What Will Washburn Do?

So Jon Morosi tweets that Jarrod Washburn will retire if he doesn't get a reasonable offer from the two clubs he wants to play for, the Twins or the M's.

Got me thinking... what would he do in retirement?  Here are some ideas:

He would demonstrate "veteran savvy" while shopping at Best Buy.
He'd be "gritty" on the lake fishing for trout.
His "left-handedness" would come in handy with the remote in one and a PBR in the other.
He would "gut out" nights of hold 'em poker when the cards weren't coming to him
Every 5th day, he'd give his all when he rides the John Deere around the Washburn turf.
He'd show his "moxie" as he told stories of hating Kenji Johjima to his kids by the campfire.
Um... flipper...sarcasm...flipper...snark.  I don't know.

Homeless people all over Detroit are seen in these.

Note to GMZ

Trade Jarrod Washburn now.

RIGHT NOW.

His numbers look ridiculous. 1.71 ERA, 14 hits over 21 IP. 4 walks and 17K's. He struck out 9 tonight. He's the second coming of a 1997 Randy Johnson. His numbers will NEVER LOOK BETTER THAN THEY DO TODAY FOR THE REMAINDER OF HUMAN EXISTENCE.

You know how many times he's struck out more than 9 in the last 7 years? Once. You know how good Washburn really is? Not very. Now go out and fool someone, Z.

You know who looks pretty pitching starved right now is the Yankees... maybe we can right a wrong from about a year ago and get rid of this brutal contract while the gettin is good.

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.