Bavasi with fans, Lopez’s future
The Olympian just ran this story about Bavasi talking to some fans. Choice quotes:
“We’ve got to get things going, or you’re going to be talking to someone else.”
And this surprising Boone v Lopez comment:
“Boone will play today,” the general manager said, referring to Wednesday’s game. “But when Jose is in there, there’s a different energy. A different style of play. In the past four games, we turned three doubles plays we wouldn’t have turned. What we needed was the energy.”
If Boone regains his swing, the 21-year-old Lopez will return to Tacoma.
“Hopefully, it works for Bret,” Bavasi said. “If that doesn’t work out, we’ll have to punt and play Jose again.”
It’s couched in “different kind” but to acknowledge that about Boone’s defense… wow
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43 Responses to “Bavasi with fans, Lopez’s future”
and he likes Justin Leone ….
It was good to hear that Leone isn’t out of the picture and it looks like the M’s will be more than willing to release Boone if it comes to that. Even a blind man can see Boone’s D is awful now.
“Even a blind man can see Boone’s D is awful now.”
Maybe we should say, “Even a bald man can see Boone’s D is awful now.” :).
The Mariners ran an article last night titled “Boone back in lineup”, which basically says the same thing, but the amusing part really is later on with Bobby Madritsch:
Madritsch said his shoulder is 90 percent healed and that he hoped a magnetic resonance imaging test in a week and a half would show him at 100 percent.
In the meantime, he’s having fun passing his free time with a Bowflex workout machine he purchased after watching a late-night infomercial.
“I was flipping the stations at like 3 in the morning and saw the ad and the guy said, ‘Call right now,'” Madritsch said. “I was like, ‘Yeah!'”
This really is the funniest mental image I’ve ever gotten of a Mariners player, ever.
Wow. Boone won’t be feeling too good if those comments ever get back to him. Speaking of which, I wonder if Boone feels intimidated by the fact that he’s taking and making throws to guys that are almost a full foot taller than he is (since Morse came up)?
taller than him? who? nobody on the team is taller than him… just ask him 🙂
Hmph. I think Boone can see the writing on the wall; he’s not stupid. And he’s not so enamored of himself as to be that much in self denial.
Good to see Bavasi realizes what we know.
#4 — “Deanna said: “This really is the funniest mental image I’ve ever gotten of a Mariners player, ever.”
there’s more on Bobby’s bowflex here
dammit. wrong link. try here.
oh for Pete’s sake.
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/06/23/100spo_msnotes001.cfm
I’m going to lunch.
Hmm msb (#9), I couldn’t find any mention of the bowflex in that article. Did I miss it?
hah, nevermind…
I just wonder if the news about Boone’s defense has reached the Gold Glove voters.
The was the most shocking award of a Gold Glove since Palmiero won it for 1B while playing mostly at DH.
so, the olympian is running stories now?
a lot has changed since i moved. guess folks oughta stop calling it the “daily zero.”
Didn’t Bowflex have to recall all their machines because they were killing people or something?
This quote can’t mean they’d consider replacing Bloomquist with Leone can it?
“Justin has done a great job to get where he’s at,” Bavasi said. “He’s not done. He’s been gifted by God with a lot of ability at different positions.”
all this Bowflex reminds me, did anyone ever see the late nite infommercials a few years back starring RJ for some piece of exercise equipment that looked like a stringless longbow?
#15, No it’s still the Daily Zero. This just happened to be the one non-newswire story alloted per section. In fact, this is the most paragraphs the paper has devoted to a single story since “Starship” played the Pavilion in ’86.
19:
you’re forgetting the ongoing three month look into downtown olympia’s decline into anarchy. they wrote two full stories about the mayor getting chased down the street by a homeless man.
Not to be a party-pooper about the Bowflex, but shouldn’t the Mariners be taking a little bit more active role in their pitcher’s conditioning? I’m sure Bowflex is great, but millions of dollars are at stake. I know we’re all trying to come up with some explanations for why the Ms can’t keep their pitchers healthy. This might be a clue.
#17, more likely I take it to mean Leone will be called up when Boone is dealt/cut
… and then demote Leone when Reese comes off the DL? Bah. Reese has lost more games to the DL than he’s played in the past 2 1/2 years. Why are the M’s wasting money on that guy?
18 – I remember seeing the Unit do the exercise. Made me laugh everytime too, but in no way made me want to buy it.
Bow / elastic exercises is just the type of stuff you want your pitchers doing though. Smooth and easy.
Never used a bowflex, but if they work like I imagine they do, it’d get my thumbs up for pitchers.
Why not just learn the longbow? It’s a good exercise, and a useful skill when you want to fend off Swiss mercenaries.
I think it is great Bavasi was so frank. I am also glad they gave Boone a chance to get it together before the break. Boone has contributed quite a bit to the franchise so he deserves the break, but Lopez is obviously the future. Bret can console himself with the nine million he is making this year.
Actions speak louder than hollow words. Bill Bavasi cut both Leone and Lopez before they were injured in Triple-A Tacoma this spring over Dobbs, Bloomquist, and injured Reese. Bavasi has admitted in the past he speaks from both ends of his mouth. I don’t buy it. It’s an obvious non-candid PR press release to give local fans hope for the future despite Bavasi running the franchise into the ground with his decision making. Be very afraid that Bret Boone is re-signed in the off-season as the M’s 2006 starting second basemen!
On Lopez, that was the right decision. They wanted Lopez to move over to second base and get a ton of playing time there at the new position at Tacoma, where he could struggle in relative peace. Boone at $9m didn’t have a lot of trade interest, and if he’d gotten off to a good start might have drawn some. And if not, then later in the season when Lopez has had some time, you look at where the team is and revisit that decision.
Now, on Dobbs/Bloomquist/Leone… well, we’ve written a lot about that here, it’s clear we agree here.
As a former Olympian sports writer, you guys made me laugh.
Eh, let Boone see what he can do until July 31. What have we got to lose? Lopez doesn’t accrue any more service time, and Morse might benefit more from playing with a veteran instead of another young guy. There’s a slim chance he’ll hit a hot streak, some 2nd baseman on a contending team will get injured, and we’ll be able to get a bag a balls for him while only paying 90% of his remaining salary.
Come August, though, it’s time for the Youth Movement.
Boone’s defense is awful? You guys are spoiled by his past glove history. I would hardly say that his run-saving play yesterday was awful defense. I doubt Lopez would have made that play, and we would have lost 4 against the A’s.
Did you see today’s game? He’s baaaaaaaaaad, sir. Baaaaaaaaaaad. There’s no way around it anymore. He’s not the player he was. He’s not the shadow of that player.
Boone’s defensive dropoff is almost unmatched. Double pumping every DP. Letting routine balls get by him. Feeling the need to LOB every “flip” to the SS 6 feet in the air. Twelve hopping throws from shallow RF to home or 3B.
Pitiful. His defense has stunk on a level that Alfonso Soriano would be embarrassed by.
Has anyone noticed that Boone’s decline began when (1) he had his eyes lasered last year and (2) the crackdown on steroids? Circumstantial evidence surely but what are blogs if not a hotbed for innuendo?
but what are blogs if not a hotbed for innuendo?
Umm, rational analysis, reasoned discourse, and intelligent thought, just to name three?
Take your steroid speculation elsewhere. It’s not welcome here.
Boone’s just getting old.
Olerud had a similar dramatic dropoff (at least in his offensive skills), but nobody accuses him of taking anything.
Dave… all specific cases of steroid use are speculative yet their use is widely acknowledged as a fact in the MLB? Nobody really uses them but its still a big problem? Reason cannot be applied to this kind of fairy tale. It is open to all sorts of lies and propaganda on all sides. Thats why its so evil.
If Bret Boone gets suspended for violating MLB’s rule on performance enhancing drugs, or writes a tell-all book chronicaling his rise to prominance due to the use of steroids, then you can talk all you want about Bret Boone, steroid user. However, we do not allow character assasinations of individuals on the blog with nothing but circumstantial evidence to support your claims.
Is the steroids stance here still so hard to understand? They know some people are using, and they aren’t in denial. I hope I’m not miscasting anybody’s opinion, but as far as I can tell, the hosts aren’t saying–necessarily–that they don’t so-and-so might have used. They’re just saying that we don’t know, and because we have no idea, it’s just blind and unfair accusations–which is both pointless and unfair. What’s so tricky about that?
21 – You’re so right, where the hell is the medical staff?!
Imaginary conversation:
Madritsch, to his sister-in-law’s cousin’s butcher: “Shoulder really hurts man!”
Butcher: “No worries! What I need you to do, see, is lean over that way while I sharpen this and we’ll have that fixed up smart-like pronto…”
Ms medical staff: Nowhere to be found…
These are baseball players for god’s sake. Somebody please tell me the Ms aren’t letting hurt arms design their own rehab programs from authoritative sources like Bowflex bimbos?!
I just assumed the bowflex thing was all part of an endorsment deal. It starts now with his talk of ‘just channel surfing in the middle of the night’ and ends years later with him on TV saying he’s in the best shape of his life and owes his place in the hall of fame to just 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week. Brilliant really, planning for his retirement that far ahead…
Heh, heh.
Bobby & the Bowflex Bimbos.