Short version: unless the M’s do something colossal, I’d be surprised if I posted again before mid-April.
Long version: about two weeks ago, I fought it out with a nasty flu for over a week. Afterwards, I never felt like I’d recovered, but I’ve been working so hard on a bunch of different stuff (work, house, cool thing that I hope to talk about soon), so I put it up to stress and exhaustion. I went into the doctor today and found out that while fighting that flu, it seems that virus opened the doors for all kinds of other crazy bad-but-not-really-bad things to happen. So in the next two weeks:
– Pack all my stuff
– Finish (or hire crews of people to finish) the crazy amount of work that needs to get down to get my new (built in 1959) place ready for human habitation
– Work out all the final paperwork to sell my old (new) house
– Go on a five-day business trip
– Spend at least two days in Portland for Baseball Prospectus
aaaaaaaaaand….
– Fight several minor illnesses that seem to have teamed up into some kind of foul alliance and have stalemated my immune system for a week already and will, they threaten, be reinforced tomorrow by a brigade of members of the common cold army, the Andromeda Strain, viral narcoleptic dementia, the heebie-jeebies, wandering spleen, Cotard’s syndrome, and tennis elbow. I tried to see if they’d let me get Edgar’s hamstring pulls for 2004, but they said no
On a related note, I’m organizing a impromptu U.S.S. Mariner Pizza Feed*. It’s at my house.
Agenda:
– Hang new drywall, and patching drywall where the electricians had to tear it up to bring the wiring up to code
– Remodel where I ran out of money (everywhere– sports writing doesn’t pay, folks)
– Tear down, repair, and reshingle my roof
– I call the cops and tell them there’s a crowd of people looking for the former owner, who from what I can gather owes them all a lot of money and crystal meth
Attendees should bring their own 8′ length of 1/2″ thick drywall and tools.
* No pizza will be served. Not a real feed.
Back to baseball!
and w/r/t this constant Davis-bashing by the team — this kind of thing happens in many organizations, where they get down on a player for one reason or another and they become obsessed with ‘fixing’ the problem or dumping him off on another team, even for much less value. Sometimes they just get tired of a player’s attitude, and sometimes it’s more serious, like unwillingness to listen to coaches or obey the trainer’s instructions for staying healthy.
Don’t the Mariners, though, seem to do this a lot? They must have really high standards for makeup and clubhouse leadership, or… I don’t know. From the 2003 team:
Mike Cameron: The team fixated on trying to get his swing right for years to turn him into more of a contact hitter because they thought he struck out too much. Let go through free agency (though the Mets overspent) without contest
Carlos Guillen: Injured too much, and that DUI stop didn’t help matters. Traded for nothing.
… and now I’m really tired and need to sleep. Sorry, I’ll pick this back up in a couple weeks if no one else does.
D
Dave, whatever are you talking about? The game starts at 6:57.
Oh, right.
I’ll second that “get well” to Derek. Without him we wouldn’t have much of a site, and I mean that literally, in that he was the one who a year ago decided we had done too much talking about it and finally started the USSM.
There’s some buzz right now about an M’s-Brewers trade, because the Brewers have had a scout at six of the past seven M’s games. The talk seems to surround Kevin Jarvis, as the Brewers are looking for a guy who can start. How sad is that, when your rotation is so weak that you’re looking to add Kevin Jarvis? In any event, we shouldn’t get too excited. Jarvis won’t return anything more than a C-grade prospect, and the M’s would likely pay the vast majority of his salary as well.
We’ve worried quite a bit this winter about Randy Winn’s ability to cover ground in centerfield, but one thing we haven’t talked about is his arm. In case you missed it, Frank Thomas tagged up on Winn last night. Not tagging up to score from third, mind you, but to go from second to third. Frank Thomas, people. Winn chalked it up to bad throwing mechanics. I chalk it up to him having a weak throwing arm.
Let me be the first to wish Derek a speedy recovery. The blog won’t be the same without you. So hurry back.
Also, Derek’s completely right, but the Mariners spend more time obsessing over character, and what they perceive to be a willingness to do it their way, than any other organization in the game. The belief that they found the magic formula in 2001 and simply need to recreate that kind of all-for-one and one-for-all team spirit in the locker room drives a lot of the ill-advised decisions we see today. But thats a longer post that I won’t get into right now.
Also, to whoever decided that a Sweet 16 tournament game between Wake Forest and St. Joe’s should start at 9:57 pm on a Thursday night, you suck. That’s all.