The Post Bavasi Era

The firing of GM Bill Bavasi brings up some interesting questions today: How much of the Mariners' miserable direction can be blamed on Bavasi vs the rest of upper management? If he wasn't there, would the roster look dramatically different?

I'd have to guess the answers are "A Lot" and "Yes." But time will tell. If the Mariners sign another below average starter to another $9MM+, 3+ year contract this offseason, then we should let Bavasi off the hook for this mess. In the meantime, I'm curious to find out how long the Mariners will wait to make major roster shakeups like replacing Silva/Batista/Dickey (pick one) in the rotation with Morrow, cutting Sexson, giving Clement a full-time gig and shifting Vidro to full-time pinch-hitting duties.

Personally I don't think they have much to gain by cutting Sexson. Sure his career is pretty much over. But he's our only power off the bench. The Mariners have plenty of other players to send down in order to make room for Clement. With that said, the next time Sexson refuses to comply with management's orders they sould suspend him and pocket the cash add to their aquisition warchest in the offseason.

Degenerative Hips, Ambulance Chasers, and Bad Negotiating.

Bavasi: "Andy, it's Bill."

McPhail: "Hey, how are you?"

B: "Fine, fine... Pelekoudas just brought me a nice ham sandy and a venti latte."

M: "you still got Squiggy doing scouting for you guys?"

B: "hmm...I'd have to ask Looper, I don't know. So hey - you want to do this Bedard deal or what?"

M: "Jones and who was it again?"

B: "Sherill, Tillman, your choice of a couple PTBNL's..."

M: "You sure you want to do that? Bedard is good, but..."

B: audibly eating sandwich..."job's on the line, Andy - I can't wait for next year. I mean, come on - didn't you see I gave Silva almost $50 million?

M: "Hahahahahahaha..."

B: "Hahahahahahaha..."

M: "Hahahahahah...oh, man...Bill...you're killing me... that's rich... okay, yeah, sure - let's do this thing. Get Jones on a plane to Baltimore for a physical"

B: "will do"

M: "I just need to talk to Peter to get the go-ahead"

B: "fuck"

M: "oh, don't worry - he brought me here so I could make deals like this on my own"

B: "fuck"

M: "just hold the line, Billy..."

M: dialing Angelos...

Angelos: "Andy, this better be good, I'm having my Monday rub-n-tug"

M: "Seattle wants to give us Jones, Sherill, Tillman and a couple others for Bedard."

A: "Honey, honey...stop that for a minute... Andy, say that again?"

M: "You heard me."

A: "Do they want Roberts too?"

M: "Just Bedard"

A: "Huh. So they're not that bright. Make something up to throw a wrench in the deal and get other teams involved to drive the price up."

M: "Like what?"

A: "I don't know, something that will scare Baltimore fans. Think of Joey Belle... say he's got a bum hip - leak it to the press"

M: "doesn't that seem unethical?"

A: "Bwahahahahahahah...bwahahahahahah... you're funny Andy, that's why I hired you. Gotta go. Okay, toots, I ain't got all day, get back to work..."

M: "uh, Billy - you still there?"

B: "Yeah, just called Adam to tell him to get on a plane, that he's being traded for Bedard. Kid is disappointed - Venezuelan finals and all - but understands."

M: "Yeah, uh - Peter has some personal matters to tend to today, so we'll have to get back to you, maybe tomorrow or the next day."

B: "fuck"

M: "nothing to worry about, I'm sure it's just his osteoarthritis or something"

B: "osteo-what?"

M: "nothing. Forget it... we'll talk tomorrow"

click.

click.

B: "Sally, get Adam on the phone and make sure he doesn't say anything to the press about this. And call the Twins for me. Then get Willie in here to wax my head."

What's Good?

I've been reading lately about how the Mariners simply paid the going rate for a good pitcher in today's market as a way of explaining a $48 million dollar contract for Carlos Silva. You know, I don't really have a problem with that in principle - if you want good players, you need to pay what the market calls for, unless you can beg your way into some kind of hometown discount, which is rare.

But I have a problem with the assessment of the notion of "good". What's "good"?

Well, in grading systems - "good" is a B - it's well above average. You're better than the average Joe, but you're not outstanding.

Fortunately, we have a statistic to measure what an average pitcher is, and it controls for what kind of a park you pitch in on any given day - it's called "Adjusted ERA+". If you score 100, you're the exact league average. If you score 110, you're slightly better than average; 90 is slightly below average. Pretty simple.

Examples for you - Paul Byrd, with a 4.59 ERA had an ERA+ of 100. Tim Wakefield, with a 4.76 had an ERA+ of 100. Byrd has the better ERA, but because he pitches in a less-hitter friendly park, his Adjusted ERA+ indicates he's really no better than average - he is Wakefield's equivalent.

Josh Beckett had an ERA+ of 145; Erik Bedard - 146; Danny Haren - 137. They're outstanding. Got it?

So is Carlos Silva "good"? His ERA+ was 103. All things being equal, he's average. Huh. So we're buying average? $48 million dollars for average, not good.

Let's look at the projected Mariner rotation then.

* Felix Hernandez ERA+ 110
* Miguel Batista ERA+ 101
* Carlos Silva ERA+ 103
* Jarrod Washburn ERA+ 100

See a pattern developing? Bill is having a hard time assessing what's good - because according to this, you have yourself exactly one starting pitcher that's better than average.

And that ain't good.