U.S.S. Mariner

Our long nightmare is over, as Jeff Nelson appears to be close to signing a minor league deal.
Now, Nelson hasn’t been effective for a while, but when he was in Safeco he was much more of a fly-ball pitcher than he’s been over the course of his career… and also enjoyed success here, [...]

Ahhh, the Seattle Times. Blaine Newham’s column today advocates starting Felix.
If it were any other sport, Felix Hernandez would be penciled into this season’s starting rotation for the Seattle Mariners.
Hey, here’s the thing, and I’m not sure if you’re up on this… those other sports don’t have minor league systems. Football has a practice squad, [...]

Larry Stone follows USSM and the Oregonian a week late with a nice little piece with choice quotes from Olkin and a good bit of background.

So the 2005 PECOTAs are out and available to BP subscribers. Here’s the interesting bit –I almost wonder if it ran the same stat lines three times for the outfield.
Ibanez: .270 .324 .420
Reed: .286 .353 .423
Winn: .277 .337 .420
Yeaaaaghhhh. Play Reed! Play Reed!
Mike Cameron, btw: .253 .348 .461 in Shea. Hee hee hee.
Ichiro! .311 .355 .415
Others have noted this, but this is the weakness of [...]

It’s almost too bad that the Dodgers have done well since they moved from Brooklyn in one of the more craven line items in the ledger of treachery by baseball teams. A New York sportswriter covering the Dodgers named Mike Gaven fell ill at the ball park and later died. Gaven said “Well, at least [...]

Lots of quotes, speculation, other good stuff. Check it out.

We keep getting requests to talk about the continued rumors, particularly the Seattle Times story that the M’s might bring back Cameron. We’ve talked about whether this is wise before (Jason: yes, Dave: maybe, me: no). But as to whether there’s any truth in the rumors: I don’t think so. Please remember that this story’s [...]

My latest bit’s now up, on Hargrove and his use of starting pitchers.
Helpfully, in a previous thread a random passer-by offered places you can write if you want these columns to keep going, or if you’d like to see this stuff in print.

I just updated the Big Board, including the signing of Yuniesky Betancourt.
Please remember not to put any stock in player placement below the major league level. In some ways, this update is less valuable than the one I did a month ago; since that time, I moved some minor leaguers around, didn’t move others, made [...]

The Mariners signed 22-year old Yuniesky Betancourt to a “major league” contract, according to MLB.com and other sources. The major league contract means he goes on the 40-man roster, which mean Aaron Looper got DFAd.
The stats on Betancourt are… well, I have an extremely low opinion of the value of Cuban stats in making any [...]