The Mariners offense last year was more of the deep-sea variety than the ancient, although this fated passage from the Coleridge poem may yet apply:

“God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—

Fiends indeed, or a particular fiend named offensive ineptitude. The team scored 507 runs last year, worst in the American League by a whopping 99 runs. The depths that this offense plumbed were Mariana-Trench-like in both the short- and long-term.

Consider this: The Mariners were last in the league, by wRC+, at the following positions: catcher, first base, left field, and designated hitter. And it’s not like the rest of the team was racing cigarette boats, as they were third-to-last at shortstop, second-to-last at third, and fourth-to-last in center. Guess which position was the only one that was above average last year? That’s how you finish almost a century short of your nearest DH-using competitor.

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After destroying the internets with the title on my last post about Jason Bartlett (Break the Reimold as it were), it’s only fitting that I follow it up with a title just as putrid. That’s not to say, however, that I don’t think the Padres were acting rationally when they signed their new shortstop to a two-year, $11 million contract that buys out his last year of arbitration and his first year of free agency. It may not have been a big-red-letter signing – instead, it could possibly be as solid as this title was bad.

Year one should come at about a 20% discount given the structure of salary arbitration, so this contract is sort of the same as valuing Bartlett as about a $12.2 million player over two years. Look at Bartlett’s six-year career, and you’ll see that only once has he failed to live up to being a player worth about six million a year. He’s managed better than 1.8 WAR every year… except last year.

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It’s obvious that Jason Heyward’s .277/.393/.456 debut was impressive, especially since it came at the tender age of 20. When it comes to his walks, it was just a hair short of record-breaking. His 91 walks last year were the the third most walks in a debut since 1960. Heyward will obviously be a boon to his team if only for that great walk rate, but are there are any other players that broke in with similar plate discipline stats that can show us a similar debut and can therefore tell us something about Heyward’s possible future development path? Or is Heyward unique?

Well, there is a player in the news right now that might just be somewhat comparable: Jeff Bagwell. Bagwell may have to wait to get into the Hall, but he debuted with 75 walks at 23 years old. That’s the most walks in a rookie season put forward by a player younger than 23 since 1985 (other than Heyward’s of course). We also know, with the benefit of hindsight, that walks would feature greatly in his game going forward, as he steadily upped his contribution in the category from 75 to a peak of 149 in 1999. His plate discipline came well-formed and was refined over time, and the similarity seems to suggest that Heyward will have many .400+ OBPs – Bagwell had seven, with two more over .397.

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Sort among batters for swinging strike rate over the past three years, and (unsurprisingly) you’ll get a list that features most of the strikeout kings at the plate. Mark Reynolds (17.5% swinging strikes) and Ryan Howard (15.3%) obviously belong based on their respective career strikeout rates (38.7% and 32% respectively). But track a little further down the list and you’ll notice that a high swinging strike rate is not always a harbinger of a high strikeout rate.

You won’t have to go far. Even third place on the list, Josh Hamilton, has a decent strikeout rate (20.6%) despite his high swinging strike rate (13.7%). Delmon Young even pairs a better-than-average strikeout rate (18.6% career) with a top-ten worst swinging strike percentage (12.7%) over the last three years. Clearly, the tendency to swing and miss at offerings is not the sole determinant of a batter’s strikeout rate.

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On Monday, the Mets traded left-hander Michael Antonini for the Dodgers’ future shortstop of the past – Chin-Lung Hu. Though the move didn’t include any top prospects, it may have real implications for the Mets going forward.

Antonini does pitch with his left hand, and may be close to the major leagues (the 25-year-old just finished his second stint at Triple-A), but he looks like he’s headed to the bullpen. His fastball tops out around 89 MPH and though he controls it well to both sides of plate – as evidenced by his 2.1 career minor league walk rate – he owns only a mediocre changeup otherwise. He also hasn’t been able to rack up the strikeouts you’d like to see out of a future major-league rotation stalwart (7.0 K/9 career, 6.1 at Triple-A Buffalo). Perhaps he can be a LOOGY. Here’s a little more about him from Toby Hyde at MetsMinorLeagueBlog.

From the Dodgers’ perspective, they may feel that they have traded a backup shortstop for a left-handed bullpen option that might be able to help them this year.

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The story on the news feed is that Rick Ankiel has signed with the Nationals on a one-year $1.5M contract, but the story of Rick Ankiel cannot be told without the letter K. Though moving from the rotation to the lineup is an amazing feat, it’s worth wondering where Ankiel would have been without that special K.

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There is still one significant procedural hurdle between Rich Harden and his next contract – supposedly with the Athletics for a $1.5 million base salary with $1.5 million in incentives. Like all players, Harden still has to pass his physical, but unlike most, he may be on pins and needles as he waits for the results. Assuming he does pass the test, Harden is still a decent gamble at that price (especially with the option of moving to the pen already in place), but he’s more of a gamble every year.

He’s probably only failed to be worth $3 million in two years of his career, despite never once crossing the 200-inning threshold (or, since 2005, even the 150-inning threshold). As we have touched here in many different ways, value can be informed by a mix of excellence and durability, and though Harden had bushels of one, he lacked the other. By keeping his strikeout rate in the double digits and pitching around 140 innings per season, he seemed to have settled into a strange role – an excellent sixth starter that could not be relied upon for a full season. Just for fun, here’s his DL history per Corey Dawkin’s injury tool. It shows nine official trips to the DL (and six day-to-day stints, one of which lasted 38 days) in his seven-year career.

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Late Monday afternoon, the White Sox signed Brian Bruney to a minor league deal, and most of baseball yawned, scratched themselves, and turned the page. To be fair, Bruney has had an FIP over five for the past two years, and even his career number (4.73) is not terribly interesting. He walked 20 batters in fewer than 18 innings last year. He’s walked 43 batters in his last 46 2/3 major league innings. With his career 6.51 BB/9, it’s fair to wonder if he’ll ever be a useful part of a bullpen again.

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At the winter meetings this week, John Coppolella, the Braves Director of Baseball Administration, was kind enough to sit down with me and answer some questions about the Braves, his role on the team, and the current state of statistical analysis in the game. He’s a bright young executive in the game, and has a great perspective on the work that front offices do, so this was nothing but a pleasure.

Eno Sarris: What is your role with the Braves exactly? Can you describe what you do?

John Coppolella: I help out [General Manager] Frank Wren and [Assistant General Manager] Bruce Manno. I help them by executing our depth charts, prospect lists, arbitration cases and our statistical analysis. When we break down players, we will use stuff that we find on sites like FanGraphs sometimes. We were in the room a few days back, and we were sorting guys by UZR/150. There’s probably about 10 or 15 we will take from your site, five or 10 from here, from there. We’re always trying to find new information.

Eno Sarris: That’s interesting. I was going to ask you about how aware you are of the stuff that is out there. In particular, valuing defense – there’s a lot of work being done right now trying to figure out how far we’ve gotten with defensive statistics. How do you feel about defensive statistics – do you have any advice for those that are working on defensive numbers?

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Jon Paul Morosi is reporting that Jack Cust will join the Mariners on a one-year, $2.5 million deal – the sort of contract that will once again allow Cust the chance to rack up surplus value for his team. In his career to date, Cust has been paid $6.165 million, and racked up 8.2 WAR for his teams.

It’s not too hard to see why his skills may be undervalued. In an off-season that saw Mark Reynolds traded for two relievers, a glove-less slugger that has struck out in 38.9% of his major league at-bats is not a sough-after entity. But along with those strikeouts come walks (17.3% career) and power (.207 ISO career). In fact, over his career, 53% of his plate appearances have ended in a walk, strikeout or home run. At least with the bat, he’ll help (126 career wRC+, 138 last year), so he can be your all-or-nothing DH if you shop in the bargain aisle.

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