In the never ending search for that elusive second lefty, the M’s have apparently narrowed their choices to free agents Mike Myers (of neither Austin Powers nor Halloween fame), Mike Matthews and Scott Sauerbeck, as well as in-house candidate Travis Blackley.
Personally, I think Bobby Madritsch (Blackley’s teammate in San Antonio last season) would be a much better choice, at least than Blackley. At this point his assortment of pitches is better suited to relief — he’s the sort of guy who could thrive there, only having to worry about throwing two, or at most three pitches — whereas Blackley has the arsenal to be a successful starter once he picks up the finer points of pitching.
If it were up to me, which of course it’s not, Blackley would spend all of next season in Tacoma. He’s still very young and needs more work on his curveball, which the organization thinks will eventually be his best pitch once he gets it fully under control. In my opinion that’s not the sort of pitcher you want to “waste” as a reliever. Madritsch, however, could probably do the job tomorrow.
A couple of readers wrote in to say (and I’m paraphrasing) “If you take it in context as ‘members of the starting lineup and not the rotation’, it does make sense.” Here…:
The projected starting lineup for next year includes
only one player from the farm system, Edgar Martinez
(1987), and two players from trades — Dan Wilson in
1994 and Randy Winn in the Lou Piniella trade.
If they hadn’t traded their manager, the last player
they acquired via trade or development would have been
Wilson, 10 seasons ago.
To which I say: pah. You still have to give Locke two giant assumptions and then you’re still ignoring Davis as part of the job-sharing tandem. Ignoring the pitching half of the roster is like ignoring the guitar in rock and roll. You could just as easily make that kind of point about any of the pieces of the roster…
“The pitching rotation clearly demonstrates how bad the Mariners are in free agency, as none of their rotation was signed on the open market.”
or
“The bullpen clearly demonstrates how bad the Mariners are at trading for players, as none of the players there were traded for.”
I expected better from the P.I. honestly: David Locke’s column today… well, it’s just wrong. Take this:
If they hadn’t traded their manager, the last player they acquired via trade or development would have been Wilson, 10 seasons ago.
This is obviously, blindingly, incontrovertably false. Serious, more-than-one-season full-time players who came over in trade and contributed to the team:
Jamie Moyer for Darren Bragg.
Mike Cameron in the Griffey deal.
Guillen, Garcia in the Johnson deal.
And that doesn’t count Ben Davis, Jeff Cirillo…
I don’t understand how this article got into print, I really don’t. I also don’t understand why the PI, which carries a stable of far superior writers compared to the Times*, seems determined to become the worse sports section with additions like the Go2Guy and Locke columns. I don’t get it.
* in general — I do like Stone, the Times day-to-day M’s coverage is pretty good