Millwood sucks

[MontanaMariner]

It's time to give Iwakuma a shot or bring up Ramirez after he gets stretched out.

Or is it time to bring up one of the big three? Paxton would be the logical choice based on his experience.

[bigsexyy81]

Don't bring any of them boys up if it is too early. Not worth it.

[JosephC]

Agree, a little more experience could never hurt, and what's the point? We're not going to beat out the Rangers. Need to save it until next year, when we'll spend another $50 million on TOP bats to get back to the playoffs :o.

[Nateyb24]

Agree, a little more experience could never hurt, and what's the point? We're not going to beat out the Rangers. Need to save it until next year, when we'll spend another $50 million on TOP bats to get back to the playoffs :o.

Hahaha that's pretty funny.

[clarknova]

I don't think any of the three come up until summer at the earliest and I think Hultzen will probably be first. I'd be surprised if we see Walker at all before August/September. Next year is going to be pretty fun pitching wise.

Millwood is incredibly frustrating. He seems to either just lob it up there for them at the beginning of the game, or he will have one just terrible inning. We don't have the offense to continually overcome the 3-5 run innings he's giving up. I was pleased with what I saw from Iwakuma the other night. If he works out and becomes useful even as a long reliever, props to TellItToTheDA for remaining objective on the guy.

Regarding the $50 million the team is going to spend on TOP bats- I almost hope they don't just so Geoff Baker's head will explode and I never have to feel the temptation to flip my desk over after stupidly reading his crap after swearing it off (again). That was a joke.

Jon Daniels, the GM of the Texas Rangers had some of the best young talent in the game when he took over in 2005. It took him 5 years to build a championship contender with, again, one of the best farm systems in all of baseball. Jack Z has had 3 years and inherited one of the worst farm systems in baseball. Jon Daniels up until last off season made one "major" free agent acquisition: Adrian Beltre. 5 years. One. Back to back World Series appearances. Only NOW are they in the top 10 in payroll. Just saying. Rainbows. Puppy dogs. Cupcakes.

[JosephC]

I just can't buy it clarknova, no matter how hard I try. Texas, during those years with Jon Daniels, was seeing a steady increase of wins. I made a 2 second plot:
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/8408/wins.jpg

Look at the Texas trend, look at the M's trend, and look at the Angels. Our trend has seen absolutely no improvement (yes, we did see 1 year improvement, and then a drop right back). This is Z's ballclub, besides Ichiro, he has no other contracts. Yeah, he didn't get a good minor league system, but we're already 3 years into it. This trend should be showing us something like it is for the Rangers. How many years do we give prospects? I say 3 years is plenty to expect an improvement in a baseball organization. Quite frankly, we haven't done jack sh^& at the major league level. I gotta run, class starts now!

[clarknova]

That was beautiful. I love charts and stats.

My response to that would be to ask you why Texas trended upward while the Mariners have toiled at the bottom. You have to look beyond the wins and losses to figure out why one team wins and another doesn't. Do you really credit Jon Daniels for building that team? Take a look at the 40 man roster for the 2006 Texas Rangers. A team constructed by his predecessor. He inherited a team with Ian Kinsler, Mark Teixeira, Michael Young, Nelson Cruz, and C.J. Wilson on the 40 man roster and still finished in third place. The next year, his year two, the Rangers were DEAD LAST in the AL West. 2008, his year three they finished in 2nd place. 21 games out of first. His first draft? The only player on the roster from the 2006 draft is Derek Holland. A 25th round pick. That team was built on trades based on the talent they had when he took over. Trading not only their vastly talented major leaguers, but also their minor league players. If you want to look at the wins and losses and say, ok, Jon Daniels is a better GM than Jack Z because his team is a winner and we're a loser, you're simply not looking closely enough. Where you start matters immensely. Jack had almost nobody to trade and still managed to pull off the Putz trade, AND fleece Philly for Cliff Lee.

Texas has been better BECAUSE of the talent they had in the minors and the young talent emerging in the majors. Drafted by the predecessor to Jon Daniels for the most part. Jon Daniels top draft picks, guys like Jurickson Profar, Mike Olt, and Engel Beltre are yet to reach the majors. Let me put it to you this way- If Texas had Jack Z from 2006, and the Mariners had Jon Daniels from 2009, do you seriously think the team records would be the same? If you really think Jack Z sucks that bad, that is what you're implying. You seem to be suggesting that the talent on the team and in the system don't matter. Major league wins are the only measuring stick for success and you get 3 years, regardless of the tools you're handed. Which brings me to my next point:

Three years being enough for us to start trending like the Rangers. No way. You say 3 years is plenty to expect an improvement in a baseball organization? You don't think our organization has improved in three years? From bottom 10 to top 10 in organization ranking? That's a pretty damn good improvement. If you're saying that three years with a shit farm system and aging shitty major league players (outside of Felix Hernandez) is enough for us to be trending like the Rangers, what are you basing that on? Like who? When has that happened? Three years from draft day to superstardom? Do you know how many major league all stars there have been drafted on or before the 2009 draft? One. Aaron Crow. Jon Daniels has never drafted an All Star. 6 drafts. Zero All Stars. He has traded for them. Neftali Feliz and Elvis Adrus for example. How did he acquire them? He traded Mark Teixeira for them.

You know who I credit for the Rangers success? Alex Rodriguez. His contract and personality I believe sunk that team low enough to acquire all that talent.

As far as the Anaheim Angels... Just wait. You take Mike Trout and Jean Segura away and their system is the 2008 Mariners. They have almost nothing and their system is weighed heavily by Trout. They win because Moreno is a baseball fan. That would be great. But, to say we need to replace ownership isn't enough, you need to say that we need to replace ownership with a new owner that is a fan of baseball and has the capital to spend more than $150 million a year and can eat retard contracts like the Pujols deal and the Vernon Wells contract without batting an eye. How many of those owners in ALL of baseball are there? 6? My point has been, to everyone- if that's the measuring stick for good ownership and GMs, then you're following the wrong team and there are 23 others you probably don't want to follow either. I'm not sticking up for ownership. (which I almost always come close to misspelling as "ownershit" when I type it.

We haven't done jack shit at the major league level because we haven't had shit to work with. How does one acquire winning pieces without a top 6 payroll? The draft and trades. Three years is not enough time to build a contender with nothing, including talent and money to spend. It just simply is not. Unless there are multiple examples I'm missing. Or even one.

[clarknova]

I'm really shocked I didn't exceed the character limit again. I love discussions like this, I think this is at the very root of the "two factions" I see of serious Mariners fans.

I also want to clarify that I'm not a Jack Z apologist regardless, and I absolutely HATED Bavasi, while he was here. It's just that I look at what we have had to build with, I look around the league at other teams built internally with talent and then maintained with a rising payroll to keep the pieces here and add others and I am actually pretty excited about the future. If they sucked at drafting, I'd be in the same boat, but they don't. They're one of the best in baseball at it. We should be excited about that because when these guys start busting out in the majors, we will be a force again.

[JosephC]

I will look into seeing if teams with the best minor league systems are actually the best teams in the following 3, 4, 5 years. Just give me some time to put it together. How long do you think it should take to see the effects of a good minor league system?

[clarknova]

You can if you want, but that's not what I'm implying. It's clear that you need to do both. Draft, trade, sign. What I'm asking for, is a team that went from the bottom to the top in 3 years without spending an ungodly amount of money and had very little talent to start with. When has that ever happened?

You have to spend some to win, but you should probably spend at the right time. Texas didn't start spending until a couple years ago.

[clarknova]

Detroit went from last place in 2004 and the worst record in baseball history to the World Series by spending. And they did so carefully and hit on a lot of the right guys. Their payroll climbed by at least 15 million a year until last year and then it jumped $20 million. That is a sometimes (not always, there are way more examples of franchises burning piles of money and not winning) a way it can be done. So, ok- criticize ownership for not outspending everyone in the division right now. That's what the Tigers did, but that is not up to Jack Z. That's on Emperor Yamauchi. You can't blame Jack for not spending money he is not provided.

[clarknova]

How long do you think it should take to see the effects of a good minor league system?

That's a great question, and I could take a guess, but there are variables. The most important being where the team started. I want to do some research (I'll run out of baseball nerd time today) before I answer that. I want to back up what I'm saying. I'd guess we should start to see some of the effects this season, if by effects you mean a good team I'd guess 5 seasons from nothing to something good. I'll see how close I am after some digging.

[JosephC]

2006 detroit tigers... $82,612,866 salary, 3 years from a total shipwreck. How is that a huge salary? Matter of fact, its almost dead middle and got them to the world series.

[Igoe4Mariners]

This is kind of off topic, but maybe Bavasi wasn't as bad at evaluating talent as some suggest. He was just a fucking tard when it came to trading/giving them away.

The emergence of Adam Jones, Mike Morse, Bryan LaHair (gasp), Shin-Soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera, Brandon Morrow and more have to make one wonder what could have been. I realize this happens to every organization, but the M's could just about field a damn all-star caliber team off former players.

I know Z was the one that traded Morrow and Morse, but Bavasi was still the overall dumbass that pretty much just gave our farm system away for the likes of Erik Bedard, Eduardo Perez, and Ben Broussard.

I'm still on the Z bandwagon. Like clarknova said, the organization has gone from putrid to legit in just three years. That isn't easy to do. At all. Z and McNamara seem to have a knack for finding some real value picks in rounds 2-10 that have come on during their minor league careers. Smoak is very close to being a full-time bust, but I can't fault him with that trade one bit. He was labeled as the next Teixera by pretty much every scout alive. Unfortunately, it just hasn't worked out.


Oh yeah, and Millwood does suck. I'm really tired of watching him serve up belt-high meatballs and then getting lauded for "getting out of trouble." If he was so good at getting out of trouble, he wouldn't get into that much trouble in the first place.

[JosephC]

You might not want 'em, but they're coming anyways.
I plotted the wins and minor league system ranking (30 is the best, 1 is the worst) and plotted them to see if I could pick out any 'delayed' affect as we talked about.

I cannot find any trend here that says a good minor league system will result in a good output. I would say the Rangers and Tampa Bay (not shown) would be 2 examples that support this.
On the other hand, the Braves, Mariners and Phillies show that the minor league production is not translating to good on-field results necessarily.

http://marinersforum.com/graphs/Angels.jpg
http://marinersforum.com/graphs/Mariners.jpg
http://marinersforum.com/graphs/Braves.jpg
http://marinersforum.com/graphs/Nationals.jpg
http://marinersforum.com/graphs/Phillies.jpg
http://marinersforum.com/graphs/Pirates.jpg
http://marinersforum.com/graphs/Rangers.jpg

So, at what point do you say... okay... we have been sucking the last decade, it's time we put some money into this team so we don't become the never ending Pirates. Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild. They've had near average farm systems for the last decade and nothing to show for it.

[clarknova]

That was a lot of charting! Nicely done.

However... I'm a bit confused. Are you attempting to show that having good prospects is not a good thing and doesn't correlate to winning? That's simply not factual, and charting organizational rankings to compare to major league performance is misleading as there is no perfect formula and if there were, everyone could be a GM. I guess I want to be clear here, you're saying good prospects don't mean winning... ever? Or, just that same year? Of course they aren't going to affect that same year, and as I said, probably 5 years later those players are really going to start producing. Also, you'd have to toss out the Phillies and Angels as they both have top 6 payrolls, AND the Rangers chart I think perfectly illustrates my point. Now you see the prospect rankings fall off as they trade and graduate players but the wins go up. That's how you do it. I found a great article to illustrate my point:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/translating-farm-system-rankings-into-wins/

It's called Translating Farm System Rankings Into Wins.

This part really sums it up:

Each year, free-agent-eligible players get about 75% of payroll, but they only produce about 30% of all WAR. The average team gets about 12 WAR from Auction-Market talent, but 26 WAR from Non-Market Talent. At the current price of free-agent talent, it’s effectively impossible to build a team out of auction-market talent alone. We already know that a team of replacement-level players would only win 43 games. The 2009 Yankees would be the only team in the past five years to have enough AM WAR (41.0) to be above .500 without any contribution from NM WAR—but they would fall short of the playoffs at 84-78. Put simply: You absolutely need some cheap talent to win.

That is why it is important to have a good farm system, and that is why the rankings matter.

The 2006 Seattle Mariners spent $5 million more than the Tigers and finished in last place. It's not about the amount you spend, it's how you spend it. I'm not saying the 2006 Tigers spent an astronomical amount of money, I'm saying they increased their payroll by an average of about $15 million per year and frankly got lucky on the vets they did sign. Then they had to rapidly increase payroll to keep up. That's fine to do, but it doesn't always work. Take the Mariners for example, spend, spend, spend, and what? Or the Mets, or the Cubs. The Mariners effectively said, the spending isn't working for us. We're not winning, let's do it the way the Rangers, or the Rays did it. Then when we start to hit on some youngsters, do some deals and spend some money. The Cubs are about to do the same thing. Watch payroll drop drastically, then jump back up, but it will take some time. They bottomed out as well.

Also, where did you get those prospect rankings? I'm curious about the Mariners numbers as they look different than I had thought.

[206HoopsFan]

Something else that you have to remember is that we're just now seeing the arrival of the players Jack Z drafted like Ackley and Seager, and one of his merits always was his ability to find talent. I don't know if this has been posted already, but Baseball America rated our AA team as the most talented in baseball. Do I want us to start spending more money? Absolutely, but I don't think you can put that on Jack Z.

[JosephC]

I'm trying to show that even with good drafting, your team can suck ballz on the field if you don't spend money. I don't think any people on this forum are in any disagreement at all on any of this. It's just when we started the last conversation in the other thread, what I got from your post was in essence that you didn't want us to spend money because we suck right now. We both know good players were on the market, so that's not the question. My posts are trying to show that we NEED to spend money in order to get out of this sucky hole. Z's problem? Heck no. I attached everyone's hero in my last post.

My second (and new) point is, why are we giving Z so much credit? Yes, he's drafted some nice players. Paxton was great. I applaud. But on the other side, how the hell could you screw up any of these #2 picks? All Z had to do was read this forum and he could have selected a player that would be good. We all would have picked Ackley. Hultzen was probably a good snag with #2 also, but we don't know yet. I say any top 10 draft picks can be thrown out as being "amazing", (unless you are Bavasi), then you WILL screw them up good. You need to get them right when you are that high up. Yeah, we got a good farm system ranking this year, but I also want to remind everyone it's inflated with the Montero/Pineda swap. I'm excited, but the main punch line is we as fans can not be happy with the direction we are headed, payroll going down instead of up.

About the graphs, It's not fair to go throw out random graphs of 30 teams because of payroll. I selected a wide variety of these graphs for that exact reason. I'm taking all types of the 30 teams, high payroll, low payroll, everything. If something is going to stand out, I want to see it. As far as the throwing the Phillies out because of payroll? The payroll in 2006 was
$88,273,333, just right with the Mariners. I don't know what it was during the early 2000's, but it wasn't until later that they have been in the top 5. Prospect rankings were from baseball america. Remember they are inverted (30 is best). P.S. I couldn't find any 2007, so I just left it out. If someone has access to baseballamerica, I'd like the rankings for fun.


O and here is Clarknova's source of the quote, I think it's a good read too...
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/translating-farm-system-rankings-into-wins/

[clarknova]

I'm trying to show that even with good drafting, your team can suck ballz on the field if you don't spend money. I don't think any people on this forum are in any disagreement at all on any of this. It's just when we started the last conversation in the other thread, what I got from your post was in essence that you didn't want us to spend money because we suck right now.

I totally agree that you can't win championships through the draft alone. That was the essence of the article I posted, that also showed that it's impossible to build one just by spending money. I guess the difference we have is clear to me now. I don't think we shouldn't spend money because we suck right now, I think we shouldn't spend it for the sake of spending it because we suck right now. That's the crux of our different perspective. I, and Jack Z both thought it would be a good idea to drop 160 to maybe 180 million on Prince Fielder (I'm guessing on their offer). So, obviously the money was there to spend. They apparently thought, ok, we'll try for Fielder, and he was pretty much all they were after as far as a big contract. What was left, that we could get to come here? Crap. Marginal players. I don't want them right now. If we were a 90 win team with a void in the outfield and could get Willingham, then OK... But I don't want those guys right now. If they could have convinced Fielder to come here for $170 million, I bet they would have done it. We'd be in the upper 10 in payroll and we'd STILL probably be at best a 3rd place team, but he would help for years.

Also, their drafts have been freaking awesome. Simply dominant.

Regarding the charts, I'm saying that you're looking for future performance and the Phillies are top 6 now, when their prospects from say 5 years prior would be hitting. They traded a lot of those prospects to Toronto for Halliday.

Additionally, the one thing I'm leery of from this front office is their free agent signings. It hasn't gone well. You're putting a lot of faith in a guy you don't think is doing a very good job. If you don't even think he can draft well, and he's shown he's fairly weak at free agency regarding hitting on talent, then why do you want him to throw tens of millions of dollars to compete for 2nd place? Funner to watch and be a fan of now? By what, 5 wins? I want a championship team, built for years. Outside of Fielder, I don't think ANY free agent helps us get there this year.

[clarknova]

By the way, this is my favorite thread on this site ever! :)

[clarknova]

Regarding Bavasi... His drafts were GOD awful. He had, and we do have one of the top international scouting directors in the game. Also got us Felix Hernandez who he spotted at age 14. But yeah, you're right- Bavasi just traded them all away. And as for Morrow, yeah he's good now but how many years did that take? :) LaHair is a scientific anomaly.

[JosephC]

Yes, I did not think about the Halliday trade, that is an important point. I honestly picked most of these teams random, minus our division. I put the Pirates in for clarkmaster, since I know he diggs them also.

I'm still big on BJ Upton, and I sure hope they at least consider the guy. He's young enough, and could be a core player for several years with our club. Should Montero fail at catching, or do a hockey dive like he did a few games ago and break something, I am also a huge fan of Billy Butler. I don't know what he'd want for on the market (in the 9 digits), but he's legit. That's my big problem. This year was the year to grab a free agent. Good names, good bats. Next year? I don't see anything that excites me. Personally not big into Hamilton.

[Igoe4Mariners]

Regarding Bavasi... His drafts were GOD awful. He had, and we do have one of the top international scouting directors in the game. Also got us Felix Hernandez who he spotted at age 14. But yeah, you're right- Bavasi just traded them all away. And as for Morrow, yeah he's good now but how many years did that take? :) LaHair is a scientific anomaly.

Yeah, I'll never forgive the Clement pick.

Where's Philipe Aumont and Josh Fields these days?

:eek:

[Igoe4Mariners]

By the way, this is my favorite thread on this site ever! :)

I love how Millwood sucks turns into a prospect thread.

And yesterday's prospect thread turned into a debate over whether our FO is doing the right thing in their approach to FA.

[JosephC]

And thus I can help turn a debate over the front office thread into a prospect thread. :cool:

[clarknova]

Yeah... That's probably my fault. Lol. I feel less bad about yesterday's thread because I changed my own subject. Millwood does suck though, to bring it full circle. Totally sucks.

[Igoe4Mariners]

Yeah... That's probably my fault. Lol. I feel less bad about yesterday's thread because I changed my own subject. Millwood does suck though, to bring it full circle. Totally sucks.

No problem man. I enjoy these debates. A ton.

:)

[clarknova]

Me too. Especially against respectful and intelligent adversaries. I usually learn something, and I like that. Millwood sucks.

[daddyferrari]

I've been rather impressed with Iwakuma, I'd like to see him get a start in the near future. I don't know much about him though. Do you guys think he's ready to be a full fledged starter?

[clarknova]

I've been rather impressed with Iwakuma, I'd like to see him get a start in the near future. I don't know much about him though. Do you guys think he's ready to be a full fledged starter?

I think I'd like to see him again before I'm ready to say he's a starter, but what impressed me the most was the strike outs. Normally, a guy like that who doesn't throw very hard isn't going to get a lot of K's. Striking out 5 of the 12 batters he faced was encouraging for sure. Maybe it was a flash in the pan, or maybe he's got it figured out. He was mixing his pitches well and seemed to have good command.

[Mariners51]

I see no reason he can't be our own Hiroki Kuroda

[worldwideed]

I don't care if it's Iwakuma or Millwood in the rotation. They are both NOT a long term part of this team and are just place holders, so what is the difference?

[bigsexyy81]

I think this one individual thread lit a fire under Millwood's ass. Last two starts,

16 innings
5 hits
1 ER
13 k

Realistically, he should be 4-4 right now. He has had 4 bad games to go with 4 games of 0 or 1 runs and pitched 6, 7, 7, and 9 innings in those games.

[TellItToTheDA]

Come on Millwood, keep doing this and we can trade you for something shiny!

[bigsexyy81]

Kevin millwood!!!

[TellItToTheDA]

It's time to give Iwakuma a shot or bring up Ramirez after he gets stretched out.

Or is it time to bring up one of the big three? Paxton would be the logical choice based on his experience.

Well don't you just look plum foolish right about now.

[Mariners51]

Well don't you just look plum foolish right about now.

You know dang well we were all thinking along the same lines at the time!

[bigsexyy81]

You know dang well we were all thinking along the same lines at the time!
This.........