Jon Daniels, creative cat

The Mariners could use some starting pitchers, right? Who would you rather have for 2006, based solely on their 2005 stats?

	Age	IP	ER	ERA	K/9	BB/9	G/F
Pitcher $9+	31	177.1	63	3.2	4.77	2.59	0.98
Pitcher $3+	28	128.2	61	4.27	6.99	3.08	1.15

Well, that ERA jumps out, doesn't it. Let's look at the career stats of these hurlers:

		IP	ER	ERA	K/9	BB/9
Pitcher $9+		1153.1	504	3.93	5.45	2.72
Pitcher $3+		796	384	4.34	7.04	3.19

The point here is that these very different pitchers both have a certain amount of value; the second one listed is more of a strikeout/groundball specialist (who needs a solid middle infield defense, but plays well in any park), while the former is a pitch-to-contact/flyball guy (very reliant on outfield defense and ballpark). As you may have noticed from the labels I have given them, the second pitcher listed costs a little over a third the salary in 2006 of the first one. Here's a comparison of something interesting over at Fangraphs.

That's right. Young Jon Daniels has just completed a deal to bring in Adam Eaton from the Padres in exchange for Adrian Gonzalez (blocked 1b prospect), Chris Young (extremely tall young pitcher), and Terrmel Sledge (young outfielder). Well, Texas also gets aging, high-quality reliever Akinori Otsuka thrown into the deal, along with a PTBNL (Billy Killian? A very low level catcher prospect), but Eaton is the centerpiece of the trade for the Rangers. This trade has been in the rumor mill for a while, but Texas refused to include young catcher Gerald Laird to make it happen. It went down because San Diego couldn't ink Eaton to an acceptable deal, and he's eligible for his last round of arbitration before becoming a free agent after 2006.

I'm not saying that I like Eaton any better than I like Washburn. However, the price is right. A $3.5 or $4M Eaton would theoretically have left clear room in the budget for more trade/free agent pitching acquisitions. Sure, it would have cost the M's something in trade, but we have been known to deal with the Friars before. Here's hoping that Eaton works out as well as Chan Ho Park once did for Texas, while knowing that is unlikely to be the case. At least he's a free agent after this season...oh, wait, that would be better than paying big bucks for Washburn through his age 35 season. Ggguh.

I know, I know...the grass is always greener. Still...depressing.