How the Mariners Can Win the West

Hey, remember me? It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry about the hiatus, completely unintentional. I got lazy with the weather and school's killing me, plus I'm working on a top secret project, but that shouldn't be an excuse. I'll try and compensate by overloading you with posts. I've been tracking my NFL picks even though I haven't been posting, and should have something up on those in the next day or two.

Anyway, I want to talk Mariners. I must admit this has already been a very disappointing offseason for me. I hated, absolutely hated, seeing the front office give Mike Hargrove a vote of confidence for this season. I truly believe he's the worst in-game manager in baseball; he can't construct a lineup, he's overly reliant on "proven veterans" even when they suck (i.e. Carl Everett, Willie Bloomquist, and Julio Mateo), mangles pitching changes, sacrifice bunts way too much, etc. Second, I wanted the M's to go after Daisuke Matsuzaka, though I'm glad he didn't end up paying $51.1 Million just to negotiate with him. Third, this free agent market is depressing as hell. There's just not much out there, and with the new CBA, every team in baseball has loads of money and feels the need to flaunt it. The contracts being handed out and that will soon be handed out are ridiculous. You're going to see multi-year contracts worth about $10 mil per for turd sandwiches like Ted Lilly and Gil Meche. If you're a woman, hope that Alfonso Soriano impregnates you in the near future, because he'll be $120 mil richer in the next couple weeks. I don't necessarily have anything against contracts of this size, but I hate seeing them go to players who just aren't that good. Here are the players I would consider giving contracts to of that size if I was handed a team, the players I would consider truly elite, and also young enough to justify a massive contract: Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Beltran, and Johan Santana. That's it. I would probably consider David Wright and Grady Sizemore, too, because of their combination of youth, hitting, and their position, and maybe Jose Reyes if he keeps improving like he did last year. With the exception of Pujols, the best hitter in baseball, and also one of the best fielding first basemen, I think that contracts of the size Soriano will probably get should be reserved for potential hall-of-fame players, true five-tool players, at the premier defensive positions: SS, CF, C, 2B, and 3B. It's just not that hard to find a corner outfielder or first baseman or DH who can hit and play the field at a mediocre level. Here's a list of National League LF's who were at least 80% as productive as Soriano or Carlos Lee, as measured by Runs Created per Game, and with over 200 PA on the season: Luke Scott, Jason Bay, Dave Roberts, Matt Holiday, Chris Duncan, Andre Ethier, Pat Burrell, John Rodriguez, David Dellucci, Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham and Matt Murton. Barry Bonds was far more productive than either Soriano or Lee. Six of those players made the league minimum, and only Dunn and Burrell had comparable salaries to Soriano and Lee.

What frightens me about these potential salary figures is that the Mariners just aren't very well run. They're awful identifying low risk/potential high-reward bargains, such as last year when they pursued the washed-up Carl Everett for 5 mil a year instead of opting for an incentive laden, low-base contract for Frank Thomas. They also have a weird habit of throwing money at free agents when they don't need to, such as last year's Jarrod Washburn contract, which was 4 years at 37.5 mil when no other team was actively pursuing him. They've also feel the need to make splashy signings versus pursuing a good value. With all the money floating around this year and the team's payroll supposed to go up to about $95 mil, I'm afraid of landing more albatross contracts like Ritchie Sexson, Adrian Beltre, and Washburn.

That said, here's what the Mariners are going into next season with:

C: Kenji Johjima
1B: Ritchie Sexson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
CF: Ichiro!
RF: Chris Snelling
LF: Raul Ibanez
DH: Ben Broussard

Bench: Scrappy Bloomquist, Rene Rivera, Jeremy Reed, etc.

Starting Pitching:
King Felix
Jarrod Washburn
Cha Seung Baek?
Jake Woods?
Joel Pineiro?

Bullpen:
JJ Putz
Rafael Soriano
George Sherrill
Mark Lowe
Julio Mateo
Sean Green?
Emiliano Fruto?
Jon Huber?

So, looking at this team, it's obvious that the main concern is going to be starting pitching. The starting lineup is about set, and the bullpen is set. I wouldn't do a thing to the bullpen. Putz, Soriano, Sherrill and Lowe were as good a core relief group as any in baseball last year, and none of them even made a million dollars. It's not their fault that Hargrove wants to use Camel-Face Mateo in important situations instead of as the mop-up guy. With King Felix and Jarrod Washburn as the only sure things, you're going to have to sign at least one free agent and possibly two, but you're also going to need to fill at least one of those slots with the in-house options or non-roster invitees because fiscally the M's can't afford three marquee free agents. The biggest names of the free agent starters are Jason Schmidt, Barry Zito, Andy Pettite, Adam Eaton, Ted Lilly, Gil Meche, Jeff Suppan, Greg Maddux, Vincente Padilla, Randy Wolf, and Jeff Weaver. Ugh. I would say that Pettite is the best name on that list, but he's either going to play for Houston or retire, so he's out. I would say Schmidt is #2. Weaver and Suppan will be overpaid because of the playoffs. Eaton, Lilly, Wolf, and Padilla all have injury/durability issues and none of them are that good. I hate Gil Meche. Maddux probably wouldn't come to Seattle. Zito just isn't that good of a pitcher anymore, despite good ERA and win totals. Out of these "marquee" starters, I would say that the M's should go hard after Jason Schmidt, and if they don't get him, look elsewhere. There's just not much talent there.

I would try to sign one of the second tier free agent starters after this, preferably someone coming off injury or a poor season who'd be willing to play for a reasonable one-year contract. I would look at guys like Bruce Chen, Shawn Estes, John Thomson. I think Chen would be the best bet, a lefty who had awful numbers last year, but the year before was 13-10 with a 3.83 ERA in almost 200 innings, with fairly good K/9 and BB/9 numbers. His issue in the past has been home runs, and he would certainly benefit next year pitching at Safeco.

Ideally I would go into next year with this rotation:

Jason Schmidt
King Felix
Jarrod Washburn
Bruce Chen
Cha Seung Baek/Jake Woods

Not bad. I think it would definitely be an improvement over last year's rotation, if only because Pineiro's no longer in it. With the pitching set, here's what else I would do. I think if the M's make a big signing on offense, they're going to have to move some salary. I would recommend trading Ritchie Sexson, who's due $28 million over the next two years. I'm not sure what you'd get for him, but it'd be worth it to get rid of his salary and maybe get a couple young arms in return. I would play Ben Broussard at first base, and sign a right-handed hitting, lefty-mashing 1B to platoon with him, either bringing back Eduardo Perez or signing Craig Wilson. I would then move Raul Ibanez to DH. I think the M's have room for improvement on defense, especially in the outfield, and the most obvious location is in LF, a very important position in Safeco due to the size of the left-center field gap, and with the number of fly-ball pitchers on the staff. You don't need to have great pitching, if you have great defense, and it's cheaper to acquire defense right now because the market undervalues it due to the difficulty in evaluating defense objectively. The M's are perpetually looking for another lefty power bat. By far the best option on the market for a lefty power bat and a good fielder is J.D. Drew. With the money saved by trading Sexson, the M's could reasonably go after Drew. As far as cheaper options with the same logic, Frank Catalanotto and David Dellucci are good picks, with Catalanotto the better defensive player and Dellucci the better hitter, and both lefties. If they prefer to go the speed/defense route, Dave Roberts is available, while the cheaper version of this logic would be to go after Kenny Lofton, who would likely be willing to sign a one-year contract. I really like the idea of having an outfield with three guys who could play center field. You take away the gaps, and you end up taking a lot of runs off the board in the long run. The best recent Mariners teams featured outfields of Mark McLemore/Stan Javier/Randy Winn, Mike Cameron, and Ichiro. With outfielders like that you make your pitching staff look a whole lot better.

So best case scenario, here's what I think would be both a reasonably easy to construct, and also improved enough to contend, Mariners line up:

C: Kenji Johjima
1B: Benuardo Broussez/Cren Brousson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
LF: J.D. Drew
CF: Ichiro
RF: Chris Snelling
DH: Raul Ibanez

I would bat the line-up: Ichiro, Snelling, Drew, Ibanez, Beltre, Broussez/Brousson, Johjima, Lopez, Betancourt. I like it. That's a line-up that would score 800-850 runs, while taking runs off the board on defense. Last season the M's scored 756 runs, while allowing 792. If they could score 50 more runs and take 50 away over the course of the season, scoring 806 runs and allowing 742 runs, they're expected win total would be 87. An 87-win team in the AL West is a definite contender, about equal to Oakland and Anaheim. Honestly, a nine win improvement over last season is not too drastic. By having Ichiro in center all year they'll be improved because it lets them add another good bat to the regular line-up, in this case Chris Snelling. Subtract Sexson, and add Drew to improve the defense by taking Ibanez out of the field. The offense will also be improved be not having Carl Everett in the line-up for most the year. By adding Jason Schmidt the starting pitching will be improved, while the bullpen will be stellar again. I'm starting to get excited thinking about this team. One another minor addition: anyone would be a better back up catcher than Rene Rivera, who might have been the worst regular back up in the majors. It wouldn't be difficult or expensive to add a competent back-up like Todd Greene. Just that could be worth another win or two.

So as it stands, the M's bench would be Todd Greene, Jeremy Reed, Willie Bloomquist, and Perez/Wilson, as Hargrove insists on carrying 12 pitchers. That wouldn't be a bad bench, but I would ideally want one more guy who could play middle infield, so that Bloomquist could be used exclusively as a pinch runner, which is what he's best suited for. Jeremy Reed will be an important piece off the bench as he can play every outfield position, and Snelling and Drew will need to be spelled fairly often, due to their injury risk. The best scenario would be for the M's to carry just 11 pitchers, and call up someone like Yung-Chi Chen or Michael Garciaparra to add infield flexibility on their bench. If they carried 14 position players, the bullpen would look like this: Putz, Soriano, Sherrill, Lowe, Mateo, and Woods. That's a solid bullpen, and having Woods around gives you an emergency starter/long relief guy/second lefty. I like this hypothetical team a lot; I think they'd be very competitive in the division, with the potential to win around 90 games and a division title. All they need to add is Jason Schmidt, Bruce Chen, J.D. Drew, Eduardo Perez/Craig Wilson, and Todd Greene. Is that too much to ask for?