Game 82, Mariners at Royals
DMZ · July 5, 2005 at 5:03 pm · Filed Under Game Threads
5:10. RHP Meche v RHP Carrasco and yet–
No Doyle. No Morse. Bloomquist plays at short and bats 8th. Borders catches.
I don’t get it. Doyle needs his playing time like a lost man in the desert needs water, and they’re keeping him away from the fountain. What’s the deal?
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221 Responses to “Game 82, Mariners at Royals”
Sure, but the majority of the male population didn’t put in the work and time and dedication that got the millionaires there. It’s easy to take the joys of being a millionaire for granted, I suppose, when you didn’t earn it. What’s the big deal of being mistreated? This is great! But the player who has earned it knows he deserves more. Millionaire players can be mistreated, whether you’re capable of empathizing with it or not, and if you found yourself “in their position” without having traveled their road, you wouldn’t truly be in their position at all.
Call me not a fan, but long term, the best thing that could happen to this team is that it becomes a smoldering crater of local fan favorites a la Bloomquist, Olerud, and Sele, which would eventually cause for the ousting og the current ownership group and the bringing in of new people…
Uh…be careful what you wish for. Everyone was all smiles when Smulyan came in for Argyros promising changes…and a couple years later he was planning on a move to Tampa Bay. We could be Pittsburgh or Milwaukee West after a couple of years of new ownership- a nice ballpark and cheapass management.
I miss Lou.
MIL 40-43, .482
PIT 36-46, .439
SEA 35-47, .427
No cheapass management here, though — our payroll is three times theirs. Results are the same or worse, though.
I think Bavasi’s got about as much time left here as Boone does. Seriously — we’re getting BY FAR the least bang for the buck on all of MLB. M’s management is NOT cheap, nor are they stuck with fan favorites — some of the biggest favorites ever have been unceremoniously cut in the past year-plus. What they are is incompetent.
It’s not Bloomer’s fault, or Spezio’s, or Borders’s, or even Hargrove’s.
And I think they know it too.
Yeah, except go look at the standings 3 years ago. And I think it’s a sucker bet we’ll have a better record 3 years from now, given that we’ll be spending money and they still won’t.
Thing is that once you decide to be crappy and cheap, you STAY there for a long, long time, with no hope. When was the last time those two teams were in a pennant race? The only team I can recall in the last 10 years in the “bottom feeder” class (KC, PIT, MIL) who’s had anything approaching a decent year was KC in 2003…and that lasted all of ONE year.
If the Mariners decided to blow the whole goddamned thing up, trade Ichiro, Winn, Ibanez, Guardado, Sele, and Sexson between now and the start of spring training 2004, fire sale anyone on the wrong side of 30, dump the nonperforming/highly paid veterans and do an Indians-style rebuild from the ground up, it would probably take 2-3 years under competent management to build it all up again, assuming decent return on trades, good draft picks, average luck with injuries and astute FA signings, because there’s some talent to work with: Beltre, Reed, Doyle, King Felix, infielders a-plenty, Clement- plus whatever you’d get trading Ichiro et. al. (Note: I am not advocating this per se- though there’s a good argument to be made for the more limited version
The M’s don’t even have to do that. Don’t see the same being true in markets where they won’t spend money. And let’s remember, 20 years ago WE were the ones drawing 10,000 a game, and KC and Milwaukee were attendance powerhouses.
DMZ, you were right on about Mike Hargrove on that sad day Bavasi hired him, and your choice of Matt Clement as a free agent starting pitcher. I guess we now know how Baltimore and Cleveland fans felt regarding Horridgrove. I would bet money Grover is responsible for Bloomquist in the starting line-up, and Borders catching almost every day. I would love to see Bavasi and Hargrove speaking at a dual press conference at the end of the season answering questions regarding future employment and what went wrong.
Hmph. I think there’s more than enough incompetence to go around; let’s not spend it on one individual (or did folks really think that a free agent spending spree would be enough to get this team back into contention?).
In the Oakland-Toronto game tonight, the follwoing occurred:
Hudson leads off the bottom of the seventh, the Jays trailing by one.
Macha pulls Haren for Rincon to turn Hudson around.
Hudson hits a homerun, and pulls his hamstring rounding the bases.
Gibbons pinch-hits Menechino for Catalanotto to avoid lefty-lefty.
Macha pulls Rincon for Calero to get righty-righty.
Gibbons pinch-hit Gross for Menechino to avoid righty-righty.
Now THAT’s playing the matchups.
#107 – #135…pure gold.
[singing…]
thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat’s entertaaaaaaaaaainment!
Trade Randy Winn for Lou Piniella (again)!!
#203 & #211: What good would Lou do? With this starting rotation you could insert your choice of: Sparky Anderson, Billy Martin, John McGraw, Leo Durocher. You still don’t break through 81 wins.
Hey Jim –
Where did you hear that Spiezio’s not in Sandfrog? He’s still on their web site…
Btw, Oakland’s win tonight puts them back at .500 for the season. Less than 4 weeks ago, they were 13 games under .500. Even if they don’t make the playoffs this year, they’re building up nicely to 2006, with more young pitching and position players on the way.
Borders postulateth:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2002359551_mari06.html
“Gil’s a No. 1 pitcher, a No. 1 arm,” said Borders, “and he will mature.
“He’s 26 years old, and 26 is young to be a refined pitcher mentally and physically. Just because he’s been a big-league pitcher since years back [1999] you get to assuming Gil’s 30, 31 years old.
Hmmm. Let’s walk through that, shall we?
The majority of very good (Seaver, Clemens, Mussina, Maddux, Pedro Martinez) or good (Ryan, Colon, Mike Moore, Mark Langston, all 3 of the former Oakland triumvirate of Hudson/Zito/Mulder, Freddy Garcia, Andy Pettitte) are usually humming right along by 26, getting their fair chare of Cy Young-worthy and/or 200 IP, sub-4 ERA seasons in.
Some late career starts of note are, of course, RJ, Moyer and Dave Stewart (who all really turned it on after 30; earlier predecessors are Dazzy Vance and Red Ruffing). Meche’s comps on baseball-reference.com include only one guy who you can argue as a #1, aside from flashes in the pan like Richard Dotson- Jason Schmidt, who also sort of had a late start…but also by 26 had two seasons with below league-average ERA’s and 200+ IP, for really crappy Pirates teams, and I expect at the present pace Schmidt will fall off as a comp when they do player comps including 2005. Plus
So, uh, gotta say “not really so much” to that assertion by Borders (who’s understandably defending his pitcher if not so accurate on the history). Odds are against Meche really being a #1 arm if he hasn’t shown it yet. Yes, I know, his injury affects that in terms of playing time…but his injury also affects his odds of being a consistently good #1 pitcher, too (most great pitchers don’t have a lot of injury historyinvolving their pitching arm- it’s what makes them great).
Oh, I’ll add, because someone will mug me for this, otherwise:
Yes, I know, Ryan’s in the HOF. I would argue that his peak seasons were really, really good but not really, really great. He had the advantage of being able to turn in a lot of them up through age 45, though. His HOF resume is based more on K’s and the career longevity of a very good pitcher than Cy Young awards where he was just flat out the best pitcher in his league, compared to a contemporary Seaver.
Spezio is outhitting Ron Herbel.
Just read Jonah Keri’s take (at BP) on the July 1st Rangers-M’s game. I was at the game, too, and right at the turning point of that game I had this thought…
Sele has kept the Rangers contained to just 1 run in 3 and 2/3 innings. What is wrong with Grover counting his blessings and pulling Sele for his best and freshest reliever at that moment? Why is it written in stone that a starter has to go 5.0 innings or until he gives up a passel of runs?
I had this thought at the exact moment when Sele starts giving up runs in the 4th and 5th. It’s the Texas lineup! Try something different. Try mixing them up by changing pitchers every 3 innings. Sele is probably not going to be the best pitcher to go through that lineup 2 or 3 times. Those Rangers will lock in and destroy, as they amply showed in the remainder of that game.
Oh… and I did answer my own question at the time. Managers go by the book because they’re risk averse. It’s easier to justify a loss if you’ve went by the book than if you did something radical like pull a starter in the middle of the 4th who was doing well at the time. If Mateo comes in and pitches just as poorly as Sele did from late in the 4th, onward, then Grover takes the heat. However, if the Front Office is in alignment with the manager on such moves, then the Manager can feel free to take certain risks at certain times, fan and media reaction be damned.
Went to the game last night. Beltres homerun was awesome. And it was fun just to be there. I about stormed the field to chew Grover when Spezio went to bat instead of Doyle. Grrrr.
That Doyle AB(?) reminds me of the first time I went skydiving, got up to altitude, and they opened the door to the plane, only to decide that it was too windy and took us down the slow way. All the anticipation and then nothing. That one sucked.