Kuzul

Originally, the Mariners were in the clear. Then, they weren’t.

A few days later, Justin Upton’s agents decided to set the record straight and let everyone know that their client’s contract does not bar a trade to Seattle.

Now the question yielded is should the Mariners make a run at him?

Those who lack the short memory of a good closer surely recall the Bill Bavasi era. Trade useful pieces of the future in exchange for trying to win now—the most referenced, of course, being the Erik Bedard fiasco. Send the farm and all our spare baseballs for an oft-injured pitcher.

It’s true that Bedard came with huge risk considering his injuries and time remaining on his contract. What we learned later was that the risk came without much potential for reward. Even if he had pitched 35 games in 2008 and 2009 at top level, his contributions would not have helped a flawed roster. Then, he probably takes off for a big payday.

Our consolation, even under that best case scenario? Draft pick compensation that now has to be developed to replace the near-major league ready talent we shipped out in the first place.

So should the Mariners dare history to repeat itself?

What would the price be to acquire Upton? The Diamondbacks don’t need to trade him, and they very well may not. They are willing to listen, though. Being in that position, you can almost certainly expect the price tag for the Mariners to start with Michael Pineda and one of Justin Smoak or Dustin Ackley.

Pineda is the top-ranked pitching prospect in the organization. Smoak was the prize piece in the Cliff Lee trade. Ackley was the No. 2 overall pick who rocketed through the minors.

Is that price too steep? Which of the position players would you be more willing to give up? Who replaces any of the three when you realize the system has nothing close in the organization at their respective positions? What do we do with Michael Saunders now?

These are all good questions, which may lead many fans to just say “no thanks” and prefer that the team continue to build on the current young foundation. Of course, we all still remember the dizziness after swallowing the Bedard pill.

This pill is quite different, though. Justin Upton is a 23-year-old budding star locked up for several more years at what could be a huge bargain. The risks with a position player are historically far less than those of a pitcher, so Pineda for Upton is a good swap. But you still have to add Smoak or Ackley.

Can the team survive the loss of two of those three? When payroll wiggle room arrives in 2012, your core of Felix Hernandez, Ichiro, Upton, Franklin Gutierrez and Smoak or Ackley gives you a solid foundation to start dipping into free agency. This could be a move to gain long-term value from a player who has already shown he can play at the highest level—and he might get even better.

This won’t end with the pleasant surprise that acquiring Gutierrez in the J.J. Putz deal did, as Upton is already on the map. However, I think we can all rest assured that Jack Zduriencik’s scouting skills will help him make the right decision.

The notoriously close-lipped front office won’t be giving us any hints, but with the winter meetings kicking up next week, keep your eyes and ears peeled. Jack will be going to work.

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The Boston Red Sox have tried to acquire the new American League Cy Young Award winner Felix Hernandez before, and it’s time general manager Theo Epstein tries again.

Hernandez signed a multi-year extension in January with the Seattle Mariners, giving them a Cy Young-caliber ace for years to come.

Seattle is a struggling team right now and has many areas it needs to improve upon, both on offense and the pitching staff.

If the Mariners decide to put King Felix on the trading the block, the Red Sox are the best team to trade with because of the quality of talent at the big league and minor league levels Boston possesses. 

Why would the Mariners dare to put Hernandez on the block?

Because they need many more quality players to be a legitimate contender, and Hernandez’s value is as high as it’s ever been.

In 2009, the Red Sox, Mariners and Padres discussed a trade that would have been an all-time blockbuster, but it did not happen due to the reluctance of Seattle to part ways with Hernandez. 

The Red Sox reportedly offered Seattle eight of their better prospects and told them to choose any five of them for Hernandez alone. 

According to The Seattle Times, Boston chose Clay Buchholz, Michael Bowden, Justin Masterson, Daniel Bard, Nick Hagadone, Felix Doubront, Josh Reddick and Yamaico Navarro as the eight prospects available.

The deal also would have involved Adrian Gonzalez going to Seattle, while the Padres would receive prospects from Boston as well.

Looking back, Red Sox fans are glad Epstein did not have a chance to execute this trade.

For all the talent Hernandez has, almost all of these prospects have had major roles at the big league level or have been used to acquire other great players (e.g. Masterson was traded for Victor Martinez in 2009).

The Red Sox still have an interest in Hernandez this offseason but will not offer that many quality prospects again. Daniel Bard is the future closer, and Buchholz has become an All-Star-caliber starter.

Epstein is not armed with a lot of cash this offseason, and that can partly be attributed to the Red Sox ownership group’s purchase of the English soccer club Liverpool.

Boston’s best way to improve for 2011 is via trade. Reports from many media sources revealed the Red Sox and the Arizona Diamondbacks have discussed a potential trade involving Justin Upton, although Arizona’s initial asking price was rebuffed by Epstein.

Adrian Gonzalez of the Padres remains the Red Sox’s priority this season, but offseason surgery has teams a bit worried about trading for him now, and they will likely wait until the trade deadline next July before making a move.

Felix Hernandez is a great pitcher and deservedly won the 2010 AL Cy Young Award. But he has too much value for the Mariners not to consider trading him, because the return would help the Mariners build a contender for many years to come.

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Two weeks after being defeated by a small rebel group called the San Francisco Giants, the sabermetrics empire struck back on Thursday….

“It is a dark time for Sabermetricians.
Although some of their theories have been destroyed,
Imperial pitchers and hitters have driven the
Rebel forces and beat writers from their mother’s basement
and pursued them across
the galaxy.

“Evading the dreaded WHIP, tERA, FIP and WAR,
a group of freedom
fighters led by Bruce Bochy
has established a new secret
way of winning on the remote summer ice world
of San Francisco.

“The evil lord Darth Felix Hernandez,
obsessed with taking over the galaxy,
has dispatched thousands of remote stats into
the far reaches of space….”

Darth Hernandez and the rest of the sabermetric community dispatched all the remote stats they could think of and got some revenge on Thursday, as the Seattle Mariners’ ace won the American League Cy Young Award.

Hernandez received 21 out of 28 first-place votes to become the second Mariner to win the award. Randy Johnson won the award in 1995. Tampa Bay Rays LHP David Price finished second in the voting, and New York Yankees LHP CC Sabathia finished third.

The big story of this voting was whether or not the voters would look at Hernandez’s 13 wins and dismiss his other statistics. As we know, wins aren’t the best way to judge a pitcher’s success, and now that thinking has trickled down to the voters.

Hernandez led the AL in ERA (2.27), H/9 (7.0), Batting Avg. Against (.212) and WAR for Pitchers (6.0). He also finished second in WHIP (1.06) and second in K’s (232). At the age of 24, King Felix has clearly established himself as one of the dominant pitchers in all of baseball.

Hernandez’s 13 wins represent the lowest total for a Cy Young winner in a non-strike-shortened season. Tim Lincecum won the NL Cy Young last year with 15 wins.

My preseason American League Cy Young pick: Jon Lester

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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Now that all arguments are over and Felix Hernandez has been named the American League Cy Young Award winner (All hail King Felix!), it’s time to look at what the award could mean for the Seattle Mariners in the long run.

After getting fired, Rick Adair likely lost the opportunity to become the most famous pitching coach this side of Dave Duncan.

Duncan is the St. Louis Cardinals pitching coach who has overseen Chris Carpenter’s Cy Young victory and Adam Wainwright’s 2010 runner-up in the award. Not to mention he watched Carpenter and Wainwright battle it out for second and third place respectively in 2009, likely handing the award to Tim Lincecum.

Duncan has also resurrected the careers of Joel Pineiro, Jake Westbrook, Jason Marquis and Kyle Lohse, among others.

While observed positive results pitching in Safeco Field would make philosophical sense as part of the criteria for future free agent signings, at least in terms of receiving preference or ideally a discount, it hasn’t come to fruition in San Diego, which has both a pitcher-friendly park and was the one-time home of 2007 Cy Young winner Jake Peavy.

The most important and most certain issue would seem to be the financial component of Hernandez’s future. While his price tag is controlled for the next four seasons, according to Cot’s, by winning the 2010 Cy Young Award Hernandez has increased the total value of his contract by $2.5 million—certainly not crippling, but far from insignificant.

But the more important financial concern is when the Mariners are faced with the possibility of losing Hernandez yet again. After the 2014 season Hernandez has the opportunity to become a free agent, so while the five-year contract Felix signed last offseason brought some relief to Mariners fans, it will likely prove to be short-lived. However, this time around the price will be much higher.

Apart from Felix Hernandez, there are only 10 active Cy Young Award winners (excluding Pedro Martinez, because his age and semi-active status make him irrelevant to this discussion). Of those guys, only three have reached free agency and signed a contract: CC Sabathia, Johan Santana and Barry Zito (Cliff Lee and Brandon Webb are both free agents but have yet to sign).

None of those players re-signed with their team, and Zito’s seven-year, $126 million contract comes in as the lowest by far.

Zack Greinke and Peavy both won the award amidst their first signed extension with their original teams. Peavy was traded to the White Sox, and Greinke figures to be the subject of trade rumors this offseason, as the Royals have publicly said they’d listen to offers for their ace.

Both of those teams have more significant budget constraints than the Mariners, but perhaps Peavy’s situation represents something of a best-case scenario for the Mariners.

Following Peavy’s 2007 Cy Young Award victory, the Padres signed Peavy to another extension. This one came two years before his original extension ended and essentially traded two years of injury uncertainty for three more years at a perceived discounted rate.

While Peavy’s performance in 2010, the first active salary year of the extension, was hardly worth the $15 million he was paid, it’s important to ignore results-based analysis when creating a model for Hernandez’s next contract.

During a period of relative economic strength, Peavy signed a contract in 2007 worth more than 300 percent of his 2007 salary in its first year (2010) and about 188 percent of the final year of his extension at the time. For Hernandez, those numbers come out to between about $22.75 million and $37.5 million for the first-year salary of a potential extension.

In the present economic climate, somewhere on the lower half of the middle seems more likely. The truth is that there are simply less free agent dollars out there, and fewer years in which to receive those dollars are available as well.

So while FanGraphs’ WAR-based player values have shown Hernandez to be worth upwards of $55.5 million in past seasons, the present and future economic climate may prove that value to be irrelevant.

You see, present free agent dollars and WAR are still being calculated based on contracts signed before the recession, and if things keep up as they have, I’d imagine we could see a 20 percent decrease in the value of wins above replacement level.

With the Yankees and Red Sox presently boasting multiple eight-digit salaries in their rotations, signed through well into Hernandez’s next likely contract, the price tag of Hernandez may be driven down further.

Assuming Hernandez stays healthy and productive, the Mariners may have the opportunity to bring him in at a relative discount compared to his present extension and historical precedent, but either way, having the Cy Young Award likely means he’ll take up at least 20 percent of the team’s payroll.

However, if Felix is as good as many think he will be, and the market continues to adjust as many, including myself, think it will, this may be the least detrimental career accolade, in terms of team payroll, in the history of baseball.

Seattle Mariners top prospects

20-16, 15-11

To see 20 guys that didn’t make the cut, click here.

For “Fixing the 2011 Seattle Mariners” profiles, check out the following:

Ted Lilly, Ramon Hernandez, Michael Saunders, Colby Rasmus, Adam Dunn, Chone Figgins, Dustin Ackley, Felipe Lopez, Willy Aybar, Jack/Josh Wilson, Yu Darvish

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

This year’s AL Cy young winner, Seattle Mariners Felix Hernandez beat out Yankees ace CC Sabathia and the Tampa Bay Rays young pup David Price, and for that one can only think, “Thank god.”

The voters, for the second year running, rightfully ignored the win/loss column on the respective stat lines of each player, and rightfully gave the award to a man who won 13 games, and lost 12.

If you were to tell this to a baseball writer who lived and wrote in the Sixties, or even the Nineties, they would be irate.

“Daggummit,” you would hear, “how can a fella barely crack .500 and be the best darn pitcher in the dagum league?”  And yes, writers of yesteryear all talked like an 1840s gold prospector if you were curious.

The only other player to win the award with as few wins in the history of the Cy Young award was Fernando Valenzuela, who went 13-7, who won the award in 1981, a strike shortened season.

So, Hernandez has the honor of having the fewest wins of a Cy Young Award winner who pitched a full season and didn’t have a fistful of saves.

It would have been easy for the voters to look at Price’s 19-6 record and terrific 2.72 ERA and give him the nod, or even Sabathia’s league leading 21 wins and decided that he was deserving.

Just a few short seasons ago, this is probably what would have happened, leaving the most dominant pitcher in the league with no hardware to show of his magnificent season.

Hernandez, along with his 13 wins, voiced a 2.27 ERA, the lowest in the Majors, 232 strikeouts, good for second, and a tiny 1.06 WHIP.

The writers took into account the fact that Felix could do nothing to make up for the Mariners historically terrible offense, which scored a pitiful 513 runs, and in ten of his starts this season, they were held to one or fewer runs.

In the past two seasons, three of the four Cy Young winners have had 16 or fewer wins, and have accounted for the three fewest win totals for Cy Young winners in the history of the award, a significant change in the way of voting.

Voters are now embracing the statistical revolution in baseball brought along by Bill James and the people at SABR who have brought along a slew of new statistics to evaluate players in a more accurate and sophisticated manner.

Writers have begun to favor newer, formerly frightening sounding stats from WAR, VORP, and WPA to the frighteningly simple OBP.

Long gone are the days of three main stats used to designate the best players in the league, and finally the writers and voters are catching up with that trend.

Better late than never, kudos to Felix and kudos to the writers, you guys definitely got this one right.

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The results are in!

Felix Hernandez has won the American League Cy Young Award despite winning just 13 games in the 2010 season.

This is an exciting development regardless of what you think of advanced metrics because when you get down to it, this is not about a triumph of advanced metrics over baseball traditionalists.

It’s a triumph of common sense over the absurdity of slavish tendencies toward traditional points of view. It’s the death of wins as a meaningful statistic when judging the value of a pitcher.

You don’t need FIP, WAR or any other advanced metric to realize Felix Hernandez was the best pitcher in baseball. ERA, WHIP, innings pitched and strikeouts told you that. Just like you didn’t need advanced metrics to tell you Zack Greinke was the best pitcher in the American League in 2009 despite only winning 16 games.

Not only did Hernandez win, but he won in a rout. Hernandez received 21 of 28 first place votes.

The “Wins” statistic has dominated the landscape of major league baseball for the better part of the 20th century. Now we know the 21st century is going to feature a new set of rules—a new understanding of what valuable is.

Well, maybe not just yet. The MVP award will still probably be “the best player on a winning team.” That’s OK. One step at a time.

Hernandez beat out both David Price and CC Sabathia. They had fine seasons in their own right playing for the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees respectively. Their teams’ performances helped them post win totals that dwarfed Hernandez’.

But Hernandez was better than both pitchers, even with just 13 wins, which is now the lowest total of wins for a Cy Young winner in a non-interrupted season.

Somewhere Bert Blyleven is cursing himself for not being younger and pitching in a more enlightened era, although hopefully this is the precursor of finally getting one of the best pitchers of that generation into the Hall of Fame.

If Hernandez can win the Cy Young with 13 wins, then maybe Blyleven can make the Hall of Fame with 287 wins.

While this isn’t a victory for advanced metrics (many sabermetricians would tell you Cliff Lee deserved the Cy Young), it is a statement on how the one-time subculture of baseball analysis is slowly but surely getting its footing in the mainstream.

That’s a good thing as far as it means we are starting to base our decisions more on reasonable statistics than wins. Even if you wanted to argue for Price or Sabathia, there were better arguments to be made than pointing at their win totals.

This is not a call to start worshiping the odd acronyms of advanced metrics. It’s a call to accept the fact that wins have always and will always be a team stat and not an accurate gauge of a pitcher’s value.

While we’re at it, let’s recognize that the save is a completely arbitrary stat that tells us absolutely nothing. How else did Wes Littleton get a save in a 30-3 rout?

So congratulations to Felix Hernandez—and congratulations to everybody who has written an article on B/R over the past few months declaring Hernandez’ superiority to CC Sabathia this season (there have been many).

Common sense has won out for the second year in a row. Much credit is due to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, an organization that many are critical of for their inane voting.

However, don’t get too excited. Derek Jeter still won a Gold Glove. It’s just a reminder that we have a long way to go before all baseball awards are actually given to those who deserve them.

Finally, rest in peace, “wins.” You had a good run, but I can’t say I’m sad to see your reign of silly injustice come to an end.

Next up is saves. You hear that, “saves?” We’re coming for you next.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Three weeks ago, Bleacher Report’s Featured Columnists began to unveil the results of our end-of-season wards poll. We’ve looked at Gold Gloves, Silver Sluggers, Comeback Players of the Year, Relief Men of the Year, Rookies of the Year, and Managers of the year.

Now, in our last week, we get to the good part: Cy Youngs and MVPs.

Today, as the BBWAA announces its choices for Rookies of the Year (too bad we already beat them to it!), we turn our attention to the American League Cy Young race.

As always the top five vote-getters are featured here, with commentary from the writers who chose them. The full list of results is at the end.

So read on, see how we did, and be sure to tell us what we got wrong!

Begin Slideshow

As a college kid I once drove to Southern California with my soccer team buddies. 

We had a very difficult and grueling two-week season-opening training camp to prepare for, so we decided to pack all five of us into my small Toyota Corolla, and we headed down to Santa Cruz to prepare.

Five guys with five soccer balls across the back window as we drove.

Two weeks later, anxious and homesick, we drove all night.  And I’ll never forget that last corner driving north on the I-5 freeway by Boeing field.  When you make that turn and first see the tall buildings of downtown Seattle with the Olympics in the background, the exuberance never fails!  You know you are finally home.

The soothing tones of Dave Niehaus had that same kind of magic. 

When you heard him weaving words together like an artist, transforming an average baseball game into a majestic masterpiece, you knew you were home.   

His voice was like no other, describing baseball for the Seattle Mariners like nobody else can, or ever will again.

He was our friend.  He felt like our father.  Our childhood pal who we stole away with, late at night when our moms thought we were sleeping. 

His was the voice heard while painting a deck, or floating on a boat during a warm summer night on Lake Washington. 

He made the woeful Seattle Mariners more than just a baseball team.  He made them feel like family.

And he was there, each summer, each game.  Always there.

We all knew the news of this past Wednesday was coming. After all, he was 75 years old. But like any beloved family member, none of us were ready for him to be gone and we certainly were not ready when he left.

The most talented and unique personality in Seattle sports history has passed, leaving a hole in the hearts of so many.

There really is nothing else to say that hasn’t already been mentioned.  So rather than try, let’s have Dave himself do what he did for so many years. 

This is not a clip of a famous play.  This is just an average game on an average summer night, recorded during a meaningless extra-inning game almost two decades ago. 

Playing the Chicago White Sox as my then young family rode the ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle, he made average games more than just baseball. 

Dave Neihaus’s brilliance was in how he made the routine special.

Over the past four decades every one of us heard hundreds of games just like this one.  While approaching Seattle in the car, or from far-off corners of the state, Niehaus brought the game to life with enthusiasm and clarity, as if every one was game seven in the World Series.  

Thus the best call ever made by Dave Niehaus, was the one he made every single day during four decades of baseball seasons. 

It will never be the same listening to a Seattle Mariners game now that’s he’s gone!  

(If for any reason the embedded clip fails to show, you can still find the video here.)

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Dave Niehaus, the Seattle Mariners’ legendary broadcaster, died today at age 75, according to team reports. Niehaus, who was awarded the Ford Frick Award at his Hall of Fame induction in 2008, has been the Mariners voice since their inaugural year of 1977.

He was always an enjoyable voice during baseball games, whether the Mariners won or lost. He made famous catchphrases like “Grand Salami” and “It will FLYY away.” His greatest moments undoubtedly came during the historical Mariner run to end the 1995 season.

Dave will be missed by Mariners fans and baseball fans across the country. I know I certainly will.

The team is expected to make a statement on his death shortly.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

We’re about to present a slideshow in which we analyze the voting for the 2010 American League Cy Young Award. We’re going to look at 10 Cy Young Award candidates and analyze them along several lines, i.e. how much run support each one got, how well each player kept the ball in the yard, how hurt by his home park each one was.

But at the end of the day, none of this matters, because really all we want to know is the answer to this one question: Is this the year? Will this be the historic year in which the Baseball Writers Association of America does the correct thing and gives the Cy Young Award to the best pitcher in his league, without regard for his win-loss record?

Put another way: Will Felix Hernandez win the 2010 American League Cy Young Award?

Let’s have a look.

Begin Slideshow