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Nelson Cruz
CuntWaffle
Member Posts: 22,499
Great move, should have been made last year. Go get Melky Cabrera and you are a legit threat.
Comments
I've actually always wondered why a pro baseball team isn't in Omaha. It's basically the Holy Grail of college baseball, and decent population size.
The argument would point to his ability to play the OF and get on base.
From a defensive perspective, if you like defensive WAR, then you'll find that Melky is a negative player with his glove.
From an offensive perspective, his '12 season looks like an outlier from an OBP perspective. While he posts a high batting average (over .300 in 3 of the last 4 years, only year it wasn't over .300 was in a shortened '13 season), he hasn't had more than 43 walks in a season since his rookie year.
Your lineup as it currently is shaping up is actually a very productive one IF you can get the one remaining hole plugged:
CF Jackson (R)
LF Ackley (L)
2B Cano (L)
DH Cruz (R)
3B Seager (L)
RF TBD (R)
1B Morrison (L)
C Zunino (R)
SS Miller/Taylor (L/R)
4th OF for 400 ABs (barring a trade) = Saunders (L)
In an ideal world, you find a strong deal for a RHB such that you can drop Cruz to 6th in the order. The proposed deal that was bantered about regarding Braun makes a lot of sense if the cost is Paxton and Miller ASSUMING that you then close on a top FA pitcher (i.e. Lester) and then round out the rotation with a buy low type candidate like Brandon McCarthy. If you get Braun, such that your lineup then reads:
LF Ackley (L)
RF Braun (R)
2B Cano (L)
DH Cruz (R)
3B Seager (L)
CF Jackson (R)
1B Morrison (L)
C Zunino (R)
SS Taylor (R)
4th OF for 400 ABs = Saunders
That's a championship caliber lineup that can string together both production and balance.
What people need to forget about at this point is the "cost" of a player. An extra few million is covered from winning a division, winning a league, and winning the World Series. You are one bat away from filling out your lineup in a way that makes you fairly dangerous up and down the order. You have a high-end rotation that includes 2-3 young pitchers that still have growth (this is also the one area where the club needs to build up additional depth to ensure that they aren't buried by one injury or one downturn in performance from the rotation). The bullpen will continue to be a bright spot with the only area that could really hurt them would be a downturn from Rodney putting extra stress on the pen such that there's not enough depth to cover it (which I don't think that the depth issue will become a problem in any event).
The job of Jack Z at this point is as much about minimizing risk as it is building a top level club. The club is now good enough to get to the postseason ... his job is to make sure that it gets there.
Further, the way that the lineup looks now, there's enough stability in it such that when a kid like DJ Peterson is ready, he'll be asked to come into the lineup at the bottom half of the order where there's less pressure on him.
Melky would bring a good punch to he lineup and is reasonable.
Let's also not crown Peterson yet like every Mariner fan does for every minor leaguer who then come up and suck or be average at best (with he exception of Seager)
Trading Braun, who's coming off his worst season in the major leagues now at age 31 and is still owed nearly 100 million for an extremely promising cost control LHP in paxton and Miller, who is still young is a good trade from the brewers perspective.
Miller is projected to be a +2.3 WAR player next season for 500,000, Paxton +1.7 for 500,000. Braun is projected for +2.8 at 20 million dollars in 2015.
Cruz fills a need and may push them over the top and into the playoffs however it isn't that sound an investment. I'm more indifferent to it than anything
Mariners get Braun
Dodgers get Paxton and Jean Segura
Brewers get Kemp and MIller
I'd agree that from the Brewers standpoint, the deal looks a bit light and I'd ask for at least another piece or two (think something like Scott Van Slyke, etc).
That being said, one has to wonder if Braun will take not only a bit of a fall for the Brewers collapse, but also it might be the best for both sides to part ways. Add to that 5 years and $105M owed to Braun, and the Brewers may be ok with getting what they'd view as a comparable player in Kemp if they can get the Dodgers to eat some of the money going back.
If the mariners were to receive cash in that deal I think it's one that would make sense for all sides.
Miller's wRC+ in 2014 was 20 points higher than Segura's.
You can't justify giving up those 2 prospects for Braun while he's making 20 million, if another team is willing to eat some of that maybe
When you talk about Miller's WAR for next year, what is Taylor's WAR for next year projected to be? What is the WAR for each player on a per game or per AB perspective? The reality is that both of these players appear to be relatively comparable and as such, you're dealing from a position of excess when you move one of them. I'm not against keeping both and allowing competition and performance to dictate results, but that's a potential luxury.
I really like the upside on Paxton. I would not want to move him unless I'm looking at the right deal. The reality is that the Mariners are in a position where they are going to maximize their chances to win over the next 4 seasons. At this point, Paxton has never pitched a full 30-35 start season at the big league level. When you include Walker and Elias in this, you have 3 pitchers that have never done this. Not only are you banking on 60% of your rotation holding up over 162 games, but you're also in a best case scenario asking for anywhere from 3-4 more starts on top of that if you get all the way to the World Series. IF any of these young starters break down you're looking at not only putting stress on one of the strengths of your club (the bullpen), but you also run the risk of that stress then filtering over into how you manage starts made by Felix and Kuma - which could create additional downstream impacts. I personally am not comfortable with having 3 young starters in the rotation for next season without a Plan B in place. The upside for these young pitchers is high ... but with the upside comes SIGNIFICANT risk. And when you are in a win-now mode, reducing risk is what you should be looking at.
Braun being projected at a 2.8 WAR player in 2015 is interesting to me. By all accounts he had an injury plagued year last year and produced a 1.9 WAR offensively. The concerning part would be that he had a -1.6 WAR defensively (although throughout his career he's been more or less neutral defensively). However, when you take away the last two years, his lowest offensive WAR was 3.9, and the lowest after that was 4.7. Even in an injury plagued year last year, he still amassed 55 extra base hits - which would have ranked him right inline with Cano and Seager for tops on the Mariners. If healthy, he's a threat to be a 70+ extra base player which is massive for a Mariners team where pitching dominates.
Think about it this way:
Last year, over 162 games, the Mariners scored 2 runs or less in 60 of the 162 games - that's 37% of their total games. Their record in those games was 8-52. In contrast, they gave up more than 4 runs only 45 out of 162 games last year. 99 of 162 games they gave up 3 runs or less.
The quickest way for the Mariners to get into the playoffs (which they only need to find probably 5 more wins to put them in a really high percentage chance for them to get there) is to dramatically reduce the percentage of games where they score 2 or fewer runs a game.
If you look at the team stats last year, it's easy to point to the lack of on-base % as a driving factor of the team's lack of ability in scoring runs since the team OBP was .300. However, the league leading OBP was only .331 and the league average was .316. Long story short, the difference between the H + BB + HBP for the Tigers (leading OBP) and the Mariners (last OBP) turns out to be a runner and a half different per game. Shoring up just a few of the weaknesses in the lineup last year (improved DH + improved SS + improved 1B) will narrow most of that gap. But the biggest problem with the Mariners is their inability to score quick runs. They were just under league average in HR. They were average in steals (but that will go down with James Jones not playing). They were 14th out of 15 in doubles - 78 doubles behind the league leading Tigers. Think about it this way, a double at Safeco Field with a runner on first base is LIKELY to score a run if it is hit into the power alleys.
The Mariners don't need an offense that will score 5+ runs a game to be a really good team. They need a team that can consistently score 3-4 runs per night while limiting the nights where they get limited to 2 runs or less. The fastest way to get there is increasing the number of hitters that can create runs faster.
Finally, I laugh when I hear people say that RBIs are overrated statistics because it's a byproduct of how many people get on base in front of you. While that last part is certainly true, being able to produce runs in those situations is most definitely a skill and based on having an understanding of what is required in a situation and then going about your AB to produce the desired outcome. The number of examples with the Mariners last year where they'd have say a runner on 3rd and 1 out and not score a run were numerous. More run producers in the lineup also means that you're going to have guys that are comfortable producing in those situations. And with the way the Mariners pitch, being able to get the runner in from 3rd with 1 out is just as meaningful as hitting a solo HR.
There clearly would be risk with Braun ... but for a team trying to win a title, that risk is quite certainly worth the reward.
And moreover, with the Mariners revenue streams in place combined with the number of players that they have on their roster with limited salaries as they are under club control, they have plenty of room to spend money while still turning significant profits.
If you're in a position where you're trying to win the entire thing in a league without a cap, your payroll becomes a little more of a blurred line.
Moreover, the current Mariner ownership is getting older by the years and there have been rumors in recent years of the team going on the market in the future. It would not shock me at all if this is a situation where you have some owners looking at this situation as their last best shot to win a championship. And in the process, winning a championship is good for business as not only will short-term attendance pick up, but so will local/team advertising dollars, TV ratings (including advertising), and in the end franchise value will increase.
I think one of Liriano, McCarthy, Volquez, or Santana makes sense for them.
And RBI is overrated, it's usually not predictable year to year.
Miguel Cabrera is a good hitter because he puts up XBH, HR's, hits for a high average, gets on base, slugging percentage, etc. Not because of RBI. Yoenis Cespedes drove in 100 runs last year, more than a long list of cleanup hitters who had superior offensive numbers, some not even close. It's a good single game stat, it's not a good individual metric over an entire season
Me wanting cash involved is not because I think they should go cheap, but because Braun at this moment is not worth 2 promising young players + 20 million
What type of player would be worth 2 promising young players + $20M a year in salary?
How far away is Braun from that player? Is he capable of producing at that level? Has he produced at that level? Is there a reasonable expectation that he could produce that going forward?
You talk about Upton. While from a $$$ standpoint he's a better 1-year alternative. However, he's a free agent after the year, will probably command a $20M+ salary once he reaches free agency (if he reaches it), and in the event he doesn't resign, you're trading 2 players for 1 year instead of with Braun you'd have 5 years of club control (plus an option year).
IF Braun was a top 3 MVP candidate last year, there's probably very little chance that he'd be on the market, and if he was, he'd cost far more than 2 prospects. He's the definition of a buy low, high risk, high reward player if you make the trade.
I never said I'd deal Paxton and miller for Upton, I'd be more inclined to deal them for Braun.