Next : Shot Hops: Todd Jones, Pettitte, Bonds and More..
Three Lousy Pitchers
Geoff Baker at the Seattle Times pens a thoughtful article on the struggles of the Seattle Mariners in 2008. It largely focuses on the demise of Kenji Johjima, but really, he is more a symptom than a cause. When Raul Ibanez is your best hitter and Jose Lopez is your hope for the future, there is plenty of blame to go around the entire organization.
The pitching side is worse. Felix Hernandez is a developing young stud, and Brandon Morrow looks like he should be fine once the M’s figure out what to do with him. Then what? Erik Bedard has made 15 starts this season and is a free agent at year’s end. Jarrod Washburn has been predictably mediocre and is still on the books for $10.35 million in 2009. Miguel Batista is owed $9 million. Carlos Silva… wait, this works better as a table:
| 2008 | 2009 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IP | ERA+ | K/9 | Age | Salary | ||
| Statistics are courtesy of Baseball-Reference and Cot’s Baseball Contracts and are through games of September 24, 2008. | ||||||
| Jarrod Washburn | 153.2 | 89 | 5.10 | 34 | $10.35M | |
| Miguel Batista | 115 | 67 | 5.71 | 38 | $9M | |
| Carlos Silva | 153.1 | 65 | 4.05 | 30 | $11M | |
There’s your problem. That’s more than $30 million invested in three lousy pitchers. And the Mariners owe Silva an additional $25 million through 2012.
Silva has done this before: In 2006 he sported a spiffy 75 ERA+ and then became marginally useful the following year. Still, his fantastic 2005 season appears to have been a mirage, and the track record for guys who can’t put the ball past hitters (career 3.80 K/9 in Silva’s case) isn’t real strong.
The last pitchers to post an ERA+ north of 100 and a K/9 south of 4.00 (minimum 1000 IP) retired in 1990 and were almost exclusively relievers. (Dan Quisenberry and Greg Minton, if you’re wondering.) Starters? Then you’re looking at guys like Geoff Zahn and Larry Gura, who left the game in 1985. If you want to compare Silva to contemporary pitchers, there aren’t many from which to choose: Kirk Reuter and Ricky Bones are pretty much it.
That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence, does it? I wish I had a solution in mind, but I’m not sure there’s much anyone can do with those contracts. Baker notes in his article that the Twins had interest in Washburn. Even if the M’s jettisoned him, though, they’d still be on the hook for $45 million to Batista and Silva. Not that shedding Washburn’s contract wouldn’t help, but $45 million worth of lousy pitching is a lot to overcome.
So yeah, good luck with that…
September 25th, 2008 at 10:08 am
The Mariners have a bunch of very high upside prospects that in any other system, would be 3-5 years away. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Aumont throwing in the majors next year and for Truinfel to be at least a September call-up.
Aside from those two, there is some DECENT hope, at least on the developmental side. Another thing working in the Mariners favor, they can sign whoever they want this offseason and only lose a second round pick. Why not go with the high OBP Dunn in Ibanez’s place?