Dee Gordon Becomes An Outfield Experiment
The hot stove is warming up, and as always, Jerry Dipoto is the one stoking the fire.
Source: #Mariners acquire Dee Gordon from #Marlins.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 7, 2017
Now, you might say, don’t the Mariners already have the most expensive second baseman in baseball? Why yes, yes they do. So why are they trading for Dee Gordon? Because they’re not acquiring him to play second base.
Dee Gordon will play CF for the #Mariners according to club source
— Jim Bowden??? (@JimBowdenGM) December 7, 2017
The Mariners have put a heavy emphasis on athleticism in the outfield under Dipoto’s regime, and with Jarrod Dyson now a free agent, the team is apparently betting on Gordon’s speed translating into similar results in the outfield. And there’s no question that Gordon is one of the very fastest players in the game.
By sprint speed, he’s nearly equal to Byron Buxton and Billy Hamilton, maybe the two best defensive outfielders alive. Of course, it has to be noted that he’s also right next to Delino Deshields, another exceptionally fast former second baseman who moved to the outfield, but has split his time between LF and CF because he hasn’t impressed enough to be handed a regular job in CF. Speed obviously matters, but it is not, in and of itself, determinative of outfield ability.
That said, Gordon was a very poor defensive SS early in his career and worked to make himself into a strong defensive second baseman, so he’s already learned a new position and made himself more valuable once. If Gordon can do it again, turning his raw speed into upper-tier range in center field again, then he could be a nice player for the Mariners.
Gordon isn’t a great hitter, but his baserunning is so valuable than he’s been an above-average offensive player throughout his career, and he’s at +26 runs of offense over the last four years, since his 2014 breakout in LA. If you pair an above-average offensive player with potentially above-average center field defense, that’s an impact player, which is obviously what the Mariners are hoping for.
In order to bring Gordon to Seattle, they took on the rest of the $38 million he’s owed and surrendered one of the few good pieces they had left in their farm system.
Nick Neidert is a good prospect. Saw him at 87-91 this year. Plus changeup, plus command. Fastball's movement, Neidert's 3/4s slot, and his cross-body delivery allow it – and his breaking ball – to play up against RHH. Think's he's a weird, reverse splits, #4 starter. A 50.
— Eric Longenhagen (@longenhagen) December 7, 2017
Nick Neidert was one of the team’s best arms, even without a super high ceiling, while Chris Torres and Robert Dugger are low-level lottery tickets who aren’t without value. This wasn’t a straight salary dump for the Marlins, who got three guys worth watching in return.
But along with Gordon, the Mariners also get another $1 million in international bonus money, which is obviously being acquired to try and get Shohei Otani to sign with the Mariners. They gave up another prospect last night to acquire $1 million from the Twins, so the plan is pretty clearly to surrender whatever necessary to give the organization the best chance possible to win the Ohtani derby.
And given how valuable he is, any marginal improvement in that sweepstakes is probably worth surrendering decent-but-unspectacular prospects. Ohtani is probably worth some team’s entire farm systems by himself. He’ll instantly become one of the most valuable resources in whatever organization he joins. If this deal helps the Mariners land Ohtani, the price paid becomes inconsequential.
And if Gordon turns into a good defensive CF, then this could very well be a nice move on its own merits. So there’s clearly upside here for Seattle.
But there’s plenty of downside too. Ohtani might go elsewhere. Gordon might end up not taking well to the OF, and then the team would have an expensive corner outfielder with a light bat, or a second baseman who pushes Robinson Cano to first base, both options limiting their offense. And the farm system continues to be strip-mined for short-term gains, so if the Mariners don’t win, all this borrowing from the future won’t look so good in a few years.
It’s not entirely correct to say that the Mariners are “Ohtani or bust” at this point, but they really need him. And if they get him, they won’t care that they don’t have a farm system anymore.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I love the reasoning here. I’m sure there’s more going on behind the scenes, but it appears to be as simple as “Hey, this guy is really fast. He’ll be great”
Including the 79 game season, Godon had 9 WAR in his 3 seasons in Miami. Hes flawed but also not just a speed guy.
I think that Quadrangular was referring to the Mariners’ basis for thinking that Gordon can play CF. Going by Gordon’s player page here, he’s never played an inning anywhere except shortstop or second base during his entire team in the majors or minors, which goes back to 2008.
Ok that’s understandable but I’d bet on him being at least replacement level in CF. He’s an incredible athlete who has a natural advantage over 90% of the people who play the position.
The fact that he’s enthusiastic about it shows that he’s confident in his ability to play fly balls, which he can misstep and still make easy catches.
He might be, but replacement level in centerfield is a pretty high bar. Replacement level defense is defined as average defense amongst major leaguers who play a position.
Going by career UZR/150, Mike Trout is almost exactly a replacement level defensive centerfielder (-0.7 UZR/150). He’s not Dee Gordon, but he’s faster and more athletic than the average major league player.
The point is that, yes, Gordon is faster than most centerfielders, but a replacement level defensive centerfielder is still an athletic player who is quite a bit faster than the average major league player. And these players have generally been getting defensive reps in the outfield since before they were drafted, or at least since the low minors if they were converted from middle infield.
He’s faster than all but 2 MLB centerfielders, speed is numero uno at the position.
Also, the Mariners wouldnt have made the trade if Dee wasn’t all in on CF. If you think he doesn’t already have an accurate gauge on how he reads flyballs from the outfield then you’re wrong. All players know their range and especially their limitations.
Speed helps, but it’s not the be-all end-all. Jumps matter and routes matter also. Vince Coleman rated as a pretty mediocre left fielder – admittedly under the cruder “total zone” system that we have from back then – even as one of the fastest players in the game.
I’m not saying that Gordon definitely will be bad at playing CF. Maybe he’ll be really good at it. I’m just saying that speed alone doesn’t guarantee that he turns into a good defensive centerfielder, because the baseline is other players who are pretty good at it and, in almost all cases, have tons of reps at playing the position.
Corner OF and CF are totally different challenges. Speed plays up in CF because the path of the ball-laterally-is less ambiguous off the bat. The mistakes in your read as a CF have more to do with exit velo (speaking in rough terms identifying a dying quail off the bat is harder) so having top 1% speed helps cover delayed reactions off the bat.
A player moving from middle infield to corner outfield reckons with spin/slice/hook of a batted ball more than they ever had to at SS or 2B. That spin effects not only the lateral movement but the carry of the ball overall, adding another potential direction to a misread.
If I were a Mariners coach/FO my biggest concern with this transition would be Dee’s arm. If he had the arm to play SS at MLB level he most likely will be sufficient, but I don’t remember anything about him as a SS so I’m not sure.
The mariners didn’t need Dee gordon to be all in on the positional change… They can force him to try it.
They’d HOPE he’s all-in, but I highly doubt that was a condition to trade acceptance for the Mariners.
Dee gordon may be the most BABIP dependent guy in the league. When the hits fall in, he’s good, if his BABIP falls to even league average levels like it did last year, he’s borderline unstartable. He’ll “probably” be okay in CF but this seemed like a pretty big risk at the time, the 1mm in international spending originally wasn’t reported in the deal
Yeah, and if Kyle Hendrick’s control was league-average he’d be an ineffective, too. So what?
It would be unusual for a guy with 80 speed to have a league-average BABIP. .330 is entirely sustainable for him.
Unless youre playing in a 4 team league .300 or.340 with 60 sbs at 2B is not unstartable.
I’m sure he meant in real life.
He meant fantasy, otherwise how many MLB teams have a 3-4 war 2nd baseman who’s “unstartable”. Yeah.. park his arse on the bench because .340 obp with 80 speed grows on trees.
-voting down my objection to gordon being unplayable at 2b because other people are doing so
What suggested he meant fantasy…? You were the first to bring it up.
This isn’t going to go well. He’ll be a worse CF than Adam Dunn.
If they don’t land Ohtani, and with a lot of the most interesting of the jettisoned braves prospects having already signed, I think they will be pretty desperate.
Yes, I think that’s right.
What I don’t know, though, based on me not fully understanding all of the IFA rules: is there any way that they could use the money late in this IFA period to jump on signing some players who otherwise would have been expected to sign after the next IFA period starts on July 2, 2018? Even a 25% or 50% overpay on market IFA bonuses is a pretty small cash commitment in MLB terms and should be preferable to letting the money otherwise go unused.
Getting a bit out there on speculation, I wonder if the sudden grab of IFA dollars by the Mariners means that Ohtani’s agents have gotten to the point of saying, “pay x dollars, and we’re signing with you.”
Ken Rosenthal has reported on a lot of MLB execs speculating that Ohtani may have largely made up his mind prior to this process given how quickly he eliminated 23 teams and then met with all 7 finalists over 48 hours. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/12/shohei-ohtani-rumors-wednesday.html
That’s an interesting take. I disagree only because I think that if this were true, all 7 teams would have sold the farm to achieve this. To modify your statement, I think it might be a case where Otani’s reps told the Mariners that they only need to get him more money and he will sign. To me, this trade is possibly a signal that Seattle is his top choice and he is only waiting for more money.
@phealy48 – what you’re saying is exactly what I intended to mean. I wasn’t fully clear, but I was saying that perhaps this was Ohtani’s agents message to the Mariners, not to every one of the seven teams.
It appears pretty clear that Ohtani is not wholly motivated by money, but it also seems like his agents aren’t doing their job unless they try to get what they can in a signing bonus from his preferred destination. (For some teams, that would be only $300k due to restrictions from exceeding the pool in prior years, but the Mariners are a team with more flexibility.)
IMO it was always going to be Seattle, its a Chris Paul to the clippers type situation.
There is almost no way that $1-2M is a serious factor to anyone’s considerations- but of course it makes sense that the club lucky enough to get Ohtani is not going to be rude from the off by failing to pick up some spare pool money.
4 of the finalists are limited to the 300k for exceeding last year’s pool. If this is what was happening, those teams wouldn’t be finalists.
Sort of what mbs2001 said. It doesn’t have to be what drives the decision, but once he’s decided on a team, why wouldn’t his agents go ahead and try to get an extra couple million?
Just because he might sign with a team that could only offer $300k doesn’t mean that, once he’s decided differently, he and his agents wouldn’t try to get $4 million rather than $2 million (or whatever Seattle’s exact numbers are).
Considering Ohtani doesn’t seem to care, my take was his agents are bsing Seattle to make a few extra $$$ while also improving the MLB roster.
Ohtani has already made millions in Japan. If 2 million mattered that much wouldn’t he stay in Japan for 2 years and make 200? He wants to test himself, screw everything and everyone else. Hell yeah.
The Cubs being included is very intriguing. If Ohtani is serious about the cubs then he must admire the organization enough to where it trumps (the meaning of this word is changing) his want to be closer to Japan. He’s a baseball junkie who’s watched the Cubs runs the past few seasons. Don’t count them out.
Ohtani has reportedly been clocked from home to first as fast as Gordon. Assuming the Ms were willing to try Ohtani in the OF occasionally while Cruz DHd, you’d have two guys out there who could cover most of the space by themselves.
But WARrior, I think routes to the ball have more to do with tracking down a ball then speed no? Speed is definitely a positive, but there have been a lot of speed guys over the years who weren’t great defensively. I guess it might be said…they can be running fast, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re running in the correct direction.
Yes, reaction to the ball is important, also. On the other hand, we know Ohtani has a great arm. Not saying he would be a great defensive OF, or even that he should spend much time playing that position (at least not in the AL), but he has the tools to be more than someone put at that position just so he can bat.
This is rapidly approaching Paul Bunyan territory.
Nobody claims Otani is a defensive asset.
We already have Sidd Finch.
No team is ever going to put a 2-way player in the OF and risk having a guy throw out his arm playing the field. If he plays the field (& he will need to with the M’s since Cruz’s days in the field are seemingly over), I would imagine he plays 1B.
So, the Mariners are attempting a Desmond experiment. Makes me wonder if they’ll use Gamel as the fallback option at 1B and run with a 6-man rotation or 8-man bullpen. The flexibility could do wonders for them if they land Ohtani, but there’s no denying the risk.
I’m probably misreading your comment. Gamel as 1B? I thought they got Ryon Healy to fill that role.
Gamel has been taking reps at first recently; a lot of people are wondering if it’s a fallback option or a sort of weird platoon setup with Healy (because you probably don’t want a standard platoon with Healy’s ability to hit).
Insurance, most likely. I would anticipate Healy getting a hard look before a change was made.
“Fallback” was the keyword. I wouldn’t expect Gamel to start there.
File under: I can’t decide if the Dipoto is crazy like a fox, or just crazy.
On the other hand, the Marlins made out pretty well here to not have to pay down the contract.
Damn! I Pull Off Trades Often – is what I picture Jerry saying to himself while fixing his tie in the mirror.
DIPOTO. It’s like FIGJAM, but more roguish and charming.
I agree with you. I think it’s an OK-ish contract by surplus value, but it sounds like the Marlins got prospects with some actual value to them. The fact that Gordon was traded to play CF is another data point suggesting that there wasn’t a very deep market for him. Maybe the IFA money was a pretty key part of this deal?
This falls in line with the notion that the Mariners’ place on the win curve(THT article about two weeks ago) dictates that they should take more risks than the average team to squeak into the playoffs. Although this isn’t a signing, it was still a risky transaction that could go either way.
I don’t really see a middle ground for this trade. They either get Otani and/or The Gordon Experiment works out(booming success), or don’t get Otani and Gordon fails.
Basically, if they get Otani, then this trade was infinitely worth it. If they don’t, it is absolutely critical that Gordon works out to salvage any value from this trade. Remember, Gordon as it is has very little surplus value.
The middle ground is Ohtani goes elsewhere, but Dee Gordon produces exactly as much value as you would expect for giving up that prospect package and taking on his contract. In that case, the trade is neutral.
If they don’t get Otani and Gordon is a 1.5-2.0 win guy, they are screwed and aren’t making the playoffs.
This doesn’t change their odds to get Ohtani, it just signals what many are saying – he’s going to Seattle. IMO MLB wants him in Seattle, and to accommodate him will get a huge extension in 2 years if healthy that blows away comparable precedent and MLB will allow it (so that he losses nothing by coming over now- which was what has been worked out the past few months).
Or MLB could have just gave Otani an exemption saying that he’s a full professional when this question surfaced a while ago?
Paying attention to facts is useful. You should do it once in a while.
Does he have an OF arm?
Was also wondering this.
Arm strength is decent, accuracy was poor, at least at SS with LA
He was originally a SS. It’s not a cannon, but it will likely be adequate.
Why didn’t they just sign Dyson, instead? I am certain he’ll go for far less than 3/38 and return more value at CF.
Because that does not involve wheelin’ and dealin’, my friend.
If Jerry can trade, Jerry will trade.
I’m guessing the extra IFA $$ must have a lot to do with it. Though they got the same amount from the Twins for a lot less in prospects. So either the price of IFA $ is going up, or Jerry thinks Dee is a lot more valuable to him than Dyson.
Well, this explains why the Marlins were reportedly asking the Giants to include Joe Panik in any Giancarlo Stanton trade.
At least some of those rumors had Gordon going to San Francisco along with Stanton.
True, although I don’t think that aspect made a lot of sense. If the Giants do trade for Stanton, they’ll need to unload salary, not take on Gordon’s. Though maybe the Giants could’ve traded Gordon to the Mariners for pitching and an outfielder.
IMO Ohtani is going to Seattle as that’s what MLB wants. Having an extra $2m to give him doesn’t move the needle, so this trade doesn’t increase their chances to getting Ohtani, it just means that is where he is going and Seattle knows it, so they are acquiring more bonus money as basic accommodation for a star.
Other than LAA, has any other team traded for pool money? And LAA signed Maitan.
So if he doesn’t sign with Seattle, will you admit your theory that MLB is pulling the strings is wrong?
4 of the 7 finalists can only offer a 300k contract and can’t trade for more bonus money.
One of the finalists was Texas, who had the largest pool already from prior transactions.
The two remaining finalists have now traded up to more or less equal what Texas could offer.
All 3 AL teams can offer him 3.5-3.7m signing bonus. The 4 NL teams are all limited to 300k signing bonus and cannot exceed it for any reason in this signing period.
This trade also undermines the ‘Marlins desperate to shed any money, have nothing but terrible options’ narrative. They took a few ok prospects back rather than trying to shed another contract- they have a few options to get under $90 without getting rid of Stanton, Ozuna or Yelich.
That looks very tough to do without shedding any of those three. I agree that there are paths to do it without getting rid of Stanton, but it’s really tough to keep all of those three.
I think that Gordon was generally seen as an OK-ish contract. The prospect return is OK, but I’m pretty sure these players are all well outside top 100 lists.
Cots puts their 25-man payroll at just over $120 million for 2018 without Gordon. Breaking it down:
– The three outfielders combine for $43 million including Ozuna’s estimated arb salary
– Five other arb guys combine for about $17 to $18 million. Each of them is less than $5 million
– Then there are the contracts that are various degrees of above market: Chen, Prado, Volquez, Ziegler, and Tazawa. These add up to $52.5 million in 2018.
– Then about $8 million in minimum salary players to fill out the roster
So they’d need to cut $30 million (60%) of the bad contract money. Chen and Volquez combine for $23 million of it, and the Marlins would have to eat essentially 100% of this money. Prado, Ziegler, and Tazawa are varying degrees of underwater, plus Prado is due $15 million more in 2019. If the Marlins could, say, kick in half of the remaining value to pay down those three contracts, that would save about $15 million. So they’d still be just over $105 million, and need to find a bit over $15 million to cut.
I suppose in theory they could package bad contracts with one or more of their arb players to get more savings. Ozuna is the candidate who makes the most sense, though, because he makes the most money, is only controlled through 2019, and should have a market in at least St. Louis and San Francisco. Other than that, who would be the enticement to take on bad money?
Realmuto? He’s a 3+ WAR player, but what team with the appetite to absorb one or more bad contracts needs a catcher in his Arb1 year? The Nationals are bumping right up against the luxury tax, which they’ve never paid.
Dietrich? He’s a decent enough 2-ish WAR player, but how much in the way of bad contracts can be dumped for three years of that performance at arb salaries?
Bour? He’s a quality player, but this year’s free agent class is filled with left-handed hitting first baseman at various price ranges from Hosmer/Santana down through the lower-tier of Morrison, Duda, and Alonso.
So I think in practical terms that the Marlins do need to move at least one of their three outfielders to get payroll under $90 million, but it doesn’t need to be Stanton.
History has shown us that Dee Gordon can play any position, just not always too well.
It helps that they have Haniger as a CF option if Dee can’t handle the switch. This doesn’t solve the devaluation problem (Dee is either primarily in RF or at 2B with Cano at first at that point, though he could be a super-utility guy in that scenario too), but it does at least mean there’s a CF in-house, albeit with a sharp defensive tradeoff.