This is part of a series of posts wherein we belittle teams for their bewildering offseason buffoonery, or else extol them their their excellent preseason exploits.

Many pundits are proclaiming that the Seattle Mariners had the best offseason of any team, and it’s easy to see why. First, they had an utterly unforseen gift from the gods fall into their laps in October when hugely overpaid catcher Kenji Johjima (and Bill Bavasi’s last big mistake) opted out of the $16 million remaining on his contract in order to return to the comforts of Japan.

Then, in perhaps the busiest offseason of any team, they inked ace Felix Hernandez (5 years, $78M) and star centerfielder Franklin Gutierrez (4 years, $20.25M) to big extensions, resigned shortstop Jack Wilson (2 years, $10M), DH Ken Griffey Jr. (1 year, $2.35M), starter Erik Bedard (1 year, $1.5M), lured Chone Figgins from the Halos to the tune of 5 years, $45M, took cheap free agent gambles on 1B Ryan Garko (1 year, $0.55M) and OF Eric Byrnes (1 year, $0.4M), traded Carlos Silva to the Cubs for Milton Bradley in a swap of unwanted parts, shipped IF/OF Bill Hall to the Red Sox for 1B Casey Kotchman, acquired Brandon League and a prospect from the Blue Jays in a trade of relievers named “Brandon”, and of course, stunned the baseball world by landing a second ace in the form of Cliff Lee by shipping 3 prospects off in a three way deal with the Jays and Phillies.

Hail to the King: M's fans are ecstatic to be keeping Hernandez, but it's costing the team top dollar.

With this large number of moves to acquire or lock up several solid players, just about everyone is picking the Mariners to win the division this year, but I am not sold. Of course, just about everyone would love to have players like King Felix, Gutierrez, Figgins, and Cliff Lee on their teams, but I have questions or concerns about many of these moves.

The Mariners obviously felt they simply had to lock up fan favorite Felix Hernandez, but it is not as if they got much of a hometown discount, if any. I’m not against paying top dollar for top pitchers, of which Hernandez is undeniably one, but I’ve always been leery of paying top dollar for pitchers in a guaranteed contract of more than a few years, because all it will take is one significant injury to turn this deal into a high priced bust.

Of course I was also against resigning Griffey, because he is unlikely to return value at this stage in his career, even at the modest price, and more importantly will be taking precious at-bats away from somebody better, but at least Griffey is only on a one year deal, as are Garko, Byrnes, and Bedard, which I thought were all good gambles for low prices.

The free agent signing I really question, however, is Chone Figgins. Although Figgins has been a great player thus far in his career and had a fantastic 2009 season, he is already 32 years old, and will be 36 years old by the time he is playing his vested option year in 2014. Given that much of Figgins’ game, both on offense and defense, depends on speed and a first quick step, and that these are the first things players lose in their early 30’s, it seems likely that Figgins will not be returning nearly much value by the end of this deal. Figgins is going to have to continue to play at or near peak performance well into his 30s to make this deal even out for the M’s.

Finally, I have questions about the thinking behind the Cliff Lee deal. Although a lot of baseball watchers are saying that the Phillies should have gotten more out of the Mariners for Lee, the fact is that Lee is in his walk year this season. This is a bold, win-now move in that if the Mariners don’t at least make the postseason this year, they will have traded three top prospects away, including their best hitting prospect, Tyson Gillies, and their second best pitching prospect, Philippe Aumont, for a draft pick or two. Despite some of the solid moves Seattle has made this offseason, I’m not at all sure that they can outrun the Angels for the AL West crown (or even the Rangers, for that matter), so I’m not sure the timing was quite right to make this kind of strike. They definitely have a shot this year, but it’s a big roll of the dice.

What really worries me about this team is how truly weak the offense is. The Mariners were dead last in the American League in runs scored in 2009, with a paltry 640, and this year their offense, incredibly enough, is even worse on paper. In particular, this team will have almost no power at all after the loss of Russ Branyan, Bill Hall, and Adrian Beltre (replaced by Casey Kotchman, Milton Bradley, and Figgins). It’s possible that Bradley might make up for some of the lost ground if he hits like he did in his career year in Texas two years ago, manages to stay on the field for more than half the season, and keeps his legendary anger in check, but those are big ifs, all three.

What is clear is that the Seattle Mariners under GM Jack Zduriencik value defense more than any other organization in the game, including even Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s, and this offseason the team decided to double down on defense with the signings of Wilson, Langerhans, Figgins, Byrnes, and Gutierrez and the trade for Kotchman.

But after a certain point, you have to stop and think, “Gee, having a great defense is great and all, but eventually we have to not only stop the other team from scoring but actually have to put some runs on the board ourselves.” I would have liked to see the Mariners do a bit more to try to address their league-worst offense this offseason before I can give them a high offseason grade. Ryan Garko is simply not enough, and all I can say is, while Felix might be used to pitching in all of those 1-0 and 2-1 games by now, Cliff Lee is in for a rude surprise going from one of the best offenses in the game to one of the worst.

Offseason Grade: B

Acquisitions: SP Cliff Lee, 3B Chone Figgins, OF Milton Bradley, 1B Ryan Garko, 1B Casey Kotchman, RP Brandon League, OF Eric Byrnes

Losses: 3B Adrian Beltre, 1B Russell Branyan, C Kenji Johjima, OF Endy Chavez, UT Bill Hall, SP Carlos Silva, RP Miguel Batista, RP Brandon Morrow

Projected Lineup, Rotation, and Closer

C – Rob Johnson
1B – Casey Kotchman
2B – Jose Lopez
3B – Chone Figgins
SS – Jack Wilson
LF – Milton Bradley/Eric Byrnes
CF – Franklin Gutierrez
RF – Ichiro Suzuki
DH – Ken Griffey Jr.

SP1 – Felix Hernandez
SP2 – Cliff Lee
SP3 – Eric Bedard
SP4 – Ryan Rowland-Smith
SP5 – Ian Snell

CL – David Aardsma

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

So I’m watching Gary “Sarge” Matthews talk about today’s Phils-Braves pitching matchup, Cliff Lee vs. Tommy Hanson, and Sarge refers to Lee as “a certain, maybe, Hall-of-Famer.”

And I don’t know what certain-maybe means, but Lee is not a certain Hall of Famer, and he’s not maybe a Hall of Famer. Lee is a very good pitcher who seems to have finally figured it all out after a couple down years and a demotion to the minors in 2007. But Lee, who is 30, has had exactly one season with an ERA under 3.00, he’s never struck out 200 batters in a season, and if he averages 20 wins a year over the next 10 seasons, he still won’t reach 300 wins.

Sarge is the man because he wears cool hats and he’s friends with Obama. But jeez, that guy says some crazy stuff.

So after the fun I had making a WAR pie for the Dodgers, I decided to do another pie showing the wins above replacement provided by the various players on the Philadelphia Phillies:

We can immediately see how dependent the Phillies are on their offense, and how much of that offensive comes from just a handful of players. Just five players – Chase Utley, Jayson Werth, Ryan Howard, Raul Ibanez, and Shane Victorino, have provided fully 53 percent of the value the Phillies have gotten out of their roster this season.

It is also clear how amazing Cliff Lee has been since he came over to the Phils. In just 33 innings of work, he has provided the same value that J.A. Happ has provided in 107 innings, and is approaching the value that Cole Hamels has provided in 134.1 innings.

We can also see what a complete waste of space the Phillies bullpen has been this entire season, outside of Ryan Madson and Chan Ho Park (who has actually been quite good since he went to the pen). Of all the other relievers who have pitched for the Phillies this year, not a single one has added even 0.1 of a win to the team’s efforts. In fact, if you add up the rest of the bullpen after Park and Madson, they’ve contributed a total of negative 2 wins *below* replacement level.

But getting back to how unbalanced this team is, looking at the numbers, no team in baseball has a bigger split, percentage-wise, between the contributions of its position players and the lack of contribution from its pitchers.  Observe the following mini-pie:

Indeed, nearly a full 7 out of 10 wins above replacement provided by Phillies players have come from the position players. And this pie would look even more lopsided toward the blueberry side if not for the recent arrival of the amazing Cliff Lee, who is doing his utmost to expand that slice of cherry.

Before the 2007 season began, it wasn’t all that difficult to see that the Indians would be a team that needed to be reckoned with. Despite an unimpressive 78-win season the year before, this was the team whose run differential was a plus 88. They were better than their record had shown. And they went on to win 96 games without any major additions in 2007.

Flash forward to November 2008. The Indians had once again underplayed their run differential to the tune of a .500 record despite scoring 805 runs against 761 runs given up. But things are different. C.C. Sabathia is gone. Travis Hafner looks like a shell of his former self and Victor Martinez’ power disappeared overnight. On the positive end of the spectrum, Grady Sizemore cemented himself as a topflight player and Kelly Shoppach emerged as an offensive threat that made Victor Martinez’s sudden decline easier to swallow. Shin-Soo Choo was no longer just a fun name to recite, but a solid big leaguer who still had notable upside. Not to mention the fact that Cliff Lee surprised everyone and got himself a Cy Young award. With these players, the talent gap between the old guard and the new in Cleveland is not vast at all.

However, they do have areas that require help. For one, it’s actually rather amazing that the Indians scored as many runs as they did with so little production coming from the conventional power positions. The Indians had Ryan Garko and Casey Blake (before he went to LA) at first and third, with Ben Francisco and Franklin Gutierrez in left and right, plus Hafner DHing. Upgrading these positions offensively would not be that difficult under ordinary circumstances. But if you take a look at the first base options on the free agent market, the names do not inspire much confidence aside from Mark Teixeira — and the third basemen are worse. With Pronk and his contract entrenched at the DH spot, signing players not named Teixeira would mean a defensive downgrade that may not be worth the offensive upgrade and the financial commitment that would go with it.

And herein lies the problem with having a DH who struggled as badly as Hafner did in 2008. This year’s free agent market is full of all-bat-no-glove type players whose value would be maximized by only utilizing them for offensive purposes – Carlos Delgado, Jason Giambi, Pat Burrell, Frank Thomas, Adam Dunn, Manny Ramirez, etc. With his contract (guaranteed $51.75MM over the next four years), a team like the Indians, whose payroll hasn’t hit $80MM per year since 2001 (and is often well below that mark) do not have much choice but to keep giving Pronk a shot. Yes, he was injured for much of 2008 and certainly, his poor performance can partly be attributed to it. But his 2007 season wasn’t very good either and players like Hafner age quickly. Long story short, I don’t think we’ll ever see him perform at his previous levels ever again. Only a repeat of his 2007 campaign would be a realistic goal.

Moving on to other topics, there’s been talk of moving Jhonny Peralta to third base which doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. But this would obviously depend on who would replace him at short. And Peralta’s bat profiles as average at the hot corner and doesn’t do anything to improve their lineup power. Unless the Tribe shell out the money to bring in Rafael Furcal, it’s probably best to keep Peralta at short for the time being.

On the pitching side, players who have as big a statistical leap as Cliff Lee had last season tend to come back down to earth – not that his “earth” is all that bad. As long as his low walk total wasn’t a total fluke, Lee should remain a very good player. And to counteract this drop, Fausto Carmona can be expected to be better. No one had foreseen Carmona’s performance in 2007. By the same token, no one foresaw such a poor follow-up year. The real Fausto Carmona should be somewhere in the middle, which still makes him an above-average pitcher. The Tribe can also expect the return of Jake Westbrook from Tommy John surgery sometime in the summer and he should be a positive addition to the rotation. In the meantime, rookie Scott Lewis (who made his debut in September) should get the chance to earn a full time spot along with fellow young arms Aaron Laffey, Anthony Reyes, and Jeremy Sowers.

Their bullpen could use some help as well. Currently, their best relievers are Rafael Perez and Jensen Lewis. In addition, top prospect Adam Miller is expected to be on an innings-limit making him a reliever for most if not all of 2009. And while he had a terrible season, Rafael Betancourt is a better pitcher than his 2008 numbers indicate. But Perez is the only lefty of the bunch so they could use one more.

But their primary focus should really be to boost the offensive production coming from their corner positions. Ben Francisco, Ryan Gutierrez and Ryan Garko are probably not going to cut it if the Indians want to overtake the White Sox for the division crown. Giving Choo more at-bats would probably be a cheap and worthwhile option. I would also argue that Kelly Shoppach’s value is never going to be higher than it is right now and ought to be shipped out to one of the many teams who’d love an offensive upgrade at the catcher spot in exchange for a viable third baseman (Red Sox perhaps?).

All in all, I like the Indians’ chances in 2009. But much of it is going to rest upon the bats of Hafner and Victor Martinez. If their 2008 season wasn’t a fluke, then much of what they accomplish this offseason will most likely be moot.

- What They Need Index -

I’m not going to waste your time with a big lead in. Game 2 between the Phillies and Dodgers starts in an hour. So let’s get right to it.

National League

I love Brad Lidge. He’s like a brother to me. And without him the Phillies wouldn’t be playing October baseball right now. But he pitched in 69 innings this season. By comparison, CC Sabathia pitched in 130 innings during his half season in the NL. So I have a hard time giving the award to Lidge, this season’s most dominant reliever, when there are a handful of starters who had equally dominant seasons and pitched in far more innings.

For me, this boils down to a race between three guys: Brandon Webb, Johan Santana and Tim Lincecum. Webb led the NL in wins, which is something he can feel good about. But it’s not something I value particularly highly. Santana led the league in ERA, which is a more important metric, but still not the end-all-be-all. Lincecum was second in wins and ERA, as well as VORP among NL pitchers, and he led the league in strikeouts by a lot, led the league in K/9 by a full run, led the league in pitching win shares and led the league in pitching runs created. He’s got my vote.

American League

In the AL it’s really a two horse race. And it’s a dead heat. Cliff Lee led the league in wins and ERA, was second in WHIP and was ninth in strikeouts. Roy Halladay led the league in WHIP, was second in ERA and wins and third in strikeouts. The two pitchers tied for the league lead in pitching runs created. They both had the same number of quality starts (23).

Maybe one of these pitchers benefited disproportionately from above average defensive support? In a word, no. Lee’s ERA, independent of the defense behind him, was 2.95, good for first in the AL. Halladay’s DIPS was 3.07, second in the league.

Halladay led the league in innings pitched. Lee was a distant second, 23 innings behind Halladay. Lee was also second in complete games, with 4. Halladay led the league in complete games with 9.

This really is a toss up. I’ll give it to Halladay, because he had a lot more strikeouts, which is the best result a pitcher can achieve, and he threw more complete games. But in a perfect world these two guys would share the award.

If you’re a loyal UmpBump reader (thanks!) then you would know that the staff likes sabermetrics. Well I would include myself in that bunch, except I’ve been slacking on the mathematics of it all, and don’t really know much about PECOTA, Runs Created, etc, except to say that it’s dense stuff.

Well, since I’m scheduled to pick my Cy Young candidates, I figured I might as well take a crack at this saber stuff and do some calculatin’ to backup my claims. So as to not diminish the value of my own criteria, I’ll take stats into consideration, but I deem it important to consider the overall success of the team. How will I determine this? Well, simple really, did the team make the playoffs, and/or what percentage did the pitcher’s wins constitute of the overall team victories.

National League

I decided to take a look at the senior circuit first, and from the start, there’s a handful of names constantly atop the stat categories: Tim Lincecum, Johan Santana, Ryan Dempster, Brandon Webb, and near the periphery, Dan Haren and Cole Hamels.

In my (humble) opinion, ERA and Wins (with a 200 IP minimum) are obligatory stat criteria to make a preliminary evaluation of pitchers. So looking at the top three in each, we narrow the list to: Santana (2.53, 16), Lincecum (2.62, 17), Dempster (2.96, 17), and Webb (3.30, 22). To further thin the list, lets take a look at some sabermetrics: Only Webb and Santana are in the top three in positive WPA (with Lincecum at a very close fourth), and in overall Win Probability Added, Lincecum lead the NL with a 4.59 index, followed by Santana, Dempster, and Webb.

With those two breakdowns in mind, we can take Dempster out of the list, and by looking at one more sabermetric, the player leverage index, we can eliminate Santana since his pLI is below 1. And lastly, lets look at each players win total and what percentage of his team’s wins it represents: The Giants won 72 games, meaning Lincecum’s 17 are equivalent to 23% of the wins. The Diamondbacks won 80 games, and Webb’s 22 have a 27.5% share of their wins.

Brad Lidge is my stud pick for NL Cy Young

Now, taking relievers into account, and paying close attention to the closers, out of those with more than 30 saves, only the Phillies’ Brad Lidge cracks the top 3 in WPA (5.37); meaning he’s the only one worthy of Cy Young consideration (again, IMHO).

It’s a close call. For one, neither the Diamondbacks or Giants made the playoffs, and the Phillies did advance to the NLCS, thanks in part to Lidge closing out the Brewers. Lidge did have a 1.95 ERA and pitched 69.3 innings, and even though his 41 saves didn’t lead the league (Jose Valverde had 44), they’re good for a second-place tie with the Giants’ Brian Wilson (oh, and by the way, he blew zero save opportunities).

If we follow our sabermetric gut instinct, he beat out Lincecum in overall WPA, so I think we’ve reached the conclusion that makes the most sabermetric sense: Brad Lidge gets my vote for NL Cy Young, with Lincecum second and Webb third.

American League

Cliff Lee was just that good; he's the AL Cy Young in my camp.

Keeping the dense matter to a minimum, let’s do the math for the junior circuit. So filtering the top three in ERA and Wins we get: Cliff Lee (2.54, 22), Roy Halladay (2.81, 20), John Lester (3.21, 16), and Mike Mussina (3.37, 20). It’s safe to eliminate Lester from the list based on the fact that the other three starters won 20 or more games. To further filter the list, only Lee and Halladay cracked the top three in WPA with 5.96 and 3.47 respective indexes.

Let’s not forget percentage of wins: Lee’s wins represented 27% of the Indians’ wins this year (81-81) while Halladay’s accounted for 23% the Blue Jays’ victories.

Again, to keep relievers in the mix, I’ll take a look at the top closer this year in the American League, Francisco Rodriguez. He set the record for saves in a regular season with 62, had a 2.24 era (only good for fourth best among relievers), but his WPA barely puts him in the top five, with a 3.33 index.

The Angels did make the post season, while the Indians had a very disappointing year, but Lee’s numbers were extremly good, far above the best; he only lost three games and won 71% of his starts. Had it not been for that sheer dominance I’d vote for Rodriguez, but Cliff Lee gets my vote for Cy Young in the AL, with Rodriguez second and Halladay third.

Like I said before, I hadn’t really used sabermetrics to gauge my appreciation of player performance, and considering it was my first time really looking at traditional stats mixed with sabermetrics to make an evaluation, I have to say I’m sold. That stuff does not lie.

The Week 4 results are in for UmpBump’s head-to-head league. Who’s up, who’s down, who’s in, who’s out.

Sarah: After inflicting a veritable ass-kicking on Alejandro for most of the week, I (again!) suffered a terrible Sunday and had to content myself with a tie. Poop. Now I’ve dropped down to sixth in our 12-person league, my worst showing so far. You know what really grates? If I’d just taken a gamble and played Kyle Lohse yesterday, I would have won. But I benched him, because I was already winning nearly all the pitching categories and I thought he would only screw it up. Of course, Lohse pitched a beaut, but none of it counted for the Somerville Green Sox. Disgusting. Hot: Jacoby Ellsbury, Russell Martin, David Murphy, Yovani Gallardo, Kyle Freakin’ Lohse. Not: Andy Pettitte, Johnny Cueto, Carlos Guillen, Vernon Wells.

Coley: Well, things can’t get much worse. I got handed an 11-1 beatdown this week. And it hurt. A lot. The problem is clearly my offense, which is getting routinely smacked around, especially in RBI and HR. I’m going to have to pull the trigger on a trade, maybe swap some speed for some power, if possible. You know who isn’t helping? Jose Reyes. He was terrible this week. And, frankly, he’s been bad all year. So, is it time to trade him? Or do I ride it out? And for how long? My pitching staff (Aaron Harang, Dice-K, Brett Myers, Jered Weaver and Oliver Perez) wasn’t great this week, either. But I’m not worried about my pitching. That’s a loaded staff. Hot: Brandon Phillips, Josh Hamilton. Not: Jose Reyes, Carlos Pena, Chone Figgins, Brett Myers.

Paul: Cliff. Lee. That is all. (Actually, if I left it at that, Sarah would kill me.) Anyhow, on the heels of yet another improbably brilliant outing by the Cleveland lefty, ElDuquesInjuryReport now stands atop the standings in out humble league. But even more welcome were the two outings by Cleveland’s other lefty, C.C. Sabathia, who appears to have put his terrible start to the year behind him. Offensively, Edwin Encarnacion had a pretty big week (6 runs, 2 HRs, 19TBs and .379 OBP), as did Brian Roberts (6 runs, 2 HRs, 2 SBs, 17 TBs and .407 OBP). The next victim in my Winnebago tour of carnage is Bryan (Pirates in ‘08!). Sir, you are about to enter a world of pain. Hot: C.C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Jhonny Peralta (Indians galore!), Brian Roberts, Edwin Encarnacion. Not: Kevin Youkilis, David Wright, Scott Baker.

Alejandro: After surging last week, my team found itself in the woodshed being taken to school by Green’s Somerville’s Green Sox. For any of you who know a little bit about soccer or hockey, you know a come-from behind tie brings about a good feeling of accomplishment. I have to point out Francisco Liriano, on whom I took a big gamble, along with like 90%+ of Yahoo! fantasy players, lost big time. Needless to say, I dropped him, frankly because I don’t expect to get any results out of him, whereas I could by taking a smaller gamble on someone like the Cardinals’ Todd Wellemeyer, 2-0 , 3.77 era, 31 k , 10bb, 1.13 whip. Hot: Chipper Jones, Hunter Pence, Magglio Ordóñez, Tim Lincecum (stud), Billy Wagner, Josh Becket (13k’s!). Not: Kevin Milwood, Gavin Floyd (don’t give up on him yet!), Francisco Liriano (dropped).