1993, new teams! The Florida Marlins are a new expansion, along with the Colorado Rockies. The main thing this new rag-tag group must to is damage control, and with $40 million in extra salary money ready we should be able to think of something.
Here is a look at the current roster:
c :Benito Santiago- THE Benito. If we stay as we are, he'd be the team leader and centerpeice. But even at that he only has an OBP of around .300 and an average in the .260's. Good defense though and will do the job. Makes 1.5 mill.
1b:Orestes Destrade- A mysterious 30 year old with B- contact C+ eye and A power. Tiny salary. I am not sure I trust this dude.
2b:Rich Renteria Ratings all in the C's and low B's definately not worth starting.
3b:Dave Magadan- Yeah! Our contact hitter. Makes 1.4 million, and will be a solid option at 3b for his OBP and average.
SS:Walt Weiss- Supposed to be great, but does not even have great fielding ratings. Since he can't hit, he's not worth the 380k unless he's on the bench.
LF:Greg Briley- Unknown speedster who can barely hit (a few B- skills) Not worth starting.
CF:Junior Felix- Making 1.8 mill. Can hit a little (not enough to rely off for anything big) and is fast, good range/arm. For the salary though, we may want to trade.
RF:Darrel Whitmore- Rookie who can not field, but has an incredible arm. Borderline hitting, will probably bomb against major league pithing.
Notable Bench players:
LF Carillo- A power but has never played, could perhaps fill in in the OF.
CF Pose- a borderline OF good for the bench.
LF Conine- the conine. Has borderline power/eye ratings but is better than others. Still not solid enough that I would really want to risk a season on him.
C Decker- a solid backup who has a tiny bit of power and can field competently.
LF Berroa: A power hitting OF who also fields well, will take the LF slot when I move things around.
CF Carr- THE Chuck Carr! He's not really great, but compared to the rest of these guys, it's such a releif to see an actual major leaguer! He makes just 320k and this means Felix will be traded.
SS Arias- Is just C's all over the place, but is just 25, just 440k, and I do need a backup SS. So he'll do.
LF Wilson- really young kid with lots of skills in the B's. Makes an ok backup if we need one.
CF Everett- a great prospect with power and many other tools. Will be a backup because he's probably too young to start. Probably won't need Wilson now.
Crappy Bench players to dump:
SS Polidor- (old and all C ratings)
LF Farris- (nice B+ power but the rest is no good. Was thinking of keeping him but he's not quite worth it.)
3B Barberie- A good fielder and just barely a good enough hitter, so he makes a solid 3B replacement. But he costs 1.1 million. For a bench player I'd rather pay less. But I may keep him around.
C Mcgriff- Awful catcher.
C Lyden- not as bad but we still don't need him with Decker around.
C Natal- An ok C, backup worthy. But we do have Decker already.
To review, an embarrasingly bad offense where the best hitters are Magadan and Berrora and Everett (even though I wouldn't start Everett yet). If we're lucky Conine and Orestes will help also, but I'm not counting on it. This is the type of offense that could get shut out game after game and deperately needs change.
On to the pitching...
SP1: Chris Hammond- Great movement, a competent #5 starter or #4 or 3 on a bad team. But he's listed as #1. Can probably survive and hopefully stay in the 4's in era (though I suspect he will hit the 5's.) He looks like and gives hope that his ERA would stay in the 3's and that he would be a kind of 11-12 w/l record kind of guy, but he won't be. He costs 2.6 million, so if he does poorly he's got to go.
SP2: Patt Rapp- Never played, bunch of B and C ratings (mostly low-mid B) Would make solid long releif on a team that needed it.
SP3: Ryan Bowen- A terrible terrible pitcher who only belongs in the minors. The only reason he can claim to be a starter is his B- endurance. Control is D- and Movement is C-. He would not live against big league hitting. Would be the source of many losses for us.
SP4: Jack Armstrong- Compared to others this guy is remarkably qualified. Equal or better than Hammond, C-B-A minus Control power and movement respectively. He has proven he can hold a 4.50 era but also fluctuates as much as one run in each direction. Solid #5 starter, and decent #4 for an average or below average team.
SP5: Luis Aquino- An actual good pitcher, most likely. On a worse than average team (that is, a team much better than Florida currently) he could be as high as #3. A+ movement and control with C endurance and power. At 1.8 million, he and Hammond are the only two starters with 7 digit salaries.
(Short, Middle, Long, Alternate Releif)
CL: Brian Harvey- Former closer for the California Angels, he is, beleive it or not, a legitimate closer. A control, A+ power, A+ movement. A badly needed bright spot for a team with little going its way as far as hitting and SP are concerned. Makes 4.2 million but for the league of closers he belongs to you could pay much more for someone else. For example, a similarly rated Gregg Olson of Baltimore costs 7.9 million. THE Rob Dibble of Cincinatti makes 8.8 million (but he's in a league of his own.) Parret of the Rockies is 4.2 million (but much worse than our guy.) Doug Jones, 11 million, etc. And then there is just a large group of closers who are not as good. So Harvey is our beast.
SU: Cris Carpenter- Great A-B-A+ stuff, he could probably close for a team that needed him. He's a proven performer (and has the $3.6 million price tag of one) and will be liked.
SR: Joe Klink- Solid ratings of B-, B-, and A. Should be a solid pitcher worthy of short releif.
MR: Jim Corsi- Another very good releiver. His B+, B-, A, stuff will be greatly appreciated. Costs $1.5 million.
LR: Bob McClure- A 40 year old lifelong releiver, and journeyman as of the past 7 years (Florida is his 6th team in that span of time) his rock rolid B, C+, A+ ratings are happily welcomed. Makes 580k.
AR: Mat Turner- And if all that were not enough, we have here young Mat Turner, 26 years old, C+, B, A- ratings. You'd think from looking at this staff that you weren't in Florida.
Before going on, I will say that there is at least one part of philosophy that my predecessor (who put together this team I have to work with) and I agree on: the importance of releif pitching. I think solid releif is CRITICAL and I think it is a good means of judging what teams are bound for the post season, and it should never under any circumstances be underestimated. For a poor team, its the easiest and quickest way to improve and try to reach for .500 and beyond.
However, my predecessor and seems to disagree with me on one point: you need a team that doesn't suck if you want to win. Surely he could not have beleived that with this pathetic offense we were going anywhere. And for all the benefits of good releif, if there is no lead to hold onto, good releif does not really matter.
Notable pitchers in AAA:
SP Hough- Yes, the knuckleballer, now 45 years old but still pitching. He seems to be approaching the end of his career, but it's been 13 years since he's had an era higher than 4.35, and even just last year was a successful 3.93 run with the White Sox. Costing just about 700k, he's well worth the possible 200 innings we could get out of him. May perhaps be the best or second best starter available to us, depending on what you think of Aybar. We have to be wary of a collapse though, which may happen and will have to one of these years.
RP Trever Hoffman- C-, A-, C. For a 25 year old this A- power may be worth holding on to.
Crappy pitchers in AAA to dump:
SP Lewis- a crappy 27 year old with low C's and B's. But the sad thing is at this point he might actually be needed on our team.
RP Weathers- real life forsight would tell me of the great releif career he has waiting for him, but here in 1993-land I just can not see it.
SP Johnstone- 24 year old made up of D's and C's, not even worth being on this team.
And that is your Marlins. Let's go on to contracts about to expire.
Contracts that are up this year:
SS Weiss wants an extra 4 years at 390k, over his 1 year 380k deal now. Not bad, but I'll wait and see.
CF Felix wants 4 years at 2.5 mill. I don't even want him at 1.8. He'll be traded soon.
RF Whitmore took a one year extension at 310k. Losing 10k on his salary but gaining a year of security.
LF Carillo, who may or may not be a good hitter, wants a 1 year extension to 540k from his current 450k salary. I may trade him, so I'm not really interested.
CF Scott Pose earns an extra 10k, up to 350,000 by signing on for the 1994 season.
LF Conine wants to go up to 590k for an extra year of play (from 500k). We may trade him, and he doesn't even really have a starting job here. We'll let some other team give it to him.
Signed 2 year extension for C Decker (his contract is now until he's 30 (3 years) and is 10k LESS than what it was.)
LF Berroa wants a raise from 540k to 660k for an extra 3 years. His power potential is much better than the other guys, so we'll give him a shot.
SS Arias wants to go from 440k to 520k for an extra year. I barely want him as it is.
LF Nigel Wilson wants a 70k raise to 480, but I don't care.
CF Everett actually took a 10k cut to stay on for another year! (now 320k.) Everett certainly seems a man of the future here.
SP Rapp, just 40k for a year, he gets it.
It looks like our setup man Carpenter will not be coming back after this season. (He wants 4 years at 4.9 million up from 3.6 mill, which would make him more well-paid than our closer.)
RP Klink signs on for an extra three years at 780k. He might not entirely be worth it, but if he is we have him at a decent price.
RP McClure just wants a one year deal to stick around in the 700k range. We'll wait and see.
RP Hoffman wants to jump up to 550k, but maybe a full year in the minors will make him a bit more modest, because that is where I plan on keeping him.
Now we have to think of what holes we want to fill. We have a large amount of dumpable hitters/pitchers that some stupid teams will want to grab. We have 35 million in projected salary room and 18.7mill in cash, we need a strategy.
As much as I want a strategy for winning, I think my resources are only good enough to permit surviving as a strategy. The holes in the offense are so gaping and many that something must be done. And we need a few SP anchors. The only thing that doesn't need improvement is releif (hopefully). As much as I'd like to take on a WINNING strategy (something like the Arizona Diamondback ploy of having two ace sp's) I am not sure how feasible it is. And I cannot put hopes in marginally good players, as poor performance is infections (I strongly beleive some Devil Rays players playing right now would have turned into stars in a better environment) I think I will need some solid true hard-core centerpeices for my offense and pitching. Not just stupid minor upgrades like getting Shawon Dunstin or something.
Hopefully some teams will like my guys enough so I can pull off a collection of Shawon-Dunstin type deals without giving up my depth (which I need for GOOD players) so I can just make straight improvements and send a little extra cash toward some other teams plas a player in exchange for an improvement.
Also, I will need to spend a substantial portion of that 45 million on scouting, because the draft for next year is ESSENTIAL. We will be focusing on starting pitching above all, then releif pitching, and then any power hitting position players available.
First I am going to try for a starting pitcher who can truly anchor us. And not some stupid almost anchor like Tom Candiotti, but a real one.
I thought about Boston's Roger Clemens, but he would have costed RP Weathers, SP Johnstone, RF Whitmore and 17.8 million, almost all my money. He also has a salary of 15.9 million. But I am not going to forget this. It would be huge to have him.
Amazingly, when searching for power pitchers, Nolan Ryan of Texas came up. Apparently Texas really didn't have a place for him, as they basically let him walk for free on over to Florida!
APRIL 1, 1993
Marlins receive Nolan Ryan (SP)
Rangers receive $200,000
His ratings are B+ Endurance, A- Control, A+ Power and A+ Movement. I am still wary last year his ERA surged up to 3.72 and he is 46 years old. Hopefully he can provide some anchorage, but I fear he came cheap for a reason and perhaps Texas knows something I don't.
We looked at power pitchers. Clemens we could not get. We got Ryan. Juan Guzman, Sid Fernandez, David Cone, and Tom Gordon's names came up but for the most part they had huge salaries they couldn't justify. But there was one 6'10" 29 year old with power and perhaps a real future...
APRIL 1, 1993
Mariners receive Gus Polidor (SS), Dave Weathers (SP), John Johnstone (RP), Richie Lewis (SP), Nigel Wilson (LF) and Terry McGriff ©
Marlins receive Randy Johnson (SP)
Mariners receive $5,900,000
Apparently the Mariners really needed some bench warmers. Johnson is a more substantial ace, but does carry the burden of a 10.5 million dollar salary. But we still have 36 million we can spend. (we haven't yet taken out the money for ensuring a solid farm system yet.)
One other phenom came up, a 28 year old bearing a world series ring that the Mets were able to give up..
APRIL 1, 1993
Mets receive Bob Natal ©, Mitch Lyden ©, Bret Barberie (3B), Junior Felix (CF) and Darrell Whitmore (RF)
Marlins receive Dwight Gooden (SP)
Mets receive $5,800,000
This was also for a combination of bench warmers and money. I am sure you reading will disagree with my spending all this expendable talent on Johnson and Gooden, saying I could have got one or the other, and then if I really needed I could have got someone else who just wasn't so costly. I thought this also and am aware of it but I must contend that I do not want a stale gray destined to fail staff, and I think this is a legitimately decent rotation now.
Ok. Will add more stuff later on as the season continues.
