Where Were The Mariners On Adrian Gonzalez Deal?
August 26th, 2012 by terrybenishNow that the Mariners were non-players in the Adrian Gonzalez derby and really can you imagine? They would have received Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett, some $40 mm a year in budget, in fact only $22 above this year’s with Ichiro money gone which would have put them below the 2009 Mariner budget.
All of those guys would do well in Safeco, two left handed bats, a great center fielder and gap hitter and a chance for Josh Beckett to win a Cy Young (this deal and park would have been ideal for him). Adrian Gonzalez would have been perfect here, his splits against Seattle suck, so his stats would go up. Anybody would be better than Smoak and their are no free agent guys, so if the Ms are to get better it will be through dumpster diving for cuts.
The Dodgers gave nothing back to the Red Sox, Loney a minor league pitcher rehabbing from TJ surgery and a middling arm. The Mariners could certainly have beat that with some actual prospects.
It suggests more than anything that the Mariner ownership has no interest or trust in their baseball executives or any baseball executives for that matter, which suggests sale of the team to me real soon.
It also suggests rank stupidity. Can you imagine what would have happened to attendance and TV ratings and thus revenue? Would have dwarfed the cost. Over a season 500,000 more in attendance is worth $40,000,000 more in revenue, 1,000,000 $80,000,000 more? You’d still be below 2001, 2002 attendance levels. Just bad businessmen.
They could have done this and still managed their salary ok. So why not do the deal baseball wise? Well Gonzalez in July and August has an OPS of .928 and .972 respectively. Crawford is having surgery on his throwing elbow. Sucked in Boston after leaving Tampa, surgery is no big deal and Los Angeles might present some microscope issues. Beckett can still pitch, but does not seem to be aware that he should not do stupid things on days he’s not pitching. That might be a big deal with Mariners who have traded away guys due to the PR factor around player problems as in Freddie Garcia and Carlos Guillen.
All of these guys passed through waivers before the Dodgers claimed them. The Mariners would have had an earlier claim than the Dodgers.
None of the available free agents at first base match up to Gonzalez and Crawford returning to form is a Safeco type of player. Beckett is a flake but can still pitch.
Swing and a miss.
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August 26th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
This is a joke, right? You would willingly take on three horrendous contracts like the ones Beckett, A-Gon and Crawford are signed to? And the Dodgers gave up nothing?! Are you SERIOUS?!
I don’t even know where to start… This was a terrible deal for the Dodgers and would have been much worse a deal for the M’s to try and swing.
The Dodgers overpaid by a large margin, whether you realize that or not. Baseball America ranked Allan Webster as the number 2 prospect in the Dodgers system this year. He’s probably not on par with a Danny Hultzen or Taijuan Walker, but he’s more or less about as talented as say James Paxton. He’s no joke. Rubby De La Rosa and Jerry Sands were ranked 3 and 6 in Baseball America’s 2011 edition, and the only reason they weren’t ranked in 2012 is because they lost rookie eligibility because of their major league service time.
The Dodgers traded roughly 60% of the top 5 of their farm. There are no ifs ands or buts about it, the Dodgers paid dearly for the package they got. For you to say that the Dodgers gave up nothing is plain dumb on your part. Do some research before you right this stuff.
A-Gon has seen his BB% drop SIGNIFICANTLY in the last four years (17.5% in 2009 to 5.8% in 2012), his ISO (isolated slugging) has dropped 100 points in that same time frame. He’s declining plain and simple, and the Mariners would be idiotic to take his contract for free, let alone give up prospects for him. The only reason A-Gon’s numbers are still respectable are the friendly confines of Fenway (especially for lefties) and an unsustainable BABIP.
Crawford has been absolutely terrible this year, and even in his prime TB days I don’t think he’s worth the money he was signed for. You want Crawford? Sign Michael Bourne in the offseason for a fraction of what Crawford will make and VIOLA! You have a better player than Crawford.
Don’t get me started on Beckett. I see no upside in Beckett, maybe at league minimum, but not at the premium price he’ll be making.
Did you know that only one player with over $100 million still on their contract has even been traded? That was Alex Rodriguez when the Rangers sent him to New York for Alfonso Soriano among others. Both Crawford and Gonzalez have more than $100 million remaining on their deals. This trade is a colossus fail on the Dodgers part, but atleast with their new ownership, it’s a mistake they can afford to make. The Mariner’s don’t have that luxury.
Oh, and there’s a reason the M’s didn’t claim any of the players involved. It’s the same reason no other team did. (Not that it would’ve mattered because the NL gets first dibs on AL players waived and vise versa) General managers have gentlemen agreements with each other that prevent teams from messing up waiver deals. The Mariners knew that Adrian and co. were headed to the Dodgers and even if they could have claimed him first (which they couldn’t anyways), they wouldn’t have. Not unless they plan on doing business with other GMs anytime soon.
Long story short, this would’ve been a terrible, terrible deal. To argue otherwise is short-sighted.
August 26th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Just to clarify
“All of these guys passed through waivers before the Dodgers claimed them. The Mariners would have had an earlier claim than the Dodgers”
That’s a bit of a contradiction to say they cleared waivers first and then were claimed by the Dodgers. If they cleared waivers they’d be eligible to be traded to any club. They didn’t clear waivers because the Dodgers put claims on all of them.
And the Mariners would not have had an earlier claim than the Dodgers. The NL team with the worst record gets first dibs on any player waived by an AL team. The NL team with the second worst record gets second, and so on and so on. After every NL team has had a chance to claim a player, then the AL team with the worst record gets a chance, then second, then third, etc.
For all we know the M’s could’ve put a claim on Gonzalez, they just wouldn’t have won the claim over the Dodgers.
August 26th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Matthew, thanks for writing. Bad week in Boston? Gonzalez was pedestrian in the first three months of the season, but has posted an OPS of .928 in July and through Friday .972. Crawford will be fine, too.
Beckett will too.
August 26th, 2012 at 6:33 pm
The Mariners could have claimed any of them before they got to the Dodgers to put in their claim.
Even with all of these contracts the Ms payroll would have only been increased by $20 mm above it’s level at the start of this season.
Who would you rather have Justin Smoak or Adrian Gonzalez?
This would have worked at so many levels. Most of baseball thinks that the Mariner ownership and executive management are idiots, which results in the Mariners complete inability to sign Class A free agents. Making a trade like this would perhaps slay that hurdle in the minds of future free agents.
Winning and competing would also generate revenue and bringing them further faster on the rebuild.
August 26th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Wow, I’m sorry, I’m not sure why I’ve been operating under the belief that the waiver claims would go to the teams in the other league first. You are absolutely right about the Mariners being able to claim him. The reason they didn’t is because as I mentioned, teams make it very clear to each other when a waiver trade is going through, so that other teams don’t mess with it.
That does however mean that the M’s could’ve talked to the Sox about swinging a deal. They probably did, but couldn’t work anything out, as we know Jack Z has previously expressed interest in Adrian Gonzalez.
To your point about having Adrian or Justin, of course I’d rather have Gonzalez. That’s a no brainer. Factor in contracts and it gets a little bit iffier. I’m not a big fan of handing out huge contracts to anyone (except the King, of course), but it does seem like the team is going to have to open up the checkbook sooner or later. Right now I’m fairly satisfied with how the team has been built. Guys like Saunders, Seager, Montero, Ackley, Wells, Thames, Jaso, etc. are all making minimum salary or right around that. The M’s seem to finally have put together a decent crew of young, team-controlled players.
I do agree that we need to add a good hitter or two to that bunch (specifically at 1B), but I just don’t think taking on the $300+ million in contracts the Red Sox shipped out is the answer.
I know the free agent market for this offseason looks pretty barren, but I’d rather save money than spend it just to say you spent it. Having Crawford, Beckett and Gonzo on this team would tie up so much payroll that could be used in free agency, trades, international market, etc.
I’m all for adding a couple of big contracts in a trade, but not 3 of them, and not for as much as the Red Sox wanted. The Dodgers had a fairly weak farm system anyways, and this trade just emptied it.
August 27th, 2012 at 8:18 am
I’m not so sanguine that Jack talked with Cherington as it is almost a given that the key to selling the Mariners in the mind of Lincoln and Armstrong is to reduce payroll. That combined with the potential new TV deal is uppermost in their mind to get the most money.
The Red Sox have been a cess pool all year and that goes to explain the performances of Beckett and the slow start of AGon. Crawford is hurt, but will come back. He thrived in a quieter setting than Boston and I’m not sure he gets that.
The addition of those contracts would have been a net increase of $22 million due to Ichiro windfall, still well within their historical budget range and the additional cost would be more than covered by the reversing of the decline in attendance in terms of revenue.
There are no first basemen in the system, nor outfield prospects that project.
The local beat writer’s parade has demanded two bats and both of those bats do not interrupt the plan to rebuild.
Saunders for sure can play and should be left alone in center field and Thames is trying to hit his way onto the team, but in the past three games his defense cost the Mariners the Friday and Sunday game. Gutierrez is at best a mirage, but represents $7 mm next year. If he plays at all this fall they should trade him as he has been unable to play consistently for the better part of two plus years.
August 27th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Maybe these contracts only add $20 or so million to the team’s payroll without Ichiro, but IIRC Ichiro’s contract expired at the end of the year, while Gonzo and Crawford are under contract til at least 2017 (I think Gonzo longer, I don’t feel like looking it up though lol).
So while it may not be a substantial increase over this year’s budget, getting into the later years of the deals, the Mariners would definitely regret paying $20+ million a year to two players approaching 40.
As for first base, I’m not completely convinced that Mike Carp doesn’t become anything. It’s probably a longshot, but I’ve liked him since the team first acquired him. In addition, with the way Mike Zunino has been playing, we’re not going to be able to squeeze Montero, Jaso, Zunino (and possibly guys like Marder, Hicks, Choi, etc) behind the plate. I think there’s a very real possibility that we see Montero take over the reigns at first. Honestly, between Smoak, Carp, Montero and Jaso, I think the M’s have first covered if they can’t pick someone up via trade.
August 27th, 2012 at 7:08 pm
Gonzalez is 30, Crawford is 31 and Beckett is 32, so nobody is approaching 40 for a while anyway.
If you have read this blog you will know that I’ve extolled Carp as a talented and cheap solution. But like Wells, the organization does not think that Carp is special. Smoak is done.
Thames and Robinson can not both play, because they are bad outfielders. You can put one of them out there, but not two.
Gutierrez is just not something you can count on at all. Wells and Saunders are the best overall players there. With Thames and Robinson there is enough abs to get each of them over 400 plate appearances. Crawford is better than all of them.