Mariners Acquire Morse - Three-Team Deal

[ccg34]

Some of you guys are overrating Jaso so much. I like this trade. We need power bad. We already got our catchers of the future in Zunino and Montero.

[jej]

Some of you guys are overrating Jaso so much. I like this trade. We need power bad. We already got our catchers of the future in Zunino and Montero.

Jaso is younger, cost controlled, plays a premium position (albeit below average), and gets on base a ton.

Morse is older, exiting his prime, more expensive, plays atrocious defense in the OF, gets injured constantly, has good power, but doesnt walk for ****, and swings WAY too much.

Morse 2012: .291/.321/.470/.791, .340 wOBA, 113 wRC+, 18 HR, 3.7 BB%, 0.3 WAR in 430 PA
Jaso 2012 : .276/.394/.456/.850, .372 wOBA, 143 wRC+, 10 HR, 15.5 BB%, 2.7 WAR in 361 PA

We dont need power. We need offense. More power doesnt always mean better. Runs get created when guys get on base.

[CamraMaan]

Oh I agree for sure. But wouldn't it make sense to fill multiple positions with one good player rather than one spot with 2-3 good players, while having a hole elsewhere?

Says the guy who has been asking for platoons like they were going out of style?? Jaso should basically be a platoon DH. But he could be a really good platoon DH! Morse should be an every day DH, if not play little 1B to give the starter a break. But he should still be swinging his bat every day. I think its realistic to ask for more tan his 2012 stats, after he came back from missing two months with a back injury.

Jaso is younger, cost controlled, plays a premium position (albeit below average), and gets on base a ton.

Morse is older, exiting his prime, more expensive, plays atrocious defense in the OF, gets injured constantly, has good power, but doesnt walk for ****, and swings WAY too much.

Morse 2012: .291/.321/.470/.791, .340 wOBA, 113 wRC+, 18 HR, 3.7 BB%, 0.3 WAR in 430 PA
Jaso 2012 : .276/.394/.456/.850, .372 wOBA, 143 wRC+, 10 HR, 15.5 BB%, 2.7 WAR in 361 PA

We dont need power. We need offense. More power doesnt always mean better. Runs get created when guys get on base.

Almost all the positives for keeping Jaso (young, cheap and cost controlled) make sense if he had a position to play on the future Mariners roster, but he didn't. His awesome stats make for a great argument if they didn't only come again RHP... so at best he gets to play against 65-70% of the pitchers (including PH against RH relievers when a lefty started)...and that's at best, if he was used optimally. But he's not good enough behind the plate to catch that often, and we already have too many DH types whose mouths "need" to be fed to keep their bats in the lineup, so there's no way we would/could use him "optimally"...

This is a simple problem of logistics... who fills what roles to get the job done in the best way possible. In that respect Jaso was running out of a job, and his cheap cost controlled years would be wasted here.

Tell me, any of you, if you had to trade Jaso, who could we have got, 1-for-1 deal, that would have been better than Morse? And don't just tell me you wouldn't trade Jaso... assume he had to be traded. So realistically, who else could we have got instead of Morse?

[Seattle4Ever]

I do like Morse, but.... for Jaso? What the ****. This trade is just flat out embarrassing. We've been talking about GMZ's master plan for years now and then he goes out and does this. This isn't even a shot in the dark kind of move. It's just plain stupid no matter how you look at it.

[Spartan8585]

Jaso is younger, cost controlled, plays a premium position (albeit below average), and gets on base a ton.

Morse is older, exiting his prime, more expensive, plays atrocious defense in the OF, gets injured constantly, has good power, but doesnt walk for ****, and swings WAY too much.

Morse 2012: .291/.321/.470/.791, .340 wOBA, 113 wRC+, 18 HR, 3.7 BB%, 0.3 WAR in 430 PA
Jaso 2012 : .276/.394/.456/.850, .372 wOBA, 143 wRC+, 10 HR, 15.5 BB%, 2.7 WAR in 361 PA

We dont need power. We need offense. More power doesnt always mean better. Runs get created when guys get on base.

Funny the M's finally get some juice and you seem to disagree with it.
Also please enlighten me on how Morse is already exiting his prime? Do you have an insiders scoop that the M's dont? I mean they dont just blindly trade our best offensive asset, surely they believe Morse will contribute more than Jaso.

[Seattle4Ever]

Some of you guys are overrating Jaso so much. I like this trade. We need power bad. We already got our catchers of the future in Zunino and Montero.

There's not much to like about it, besides home runs/power. Using average, it's bad. Using defensive stats, it's bad. Using sabermetrics it's really bad.

We just traded one of our most patient and clutch hitters.

[Spartan8585]

It doesnt matter how much you get on base if you dont have the players who can bring you home.

[Seattle4Ever]

Yeah, because Michael Morse solo homers are going to win 90+ games for us.

[kpak76]

Dude, not funny.



Morse is a DH/1B. Mariners have 3 1B, 1 C. You could run Jaso out to LF and he'd be just as bad as Morse there so that's not really an argument. The only way Morse fits better than Jaso is that he compliments Morales who isn't very good against LHP.

The reason why I like this trade more than hate it is because of roster shuffling. Morse is actually a LF(albeit a disaster), 1b, DH and his main value is his high average and high power. The way our 1st base production has sucked ever since...... Russell Branyon having that great year its might not be a bad idea to stack that position a bit this year. Smaok still has options left so its not that big deal if he gets beat out this spring. Jaso on the other hand looks more and more like the odd man out eventually.

[jej]

Says the guy who has been asking for platoons like they were going out of style?? Jaso should basically be a platoon DH. But he could be a really good platoon DH! Morse should be an every day DH, if not play little 1B to give the starter a break. But he should still be swinging his bat every day. I think its realistic to ask for more tan his 2012 stats, after he came back from missing two months with a back injury.



Almost all the positives for keeping Jaso (young, cheap and cost controlled) make sense if he had a position to play on the future Mariners roster, but he didn't. His awesome stats make for a great argument if they didn't only come again RHP... so at best he gets to play against 65-70% of the pitchers (including PH against RH relievers when a lefty started)...and that's at best, if he was used optimally. But he's not good enough behind the plate to catch that often, and we already have too many DH types whose mouths "need" to be fed to keep their bats in the lineup, so there's no way we would/could use him "optimally"...

This is a simple problem of logistics... who fills what roles to get the job done in the best way possible. In that respect Jaso was running out of a job, and his cheap cost controlled years would be wasted here.

Tell me, any of you, if you had to trade Jaso, who could we have got, 1-for-1 deal, that would have been better than Morse? And don't just tell me you wouldn't trade Jaso... assume he had to be traded. So realistically, who else could we have got instead of Morse?

Yeah, a platoon in RF, a position of need.

And the thing is, Morse is only here for a year too. So it's a year of Jaso vs a year of Morse. I'll take Jaso all day.

[jej]

It doesnt matter how much you get on base if you dont have the players who can bring you home.

Can't bring people home if no one is on base.

And you realize that if someone is on base, then you get on base, they can either score, or get closer to scoring right?

OB is more important than flat power. Fact.

[jej]

Funny the M's finally get some juice and you seem to disagree with it.
Also please enlighten me on how Morse is already exiting his prime? Do you have an insiders scoop that the M's dont? I mean they dont just blindly trade our best offensive asset, surely they believe Morse will contribute more than Jaso.

He is 31. He gets injured a lot. He wasn't great last year (albeit injury riddled).

Pretty much common sense.

[FWBrodie]

The reason why I like this trade more than hate it is because of roster shuffling. Morse is actually a LF(albeit a disaster), 1b, DH and his main value is his high average and high power. The way our 1st base production has sucked ever since...... Russell Branyon having that great year its might not be a bad idea to stack that position a bit this year. Smaok still has options left so its not that big deal if he gets beat out this spring. Jaso on the other hand looks more and more like the odd man out eventually.

Looks like the odd man out? Yeah apparently. Should he be? No. I mean if you're too stupid to find a place for a bat that talented, that cheap, and under control for three more seasons on a team that is awful offensively... I mean I really have no words. It just sucks. Forget it though, just trade for some more DH's.

[MattColby]

Jaso is younger, cost controlled, plays a premium position (albeit below average), and gets on base a ton.

Morse is older, exiting his prime, more expensive, plays atrocious defense in the OF, gets injured constantly, has good power, but doesnt walk for ****, and swings WAY too much.

Morse 2012: .291/.321/.470/.791, .340 wOBA, 113 wRC+, 18 HR, 3.7 BB%, 0.3 WAR in 430 PA
Jaso 2012 : .276/.394/.456/.850, .372 wOBA, 143 wRC+, 10 HR, 15.5 BB%, 2.7 WAR in 361 PA

We dont need power. We need offense. More power doesnt always mean better. Runs get created when guys get on base.

I don't see how anyone can argue against this. It's point proven.

[CamraMaan]

There's not much to like about it, besides home runs/power. Using average, it's bad. Using defensive stats, it's bad. Using sabermetrics it's really bad.

We just traded one of our most patient and clutch hitters.

Actually, using AVG its really good. Especially if/when you account for the fact that Morse can hit against both LH and RH pitchers. If you average out both '11 and '12 for Morse he comes out with a .296/.343/.515/.858 stat line. Now, this gets complicated, but if you take the ratio of ABs against RH to LH pitchers for Morse (ratio of 3.12:1) over those two years, and assume Jaso was forced to play "full time" (not necessarily full time, but not platooned) and assume the same ratio with his stats over his last two years, if you extrapolate the stats you would get a line of .238/.344/.387/.731...... let's put those next to each other.

.296/.343/.515/.858
.238/.344/.387/.731

This is why we are getting a better player... because Morse can play all the time and theoretically give you those numbers. If Jaso could play all the time he would give you inferior numbers... which is why we benefited from trading a platoon DH for an every day MOTO bat.

It doesnt matter how much you get on base if you dont have the players who can bring you home.

Yes!!! The theory works, lots of OBP guys score lots of runs, but it doesn't work if you don't have enough guys who can keep the wheels turning... get on base when the pressure is on, get a clutch hit when it really matters. We didn't have those guys, more or less aside from Jaso, and he couldn't even play every day! The OBP Machine theory only works if you have a lineup full of guys who can perform! Who can get the job done! Morse is one of those guys! He can perform when it matters! No, he's not an OBP Machine, but he hits the ball well, and he hits it hard... its not something to be overlooked, because it can still get the job done! He can/will drive guys in, we will be scoring runs with him in the lineup!