Why Are We Still Friends?

With the news that 98° band member, and former Mr. Jessica Simpson, Nick Lachey has joined the ownership group for the Tacoma Rainiers, I had to pull one of his band's songs out of the archive. Seems this one's a bit fitting:

Why, why are we still friends
When everything says
We should be more than what we are
And tell me why
Everytime I find someone that I like
We always end up being just friends

Of course, it may be more appropriately applied to the Boston Red Sox, who, up until 2004, were always the bridesmaid and never the bride. But, it could also apply to the Mariners who probably will end up missing out on the free agents they want (which, of course, may or may not be a good thing). I mean, heck, this franchise has grown some serious warts since the glory days of 2001. With Hargrove at the helm, and Howard controlling the direction, who really would want to jump on board?

Free agents are going to be expensive in the first place. Tack on an additional percentage to try and lure people to a place commonly associated (outside of the PNW) with the remote netherregions of Alaska (and, with the weather we've had lately, any tours of the city couldn't be all that appealing, furthering this feeling), and you've got some serious problems trying build a playoff-caliber roster with Alaska-sized holes in the rotation.

So, it looks like the Rainiers will be an interesting team to watch. The transition between ownership groups will be interesting to watch, too.

Sorry, Mariners -- You're really nice guys, but I just want to be friends.

Black Friday Shopping

With all the earlybirds cramming the stores chasing after the worms ($299 laptops, $499 LCD HDTVs, etc.), there's got to be some GMs chasing after bargains this morning as well, right? Heh. I'd say: wrong!

If the early contracts doled out are any indication of what the holiday season will deliver for MLB clubs trying to upgrade their teams, there aren't going to be any worms for the earlybirds. $45 million to Juan Pierre; $50 million to Garry Mathews Jr.; $136 million to Alfonso Soriano. In Houston, Tim Purpura's wife sent him to the store to wait in line at Wal Mart for the $79 portable DVD player, and he came home with a $100,000,000 Carlos Lee.

It's this last item that has me a bit excited. Two years and $28 million, opens the door to making Richie Sexson a bargain in this market. Since Lee ended up with Houston instead of Baltimore, it's like the M's have just opened up the last case on the left side of the board, and have two cases left on the bottom of the right side. The Mariners need starting pitching more than they need Richie Sexson, and they just might be able to get it now that the last real right-handed power-hitting free agent is off the market.

I'll admit to being crazy and getting out of bed early on a perfectly good day off. Even though I gave the shoppers a 2-hour head start, I still got most of everything on my list. There were tons and tons of people out shopping, looking for bargains. Plenty of bargains remained in the stores.

I'm not so sure there are any bargains left on the free agent market.

There is No Such Thing As Wrinkle-Free Pants!

With all this delish weather we've been having as of late, I've noticed one very important thing. Wrinkle-free pants do not exist. Similarly, this time of year, wrinkle-free roster plans do not exist either. Sure, you can try and mix all kinds of chemicals together, and create some super-fabric that resists stains, wrinkles, and whatnot. But no matter how hard you try, there's still a ton of work to do to get those wrinkles out.

In the case of my previous semi-suggestion for the 2007 M's, I found a few wrinkles. The first glaring one was that I assumed 60 + 12.5 = 62.5. Yup. I lost $10 million of CHowArmLinStrong's money. That alone would be grounds for termination. Oops. Fortunately one of my advisers caught the error and I'm giving myself a mulligan for that one. I was about as tired as I am right now. The other two wrinkles, of course, were that Greg Maddux and Al Soriano were my two big signings. Obviously, for many reasons, neither of those things are very realistic.

So, here I am, with my Dice-Less Roster V. 2.0. I'll trust you can get the earlier figures on the guys that are on the team on my previous post. So, for time's sake, I'll omit them except in the changes that I'm making in this version. I'm also ignoring the spate of recent minor league free agent signings (Foppert, Ordonez, etc...) because I see them as spare parts for stashing in the minors. Here ya go:

1) Richie Sexson (1B)
2) Adrian Beltre (3B)
3) Ichiro Suzuki (CF)
4) Jarrod Washburn (SP)
5) Kenji Johjima (C)
6) Raul Ibanez (DH/LF)
7) Willie Bloomquist (UTIL)
8) Yuniesky Betancourt (SS)
9) Jose Lopez (2B)

XX) DFA/Trade Julio Mateo & pay contract

Total so far: $60 million.

10) Felix Hernandez
11) George Sherrill
12) Cha Baek
13) Chris Snelling
14) Mike Morse

New total: $62 million (sans a hundred K or so)

15) JJ Putz (Arbitration buyout - $3 million in 2007, $3.5 million in 2008 and $4.5 million in 2009.)

That brings us up to $65 million.

To pad the 'pen and bench, I'd still keep the same suggestion:

16) RHRP Scott Williamson. Might actually have to coax him with 6 figures or more, though. I still think he's a good fit. So, fine, $1 million it is.

17) RHRP Jon Huber.

18) LHRP Eric O'Flaherty.

19) DH/1B/LF: Eduardo Perez. Try to keep him for $1 million. The more and more I think about this, the more and more I'd probably exercise his option.

20) OF Jose Cruz Jr. 1 year, $1 million. Still.

21) C Greg Zaun. Haven't heard if he's going to resign, so as long as he hasn't, I'm still lookin' his direction. If not, then I'm not sure I want Fick, but for the same reason as before, he's second on my list.

Okay, so let's look at this so far:

Lineup
1B: Richie Sexson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
CF: Ichiro
LF: ? + Ibanez
RF: ? + Snelling
C: Kenji Johjima
DH: Ibanez + ?

Rotation
SP: Felix Hernandez
SP: Jarrod Washburn
SP: Cha Seung Baek

Pen
RP: Scott Williamson
RP: Jon Huber
RP: Eric O'Flaherty
RP: George Sherrill
CL: JJ Putz

Bench
UTIL: Willie Bloomquist
UTIL: Mike Morse
C: Greg Zaun/Robert Fick
1b/DH/LF: Eduardo Perez
OF: Jose Cruz

That's roughly $70 million, and I have about $15-25 million to spend. Still need at least 2 SPs and a DH/corner OF.

For that last spot (DH), I'm going to go out on a limb. I suppose I could keep Broussard here and retain both halves of the Benuardo DH combo. But, there's someone that's available that might be worth taking a risk on for the lefty side of that platoon. I'll credit Trent Taylor, former co-author at Lookout Landing, for this idea:

22) DH: Ryan Klesko. 1 year, $2.5 million + incentives -- let's count $4 million total, with a vesting option for a second year. Give him Carl Everett's contract, and if he doesn't work out, fine. DFA him before it vests. Yeah, he's older than Broussard, and probably doesn't have much upside. And, being a career NL'er, there's a lot of risk there, too. But that 30-40 point jump in OBP would be very nice to have. Health may be of concern, with his shoulder, but since he's a DH, that wouldn't be too hard to replace (moving Ibanez to DH and inserting Cruz into the OF or calling up someone else from T-Town to play LF).

Now, with $11-21 million left to spend, here's the two pitchers the M's could spend it on.

23) RHSP Tomo Ohka. 2 years, $10 million ($4.5 million in 2007 and $5.5 million in 2008), with perhaps a 3rd year option. It's almost inevitable now. I don't like it, but, let's face it, the M's are desperate for pitching, and I'd rather have two smaller albatrosses than one potentially large one.

24) LHSP Randy Wolf. 2 years, $15 million ($7 million in 2007 and $8 million in 2008), again with a 3rd year option. I'm not sure I like this one either. I'm really struggling with the pitching. I suppose you could put Eaton in this slot, at that salary. Again, though, the concept is to break the $12-15 million you'd pay Schmidt into smaller, less-risky chunks that would hurt much less to swallow than the potential albatross you'd give Schmidt.

For the 25th slot, I leave it open for Hargrove to decide. He gets someone from our system who'd be on a minimum contract. Or, if you want to up the budget a bit, you buy out Soriano's arbitration years. So, for 2007, here's what $86 million (give or take a few hundred $K) would give ya:

Lineup
1B: Richie Sexson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
CF: Ichiro
LF: Raul Ibanez
RF: Chris Snelling
C: Kenji Johjima
DH: RyUardo KleskErez

Rotation
SP: Felix Hernandez
SP: Jarrod Washburn
SP: Tomo Ohka
SP: Randy Wolf
SP: Cha Seung Baek

Pen
RP: Scott Williamson
RP: Jon Huber
RP: Eric O'Flaherty
RP: George Sherrill
CL: JJ Putz

Bench
UTIL: Willie Bloomquist
UTIL: Mike Morse
C: Greg Zaun/Robert Fick
1b/DH/LF: Eduardo Perez
OF: Jose Cruz

Trade Bait
Julio Mateo
Ben Broussard
Jeremy Reed
Rafael Soriano

Certainly not spectacular by any means. But, I just don't see how the M's could fill all those rotation holes without digging themselves deeper and deeper into the albatross pit. I'm still ignoring the trade market, but I believe our trade bait could return us a starting pitcher. I'd sooooo prefer that to signing Wolf and/or Ohka. But as woeful as I am at guessing what the M's would semi-realistically do to build their club through free agency, I'm even worse at speculating a) who might be available and b) what it would take to get him.

Bottom line, I really don't see the M's capable of building a playoff-caliber roster with the pieces that are available. It's certainly possible, sure, but within a $90-95 million budget, and the money they have tied up in salary already (especially joined with their seeming unwillingness to trade Sexson) I just don't see it happening.

Dice-less Roster Version 1.0

Okay. I get it. It can't be just a smokescreen anymore. The M's are not going to employ the services of one Daisuke Matsuzaka. I was actually going to proceed with this assuming that the M's were going to lose out on the sweepstakes. Because, yeah, well, there's always that possibility.

So, looking at my last post, I figured the 2007 M's definitely need two starting pitchers, a backup catcher, and could possibly tweak the roster a bit to improve their offense. Here's my first draft of the 2007 M's that is both possible (i.e. the M's might look at these guys) and realistic (i.e. not going above and beyond the 90 or so million they're likely to budget. Contract figures from this site here.

1) Richie Sexson (1B): Third year of 4-year $50 million contract. Due $14 million in '07
2) Adrian Beltre (3B): Third year of 5-year, $64 million contract. Due $11.5 million in '07
3) Ichiro Suzuki (CF): Final year of 4-year, $44 million contract. Due $11 million in '07
4) Jarrod Washburn (SP): Second year of 4-year, $37.5 million contract. Due $9.5 million in '07.
5) Kenji Johjima (C): Second year of 3-year, $16.5 million contract. Due $5.2 million in '07
6) Raul Ibanez (DH/LF): First year of 2-year, $11 million contract. Due $5.5 million in '07
7) Willie Bloomquist (UTIL): Second year of 2-year $1.25 million contract. Due $.85 million in '07
8) Yuniesky Betancourt (SS): Second year of 4 year, $2.826 million contract. Due $.4 million in '07
9) Jose Lopez (2B): Team-controlled pre-arbitration contract. Figure $.375 million

XX) DFA/Trade Julio Mateo & pay contract: Due $1 million in '07

So far: $59.325 million. I've probably got the math wrong, so let's round up to $60 million. That's a whole lot of money for 9 players (10, if you include the price of Mateo).

Here's where it goes up.

10) Greg Maddux (SP): 2 years, $19 million (2007, $9.5 million, 2008 team option for $9.5 million, with a $1 million buyout). Okay, I know he's not a huge periphs guy (i.e. High K/9, etc...). Still, even at 41, he'd have a reasonable shot of translating his success to the AL. Likely would be better than Jamie Moyer, since he's more of a groundballer. I'm fairly certain he wants to retire in the NL, so this isn't necessarily likely, but you just never know. I like the thought of Maddux over Schmidt, mostly because of the length of contract.

11) J.J. Putz (CL): Arbitration buyout: 3 years, $12 million. Not sure 'bout this, but this is what I'm thinking. $3 million in 2007, $3.5 million in 2008 and $4.5 million in 2009. Not sure if that's a good idea, but Bavasi doesn't take players to arbitration.

That's $12.5 million to the pot, bringing us to $62.5 million. Oh, wait. I also need to add the guys under team control:

12) Felix Hernandez ~$.4 million
13) George Sherrill ~$.4 million
14) Cha Baek ~$.4 million
15) Chris Snelling ~$.4 million
16) Mike Morse ~$.4 million

So, that adds another $2 million, bringing things up to $64.5 million. Let's look at the roster, then:

1B: Richie Sexson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
CF: Ichiro
LF: ? + Ibanez
RF: ? + Snelling
C: Kenji Johjima
DH: Ibanez + ?

SP: Felix Hernandez
SP: Jarrod Washburn
SP: Greg Maddux
SP: Cha Seung Baek

RP: George Sherrill
CL: JJ Putz

UTIL: Willie Bloomquist
UTIL: Mike Morse

So, 16 players and $64.5 million in salary. Still need 1 SP, 1 backup catcher, 1 corner outfielder (preferrably RH) and either 4 RPs and 2 bench bats, or 3 RPs and 3 bench bats. With roughly $20 million to spend. Let's keep going, then.

17) RHRP Scott Williamson. 1 year, $750K. Hargrove needs a veteran in the 'pen. Not a great addition, but might be a useful arm. Horrid walk rate, but high K/9 and neutral GB%. Seems to keep the ball in the park.

18) RHRP Jon Huber. Team control ~$.4 million

19) LHRP Eric O'Flaherty. Team control ~$.4 million. Since Hargrove gets his veteran, I get two yutes for the 'pen.

20) DH/1B/LF: Eduardo Perez. Decline option ($2 million?) and offer $.5 million (with $100K buyout totals $.6 million. Great bench bat and awesome clubhouse presence. Rather him than Dobbs.

21) OF Jose Cruz Jr. 1 year, $1 million. Why not. Both Dave and Jason have added him into their plans. He's a "switch hitting" corner OF who would be great off the bench and to add depth.

Total now: $67.65 million, with one more SP needed, and a backup catcher, and two spots for either 2 RPs or 2 bench bats, or one of each. Still have $18-20 million or so to spend...

22) C Greg Zaun. 1 year, $1 million. Might return to Toronto. But if he doesn't, he's my top target. Due for a raise??? My second choice, though, would be Robert Fick for 1 year $600K -- if only so the Fick Fanimutation could still be kept alive.

Lineup
1B: Richie Sexson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
CF: Ichiro
LF: ? + Ibanez
RF: ? + Snelling
C: Kenji Johjima
DH: Ibanez + ?

Rotation
SP: Felix Hernandez
SP: Jarrod Washburn
SP: Greg Maddux
SP: Cha Seung Baek

Pen
RP: Scott Williamson
RP: Jon Huber
RP: Eric O'Flaherty
RP: George Sherrill
CL: JJ Putz

Bench
UTIL: Willie Bloomquist
UTIL: Mike Morse
C: Greg Zaun/Robert Fick
1b/DH/LF: Eduardo Perez
OF: Jose Cruz

Okay, so I need another RP. Or, at least Hargrove does. I'd prefer another bench bat, but since it'd likely end up being Dobbs, I'm flippant as to who gets the nod in the 'pen. I still see Soriano as trade bait, even with Lowe's career-threatening injury. With still nearly $20 million to spend, that leaves some options for the last two spots on my 25-man roster.

I'd agree that Manny Ramirez would be the best fit. But, since Dave's even hinted that Bavasi wouldn't go for it, I'm not going to trade for him. Bonds is out of the question, too, for similar reasons.

Here's where I go out on a limb.

24) SP: Gil Meche. 3 years, $21 million. 2007: $6.5 million; 2008: team option: $7 million; 2009: team option: $7.5 million. Probably throw some mutual option in there, too, if that's what it takes to keep him (sorta like Eddie's contract with the M's). I'm a bit gun shy because of Pineiro's 2006 contract. But I believe Meche will be a solid, league-average pitcher for the length of that contract.

And finally:

25) Alfonso Soriano: OF 5 years, $65 million ($12 million in 2007-2010 and a $5 million signing bonus -- not paid in 2007) Option for $12 million in 2011 ($3 million buyout) . Absolutely crazy, I know. No way he performs up to that deal. Honestly, though, if the M's are going to add a potential albatross contract, I'd rather it be on a hitter than on a pitcher like Schmidt or Zito. Probably not a good fit, but the M's don't need an all-LH outfield.

Here's, then, my 2007 M's 25-man roster. All $87 million worth (unless my math is off).

Lineup
1B: Richie Sexson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
CF: Ichiro
LF: Alfonso Soriano
RF: Chris Snelling
C: Kenji Johjima
DH: Raul Ibanez

Rotation
SP: Felix Hernandez
SP: Jarrod Washburn
SP: Greg Maddux
SP: Gil Meche
SP: Cha Seung Baek

Pen
RP: Scott Williamson
RP: Jon Huber
RP: Eric O'Flaherty
RP: George Sherrill
CL: JJ Putz

Bench
UTIL: Willie Bloomquist
UTIL: Mike Morse
C: Greg Zaun/Robert Fick
1b/DH/LF: Eduardo Perez
OF: Jose Cruz

Plenty of options for defensive arrangement. Probably need a true lefty bat on the bench, though. That's where my 23rd slot is flexible. Perhaps you sign both Robert Fick and Greg Zaun. Either another 'pen arm, or a lefty bat off the bench. That's Hargrove's choice. Maybe you keep Broussard, and stretch the budget to $90-95 million.

Trade Bait
Julio Mateo
Ben Broussard
Jeremy Reed
Rafael Soriano

The M's badly need to restock their system. They need some starting pitching depth. They need some power depth. The guys in the trade bait list should help bring back some younger talent.

Other Options:
SP: Orlando Hernandez
SP: Andy Pettite (probably will retire)
SP: Ted Lilly (not much better than Meche, and will definitely be waaaay overpaid)
SP: Jason Schmidt (rather him than Zito)

I'm just glad I'm not in Bavasi's shoes. It's a tough, tough offseason to be shopping.