Nooooooooooo
John Hickey writes over at the PI that if the Yanks try to drop Giambi, they’ll be after Delgado/Sexson.
Which, to me, is fine — knock yourselves out on those guys. Particularly Sexson. The more the Yankees want to spend, the better.
The piece that really disturbed me is this:
With former Seattle general manager Pat Gillick having paid a visit last month to Delgado in Puerto Rico, the Mariners were considered the favorite to land the slugger.
I’d really hoped Gillick was spending his time in Toronto working on his resume and calling friends in baseball looking for new work, so that the team could finally move on and commit to the new team. That he’s recruiting isn’t that bad, but that he’s active and involved makes me cringe.
Or, alternately, there’s this:
The Mariners apparently are looking into the possibility of signing Jeromy Burnitz, a left-handed hitting outfielder with power.
He is left-handed, yes. And he does hit for power sometimes, sure. But he hit really badly in LA, which is a decent comp for Safeco if you want a rough estimate, he’s 35 and not a good fielder. That’s not what the M’s need.
Comments
33 Responses to “Nooooooooooo”
As disturbing as it is to read that Gillick is still in the thick of things, what killed me was the Burnitz rumor. I know its the TV columnist, but jeez.
If I was a mediocre baseball player with even a hint of pop in my bat, I would try as hard as I could to sign a one year deal with Colorado. I would then proceed to knock out a career high in home runs, and then cash in on some idiot GM who for some reason forgets that I played half my games in a little league park. Burnitz won’t hit 37 more home runs in the rest of his career, outside of Coors.
Derek,
I couldn’t agree more about your comment concerning Burnitz. With each of these “Burnitz-type” rumors, I swear the M’s are transforming themselves into the Mets of the West.
I think you’re thinking of Levesque, who came to the sports page by way of the PI’s entertainment section, and who I like because he’s willing to entertain new ideas and write whatever story occurs to him even if, as some criticize him for, he doesn’t have the deep sports background of other writers. Even while he wrote a story about how Bloomquist could contribute as a starter, he also wrote about things like Section 101 and went after the M’s failures last year in a way that took other writers longer to come around on.
And I did an interview with him last year before the season and he was totally cool, willing to listen and hear me out on things no one else was thinking about at the time.
I thought Dave assured us the era of Gillick’s influence was over? If there’s one thing worse than both Gillick and Bavasi, it’s Gilvasi. Gilvasi is attracted to shiny objects like Ibanez and Spiezio…
Man, this is so disappointing. More and more, this is beginning to look like last year’s offseason. We’re apparently not even trying for Beltre or Beltran anymore, based on the fact that we’re not even mentioned in rumors for them. So then I was willing to be somewhat comforted with what I would call the second-tier type free agents (Glaus, Delgado, etc). *Now* it seems as though we’re getting to the point where we’re mentioning the third-tier guys (Burnitz, Koskie). Can someone give me some positive news regarding FA’s that I could latch onto? Please????
Alex, haven’t you noticed by now that the Mariners have a fear of signing star players? It just doesn’t happen in Seattle. History has shown us that as long as Howard Lincoln is the CEO, Mariner fans should have little hope to ever see a star player such as Belte or Beltran in Seattle. Unless he is playing for the opposing team, that is. I’ll be happy if we do sign a premiere bat, but I don’t have any faith that we’ll actually sign one. It’s really sad though. With all the support that the fans have shown the team, the m’s should sign a star player this offseason.
Dan (#7) – I agree that they should sign a star player as well, as long as they’re doing they’re filling a legitimate need in the process. I’d actually much rather see them focus on their left side of the infield and getting a power hitting outfielder rather than focusing on 1B. If they get good pieces over on the left side and in the OF, they can rotate Ibanez and Jacobsen over at 1B and have at least an average (if not slightly above-average) platoon.
I think the 2001 season was a particularly damning season for the M’s on two fronts. The obvious reason surrounds the fact that they didn’t go to/win the WS with their 116 win season. The second is that the upper management bought into the belief that they can potentially win a championship with 0 star power. I don’t think that they considered the fact that almost everyone on the ’01 team had a career year and they haven’t written that season off as a fluke. I just fear that this team is slowly eroding into the next Cleveland or Baltimore. Or worse yet, the NY Mets.
Derek, can’t agree more on Burnitz. Jeff Cirillo on outfield. Man oh man.
Okay, a few comments:
1. LA, a decent comp for Safeco… Which is why they should go after Beltre with all they got, nevermind the fact that he’s 25 or 26 or whatever. Goodness.
2. Burnitz… Weren’t the M’s trying to trade for him like 5 years ago, when he was still sort of worth getting?
3. Is the ghost of Kevin Mitchell, and all of his 9 homeruns, still haunting the Mariners brass? I thought they’ve gotten new owners since then, and even blew up the Kingdome. Man, search for bargain basement players and you’ll usually get… Bargain basement players… Who do nothing.
Just thinking out loud here…
If Plan A was Beltran/Beltre (in theory), Plan B is Sexson/Delgado, Plan C is Burnitz/Koskie, then what is Plan D? Juan Gonzalez and David Bell? The idea of Burnitz is frightening.
I think you have it right ChrisK, but you forgot Plan E: Jack Perconte and Darnell Coles.
Honestly, sometimes I wonder how John Hickey sleeps at night. Burnitz’s splits last year are an absolute joke. Even wasting my energy typing about this is increasing my anger.
One advantage to signing Burnitz: Placing a wind-turbine in the opposite batters box when he’s at the plate could take Safeco off the city’s power grid. The man swings hard.
Germy Burns? A Mariner? NO!
I would assume go with this lineup for ’05, instead of that…:
C Olivo
1B Ibanez
2B Boone
SS Lopez
3B Leone
LF Winn
CF Reed
RF Ichiro!
DH Bucky
…or trade Ichiro and Ryan Franklin to the Cubs for Corey Patterson, Aramis Ramirez, Sergio Mitre, Jason Dubois and Ryan Dempster….
C Olivo
1B Ibanez
2B Boone
SS Lopez
3B Ramirez
LF Winn
CF Patterson
RF Reed
DH Jacobsen
Plug Dempster into Franklin’s rotation spot and call it a day.
Ooooooooo. Then we can trade Randy Winn to the Orioles for Jorge Julio, package him with Mike Morse, and send him to the Phillies for you-know-who. Then we can have a rotating platoon of Dubois/Reed/Ibanez/Patterson/Jacobsen/You-Know Who
C Olivo
1B Howard/Ibanez
2B Boone
SS Lopez
3B Ramirez
LF Dubois/Ibanez
CF Patterson/Reed
RF Reed/Dubois
DH Jacobsen/Ibanez
Not that anyone here is disagreeing, but Jeremy Burnitz?!! The best you can say is that the rumor isn’t sourced very impressively – unless I missed something, not even the Mariner FO whispers, just a scout. But how does this fit into 2006 and 2007, Bavasi’s articulated test? What goal could it advance in 2005? I’d prefer ownership keep their money than spend on him, even a one-year deal.
On the bright side, our first mention in a while of Adrian Beltre. Granted as a fall back, but still. And Wright at 3/$3 million per? I like that.
Once again Sunday articles fall mountains short of the well thought articulate postings here..
The one glimmer of hope is that Beltre maybe in the mix..
Bad news Arte Moreno interested in both Beltran & Pedro. Given his short MO this is not a surprise.Given his performance probably not idle chatter..May become Angels fan simply because owner seems to honestly care & very good manager who has his pitchers protect players got to admire that (unfortunatly)
Yeah Finnigan must’ve been reading our minds (or at least my mind). He did throw us a bone and made a brief mention of Beltre. Hopefully it becomes more than a fall back plan…. It makes you wonder about the club’s priorities when a man who hits 48 HR is a backup plan, but I won’t complain if they happen to sign him. 🙂
It just makes too much sense Beltre is an outstanding defensive 3RD baseman appears to be an offensive force in a stadium comparable to M’s is young Fills a need position for many years. Why oh why is FO & rumours touting 1ST base as priority?
Wright at 3Mil per year maybe slight OK can not be much worse than Shiggy.
Hope that all those 1ST base rumors are smokescreen a planned bluff (perhaps).
The perfect solution to solve ALL of our offseason needs:
Ichiro
Ryan Franklin
FOR
Aramis Ramirez
Corey Patterson
Derrek Lee
Ryan Dempster
I am going crazy about this lack of offseason movement…. Only A week to the wintre meetings…
OOooooh….
We should sign Quinton McCracken to be our starting 3rd Baseman next season!
man, I swear Finnigan is getting paid by the inch this off-season….
re: Giambi, I don’t recall seeing anything leading up to his admission that indicated that anyone in NY expected him to play 1st base this season, and names like Olerud & Martinez were being bandied about. Is the switch to rumoring about Delgado/Sexson because eveyone assumes NY will somehow manage to get Giambi’s contract off their books?
Beltre– FWIW, up to this point *nobody* has been linked to Beltre, aside from LA trying to re-sign him. Boras seems to feel nothing much will happen with him until the winter meetings… Just what is ‘a Mariner official’ anyway? An owner? a member of the management team? somebody from the office? an usher?
Burnitz– the first mention of Burnitz & Seattle I saw was Larue on thursday (he said there were ‘reports’ of interest, but that Burnitz was said to be looking for big money this year and he & Koskie were not a first choice for the Ms). Hickey then said ‘apparently’, and Finnegan seems to think he is low on the interest totem pole. Guess we should hope the D’back are truly interested in bringing him to the BOB. oh, and yes, I believe he was someone Lou wanted back in the day…
Gillick– I wasn’t surprised to see he had visited Delgado; even if he is spending most of his time spell-checking his resume, he makes the most sense to send on a suck-up trip; he is apparently very good at that sort of trip, and he’s known Delgado forever.
#22, why would the Cubs trade their three best hitters? And why would they take Franklin? Or was that sarcasm that I missed?
Seeing that Cubs trade makes me wish we were talking about Randy Winn for Ryan Howard trades again.
Also, if we sign Jeromy “.775 OPS at sea level” Burnitz, I expect Howard Lincoln to ask Bill Bavasi to shave his sideburns and start handing out nerve tonic.
This was all sarcasm. The lack of offseason movement is causing me to have brief lapses of intelligent thought. The trade I proposed above is a biproduct of those lapses.
This is from MLB.com…
“Beltran said that his suitors so far include the Astros, Phillies, Mariners, Yankees, Mets, Angels, Orioles and Cubs.”
here’s the link Conor refers to: http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/news/mlb_news.jsp?ymd=20041206&content_id=918757&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp
With Boras as his agent, no telling if that means Bavasi made one phone call to Boras and got $200/10, hung up, and moved on or if the Mariners have thrown out a serious $100/6 or anything in between.
Didn’t the Phils just get Lofton (who would be a pricey fourth OF). Don’t the Mets have Cameron and the Cubs Patterson? Or are they looking at Beltran to play LF or making a trade, like the Mariners?
For what it’s worth, almost every story I’ve read the past month about Beltre — generally Sports Weekly — mentions the Mariners as a likely destination.
#31– as far as the Mets go, Cameron said he’d move for Beltran.
Cameron’s said that he would be willing to move to RF if the Mets got Beltran.