Ichiro to re-up with M's (?) - 5 years/$100 million

[BrewCrewForever]

I agree with whoever said hes a first ballot HOF as well. Between what he has done in Japan and already in MLB its outstanding. And as long as he stays healthy and plays another 10 years or whatever, no doubt hes a HOF.

[TheCouga23]

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Dude. You obviously have never been to this stadium.

 

They come. Lots and lots of them.

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I can't imagine it being that many. How many of them hold season tickets?

 

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and while I am as big of a Bavasi detractor as anyone, there is a lot of knee jerk bashing of a team 13 games over .500 at the break in this thread.

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I don't think looking at pythagorean W-L record is knee-jerk bashing. Their pythagorean record is 44-41, and that's with their bullpen overperforming and zero injuries to an injury-prone roster. The fact is, this team scores just about as many runs as they give up, and history states that these teams usually regress. And their core is not a young nucleus, but an aging one of players with young player skills.

[davego]

Question. Would you rather have this contract to deal with or Lee's in Houston?

[TheCouga23]

I would rather have neither.

 

But if I had to chose, I would go with the Ichiro contract. The Lee contract is horrendous also, and was done at the wrong time. The time to spend on free agents is when you need to bolster a cheap young nucleus to get you into the playoffs. Seattle doesn't have that, and neither does Houston. Both players will end up playing for losing teams for quite some time while fans grow ultimately disinterested.

 

As said above, at least Seattle will be able to recoup some of the Ichiro cost through increased interest in Japan. But these people aren't exactly the type to buy season tickets and spend $100 at the ballpark for more than one or two games a year. And this contract isn't really going to help the team make the playoffs and generate the kind of season ticket sales and walk up sales you get with a perrenial playoff contender.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Ichiro is the poster child for not using OPS as the end all, be all.

 

Well his career OPS is well over 800 so it's not like it's that bad.

[Brian the Automator]

[ I can't imagine it being that many. How many of them hold season tickets? ]

 

EDR, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a sizable population of Japanese origin that reside in Seattle, right?

[BillScottCanRake]

EDR, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a sizable population of Japanese origin that reside in Seattle, right?

 

I am not EDR, but here is some information anyways.

 

Per this web site seattle.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm, based upon the 2000 census, Japanese make up 1.59% of the population (about 9,000), while the number of people of from Asia is about 74,000, or over 13% of the population. It appears this is for Seattle proper and wouldn't include any surrounding communities.

 

Of course, while it seems likely that season ticket holders account for the majority of the in-park income, I imagine that lots of Ichiro jerseys and other merchandise are probably sold to tourists seeing a game in person, on-line to people living in Japan, or people of Japanese origin around the US and world.

 

Since the NBA draft, 35% of the visitors to the Bucks official website have been from China. While that in and of itself doesn't translate into additional revenue, I'd be inclined to believe if Yi signs he'll have an impact on what the Bucks take in, and he isn't near the phenomenon Ichiro was in Japan before coming to the US.

 

I think it's probably difficult to exactly say how much an an impact he has on the franchise, but I don't think it would be an understatement to say "a lot".

[Kurt]

You really have to live in the Seattle area to understand the impact Ichiro has on the Mariners. I moved here from Madison last year and didn't really get it till I lived in the city for a bit and started going to M's games.

 

Seattle has one of the largest asian populations in the United States. And there is a lot of money in Ichiro. You also have to take in acount the many millions of dollars that the M's get each year in Japanese advertizing. It's strange to see a bunch of ads in japanese around Safeco but I'm betting the majority of those ads are because of Ichiro. I'm sure there is also Japanese tv revenue the Mariners recieve. This signing is a no-brainer..

 

Oh and The M's pro shop is twice the size of Milwaukees and 50% of that is Ichiro related items. I mean, they even have an Ichiro jack in the box for sale ther.

[endaround]

Its not attendance--attendance isn't a major force anyway. Its signage and other ads. Its selling broadcast rights in Japan. Didn't people notice that there were Japanese ads in PNC when the Brewers were facing an over the hill Japanese relief pitcher? Now imagine what happens when you have the biggest Japanese star on the planet.

[rluzinski]

EDR, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a sizable population of Japanese origin that reside in Seattle, right?

 

I thought they were even broadcasting Mariner games in Japan at one point?

[BrewCrewRising]

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I thought they were even broadcasting Mariner games in Japan at one point?

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When I lived in Japan (this was about 9 years ago) they would air quite a few Dodger games because Hideo Nomo played for them then. They also aired Yankee games because of Hideki Irabu.

 

I don't know how much things have changed, but I have to imagine that they air quite a few Mariner games still since Ichiro, unlike Nomo and Irabu, is a consistently good player.

[ccbrew]

I thought they were even broadcasting Mariner games in Japan at one point?

 

They typically broadcast either the Yankees (Matsui) game or the Mariners (Ichiro, Johjima) game live, sometimes both if the schedule allows for it. Whenever a marquee pitcher like Matsuzaka or Takahito Nomura is pitching, they'll often show that game instead.

[Invader3K]

Remember when Ohka faced Nomo last year (two years ago?)? That game aired in Japan as well. I remember FSN even showing some of the Japanese telecast so we could hear the calls in Japanese.

[EdgarDiazRocks]

I can't imagine it being that many. How many of them hold season tickets?

 

It's mainly tourists. I would say around 500 -1,000 a game for a weekend series. And man do they buy merchandise.

 

I'll take photographic proof on Saturday and post it.

 

9/11 hurt the numbers more than anything else, 'tho the numbers have rebounded with the addition of Kenji . . .

 

from a 2005 Seattle PI article . . .

 

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Ichiro and the Mariners remain the undisputed starting point for the majority of Japanese tourists considering a trip to Seattle, where their average vacation is five days, including travel time.

 

"When Japanese hear 'Seattle,' they immediately think of baseball," said Hiroshi Ueno, spokesman for Japan Travel Bureau, an international company with 300 offices in Japan.

 

From the late 1990s through 2001, the number of Japanese visitors to Seattle exceeded 105,000 a year.

 

But security restrictions following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and later the SARS epidemic, caused those numbers to plunge to 76,000 in 2003 before rebounding to 81,000 last year.

 

Travelers from Japan still accounted for an estimated 22 percent of foreign visitors to Washington in 2004, more than from any other country.

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I don't think looking at pythagorean W-L record is knee-jerk bashing. Their pythagorean record is 44-41, and that's with their bullpen overperforming and zero injuries to an injury-prone roster. The fact is, this team scores just about as many runs as they give up, and history states that these teams usually regress.

 

Which is why I don't like using Pythagorean as a predictive tool rather than a analytical one Yes, certainly the M's have outperformed their talent to this point, but that doesn't place any merit on their ability to make the team better, like yesterday's news that Adam Jones was arriving to take over LF moving the oft-injured (this year) Ibanez to DH and Vidro to a platoon role.

 

They are actively shopping for starters, and while I cringe at what Bavasi will give up for a mediocre starter, said league average player will surpass Fierbend/Baek/Weaver's numbers in the rotation while the offense (and defense) improves.

 

If this team was going to stay the same as it was in the first half I would agree with you, but when there's profit to be had, Chuck Armstrong and the front office isn't shy about mortgaging the future to reap it.

 

Now if only Willie Bloomquist would turn an ankle . . . .

 

2009 on the other hand looks BRUTAL at this point.

 

EDIT: Here's Dave Cameron's long post on the contract . . .

 

ussmariner.com/2007/07/11...on-a-year/

[SoCalBrewfan]

I have mixed feelings about the Mariners this year...I kind of hoped they'd really crater so Bavasi could be expelled from town. Now with the team's resurgence and this resigning the odds improve that he'll hold on for another few years to be sure. Maybe he'll even get an exclamation point: Bavasi!

 

I think the team is a bit fluky at this point, but they've outperformed my expectations. They have obvious places they can improve, but I don't count on Bavasi to push the right buttons here...pulling the plug on Vidro and bringing up Jones is a step in the right direction though.

 

This contract, well, it's a lot of money but I think Ichiro will age better than many players do. He has those young-player skills that have been found to age better than old-player skills, so he seems less likely to have the mid-30s collapse that I'd expect of a slugger like, say, Sexson or Carlos Lee.

[JoeHova]

Hmm, so Cameron concludes that Ichiro is actually underpaid by the standards of free agent contracts. I would tend to agree with that (again, going by Soriano and Lee). I think this contract is pretty fair for all parties, although I'm sure the Mariners would have preferred getting him for 5/$80 or so. When you throw in the popularity of Ichiro both here and abroad, the deal is a no-brainer. If Ichiro's not there, nobody would have cared about the Mariners since 2003. Because he's there, they are still one of the glamour franchises.

[Kurt]

EdgarDiazRocks you are in Seattle? We should grab a drink sometime and talk brewers.

[logan82]

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Well his career OPS is well over 800 so it's not like it's that bad.

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His OPS is pretty good. If you look at 2 guys with similar OPS and OBP you might actually prefer the guy with a lower BA in most cases since he is more likley to hit for extra bases when he gets a hit. The guys closest to Ichiro in OPS are Hart, Jeter, A. Rios, Carlos Lee, and Mike Lowell. Jeter is the closest. He has a BA approx 20 points lower and has 9 more extra base hits so he ended up at 2nd 9 more times this year so far than Ichiro.

The other problem is when your OBP is BA driven is that when you are not hitting you are not helping the team score runs. Think Estrada with more speed.

[EdgarDiazRocks]

The other problem is when your OBP is BA driven is that when you are not hitting you are not helping the team.

 

cough*defense*cough

 

EdgarDiazRocks you are in Seattle? We should grab a drink sometime and talk brewers.

 

I fear people.

 

Where you at?

[Katuluu]

They come. Lots and lots of them.

 

You know Edgar, I'm just going to ignore the subtle stereotyping of the Japanese in that photo. But I'm watching you.

 

Besides, they loves their Kenji.

 

 

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20060125/226johjima25_outside1.jpg

[TheCouga23]

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EDIT: Here's Dave Cameron's long post on the contract . . .

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That is a pretty good analysis, and I'd agree that it isn't the worst signing by far, even if you only count performance, and not the impact Ichiro has on merchandise and Japan TV rights). The Soriano contract and the Dodgers' signing of Juan Pierre have got to be tops on that list (9 million a year for a guy with an OPS+ in the high 70's???). Oh, also the Mariners' signing of Willie Bloomquist. ANY ammount you pay Bloomquist is too much, especially if it is for multiple years.

 

With that said, Cameron is holding the Ichiro signing up to a marginal win metric, but my point is that marginal wins are not important to a team who probably won't be over .500 in the near future. You spend money on marginal wins when you are a fringe contender that needs an extra push, not when you are a collection of aging, broken-down veterans with mediocre skills to begin with.

 

I don't know much about Seattle's minor league system, but outside of Adam Jones, what other help is on the way? Morrow in the rotation next year along with Felix looks good, but this team has to get their offense together before they think about becoming a perennial .500 or better club. In other words, the marginal wins Ichiro will provide for this team really aren't effective marginal wins. How much value the Mariners will recoup from this contract via merchandise sales and tourism is impossible for me to determine, but the fact is that locking up that much payroll on one player on what projects to be a .500 team at best doesn't give the Mariners the flexibility they need to rebuild.

[Invader3K]

Well, part of the issue may be that the Mariners are owned by Nintendo...they're probably more concerned with making money than winning a championship.

[EdgarDiazRocks]

I don't know much about Seattle's minor league system, but outside of Adam Jones, what other help is on the way?

 

Dave Cameron's Future 40 . . .

 

www.ussmariner.com/featur...eforty.htm

 

With that said, Cameron is holding the Ichiro signing up to a marginal win metric, but my point is that marginal wins are not important to a team who probably won't be over .500 in the near future.

 

Is tomorrow the near future?

[TheCouga23]

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Is tomorrow the near future?

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Well, since I think the first half of this season is a fluke, and the signing was made for the start of next season, the Mariners' record now is sort of irrelevant.

 

We'll just have to agree to disagree that the Mariners, with their current crop of players, is anything above an average team that is set to lose what talent they have due to old age in the upcoming years (aside from two pitchers).

[EdgarDiazRocks]

We'll just have to agree to disagree that the Mariners, with their current crop of players, is anything above an average team

 

I don't disagree with that. But they're not in the AL Central, so they bar is slightly lower for them than say, the Twins or Indians.

 

What they do have over those teams with this signing is to go to $200 million in payroll and still turn a profit.

 

Oakland and Texas have limits on them and the Angels are just as old.

 

Being mediocre in the AL West may very well give you shot at the playoffs.