Late Innings

I’m watching the Home Run Derby and have been so far disappointed. Nelson Cruz and Prince Fielder looked ok, then came Brandon Inge who drew the collar. The AL doesn’t have the best crushers out tonight, and I know many of them turn down the invitation due to superstition and such. However this game benefits charity, and the more home runs that are hit, the more that is donated. I never considered Inge much of a masher. He puts up 20 home run seasons, and I give him credit for doing so at Comerica, but he didn’t look good this evening. On that note, be glad that Ichiro turned down the invitation.

Hey, your’s truly will be live-blogging tomorrow’s All Star Game held in St. Louis. I’ve did this before, and the results were interesting. I got my case of beer ready.

Man, Chris Berman’s voice is annoying as ever tonight.

Watch the 2009 All Star Game Tuesday July 14th at 8PM EST on FOX.

This trade is causing me to scratch my head:

Mariners shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt was traded to Kansas City on Friday, giving the Royals a versatile infielder and Seattle a pair of minor league pitchers.

The 27-year-old Betancourt was hitting .250 with two homers and 22 RBIs in 63 games this season. He’s been on a rehab assignment with Triple-A Tacoma after straining his left hamstring, and will continue rehabbing at Double-A Northwest Arkansas.

The main pitcher that the Mariners got from the Royals of interest was pitching prospect Daniel Cortes, whom has been ranked as the team’s top pitching prospect by Baseball America and has third-starter potential. The other arm is a High-A throw-in, who throws hard enough to miss many bats. But why Kansas City has been after him for years has boggled my mind. What’s next, them acquiring Jeff Francoeur?

Betancourt’s .250/.278/.330 line is uninspiring, and his defense has been spotty this year, particularly his range. But as Shyster so cleverly puts it:

The Royals are probably the only team to which Betancourt could have gone and represented an upgrade at short.

I sure as hell hope that the Mariners are throwing the Royals some salary relief, since Betancourt is owed 10MM for the remainder of his contract. Great move by the M’s; Ronny Cedeno finally gets his chance to become the full time #6 spot on the diamond.

I haven’t written here in a while. It’s a long story, no doubt. However I wanted to discuss one of my most favorite topics, the MLB Amateur Draft. I know to some people like Keith Law and John Sickels, today is a national holiday for them (actually it’s more of a weekend, given the three days of the draft.) For me, it’s another day of drinking, though not as excessive as Flag Day.

Anyone with their right mind knew that the Nationals were going to take Stephen Strasburg, it’s a given. And we are all ready to watch the contract negotiations unfold with Scott Boras in the picture. My popcorn is ready. The Mariners took UNC 1B/CF Dustin Ackley with the obvious #2 pick. Honestly I would have liked to see him fall down to the #5 spot (which the Orioles had), but he was clearly the best hitter in the draft. And with Scott Boras as his “advisor", like Strasburg he could easily command 10MM in guaranteed money. I saw Ackley play this weekend Sunday against South Carolina, and liked what I saw. Great batting eye, great defense (especially when he moves back to CF after the injury heals), however it might take some time for his power to develop.

…

The first four picks of the draft were rightly predicted, however the Orioles surprised me by taking Matt Hobgood. From what people are writing, he’s a big kid who’s projected to be a power pitcher in the late innings. The Orioles could have taken Zack Wheeler (as I expected), but I think signability played a role here. Baltimore’s system is loaded with young pitching, but Wheeler would have fit nicely (in the big leagues by 2012.) San Fransisco immediately took him with the next pick (and he looks nice with Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson in the system as well.)

If Baltimore hadn’t taken Wheeler, I thought about (UNC SS) Grant Green as a possibility, but then he didn’t fit the mold as a typical defensive shortstop that Andy MacPhail wants. I really would have liked them to get Wheeler, and I’m curious to know the motivations why he wasn’t picked. From what Rich Lederer wrote in today’s live blog:

Hopgood was named the 2009 Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year yesterday. He is a big bodied pitcher who can also hit. Baltimore clearly liked him better than any other team. He is committed to Cal State Fullerton but is likely to be a fairly easy sign at this spot.

Still him and Marc Hulet were just as surprised as I was. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t question Joe Jordan, whose done an excellent job as the scouting director for the Orioles in the past four years, but this move has me scratching my head.

Then again the economy clearly played a role here. I’ve never before seen so many high school arms seeking Rick Porcello money (a bad precedent the minute it was set by Detroit.) But then again that didn’t stop many teams today, especially Detroit (again), who took Justin Turner at the #9 spot (and he could command 7MM by the August 17th deadline.)

***

Now back to the main story, the Nats took Strasburg. What would it take to sign him? I’d offer him 15MM right off the bat and leave the offer on the table. That’s what everyone is expecting, and I feel that it is clearly fair. He won’t get 50MM (sorry Jon, Boras Corporation contractor), not in this economy. There have been stories galore leading up to today which shown the #1 pitching picks from years back… the best of the bunch was Andy Benes, a mediocre Padres pitcher who compiled a .500 winning percentage in his career. His brother Alan also pitched in the National League, and like his brother was a .500 pitcher (29-28 over eight seasons.)

Outside of Strasburg, we might see Ackley get 10MM, and I think that’s a strong possibility. Still, in looking at this draft, it was clearly top heavy. Last year’s draft showcased more pure hitters, while this one showcased tons of high school arms. Still I expect most of these players to wait until the last minute to sign, like last season. Granted some first round picks from last year signed quickly, like Buster Posey (Giants), Tim Beckham (Rays) and Kyle Skipworth (Marlins.) This year might be different. I expect the Pirates to sign Tony Sanchez quickly, and the same thing goes with the Orioles and Hobgood. Maybe that’s a good thing, since Brian Matusz and Matt Wieters waited until the 11th hour to sign in years past. Hopefully he’ll sign quickly and will be playing ball in the rookie leagues by Summer’s end.

I thought this was an interesting story to come up today, an interesting Opening Day indeed. Seattle’s first round draft picks from the last three drafts, that is Brandon Morrow (2006), Phillippe Aumont (2007) and Joshua Fields (2008), could all find themselves in the M’s bullpen by the end of the season. Granted I know that Morrow and Aumont were drafted as starters, but Bill Bavasi and the team’s scouting department grabbed Fields in hope of him being their future closer. They’re all outstanding arms, don’t get me wrong, however it’s interesting that these three prospects ended up in the same situation. Morrow is the team’s closer going forward (due to a diabetes issue), and these two complementing arms could constitute an excellent bullpen in Seattle. Another unexpected consequence of the Bavasi administration…

Updating Sabathia

I’m watching the O’s/Yanks currently, and Baltimore has plated three runs against the Yankees’ 161MM man C.C. Sabathia. Jeremy Guthrie looks very sharp, and apparently has shaken off his rough Spring. It’s a shame that Cliff Lee couldn’t do the same thing himself today…

I did this back before, when there were oddly enough two Ryan Bruans in the majors. I wanted to do the same thing back when there were two Bobby Joneses pitching as well. In either case, there are a pair of Josh Fieldses in the majors, one is a closing prospect for the Mariners, the other is a third baseman for the White Sox.

Starting with the infielder, Peter Gammons of ESPN said the following about the slugging infielder:

Josh Fields hit 23 homers in 100 games for the White Sox in 2007, but his 2008 season was a waste because of right knee problems. The former Oklahoma State quarterback finally gave in and had knee surgery. He also underwent LASIK eye surgery, and he claims it has made a significant difference in seeing the ball this spring as he opens the season at third base.

Surgery will quite possibly help him somewhat, however it was the departure of Joe Crede that played the most to his advantage. He’ll go deep from time to time, however the strikeouts will put him in Ozzie Guillen’s dog house from time to time.

2009 Outlook: .255 AVG, 525 AB, 31 HR, 95 RBI, ass-load of strikeouts

He’s set to take in a good chunk of playing time in Chicago this year. Yes, Dayan Viciedo is there to put pressure on him, however Paul Konerko’s struggles could also play in his favor as well.

***

The Mariners (under Bill Bavasi) burnt the 20th overall pick in last year’s Amateur Draft on a closer, drafting Joshua Fields. He signed a month ago, and then at that point people started to speculate as to whether he’ll be closing for the M’s at sometime this year. The big news of today, that’s not going to happen.

I like what David Pinto wrote about this, comparing the situation to the one that Jonathan Papelbon faced a few years ago. Brandon Morrow has ridiculous stuff, and I’ve always wanted to see him as a starter. However given the forearm issues, maybe having him close is the best for both him and the team. Fantasy owners of Morrow must have been happy to hear this news today (he is NOT available in any of my leagues, and is owned in 89% of ESPN’s leagues.) Still this move essentially doomed Fields to remain in the minors for the year. However, the possibility of him being up in September should not be out of the picture at all…

The Huffster elaborates on the term “contract year":

I don’t know how guys do that. … Some guys, they go into their contract years and put up huge numbers. It amazes me. Adrian Beltre, I think he hit 49 home runs in his contract year. I don’t know how they do that. I just go at it the same way, go one day at a time, and see what the numbers are at the end. You see these guys put up ridiculous numbers and then they don’t do as much the next couple of years. Does that mean they’re just playing for the money?

Now I could be a dick and state that Beltre hit 48 home runs in his walk year instead of 49, but to suggest that Beltre has been nothing more than a “bad contract” for his new team is false. Beltre has been worth 57MM to the Mariners over the past four years, with the Mariners paying him just over 50MM for his services. Even in his worst of the four seasons, he was still a 2.5 WAR player.

Beltre is going to be one of the most-sought after targets after the season is over, when he becomes a free agent. His glove is fantastic, and his bat shows up from time to time too. Still when the Mariners signed him, they most likely didn’t have expectations for him to repeat the same season he had in 2004, when he was a 10 WAR player. That’s Albert Pujols-territory my friends.

It’s clear now that Richie Sexon was the worse of the two big signings that Bill Bavasi and the Mariners partook in that year.

Ken Griffey Jr. is a Seattle Mariner.

So if I read my rumors right, Griff got pissed over DOB at the AJC, rumoring that he “chose” the Braves, so he decided to return home to Seattle in hopes that he’ll plant butts in Safeco. (On an aside, all these stores are using the word “choose", as if we’re dealing with Pokemon.) Anyways it’s a good strategy, but I’m not sure if the Braves should be disappointed that Griffey is off the market, especially knowing that Jim Edmonds is (still) available. Now if Frank Wren would just take my advice, they’d have a pretty interesting outfield this season, especially with Matt Diaz and those rookies in the mix. Then again Wren didn’t take my advice when he was running the show in Baltimore, and he got fired. QED homeboy.

On an aside, boy did I predict that salary that he signed on…

RotoWorld chimes in on the strong possibility of new Mariner Josh Fields very soon:

He was drafted as a college senior and he’s 23 years old, so it shouldn’t be long before he’s ready to help the Mariners as a reliever. It’ll probably be 2010 before he’s a candidate for saves, but as little as the team has in front of him, he’s a deep sleeper for this year.

With Brandon Morrow most likely never closing again (thank you), the team is currently holding open tryouts for the closer role. And I love how BTBS is referring to this situation as “bullpen casserole.” Yes the ‘pen is a mess, but a closer with control problems riding into the Emerald City on a White Horse is not going to save the problems Bavasi left on this city…

Before kicking off this little rant (it’s obviously about Bill Bavasi in case anyone wants to stop reading), the Angels inked Ervin Santana to a four year extension worth 30MM. Just like that, the team wiped out any arbitration hearings this year, since they signed Macier Izturis earlier today. This deal also wipes out any more changes that Santana has to go to arbitration. He’s still getting paid well though. On an aside, I really wish Baltimore would have grabbed him, since the Angels were after Miguel Tejada. Santana’s 2007 numbers were clearly flukish. However Tony Reagins is a relatively intelligent general manager…

… unlike Bill Bavasi. Granted he’s not in office anymore, the Mariners axed him last summer. However his legacy looms on now. The one interesting move that happened yesterday was with the Mariners signing (their future closer) Josh Fields. Fields didn’t have to be signed by last August’s deadline, however they finally got this done. It seems that after Bavasi drafted the closer of his dreams, the team simply had enough and let him go a week later…

Any ways when this move first happened, people poked at them for drafting a closer. However now after the fact that Fields has signed, people are starting to wonder if Fields will be closing in 2009 for the Mariners… WOW.

Over the years, even with Bavasi in charge the Mariners still managed to accrue a good amount of young talent. Granted he dealt a lot of it away, but a good portion still remains. Regular readers to this blog know that I think they have a potential star in Phillipe Aumont, their 2007 pick. However I wasn’t too thrilled over the Fields pick.

Closers are the most overrated players in professional sports. Thankfully the demand for closers has come down, however they shouldn’t be paid more than 5MM a year, mainly since they only pitch in a third of the innings a front-line starter will pitch. Drafting a closer in fantasy baseball is a good strategy (you need three of them, with 90 saves in the process), however drafting a closer during the amateur draft is not. I’m not sure what Fields will bring to the table. Yes he has good stuff, but without control he isn’t going anywhere. Or as Sickels so wonderfully put it:

Stuff is here, but what about command?

QED. In other words, Fields will most likely end up becoming the next Dennis Sarfate. That is he’ll be a reliever who will end up striking out over a batter per inning, however a 6 K/9 ratio isn’t promising. A pitcher with a WHIP around 1.50 can’t be used as a starter or as a closer, as the Orioles saw last year when they tried to move Sarfate around.

Ken Griffey Jr. and the Mariners are closing on a one year deal. He wants 5MM, the same figure that Bobby Abreu is getting. A few days back, the Blue Jays inked Kevin Millar to a minor league contract.

Granted both players are receiving deep pay cuts given last year’s salary. On the surface, Griffey and Millar put up similar power numbers. However Griffey got on base, Millar didn’t do quite as well. Millar was a first baseman, and didn’t put up the expected power numbers. Still given these facts, is Griffey worthy of a 5MM deal, or is he worthy of a minor league contract, especially given his declining defense?

I’d go 3MM plus incentives if I was Jack K.

I work during the day, and saw the news that Jon Garland signed a 6.5MM deal with the Diamondbacks. I wasn’t able to chime in at the moment about it, thankfully BTBS did the work I wanted to do:

One year deal believed to be in the $6-8 million range. So let’s summarize:

Garland: turns down the Angels offer of arb which would’ve likely netted him an increase from last year’s $12 million salary, has to settle for a one year deal worth maybe half that much (though there is likely an option). Results: FAIL

D’backs: Could have spent about the same amount of money on Randy Johnson, who was worth almost two more wins than Garland last year and a local favorite. Results: FAIL

Angels: Lose a pitcher with a FIP projected somewhere in the 4.4 area who they would have to overpay for and get a draft pick out of it. Results: SUCCESS

I started to then think why didn’t the Diamondbacks offer the same deal to Randy Johnson, a pitcher worth two more wins than Garland in 2008. However Dave Cameron and the brains behind Fan Graphs again beat me to it:

Deciding that you want Jon Garland instead of Randy Johnson is a disastrous decision. Yes, Johnson is old, but he’s still an excellent major league pitcher. Garland is a #5 starter whose best skill is not getting hurt.

I know this sounds mean, but Garland is a lousy pitcher. He’s HR and deep-fly prone, gives up his share of base runners, and has low strikeout rates. The only reason he won 14 games last year was because he was part of a rotation on a team that won 100 games. He was well over-hyped since he was pitching on winning teams, and thus as a bi-product won games. As a result, he was also given a large three year deal (worth 29MM) back in 2005. This inflated his salary, and as a result, pushed up his demands this off-season. Garland was this year’s Carlos Silva, and thankfully he didn’t receive Silva money.

To paraphrase Cameron, yeah Garland really screwed up the Diamondbacks’ off season. A few months back, I read a RotoWorld piece (either by Aaron or Matt) projecting where Garland would end this winter. The author projected Garland landing with the Orioles on a five year deal for 60MM. Thankfully this didn’t happen, and I’m ever so relieved.

The Olson/Cedeno for Heilman Trade

The other news today came from the Cubs acquiring Aaron Heilman from the Mariners for infielder Ronny Cedeno and pitcher Garrett Olson. The intriguing piece of this deal is Olson. I’ve seen him pitch a number of times, and he did look over-matched the past few seasons in the majors. He did pitch well in the minors however, and he might do well in the friendly confines of Safeco. Maybe this game that Olson pitched against Seattle late last year played a factor in this move…

In either case, the Cubs had Felix Pie, Rich Hill and Cedeno all out of options this Winter. So far they’ve dealt two of them, and have only acquired a pitcher that Mets fans can vouch for being a disaster. In my opinion, that’s selling low on a great amount of talent.

The Phillies have been busy the past few days. They inked Jamie Moyer today to a two years, 16MM deal. They also signed Chan Ho Park for 2.5MM. And of course on Friday, the team inked Raul Ibanez to a three year, 31.5MM deal. Granted some money has been spent, but I’m not overly disappointed with this moves. I work with a few Phillies fans, and they disagree. I even got a few emails this weekend about people who disagree with me on Ibanez.

The whole day started out with what I read on THT. At least according to Craig Calcaterra, after the Phillies signed Park:

Reason number 137 why, even a couple of months later, it doesn’t feel like the Phillies are the World Champions

And now onto Ibanez, BTBS had the following to say about this signing:

Phillies sign Raul Ibanez to a three year contract worth $30 million. This, on the other hand, is not a very good deal.

And of course, ESPN’s Keith Law doesn’t like the signing one bit, as he wrote in the header:

Signing Ibanez an absurd move by Phillies

Granted the economy has put the damper on free agency spending, however the Phillies didn’t overspend with Ibanez here, not with players like Adam Dunn, Pat Burrell and Bobby Abreu expecting to make 16MM a year. They figure to save about 5MM in 2009, the figure they would have paid Burrell if he had accepted arbitration. Of course, I’ve been saying all along that the Phillies should have at least offered him arbitration. Burrell was a Type A, and if he would have left, the team would have gotten two draft picks next year. Law agrees with that point, and even brings up the following:

The goal should be to give the scouting department more picks, not fewer, unless the move makes the big league club better, which the Burrell-for-Ibanez tradeoff does not.

The main problem with this signing is that the Phillies have to surrender their first round draft pick to the Mariners. However they’re picking at the end of the draft’s first round, so the Phillies front office wasn’t expecting to land a David Price. Still in the end there are worse ways for the team to be spending their money, and some other bloggers actually like the signing. Philly fans have nothing to complain about here; after all they’re surrendering their draft pick to a team which shelled out 48MM to a “ball and chain” named Carlos Silva last year.

Obviously I’m not sleeping either… I touched on this earlier, but the Mets officially acquired J.J. Putz from the Mariners as part of a three team deal. They signed free agent Francisco Rodriguez a day earlier for 37MM over three years. Per Rosenthal:

Under terms of the deal, the Mets get Putz, outfielder Jeremy Reed and reliever Sean Green from Seattle. The Mariners receive reliever Aaron Heilman, outfielder Endy Chavez, first baseman Mike Carp, and minor leaguers Maikel Cleto, Jason Vargas and Ezequiel Carrera from the Mets. They also get Franklin Gutierrez from the Indians and minor leaguers. The Indians get reliever Joe Smith from the Mets and infielder Luis Valbuena from Seattle.

I wonder if this counts as Jack Zduriencik’s first trade, but in either case I like it for the Mariners. I’ll wait for more info on the prospects (BA does a good roundup of this), but I’ve always been fond of Gutierrez. The Mariners also get a slew of pieces in this deal which can be plugged anywhere. From the Mets’ prospective, this deal plays out good for them as well. The last two innings are going to be solid for them next season, and they can still bridge the gap by picking up another arm on the market (e.g. Juan Cruz.) I’ve always been fond of Reed as well, and I think last year he finally started to live up to the high prospect tag that he had years ago. The Indians most-likely made this move to shed some salary, though Gutierrez isn’t arbitration eligible yet. They also get solid bullpen depth with Smith, who should be setting up for Kerry Wood (about to sign a two year, 20MM deal.)

In either case, a solid move on all fronts. Give Zduriencik some credit for selling high on Putz, especially with the market for closers being as saturated as it is.

Putz was 6-5 with a 3.88 ERA and 15 saves last season. (Rob Leiter/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

And now a little humor for this evening… there was a bogus rumor which surfaced in the Seattle Times, which a reporter flew a rumor by a Cubs official. That is another bad contract swap… Carlos Silva for “Kosume (sic) Fukodome” as he put it. The officials quickly dismissed this (naturally), however like so many bad rumors today this one swiftly got some exposure. Me? I could see Kosuke Fukodome prosper in Seattle. He looks like he’s in dire need of a change of scenery, especially given how all it took was one prolonged slump which quickly got him in Lou Pinella’s “dog house” (which contains other players like Felix Pie, et al.)

A no-pressure environment like Seattle might be good for him, but I don’t think that the Cubs would want Silva, a pitcher who lost 15 games in 2008. The Mariners paid him 3MM per win last year, and given the Cubs stacked rotation, he would sure look stick out like a sore thumb (especially if they acquire Jake Peavy.) I’m not sure where this rumor was made up. Personally I think the reporter fabricated everything, in hope something sticks. I don’t blame him. When your team loses 100 games, you should try everything.

Bad Product Endorsement

In honor of this bogus trade rumor, I “sponsored” Carlos Silva today, that is by purchasing his page on baseball-reference.com. I’m not sure if this counts as buying traffic, but heck if Silva wins 21 or so games next year, I’m going to look like a genius. After all it happened for Esteban Loaiza. And this will also only happen if a volcano goes off in Detroit, and as we all know a volcano won’t go off in Detroit.

As your sponsor, I command you not to suck in 2009.

Outside of the Dustin Pedroia contract, there were a few other stories worth note today:

• Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus questions why the Yankees didn’t offer Bobby Abreu and Andy Pettite arbitration. The same theory applies to the Phillies (with Pat Burrel and Jamie Moyer), Cubs (with Kerry Wood) and Diamondbacks with Adam Dunn. The argument, the draft picks received from their Type A status are far more valuable in the long run than the risk of each player hanging on for another year term.
• Here’s another argument in favor of Tommy Hanson breaking camp and being in the Braves’ rotation next April. I see him as next year’s Jonny Cueto.
• The Giants added more bullpen depth by signing Bob Howry (after not being offered arbitration by the Cubs.)
• The Cardinals did the same, finalizing a one-year deal with former Ray reliever Trevor Miller.
• The Mariners signed a one-year deal with Russell Branyan, which shouldn’t be worth more than 1MM. Considering the fact that he had an .925 OPS in under 200 at bats with the Brewers, this not a bad first move for Jack Zduriencik.