This is a series in which I’ll be going over my personal top 20 Seattle Mariners 2010 Prospects. As you can see, I’ll be counting them down, starting at 20,  and I’ll try to do them, well, whenever I get the chance. Keep in mind that almost all of these are completely debatable, and reflect only my personal opinions.

Julio Morban is a 17-soon-to-be-18 year old outfielder out of the Dominican Republic. He’s left handed, extremely raw, and his first full season in the minors was 2009, which he spent in rookie ball. Also, Jay Yencich likes him, which is good enough for me.

While Morban’s talent is no doubt present, I wouldn’t feel right putting him in the top ten because of the fact that he’s so young, and so raw. The potential is certainly there, though. In terms of offensive skill-set, Morban fits the Greg Halman mold (as do many prospects in the Mariners system, evidently) – excellent raw power, a ton of speed, and some God-awful contact rates. He’s a very talented pure hitter, who excels at driving the ball, resulting in a lot of extra base hits and a good amount of home runs.

His biggest weakness offensively is his tendency to strike out, a lot. He has trouble making consistent contact, and he has a few holes in his swing. However, at age 17, that’s to be expected, and he has sufficient time to correct them. He could also stand to walk a bit more, as his 2009 BB% was just over 4, which is pedestrian at best.

On the other end of the field, Morban’s game holds up. He’s quite an athletic player, providing him with above average range in the outfield. Scouts also see both his hands and arm strength as above average – so he appears to be pretty much the full package defensively.

Overall, he’s got his issues, but that isn’t a big surprise considering that we’re talking about a 17 year old player. He players good defense both in center and right, and he clearly has the potential to be a well-above average offensive player, who could conceivably hit for a good amount of power. His biggest obstacle to tackle will be working out the kinks in his swing that cause him to have trouble making consistent contact.

Every year, several pitchers across the league get extremely lucky and end up being signed to contracts worth far more than they deserve.  I figured I would find out who the luckiest of the lucky was in 2009.

Listed below are the starting pitchers with the lowest BABIPs of 2009.

None of you should be surprised to see Jarrod Washburn’s name on that list.  That man benefited massively from the likes of Ichiro, Franklin Gutierrez, and Endy Chavez patrolling the Mariners outfield, robbing opposing batters of home runs, line drives, and gappers alike.  But even then, Washburn was very, very lucky.  Wolf ran up a 3.23 ERA in 214.1 innings, which actually wasn’t so far off from a 3.86 tRA and 3.96 FIP.  Ohlendorf’s luck changed dramatically from what it was in 2008 (his BABIP dropped over .115 points), and a 5.55 K/9 doesn’t say much for his true talent level. Matt Cain, who pitched quite well in 2009, was unarguably pretty lucky, as he ended up with an ERA a full run below his FIP.  For reference, his teammate Tim Lincecum’s FIP was just about level with his ERA.  And then there’s J. A. Happ.  We’ll get to him later.

Now, here are the starting pitchers with the lowest HR/FB ratios in 2009.

This list shows that even really good pitchers can get lucky.  Or, one could extrapolate, that really good pitchers tend not to give up very many home runs. Although one could argue that better pitchers induce weaker contact which leads to more weak fly ball outs instead of hard-hit home runs, for the most part, running a HR/FB ratio around 4-5 is very flukey, no matter what ballpark you’re playing in.  For reference, the league average percentage of fly balls allowed that turn into home runs was around 11.

Zack Greinke may have gotten off easily in the HR/FB department, but for the most part, he pitched to his true talent level in 2009.  Opponents hit .313 on balls in play against him, a far cry from the .274 mark run up by Clayton Kershaw.  However, Kershaw’s 3.29 tRA indicates that perhaps he wasn’t that lucky.

And last but certainly not least are the starters who stranded the most base-runners of 2009.

Notice that Matt Cain, Chris Carpenter, and J. A. Happ are all listed on two of these charts.  For some illogical reason, this amuses me.

And now we can talk about J.A. Happ.  Happ was lucky to a Washburn-esque degree in 2009.  He stranded a ridiculous amount of baserunners and allowed a relatively tiny number of homers (considering he pitches in the miniscule, hitter-friendly Citizen’s Bank Park).  His K-BB ratio was only 2-1, his BABIP was way lower than the Major League average, and was only worth 1.8 WAR in165+ innings.  And yet he ended up with a shiny 12-4 record and 2.93 ERA.  Fortunately for Phillies fans, Happ has a ton of potential, and there’s a very real possibility he puts up similar numbers for years to come.  But at that point luck may not have anything to do with it.

Congratulations to all the aforementioned pitchers for not ending up like Ricky Nolasco.

I know, I know, I’m a little late to the party, but I figured it was still worth posting for my fellow stragglers. Anyway, Erik Bedard has passed his physical, and he is officially a Seattle Mariner…again. The deal has a base salary of $1.5 million, with a whole lot of incentives that could push the deal all the way up to $8.5 million. It also includes a mutual 2011 option for $8 million, but that probably isn’t even worth paying attention to, as there’s almost no scenario in which it would be exercised by both parties.

In terms of improving the team this year, it obviously depends completely on Bedard’s health. If he misses the entire year, the team isn’t any worse than it was a week ago, and we’re only out $1.5 million. If he comes back in early June and pitches well for the entire second half, this team will be anywhere from 1-2 wins better, if you figure that Jason Vargas, or whoever the #5 starter ends up being, would be worth something like 0.2-0.5 wins in the second half.

Guys like Dave Cameron have preached the value of the marginal win when a team is in the position that the Mariners are currently in, and this is a great example. Is Bedard likely to give us a 3-4 win boost? Absolutely not, but if he can even manage a couple of good months, he’s going to make us a slightly better team in an extremely tight division.

Oh, also, Yusmeiro Petit has been DFA’d to make room for Bedard on the 40-man roster, so his extremely brief tenure here in Seattle is over. Nothing to worry about.

If you’re willing to make the assumption that Eliezer Alfonzo isn’t going to factor into the Major League catching situation, which I am, it comes down to Rob Johnson, Adam Moore, and Josh Bard, all competing for two spots. While the catching situation isn’t going to be quite as screwy as the left field situation, it’s still one that’s extremely unclear heading into Spring Training. Before Bard was signed back in late December, it was fairly simple. Johjima was out of the picture, and it was pretty much certain that Moore and Johnson would be splitting time, either in a starter/backup situation, or more of a 50/50 split. Having Josh Bard available really complicates things.

While Spring Training performances will be a factor, some type of pro’s & con’s thing may come into play, and that’s what I’m going to attempt here. Keep in mind that in this exploration, the pro’s aren’t all necessarily positives about the player, but things that increase their likelihood of making the cut.

Rob Johnson

Pro’s:

• The pitching staff, and more importantly, Felix, loves him.
• Don Wakamatsu and the rest of the organization seem to be crazy about him.

Con’s:

• He can’t hit. 2009 line: .213/.289/.326.
• Clearly does not understand the concept of being a “catcher”.
• His face is stupid.
• HE CAN’T HIT.
• His health is also going to be an issue, as he had several major surgeries this off season.

Projected 2010 WAR: 0.4

Adam Moore

Pro’s:

• He’s the catcher of the future.
• He’s at least respectable offensively.
• He isn’t Rob Johnson.

Con’s:

• His defense is questionable. CHONE has him projected at -14.5 runs defensively in 2010.
• He’s only accumulated 368 PA’s in triple-A. A little bit more time in Tacoma couldn’t hurt.

Projected 2010 WAR: 0.8

Josh Bard

Pro’s:

• He’s a switch hitter. That’s it, but it’s a fairly big one.

Con’s:

• He sucks from the left side of the plate.
• His defense is questionable. CHONE doesn’t hate it as much as it hates Moore’s, but it still has him projected at -11.0 runs in 2010.
• His career CS percentage is 20%, which is really bad. However, as Jeff Sullivan points out here, there’s a very real possibility that that number is more a result of him spending two seasons in San Diego than of him being bad at throwing out runners.

Projected 2010 WAR: 0.7

I really don’t know how it’s going to turn out at this point. Gun to my head, forcing me to choose right now, I’d go with Moore and Johnson.

All three of them are pretty close, and it probably isn’t really going to matter much which two they go with, in terms of the team’s success. Even if these WAR projections turn out to be completely accurate, and the team goes with the two least valuable players (Bard & Johnson), it’s only a difference of half a win. And in reality, it probably wouldn’t even be that much. It’s likely that the biggest thing riding on this decision will turn out to be Adam Moore’s development – he’s the only player here that matters to this team, and at 26, it’s probably time to give him a real shot.

We all saw the rumors from Jim Street over the last few days, speculating that the Mariners were “close” to bringing back Bedard on a one year, $1.5 million deal with “a shipload” of incentives. Most of us looked at that with a “let’s just wait and see” type of mindset, but now it appears to be at least partially accurate. This just came in from Jon Morosi’s Twitter about 20 minutes ago:

@jonmorosi source confirms that Bedard is close to a one-year deal with the #Mariners. #MLB

This is a good thing. Even though Bedard won’t be ready to get back on the mound until May at the very earliest, he’s really good when he’s healthy, and significantly better than RRS. This also probably means that Jarrod Washburn will not be returning to Seattle, so maybe Mike Salk can finally move on. More on this once there are some details available.

Taylor’s Note: For the Jim Street bashers out there, please reconsider.  Jim is a stand-up guy, and the idea that he makes up half of his scoops is preposterous.  Those who believe otherwise are flat-out wrong.  Just wanted to put that out there.

Griffin’s Note: I still don’t like Jim Street.