The M’s fired hitting coach Lamar Johnson today. Or rather “Johnson and the Mariners reached a mutual agreement on Monday for Johnson not to return next season.”
You may recall we pointed out he sucked on this very site and wondered why he wasn’t getting any blame for the team’s offensive woes. I guess it just took a while.
Why does everyone seem to think Soriano’s a born closer, anyway? He’s got a couple pitches, he was a great starter this year in the minors, he’s been starting for a while now, he can work more than one inning… why waste him in closer situations? If you can bring him in in the 7th with the game tied and have him hold the game down for two, three innings, that’s worth more than three outs when you’re three runs up. This whole notion of closer is dumb, it’s a role grown up around a dumb stat.