Oz27

I'm beyond that. The dude is pretty much toast - he might have another couple of 1-ish WAR seasons left in him but that is as optimistic as I can get. But I still think they can be pretty good even without getting much production from him.

Bonds, Clemens, Raines, Rodriguez, Bagwell, Mussina, Guerrero, Ramirez, Martinez and Walker. I'm still torn on Guerrero/Sosa/Schilling. Ideally I'd vote for all of them. But having to narrow it to one, I barely lean Guerrero but I certainly don't object to arguments for the other two.

This doesn't fit the narrative here, but... "Drew Smyly isn’t an ace, and the Mariners added two more high-risk players to a team that already had a lot of risk, but this team now looks like their playoff hopes are more than just hope-a-bunch-of-things-go-right. With another quality starter and a potential quality reliever, plus a solid group of position players, the Mariners look like contenders now." http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/okay-now-the-2017-mariners-are-interesting/ It's both reasonable and responsible for the Mariners to go for it now. Their team was never set up to win in three years, it was set up to win soon, due to moves made before Dipoto's arrival and since then too. In their circumstances, they needed to make their best effort to win now and this is a pretty reasonable attempt to do that. I still like the Astros' 2017 chances more than I do the Mariners' but Seattle is good too.

The fact Ruth played in a segregated sport has to be a significant factor in evaluating him against players from a non-segregated era (Mays, Aaron, Bonds and many others are included in that, obviously). Playing at a time where the best talent was coming from around the world, instead of just America, is an obvious factor too. To argue otherwise would be a clear indicator of one being an "asshat".

And Ruth played against a select sample of white dudes. That isn't his fault, obviously, but it's important to remember it in that context. Bonds played in an integrated and international sport, meaning he truly played against the best in the world.

Through their age 34 seasons (which for Bonds is everything before 2000), Bonds and Mays both had a 163 OPS+ and Aaron was 157. Also, that isn't taking Bonds' peak seasons. It's actually denying him his peak seasons, which were in the early 2000s.

Even if you take out all of Bonds' performance post 1999, he was still a better hitter than Mays or Aaron. Bonds' OPS+ up to the end of 1999 was 163, better than the career marks of both of the other guys. If Bonds came back and went 0-for-2000, he would still have a better on-base percentage than Mays. He could go 0-for-2400 and still have a better OBP than Aaron. Even if you turn all his intentional walks into outs, his OBP is still far better than either of them. Part of the reason for Bonds' public perception being less than it should be is the steroids, obviously. But part of it is people undervaluing walking. He got on base at a ridiculous clip because he was so good at walking, before, during and after any steroids. People talk about how Mays and Aaron got more hits but that's silly, because Bonds got on base at such an absurdly better rate than either of the other two and therefore made outs much less of the time. If you want to diminish his performance because of steroids then that is your right. But you have to diminish it by a lot to get it down to the level of Mays and Aaron. Based on pure performance, there has never been a better baseball player.

What? That is bullshit. A huge chunk of the players he played against were doing exactly the same thing.

Barry Bonds once hit .362/.609/.812. I really feel that should just be the end of that discussion.

I, uhhhh, don't think these things mean what you think they do.

Unprovoked insults are a great show of intelligence, apparently, but what you are saying really isn't what I was doing. If you want to differentiate the plan and the goal - which you wanted to do - then it's the goal I am taking issue with. It's impossible to know for sure what that is (and the fact it really isn't that obvious is a problem) but many of our moves to me look like an attempt to be "competitive" for awhile instead of aiming for a (most likely narrower) window where you'll be truly good. I really believe in the latter, rather than the former - your best chance to win is to direct your resources to a particular window of around three years. Most teams have done that and for most teams the time period in which they are attempting to be a truly top team is rather obvious. Trying to hedge your bets might soften the fall but it also means you aren't maximizing your chances of winning. Now, it's possible Eppler is trying to stockpile talent to trade to do something like what I'm talking about at some point in the Trout window. I'd be fine with that. But it doesn't look like that is what is happening. We haven't done much trading for prospects and we've made some short-term acquisitions in the past 12 months. It seems to me like we're hoping to be continually competitive (comments like "rebuilding is not in our DNA" back up that thinking) instead of going all-in or even close to it, or starting again, at any point in the near future. I don't like that and I hope I'm wrong. I suppose all we can do is wait and see. Also, going back to the comment I quoted, Kevin Goldstein used to say the public sphere knows less than 10 per cent of what teams know. So why do any of us question anything? Why do BP and Fangraphs exist? Using that logic, anytime you have questioned the intelligence of any move a team has made it is "dumb". All we can do is make our best guesses based off what we have seen and what we know, while being mindful of the fact there is a heap of stuff we don't know.

Okay, I guess I was thinking of someone else. For the record, I'm with you on Wells and Grienke. Grienke was a perfectly reasonable decision. That was a really good true talent team which needed a bit of a boost. Things collapsed in a way that wasn't very foreseeable but that season probably represented our best chance to win of that period so it was a very reasonable decision to go for it then. And yeah, I still don't understand how they found a way to get someone to take on any of Vernon's money. There were some disasters which were always easy to predict though (Blanton and, to an extent, Freese). There is one point in there I very strongly disagree with you on though. You say Eppler has been far better at working towards a goal. What is it? When are we next thinking we can be a 90-win team? The goal seems to be to be kind of good over several years instead of aiming to be really good at a particular time. Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but I really hate any approach that doesn't involve a narrow target where you aim to be a true contender. It is entirely possible that Moreno is demanding we consistently "be competitive" and that is limiting what Eppler is doing. Either way, I really don't see it as being "far better at working towards a goal" ... well at least not an intelligent goal.

Isn't one of your main criticisms of Dipoto that what he did really amounted to fiddling around the edges? If so, I don't really get how you make that evaluation of him without making it of Eppler. Eppler does it in a lower cost, lower reward way I suppose, but doesn't the "lower reward" aspect of that strategy just make it harder for it to ever be truly successful?

We can all picture him in a house fire...

The remaining money on his contract is a lot more than he would be likely to get now on the open market. It's not like he has surplus value there. So is there really a team dumb enough to willingly overpay for him AND give up a decent prospect or two? Tony Reagins and Ruben Amaro don't have jobs anymore so I really doubt it. There really isn't much reason for optimism for Felix anymore. His raw numbers were bad and his peripherals were worse. Everything is trending downward, quickly. He might be able to squeeze out another season or two as an above replacement starter but the likely production and even potential upside just isn't worth paying him $80 million and having to give up a prospect.

What do you mean by "pretty damn good return"? Let's look at his numbers, from 2014 to 2016... K/9: 9.46, 8.52, 7.16 BB/9: 1.75, 2.59, 3.82 K/BB: 22.1%, 16.1%, 8.7% HR/9: 0.61, 1.03, 1.12 ERA: 2.14, 3.53, 3.82 FIP: 2.56, 3.72, 4.63 fWAR: 6.1, 2.9, 1.0 DRA: 1.73, 2.73, 4.71 Average fastball velocity: 92.4, 91.8, 90.5 Contact %: 73.8, 76.9, 80.2 Swinging strike%: 12.0, 10.7, 9.6 This isn't an anomaly, it's an alarming decline. His days as an ace are very likely done and his time as a productive pitcher might well be running out too. With $81 million left on that contract over three years, he doesn't really have any surplus value left and that means his trade value is pretty low. Someone would take him and they would give up something. But is he even worth one top 100 prospect anymore? Maybe someone would give up a fringe top 100 prospect (although I'd argue they probably shouldn't). Either way, Blarg's assertion that he is by far their most valuable trade chip is absurd. He isn't even close to it.

Yes and I know reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, but try reading it in context. I was suggesting they were stuck with them because their limited value meant it didn't make sense to move them. As for Hernandez, sure, multiple teams would take him. But the idea he is going to fetch premium talent anymore is just wrong. He has declined rapidly. Your statement that he is by far their most valuable trade chip is laughably wrong.

I know you don't like letting facts get in the way of your hyperbolic bullshit but Hernandez is declining big time and is owed a heap of money. I wouldn't go anywhere near that contract and saying he could bring back a "big haul of talent" now is just wrong. His trade value is much lower than Seager's too, saying he is by far their biggest trade chip is rubbish. There is also the issue of his full no trade clause limiting whatever value he has too. Teams aren't going to be falling over themselves to give up scores of legitimate young talent for Nelson Cruz's age 36 and 37 seasons either. I never called him untradeable, I suggested the expected return means it wouldn't make sense for them given the to move him given the overall state of the organization. Anyway, what issue are you taking with my actual point? The Mariners' long-term future looked bleak when he took over and it made more sense for them to try to win now, while they still had a decent core, rather than blow it up and start again (and much more sense than taking a middle ground approach). Calling that "making excuses" is just the usual level of nonsense we've come to expect from you.

I think when Dipoto took over, they had to go hard in one direction and it made most sense to go down the 'win now' avenue. They had a few players who were still good but whose trade value probably wasn't that high for contractual reasons (Hernandez, Cruz and Cano). Realistically they were stuck with all three and could expect greatly diminished performance from all three of them in the final years of their contracts. Therefore their future was pretty much screwed anyway, even if they had followed the Eppler method. They had some contracts that were going to soon turn bad - belonging to players who are currently still productive (or in the case of Cano and Cruz much better than that) and not huge amounts on the farm. If they weren't going to try to win in the 2016-2018 window, when was it going to happen? They had to do whatever they could to maximize their chances of winning then. In fact if I had one criticism of Dipoto's Seattle tenure it would be not going hard enough in that direction, although to be fair lack of trade chips and lack of money could be the reasons for that.

What alternative did he have though? He inherited a shit-show that wasn't good enough to win immediately but whose future prospects were much worse. They need to go hard now - arguably even harder than they're doing. They were never going to be well placed to be good after this next couple of years.

Yeah but certain people here have fun building narratives and it wouldn't be as fun as facts got in the way of that. While I don't think the Mariners' long-term outlook is great, it's not a stretch to see them contending this year. The Dyson-Karns one should be a good one for them. I don't think Karns is that good and Dyson is pretty solid.

lol beat me too it. At his peak, "Bourgeois" was the best defensive outfielder in the game. He should have been playing center regardless of who else was on the team. "good times."

And if Bonds attempted a comeback and went 0-for-2000 with 0 walks, HBP or sac flies he would still have a higher on-base percentage than Aaron.

Bonds was better than them by quite a bit.

Nobody is suggesting panic or that Trout will use this. It's an interesting quirk nevertheless which one day could have an impact (potentially even a big one) on baseball.