Seattle Sports Insider

Type A Compensation

Posted by

11/28/09

Q. How much of a deterrent is it, losing your 1st-rounder to sign a Type A free agent?

A. I dunno. Supposing you could trade Josh Fields or Greg Halman or Dennis Raben for an MLB player who would start for you, and who was paid market rate?

Would that kill your holiday season?

Q. Is that all a 1st-rounder is worth?

A. We're not talking about Dustin Ackley or Stephen Strasburg here. We're talking about a #18 overall. Such a player might, or might not, make the Org Top Ten.

Here's our February article on Josh Fields and the worth of a #20 overall.

The M's have what, the #18 overall, so here, we'll run the #16-20's again from 2004-06:

2006   1        16 FrRnd    16 Brewers   Jeremy Jeffress      RHP|
2006   1        17 FrRnd    17 Padres    Matthew Antonelli    3B |
2006   1        18 FrRnd    18 Phillies Kyle Drabek          RHP|
2006   1        19 FrRnd    19 Marlins   Brett Sinkbeil       RHP|                   |
2006   1        20 FrRnd    20 Twins     Christopher Parmelee OF |

2005   1        16 FrRnd    16 Marlins   Christopher Volstad RHP|
2005   1        17 FrRnd    17 Yankees   Carl Henry           SS |
2005   1        18 FrRnd    18 Padres    Cesar Carrillo       RHP|
2005   1        19 FrRnd    19 Rangers   John Mayberry        OF |
2005   1        20 FrRnd    20 Cubs      Mark Pawelek         LHP|

2004   1        16 FrRnd    16 Blue Jays David Purcey         LHP|
2004   1        17 FrRnd    17 Dodgers   Timothy Elbert       LHP|
2004   1        18 FrRnd    18 WhiteSox Josh Fields          3B | 425
2004   1        19 FrRnd    19 Cardinals Christopher Lambert RHP|
2004   1        20 FrRnd    20 Twins     Trevor Plouffe       SS |

Q. I thought the Jays got two picks for Scutaro.

A. If they hadn't offered him arbitration, they'd have got zero. They did offer him arbitration. He turned it down, since he wants 2-3 years at $8+ million, rather than a single year at a "raise" from $1 million.

So the Jays would get the M's 1st-rounder, plus a supplemental pick from MLB as an institution, as it were -- phantom picks after the first round, before the second.

....

If the M's were drafting #1, #5, or #15, they'd only have to give up their second-round pick. So we'll have to concede that at #18, they're going to get kicked about as much as you can get kicked.

Q. MLB scouts would guffaw if they heard that a #18 wasn't worth much.

A. Whattaya expect? They spend the whole year looking at guys who will get picked #327. Looking at potential first-rounders is like ESPN Highlights at 11. Now you're going to tell them even those guys don't matter much?

Well, the kids don't matter much compared to quality major league players, okay.

Like we said. If you could deal (say) Tyson Gillies for Carlos Pena -- a $10 million, 35-homer man making about $10 million -- you'd go wow! Jack did it again!

But call it a "penalty" or "compensation" and the neuro-associative linguistics have scared us off.

Q. It would still be nicer to sign a free agent and not give up a pick.

A. We'll pass that on to Capt. Jack. :- )

Pat Gillick never worried about late-round draft picks when he signed Type A's. Gillick would sign multiple Type A's, lose his 1st-rounders year in and year out, and saberdudes juuusssst hammered him for it.

We've just indicated why we agree with Gillick. Big-name FA or supporting-cast ML veteran, #18 draft picks just don't mean much in proportion. You're comparing teenagers to accomplished ML veterans.

I'm sure you'll see Zduriencik show the Gillickian attitude about Type A's: if he wants the free agent, it doesn't matter much whether it's John Lackey or Marco Scutaro, whether it's John Olerud or Mark McLemore.

...............

One more thing: you lose your 1st-rounder, you often draft a "signability" player anyway. Matt Tuiasosopo was taken in the 3rd round by the M's -- their first pick of the draft -- and given 1st-round money. :shrug:

................

It's a matter of taste. I'm on Gillick's side of this one.

Cheers,

Dr D

Comments

Win or rebuild- both?

It is a tough job to win now and rebuild when you give up high draft picks. Then again, after drafting Ack, we drafted what many perceived to be "reach" players for less money with our compensation we got for Raul. Did they rebuild our minor league talent? Time will tell, but I think there were better players out there to be had, but we maintained our budget. So maybe we should look at the type-A FA as an improvement over a #18 pick, and we draft a normal second rounder, not a "reach".

Query #1

Doc, wondering about the 1b/DH slots. Branyan ought to fill one, but that is not a 100% lock. In my book, Carp is a longshot to be a regular (not to be a major leaguer, but a regular), and I think there's zero chance that he's anything more than the last-ditch fallback in the offseason. Jr. is not supposed to be an everyday option, and looks like Sweeney won't be back.
So, then, just eyeballing it:
Nick Johnson, by the numbers, looks like playing Dustin Ackley at 1b/DH. Sure, you could do it, but it's not optimal. Olerud with 20 points lower SLG.
Carlos Delgado, was not falling off a cliff (outside of an ugly '07), but got injured and will try to come back at 38.
Jim Thome, was falling off a cliff, to my amatuer eye (.563 to .503 to .481 SLG), but am I wrong? And Thome part way down the cliff is still a better SLG than Nick Johnson.
Or does it make sense to sign some position-player vets and rotate them with Saunders, Tui, Carp through the DH slot? (Of course, all assumes that our Adrian Gonzalez dreams are just that -- though Thome and Delgado were once the kind of players that AG is becoming.)

Query #2

Churchill, who is plugged in and worthy of considerable weight, keeps saying, essentially, "no way they start the year with Moore, Tui and Saunders all as starters" (and, of course, that would also entail Carp).
Also, he says Ackely is more than a year away and 2b Ackley is a full year-and-a-half away, at least.
Philosophically, can you make a run for the pennant with that many virtual rookies? or is that just old-school scouts spouting convential wisdom?
FWIW, I don't see it happening, either. But is it just plain a bad idea?

And when Gillick left??

Before my time. But, as I noted over at MC, while I don't think Gillick's position is wrong in the abstract, I think it is wrong when done to excess. What did Gillick leave the club with on the farm when he left? How many licks does it take to get to the bottom of the Farm System rankings?
The "what if" games have no answers. But how much less of an impact would the Bedard trade have had on the Mariner farm if Gillick hadn't been so willing to (and here is the key word), REPEATEDLY toss aside the late first rounders? Aardsma was a late first rounder. They do succeed.
If there's a variable that gets lost in the shuffle here is that while the odds of the late firster turning into something special is low ... when you find one who does succeed, you've got him CHEAP and under club control for some time. Whereas, the FA, by the very nature of the beast is going to be expensive, and typically expensive for multiple years.
The hidden cost of the type A signing is FLEXIBILITY. Bavasi trapped the team into building around Beltre and Sexson. I've argued repeatedly that ORDER matters. If you sign the type-A guys EARLY in the process, you lose the positional AND payroll flexibility that is there in doing things the other way around.

The problem with Gillick

The problem with Gillick wasn't that he signed vets and disregarded picks, it was that he didn't even consider the picks as part of the equation. In the 2002 offseason he picked up Type A free agent Greg Colbrunn to use him as a bench bat, giving up the #17 pick in the process. In a move with absolutely no upside, Gillick gave up a pick that turned into Conor Jackson, who had a career OPS of .810 through his age-26 season (he lost 2009 to injury).
Type A shouldn't push you away from a good free agent signing. It should, however, make you shy away from guys like Octavio Dotel, Bengie Molina, and yes, Marco Scutaro.
In Scutaro's case, I'm more concerned by the fact that he's a 34 year old coming off a career year that's way out of pace with any skills he's ever flashed in the past. There are 3 major ways a Scutaro signing could be a complete bust: 1) sometime between the ages of 34-36 (assuming it'd take multiple years to land him), he declines past the point of usefulness. 2) 2009 was a fluke, and he was never anything more than the ~.315 wOBA guy he's been the rest of his career, and 3) the Ms lose a draft pick that goes on to be a useful regular for years at a bargain basement price (this could be despite a totally successful 3 years from Scutaro, OR it could combine with scenarios 1 and 2).
In situations where the only drawback to a free agent signing is the draft pick you lose, I'm usually for making the signing. It's either when A) there are multiple ways to get burned by the contract, or B) the player involved has a skill-set that's available in any number of guys who won't cost compensation that you start saying "he's not worth giving up the draft pick." Scutaro, for me, is a category A guy. Stay away.

Great example

In the 2002 offseason he picked up Type A free agent Greg Colbrunn to use him as a bench bat, giving up the #17 pick in the process.
:daps:
And this really underlines Gillick's firm conviction that mid-, late-first round picks don't mean much.
......................
What do you guys do with the fact that if you lose a pick, you can just spread the money out to signability guys later in the draft?
You've got a budget, and your draft selections are determined up-and-down the draft by whether you'll give a kid what he wants.
Normally in the 2nd or 3rd round you can get a player who slid, and pay him more, right?

I like the idea of paying

I like the idea of paying signability guys, but the vast majority of all-stars still come from the first round. The percentages aren't great on any individual first round pick, but it's still a team's very best method for getting franchise building blocks into the organization; it's far, far superior to free agency, trade, and the international market.