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.
Despite conflicting information floating around, the diagnosis on Jose Lopez is in; sprained MCL, no surgery, out two to eight weeks, depending on how his knee responds. Considering his established work ethic, I’d guess eight weeks is more realistic.
Also, apparently Tacoma bought knee injuries in bulk at Sam’s Club, as Jamal Strong is having his knee checked out today. I’m not sure I’ve see a minor league club with more injuries in the first two months of the year than the Rainiers this season. Just crazy how many people are getting hurt down in T-Town.
Bob Sherwin has a story in today’s Times about the M’s homegrown pitching.
How’s this for a Mariners rotation? Joel Pineiro, Gil Meche, Ryan Franklin, Clint Nageotte and Travis Blackley?
Um, well, it’s okay, I guess… why?
They are all promising arms in the organization, some already with the Mariners, some in the minors.
No they’re not. Franklin’s 31. We’ve seen the best he’s going to get. There’s no promise of future improvement there.
Anyway, the article makes a big deal about how the Mariners’ focus on pitching has been so effective in producing this bumper crop of starters. That’s great, except that:
a) It’s not true
b) It neglects that the Mariners spending so many high picks on pitchers has meant that the system is almost entirely devoid of good position players
To a — as Sherwin says:
The club generally has used two-thirds of its 50 draft picks on pitchers. Some of those have reached the big time. Pineiro was a 12th-rounder in 1997. Nageotte was a fifth-rounder and Putz a sixth-rounder in 1999.
During those 10 years, the first 10 picks of the Mariners’ drafts were pitcher dominated. Of the 100 players taken, 64 were pitchers.
Without looking at it, I would bet that that split is even more pronounced if you break it down by round or even weight by relative position.
So of those 64 players taken in those Mariner first ten picks, how many turned into major league pitchers?
Or, even better, let’s use the examples Sherwin cites:
Cha Seung Baek, non drafted free agent.
Blackley, 23rd round
Franklin, 23rd round
Heaverlo, 1st round, 1999
Meche, 1st round, 1996
Nageotte – 5th round, 1999
Pineiro – 12th round, 1997
Soriano – undrafted free agent
and King Felix, undrafted free agent
What’s that tell you? That many of these guys who are the products of this pitching emphasis, including the most successful to date and the most promising, were down in the draft and foreign free agents. Pitchers are unpredictable creatures, prone to injury and wacky development patterns, and I don’t feel like we should applaud the team for hitting the craps table over and over and winning once in a while.
John Hickey’s latest touches on Bavasi’s continued incompetence.
Gems include
“We’re fast approaching the signpost when you don’t expend prospects in a trade,” Bavasi said.
Is he on three-month tape delay? That would explain a lot, actually.
“To feel right in expending prospects, we’re going to need contributions from our current group of players,” Bavasi said. “If we get back in the race, that’s when you could feel good about (moving) the prospects.”
Uh huh. So what Bavasi’s going to do is go into the clubhouse on July 30th and say
“Hey, guys, we’re out of the race, you all know it. How do you feel about trading some of our prospects to stop losing so many games?”
What do you think they’ll say? They’re super-competitive guys that don’t like losing and are naturally going to be more attached to the guys they know than some schmuck from AAA. They’d all say “yeah, go get us some help” even if that’s not in the long-term interest of the franchise.
Okay, maybe Boone, if he’s still there, might bust out his Hudson impression and ask Bavasi “How do I get out of this chicken-s*** outfit?”
This is exactly the kind of weak-willed stewardship that will keep this team from competing again in the near future. Bavasi doesn’t need to wring his hands and build momentum, hoping they’ll somehow pull respectability out of this lost season and save him his job. He needs to be courageous and do what has to be done to ensure the long-term health of the franchise. If he does a good job of it, he might be around to reap the benefits and look like he’s smart and adaptable.
Otherwise he’s only making things worse while postponing his execution and ensuring that our agony as fans will extend far past this season.
Gammons’ latest column gives us more reason to doubt Bavasi’s ability to pull off this rebuilding.
“Bill wants to wait and try to build some wins and momentum this year,” says one GM, noting that Bavasi wanted to see what happened at home this weekend, and what happened was a three-game sweep of the punchless Expos. “If Kenny Williams can’t shake the Mariners into the trade mode,” says another GM, “no one can.”
How do you even respond to that? We want to build up momentum so when the coaster flies off the tracks it goes farther before it hits the ground?
Garcia’s trade value is as high as it’s going to get: he’s pitching well, he’s perceived as the only available top-shelf starter on the market, there are teams that need just that, and the longer they get him for, the more benefit they’ll derive and thus, the more they’ll pay. Every time Freddy starts his trade value can only go down at this point if he falls apart.
What’s Bavasi thinking the upside is here? That teams will get more desperate closer to the trade deadline? As other teams fall out of contention, wouldn’t it be more likely that they’re presented with other options that meet their needs, likely at lower costs?
Paul sent in a link to show that the Reds-Indians thing is true.
Due to an increased work schedule for the next couple of weeks, prior commitments to my other non-paying job, and my first wedding photography assignment this Saturday, I’m way behind on stuff I’ve been wanting to do for USSM. The Future Forty will be updated again at the beginning of July, and will then resume the first of the month updating that you all have become used to. I’ll also post my annual “who to go see in Everett” preview, giving you some things to look for when you trek north to go see the Aquasox.
Speaking of the Frogs, I’ll be joining Pat Dillon again this year during select pregame shows, and we’ll fill you in on dates you can tune in and listen.
A quick note on the M’s before I go back to work; trade Ryan Franklin soon. His recent surge is going to breathe new life into his value, and a relatively inexpensive contract would make him marketable to teams without big payrolls.
I keep hearing that the Expos weren’t even supposed to be here. The Reds were supposed to play the Mariners and the Expos the Indians (which makes sense, looking at the travel schedules) but the Reds and Indians wanted to play instead, having a regional rivalry and all, and MLB screwed the Expos because the Expos are the easiest team to screw.
I went to all three games of the Expos series, and I have to say that as much as I enjoyed it, I would have rather had the Reds. Griffey’s return to Safeco with a chance to hit 500 against his old club (which has given up a lot of dingers)… that’s historically cool. I’ve wanted to see Adam Dunn live and in person, and the Reds are a competitive franchise with a lot of talent and interesting things. Mostly I just wanted to see Griffey return.
I can’t verify that this is the case — and I’ll be honest, I haven’t applied myself to the question — but if it is, wouldn’t the Mariners protest? They’re astute businesspeople, wouldn’t they see how cool and promotable that would be?
Wooooh! The Mariners beat the stuffing out of the worst team in baseball! Go guys!
I’m serious — I wouldn’t look at the pitching so much, but the Mariners did score early and often against the back end of one of the better rotations in baseball. Keep the champagne in the fridge, but wasn’t it nice to see them scoring runs?
Overheard at the Ballpark, 6/13/04: “Bloomquist has power. He just hasn’t shown it yet.”
Also, I want to point out that having volunteers staff the concessions results in long lines and poor service levels.