The Mariners’ Deficiency

This trade, at least in its basic terms, has been well covered. I personally don’t believe that one of these players is really any better than the other, not in any significant sense. The Mariners gave away a roughly league-average player and received a roughly league-average player in return, but as a result paid a penalty in salary and in team control — for essentially no reason. Jeff has gone over all of that on two different websites. It’s a nice deal for the Jays. It’s less than that for Seattle.

Where it gets ugly is at the far periphery, the tertiary implications of this deal that, on its face, really indict a disparity between the Mariners’ front office and the rest of baseball.

The Mariners now need a right fielder, having just traded theirs. A right fielder is an everyday player theoretically assigned for about 1500 defensive innings and 700 plate appearances; and therefore someone who will be competing, on average, against a very high threshold of performance. From 2012-2014, the average full-time right fielder produced 2.6 WAR/600 per FanGraphs. The market price for 2.6 WAR, at the established pre-season price of $7M/win, is approximately $18M. This is about in line with what’s been observed to date. The 2015 cost of these players on the open market:

Player	Projected WAR	2015 Salary (M)	$/Win	Additional Costs
Hanley Ramirez	3.6	$22.00	$6.11	2nd Rd. Pick, length
Victor Martinez	2.7	$17.00	$6.30	1st Rd. pick, length
Nelson Cruz	1.5	$14.50	$9.67	1st Rd. Pick, length
Nick Markakis	1.5	$11.00	$7.33	length
Torii Hunter	1.7	$10.50	$6.18	None
Jason Heyward	5.0	$7.80	$1.56	Shelby Miller, tm. control
Justin Upton	3.0	$14.50	$4.83	???

In order to obtain someone to meet this threshold, you have to pay. You have to pay a lot. Nick Markakis just signed for 4 years and $44M. Nelson Cruz signed for $57M to knock out just one half of the workload, also costing a draft selection. Victor Martinez signed for $68M to knock out just one half of the workload. He didn’t cost the Tigers a draft selection, but that’s unique to the Tigers. For someone who can do it all, you’re looking at Hanley Ramirez, and then you’re looking at nine figures. The $/win for the four free agents above is $7.12M. Their average salary for 2015 is $15.0M for 2.2 WAR. Four of the five signed for 4 years or more, the exception being Torii Hunter, who is likely to retire.

The Blue Jays now need a #5 starter, having just traded theirs. A #5 starter starts more-or-less every 5 days. About once every 4 or 5 weeks, his start might be skipped thanks to an off day. An average #5 starter makes roughly 30 starts for roughly 180 innings per year. On average, this type of pitcher meets a very low threshold of performance. From 2012-2014, there have been 257 qualifying seasons for starting pitchers. The average performance of this group is 2.7 WAR/200 IP. Population sections of 20% amount to 51 or 52 individuals per section, the lowest ranked section theoretically accounting for the #5 slot. The average performance of this section is 0.9 WAR/200 IP. At the established pre-season price of $7M/win, the market price for 0.9 WAR is approximately $6.5M. The cost of these players on the open market:

Player	Projected WAR	2015 Salary (M)	$/Win	Additional Costs
Colby Lewis	0.6	$4.00	$6.67	None
JA Happ**	1.2	$6.70	$5.58	Michael Saunders, tm. cont
AJ Burnett	1.7	$10.00	$5.88	None
Jerome Williams	0.4	$2.50	$6.25	None
Brad Mills	None	Minor League	NA	None
Jeff Francis	None	Minor League	NA	None

**Option picked up

To obtain players who can meet this threshold, you can generally pay fringe talents for 1-year deals or look to candidates from minor-league affiliates for league-minimum salaries. This position is not often filled by a singular person, as teams rarely have that many reliable starters on a roster due either to scarcity or to budgetary constraints. The Mariners themselves filled their 5-slot in 2014 with a combination of Erasmo Ramirez, Blake Beavan and Brandon Maurer, winning 87 games. This is not uncommon. The Orioles, Angels and Athletics all employed variations of this theme.

The average $/win for the above free agents given guarantees is $6.3M. The average guaranteed salary for 2015 is $5.8M. None of these players is signed beyond 2015.

The Blue Jays took their high-cost need and exchanged it for a low-cost need, transferring the balance onto the Mariners.

This is not to say that the Blue Jays have to sign a #5 starter. If someone better presents themselves at a price they can incur, they absolutely have that option. But if they decide to follow the standard rotation model, that’s okay too, because most of baseball either does or has to. The penalty for playing down to the average #5 starter is relatively small.

The Mariners no longer have this luxury. There’s no such thing as a #5 right-fielder. If you were to place the terms of this concept on the right-field position, you’d have a replacement player, the penalty for which is a couple wins. The Mariners, at least in their position, can’t afford that.

This isn’t about obtaining talent for talent, salary for salary, years for years. This is about understanding your market, about being able to let your environment work for you. We don’t have to sugar-coat this. There are people who get it and people who don’t. Jack Zduriencik, for whatever reason, just doesn’t get it.

But the Mariners aren’t constrained to budget limitations in the way the A’s and Rays are. They don’t struggle in the draft the way the Yanks, Astros and White Sox do. The Mariners, for all of their issues, have a winning team with a young core to credit them, and Zduriencik has quite the hand in that. That his knack for strategy might be among the lower tier of his peers is a singular constraint among many working parts, and the hope is that the rest of the machine can overcome the deficiency — the same way a lot of teams do.

But I won’t blame you for cringing at what might be next. Their propensity for this kind of deal is matched only by their propensity to compound one mistake with another. And given their shiny new need, they may not have much of choice.