Seattle or Bust wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 5:15 pm
Yes, but at what cost?
None of these SS's have true power bats. Playing at SafeCo... all of them will likely hit between 15-25 homers.
All of them have benefited from playing at hitter-friendly ballparks in their careers... Xander .872/.758, Dansby .773/.704, Correa .853/.821, Turner .860/.825. Because SafeCo is where right handed hitters go to die, you're basically looking at all 4 of these guys hitting for no more than an .800 OPS at home, made worse by the fact that none of these guys have plus power.
So you're going to pay guys to play ball into their age 36 to 38 seasons $30+ million a year to hit .280/.350/.400-.450 and play decent defense at the SS position? Seems like a horrible way to shell out money.
If you're going to pay a player $30 million AAV, they better be capable of shelling out 40 homers and be a major bopper in your lineup.
The last SS to get a contract like this was Franky Lindor. He enjoyed MASSIVE home vs away splits in Cleveland... basically a .900/.750 split. Welp, he goes to NYM where Citi Field which has been a bottom-5 ballpark to hit in over the past 3 seasons and was 3rd worst in '22 (SafeCo was 2nd worst)... He throws up a .733 home OPS in '20, .788 in '21, .754 in '22.
These are all valid points, and far be it from me to argue with statistics. But what you say is going to apply to literally every FA we sign, or anyone we acquire through trade. If you are playing in a hitter-friendly park like Coors Field, your power and slash line will take a nose dive when you come to T-Mobile. And every player declines with age - so offering a lengthy contract to any player over, say, 28 is going to result in your getting your money's worth for the first 3 years, and then hoping to unload them the last X years. It just is what it is. Call it the contract of diminishing returns. But it's what you'll have to do to sign a proven FA looking for long term job security.
My point is this: we had 2 years of bumper crops of SS available. Apparently Jerry didn't go after any of them. So it comes down to this: were we a better team without any of those SS and JP and Frazier? Hard to tell without building a time machine, but I'd say we would have been better with JP at 2B, and likely any of the FA SS compared to what we went with. How much better and whether it would be worth the cost could be debated. But I would love to have had Corey Seager as our SS going forward.
The second question is whether any of the available SS out there right now would make us a better team for, say, the next 2 or 3 seasons. The answer is arguably yes. It would cost us, for sure, and every FA comes with a list of concerns as well as strengths. But if I were in the front office, I would be telling JD to make a hard and serious run for at least one of the SS. Armchair GMing is easy.
Finally, it remains to be seen what JD actually does with 2B/SS. Maybe he will pull of a world class trade, keep JP at SS, and manage to land a 2B that takes us to the holy land. In which case forget everything I said about not pursuing a FA SS...