Cabrera, Spiezio, and Winn all play longball on the same day. Don’t question, just accept it. And buy lots of lottery tickets tonight.
Also, since we’ve gotten on him all year about his use of Guardado, once again, congratulations to Bob Melvin for bringing Guardado in for the four out save. His bullpen management is still a weakness, but there are a lot of managers out there who won’t extend their closer beyond the 9th inning, and luckily for us, our manager is not one of those.
Lastly, for those of you planning on listening to the Aquasox game on Saturday night, tune in a little early. Around 6:45 pm or so, Pat Dillon and I will be chatting about the 2004 M’s, their future, and the just completed draft. Tune in here by clicking the big Listen Live button.
-Top of the 6th inning
-J Cabrera walked.
-I Suzuki doubled to right, J Cabrera to third.
-B Boone struck out swinging.
-S Spiezio intentionally walked.
-H Bocachica struck out looking.
-D Wilson grounded into fielder’s choice to shortstop, S Spiezio out at second.
Ineptitude, thy name is Mariner.
Doug Davis, incidentally, is a great example of free talent. He’s a guy who’s been discarded by a couple of teams, rumored to be… well, dumb and difficult to work with. But he’s also young, a left-handed dude you might be able to plug into the back of a rotation with some upside. Not a lot of upside, given his stuff, and being discarded by the Blue Jays, who are pretty good about figuring out where good gambles are.
My point here is that there are many Ryan Franklin candidates out there. Paying Ryan Franklin more than you can get his replacement for needs to have either a secondary payoff (he’s marketable, it encourages your other late-round draft picks to work harder) or it’s a waste of that money.
w/r/t keeping Freddy: I think there’s another issue Dave didn’t mention: the Mariners have a ton of pitchers and a big pitcher’s park. While baseball’s smarter than it’s ever been, there’s a big potential payoff for the team in playing these guys and flipping superficially impressive starts or seaons by normal pitchers (like Ryan Franklin!) for prospects or parts. There’s an even larger payoff if they can develop these guys into a low-cost core that allows them to spend their money wisely elsewhere. I know you don’t have a lot of hope for that last part, and you shouldn’t, but that’s the theory.
So, I’m watching today’s game on MLB.tv, and it looks like the game is being played under some kind of Martian heat lamp. The Brewers white jerseys are basically washed out, and they look like fireflies with gloves on. I realize this game isn’t being broadcast over a network channel, and we’re getting the satellite feed whose sole responsibility is to provide highlights for the sports networks, but couldn’t they have at least sent a professional cameraman to the game?
The award for the schizophrenic column of the day goes to John Levesque. Basic summary of his points:
1. Cameron is an awful hitter who strikes out too much.
2. Cameron’s been hurt, and plays through pain.
3. Ibanez has hit very well and doesn’t strike out much.
4. Winn doesn’t make many errors.
5. Winn takes terrible routes to the balls.
6. Baseball Prospectus shows that the M’s outfield defense is drastically worse this year.
7. Cameron still can’t hit. But they miss him.
His conclusion is right on, but it took him forever to get there, and the column was peppered with misguided ramblings about rbis and strikeouts.
Okay, the last two games; getting shutout by Victor Santos, and then getting one run against Doug Davis? Yea, this offense is just abysmal. I find it humerous that Melvin is ripping the team for not hitting. Do people really think they aren’t trying or don’t care? If they could hit better, they would. They can’t, because they aren’t very good.
Justin Leone is hitting the crap out of the ball in Tacoma again. He’s on the 40 man roster. He plays a position where the M’s are getting absolutely nothing offensively. He’s 27 years old. There’s just no reason for him not to be in Seattle. Well, there is one; he strikes out a lot, and clearly, those high strikeout guys would hurt our offense. If we had one, that is.
There seems to be a “keep Freddy” groundswell gaining steam. Keep in mind, this is the same guy who almost got non-tendered after being miserable last year. He’s got 1,100 major league innings on his arm already, and conditioning isn’t exactly his strong suit. For all the talk about how well he’s pitching right now, history shows him to be an inconsistency. His home/road splits this year show he’s getting a nice boost from Safeco Field, and he’s going to command something in the Bartolo Colon range (4 years, $52 million) in his next contract. He’s a nice pitcher to have, but not at that cost, and his value is at its peak. The organization can replace him without too much difficulty or cost. The assets that can be received from dealing him cannot be so easily acquired. Trade Freddy and don’t look back.
Is there anyone in Seattle who still thinks Willie Bloomquist has any semblance of baseball talent?
Felix Hernandez nearly tossed a complete game last night. In the Cal League. At 18 years old. There is some good news in the organization at least.
The Everett Aquasox kick off their season on Friday. Aaron Jensen takes the hill on opening day. The weekend is a near sellout, but this years team should be a lot more fun to watch than last years (minus the King Felix excitement).
It’s 86 degrees here today. The real feel temperature: 97. I hate humidity.
If the 2005 draft order was based on today’s standings, the M’s would pick third, behind Montreal and Kansas City. Neither of those teams will have the budgets to select Justin Upton, the consensus #1 prospect in next years draft. Upton, the younger brother of Devil Rays uberprospect B.J., is reportedly a better player than his older brother. He’s probably the best high school position player since Josh Hamilton, and yes, that’s a complement, despite Hamilton’s train wreck of a career. He’s not in the Griffey/Rodriguez class, but he’s got a chance to be pretty darn special. So, again, there’s a tiny little silver lining in the M’s collapse.
Oakland has the second best record in baseball, yet Chavez is hurt and Zito is struggling? How on earth is this happening? At this point, don’t we just have to assume that Billy Beane sold his soul to the devil?
Is John Kruk the worst “analyst” in the history of mankind? I can’t imagine anyone has ever had less insight into just about anything.
Is this officially a ramblings now? Do I owe Jayson Stark royalties? I better stop before he gets Doug Glanville to sue me.