Rosenthal: Mariners set to sign Figgins
ByKen Rosenthal tweets that the Mariners are on the verge of signing Chone Figgins for four years in the “$36 million range.” Figgins will replace free agent Adrian Beltre at third base. At some point over the winter, Figgins was vaguely linked to the Yanks as a left field replacement for Johnny Damon despite the fact that he had barely played the outfield over the last few years. That option is now clearly off the table.
For the Mariners, this isn’t a terrible deal. They have a dangerous speed combination of Ichiro and Figgins atop their lineup. I believe, however, that a four-year deal for a 32-year-old who relies on his legs is a bit of a risk. At around $9 million a season, though, the money is right. Seattle is still rumored to be interested in a big bat to drive home the speedsters when they get on base.
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Does Russ Branyan count? I think I read they wanted him back.
A 1-2-3 of Ichiro-Figgins-Branyan would be good for them and with their defense, could put them over the top in the AL West.
If they re-sign Branyan, that is.
i dont know how i feel about hiom, i feel like he is the ideal one good season, get paid, revert to previous norms type of guy
His previous norm is to spend only a third of a season or so on a major league roster, but to perform well (113 career OPS+) when on a roster. I dunno what to expect from that.
Could be one of those guys who’s successful in limited pa’s, but is overexposed when thrust into a long term starting role.
Russell Branyan 2009 2nd half: .193/.274/.414
Branyan is terrible.
Anyone else find it a bit strange how much the Mariners are willing to open up the checkbooks?
Not really. That’s a very popular team and they have the money. They’re almost ready to compete in the AL West and just need to spend they money.
They should really go out and sign Lackey.
oh wow signing both athe angel’s free agent “marquee names” would be hilarious. they should go for an injury high upside guy too if they have the money on a 1yr deal.
Totally agreed. I think if any of the relevant AL West teams (i.e. not the Athletics) sign Lackey, that makes them the front runner in that division.
They should sign Bedard and trade him back to the Orioles…..
Signing Lackey too basically gives them the AL West- and with Texas young pitching improving the Angels and the best manager ever have a real chance at finishing 3rd.
see subtractions of jojima and i dont know how much bedard made but him leaving prob helped too
Beltre: 13.4m
Washburn: 10.3m
Batistsa: 9.5m
Johjima: 8m
Bedard: 7.75m
=$48.95m off the books
Hmmm, that’s a lot of extra coin.
Let’s knock the Wii down to $175. CHRISTMAS WILL BE OURS!!!!
Sincerely,
Nintendo
they’re slowly and quietly building a pretty good team out in seattle, one that can win that division, especially if the angels dont resign lackey (and obv ifggins) and dont get halladay.
and if they do, they owe kenji jojima a fruit basket for opting out of one of the worst contracts
I still can’t believe Jojima walked away from that contract.
He got more money in Japan. What’s to figure out?
because he walked away from 16m over the next 2 years to make 22m over the next 4 years.
Given how badly he was sucking here, and the dim likelihood of him getting another big contract from anyone, anywhere 2 years from now at his current pace of suckitude, I’d take the slight decrease in AAV to swap a 2/16 for a 4/22 if I was Johjima.
Get the money while you still can.
I agree he couldnt get it in MLB. But in 2 years he couldnt finish up his career back home and get 6m over 2-3 years?
Cant blame a guy for wanting to go home.
Dammit! Stupid Mariners and their relatively intelligent decision to sign Chone Figgins over Jason Bay. One less landing zone besides Boston for him now.
jason bay on the sox for a long term contract is a good thing for everyone who is not the redsox
Have to agree, dog, but that left field minimizes the defensive liability that he represents. It’s actually a sensible place for him. (And works for us Yankee fans, too!)
Personally, I don’t want anyone to sign Jason Bay other that the Sox.
I’d much rather have Bay and his impending decline stay in Boston, tying up money and a roster spot, than have him walk, be replaced by Holliday, and watch the Sox pick up a pick in the process to boot.
Jason Bay the new Mike Lowell??
No, Mike Lowell has a redeeming quality: He’s not Canadian.
Depends on how much they sign Holliday for. Small-to-mid market jokes aside, Boston does have a budget that they strictly adhere to, and if their hand is forced to overpay for Matty H, even at something still reasonable like 5/90, than:
1) I don’t see that putting them over the top in 2010
2) They will have to make some tough decisions in the future with much more appealing FA classes in the horizon.
Matty H >>>> Jason Bay
No doubt.
But also,
4/60 >>>> 5/90
Ehh…not so sure about that. Not if you’re the Red Sox…they have some money to burn. Their payroll is significantly lower than it can be…and Holliday is younger and better than Bay…so if it’s only 1 more year (thought it probably will reach 6)…I’d look into Holliday a little more.
Didn’t Bay already turn down a 4/$60m offer from the Sox? The Sox don’t really want Bay. Theo values defense. The Sox will go hard for Holliday.
and there is always the delicious possibility of them losing out on BOTH free agents. How fucking hilarious would that be?
I think the move is for 1 year too long but the money is pretty low. If the economy comes back in a year or 2 it will be a good deal then.
I hope this is true. I never wanted to see him on the Yanks.
Plus, it hurts the Angels.
Matsui anyone?
Rumor has it that Matsui and Ichiro aren’t the best of friends. That might not happen. Plus, the Mariners re-upped with Griffey. They’re not about to sign another no-field guy for the bench/DH spot.
Matsui>>>>Griffey at this point in time as a DH. Plus besides the Yankees and Sox, the Mariners probably have the biggest asian market.
No one’s debating that, but at this point, the Mariners have spent money on Griffey. They’re not about to flush more down the tubes just to sign Matsui. I’d be very surprised if Hideki ended up in Seattle, Asian market or not.
I understand your points but they could stand to make even more money with Matsui, especially if he helps to make them successful in the AL West. Just seems like a perfect fit to me because it seems apparent that he’s not one of the Yankee’s priorities and he’s not going to be expensive. I mean maybe 1 yr for 8-9M with an option for a second at a similar salary, his returns on marketing would surely pay that.
I’m not so sure you do understand his points
im pretty sure i do fool
You should see Milwaukee.
MAD ASIANS, SON!
Matsui>>>>Griffey at this point in time as a DH.
Regardless, they already signed Griffey. They didn’t re-sign Griffey to be a pinch hitter…
They can just sign a solid bat who plays the field and keep Griffey at DH…makes more economical sense.
Yeah Matsui is a way better option. So would Thome, Vlad, or putting the money in the bank that they’re paying Griffey.
The Griffey signing didn’t make a whole lot of sense, especially if they’re going to be spending on good FA to contend.
Griffey played 117 games last year and is projected to play 87 this year so he’s not exactly your full time DH at any rate.
Simply put, the Mariners have 25 spots. They aren’t going to use two of those spots — Griffey and Matsui — on guys who cannot at all play the field. By signing Griffey, they foreclosed on the option to sign Matsui. Take it to the bank.
Unless they release Griffey and eat the money, Matsui isn’t coming to the Mariners, no matter how good a fit he is. For a team trying to contend on a limited payroll, roster flexibility trumps the fact that Matsui will possibly pay for himself (although that’s questionable because the Mariners can’t really further penetrate the Japanese market more than have already done so). With Griffey and Matsui, the team would have no roster flexibility at all.
Nothing more can be said but that time will tell, but I still think it’s a possibility.
Sign Matsui, and have he and Griffey alternate between DH and 2B. Each one plays one each day.
BOOOOOOM, PROBLEM SOLVED.
———–
(Sidebar: Can’t remember which radio show I was listening to yesterday; probably Michael Kay; anyway, a Mets fan called in and said that they should look at signing Shelley Duncan to form a platoon with Daniel Murphy.
However, this was his idea of the platoon: Since Murphy doesn’t hit righties well, and Duncan doesn’t hit lefties well, the Mets should do the following:
Against righties: play Shelley at first, and Murphy in LF
Against lefties: play Murphy at first, and Shelley in LF
That was his plan. I did not make that up. That’s how he wanted the platoon to work.
I repeat, I am not making this up.)
I’m surprised he was able to think while dialing the telephone number
Wow, just wow.
In his defense, if there was any team in baseball who would actually do a “platoon” of this type… it’s the Mets.
I hereby dub this idea, where you have one or two “flexible” guys you move around from position to position (but still have someone playing every day who most-friggin-definitely should be sitting on the bench) a “Mets Platoon”.
The rotating DH concept? (The version where we don’t replace Matsui with a new DH but rotate guys like ARod-Posada-Jeter/etc. through it and play either DeRosa or some amalgam of Pena/Cervelli/Gardner every day?)
That’s a Mets Platoon.
That’s just stupid. They should do exactly the opposite:
Against lefties: Shelley in LF, and play Murphy at first
Against righties: play Murphy in LF, and Shelley at first
No matter how you slice it, that could be one of the worst platoons in terms of offensive and defensive production…ever.
Jim P, I’d like to hire you to be the new Assistant GM of the Mets.
Sincerely,
Jeff Wilpon
P.S. Have you ever taken your shirt off and challenged a room full of 20 year olds to fight you? Because that would be a big plus. We value passion and intensity here at the Mets.
My sarcasm detector is off due to extreme hungover-ness, but I really hope for your sake this is a joke.
I wish my radio had a rewind button so I could have listened to it again.
“Hey, um, it’s Tiger. Listen, I need you to do me a really big favor: could you please take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone, and she may call you.”
He also played 166 innings in the field…which probably won’t happen. That’s really not a lot at all…but for somebody like him it is.
To play where? They already re-signed Ken Griffey Jr. to play DH…
Griffey can’t really play the field anymore and Matsui certainly can’t…
Seattle is still rumored to be interested in a big bat to drive home the speedsters when they get on base.
http://tinyurl.com/bigbatoptionforthemariners (safe-ish)
Who’re the Mariners pencilling in at short? They dealt off Betancourt, didn’t they?
They re-upped Jack Wilson for two more years last month.
Jack Wilson
First Jack Wilson, then Griffey, now Figgins?
The Mariners big spending ways will come back to haunt them. Only a GM as dumb as Jack Zduriencik could have possibly fucked up a job as easy as being the GM of the team backed by the Nintendo millions.
We’re all going to sit back and watch that horribly constructed Seattle team of selfish, overpaid multimillionaires crash and burn like a jackknifed semi tractor trailer full of dynamite and fireworks on a rainy oilslicked offramp of I-5, and then we’ll kick back and light our schadenfreude victory cigars and laugh our self-righteous asses off, because the Mariners represent the abject failure of all that is wrong with America. They’re why the world hates us, and I can’t wait to piss on their grave when they go 31-131 next year.
Sincerely,
Matt Taibbi
Wow, that took a lot of energy and creativity, TSJC. It’s a sign of high culture.
I give because I love.
Who’s Matt Taibbi? Sega rep from long ago?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=matt+taibbi
To answer your question though…yes, it was.
lol
Urge to kill… rising…
How do you do those things though by the way? Where do you go? It’s pretty funny…and I bet it’s somewhat satisfying when you get to do it to somebody…haha
Nevermind, figured it out haha.
AAAAGH … it’s “The Tony Awards with Hal Linden and Talia Shire.” Change the channel! PLEASE change the channel!
“I wonder what they watch on television in hell”
[Click]
[theme song plays] “There’s a time for love and a time for living…you take a chance and face the wind…”
[Click]
[Click]
[Click]
[Click]
[theme song continues...] “…to a brand new life, brand new life, brand new life…around the bend…”
Specifically, though: http://www.mensjournal.com/brian-cashman
He’s also the guy that wrote the Rolling Stone piece about Goldman Sachs being in charge of every economic bubble.
Taibbi’s quite the Jekyll and Hyde.
I’ve read several things by him that are very insightful and poignant. And others by him that are horrendously retarded.
It’s like he’s two people…
(insert Sal/Bo/Grant/Lanny joke here)
I’ve only really seen those pieces, what has he written well on? Stuff related to Ex-US?
Well, there’s this:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibb.....le-malkin/
(Although, shitting on Malkin and the teabaggers is practically shooting fish in a barrel, so, grade it on a curve, I guess. Taibbi’s good at writing well about issues easy to be smart about. Whatevs.)
When your real record is 10 games better than your Pythagorian record (like the Mariners in ’09), does that mean you’re winning the close ones and losing the laughers?
It means you got pretty god damn lucky and you can expect to regress next year unless you improve the personnel of your ball club.
See: 2008 Rays
Well ours is 8 games better…what’s that mean? lol
It means we still played like a 95 win team. I’m sure CMW and Cody Ransom instead of A-Rod had a negative affect on our pythag. Is there a way to figure out a team’s pythag from like, June 30th onward?
Means Wang and Claggett gave up a lot of runs against Cleveland?
At some point over the winter, Figgins was vaguely linked to the Yanks as a left field replacement for Johnny Damon despite the fact that he had barely played the outfield over the last few years. That option is now clearly off the table.
I understand he isn’t the best option out there…but why hasn’t there been any talks anywhere…including on here…about a possibility of Koko B. Ware aka The Byrd Man aka Marlon Byrd?
I certainly don’t want him on our team…but his numbers aren’t all that bad…you’d think he’d at least be mentioned…oh well.
Mike looked at Byrd in this post. Not much more to add to that.
Since you mentioned you couldn’t get into the live chat, let me share this with you:
2:48 Friday December 4, 2009
[Comment From Neil: ]
What about Marlon Byrd instead of Cameron? Its seems like one of these years Cameron’s gonna fall off the cliff. What kind of contract would Byrd require?
2:49 Friday December 4, 2009
[Reply Mike Axisa: ]
No, Byrd’s a classic ‘tweener. His home/road splits the last three years are very pronounced, and he’s not good enough defensive for CF and not a good enough hitter for a corner.
Ahh…makes sense.
Like I said…I never wanted this option…just was curious as to why there wasn’t much talk about him as at least a possibility. I never really looked deeper into him seeing as how I always hoped he remained as not a possibility.
Melky Cabrera > Marlon Byrd. I said it.
Byrd, career – 2969 PA, .279/.340/.422 (99+)
Melky, career – 2148 PA, .269/.331/.385 (88+)
I’m gonna have to go ahead and, uh, disagree with you on that one, yeah.
/Lumbergh’d
I suppose I meant that as a projection going forward, with financial compensation factored in.
Melky also substantially out UZR’d Byrd in CF during 2009.
P.S.
I umm … I do believe you have my stapler?
Okay, fair enough.
I will give you this: If Melky takes an incremental step forward, he may be as good as Byrd. Right now, though, Byrd’s better than he is. Slightly.
But the REAL question is what’s better?
“The Melk Man Always Knocks Twice!”
OR
“Ohh…Koko…B…Ware! The Byrd Man soars one over the right field fence and into the stands!”
It’s pretty tough…
In a vacuum, you are certainly correct. Melky WAR’d 1.6 in 09 vs Byrd’s 2.4.
Melky is quite a bit cheaper but we are talking about The Motherfucking Yankees, so I’m not going to get into that jibba jabba.
As an aside, 2010 should be an interesting year from Melky. He’ll be 25 years old and coming into his 5th full season in the bigs. We should get a solid impression of what his true capabilities are. If he doesn’t show much improvement next year than he’ll probably always just be a #9 hitter on a contending team.
or a 4th outfielder.
Or an interesting trivia question 40 years from now.
“You undoubtedly remember that Hall of Famer Austin Jackson won his first ring with the Yankees in his rookie year of 2011, but which colorful but eminently forgettable non-great was the starting centerfielder on the first two title teams of the Yankees unprecedented run of 8 straight championships from 2009-2016?”
Haha, I love it.
Melky’s a lock for a future trivia question already by virtue of hitting for the cycle.
If he doesn’t show much improvement next year than he’ll probably always just be a #9 hitter on a contending team.
I think even with any improvements…he’s still a #9 hitter on a contending team…a non-contending team? Now that’s a different story…
Depends on how much improvement, no? But you are still correct, its almost unfathomable to imagine Melky bat anywhere but 9th in the Yankees’ A-lineup in 2010. Either something has gone very right with Melky, or something has gone very wrong with the team.
Byrd had an 85 OPS+ in roughly 1450 PA through his age 28 season. It wasn’t until he went to Texas that he broke out. Not sure I’d go so far as to say Melky is better than Byrd, but there’s not as much of a gap as the career numbers would suggest.
That’s a good point. Byrd’s career road split is pretty equitable to Melky’s career overall split, FWIW.
Marlon Byrd =.285/.322/.419 outside Arlington.
Keep your advance stats out of our hot stove conversations!1
OPS? What kind of crazy newfangled stat is that? Did they just invent that?
Sincerely,
Tim McCarver
thats really not that outrageously horrible
Go look at his H/A splits and you’ll understand why.
Melky? Who doesnt think hes a 4th OF like Byrd??
Watching good teams rise from the ashes is one of my favorite non-Yankees parts of baseball. Even though I have terrible memories of their Randy Johnson era, I’d like to see a more competitive AL west. Of course they’re not quite there yet.
I’d love for the A’s to be good again too, but they’re probably still on karmic punishment from the baseball gods for wearing this:
http://archive.tricityvoice.co.....4/pic1.jpg (safe)
How does everyone feel about a Dejesus for Aceves, Nunez, and Curtis trade?
Interested. Doubt the Royals do it, though. Nuñez and Curtis are probably AAAA guys, at best, so it’s really DeJesus for Ace straight up.
Ace is good, but that’s probably not enough for KC to bite.
4/36 seems like a pretty good deal. Polanco to the Phillies had to hurt his bargaining ability. He can’t credibly use the Yanks or Sox to help get the bidding up.
He’s a good fit for them.
Re: Branyan – his back is the worry.
If they’re gunshy about Branyan’s back, I’ve got the perfect big bat replacement for them:
Barry Lamar Bonds.
Maybe he just wanted to stay out West and beat the team that gave up on him/wouldnt pay his price.