 |
||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
The Power of the Proven Veteran The strange world of Bill Bavasi 01/13/04 Andy Brown When the Mariners announced the hiring of Bill Bavasi to replace Pat Gillick, I was very skeptical. Instead of hiring a fresh and forward-looking candidate, the Mariners chose to recycle the old-school former Angels GM. I figured I would give him the benefit of the doubt, however. After all, he did lay the groundwork for the Angels' World Series club (although he did make numerous questionable decisions along the way and they only won it after Bill Stoneman took over). So far, Bavasi's moves have left me wanting. In 2003, the Mariners won 93 games and their Pythagorean projection had them at 99 wins (which was more than both the A's 96 actual wins and 95 projected). Entering the off-season the Mariners had relatively few key free agents, but they were important players in the persons of Edgar Martinez, Arthur Rhodes, Mike Cameron, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, and Armando Benitez. Eligible for arbitration were Carlos Guillen, Ben Davis, Ryan Franklin, Freddy Garcia, Gil Meche, Joel Piniero, Ichiro Suzuki, and Randy Winn. By simply keeping the team close to intact and filling whatever holes were created, Bavasi could have easily put together a squad capable of once again being among the best clubs in baseball. Instead of improving the club, however, Bavasi has reduced the talent level. The most obvious gaffe Bavasi made this off-season was his strange fixation on dealing Carlos Guillen. While Guillen has been injury prone, they have either been of the minor or freak type, rather than the skill-declining major form. At 28, in his prime, and making just $2.5 million in 2003, Guillen seemed to be a good asset. So it was more than a bit shocking to see the Mariners try to deal him to the Indians for Omar Vizquel. Vizquel turns 37 on Opening Day, is declining, is scheduled to make $6 million this season, and is coming off a season which saw him post a .657 OPS. So let's get this straight, you want to trade for someone who is older, more expensive, and not as good? What reality does this make sense in? Thankfully for the Mariners, they were saved from their own stupidity when Vizquel failed his physical. Unfortunately for Mariners fans, Bavasi was still intent on replacing Guillen. The hammer fell on January 8th when the Mariners signed Rich Aurilia to a one-year deal worth $3.5 million. At 32, Aurilia is also older, more expensive, and in decline. Is he better right now? On the surface, no. Aurilia had a .735 OPS last season, while Guillen was at .753. EQA? Aurilia .260, Guillen .274. RARP? Aurilia 18.8, Guillen 21.3. Win Shares? Aurilia 13, Guillen 12. Considering their ages and past performances, it is reasonable to conclude that they will remain stable in terms of their performance with perhaps a slight drop-off for both players. Aurilia, of course, has a chance to decline sharply, but I wouldn't predict it. If Guillen can play in as many games as Aurilia does this season (given his injury history, not likely, but certainly within the realm of possibility), the difference between the two is even greater. If the Mariners had turned around and flipped Guillen for something useful, I could have seen the logic here. Instead, they traded him to the Tigers for Ramon Santiago, a utility IF at best, and Juan Gonzalez, a AAA starter at best. I simply do not understand the logic here at all. Unfortunately, this is just the most glaring example of Bavasi's bumbling. For someone with an obvious lack of statistical understanding like Bill Bavasi, Mike Cameron must have seemed like an obvious choice to let go. Hell, Cameron was even disliked by many Mariners fans. Cameron has the unfortunate distinction of hitting for a low average while striking out a lot. The layman, or the Bavasiman, sees these as being terrible traits. Cameron, however, does other things very well, more than enough to make up for his flaws. In addition to being arguably the best defensive centerfielder in baseball, Cameron's secondary skills are considable. He hits with power, draws walks, and steals bases (admittedly not at a very high success rate). Cameron has also been hurt by Safeco Field more than most Mariners. Over the last three seasons, Cameron has hit .224/.324/.385 at Safeco compared to .278/.364/.510 on the road. In other words, Cameron is a very good player who fails to be appreciated for what he does well by many. In any case, Cameron was let go and the Mets snapped him up for three years at roughly $6.5 million per season, a bargain in my eyes. Even assuming that the Mariners simply could not have brought Cameron back, their choice of replacement was baffling. While Raul Ibanez has put up pretty good numbers the last few years in Kansas City, they weren't THAT great; he was getting them in the context of the best park in the AL, and he has nothing to offer defensively. Signed to a three-year deal worth roughly $4.5 million, Ibanez is at least cheaper. Ibanez turns 32 this season while Cameron turned 31 this month so the age difference isn't that spectacular. On the surface, the money saved plus Ibanez's perceived offensive superiority to Cameron obviously made the moves seem sensible enough to Bill Bavasi. In short, they weren't.
That is not a huge difference in performance, but it also fails to take in to account a huge factor. Cameron is a center fielder while Ibanez is a left fielder. After replacing Cameron with Ibanez, Randy Winn has to slide over to center from left. While Cameron is an exceptional CF, Winn is just average in center. In left, Winn is very good while Ibanez is, frankly, bad. In other words, you lose a little bit of offense at one position and a lot of defense at two. While not as clearly lopsided as the Guillen for Aurilia swap, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. Letting go of Arthur Rhodes was understandable and getting rid of the stinking corpse of Jeff Cirillo was a good move (even if it meant taking on a couple of the Padres' bad contracts). However, Bavasi's choices of replacements were not exactly ideal. To replace Rhodes, Bavasi went out and signed Proven Closer Eddie Guardado from the Twins. Again, to the layman or the Bavasiman, this looks great. After all, Guardado had a 2.89 ERA last year and 86 saves the past two years. What a catch! However, Guardado wasn't even close to the best reliever on his own team last year. While Guardado's adjusted runs prevented last season was 11.8, LaTroy Hawkins put up a 22.3 mark. Moreover, Guardado is also 33 and coming off of two seasons that were severely out of line with his career norm. Even after posting 2.93 and 2.89 the past two seasons, his career ERA still sits at 4.52. His most similar pitchers through age 32 are such legends as Mike Stanton, Mike Williams, Dan Miceli, Mark Wohlers, and Dan Plesac. Don't get me wrong; Guardado is a useful pitcher. However, the fact that Guardado is a Proven Closer means that he is by nature overrated and, more importantly, overpaid. Guardado will make just under $5 million a season for the next three years. The fact that the Mariners are planning to use him in a setup role makes this move look even worse. $5 million a year for simply an acceptable setup reliever is not very good allocation of resources. The Mariners also chose to re-sign another setup man coming off a career (and, in this case, fluke) season in Shigetoshi Hasegawa to a two-year deal worth over $2 million a season. Hasegawa is a good pitcher, but his low strikeout rate does not inspire my confidence and his season last year was so far out of line with his career norm that there is no other conclusion I can draw than he will fall off and quite possibly fall off hard. For this, the Mariners will pay him what the A's gave Arthur Rhodes. Jeff Cirillo was a black hole at third the last couple seasons and it was obvious he needed to be replaced. That does not mean that the signing of Scott Spiezio was a good idea. Spiezio has matured into a decent hitter, with a .271 EQA last year, and his skills will be better served playing the hot corner. However, Spiezio is 31 (noticing a trend here?), was signed for three seasons at $3 million a year, and has played the grand total of 134 games at third base. Too small a sample to make a definitive judgment, but his fielding percentage there was .929. It's not the worst signing in the world and it will certainly be an improvement over Cirillo, but if I were running the Mariners I would have looked for someone younger and cheaper via trade. Hell, they could have received roughly the same production from Robin Ventura at $1.2 million for one year. Any team should always be looking for ways to get younger, get cheaper, and get better. The Mariners have done the opposite on all three counts this off-season. Factoring in natural decline from their aging position players (they now have no one in their everyday lineup under the age of 30) and the backward steps from Bavasi and the Mariners 2004 version will be noticeably worse than that of 2003 vintage. That said, the Mariners still have a very good chance at making the playoffs. The A's, at least on paper, would not appear to be better (and many expect them to be worse) and while the Angels have greatly improved, they may not have improved enough to seriously challenge the leaders. It does make me wonder about Bavasi's skill as a GM. If he continues to botch off-season moves and spend money on aging, overrated players, the Mariners' window of opportunity will close very quickly. Andy Brown is recovering from his most recent crack binge. While you are free to comment on his article, he may ask you for drug money. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
©Copyright 2003
Phil Orr
|
