Kurkjian on the Mariners’ chances
Okay, so I called him “Tom” by mistake — and who put the “o” next to the “i” on a keyboard, anyway? — but Tim Kurkjian was still kind enough to answer my Mariner query in this morning’s chat, and I thought you’d like to know what he said. If you don’t want to scroll to the bottom, here it is:
Jeff (Bellingham, WA): Tom, what type of improvement do you see out of the Mariners with the addition of Adrian Beltre, et. al.?
Tim Kurkjian: (3:52 PM ET ) The Ms will be a significantly better offensive team and MUCH more fun to watch this year. But, Seattle will just have to depend too much on young pitching to win that division. They will contend for awhile, but they won’t make the playoffs. At least their moves in the offseason get them going in the right direction, again.
I think this is about right. It mirrors what I said in a chat yesterday with the Baseball Analysts’ Bryan Smith and Rich Lederer, along with Blez from Athletics Nation. Again, scroll to the bottom for the predictions if you like.
Situational Writing
So, apparently Jim Street is doing “situational hitting” stories once a month now. More often than that, actually, since he wrote a two-story package on the same topic precisely 34 days ago.
With so many old fallback chestnuts available for stories — clubhouse chemistry, veteran leadership, the team’s best bunters, guys that “keep other guys loose,” mental toughness — we’ve got to read about hitting behind the runner again?
Okay, I guess he got that last one. Check it off the list, and move on down to “the injured player out to prove he’s healthy.”
Boone leaves game
Bret Boone just left today’s spring training game, mid-inning during a pitching change, and is being looked at by team trainers. More info as/if we get it…
Edit by Dave: And Joel Pineiro has been scratched from tomorrow’s start due to soreness in his throwing shoulder. Rest and rehab isn’t always a failure–see Jason Schmidt–so there’s a chance Pineiro stays healthy all year. It’s just not a very good one.
Why Art Thiel is The Goods
A common criticism of blogs is that they focus too much on the negative, particularly as regards local media. While I’m loath to challenge this well-deserved reputation for curmudgeonry, people need a change of pace every now and then. Just ask Jamie Moyer.
For today’s edition of “up with people,” I want to offer today’s Art Thiel column as an example of what make the P-I’s ace a columnist of first order. It’s more than just his engaging prose; when taking snapshots of the sports scene, Thiel is an expert about changing your eye angle through creative lens placement.
The top story of Mariner camp so far has been Felix Hernandez. Beat reporters are also closely following the expensive offseason acquisitions, Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre.
So what does Thiel do? He writes about Wladimir Balentien.
Too many columnists hop eagerly onto the news of the day, either parroting the established line or taking an obviously contrarian stance. Nuanced thought is rare, in print and in society. It would have been fairly easy, to take an improbable example, for the top columnist at a major daily to use a recently settled lawsuit as an opportunity to churn out 15 inches about how Rick Neuheisel is less than honest. Luckily, no one in our media market would take such an easy way out.
There’s a famous Jimmy Breslin column that is still taught in journalism school a generation later. In the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, media professionals scrambled to interview those close to the deceased commander in chief, or world leaders, or prominent social figures.
Breslin interviewed, and wrote an entire piece on, Clifton Pollard — the man who dug Kennedy’s grave. The result was work that was unlike anyone else’s.
It’s true that not every column should be an off-the-beaten track bit. The day to day commentary is important. It’s also true that a less skilled writer might have turned the Balentien piece into a snoozer, at least for non-baseball junkies. With Art Thiel, you get a heady mix of informed comment and roadmaps to unturned stones.
We’re lucky to have someone with Thiel’s skills writing for us, uncovering the intriguing details of a young player’s life — even if he did miss the chance to mention Balentien’s skills as a barber. Hey, nobody’s perfect.
Hope that last sentence adds enough snark so they won’t revoke my blogger card.
Position Roundtables: Backup Catcher
Dave: Backup catcher: Dan Wilson
We could sit here and pile on Dan Wilson if we wanted. It wouldn’t be
hard to talk about how only 4 major league catchers who received at
least 200 at-bats last year had a lower VORP than Danny Boy’s -2.1.
We could explain how his ability to call a game is vastly overstated
and lacks any objective evidence to support the claim. But you know,
I think we’d be preaching to the choir. I’m not sure there are that
many people out there that still believe Dan Wilson is a productive
major league player. So why belabor the point?
MLB mailbag answers questions!
From this week’s MLB.com Mariners Mailbag:
Manager Mike Hargrove said he plans to have a 12-man pitching staff, giving him seven relievers.
Soooo.. death to Bucky, I guess. I’m not sure what to make of that.
Myers accepted a position with the Mariners as a minor league infield coach and will primarily work with the short-season Class A Everett AquaSox this season.
I really have no idea why I thought Myers had signed on with the Cardinals, as I wrote in a comment a while back.
Looper sick of Arizona
Herald’s got a bit on the strange year of Aaron Looper.
Caple on Yanks-Sox
Jim Caple’s got a book out on the Yankees (which appears to be about why they’re both vile and a required part of the game), and there’s an excerpt up on ESPN.com worth reading.
I’m not sure it needs a book, as Caple nails the fandom part in one sentence:
Yankees fans not only think their team is the greatest in the history of sports, they consider themselves to be the most knowledgeable, the most loyal and the most supportive fans in the history of the game. They refuse to acknowledge that fans in other cities love baseball and the local team as much as they do.
There are smart, witty Yankees fans — like Steve Goldman, for instance, author of the Pinstriped Bible, who I highly recommend as a fine writer and quality dude.
But as a whole, I’ve found this to be true. I’ve met a lot of Yankee fans, and this is exactly the thing that makes me want to drag them off into the wilderness and hack them up with an axe.
With Red Sox fans, it was always the belligerent “our suffering is better than your suffering” attitude.
And I can support Caple’s jokes about getting hate mail from Yankee fans. In my own experience, writing for any mainstream outlet and saying anything about any Yankee that isn’t glowing will chew up your email quota before your horrified eyes instants after it goes out.
Really — I wrote something about Chuck Knoblauch’s play in left field that said he wasn’t “good”. People wrote me hate mail.
The problem, though, is that I always feel a little bad when I say stuff like this. Is there something about Yankee fandom that inspires this? Is this a defensive reaction to constant attacks for being a fan of the richest, most successful franchise in baseball? Is it a New York thing I’m never going to understand?
Or is it simply a population issue — because there are so many Yankee fans, does the vocal minority of jerks every team carries mean that there are too many of those jerks, and they’re out reinforcing each other?
I don’t know.
And, as a stickler for this kind of stuff, I want to point out that from the page — “No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.”
Um, claiming that’s the case won’t make it true. Fair use, kids, let’s all play nicely.
Les Carpenter says farewell
Only slightly Mariner related, but Les Carpenter wrote his final piece for the Times today, as he has taken a job with the Washington Post. Les didn’t write about the Mariners very often, as he mostly covered the Seahawks, but he was one of the better writers the Times had, and I wanted to give him something of a USSM sendoff. So, without further ado, my Les Carpenter story, usually referred to as The Brian Hunter Debacle.
On April 28th, 1999, the Mariners sent Andy Van Hekken and Jerry Amador to the Tigers for Brian Hunter, a speedy “leadoff hitter” and left fielder that the team had been chasing. I use the term hitter pretty loosely, as Hunter had managed a .254/.298/.333 line the previous season, and was hitting .236/.311/.309 at the time of the trade. He was basically the offensive equivalent of Willie Bloomquist, but because he was fast, he managed to squeeze 1200 at-bats out of the Tigers in ’97 and ’98. They finally realized he sucked and sent him to Seattle. Our little community of Mariner fans were, well, pissed.
On April 29, 1999, as a project for my senior year, I had a job shadow with Les Carpenter. At this point, I was pretty serious about becoming some kind of sports reporter, and Les was kind enough to let me hang out with him for the day. I got to his office in the morning and we talked for a while. Since he was the NFL writer, though, there wasn’t a whole lot going on, and he suggested we head over to the Kingdome for the afternoon game between the M’s and Tigers. He wanted to get some quotes from the M’s new leadoff hitter, and it would give me a chance to watch some “real interviews”. So we trekked over to the ‘Dome in the morning and started making the reporter rounds.
On the way, Les and I spend most of our conversation talking about the Hunter trade. I’m vehemently against it, explaining how Hunter’s remarkable penchent for making outs is going to sink the offense, meaning that Edgar and A-Rod and Jr are going to be coming up with nobody on far too often. Les is more optimistic; he likes Hunter’s speed and thinks he can be a Vince Coleman style sparkplug at the top of the order. I try my best to convince Les that Hunter’s OBP is a sinkhole, but its to no avail. We eventually settle on the “we’ll see” point of view.
So, we’re down on the field, hanging out, Les is collecting a few quotes, and out comes to the newest Mariner left fielder. There’s not much of a crowd, so Les and I head over to talk to Hunter. In something of a surprise, Les asks me if I want to ask the questions, and I easily agree. He introduces me to Hunter, explains whats going on, and we proceed with the interview. Les handed me about 5 or 6 questions he wanted to ask, and said I could throw in one or two of my own at the end if I got comfortable. So, we start off talking, the typical new player interview, with questions about Detroit and the trade and his feelings. The last question on Les’ list is about what Hunter feels like he can bring to the team, and his response led to my two questions. I’ll paraphrase the conversation below; since this was 6 years ago, the exact wording might be a llittle off, but it went something like this:
Dave: Okay, Brian, the Mariners have been looking for a leadoff hitter for years. What do you think you’ll bring to the team?
Brian: Well, I think I’m one of the best in the game. I’m a basestealer, and I put the offense in motion. I get in scoring position for the big guys to drive me in. I’m a tablesetter.
Dave, launching into my first question not written by Les: Well, you almost never walk, so you don’t get in scoring position that often, right?
Brian, realizing this isn’t so much a question as an assault: Umm, I don’t get paid to walk.
Dave: Yes, we’ve seen that. So how do you plan on stealing first base?
Brian: Mother$#@*^ing kid. Get the #@$! out of here.
And thus ended my interview with Brian Hunter. Les thought the whole thing was funny, though told me that I was way out of line. So, we made our way to the press box, where I continued to tell anyone who would listen that Hunter was going to ruin the Mariners offense.
The Mariners won 22 to 6 that day, as Hunter went 3 for 6, stole a base, and, as the entire press box agreed, ignited the offense.
Stone on Beltre
Larry Stone writes in today’s Seattle Times about how much his old Dodger teammates (and coaches and everyone else) like Adrian Beltre. It’s a good light read.