Two of these in a row has started us down a potentially dangerously slippery slope. Eventually we might be doing nothing but recording podcasts with all of our time. At least, that's how it works right? You take one step toward something and that means infinity steps are for sure going to happen?

Lookout Landing Podcast with Jeff and Matthew

iTunes link! RSS/XML link!

To those two of you who explicitly stated interest and any of those that silently have interest in helping us edit these things, here's a copy of the "raw" .mp3 audio file in stereo format. If you want to grab that and mix it however you deem best and then e-mail me either a sufficiently sized sample or the whole thing, we'll consider it. And thanks for volunteering. I hope you are satisfied with thanks because thanks are all you are likely to get.

I try to remain skeptical while not pessimistic about news. I prefer actions to words as words can be deliberately used for manipulation whereas actions, well those can be manipulative too, but the action still gets done. In the baseball world, this is nowhere more apparent than in managerial quotes, which I highlighted last summer. It's also readily seen with offseason rumors. You are all probably going to be saner if you just chill and wait for actual moves to occur rather than stressing out over tadpoles that will never develop into frogs.

Such has been my stance on the arena talks that have leaked recently and the inevitable hopes for a rekindled NBA and new-to-Seattle NHL teams. However

BREAKING: Source tells me press conference scheduled at #Seattle City Hall to announce deal on new sports arena complex...

— Chris Daniels (@ChrisDaniels5) February 16, 2012

this might start being worth paying attention to.

[17:51 UPDATE]: Seattle Times chips in with a short piece backing up, but not confirming, that talks are close. News conference scheduled for 2pm tomorrow.

Ah, the annual rites of baseball. Pitchers and catchers. Opening Day. The stupidly sort of meaningful All Star Game. Of course none of those compare to the fanfare and joy that accompany today's bit of news, the release of the Mariners' 2012 bobblehead schedule. The Mariners have set dates for four such promotions.

April 20: Ichiro Suzuki
May 25: Dustin Ackley
June 15: Felix Hernandez
July 28: dual Dan Wilson and Randy Johnson Mariner Hall of Fame bobblehead

That final bobblehead will coincide with the induction of the pair during a pregame ceremony which is probably preferable to an ingame ceremony because although I adore him, I'm not sure Randy Johnson has much left in the pitching tank and Dan Wilson... well... probably better than Miguel Olivo!*

*No. No he wouldn't be. You know what's not really a funny joke? The insert-retired-possibly-dead-player-or-generic-person is better than insert-underperforming-alive-Major-League-player joke. See how I just made a formula out of it? That usually means it's not that funny. Formulas are not funny unless they involve Avogadro's number.

It isn't just the bobbleheads that we were bestowed information about however, but some other toy-type giveaways are also planned. Here are some others!

May 4 (Smoakamotive Train Night): Sigh. Smoakamotive. Fine. It's the Mariners collector train series, it's been going for some time. It makes sense since there's train tracks near the stadium. I like the trains. I'm not even that upset by the pun.

May 9 (Mother's Day): Moms get a Mariners' necklace. They also get to attend a Major League Baseball game! Just what mom wanted! She's not disappointed in you, honest!

May 26 (Turn Back the Clock): Just one day after the Dustin Ackley bobblehead day, this festival of the 1950s threatened to overload the public with too much promotion euphoria. That is why the team decided on a 50s throwback since euphoria was banned throughout the 1950s. The Mariners and Angels will wear their old Pacific Coast League uniforms and fans will receive a poster of Brandon League, Miguel Olivo, Brendan Ryan and Jason Vargas wearing said uniform.

One might note that none of those players were alive in the 1950s. It is good that, since they missed out on Jamie Moyer (old joke), the Mariners no longer employ a player alive in that decade, but maybe they could have found still-alive-but-no-longer-playing people from that era. I've seen Jason Vargas a lot. Him wearing a different uniform will not be that novel to me. Show me some players from the division winning 1951 or 1955 Seattle Rainiers! Hal Brown and John Oldham are still alive somewhere, according to baseball-reference.

June 9 (Ichiro Bendy Day): A Gumby version of Ichiro. Frankly, it surprises me that it's taken this long to conceive of this idea, but here it is now. Now you too can twist and contort Ichiro into a variety of poses exclaims the Mariners' promo sheet. Based on how he's performing at that time and the state of his contract, this could get uncomfortable.

June 17 (Father's Day): Dads get a Trader Joe's fishing cap. Like all things from Trader Joe's it will be suspiciously good for the price.

July 15 (Superhero Kid's Day): Kids 14-and-under get a free cape. I hope that doesn't persuade any kids to try jumping from the upper deck and flying using the cape. Or do I?

There are other promotions as well. A full list is readable here assuming you can read English. The King's Court is returning which you'll be able to read and purchase tickets to at this address once tickets are available. March 10 is when individual game tickets are set to go on public sale. There's always been a private, web-only, presale a few days in advance that you simply need to agree to be marketed at in order to receive the promo code. I imagine that will continue if you simply cannot wait an extra two days to get your paying-money-to-Ticketmaster-bastards fix.

Does the headline need any further commentary? Greg Johns provides some and some additional details about how the Mariners will handle their early winter training in preparation for the season opening trip to Japan. Greg also writes about Mike Carp spearheading a tribute to Greg Halman. The Mariners will unfortunately spend a second straight season with a death in the family at its forefront and based on how 2011 went (tribute-wise, not player performance-wise), I believe the organization will handle it with suitable grace.

But I don't want to get too bogged down in that just this moment. Pitchers and catchers reported. Baseball is almost back and regardless of how sucky the team was and might be, baseball is always better than no baseball. By the way, among the players checking in today was Jesus Montero.

Here enclosed you will find the Seattle Mariners-related podcast that has previously been referenced in today's postings. A great flower awaits you if you look in the right valley.

Lookout Landing Podcast with Jeff and Matthew

iTunes link! RSS/XML link!

Hello there, baseball fans! Welcome to Lookout Landing. You are probably interested in predictions about the upcoming season. Sorry, you will not find that here. We don't really fancy predictions because the future is unknowable (for you) and so predictions are just excuses to engage in speculation and that makes us all blah really? We do have some projections though. Those are different. Please understand that those are different so that you might stop bitching about projections being wrong when it turns out they didn't exactly predict the future. You sound like a cretin when you do that.

Today's featured projection system is CAIRO. It's in all capital letters so I assume it is either an acronym or an initialism. I also don't consider those to be the same things. The official definitions are fuzzy but I believe we should have different terms for abbreviations that become words (radar, scuba) on their own and ones that are strictly letters (HTML, FBI). There are border cases though and something's weird about ones that become words but are still used in all caps like NATO. Compare that to Interpol which is a word now and also represents an organization but I feel comfortable writing Interpol in place of INTERPOL, but have to write NATO, not Nato. See how weird that looks? This is confusing. We need more terms.

So, CAIRO, whatever it stands for. Who cares? Here's the link to the latest crop. Looking over it I noticed that most of the good teams were good last year. That's not a big shock or even an aftershock, but it led me to making this graph.

Notice the best fit equation. Hey look, it's regression! That right there is regression. It takes the magnitude from 0 from last year and spits back a little over 75% of that number. Another way of putting that is saying the 2012 projected run differential is three parts actual 2011 run differential and one part league average (0). Regression! Catch the wave!

The above chart doesn't do anything to identify which are the good teams and which are the bad teams. We're (not us we, people we) all about categorizing things into groups of preferably two. People like things in only two possible categories because "black or white" and "either you're with us or you're against us" is just so much less mentally taxing than actual reality. I will indulge it this one time.

Here are the remaining 13 teams. The terrible thirteen. I tried to come up with an alliterative and catchy moniker to saddle them with but I faltered in identifying an English word that's a synonym for bad and prefixed with a "th" sound. Any suggestions from linguists or other writers are welcome. It could even be a foreign word if appropriate enough. If you come up with one that I find delectable, I will bestow this...uh...free...pen on you. It's a wonderful pen. It has a clicky thing at the top and a good balance for twirling.

I arranged the teams in ascending order based on projected wins and broke the ties by using 2011's record just as the MLB draft order would do.
60 - Astros
67 - Twins
68 - Pirates
70 - Orioles
71 - Cubs
74 - Mariners
74 - Royals
74 - White Sox
75 - Mets
75 - Dodgers
76 - Padres
76 - Athletics
78 - Blue Jays

The Padres have the highest combined playoffs projections of any of those 13 and it's just 8.2%, which gives you a notion of the gap between these two groups. By the way, on average, American League teams had two more wins than their National League little brothers. Basically, that means the Mariners and the Padres are like the same team.

There have been some mightily team-friendly deals signed this winter and the Texas Rangers just added another by buying out all three of Elvis Andrus' arbitration years. I heard about the length of the contract in advance of hearing about the monetary figures, so while I waited for those, I went about constructing what I thought to be a fair value contract and also my guess as to the actual deal about to be leaked.

Based on wide agreement as to Andrus' hitting level and across-the-board praise of his defense, I think three wins (3 WAR) is a fair projection for Andrus going forward and based solely on that and the 40%/60%/80% arbitration guesstimates, pinned a fair market deal for Andrus in the $20-25 million range to buy out all three years. My guess was that the actual figure was going to be nearer $17 million because I knew what the two parties filed for in arbitration ($3.6M from Andrus, $2.65M from the Rangers). I'm not sure why, but first-year arb players constantly seem to be undervalued and that can skew things when being bought out like this.

It appears, based on Ken Rosenthal, that I was still too optimistic and that the contract is going to be for about $15 million, though it will not include any team options, which are usually friendly to the ballclub. This is no Howie Kendrick-level steal for the Rangers, but it's a fine deal for Texas based on Andrus' already established level of play and he showed hints at a relatively improving bat last season.

The signings of Hong-Chih Kuo and Shawn Camp to Major League contracts have restricted the likely openings on the Seattle bullpen for all those candidates that Jack Zduriencik gathered over the winter like an adorable little pika. With those two plus George Sherrill and Brandon League, the consensus is that the bullpen is already taking semi-rigid shape, like the frame of a tent with only the rain flaps and other doodads left to perch on top.

The favorites to make the trip to Japan along with their three-year weighted tRA+s:
Closer: Brandon League (117)
LH short: George Sherrill* (99) [signing link]
RH short: Shawn Camp (96) [signing link]
LH middle: Hong-Chih Kuo* (114) [signing links]
RH middle: Shawn Kelley (130)
LH long: Charlie Furbush* (81)
RH long: Tom Wilhelmsen (107)

The roles laid out are not requirements of course. The Mariners don't need to carry both a left and right-handed long man. The players drive the roles, not the other way around. I find it amusing though how cleanly it breaks down with this group of seven. The back three do not have much Major League experience, so take their weighted tRA+s with more salt than the first four, whom you should still take with quite a bit of salt because they are relievers. It's a lot of salt all together so I suggest having a friend or perhaps a nemesis assist you with the intake. Why salt anyways? Is that implying they are bland tasting or perhaps rotting? This is weird.

On the outside, overhanging but not overshadowing, is Mount Pile:
Steve Delabar
Matt Fox [signing link]
Steve Garrison* [signing link]
Jarrett Grube
Aaron Heilman [signing link]
Sean Henn* [signing link]
Cesar Jimenez* [out of options]
Josh Kinney [signing link]
Lucas Luetge* [rule 5] [selecting link]
Jeff Marquez [signing link]
Chance Ruffin
Scott Patterson [signing link]
Oliver Perez* [signing link]
Phillippe-Alexandre Valiquette* [info link]

There's a few interesting names on that list. And there's a few interesting players on that list. Those two sets overlap but are not identical. I see that some people are puzzled by the Shawn Camp addition coming at the Major League expense of one of the above players, but I am unconcerned and even slightly happy at his coming aboard (nautical term). Perusing Mount Pile, none of those people strike me as substantially more likely than Camp to offer 50 league average innings of relief. The difference between what he's projected to produce and what some combination of rocks would is proabably minimal and ultimately meaningless for 2012's playoff odds, but I don't find that makes Camp a waste.

Camp isn't young and is unlikely to be a meaningful part of any kind of future, but he does provide some depth that I think is useful. It would be really great for the fans if the Mariners avoided a third-consecutive 90-loss season and though Camp isn't going to single-handedly stem that tide (nautical term), he can be one more minor fail safe to prevent a 2010-everyone-sucks-we're-screwed situation from arising again. I wrote previously about my concerns surrounding the lack of quality hitting depth behind the starters and I shared similar reservations about the pitching. Kuo and Camp help to mitigate that. It makes it a little less likely that the bullpen is horrifying in 2012.

My hunch is that if Camp were brought in on another of the minor league contracts plus Spring Training invite deals, then nobody would raise a peep of concern. That it is the guaranteed roster spot that wiggles against some people. That doesn't bother me either for a couple reasons. As Jeff pointed out, Ruffin and Delabar — the two most oft-cited to be left high and dry (nautical term) by Camp's signing — both have very limited time at the Triple-A level so neither would simply be twiddling their thumbs. Ruffin jumped from Double-A to the Majors with Detroit before heading down to their AAA-affilate Toledo for 15 innings. Delabar made a 13-inning pit stop in Tacoma on his third stop of a four-level trip last season that began in High Desert and ended with a whopping seven Major League innings. Neither had the sort of dominant 2011 seasons that suggest some time in Triple-A would go to waste.

More importantly, relievers are volatile creatures by nature of their small sample opportunities and they, being pitchers and being pitchers without the benefit of a weekly routine, tend to get hurt a lot. Shawn Kelley was injured last year. Hong-Chih Kuo was injured last year. George Sherrill was injured last year. By and large (nautical term), the Mariners may not break camp with the absolute best bullpen they could muster, but that means almost nothing. Bullpens fluctuate constantly throughout the season unless they're rolling good and healthy; so if someone like Chance Ruffin starts in Tacoma, there's still little impeding him from being a Mariner come May and a month of relief usage only represents approximately 11 innings of pitching. It's not a big deal.

Twitter link here. Shannon states that it is a Major League deal which means that another 40-man roster spot will have to be opened up. It's weird because so far only Shannon has tweeted it. Usually when there's a transaction, my twitter stream has identical tweets from Shannon, Larry Stone and Greg Johns, followed by Rotoworld linking to those three and then MLBTradeRumors. So far, nothing but Shannon. I hope Larry and Greg aren't dead. Don't be dead, guys.

[11:48 UPDATE] Both Greg Johns and Larry Stone tweet that the Mariners have DFA'd Chris Gimenez and Mike Wilson to make room for Hong-Chih Kuo and Camp. Whew! Still alive.

Shawn Camp is a mid-30s reliever who's been with the Blue Jays for the past four seasons and unfortunately does nothing to add to the Mariners quota of ʃɔn given names. The righty throws a high-80s sinker, a low-80s change and a high-70s slider and succeeds probably how you'd expect, through a combination of ground balls and throwing strikes.

Up until last season, he'd been a quietly effectively bullpen arm. Over the last half-dozen years, Camp's xFIP has stayed in the 3.65-4.00 range, which is fine enough. He's not going to be a transformational figure for the bullpen, but building up depth there is not a bad thing and Camp is better than the pile-type additions we've become used to seeing.

It's not all an adequate plate of noodles though. Since Camp's deal is that he needs to throw strikes, 2011 is a bit worrisome as Camp threw far fewer pitches in the strike zone last year than ever before. Now that didn't translate to a significantly higher walk rate and zone% by itself is not enough to worry about, but it is pause-worthy. Camp also saw his strikeout rate dip from below average (~17%) toward dangerously low (11%) territory which is worth even more pauses. Of course, all the normal warnings about a single year of relief pitching applies so don't freak out and go all Harold Pinter on us, but his fastball speed did dip a little so perhaps it's a harbinger of disappointment to come.

Camp is a bit of a side-tosser so he comes equipped with the enhanced platoon splits module that you really didn't want anyway but can be useful in some circumstances. In a certain light, Shawn Camp is the chiral George Sherrill. So hooray for probably many more mid-inning pitching changes this upcoming season. Those are fun, right? Everybody likes those!

The Seattle Mariners might be done making impactful moves to the Major League roster this winter. The Seattle Mariners off season so far.

Released: David Aardsma, Dan Cortes
Lost: Jeff Gray
Traded: Michael Pineda, Jose Campos, Josh Lueke

Signed: Darren Ford, Matt Fox, Steve Garrison, Chris Gimenez, Jarrett Grube, Aaron Heilman, Sean Henn, Hisashi Iwakuma, Josh Kinney, Jeff Marquez, Kevin Millwood, Scott Patterson, Oliver Perez, Guillermo Quiroz, Luis Rodriguez, George Sherrill, Phillippe Valiquette, Munenori Kawakasi
Traded For: Jesus Montero, Hector Noesi, John Jaso

Now obviously, many or all of us who are Mariner fans would have liked the winter to have gone better. I wish the Yankees had accepted Jason Vargas instead of Michael Pineda. I wish I didn't have a cold right now. I wish some asshole or group of assholes were not shooting sea lions.

Those are among things that I wish. However, that all three have occurred does not mean I am discontent with how things are. Except for that sea lion one because seriously, I hope whoever is doing that gets flayed. But I am fine with the Michael Pineda trade because I think it's within the realm of fair value and I am okay with my current cold because I probably only have it due to a week spent in snowy and fun Colorado. Being satisfied does not mean that you cannot envision better or did not wish for better. It means that circumstances are, on balance, roughly agreeable.

Given all that important preamble, judging against the baselines of your expectations at the conclusion of the 2011 regular season, how do you feel about the Mariners' off season so far?

I had some increased, and a touch irrational, hope that the Mariners would still prevail in signing Prince Fielder to a reasonable contract. He's a good bat but his market appeared to be severely and quickly drying up. However, what I was more interested in was the signal that such a signing would send. Having Justin Smoak, Prince Fielder, Jesus Montero and Mike Carp all on the same team would possibly force the team into an offense-heavy line up that would be exciting in the way that disregarding your preset and tested sailing route in order to get a better view of an island and damn any probably-totally-not-harmful rocks potentially in the way would be exciting.

Not at that price though. Nooooooo. I'll have to check when the full details become public but the money is close enough that it's conceivable that Prince Fielder is, in terms of real (i.e. adjusted for expected inflation) dollars, going to be paid the same or more than Albert Pujols will over 90% of the contract length. I never believed that Fielder was going to come at a bargain, but wow.

With Seattle's payroll currently well below last year's mark, few big money targets left and a still-present thirst for a big push for offense, there are going to be fans angry that the Tigers, not the Mariners, are the team to ink Fielder. Some will claim that the Mariners could have made this contract work. If those people are willing to listen, I say that I sympathize, but beware of speculating based on what Fielder signed for. We just don't know that Fielder would have signed with Seattle at the same price. Or if he would have signed here at any price for that matter.

There's a rumor that he didn't want to sign here, but rumors are just rumors. That Fielder wouldn't want to sign here was always a possibility, whether the media speculated on it or not. Of course, the trade for Jesus Montero appeared to make the Mariners much less likely to pursue Prince Fielder even if he were open to the idea. Instead, it's the Tigers that get the talented bat, but have to deal with the defensive fallout. I was initially disappointed that he didn't sign with the Nationals for the chance of some entertaining Mike Morse in left field GIFs, but based on other rumblings, we'll get the joy of Miguel Cabrera back at third base GIFs instead. Hooray!

Like Jeff and others, I don't have an idea where the Mariners put their remaining offseason money, however much that is. One consideration I hadn't yet seen mentioned is that for the third season in four, the Mariners have a top three pick in the MLB draft. Those picks are not cheap to sign so perhaps some of the slush money is going to end up there. I hope it goes somewhere to make the team better. I still believe that it will.

Charlie Furbush may not be able to rely on his home run rate regressing thanks solely to the law of large(r) numbers. Based on his trouble with hitters pulling the ball*, Furbush might need to make some sort of improvement to cut down his park-adjusted rate to normal. Or he might not because it could be that it's actually his pull% that's a fluke due to regress and when it does so, it'll drag his home run rate down as well like some sort of Italian cruise ship.

*Minor data drop: so far, Furbush actually has a lower pull% from right-handed hitters than left-handed, 67% to 69%. Those are both bad though and the sample sizes are even smaller.

Seeing as I am totally a positive person, I decided to see what pitchers Furbush would resemble should he manage to hold his other stuff stable and simultaneously see a drop in home run rate. Or more precisely, what pitchers is he similar to judging only by his contact, swing, ground ball and strike zone rates? I cribbed this idea off of Dave Cameron's posts that focused on hitters John Jaso and Mike Carp. I enjoyed that and when reading this question on what pitchers Charlie Furbush could resemble if his home run rate were to regress, I thought a similar strategy could be effective.

Continue reading this post »

Earlier, Jeff:

[I]f Charlie Furbush is unusually homer-prone, then that's bad... I know it's strange to talk about someone being "unusually homer-prone" since a lot of writers tie themselves into knots trying to find exceptions to batted ball theory that mostly don't exist, but it isn't out of the question that Furbush could have a problem. Pitchers don't share the same level of ability to prevent fly balls from leaving. Maybe Furbush is below-average in that regard.

Maybe he is, Jeff. Maybe he is. We'd like for him not to be because then he would be a pitcher likely to allow fewer home runs. Since he pitches for the Mariners, allowing fewer home runs is a goal we prefer. Dingers! actually only applies to our hitters. Jeff went on to pose two questions following from the notice of Furbush's continued elevated home run rate. Is it a fluke? Observationally that is difficult to prove or disprove, but there is possible supporting evidence from a step forward in the baseball community's understanding of home run rates.

Mike Fast: The other big issue that I have is that directionality of air balls matters a lot, and pitchers have been shown to have a repeatable skill for this. Pulled air balls go out of the park quite frequently, and opposite field air balls almost never do.

In the linked post, Jeff took that quote and looked at Michael Pineda, noting that Pineda appeared to limit the number of pulled batted balls quite a bit. However, Jeff didn't have the data available to do a systematic evaluation. I now do thanks to a pitch-by-pitch database and in light of the Charlie Furbush discussion highlighted above, I went investigating.

Continue reading this post »

When I was talking with Jeff last Friday about the day's posting schedule, he mentioned the upcoming Furbush post and how he was having trouble finding something interesting to take away from it. Never minding that I think he did come up with two very important questions — not just for Furbush but for many things — Jeff's post actually touched off a mini brush fire of interest for me because it got me thinking a lot about home run rates.

There's a couple posts coming here on that matter, but first I want to direct your attention to one I wrote up for FanGraphs since it dealt less with Charlie Furbush or the Mariners and more with baseball in general. I examined how home run rates change based on where pitches are located vertically. I expected the result that I found, but not the magnitude that I did. Check it out; it has a graph!

When we offer up pitcher comparisons, it's typically not in a flattering light. Often we use it to show how two pitchers with differing won-loss records and/or ERAs have actually pitched very similarly and just been beneficiaries of different luck or defenses. The recent Randy Johnson and Felix Hernandez post was different and this comparison continues that more positive, initially, mood. Consider the following two pitching lines combined over a five season sample and park-adjusted.

Those are pretty similar, no? Pitcher A has the better strikeout and walk rates — by a hair — while Pitcher B has the better ground ball rate and seems to have better durability, but it's a bit of an unfair comparison because Pitcher A's (clue!) sample encompasses the 1994 and 1995 strike-shortened seasons. Four numbers do not tell a complete enough story of a pitcher to make a relative judgment, even if they are what I believe to be the four most important numbers. Characteristics like age, quality of opponents, fastball speed and such are necessary factors to consider as well. In that realm Pitcher B wins so please do not confuse this comparison with a claim that the two are equally good or desirable. I use it instead to highlight key performance similarities and because Pitcher B — Felix 2007-11 — is familiar to us while Pitcher A — at least this part of his career — is more forgotten. Have a guess as to the identity of Pitcher A?

Continue reading this post »

The addition of Jesus Montero has a lot of people thinking positive thoughts about the top of the Mariners line up this coming season. Having Dustin Ackley, Jesus Montero and (healthy) Justin Smoak in the middle is actually exciting. A reinvigorated Ichiro Suzuki at the very top would be stellar as well as would a back-to-2009 strengthened Franklin Gutierrez. A Casper Wells and Mike Carp platoon in left field would be fun too if their 2011s continue. And, hell, why not have Montero as the primary catcher and rope in Prince Fielder to DH? Imagine that batting order were things to break right. Instead of worst in baseball, that could be legitimately threatening!

That's the optimism for 2012 and that's great. I don't like writing pessimistic posts. Doing so could have use if there was a means of inspiring people to focus on something and change course like with yesterday's quite effective SOPA awareness campaign, but when it comes to the Mariners and baseball, we are mostly all collectively passive onlookers. For instance, I don't think a fan effort to have the team spend more money on payroll would accomplish anything. Lacking a potential positive outcome makes me want to avoid negative topics. Since baseball is an entertaining diversion, I prefer to not dwell on depressing* characteristics of the team unless there's a way to poke fun at them or perhaps if I find them noteworthy in some way.

*Note, only depressing if you care way too much.

But my thoughts today turned to the pessimistic. Looking at the Mariners current roster and minor league starters, it struck me how little MLB-quality depth there is on the hitting side. Specifically, I was examining backup starters in case of a major injury at some positions and I got that "uh oh" feeling when I began outlining it. Taking Montero, Smoak, Ackley, Brendan Ryan, Kyle Seager, Wells, Gutierrez, Ichiro and Carp as the nominal starters, what players are around to step up in case of a prolonged absence? There's Miguel Olivo and John Jaso at catcher. That's legitimate insurance there. Outside that position though it's (pause) yeah. Luis Rodriguez and Munenori Kawasaki are the middle infielders. Chone Figgins is remarkably still on this team and Alex Liddi might also be there at third base. There's a lagan of outfielders in Carlos Peguero, Michael Saunders, Darren Ford and Trayvon Robinson, but counting on them is troubling.

No doubt that there are better prospects on the way. The Mariners in A and AA-ball hold some promise and many of the regulars on the Major League team are quite young so come 2013, the depth chart should probably be far improved. And no doubt that 2012 is probably not the Mariners' year, solid bench or not. But if the team craters again this season though, I imagine that the bench having to shoulder too much of a burden will play a role.

When the Mariners announced that Randy Johnson and Dan Wilson were to be inducted into the Mariners' version of the Hall of Fame most of the attention shined on Randy Johnson, including here. Of course it did. Randy Johnson is one of the most talented people to have ever lucked into a professional career pitching baseballs. Dan Wilson had over half his career plate appearances come from the eighth spot in the batting order. Dan Wilson was not a good hitter, or even an average one. He was a catcher though and our bar for catchers is lower and Wilson made a name for himself by catching for quite a while, mostly with Seattle. He also was well-liked and had the good fortune to be associated with a relatively prosperous time in Mariner history. In games Wilson started for them, the Mariners went 615-539, a .533 winning percentage or 86-win pace over a full season.

Those are reasons that probably have a weighty effect on Wilson's lasting notoriety, but he also carried with him a reputation for good defense. The former hockey goalie at Barrington High (also the alma mater of current Ottawa Senators starting goalie Craig Anderson) was renowned for his movement behind the dish enabling him to routinely block wayward pitches in the dirt.

Wilson comes out comfortably better than league average in preventing wild pitches and passed balls, which supports the belief in his goalie skills.

Catcher's defense is a mostly blank map at this time. We have a notion of where the important features lay, but we don't really know the size of the map. Does a catcher's rapport with his pitchers improve them? How much scouting on the opposing hitter's does the catcher do and does that matter? There's many unanswered and unknown questions surrounding the issue that over time could change, perhaps dramatically, how we view the position. It's a Scooby-Doo mystery except with more masks and fewer giant sandwiches.

Pitch framing is one area where the obscurity is just beginning to clear. It would be stellar to be able to go back and evaluate old catchers with our new methods but alas we do not have access to a machine that can travel back — or forward fast enough, if time is actually circular — in time to install pitch F/X. And even if we did have such a device, gathering more baseball data might not be feasible since people always commandeer it to commit retro murder. SilverFox316 is seriously tired of this, guys. Read the damn bulletin!

Absent the pitch F/X data, I can make no numerical study of Dan Wilson's skill at framing pitches. My hunch is that he would grade out well. In the very limited archival video footage that I have on hand, Wilson displays a steady glove and head while catching. Those are two big indicators that Mike Fast discovered can coax strike calls from umpires. Nevertheless, while I know framing matters a great deal when judging a catcher, I unfortunately cannot color in these lines on Wilson. I know it's there but it's obscured by fog.

We can make a statement on the territory of stolen bases and nabbed runners though and again Wilson comes out ahead of the rest of baseball.

Wilson gunned down an above average share of runners but also faced far fewer steal attempts than average. Whether that was 100% because of Wilson, 100% because of reasons that were not Dan Wilson, or (likely) somewhere in between is impossible to say. It doesn't end up affecting Wilson's value much since his caught stealing rate is near the point where attempting a stolen base was a neutral move from a run expectancy perspective.

Granted this is only a faint whiff of the full scratch-n-sniff experience that probably is catcher defense, but from the two measures I do have readily available, Wilson does end up being worth about five runs better than average for each 1,000 innings caught. That doesn't transform him into a secretly excellent player or anything. These two areas are already captured by BRef and FanGraphs in their WAR calculations. Personally though, I'm glad to know that at least for now, a man who I remembered as being a stalwart at defense, actually was.

A thread in the post about Randy Johnson and Dan Wilson entering the Mariners Hall of Fame piqued my interest. Is Randy Johnson the best pitcher the Mariners have ever employed? The question needs refinement because I read that and my first interpretation concerns the best pitcher while playing in a Mariners uniform while others read it as asking who the best pitcher is overall to have ever at some point played for the Mariners. I think Randy is unquestionably the answer to that latter path. He's probably one of the five best pitchers of all time. Felix Hernandez may someday reach that level, but it'll take a good long while. However, as to the first question — the best pitcher in a Mariner uniform — he's already giving Randy a serious run.

First, here is the pair's relevant (my opinion) raw pitching numbers from their times as a Mariner.

Randy might be remembered as more dominant and untouchable thanks to that extraordinary strikeout rate. Strikeouts are like dingers, but for pitchers in the way they stick out in people's collective memory. Meanwhile, home runs allowed are kind of like double plays hit into and walks are kind of like, well, walks.

I included the number of batters faced per start to show that despite the trend toward fewer innings pitched, the pair have actually been similarly workhorse-like so far. It's like Boxer and Boxer 2. Of course, raw numbers are a bad way to compare people, especially ones that played in different time periods. So first, I'll park adjust them using my StatCorner method and Retrosheet data.

Both pitchers have their strikeout and walks rates fall and home run rates rise. Five-sixths of those changes probably will not cause a lot of surprise, but Randy's home run one might. The Kingdome is thought of as a home run-happy park and while that's mostly true, it's overblown and not always consistent, not unlike weather forecasts or anything ever relayed by Jon Heyman.

The park factors I have for 1989-98 show a home run factor of 109 for left-handed hitters in the Kingdome, but just 97 for right-handers. Why that split exists I don't know, but it's there and for his career, Randy faced right-handed hitters 88% of the time. Safeco may have been built to inflate Ken Griffey Jr's hitting numbers, but it also would have been the perfect park for Randy Johnson to pitch in. It's a good thing neither stayed around to truly find out!

With the numbers tweaked for the parks, it's time to plot them against the league averages over their respective Mariner careers.

This is perhaps the clearest picture of how strikeout dominant Johnson was, and this isn't even including his run with Arizona. Being 71% better than league average is eye-popping in the (luckily only) figurative sense. Unlike a fork, which can be eye-popping in the literal sense, but rarely is in the figurative. Randy's high walk rate, however, is also laid bare and the Big Unit's strikeout per walk ratio was in fact lower than King Felix's is so far. All told, if you want to compare the two's production, the FIP and WAR columns are probably your best bet and they show almost identical values. The two aces take slightly different roads, but end up in nearly the same place.

In case you wanted to look at some colors and/or were interested in what those league average rates were, here's a graph of them!

And if you're interested, here is the same graph plotted over the post-WWII era. What's up with you, 1987?

What do you get?

A poll! A poll! A poll!

About a day later and my overall feelings surrounding the Jesus Montero and Michael Pineda trade have not changed much. I'm not going to rehash the details of the trade. You know them and the general thoughts on the players involved by now and if not, you can find them easily. Just scroll down for instance. Instead, this is wholly about my personal reaction, thoughts and responses to some common themes that I've been reading.

First, I should dispel a myth. Michael Pineda did not fade down the stretch. I'd bet heavily that a majority of people saying that are looking no further than his won-loss record or ERA by half. Pineda posted a winning record and a 3.03 ERA before the All-Star Game and a 1-4 record with a 5.12 ERA afterward. If that's your way of measuring how a pitcher performs, then a conclusion that he faded is justified. That's a terrible method though and is quite misleading. Here's how Pineda's ability to throw strikes (Zone), miss bats (Miss) and his corresponding walk and strikeout rates (per batter faced) changed month-to-month.

That's not much variability at all over relatively similar sample sizes. Pineda faced 126 batters in April, 126 in May, 156 in June, 118 in July, 95 in August and finally just 75 in September when he was shut down early for reaching his innings limit. Pineda's home run rate did spike in the second half, but most of his superficial results were driven by random events, not a degradation in his core skills.

Another argument I've read that I abhor is anything along the lines of "well, the Mariners had to make a move for a bat." Now, perhaps upper management dictated to Zduriencik that he had to make some significant move for offense. That seems unlikely however and we can't assume they did. Even more figuratively, the team didn't have to make a move, that's just a silly way of phrasing it. If the intent behind that statement is actually, "I think trading a run allowed for a run scored is a net benefit to the Mariners at this point if only to alleviate media pressure," then that's a possibly interesting debate to have that avoids anchoring anything in absolutes, which stifles dialogue. Seriously, don't make absolutist declarations, especially when they are opinion-based. Those are uninteresting.

Similarly, some have mentioned that Yankee fans are upset about the trade as well and it's the sign of a balanced trade when both fan bases are upset. While that's a good notion, it relies on an assumption that the two collective fan bases are equally adept at analyzing baseball. Is that valid in this case? I don't know, but given the general fan and media coverage of Pineda compared to Ivan Nova, I happen to have a dim view of analysis stemming from Yankee players.

Judging the overall package itself, if asked to grade it on Jeff's 1-10 lasagna scale then I'm more in the four category than the five. I am less enamored with potential and prospects than many people seem to be. I prefer seeing players generate hype from their numbers than from scouting reports. Currently, Montero is more in scout hype than number hype territory and you frankly cannot find a bigger question than whether he will catch or not. By positional values, the difference between a catcher and a DH is 30 runs over a full season. Thirty flippin' runs! That's ginormous. It's a huge factor in what kind of player Montero ends up being.

Of course, there's a middle ground wherein Montero might be fine enough to catch half the time while his bat plays at DH the other half. That would also probably be satisfactory. Something like 60 starts at catcher and 100 starts at DH would result in a positional value equivalent to a corner outfielder. I would probably be content with an arrangement similar to that. It's mostly the possibility that Montero is nothing but a DH that concerns me defensively. I am comforted by seemingly every scout's opinion that Montero has a monster bat, the sort of talent unseen in Seattle for years.

Michael Pineda has worries and risk as well for sure. However, the worries should not originate from any imagined decline during 2011 as hitters adjusted to his two-pitch repertoire. As above, that didn't quite happen. However, Pineda is a young pitcher and those are risky assets, riskier than hitters, and pitchers tend to lose fastball velocity over time. Both players have significant talent and important questions attached to them, but at the time, and still today, I believe that Montero's future is currently murkier than Pineda's. I feel that their ceilings are roughly similar, but 2011 alleviated more of my concerns about Pineda than it did about Montero.

Now the team's scouting could be optimistic about Montero spending some time at catcher and believe in Noesi's reported velocity gain over the winter. We don't have access to their information so we should allow for a decently-sized margin of error when trying to judge a deal such as this. Additionally, having questions does not mean that Montero and/or Noesi (or Pineda and/or Campos) cannot ultimately answer them. The future isn't just hard to predict, it's impossible to predict. It's unknowable. It can unfold in countless ways but we will only experience one of them. That's a terrible formula for trade evaluation. All four players will now develop in ways that are different from in the timeline(s) where this trade doesn't occur.

The valid way to evaluate the move is by what we know and can reasonably now. We can re-evaluate if we eventually discover a greater insight into what the teams knew at the time, but I caution against using the future performance of the players to declare a winner or loser here. I'm slightly against it, but I won't disagree with someone who has more faith in Montero's bat or Noesi's arm than I liking the deal. I think it's perfectly reasonable to like the trade or not like the trade. It's anything in the love or hate range that I feel is probably an overreaction.

Continue reading this post »

Look around you.

Look around you.

Just, look around you.

Have you worked out what you're missing, Mariners? Correct, it's a bat.

Bats, specifically the bats of Prince Fielder, are discussed in chapters 1 through 37 in the Scott Boras' Free Agents this Winter guidebook that you have been provided. Please ensure that you have a pencil at hand as there is space in the guidebook to take down notes throughout this program.

What's the first thing you think of when you hear Prince Fielder? Don't be fooled by his name. He's more known for his hitting than his fielding. And he's not actually a prince of either. Not an official one yet anyways, though I'm negotiating with several European monarchies at the moment. Sweden probably has it sewn up, but there's a mystery country involved and I might be able to get him named Crown Prince Prince Fielder. Make a note of that now.

Anyways, according to laudable research published in the Boras Journal of Propaganda, Prince Fielder is the best hitter to have ever hit things that were designed and meant for hitting in an recreational venue. You might have heard that before, but those times were mistaken figments of your memory and I was clearly exaggerating. This time it is true. Prince is the real deal, a bona fide hitting superstar capable of prodigious blasts and memorable celebrations. That concept is probably foreign to you, so I will walk you through it.

What is a bat?

It's a fair question since — as a Seattle Mariner employee — you are likely unfamiliar with what a bat is and what it might be utilized for. That's not unexpected since normally I would keep the bats I represent away from you for fear that you would take bad care of them, but I've recently had a change of heart when I heard that you might have lots of money to spend. Now then, bats are not naturally occurring phenomena in Seattle like clouds, moss or art house coffee parlors are. No, bats are made from wood, a ubiquitous and basic element in nature. Circle that in the guidebook now.

Very good. Bats are mostly inanimate objects constructed in special factories. Their purpose is to appease easily amused and run-hungry crowds at baseball events. Yes, that's right, you can placate those potentially unruly people with something other than blooper reels and virtual hydro races on video screens. The action on the field itself can actually be the focus of their attention. On the baseball diamond, pitchers hurl specially sewn spheres and hitters — other hitters on other teams, not the ones you have — attempt to utilize these baseball bats to strike the sphere and advance themselves and teammates across a number — four being ideal, two being satisfactory and five being just greedy — of specially designated safe zones. If the hitters succeed, they may eventually celebrate with a loving and gentle caress of each other's buttocks. It's perfectly natural.

What kind of bat?

Okay, now you know what a bat is. But you can't use just any bat, though. Some bats are of poor quality, like the ones you have, and you hardly need more of those. Instead, you should strive for a big bat. Big bats enable you to play that Funk Blast song more often even though the joke is four years old and nobody really remembers anymore if it's legitimately funny or just ironically funny. Big bats also might calm down the radio call in crowd who otherwise will never ever shut up about needing them, even if your team is winning many games a season.

How does one acquire a big bat? One method is to acquire several small bats and glue them together, but that rarely lasts. Others like to start with baby bats and nurture and care for them with daily servings of tobacco and pine tar until they eventually grow big and strong. That can take a long time however and sometimes they are overfed, resulting in adverse effects like Jose Vidro. You don't want that. The best method is to get a bat that is naturally big so that you can avoid long development periods and any pesky rumors. A natural big bat like Prince Fielder. Underline Prince Fielder in your guidebook now.

Rinse? No. Prince. There is not a baseball fan on the planet that isn't convinced of your need of a big bat. And believe me, Prince Fielder is the biggest. He not only possess an intimidating physical presence, he also owns and uses big bats. His bats are so big that they have to be measured in a special proprietary metric that was designed, copyrighted and only understood by super agents. They're big though. Please consult the 423-page supplementary material if you need further evidence.

Why do you need one?

Right now you have a collection of terrible bats. Other people make fun of your bats. Behind your back, they laugh at you. The inadequacy of your bats is all over the internet. Even Steve in accounting thinks it's funny but also a little sad and depressing. Your bats can't even hit seeing-eye singles. You have blind bats; blats. Write that down.

You know that thing that your opponents keep doing with the scoring of runs? That's how they end up winning games and why the fans that watch those teams at their home games leave their stadium with the corners of their mouths turned upward instead of a dead-eyed blank stare more reminiscent of a crowded English rail stop that you're more familiar with. The only remedy possible is for you to acquire more bats. Otherwise this will be what your games eventually look like.

You don't want that do you? Absent of interesting baseball games, those former customers of yours might turn to reggae raves and more festive sock knitting parties leaving you the only option of threatening to move cities again. That's such a hassle. A big bat like Fielder might even get you to the playoffs which is bonus round baseball where all the cash prizes are higher. It's like Double Jeopardy!, but without having to know anything about 18th-century French painters or ancient Latin homonyms.

Now please look over your notes and return your guidebook along with a massive offer addressed to Scott Boras c/o Jon Heyman.

In the next program, we'll discuss Kevin Millwood.

You know those incredibly irritating twitter follow me buttons popping up in signatures? Or those four line deep ones that take up more space than the comment itself? Or the ones with links in them that you accidentally click and take you away from the thread?

Yeah, I loathe those as well and I'm trying to do something about it. The SB Nation settings already allow you the user to opt out of seeing other people's avatars. Why a similar option to avoid seeing signatures doesn't exist is beyond me. I asked them and they replied that they have no plans for such a feature. I find that unacceptable and I think they need to be informed how much it bugs people. Maybe with enough people telling them how much signatures are annoying, they'll listen. So, if it's a matter that bugs you at all, or even if not and you're willing to do me a favor, please drop them an e-mail (support@sbnation.com) and/or a tweet (@SBNProductTeam) and let them know that you'd like to be able to hide signatures.

Thank you.

Hello and welcome to the twenty-seventh of between one and several thousand Felix Hernandez WATCHes. Once again we will not be literally watching Felix Hernandez, nor will we be selling watches made by Felix Hernandez or produced in his image since those are now considered a sacrilege. Instead, we will be monitoring the status of the Felix Hernandez free agent sweepstakes. Yes, we all wish that either Bill Bavasi or Matt Millen had just signed Felix to a contract extension when he had the chance, but that chance is gone! Why do you make me do this? Haven't you had enough? I can't take this anymore! No! Not the whip. I'll be good. I'll be good!

Has Felix Hernandez signed a contract?
Yes.

Has Felix Hernandez signed a contract with the Seattle Mariners?
Yes.

What?! When?!
Several times! The first was back in 2002 when Bob Engle and the Mariners signed Felix out of Venezuela. Then there were several club controlled and arbitration-decided contracts that Felix signed throughout his first six full seasons as a Mariner.

Jerk. Has Felix Hernandez signed a current contract?
No.

Is Felix Hernandez close to signing a contract?
Cosmologically speaking, yes, probably, but I cannot speak for how you experience the passage of time or space ever since The Noodle Incident.

What does your brain tell you?
It's not the boss of me! I tell my brain what to do, not the other way around! And right now I am telling my brain to go get some fourth meal chicken nuggets.

That was unhelpful. Well, what is the latest?
Hold on, nuggeting.

(Waits...)
(Waits...)
(Looks forlornly at chicken nuggets...)
(Reaches for one...)
(Slaps hand away)

(Waits...)
Okay, well today Geoff Baker leaked that the New York Marlins have made repeated calls to Felix's agent, but that Felix's agent has communicated that Felix wants no part of playing in New York, no matter the team. That even if this were some other, different, universe, Felix wants no part of ever representing the city of New York or whatever it may be called.

Some people speculated that Felix would accept a shorter deal with possible bonuses tied to him breaking the strikeout record again, but that seems unlikely now with today's news that the planned world ending in December 2012 has been called off. Everyone has resigned to the fate that humanity will unfortunately continue existing for years to come.

Meanwhile, Pete Carroll has tweeted that he'd like to bring Felix aboard the Seahawks, but we're pretty sure that's a joke even though Pete did convince LeBron James, Richie McCaw and David Bowie to play for them this past season.

However, with the recent announcement by MLB Commissioner Al Gore that the Mariners will be moving to the National League starting in 2013 so that the Seattle-San Diego rivalry can finally achieve prime time status, there's been rumors that Felix is more interested in re-signing now since he fancies getting to hit regularly. There's been no word however if that will translate to a lower salary demand or if he'll finally allow something other than Livin' La Vida Loca to be played over the PA system on his game days. So sick of that song!

Are the Mariners still in the runnings?
I see no reason to believe otherwise.

Haha, "runnings"
That's Jamaica you racist.

Mariner games have become mercifully short — by baseball standards, they are still an extraordinary long time to take a shower for — the last few years as the offense has collectively decided that scoring runs is just really hard and they probably shouldn't bother trying anyway. It wasn't always that way obviously and back when the team did employ a bunch of selfish run-scorers, Mariners games were some of the longest in baseball. Back in November when I revisited the subject of average games lengths by starting pitcher, I included a graph of average game durations by team featuring the already known fact that the Mariners had the shortest time of any team in 2011.

During the prep for that post, I made a graph of that average game duration but plotted it exclusively for the Mariners and broke it up by season over their existence. Two months passed and I apparently forgot or deliberately did not post it. Well, now I am.

Unsurprisingly, when offense goes up so too do game times and with the recent and prolonged spate of apathetic offense, the Mariners have been in a period of significantly shorter games than the rest of the league. What I hadn't thought of before however was just how much extra time saved it all added up to. So I thought of that and then I added it all up because I am a human being in possession of basic math skills, a interest in sometimes trivial facts and a copy of Microsoft Excel™.

The 2011 Mariners averaged 166 minutes per game while the other 29 teams in baseball averaged 177 minutes per game. Without the rounding, it totalled (over 162 games) 1,859 fewer minutes of baseball than average. That's a smidgen under 31 hours! A crazy person with nothing better to do than watch every inning of Mariners baseball in 2011 saved 31 hours that he or she could spend doing those things that ranked below "watching the Mariners" on his or her life priority list. Here's a brief sample of some of the activities that could have been accomplished with that free time:

-Infected roughly 5% of London's population with a violence-inducing virus.
-Run the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc® if you weren't so hideously unfit.
-Stopped 1.3 massively complex and conspiratorial terrorist plots aimed at either detonating a nuclear bomb in LA, meltdowning a nuclear reactor in LA or detonating many nuclear bombs in LA.
-Slowly rotated in sync with asteroid 1159 Granada.
-Replaced about 0.3% of your liver.
-Easily won Deathrace 2011.

By the way, if anyone out there is a Red Sox fan of similar temperament to this hypothetical Mariner fan, then congratulations, you watched 48 additional hours of baseball over the 2011 calendar year and you didn't even get the playoffs out of it. Humanity is grateful because you probably would have spent those two days interacting with other people while being an insufferable Red Sox fan.

Over the weekend the Angels and Albert Pujols finalized the details on their contract. Or possibly they had finalized them before and just chose now to release that information. Jerks. I wrote up the ramifications up in more detail on FanGraphs and I'd recommend visiting here if you want all the nitty contract details concerning numerous incentive clauses. For my piece on FanGraphs I was interested in the base guaranteed salary and how back loading it affected the contract's net present value.

Ten years from now, we can look back at Pujols' performance and the eventual inflation rate in baseball salaries and hindsight judge whether it was worth it. For now, we have to guess at both. I think the best estimation is roughly 5% over the long haul as teams continue to explore and find new revenue streams (e.g. booming local TV deals) but have to deal with shrinking on-site revenues either from the economy at large or from a preference shift in more people being comfortable consuming sports via their own televisions. I certainly enjoy not charging myself $9 for a beer and there's far less screaming children and drunken frat boys in my apartment than at Safeco Field. Besides the inflation rate, there's also the current base to deal with, namely, 5% inflation of what? The what is how much are teams right now spending on purchasing wins in the free market. I believe that figure has dropped from at or near $5 million per win down to the mid-4 range this winter.

My conclusion is that given the current market, the Angels paid Pujols for something in the realm of 47 WAR of production and I'm skeptical that he manages to hit that mark. Another 47 WAR for Pujols would put him near 135 career WAR making him the sixth best position player in baseball history by that measure behind Ruth, Bonds, Cobb, Mays and Aaron. A comparison I like is Alex Rodriguez. Pujols was better over their comparable age-span (age 21-31), but the difference is small and from age 32 (Pujols' current age) so far, Rodriguez has been worth only 15-20 WAR in four seasons.

Originally I thought Pujols would come within throwing range of the 45 WAR mark over the next decade, but I'm now less sure. I think there's a definite chance of him clocking in around 25-30 WAR if the injuries and decline start to mount up and we've seen how they can do so in a hurry post-30 to people not named Barry Bonds. On the other hand, there is no floor.

Saturday night the news came out that the Angels had signed Howie Kendrick to a contract extension covering his last remaining arbitration season and then would-have-been free agent seasons from age 28 through 30. The Angels just locked up Kendrick for what should be his peak and they did it for a reported $33.5 million.

That's a little under $9 million per market season (the final season of arbitration is typically valued at 80% of a free agent salary), or a WAR valuable of about two wins given this winter's rates. Kendrick has bested that mark in all but his rookie season even though he was injury limited to 400 or fewer plate appearances (PA) before 2010. Furthermore, Kendrick is coming off a huge 5-win season. This was prime timing for him to cash in and instead he signed for well below what he's worth. That's a bad break for the Mariners.

In looking at Kendrick's numbers, I began formulating my thoughts on a reasonable projection for him. His gaudy 2011 season saw significant gains in two areas; metrics roundly called his defense bad in 2010 then good to great in 2011 and his home run rate per PA literally doubled. I have no visual record to fall back on in judging Kendrick's defense, but I think his UZR is ripe for regression as only golden defenders routinely put up those figures year to year and Kendrick doesn't seem that sort given his history.

On offense, his batting average on balls in play (BABIP), walk rate, strikeout rate and gap power rate stayed near his career norms. A career best home run rate boosted his wOBA to career high levels. It's the home run power that I'm a bit more concerned might stick around into 2012 and beyond. Hit Tracker indicates that the average Kendrick home run improved from 394 feet to 403 feet last season and that Kendrick pulled 14 of his 18 home runs last year while just three of ten were in 2010. A hitter learning to leverage pull power more effectively is a reasonable skill development.

Though I anticipate regression in Kendrick's defense and home runs simply by dint of those being career bests last year, I do think that a healthy Howie is a solid bet for three wins with upside and thus Kendrick stands a solid chance of returning $55-60 million in value over the next four seasons. That the Angels will pay out just $33.5 million is annoying.

It began as a little hook in the back of my brain that the Prince Fielder talk was getting to be too much. Over time, as Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson signed with Anaheim and Yu Darvish was slaved to the Rangers, it grew more insistent. Mariner fans were full-blown obsessed with Prince Fielder and that's almost certainly a bad thing. It's understandable, given his stature as a hitter and a team so woeful at hitting, but tying up so much emotion in one person is unhealthy. Prince Fielder is not a savior for this team and if he signs elsewhere, it's not the end of the world, baseball or otherwise.

Still, I wanted to return to the Prince Fielder well because for a third time, I was thinking about opt-out clauses. I haven't communicated my initial thoughts well enough so I wanted to take another stab at it, this time with hopefully more precise definitions.

Suppose that Scott Boras and Prince Fielder come to the Mariners with two contract options, both agreeable to the team, but one comes with a player opt-out included and the other without. Apologies if you are the sort of person who shivers at math equations. It's a phobia you should get over. Here are the major variables at play:

Y = years of the contract
N = number of years before the opt out
O = average annual salary of contract with an opt out
S = average annual salary of contract without an opt out
P = the performance value (in $) Fielder provides

A player option to opt out is a benefit to the player not the team, so including one should never result in a higher player salary. That means the salary with the opt-out (O) should never be greater than the salary without one (S) and such a possibility is not worth discussing. O equaling S is similarly boring as can be seen in the equations below. Instead, it's when S > O that it gets interesting to me. To figure out how the two contracts compare to each other (important qualifier alert), the following step function applies (complaints about formatting to be directed at HTML).

Eq.1, When P < O, Fielder forgoes the option:∑( Si - Oi ) from i=1 to i=Y
Eq.2, When P > O, Fielder opts out: ( ∑( Si - Oi ) from i=1 to i=N ) - ( ∑( Pi - Si ) from i=N+1 to i=Y )

If you're unaware of the sigma notation, please see here.

That's a lot to unpack so I will type words that might help. In equation one, if Fielder plays out the entire contract then the opt-out doesn't matter and the Mariners get a benefit equal to whatever discount Fielder gave them in exchange for having the option in the first place. For example, if Fielder would sign a contract for $1 million less per year that includes an opt-out and then doesn't use the opt-out, the Mariners saved $1 million per year. Hooray! This is the simple equation.

Equation two is more complex so I'll split it up between the two terms. The first term is identical to equation 1 except that it stops at N instead of Y because that's when Fielder opts out. Theoretically Fielder only opts out if he's over-performing his contract so the second term calculates the value the Mariners lose out on when Fielder does that. That's equal to Fielder's performance level (P) subtracting away the salary he would have been at if he didn't have the option (S). What's funny about it is that Fielder's actual salary (O) when he opts out doesn't matter. What matters is the salary the Mariners would have had to pay Fielder (S) to not give him the option.

Note that if S and O were equal then equation 1 is zero and equation 2 would always be negative unless P < O, in which case Fielder wouldn't opt out anyways and you'd go back to equation 1. So if Fielder offers no discount for the option, then the team clearly shouldn't give it to him.

I always like to use an example with formulas because they help me follow the math logic so consider the following values for the variables.

Y = 8 = years of the contract
N = 3 = number of years before the opt out
O = $20M = average annual salary of contract with an opt-out
S = $22M = average annual salary of contract without an opt-out

In this case, Fielder offers the Mariners a $2M discount per year in exchange for the player option. Here's a graph of difference between the two contracts, from a Mariners' perspective, depending on how well Fielder performs (P).

Here's what interests me. If the Mariners expect to get $23M in value each year (simplifying assumption alert) from Fielder, then obviously both deals are suitable, but even though it should seem like the Mariners would be bummed that Fielder would opt out when he's giving them a net benefit at the time, they'd actually be more profitable with the opt-out contract. For the first three years, the team would save $2 million a year (paying him $20M/year instead of $22M/year for total of $6M) by including the opt-out, but then Fielder uses the opt-out and instead of having Fielder (at $22M/year) for the next five years, they have nothing. That's $5M in lost value.

Fielder opting out doesn't benefit the Mariners, but the discount he gave them outweighs the lost benefit. Now I use the term more profitable intentionally instead of the more ubiquitous term ‘better'. For one, this is a simplified two-variable evaluation and as I've tried to demonstrate previously, it's more complicated than just that. Secondly, and the root of my original wondering, timing is an issue. For the Mariners, if offered these two potential outcomes, might they prefer Fielder over eight years, even at the cost of a little profit, so that they could spread out the number of chances (years) the team as a whole has to succeed with Fielder?