Jayson Stark’s column today features a 7-game series simultaed on Diamond Mind Baseball between the 1962 Mets and the 2003 Detroit Tigers. I’m so inspired by this I’m thinking about seeing if I can’t play some all-time Mariner series (say, 1995 versus 1980. 2001 versus 1995.)
In the primitive stats we get from Blogger, we sometimes see what people were searching on. Usually it’s something normal, like a prospect we talked about, or crimes the Moose has committed. So once in a while we see some weird paths people followed to our little corner of the net. Today’s gem: a search on Google led someone here while looking for “Greg Colbrunn’s wife”.
Midland’s old stadium was a giant bandbox, a hitters park along the lines of Coors Field. Piatt wasn’t exactly young for the league, either. Other Texas League stars who just aren’t good major league hitters:
Jason Hart, 2000, Midland: .326/.410/.582. 23-years-old at the time.
Jason Lane, 2001, Round Rock: .316/.385/.608, 24-years-old at the time.
Keith Ginter, 2000, Round Rock: .333/.445/.580, 24-years-old at the time.
Adam Piatt is what he is; the part time half of a platoon who offers nothing but the ability to hit lefties. The minors are full of guys with similar skillsets. He is the definition of replacement level.
Adam Piatt, Devil Ray, A Brief Memorial
1997, 21, A ball (South Oregon) .292/.391/.523
1998, 22, A ball (Modesto) .288/.381/.500
1999, 23, AA Midland .345/.451/.704 (!!)
2000, 24, AAA Sacramento .283/.355/.437
2001, gets halfway through the season, catches viral meningiticulusous or something, starts to stink it up
His power dipped a bit when he got to AAA. I see Piatt as a guy like D’Angelo Jimenez, or Marcus Giles, only less talented — prospects who suffer a nasty injury of some sort that takes them a year, two years, to get back to their form. He lost a ton of weight, his power went away entirely, and since then he’s been discarded. Maybe his power’s gone forever… and maybe it’s not.
Now, I understand that a right-handed gamble of a prospect who doesn’t play good defense isn’t something that makes the Mariners hugely better, whereas for Tampa, or some other franchise with a roster spot to burn and playing time to pass out, they can wait him out a year, get him together with a good nutritionist and the team trainer, and see if he starts hitting for power again. It’s unfortunate he’s 27 already, and he’s lost so much development time. But considering the other toolsy prospects the Mariners were fooling around with, I think Piatt would have been a good counter-bet.
Dig it: there’s a new Big Board in town. Enjoy.
Pat Dillon just announced on KSER that Felix Hernandez is spending his last evening in an Aquasox uniform. He’s going to get a promotion to Wisconsin effective tommorrow. Thats one way to avoid serving a suspension.
There’s no question that Hernandez’s stay in the NWL was nothing short of dominating, and he’s had one of the great seasons in Aquasox history. If you got a glimpse of him while he was there, good for you. If you didn’t, go buy your season ticket package for next year so that you won’t miss out on the next phenom to roll through the Northwest League.
Brian Sweeney was sent back to Tacoma to make room for Cirillo. Pat Borders is already there, having been sent down to make room for Sweeney.
Cirillo’s back. I can’t find any information on who got dropped from the roster (Borders?). It’ll be interesting to see if Bloomquist holds on to the hot corner job with Jeff back. As a brief refutation to those of you with little hearts for pupils as you email us about what a dreamboat Willie is, I’d like to point out that we do have a lot of information on Bloomquist in the minors: 155 games at AAA, 123 games at AA, 100 games in A-ball. That’s a significant sample size and during that time he only hit well at Lancaster (A) in 2000. And as to the question of whether Willie is so young that we should expect growth, well, he’s 25. He’s no spring chicken.
Snelling Update: Snelling’s got a torn left miniscus, he’s out for the rest of the year, might be ready for the Arizona Fall League. But he’s not going to be the September call-up we might have been hoping for.
Thanks to reader/e-mailer Jeremy Muck, we’ve just been notified that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays claimed Piatt on waivers. So, the M’s didn’t pass on him, as Tampa was allowed to put in a claim before Seattle was. That said, I’m not losing any sleep over not having Piatt on the roster.
I realize you and Jason are squarely on the Adam Piatt bandwagon, but let me give you some reasons to get off:
1. Adam Piatt is tremendously redundant. He’s made his living off of being a lefty masher who you simply don’t want in the line-up against a right-handed pitcher. From 2000-2002, Piatt has hit .300/.389/.500 vs lefties and .215/.294/.330 against righties. In other words, he’s a pretty good platoon player. However, the M’s already beat the crap out of lefties. .292/.368/.440 for the season, vs .270/.348/.418 vs righties. In particular, Randy Winn, who plays Piatt’s position, is also a nice lefty masher (.317/.368/.511 this year). So, Piatt doesn’t improve the teams weakness, and simply provides depth at a spot where it isn’t needed.
2. He’s an awful fielder. Just awful. We’re talking Butch Huskey awful.
3. Whose roster spot does he take, assuming you want him on the playoff roster? The organization simply won’t dump John Mabry, their main lefty bat off the bench, to bring in a right-hander with a .280 on base percentage.
The M’s need a left-handed bat. The M’s need Matt Stairs.