U.S.S. Mariner

Paul Wilson, that is. Sorry, slow news week.

As noted here, Ichiro was indeed at the Sonics game tonight. He got a long standing ovation when first announced, though he had to be prodded into even standing up in the first place. Later in the game, Squatch convinced him to throw t-shirts into the crowd. Unlike when Bret Boone did the same thing [...]

The 2000 agreement with the World Umpires Association expires December 31st. There’s been remarkably little rumblings about this, which I hope is a good thing. The quality of umpiring has improved dramatically in four years since Richie Phillips botched a labor action (having agreed to not take collective labor action in the agreement his union [...]

Now that it’s official, here’s the scoop:
C-R Jason Kendall to Oakland
LHP Arthur Rhodes, LHP Mark Redman to Pittsburgh
Kendall, 30, is a California boy who wanted to get closer to home anyway.
As to the financials… it depends on what you read. Redman has about $8m on his contract for 2005-2006, while Rhodes due about $6m [...]

I’ve been hoping this would clear up before I felt like I had to post about it, but — yes, our provider’s been having problems, resulting in people getting no page/database cannot connect messages/etc.
Sorry. They’re aware of it, the server’s being looked at, so… we’ll see, I guess. I’m not sure at this point if [...]

You’ve all seen the story, by now.
I don’t believe the team is actually going to sign both Delgado and Sexson, so rather than break down why this would be a bad move, we’ll just say we’re against this strategy and leave it at that. Signing Delgado and Sexson, then calling it an [...]

This seems to come up a lot, so–
Given the conditions the team is operating under:
- Has $90m next year
- That money disappears if they don’t spend it. Can’t be saved, or invested, or used in any other way but payroll.
- Won’t be competitive until 2006 most likely
I don’t agree with how the team arrived at [...]

I never know how to title these kind of follow-up posts.
On the ownership thing (which, patting ourselves on the back, we beat everyone to, because our Japanese readers tip us off way early): the Times carries an AP piece (hey — we beat AP by hours yesterday. Hee hee hee.)
Over at the P.I., continuing [...]

Nintendo of America has bought out the shares of former President Hiroshi Yamauchi. Japan Today has a story. If the stories out so far are correct, he sold his remaining shares for $67m sometime in August, putting Nintendo’s direct share over 50%.
Now, without details of past transactions, we can’t know what he’d sold of [...]

Updated! Now with more goodness! I’ve mentioned I’ve been working on this a couple of times before, and I’m going to go ahead and post instead of waiting for good defensive stats to come out.
The 2004 Mariners finished 2nd in the AL and 6th in the major leagues in defensive efficiency, which is how [...]