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What They Said When The Mariners Signed Silva

By Tim Dierkes | March 28, 2011 at 12:36pm CDT

Former Mariners GM Bill Bavasi signed Carlos Silva to a four-year, $48MM deal in December of 2007.  Two years later, Jack Zduriencik sent Silva and $9MM to the Cubs for Milton Bradley in a bad contract swap.  Yesterday, Silva was released by the Cubs with $13.5MM remaining on the contract.  Silva, known as an innings eater at the time of the signing, has provided a 5.82 ERA over 296 2/3 frames over the last three years.  Let's see what was being said at the time of the signing…

—————————————————————————————————–

Tim Dierkes, MLB Trade Rumors

This is the new price of a big league innings eater.  Silva may not be anything special, but he's shown the ability to eat American League innings.  Those guys don't grow on trees.

—————————————————————————————————–

Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner

The strike throwing, no outpitch hurler is just a very easy skillset to find in a pitcher. Throwing a huge amount of money at Carlos Silva simply because he’s proven is a gigantic waste of resources.

This was actually written before the Mariners signed Silva, but it still sums up Cameron's evaluation of the deal.

—————————————————————————————————–

Jeff Sullivan, Lookout Landing

There's no doubt in my mind that this is a financially irresponsible contract, and that you could get 90-100% of Silva's production going forward from someone else for a tiny fraction of the price. Of that I don't think there's any question. But overpaying is nothing new for this team, and at the end of the day, I would so much rather pay too much money than give away too much talent.

Note: this was Jeff coming to terms with the deal, after saying worse things about it previously.

—————————————————————————————————–

Geoff Baker, Seattle Times

Did the M's truly overpay for Silva? We'll know the answer in a couple of years if he misses a season with a blown out elbow ligament. But if he stays healthy, the way Washburn and Batista have to this point, you get a slightly above-average pitcher for what should be a below-market rate.

—————————————————————————————————–

Keith Law, ESPN

If we set the length of the contract aside for a moment, the signing of Carlos Silva makes some sense…The contract itself, however, is lunacy…While he's likely to be an immediate upgrade over the internal options Seattle had, the odds of him turning out to be a good investment over a four-year period — even before we consider the chance he suffers a major injury — are low, and if the Mariners' defense declines via a trade of Adam Jones or Adrian Beltre, Silva's performance will take a direct hit.

The three quotes I pulled out from Law's blog post are best read in context, if you have ESPN Insider.  The entire post is a good read.

—————————————————————————————————–

Silva ended up performing worse than any of us thought he would.  Most writers agreed when he signed that he made the Mariners better, which never happened.  Aside from missing the mark on Silva's ability to continue eating innings, I also failed to recognize that his contract was an outlier rather than the new standard for innings eaters.  Three years later, innings eater types are only getting $4-8MM per year and one or two years.

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33 Comments

  1. Lunchbox45

    14 years ago

    I love these articles.

    Reply
    • SeanD25

      14 years ago

      Me too, would love to see many more like this.

      Reply
    • stl_cards16

      14 years ago

      I’m with ya. Even better when we can look back at what was said in the MLBTR comment section. That usually gives me some good laughs.

      Reply
  2. Threat_Level_RedSox

    14 years ago

    His 07 numbers suggested he could be a good 4 guy behind Bedard, Hernandez and Washburn but that was a huge over pay given his skill set.

    Reply
  3. Threat_Level_RedSox

    14 years ago

    Ya, i hope they do Milton Bradley next.

    Reply
  4. PLF4089

    14 years ago

    I think it is great to see a writer own up to his own miscalculation and admit he was wrong. The old media elite, such as Mike Francesa (I live in NY), would never admit such a thing. Instead, they would deny any miscalculation until the death and claim they knew it all along.

    Bottomline: A post like this gives MLBTR great credibility in my eyes as its writers have once again proven they value honesty over fame

    Reply
    • Infield Fly

      14 years ago

      Great appraisal! Wish I could give a bunch more likes for this comment but my ‘measly’ one like will have to do 😀

      Reply
  5. basemonkey

    14 years ago

    Tim, you quoted yourself? Hahaha.

    Reply
    • martinfv2

      14 years ago

      I always put myself into these if possible, to be fair.

      Reply
      • Lunchbox45

        14 years ago

        Seems like you we’re the most leniant with the assessment.

        We’re you just sold on his ability to eat eatings or doing your best to not be overly critical/pessimistic of the signing?

        Reply
        • notsureifsrs

          14 years ago

          i don’t know if i’ve ever seen him really rip into a team for a move

          tim, tell us what you thought about the vernon wells trade!

          Reply
      • rayking

        14 years ago

        You were partially correct – guys like Silva don’t grow on trees. Granted, that is because most pitchers are willing to accept at least partial responsibility for their failures, not because he was an “innings eater,” but you were partially correct nonetheless.

        Reply
        • TJ

          14 years ago

          Or the fact he can’t hang on the tree without bringing the whole thing down…

          Reply
  6. ju1ced

    14 years ago

    I wish you would have dug up quotes of those that actually said it was a good deal. I can’t imagine anyone agreeing with it.

    Reply
  7. jwsox

    14 years ago

    Tim please please please put together a post just like this for both the whitesox and cubs and have the only person quotes be Jay Marrioti(sp) just to see what he said about recent signings by both teams. Could be a fun/ funny read

    Reply
  8. Edgar4evar

    14 years ago

    Thank goodness the Seattle Times continues to pay Geoff Baker for his unparalleled insight.

    Reply
  9. goner

    14 years ago

    Silva was fecking awful for Seattle (62 ERA+, -3.1 bWAR), but he was actually slightly above average for the Cubs last year (103 ERA+, +1.8 bWAR) before an injury ended his season. I wonder if any ML club will ignore the fact that Silva is batshit crazy and take a flyer on him?

    Reply
  10. Kyle Buttermore

    14 years ago

    You forgot Jayson Starks assessment.

    “This could be a very good signing or a very bad one, only time will tell. I don’t know if I like the money yet or the years, i’m still deciding on that one. I’m sure at some point there may be evidence in which this deal may lean. Sometimes pitchers pitch well and sometimes they don’t. Carlos Silva could be good or he could be bad.”

    Reply
    • JacksTigers

      14 years ago

      How incredibly indecisive.

      Reply
  11. Rabbitov

    14 years ago

    I think anyone, who at the time, didn’t think Silva’s contract was awful was completely out touch. This one was just obvious.

    Reply
  12. bomberj11

    14 years ago

    The reason guys like Silva don’t grow on trees is because usually the branches can’t support that type of weight…

    Reply
    • Lunchbox45

      14 years ago

      hayyoooo

      try the veal

      Reply
  13. PostMoBills

    14 years ago

    I remember, as a Twins fan, being angry with the organization for not re-signing Silva. Then, when we all saw what Seattle gave him, it was one big, “Whoa, okay, never mind” amongst the collective fan base.

    Reply
  14. Steve_in_MA

    14 years ago

    Tim, you’re current assessment is a bit too harsh on yourself. I think you were correct about what the market for a slightly-above-average innings eater was in December of 2007. Since then, the economy has faltered, baseball revenues are off to stagnant, and the free agency market has adjusted to meet the present financial reality. Heck, last year, rehab projects were still getting $7-10MM (Penny, Sheets), so with the downturn, I don’t think your 2007 assessment was far from reality at the time.

    Reply
  15. bjsguess

    14 years ago

    So Tim – here is your next great project idea …

    Somehow tie in user accounts to a central database. Build a simple tool that will allow users to rate transactions (let’s say on a scale of 1-10). Then give them 200 characters to provide some quick takes. Open up the rating for a few days after each trade/signing.

    Imagine the wealth of data you would have with a few years of results on most player transactions. Here are a couple outputs off the top of my head:

    — Imagine being able to rate the Silva deal with input for 5000+ MLBTradeRumors readers. How cool would it be if this deal got rated with like a 30% approval rating.
    — You could have rankings among your readers. Who has proven to the most accurate at predicting a players value relative to their contract (you could do this easily by taking into account WAR – for example).
    — Find out if folks that are fans of a particular team are better at evaluating talent coming in or leaving their favorite team vs non-biased fans.

    You could essentially create a “RottenTomatoes” for MLB Transactions. You already have the readers. You have the transactional data. The last step should be fairly simple.

    I could just see Keith Law writing in a few years, “The new Braun deal appears on the surface to be a good signing. However, the MLBTradeRumors rater has this deal at only 55% approval. I tend to agree with many that this deal represents an overpay.” Just like RottenTomatoes is ubiquitous with movie reviews, your site could have the ultimate transaction rating.

    Just trying to help you get to your next million dollars 🙂

    Reply
    • Ian_Smell

      14 years ago

      I absolutely love this idea. Please incorporate it into the site, Tim.

      Reply
    • martinfv2

      14 years ago

      I like this a lot. We have several things in the air but I will probably start looking into what it’d take. Not sure whether it could be tied into Disqus accounts but that would be ideal.

      Reply
      • bjsguess

        14 years ago

        So Tim – if you are interested let me know via email. I have a couple of options for you. One that won’t cost you any time or money.

        Reply
        • martinfv2

          14 years ago

          Hit me up through the site’s contact form and select business inquiry, if you don’t mind.

          Reply
  16. wes45

    14 years ago

    If there is a more clueless, useless lump of living matter in the world than Bill Bavasi, I would love to see him/her/it. The Silva signing was but one of his many “gifts” to Seattle. A labotomized chimpanzee could have chosen players by pooping on sports pages and had a better success rate. Thank goodness that SF went gonzo after Zito. Bavasi was eager at the time to add him to his list of foibles. He might be the only person in the world I might feel compelled to punch if I passed him on the street.

    Reply
    • $4555515

      14 years ago

      ^^^that post made me lol

      Reply

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