The Evan White contract and the start of the rebuild

[D-train]

FWIW The Athletic has ranked baseball's 19 "ugliest" current contracts and no Seattle contract made the list:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/683370 ... on-bryant/

Subscription required.

Every contract carries risks.

Yeah I would agree with that. We don't remotely have any bad contract atm. I am fine with Castillo's and I am sure they are too.

[DavidGee24]

FWIW The Athletic has ranked baseball's 19 "ugliest" current contracts and no Seattle contract made the list:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/683370 ... on-bryant/

Subscription required.

Every contract carries risks.

Yeah I would agree with that. We don't remotely have any bad contract atm. I am fine with Castillo's and I am sure they are too.

Nice to have that luxury, now that Garver is gone, Castillo is probably the most overpaid player on the team but over all 3 1/2 seasons we've had him he's been a plus-pitcher, as in fairly better than league average.

Some would say Julio, but he's also at least a successful player and maybe one of these days he'll pull his head out of his ass and be the .300/40-40 guy that he should be.

[D-train]

Castillo has been worth 9.9 fWAR since he signed, basically worth $80M and and he as been paid $60M so far.

Julio has been worth 21.2 fWAR since he signed, basically worth $86M and has been paid $39M

[DavidGee24]

Castillo has been worth 9.9 fWAR since he signed, basically worth $80M and and he as been paid $60M so far.

Julio has been worth 21.2 fWAR since he signed, basically worth $86M and has been paid $39M

I was wondering if Julio's contract was backloaded. My guess is that much later in his career the production/cost ratio will flip, hopefully not at a Pujols-type level.

[GL_Storm]

There's an upside case for Castillo. His 4-seam fastball is still an excellent pitch and while his velocity is down a bit, he's still solid mid-90's. The problem is that his secondaries have fallen away and become less effective. But, I think at least part of the upside case for him in Seattle is that the coaching staff know him really well and can help him with whatever adjustments he needs to make, which at this point probably means at least one new pitch (most likely a splitter).

I continue to be baffled by this organization's antipathy for the changeup. Castillo went from having one of the best changeups in the league to it all of a sudden not working when he joined the Mariners. I assume this has something to do with how they're coaching pitchers to optimize the fastball. But I really question this philosophy and I wonder if there's an analytics driven one-size-fits-all approach in the org where all pitchers have to pitch off of the fastball first.

[D-train]

Castillo has been worth 9.9 fWAR since he signed, basically worth $80M and and he as been paid $60M so far.

Julio has been worth 21.2 fWAR since he signed, basically worth $86M and has been paid $39M

I was wondering if Julio's contract was backloaded. My guess is that much later in his career the production/cost ratio will flip, hopefully not at a Pujols-type level.

That doesn't matter at all. It is total WAR vs. total Salary. Production neatly matching Salary every season is meaningless. Back loading is far more beneficial to the team because of the time value of money. Finance 101. Didn't they teach you accounting guys that? btw I took one accounting class at UW and got a 4.0 ha.

[Michael K.]

Julio's numbers always some how seem to work themselves out. If he ever gets hot in the early to mid Spring instead of around the All Star break? He'll be back in the MVP conversation. He was on fire from like July on this year.

[D-train]

Julio's numbers always some how seem to work themselves out. If he ever gets hot in the early to mid Spring instead of around the All Star break? He'll be back in the MVP conversation. He was on fire from like July on this year.

He doesn't even need to get hot. He has a .737 Career 1st half OPS and .902 in the second half. Just put up a .800 OPS in the first half and he has a .850 OPS for the season.

[Captain 97]

Julio's numbers always some how seem to work themselves out. If he ever gets hot in the early to mid Spring instead of around the All Star break? He'll be back in the MVP conversation. He was on fire from like July on this year.

He doesn't even need to get hot. He has a .737 Career 1st half OPS and .902 in the second half. Just put up a .800 OPS in the first half and he has a .850 OPS for the season.

It's mostly April that's killing him. .654 career OPS in April. .832 career OPS May-September. I sometimes wonder if he would benefit from playing winter ball to keep things flowing.

[D-train]

Julio's numbers always some how seem to work themselves out. If he ever gets hot in the early to mid Spring instead of around the All Star break? He'll be back in the MVP conversation. He was on fire from like July on this year.

He doesn't even need to get hot. He has a .737 Career 1st half OPS and .902 in the second half. Just put up a .800 OPS in the first half and he has a .850 OPS for the season.

It's mostly April that's killing him. .654 career OPS in April. .832 career OPS May-September. I sometimes wonder if he would benefit from playing winter ball to keep things flowing.

He has to do something. 5 cold Aprils in a row is just not acceptable. btw I thought you would mention that you immediately called out the lunacy of the White contract once it was announced.