Position Roundtables: Reserve Outfielders
Dave: Reserve Outfielders: Raul Ibanez, Willie Bloomquist?, Jamal Strong, Shin-Soo Choo
You thought the team was thin at shortstop? There’s a very real chance that the Mariners will field an opening day lineup with zero true outfielders sitting on the bench. Ibanez is the token fourth outfielder, but he’s going to DH nearly every day, so in case of injury to Winn, Reed, or Ichiro, it looks like Willie Bloomquist is going to be the guy trotting out to play the field.
More Guardado
Hey, the news just keeps getting better — Guardado might miss as many as three weeks with his strained hammy. Let’s see here: torn right rotator cuff, left knee surgery, now the right hamstring. What’s that clever nickname of his again?
Twins on winning the division
One of the common complaints about the M’s is that they want to be competitive in their division and not win the World Series. This is not a complaint unique to the Mariners, and led to this interesting bit on Twins Territory:
The night before I interviewed Ryan, my Baseball Prospectus 2005 arrived in the mail. It continued to perpetuate a myth that they had started and the blogging community has embraced – that the Twins hold themselves back from a championship caliber level by focusing on winning the AL Central. I repeated the argument to Terry and gave him a chance to talk about wanting to win the World Series. Just the opposite happened.
“Our objective is to win the AL Centralâ€Â, he stated matter-of-factly.
I want to point out, first, that it’s kind of funny he wants to mock this “myth” that the team aims to win the AL Central, when — whoops — turns out that’s what Ryan wants. Now, as to whether that holds them back from going farther than that is up for debate.
Also, here’s the thing — this year’s BP goes to great lengths to praise the Twins. I’m a huge fan of what they’ve done, even as I acknowledge that they’ve to about as much use for statistical analysis as I do for the works of Nora Roberts.
This does go back to the Mariners, though, and I hope to have a longer post when I’m done wrassling with the site to talk about this.
Progress, of sorts
New version of the old template that works on the new version’s up and appears to be working. So everyone can stop throwing fits over the up-for-ten hours temporary version.
I’m still working on tweaking stuff out, and again — please don’t complain that anything’s not working until Sunday, which is my estimated time to complete slogging through all the really small issues remaining.
Though, in a happy coincidence, I seem to have broken commenting, which means you can’t complain about comments being broken. Maybe I’ll fix that last.
Read on if you’re curious about WordPress upgrade stuff, since I know some of you are. Warning: foul language ahead.
Caple on Madritsch
Like Mad Bobby? You may like him more after you read this profile by Jim Caple.
One interesting anecdote concerns Madritsch’s complete game win over Oakland last year:
It wasn’t just beating a first-place team the final week of the season that was notable, it was the way he insisted on finishing the game.
“The only thing that got me through that game was the fact they hit Ichiro with a pitch and it pissed me off,” Madritsch said. “That got me through the last inning, because I was going to go out there and hit the first guy.”
Apparently, Ichiro talked Bobby out of drilling the first hitter, on the (wise) grounds that putting the lead runner on in a 4-2 ballgame is not great strategy, and “[w]hen a veteran like him tells you something like that, you listen.”
aaaand we’re back
“Donbot, I beg you, I can’t make this week’s loan payment. Look into your hard drive, and open your mercy file!”
“File not found.”
— Futurama
Okay, so it looks like I got this thing back up, though there’s a file missing, uh, the settings are all still the default — there’s still much to be done.
Derek, from the U.S.S. Mariner labs
“Innovation without inquietude”
Upgrade afoot
No, not to our hosting. That would be expensive. No, I’m going to be upgrading the site’s software here. If you notice anything amiss, that’s why. Please don’t email me until Sunday. In the event that we have any extended outages (beyond 6h), your account will be credited a pro-rated share of your monthly subscription fee.
After that, it’s likely the site will behave in a wonky fashion as I attempt to get it configured while [name omitted] tries to work out hours of pent up frustration from not being able to comment, slowing the server to a crawl. Bear with me.
Guardado hurt
In case you missed it, Eddie Guardado has a strained right hamstring and is on hold for his next scheduled appearance. I heard someone today say that he’s the most important guy on the staff, because if he’s out, who’s going to close games? I say, by far, that Joel Piniero is more important to the pitching staff right now. Bullpen, schmullpen. Closer, schmoser. If the M’s are to contend, they need Piniero to step up this year.
Position Roundtables: Reserve Infielders
Dave: Reserve infielders: Scott Spiezio, Willie Bloomquist, Ricky Gutierrez,
Benji Gil, Justin Leone, Ramon Santiago, Jose Lopez
The M’s will carry two, maybe three, from the above group.
Spiezio’s basically a lock to be on the roster, since the team owes
him $6 million the next two years. And, you know, for all the crap he
takes, he’s also the best player in the group. He’s a better player
than he showed in 2004, and if he even gets back to 80 percent of his
Anaheim performances, that makes him a pretty nifty reserve infielder.
Hernandez roughed up
King Felix, starting in place of Joel Pineiro today, allowed four runs in one inning of work. Call me crazy — you’re crazy! — but I think this is a relatively good thing. I’d rather he not be so good this spring that he forces the team’s hand and starts the season in the majors.
Update! He also walked the first three hitters he faced in the second inning before getting yanked.
Update, part two! Here’s a pic of his new haircut. Again, thanks to Jon Wells of the Grand Salami.
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