We give the front office a ton of credit because they’ve had a tremendous history thus far in the draft despite being roundly criticized in their first three years. They haven’t had a ton of success in the first round, but the idea that they’re somehow better at spotting talent later on is flawed logic.

And when they drafted Bruce Irvin there was also a lot of criticism for the front office. He’s too small. He won’t play every down. His technique is unrefined. He didn’t show any pass-rush moves at West Virginia.

More importantly though, he’s shown a tendency to be kind of a dumbfuck.

Irvin dropped out of high school and got arrested after the combine. At one point he thought he played for the Redskins, and just last week he took to twitter to announce he’d cut his hair on the same day as the NBA Board of Governors meeting, an event that drew a lot of attention from Seattle sports fans:

Loving my haircut! twitter.com/BIrvin_WVU11/s…

— Bruce Irvin (@BIrvin_WVU11) May 16, 2013

Now Irvin, a defensive end on a team that will likely be without Chris Clemons for much of the 2013 season, and a defensive end that could benefit greatly from weight gain that doesn’t ruin his quickness, has been caught using a substance that belongs to a family of substances – amphetamines – that have been used historically for weight loss.

He’s on a team where two players: Winston Guy and Brandon Browner were suspended for Adderall last year, and Richard Sherman famously tested positive, but was able to successfully argue that the chain of custody of his sample cast too much doubt on his test.

I’m not saying Irvin himself is no intelligent. I don’t know that, nor is that relevant to this post. The success of his career and his high draft pick, though, are contingent on his production outpacing his poor life decisions. Call it naivety, or whatever you want to call it. I’m not here to speculate on the malice behind anything Bruce Irvin has ever done off the field. I don’t consider this some unbelievable breach of common conduct, I consider it a calculated risk taken by several NFL players, and apparently multiple Seahawks, and Irvin got caught. Does he need Adderall? Does he especially need Adderall in May? I don’t know. I tend to find it to run counter to my understanding of what that drug does, and also my understanding of the improvements and changes that Bruce Irvin needs to make.

But to change tune on Irvin as a talent based on this is silly. At the risk of beating the dead horse, Bruce Irvin is who we thought he was. He’s a tremendous athlete. He sometimes makes bad decisions. He doesn’t play ever snap, and it’s an absolute guarantee that he’ll miss at least a quarter of the team’s defensive snaps next year while serving his four-game suspension.

This was part of the package. This doesn’t mean drafting Irvin was bad, and it doesn’t mean it was good. And considering their recent talent evaluation record, can we let the idea that the Jets were set on drafting Irvin die with the Jets chances of postseason success?

This was basically to be expected. It’s hard to envision that Irvin independently evaluated the merits of Adderall as part of his supplement regimen. Somebody seems to be telling Seahawks players that Adderall is the bee’s knees. I’m not going to persecute Irvin for that.

It’s also easy to envision things like this becoming persistent issues with Irvin. Sudden outrage is unmerited. This is Bruce Irvin: football player with character concerns.

This sight will be seen again — just not right now.

The city of Seattle didn’t lose today — the city of Sacramento won.

There’s nothing that the fantastic ownership group of Chris Hansen and Steve Balmer could have done differently in their quest to bring the NBA back to the Emerald City today.

The goal of getting the Sonics back in town was defeated a month ago when the Sacramento group lead by billionaire Vivek Ranadive did what the NBA asked of them — match the Seattle offer.

But there still seemed to a be a glimmer of hope in Sonics fan’s eyes, especially when Lord Hansen raised the offer to buy the team from the Maloof family for far more than Ranadive will last week. Even then though, we all knew how the vote would end today.

In fact, I was surprised to hear that eight owners voted for the relocation — my money was on a near-unanimous decision, not a 22-8 split.

But now the focus is how to move on. Commissioner David Stern made it clear that any talk of expansion won’t happen until the end of the current television deal in 2015-16, and even then a new team in Seattle is far from guaranteed.

Another option is finding another team that is in a poor market and is just cash strapped enough to want to sell — because the one thing the fans of the Sonics must know is that the Hansen/Ballmer group will not quit until a team is back in Seattle.

And finally there’s still the hope that the Maloof’s keep their word and don’t sell the team to the Ranadive group, sell 20 percent of the team to Hansen (after an NBA approval), sit and wait for Sacramento to bail on building an arena (which will happen) and finally reapply for relocation — because when Sacramento doesn’t get this arena deal done, everyone who voted against the move today will realize that there is a team in a city that isn’t supportive of one.

“While we are obviously extremely disappointed with today’s relocation vote and truly believe we put forth both a significantly better offer and Arena plan, we do thank the league and the owners for their time and consideration and look forward to hearing back on our agreement to join the Maloofs as Limited Partners in the Kings,” Hansen said on his website.

The talk of Stern and the NBA “hating Seattle” is honestly bitter sounding and pouting.

With that said, Stern is a complete asshole, especially with comments like this, which he started the press conference with,

“This is going to be short; I have a game to get to in Oklahoma City.”

Five years ago the Sonics were sold with the intention to move them, but had an arena deal been reached, the NBA would have done the same thing they did today — vote to keep the team in their market. We must look ourselves in the mirror on days like today and realize that there will be NBA in Seattle again, it just won’t be the Kings right now.

And that’s not because anyone hates us or because we pitched the move poorly — it’s because a city stepped forward with a plan and they won their team back.

There’s little doubt, especially after seeing what Hansen pitched these last six months, that our Sonics are coming back — the question unfortunately though remains when that will happen.

Also, did we really want a team with DeMarcus Cousins? That guy is an asshole.

The shiny toy in any team’s bullpen is its closer. Managers (usually) take their best relievers, make them the closers, and let them pitch the ninth inning in save situations. The most common measurement of closer’s skill is measured by saves and blown saves, and closers are paid handsomely for accumulating the former. But the problem is that saves—and reliever outings in general—are not all created equally.

Tom Wilhelmsen entered a game in the ninth against the White Sox back in April with a comfortable two-run lead and nobody on base. He proceeded to walk three batters, allowing one to score, and he put the winning run on first base. With a strikeout, the Mariners escaped with a one-run win and the Bartender picked up a save. Compare that to his performance a few weeks ago against the Angels when he entered the game with a one-run lead and had to face Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, and Mark Trumbo. A perfect inning later, and Wilhelmsen got another save—but hardly the same as his save against the White Sox earlier in the year.

The advent of win expectancy allowed for the formulation of a new set of statistics for relievers: shutdowns and meltdowns. Those links are good primers on the subject, but here’s a quick rundown through examples:

A reliever comes in with his team down a run in the seventh inning. “Win expectancy” says a typical team in this situation has a 26 percent chance to win. Three outs later, he leaves the game having allowed no runs, improving his team’s chances of winning to 30 percent. After his team knocks one home to tie the score, the reliever is brought back in for the top of the eighth inning, and again he slams the door. His team began the eighth with a 50 percent chance of victory, and it leaves the top half of the eighth with a 59 percent win expectancy. Overall, that pitcher helped to improve his team’s chances by 13 percent, and that, my friends, is a “shutdown.”

But a week later it’s the bottom of the eighth inning, and the reliever’s team is down one run. His team is down, but not out, living on a 12 percent chance to win. The reliever gives up two more runs on a single and a homerun, and now—down three runs going into the ninth—his team has just a three percent chance of winning. The reliever cost his team nine percent in win expectancy. That’s a bad thing, and he’s going to get a “meltdown.”

That man was actually Carter Capps, first against the Angels and then against the Pirates. Though he didn’t throw a single pitch in the ninth inning, his pitching was still important in both games.  The Mariners were able to win against the Angels partly because Capps kept them in the game, but then—even though they didn’t end up scoring anymore runs against the Pirates—he made it a lot harder for the M’s to win that game.

These statistics, like most, aren’t perfect—closers, for instance, get a bit of an advantage by almost always pitching in the ninth—but I think shutdowns and meltdowns help to articulate the work that middle relievers do a lot more accurately than holds and saves. Serving drinks in the middle innings can be just as important as the Bartender’s orchestration of closing time in the ninth. So with that, let’s take a look at the M’s bullpen in terms of shutdowns and meltdowns, courtesy of Fangraphs:

Though Wilhelmsen has seen a better part of the workload, Pryor has actually performed admirably in the most stressful circumstances according to his average leverage index (pLI), which at 1.65 is well above the 1.00 average. You’ll also notice that, while our bartender has ten saves, he only has seven shutdowns. Often, three run leads in the ninth inning are safe enough that a pitcher can’t record a shutdown for his work. In either case, Wilhelmsen’s and Pryor’s results are flawless. Charlie Furbush, on the other hand, has had a tough year to this point, pushing the Mariners significantly further out of contention four times.

As a side note, the chart above can also articulate something about bullpen usage. Wilhelmsen and Pryor are the only pitchers whose average usage occurs during abnormally stressful situations. Eric Wedge has placed increased faith in those two. We can and should still evaluate relievers in terms of strikeout rates, homerun rates, walk rates, and even ERA if the sample size is large enough. But as Dave Cameron argues in that article, this should really kill the saves statistic.

With news of a long extension for young Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo and an increasing trend of signing players to extensions before their arbitration years, some fans may be looking for the Mariners to enter that club. While the Mariners have had a relative lack of success as it relates to top-prospect-to-star conversions, the team does have some players that are several years away from free agency that they may consider extending at a discount rate.

The key components to the Rizzo deal, and also the Paul Goldschmidt and Allen Craig deals the preceded it, were Rizzo’s relative youth and service time. Rizzo had almost a year of service time, Goldschmidt nearly a year-and-a-half, and Craig had about two-and-a-half years of service time. Rizzo is in his age 23 season, Goldschmidt in his age 25 season, and Craig in his age 28 season.

The three players have signed to these contract terms per Baseball Reference:

Rizzo: seven years, $41 million, $14.5 million options in 2020 and 2021 with a $2 million buyout each year

Goldschmidt: five years, $32.05 million, with a $14.5 million option in 2019 and a $2 million buyout

Craig: five years, $35 million, with a $13 million option in 2018 and a $1 million buyout

Rizzo has basically spent his career following Jed Hoyer, who helped draft him in Boston, traded for him in San Diego, and then was on the staff that traded for him in Chicago. Rizzo has barely been an average first baseman in about a full-season’s worth of plate appearances, but at only 23 years old average seems less mediocre. There’s no doubt that the Cubs front office has a larger sample of not only actual game-action experience with Anthony Rizzo than any other team, but they’ve likely also invested a fair amount of time and resources analyzing Rizzo’s future prospects as a big leaguer. Of course, that doesn’t guarantee the deal will work out, but all things statistically point to continued growth and Rizzo’s value exceeding the value of his contract, and if anyone would know otherwise, the Cubs would.

Craig and Goldschmidt’s situations are basically the same, as they have spent their entire career’s within the same organization, and their organizations have a tangible advantage on teams that may have been looking to pursue either of them in the future.

Of course, this post isn’t here to invoke the virtues of signing any one of Rizzo, Craig, or Goldschmidt specifically, or even as a general assessment of the virtues of signing pre-arbitration players to long-term deals. Those virtues have been been well documented and exulted.

Instead this post is here to look at Mariners with whom the Mariners may be able to enter a similar agreement, and whose production would also justify looking into an early extension.

This post will not include Dustin Ackley, who I considered for the same kind of extension last year, but who is represented by Scott Boras, and who is already signed to a reasonably lucrative contract. He’s also been pretty bad. This post is also is created, by design, without any sort of inside information about whether or not the Mariners or the player in question would be willing to agree to such an extension.

Kyle Seager, Age: 25, Service time (1/1/2013): One year, 85 days

The Mariners have been given a lot of credit for drafting well, and while that’s not all related to players that remain in the minor leagues, a disproportionate amount of this organization’s talent has shifted to the minor leagues since Jack Zduriencik took over. Of course, there wasn’t much talent to shift around before then, but Seager has quickly become one of the league’s better third basemen. Coming into Tuesday’s action Seager had been worth 5.7 WAR in 1008 plate appearances, and has positional versatility that could add value to a player with a bat that is already substantially more productive than that of the average third baseman.

Seager’s star potential is limited by his body type – though there have been persistent reports of him adding muscle mass to his lower body – and probably doesn’t figure to develop substantially more power than what he’s already shown. That in mind, Seager already has the ability to play a very good third base, and presumably second base also, which is the position he played in college. He’s considered a passable shortstop, and I’ve argued in the past that he’s got the ability, and may benefit contractually, from learning to play a corner outfield spot.

Seager is making barely more than the minimum, and doesn’t have an enormous bonus to fall back on. Goldschmidt is his best comparison in terms of age and service time, though Goldschmidt may have a higher perceived upside and likely will end up with more power. A five-year, $25 million extension may offset some of Seagers lesser perceived upside, though Goldschmidt’s contract terms would probably be favorable for the Mariners ultimately, and Seager would have a shot at hitting free agency again going into his age 31 season, or later depending on if options were included in the deal.

Michael Saunders, Age: 26, Service time (1/1/2013): two years, 138 days

Saunders career path in Seattle has been something of a sordid affair. Once a top prospect, many wrote Saunders off as a lost cause, and a likely trade candidate as the front office turned over to the Jack Zduriencik regime. Some years later Saunders was about a league average center fielder last year. Once a guy that struck out a ton, Saunders has cut his strikeouts to a manageable rates while increasing his walks, and has begun to hit for power.

Saunders handled the center field duties for most of last year, and while he’s probably the team’s best player/prospect at the position that will be on the team beyond 2013, he probably won’t end up being much more than average at the position defensively.

Signing Saunders would be reinforcing any belief that he’s actually made sustainable improvements, and that his reduced strikeouts and increased offensive production in the past two years haven’t been a fluke.

While Saunders is closest in age to Goldschmidt, his service time reflects Craig’s most accurately. Craig doesn’t play a premium defensive position, and is two years older than Saunders, but he’s got a much better reputation at the plate. For Saunders and the Mariners, success in an extension may hinge more on length than annual salary, as the paradigm for these contracts seems to include an average salary in the $5-6 million range during the guaranteed years.

After the 2009 season the Mariners signed Franklin Gutierrez to a four-year extension worth $20.25 million and that carries a $7.5 million option after this season with a $500,000 buyout. A four-year deal would make sense for the Mariners and Saunders, as the Mariners would have time to build the outfield depth in their farm system and potentially replace Saunders at the end of the contract, and Saunders would have the ability to become a free agent going into his age 31 season, or later if there are options included in the contract. At this point it’s hard to say that Saunders is better than Gutierrez was he and the Mariners agreed on an extension. If you’ll remember, Gutierrez had just come off a historically amazing fielding season in center field and was decent offensively. Saunders may be better offensively though, which ultimately costs more, though he’s a year further away from free agency than Gutierrez was (though Saunders will be basically equal to Gutierrez’s service time at the time of the extension at year’s end). In this case, and concurrent with inflation, signing Saunders to a four-year, $20 million deal similar to Gutierrez’s extension makes some sense.

Tom Wilhelmsen, Age: 29, Service time (1/1/2013): two years, 106 days

Wilhelmsen is bumping up against the Super Two cutoff, which has been projected at two years and 119 days, but if the projection holds he won’t qualify. In that case Wilhelmsen may be another year removed from a substantial raise, and thus interested in acquiring some sort of guaranteed salary in the future.

There aren’t a bunch of great comparisons for super-dominant relievers that are extended way before free agency. The best model for a reliever is likely to be someone like Jonathan Papelbon, who avoided arbitration on one year contracts in 2009, 2010, and 2011 with the Red Sox. In those three seasons Papelbon made $27.2 million, and was coming off of three straight years of utter dominance.

Obviously this doesn’t fall in line well with any of the first basemen that were listed earlier in this post, but signing Wilhelmsen to something like a three-year, $15-18 million with a team option or two may make sense for both the Mariners, who may be inclined to pay for a reliever as long as his cost is controlled, and Wilhelmsen, who could acquire substantial long-term security.

Great win tonight! Congrats to my roomy @djimi_traore19 for scoring the goal! But please, don’t snore tonight. We need the sleep for Sat ;-p

— Michael Gspurning (@MGspurning) May 9, 2013

So there. Michael Gspurning hates snorers.

I bring up third basemen and their expectations because nestled right up there between Evan Longoria and Carpenter is our very own Kyle Seager, who has recorded 1.3 fWAR to this point and slashed an impressive .293/.348/.496. It’s not hard to replace Chone Figgins and subsequently be considered a demi-god, but Seager has gone beyond just replacing Figgins and has surpassed even the optimistic expectations. It’s fair to ask now, how much should we expect going forward?

Seager has already surprised us, and he could definitely continue to do so. I proceed with caution.

Starting out critically and skeptically, the first place anyone (anyone?) goes to look for impending regression to the mean is the BABIP stat. Seager’s .340 BABIP this year should evoke suspicion. Before this season, his career BABIP in 852 PA was under .300, and the major-league average is also just under .300. Additionally, with a decreased line drive rate and increased popup rate, we have many reasons to believe Seager’s BABIP is on its way down, and with it everything else.

But maybe not down all the way down.

In each of Seager’s three major league seasons, we have seen improvement in his plate discipline. Back in 2011, he used to chase balls outside the zone at the league average clip—swinging at about 30 percent of all balls—which isn’t half bad for a rookie. Now in the 2013, he’s dropped that chase rate even further, down to 23.4 percent. The immediate question is, is that significant? Will it stick?

We know that plate discipline numbers stabilize about as quickly as anything we use to measure hitters. If you’ve taken a stats class, you might be thinking about using the binomial distribution to test for a significant difference. That’s a good place to start. But Fisher’s exact test gives a p-value of 12 percent, and that leaves us with some doubt as to whether or not Seager has actually improved his chase rates (not to even mention that the assumptions required for such a test are violated in baseball).

To find something significant, I will focus on overall swing rate—mostly because it has a larger sample size. The same test gives us a p-value of virtually zero percent for overall swing rate. That implies a lot of evidence to suggest that his “batting eye” and approach have changed, that something real has changed and will stick. Okay, so let’s go with that. He’s swinging less overall, and that has correlated with an improved walk rate. I like that.

However, the reduced overall swing rate is also a product of Seager swinging less at balls inside the strikezone. While chasing pitching outside the zone  is rarely—if ever—a good thing for a hitter, what about holding back on strikes? We can’t complain about Seager’s contact results this year, as he’s on pace for a .293 average, about 20 homeruns, and 55 doubles. But what about others that have made similar changes…have they experienced boosts to overall success?

Since the PITCHfx era began in 2007, only five players have been able to maintain a swing rate 10 percent lower than the previous season. That suggests that Seager’s 9.7 percent swing reduction might be hard to maintain, so let’s isolate the players that were A) able to reduce their swing rates by at least 5.0 percent down to something in the 30’s and B) made contact better than 80 percent of the time. These players are a lot like Seager in terms of swinging and contact.

As you can see, each of these 12 players (prior to Seager) reduced his swing rate by at least 5.0 percent. And then, subsequently the next season,  11 of the 12 were able to “keep some of it off.” In other words, almost all of them regressed some, but only one regressed all the way back to his relatively gluttonous swinging ways.

Perhaps more interestingly, this is the improvement (or decline) that each player saw during the reduced swing rate:

Almost without fail, the players increased their walk rates, but the overall batting lines were a little more scattered. While the 13 players including Seager increased their average wRC+ by nearly 10 points, nearly half actually declined. In other words, due to other changes in things like BABIP and power, improved offensive value was not guaranteed for these players. The average in this case may not be the best indicator, but at least it’s positive.

Seager has contributed improved offensive value to this point, and though I can’t say there’s any guarantee he’ll maintain that, I am confident saying that his walk rate should stay up in the 8.0 percent range. A lot of other players on that list improved even more than Seager has this season, so there is enough precedence to believe that Seager’s changes will not only stick, but that they could continue to contribute improved offensive value.

Jeff Parke was a rock in the back for the Rave Green for three seasons. Now that he’s in Philly it might be a bit harder to love him — but we can try.

Welcome to what may be the best day of sports so far this year.

Not only are the Seattle Sounders FC looking for their second straight/overall MLS win of the young season against the Philadelphia Union, but the Kentucky Derby also takes place.

So before you get your suit and mint juleps ready for the “greatest two minutes in sports,” remember that you must first give your full 90 to a team that is actually healthy and could start to look and play very different than what we’ve seen this season.

Welcome to the day we may meet the Sounders side we’ve imagined all off-season.

Keys to the match -

Stop Jack Mcinerney-

The Union goal scoring machine has been on an absolute tear to start the campaign, already notching six goals and the April MLS Player of the Month award.

Despite the Rave Green’s record, their defense lead by goalkeeper Michael Gspurning and Djimi Traore has been one of the best in the league, allowing only three goals in six matches.

Mcinerney brings a different dynamic to the field though for the Union. A classic, do-it-all style forward, Mcinerney is the type of guy that can finish from anywhere inside the box. Beside him though, the Union’s attack shouldn’t been nearly enough to worry Seattle.

How are ya feeling today? -

Although we won’t see the “first choice” starting XI for the Sounders today, manager Sigi Schmid said that striker Eddie Johnson is back and with the team, while new DP Obafemi Martins is close to 100 percent.

Beside the two forwards, the rest of the gang, including David Estrada, seem fairly healthy and should be eligible for selection today.

This only means good things for the chemistry of a club still young in their season and hungry for points.

I remember that guy -

For quite a few seasons, that phrase was directed at former Sounder midfielder Sebastian Le Toux when these two sides faced off, but now when Rave Green fans look across the Union backbone they’ll see an all-time favorite, Jeff Parke.

Parke, a standout defender for the Sounders since his move from NY, made the love this offseason back to where is family is at on the east coast.

There should be nothing but respect shown for a guy like Parke who worked his behind off in Rave Green. Here’s hoping his only poor day of the season is today.

Projected Starting XI —

GK – Michael Gspurning
CB – Djimi Traore             CB – Jhon Kennedy Hurtado
RB – DeAndre Yedlin                      LB – Leo Gonzalez
CDM – Ozzie Alonso
RM – Brad Evans                 LM – Steve Zakuani
CM – Shalrie Joseph
FW – Eddie Johnson           FW – Lamar Neagle

Where to watch — 

The match can be seen locally on KONG 6/16 and heard on KIRO radio. Kick-off is at 1 p.m. PST

The bid to move Kings to Seattle – for this year – was rejected today, but no vote on sale. It seems the Hansen group is still in play.

— Tony Bizjak (@TonyBizjak) April 30, 2013

6:03 PM — A good thing happened today. A city with no other major professional sports franchise kept their team. A fan base with nearly 30 years of history kept their team. A good thing happened today.

By now the news has circulated through most outlets that the chances of the Sacramento Kings moving to Seattle took a major hit today when the relocation committee recommended that the Kings remain in Sacramento, and not move to Seattle. The rest of the NBA owners must vote on this, but historically such a vote has been little more than a formality.

For many fans this has become a debate of the merits of Seattle and Sacramento as cities. The problem with that attitude is that the cities aren’t on a level playing field. The cities aren’t duking it out for an expansion team. Rather, they’re duking it out for something that belonged to Sacramento last year. They’re duking it out over something that has belonged to Sacramento for 28 years. Most importantly though, Sacramento is facing what most Sonics fans thought was inevitable for Seattle five years ago: an infinite amount of time with no NBA team.

Seattle didn’t get bested today. They were just not the beneficiaries of a really bad thing.

This doesn’t mean that Seattle is out of the NBA picture. For NBA owners to turn down a $525 million valuation of a struggling team, with a solid arena plan in place in any city is pretty powerful, and probably speaks to a larger future plan.

It’s perfectly rational to think that the NBA is doing this so as to keep the NBA in Sacramento, but also to prevent future ownership groups from holding the NBA and their team’s cities hostage like the Maloofs have done. If Christopher Hansen values the Kings at $525 million and expansion team figures to be similarly valuable to the ownership group. And while the NBA has been reluctant to expand, a lot of that ostensibly had to do with the shrinking team values. Expanding by two teams and adding $1 billion or more in value to the NBA in new teams, but undoubtedly increasing the appraised value of several other NBA teams is likely a different equation than the one that the NBA has been operating under.

David Stern is a jerk, and we’ve known that for a long time. However, the NBA relocation committee is headed by Clay Bennett, who has been a public advocate for the city of Seattle, and David Stern has shown that the league’s bottom line is the most important thing to him, and Chris Hansen has shown a desire to add to the league’s bottom line. It’s hard to believe that the NBA would flatly decline the opportunity to fold Hansen, Steve Ballmer, and the Nordstroms into the NBA.

There are almost certainly things that we don’t know. One of those things may or may not be that the NBA is looking into the possibility of expanding into Seattle. If the league considers it at all, they Kansas City and to a lesser extent Virginia Beach have already shown to be contenders for any available team.

I’d encourage all Sonics fans to remain positive. If the NBA gives Seattle an expansion team then this is the closest realistic thing to a perfect scenario as it relates to Seattle regaining a team.

If Seattle gets an expansion team you can enjoy them guilt free. If they don’t a plenty deserving city of Sacramento retains their team.