Three things about misgivings with the Brandon Morrow trade

A response to USSM's misgivings on the Mariners trade of Brandon Morrow to Toronto for fireballing reliever Brandon League and minor league slugger Yohermyn Chavez (and I single them out since they tend to speak for a larger audience of analysts and readers):

Now, three points:

1. "No one knows how Brandon Morrow is going to develop." Yes, and you could say that about every other prospect in the history of MLB player development. Some players have better chances than others, and at this point, Brandon Morrow's been jerked around so much, fallen into enough negative habits (or moreso falling further into existing negative habits) etc. that his chances of success are somewhat lower than other pitchers his age with his makeup, let alone lower than other supposed top pitching prospects with a good heater. To say that the trade isn't kosher because of the non-zero chance that Brandon Morrow may succeed is to say that every trade you've ever made of a prospect for a more established player with a lower ceiling (like Brandon League) isn't kosher. Making such a deal is a neat phenomenon called "risk". You take the risk that Morrow may self actualize despite every flaw he's ever shown you and despite your flaws (and the resulting setbacks) in developing him.

Every deal is a bet that the player(s) you acquire will help you more than the player(s) you deal away will help another team. Every deal. The Mariners took the same risk with Tyson Gillies, Phillippe Aumont and Juan Carlos Ramirez in thinking Cliff Lee and the compensation we get when he walks after next year will help us more. If you're okay with making trades, you have to accept that you don't know if the player you're dealing away is going to turn out great or not. That's part of the package.

2. Hey, wait a minute Dave, didn't you already give a few reasons why Morrow's chances at greatness were dim, expressing doubt on several occasions like this one?

By the way, for those interested, here’s the all-time list of pitchers who accumulated at least 150 innings before age 25 and had a BB/9 of 5.5 or higher at that point in their career. Morrow’s is 5.83 right now, by the way.

61 pitchers on the list. The successes – Nolan Ryan, Johnny Van Der Meer, Lefty Grove, and J.R. Richard if you ignore the fact that his career was over at age 30.

That’s it. There are a bunch of Bobby Witt/Jason Bere/Seth McClung/Daniel Cabrera types, who just never figured it out.

4 out of 60. Do you like those odds?

Why handwring at all about what history shows us is roughly a 15 to 1 longshot, especially a player that you on several occasions have shown is becoming more and more of a longshot to regularly contribute as a starting pitcher?

Is it because we burned the #5 pick in the 2006 draft on him, and there's a perceived need to maximize the return on a bad investment (and it was: Tim Lincecum, Andrew Miller, Clayton Kershaw and a ton of other better players were on the board)? Look, the pick is gone. We're not getting it back. Morrow's value in the present is not what it was in June 2006. You ought to evaluate him on what he is now, on the chances of the present player's success as a big league pitcher... not the chances of a top 10 draft pick at the time the player is picked.

The team blew it with Morrow's development (and to be fair Dave called that). It's not Z's fault that the current product is a 25 year old, fairly flawed 1.5 pitch pitcher with poor control that, three years later, still has a long way to go before he can be even a consistent starter, let alone a good one, let alone a great one.

3. All that said, pretty much this entire saga of angst can be pinpointed to the idea that Brandon Morrow is a valuable player that can command a Type A player's sort of return. But even Dave himself pointed out that Morrow is a lot closer to Daniel Cabrera or Seth McClung than Roy Halladay or Tim Lincecum or even John Danks. He might have had that sort of potential (allegedly) in 2006, but in 2009 he's just an overthrowing fireballer with little command of any of his pitches, not much of a secondary pitch selection, diabetes, and hints of an attitude to boot.

And it's tough to fathom that any of the other 29 MLB general managers share such an inflated sentiment of Brandon Morrow's abilities, and are willing or able (I'm sure the Astros or Royals love him but what could they possibly send the Mariners of value, let alone be willing to send?) to dispense a greater return than Brandon League and Yohermyn Chavez. Maybe Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik didn't so much think lightly of Brandon Morrow (as many including Dave Cameron speculate) as he and his front office team did their research and realized that this was the balance between the value Brandon Morrow had, and the value they were able to get another team to dispense in return (because remember, not every team is willing to deal for Morrow, nor does every team have enough in their organization they're willing or able to offer in return).

There's a general trend, not necessarily in analysis circles as much as in general among informed fans, towards valuing a top domestic MLB draft pick based on where he was selected in the draft, rather than what he actually is as a player. Living in the past is what leads you to wish it was 1995 again and re-sign a broken down 39 year old DH with knee problems after an injury plagued 214/324/411 season.

Here are all the #5 overall picks in the history of the June amateur draft, dating back to 1965, 45 years of picks. 24 were pitchers. 14 made it to the Majors (though to be fair Matthew Hobgood was just drafted this year and needs time). Of those 14, only nine pitched in more than 30 games (a benchmark selected because starters make roughly 30 starts in a single season, eliminating the guys with the briefest of stays). And one of those nine, Kurt Miller, only pitched in 44 career MLB games before hanging it up.

Only two of the remaining eight pitchers won more than 100 career games: Jack McDowell and Doc Gooden. Jack was an effective veteran forgotten to the annals of time (and thanks for serving up The Double, Jack ;P ), and Doc might have been greater if he didn't love the moon powder. Of the career relievers with more than 100 appearances (Morrow, journeyman Kent Mercker, Andy Hawkins (famous for throwing a no-hitter for a crappy Yankees team and still losing that game 4-0) and failed Padres starter Bob Owchinko of the 1970's), only Mercker could say he was anything better than a fungible, mediocre reliever, and only because he pitched during the Roids Era when league ERAs spiked across the board. None of them were shutdown closers: Mercker leads them all with 25 career saves in 18 seasons. None of them were shutdown anything: Only Morrow posted a career ERA under 4.00, and aside from Mercker the others pitched during an era where the average pitcher could run an ERA in the 3's.

So we're not talking about a draft pick position that produces pitching greatness. Only two of the 24 selected in history at that spot turned out being anything resembling great over their careers. And all due respect, but I don't consider McDowell or Gooden anything close to Hall of Fame material. Maybe All Stars once or twice in their best years, but certainly not HOFers. So to think you're pissing away gold with Morrow because of the draft pick investment made in him isn't really fair. You're talking about what history's shown us to be no less than a 12 to 1 shot.

Whether or not the odds are on a #5 pick's side... where Morrow was drafted in the past is immaterial in the present. Bill Bavasi blew the money on the signing bonus and he burned the pick. That's gone. Winning is about focusing on what you have in the present and how it can help you in the future, or how acquisitions can help you in the future. It is not about focusing on the past, except to look at a player's track record to help assess said present and future.

Now back to the present. In June 2006, Brandon Morrow was one of the top 10-20 amateur players in college baseball, out of Cal (though even then he never made more than 14 starts in an NCAA season). Today, he is a back-end starter, maybe (with some work), and definitely a functional reliever with a hot fastball that can sit 93-95 when starting and can hit 101 when relieving (though granted the latter number comes from Morrow rearing back and throwing the ball as hard as he can at the plate instead of actually pitching).

As far as I'm concerned, we're sending away Matt Thornton or Daniel Cabrera, and we got back a young, halfway decent reliever with similar problems and a talented but undisciplined 20 year old hitter that might be somebody if he can learn to take a pitch.

All that said, if Brandon Morrow gives the Blue Jays a bunch of 180-200 inning seasons, cuts down on his walks, learns to command three pitches, wins 15 games a year and becomes an effective regular in that Jays rotation or any rotation over an uninterrupted 7-10 year period, without any serious or recurring health issues, I will frankly be shocked.

A bonus item: Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik may say publically this deal had nothing to do with any notion of "completing" the Halladay/Lee and you may believe him, but public figures say things to the public all the time that turns out not to be true. If you seriously trust the word of a public statement, you are either gullible or showing a patronizingly willful ignorance. To be fair, I don't think Dave really does think this but is simply saying it to maintain good graces: At this point, with the relationship he's developed with the Mariners front office (which BTW do read USSM regularly), I think Dave realizes he has to make political statements on his blog like 'I believe everything our GM says to the media' and keep his disagreements penned in to the given surface logic of the personnel decisions, in order to not piss off the front office and risk losing his connections. Among other reasons, as point #1 indicated Dave isn't a big fan of taking risks, and he has the advantage of knowing his loyal-to-a-fault readership will never call him on it.

All that said, the truth as usual is probably somewhere in the middle: Z and Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos may have contacted each other during the Halladay/Lee negotiations and agreed to shake on the Halladay/Lee deal provided this separate deal. Because otherwise, why the hell would the Jays send off their no-doubt franchise player for three good but not great prospects? I don't know much about Alex Anthopoulos but I'm pretty sure he's not that stupid. Z and Anthopoulos making this deal themselves was probably what it took to get Anthopoulos to agree to the Halladay/Lee deal that gave the M's Cliff Lee, and I'm sure Z knew this when negotiating the Morrow deal.

Mariners notes from April 7 (Minnesota 6, Seattle 5)

- Well, the first 8.8 innings went pretty well :P

- Yuniesky Betancourt won't even be the great defender he was when he first came up in 2005. You can thank getting fat and happy off the mainland for that. But the leaping Superman catch he made to rob what looked like a sure base hit indicates he's at least close. Working out and dieting this offseason did him good.

- Don't be fooled by 11 runs in 2 games: the Mariners have had a lot of luck on grounders getting past the infield for hits. You can bet that once they get off the bouncy Metrodome FieldTurf that a lot of those grounders become easy outs, so more of those grounders need to become line drives or the M's are going to look more like last year's team at the plate.

- Franklin Gutierrez makes every play look routine. There were a couple flyballs that looked like extra bases, but after a few quick steps, Gut casually strolled to the spot and made what looked like an easy catch. I give the saberheads grief but they're not kidding about the guy's range: He's probably the best CF the M's have had since Mike Cameron. He can cover all of CF and parts of LF and RF if he wants. Hell, if you stuck him out there by himself, I'm not sure you could get a flyball with any lift by him unless you hit it down the line.

- What sucks for Brandon Morrow is that he put down the first two batters easily. But even then he never had much control of his fastball, and then once he decided to work away from the next batter (a lefty), he kept missing high and outside and it just got away from him. Such is the peril of sending a guy who spent spring training injured out there to close after only four innings of work. Does he lose control of his stuff if not so rusty? Can't say for certain, but chances aren't as likely.

Manager Don Wakamatsu and Rick Adair didn't want Morrow challenging the lefthanders inside, but really, once the control was gone, they should have just said screw the game plan and had him pound fastballs on the inner half. That fastball was around 97 (the FSN gun said 93-94 but others insist that was off) and with how it moves, it's often unhittable even when he throws it down the pike. By focusing on the outside part of the plate, Morrow just landed in the no man's land of zero control and couldn't get out. Throwing it down the middle is generally bad, but when you can't hit your spots and your stuff's generally tough to hit, I think you can make an exception in game-breaking circumstances.

- And enough about Brandon Morrow's diabetes. It had far less to do with the meltdown than being rusty did.

- Even after walking the bases loaded, the Mariners still get out of this with a win and a cheap save for Miguel Batista if Denard Span's bases loaded grounder hadn't take such a high, FieldTurf aided superbounce that left Adrian Beltre with no play. One hung breaking ball from Batista to Alexi Casilla later and that was that.

The folly of inflated expectations for the Mariners domestic draft picks

Hardcore Mariners fans are dooming and glooming over two pieces of news:

One, via Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times:

Big news out of camp. Moments ago, I spoke to Brandon Morrow after he'd thrown a bullpen session and he told me (and Shannon Drayer and Tim Booth of AP) that he plans to be a full-time closer from now on. Not just this month, not just this season. For good.

"I feel good about it," he said. "I feel back home."

Wow. This is a major development. As if to hammer that home, the M's just released relief pitcher Tyler Walker. Walker had been one of the guys vying for the closer's job.

Apparently, Morrow made the decision more than a week ago.

Two, also via Geoff Baker:

We've been hinting at this for a while now and today, it became official. Mariners catcher Jeff Clement will start this season in Class AAA. He has some defensive issues to work on, notably, his throws to second base. But also his all-around game-calling. He'll get that chance playing every day down in Tacoma. Should spur some season-ticket sales there.

The Mariners bloggers are practically howling over this. After months of verbal fellatio for the job new GM Jack Zduriencik has done to recompose the Mariners roster, making astute pickups and the like... now they have angrily dismissed these two decisions as grave mistakes, with the classic (and at times hysterical) despair of diehard Mariners fans.

However, consider the following:

- Despite some impressive flashes as a starting pitcher, including a no hitter he took into the 8th inning of his first major league start, Brandon Morrow has yet to show that he can handle a regular starting pitcher's workload over a full season, let alone pitch effectively over a full season. Even among the starts he made, Morrow peppered his outings with walks and stretches of hard-hit frustration, plus he frequently struggled to go deep into ballgames and tended to fade quickly as he tired.

- Brandon Morrow is a diabetic. MLB does have a few diabetics, but diabetics who have successfully managed careers as regular starting pitchers include Jason Johnson... and... well, that's it. Yes, the Mariners drafted Morrow with the #5 pick in 2006 knowing he was a diabetic, and knowing he hadn't pitched more than once a week as a starter in college with Cal. The jury was out on whether Brandon Morrow could pitch every five days in MLB without being a liability in any significant way, such as only being a 5 inning starter (overtaxing the bullpen), or a season long workload eventually causing him health problems....

- ... or, to a more game-related extent, being able to keep his walks down and mix his pitches enough not to consistently fool MLB batters. As a reliever, he only had to throw hard and hit the strike zone enough times to get 3-4 batters out, but a starter has to be able to withstand an entire lineup at least three times, without telegraphing his next pitch or tiring to the point of becoming too hittable.

- Morrow's value as a starter is a question mark as a result. However, we know his value as a reliever: he is a lights out flamethrower that most times is unhittable, and a perfect candidate to close. Morrow and the team may have made this decision to maximize his potential value. Yes, top SPs get paid more than top closers, but you also have to consider expected value. Morrow's chances of becoming a quality starter are at this stage fairly remote for all the reasons stated. However, his chances of being a star closer are far higher.

As Brandon Morrow, do you take a longshot at a 10 out of 10 payout, or do you take a very high chance at a 6-8 out of 10 payout?

As the Seattle Mariners, do you take a longshot at developing a guy at a position where he is a huge question mark, or do you put him in a key position where you know he helps you win tight ballgames right now and likely for years to come? Let's say the M's consider dealing him down the road: do you take the risk of diminishing his current value and perhaps seeing a dim chance at ever maximizing his potential trade value... or do you take his current high value as a reliever and try to maximize that?

- Blogger and fan anger stems not so much from the prospects themselves, as many top prospects never reach their absolute ceiling, but from the fact that these were the team's top domestic draft picks in 2005 and 2006. Clement was picked 3rd overall in 2005 and Morrow was selected 5th overall in 2006. Compounding Morrow's selection is the fact that the Mariners passed on local UW star Tim Lincecum, who would go out to become arguably the top pitcher in the NL for the San Francisco Giants... and on North Carolina product Andrew Miller, who was arguably the top prospect in the 2006 draft but was passed over due to signability concerns.

Jeff Clement still has a long way to go with his defensive mechanics and game calling as a catcher. He has hit fairly well in AAA, though his hot bat has yet to translate to the big league level, and word on the street is that he has yet to make some necessary adjustments as a hitter that the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League has allowed him to overlook. His demotion to AAA isn't necessarily to work on his hitting (though he can certainly learn a few things), but to work on his defense, which presumably he'll get a chance to do full time for the first time since the low minors (he has shared catching duties with Rob Johnson the last couple season in Tacoma).

***

Many fans inflated their expectations for these guys and how the team has handled them, because they were top picks and because top picks such as Evan Longoria, Justin Upton, Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun and Justin Verlander panned out and quickly became top contributors for their teams. There's a bit of fan-related envy of those other top picks, and fans want to see the Mariners top picks materialize into similar stars. Thus, outrage results when personnel moves that otherwise may be for the best indicate that they won't become those stars.

Bill Bavasi and his top assistants made a lot of personnel mistakes. But scouting director Bob Fontaine worked magic in the middle rounds to draft several potentially useful parts, plus international scouting director Bob Engle has brought in hordes of Latin American talent such as Felix Hernandez, Jose Lopez, Yuniesky Betancourt (well, before he got lazy) and many other top prospects currently working their way up the system.

The Bavasi era is over, and the healthy thing to do would be to make peace with the fact that some of the team's previous personnel moves and draft picks just aren't going to pan out as hoped. But Mariners fans were bred on misanthropy, with 22 losing seasons in 32 years, and since misanthropy comes most comfortably, the reaction is understandable.

But nothing has been destroyed. Jack Zduriencik has made many smart decisions in rebuilding this team, and the new front office didn't suddenly turn stupid before they made these moves.

Jeff Clement could still become a regular catcher, or a contributor at a different position. He could be traded for contributing talent. Brandon Morrow can be a lights out closer, and even if you say he has no future here, many teams still place significant value in a 98 mph flamethrower that can mow down hitters in the 9th and could offer the Mariners contributing talent. And that belies the point that, once his forearm strain heals, Brandon Morrow can help the Mariners right now. As a starter, there was doubt he could have helped the team in that role at all over the long term.

You may not like these two personnel moves, but they are neither inherently horrible moves given the context, nor have they ruined any serious long term prospects for the team's future. The team is on the same track to rebuilding for the future as they have always been... and as they are currently composed, given the AL West's weakness they could even contend this season with a little good fortune. Relax.