I recently received a copy of John McLaren’s interview with the press that took place two weeks ago at the winter meetings in
The first thing that can be pounced on was a response to a question on second baseman Jose Lopez, who has struggled mightily during the second half of the past two seasons .
Here is how McLaren responded:
“I’m a Jose Lopez Fan. A few things got turned sideways for him last year. We just want him to play with passion every night. He’s got good ability. The rap on him was his defense, and I think he was one of the top defenders at 2nd base fielding percentage-wise, and we were very happy these and we just want to maximize his concentration at the plate and it the field to make him the best player he can be, which is going to make us a better team. That’s the only thing I am going to convey to him.”
So McLaren has cited both passion and fielding percentage in the same paragraph. Awesome. Taken at face value, these comments are just horrible. In his defense, McLaren isn’t the kind of guy who is going to call out any of his players out by name, but the sin here is not only citing fielding percentage, which is about as useless as batting average and RBI, but being too nice to play in a high stakes game. And if we’ve learned anything the past five years, it’s that baseball is indeed that kind of competition.
McLaren on running more next season:
I think Betancourt has got the capabilities of being a 20-plus stolen base guy, and I know Adam Jones does, too. I know with Ichiro and – I’m going to see if we can get more stolen bases. We had a pretty good percent last year, 81 and 30. We need to get up in the 120’s. Anaheim has more speed than us, we need to utilize our speed more.
McLaren goes on to say that Ichiro could steal 80 bases next year. If the fantasy baseball league you participate in is a 5×5 setup that uses stolen bases, it might be a good idea to look into someone like Yuniesky Betancourt for a cheap source of steals. These comments are troubling, however, because unlike many other statements by the skipper, this one is lacks qualification. It would have been appropriate to say that he doesn’t want the team being crazy on the base paths but wants them to take the extra base.
This also is a sign that McLaren is likely to choose his bench to include plenty of guys who can steal a base late in the game. Expect the Mariners stolen base totals to spike in 2008 but the percentage to drop. This is not a net gain.
On Richie Sexson bouncing back:
We need him because losing some offense with Guillen and with Adam in right field, Richie comes back to being Richie, it takes a lot of pressure off Adam, and it helps us out a lot. And Richie has got something you can’t teach. That’s the power and hitting the ball out of the ballpark. It would be a good sign, seeing him do that again.
John McLaren is a positive guy, but this was not a positive statement, at least if you are a fan of the Mariners and want them to win games. If Richie Sexson returns to the 40 HR bat that McLaren says he can, this is a huge opportunity for the team to get better. I don’t believe for a second that McLaren believes in his heart of hearts that Sexson is due for such a huge improvement.
The fluff continues…
On Swinging at Strikes:
You know what? We’re going to stress for the first day for Spring Training just to work the count. You know, I mean, I’m not big into taking pitches and all this, that and the other. I want to get into hitters counts and take advantage of it.
If you look at some of the hitters stats on like a 2-0 count, (a) couple of them are pretty ugly. These should be hitter’s counts and they should be hitting for a higher batting average; .300 plus in a hitters count because it should be the pitch you are looking for.
Even though the walk is not invoked, it’s hard to find fault in a message of “wait for your pitch and hit it.” These statements were the most encouraging in the entire interview.
“If you could have gotten to the guy in the 3rd inning and gotten to the bullpen, it sets the stage for the whole series. That’s what you got to do. You’ve got to take advantage of situations, and we’re going to try to approach it that way.”
In all, Mariner fans should forgive McLaren for not being a Hall of Fame manager. This guy isn’t going to win the Mariners a bunch of games by playing hunches correctly for an entire season, and his in-game strategy isn’t going to earn him five-minute segments on Baseball Tonight to break down his “genius.”
But when a field manager is talking about fielding percentage, error totals and he says he isn’t into taking pitches, it makes you wonder if he has a clue.
At least he’s saying some of the right things, however.
You can read the entire John McLaren interview from the Winter Meetings in Nashville by Clicking Here.
Brent Schwartz is a new contributor at Prospect Insider. You can find more of his work at Hardball Review, where he is one of four co-authors. Click Here to e-mail Brent.
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i vote he really doesn’t have a clue…
“We’re going to stress for the first day for Spring Training just to work the count. You know, I mean, I’m not big into taking pitches and all this, that and the other.”
how do you get to a hitters count without taking pitches ?
Mariners and Silva close to 4-44
i really hate to say this but fat ass mike had a better winning % than mcclaren in 07. when i read about silva in comment #2 i just want to puke.i see in the paper that the mariners have jacked up the ticket prices,unreal. i hope i read next year mariner mangementsay “boy the best deal we made is not trading adam jones”
I could run this team better than Bavasi!
Let’s not get carried away, guys.
There’s bad and there’s terrible. Maybe I can help you view this properly.
Bad is when a player is signed for too long, too much money, and isn’t an impact player.
If the player is an impact guy, you deal with the high salary, even if it’s astronomical.
It’s terrible if the above scenario paints the club into a corner and the contract becomes a problem for the team.
Since there is no evidence that any contract they currently have or are offering to Silva will ever block them from spending more on top of it, we shouldn’t be as worried about it.
In a way, just pretend Silva is signing for four years and 28 million, which would be a pretty solid contract.
But it doesn’t make the team better or worse when they get good or bad value on the free agent market.
The Seattle Mariners are better on paper with Silva then they are without him. Sure, it makes more financial and baseball sense to take a flyer on Colon, etc, but facts are facts.
The Angels were 28 runs better than the Mariners last year, using simple raw numbers.
Let’s assume the Halos, with the additions of Jon Garland and Torii Hunter and with the replacement of Aybar over Cabrera at short, are 33 runs better right now than they were at season’s end.
That would put the Mariners 61 runs below LAA in the west.
So where do they make that improvement?
Silva, if he signs and repeats 2007, both of which are very possible - even probable - is a 32 run improvement over the Jeff Weaver-Cha Seung Baek combo.
32!
Let’s also assume that the club adds at least a slightly below average starter (-3 to 5′ish) to pitch in the fifth spot instead of the Ramirez-Feierabend combo.
That’s an improvement of at least 32 runs, as Ramirez-Feierabend were 37 below average last year.
The combination of adding the two league average type starting pitchers makes an unbelievable 55-run difference on paper, leaving for just a six run difference between the M’s and Halos.
I say on paper, because for the the runs to equal what I stated above, everything else would have to happen equally on defense.
Which takes us to another area in which the Mariners CAN improve drastically, and we’ve talked about it quite a bit already.
Adam Jones in left field can make up 8 runs over what Raul Ibanez did in 2007 simply by being average out there. Average, that’s it. There’s a darned good chance Jones is 20 runs better than Ibanez in left field.
Amazing. And once AJ gets comfortable out there, he could save the club more than 30 runs a year over what Ibanez is capable of giving them.
Ibanez is probably still -2 to -4 in right field, but that’s better than him declining from -8 to -15 or worse in left. He went from +9 to -8 between the past two seasons. He could be a complete disaster in ‘08.
The Mariners need to wake up if they plan on tossing out a starting five that have trouble missing bats and don’t get ground balls.
But the players are there to overtake the Angels.
Thanks for that Jason, fantastic analysis. OT, but BA’s John Manual said in a chat today that the M’s could get the most value for AJ in a trade if they prove that he can still play SS. Do you agree with this? and can AJ still play a decent SS? He also said that the M’s prospects (AJ, Morrow, Clement) made the most sense for the Twins if they want to trade Santana then what other teams can offer.
Thanks for the great work, Jason.
What I really don’t get is WHY the Mariners seem to be unable to properly evaluate OF fielding conditions in Safeco?
Ie, the overwhelming need for range in Left Field.
I know, “traditionally”, you put your best arm in RF, your best range in CF, and your weak link in LF. And I can understand, somewhat, the reluctance to “mess” with Mr. Veteran (Ibanez) by either DH-ing him or moving him to first. ie, he believes he hits better as a fielder, and you don’t want to upset that comfort level. And, much as I don’t buy into it, there is the “ego” thing, which the Mariners are reluctant to upset.
But swapping him to Right? That’s not an insult. That’s not “benching” him (ie, DH). Once upon a time, he was a RF first, with an above average arm.
Ok, so Adam Jones has a cannon for an arm, which “traditionally” says he should be in RF. But he also has the range, which in Safeco means he should be in CF or LF.
Why is it so hard to do a simple matrix?
Ibanez in Left and AJ in Right means sucky range / average arm in LF and awesome range / awesome arm in RF. Result? Awful D in left, and “wasted” range in right.
Jones in Left and Ibanez in Right means awesome range / awesome arm in LF and sucky range / average or below-average arm in RF. Result? Awesome D in left, “wasted” arm in left, average D in right, below-average D in right.
Given Safeco’s dimensions, the demographics of there being way more RH hitters than lefty, etc., it seems obvious that LF defense way overrides RF defense.
I dunno. I can, grudgingly, understand the ego thing, where Raul wants to play the field. But is he so averse to RF instead of left? Or is management too clueless to see what even a casual fan can understand? I’m not asking them to bench the guy, or trade the “Face of the franchise ™” - I’m just asking them to arrange the pieces optimally.
Jason, I have the thought that with AJ in RF he’d cover much more area than Guillen did. This would allow Ichiro to cover more of the LF gap and allow Raul to be responsible for a smaller portion of the OF, mimimizing the drawback of having him on defense. Make any sense?
His arm is adeguate and when he gets to a ball he’ll typically catch it. Would you concur?
Whoa, I just realized Jason that you have another author on this site.
Welcome Mr. Brent Schwartz, and a solid first article here!