smoak sucks.  Maybe +1 WAR next year.  Logan Morrison is similar... maybe +2 WAR at best.

You lose Zunino.  He is forecasted for 2-3 WAR next year.  http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=13265&position=C

Salvador Perez is great.  Forecasted for 4.5 WAR next year.  He is also young and cost controlled.  I would rather have him versus Zunino.  http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=7304&position=C

David Price is also great.  Forecasted for 4.5 WAR next year with upside of 7-8 WAR.  http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=3184&position=P

You have Shin Soo Choo – forecasted around 4-5 WAR.

So let's do the math.  You are losing, 3-4 WAR on a gross basis, but you are adding about 14 WAR.  Net gain of 10-11 WAR.

At this point you are the division favorite by about 5 WAR… you have given yourself room when other teams inevitably add WAR towards the end of offseason.

Your payroll is around $65mm post-Cano, this brings it to $85mm.  You add Price, that's about $100mm.  You need to fill in other pieces of the line-up still, but you’re probably not going much above $110mm in payroll, maybe $120mm maximum, which we have been above historically.  We are getting a massive cable TV deal with ownership rights.  Look it up.  This is doable.  We can win the World Series next year and keep the future intact.

But again, we will probably mess it up.  We aren't smart enough.