I’ve seen a lot of whisperings of the Mariners having interest in John Lackey. I honestly don’t know how I feel about that. So I decided to compare him against other pitchers connected to the Mariners this off-season both via rumors.
Also, the reason I used the numbers I did is because it’s always important to look at the “right” numbers when evaluating pitchers. Dave Cameron did an AMAZING job on this post a few years ago and I highly encourage anyone looking to understand the evaluation of a pitcher to read it.
And to the comparisons…
John Lackey - 31 - Free Agent
John Lackey has been affected by two different pitching arm injuries the last two years. However even with the arm injuries he has still been amazing. I don’t know if I consider him an “Ace” but as a #2 guy he is very good. Take a look at this post on fan graphs by Dave Cameron.
| GS | IP | GB% | HR/FB% | LOB% | BB% | K% | WAR | |
| 2003 | 33 | 204 | 38.30% | 13.60% | 71.20% | 7.46% | 17.06% | 2.3 |
| 2004 | 32 | 198 | 44.20% | 9% | 69.40% | 7.04% | 16.78% | 3.6 |
| 2005 | 33 | 209 | 44.60% | 6.60% | 75.40% | 7.96% | 22.31% | 5.9 |
| 2006 | 33 | 217 | 43.10% | 5.70% | 70.40% | 7.83% | 20.65% | 6 |
| 2007 | 33 | 224 | 44.70% | 7.30% | 76% | 5.60% | 19.27% | 5.6 |
| 2008 | 24 | 163 | 45.10% | 15.30% | 80.20% | 5.93% | 19.26% | 2 |
| 2009 | 27 | 176 | 44.90% | 9.10% | 71.20% | 6.29% | 18.61% | 3.9 |
Aaron Harang - 31 - Cincinnati Reds
Harang has been on the trade block for most likely all of last year. He even passed through waivers. He is worth the contract he has 2010:$12.5M, 2011:$12.75M with a$2M buyout( information provided by cots baseball contracts). He is a more expensive version of Ian Snell with a higher ceiling. He should also come much cheap because of his contract and now that the Reds are looking to ditch payroll I wonder what the Red’s are looking for return compensation.
| GS | IP | GB% | HR/FB% | LOB% | BB% | K% | WAR | |
| 2003 | 15 | 76 | 40.90% | 12% | 66.20% | 5.44% | 12.82% | 0.8 |
| 2004 | 28 | 161 | 41.90% | 13.30% | 73% | 7.46% | 17.61% | 1.6 |
| 2005 | 32 | 211 | 39.30% | 8.80% | 74.60% | 5.75% | 18.38% | 4.2 |
| 2006 | 35 | 234 | 38.50% | 10.50% | 73.80% | 5.67% | 21.76% | 5.4 |
| 2007 | 34 | 231 | 40.30% | 10.20% | 74% | 5.49% | 23.00% | 5.2 |
| 2008 | 29 | 184 | 34.10% | 13.90% | 73.60% | 6.30% | 18.51% | 1.8 |
| 2009 | 26 | 162 | 34.90% | 11.70% | 75.70% | 6.11% | 20.17% | 2.5 |
Justin Duscherer - 32 - Free Agent
‘The Duke’ much like (again) Ian Snell, has been battling depression. Among a slew of other injuries, when available he is on he is very good. Is he a #2 I think in a perfect world he may have the stuff. As a reclamation project like the one with Chad Cordero, it’s possible that it could pay off in big dividends. He doesn’t get by on his gas and while he does have a great 4-seam fastball he relies on all his pitches and their movement.
Only problem with all that is Duscherer seems to be looking for a pay day and I don’t know if I would give a two or three year contract worth somewhere around 7-8 million to a 32-year-old who has health problems. Just my opinion.
| GS | IP | GB% | HR/FB% | LOB% | BB% | K% | WAR | |
| 2004 | 0 | 96.1 | 42.70% | 10.90% | 81.90% | 8.04% | 14.82% | 0.3 |
| 2005 | 0 | 85.2 | 43.60% | 8.30% | 80.60% | 5.62% | 25.15% | 2 |
| 2006 | 0 | 55.2 | 36.90% | 7% | 78% | 4.02% | 22.77% | 1.6 |
| 2007 | 0 | 16.1 | 27.20% | 16% | 78% | 10.67% | 17.33% | -0.2 |
| 2008 | 22 | 141.2 | 41.40% | 6.90% | 77.80% | 6.46% | 17.05% | 3 |
Ben Sheets - 31 – Free Agent
Sheets is absolutely filthy and just looking at the stats you can tell he is far and away the best of this listing and possibly one of the best pitchers in all of the big leagues. That said, he has had a lot of health issues over the year. Not to mention he pulled an Erik Bedard and in August 2008 he tore a muscle in his elbow and has not pitched professional since the end of 2008.
A player of his talent will still require some money and looking back at the contract he had been connected with the Texas Rangers last off-season it was still upwards of 20+ mil over 2 yrs. I would think that it would still be close to the same value.
The year off I don’t think would have hurt Sheets if anything it gave him the opportunity to get health and return this season with a chance to prove himself. Despite his injury rap sheet I would love to get him in a Mariners uniform
| GS | IP | GB% | HR/FB% | LOB% | BB% | K% | WAR | |
| 2003 | 34 | 220 | 44.40% | 10.00% | 66.10% | 4.62% | 16.86% | 3.7 |
| 2004 | 34 | 237 | 43.30% | 10.90% | 75.20% | 3.42% | 28.18% | 8 |
| 2005 | 22 | 156 | 36.70% | 7.90% | 72.30% | 3.95 | 22.27% | 3.7 |
| 2006 | 17 | 106 | 40.40% | 11% | 67.40% | 2.56% | 26.98% | 4 |
| 2007 | 24 | 141 | 36.50% | 11.80% | 74.90% | 6.26% | 17.94% | 2.2 |
| 2008 | 31 | 198 | 40.60% | 8.60% | 75.50% | 5.79% | 19.36% | 4.4 |
Rich Harden – 28 – Free Agent
He has proven he can pitch in the National League, he has proven he can pitch in the American League. The question that we all are curious about is can he stay healthy. Oh yeah, another one of those. But the point of this session is to regurgitate what you could have read on USS:M take a look at the stats and compare them to John Lackey
| GS | IP | GB% | HR/FB% | LOB% | BB% | K% | WAR | |
| 2003 | 13 | 74 | 46.70% | 7.70% | 70.90% | 12.10% | 21.02% | 1.6 |
| 2004 | 31 | 189 | 44.90% | 7.90% | 70.90% | 10.09% | 20.80% | 4.5 |
| 2005 | 19 | 128 | 42.20% | 6.60% | 74.10% | 8.48% | 23.03% | 3.9 |
| 2006 | 6 | 46 | 43.50% | 13.50% | 70.60% | 13.61% | 25.65% | 0.8 |
| 2007 | 4 | 25 | 38.70% | 11.50% | 87.70% | 10.46% | 24.42% | 0.4 |
| 2008 | 25 | 148 | 30% | 6.50% | 84% | 10.25% | 30.42% | 4.4 |
| 2009 | 26 | 141 | 37.80% | 15.10% | 74.50% | 11% | 28.08% | 1.8 |
Ricky Nolasco – 26 – Florida Marlins
The other young right hander on this list has been one we here at S/M have been preaching about for the past two months. The question is of course ”could he sustain his success in the American League?”. It’s a very good question and I’m not here to debate it, here are the stats
| GS | IP | GB% | HR/FB% | LOB% | BB% | K% | WAR | |
| 2006 | 22 | 140 | 38.80% | 11.10% | 68.40% | 6.62% | 15.31% | 1.1 |
| 2007 | 4 | 21 | 37.30% | 9.10% | 65.10% | 8.70% | 10.87% | 0.1 |
| 2008 | 32 | 212 | 38.80% | 10.60% | 75.30% | 4.83% | 21.79% | 3.8 |
| 2009 | 31 | 185 | 38.30% | 11% | 62.30% | 5.86% | 24.94% | 4.2 |
As you can see Lackey is just about as good as any pitcher out on the market. Now we have to struggle with what do we deem a worthy contract? I still think Ben Sheets is the guy we target and go hard core after. I don’t have a problem giving the guy a 2-year-deal. But guys like Lackey are looking to get CC Sabathia-type money. When you can pay a guy 7-9 even 12 million dollars a year in return for what you can get for 20, is that really worth it?
In your realistic dream world who is the Mariners #2? Who do you think they go after? Anyone undervalued that no one is talking about?
Remember despite how much we all like to play MLB 2k9 (actually it sucks and someone really needs to put out a better game), we have to remember that there isn’t much more than 35m$ this year. We can’t sign everyone and while we would all love to be able to go after two of these pitchers, it’s just not in the budget.
Also, should we decide to join in the “Lackey sweepstakes” it’s going to reduce the chances of signing a second player who can be equally effective as well as a third or fourth needed part within our puzzle. There are a lot of moves that need to be made this off-season. using 20 million dollars (over half our available pay-roll) and putting it towards just one player is in bad taste.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t be interested in Lackey. I’m just saying we need to be patient and understand that there are other available pitchers out there, and yes some do come with more risk. The higher the risk, the greater the reward!
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Xbox 360 > PS3 … sorry
Wrong
Are you trying to find ways to raise your post count?
I don’t think we even have post counts on here. Trust me dawg, I’ve had both.
What exactly do they talk about on the Hot Stove League Show on 710 ESPN Seattle tonight….
Griffey I’m guessing
k
Chad, please don’t take this the wrong way. When we write posts about certain topics, we’d rather you respond to the things we wrote about as opposed to some random question you have. There will be discussion threads in the future, but for now, make sure to actually respond to what we wrote. Or email us privately if your questions just can’t wait.
Hmmmmmm…..how the hell am I supposed to take it. Where else do you suggest that I can go where the people writing the articles actually write back to just about every commenter. They are simple questions anyways, and I previously wrote on this website a couple of months ago and feel comfortable asking Griffin simple questions about the mariners. My bad
Chad I’ll tell you the same thing I told you on BR:
It’s not that they really bother us, it’s just that you do it a lot – and we’d rather have discussions about the stuff we actually write. If you wanna have a discussion with me about anything over Yahoo messenger or Email I’d be glad to.
haha ok fuck it
Alrighty than?
I’m just curious as to what the difference is between me sending you guys a private email or a yahoo message and writing it on here. Obviously a difference is that everyone cannot see it. It’s not as if I am on here asking you guys which pair of Jordan’s I should get this weekend. I can see why it would be frustrating for you guys, because you come on here see that I commented and hope that it is related to the article in which you just researched and wrote about. I may be totally off and I will respect your wishes, but I still don’t see eye to eye with you guys on how big of a deal it apparently is.
It’s not a huge deal at all, just gets a bit annoying with the non sequiturs.
Pitchers! (just happy to talk about not Griffey). I’m on two bandwagons, one named Nolasco and the other named Sheets. Lackey, in my view, will command a contract larger than the M’s really want to pay. Maybe if we didn’t have the Silva boat anchor, but alas, we do.
I agree with Dave Cameron (as usual; really I’d love to actually disagree with him someday) that in order to upgrade the M’s will have to roll the dice on some risky guys. Sheets fits the bill: very high upside, big question mark on # of starts. Harden too, but my issue there is that Harden seems similar to Bedard this year. A ton of pitches per inning and rarely gets past the sixth. Personally, I can’t stand inefficient pitchers, so I just don’t want to watch that. Nolasco or Sheets, please.
look at you Greg, your such a good fan, sticking only to the article.
I’m just messin of course, I too feel as if Nolasco and Sheets are the best guys to invest in. Sheets is kind of injury prone, but as said before, if he can stay healthy then you have one hell of a pitcher. Another pitcher not on the list but brought up by one of you guys is Francisco Liriano, he could come relatively cheap and could pay off.
On point as always, Sheets just completely impresses me … making this post I am so impressed with his overall ability.
I would rather go after Sheets first and Nolasco if that falls through. I am a bit curious as to who else Ben Sheets on their short list.
I completely agree Chad.
His K/9 rates are very good and it seems as if he just lost his control as his BB/9 rates continued up. He seems to have a FB/HR ratios that are a bit below average.
I think he would be a good attempt at buy low but i’m affraid that he would cost a bit too much to acquire.
Guys,
I’ll say the same thing I said to Taylor over at BtB two weeks back: I highly doubt the Marlins will deal Nolasco. Internally, I don’t think the Marlins organization has an issue with Nolasco’s “poor showing” in the first half of the year. They still value him as highly as ever, and are likely to deal a few other players this season before considering trading pitching.
That being said, talk to me (or them, I’m not their representative unfortunately) next year, when he has one arb season left, and the team will likely consider. I’m not sure he fits into the long term plans in terms of an extension, but he definitely fits in for 2010.
Hmmm…
http://twitter.com/SI_JonHeyman/status/5634997938
If the Marlins FO hasn’t really made it public information as to what their plans are with Nolasco, none of us can know for sure.
Really, we’re just discussing who would fit, and Nolasco would. Obviously it’s pure speculation. Rosterbation at it’s finest.
Jon Heyman reporting via Twitter that the Brewers and Mariners have not ruled out making a run at Lackey. Heyman says neither one will go to $100M.
I tried including the link but it made my comment not show up.
There you go Greg. Marks them as spam automatically when there are links, I guess.
Well lets face it Nolasco’s overall value is the highest it’s ever going to be (prior to free-agency) with 2 years of arbitration left on his contract.
I agree with you and I have not even heard whispers of Florida even considering him in a trade. I have looked.
But, I do think that if the Mariners approached the Marlins they would be willing to listen.
Given the money Lackey is going to command, I just cant see the M’s making a run at him while Felix is still in need of a contract extension. With that said, I tend to prefer Sheets and Nolasco anyway. Harden is an option I like but I think your getting yourself into Bedard territory there so it would depend on the terms of the contract. There’s two other guys I’m interested in but I’m going to have to hold out on mentioning them until I put a post up on ECM about them(sorry guys but with you all doing such a good job I need to make sure I can still find stuff to write about! haha)