Comments on: Johjima Leaves M’s; Johnson and Moore Move Up Depth Chart

By: FWB

FWB — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:32:33 +0000

I don’t think Clement has the knees to catch anymore after all those surgeries on both knees and he was terrible defensively to begin with.

I believe the Mariners will sign a cheap veteran to backup Adam Moore and send Rob Johnson back down to Tacoma or possibly trade him.

By: MDS

MDS — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:13:55 +0000

good thing they traded clement. idiots. they deserve to lose for managing a team to get japanese media dollars

By: ML

ML — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:15:45 +0000

You need to contextualize catcher ERA. Johnson caught Felix every start and caught most of Bedard’s/Washburn’s starts as well. Getting your 1-3 pitchers to catch every week while Johjima was stuck with the Jason Vargas’s of the world help explain alot of that difference. Plus CERA depends on a multitude of external factors (defense for one) which is does not take into account. I would be interested though if there was a stat like FIP or xFIP or tRA equivalent for CERA where we can adjust for defense, quality of starting pitcher, quality of opponent, park factor, etc. Make it happen fangraphs!

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:03:18 +0000

It may be due to the lack of communication via the language barrier, but Johjimas inability to call a game hurt the Mariners pitching staff. The pitcher team ERA when Johjima was catching was over 5.5 while it was around 2.75 when Johsnon was behind the plate

By: Kazinski

Kazinski — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:05:33 +0000

There shouldn’t be much doubt that Moore will be the starter. Moore is already better both offensively and defensively than Johnson; Johnson had 9 passed balls last season in only 80 games, and there were quite a few “wild pitches” he also should have handled. I’ll give Johnson a little bit of the benefit of the doubt here, as he is having double hip surgery (one down, one to go) over the off season, so lack of mobility may account for some of that. But having said that, with double hip surgery is he likely to be better this coming season?

Moore has a much higher offensive upside, there is no reason not to play him. Even if Moore has a rough adjustment to big league pitching and is starts the season totally lost at the plate, that will just bring him down to Johnson’s level. Johnson is perfectly fine as a backup, but there is no reason he should be starting more than once a week.

By: Brian Joura

Brian Joura — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:45:22 +0000

I think you are asking for a level of proof that is going to be mighty hard to find, especially with how poor the contract turned out to be. Only Bavasi has something to gain by making a statement on the contract.

But USS Mariner had this to say:
“Yes, the Johjima extension happened entirely at an ownership level, and the baseball operations team had basically nothing to do with that decision.”
http://ussmariner.com/index.php?s=johjima+extension

By: joser

joser — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:22:44 +0000

If you can offer any actual substantiation of that, I’d be interested to see it. A lot of people presumed or suggested that, at the time and since, but I haven’t seen any statements by anyone with actual knowledge — Kenji, his agent, the Mariners front office (past or present) or ownership — that that was the case. We don’t know for certain that M’s ownership makes special requests on behalf of players, but we definitely do know that Bavasi hands out ill-advised contracts; therefore, until evidence to the contrary comes to light Occam suggests that it’s perfectly reasonable to put this one onto the rather substantial pile of Bavasi mistakes.

By: joser

joser — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:15:22 +0000

Considering it’s a completely different front office with a much better track record so far, that seems unlikely.

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:03:01 +0000

It wasn’t an ill-advised Bill Bavasi contract, it was an ill-advised contract that ownership forced on management because it wanted to take care of a Japanese player, if I recall correctly.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:52:27 +0000

Unless of course they choose to spend it on the same type of player that they spent it on the first time around….