Oz27

43 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

I'd be very worried about felix. 

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.

16 minutes ago, Blarg said:

In 90 years from now some asshat will state that Bonds didn't play against the finest athletes from Belisarius or some other domain not known to produce baseball players.

Bonds cheated, he doesn't deserve all the time you spend sniffing his jock.

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".

19 minutes ago, hangin n wangin said:

Babe Ruth is great and all, but do you really think he could have put up the numbers he did in today's game?

That is a huge factor.

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.

11 hours ago, Blarg said:

Apples to apples, what would be the career OPS+ for Mays and Aaron if you only took up to their age 34 season. What you are doing is taking Bonds peak seasons and comparing that sample size to players that put in another 8 years of natural decline.

I only ask because I'm on a tablet that won't do the calculations on BBRef.

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.

2 hours ago, disarcina said:

everyone has a right to their opinion. Oz27 has his -- I have mine.

Mays and Aaron above the rest -- including Barry Bonds.

one thing that is truly ridiculous about Barry Bonds is that at the point he started roiding (and, YES, others were doing it as well but that, to me, is a lame excuse) at the point in his career that Barry Bonds started roiding (do you read the book about it and the San Mateo based lab and all that?) he already had HOF numbers.

He already was a great player........why tarnish that with roids just to push himself to some super stat totals that all end up with an asterisk.

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.

14 minutes ago, Blarg said:

He was jacked up on roids that no other player dared to venture. He had Hall of Fame career going and started a normal decline at age 32 then became a freak of science. There is nothing admirable about what he did and deserves no greater standing just because he could cheat his way to the numbers you seem to think are relevant in the discussion.

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

17 hours ago, disarcina said:

you would have a tough time convincing me that Barry Bonds was better than either Willie Mays or Hank Aaron.

 

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

12 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

It's understandable that you have a hard-on for Eppler.

12 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

instead of omitting your foolishness.

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

20 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

But questioning the intelligence of a plan when you don't know what the plan is -- is IMO dumb.

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.

1 hour ago, Inside Pitch said:

I think you're mistaking me for someone else -- I would have preferred he worked the edges, all I wanted that first off-season was for him to fix the pen and add pitching, I've been a run prevention guy for a lot longer than it's been fashionable.  My beefs were pretty consistent... I hated the free pass people gave him and believed his work with the farm was atrocious.

Sorry.... but I never agreed with everyone here that wrote everything off as a case " It's not his fault look at what he had handed to him".  I've said rather often that I didn't believe he had it all that bad -- and no, my view didn't change as things went sideways.  Mike Trout, Cron, Richards, Shoemaker, Grichuk, and Chatwood in the farm system.  The still in their primes Kendrick, Aybar, Trumbo, Walden, Weaver, and Santana, -- Haren was tapering off but still effective even if he did have a disastrous season his final year in Anaheim.  JD was unlucky with Bourjos and the injury bug but he still had serviceable to above average vets in Callaspo, Hunter and a back from the dead Morales.   He was also gifted with 350 million dollars worth of FA money at hello.. 

I've never faulted him for AP, and I'm one of the very few that believes his Grienke trade was as good a use of organizational currently and max return on value as we have EVER seen in Anaheim, but there isn't a single aspect of the team you can point to that anyone can argue was better when he left it than when he got here and I guess that leads to my final thought on the issue..

When push comes to shove, I just happen to believe that all those excuses people used for JD actually DO apply to Eppler, I wish Eppler had inherited the team JD did from perspective of team talent and payroll flexibility.  Despite your constantly shitting on him, Eppler's had to work with a lot less and been far better at working towards a goal than what we saw previously (this applies to Reagins too).  Also, like Dipoto he got saddled with his manager, but unlike JD he seems to have actually forged a working relationship there instead of the divisive BS we had to sit through for a few years.  I don't believe that Eppler and JD are working to achieve the same things in their first couple of seasons as GM.  I don't believe their actions dictate a similar approach, the moves might seem similar (I think thats what you're trying to hint at), but the actions seem to be driven by vastly different motives and needs.

Edit: FWIW -- getting out from ANY of the Wells contract is another JD gem.   I don't believe he ever got enough credit for that bit of magic.

 

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.

3 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

Why would someone that had no part in obtaining any of Trout, Calhoun or Richards be credited with them?    JD inherited an underappreciated farm system that had the best player in MLB in it and had just graduated Mark Trumbo.   The Angels system may have been shallow but it had some more to it than it was given credit for.  Honestly, Arte's meddling aside JD walked into a situation where the owner was willing and able to spend and the farm system had MLB ready talent in it -- compare that to what Eppler walked in and it's night and day.   Thankfully, Arte's bonus baby comes off the books after this season, so hopefully we will get to see if Eppler is good at spending money as he is working without it.

Agreed on Eppler.  Sometimes a GM will look better when he's forced to work within a budget because he cant spend the sort of money that can come back to bite a team in the ass.  As much as I like what Eppler has done, we still need to see how well he does when he has money and spend.

 

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?

3 hours ago, Dochalo said:

TD pulls the battery out of the carbon monoxide detector because it keeps beeping.  

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

4 hours ago, Stradling said:

Honestly it's all speculation but I could easily see a team that is a pitcher away from dealing their top prospect along with other prospects for a chance to catch lightning in a bottle with Felix. 

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.

25 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Still a very movable contract and yes he would fetch a pretty damn good return.  The Dodgers would take him as would the Rangers. 

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.

8 hours ago, Blarg said:

You talk too much. Hernandez would be gone in 30 seconds if he lifted his no trade clause, Cruz would take a little over a minute. And you didn't say this? 

Realistically they were stuck with all three...

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.

52 minutes ago, Blarg said:

Hernandez is easily the biggest trade chip in the Mariners organization and would bring in a haul of talent. Nelson Cruz has two more years at $14.5, another big trade chip that would rake prospects. Only Cano is immoveable. 

You had earlier said something about building narratives, yours seems to be all excuses Dipoto.

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.

4 hours ago, Dochalo said:

not sure.  They're gonna be a solid team with a chance to make the playoffs.  I am not sure which method I like better.  

The Dipoto method which to me is a series of lateral moves and/or mild upgrades with a death by a thousand cuts to the farm system.  Trades for high floor guys who are likely to do ok

or

The Eppler method where you roll the dice on 1yr lesser trades and minor league free agents that may end up productive but most likely end up producing like minor league free agents.  

the latter is more likely to give you a sustainable future while the former gives you a better chance to win now.  After seeing what the former does when you don't draft well, I'm inclined to favor the latter.  But where we're headed isn't exactly a short road back to being competitive either.  The presence of Trout complicates how to proceed as well.  

tough call.   

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.

5 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

Anyway, I see a a fair amount of club control going out the door.  The M's better hope JD's team drafts a hell of a lot better than they did for us.  Because at the end of the day, while a lot of the talent he moved for more established players wasn't exactly front line, it depletes the overall amount of org currency.  We should have been able to recover from moving Almonte, Diaz, Sanchez, Pena, Segura, Sappington, Clevinger, Chatwood, Lindsey, Alvarez, Grichuk, Geltz, Amarista, Roach, Rondon, Krehbiel.  But that's just a ton of volume when what is coming back is giving you production for 1-3 years or so even though its doesn't seem like a huge outlay on the front end.  

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.

1 hour ago, cezero said:

any knowledgeable baseball fan in or out of seattle knew it would take at least 2 or 3 cycles of winter/july trades for any GM to make the m's a contender after the catastrophe of jack z and the idiotic ownership group in place until just a few months ago with the coup.

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.

11 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

That's because Bourjos was a better defensive center fielder than Trout.

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."

42 minutes ago, Stradling said:

You can subtract all of Hank Aaron's homeruns from his hit totals and he still has more hits lifetime than Barry Bonds.  Hank Aaron is criminally underrated as an all time great.  

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.

11 hours ago, eligrba said:

This reminds how amazing Henry Aaron and Willie Mays were during their time.

Fuck Barry Bonds........

Bonds was better than them by quite a bit.

3 hours ago, Hubs said:

Bottom line is he signed an extension, when he didn't have to, in 2014, which gave his rights away for his first three seasons of free agency. He wouldn't have done that if he didn't like playing here or wanted to be a free agent. 

Stop the Trout Panic. 

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.