Major League IV: Seattle Mariners

Bill Bavasi, the General Manager of the Seattle Mariners, must love the movie Major League. Bavasi is obviously attempting to worsen the Mariners in any way possible, in a secret effort to cause the group to unite and prove everyone wrong. If this is not Bavasi’s Master Plan, I have no explanations for why he still has a job.

The Mariners’ two latest moves have been met with a resounding “HUH?!?” by the baseball community, and for good reason. However, these two moves are not the only questionable moves Bavasi has made. Let’s examine.

1) Signing Adrian Beltre. Beltre’s OPSs with the Mariners have been 716 and 792---directly in line with his OPSs in every other season except for 2004. Yes, he was excellent in 2004, but few people believed that Beltre had indeed found a new level of ability. Steroid speculation abounded (fairly or unfairly), but more likely was that Beltre simply had a career year in 2004. It’s sure looking that way now.

2) Keeping Willie Bloomquist on the roster. Perhaps Mike Hargrove is more to blame than Bavasi for this one, but Bavasi deserves some blame. Bloomquist is almost adequate (almost) as a utility defensive replacement; however, there is no excuse for his accumulating exactly 500 at-bats over the last two seasons. His OPSs have been 622 and 619 over those seasons, and it’s not like his defense is the best in baseball. Bloomquist might be a small mistake in terms of wins and losses, but he’s a big mistake in that it was easily avoidable.

3) Signing Carl Everett. Okay, Everett doesn’t believe in dinosaurs. That’d be alright if he could still hit. However, once again against many analysts’ opinions, Everett was signed to DH during the 2006 season. Perhaps Kenny Williams gave him a Darwinian pep-talk before sending him on his way, but Everett ended up hitting .227/.297/.360 line in 308 at-bats as a DH before being cut.

4) Trading Shin-Soo Choo and Asbrudal Cabrera for Ben Broussard and Eduardo Perez. Bavasi acquired the Indians’ first base platoon of Benuardo Perssard in exchange for two AAA minor leaguers. Sure, Choo probably wasn’t a center-fielder and couldn’t hit lefties; but Choo was a solid right-fielder and did destroy righties. Sure, Cabrera was a miserable hitter in 2006, but he was a 20-year-old in AAA, having skipped AA, and profiled to have plus-plus defense at shortstop. Broussard and Perez, meanwhile, were both playing well above their abilities; even if they maintained their pace after the trade, the Mariners were going nowhere fast in 2006 with or without Perssard.

5) Trading Rafael Soriano for Horacio Ramirez. This was a real doozy. How do you think the conversation went with John Schuerholz? “Hey John, this is Bill. How about I give you Rafael Soriano for Adam LaRoche, Andruw Jones, and Tim Hudson. No? Okay, then how about Soriano for Horacio Ramirez.” Rafael Soriano is an extremely dominant reliever when healthy, as evidenced by his 177 strikeouts (and only 53 walks) in 171 major league innings. While injuries are a concern, he appears to have set his arm troubles behind him (for now), and is recovering well from the literal and psychological head injury after getting hit by a Vladimir Guerrero line drive last season. Meanwhile, Ramirez had one span of 9 starts in 2004 where he posted a 2.39 ERA, despite walking 30 and striking out 31 in 60 innings. His career K/BB ratio is 248/200, and he gives up 1.12 homers per nine (65 in 521 innings). And now he’s moving to the American League. It’s not a good idea to trade Rafael Soriano at all; I can’t possibly believe that Bavasi couldn’t have gotten a LOT more if he had looked. Can you imagine what Cleveland, Boston, Florida, or Arizona would have offered for Soriano? Certainly more than Ramirez.

6) Trading Chris Snelling and Emiliano Fruto for Jose Vidro. Bavasi’s latest masterpiece. Jose Vidro was an excellent player in his prime, but he is no longer able to play second base, and his hitting has been in noticeable decline for some years now, with his OPS going from 867 to 821, 763, and 743 since 2003. The Mariners will also be picking up $12 million of the $16 million that Vidro is owed over the next two seasons. It’s bad enough that they’re adding him and paying him $12 million to DH, but they also gave up two potentially valuable pieces. Snelling, a sabermetric favorite, is more fragile than Terrell Owens’s ego, but when he’s healthy he can flat-out hit. Fruto had a 55/21 K/BB ratio in 45 innings in AAA last season, giving up only one homer (and then struck out 34 in 36 major league innings), and throws hard. Vidro is likely to be no better than replacement-level for a DH (if even that “good”), and the Mariners gave up two youngsters with significant upside for the right to pay him $12 million? Ouch.

7) Signing Jose Guillen. Guillen posted a sparkling 674 OPS last season, granted in a pitcher’s park. However, it’s not like Safeco favors hitters. Guillen is going to be 31 years old, and his poor plate discipline suggests that the decline might be real. It’s not like Guillen makes up for his lack of hitting by having a great personality…

8) Signing Miguel Batista. Batista was solid out of the bullpen for Toronto in 2005, posting a 54/27 K/BB ratio. However, the previous season his ERA was 4.80 as a starter and his ratio was 104/96. Sure enough, back in the rotation in 2006 with Arizona, Batista’s ratio was 110/84 in 206 innings. While Arizona’s park favors hitters significantly, such a poor ratio (especially such a poor K rate) does not figure to serve Batista well in the American League.

Sure, it’s easy to second-guess moves in hindsight. The key is looking at whether these moves were seen, at the time, to be mistakes. If they were seen to be mistakes, and turned out to be just-as-big of a mistake as most people expected, well…it was a mistake (for example, it’s hard to fault the Red Sox front office for making the Josh Beckett trade---try to find someone who didn’t at the time at least think it was fair for both teams).

For the record, I will give him “credit” for signing Richie Sexson, Jarrod Washburn, and Kenji Johjima. However, it is not full credit or anything close; I still believe that the $88 million spent on Sexson and Washburn could have been spent in a much better way (keep in mind, in the 2004 and 2005 offseasons $88 million could buy a lot more than it does now). Johjima was enough of a no-brainer to take credit away from Bavasi (they had no other plausible options for catcher), and the Ichiro!-effect made it a lot easier for the Mariners to get a deal done. This was no genius on Bavasi’s part.

The Mariners won’t be awful in 2007; however, with better management they would likely to be able to compete for what’s expected to be a relatively weak Western Division. King Felix can only take them so far.